Stellantis Bets On V8 Power While Texas Drive-Ins Still Shine

Welcome And Where To Listen

Welcome to In Wheel Time. If you're joining us now on the live stream on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, or inWheeltime.com, you're part of our new hour Saturday morning from 9 to 10 a.m. And we appreciate you joining us. And if you're on our podcast, it's available on most podcast providers: Apple, Amazon, Spotify, Sirius XM podcasts, iHeartRadio Podcast, lots of them out there. If we're not on your favorite, then let us know and we will try and get on to your favorite podcast. Start over here. Welcome to In Wheel Time. Want to thank you for joining us this morning. Welcome to In Wheel Time. Want to thank you for joining us. If you're joining us on the live stream, you're joining us during our new hour from 9 to 10 a.m. on Saturday mornings. And we can still be found on all our other outlets, such as all our podcasts on Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Sirius XM Podcast, all those. And if we're not on your favorite podcast provider, let us know and we'll see if we can take care of that for you. Now, we did a little shuffling in the last half hour of our program. So we're going to have to do a little more shuffling while we're going on now. So this half hour, we're going to start off with our automotive history. Then we're going to look at the racing card. Then we're going to look at some more news. And then we've got another feature where we're going to see where the road's going to take us this week.

Automotive History Worth Remembering

So starting off with automotive history. This week in automotive history, uh, the week ahead, some of the things that are coming up in the upcoming days that you might be interested in. We found them very interesting, and you might want to follow up on them as the dates roll around. Coming up here on September the 14th, 1948, Al Moss bought a used MGTC in Southern California. And that kind of sounds like a pretty ordinary car purchase, except Moss was about to become one of the most influential names in the American-British sports car movement. Now he took the erased the MG, he competed in Jim Connors, and he drove it around Los Angeles. So the little sports car got a lot of attention. So he was great with that and he was loving every minute of it, except he was very dissatisfied with his local MG dealer. Now, this caused him to eventually open his own shop in 1949. Now that business became Moss Motors, and it's one of the best known sources for MG and British sports car parts in America. Now, this of course has grown into a big corporation since that time, been bought and sold a lot, but that name is one of the legendary names in Southern California for the MGs. Then coming up on September the 14th. Now, this was the inaugural Talladega 500 in 1969. The Dodge Charger Daytona made its NASCAR debut on September the 14th, 1969. It was a controversial weekend for several reasons. Several other NASCAR top drivers had boycotted the race because there were concerns about tire failures at the brand new, extremely fast track. Now that didn't slow down Richard Brickhouse because he took the new aerodynamic Dodge and he put it in Victory Lane. The Daytona had a dramatic extended nose and a huge rear wing, and Dodge built 503 of street versions of this vehicle so they could qualify it for the NASCAR competition. Now, just a year later, Buddy Baker would drive one beyond a 200 mile per hour at Talladega. First time it was that speed was achieved at that track. And you'll also kind of think, well, you've seen other ones. Plymouth has one as well. Same thing. They built 500 of them so that they could get it onto the tracks, but it's real easy to tell the difference. Still got that same extended nose, still got the big wing, but the Plymouth version has a vinyl top on it. Now they did that for some very practical reasons. Once it was one, it was very popular. They were trying to get on the track, and it was cheaper because where the top would come in weld into the body panels there on the quarters, they had to well they had to smooth out the seams to make it paint worthy. Well, put a vinyl top on it, you just weld it up, glue it down, and you're gone. So there was a lot of reasons for that, but that's an easy way to tell the difference between the Plymouth Superbird and the Dodge Charger Daytona. Then coming up on September the 16th, 1965. This is this really blew my mind. The Mustang gets its first major update. Now the car has only been out a year and a half, it's already getting an update. But September the 16th, 1965, marked the beginning of sales for the 1966 Ford Mustang. It may not sound like a whole lot of history, but the changes demonstrated just how fast Ford was evolving with a Mustang after such a spectacular debut that it made. On the inside of it, there was a five-gauge instrument cluster that had been part of the 1965 GT. Well, now this was standard equipment on the 66 Ford Mustang. Ford sold nearly 681,000 Mustangs during the extended first model year. So that first year and a half, I mean, they were rocking and rolling, throwing them out the factory. So the challenge really wasn't creating the interest because there was a lot of interest after it rolled out at the World's Fair in 1964, but it was keeping the factories running so they could keep them out there, so they could keep selling them to keep the phenomenon going. This is the what started the Pony Wars and led to the response by several other manufacturers to what this vehicle has done. Now, the next thing we've got is on September the 13th, Road Atlanta opens up with a Can Am Thunder event. Now, this was in 1970, and it was the first race day at a brand new road course in Georgia. It's called Road Atlanta, of course. Now, Vic Elford put his car on the pole. There were a lot of other people there at that race, Sterling Moss, and they were all there. But Tony Dean won the inaugural Can Am race in a Porsche 908 after 75 laps. Now, Road Atlanta would go on to host Can Am's Formula 500s, IMSA races, Trans Am, and other major racing series, becoming one of America's best known road racing venues. Coming up next, we're going to find that we've got the on September the 18th, this is a day that just this really is terrible. The day dieselgate became public September the 18th, 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that Volkswagen and Audi diesel cars had been equipped from the factory with software that allegedly circumvented emissions during testing requirements. The EPA noticed that the involved four-cylinder diesel vehicles from 2009 to 2015 model years, the software in those vehicles could recognize when the vehicles were undergoing an emissions test. And it would alter the operation of the vehicle so that it would pass. So out on the road, the vehicles could produce dramatically higher nitrogen oxide emissions than is actually permitted and still pass the test because of this software. Volkswagen would later acknowledge discrepancies involving millions, literally millions of vehicles worldwide. What began as an emissions investigation became one of the biggest corporate scandals in modern American history. And that's a few of the things that we found interesting on automotive history coming up in the next week. So I think next we're going to take a quick look at the racing card.

