The Final Round with Malcolm Gladwell and Alonzo Bodden

Published Dec 22, 2022, 11:00 AM

In our Car of the Year finale, the finalists from rounds 1-4 now go head to head! Eddie, Malcolm, and Alonzo Bodden talk through the finalists, explain why they deserve a place in history, and decide the Car Show Car of the Year once and for all. 

Pushkin, this American, this American. All right, we got cheap gas and we're gonna burn it. It's Lee Greenwood riding a bald ego, you know, into some like a fireworks finale. For the final championship round of our Car of the Year tournament, We've brought together one of my favorite car guy comedians, Alonzo Boden, who you might know from NPRS Wait Weight, Don't tell Me? And my favorite car guy public intellectual, Malcolm Gladwell, who you know from his books, his podcasts and his unofficial co host status on this show. The task in front of us is daunting. How to pick a winner from this random grouping of cars. What criteria can we use that applies across these four athlete different segments. Well, keep listening. Malcolm, of course has the answer. I'm going to get out of the way here and let the three of us determine once and for all the best car I drove this year. I'm Eddie Alterman, and this is Car Show. We have our list of semifinalists. We have the Chevrolet Corvette zero six. We have the Cadillac CT five V Black Wing. We have the Hyundai Ionic five as our EV representative and then as our SUV semifinalists, the Genesis GV seventy so two from Detroit, two from Korea. And if you ask me fifteen years ago, that's a mere two product cycles ago whether there would be two Korean cars and two domestics on this list. I just said, you're smoking angel dust. But here we are. What do you guys think? How do you want to jump into this? I'll start with cars I can fit in, which makes the Corvette really tough. So give me the dimensions. So I've been in the new Corvette and it's it's kind of like two tunnels with a high center. I mean, I got wide shoulders, so it is kind of a snug fit. But as car, it's phenomenal. You know, it's the only one you talk about punching above your weight class. Everything it competes with costs at least twice as much. Yeah. Yeah, I actually want to spend a lot of time on that very point. But before we do that, I want to eliminate one right off that the conversation. Let's see if we could agree on the one car of these four that doesn't belong. Okay, and I think it's obvious it's the Genesis. Really, why, I don't understand why would we celebrate just another well put together, overpowered luxury suv like it's another version of something that portion vented ten fifteen years ago. I see the point, but I think the exceptionalism comes from just being so perfectly suited to that market. Well. I tend to agree with Malcolm here. My issue with Genesis is they make perfect copies of other cars. Yeah. I mean, when you're talking about car a year, you want something special. So if you want it to pick an suv to be special, then I think you have to take a turbo Cayenne or an X five M, something ridiculous and over the top, you know, six hundred horsepower, etc. Like an suv that there's no reason for it to exist. Yes, the Genesis is just as he said, it's a well executed suv, but it's not a special car. Yeah. Also, can I bring up Tiger Woods here? Yeah, isn't this the one that nearly didn't Tiger? I mean, come on, it's got like a shadow of fave Tiger. No, that was the gv ab Oh that was a gv Adio. Yeah, Malcolm, that that's pretty much anything Tiger drives other than a golf club. If anyone who has millions of dollars should hire a professional driver, I think we can say it's Tiger Woods. He's just his record behind the wheel is just not I know, yeah, yeah, I thought about that. That is true. I think he can afford a driver at this point. Yeah, I don't know. I'm with Alonso. Like, if it was nuts in some really wonderful way, I love that. If it had no reason to exist other than to fulfill the fantasy of an engineer somewhere, then I would be all over it. But it's like another Jennifer Aniston romcong. I mean, you know what you're getting. It's really well produced. Like is your life really immeasurably improved by seeing the seventeenth you know, romcom where she thinks she's being left to the altar? Well, okay, taking the opposite position. There's so much value packed into this thing that for the average SUV person, this thing is like a Mercedes for half the money. It's one hundred thousand dollars interior in a fifty thousand dollars vehicle. It's probably going to be more trouble free and cheaper to keep on the road than any of the German makes you highlighted there, and this is their second SUV and Genesis wasn't even a brand fifteen years ago. And it's like way better than I think the Audie or the or even you know, the Mercedes in the BMW in some way. I'm gonna stop you right here, but I'm gonna tell you why your