This time on Roadkill, 13 years of burnouts finally catches up with us.
The Roadkill Ranchero is back and going to prison.
[tires screeching]
[theme music playing]
[David] Where we are now is the secret stash
of MotorTrend vehicles.
At one time, there were 220 leftover cars in here, from all the different shows.
[Mike] But here's the thing.
We've been told to clean our room, so to speak.
And in order to make space for any new junk,
we have to find a new home for some of our old junk.
So in this episode, we're unofficially retiring
one of our favorites. Giving it one last adventure
before parking it in a new joint,
where any of you can enjoy some visitation rights.
And the car that's getting its final road trip
is the one that started it all.
The Ranchero.
The Ranchero is actually, like, our oldest car
that you and I have worked on together on the show.
-[Mike] Yeah. -[David] It's a '68 Ford Ranchero with a basic 302
that we've had for more than 13 years.
This was our first road trip, right here.
It was. Yeah, if you don't know the story,
which I think hardcore fans do,
the very first episode that we ever shot
was driving this car, and we wanted to go to Alaska.
And we ended up in the bottom of the Grand Canyon instead.
Totally failed, didn't make it to Alaska,
and at the time we thought to ourselves,
"We can't fail in our very first episode!"
And so we didn't air it.
We shot something else really fast.
And then this car,
the Ranchero was the second one.
Eventually, we did make it to Alaska with this car,
which was really, I think, one of our greatest feats ever.
-[Mike] Yes. Yes, absolutely -Yeah.
If you are looking at the car and wondering,
why is it all painted up like that?
It's actually pretty faded now.
When we first did it, it was all nice and fresh.
It is a tribute to a car that
Ak Miller and Ray Brock ran in the very first Mexican 1000
which is the race that became the Baja 1000.
And they were racing for Hot Rod magazine
and they won their class,
and so I got this one and cloned it.
But anyway, we're gonna hit the road on it again.
We're in Gardena, California right now,
and we're pointed to Montana.
There.
[David]We have a little bit more than 1100 miles to cover
in just a few days.
Sounds okay.
[David] Oil pressure... Does it have a brake pedal?
-Yeah. -Yeah?
All these cars sit for so long,
we never know what to expect when we get back in 'em.
Okay, let's drive to Montana.
[engine whirring]
We have drive.
Do you think we should have checked the tires for air?
I think we should have checked oil, ATF...
-Anything. -[Mike] We're doing this.
-We're out. It was too easy. -[David] So far easier than expected.
[Mike] Yeah.
Wow, this is way above average for us.
Well, this is impressive.
[David] We talked a little about the history of this car,
but I haven't told you,
specifically, it's a '68 Ford Ranchero.
When we first put it together,
it had a 363 cubic-inch small block in it.
It's now a 302.
It has a GearStar C4 in it.
I remember when it used to have a really
high stall converter, but I think we changed that.
The rear end gear is 278.
It's a Ford eight inch with a highway gear in it.
So we don't need to overdrive in order to cruise.
When we were going to Alaska,
we totally cold prepped this thing.
It's got Dynamat in the ceiling and in the floors.
It had a killer heater,
which is, I noticed, now disconnected
for some reason. It's kind of a bummer.
-Because it still doesn't have a passenger glass. -Yeah.
That was a great scene when the glass broke.
-[glass breaking] -[chuckles]
It really was.
[Mike] By this time, it was about zero degrees out.
I slammed the car door and the passenger side window
exploded into, like, a billion pieces.
You were quite annoyed with me at the time.
-I was. -All I did was close the door.
But it was funny.
[Mike] Yeah, this thing,
the seat back and the seat bottom are completely blown out,
and it's almost like the seats reclined.
It's kind of nice, actually.
I can roll like this.
[David] All right, it's four and a half miles
to 605 north.
Our next highway is 210.
If you get off here at Irwindale,
this is where Irwindale Dragstrip used to be.
-Right where the brewery is here. -[Mike] Oh.
[David] Looks like it's starting to rain.
And, as usual, stopping at the Auto Zone to stock up.
We need some Duralast wiper blades,
and we usually get a road tool kit as well.
As a reminder, we're going to Montana,
which involves cruising
through places like Idaho, Utah...
I didn't expect the snow to come in California,
but we just froze, man.
And there's still no window in this thing.