Racing Calendar And Local Tracks

Time now for the racing card brought to you by the Texas Muscle Car Club Challenge. Now, if you're not familiar with the Texas Muscle Car Club Challenge, go to Facebook. You can find them there real easy. This is basically a group set up to race by clubs. You come out bracket racing your car individually, absolutely one-on-one. But the overall day, the club goes together, and there's some club racing, club against club type level on it as well. So, and if you're not a member of a car club, if you go out there, you want to run, you fill out your car, get through the tech, they will help you figure out a club that you can join to be part of it. You can participate, and then you can also contribute to that club as far as the club standings go. So coming up here on uh really close, September the 9th through the 13th, Ferrari Challenge. I guess that's this weekend, Road American Elkhardt. This is an IMSA event. Now, then on September the 12th, you also got a NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts series. Now, this is at the Worldwide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois. Coming down to September the 17th through the 20th, Mustang Challenge, Michelin GT Challenge down at the Virginia International Raceway. And September the 17th, NASCAR. NASCAR is back in action. The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series at Bristol Motor Speedwheel, Bristol, Tennessee. Then September the 18th through the 20th, NHRA Great Lakes Nationals. Now this is going to be at U.S. 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan. Then September the 19th, the Bass Pro Shops Night Race. Now this should be really interesting. It's up at Bristol Motor Speedway, Bristol, Tennessee, NASCAR Cup Series in under the lights. You're going down to September the 25-27 NHRA Nationals at the Rock. This is Rockingham Dragway in Rockingham, North Carolina. Then on September the 26th to 27, NASCAR, Kansas, Speedway Weekend, Kansas Speedway, Kansas City, Kansas, another big NASCAR weekend. So that's some of the things that are coming up. There's lots of racing action going on, whether you're looking for local dirt track oval, there's some short track asphalt track racing going on, as well as the bigger ones. Look around close. There's lots of small tracks, drag strips out in the piney woods around here and up in Lufkin. I mean, they're it they're all over the place. So look for your local racetrack if you're looking for some local action. If not, here's some stuff that you can look at. Probably get it on TV. That's the race card sponsored by the Texas Muscle Car Club Challenge.

