What Do John and Derek Know? Overcoming the Fear of Imposter Syndrome 253

00:00 Derek So, if you wanna talk about cars, Ferrari, GTO, Bentley, CRX, and even death, your great-granddad Spearless, welcome to No Driving Clubs, the Car Talk Authority, where experienced knowledge

00:23 John and controversy share the same seat. Enjoy the ride. Now your hosts, John and Derek. So there's Gary giving us an introduction there, Derek. I like it. You like it? I've had him tweak it a little bit. I think I might have used it in an earlier episode, but we threw the CRX and Pearless in there. Yeah, well, I was waiting because there were a lot of new cars, and I was like, man, where'd the Brassera go? But then he nailed it. And he was referring to me, right, the great-granddad? I mean, I'm just a little old man, so. And I own the Pearless. Yes. You're almost that great-granddad. You're what, 15 years away from it? 20 years away from it? I'd say at least 20. Okay. If I have it my way, at least 30. If I've been a good parent, maybe I should delete that. So we're here to talk cars. Actually, I think we're here to talk car knowledge, aren't we?

01:41 aanoucer I think so. Yeah, car knowledge. I mean, it's what we talk about every week, but I think with the new format that we're going with here on the podcast, you and I have sat down, planned this out. We know what we want to do, but we also have those conversations off the air, John, and you and I are a lot alike, and we both struggle with what everybody, I think everybody knows, is called imposter syndrome.

02:12 John So I think we need to talk about car knowledge, our backgrounds, and imposter syndrome a little bit while we're kicking off this new version of No Driving Gloves. Yeah, I've looked at this version of No Driving Gloves. I didn't change seasons or anything. I started with episode 250 because when I went back through our back catalog during our time off, it turns out we actually were at episode 250. For some reason, I had some duplicate numbers and shows that weren't numbered and things. But when we started this a couple of weeks ago, I did my little narration telling you what's going to happen. That was episode 250, honestly, and this is probably going to be episode 252, maybe 253, since we pre-record them again. Sometimes they get shuffled a little bit in how we release. But I look at this as almost a new podcast, and I want to kind of jump on and say why we think we can do this, why we've been doing it for, is it five years, pushing six years coming up here? Coming up on six years, yeah. We've had some great numbers over time. Like I said in that episode, about a year and a half ago and stuff, I had some changes in my life and I just had to step away for a little bit. We tried all last year to get a groove going again, and we were missing it. I attribute it to the live streaming. I apologize for those that really enjoyed the live streaming. But because of the way our schedules flex, I mean, Derek and I are sitting here at like 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning recording because he's got to get off to shuffle and do some public appearances. I've actually got some things to do working on the new business. So we're here. We're trying. I don't think a lot of people join us at six in the morning for a live stream. So we've cut that out, but the numbers, you know, we could we could start like, you know, no driving gloves and coffee. Everybody just show up with their coffee and warm everybody up for cars and coffee on Saturday mornings. That's an idea. Do your no driving gloves warm up and then go to cars and coffee because if we actually recorded, say, seven to eight or so, the cars and coffee around here starts at eight thirty in the morning here in Birmingham. I don't know where it starts or for you, but it would probably work for a lot of people. They can get up, they could listen to us record, watch us record and we get them all revved up for a Saturday with cars. We might consider that. I like that. VIP club. But let's tell them why they should listen to us. What is our knowledge? What does Derek know? Where does Derek come from? What does he know about cars? What does John know about cars? What what is our past? I mean, we've alluded to it, but some people have said, well, I didn't know you did that.

05:12 aanoucer I know you did that. I know you did that. And they're going, you might actually know what you're talking about. Maybe we might actually know what we're talking about. Well, for me, John, it all started in January of 1983. My mom and dad were driving to the hospital. No, we won't go back that far. Well, you see, well, it started probably about nine months before that. Yeah, exactly. So, no, I mean, you know, it's interesting because I've been thinking about this. Yeah, we talked about doing this episode. We played around recording already one day with it. And, you know, like you said, John, finding our groove and we got through that one, had some technical glitches.

05:58 John So we're yeah, we're doing this now. And we had one of those we had one of those electric car glitches.

06:04 aanoucer Somebody forgot to plug. Yeah, somebody forgot to plug. This is why I don't own an electric car. But, you know, it gave me time to think about it. Actually, I saw an article get posted shortly after we we had attempted that episode and about imposter syndrome. And I honestly I think it was from one of the car magazines, Car and Driver, one of those. And it just it's given me time to think about it. And, you know, it's it's interesting. I think a lot of it plays into our personality. And, you know, I'm I'm not someone who, you know, my personality isn't to go out there and and tell everybody what I know. And, you know, oh, I'm the greatest there is.

