To All The Cars I've Loved Before: Classic Car Restoration, JDM, and Automotive History
The ultimate automotive history and classic car restoration podcast exploring the motoring memories behind iconic vehicles. Hosted by Doug and Dave, we trade technical specs for the unfiltered stories and family car history that reveal the soul of car culture. Join us every #TorqueTuesday for a deep dive into automotive nostalgia with restoration junkies and vintage vehicle enthusiasts. 🏎️🛠️
To All The Cars I've Loved Before: Classic Car Restoration, JDM, and Automotive History
Women in Automotive Tech: Career Training at Weber State University 👩🔧🎓
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Click here to share your favorite car, car story or any automotive trivia!
Automotive technology training and careers for women in the Weber State University auto tech program...
What if your college classes involved rebuilding engines, testing 4-wheel dynos, and taking field trips to SEMA? 🎓🏎️
In this episode, we go back to school with Brandon Stevenson (Instructor) and McKenna (Student) from Weber State University's Automotive Technology Program in Ogden, Utah. Recently featured on PBS NewsHour, this unique program combines traditional automotive skills with cutting-edge computer science, preparing the next generation for the future of mobility.
We dive into their personal automotive histories, including Brandon’s journey from a 1979 Camaro Z28 to diagnosing Tesla battery cells, and McKenna’s trial-by-fire with a Ford Explorer that literally went up in smoke in an Arby's drive-thru.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- 🔥 The "Ford Exploder": McKenna’s first car story involving a 2004 Ford Explorer, a drive-thru fire, and a quick lesson in roadside resilience.
- 🏎️ The High School Z28: How Brandon restored his dad’s 1979 Camaro Z28 in high school shop class (and why he's now swapping in an LS engine).
- ⚡ Modern Mechanics: Why automotive technology is now housed in the same building as Computer Science and how students learn to fix everything from carburetors to EV battery modules.
- 🎓 The Weber State Advantage: A look inside the program that offers certificates, associate's, and bachelor's degrees—and sends students to SEMA in Las Vegas.
- 🔧 Turbo Berettas: Brandon’s wild history of modifying daily drivers, including a turbocharged Chevy Berettathat went from 30 MPG to 14 MPG (but made all the power).
Makenna and Brandon's favorite episode is with Weber fellow student and instructor duo, Cade and Dallas: https://buzzsprout.com/2316026/episodes/16548659
Whether you are an aspiring mechanic, an industry pro, or just love a good story about blowing up cars in fast-food lines, this episode offers a fascinating look at the future of the trade.
🔗 Links & Resources:
- Check out the program: weber.edu/automotive
- Watch their tech videos: WeberAuto on YouTube
- Listen to our 60+ episodes on LinkTree 🔗🌲 https://linktr.ee/carsloved
📢 Join the Conversation: Did you take auto shop in school? What was your favorite project? Let us know on Instagram @toallthecarsivelovedbefore
Special Thanks to PBS NewsHour for connecting us with Weber State University’s leading Automotive Technology Program—where hands-on automotive education meets real-world automotive technology.
Connect with Us: Got a great car story? Email us at stories@carsloved.com. Find all our content and social links here: linktr.ee/carsloved.
Podcast News:
- Our co-host, Doug was a guest on the Driven Radio Show Podcast to share the origin story of our podcast and connecting with his late father through his DeLorean project.
- Check out the amazing article about the podcast by Elevate Society and Tal Gur, author of "The Art of Fully Living"
- Feedspot selected To All The Cars I've Loved Before in their list of Top 100 Car Podcasts and 31 Best Road Trip Podcasts For Your Drive
- Our co-host, Doug was featured in this magazine article along with his DeLore...
CarsLovecom
ChristianWelcome, listenerland. You have found the best podcast you've never heard of or never heard about. But you know we're trying to fix this one continent at a time. You've reached to all the cars I've loved before your authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia, the podcast where every car tells a story, every machine has a soul and every car has a culture. I am Christian at CarsLovecom. He is Doug at CarsLovecom. Yes, those are our real names, my middle name. I had it changed to the at symbol, so my first name is Christian. My last name is CarsLove, so the middle name is at. He is Doug at CarsLovecom. And have you done all the paperwork to have your name legally changed to these email addresses? Partner or what?
DougIt's in progress.
ChristianIn progress. Lovely Maryland's not as easygoing as Florida. Oh, florida's like another planet, anything goes.
