← THIS CAR POD! with Doug DeMuro & Friends!
THIS CAR POD! with Doug DeMuro & Friends!
Behind The Scenes With Producer Sean! Top Gear Stories, Future Content And More!
01:22:45
Loading summary
Transcript610 lines
- [00:02]
Doug
This episode is brought to you by Fandango. People say fans are too distracted these days, but the truth is, when a
- [00:08]
Sean
great movie hits the screen, you show
- [00:10]
Doug
up, you stay glued, invested, part of the story. And without fans like you, there'd be
- [00:15]
Sean
no cinema magic, no shared moments.
- [00:17]
Doug
So head to fandango.com to get tickets, stream or rent or buy top movies and series.
- [00:23]
Sean
Fandango loves fans. Protein is now at Starbucks and it's
- [00:29]
Doug
never tasted so good.
- [00:31]
Sean
You can add protein cold foam to your favorite drink or try one of our new protein lattes or matcha. Try it today at Starbucks.
- [00:47]
Doug
Hello and welcome to a very special episode of this car pod. We've got Filippo. We. We know Filippo. I'm Doug. But today we have producer Sean.
- [01:01]
Sean
I can't believe I agreed to this.
- [01:02]
Doug
Producer Sean sits behind the camera. He's made it a life goal of his never to be talent. He's never in front of the camera, he's never on screen. He's very nervous. And he's here today to walk us through some life of producer Sean. Background on the cars and bids content sphere. He's going to tell us all about his bad color G wagon, which is behind me.
- [01:27]
Filippo
Big day.
- [01:28]
Doug
Are you excited?
- [01:29]
Sean
Look, I've received so many emails in the past few months telling me to do this that I really had no choice.
- [01:35]
Filippo
Sean.
- [01:35]
Sean
I've been bullied by everybody, everybody watching the show, by Doug, by Filippo, by Kenan, by Nick.
- [01:41]
Doug
This is now. This is an unusual episode. We're not gonna do the normal format because I'm actually. A couple of us are out of town this week and so we're recording this beforehand. We're not doing the news, et cetera. That's all back to normal next week. We figured since we have this special episode, record it early and we have producer Sean. This is so rare. I can't even explain to you how rare it is.
- [02:04]
Filippo
Be careful not to describe him as talented. Talent maybe.
- [02:08]
Doug
I have been working with producer Sean now for many years on and off in some capacity, and he's never had him come in front of the camera like this. Have you ever appeared on camera?
- [02:18]
Filippo
He has.
- [02:18]
Sean
You can find some clips around on hbo, Max or Max, whatever it's called, of like Top Gear, behind the scenes and some YouTube Stig lap videos. If you really dig deep enough, you can find some.
- [02:31]
Doug
There's some clips from Sean, who's in front of his. Very rare though. He told me at the very beginning of this this was never gonna happen. He would never be in any Videos, which is funny because Sean, I feel like, is as when we all hang out and chat about cars, like in the evenings and in the weekends. Sean is right there with all of us. But we do it on camera then sometimes. And Sean is never involved.
- [02:52]
Sean
I get to keep my hot takes to myself.
- [02:53]
Doug
Sean, thank God for that wild hot takes. Hopefully you'll get to hear some of them today. Cause we have specific Sean related questions coming later that were asked by you guys, our community. I want to first get started, though. There's a few things, legitimate things to discuss, but I want to get started with a little bit of an explanation of how, how and why producer Sean exists when two people really love each other. Twelve years ago, I moved to Philadelphia. I was living in Atlanta, which I love, and I moved to Philadelphia, which I hate. And the only thing that made Philadelphia tenable was some friends that I made there. These two guys were friends from that era. And right here I had announced to my audience that I would be moving to Philly. And a couple of my audience members reached out to me and said, hey, you're moving here. I live here. And Filippo was one of those people. This is Filippo's original email to me From July of 2014, where we first met. And a couple of weeks later, Sean sent me an email also saying that he was a junior at Drexel in Philly, studying film and television, Film and tv.
- [03:58]
Sean
It's been a wild ride and somehow it's come very full circle and we're all. We're all here.
- [04:03]
Doug
So Sean. Sean helped me make a lot of the videos that I made when I was in Philly. In fact, go to the. Sean was like the whole thing behind the creation of my famous video where I ran over a PT Cruiser with my Hummer. You weren't there for that one.
- [04:17]
Filippo
I was not there. I was not invited.
- [04:18]
Sean
So Filippo and I met. Filippo does not remember this.
- [04:22]
Filippo
I don't recall this.
- [04:23]
Sean
We met.
- [04:24]
Doug
I had a lot of.
- [04:24]
Sean
We met twice in Philly. Filippo has no memory of this.
- [04:26]
Doug
Both of these guys were at my wedding, but independently, they didn't really know each other. I don't really remember. I feel like you came first and then you graduated or something. Filippo then sort of came on late. Regardless. This is from Sean. It's from back in the day. And so Sean and I knew each other in 14. We knew each other for a couple years in Philly. You helped me make a bunch of my earliest, earliest videos. The original G Wagon, the Mini Cooper. I mean, these were like first year first 12 months of videos. You would, like, come with me to the shoots and help me make them. And then Sean graduated and went off to Los Angeles.
- [05:02]
Sean
Los Angeles. I. Instead of doing what a lot of people do in college and, like, study abroad, I was born and raised in la and I just wanted to get back to Los Angeles and so I went into the TV industry, making TV shows.
- [05:16]
Doug
Give us some of your credits.
- [05:18]
Sean
So, I mean, Top Gear is the American version is definitely the thing I got into TV to make. Right. And it was my. It was my dream to touch that franchise. So as a. Actually, before I sent that email, he
- [05:33]
Doug
was literally hugging the franchise. The franchise with some medicine balls.
- [05:39]
Sean
Yes, exactly. That's the BBC corporate office in Los Angeles. And that's. That's a mannequin of the Stig that exists. And that was. Yeah, no, no. Well, actually, you know, you don't know.
- [05:48]
Filippo
We don't know.
- [05:49]
Sean
Turn him on and he walks out of the. Walks out of the corporate office. But before I sent you that email, I had been in an intern at the BBC corporate office and that, that studio at the time was making shows like Dancing with the Stars and all these bigger, bigger productions. And as an intern, I was like, the only one that cared about cars and, like, wanted to work on this Top Gear USA show that was. It was on History Channel at the time. And that's, like, how I started. I still work with people. Producer Johnny, who's behind the camera as well here.
- [06:18]
Doug
Yeah, was. He was there in those early days, 10 years ago.
- [06:21]
Sean
He was, he was, he was a coordinator, production manager on that first Top Gear usa.
- [06:26]
Doug
What was. That was your first gig when you, when you got out of school?
- [06:29]
Sean
Yeah, I was, I was like a. I was like an audience coordinator for the Late Late show, which is like Craig Kilborn. Craig Ferguson.
- [06:36]
Doug
Craig Ferguson.
- [06:37]
Sean
And there's actually some tied to this job with that job and some of my roles. But, yeah, I was doing that and an intern at the BBC corporate office. I was unpaid, so I wasn't.
- [06:50]
Doug
What were you doing?
- [06:51]
Sean
So I wasn't allowed to, like, working. I get into the weeds with the crew because it was like, there's a bunch of laws.
- [06:55]
Doug
Yeah.
- [06:55]
Sean
But every chance I. So I was like, you know, getting lunch for. For all the, the corporate execs of BBC. And then every chance I had, I would go and sit in the, like, producer room with the Top Gear producers and just talk about cars. And I thought, this is the. This is the greatest thing ever. We get to just, like, have this budget to then think up, you know, crazy ideas and go, go make Top Gear. Right. A version of Top Gear, which.
- [07:23]
Doug
Which then you got involved doing.
- [07:25]
Sean
Yeah, yeah. So it. I then graduated. We did a bunch of stuff in Philly. The Hummer. That Hummer video was like truly my first thing that I produced.
- [07:34]
Doug
He produced. I mean, as I recall, you coordinated it all. You had somehow got us the hookup with that guy, Little Chris.
- [07:40]
Sean
Yeah, My cousin knew this guy named Little Chris who had this, this lot that he was going to be fine with us running over.
- [07:49]
Filippo
Do you remember?
- [07:49]
Doug
We, we were terrified the Hummer was going to roll because there was no second vehicle for it to climb on the other side. So Little Chris, that morning procured a Saturn. Saturn for us that didn't run and he got it dropped off.
- [08:00]
Sean
Yeah.
- [08:01]
Doug
And do you remember at some point we were talking to some of the junkyard guys asking about Little Chris and he goes, yeah, that is Little Chris. He was a little guy. He's like, you should see Big Chris. That's right. That's right.
- [08:11]
Sean
But no, it was, it was so fun. Like that whole video, like, beyond the crushing, there's a lot of like really weird beats where we like add wood to the side of this PT Cruiser. And it was like very fun to just, you know, go around the parking lots, like trying to think of what we could. There's. There's a moment in that video where you light the passenger seat on fire.
- [08:28]
Doug
Yes.
- [08:29]
Sean
And you, you use.
- [08:30]
Doug
We.
- [08:30]
Sean
We went to the grocery store and bought like barbecue. Like charcoal.
- [08:33]
Doug
Yeah.
- [08:34]
Sean
Lighter fluid. And douse the seat.
- [08:35]
Doug
Yeah.
- [08:36]
Sean
In it. And so I'm filming holding the camcorder with one hand and holding the fire extinguisher we bought with the other hand.
- [08:41]
Doug
And as I recall, we actually filmed that in the parking lot of the grocery store. We bought the lighter fluid in Northern Liberty's, right? Yeah, it was that one with the two story parking. And so we just. Do you remember this place? Of course. We just. We drove, we drove to the top, like away from the other cars. We lit the passenger seat on fire.
- [08:57]
Sean
In the video, you can see that the very final moment of that frame is like the camera jumping forward because I was like so ready to put the.
- [09:03]
Doug
This, this was actually even harder than that though. Do you remember we had to go back to Home Depot 100 times. We thought just like nails, we could just with a hammer and nails would get through. Nails do not go through a car. Sheet metal. We had to find like, we had to spend. And then we had to get we had to, like, rent power tools and all this stuff. And even that was like the sketchiest thing.
- [09:20]
Sean
Again, behind the Home Depot in the parking lot. Just.
- [09:23]
Doug
That's the right place. When you went off to la, we. I mean, I saw you a couple of times. We mostly lost touch. I probably hadn't talked to you since maybe 2018, 2019. I knew I was paying attention to your.
- [09:36]
Filippo
I was washing a passenger seat.
- [09:39]
Doug
Let's pause it. I was paying attention to your career, but we kind of. You came to my wedding, which was in 17, and then I knew you were out there doing stuff.
