Inside The Sports - Car studios - /road testament

[MUSIC PLAYING] MIKE SPINELLI: Hey. Welcome to Road Testament. I'm Mike Spinelli. JF Musial is here today. JF MUSIAL: You got my name right. Thank you. MIKE SPINELLI: I did. Because you pronounce it wrong, dude. You pronounce it Mus-uil, Mus-ail. I'm telling you. You pronounce it wrong. I don't know-- JF MUSIAL: Tell me how my name is wrong. MIKE SPINELLI: I don't know who told you how to pronounce your name. @drive on Twitter is where you can subscribe and we can send you stuff, including questions like the one we asked today related to your show, called Driven. JF MUSIAL: What was the question you posed? MIKE SPINELLI: The question was, if you could go behind the scenes at any sports car or motorsports factory, shop, et cetera, what would it be? What would it be? JF MUSIAL: So that's kind of what we're doing, Driven. MIKE SPINELLI: Exactly. JF MUSIAL: Driven-- the entire concept of Driven was developed around interesting people, interesting stories in the automotive industry that you don't ordinarily see or hear about. And from the abilities of the access we get, I always thought it would be fascinating to show those things that people will never get to see, that no manufacturer would want to put out necessary as its own piece, but we can. MIKE SPINELLI: Well, it's also the ultimate nerd show. JF MUSIAL: Yes. MIKE SPINELLI: So I mean, if you enjoyed nerding out on how things are made-- JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: -- which a lot of our audience does, and I do. If you don't then maybe-- JF MUSIAL: That Discovery Channel show How It's Made, what. MIKE SPINELLI: Yes. JF MUSIAL: I love watching that show, and that's kind of-- MIKE SPINELLI: I know. JF MUSIAL: -- or Build It Bigger on Discovery Channel. All those shows, it's kind of the same concept. MIKE SPINELLI: Exactly. And just to prove we have tons of nerds in our audience, we asked that question if you go behind the scenes at any motorsports or sports car maker, which would it be? We got a lot of answers. A lot of Ferraris, a lot of Lamborghinis. You've already been to Lamborghini JF MUSIAL: Lamborghini. MIKE SPINELLI: --in an earlier show. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. Pagani was this week. MIKE SPINELLI: Pagani was this week. A lot of the Paganis. JF MUSIAL: We also did my good friend, Mark, who is not necessarily a car manufacturer, but it's an interesting story. MIKE SPINELLI: Right. JF MUSIAL: But it was also about the people. The Lamborghini story was about Balboni. MIKE SPINELLI: Right. Also Koenigsegg-- JF MUSIAL: Yes, we did. MIKE SPINELLI: -- which we'll talk about soon because you did go there. JF MUSIAL: Yes, we went there. MIKE SPINELLI: [INAUDIBLE] there yet, right? JF MUSIAL: Angelholm, Sweden-- MIKE SPINELLI: Exactly. JF MUSIAL: -- part of that trip. Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: And a lot of Formula One teams. So let's see-- JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: --what people answered when we asked that question. Morgan. A lot of Morgans. A lot of people want to see how those cars are made, how the ash wood frames are made and stuff. JF MUSIAL: And funny enough, we are doing this, but on a Live and Let Drive episode for season two of Live and Let Drive. MIKE SPINELLI: Because Alex Roy, as we mentioned in a previous Road Testament is buying a Morgan three-wheeler. JF MUSIAL: He's very good friends with Charles Morgan. MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah. JF MUSIAL: So we're going to the UK actually in a few weeks for season three, which launches in July. And Alex is going to go to Morgan, and Chris Harris is going to join on for that trip. MIKE SPINELLI: Cool. JF MUSIAL: That's going to be a whole onslaught of shows in Live and Let Drive. MIKE SPINELLI: Awesome. Other than Morgan, we've got Prodrive. JF MUSIAL: Prodrive. I would love to go to Prodrive. Ahh. MIKE SPINELLI: Prodrive, the motorsports-- JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: -- technology company by Dave. Is that Dave Richards from Prodrive? JF MUSIAL: Prodrive. MIKE SPINELLI: Also builds Aston Martins race cars. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: I would love to see what's behind the scenes-- JF MUSIAL: I think we all would. MIKE SPINELLI: -- at Prodrive [INAUDIBLE]-- JF MUSIAL: Good suggestion, Dave-- MIKE SPINELLI: From Prodrive. JF MUSIAL: To Dave from Prodrive. MIKE SPINELLI: Making in the Ariel Atom V8, the Hartley V8, and the Ariel Atom, which is so cool. The Hayabusa motors squished together and [INAUDIBLE]. JF MUSIAL: It's also reference to the Veryon SS, the Veryon in France. That would be-- MIKE SPINELLI: A supersport-- JF MUSIAL: Pagani, yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: 268 miles per hour. That would be cool to see. JF MUSIAL: What else. MIKE SPINELLI: Also Porsche. JF MUSIAL: Porsche. Actually-- MIKE SPINELLI: Easy. JF MUSIAL: -- coming up next week is Porsche Classic. So if you ever want to see eight 959s in the same room, well, that's the episode we have next week. MIKE SPINELLI: Oh. Cool. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: All right. So perfect lead in. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: Toyota Hybrid. You got to be kind of an engineering nerd to see how-- JF MUSIAL: I think its cool-- MIKE SPINELLI: --that's made. JF MUSIAL: --especially with that-- we wouldn't be able to get in there before Le Mans this year. But it'd be interesting to see how that program progresses. MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah. I love the idea that technology and motorsports are coming together like that. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: A lot of people aren't so happy about hybrids in motorsports. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: But if it's faster and better, it's cool. JF MUSIAL: Thank you, Christopher. MIKE SPINELLI: Also, yes, Super GT and Le Mans too for Nissan. That would be cool. JF MUSIAL: Oh, God. Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: But again-- JF MUSIAL: Red Bull racing in Austria. MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah, Red Bull-- well, everybody wants to see behind the doors of Formula One. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: And this is cool, a closeup of-- JF MUSIAL: Oh, yeah, Newey's-- in the UK, go to Newey's. OK. MIKE SPINELLI: A closeup of Adrian Newey's workspace. I mean who doesn't want to see what Adrian Newey is working on if you're a Formula One fan. JF MUSIAL: He must have the most interesting desk in the world. I fact I don't-- he probably works from home, knowing who he is, but-- MIKE SPINELLI: I think he works from a hot tub somewhere. That's like-- JF MUSIAL: Because he has a lot of-- he loves the aviation industry. MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah. JF MUSIAL: And my comment before, he probably makes everything out of green and stuff, right. MIKE SPINELLI: Right. JF MUSIAL: Just because he can. MIKE SPINELLI: It's just a giant Zen garden that he designs rigs in. JF MUSIAL: It'll be very interesting especially to see like his notebook that he like takes with him on-- MIKE SPINELLI: Well, I just picture it as like DaVinci codex. Just look at Adrian Newey's notebooks. Just imagine all this amazing aerodynamic stuff just-- JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: Even though it's probably not how it-- JF MUSIAL: Although [INAUDIBLE] computers so next. MIKE SPINELLI: Not so much napkins. Also Mercedes GP F1. JF MUSIAL: That'll be cool in the UK. Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: Kurt says, I'd like to see how a team that struggled in the past reconnects with Mercedes' storied history in F1. That's kind of interesting. That's more of a narrative kind of get back to winning. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. Silver Arrows and everything else. MIKE SPINELLI: Silver Arrows and all that stuff. Yes. JF MUSIAL: Thank you, Kurt. Next. MIKE SPINELLI: Porsche and Audi Team Joest. Le Mans. But anyway, yeah. Just like F1, who wouldn't want to see behind the scene what Le Mans doing. Because that-- JF MUSIAL: We kind of did something without Audi through Shakedown down at Sebring during their hybrid testing. MIKE SPINELLI: Right. JF MUSIAL: And hopefully with Le Mans this year we'll get a lot more details on that. And Porsche in the next few years is going to be developing their own [INAUDIBLE] program. MIKE SPINELLI: So we actually might [INAUDIBLE]-- JF MUSIAL: Yeah. That could be something bigger and