06:55 John And this, that the other thing. And so, you know, I tend to kind of fall to the background sometimes unless, you know, there's some talk that I have to give or, you know, go drive a car and talk about it. And it's history and stuff like that. Then I'm kind of upfront and, you know, center stage, whatever you want to call it. But in my personal life outside of things, I tend to be reserved and not feel like, you know, again, going back to that imposter syndrome where, you know, I'm just like, you know what? I'm going to step back. I, you know, maybe I don't know as much as I think I do. Well, I think we fall into the same thing. We've talked about it maybe on a couple of episodes. We've definitely talked about it off air is our careers have kind of required us to do that at points. But again, I'm the guy that even I've alluded to some of the stuff I've done in high school and that when I would go to parties, I'd get invited to parties because of the people I knew and I could bring these people and I could have a decent conversation. But I wasn't the center of the party. I wasn't the life of the party. But I have no problem public speaking. I have no problem getting on this microphone every week and talking about stuff. I've got I've got various podcasts out there and I've got podcasts out there that I do that I don't do as far as the public's concerned. And I talk about a lot of a lot of things and I'm not afraid to talk about myself. I'm not afraid to talk about my experiences. I'm not afraid to do part of that imposter syndrome. I sit here and I think, boy, this guy had this story and this guy did that and this guy did that. Boy, I really want to get to that point. And I wake up in the morning and go, I'm 50 years old. I'm the age of these people that used to tell me these stories. Where the hell are my stories? And I've alluded once or twice in the past. Somebody asked me one day at a car club event. We're sitting around having lunch like we used to do pre-COVID. And he said, what's the most exciting or what's the most spectacular thing you've ever done in your car career? Because everybody thinks I have this fabulous life around cars. And I thought about it and I couldn't come up with anything. Oh, wow. I've restored this. I restored that. You know, it's great to do, you know, you know, you know, I've done some notable stuff. I've done conservation of Saturn V rocket. I've done conservation work on the Titanic. I've done, you know, a Cunningham C3 before they were the end car. I've restored dozens of Lotus race cars that very, you know, I do some very low production stuff. A lot of my career was restoring cars they made fewer than 20 of. And I think in one episode I said to you, you've actually worked on cars that fewer than 20 people have driven. But I just get to this. I don't know the story. And after a week of thinking about it, I sat down at lunch the following week with that guy and I said, hey, I figured out my story. And that's my Mario Andretti story, you know, Lotus and a racetrack and driving instructions and almost crashing. And you know what? I think the way that story I repeat quite often. And I've said it on the podcast before. That's a pretty cool story. People really grasp onto that and go, hey, wait, maybe, you know, that's part of this getting over imposter syndrome. Wait, I've got this story. What other things have I done that to me is just normal life that other people would, you know, give their right arm literally to do? And it's it's been a very exciting career. But as we've talked before, Derek, you and I have been in. Conservation and museums were a lot of stuff you can't talk about publicly. I mean, when I work for a non-par, excuse me, for a for-profit museum conservation company, I couldn't go home and not that social media was huge at the time. I couldn't go home and post to MySpace or, you know, the Facebook because it was that early on that I'm hey, I'm restoring these statues or I'm doing this. Or today I was, you know, at the former Chrysler mansion, which is now the Belgian. I couldn't or Belgian embassy. I couldn't do that stuff because you have to be secretive and the stuff you're doing. You don't know what the end client's going to do or the museum can't do or you can't. We're going to get into an episode. I think we're going to talk a little bit of behind the scenes museum life and some things that are we both you and I feel go against the museum code in the future. And that's going to be a touchy episode. There's things in the museum world that you can't talk about either fear for hurting the nonprofit you're working for alienating people that support the nonprofit you're working for and things like that. That's why it's kind of, you know, will always had that freedom that he could say whatever the hell he wanted because it was him he damaged. And when I left the museum, where I world, I find I got to a point where I can say some of that stuff. But there's a part of me that may want to re enter that world. So I have to be careful. I mean, if all this business stuff doesn't work out the way I plan it to. And so far it's been doing, you know, last four years have been pretty good to me, even though I, you know, have I've re entered a different phase of my career with computers. But I still do a lot of the business stuff that I was creating.