But you know what? You can always count
on Mike Finnegan to heat things up.
Bring the sunshine, Mike.
Oh, there we go. There we go.
[engine revs]
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Ooh, that's all torque converter.
Yeah! I thought I could count on you,
-but that was a fail. -[both laugh]
[David] Is this where we stayed
with the lowrider and ate at Denny's
in the casino three mornings in a row?
We hit Las Vegas.
That's 280 miles today without any major hiccups.
But this is the Ranchero.
So the only gambling we're doing is seeing
if this thing will make it another 860 miles.
Happy day from Las Vegas, Nevada.
We found out last night
that the Ranchero will cruise, easily,
90 miles an hour all day long
as long as you don't want headlights or windows.
-Allegedly. -What do you want to fix first?
You know what? Let's move the electric fan switch
inside the car so we can turn this on and off
from the convenience of the driver's seat.
Oh. So by extension
does that mean you wanna control the lights
-from inside the car too? -[chuckles]
Well, no, that's less of a thing to me, actually.
-Oh. -The headlights you can always just turn on,
'cause at night you just leave 'em on.
But the fan, you need to turn on and off every single time
you park your car for lunch or whatever.
[Mike] Wow, this is mid-level lazy. 'Cause, like full lazy,
which is what I was going to go with,
was just put a switch in here
for the headlights right next to that switch.
But you are saying, "Move the fan switch in the car.
But, Mike, go ahead and just put a switch
for the headlights under the hood."
-That's correct. -That's mid-level lazy.
-Yeah. -I can get down with that.
-Sure. -All right, let's dig in.
Um, electrical stuff.
I need cutters.
[David] Ready, dude?
-[Mike] Try it. -[David] Engage fans.
It's super messy, but functional.
And off.
Not proud.
Power comes out of the battery into this fuse.
-Yeah. -Out of this fuse...
That seems to be working. I, I tested it.
...into this.
[David] Both of these yellow ones
are power coming from the battery.
Okay. That's a ground.
-Okay. -Which means that's in there.
This big switch should be the lights.
[David] Yeah. There's no power in any of the wires to the back of this switch.
What color are the wires?
-Is it one of the main? -[David] All black.
That doesn't make sense either.
Two of them are black with white stripes,
and one of them is just black.
I'm trying to get some driving lights on the thing.
We're actually skipping
trying to make the factory headlights work
and going through the driving lights.
There's aftermarket switches under here,
but, like, everything's wired in red, it's all weird.
Right now, we think the relay might be ground triggered.
And so I've got a ground wire
that I'm gonna shove at the connector,
and Mike's going to see if the lights go on.
-Okay. Ready? -[Mike] Yep.
-Now? -Dude... No, doesn't work.
[David] So, not ground triggered?
None of that sparked, though, so there's no power,
so it's neither power nor ground.
Let's just run all new switches.
Troubleshooting all of this mess
-is gonna be a time suck. -[Mike] So then...
Tell me if... I hear relay clicking?
Yep.
-Both of them? -Yep.
Nice.
[David] We're totally just field repair,
butchering the wiring here.
There's no neatness involved, and in doing that,
the reason why we're making these lights work
instead of the factory headlights,
is because we already have a relay,
like, wired up for those lights.
You can't just run factory old car headlights
through, like, a 16-gauge wire.
It's gonna burn it up
and the modern switches that you can buy
tend to be garbage also, and they'll just fry.
All right, done with that butchery.
Moving on to making the windows work.
I'll pay you 100 bucks
if you put the glass in, make it work
and then slam the door and shatter it.
[chuckles]
What makes you think you gotta pay me?
[both laugh]
[David] When we shattered the window out of this thing,
we actually loved the car,
and I found a junkyard that had another window.
I think I bought it on eBay or something like that.
Let me just get the glass in there
and then I can get it up in position.
Okay. Can you lower the glass onto that?
One there. Perfect. Oops.
No way.
-After all these years? -Ta-da!
That's your side window!
That is a historicRoadkill moment.
Wow!
That window has ridden around in the bed
-of this thing for ten years. -Uh-huh.
-[Mike] It's finally in there. -And fixed it in a parking lot in Las Vegas.
Ah, this place really is lucky.
Let's just stay here another day.
Clearly nothing bad can happen.
This calls for a victory celebration, David.
Cry of the bison.