BrandonI mean it's-.
ChristianPet alligators, you name it Tigers chimps, you know it, that's right so did you do anything fun today?
Dougany, any ripping apart of your automobile, any smoke testing at work, any smoke testing of your engine uh, not today, but yesterday I did the jar test um where, with the uh, following the smoke test, right uh to which revealed um a few loose, um, looser, ill, ill-fitting um seals on my fuel injectors, on my delorean mechanical fuel injection. So I did the jar test where I pulled out each fuel injector, put them in even-sized Gatorade bottles and ran the fuel pump, watched them see that they were spraying and then measured the equal-sized bottles and to my surprise, they all came out well, fantastic.
ChristianYeah, the only jar testing we do in Florida involves moonshine, but thank you for sharing that.
DougYeah, moving on to today's, moonshine.
ChristianToday's theme, the prologue, is going to be back to school. Yes, the podcast goes back to school. We're a little into the school year for any of us individually, but the podcast is going back to school, that's right. What was your favorite class? What did you like learning about school? That's right. What was your favorite class? What did you like learning about? What carried forward for you? What did you do in the classroom? What did you touch in the classroom?
ChristianI'm going to revisit that question here in just a little bit. So let's let the theme of the prologue simmer. But our new section that we have is where are they? They now, or what are previous guests up to recently? This also includes yes, it's a tease updates on shows that we have in queue that we can't bring to you. We're so excited about it. We have a bunch in the hopper that move into post-production, okay, and sometimes we we sort of mention that as a little bit of a tease or an upcoming commercial. So, doug, we have a lot going on here. I know that Tim season one guest. Tim was at your house and you guys were ripping apart your car in the garage, but there was some sailing. I heard there was some sailing going some sailing going well.
ChristianTim is a sailor, but one of our, one of our um, one of our guests for a upcoming episode.
DougUh chris, um chris, who is the ceo of red kick, big old red book k-i-k. They do a lot of sailing. They have some connection to uh finland, I think, with uh planting trees, but they partnered with um tuliketu racing, amongst others. I think they've done the volvo ocean race. These are serious sailors and uh, yeah, they did, uh did some racing in uh in finland. Love that to read up on it. Tim tim, of course, is a sailor. I didn't have a chance to talk to him about it, but yeah, uh chris, uh kalinsky, exciting they, yep, they, they have fun while they're securing uh, securing freights overseas so glad to hear that freight.
ChristianSo yeah, uh, great guy, interesting guy, uh, and he will. His episode will drop here in the coming weeks and, as always, great friend of the show, our bff of the show, winifred freesia, continues to post compelling content on her instagram site. Check it out, uh, is her, I don't. She's. Yeah, her episodes drop. What's? Do you have that instagram site handy?
Dougfreesha brothers f-r-e-c-c-i-a.
Christianyeah, freesha brotherscom, you'll get there she's the marketing genius behind all of it creative genius and marketing genius, all things air-cooled lovely in greenwich, connecticut calls to action.
ChristianMoving on, uh, let's see. So we continue to post on the on youtube, so the youtube contestant uh presence continues to grow. Please check it out, enjoy. And uh, you will find this podcast wherever you get your podcast. Please follow and tell a friend download. Follow. Tell a friend those, download, follow. Tell a friend those three things in that order. What else am I missing partner? What else? The link tree is always a great way to kind of switchboard to us to find our different presences L-I-N-K-T-R dot. E-e slash carslove, l-i-n-k-t-r dot. E-e slash carslove. And check us out there. Do we, do we? Is there anything further on the calls to action, before we revisit the show theme and introduce today's guest, uh, nothing besides the, uh, the common things.
DougIf you have a good guest, let us know if you think you'd be a good guest. Fill out the good guest. Hit the button on our website to be a guest. You can also get there via the link tree and maybe you have a friend, maybe you have a neighbor, maybe you have a parent who you think would be a good guest.
ChristianAnd if you want to start a podcast, that's fine, we don't mind. Just please don't make it about automobiles, so it doesn't conflict and compete with ours. So, pivoting back to today's show theme back to school, old school, back to school, and we mentioned at the top what were your favorite classes, what were things that you liked, what were things that you did in school, in class, did you ever touch anything in class? And I went back to my thinking and I dissected a few things in high school, but nothing like today's guest, who I am super thrilled to introduce because they are involved and they will explain to you how at an automotive program at Weber State University. So I am so pleased that it has brought McKenna and Brandon to our doorstep.