12:43 aanoucer And it's, you know, can't wake up one morning and say, hey, I have a podcast business and leave everything else behind. But I've got that. And I have an imposter syndrome on my cigar podcast, too. And it turns out we have a I have a ton of cigar knowledge that I you just pick up over, you know, 12 years in that industry and 30 years in the automotive industry. Yeah. And I think, you know, for me, I've been I've been thinking about it, like I said, since we talked about doing this episode and reading a couple articles. And I think one thing for me is that I've I've always I guess in my career and in maybe even in my personal life. And and this isn't, you know, I'm not saying this to upset anyone. I'm not saying this to, you know, get a dig at anybody out there, anything like that. But I've never been a fan of the term car guy. And I really don't like that label. And I've had to think about that and understand why. And a big part of it is I always say I'm not a car guy because to me, I think what the outside world thinks when they hear car guy that that are not car people is they think of the weekend car show at the local park and the guys that are down there with their, you know, 60s, 70s era American muscle cars and their 50s, you know, Bel Airs and things like that. They're down there in a lawn chair or maybe down on the town square at the local car show. And, you know, they're they're spraying their car down with their detail wax, wiping it down, make sure it looks just right. That to me, I think is is the idea of a car guy to the non car world to the folks that are non car people. And I am not that person. I don't I rarely go to car shows. I rarely take my cars to car events. I typically just drive them around, be it to work or just for fun on the weekend. I don't really go to car shows a lot and really never have. And so I've always kind of been like, and I don't don't label don't label me as a car guy. So, you know, I think that may have even been part of the initial like imposter syndrome because I'm not one of those guys. I don't look at myself as one of those car guys that go down and do that. I'm I'm car passionate, but I've also realized that I am I put the museum what you were just talking about, John. I put the museum professional first and the car passion second because my career is museums. Yes, it's auto museums, but, you know, it's it's about the professional level and ethical levels of nonprofits over the typical car passion and what I do. And I try to separate those very much. And you're right. A lot of times I couldn't go out and and talk about what I was doing at work because, you know, the museum wanted to use it as PR. So it needed to be held back and be marketed properly and talked about properly on TV shows or on early social media, things like that. And so, you know, it was just like, yeah, you know, I work in I work in conservation at the Henry Ford. I deal with the car collection, things like that. And I think one of the funniest stories that come out of that is my my lovely wife will be she's in the museum field as well. And we may be hanging out at an event talking to people. And I will talk a little bit about my career when people ask and I go, well, what have you, you know, what have you worked on? What have you done? And I'll list off some of the cars like you said, John, you know, old 16. I had the pleasure of for a number of years maintaining old 16 and had the opportunity to drive it. Probably less than 10 or 15 people have driven that car in the world. That's, of course, the famous Vanderbilt Cup race car that won the 1908 race that's at Henry Ford Museum. But I'll I'll talk about all these cars and things that I've done in the automotive conservation field. And. My wife will just stand there and wait patiently. And at the end, she'll go, oh, and he forgot to mention he did the conservation on George Washington's Camp Chest from the Revolutionary War. I'm like, yeah, but it's not a car. You know, it's that thing where it's like, you know. Again, it's I don't feel the need to, you know, talk about it and I guess flaunt it in some way that, hey, I, you know, I do all this and this is why I, I know what I'm talking about. I guess in some circles, I feel like. You should just give someone respect. And I don't think I guess the way I look at it is I always walk into a situation and I give the person I'm talking to the benefit of the doubt. I believe that, you know, when I met John for the first time. We had I brought Mustang, Vin number one. And Mustang one concept car down from Henry Ford to the Barber Museum. That's when I met John and, you know, I met the guys at the Barber. I all I gave them all the benefit of the doubt that these guys know what they're talking about and professionals because they've been hired by this institution to do this job. I don't know when going, well, you don't have you don't have any clue what you're talking about. You better prove yourself to me. I'm the type that walks in and goes, OK, I believe, you know. What to know. But if in talking to you, I realize that you don't, then I will change my opinion. I don't know if any of that makes sense. So I guess, you know, I mean, so going back, I guess we need to talk about we're kind of talking about what imposter syndrome is and why we think we have it. I guess we should probably hit on the fact that we actually do know what we're talking about and give some of our background, shouldn't we, John? Well, we might.