Oh, it doesn't work again.
[engine starts]
Maybe it has to be running.
Oh, I hear the bison horn.
Well, there we go.
-Bison horn! -It's working.
[honking]
It won't go all the way up.
The regulator is like tilted.
[Mike] You got it up higher than it went before.
You're there, dude.
-[bangs] -[Mike laughs]
I thought it was gonna break.
[David] It would have been great.
Turns out this window regulator
is not everything we hoped that it would be.
The front half of it doesn't really operate great,
and I'm not gonna restore it here in the parking lot.
So we've got the window held up,
and I'm taping it up.
And we're gonna go.
That's as good as that's gonna get.
We're out of here. I think we're gonna go check out the Valley of Fire.
[engine starts]
[Mike] And we're off.
[David] One and a half miles to Craig Road.
We stay on this all the way
to the Valley of Fire State Park exit.
[David] Well, this is pretty cool.
The Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada, just outside Las Vegas.
It's pretty similar to, like, the Moab area, but it's much craggier.
It's petrified sandstone.
That's called Valley of Fire
'cause I'm sure when the sun gets low in the sky
and the sunset is really orange, the rocks look like fire.
I bet it's incredible looking. You're right.
Like, these rocks,
similar color to Moab, Utah,
-but they're not as smooth. -[David] Right.
[Mike] Wonder why that is.
Man, this is cool looking.
[David] At this point, we're almost 500 miles into this final trip,
and honestly, we're starting to love the Ranchero again.
There are just so many memories in this car.
It's also been pretty reliable
and pretty comfy by our standards,
but that can always end at any minute.
[Mike] Welcome to Utah.
[David] Cedar City, Utah.
Things have been going remarkably smoothly,
so today I think we're gonna rough it up
just a little bit, go back to our roots.
And I found a private collection
of 2,000 to 3,000 old cars.
I like this person, whoever they are, already.
Check that out. Are you ready to drive again?
Yeah.
[engine revs]
-It's pretty bumpy. -Yeah.
There is a race track here.
Should we try it?
[David whooping]
[Mike] It slides good.
[David] We're gonna take 15 north for a while.
This thing does cruise.
It's deceptive, right?
Most times I don't know how fast I'm going,
and then I'm told I'm doing allegedly 95.
Yeah.
[David] A friend of a friend owns this secret stash,
-which is like ten acres of nothing but great old cars. -[Mike] Javelin.
-Another Javelin. Another Javelin. -[David] Three?
This is a private collection, not a junkyard.
It started in the '50s
when this guy's dad ran a tow operation...
He said go off over that way to the left.
And they just started stacking up old cars here, and they're still here.
And because it's a private collection,
it's not all parted out.
You know, when I was a teenager going to pick your part,
this is almost exactly
what the inventory looked like.
There's a lot of complete vehicles here.
He said some of it might be for sale.
Really?
-[David] Wow. -Datsun Z car.
[David] But that's a 240Z.
[Mike] Yeah, 'cause of the Datsun.
Dude, this is the best yard ever.
[David] All right, I'm shopping now.
-[Mike] Wow. -Wow.
I'm guessing that's in the not for sale pile.
[Mike] It never hurts to ask.
[David] There is a '69 Charger.
How often do you see
a '69 Charger sitting in any kind of wrecking yard anymore?
There's two of them.
[Mike] There's another Challenger right there.
-See that blue one? -[David] Yep.
[Mike] There's a Maverick.
[David] Oh, and a Rabbit.
I like the Maverick, too.
Look at that cop car.
A Castle Dale Police Gran Fury.
-Ooh, Gremlin. -[Mike] Yeah.
I guarantee it does not have the fuel cap.
-Let's look. -[Mike] Let's find out.
[David] And... No, it does not.
They never do.
-Look at that GTO! -[Mike] There's a GTO.
All right, I'm gonna go look at the GTO.
I'll leave the fan on.
We've been driving around this place a lot.
There's so many great cars here.
The thing that is, like,
the mind-blower is that everything is complete.
There's so many cars
that could be made to run and drive.
Just right here you've got a '68 442 next to a Cutlass S,
next to what I think is a '72 regular Cutlass.
But I stopped 'cause I wanted to walk over here
and have a look at this GTO.
This is a '68.
So this is the first year that the GTO
went to, sort of, this rounded body style,
which ran from '68 to '72.