statement just eliminated that car. Okay, you use the word it's a great value. When you were a kid and you looked at cars and you dreamt of the car when you grow up, at no point did you say, man, I can't wait till I'm old enough to buy a great value. That's not the card a year the car of the year is. I want something excited. When you were a kid, you wanted to grow up to get a Corvette or if there was a Cadillac with five hundred horsepower like that didn't even exist back then. But that's an aspirational you want one of those. Nobody's like, man, if I could only get a great value, right, you know? I want to also Also, Eddie suddenly gotten religion, you know alone as I don't know if you know that Eddie and I have a beef that goes back how many years now, like ten years, ten years or more. I wrote a piece with The New Yorker where I took issue with a comparo that the car driver had done Porsche Cayman versus Lotus Elise versus Corvette. They compared these sweet cars, and the subject to price never came up. And my point was, the Corvette appears to be as good as the other two cars in every conceivable important respect. It is twenty grand cheaper on account for something. And and he was completely blind to this idea. And now all of a sudden he's turned around and he's talking. He sounds like Consumer Reports. Well, I might be able to extricate myself through some deft, you know, rationalizations and bullshittery. You've gone from the editor of Car and Driver to the editor of Consumer Reports. All you're concerned about is how far I can struct my suburban dollar, what how my tacy case. I keep my feet on the ground. I keep reaching for the stars from Malcolm. So the idea that you raised, Alonzo, that the Corvette is great based on you know, it's a third to half the price of Lamborghini Orican or you know Ferrari Fate or a Pista or something like that. I think value is part of the Corvette equation. But the Corvette is a still a high performance car. It's a supercar. As a side bonus, it costs less, but it's still unto itself. It's a supercar. That's the difference. The Genesis, it isn't a super suv. It's an suv. It's it's a nice luxury suv. The Corvette steps up to supercar level, and the fact that it costs less is like a bonus. You know, when I evaluate cars in the Corvette category. You know where I live in upstate New York, there's a lot of guys with a lot of money. On the weekends they take out their special automobile. I will driving into town on Saturday morning see ten amazing automobiles on a good day. There's a guy who lives when Naby who has a Lamborghini. Every time I see him as Lamborghini, my first thought is what a jazz? I mean? Come on, so you dropped whatever it was three on this thing which is basically undrivable, and you're only doing it because you have some kind of adolescent fantasy that you're fulfilling. At this point, when I see someone in a new Corvette, I don't think Jack has really now to follow up. At a Lotza's point, there's some element of discretion involved. There's a certain judiciousness. It's like, all right, I want a world class autobile. I could go all the way to one hundred percent and get a McLaren or it can go ninety five percent or ninety eight percent and get a Corvette and save myself two hundred grand. Who is it? That's an admirable position. Yeah, I see that. There's a nugget of rationality in there. And you're also saying like, yeah, I probably could have a three hundred thousand dollars car. You could have it, but you don't. You're more intentional about the Corvette zero six than you are about a Hurrican. The thing about like ferraris as distinct from Lamborghini's is the Ferrari guy he's planned his purchase, he's been fixated on, you know, with a four thirty spider for twenty years, and he wants to get he wants to get it, and he does and he keeps it forever. The Lamborghini guy falls into a bunch of money, buys his thank and he's dead in eighteen months or he's broken eighteen months, and it's just way more impulsive. Whenever I see a Lambeau in La, I'm like, if I'm dropping three hundred k in La, I'm going to get a Rolls Royce because I'm only sitting in traffic. I might as well be comfortable. Yeah, but again, getting back to our point about the Genesis. You notice the cars we're talking about are all exotic, aspirational cars, and nobody's feeling that about the Genesis. But Eddie, if we gave you, how about this, put it this way, All four of those cars are available to you tomorrow for free. You can pick one of the four for free for your own personal use. Which one are you picking? You're not picking the Genesis, no, no, Now, I will tell you that there are times definitely where I choose comfort, Like if I have a Genesis or a BRZ, I'm gonna probably go with the Genesis. But I'm sure there's gonna be if an M three is up on the board, that'll do. And I didn't even bring in the sex appeal factor because again that you