ChristianGood afternoon, how are each of you doing? Good, how are you Now that you're here? Fantastic, brandon, you there so good. It's glad to be here. Guys. Oh man, we're thrilled to have you. So please tell us a little bit more about Weber State, the program that you're involved with, and kind of how you came to its doorstep, how that happened.
BrandonSure, so I'll get us started, since I've been here a little bit longer. So I'm Brandon Stevenson. I'm one of the instructors here at Weber State University and I was actually a student of the program in the early 2000s. So in about 2007, I came and I participated in the program. I was a technician at a General Motors dealership and I an associates through General Motors in automotive technology. So I took the program and decided to go on to get a bachelor's and then I went and worked corporate industry for about nine years and then decided to come back, come back home and start teaching here at Weber State and loved it. So basically been around nearly 20 years now. It's great, really love it Fantastic.
ChristianYeah, so you mentioned you got a bachelor's. Is that correct? That's right, but they also have it. There's a two-year degree too, which I thought was so interesting, as well as continuing education. So there's really a glove to fit every hand. There's a program to fit where you are in your educational journey, where you are in your life. So that's interesting educational journey where you are in your life. So that's interesting. Speaking of that, McKenna, can you tell us a little bit about how you came to the program and how you're enjoying the program?
McKennaSo I came into the program about two years ago. I realized my passion of cars overweighed my passion of criminal justice, which was my original degree and I came back and went in full force. I am due to get my associate's degree in the spring and I will continue on to my bachelor's degree.
ChristianFantastic, yeah, and if you want a little bit more information again, we will link to the show notes on your. Basically the way you found this recording right. So, uh, your podcast streaming platform of choice. But, uh, pbs news hour. And this is how we first dug, first became aware of this program. Here at weber state was watching the pbs news hour. So if you're in front of a computer type in PBS NewsHour, they have a set. At pbscom slash NewsHour they had a Rethinking College segment where they feature Weber State University. It's about a seven-minute segment and you can see it aired October 2024. So if you are young and listening in Utah and looking for an alternative to, I would say, traditional school, look at this. Give this a chance. Because McKenna you walk into class and there's an engine lab. Is that correct? I mean you can just pick up all these, all these engine parts, and turn them around and think about them and see how they fit, like Legos, right parts and turn them around and think about them and see how they fit, like Legos right.
McKennaYes, yes, it's a lot of fun, definitely to be able to have the hands-on experience. That is probably one of my favorite pieces of the program. You get to touch, you get to mess with, and if you end up breaking something, you just fix it. So it's pretty nice.
ChristianYeah, yeah, and the automotive program is in the same building as the computer science department, because, as cars become more technologically advanced and more integrative, it's it. You really do have to become a bit of a computer technician to make the car go. I mean, what do you think, brandon? Do you see that in your daily?
BrandonOh yeah, definitely One of the big reasons that we changed location. So we were up in Ogden, utah, and then we got this brand new facility about four years ago. One of the reasons that they decided to house us with computer science is for the reasons you just mentioned, and what's really interesting to me is a lot of our students actually get interested in computer science so they'll do a, a major. So we'll have some students that are automotive technology majors and also science majors. Yeah, they get those classes.
Christianit's really great yeah, yeah and the sign on the building. You'll see this in the piece at uh at pbscom slash news hour. The sign on the building actually says computer and automotive and engineering is really anything new campus just a few years old. And so Doug reached out to Jessica Slater, the department chair, after he saw it.
DougHe was so impressed with the program and Doug, tell us a little bit about that interaction. Yeah, you know, just just as you said, email said I'd seen the show on PBS NewsHour and I'd love to interview some people for our podcast, and she wrote back and gave us three names, brandon being one of them. And yeah, here we are and she's been very responsive, as has Brandon and his colleagues, and we decided to do things a little different and we wanted to have an instructor along with a student. So we get both perspectives and I'm going to give it away, but both of these students grew up with parents, dads that are mechanics, and here they are. Right, it's it's pretty awesome. I love seeing that the tradition carried on and you know we'll talk more about that, but I know, I know McKenna got started pretty early and I'm sure Brandon as well.