- [09:51]
Sean
We filmed a Testarossa and a Jeep pickup conversion. I want to say that was 2018.
- [09:56]
Doug
Yeah, maybe. I think that was 18.
- [09:58]
Sean
But then, yeah, life got extremely busy making car TV shows. I worked on a show called Wheeler Dealers, that is a British format where Mike Brewer and at the time, Aunt Ansett, we would buy a car, fix it up and then sell it. And it was, you know, it was a big discovery show.
- [10:14]
Doug
And whenever I'm with Sean and he tells people he worked on Wheeler Dealers, that's where they get the most excited. I love Wheeler. Oh, my God. You worked on that. And Sean was, like, running that show.
- [10:23]
Sean
I was. I was with Mike, and, yeah, we were buying all the cars, selling all the cars, and it was very much a reality show. We had to get these cars done, and we did a ridiculous number of episodes in a year. And it was really fun. It taught me a lot about the car business as well, where it was like we were having to buy and sell these cars and every episode had to be different. You couldn't repeat a car.
- [10:44]
Doug
Right.
- [10:44]
Sean
So every year doing 27 unique vehicles.
- [10:47]
Doug
Right.
- [10:48]
Filippo
Nobody is better at finding cars online than shopping. We.
- [10:51]
Doug
Then when we. We hired you three and a half years ago, where did we pluck you from?
- [10:56]
Sean
So I was at Motor Trend at the time, which. Motor Trends had a lot of significant changes since then. And it was just kind of. Kind of wild timing where I, you know, I'd been. Had this run of 10 years producing almost strictly automotive TV. And I was. I was traveling a lot. I was working on actually one of the favorite shows I've ever got to work on, which was Roadworthy rescues, hosts, another YouTuber, Vice Grip Garage, who's another very, like, minimal gear kind of guy. Like, just film it on an iPhone and run with it. And we were, you know, traveling weeks at a time, going between LA and Nashville. And you called and we're like, you want to come work at cars? And Bids and run this, this content with me. And I was like, that, that's, that's a very interesting idea to be so full circle. So I, you know, I drove down here. Every time I drove down to meet with you guys, it was pouring, pouring rain. Yeah. I was like, this is, this is a sign to not do this. But no, it's, it's been, it's been awesome.
- [11:52]
Doug
And it's been awesome having you back in our lives. It's been fun and, and it's been so thrilling. Sean is, like reintegrated with, with the friend group that I had here in San Diego. We're all like car people together. We go to the cars and coffees and car events and everything. And it's been so great having you in our lives again. I could, I can't imagine the world without producer Sean at this point, both personally and at work.
- [12:15]
Filippo
I'll be honest with you. Claude actually helped us write this ad, which, yes, is a little meta, but also kind of proves the point at cars and bids. We've got the whole team using it now, research and copy and product and engineering, customer support. It started with me and just spread because it's genuinely that useful. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop it. Good enough. It's a collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. The deep research is what gets me. I can throw a complex problem at it and it comes back with analysis that would have taken me hours. It's not just a search engine. It actually thinks through the problem with you and then helps you with visualizations. Are you ready to tackle bigger problems? Get started with Claude today at Claude AI Cars. That's Claude AI Cars. And check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all of the features that we use for today's episode. Claude AI Cars.
- [13:18]
Sponsor Voice
Buying glasses used to be such a pain. Overpriced stores, confusing upsells and you'd still walk out. Not totally sure you liked what you got. Warby Parker completely changed that for me. The virtual try on is a game changer. Just point your phone at your face and try on frames in real time before you buy anything. And when your pair shows up, the quality is genuinely impressive. For the price, prescription glasses start at just 95 bucks. Actually, you know what? Just take a look at producer Sean. There he is. Those are his Warby Parker sunglasses and they look fantastic. The Styles are just really good. Plus, every pair sold means a pair donated to someone in need. Over 20 million pairs have been given away so far and our listeners get 15% off plus free shipping when they buy two or more pairs of prescription glasses@warbyparker.com cars. That's 15% off when you buy two pairs at w a r b y parker.com cars tell them that we sent you.
- [14:24]
Doug
And now producer Sean is embarking on his very next quest, which is the only way that I was able to convince him to come on this podcast today. Tell us about Key.
- [14:34]
Sean
So Key is here. Key is a new channel from Cars and Bids. There's a lot of really talented people that work on the content and we're looking for a place to tell elevated stories. This is a very much experimental channel with we have broken air conditioner unit, Ryan Lopez in front of the camera for these videos. My dear friend Joe Berry, who's been a producer on the Grand Tour, all the real Top Gears is, you know, the quintessential British car journalist man. And we're really excited. It's going to be a channel for beautiful documentaries, good storytelling, just the kind of thing that is maybe missing from our current.
- [15:17]
Doug
Wow. There's always been an implication since this was being developed, there's always been kind of an implication that my content isn't good enough for producer Sean. Producer Sean, with his television background, feels that what I do is sort of at a lower level. And so Key Sean.
- [15:37]
Sean
That's very false. That's very false. But I think there's room for more. And also sometimes you get invited to some really cool stuff, but you're busy, you're with your family, and so the idea certainly worked.
- [15:50]
Doug
I appreciate that. Sean's really laying it all out.
- [15:54]
Sean
So the idea is that we're going to have a channel that has some momentum, that when there's cool opportunities, we can send Ryan out into the world and get some cool videos. It's the kind of thing that I, as a car enthusiast, as a fan of automotive content, want to see. It's something that I think is currently missing from the landscape of YouTube, where we have this opportunity to have a little bit of budget to make some really interesting documentary stories, films.
- [16:21]
Doug
And by the way, Ryan is an excellent host presenter in this show. He's been absolutely fantastic. Same with Joe. I'm totally bought in. I think that it is really, really good stuff. I've seen a lot more videos than what has gone live right now already, and I think it's fantastic. And I'm thrilled that you're able to be able to, that. I'm thrilled that you're able to make some of these things that sort of speak to your talents, your cruise talents, your presenters talents in a pretty impressive way.
- [16:49]
Sean
It's super exciting. So right now we have a JDM documentary that's been live for about a week. And then this morning, this Friday, Seattle Arrive and Drive. It's our Joe Barry going out into Seattle and meeting with local enthusiasts and really experiencing what it's like to be a car enthusiast in this, this town. So this is going to be hopefully the first episode in a long series of him exploring different car communities, different car enthusiasts. If you have a good story to tell, email Sean carsonvids.com you're giving it up freely.
- [17:18]
Filippo
Somebody on our team described it as Doug does such an incredible job of going deep on a specific car, like what makes that car interesting, what makes that car special. And so many of the documentaries are about what makes this piece of car culture, of car community special and to deep dive on that. And that's really exciting.
- [17:33]
Doug
And they're just so well done. And so for anybody who's complained to me about the quality of my production, which has been the primary complaint for me for 15 years, Sean has finally arrived to create some high quality automotive stuff. And I think there is some of that missing in the YouTube, especially in the YouTube in general, in the automotive content world, you don't see that on TV anymore. And there were some YouTube shows sort of like that. They're gone. It'll be exciting to see all this stuff come out.
- [18:01]
Sean
And to be clear, Doug's not allowed to stop making car reviews. They're not going anywhere.
- [18:05]
Doug
They're not going anywhere, Sean. It's gonna all be great. We're just piling on more. It's delightful. Sean is now running a content empire, okay? He's got Key with beautifully produced car documentaries, doing all sorts of looks at car culture. He's got my YouTube channel. We're still the number one individual car over here on the planet. And then he's got the Cars and Bins channel where we play poorly thought out games. You can watch it all and make
- [18:34]
Filippo
sure you subscribe to the Key channel.
- [18:37]
Doug
What do you say?
- [18:38]
Filippo
Now hit the bell.
- [18:39]
Doug
And remember, the only reason you got producer Sean on this is because of Key. And so Sean is here to promote, just like a good guest is always here to promote. And so in order to support Sean's existence here, you have to subscribe. You must thank You.
- [18:57]
Sean
Thank you.
- [18:58]
Doug
Yeah.
- [18:58]
Filippo
Well done.
- [18:59]
Doug
Yeah.
- [19:00]
Filippo
That was the first good advertisement you've ever done.
- [19:02]
Doug
Well, I believe deeply in producer Sean and I believe deeply in what he's doing, and I love this idea and I want to see. You know, Sean, the thing that happens when you're in this film and TV world is that you have ideas, but you're the guy who gets lunch and then you have ideas, but you're the guy who does this or that. And then eventually you get to a point where you can actually unleash your ideas on the world. And this is the first time Sean's ever been able to really do that in a. A huge capacity. And I really want it to work for his. On his behalf.
- [19:30]
Sean
That's very kind and so, so true. It's. It's this. The film and TV industry is just, you know, climbing and staying connected with, with friends. It's so funny how full circle. Yeah. All this is and how it. Where it's gone.
- [19:43]
Doug
Sean has brought some great people to our office to work with us, and he himself is great and we're thrilled that he's here and we're thrilled to have Key.
- [19:50]
Sean
Key. Key, K E Y and Ryan will be on the podcast soon to. To dive into some of the adventures he's been on filming this. But we like Key. The name Key, just because it's, it's the part of the driving experience you always have with you. It's. It's in your pocket, it's tangible, it's the first thing you pick up to go. Go for a drive.
- [20:07]
Doug
It's ironically, of course, Ryan has a Tesla. He doesn't have a key.
- [20:11]
Sean
That's true, that's true.
- [20:13]
Filippo
He'd like to know that. Oh, no.
- [20:15]
Sean
He reached his pocket, but didn't come
- [20:17]
Doug
up with his SD Drift car, though he's got a hub swap. Okay, Key is here. Sean is here. Go subscribe to Key. Watch our videos. You're going to love them. The first one's out. There's going to be a lot more coming. You're absolutely going to love them. And they are all courtesy of the brilliant baseball cap mind of producers.
- [20:34]
Filippo
Not just basketball, living in San Diego, buying an LA Dodgers hat.
- [20:37]
Doug
Okay, I want to discuss other Sean related things, so let's just start by. You guys were participants. I don't know how much the audience cares about this, but you guys were participants in like, the very earliest days of my YouTube channel. This was before I was doing car reviews. This was before. I mean, my channel started in the fall of 13. And we were putting out these videos, Sean together probably the very. I mean, I did the first year I did it in Atlanta for six months. But after I moved to Philly, which was basically there. You were involved. You were involved in this one. You were involved in this one. I did that one. Filippo did. Did you do something?
- [21:16]
Filippo
I did an intrusion to the Hummer.
- [21:19]
Doug
You were involved in so many of these. Do you remember those days?
- [21:21]
Sean
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, the, the reason I was so fond of your channel was the Ferrari 360.
- [21:27]
Doug
Oh yeah.