And they had the Endura front bumper.
-See how the whole bumper is hard rubber? -Rubber.
[David] This one's deteriorating really badly.
That, when it came out,
was a really big deal and they had an ad
with a guy standing in a studio,
talking, like, a super manly voice about their new '68 GTO.
And he had a chrome crowbar,
and he whacks the front of the car
right on the beak and nothing goes wrong
and they just talk about how great the thing is.
And there's another commercial that's similar,
where there's a bunch of guys
wearing MotorTrend lab coats, and they're walking through
trying to bash the bumper, and they can't hurt it.
Well, my father was the producer of those TV commercials,
and he still owns the MotorTrend lab coat and the chrome crowbar.
-Really? -Yes.
That's incredible.
Yep. That almost means
we have to take this home, right?
For no other reason. Dude.
I don't know if I'm up for rescuing this.
How about the Road Runner?
I don't need another MoPar to tell you the truth.
That's kind of hard to believe.
However, we should probably
go look at those two Chargers over there.
It would be weird not to.
It would be weird and who knows?
I might actually need one.
Let's find out.
I have a scheme for a GTO
which I think you will endorse.
Haven't even heard it. Let's get it.
I want to turn a GTO into a lowrider
so I can call it the scrape goat.
I'm not with you.
-[laughs] Why not? -I'm not with you.
-Why? -'Cause I love lowriders. But not a GTO.
Why? That's perfect for that.
Well, I get the name--
-It's funny. -I totally get it.
-And it'd be cool. -I, I can't...
I don't think I could build that car
based solely on the great name.
So stunning these days to see these cars in a yard... Wow.
What we're looking at here is two 1969 Dodge Chargers.
You must be aware of the value of these
has gone through the roof lately,
and a '70 Dodge Challenger.
[Mike] Wow, the interior is still in this one.
[David] Yep.
This has had a quarter panel put on it really poorly.
Looks like I did that.
Do you know what this is?
This is junkyard gold.
This is a neat car.
This is a 1966 Chrysler 300.
This thing is slick.
-[Mike] Wow. -It's still got the bucket seats,
the white interior.
Wow, this is nice.
This would just be swank.
-[metal groans] -Huh.
It's, like, a 361 or a 383.
Okay.
Hear me out on another scheme I've got.
-[Mike] Okay. -I want a Karmann Ghia
with, like, a roadster shop chassis.
-All right. -V8 in the front, trick chassis.
More allowable than the lowrider GTO?
Um, yeah, 'cause you didn't do it solely for a name.
It guarantees at least slightly longer attention span from you.
[David] Well, we spent a couple hours
driving around and walking around
and seeing some pretty amazing cars here.
There's a lot of good projects.
I don't know if we're acquiring anything,
at least not today.
But you never know
what could happen in the future.
As we drive past, right now, that '69 Charger
that's really good.
And so tonight we're off
to Salt Lake City for the night.
We've got another friend
we're gonna visit there tomorrow.
[David] We just went over a mountain pass. It was 32 at the top.
Apparently, it's like almost 40 now,
but it is cold in the Ranchero.
If we don't freeze to death by morning,
our next stop is gonna be really bitchin'.
In fact, we're gonna go see some guys who you probably recognize.
It was freezing last night, but we did make it all the way to Salt Lake City.
And because we were nearby,
we figured we needed to stop in for a little MotorTrend crossover
with the guys from Bitchin' Rides.
Yep, we're at Kindig-it Design with Dave Kindig and Kev Dogg.
How's it going, guys? I thought I'd bring this thing in for a little cut and buff.
Can you, like, help us out? Make it look good?
I've already been putting a list of things that we can do to this.
Chassis, new motor, little paint, little polish. I think we're good.
Let's just get it in the shop. We'll start now.
I think we've got one piece of glass that's good.
Two days. Two days. That's our expectations.
Two days? Dude, that's perfect.
This is a blast from the past, isn't it?
Yeah, this thing was the very first vehicle
-we shot for an episode 13 years ago. -Wow.
Yeah. And you guys are, what, ten years on Bitchin' Rides?
-Yep. -Almost 11, yeah, but yeah.
So you guys know each other from Minitruck days, right?
Yeah, Mike actually shot my very first mini truck for Minitruckin' Magazine.