Stellantis Plans New Nameplates

So I've been holding this other story because it's going to take a little bit of time to get through it. But I'm I was really looking forward to this. So we're going to start this off with the Stellantis Product Blitz mixes affordable practicality high dollars features. Now, if you remember, it hasn't really been that long whenever the challengers, the retro style challenger came out, and they started coming out with the Hellcats, you know, the powered 700 plus horsepower engines, and then they got into the demons, and they've just, you know, up up. Well, then the new Green Deal came out, things changed, and it just uh all that kind of went south. Everybody was going to EV. A lot of it was because of government mandates that you got to go to the EV. So people were they had to make some changes. I mean, it just it's a matter of survival. However, Mr. Tim Caniscus, who used to be with uh Stillantis and then retired under part when I think it was when he was still with SRT, the last time I had an opportunity to interview him, and now he's back. So I see that as some of the things that are coming back. If you'll think about it, the Dodge Brother commercials where all the hell cats are out there and the challengers, and everybody's doing donuts and smoky burnouts, the whole performance aspect of it. That's what we're talking about here. So let me give you some of this. So the U.S. Delantis showrooms are slated to get 11 new nameplates by 2030 as the automaker funnels $25 billion towards North American products and brands. Now, the company plans to double down on those high-powered V8 engines. Now they're going to enter five new segments and they're going to launch more affordable vehicles. Now it's kind of a broad range there. It's aiming to offer nine new nameplates that start at less than $40,000. If you think about the average car price now, it's around $50,000. That's a big drop down, is where they're going to be. Now they're going to introduce two Chrysler models around $25,000. We've talked before that Chrysler is just poor, poor Chrysler. All they got is a couple of minivans. They have just from gone from the top of the brand kind of down to just barely hanging on. Well, now they're going to get a little bit of a lifeline, and it'll be real good to see what these two kind of vehicles are going to be at that price range at $25,000. I know a lot of people would like to buy that, including some recent college grads that I happen to know. Now, these are going to be back to the story. This is going to be attractive segments of the market where we are not fully participating today. And that is our opportunity to leverage our strong brands and to drive deeper market penetration. Now, this is according to this uh CEO Antonio Felosa told investors earlier this year. Now, the street and racing technology division uh is coming back with a vengeance. Now they're planning on 11 high performance variants that are going to come out of this. The list includes two new Dodge models, the GLH Hot Hatch, and a Copperhead Muscle Car, as well as a Burley Jeep and Ram SUVs. Got another little story on Ram coming up here after we get through with this one. Now, a 777 horsepower off-road version of Ram's 1500 pickup truck, the SRT TRX. It went started shipping to dealers over the summer. Now we've seen it and we've heard about it. It'll be followed by the Rumble B SRT street truck in early 2027. Love the name Rumble B. Remember the Bumblebees that they used to have? Let's take off on that and it's very good. Stillannis provided an early look at the upcoming Charger SRT, featuring a massive rear wing at its May Investor Day. I didn't get to see it. I'll buy more stock. Maybe I'll make it next time. So Ram is getting into the compact and mid-sized truck segments with the Rampage and the Dakota. It's also planning its first SUV since becoming a standalone brand way back in 2009. Now, in all this, Jeep is crafting a Wrangler offshoot called the Scrambler. Have you ever heard of that before? Jeep Scrambler. So Chrysler, after being starved for products, again, we mentioned that just barely hanging on, they're finally getting some help in the pipeline. It's got a trio of crossovers. Instead of just many vans, they're going to have some crossovers. Now the additions will allow some affordability and become a prime selling point for the brand. The mid-sized Chrysler Airflow will ride on the flexible new STLA one platform. The other two, the Arrow and the Arrow Cross, will be badge engineered variants of European Fiat's. Okay, that's going to be kind of interesting. The Alpha Romeo will get several new crossovers as well in a bid to overcome a decade of struggles to gain traction in America. But Fiat will continue to offer just one vehicle under that nameplate. It's going to be the Electric 500E. Now, these really aren't bad little cars, but again, you've got to look at it's an EVE and where it's at. So according to Tim Caniscus, our plan for North America is very simple. Get the product right. Now, uh, the next part of this story is RAM itself is targeting a 60% growth as it enters three new segments. This is part of the same story. They're moving into three new segments as part of a major expansion. They expect the brand to sales to skyrocket in the coming years because of the new compact and the new mid-size pickups, as well as a three-row SUV. So they're really expanding the brand. Stalantis is targeting 2013 sales of 825,000 for RAM in North America. 825,000. Now that's 60% more than last year. And the forecast of the brand means that it will surpass Jeep as its top-selling brand in the region. Now that's saying a lot. So RAM is going after consumers seeking the visceral feel of Hemi Engines with a line of bumblebee muscle street trucks. Now they're going to top this with a 777 horsepower SRT. This is a variant that's described as the fastest V8 production pickup truck to date. Now that's saying a lot. According to Tim Coniskus, the Atlanta's head of American brands, today all OEMs offer off-road variants to their trucks. Ram will be the first to add a full line of on-road performance muscle trucks. Now you get on down the line, they're going to liven up the rest of the SRT variants and the mid-size Dodge Dakota. Now, the one I'm really interested in seeing is the compact. They don't say a lot about the compact, but they're also talking about the full size 1500 and the Ram Charger, which is a bringback of the old Ram Charger SUV. They didn't call it SUV too much then, but it's a new three-row SUV slated to go into production in 2028, and it'll be out with the brand name of Ram Charger. And that's kind of uh finishes up the news this week. I thought it was real interesting to see where Stenlantis is going, particularly with the Chrysler. Poor Chrysler's been hanging out there all by itself so long. Good products, great minivans that serve their purpose. I love them whenever I need a minivan or I got to haul a bunch of people, but it's not a lot to pick and choose from. So hopefully, this is going to do Chrysler really well. So, with that, we need to take a quick break.