- [21:28]
Sean
Tip frog for. For mine.
- [21:29]
Doug
But Sean has a Ferrari 360 now.
- [21:32]
Sean
It's, it's, it's very full circle. That 360 has always been my favorite car. And so, you know, I was always looking for content about Ferrari360. And here was a guy who like bought one who was doing crazy stuff with it.
- [21:43]
Doug
Have you ever spend time with that car? Cuz I sold.
- [21:45]
Sean
No, it was, it was gone before, before we, we met. It was like right. Right after we sold it. I was so disappointed. I was so disappointed. I was like, oh, this. I thought this guy's gonna have a360. No360.
- [21:56]
Doug
So that a Hummer.
- [21:57]
Sean
Hummer in the L3.22. Which I was very fond of.
- [22:00]
Doug
Yeah, that's right. I had.
- [22:02]
Sean
You know, I hope people get a sense of like having car friends from this car pod because it's, it's very much like the conversations we have. But it was really like special in college till I meet someone that was just as much into cars as I was.
- [22:16]
Doug
And to be clear, at the time, I wasn't like Doug Demir. I was just a guy. Like I was writing on Jalopnik. And so if you were reading Jalopnik, you would have known of me. But that wasn't a big. Like I was just a guy. I had maybe 100,000 subscribers. We were just kind of screwing around. There was no thought that this ever would go anywhere or really. I mean, I don't know. I wasn't thinking that. I don't know if you guys were. We were all just kind of screwing around trying to get a video up every week, just having fun.
- [22:40]
Sean
I remember we were like sitting in a park one day and like a reality TV company had emailed you saying like, should I go do this, like this TV show? And we were like, what is this what it was? And yeah, it was super, super early days of.
- [22:56]
Doug
You must have been around for the skyline.
- [22:57]
Sean
Yeah.
- [22:58]
Doug
When did you leave Philly? 16 or 16.
- [23:00]
Sean
16. I was. I was.
- [23:02]
Doug
So you saw a little bit of Aston Martin?
- [23:04]
Sean
A little bit. But so Drexel is like a co op system. So I was six months in Philly and then I believe my junior year, six months in LA doing my internships.
- [23:13]
Doug
Was it you who came with me to the Brat? Filippo ended up, I think, doing a lot more. I'm looking back at these. You were at the drag strip, right?
- [23:20]
Filippo
No, no, I was not the drag strip. I was at the race.
- [23:21]
Doug
Were you at the drag strip, Sean? Someone went to the drag strip. That one who was in the Murano. Was that you? Yeah, Philippe.
- [23:28]
Filippo
I'm in it. Literally.
- [23:29]
Doug
Literally in that video, you went to Manhattan with me in a Hummer.
- [23:33]
Sean
That Hummer was terrible.
- [23:34]
Doug
It was so bad.
- [23:34]
Sean
That was. That was such a bad.
- [23:36]
Filippo
The fuel economy challenge was quite something.
- [23:38]
Doug
We drove to Princeton.
- [23:39]
Filippo
Right.
- [23:40]
Doug
We like trying to hyper mile. It worked.
- [23:44]
Filippo
Sean, do you remember how well scripted Doug was? Like, he would have a piece of paper that had every beat he wanted.
- [23:49]
Doug
Yeah, yeah. Which as a result, the videos are a lot shorter in the four minute script is like three pages. It's like, oh, that's all I'm gonna
- [23:55]
Sean
be able to write the G Wagon review. I remember your script was so incredibly tight for that. And yeah, you had this, like, we
- [24:02]
Doug
would mess up lines and like, go back and do it again. Do it again.
- [24:04]
Sean
Yeah, it was incredibly, incredibly there.
- [24:07]
Doug
I mean, I consider these sort of. The. Especially the G Wagon video is particularly special if you really think back on the history of the channel, because it was one of the first, like, true car reviews. The Yalpa also. But. But the G Wagon and the Yalpa were like some of the very, very, very beginning, like, real, like, borrow a random car from a dealer kind of stuff.
- [24:25]
Sean
Yeah, that cool dealer. He had a bunch of interesting.
- [24:27]
Doug
Yep. Sell them.
- [24:27]
Sean
Sell the motors.
- [24:28]
Doug
Sell the motors. He sells on cars and bits.
- [24:30]
Sean
It's awesome.
- [24:30]
Doug
People happen to be my neighbor in Northern Liberties, and he had a dealer outside of Philly and we bumped into each other and he was like, hey, if you ever want to shoot a video. And so we borrowed that ridiculous convertible G Wagon. Also a bit of a full circle, minus sitting over there.
- [24:45]
Sean
Amazing. It's amazing. It's also 4 minutes and 58 seconds. It's such a short video.
- [24:50]
Doug
There was no. YouTube didn't really reward you for making longer videos. There was no advertising, I don't think in these videos at all. So it didn't matter to me. And then at some point, once I started doing actual Car reviews that changed.
- [25:02]
Filippo
Well, what was the first 10 minute long video? I remember it at the time.
- [25:06]
Doug
I remember for a long time. Time thinking that 10 was a barrier I couldn't cross because the audience was not interested in watching videos that were that long. I remember thinking that, oh, look at that. First 10 minute video is another full circle.
- [25:18]
Sean
That's crazy.
- [25:19]
Doug
But I. And I remember when I was editing that video thinking to myself, like, this is going to go too long. But it's such a special car. It's going to be worth it.
- [25:27]
Sean
It's Crow gt.
- [25:29]
Doug
Crow gt.
- [25:30]
Filippo
There's one right there.
- [25:31]
Doug
Yeah. Those were the days. Those were the early days. The Sean days.
- [25:35]
Sean
Absolutely wild.
- [25:37]
Filippo
Never met, but Khalifa, we.
- [25:39]
Sean
Me, we're good friends now, but it still drives me crazy every time we talk about the show.
- [25:44]
Filippo
Sean and I must have lived a mile apart at the most.
- [25:46]
Sean
Yeah.
- [25:46]
Doug
Oh, yeah, for sure. And Sean flew back to when my wedding was in D.C. in 17 and Sean flew back from LA for them.
- [25:52]
Sean
Yeah. Felipe was at UPenn, I was at
- [25:53]
Doug
Drexel, which are different. They basically share a campus. They're like right next to each other.
- [25:59]
Filippo
Wouldn't admit to that.
- [26:00]
Doug
But yeah. So those were the days. So that was the early days. Filippo, do you have any early days memories you want to throw out?
- [26:05]
Filippo
There's so many.
- [26:06]
Doug
You agree? We weren't like, trying to launch a YouTube channel. You were.
- [26:09]
Filippo
You have always been, I think it doesn't show on camera, but you've always been like the most planned, deliberate person I know. And so I think there was, oh, wow, I'm in that shot there. There was some sense of like, no, this is gonna be.
- [26:21]
Doug
That was the hope. But I don't know that I've thought. I do remember at least this era, I was thinking more about writing than I was thinking about making videos.
- [26:29]
Filippo
I still prefer your writing to your videos.
- [26:31]
Sean
When I was pulling up the first email that I had sent to you, the next thread was about cameras. And even, even then you were not interested in spending anything more for the extra features that I was like, so desperately being like, if you want to shoot a lot of videos, this. This model is like one to buy. And you're like, well, do they really need. Do I really need that?
- [26:48]
Doug
Okay, last question on the old days topic for both of you. What prompted you to write the email to, like, initially reach out? It was life changing for all of us. Yeah, but what do you think prompted it?
- [27:02]
Sean
Interesting. I mean, I was truly a huge fan of the 360 videos and thought this is like really cool. YouTube Again, wasn't this huge, this huge thing back then.
- [27:13]
Doug
Not many people were making videos with exotic cars. I remember one of my hooks with the 360 was that there weren't a lot of people out there doing this kind of thing.
- [27:20]
Sean
But I've always, I guess maybe just because of my age, I've always been a huge fan of automotive YouTube, like from early days of like, you know, fast lane Daily.
- [27:29]
Doug
Yeah.
- [27:29]
Sean
I was like, super into watching automotive content on YouTube. And your style of just doing crazy, like, Top Gear style challenges with the 360, I thought was like, super interesting. And then I, I was following your. Your writing and saw that, you know, you had moved to the. The town I was going to school in. And at the time, you know, I've. I've been obsessed with cars. They've been such a huge part of my life forever. But in college, I didn't bring a car to the east Coast.
- [27:54]
Doug
Yeah.
- [27:54]
Sean
And so I was like, this would be really cool to make, make videos and do this and be connected to the, the, the. The car world.
- [28:02]
Doug
Yeah.
- [28:03]
Sean
Yeah. And yeah. Looking back, it is unbelievable how full, full circle. Like, you know, 10 years later, right?
- [28:10]
Doug
Here we are. Yeah. Sean's still helping make YouTube videos. Trying to start an Alfa Romeo. Yeah. With a fire extinguisher.
- [28:16]
Filippo
And you're still enjoying his camera advice.
- [28:19]
Doug
What about you?
- [28:20]
Filippo
It's so out of character for me.
- [28:22]
Doug
So out of character.
- [28:23]
Filippo
It makes no sense. I don't know what happened that day in July.July of 2014.
- [28:27]
Doug
I actually, to this day, I remember reading your email. I was at a Chipotle.
- [28:31]
Sean
Wow.
- [28:33]
Filippo
We then got dinner sometime in like October, November of 2014. And I was. My wife now. By the time girlfriend and I had been dating for like a month or two. And I was like, I'm gonna go get dinner with this random person from the Internet. And she was very concerned and very confused. But in the time since. It was at your wedding. You were a groomsman in my wedding.
- [28:50]
Doug
Like, we had clearly had a place in head houses that I loved, still love. If it's there.
- [28:55]
Filippo
Is it there?
- [28:55]
Doug
I don't know.
- [28:56]
Filippo
Haven't been affiliated for years.
- [28:59]
Doug
So it was unusual. I do remember, if you go back to the channel, I made a video announcing that I was moving to Philadelphia. And it probably would have been a couple of further up here somewhere.
- [29:10]
Filippo
Knowing myself, it would have come from your writing, not your YouTube.
- [29:15]
Doug
Oh, yeah. Maybe that. Maybe it was a. Maybe it was a. I don't know.
- [29:18]
Filippo
I moved to Philadelphia, maybe.
- [29:19]
Doug
Yeah, something like that. But regardless, I made that video. And I remember I got flooded with people who reached out after that. And you two have stuck. Our mutual friend Matt Boyer, I'm also still in contact with. He was also one of the people who reached out in the early days, but other than that, not a lot of the initial Philly emailers are still around. I used to have dinner, like three times a week with random Philly people. And Filippo and Sean stuck around.
- [29:46]
Filippo
And yet Sean and I never met.