[Mike] Very poorly.
The truck's green, but it looks more yellow
based on my artistic abilities at the time.
But I do remember writing a decent article for Minitruckin'.
Yeah, I was excited. It was the end-all be-all to me.
That was my very first truck in a magazine.
So I was like... It could have been purple,
and I would have been happy with it.
[David] Wow. That's cool.
And if you're not familiar with this whole program,
these guys just won the Ridler Award,
which is a really prestigious thing at Detroit Autorama.
-And you guys have the 'Vette in the trailer, right? -Yep.
Yeah, we just got back from Salt Lake Autorama,
so, we actually got 11 cars, actually still in the trailers and coming out slowly.
So this car is completely hand formed out of aluminum.
It looks like a Corvette, there's no Corvette in it whatsoever.
-Nothing. -They built the body of this thing by hand.
This is entirely Ranchero with absolutely zero hand fabricated parts on it.
-That's right. -We did install the windows ourselves,
and he pointed out that he liked the windows.
-Really? Yeah, you did. -Well, this isn't even a real window.
It's being held in with gaff tape. You just don't know it.
-Awesome. -[Mike] Yeah.
-Can we check it out? -Absolutely.
-Cool. -Let's go check it out.
We put three cars in here, two on the top, one on the bottom.
Then we have an apparel store inside of there and then the lounge.
-[David] Yeah. -Nice little escape.
-[David] Look at the brake-- -[Mike] The rotors are polished.
They're polished stainless.
So they're actually functional. We'll actually use those.
-This one's got so many trick pieces on it, guys. -Holy...
It's all aluminum.
Obviously, it all started out as 4-by-10 sheets of 4041 aluminum,
hand rolled out, all in here.
It's got a three-eighths thick monocoque inside of the two pieces,
the top and the bottom bodies.
[David] Wow.
The V12 is from Race Cast down in Australia.
Yeah, we've met those guys.
Guys who make this V12LS engine
actually bought a car from Roadkill at one time.
-Look at that. -[Mike] Yeah.
[David] This car has so much more presence in person than it does in the photos.
-[Dave] And it's pretty cool in the photos. -[David] Yeah.
[Dave] I mean, the body style and stuff,
it's actually kind of unfortunate
it's not out on the ground right now
'cause literally, it's at belt height.
It's crazy to see how low this top is.
All the suspension is hung off the engine.
-So you can see there's the upper control arm. -[David] Yep.
[Kevin] There's a coil, it's mounted just like that.
That's what holds all the suspension,
and the lower controller's mounted off the oil pan.
So everything's hanging off the engine.
So, it's based on brand-new F1 technology, basically.
Single lateral coilover with the sway bar built into the lower link.
We took the alternator and the starter and we put 'em in the bell housing.
So there's nothing on the side of the block.
And then when we had Race Cast cast the block,
we had them take all the webbing off.
[Mike] That's cool.
So it just has like six bumps on each side, so it's completely smooth.
It's really, really, really cool.
Man, this is just like the car in our next episode, but a little better.
[Dave and Kevin laughing]
Is there even one zip tie on this car anywhere?
[both] Yeah, there's some under the dash.
Under the dash? Okay.
Literally, there is one part on this car
that's recognizable out of the box,
and has the Haltech CAN Bus computer program to run the entire car.
Everything else on the entire car has been custom built.
The bottom of the car looks like a spaceship.
It's just really, really clean, trick, all of the hardware is triple square,
polished stainless with EDM laser etching on the inside.
So you can't see when you put a wrench in it,
that you've marred it or shined it up by putting compression on it.
-Really? -[Dave] Mmm-hmm.
[David] We spent a few minutes out here looking at the TwelveAir,
the Ridler winning car,
I gotta tell you, it's stunning.
You think of me as being like a Roadkill hack,
but I spent so many years as the editor of Hot Rod magazine
having to judge vehicles like this.
And I'm telling you, I've got a deep appreciation for it
even though we made jokes about zip ties and stuff like that,
this is impressive.
We're gonna go inside next
and watch how they do these things.
[Dave] You'd probably remember this car. It's really a nice car.
Roadster Shop chassis, LSX454 with a Harrop Australian injection.
We 3D printed, actually, the intake pieces.
We've got a lot of really cool stuff here that we do a lot of...
technology.
So FARO 3D scanner, the Stratasys 3D printing.