know there is a sex appeal to these cars, and nobody's walking up. Hey baby, you know what kind of value I got here? But Malcolm's point is a great one that cars are about context, right, and a Corvette in the Hudson Valley has a kind of outsider cool factor to it, especially as Zo six. You know, we have this thing in Detroit called the Woodward Dream Cruise and it's basically just quarter mile runs all day long. You have gasers in there, you have hot rods, you have all this great domestic iron. Somebody shows up in a Lamborghini. They just look like a complete asshole, you know, like, what are you doing with that car going in a straight line. Yes it's got good quarter mile times, but you're just so out of place. It doesn't even look right. You want like big Impaua's, you want tea bucket forards. Those kinds of cars really fit in and Woodward and exotics just don't. But the but it can code switch, you know what I mean. It can be kind of everything to everybody in a really really cool way. It's not just the traditional The Corvette has a lot of baggage, you know, because of all the Corvette shows and guys in their lawn chairs, you know, rubbing them with diapers, and cars with chrome wheels and yellow cars with purple stripes. That's not what this new zero six is. This new Zeo six is every bit the international exotic right down to it's crazy naturally aspirated engine. I mean, there's kind of nothing like it. Yeah, but the way you know, I saw that Corvett's thinking of spinning off as a brand and coming out with an suv. If we had a Corvette SUV in this lineup, that would be my hands down winner. Really, Oh so you're four, You're four a Corvette suv? I am so? Are you? Who? Wait? Alonzo, Yeah, that would be that would be fun. I have to say, Eddie, if the new Corvette was not badged as a Corvette, it wouldn't fit in there either. It would be too exotic. And it's look, the reason it fits in is because of the name Corvette and the history you talked about is why it would be accepted amongst Detroit muscle. Otherwise it would look like another international, flashy exotic car and people would be like, nah, that doesn't belong here, because it certainly doesn't look like an American muscle car. Even though it has the ultimate American muscle engine, right, It's amazing how much they can keep working the small block and just keep getting it better and better and more and more power. But that car, if it wasn't badged as a Corvette, it would look as out of place as a Lamborghini or a Ferrari in a quarter mile. But it's that power of the brand that allows them to spin on. Yeah, yeah, totally. When we come back more with Malcolm Gladwell and Alonzo Boating, let's talking about the Black Wing because my first thought on long these lines is another car that would be a hands down winner in a study different configuration is if the Black Wing were a station wagon. Now you're talking like a real automotive journalist, Malcolm, the shooting brake version of the CT five Black Wing. I would mortgage my house to buy that car. I would buy that so fast. It's it's like that we achieve and also an extended version, like a shooting brake version of the CT five in the same way that the take on Grant Rismo Sports Grant Resmo and also the Panamera. Both of the shooting brake versions of those cars are infinitely better looking than the way more desirable, way more desirable. You know, in that form, that car becomes such a slam dunk. I mean you can legitimately, you know, justify it to your spouse, spice by pointing to its practicality. It's only six hundred and sixty eight horsepower. You don't mention that. You don't mention that. I think the problem they have with those it's the same that they had when they had the CTS V Wagon and all people like them in theory, but then they don't buy them, you know, I mean the Panamera that was it, the Grand Turismo. Yeah, yeah, it looks really cool, but but I don't see them on the road. People aren't buying them, and they're you know, they cost a lot. I mean I looked at it. It's it's an expensive car. So from a manufacturing standpoint, you know, getting back to Eddy value, that's what I'm gonna call you from that, just the Eddy value. You know, marketings like we should make it, but but sales is like, yeah, but we can't sell those, I would Eddie. Do you know the sales numbers on the the take on Shooting Brake, Is that one selling Well? No, it's a tiny percentage and it's a bit of a Haywell vehicle for the Tykon brand itself. Same with the Panamera. But you know, Alonzo, your point about you know, the ctfive v Wagon that nobody wanted when it came out. Now if you look on bring a trailer or something, they're going for a ridiculous amounts of money. Yeah, now now people want them. It's a lot of cars that people didn't want when they came out and then later they're like, oh, that's a phenomenal car. But as as you know, manufacturers don't look at it that