- [29:47]
Doug
And Filippo didn't work with us for a long time either. But eventually we got convinced him both to work with us and to live here, which we all know.
- [29:54]
Filippo
In my case, it's been six years.
- [29:55]
Doug
We all now live, what, within four miles of each other? Just like back in the day.
- [30:00]
Sponsor Voice
Traveling internationally is great until your phone bill shows up. That's why I started using Saily. It's an ESIM app that gives you affordable data in over 150 countries. So you land, turn it on, and you're connected. Connected. No SIM swapping, no hunting for WI fi, no surprise charges. I used it on a recent trip with Emily, and it just worked. Data was fast. Setup took like two minutes, and I didn't have to think about it again, which is exactly what you want when you're traveling. What I like is how flexible it is. You can pick a plan based on where you're going and how much data you need, and it's way cheaper than roaming through your carrier if you travel at all. This is one of those things that just makes life easier. I use this, and you should, too. Download the sailing app or head over to saily.com and use the code cars to get an exclusive discount on your first plan. Stay connected wherever you go with Saily.
- [30:56]
Filippo
Okay, I have to tell you about a podcast I've genuinely been enjoying lately. And look, there's no shortage of car content out there, but this one's a little different. When's the last time you got to hear the actual CEO of Ford? Just have real conversations about cars and life? That's a rare thing. And it's called Drive with Jim Farley. The guests are incredible Formula one driver Daniel Ricardo. Sir Chris Hoy, who is somehow both one of the greatest Olympic cyclists ever and a racing driver. The conversations go deep. What drives these people, what they actually get behind the wheel of, what success means to them. It's a kind of car content that doesn't feel like a press release. It feels like a real conversation between people who genuinely love this stuff. For a car person, having that kind of access to someone in Jim Farley's position, somebody actually shaping the future of the industry, it's pretty special. To listen to Drive with Jim Farley, just search for Drive with Jim Farley in your podcast app. That's Drive with Jim Farley.
- [31:51]
Doug
Okay, so those are the early days. I want to move on the talk car segment. We typically talk about cars since Sean is here. I want Sean to talk about his cars, starting with the bad color G Wagon. Well, first. Well, first off, how about you just tell us what you have right now, and then we'll get into the bad
- [32:06]
Sean
color G. So currently I have a beautiful, gorgeous, immaculate, immaculate, beautiful, metallic Mystic Red.
- [32:16]
Filippo
It's the other color.
- [32:16]
Sean
Yeah, I was trying to remember the name of the actual color. It's mystic red. 2014 G550 Galando wagon.
- [32:24]
Doug
And the brake lights do work this week. After three months of the brake lights, Nick fixed it.
- [32:29]
Filippo
We're good.
- [32:30]
Sean
Look, Nick asked me to not put in my tail lights that I ordered to do it on his channel for content. So I risked my life for a couple days.
- [32:38]
Filippo
That's definitely what happened.
- [32:40]
Doug
There is a thread in our group that Sean can't quite handle his gwag.
- [32:45]
Sean
I think it's been said on this podcast. Yeah, it's the most insane thing. I've never owned a normal car, but he's just.
- [32:51]
Doug
He hasn't been able to wrap his, like, self around.
- [32:54]
Sean
He's.
- [32:54]
Doug
The tail lights haven't been working for months. The brakes squeak, and he cannot figure out how to stop it squeaking and just complains to us about it bitterly.
- [33:00]
Filippo
Good news. Changing the brake lights remove the squeak. The real thing last week. Oh, okay.
- [33:07]
Sean
But, yeah, the G550, which is sort of my. My daily. I don't really have a daily.
- [33:13]
Doug
So we got the G. Yeah.
- [33:15]
Sean
2001 Ferrari 360.
- [33:16]
Doug
Ferrari 360.
- [33:17]
Sean
Frog tip frog, Argento, Nurburgring. Definitely remember the name of that color. And then a 1974 Alfa Romeo GTV, which is. I want to say I'm the own. The oldest car of the San Diego cars and Bids employees.
- [33:33]
Doug
Yeah, that's an interesting point, because my Countach is probably next or damn close. There's not a lot of classics in our group.
- [33:39]
Filippo
I don't know. 1973 Ford F250.
- [33:42]
Doug
One interesting thing about Sean, Sean has trouble letting go of things. And when I met. When Sean and I would hang out after you left Philly and moved to la, I remember I visited you in Hermosa beach. And you had your Cayman. And he had that Cayman for like eight years. And finally when he came to this business, he had it for another year and a half. And we convinced him to sell the Cayman, which we sold on cars and bids, and he bought the Ferrari.
- [34:09]
Sean
I've regretted selling the Cayman. I love this car. So this car was actually very much inspired by a Range Rover. It was a Carmax purchase. So I did the Carmax Max Care warranty, which absolutely paid for itself, I
- [34:22]
Doug
want to say probably more than the Range Rover.
- [34:25]
Sean
Yeah.
- [34:25]
Doug
Maybe not on a dollar level, but like on a percent. I mean, they put a trans in the car.
- [34:30]
Sean
I paid 26, 000 for the car in 2016. And with 59, 000 miles and during the. The warranty, I had, I want to say, close to $30,000.
- [34:43]
Doug
That's almost exactly the numbers for my Range Rover. But the difference is you put on 75, 000 miles on the car.
- [34:50]
Sean
Almost 90,000 miles.
- [34:51]
Doug
Wow. Wow.
- [34:52]
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of that was done after the Max Care ended, which mysteriously, the issues just stopped. Everything worked.
- [34:59]
Doug
Suddenly things were able to be ignored a little bit more.
- [35:01]
Sean
Yeah, no, the Cayman was a great car. It really did everything I. I needed it to do. It was a super light, really engaging sports car that was actually quite practical. I was, I lived all over Los Angeles in this thing and. And street parked it at times daily drove it and put a ton of miles on this thing.
- [35:22]
Doug
Remember how proud he was of those roof racks? They're like Porsche equipment roof racks.
- [35:26]
Sean
I didn't even use them.
- [35:27]
Doug
I never saw them once. Rode around with them always proudly on display.
- [35:32]
Filippo
One time he posted on his Instagram a photo of them being used.
- [35:34]
Sean
Yeah, I, I used to.
- [35:35]
Filippo
Closest we've gotten a couple times.
- [35:37]
Sean
I loved the Cayman roof racks and I desperately searched for them because they were. They're hard to find. And when I found them, I was, I was so happy that I decided I was to going. Going to leave them on and just drive proudly with my roof racks for years. Oh, yeah, there's a photo. Yeah, See, I have my Bianchi bike
- [35:54]
Filippo
on top for the photo.
- [35:57]
Doug
Sean is a man of accessories. This is one of the things that I've learned about Sean. Like when we play tennis and I have no idea what racket I play with, no idea what my strings are. And Sean will be like, I just got my strings done and I switched from poly synthetic to synthetic Fleckman bobbin. And also I'm going to change to this Racket, which I saw in a video. Nadal's best cousin uses this racket. I got two of them, and one's a little lighter than the other. And then he. Then he can't hit a backhand. It's like, Sean maybe work on. Move away from the accessories and, you know, look.
- [36:29]
Sean
That's cool. That's cool. And this photo is on Angeles Crest Highway. When I didn't go slow, that roof rack held that bike on there.
- [36:36]
Doug
Okay. So he didn't take the bike out to go biking. He took the bike out to throw it off the car.
- [36:42]
Sean
Obviously, I had to stress test the roof rack and make sure that it could actually withstand.
- [36:49]
Doug
That's ridiculous. So the coolest thing, the coolest car thing you've ever had, though, is your very first car. Show us.
- [36:54]
Sean
Well, before we move on to the first car, I just want to point out that I drove this colored Cayman, right? Macadamia metallic, another very divisive color.
- [37:04]
Doug
You deviated stitching, man. Now.
- [37:06]
Sean
No, no, no. But this group doesn't seem to like cool colors on cars.
- [37:12]
Doug
I. What is.
- [37:13]
Filippo
Don't do.
- [37:14]
Sean
Do you like the Cayman?
- [37:15]
Doug
Of course I like the Cayman color.
- [37:16]
Filippo
I also like the G wagon color.
- [37:17]
Sean
Doug, you didn't like the brown?
- [37:20]
Doug
The brown came in. No, I think it's a little bit of a pretender thing. Like, oh, look, it's brown. Like, this is. This is. This is all people do at these Porsche events. They talk about their colors, but this wasn't pts.
- [37:29]
Sean
This was just like a color that they were offering back then.
- [37:32]
Doug
It's speed yellow, not silver. It's like, oh, cares. How does it drive? How does it drive?
- [37:36]
Sean
I thought it was cool. It's a good car.
- [37:38]
Filippo
I love the color.
- [37:39]
Doug
It's nice and cool and all that. But I think Sean was always a little bit self congratulatory about having a brown car. Maybe I drove this car around with this color. Yeah. Must have been real hard. Anyway, let's talk about that other car. Let's talk about Sean's first car, which was, of course, the most ridiculous. Pull up this thing. Sean, tell us about your first car here.
- [38:02]
Sean
This is an insane story and is absolutely something that I will always just cherish as being my first car. It's completely insane. So this is a 1985 Ferrari 400i. However, I purchased this car when I was 16. I just turned 16. And just.
- [38:23]
Doug
So for those of you who don't know, the 400 I has always been kind of the cheapest. I don't want to say Crappiest, but the most affordable people know about the Mondial. You can say crappiest. No, I actually kind of like the 400i to be honest. I think it's beautiful. And of course it was Enzo's last driver, as we all know.
- [38:39]
Sean
Yeah. And it was hated. It was hated. This is, was 2010, 2009, 2000.
- [38:44]
Doug
This is the four seater lineage that predates the FF and the GTC four Lusso and the 612 and the 456. That lineage traces back to the 400i.
- [38:52]
Sean
At the time there was zero interest in this car. However, I was a Ferrari obsessed child. When I was eight years old, I went for a ride in a Ferrari 360 and it changed my life. It changed the course of my life. Right. And I was dead set on, you
- [39:09]
Doug
know, getting a Ferrari.
- [39:10]
Sean
It was an insane thing to say. At 16, however, I spent way too much time on my computer looking at. At the time the, the only auction site was ebay. Right. And so I would sort, I would go to ebay motors and sort by lowest price. And sure enough, what's there is this Ferrari 400i and I haven't got to the, the good part of the car yet. It has a Chevrolet LT1 engine swap in it. Right. And so I'm looking at this.
- [39:38]
Doug
This is a C4 Corvette motor, more or less.
- [39:39]
Sean
This is the C4 Corvette motor, right. The like optispark, like the worst, again one of the worst Chevrolet V8s of all time. However, the transmission in These is a GM3 speed from the factory. So what a lot of people did in period, this one was a theft recovery car. And after it was recovered, someone took the Colombo V12 out of it and, and most likely put it into like one of those P4 recreations. Because the V12 is pretty close to what all the very desirable.