Show Update And Quick Break

We'll be back in 30 seconds with more from In Wheel Time. Cars, trucks, SUVs, motorsports, road trips, and the people who make the automotive world interesting. In Wheel Time is changing and we're expanding. We're bringing you more automotive stories, more interviews, more destinations, and more of what you may have missed. From Texas to the automotive world beyond, in wheel time is your place for automotive talk without the politics or the nonsense. Join us for the next generation of In Wheel Time: Cars, Trucks, and the people who love them. And we're back. Thank you for staying with us and joining us. We hope you are enjoying the show and the new time from 9 to 10 on Saturday morning. Or if you're listening on the podcast, we got uh a couple of episodes that'll be coming out this week. We've got a little some short features that'll be coming out. So we're kind of evolving, and we hope you stay with us. And I hope you let us know if you like it or not.

Texas Drive-In Theaters Road Trip

Time now on in-wheel time to see where the roads can take us. Now, down here in Texas, it's still hot, and even as the sun goes down, it gets hot, but it does try and cool off a little bit. So, what are you gonna do? You know, you're looking for something to do, you'd like to be outside. What about a drive-in movie? When was the last time you went? A lot of people have never been to a drive-in movie, they miss out on all the idea, the fun of seeing how many people you can cram in a car so that you can pay one price for a whole car load, and you get there and you find all your friends. Uh, if you've ever seen the movie Greece, they've got a big uh drive-in movie session there, and it's not quite like that. It was pretty cool back then. And Texas has still got quite a few places you can go and find a drive-in. So here are some drive-in theaters that we're putting on our road trip list. The Galaxy Drive-In in Innes. If size matters, the Galaxy Drive-In in Innes is hard to beat. Just off I-45, south of Dallas, the Galaxy has multiple screens showing a mix of current movies and occasional classics. So there is usually something for everybody there. It's more than just pulling into a parking space and watching a movie. There are concessions, but there's plenty of room, and that familiar drive-in feeling of watching the sky get dark while you're waiting on the first feature. It's all there. For a movie night that can become a road trip, the galaxy is a great place to start. Stars and stripes drive in in New Bronzewells. Now you can head on down to Wards, New Bronzewell's and you'll find the Stars and Stripes. Now, this is another multi screen drive in that leans into the classic 1950s movie night experience. There's a retro themed cafe, multiple screens, and plenty of room for families to settle in. You can watch from the car, or once things cool off, you can get outside, maybe a lawn. Uh enjoy the night air, a blanket on the ground. And being in New Bronzeville's means the drive itself can be part of the destination, especially if you turn the movie into an overnight getaway. I did have the opportunity to go here. I was on the hot rod tour of Texas. They made a stop there. They had one of the screens reserved, smoky in the bandit was on, a lot of people in costumes. The whole parking lot was nothing but hot rods. 200 plus, I think, were there that night. It was great. The ladies were in the lawn chairs. A couple of them had some blankets or jackets on because the weather was cool. It was great. Next, we're going to go out west out to Midland. If you want to combine a movie with a little West Texas scenery, put the Big Sky Drive-in near Midland on the list. The name is pretty appropriate because the Big West Texas sky becomes part of the show. Big Sky is multiple screens and the traditional