way. Right, there is something about the United States and we love SUVs. We don't love wagons. Yeah, and that's what we love. We love SUVs. I mean you look at BMW right, they have high performance wagons. They don't sell any of many United States. They sell us the SUVs because that's what we that's what we tend to buy. Any white On the question of the of the C five Black Wing, you chose the CT five Black Wing and not the CT four Black Wing because well, I think the CT four is really brilliant too. And like I said, we have that M three in the office. But I'm driving the CT four. More than that, the CT five to me is sort of the the last will ever get of that format of the V eight sports sedan with a stick rear drive. It is so incredibly animalistic. The driving experience is much more vivid, I think, even than the four. The four is great, but the five really feels like that nine to eleven sedan that Alonso was talking about, which is the ideal, which is like, that's what your M five is, Malcolm. It's like really a sports car sort of in drag, and the five, to me, it's just more desirable. It's more more. It's like, Okay, how much horsepower can we throw out this thing and still make it totally totally livable, usable rides great. It's utterly sophisticated yet utterly animalistic at the same time. So to me, it just maxes out both of those things. Now I haven't driven the CT four and CT five, but I've owned the M three and now I have an M five, and I tell everyone the M five is more comfortable in comfort and more powerful in sport? Is it the same thing with the CT four and CT five, same deal? And what's so amazing about the CT five is the ride quality. CT four two, like the BMW's are very harsh now, they're like that macho stiffness, whereas like the CT five V Black Wing. To me, that's the car for Like, Okay, this guy is like a world renowned pediatrist. He's got a bomb ass collection of Hawaiian shirts, he listens to Steely Dan on homemade speakers. He's like a true enthusiast iconoclast. Yeah, and he wants the maximum of everything. So that's why I chose it. What's your take on it, Malcolm? You know, my daily driver is is a CT five V, so one step down obviously not a manual. Part of me has been jonesing to swap that for either the Black Wing five or the Black Wing four. Kind of like the Black Wing four conceptually more. I like the idea of all that power in a little tidy package, and I like the look of the four better than the five. If you make the Black Wing the car of the year, it's a middle finger to the entire automotive world, right, because you're saying everything you guys have been trying to transition to over the last five to ten years, we're not interested in. What we want is rear drive manual V eight old school, Like, you know, I'm increasingly convinced the cars peaked fifteen years ago and everything's been downhill ever since. And the CT five Blacking it's basically the better version of the fifteen year old car. The corvettees the same way the Corvette's like, you know, it's like a four or five eight specialty Ferrari from fifteen years ago, ten years ago. And this thing is like naturally aspirated M five although it's supercharged, but it's it's not turbo charged. It doesn't have, like, you know, that feel free steering that all these new cars have. It's not remote and distant and clinical feeling like a lot of new cars. It's got a ton of feel. And I think what the CT five V Black Wing says is that he can't just take a car out of the box and release it into the wild. You have to really work it. You have to to develop it and hone it and hone it and hone it. And that's what the engineers on the Black Wings, and I think on a lot of Cadillacs are doing now. It's just really making them very driver oriented, full of feedback, and to me, like, I want to sports adan that can really calm down when I wanted to calm down, and can really go hard when I want to like take an on ramp, burn off ramp, and I want to have that bandwidth that you know, I think only a car like the CT five V gives you. Well, I think the V series Cadillacs have always been like the ultimate version of a muscle car. Like you go back to the muscle cars of the sixties, right, and they had these giant engines and they had all this horsepower, but they were bad cars. They were just brutal and harsh. They didn't handle this. So now they're like, Okay, we're still gonna give you that feeling that you can only get from a big V eight rear drive like muscle American muscle. But like you were saying, Eddie, we're gonna make it comfortable, and we're gonna make it handle, and we're gonna put in all the modern conveniences. You know, my buddy Chris Titus hot rod lover, and we we had this argument long ago and he was talking about hot rods. I was like, you know what, I like my hot rod with heated seats and navigation. I'm okay with that, all right. I don't need it to, you know, to be as brutal as