- [40:08]
Doug
It basically runs a similar block as the 365S which would have included the Daytona and cars like that.
- [40:14]
Sean
Yes, yes.
- [40:15]
Doug
So Sean didn't get that part of the car, the Daytona motor, that was gone.
- [40:19]
Sean
Yes. So I found this and it was, I want to say it was. The bidding was at like $8,000, right? Yeah. I, at the time I had like a business converting people's like analog film into digital files for them. And I had saved up about $10,000
- [40:40]
Doug
for my first car.
- [40:41]
Sean
And I went to my parents and I was like, hey guys, look, I really want this car. And they, they're not car people. They didn't really understand, but they, they understood My love of Ferrari. Like every birthday they would buy me like the knockoff Ferrari like a soccer ball, you know. But so they, they understood how much like this would mean to me as, as like a, a first, first car. Had no idea how bad of an idea this would be on, on all levels. So we bought this car. It was in St. Louis, Missouri on eBay. And I, I bid. I think the winning bid was like $12,000. My parents like helped me chip in and, and covered ships tripping. And sure enough, off the truck came this Chevrolet powered 1985 Ferrari 400i. That is beyond the weirdest first car that I could have possibly ended up with.
- [41:34]
Doug
Every car since that has been more reasonable.
- [41:36]
Sean
Oh yeah, yeah, this is, that's so true.
- [41:38]
Filippo
No, that can't be true.
- [41:39]
Sean
It's Sean, it's, it's quite true.
- [41:42]
Doug
Mustang. After this, he had a Mustang, an engine swapped.
- [41:45]
Filippo
Yeah, you're right.
- [41:46]
Sean
80s Ferrari. And so I told my parents, look, it's a Chevrolet motor. Like that's the expensive part of Ferraris. Anything goes wrong. Yeah, I can just take it to the Chevrolet dealership, which.
- [41:57]
Doug
Where were you living?
- [41:58]
Sean
Davis.
- [41:59]
Doug
Davis, California, near Sacramento.
- [42:01]
Sean
Davis, California. And this car unlocked a lot of really crazy experiences that taught me a lot about what it meant to take care of a car, work on a car, and what the amount of energy and effort it takes to have something like this, this at 16. I, I mean I, I remember taking it to the Chevrolet dealership because it, it had a terrible electrical draw. Like if you didn't have it on a charger for more than 20 minutes. The first, the first drive I, I did, which maybe I'll, I'll, I'll give sand and our, our editor some footage of, of, of small SEAN in this 400 I with my, my mom freaking out, being like, why isn't that turning on? I'm like, the battery's dead. Just stone cold.
- [42:47]
Doug
What happened when you went to the Chevy dealer? What did they say?
- [42:49]
Sean
They were like, you're insane. However, we have a fleet service center across the street that the manager there can work on weird stuff. This guy Brandon, and he ended up helping me with this car for years. Between classes, I would go to the shop and he would teach me on some customer cars how to do oil changes. And I would do trade off work, like sweeping the shop and all these like random, random favors for them, like picking their lunch up. And then they would like help me handle this, this insane thing.
- [43:20]
Doug
Did they get the electrical draw solved?
- [43:21]
Sean
Yeah, yeah, they did, they did. And Then the, the LT one had this like crazy like backfiring issue that they, they helped me fix. It was so bad, the exhaust like it backfired so hard, the exhaust mufflers blew out like from the back of it. The one crux of this car was like the Ferrari like window regulators.
- [43:41]
Doug
Yeah. And from that era, they were terrible.
- [43:42]
Sean
So bad the windows would stick and so like that was like the final nails. Like I, I, they couldn't help me with this, this, this window regulator. I took it to like a specialty shop in Sacramento for, for you know, luxury cars. And it was like the bill was like $2,500 and my parents were like very unhappy with this whole situation and the car had to go.
- [44:05]
Doug
How long did you have it?
- [44:06]
Sean
I did for two years.
- [44:10]
Doug
Two years.
- [44:11]
Sean
Two years.
- [44:11]
Doug
Now the other problem with the car. Course, a car with a motor swap like this, you can't title in California. Which Sean didn't know when he bought it.
- [44:17]
Sean
No.
- [44:18]
Doug
So what did you, how did you, you drove this to high school?
- [44:20]
Sean
I did, I did. And this was the era when paper plates were like a thing in California. So I just from that, from that Chevy dealership had a, had a, like I just bought this car and taped up a fake little new registration in the window and drove it. Never got pulled over. But I did that because
- [44:43]
Doug
I took
- [44:44]
Sean
it to the DMV at first to register this car and they were like, you have to take it to the referee station. I didn't know what a referee was. Which in California there's only I think three or four locations and they really look over the car. And so they took the car away for an hour and came back with the, the thickest stack of papers of like this is everything you have to fix to, to get this to pass smog. And it was like everything, everything. Like swap the motor, like install all the evap systems and, and, and so from that moment on, I drove it no dirty.
- [45:14]
Doug
What happened to the car?
- [45:16]
Sean
So I sold it and it, it was sold to the under bidder on the original auction. This guy named two years later.
- [45:23]
Doug
You're kidding.
- [45:23]
Sean
Yeah.
- [45:23]
Doug
This guy named sell it on ebay also.
- [45:25]
Sean
Yeah, yeah, put it back up on ebay. Actually sold it for about what I bought it for, plus the window regulator. So I got, I got out okay from the car. And he still has the car today with the same LT1. He's taken such good care of this car. He's repainted it. He's done a new interior, new suspension. It's like one of the most complete and clean 400 eyes that probably exists. But he hasn't changed the LT one, which I think it's pretty funny.
- [45:53]
Doug
Wait, it's going to be. Every year it gets more expensive for him. He's now stuck, basically. He's never going to be able to put a V12 back in it.
- [45:59]
Sean
Yeah.
- [45:59]
Doug
Why did he put an LS in it or something?
- [46:02]
Sean
That's what I wonder. I wonder if it's something to do with the transmission and having changed that original transmission. But you think
- [46:11]
Doug
and do a trans. Make it happen.
- [46:13]
Sean
Yeah, but it's such a cool thing. I hope that one day somehow I end up back up with this car.
- [46:17]
Doug
He's in Florida, right?
- [46:18]
Sean
Yeah, I think in Miami.
- [46:19]
Doug
Yeah. Yeah.
- [46:20]
Sean
If you see a black 400, I ask him to pop the hood.
- [46:25]
Doug
Those were the, those were the, the early days of Sean. Then you had a Mustang.
- [46:29]
Sean
Yeah, but that 400 I like, was pivotal in getting into TV. Like in my interview with the BBC people, they're like, why do you want to work here? I was like, I really want to work on Top Gear. And they were like, do you have experience with cars? I said, well, I have a story for you. My first car was this 400. I. Those engine swapped, stopped. And I think that had a lot to do with getting that first. That first internship get in the door with this weird car.
- [46:53]
Filippo
That does lend some credibility.
- [46:56]
Doug
When he went to work on with. With Ant and Mike Brewer, that, that, that was the same situation. Sean had already been down that road.
- [47:03]
Sean
Yeah, yeah.
- [47:05]
Doug
What happened to Brandon at the Chevy dealer? You ever talked to him?
- [47:07]
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He, he like recently just messaged me on Facebook. I was like, what happened to that Ferrari?
- [47:12]
Doug
Or is that thing. Is he still at the Chevy dealer?
- [47:15]
Sean
No, no, he's. He's not, he's not. He's scuba diving. Diving now.
- [47:18]
Doug
So the, the tip frog, the 360 that you have now, which we call it tip frog. It's tiptronic and it looks like a frog. That's not your first Ferrari.
- [47:27]
Sean
Insanely.
- [47:27]
Doug
Tell us about your tip frog experience.
- [47:30]
Sean
The 360 has been great. Tip frog. You know, everybody here, mostly. I shouldn't say everybody. Doug makes so much fun of the way the 360 looks. Despite having launched his career with the, with the 360.
- [47:42]
Doug
You don't make fun of the way 360 look.
- [47:46]
Sean
However, I think there's a lot of similarities in the design of the Carrera GT to the front of the 360.
- [47:51]
Doug
I don't think the Courier GT is an attractive car.
- [47:52]
Sean
I think that if the, if we call the 360 a tip frog, I think the Carrera GT is the V10 Salamander.
- [48:00]
Doug
I've never felt the Courier GT is an attractive car. I think it looks weirdly stretched. I think the Courier GT is a precision purpose car that is an amazing like unbelievable like scalpel driving experience. And the design is okay. The 360 unfortunately doesn't have some of the driving experience benefits.
- [48:21]
Sean
I love the driving experience of the cars. So the 360 was like top of my list of cars I wanted to experience. I just, I needed to own one for a period of time. I just, I personally love the way the 360 looks. I love the, the, the challenge grill on the back and the car I again I rode in that kind of snowballed me into being a car person was a Argento Nurburgring silver Ferrari 360 with the F1 paddles. And I, I just thought it was the coolest thing ever. And so for, you know, a couple years I was looking for the right, the right one to buy and just got very lucky finding one locally that was on a classified website and, and jumped in in and when I first bought it the, the F1 transmission was a, was a problem. So apparently they got better in like 2002. I bought a 2001 that had like the original programming from like when the car launched in 99. So like leaving a stop sign was like, it was super spongy, not like not a good driving experience.
- [49:21]
Doug
Yeah.
- [49:22]
Sean
And my friend Eric at Good Kind Designs got me in touch with a transmission tuner who.
- [49:32]
Doug
You buy any of this?
- [49:33]
Filippo
I remember this happening.
- [49:34]
Doug
Did you? And so the car so, so anyway
- [49:37]
Sean
he, we swapped in a challenge TR tcu so now it has like the latest version of the shifting. Again, a super Gear Gear guy thing.
- [49:44]
Filippo
But are, are you not manual swapping?
- [49:46]
Sean
I am, I, but I, I just have to say that like the TCU from the challenge TR made it infinitely better. Like the downshifts are just like super aggressive and, and it's very fun. Fun. However, the next step for that car is doing the manual conversion.
- [50:01]
Doug
I, I, we're manual.
- [50:03]
Filippo
What will we call it? Because we can't call it tip frog anymore formally.
- [50:06]
Doug
I'm still going to call it a tip.
- [50:07]
Filippo
Yeah, why not?
- [50:08]
Doug
Oh yeah, it was tip, right? And oh, it was definitely a frog.
- [50:11]
Filippo
I am proud of Sean for driving that car, what like 8, 000 miles?
- [50:14]
Sean
I've driven a lot. I drove it to Laguna Seca. Did a track day in it. I was terrified the entire time. I was gonna like take a rock chip to the the front lens.
