In this episode of The Carmudgeon Show, amateur interior designer Jason Cammisa and living encyclopedia Derek “Hyphen” Tam-Scott go back to the basics and recall their respective foundations in their respective automotive ecosystems.
Derek embarks on a trip into his past of Alfa Romeo brake jobs, buying and selling old cars, and building a prolific knowledge of cars and planes through books received since his childhood. In fact, Derek's encyclopedia became certified by age 8 when elaborating on engineering differences between a Porsche 956 and 962 to his family's local mechanic.
Jason similarly recalls his beginnings watching and memorizing his parents’ movements driving manual transmissions as a child. As a prize for his attentiveness at age 14, he wins an unrealized $50 bet after successfully not stalling his father’s FJ60 Toyota Land Cruiser, a journey filled with risky hill-starts and rev-match downshifts.
Amidst a discussion of calibrating driving styles and learning how to drive old cars properly, Jason discusses a recent drive in a friend’s Ferrari Mondial T after doing some throttle tinkering. As it turns out, the more broken a car is, the better you become as a driver by circumventing the brokenness. And anyway, who’s really broken- you or the car?
Throughout the episode, Jason and Derek engage in a conversation about the importance of being objective in the world of automotive storytelling. Jason identifies the rewards that come with experiential curiosity and the art of purposeful ambiguity- perhaps, at the cost of being fooled by a PR department behind an Audi RS3 or a similarly FWD-feeling Dodge Neon. Maybe- just maybe- we can all learn to understand a hateful vehicle.
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