We've got CNC machines, we've got old school mills and lathes.
So we build a lot of parts for all of these cars
instead of just buyin' 'em and strapping 'em on.
Oh, yeah, 100%. That's the difference, right?
-Yeah. Right. -Yeah, that's how we do ours, too.
[David] The first stop behind the showroom was in the body shop area.
This is the body shop.
And basically this is one of our paint booths,
we have another one at the other end here.
But everything in the shop starts with the rendering.
[David] And the thing that's mind-blowing
is all of these illustrations that Dave has done,
they're all up here on the wall,
and I understand they go back into the '90s.
This is really where he comes up with his ideas for building the cars
and comes up with concepts that he can show customers
so that they know what they are gonna build.
They sort of have a target.
And then in the rest of the shop,
it just starts to actually happen.
Here in the body shop is where we also started to see
the concept that they're building here.
That is the CF1 car. They sell them as roadsters and also as cabriolets.
They come with the Lingenfelter 427, Roadster Shop chassis.
The body appears to be an early Corvette,
but they will custom tune these things
and build them for you to drive.
So I only sell 'em as complete cars,
deposits on all of 'em, and we sold 30 of them so far.
You can see, we've got chassis stage, body stage.
-Is that Roadster Shop stuff? -Yep.
[Dave] Even to this day, we still use the old-school...
you know, the mill and the lathe.
These are just so handy to have.
Most all of my guys know how to run
all of this old-school equipment as well as the new stuff.
The technology, though, in the last 25 years in business,
the technology has grown just immensely.
I mean, we can just design something up, literally.
-Like the glass on the on the Ridler car? -Uh-huh.
The windshield and the rear window,
we literally designed that on CAD,
-sent an email and then we get the parts. -Really?
This is a '69 Super Bee.
We're calling it the Killer Bee.
Again, sitting on an independent chassis from Roadster Shop.
Custom floor from Roadster Shop as well.
Six-speed manual transmission.
1,500 horsepower.
-Schumacher. -Yep, it's a Schumacher.
I see the DSR on it.
[Dave] This is gonna be badass right here.
We're gonna build the ultimate '69 Camaro.
We've moved the wheel wells forward three inches,
one inch back on the back, I wanted to sink in the grill.
I'm trying to create a new design of a vehicle
or a new category instead of resto mods.
This is gonna be a mod rod.
So a lot of the design elements
like the RS headlights and that kind of stuff,
I'm just trying to keep everything kind of Camaro-esque for '69,
but yet sinking the taillight panels, sinking the grill seven inches.
-Let's go where the shiny stuff is. -[Dave] Let's go that way.
We got a dyno over here, too. You guys are probably gonna check that out.
-Really? -Oh, yeah.
-You guys have a dyno? -Ooh, baby.
So this is where we keep all the shiny stuff.
[David] And finally we went into the last assembly shop where the shiny stuff is.
This is where the cars sort of get polished up, dyno tested,
and then they actually drive every single customer car,
100 to 150 miles to shake the thing down
before they deliver it out the back door.
Yeah, so there's some pretty cool stuff in here. You know, the Camaro.
We've got Kevin Hart's Challenger over here.
It's got the Hellephant in it, Roadster Shop chassis again.
-The shop's so much more than I thought, you know? -Yeah.
You don't get to see the whole picture of it, usually.
Yeah, it's a big operation, it's a lot of moving parts.
-Thanks for having us. -[Kevin] Yeah, No worries.
-Thank you. -Good to see you guys. It's been fun.
-Absolutely. -Pleasure. Thanks for coming by.
-Thanks a lot. -Best of luck on the rest of your journey.
-We need it. We need it. -[laughing]
[Dave] Hey, give us a call if you need any help on the way up there.
-All right, we will. -[Dave] I'll send a tow truck.
[David] Yeah.
It's interesting.
That's like total crossover of both ends of the MotorTrend spectrum.
Bitchin' Rides, super high-end.
Those CF1s, I asked him,
"If I want to buy one, how much is it?"
Walking in the door, 450,000 bucks.
And then there's us, where...
[Mike] Buy high and sell low.
[David laughs] And we have just garbage and we cobble stuff together,
but it's all just the car world.
We're headed north into Idaho now.
Oh, that's way better.
I just killed a big breeze. I feel good.