19:32 John And I mean, I'm sitting here and I pulled out my iPad and started scratching off a few things because I've been working on some sayings or we've got to come up with a slogan for this podcast, something. And I had one where where did I put it? I just crossed it off, but it's on this list somewhere. Car guys tell them like it is. So I guess we can't use car guys telling them like it is. But it's. And I understand what you're saying. I mean, I'm not Don Toretto and I don't have my 70 charger with a big blower on it and go out and make all this noise. I've been the odd man out at a lot of car shows. I know I show up with my CRX or I show up with, you know, big car stereo or subtle modifications. I mean, as radical as I think I've ever got with my car collection is I had and I've talked about it before. 1980 Azusa pickup that was convertible and it had the rear quarters had this purple graphic on it and everything. Very loud statement of a car. But we got around to swapping in a Corvette motor into it like an L82 Corvette or something just standard 350. But it sounds cool as a Corvette motor. But my biggest goal with that is I wanted it as quiet as Lincoln. I don't want the loud exhaust in that. And it was great because back in 1990, you pull up into a stoplight with a convertible pickup and the guy in his five liter sitting next to you and he's got his hot girlfriend. And she's checking out the truck because it's different and it's in. And of course, he's the typical car guy. No offense to Mustang guys, but you guys do have a reputation. And she's checking out the truck and he goes, well, I'm going to beat him off the line or whatever, because that's all he's got. He's just got a lot of muscle, which literally they usually have a lot of muscle when I'm just a scrawny guy in a purple truck and they take off. And I could take off and either keep up or beat him. And then it takes away everything they got because that's as loud as I've ever gotten with really a custom car. I had that and I guess I had my 80 Ford Courier that had a 231 V6. It was turbocharged and stuff. Basically a Grand National Motor stuck in this little Ford Courier with a fiberglass stepside bed. The trim was falling off. And if you put more than five dollars of gas in it, it leaked out of the tank. I mean, it wasn't the greatest thing in the world. I paid like 800 bucks for the truck. But that's, you know, that's like I said, as radical as I ever got. Normally I am this quiet conservative guy and we have these huge events at the barber and an IndyCar races with, you know, get 80,000, 100,000 people through on a weekend for IndyCar Vintage Festival, which is a historical motorcycle event, one of the largest in the country. And people come up and they talk to you and they tell you you do your job for free and things like that. And your comment is an equipment we're going to have to take you out back and shoot you because we don't want Mr. Barber to find out about that because he'd love to have free labor. And it turns out now they've got a really good volunteer staff. And I think he's taken on some of that free labor. But it's you were always very conscious of what you said, because to be honest, you didn't know if you were talking to a reporter or somebody in the press. And, you know, I gave a tour to Rutledge Wood once and turns out Rutledge is best friends with one of my good friends, Sons. And eventually we hope to get Rut on the show. But he, you know, that didn't click in my head until about 20 minutes into this tour that that's Rutledge. And who knows what he's going to go out and tell all of his car friends. So you always have to be very professional and you can't. You can't really say like it is. I worked at a shop probably literally was 20 years ago and the owner's son was giving a tour to a guy and we commonly gave tours at that shop. And he went by the stout scarab that we were restoring that had been there for 10 years. And when it showed up, it was basically rust halfway down the car and nothing was there. And you took the top and grafted a new bottom on it. And I mean, everything was made and just progress and progress. And he made some comment about how ugly and stupid the car was. Well, the guy getting the tour was friends with the owner of that car and it was actually, hey, I'm going to blah, blah, blah. And he said, well, why are you there? Can you go by this place and check on my car? You know, it's taken a long time. And he was sent there as a spy. And two weeks after this guy toured, the owner called and said, hey, stop work on my car. I'm sending it to another shop because when the owner says this is a piece of crap and we don't like it, why are you going to leave your car at that shop? And it cost him finishing the car. And then it went away. And then the car, when you see a Stout Scarab touring right now and on display and I saw it at the High Museum and I know it's done some of these Ken Gross slip into art museum displays and that, that's the car. It's the one that's in the books. And look at the publicity that museum lost because, or the Stout Scarab. Because somebody said the wrong thing to the wrong person. And we've always have that in the back of your head. And it's something Derek and I, we've discussed. We kind of got to get out of that shell when we're doing something like this. We've got to talk about, you know, what we've done. And again, there are things that we've talked about. I think there's five or six still existing.

25:40 aanoucer Basically the original minivan. I walked by and worked with that car for three years, three and a half years until it went away. And there's just, that's a significant piece of automotive history. Well, and I think it's also, you know, not to cut you off, John, but I think it's also, I guess the way I look at it, I feel like sometimes it's dangerous to think that you know more than you do. Right. And, and I think that's a significant piece of automotive history. Sometimes it's dangerous to think that you know more than you do. Right. And, and in some ways, I guess the word, you know, being humble, you know, just being humble about who you are and what you know, because I always, and maybe it's the type of vehicles that you and I have worked on in our careers that are extremely rare, one of a kinds or one of, you know, 20 or whatever that it was. They were very minimally produced because they're not your mass produced Chevelles, GTOs, Mustangs, Cudas, you know, things like that, where, okay, if, if I work on, pretty much if I work on one or two 69 Chevelles, I pretty much know everything there is to know about how a Chevelle was built, how it needs to be restored. So on and so forth. But to me, if I get to a point, and this is the way I look at my career and the way I kind of grow and learn, if I get to a point where I think I know everything there is to know, and man, I'm just the best there is out there, I'm just the best there is out there. Then I'm no longer open to learning about new vehicles and new things that are out there, right? Because every, and I'm not saying that I'm not going to be able to learn about new things, but I'm going to be able to learn about new things that are out there. And if I get to a point where I think I know everything there is to know and man, I'm just the best there is out there, then I'm no longer open to learning about new vehicles and new things that are out there, right? I mean, I work at a museum now that has probably one of the largest one of a kind collections there are. We have, I believe it's over 40 one of a kind automobiles in our collection that have been built throughout history.