- [50:23]
Doug
You didn't ppf it?
- [50:24]
Sean
I ppf the headlights. Our friend Kevin said you should ppf the windshield. I said nah. I did get a rock chip on the way up to the track day.
- [50:32]
Doug
I ppf all my windshields now.
- [50:33]
Sean
Terrified me.
- [50:34]
Doug
So many problems.
- [50:36]
Sean
But it's been great. It's been like very bulletproof. The only issue I've had has been like self inflicted with like I backed onto like a parking block and bent the oil, the oil fill. And there's like a company called, called Hill, I think Hill Engineering that makes like a, a stainless steel piece for that instead of the aluminum one. It was like 100 bucks and that the 360 has been the cheapest car for me to own out of any of my cars. All of my cars have required more
- [51:01]
Doug
maintenance, more service, especially the G wagon.
- [51:03]
Sean
The G. The G's been expensive.
- [51:04]
Doug
Sean, do you want to tell us the story of purchasing the G wagon, which is one of fulfill's favorite stories?
- [51:11]
Filippo
Do we even have time?
- [51:12]
Sean
Look, I, I, I love the hunter hunt. I love hunting for a car. The benefit of cars and bids is that we present all these amazing cars. I spend way too much time looking on cars and bids but I like going out and hunting the deep dredges of marketplace for these cars and so
- [51:29]
Doug
for just poorly presented trash.
- [51:31]
Sean
Yep.
- [51:32]
Filippo
Yeah, totally get so many links from Sean every day.
- [51:34]
Sean
It's very true, very true. And so I want to say about a year, maybe a year and a half ago on this podcast Doug you were talking about, there was a green G500 that was for sale on the site and you made the point that everybody should buy one of these early G wagons. They're reliable, they hold their value and they're just cool.
- [51:52]
Doug
Great off road, little drivable.
- [51:55]
Sean
Yeah, I believe I was the under bidder on that green G. So I was looking for a color and anyway I, this is the, this is the car. It's pretty cool color.
- [52:06]
Doug
Yeah. No, I disagree but people would, people might think that.
- [52:11]
Sean
What color is this?
- [52:12]
Filippo
Everest green.
- [52:12]
Sean
Everest green. Wow.
- [52:14]
Doug
Everest green doesn't even make any sense.
- [52:16]
Sean
Anyway, anyways, through the research I saw that 2013-2015 for the first gen or the this gen W463 is like the sweet spot of the year. It's in 2013-2015 with the G550 you got the na. The final, the final iteration of that 5.5 NA engine. With the last, the latest interior updates. You got heated seats, cooled seats.
- [52:44]
Doug
Yep.
- [52:44]
Sean
You had a infotainment system that could be easily swapped for apple carplay, which Sean did.
- [52:48]
Doug
Chinese Apple carplay.
- [52:49]
Sean
Driving around, I guess.
- [52:51]
Doug
Whatever, whatever background you want. You want flowers, you want babies, you want babies holding flowers.
- [52:55]
Sean
It's all there. It's awesome. And radar, coasting control. So it was like. It was a. I've. So what this replaced was a Mercedes W123 300 diesel. I've had two one two three S over the years and I love the feeling of driving an old Mercedes. They're just, they're just such tanks. Right. It's, it's such an analog driving experience and that's actually very usable. But the 300D is pretty slow. Especially San Diego, like my commute. I have to get right on a highway cold. And I was tired of being foot to the floor every morning. And so I thought, man, if I could find one of these, these G wagons that's like kind of still falls into that camp of 70s Mercedes with a modern drivetrain.
- [53:36]
Doug
Right. Old school, solid. Yeah. Similar feel, this car.
- [53:39]
Sean
Yeah. Well, like a cool driving experience. And through many, many late nights on Facebook Marketplace, we, we found the, we found this, this mystic red G550 that was being sold by someone in the Portland, Oregon area.
- [53:56]
Doug
A very sketchy person in the Portland, Oregon area who had horrible Walmart aftermarket rims on it.
- [54:03]
Sean
Yeah, the wheels were a problem. I like was negotiating really hard, like you know, Nick Rochon, crazy Nick levels of negotiation with this guy. It was like a two week thing. And like finally he like said yes to my number. It was like Friday at 3pm I was like on a zoom with Filippo and was like I gotta go like rush to the bank. Like tried to like pull out funds to go fly up and buy this car. I get to the airport and he's like, well we're actually not sure if we want to sell this car. And I'm like sitting, I'm like sitting like on the Runway being like I'm already on a plane coming, coming up there. On the way up, our plane hit a bird. Like we had a bird strike on landing. It was like this whole, this whole journey to get up there. And when I got up there I. It was really cool. It's a really cool car. Like, like the, the interior has like all the carbon fiber trim options and it's just like a cool, it's a cool spec. It's. It's a cool thing. And it's, It's.
- [54:52]
Doug
There were two other things that I recall from this, which is, number one, at one point, Filippo called to see how things were progressing. And you said, filippo, I can't talk right now. I'm in the ultimate race.
- [55:01]
Filippo
Yep.
- [55:02]
Sean
I was then Photoshop Photoshopped into, like, a marathon. That was. That photo was like.
- [55:06]
Doug
And then when you showed up and he. After you, the guy swore up and down there was no rust on the car. There's a little spot of rust on the windshield that Sean lost.
- [55:13]
Sean
I lost my mind, I swear. For $2,000 off, like, on the spot, I was like. And it was already a very good price for the car.
- [55:20]
Filippo
Don't tell him that.
- [55:21]
Sean
And he said, yes. But I had got a cashier's check for the exact amount. So I just was trusting this guy to, like, send me.
- [55:28]
Filippo
Send me.
- [55:29]
Sean
After the fact that he did shout out. To shout out to him. He did. And I drove. I drove it straight back down to San Diego.
- [55:37]
Doug
And he's been driving a bad color G wagon ever since.
- [55:40]
Filippo
Everybody that sees it likes the color.
- [55:42]
Sean
So that car's a bit uncomfortable to drive around because it gets a lot of attention. There's not many red G wagons, and a lot of people are really into it. I can't believe it. Like, compared to driving the 360 around, I get so many more compliments and just people asking me, like, what it is with the G, and it's insane.
- [56:02]
Doug
So that's Sean's bad color G. Most people do like that color, I admit. And some people even have it on one of their own cars.
- [56:07]
Sean
And guess what? One time, one time, Doug said, you know what? I saw you come around that corner, and it looked pretty good.
- [56:15]
Filippo
Should we get to some questions?
- [56:16]
Doug
I want to go to the questions because the questions we had asked you guys to ask questions specifically for Sean. And there are dozens of questions here that are Sean specific. We've covered some of them already.
- [56:25]
Sean
I can't believe how many questions people have asked.
- [56:27]
Doug
People have Sean questions for the Sean podcast. There's Sean sitting in the Suki S2000 up at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, which you can also see
- [56:35]
Filippo
in the Key Channel video live right now.
- [56:37]
Doug
Oh, how exciting. So. So these questions are. There's a lot of production related questions and a lot of how you came to this world questions. And we are thrilled that we got so many Sean questions. We're going to start with Wyatt R. Who says, question for Sean. What is the wildest thing that Nick has said or done that has made you cut a piece of content. And seriously, how many hours of content have you had to cut because of Nick? We cannot, definitely cannot say the wildest stuff, although I think we're all thinking about the same thing.
- [57:07]
Sean
There's so many moments. We have the greatest collection of Nick moments.
- [57:11]
Doug
Comments.
- [57:13]
Sean
But, yeah, I can't really say those on.
- [57:16]
Doug
We have. We have advertisers now, and we. There's a certain standard of decorum that we have to maintain or else they'll drop us.
- [57:23]
Filippo
Also, we're not comfortable with some of the things that we're saying.
- [57:25]
Doug
That is true. There. There have definitely been some stuff that Nick has said that has been just absolutely out of the. Out of this world. Not acceptable.
- [57:32]
Sean
I'll give everybody a Nick action, though, which is when we were filming the $18,000 desert series challenge videos. It was his first time having to, like, follow a camera car. Oh, my God.
- [57:44]
Doug
And so. Oh, God.
- [57:48]
Sean
So, you know, we have this, like, big briefing about, like, what we're gonna do. We're gonna drive up this mountain. We all have walkie talkies to communicate with each other about what we're gonna do. And Nick had no ability to follow the direction of, like, following the camera car. And at one point, we. We were trying to get a hold of him on the walkie. He had not turned on his walkie or, like, forgot about the walkie's existence. And so I resorted to hand signals out the window and I pointed to a turnout because we wanted. I think it was Filippo to pass so we can get shots of Filippo's car. So he was behind the camera car. Instead of turning out into the turnout, Nick proceeded to try to pass us in the turnout through the corner, thinking
- [58:30]
Doug
that it was a point buy.
- [58:30]
Sean
Thinking that it was a point buy.
- [58:32]
Doug
There's actually a better story that came out of that after that. There was some harsh words to Nick at the next meeting. Like, dude, you have to turn on your radio and you have to pay attention. Like, we had gone over step by step, everything that needed to happen for that sequence of sh. We get into our cars, and because we hadn't gotten any footage of Nick's car going, we were like, nick, you lead the next section behind the camera car so that we can get shots of your car. And once again, he goes in the wrong direction and gets lost and doesn't do what he's supposed to. And we have to have another complete stop. Another get out of the car. I'm trying to talk to him again. And Nick says, I can't. It's very annoying, you guys, that you've done this. You've made me lead. And he was leading in the sense that he was the first film car, but the camera car was ahead of him. And Kenan was like. Kenner was like, that'd be like one of the. That'd be like the third car of the train being like, damn it, I can't believe I'm forced to leave this train. He was so pissed that we made him leave when all he had to do was follow behind the camera car and he couldn't handle it.
- [59:35]
Sean
It was Nick.
- [59:37]
Doug
Absurd things that has ever happened I have ever been a part of which we were. Could not stop laughing. Problematic, honestly. He's a complete idiot.
- [59:47]
Sean
Nick is a treasure for us.
- [59:49]
Doug
Next question from Avery Malon. Question for Sean. What's your email? Every week or so on the pod, I shout out Sean's email address, which is, of course, seanarsandbins.com. i think a better question would be, what has come from your email being so public? Like, hundreds of thousands of people watch this podcast every week.
- [60:08]
Sean
I can't say everything because I also don't want to give anybody any new ideas of what to do with my email.
- [60:14]
Doug
However, this is Sean's actual work email, by the way.
- [60:18]
Sean
Some interesting stuff comes through. I've had some chats with some people. If you have something interesting, shoot me an email.
- [60:25]
Doug
I'm getting actually fruitful come out of it.
- [60:29]
Sean
A lot of wrong E55 wagons have been the recent results of the emails. Nothing of that much substance yet.