Amazingly, we're more than halfway to our final destination,
and the Ranchero is not even breaking down,
and it rides remarkably well for a car that doesn't cost 450 grand.
Idaho!
If you're a hardcoreRoadkill fan, you will recall
that this is the spot in the very first Ranchero episode
where you shattered the window out of the passenger side of the car.
[Mike] In my defense,
I think that glass was already frozen when I shut the door.
Totally. I buy into that excuse.
And I know you're definitely not going to drive through
every one of these mud puddles before leaving this parking lot.
Nah.
We've got, like, 300 miles to go,
so we figured we'd thrash around in a dirt lot.
Wait, that's my side!
Hey, that's still my side. Hold on a second, here.
[David] I said to Finnegan off camera,
"I know exactly what's gonna happen here"...
and it did.
-[Mike] Oh! -[David] Oh, dude.
Hopefully, we can get it off and fix it.
Sometimes you pay the price for driving like an idiot.
[Mike] Hold on a second here.
And now Finnegan is paying the price for me driving like an idiot.
[Mike] Yeah.
Fortunately, it looks like it's only popped off the outer bead.
I think the inner one is on.
Well, we stole the scissor jack out of the video crew's SUV,
and we got a little air compressor,
and I think we're gonna be able to just pop this bead back on.
Hey, it's making pressure.
-We're up to ten. -Oh, great.
[pops]
[David] Hey!
[David claps]
[Mike] Thirty. All right, let's go.
[David] Next stop, one of our favorite tourist destinations.
An abandoned drag strip.
Hi.
Well, we're rolling along here at the very end of the day near Pocatello, Idaho,
and I found a little abandoned drag strip
that I think that we can locate.
I'm seeing it on my Google Map view. It's off to our right here.
There's a tree line right here.
Yep, and a dirt road that's blocked right here.
[David] Yep, here's the entrance right here.
-Found it. -[car clatters]
Oh, that's a big drop right there.
Private property, no trespassing.
All right, let's park.
Well, it's the end of the day here on our first day in Idaho,
and I thought I had found myself another one
of our old, abandoned drag strips that we like to visit.
And I did, but no trespassing, so we're not gonna get to check it out.
This is nearby Pocatello, Idaho,
and this used to be a little eighth-mile track called Drag City.
I couldn't find a lot about it online,
but I know it was running till at least 1995.
There's a YouTube video of 'em running here.
Drag City.
You might recognize that from the Jan and Dean album, circa 1964
and the song of the same name.
That's actually for Drag City in Fontana, California.
This one here, Pocatello, Idaho.
And actually, I think there's another Drag City
in Ohio or something like that.
All right, we're gonna call it for the night.
We're gonna roll into... where? Idaho Falls.
We'll see you in the morning.
This was nice.
[engine starts]
Tomorrow, we're down to our final 280 miles with the Ranchero.
If there's any reason to get rid of this car at this point,
it's that it's too good for us.
But I promise it's going to a better home.
And now we're in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
[Mike] So we've gone 1,000. We have 200 left.
[David] That's about right. 200, 230.
[Mike] I think we can do this in one day.
Oh, wow, that is a proper exit.
-Not much of a merge. -No.
Right, right? To north?
-Yep. -Okay.
This is an aggressive energy.
♪ Ranchero ♪
[train horn blows]
[train horn blowing]
We're cruising the back streets of Dillon, Montana,
which appears to be an old place that mostly built up in the 1880s.
[Mike] This looks like a castle.
[David] It says "library."
[Mike] That's the library?
-[David] The Andrus. -[Mike] That's cool-looking, too.
Couple of those buildings built out of that rock,
there must be a local quarry that makes that kind of rock.
That is cool.
Beaverhead County Courthouse.
Save the clock tower.
Is that accurate? Does it work?
[David] Um...
Looks like 1:51.
Um, let's see.
It's correct!
-[Mike] Nice. -[David] Their clock works.
[Mike] You know what that means?
We could use that to go back in time 'cause it still works.
This looks like Main Street at Disneyland.
[David] Except this really happened.
"Fuel brothers."
-[Mike] "Eliel brothers." -[David] Oh. Eliel brothers.
[Mike] I wanna go in here just to shoot pool and have a beer.
Yeah, me too.
[Mike] Have you ever been to a town that didn't have a Chinese food restaurant?