ChristianYeah, yeah, and we'll pivot to McKinnon just a moment Wanted to throw out here that it was mentioned in the piece by the interviewer, allie Rogan. She used the word hybrid, which I thought was so interesting because they're saying all right, well, we take a traditional institution of higher learning, weber State, and then they're bringing in kind of a trade school, a tech class, but they also help place jobs. So so what about that appealed to you most, do you feel, mckenna, as you, as you sought more information about the program and thought to enroll?
McKennaDefinitely figuring out just what opportunities I could get through this program. Just what opportunities I could get through this program. Jessica has been nothing but helpful for finding things that will help me out to further my education and she actually gave me a job through here that will help me towards my goals of owning my own shop. So she tailored a job specifically for me, training me to manage pretty much what I can through here, she basically manages.
BrandonShe tells me what to do.
ChristianIt's great Love that. So that's something that I don't think was mentioned in the piece. So employers, potential employers like Toyota, jim and Chrysler obviously love to recruit at an institution like this because they have somebody who's certified, knows what's going on. You walk through the doorstep and you know how to rip something apart, which is wonderful, but if you want to start your own shop or go on an alternative path, I think that's wonderful too. There are just so many options through this hybrid learning experience that they're giving you, and a big part of the piece was women in this non-traditional type learning setting. So could you talk about that a little bit, mckenna, on what your experience is, and do you see many people like you in in that situation?
McKennaso, yeah, um, there are a growing number of girls coming into the program. We are definitely trying to get more through the high schools. We're trying to reach out to them and through my experience being a woman in this program, it has been nothing but amazing. I get treated the same as any other student, but I also get better grades than other people. So I might get a little bit of favoritism, but I get the same exact treatment. I'm able to do what the guys can do as well, so it's been definitely very accommodating for women.
BrandonGirls are usually better at turning in assignments. Oh yeah, her grades better, she's better at turning.
DougWonderful Amongst other things.
ChristianYeah, I know Doug wants to get in here. Go ahead.
DougYeah, yeah, so know Doug wants to get in here, go ahead, yeah, yeah, so, um.
Exploring Automotive Education and Car Stories
DougSo, mckenna, all the different parts, parts of the cars, and we're going to talk about some of your cars and Brandon's cars, um, including where you guys started. There's some great stories, but, uh, what's your favorite class or, or favorite component, uh, in a car, or favorite system, in a car that you enjoy working on and learning about?
McKennaYeah, so one of my favorite components is probably the steering and suspension component. Me and my dad do a lot of that at home, and being able to do that here and learning more about it and being able to get in those conversations with my dad about how all these things are working and be able to ask him questions to where he's not looking at me like I'm a little like silly sometimes but, um, it definitely has just helped my education through the steering extension just build upon what I've learned before and growing that even more.
DougThat's awesome. Yeah, I bet you like to play with Legos too.
McKennaOh yeah, I do.
DougThat's the word on the street, yeah.
McKennaIt reminds me a lot of Legos, so nice.
DougNice, that's it. Yep, you never know. Parents, your kids playing with Legos might be working on suspensions. Who knows, in the future they might go to Weber State. Oh yeah, it's a great program. In fact, I think there are two steering and suspension classes, Brandon.
BrandonYeah, we have two steering suspension classes, two brakes classes, engine mechanical, engine repair. That PBS special talked a lot about our electric and hybrid programs. So we do have electric vehicle and hybrid electric vehicle courses as well. The key part is we want our students when they graduate, so we do a certificate and associates or bachelors and there's that continuing education certificate for those that already have an education or already have a career and want to come back. But we really want them to be able to graduate and be able to do something with that, so be able to go out and get a job. And that was one of the reasons that I really came and was highlighted to me is that I could go get a job as a technician right now and then I further got my bachelor's and I can still go back and be a technician.
DougSo those foundational skills that are taught in those classes are still pertinent in today's world excellent, excellent and um, yeah, I was just um looking through our notes from uh before the podcast and Weber has been around, or Weber, I don't know if it's weber certainly the program automotive program has been around for over 100 years, is that correct?
Brandon1922 is the first time we started doing automotive classes at weber. Weber, your state's been around since 1880s. Uh, they had a different name at the time and uh, we eventually came to state college and now a university. But yeah, since the 1920s we've had an automotive program again, again, teaching the workforce on how to service and repair vehicles.
DougRight, right, and they were brand new back then and there was a bit of everything and, yeah, until Henry Ford came along, I think every car that came out was slightly different. Yep, so, yeah, that's awesome. What a great history.
