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#177 Military Veterans Gain Traction with Automotive Skills & Careers Nov 03, 2019

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Military Vets Struggle for Employment We are a country that is proud of our military heroes regardless of party lines or affiliations.. What about those veterans that are returning from overseas and their prospect of a career to support their families and future and find it to be a struggle? According to many statistics and reporting, this is not always an easy transition for them and arguments that could be made on both sides that would suggest there are serious problems that need to be addressed for both the veterans and potential employer. The Shortage of Mechanics The shortage of automotive service technicians is indisputable, even as the industry debates its numerous causes. That gap threatens the financial health of all areas of transportation, including new car dealerships and the independent automotive marketplace. With a shortage currently top dead center in the industry and what is often a tough segue to civilian life for veterans and military families, are we as an industry seeking out the talent of our veterans? Are you as a veteran able to take advantage of programs that currently exist? We are honored to discuss these issues with Luigi Scola, a decorated U.S. Navy veteran and 32-year owner of CARSTAR Scola's Collision Center from Illinois https://bit.ly/CARSTARScolaCollsionCntr and John Decoteau III, Vice President Campus and Military Admissions at Universal Technical Institute https://bit.ly/UTIMilitaryVetsServices regarding solutions for both the industry and military vets on this week's Wrench Nation Car Talk!

#176 Odd & Eclectic Vehicles with Jason Torchinsky Oct 25, 2019

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Popular Rides We are all familiar with the major brands of vehicles being displayed on everything from bus billboards to the wildly expensive listings during the Super Bowl. The in your face branding of some of the most popular vehicle brands is at times annoying, yet let's face it, highly effective. Not So Popular What about the more obscure vehicles that you may not have heard of. Those oddball vehicles over time that did not quite make the list of "must be seen in" latest cruiser? In fact, some of the most weird and mechanically odd vehicles that were as serious to a vehicle designer and engineer, but not so much with the motoring public. Imagine searching the globe for these unusual vehicular oddities and sharing with the world these unique wheels of weirdness. Senior editor for Jalopnik, https://bit.ly/JalopnikJasonTorchinsky author of Robot, Take the Wheel: The Road to Autonomous Cars and the Lost Art of Driving https://bit.ly/JasonTorchinskyBook and producer of Jay Leno's garage, Jason Torchinsky lives out his fantasy by way of the odd and freaky on four wheels.

#175 Critical Shortage of Auto Technicians and Solutions Oct 19, 2019

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Critical Shortage There is a critical shortage of automotive technicians and the U.S. Labor Bureau estimates about 46,000 automotive technicians will be needed by 2026. Today’s cars have more computing power than the system that guided Apollo astronauts to the moon. The Apollo 11 spaceship had 150,000 lines of code. Google’s mobile Android operating system has 12 million and the modern car can have 100 million lines of code. Modern technicians spend as much time in front of a computer as they do under a hood. These jobs require people with tactile intelligence, education and interest in S.T.E.M. related training. They need strong technology expertise and diagnostic and problem-solving skills. It’s no longer simply about wrenches and oil. It’s a world filled with advanced equipment and technology, and it requires technicians with sophisticated, high-tech training. Resources to help TechForce Foundation is a 501(c)(3) that champions students to and through their education and into careers as professional technicians. They are a resource for students, their parents, influencers helping them find technical training, internships, scholarships and jobs. Many teens are looking to work with their hands and aren't interested in going to a four year college. These careers are New Collar, Not Blue Collar, positions and are lucrative financially. Welcome This Week's Guests! We were honored to have CEO of TechForce Foundation https://bit.ly/2LUh2wW Jennifer Maher and A.S.E. Master Technician and Automotive Instructor Cody Metcalf of one of the premier High School Trade schools in the country East Valley Institute of Technology!

