The Carmudgeon Show

Hagerty Media
The Carmudgeon Show Podcast

Part of the Hagerty Podcast Network, the Carmudgeon Show is a comedic, information-filled conversation with Jason Cammisa and Derek Tam-Scott, two car enthusiasts who are curmudgeonly beyond their years. Proving you don’t have to be old to be grumpy, they spend each episode talking about what’s wrong with various parts of the automotive universe. Despite their best efforts to keep it negative, they usually wind up laughing, happy, and extolling their love for cars. Which just makes them angrier and more bitter. Jason Cammisa is an automotive journalist, social-media figure, and TV host with over 300 million views on YouTube alone. Jason’s deeply technical understanding, made possible by a lifelong obsession with cars, allows him to fully digest what’s going on within an automobile — and then put it into simple terms for others to understand. Also, a Master’s Degree in Law trained him to be impossible to argue with. Derek Tam-Scott still tries. He’s a young automotive expert with old-man taste in cars, and a Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering — which means he knows how to be civil to Jason. Or at least he tries. With a decade and a half’s experience buying, selling, driving and brokering classic and exotic cars, he’s experienced the world’s most iconic cars. And hated most of them.

  1. 12 AUG

    Bad Mechanics Leave a Lasting Legacy

    Jason just solved a nagging problem on his car that he paid to have fixed 26 years ago. Turns out, the mechanic charged him for a repair he didn't make. === Click here to join the Hagerty Driver's Club: https://bit.ly/Join-HDC-Cammisa-Rev === Jason just solved a nagging problem on his car that he paid to have fixed 26 years ago. Turns out, the mechanic charged him for a repair he didn't make. === Click here to join the Hagerty Driver's Club: https://bit.ly/Join-HDC-Cammisa-Rev === It's well known that Jason Cammisa's Volkswagen Scirocco 16V is his favorite car. What's not so well-known is that he hit a curb while driving it back in the late 1990s, and bent a control arm. After saving for over a year, he finally had the money to replace the arm, and commissioned a local repair shop to perform the work. The Scirocco came back from the alignment shop with bad news: Installing the new control arm didn't put there wheel back where it belonged. The Scirocco's frame was bent.  After living with the guilt of having damaged his favorite toy for more than a quarter-century, Jason finally got up the gumption (and money) to have the car's frame straightened.  The frame shop had some interesting news: there was nothing wrong with the car — the control arm was merely bent. Turns out the shop that charged Young Jason to replace the arm... didn't. And last week, Jason finally replaced it himself, solving a decades-long alignment issue.  This made Jason think about his first three bad experiences as a young man with a VW shop (who tried to charge him near as much in diagnostics than he'd paid for the whole car for a simple bad ground wire) a VW dealer who disconnected his headlights and tried to extort him out of hundreds... and the aforementioned shop — all of whom are responsible for encouraging Jason to do all the work on his cars himself. Derek has a similar story about a local mechanic to tried to charge him $4500 for a simple ignition coil.  Fun times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 2m
  2. 5 AUG

    The E31 BMW 850CSi and other 8-series

    E31 Syndrome: The explanation of why the E31 8-series is widely regarded as a beautiful failure. This is the full history of the BMW 850i, 850Ci, 850CSi, and 840Ci. === Click here to join the Hagerty Driver's Club: https://bit.ly/Join-HDC-Cammisa-Rev === The BMW 850i had the first post-war German V12. It made 300 hp and was installed in a pillarless, Ferrari-esque coupe almost universally praised for its beauty. After its debut at the 1989 IAA Frankfurt Motor Show, its first 3 years of production were sold out. But many of those orders were cancelled once the press got a hold of the 850i. Was it a bad car? In no way. The problem was that its Ferrari looks were married to an uninspired driving experience. The E31 had been conceived by BMW's R&D department (not its marketing department) as a rolling showpiece for its capabilities. And so BMW's priorities were perhaps not in line with market expectations. In other words: E31 Syndrome. A car that looks one way but drives differently. The discrepancy was solved when BMW's Motorsport Division made an M8 out of the 850i... but the marketing issue remained because BMW didn't badge it an M8. It was called 850CSi, which wasn't enough of a differentiator. And was made worse because the 850i was renamed 850Ci for no explicable reason. The 850CSi was a success — it landed to rave reviews, and sold out almost immediately. But its lack of M Badging has cost it enthusiast recognition. Even though it's a full M car with a WBS VIN prefix and the same treatment that the E36 got becoming an M3 out of a 325i. Learn all about this car on this episode of the Carmudgeon Show — a part of the Hagerty Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 14m
  3. 30 JUL

    Cars: Travel Is Fatal To Prejudice

    Single-brand car fans don't know what they're missing. Mark Twain once wrote that “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts." The sentiment holds true for cars, too. **SORRY FOR BEING A DAY LATE, FOLKS!** === Click here to join the Hagerty Driver's Club: https://bit.ly/Join-HDC-Cammisa-Rev Jason's T-Shirt: https://closed-course-productions.printify.me/ === In this episode, the Carmudgeons proceed to rip into one of their friends — light-heartedly. It all started when GG brought his R129 Mercedes 500SL to a shoot involving Jason's E31 850 CSI, and the two started a mock-argument about which car was better. Anthony Esposito, our favorite cinematographer, said GG's Mercedes-fanboyism reminded him of the Twain quote. In fact, GG's automotive tastes are actually quite well-rounded, but the experience served as the perfect impetus for a conversation about car fans who only experience one brand, or one marque, or one era, or one type of car. Turns out that nearly every car Jason and Derek have experienced has created fascination and interest in something they didn't previously know enough about to be interested.  Travel — i.e. experiencing new things — often creates unforeseeable interest in people and places you'd never have realized you were interested in. So, umm, Never Stop Driving... new-to-you cars! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 4m

About

Part of the Hagerty Podcast Network, the Carmudgeon Show is a comedic, information-filled conversation with Jason Cammisa and Derek Tam-Scott, two car enthusiasts who are curmudgeonly beyond their years. Proving you don’t have to be old to be grumpy, they spend each episode talking about what’s wrong with various parts of the automotive universe. Despite their best efforts to keep it negative, they usually wind up laughing, happy, and extolling their love for cars. Which just makes them angrier and more bitter. Jason Cammisa is an automotive journalist, social-media figure, and TV host with over 300 million views on YouTube alone. Jason’s deeply technical understanding, made possible by a lifelong obsession with cars, allows him to fully digest what’s going on within an automobile — and then put it into simple terms for others to understand. Also, a Master’s Degree in Law trained him to be impossible to argue with. Derek Tam-Scott still tries. He’s a young automotive expert with old-man taste in cars, and a Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering — which means he knows how to be civil to Jason. Or at least he tries. With a decade and a half’s experience buying, selling, driving and brokering classic and exotic cars, he’s experienced the world’s most iconic cars. And hated most of them.

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