ChristianSo yeah, that's, and it moved towards it. Is there any truth to that, doug or Brandon? And so it was more gasoline-driven, but his initial druthers were battery-powered.
DougYeah, I can't speak for Ford, but there were a lot of electric cars around the I don't know 1918, 1920s and they just didn't make it. They didn't have the range right, yeah, right.
BrandonBut that was the big, thing, sorry yeah. So, what's cool about looking at that history? And they were very popular in cities because no pollution, easy to start, because you could just drive. Because no pollution, easy to start, because you could just drive. But as America changed and we didn't just live in big cities, we started to go out into the countryside. Those electric points became less and less possible. You needed something that could go a little bit further.
ChristianGreat point, great point. Well, thank you for that. Thank you for walking us through your respective journeys in Weber State. But we're going to use a different kind of technology. We're going to step into the wayback machine, the time machine, and we're going to go back and I want to hear how it all started for you, brandon. What was that first car and was it running at the time?
BrandonOh, I love this question. So my first car was actually a 1979 Z28 Camaro. I know you guys can imagine it Midnight, blue, black, 28. So it has the fender vents and the hood scoop Gorgeous car. My dad bought it new in 79. He was working at a dealership, so he's a technician. Gave it to my mom. My mom blew it up. Good job mom. Mom blew it up, good job Mom.
BrandonGot parked at my grandma's house and every time we went to go see grandma I would see this beautiful car that was just getting beaten, weathered and all of those things and just kept telling my dad man, I love this car, this is the best thing ever. My dad ended up stopping being a technician and started teaching high school and I was actually at the high school that I went to school to, and so one of the things that we got to do in class was like dad, let's rebuild this engine, let's rebuild the transmission, let's, let's get working on this. So that's what we did. We rebuilt that Camaro and me, being the 16 and 15 year old kid that I was, I wanted to make as much power as possible, so it wasn't really streetable, but it's still loud, it's still fun and it's actually here at Weber state.
BrandonI just pulled it out of my trailer a couple of months ago to show my students that, yeah, you can build a project and have a project and hold onto it for all these years, holding onto, it is really the, the, the, the, I think the accomplishment, you know, finding a place for it, um, anyway, sorry, go ahead, doug, um anyway sorry, Go ahead Doug, yeah, no it's, it's uh, it's great.
BrandonSo it's still, um, streetable. Uh, it wasn't really streetable then, not really now. She's just loud, she's more of a show car, a street car, um, but to make it more of a street car, I'd like to be able to drive it on the street. I put a mini spool in it in high school and all of those things, so it's really not most street friendly. But I've got a 5.3 LS and a 4L60E that I'm going to put in into it, show the students along the way doing that kind of conversion and we're also going to go over that kind of the emissions and horsepower change. So, going from this little small block Chevy, look what emissions we produce, look how much power we could produce and what can we do with a fairly stock LS53. So it's really cool to be able to show students that with the equipment that we here at Weber State We've got a four-wheel wheel alignment, we have got the four-wheel dyno as well and also our engine dyno to be able to do some of these tests and show the students.
DougNice, nice, that's awesome. Yeah, that's going to be a fun project. I'm really excited for it. Yeah, so that was your first car, but not a daily driver, right, as you said? Yeah, unfortunately, yeah, yeah, so what? What was your daily driver? Second car, if you will.
BrandonYeah. So the car that actually drove around all the time while I was just loving the camaro uh, was a 95 beretta and z26. So I like the z family apparently my sister wrecked it and it became part and because I couldn't really drive the camaro um on a daily basis, we looked at this like why don't you take over the beretta? So she rear-ended somebody. So it was a pretty easy fix just put a bumper hood, fix the radiator, the core support and learned a little bit of those body things that I didn't learn on the camaro. So being able to straighten some frame rails out and just do the body paint and all the repair on it was really good and is a really good driver, being a little three one uh, with a four-speed auto on it yeah, yeah, it could peel the wheels right off the line it could squeak them yeah yeah, yeah, we christian and I have a close friend and I always just remember this story of his dad renting a corsica, the four-door version.
Dougyeah, and uh came out to visit him at college and he let he, he let my friend, our friend Adam, who was on the show uh, drive the Corsica home. And Adam's like, yeah, of course I, you know, burned I, I spun the tires, of course I spun the tires.