27:57 John And I mean, I don't know how each one of those is built and how each one of those works. And I mean, one of those is a two wheeled gyroscopically balanced car. Okay. If I was to go in there and be like, well, I just, I know everything and I wouldn't be able to sit down and learn from the guys that restored that car, how it works. So to me, that's part of it too, is I, I, I don't like to go in somewhere and brag or be like, well, I just, I know everything there is to know about everything because something is going to pop up where I don't have a freaking clue how that works. Yeah. Your museum, I'm trying to think. I know you, I know don't, I don't know everything in your museum, but you've got an original, I'm sure you've got an original mini in there and you've got a Citroen two CV and a couple of things like that. But the big, big one that everybody's going to know, you've got a 94 Dodge Viper. That's probably one of the highest production cars you have in your museum. Yeah. And in 94, they only built like 2000 Vipers. I mean, in the entire Viper production run, they probably haven't built much, many more than 10,000. And when it comes to a Chevelle or Mustang, that was March's production. You know, and that's exactly what you said. Even if you worked on the most produced car in that collection, you're still working on something that very, very, very few people know about. And for using a Viper, a lot of Vipers don't know much about their Viper other than, like I always say, there's two things about a Viper. Viper's jobs to kill you, your jobs to stay alive. And that's, that's one of, you know, that's the weird thing there. I was trying, you said something else in that and that slipped my mind that, you know, I can relate to it. And that's one of, you know, Eric and I know a tremendous amount and I've got an idea for some shows because we want to do some of these mini shows that popped up here. And it'll help us get some of this imposter syndrome out of the way. It's, oh, it's what I was going to say is like, it's the Cunningham C3. I worked on the C3 Continental Coupe. I did the restoration in 2003. A car went on display, was added a million pebble and that in 04 and 05 and things like that. Eventually sold, the owner sold it for upper six figures. It's the most expensive restoration our shop had ever done at the time.

30:32 aanoucer But it was when I was doing that restoration, 18 of these cars in the country, I could only find one other that was undergoing a restoration and I could only find one other C3 in the country because they were forgotten cars. And the other C3 I found was Briggs Cunningham's grandson had one. And I went and visited it and honestly, it's not that far from you if it's still there. Yes, they live up in Northern Kentucky, not far from here. And that was the research I did. And then that car came out and it was weird because I knew it. I was one of the foremost experts on Cunningham C3 Continental Coupes at the time. And that car came out three, four years later. Every Cunningham C3 in the country was under restoration, except one. And our barn find hunter, former guest Tom Cotter, eventually came across that car and he drives it. It's an unrestored Cunningham C3. Maybe I can get him back on the show and we can talk C3s. But here's the funny thing, John, you know, imposter syndrome. I'm sitting back here not saying anything, but breaking that imposter syndrome. I've driven Tom's Cunningham. It is incredible. It is a fantastic car to drive. And I enjoyed every single moment of it.

31:55 John And to add to your imposter syndrome, I restored this car. And unfortunately, the guy I restored it for passed away a few years ago. Matter of fact, I think he passed away in 2017, the year we launched the podcast. But I have imposter syndrome so bad, even though I restored the car and I fully know what I'm capable of doing. You touched every nut bolt on this car and put it all back together. I was always so hesitant on driving it because I did the work and I didn't want to break my work. Now, I think the cars passed on to two other owners and the guy that bought it off the gentleman I restored it for took it. He sent it through a shop, from what I understand, and they touched up some things that maybe needed retorqued and that. But the restoration was 10, 12 years old, even at the time. And then he did road tours with it, you know, these thousand mile rallies and that. So I guess my work was pretty solid, but I wasn't too I wasn't overly confident to really run a Cunningham the way even Tom Cotter runs his Cunningham, you know, on the track and things like that. But damn, those were fun cars. They were, you know, aluminum bodied, you know, steel chassis. And it was one of these things. It was like a Cadillac Elantay. I always compare it to. I mean, the body in that was basically the chassis was assembled in the United States and it was shipped to Italy and it was bodied by Vingale. And then it came back to this country and was finished up and then sold. And they were fifteen thousand dollar cars in 1952. And your house was ten thousand dollars in 1952, significantly one of the most expensive cars sold. But that's I think one of those huge glaring imposter syndromes. Every car I ever restored, I always in the back of my head said, I can't build a car. I don't know how to build a car. I have this persona that's out there that says I can build a car, but I never had the confidence that I could build a car in the very end. And that just screams imposter syndrome. And, you know, the cars I've built. All pretty much all went out and were driven and driven and driven. I learned that the TR6 that I restored, which the time I restored, you could have bought a Ferrari 360 for the same money that went into that car, has come back to the shop recently. The same shop that I worked at and they did a refreshing because the guy bought it, took it home and it's basically in a car bubble in his garage. He's never driven it. The car had 18 additional miles from the time we restored it. But because of the reproduction stuff, the rubber and rotted in that.