drive-in setup with movies transmitted to your car radio, not hanging on the window like they used to. So that makes it really cool, makes it a lot nicer. Sounds better for sure. So bring some lawn chairs or a blanket and grab some concessions and want this, watch the sun disappear. Sometimes the road trip is as much fun as the destination. Up next, we got the Graham Drive-in in Graham. The Graham Drive-In in Graham, Texas. For something a little more old school, the Graham Drive-in is hard to overlook. It opened in 1948, and it is recognized as the oldest continually operating drive-in in Texas. It is a single-screen theater, but that's part of the charm. This is the kind of place where you can arrive early, you get settled in, grab something from the concession stand, and watch the evening unfold before the movie begins. So if you're looking for a destination that feels like stepping back in time, this belongs on the list. And then there's the Brazos Drive-In in Granbury, which has been welcoming movie goers since 1952. So this is another single-screen theater, but don't let it fool you because that's the whole point here. That's part of the experience. Go here, you can see a double feature, get some concessions, you're in your own car, and a Texas evening under the sky. What more could you ask for? Then you add in Granberry's historic downtown in the lake country, and you've got the makings of a pretty good weekend road trip. Sometimes slowing down is exactly what a road trip needs. Now that's just five of them to start with. Now there's plenty of other drive-in theaters across uh Texas. There's one up in Amarillo. Doc's drive-in is in Buddha, south of Austin. The last drive-in picture show is still up in Gatesville. The showboat drive-in is in Hockley, and there's there's some more of them out there. You just got to check the schedule. When you find it, look at the schedule because not all of them are running seven days a week. Some of them only on run Wednesday through Sunday or Thursday through Sunday. So the next time somebody says there's nothing to do on a hot Texas summer night, you might just have a better answer. Find a road, find a drive-in, and see where that road is going to take you.

Where To Find Us Next

I want to thank you again for joining us this Saturday on 9 to 10, our new hours. And we're available on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, and our website nwheeltime.com. Now you can also find us if life gets in the way and you can't make it to the Saturday show. You can also find us on a podcast. Now we our podcast is the same as it's always been. It's Apple, Spotify, uh, SiriusXM podcast, iHeartRadio Podcast, Amazon Podcast. While you shop at Amazon, you can hear us. So be sure and check us out on the podcast if you can't catch us on Saturday. I'm Michael Mars, and I want to thank you for listening and thank you for joining us. And we will see you next time on In Wheel Time. For more than 14 years, In Wheel Time has been talking about the cars, the trucks, the people, and the stories that make the automotive world interesting. Now we're taking in-wheel time to the next level. New vehicles, automotive news, car reviews, motorsports, industry leaders, and interesting people. We're going to take you beyond the driveway and the dealerships with stories from the people who build, race, restore, and actually live the automotive lifestyle. And we're hitting the road with driving destinations worth discovering. First across Texas and eventually wherever the road can take us. Plus, we're going to have some automotive history, features, interviews, and stories that you may have missed. It's still in wheel time, but there's a but there's a lot more of it to discover. Watch us, listen to us, follow us. It's in wheel time. Cars, trucks, and the people who love them.