DougI mean, yeah, we, we had fun. We went up to the, you know, lined up on the white line just to help help with the spin a little bit, lose a little traction line, just to help help with the spin a little bit, lose a little traction. So great, great, uh, great story. And so that was not your first corsica, though
Turbocharged Berettas and Daily Drivers
DougI'm sorry.
BrandonBeretta, here we are yeah, not my only beretta, so I had two of them. So that one I turbocharged, um, well, I built a turbo kit for it. But the problem with that uh 40 60 was they were pretty robust but once you started putting boost to them they would blow up, and for mostly daily I didn't want to have to be rebuilding the transmission all the time. So I actually found a guy that had a z26 that he had five speeds, walked out in nashville, uh, tennessee or knoxville, I think he's in knoxville actually, um, and then he put a three, four in it, so the slightly bigger 60 degree v6 in it, and I got that shipped out and ended up putting my turbo kit on that. I call it the purple beretta or black rose metallic, and that one I turbocharged, head studied, cam, all of this stuff. So again, I seem to have a problem with making cars that are supposed to be a daily driver not really dailyable anymore. I just like to make all the power.
DougSo what happened to both those cars actually? So that white car I sold to a friend, yeah.
BrandonSo the first was a white Z26, the one my sister wrecked, Ended up selling it to a friend when I bought the purple one, because my parents were saying, hey, we've got too many cars here as it is. So I sold the white one and then was driving the purple one with the turbo and stuff on it and that was fun, going from 30 miles per gallon to 14. So kind of sad, uh. But a couple of years later that friend was having problems with that white Beretta and I was like, hey, well, I'll bite off. Yeah, he thought he needed to transmission. I had a spare transmission laying around. Um, did some troubleshooting on it, found it was just a simple connector on the throttle position sensor that was actually failed and fixed that for basically nothing. I had a spare connector around as well and then sold it to a different friend and made a couple thousand bucks. So that was a really good thing.
DougNice, nice and your friend's like man I should have just brought it to you to look at.
BrandonYeah you should have just had.
Dougyou look at it like man, I should have just brought it to you to look at. Yeah, you should just had you look at it, he's like, oh, but yeah maybe, maybe that friend should have uh been in the program at weber state definitely cool, cool. And so, um, what is your now? I think you have a daily driver that you haven't modified, hopefully. Um, what? What is your daily driver right now?
Brandonuh, so a daily driver that you haven't modified, hopefully. What is your daily driver right now? So my daily driver is a Tesla, when it's working properly. So I've got a couple of Teslas, one in particular I just had a cell that went out on it but the rear-wheel drive one, I keep that as stock as possible. So just a little rear-wheel drive Model 3. And it does the job.
DougYep, just a little rear-wheel drive Model 3, and it does the job, yep, yep. And if you lose a cell on it, what are your options? Just curious. I think I've seen obviously you could go give Tesla $25,000 for a new module, right?
BrandonYeah, so a whole battery is their repair procedure. They have four battery modules inside of that whole battery housing and they don't sell individual battery modules. Each of those modules contain about a thousand cells. There's a couple of guys online that'll take this cell out and then weld a new one in. That's not really good practice either. So Tesla's repair procedure is a whole battery. I'm trying to get a refurbished battery cell, so I've dropped the battery, I've opened it up and I'm down just trying to source that one battery module okay, gotcha but yeah, all for one little battery cell that has failed.
DougIt's, it's crazy, yeah and so um getting a is a reefer, a one that's been in an accident, probably that the battery was not damaged. Yep, got it.
BrandonYeah, so what's really popular with these Tesla batteries is they'll pull them out of the cars, erect car or something and then sell the modules out for EV backups or battery backups for homes. So some of those companies will refurbish the battery with that in mind, like it's going to be a battery backup for a home. But you can purchase them and in the car. There's just really not a good procedure for a Tesla yet, so it's kind of a trial and error thing right now.
DougYep. Well, you're in a great place to do some of that right, Definitely.
BrandonLearning a ton.
DougYep, yep, excellent, definitely learning a ton. Yeah, yeah, excellent. And um, what was your? What car? Because obviously you're capable of fixing a lot of them.
BrandonWhat car did you hate the worst, and why? Um, I would say I bought this car off of my father-in-law. He bought it at auction. It was a 09 Impala LTZ and it was a decent car. But it was just an auction car. It had a lifter tick. When I got it, the transmission was slipping. When I got it, I just needed something real quick. So I purchased it off of him and it just became a money pit, ended up having to replace the 39 in it and then replace the the 4t65 in it as well. So it wasn't impala's fault, it was the previous owners just beat the living stuff out of it yeah, no gotcha excellent thank you.