[David] Oh, probably.
-[Mike] I can't think of one. -[David] Probably at some point today.
[rock music playing]
"Old Montana Prison & Auto Museum."
It is, in fact, a car museum inside a prison.
How Roadkill can you get?
[Mike] Oh, dude.
This is awesome.
Yeah.
We could just leave it here.
On the lawn.
-We made it! -Wow!
1,200 miles.
-Look at us. -[David] How perfect is this?
Yes, it is a car museum inside a former state prison.
Perfectly Roadkill.
-1,200 miles later. -I can't wait to tour this place.
When you think "Old Montana Prison,"
you don't necessarily think "car museum,"
but they have a car museum here.
And it's big, and nice, and lots of stuff.
So we're gonna walk around and see what's what.
Unbelievable. I had no idea how much stuff they had here and good stuff.
[Mike] That's a lot of GTOs.
Hemi 'Cuda?
AAR 'Cuda.
This car is identical,
other than it's a 4-speed, to one that a friend of mine had in high school.
I used to ride around.
We used to, like street race these all the time.
Just normal for 19-year-olds back in the day.
[Mike] This looks like your car, but...
Uh, that is a '69 Super Bee and mine is a '70.
These are all owned by the same dude.
The same guy who owned the AAR,
later owned a 4-speed '70 340 Dart just like this.
I think it had a vinyl top, but it was otherwise just like that.
Was his name Sherm?
No, 'cause that's Sherm's.
-This is Sherms. -This is also Sherm's Superbird.
[Mike] Oh, man.
Sherman Anderson is a former Montana senator,
who's also a bigwig around here,
and a lot of the cars in here belong to him.
[Mike] Look, he's got an Eleanor.
Mach 1. Nice.
[David] Interesting.
You don't often see the Mustang Grande in a museum.
That's Sherm's, too.
[Mike] This right here is my favorite of all the Mustangs.
I've always wanted a Boss Mustang, because when I was a kid,
one of my neighbors had a Boss 429
and he said it was gonna be his kids' someday.
And I used to go back there all the time and just stare at this thing.
Mmm! Boss Mustangs. Very cool.
I kind of appreciate that a lot of these look like stockers,
but if you notice, they all have bigger engines in 'em.
I think Sherm likes big power.
The interesting thing is that the '55, '56, '57 Fords
aren't as hot in, like, the hot-rodding marketplace
because Chevy came out with a small block Chevy in 1955.
And that engine became popular,
and so that car became popular.
And that's why we see them more as, like, hot rods today.
And the Fords kind of aren't.
-That makes sense. -Yeah.
[Mike] This is a pretty cool museum.
They got a lot of stuff here.
[David] REO Speedwagon.
-It's not just a band. -[Mike chuckles] It's not just a band.
Well, do you know what REO is?
The REO motorcar company.
Nope, nope, nope, nope!
What's REO in REO Speedwagon?
I actually don't know.
Ransom E. Olds.
-As in... -Oh.
-Oldsmobile? -Oldsmobile.
Oh!
The more you know.
Look. This is an electric car back when they figured out that that wasn't a good idea.
-[Mike] How can you tell? -'Cause it has light bulbs?
It's a Detroit Electric.
-[Mike] Oh. Yep. -It says right here.
Hey, it says it went 211 miles on a charge.
[Mike] So wait, this thing goes as far,
if not maybe further than some new electric cars?
[David] It's what that says.
Then, sometime before World War II,
America's most famous and long-lived electric car
quietly disappeared from the automotive scene.
Someone probably got assassinated.
This is all way, way better than our Roadkill car, but here's the thing.
The Roadkill car now lives here at the museum.
[Mike] Yeah, we wanted you guys to be able to come see this.
And my hope is that they don't wash it
or restore it or fix the leaks.
Just right here.
[David] Ever since Roadkill took off,
I've had viewers ask me if we could start a museum of some kind
to show our finest work.
Here's a step in that direction.
As you can now see one of the cars that started our show
by visiting the Old Montana Prison & Auto Museum Complex
in Deer Lodge, Montana.
I think it was kind of a goal
to have one of our fantastic beaters
alongside a bunch of megabuck restorations.
So go there and ask to see it.
Meanwhile, Finnegan and I are off building new cars and new memories
just like we do on every episode of Roadkill.