#174 1938 Phantom Corsair! From National Auto Museum to Inaugural Las Vegas Concours! Oct 11, 2019

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Ahead of It's Time Cast as the "Flying Wombat" in the 1938 movie Young in Heart, the 38' Phantom Corsair was way ahead of it's time as an incredibly sophisticated rolling work of art and style. Match that spectacular vehicle with 200 other gorgeous time pieces of vehicle variety at the very first Las Vegas Concours d'Elegance bit.ly/LasVegasConcours and you have a recipe for one of the premiere car shows in the country. The Harrah Collection On loan from the National Automobile Museum, based out of Reno Nevada, https://bit.ly/NationalCarMuseumReno the 1938 Phantom Corsair, along with over 200 eye popping cars, most from the collection of the late casino owner William F. Harrah, and why the museum is sometimes referred to as The Harrah Collection. The museum has authentic street scenes and sounds truly takes you back in time to a special era of automobile manufacturing and styling. Named in the 'Top Ten Museums' by Car Collector magazine. We are honored to have both Jay Hubbard, the museum's collection manager, and Stuart Sobek, involved in the car collector world for more than 31 years and now chairman of the Las Vegas Concours d'Elegance. on the show!

#173 IMSA 1969-1989: How John Bishop Built Worlds Greatest Sports Car Racing Series Oct 05, 2019

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IMSA Was Born Fifty years ago, a new sanctioning body emerged at a pivotal moment in motorsports history. Racing was on the upswing and new tracks were being built all across the U.S. Imported cars from Europe and Japan were flooding the market, designers were pushing limits and drivers were looking for an opportunity to race for more than just a trophy. Into this void stepped John Bishop with a fledgling organization called IMSA that offered competitive, professional racing in a friendly atmosphere and carried a new message: Racing with a Difference. The Inside Story Now Told In this behind the scenes book, Mitch Bishop and Mark Raffauf tell the inside story of how IMSA became a global powerhouse in just a few short years. It covers John Bishops early life, his years at the SCCA and tells the story of how IMSA grew from humble beginnings in 1969 into the Camel GT Series, a circuit that became the most popular form of professional sports car racing in the world. Interviews with many of the top drivers, team owners, car builders and others from the era helped shape this book, which also includes hundreds of never-before-published photos. The first twenty years of IMSAs history deliver fascinating stories of vision, innovation, common sense leadership and overcoming personal tragedy. Bishop and IMSA left an enormous imprint on the racing world and changed thousands of lives. This book is a must-read, for those interested in how it all happened and in learning critical management lessons still applicable in todays motor racing world. This beautiful hardcover book can be found at bookstores and Amazon https://bit.ly/IMSABook Mitch Bishop Mitch Bishop is the son of IMSA founder John Bishop. Over the last 40+ years, Mitch has built a successful career as a marketing, sales and software engineering leader in the Silicon Valley. He is an active racer and sits on the leadership council for the International Motor Racing Research Center in Watkins Glen, NY. Mark Raffauf Mark Raffauf has spent most of his adult life as part of the IMSA family. Dating back to his teens in the 1970's where he became an integral part of the organization during its GT glory days, he went on to become the key person behind IMSA’s GTP era before shifting his attention to Grand-Am, and today, the relationship continues with his leadership role in the new IMSA championship

#172 Driving lllegal?! Transportation Expert “Gridlock Sam” Shares Future of Traffic Sep 28, 2019

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Our Time at the Wheel is Done?! Driving will become illegal, as human drivers will be demonstrably more dangerous than cars that pilot themselves. Is this an impossible future, or a revolution just around the corner? Sam Schwartz, "Gridlock Sam," America's most celebrated transportation expert, describes in his book about the revolution in self-driving cars. The ramifications will be dramatic, and the transition will be far from seamless. It will overturn the job market for the one in seven Americans who work in the trucking industry. It will cause us to grapple with new ethical dilemmas, if a car will hit a person or a building, endangering the lives of its passengers, who will decide what it does? It will further erode our privacy, since the vehicle can relay our location at any moment. And, like every other computer-controlled device, it can be vulnerable to hacking. Right now, every major car maker here and abroad is working on bringing autonomous vehicles to consumers. The fleets are getting ready to roll and nothing will ever be the same, and this book shows us what the future has in store. Who is "Gridlock Sam"? A well chosen name for Sam Schwartz, who has nearly 40 years of experience in the field of transportation engineering and traffic safety and is considered a worldwide authority in traffic, highway, bridge, transit and parking systems. As the former New York City traffic commissioner at the New York City Department of Transportation, he was responsible for an 8,000-person agency, $350 million expense budget and a $700 million capital budget. Mr. Schwartz is a visiting scholar at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University and a member of the New York Transportation Journal Editorial Board. For 25 years he has also been a professor at Long Island University and Cooper Union, where he founded the Infrastructure Institute and is the author of a fascinating look at driverless vehicles NO ONE AT THE WHEEL: Driverless Cars and the Road of the Future. https://bit.ly/SamSchwartzBook