34:41 aanoucer But, you know, it's a perfect sculpture and it's probably the nicest TR6 in the world, but nobody's ever going to pay 200 grand for it. Yeah, I mean, it's still, when you get down to it, it's TR6. Right. I mean, that's and that's the thing. You know, I think the other thing that, you know, plays into it, at least again for me, is, you know, I grew up with and, you know, we've talked about it. Even when we launched the podcast, we gave a little bit of our backgrounds, but I grew up in a restoration shop. I grew up with a dad that restored cars. He was a GM body man, you know, in his day to day life, 40 hour a week job, whatever you want to call that. And, you know, but he always restored cars, whether it was for the Mitchell collection there in Owasso near where I grew up. You know, private collectors, things like that. Yeah, we were always working on restoring cars. So I learned from a very young age, the techniques of restoration and the way to restore things. And the interesting thing is dad and I still, I mean, dad still run in his restoration shop, still got a number of cars in there. I obviously have my cars that I collect and work on and restore. But, you know, you also have to remember that those techniques and the understanding of restoration and this is what I'm a big, big proponent of is all of those change over time because we learn more. We study vehicles more. And that's a big part of my job is researching and studying vehicles. And, you know, from what dad and I were doing 30 years ago now in the restoration shop, what I was learning, you know, if I went back and only use those techniques, then I would be really improperly restoring some cars because we've learned more about them and understand more of their history and the techniques that were used to restore those cars. And, you know, I think that's another point of probably what plays into the imposter syndrome is that I always have that thirst for more knowledge and more understanding. And, you know, I guess I'll use an example, you know, unfortunately, I had my 31 Chrysler CM6 out last year and some, you know, the older restoration, not from me, but I bought it this way. And I didn't look it over well enough or something. And on a trip, the top insert tour, so early cars, you know, they didn't have all the technology to build a full roof panel in the, you know, up until about 1936. And so they would have these, you know, leatherette or vinyl inserts in the top and they have to be done a very specific way. They have to be stretched under heat, sealed, you know, put sealer on them, all this. There's a technique. And I didn't realize that. And again, I didn't know exactly how a 31 Chrysler CM6 tops insert had been done in period. And, you know, so I was like, okay, well, you know, driving around and that. Well, the top was done somewhat incorrectly and the very back edge of it ripped up. You know, it was it released from the way they attached it toward the top. So now I have to replace that insert. But I am I have not done it yet because I'm trying to find out what the exact top insert material was in 31 for Chrysler. What did it look like? There was what was called Cobra long grain leatherette vinyl, you know, kind of an oil cloth with a leather long grain pattern. And that's what's on the car. But that was not typically used in some of the higher end automobiles. You know, really, that was Model A's were popular for having the Cobra long grain vinyl. And so I'm doing research. I'm trying to figure out what was it. I'm looking for original pictures, all this stuff. And so I'm in a few Chrysler Dodge Plymouth groups on social media. So I go in and I post, you know, hey, this is what happened. It's really unfortunate. I'm looking for an unrestored CM6 or someone who has information leading to what this would have been. And what I want to know is was there metal trim edge trim around this top insert? I got two responses on my social media posts. One was somewhat useful because the guy said, well, I don't have a 31, but I have a 34. And the top material that was original on the car when I got it, he found an original unrestored car. He said, you know, it was not long grain. It was not Cobra long grain. It was a smoother finish. It's like not sure if that's what they did in 31, but that's what 34 was. That's great because it gives me an idea of what it was in somewhat in period. The other comment was, yeah, an old guy long time ago told me they use the long grain. So that's just what I use. Make sure you glue it down well. Like that is not that that's no, that's not acceptable. That's not at least in my world. It's not acceptable because I'm trying to find out. I want to know exactly what it is because then when I talk about it, I know that I'm not an imposter. I know that I'm not just spreading a myth and spreading rumors. I have done the research. I know for a fact it was XYZ type material. It had metal edge trim nailed in around the edge. It had certain padding underneath it. So on and so forth. So I think that plays into it too, is that maybe I know general. I can't say that word. I know the general. Yes, that's what I'm looking for.

41:01 John You kind of know what was the common practice, but you don't know the exact details until you do the research and really find out. That makes sense to you, John. Oh, makes definite sense. But it also really highlights a little bit of us and some of our problems, maybe with the podcast, in that we get that deep into a car. You're worried about grain and material and actual construction processes. And it's we're so exacting because of the museum background. We want to make sure absolutely everything's perfect. Everything is original.

41:42 aanoucer And nothing is different. And sometimes that gets a little dry and boring. No offense to you, Derek, but oh, no, believe me, I know I'm dry and boring. Believe me, I've actually you know, getting into that. Sorry. I told your thought, John. Hold it. Hold on to it. Don't let it go. I'm very used to being the person who gets attacked and questioned. And well, who do you think you are? I've been involved in a number of articles. There's a very well, I don't know, very well known to me article in Hemings because I was interviewed for an article in Hemings and was one of the one of the times that I got literally attacked on social media and Hemings website for my comments, which are fine because that's what I believe.