- [60:40]
Doug
Nothing yet. We also haven't asked for a lot yet.
- [60:44]
Filippo
Pretty recently, Sean forwarded me an email that he got that was related to me and relevant to me that he received truly two months prior. And he was. It was like topical related to something with the truck.
- [60:55]
Doug
He's slow to get through all the emails, is what you're saying. Don't be upset if it's a lot of email emails.
- [61:00]
Sean
It's a lot of emails.
- [61:01]
Doug
How many emails is it again, I
- [61:03]
Sean
don't necessarily want to say. I don't want to. I don't want to encourage this.
- [61:07]
Filippo
No more emails to Sean@carsonbids. That's S E A N@carsonbeds.com.
- [61:11]
Sean
yeah, if you have something interesting, I'll have a conversation.
- [61:14]
Doug
Do you ever get, like, threats?
- [61:16]
Sean
No, no threats.
- [61:17]
Doug
People have been.
- [61:17]
Sean
People have been chill. Everybody's been super chill.
- [61:19]
Doug
We do run a car podcast. At the end of the day, a
- [61:21]
Sean
lot of Some weird like chat GPT like long diatribes that is like what,
- [61:24]
Doug
what is what is right? The beat just delete.
- [61:26]
Sean
But the, the, the, the what I. The callback to the Late Late show was at the end of the Late Late show, which is a late night talk show. What my job was to go through the voicemails that people left for the show because at the end of every episode they put a phone number on the screen for people to get tickets to be in the studio audience. And I had to sift through hundreds of calls every day, often from the same people that called every day that nobody wanted tickets. It was just random calls. And the emails somewhat remind me of the days of the Late late Show. Having to go through these bulk, these bulk requests.
- [62:05]
Doug
We thought you had to actually listen to each one of those before transcription and things like that.
- [62:08]
Sean
Yeah, yeah.
- [62:09]
Doug
Next question from Ro76. Question for Sean. How the hell did you get your car into a Gracie Abrams music video?
- [62:16]
Sean
That was awesome. That was awesome.
- [62:17]
Doug
Sean's 300D was in a Gracie Abrams music video.
- [62:20]
Sean
Yeah. My good friend dawn who I produced top year with Top America, she was, she was a co producer with me. She owns. Co. Owns a production company that makes the majority of Interscope Record music videos. And so when they need something car related, often I try to help out, I try to help her out. I, I got to be a stunt driver in a Billie Eilish music video. I've done a bunch of like weird music video projects with, with dawn and, and Don called me. It's like, hey, do you know anybody that has a cool colored vintage car for a Gracie Abrams music video? And I was like, do you want to use the, the Mercedes? And she's like, yeah, that'd be great. And so the, the day was amazing. We, you know, we shot it in, in one day and I got to drive for this music video. So it was just a camera guy in the front.
- [63:08]
Doug
Pull up the video.
- [63:08]
Sean
You're driving, I'm driving. You can pro. You can, you can't play the music, but you can probably show the show the video.
- [63:13]
Doug
Well, this is a commentary video, but it's.
- [63:18]
Sean
You never see the third seat. But we drove around for a few hours with her just singing this, this beautiful song in the back seat. It was like one of the coolest like production days I've got to do. She's like selling out like Wembley Stadium now.
- [63:31]
Doug
Yeah.
- [63:31]
Sean
And this is like one of her hit songs. And so yeah, it's her brother, her best friend, all in the Backseat. We're just cruising around the streets of a town, and she's just singing the song. I'm sorry. I love you.
- [63:44]
Doug
How many views does this video have now?
- [63:49]
Filippo
42.
- [63:50]
Doug
42 million.
- [63:50]
Sean
42 million views. 42 million views.
- [63:53]
Doug
The thing that you will forever be associated with that got the most views was your car.
- [63:58]
Sean
This is true.
- [63:58]
Doug
Then you were the driver for all those shots, so you must have chatted with her and stuff. Yeah.
- [64:03]
Sean
Very cool. Very cool. Her dad is J.J. abrams, who I was lucky enough to have dinner with a few years earlier. So we got to talk about that.
- [64:11]
Doug
I didn't know.
- [64:12]
Sean
Yeah, it's a super cool, super cool artist. And, like, what an experience to have this. Like, you know, they have the playback going, but then she was fully belting the song.
- [64:21]
Filippo
Really?
- [64:22]
Sean
In the backseat of the car with,
- [64:24]
Doug
you know, I guess you kind of have to, because otherwise it probably looks fake in a music video if you're not actually singing.
- [64:28]
Sean
Yeah. And she was a big fan of the W123. It was very fun.
- [64:34]
Doug
Next question from bbking24. Sean, does it annoy you that Doug calls your G Wagon a bad color G wagon despite his993 being a similar color?
- [64:42]
Sean
You know, we drove up together to go pick up the993 in the bad color G. And I remember when we finally got the993 out of the dealership and parked in the. In that mall parking lot and parked them next to each other. I looked at it, and I was like, wait, they're the same color, you know?
- [64:57]
Doug
Well, two things. The color that dark red suits the Porsche better.
- [65:04]
Sean
It does. I will give it that.
- [65:06]
Doug
As a guy who loves the press color, the G Wagon is silver. It just is. When you say G Wagon, you're talking about a silver car.
- [65:12]
Sean
This is true. Silver is boring for the most part.
- [65:16]
Doug
But here's something I'm willing to concede. I actually don't think arena red is that great. I think if it wasn't for the famous ad, Ad kills bugs fast, I don't think we'd all be so. Oh, arena red. Arena red. Even with the famous ad. And of course, that's probably one of the most famous Porsche ads ever. Yeah. It doesn't really sell for a premium, and that's because it's not the most attractive color.
- [65:37]
Sean
It's interesting because on your car, I actually do like the Arena. It looks good, but on, like, 996s, and even though I just saw a 991 GT3 in Arena Red, it Looks
- [65:45]
Doug
bad in almost every other car. And I think the only reason we think it looks good on the 993 Twin Turbo is because it's. Is such a. It's like such a cultural thing in the car world, knowing that color on that car.
- [65:54]
Sean
Maybe it's also such a small. A small car and.
- [65:56]
Doug
Right.
- [65:56]
Sean
That era just suits that color.
- [65:59]
Doug
Yeah. Next question from Ceylon. Philippa, you can take this one too. Hey, Sean, what are we missing out on? What content are we missing out on? Because Doug loves the word no. So I very famously kind of say no to everything now. I like spending time with my family. I like playing tennis here in the. I film a lot of content here in the office. Office too, which. Which is hard to take me away from. What are we missing out on? What would.
- [66:23]
Sean
What would.
- [66:23]
Filippo
We don't even know.
- [66:24]
Doug
We don't even know because we'd be in space.
- [66:27]
Sean
We'd be at the moon.
- [66:27]
Filippo
It could be the moon. No, we'd have 43 million views too.
- [66:33]
Doug
Filippo's have anything specific because of this. Filipo manages the money of this business and he knows we could be making more if I said yes to everything.
- [66:44]
Filippo
You know, we don't talk about that because it's too triggering.
- [66:48]
Doug
Definitely. There's some tension for sure. There's the Audi TT thing. That would have been really cool. Audi invited me to drive that concept car in Germany, that tt, new TT concept car. I actually seriously considered that. Which is very rare. I haven't gone to Europe for a press launch in many, many years. I considered that one. I said, sean, I said, sean, it's gonna be like five, six days. I don't want to do it. I'm gonna be away from my family. Sean says, bring your kids. Like, yeah, that's what I want to do. Get my kids on a jet lag, on a flight to Europe with all their stuff so I could turn around two days later and come back. And I had to work one of the days filming this Audi TT video. But that would have been cool.
- [67:30]
Sean
Would have been cool. There's definitely some stuff that we're missing out on. But, like, we're. We still have so much good Doug content. You can't really be mad.
- [67:37]
Filippo
It's worth the trade off.
- [67:38]
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. And plus, like, you say yes sometimes. Like, I can. I can get you to do the. The Eurocar adventure series day.
- [67:45]
Doug
The only person in our company who can get me to say yes to stuff that I wouldn't otherwise say yes to this day. The only person there is a Limit. It only goes so far. But when Sean says, Will you sign 50 cassettes? I will do it. Shout out to. Will you go to whatever random companies annual shareholder meeting or whatever it was? Yeah, okay, fine. Sean's the only one. When our CEO asks, I'm like, no.
- [68:13]
Filippo
So Sean's got a special.
- [68:14]
Doug
Sean's got a little. There's a little special touch there.
- [68:16]
Sean
We pick our battles carefully.
- [68:18]
Doug
We pick our battles carefully. And Sean has a great way of. He tells me about it. I say no to everything, to the point where he said. He said the company's going to pay to get you new iPhone. I was like, no, it's still haven't done it. But three, four days later, he'll come back to me, bring it up again. Three, four days later, bring it up again.
- [68:38]
Filippo
You know the strategies.
- [68:39]
Doug
And he kind of, what if we did. If we did it this way, what if we did it that way? And then eventually I say yes, but still, there's a limit, mostly involving travel.
- [68:48]
Filippo
He knows.
- [68:49]
Doug
Next question from Stills 400. Dear Sean, who do you report to? Is Doug your boss? Is there an org chart that you can share? I've never really understood it myself. In a way, Sean is my boss, and in a way, I am his. I don't really understand how it works. Good enough of an answer.
- [69:04]
Sean
I follow the. The paperwork that was sent to the DMV for. For press photographer plates in which it was signed that I was your boss.
- [69:13]
Doug
So we're just.
- [69:14]
Sean
We're going to go with that. We're going to use that as our official document.
- [69:16]
Doug
Sean is my boss, at least according to the people in the DMV who pan out the press plates.
- [69:22]
Sean
But we, we do have a very cool CEO, Dan, who I'm trying to figure out how to and when to put him in a video because he actually does race cars and is like very much a car guy. Yeah, it's a really cool part about this company. It's like everybody's so passionate about cars, right?
- [69:35]
Doug
Yeah. There ain't no suits here.
- [69:36]
Sean
That's right.
- [69:37]
Doug
Even Ryan Lopez, who drives a Tesla. He also has a zesty drift car to balance it out. He's got the most boring and the most ridiculous of any car on this.
- [69:48]
Filippo
I don't think I've ever seen any of our employees wear a suit. Team members. Excuse me?
- [69:53]
Sean
Wear a suit.
- [69:54]
Doug
Team members. We got a team here.
- [69:56]
Filippo
We got a team. One time somebody dressed up and in the place of a suit, wore like shorts and a polo shirt instead of a T shirt.
- [70:04]
Doug
Oh, how nice.
- [70:05]
Filippo
That was our level of formality.
- [70:06]
Doug
We do have a good team and so are you saying you report to the CEO?