Dougthose are some great stories, and the and the z28 lives on. Does that's the best part?
ChristianHopefully you can share some pictures of it.
DougLove to see it For sure.
Weber State Car Stories and SEMA
ChristianYeah. So, McKenna, let's step in the way back for you and let's talk about how it all started. Was there an explorer to go exploring with in your past?
McKennaYes, explorer to go exploring with in your past, yes, so I started out my 16 year old self with a 2004 ford exploder um, that exploded, um, but when it didn't explode or cause me any issues, it was the funnest thing ever. We used me and my family used to to get out on little road trips. It was during when covid happened, so we couldn't hang out with friends. So my dad bought it for me for my 16th birthday and said go nuts, so I would just ride around in that all the time. It's when gas was a little bit cheaper so it didn't cost so much to drive around. But after it exploded, um, in a rb's drive-thru um yeah, in an rb's drive-thru.
Christianoh yeah, wait, did it at least get you to the drive-thru window? Were you like 10 feet from it and hungry and you couldn't get the car? Or was it 10 feet past the window and at least you could mourn with your seasoned curly fries?
McKennaSo, um, I had just barely turned into the drive-thru, there was a car in front of me. I heard this really loud pop and I look to go, look at my engine bay and all you see is smoke coming out of the wheel wells and my belt had slipped. So my power steering did not work. So I turned the car off, turned it back on and fastly put it in reverse, pulled out of that drive-thru, parked in the parking lot and there's a McDonald's right across from there. So all of these people at McDonald's were just seeing me bawling my eyes out, calling my dad.
McKennaDad, come help me. I don't know why my car is on fire.
ChristianWhy is it smoking? Yeah, so we had to pivot past that right. We weren't going to do any more exploders, we were going to move on to uh, to a honda right oh, yeah, so reliable reliable.
McKennaYep, this one was a white 2001 honda civic lx. Her name was jesse, she was getting a lot better miles to the gallon and she was the car I took to college that had a head gasket issue, but luckily my dad could fix that and I ended up driving that for three more years.
ChristianGotcha, Gotcha. Now you named the car. You named it just OK. So it's J-E-S-S-I-E. We have to be specific on the spelling, right. You know, I never thought about naming my car until we started this podcast, and I drive an Acura MDX and so, in honor of all you wonderful people who name your cars, I just start calling I named my MDX Maddox because of MDX.
McKennaIs that?
Christianclever or stupid.
McKennaOh, it's great.
ChristianThat's actually a really nice name.
DougOh. I like these guests Sounds like a TV show, Maddox yeah.
ChristianNo, that's Matlock.
DougI think it's Matlock Okay let's move on.
ChristianSo there was another after this lovely Civic you liked it so much, you got another. Is that correct?
McKennaOh yeah, yep, it was just. It was finally time for me to get a new car. About a year prior to me buying the green Honda Civic, the white one had, while I was driving through a code, I was wondering why it was running rough and I ended up getting to an intersection to turn into a Home Depot and the car just died. I had to push it out of the intersection into the Home Depot parking lot and turns out, my timing belt got torn through by the spring tensioner. Yeah, so the spring tensioner curled up into a ball and started tearing through the timing belt. Luckily I was able to get it somewhere where I didn't get ran into, called my dad.
McKennaHe came over, we ended up fixing it and it had no other issues. We just replaced the water pump and the timing belt. Completely fine, and but it just it, that's up. It lived its life. So we got a new one for my trip to vegas. I went to sima this year and so we got this new car because it ran a lot better. Uh, it just it had a lot more power, because going on hills with the um, with jesse, was a no-go um, but we named the new one, the green one maverick. It is a 2001 honda civic ex now.
ChristianNow why, maverick? Had you just seen top gun, or something?
McKennano, no, I don't, I, I don't know. I kind of just look at a vehicle and I'm like this is gonna be your name and it just sticks.
BrandonIt works perfect for it, I think I like that my dad would always just tell me, if I broke down, like well, what'd you break, fix it.
Christianand that he had the side of the road. I wrote something. Yeah, and I did. I did it either at the Arby's parking lot or the what was it? The home Depot.
DougSo, yeah, it's probably McDonald's in your case. Yeah.
ChristianCould, could, could be.