42:41 John And, you know, it's just I know I'm dry and very matter of fact. And everything has to be right in my world, I guess. So, you know, hey, I'm used to it. Sorry. Go ahead, John. Oh, I again, I totally understand what you mean. I actually I at one point Hemings sent me a preliminary copy of one of their magazines before they introduced it. And I think it was the best magazine Hemings ever made. And of course, they have canceled the subscription. I think we talked about it on the podcast. Actually, it was sports and exotics. And they sent me one of the early issues and they had a huge article on Lotus seven in it. And I tore it to pieces. The article never came out in the real magazine because I'm assuming it was wrong and it was wrong in a lot of different ways. And thinking back and I came across the magazine the other day, you know, for what the general public wanted to know, it was perfect. For what the Lotus seven connoisseur wanted to know, it was absolutely horrendous. And it conveyed the message and it probably, you know, it's a lot of the marketing I've learned in the last five or six years on the side. If I would have looked at it as an advertising piece to increase the popularity of the car, it was perfect. If I looked at it as a scientific piece to discuss the car to somebody restoring it, it was absolutely horrible. And I've tried to learn and find a happy medium between the two. I haven't got there yet. The podcast has helped me. Some of the business stuff that I'm doing is helping me. But hanging out with Eric and I always throw Will into this because, you know, Will spent 200 episodes with us and that's 200 hours plus all the additional time in the background. Learned a little bit. I mean, Will even yelled at me at a car show once because I was critiquing something and he said, he took me off to say, we don't do that here. We've got to be nice because we never know how, again, what I said earlier, you never know who's the guy behind you listening. If it's somebody related to that shop, that car owner or whatever, it could hurt his business in the future. So even though I say Will had this carefree, I'm going to tell it like it freaking is attitude, he always had it in the back of his mind. And this big bearded man with this TV show and Backwoods Alabama, he knows what he's talking about. And when you first meet him, you think, oh, Backwoods Alabama, to be honest, he's the easiest person I've ever edited on a podcast because he's taken professional speaking courses. He doesn't use crutch words a lot. He knows exactly what to say and when to say it. He knows marketing and he's as honest as the day is long. It's kind of how he does some of his business for me coming from D.C. and Chicago area and that. No way in hell we would ever do business like Will does. But it's the honesty and the thing about him. But again, it's I don't know, it's just. We haven't talked a lot about us today, Derek, but that's kind of where we're coming from.

46:29 aanoucer There is a lot of knowledge in this head and your head and our surroundings. I think we did talk about our backgrounds and our knowledge. It's just little nuggets that are dropped into the conversation that you got to kind of listen for.

46:42 John You know, you were saying earlier about your. Or us not being able to talk about ourselves, my biggest proponent over my career, especially after moving to Birmingham, was one of my girlfriends 10, 12 years ago. She was all about what I did and had all these little things she would describe. And some of them were sexual and whenever relating back to my relationship and my restoration career. And one of the biggest consulting jobs I ever got ended up being a little disappointed in the end because business friendship overlapped a little bit and. Was gotten because this gentleman said, hey, I'm thinking about doing this. I need to find somebody who can help me with it. And this third party said, well, why don't you ask John? This is what he does. And so he did. And we sat down in our first meeting and I said, you need to do this, this, this, this and this. And you need to send me every single email. And I didn't think he sent me every single email, but I'm cleaning up email. I got a ton of emails over the build of this car. Unfortunately, he didn't do this, this, this and this and this that I told him in the first meeting. And by the end and when the car was delivered, it wasn't quite right. I tried to go do some tweaking to it and he. By the time the car was delivered, it wasn't quite right. And he got frustrated with it, shipped it back to the builder and said, fix these things. And while it was at the builder decided hell with it, I don't want it back. You know, sell it for me. So it was just absolutely cool. It was a replica that was not Bradley GT kit car. This was a three hundred, four hundred thousand dollar replica of a car. And there were just certain things wrong with it. And if you would have listened to what I said in the beginning, it would have been right. But I don't think he realized in the beginning of the conversation, because I'm always so quiet. And this is what I do. And he didn't trust me in the beginning. By the end, he trusted me. And when it's sitting in his garage and I'm looking at it and going, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. This is unsafe. We tried to fix something and it created a whole nother problem somewhere else. This car is a little piece together. And that's why he I think in the end, he decided to sell it is I had found so many things in 30 minutes with the car. He didn't know what we were going to find if we spent an hour with the car. So it's it's a buildup. We've been doing this for almost six years now. June will be our sixth anniversary, two hundred and fifty shows. If you really want to know what Derek and I are about. Go back and listen to the episodes. A lot of our fans have commented. We know a hell of a lot more than we let on. And some of them that have met us personally and hung out. You really know a lot more. So you can go back if you don't trust us. Listen to that stuff. If you have questions, send them in. Produce Excuse me, producer at no driving gloves dot com.