they were back in the day. So yeah, I'm I'm a big fan of the V series, all of them, all of the VS. It is what Malcolm said, it is the middle finger. Like, no, it's not even the middle thing, you know what. It's like this American, this American, all right, we got cheap gas and we're gonna burn it. It's Lee Greenwood riding a bald ego, you know, into some like a fireworks finale. It's funny to go back to what you said at the beginning, Eddie, about how fifteen years ago someone had told you that the four semi finalists were two Koreans and two Detroit products. What's interesting is how the position of BMW and Cadillac has flipped in that period, right, because fifteen years ago, it would have been two BMW's and probably two Japanese cars on that list, right, it would have you know, it would have been the the NSX, the M five, you know, like you guys in philipp Yeah, and like that that kind of like is super I mean, this is a separate and larger conversation. But that idea that an American brand has re emerged as the engineering paragon is super interesting, right, It's like it says something about the new direction that American manufacturing has gone in in that period, Like where where the Germans? I mean the Germans now we're you know, this is kind of another stunning blow to German pride. Right, they don't have a carn list. It's unbelievable. But my feeling isn't like they're They're like, there's something that's gotten very kind of fussy about German cars and this this kind of like almost cynical attempt to broaden and broaden and broaden their base and while pretending to hang on to their performance enthusiast roots, is getting really annoying. I have a different take on that. I have a different take on that. And my take is that with the German cars, it's a given we've become so used to the level of performance from BMW and Mercedes that it's not surprising that their cars are supercars. We're not surprised at the M five at what it can do, whereas with the Cadillac because you know, unfortunately, listen, American cars destroyed their reputation right through let's say, through the nineties, and now they make great cars and a lot of people don't even think of looking at that car when they're in the market. They're looking at, you know, an M five, or they're looking at an AMG whatever, and they're not thinking to look at Cadillac. And Cadillac can compete on every level and in some ways superior. But I think that with the German car, it's been so good for so long people take it for granted. Like you look at the BMWM, even though it doesn't go on these best car lists, it's what they're compared to. See, everything's been compared to the M three. Since the M three was made, it became the standard, and everything is still compared to the M three, even the M three is compared to prior M three's Yeah right, Still, we kind of take for granted the excellence of German cars, and while they do sometimes sit on their laurels. They'll make something like that M two and say, oh, yeah, we could still do it. We still have some that are you know, but that's annoying that they choose not to and they do spend more time on like the sound of the door chimes than they do on the steering. It's ridiculous, unfortunate, But I think that is the broad level marketing aspect. Let's face it, we're enthusiasts. They're not worried about us. Okay, they're they're gonna make a few toys for us, but they're worried about the broad level marketing. Like you were saying, Malcolm, they're worried about what your spouses. But even the enthusiasts Alonzo are turning their backs on BMW's and say they're not as good as they were. And if you if you ignore that, if you don't really serve that enthusiast really really well, then the rest of it kind of becomes meaningless. Like you know, the center can't hold you have to really It's it's sort of like what we talked about with the Corvette, Like the Corvette is so good now that they can do an SUV. The nine to eleven got so good that they could do a cay En you know, and have it, you know, have some integrity and not be like some kind of cynical marketing exercise. And I think that's where BMW is right now. It's kind of in the let's cash in on our reputation and sell a lot of cars to you know, real estate agents in southern California. Here's what my BMW thing is. You know, I have a twenty fourteen X one which was based on the Was it on the platform of the three series? Yeah? Yeah? It breaks down like clockwork every four months, and every time I take it in it costs me thousands and thousands of dollars. It's like, got too many miles on it. It's a pain in the ass. I don't get rid of it. Why because the steering is so sublime. And every time I drive a new BMW, I am filled with rage that they they had the driving experience nailed and they went backwards and I just can't. I can't get over that hump. I'm like, dude, my decrepit X one from twenty fourteen. You