better. Thank you, Eric. And-- MIKE SPINELLI: And Nissan-- JF MUSIAL: DeltaWing. MIKE SPINELLI: --did progress with the DeltaWings. JF MUSIAL: They don't like us. They don't like Leo. I don't know. MIKE SPINELLI: I don't know if Leo's sold completely on the Le Mans prototype DeltaWing thing. JF MUSIAL: I'm guilty by association with Leo. MIKE SPINELLI: Well, yeah. We'll see how-- who's driving it Marino-- Marino-- JF MUSIAL: Franchitti. MIKE SPINELLI: Franchitti. Marino Franchitti is going to be driving that in Le Mans this year. We'll see. I don't know how-- the back is this wide. The front is this wide. It looks like a dragster. How is that going to handle? Apparently very well, says DeltaWing. JF MUSIAL: I saw it through six laps during the whole day at the Sebring test days. MIKE SPINELLI: Really? JF MUSIAL: Yeah. It can move. MIKE SPINELLI: Really? JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: Well, do you have-- you don't have any footage of that? JF MUSIAL: Of course we do. MIKE SPINELLI: You want to show it? JF MUSIAL: Right here. MIKE SPINELLI: There you go. [CAR ENGINE ROARING] JF MUSIAL: Next. MIKE SPINELLI: So and last, Clark Thomas would love to drive the Fiat roof track, the old Fiat test track in Turin. JF MUSIAL: There's a photo of it, right? MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah. We actually have a photo. Yeah. This is-- JF MUSIAL: I would love to do that but-- MIKE SPINELLI: Top Gear was here. They don't actually use it for testing anymore, I don't think. But it is a tourist attraction. JF MUSIAL: It's a tourist thing. Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah You could go there and hang out. I don't know if you could bring your car up there. That would be kind of cool. JF MUSIAL: That would be very cool. Yeah. Those are great suggestions, and hopefully we can get access. MIKE SPINELLI: You have a [INAUDIBLE] team. JF MUSIAL: We got very lucky with what we got this season. Very lucky. And it took a lot of effort. I started working on this stuff, getting into Pagani and getting into-- we went through a lot of places. But it started actually in December of last year. MIKE SPINELLI: Well, let's talk about this season right? JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: So you've already been to-- well, you did your first show about photography, right? JF MUSIAL: Yes. With my good friend Mark. We went to Denver with McLaren GTS Porsche and just had fun. MIKE SPINELLI: So that was the part of the show that's about individuals. JF MUSIAL: Individuals with interesting stories in the automotive industry. MIKE SPINELLI: Right. And so when you went to Lamborghini, the individual you were talking about was Valentino Balboni. JF MUSIAL: Had to be Balboni. MIKE SPINELLI: Yes. JF MUSIAL: We always didn't get him. Interesting story there. We showed up, and they said he was on vacation and-- MIKE SPINELLI: Isn't every day a vacation for that guy? JF MUSIAL: I was thinking that. And I'm like, I just came away from the US to interview Balboni, and you're telling me he's not here? Eventually they call him up. He was actually two miles down the road at his house. So that was good luck that we got him. MIKE SPINELLI: The cool thing about that is leave it to Italy-- Balboni was a kid back in the late '60s-- JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: Right. Was hanging around Sant' Agata-- that's the town where Lamborghini is. JF MUSIAL: Where Lamborghini is. Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: Was just a kid in town-- JF MUSIAL: He was on his way to a football soccer game. And he told his friend, just drop me off I want to go look at those cars. It was the Miura shells coming off the truck. MIKE SPINELLI: Ahh, man. JF MUSIAL: And he just helped some guys push the shells into the factory. And some security guard gave him a bunch of crap about what are you doing here, and then by the way there's an application. We need people. MIKE SPINELLI: Right. Get out of here, but go fill out an application. The sort of randomness of the guard like telling him to F off and then come back and then he becomes their test driver-- JF MUSIAL: Exactly. Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: --just sort of-- and not that long after that, he started driving the cars, like a year. JF MUSIAL: By the way, he's only had one job his entire life. Lamborghini. MIKE SPINELLI: Right. JF MUSIAL: That's awesome. So we look at the guy in which he was 15 minutes away from Lamborghini. And the connection there is that Horatio actually worked for Lamborghini. MIKE SPINELLI: Right. JF MUSIAL: The LM002 SUV Lamborghini produced, Horatio Pagani designed the interior. MIKE SPINELLI: You're kidding. I didn't know he did that one. Because the LM002 is one of my favorite useless crazy vehicles of all time. JF MUSIAL: There is a connection. And when I went to Pagani, I just asked as many questions as I could off camera. MIKE SPINELLI: Right. JF MUSIAL: And when we went there, it was awesome. Usually when we go to these places, it's what can we film, what can we not film. And Pagani was like, film everything. MIKE SPINELLI: Wow. JF MUSIAL: There's a car that's not even been revealed yet. We didn't show it entirely. But they're like, don't worry about it. It's OK. And I just kept-- I asked as many questions as I could. I want to learn as much as I can because you read articles about the place-- Speedhunters did an awesome photo gallery of the place. There were so many questions that came to mind I just remembered, I have to ask these questions. So that when I went on camera and told the story of what I had just learned, it was fresh in my mind that it was something that was new to me. I needed to tell and convey that story. MIKE SPINELLI: One thing that strikes me about Pagani is that he's in super car gulch, right? Like there's Ferrari. They're Lamborghini. Legendary names-- JF MUSIAL: All 25 minutes apart from each other. Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: Legendary names. He comes out of Argentina and builds a car with just as much personality as a Ferrari or Lamborghini or at least has its own-- JF MUSIAL: It's a whole new level I think. MIKE SPINELLI: Has its own idiosyncrasies that make it a very personal car. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: And just an awesome sound. German V8 obvious-- JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: --V8 AMG-- not V8. V12. JF MUSIAL: V12, yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: V12. [CAR ENGINE ROARING]. MIKE SPINELLI: The interesting thing about Pagani is it doesn't seem like they have any intentions to go down market. They've got a niche. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: They've got their very, very super high-end cars that build, literally, race cars for the street. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: Do they have any plans to build an SUV or anything amazing, crazy like that? JF MUSIAL: I can tell you-- I didn't see any of those plans. I don't know. But I think that they're very happy with what they're doing. But if you look at what they've done the past 10 years, they have their special editions. I think at this point they're moving into a new factory. They're going to double their production. And of course, after the 250 units of the Huayra are complete, I'm sure they're already working on the next iteration of the roadster, whatever it may be. MIKE SPINELLI: I hope they kind of stay in that. It would be good to see a company not have to branch out into things that they're not the best at or at least compromise. Again, that's the thing that we always *** about that once companies start compromising on certain things to sell more cars or to approach a different market or do something else, we as car nuts get *** when they do that. If they never have to do that, if have never have to compromise on a car that they're making and they're always making really super fast cars for the street that are basically race cars-- JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: --then there shouldn't be a problem with us-- JF MUSIAL: I don't think-- MIKE SPINELLI: --as long as they can make money [INAUDIBLE]. JF MUSIAL: I don't think you have anything to worry about that. And the fact that it's a family-held company, I don't think that they're going to have any influence pushing them to do something else. MIKE SPINELLI: Well, that's good. Next. Those are the shows that we've seen that you've done. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. What's next? MIKE SPINELLI: So what's next? JF MUSIAL: Porsche Classic next week which is-- a lot of people don't know about Porsche Classic, but it's an arm of Porsche where if you've got anything older than I think it's 1992 you could actually send it back to the factory. And some of the people who built the car on the assembly line are actually restoring those cars in modern day. For example, the 959. That's a perfect example. There's something like eight or nine 959s under one roof in Porsche Classic, which is outside of Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen. Guggenhausen. You have this small building that just all these guys work on these cars, restore them, clean them up, and then ship them out. MIKE SPINELLI: That's a very cool job. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: Did you talk to the guys that actually do it? JF MUSIAL: Yes. Of course, yes. MIKE SPINELLI: Because that is-- other than getting a job building Ferraris, say, that's on the top 10 list of cool car jobs. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: So this maybe should be-- JF MUSIAL: It's cool. Just it's cool. And it's interesting to see-- so there's are 959s there from Ohio to Dubai to Hong Kong. From around the world, these cars go out, are sold. They come back to the motherland and then go back out. It's very cool to see that connection. MIKE SPINELLI: Right. JF MUSIAL: Most car companies are in the mindset of, we sell new cars. That's our business. MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah. JF MUSIAL: But for Porsche, it's like, no, no, our history is important. MIKE SPINELLI: So Porsche, where else did you go? JF MUSIAL: You've got the list. I kind of forgot. McLaren. MIKE SPINELLI: And I was going to mention McLaren, because that's another one that when we threw it out to the Drive audience on Twitter this morning-- JF MUSIAL: Everyone said go to McLaren? MIKE SPINELLI: -- a lot of people said McLaren, yeah. JF MUSIAL: Well, we went to Wilken and we went to the MTC, and we went inside the new production facilities of the MC412C-- MIKE SPINELLI: Cool. JF MUSIAL: --which is a clean room. It's awesome. And I got tell you, we went to MTC. And of course McLaren is not just-- it's McLaren Automotive, McLaren Electronics, McLaren Racing. So there are these different arms underneath the McLaren brands in that same building. So McLaren Electronics does the ECUs for NASCAR, Indy car, and all these other places. McLaren Racing is, of course, Formula One. And McLaren Automotive is the F1 and the MP412C and whenever they come in the future. Right off the bat, I'll tell you we couldn't get anywhere near the new F1. MIKE SPINELLI: OK. That was my next question. JF MUSIAL: Yes. Could not-- we saw a lot of the old F1 cars, but it's an active workshop. So while we were there-- we weren't able to film this-- but while we were there, we were actually seeing them hand produce the new Aero package that you'll see in Spain. MIKE SPINELLI: Oh, wow. Cool. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. So pretty cool that you'll-- like we got to see it, and it's active that these guys are in hand producing these front wing elements and the back wing elements of the current F1 cars, but-- MIKE SPINELLI: I just imagine carbon fiber enclaves [INAUDIBLE]. JF MUSIAL: It's like honeycomb, and then they lay the carbon over. A lot of it's-- actually all of it is hand produced. So you will not see any of that. Because if we did, we would be shot. MIKE SPINELLI: Good point. JF MUSIAL: So it's only the [INAUDIBLE]-- MIKE SPINELLI: Ron Dennis would just come down with-- JF MUSIAL: Oh, Ron Dennis would *** me. MIKE SPINELLI: -- with an M-60 and just like cho-cho-cho-cho. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: Sorry. My imitation of an M-60. I don't even know-- what is that? I don't know what does that even mean. Were those joysticks? JF MUSIAL: [INAUDIBLE]. MIKE SPINELLI: No wait. One more thing about McLaren. JF MUSIAL: OK. MIKE SPINELLI: Their top-line car. Did you get any-- JF MUSIAL: No, no. MIKE SPINELLI: --look at anything having to do with that? JF MUSIAL: No. But the spy shots just hit the web this week of the F1 successor. And I don't think McLaren at any point denied that the car is not coming. We did not get to see it. But I think what you will see from the footage inside the factory is that there is a lot of empty space in the production line. OK. That says a lot about what about to come. MIKE SPINELLI: OK. Cool. So-- JF MUSIAL: Next up is Koenigsegg. MIKE SPINELLI: Koenigsegg. JF MUSIAL: I'm reading your notes upside down. MIKE SPINELLI: Well, that's cool. What tipped you off? The G's, the seven G's in a row? JF MUSIAL: We went to Angelholm, Sweden. I finally got the right. We went to go meet Christian von Koenigsegg on their airfield. What I learned, very interesting, is that the airfield that Koenigsegg on is it's an old air force base, which actually a lot of the employees actually used to work at as air force employees. And now, as Sweden has decreased their need for an air force, these guys are working on the same base for Koenigsegg, the car manufacturer. MIKE SPINELLI: That's very cool. JF MUSIAL: So we got literally a tour with Christian von Koenigsegg around the entire facility. MIKE SPINELLI: So you're talking about sort of aerodynamics, aerospace [INAUDIBLE]? JF MUSIAL: What they do there is they produce a lot of their elements there, minus the monocarb chassis. But the best part of Koenigsegg is that they live on a runway. MIKE SPINELLI: Right. That's true. Just pull the car out and go 200 miles an hour. JF MUSIAL: We were shooting them and got rides along in some of their prototypes. [CAR ENGINE ROARING] JF MUSIAL: So the fastest I've ever been car about 200 miles an hour on a foggy runway. So you'll see that. MIKE SPINELLI: Christian von Koenigsegg I here is a very cool kind kind of guy? JF MUSIAL: Awesome guy. He's so cool. And you'll learn it's not necessarily only about his cars, but the patents he has on the cars. Very cool. MIKE SPINELLI: Like what kind of patents? JF MUSIAL: I think the-- the motors in the Koenigseggs are actually all built by Koenigsegg. MIKE SPINELLI: Well, that's the thing. JF MUSIAL: It's V Ford. MIKE SPINELLI: Well, right. Because a lot of people still think it's the Ford modular V8. JF MUSIAL: No. It's a Koenigsegg V8. MIKE SPINELLI: Is it based somewhat on the Ford? JF MUSIAL: The old one used to be-- MIKE SPINELLI: Right. OK. JF MUSIAL: -- with the CCX. That was an offspring. But the new one is completely Koenigsegg. MIKE SPINELLI: So the Agera, Rgera-- JF MUSIAL: Agera-- MIKE SPINELLI: -- Agera, Agera. JF MUSIAL: -- Agera R, whatever. MIKE SPINELLI: Agera R. JF MUSIAL: They have a lot of patents on the engine technology and the ECU, which is actually probably more of-- off my opinion, I think they'll probably make more money on that than selling their own cars. MIKE SPINELLI: So as an applied electronics things, selling that to other companies [INAUDIBLE]? JF MUSIAL: Well, just the patents, like licensing the patents. I think this is really an interesting business model. And for Christian von Koenigsegg to start that company when he was 23 years old and do what he's done, and he's only 35 at this point-- out of this world what he's done. MIKE SPINELLI: But he was successful. Didn't he do-- he had some kind of software business or-- JF MUSIAL: I think so, yeah, initially-- MIKE SPINELLI: -- or pharmaceutical software? JF MUSIAL: Within the financial industry [INAUDIBLE]-- MIKE SPINELLI: [INAUDIBLE]. JF MUSIAL: He's a quant. He's smart. MIKE SPINELLI: He's a quant. He's a black box guy. Very nice. JF MUSIAL: He's very smart. MIKE SPINELLI: And it shows . Those cars are nuts. JF MUSIAL: Yes. They are very nice. Very cool. MIKE SPINELLI: So what else? You've got after that one? JF MUSIAL: Fisker, Mike. We got to drive the Karma. MIKE SPINELLI: Right. JF MUSIAL: We got to learn a lot about the Karma, about the technology. I think that Fisker as an automotive company in America is awesome. I think what they're doing is very good. MIKE SPINELLI: It's interesting-- JF MUSIAL: And I'm very curious to see what happens with the Wilmington, Delaware, plant. I want to see how that evolve to become something much bigger, really another big car manufacturer in America. MIKE SPINELLI: The thing that struck me about Fisker in the beginning was that the drivetrain technology was by-- JF MUSIAL: [INAUDIBLE]. MIKE SPINELLI: -- the company-- what it called? JF MUSIAL: I don't know the details. MIKE SPINELLI: The millennium or-- but anyway [INAUDIBLE]-- JF MUSIAL: There was a connection