50:06 aanoucer You have questions, send them in producer at no driving gloves dot com. And we'll try to answer for you. We'll try to get him answered. But I think. Why, this is a very uncomfortable episode for us to do because we're talking about ourselves and we feel like we're just sitting here bragging, bragging, bragging. I hope we presented it in a. Very friendly manner. A humble manner, as I like to say. Yeah, yeah, humble. And as John said, the new version of no driving gloves, we're going to bring out some different mini episodes. Different topics, things like that. And hopefully that will also help reveal who we are and why we do what we do and why we wanted to do this podcast.

50:56 John And I think why we're revamping the way the podcast is is put together and hopefully making it bigger and better in the end. Now. We're going to kind of wrap up. I'm going to say no driving gloves dot com. You can go there, find all these back episodes we're referring to. You can find our little store with a few little items that we recommend car wise. Some of that's going to change here in the near future. We're going to have a lot, lot more lot, not necessarily going to be Amazon links now, but very specific items in that that you're not going to be able to find anywhere else. That's going to slowly progress. Send us an email. I said with questions. Send us your email address. Once you're on the email list, once we decide to maybe start doing, you're not going to get invited every episode, but you'll get invited to most of the recordings. You can sit here and watch the behind the scenes recordings and our off screen chats and things like that. And also, if you say something that we can pull you up on screen for and maybe we'll bring you right into the show. Hopefully you have a good microphone or something. But there's some new software that helps editing. But those are the biggest thing. Biggest thing you can do for us is tell a friend about the show. If you're enjoying what you hear, tell a friend. We're here for you. We're going to be here every week. I was up extremely late the other night trying to get the show edited to get it out because there are way too many things going on for me this week. And I schedule got out of hand, but we still get it out. It was still out to you. Actually, it released Tuesday night instead of Wednesday. But so it was out a little bit early. We've got the new host, Brian. We've got a couple. I've got a couple of shows recorded with him. We're going to get Brian, Derek and me on a show and see how it all goes. Brian's got some very interesting perspective being 20 years younger than all of us. And Brian and I just did a show. Well, you probably have heard the show where we talked about changes in buying cars. And Brian has never lived in a world without the Internet. And it's just kind of it's a big factor in that. Yes. But with that, I guess the last thing I say, I think I'm going to add to the end of this show. Derek's introduction and my introduction back from 2017 when the show launched. So after we sign off, hang around a second, you will hear basically the first two episodes of No Driving Gloves. Hell, I might even throw wheels up there. So we'll be the first three episodes and you can find out where we started and maybe where we're at now. Derek, you got anything else for us tonight or we're going to sign off and I think you got to get to work. Yeah, I think that was a good episode. And yeah, I'm going to go do my thing. That's it. It's No Driving Gloves for this week. Join us next week. Tell a friend about us. NoDrivingGloves.com for everything else. Check us out on social media. I got a couple of things change in there. With that, I'm gone. See you next time. Just another quick teaser for No Driving Gloves. I was sitting there thinking about how did I become a car guy? What's the story behind it? And I've been told many times by my mother and father that I would sit in the back of our 70 charger. As soon as we'd come to a red light, I'd start crying. That might have been the first tip that I actually was going to become a car person. I checked out a car and driver from the Warren Elementary School Library in 1984. That car and driver green border in the center was a picture of a 1947 Tipo Ferrari. Spider Corsa. First Ferrari ever made. Also included a little pictorial and article about the new 288 Ferrari GTO. That magazine never got returned to the library. I probably owe one heck of an overdue fine. That very car and driver still sits framed in my home office, reminding me of the day where I fell in love with cars. Remember, we're going to start launching full episodes of No Driving Gloves. You can enjoy it. We can have fun. We'll have some of these stories from Will and Derek in the near future. Until then, happy motoring.

55:23 aanoucer Hey, everybody. It's Derek from No Driving Gloves. I'm just here to talk a little bit about how I became a car guy. Great thing is I grew up in an automotive family. There's pictures of me from the time I was in diapers playing with some type of car related toy. And I had the good fortune that out in the shop behind the house, you know, there was a 1937 Ford that my dad was restoring. And I grew up around that car. And we just added more and more cars to the fleet as we were, you know, as I was growing up and had the good fortune that he maintained a large private collection as well. I got to go with him, sit inside some of the cars, learn about him, learn their history. And it really turned me into the car guy and the automotive museum professional I am today. So that's a little bit about my story. I hope you guys tune in to No Driving Gloves and catch up on what will John and myself have to say.