#171 Tool Box Economy of the Modern Day Mechanic Sep 17, 2019

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The Overwhelm of Tool Box Purchases How are automotive technicians preparing for their career? Are we overwhelmed with technology? What is the requirement of a modern day toolbox? Auto mechanics are consistently buying specialized tools that they don’t use often and not giving them a good return on investment. As a business owner, what is the immediate priority over the next few years for an investment in software\hardware that will enable repairing vehicles properly and bring a good return on investment? So many questions and a serious conversation about how we can arm our service operations for success. Industry Leaders Share Expertise Diagnostic Network is an online community of industry professionals and leading industry stakeholders coming together to create the resource to support technicians of today and tomorrow. Founder, Scott Brown, is an ASE Master Certified L1 Technician with over 35 years of professional service industry experience. As an independent shop owner in Southern California, he understands the challenges that exist in the automotive service segment and is here to help move our industry forward. Buckley's Auto Care is one of the oldest, family-owned and operated automotive repair service centers in the state of Delaware serving the communities of Wilmington, Hockessin, Newport, Elsmere, Newark, and New Castle, for over 50 years. Buckley's is AAA approved and owner, Greg Buckley, is a champion for the industry, a voice of reason, and has helped many garage owners navigate through the business challenges of today's modern day garage . We are honored to bring in Scott Brown of Diagnostic Network, https://bit.ly/DiagnosticNetwork and Greg Buckley of Buckley's Auto Care, https://bit.ly/BuckleysAutoCare as this weeks guests to help navigate through technology and give us clarity.

#170 Wayne Carini – Chasing Classic Cars, from Barn Yard Find to Restoration Gem Sep 14, 2019

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The Wayne Carini Passion Wayne's passion for cars started when he was a child, working alongside his father on such classics as Duesenbergs, Lincolns, Packards and Ford Model As. Then, at just 9 years of age, he experienced a life altering event: he went for a ride in his first Ferrari, a 1960 Rosso Chiaro 250 SWB to be exact. Wayne was instantly bitten by the Ferrari bug and hooked for life. Automobiles have been Wayne's passion ever since. Wayne learned the art of Ferrari restoration from his mentor Francois Sicard -- a former Ferrari racing mechanic and widely considered to be the foremost Ferrari expert on the East Coast -- and his good friend Luigi Chinetti Jr., whose father Luigi Chinetti Sr. won the 1949 24 Hours of Le Mans race for Ferrari and opened the first Ferrari dealership in the country. Chasing Classic Cars With an emphasis and talent for Ferrari early on, Wayne has built a career of seeking out some of the worlds most rare vehicles of a by gone era, giving way to preservation and beauty for all to enjoy, and of course to buy! His lifetime of experience in automobile restoration under his belt, master car restorer Wayne Carini has a resume that includes body and paint work on rare car collections owned by the likes of David Letterman, tennis great Ivan Lendl and the DuPont family. Then comes Chasing Classic Cars, a U.S. television documentary series presented by Wayne, who owns F-40 Motorsports, who looks at classic cars from all eras, focusing on finding and getting cars running, with the option of restoration and a likely sale. The series shows the restoration and auction process, and not all projects are financially successful. It has featured cars which have not previously been shown in public for decades. Pay It Forward Wayne is also involved in and regularly attends many different car clubs and events to get young people involved in the car collector hobby. He believes that without young people's involvement, the car collector tradition will disappear. His latest passion is convincing families with special needs children to consider placing collector cars into a special needs trust with the hope that the cars will benefit the children in the future.