get behind the wheel and you're just happy. You feel betrayed, right, feel betrayed. I totally feel betrayed. The idea that the brand would depart from one of their strongest suits for whatever reason, it's just infuriating to me. Well, refuting these insinuation that I'm an old fogy, I did put you know the new Hyundai Ionic five on this list, which to me is maybe it's not an aspirational vehicle, but it looks so cool. It looks like an eight bit, you know, lancha Delta integrally like the styling really pushes a lot of gen X buttons for me. Have you guys seen these things on the road I have? It's funny, you know, I have a friend who is a a classic east Side LA progressive, so, you know, long conversations about what she eats, progressive politics, you know, blah blah blah, blah blah. She emails me and says, I think I gotta get a new car because my prius stio money miles on it. What should I get? I'm thinking maybe a used Volvo. And I said, first of all, if you get a Volvo, I'm not speaking to you again, but exactly, you have only two choices. I said, you can get a golf er. Well, you can get an Ionic. And I said, if you can find an Ionic, that should be your first choice. I don't know how she found one. Two weeks later she calls me, up, I have an Ionic, and then I saw her in La was driving around it. It's it's a fantastic car. The thing it's baffling to me about it is it looks like it's a hatchback. It's a big car that somehow I don't know what they did with the styling. It's so confusing. The proportion I thing is spacious and looks like it's, you know, this modest little but it's gorge the size of a palisade. So weird. I can't even wrap my mind around that. But it is. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful car. It's like the future we were promised in the eighties. Yeah right, I will say that. In my neighborhood, in my part of La this was the ultimate Ionic compliment on the next door app. These Ionic people were telling the Tesla people to get rid of their test and get an Iona. I think it's the same. It was a whole it was a whole thing on the app. They were like, yeah, get rid of your Tesla, get the Ionic. You're gonna love it. And I do see, I do see Ionics rolling around here, and it looks like it's the it's the car. I was traveling a lot recently and decided to rent teslas, you know, rent teslas from her. So I was like, I got my whole Tesla experience down and was so appalled by the bill quality that it's just an appliance and it's so ugly inside, and I'm just like, an Ionic is is truly one generation beyond the Teslas. So what LUNs It was saying with the neighbors telling their tests of people, that is absolutely right. Like Testa was a starter car, It's always been the car for people who don't like cars, and now we have an electric car or the first of a whole group of electric cars that are electric cars to people who actually like autobiles. But with the lyric lyric net category, the Ionic is a couple of others the lyrics in there too, and that makes But you know the thing about the evs is that the ecosystem around them is as important as the car itself. You know your iPhone app. The charging infrastructure, and that's where Tesla wins. They have the supercharger network that's really Musk's own utility. It's the best, it's super reliable. The actual Electrify America charging stations are always broken down, they always suck, or somebody's park their f one fifty in front of it just to spite you, and you know, it's like Tesla really has that part down. But I completely agree, like this is a step change beyond a Model three, but I still feel like it's missing something so big, and that big thing is the reciprocating internal combustion engine. Well that's that's a whole different argument. I will say. One of the problems with evs you talked about it they need to standardize it. It's not like cars have different gas nozzles, so you have to have different gas stations, you know. Now, I'll throw something else out with Tesla that that they have developed both through the initial owners and Elon Musk. There's a certain douche factor to having a Tesla, like, oh, you're one of them, You're a Tesla person, you know what I mean? And the ionic doesn't carry that baggage. I know, as a motorcyclist, when I'm riding around La and I see a Tesla, I assume that driver isn't driving the car, that it's an automatic, and that that car might kill me. You know, there's there's a certain baggage that goes with owning them, and as far as the interiors they have become you know, for the amount of car costs, it's like, what is this cheap plastic interior that's going up? Like they're not unique enough anymore to put up with that. It's not like, oh, you have a Tesla. Now it's just another car, especially here in LA and you know in some places they're still unique. In La they are, they are Diame a dozen, They're everywhere, and I don't know who would pay that