- [70:11]
Sean
I do report to the CEO.
- [70:12]
Doug
Sean's legit. That's. That's where you want to be, folks. You want to be reporting to the CEO. You don't want to be the CEO. You want to be reporting to the CEO.
- [70:20]
Filippo
Better.
- [70:22]
Doug
Yeah. Yeah. Filippo, thanks for letting us know that this is a. This isn't really a great question, but I wanted to bring it up because it's about your emails from Real S Park Owl. Dear Sean, I emailed you several weeks ago informing you that I had recently bought a 3rd gen 4 runner. So this guy just emailed Sean telling him that that's great. No purpose to it. I love that. And Sean responded and said I. He learned how to drive in one of them. What are you responding?
- [70:50]
Sean
That was the first car I ever drove. It's a third gen 4Runner. That's cool.
- [70:53]
Doug
That's cool. Also, everybody's been a. A third gen 4Runner. If everybody with third gen 4Runner experience emailed you, you, your email inbox would be full.
- [71:00]
Sean
This is true. This is true. But also I'm glad I did because now we know that he is not, indeed not, the real Aspar Gallows
- [71:07]
Doug
communicated with him. We know his actual name.
- [71:09]
Sean
So the Asparag is still not real.
- [71:11]
Doug
He said his question is. Enlighten us. After you learn driving a 3rd gen 4 runner, why did you choose a G Wagon instead of a 4Runner? It's actually a great question. It is because Sean can't handle his G Wagon and he can't get the squeaking to stop. He can't get the brake lights to work. He can't get the door locks to function. The rust spot is growing and I have been sending him four Runner listings. Did that Pro sell that green Pro? I sent him that one. And I said, sean, this is the one. This one?
- [71:37]
Filippo
That one.
- [71:38]
Doug
It was the one low mile car and it was it local. It was Utah.
- [71:43]
Filippo
One of the TRD Pro colors.
- [71:45]
Doug
TRD Pro color. I said, sean, look, I said, you can't handle your G Wagon. Why don't you step. It's not a third gen, but yeah, we'll accept the modern equivalent. I said, sean, why don't you step up and grab yourself a Forerunner? Something you can really handle. Something that's like you can accept a little. But he didn't do it.
- [71:59]
Sean
Look, there will be a time in my life where I have to make reasonable decisions like forerunners.
- [72:03]
Doug
Yeah, I'm just not there.
- [72:04]
Sean
I like having fun. And also the drivetrain, like the, the drivetrain of specifically that gen 4 runner, my very good friend.
- [72:12]
Doug
And 5th gen.
- [72:13]
Sean
The 5th gen, my good friend, producer. I've done many projects with David Silberman. We scouted the country for Top Gear and our rental was often a 5th gen 4 runner. Yeah, it was like the perfect car to take on these journeys. And like having cruise control set going through Utah. There was like a wind that, a gust that came and the car kicked down gears because the engine couldn't like keep going at the right at the correct speed.
- [72:37]
Filippo
Problem with the 4 liter reset.
- [72:40]
Sean
I just am not a fan of that drivetrain. The new 4Runner looks really nice and I have a feeling in a couple years when I'm, when I'm done with the G, it'll probably be a toss up between like a Rivian R3X if that, if that comes out and a 4Runner as like the more reasonable car. But until then, no, I'm running over, running over parking curbs in my G wagon.
- [73:00]
Doug
Then that's all he's doing. From King Burrito 3. Dear Sean, who is your dream pilot podcast guest? Sean created this podcast. He produced it, he makes it run. He is constantly trying to convince us to have guests on it. Well, I refuse because this is not a guest podcast. That's why you watch. You want to see the news. You don't want to see Jim, you don't want to see Jim Bob come on here. And for knowing his new YouTube channel. Sean, in your dream world, who is your. Who do we have on the punch for this?
- [73:28]
Sean
Carpod? Nobody. I, I fully agree.
- [73:30]
Doug
You have embraced place. Yeah, no guests.
- [73:32]
Sean
I feel like we should just take a step back and talk about like how we came up with this, this car pod. You know, I moved, moved here and was trying to think of what we could do to make some new interesting content and started hanging out with you guys and the conversations you were having.
- [73:47]
Doug
Right.
- [73:48]
Sean
Just at dinner, around the office, you know, Filippo wasn't in much content before we started, but he was so into the news and like had really good insight into car storage stories. Yeah, it just, it needed to be recorded and, and so, so we converted. There was the, the live show which is covering auctions. We converted that into the version of this podcast which is again going back to like my top your roots. Was trying to embrace this like weekly news news element where our audience could come and get what's the current happenings in the automotive world. With the same group of friends that are.
- [74:21]
Doug
And then we chat about our cars and our car life. And it's a, it's a pretty good situation. It's a great idea. There was a little bit of selling it. I remember that people. There were some people in other parts of the business who wanted to really focus more on the auctions, the live auctions, etc, which actually is kind of a cool format. But we really had. This was like what we thought would. Would sell it and when. What we thought would do well.
- [74:41]
Sean
And I'm thrilled that so many people love it and that we are on episode 105.
- [74:45]
Filippo
I know last week it's, it's.
- [74:48]
Sean
It's really cool, you know, doing a news thing again. An idea that I like, raised my hand at Motor Trend many times and said we should be using this massive office space to do a CNN style news news, daily weekly news thing. And it never, never took off. And so to have it be successful on. On the Doug Channel is so cool.
- [75:06]
Doug
Very successful. I mean, I think we're number one in car pods. And I think the news is when I, when I get feedback from people. The news is the segment that keeps them especially. I think people like to hear us chat about cars and stuff after the news. But I think the news is like the most interesting, most exciting P piece
- [75:20]
Sean
that gets the most people in dream guest. I think whistling Diesel would be pretty fun at the moment.
- [75:25]
Doug
Whistling would be a good guess. Like, I think I'd be nervous. We need like meeting your eyes. Like, it's like, it's like if Filippo ever met one of his Italian idols, Pavarotti or Michelangelo, that would be something. This is true.
- [75:38]
Sean
So whistling Come on the pod.
- [75:40]
Doug
Whistling Pop on the pod. I would make. We've made a no guest exception for a few people. We had Hoovy on. Yep. We had John Tamaran on who was who they named the Lamborghini Temario for.
- [75:50]
Sean
Right.
- [75:52]
Doug
And so we would do it for the right person. Right? We had. Oh, we had, we had rj. Like, we've done a few legit people, but you got to be legit. You can't just be the real Aspark owl talking about his third gen 4. You got to be legit.
- [76:06]
Filippo
And if you have. If you're having AC issues, all the better.
- [76:09]
Doug
Do you remember the day that I sold my A class and the guy came to pick it up and I was like, hey, man, you want to be on the pod? This is when we were still doing the live pods. He was like, all right. I liked him a lot. He was great.
- [76:19]
Filippo
Totally sold it.
- [76:20]
Doug
Next. Next question from Victory Buns. Joshawn, if you weren't producing the Cars and Bids podcast, what would you be doing professionally? Let's say I hadn't called you out of Motor Trend. Motor Trend heavily restructured, reorged their content. Do you think you'd still be working there?
- [76:36]
Sean
Probably not. Probably not. I was very much specifically working on Roadworthy Rescue at the time, which doesn't have any, any more seasons. I was freelancing. When you're in automotive TV producing, these shows have, some have good runs, some have very short runs, but amazingly, the phone always seems to, to ring for automotive content. There's, there's always something, something going on somewhere and, and I, I hope I'd be as fortunate to continue working in car. Cars. It's, it's, it's the coolest, it really is genuinely the coolest to be able to storytell and do that with the thing that you love. You know, it's, or when I get home, I go on cars and bids. It's like, right, as we all do, right?
- [77:20]
Doug
100. There's our Sean podcast. Sean, do you have anything you want to add?
- [77:25]
Sean
We never got to Alfa Romeo's, which
- [77:27]
Doug
I think is a real, okay, real
- [77:28]
Sean
shame because I have one.
- [77:30]
Doug
Someone did ask. Dear Sean, can you please, please explain why Doug should be into old Alphas like yours? Now, I'm not an old Alpha enthusiast. However, me and you did recently drive this Alfa Romeo TZ Tubulare Zagato. Yeah, we got this TZ one in the office and it was one of the greatest automotive experiences of my entire life. So now I am into old.
- [77:56]
Sean
So special. So I, I, I didn't get into this. We had so much else to cover. But I, I have a 1974 Alfa Romeo GTV that was a massive, massive.
- [78:05]
Doug
Not this car.
- [78:06]
Sean
Not this car. This is the car that's in the office. This is a tz. But my, my GTV was bought super ratty and I, I fixed it up and it's, it's, it's beautiful. It's a very fun car, but I've kind of been on the fence of selling it. I think you will sell might be on Doug's schedule to, to review.
- [78:24]
Doug
However.
- [78:25]
Sean
However, both Doug and I's life changed with this Alfa Romeo tz. It is like the lightest, most eager,
- [78:36]
Doug
athletic, fun, old school. It's a four cylinder, but it sounds like it's qualifying for Le Mans. The steering is direct. The shifter and clutch feel Modern. It was so good. So Sean no longer has to convince me on old Alphas.
- [78:50]
Sean
Yeah, Yeah. I then got home and got in my GTV and it felt like a marshmallow. I thought it was like this, like, hardcore super, like, revy thing, and that is just on a whole another level.
- [79:00]
Doug
Well, believe it or not, this is going to be on cars and bids. We're actually auctioning this car. This car's going to be sold on cars and bids. I got a review coming with it. It's got a huge reserve. It's a. It's a special car. Special valuable car. We'll cover more of that later. But I'm glad you got to sneak in Alphas, which you're obsessed with old cars. Old cars. Me and you, Felipe, will never know the joy.
- [79:17]
Filippo
I don't know. A 1973 Ford F250.
- [79:19]
Doug
Oh, that's true.
- [79:19]
Sean
Oh.
- [79:19]
Doug
Oh, you know those truck is up there. Thank you.
- [79:22]
Filippo
Finally, recognition.
- [79:23]
Doug
I appreciate you working Alpha Xan. I appreciate you coming on the pod. Subscribe to Key. Send Sean an email. Tell him if you liked his appearance on the pod.
- [79:32]
Sean
I hope you enjoyed it because it's never happening again.
- [79:34]
Doug
Sean is wonderful.
- [79:35]
Sean
You'll never see me again.
- [79:36]
Doug
He'll never be in front of the camera again ever, as long as he lives. This was the end of Sean. Undoubtedly the most time you've ever spent in any content of anything you've ever done. Amazing to see Sean. Sean, thank you for joining us on our special podcast. Thank you for watching.
- [79:51]
Filippo
Thank you. Bye.
- [79:52]
Sean
Bye.