DougYeah, so, so, uh, what was SEMA like? I? I just man. I think YouTube goes crazy during SEMA. Doug's jealous, by the way. What was it like behind the scenes? How many? I think you went with Weber right.
McKennaYes.
DougHow many people went or?
McKennastudents and teachers, the students I think we had 25 students who ended up going, and then we had Scott Holland, brandon and Cade go with us and it it was huge. Apparently, they had over 160,000 people there with over 800 vendors, something like that. Yeah, we were there for three days and I didn't get through the entire thing. There's an outdoor portion, there's three halls that you can go through, with an upstairs to two of them, and, uh, it's, it's absolutely insane, it's crazy.
DougIt's so much fun, though did you meet any celebs while you're out there? Whether youtube stars I think of richard rollins gas monkey garage, because I know he's always out there we.
McKennaWe were hoping to see him, but we didn't go on the day that he was going to be unveiling the vehicle he brought. We ended up seeing the guys from throttle um, and then we saw the guys from big time, which I had them shout out, brandon, because brandon is a huge fan. And we also seen phil swift, the flex seal guy who oh wow, yeah, my boyfriend was super excited to see him.
ChristianOoh, yeah. So if you would have kept just the Flex tape in the back of your car, maybe you could have gotten out of the RV's drive-thru.
McKennaThere we go. We'll never know.
ChristianYeah, always keep a roll with you, yeah.
BrandonIs that the first time Weber has taken students to SEMA?
DougNo, we've been taking it for quite a few years um, I don't know, that's cool yeah quite a while.
McKennaOkay, awesome, but but first experience for you, mckenna yes, so I will definitely be going again next year.
ChristianI'm very excited we need to go yeah, but the show is not open to the public, so you have to be sponsored by some, by some institution or something, right?
Brandonyeah, on friday I saw a bunch of guys wearing a friday experience tag, um, so I think we're certain you can just on friday yeah, I think it's just fridays.
DougOh, I see, which is not enough time, and probably a lot of the vendors have left by then. I would bet. But that's definitely for the insiders for the cool kids.
ChristianMaybe one day, maybe my next line.
BrandonYou guys could sign up to be students at Weber and then you could come as one of our students. Look at this, what a perfect callback, and tired, yeah.
ChristianSo as we guide the podcast toward the off ramp, I just want to say thank you all so much for agreeing to be on the show. We had a fantastic time meeting you. We can't get enough of Weber State and oh, by the way, doug wanted me to throw in here that. So what is their? What is it, doug, their YouTube presence that we wanted to talk about?
DougThey- have an automotive YouTube channel that we wanted to talk about YouTube channel. Automotive YouTube channel as well I heard about. I think it's called Weber Auto. Yeah.
BrandonWeber Auto. One word, Okay, One of our professors, John Kelly. He started that probably 2008, 2007-ish is when he started doing that, and he just keeps adding more and more content to that.
DougOkay, wonderful.
ChristianCheck it out.
DougHow much of the content is the content all from within the school?
BrandonEverything is videotaped here at Weber State using our equipment.
DougNice, excellent. So yeah, for folks who want to see more about Weber and see hands-on program, that might be the best place to go.
ChristianAbsolutely. Certainly learn something for sure, yeah, and check them out. They have a a program to fit so many different people, and I just want to thank you, brandon and McKenna, for being on the show. It was a distinct pleasure meeting you. You represent your institution well and it was just a thrill to have you here, thank you, thank you so much Hope to be on more of these.
BrandonThis was a lot of fun. Absolutely, we're going to have you back.
ChristianWe're definitely going to have you guys back in a future season. I can't even remember what season we're on right now, but we just love having these conversations with fantastic people. So, if you like what you've heard, you have just listened to the high-revving, low-mileage, late-bottle heard-around-the-world that's true authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia. He is Doug at CarsLovecom. I am Christian at CarsLovecom. Yes, that's my real name. They were McKenna and Brandon. Please follow and tell a friend If you like the show. Check out our YouTube channel, instagram, facebook, myspace. Just kidding, we're not on MySpace, but follow and tell a friend. Download, follow, tell a friend. Make sure you check out the link tree. All of our different presences are right there L-I-N-K-T-R dot, E-E slash Cars Loved. It's a bit like the old yellow pages, but I refer to it as our switchboard. I'm sure we're going to see it at the next local car show. Thank you for listening. Keep the rubber side down and we will see you next week.