to the US Government. MIKE SPINELLI: But they had developed that hybrid drivetrain technology for Navy Seals or black ops? JF MUSIAL: I don't know, but yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: But as a vehicle for Special Forces to sneak into places and then sneak back out. Because you go in all electric, and then come out-- JF MUSIAL: Yeah. Cool. MIKE SPINELLI: -- come out blazing if you have to. JF MUSIAL: Some cool stuff out there. MIKE SPINELLI: Again, I don't know how much of that technology they're still using, but eventually-- I don't know whether that's-- JF MUSIAL: I got to tell you I love the Karma. As a full-package vehicle, it's very cool I think-- MIKE SPINELLI: Interesting. JF MUSIAL: [INAUDIBLE]. For the most part, that's pretty much season one-- MIKE SPINELLI: That's season one. JF MUSIAL: --with one or two other things in the pipeline I'm trying to work on. But season two, I like those suggestions. MIKE SPINELLI: So you still haven't finalized. So you can still probably get out to some of these place? JF MUSIAL: Well, certainly. It all comes down to access. The first season was the hardest because there's no precedent. And when I first started pitching these guys-- Drive what? Well, it's a channel that doesn't exist yet. I promise you'll it'll be good. That what I had to go on. MIKE SPINELLI: Trust me. Try going around saying you work for Jalopnik in 2004. JF MUSIAL: Jalopnik who? MIKE SPINELLI: That's jalopnik.com C-O-M. JF MUSIAL: Which is part of Gawker what? MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah. Nobody knew. So, yeah, I know making those cold calls is tough. So where would you go-- you have been to all the places that you would go? Or is there any personally that you would? JF MUSIAL: Ohh. There's certain things I would love to see with-- I want to get behind the scenes of some prototype testing. I would love to do that like at the Nurburgring. Yeah Because a lot of people know this, of course, with the spy shots that come out. A mile down the road out of the Nurburgring, there's like a prototype village. It's like all the car manufacturers have their own offices. MIKE SPINELLI: Right. JF MUSIAL: You'll see Aston Martin, Cadillac next to Porsche, Audi. And those are the engineers that are really developing the cars of the future. Those are the guys who are actually driving these cars at the edge. You look at Walter Rohrl. I would love to do a story on him. He was the guy that really defined 20 years of Porsche in terms of its driving dynamics. MIKE SPINELLI: That's true because he was a major test driver for Porsche. JF MUSIAL: That's true. He drove pretty much all the production cars. Only up until like the 991 that he didn't, if you think about it. MIKE SPINELLI: Walter Rohrl. JF MUSIAL: Yeah. I think that's it though. MIKE SPINELLI: That's it. JF MUSIAL: So anyway we'll be looking forward to-- MIKE SPINELLI: Oh, no. Someone said KTM. Oh, that's right. JF MUSIAL: I'd love to. MIKE SPINELLI: We forgot that. That would be cool too, KTM. JF MUSIAL: It would be awesome. MIKE SPINELLI: KTM in Austria would be a very cool place because they do the-- well, the crossbow was DeLara, right? Doesn't DeLara, do the body? JF MUSIAL: Yeah. Some part of that. Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: Does the chassis and then? JF MUSIAL: The carbon fiber and stuff. Yeah. MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah. That-- JF MUSIAL: There's a lot of cool manufacturers out there. And of course, one of the problems is I don't want to step on too many toes like Tunes. Tunes is an aftermarket site-- MIKE SPINELLI: [INAUDIBLE]-- JF MUSIAL: -- Tech Art and all those guys. MIKE SPINELLI: So maybe send Matt Farah out there? JF MUSIAL: Maybe. MIKE SPINELLI: Yeah. JF MUSIAL: Maybe. He deserves it. MIKE SPINELLI: Cool. Hit us up @drive on Twitter if you've got a place where you would want to go to see behind the scenes for nerdy or otherwise reasons sports cars or motorsports. And that's it for Road Testament. JF Musial-- JF MUSIAL: That was a long one. MIKE SPINELLI: A long one. JF MUSIAL: That was a long episode. MIKE SPINELLI: Well, you got the slider. You can make it longer or short as much as you like. Watch a little. Watch a lot. Wait a minute. It's the opposite. See you. [MUSIC PLAYING]