kind of money for that level of quality. Like Malcolm was talking about, when we come back our winner for Car of the Year. So we've got we've eliminated one, we've been talking about about the other three. Do you have Do you have any kind of feelings about about about rankings here? Well, I think that the Ionic rises above the Tesla and indeed many other evs, and it's really kind of important and a significant breakthrough, but it's going to be surpassed in three years years by something with more range and more power. So I think that's probably our third place finalists. What do you guys think I'd agree with that? Here's here's the heuristic I would use to evaluate who we should who should be number one, and that is five years from now, would we understand the ranking. So you know how there's some years with the Oscars where the pick for Best Picture makes sense in the moment, and then five years later you're like, wait they did, Like like remember that movie Crash, Yeah, didn't crashin Best Picture. Like there is not a person on the face of the earth who thinks the Crash deserve Best Picture that year. It's or like in basketball, you know there are some number one picks. You're like, wait, Anthony Bennett was the number of what he was number number two pick or something like. It's that kind of thing. So five years from now, are we going to be puzzled if we put the ionic first? I think yes, we would be puzzled because the field is going to progress so rapidly. It really does come down to which of these two perfect expressions of a traditional model we want to hold up to posterity and say this is as good as it got with the kind of analog sports dent, which you know, it's down to the vet versus the black wing. Which which of those is the better? Is the thing that would that's five years from now we say, yeah, that was man, that was the end of an era, and like that was the right car to pick. Well, I think using that criteria, it has to be the Black Wing, because in five years that doesn't exist exactly. You know, there will be supercars from here to infinity, small batch supercars. They can slip past the regulators noses. But a sports dan like this with this crazy almost seven horsepower engine and a stick and all this torque and just an absolutely perfect expression of what a sports stand should be, which is a sports car with four doors. Yeah, it's the Black Wing. And I'd also like to say, is there any cooler name than black Wing? It's best, It's the best. I want one. Well, another thing is m and Malcolm you touched on it is the daily driver aspect, you know. That's also the insane thing that the Black Wing. I mean, the Corvette is a stretch as a daily driver, right, I mean you might have to carry luggage one day or you know, and the Black Wing is so easy to live with if it's your only car. You could live with that as your only car, your daily driver, like you said, and every day be comfortable and commute and this and that, and then every now and then put your foot in it and go berserk and absolutely love it. And then bring it back down and not so. I think that also. That's another reason the black wing goes at the top of this It's gonna make it like it's it's gonna be one of those cars that really, I think lasts to your point, Malcolm, you know, this is a Citizen Kane type of car that we talk about for a long time. It's like a Citron sm you know, like, wow, how did they do that? You know, it's just got so much engineering integrity, so much design integrity. It's just so well thought out that it's it's just going to last. And you know, one of my maxims is that time equals value. They spent more time on this car than anything else probably on this list except maybe the Zeo six. I think that's going to translate into lasting value. We're gonna want this car for a very very long time. We're going to work back and go. Man, that was the peak of something. Yeah, agreed, agreed, Wow, Malcolm, you're right. Eddie's going to go to work for Consumer Reports. I mean, no matter where he goes, it comes back to value all mister value. Edie. He's going to run the car division Walmart Car Show is written and hosted by me Eddie Alterman. It's produced by Emily Rosstek and Jacob Smith. Our editor is Karen Shakerjee. Original music and mastering by Ben Tolliday. Our executive producer is Mia lo Bell. Our show art was designed by Sean Karney and air rushed by Greg la Fever. Our patron Saints as always are We, Tom Allad and Justine Lang. Car Show is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you have this show and others from Pushkin Industries, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and uninterrupted listening for just four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Car Show! with Eddie Alterman

Longtime Car and Driver editor Eddie Alterman thinks all cars are great, even the awful ones. But so 
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