#169 Will Buxton, Revealing Hardships of History’s Greatest Race Car Drivers Sep 07, 2019

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Journalist's Passion Leads to High Profile Digital Platform A motor racing broadcaster, commentator and journalist, Will Buxton has had the rare pleasure of turning his great passion into something resembling work for the better part of 20 years. His career has taken him around the world countless times to report on everything from Formula 1 to World Rally to Indycar. While the happy mistake of falling into television as a Formula 1 pit-lane reporter in the United States for the SPEED channel and later NBC Sports, followed by his current role as the first Digital Presenter in F1 history, has made him one of the most recognized faces and voices in the sport, his first love was and remains writing. Buxton lives in Oxfordshire, England. Behind the Scenes, Race Car Driver Insights Will's new book, My Greatest Defeat: Stories of hardship and hope from motor racing's finest heroes, is a collection of honest and revealing insights into 20 of the greatest living racing drivers, legends of the worlds of Formula 1, Indycar, NASCAR, Le Mans and Rally. Interviews conducted specially for this book are with (in alphabetical order) Mario Andretti, Derek Bell, Emerson Fittipaldi, Dario Franchitti, Jeff Gordon, Mika Häkkinen, Damon Hill, Jimmie Johnson, Tom Kristensen, Niki Lauda, Sebastien Loeb, Felipe Massa, Rick Mears, Emanuele Pirro, Alain Prost, Carlos Sainz, Jackie Stewart, Bobby Unser, Ari Vatanen and Alex Zanardi. Find his book at your local bookstore or on Amazon https://bit.ly/WillBuxtonBook We are honored to have Will Buxton on the show. Follow him at @wbuxtonofficial on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

#168 Author Chris Balish: How to Live Well Without a Car! Aug 31, 2019

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$147,000 dollars That’s how much money our guest this week, Chris Balish, saved by making one really smart financial decision. His wife Jennifer, has saved more than $54,000 by making the same decision, thus together they’ve saved $200,000. They are completely debt-free, and within another year or two, they're going to pay cash for a house. How did they do it? By going car free. They occasionally rent cars and frequently ride in cars, they just don't own one -- the fixed costs are too high. There are many benefits to living car free, and the financial windfall is at the top of the list. According to the American Automobile Association, the average cost of car ownership is $8,400 a year -- over $700 per month. Keep in mind that you pay for your car in after-tax dollars. So a $700 monthly car cost eats up approximately $1,000 in salary. Every month. How would you like to boost your income by one thousand dollars a month without a side hustle and without having to beg your boss for a raise? What could you do with that money? Lots of things. Pay off debt, like credit cards or student loans. Save it. Invest it. Buy an appreciating asset like a house or rental property. Buy Bitcoins if you're feeling sassy. Travel. Save for a child’s college. Or even pay off your mortgage and retire early. Serious question: how would you like to be debt free and have six figures of cash in the bank -- without doing any extra work? THE CAR FREE LIFESTYLE When you go car free not only will you save a boatload of cash, you’ll also reduce your stress level, lose weight, improve your health, live longer, retire sooner, and do your part to help fight climate change. When Chris first got rid of his car, he was a TV News anchor in St. Louis, Missouri. Within a few months of bicycle commuting to work he lost 25 pounds and saw his abs for the first time in years. Even though he was eating as much as he wanted. It’s all possible with one smart lifestyle choice… going car free. You will still ride in cars and rent them occasionally, you just won't own one. Chris and his wife Jennifer have lived in the global epicenter of car culture, Los Angeles, California, for years. Exciting news! Chris and his wife, Jennifer now teach a course to help you become car free and save money! Learn more about it at https://bit.ly/CarFreeCourse

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