EP34: Best of the Bay Part 1 - New Cars Road Tested - Intro, Winners

In this episode Jon focuses on the ‘Best of the Bay 2024’ car event. He reminisces about his participation in various Western Automotive Journalists’ events and acknowledges the organizers and contributors, especially Michael Coates and Page One Automotive. Jon details the event format, including driving routes and the structure of the test drives. He highlights various vehicles, mentioning the Toyota Camry as the best overall car due to its value, and the Lucid Air as an impressive but expensive option. He also shares his love for more soulful, less efficient older machines compared to modern, efficient cars. Jon ends with a reflection on the emotional connection with vehicles that newer models often lack.

Notes

Jon Summers is the Motoring Historian. He was a company car thrashing technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. On his show he gets together with various co-hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, motoring travel.

D.A.D. – Girl Nation
Thanks to Western Automotive Journailsts and Michael Coates
Thanks to Page One, the Press Car suppliers
Thanks to the OEMs for supplying cars, and nicely specc’d ones too
J is honest about these cars, lord knows he’s not doing this for the money
The venue – the Dream Inn, Santa Cruz
Pacific Coast Highway 1 San Francisco to Santa Cruz – really an awesome road
17 cars, timetabled driving slots
Hill and coastal driving routes allowing high and low speed testing, including sweeping bends
Judgement to be “the Best At What The Car Set Out To Do”
J’s Best Car: 2025 Toyota Camry
J’s Best, price no object: 2025 Lucid Air
If It Was J’s Money: 2025 Genesis G80
2025 Fiat 500e – basic, but adequate
Many good cars, some great ones, no terrible ones
But none are as cool as the ‘91 Gixxer – 750 not a 1000 like I say – I rode before this recording
As the machines get more efficient, they become less intereting
Judas Priest – Free Wheel Burning

Transcript

[00:00:00] Jon Summers is the motoring historian. He was a company car thrashing technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. Hailing from California, he collects cars and bikes built with plenty of cheap and fast, and not much reliable. On his show, he gets together with various co hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, and motoring travel.

Good day, good morning, good afternoon. Welcome to the Motoring Historian with me, John Summers. So today, Best of the Bay 2024. What is that? I hear you cry. I mean, I don’t because there’s probably only about a dozen of you ever going to listen to this. But, you know, what is that? All three of you [00:01:00] clamor. And the answer is that it is a sort of, you know, I guess.

Badge of quality kind of a, you know, trademark, you know, market quality, which there’s been knocking around the bay, at least for as long as, uh, for the 20 or so years that I’ve lived in the Bay Area. And the notion is that, you know, maybe you’ve moved to the area and you need a plumber. Who’s the best plumber you look on best of the bay and it tells you, you know, so I guess there are other products that have come along that arguably of, uh, you know, eating their lunch somewhat, but that was the original value proposition.

And, and, you know, I guess, uh, they still do one for cars and, uh, we get involved in that as. Being, uh, the Western Automotive Journalists. So look, right, I shouldn’t talk too long, really, before I make a point of, of thanking the people who, who organized the event. So that is, of course, the Western Automotive Journalists [00:02:00] and, uh, and Michael Coates.

Let me, let me name you. Um, let me know you, Michael, because really, uh, I see how much work you did to pull the event together. And, and, uh, it was nice, uh, for you to be around to sort of, uh, chair and, and lead and, and sort of organize the, the event for us and, and be the, be the face of it somewhat. So thank you, Michael Coase.

And also thank you. Um, to the people at Page One Automotive, who always supply the press cards for these hashtag WAJ, Western Automotive Journalist events that I’ve done every year, annually now, test driving events annually now for, for must be, must be closer to. 10 years, then to five now. So, so that’s, uh, Aaron and, and Melissa, thank you for, uh, for, uh, you know, working with the manufacturers and making sure that we have cars to drive and making sure that we have good roads to, uh, to, to drive them on.

So, uh, thank [00:03:00] you one and all, and thanks obviously also to the car makers, right? Because they show up and, and give us really nice. Cars to drive, you know, and, and, uh, at no point do you feel under pressure to say nice things, you know, if you want to, you know, say terrible things you could, you know, if I wanted to, to make this a really negative, like, you know, shocking review, like, uh, terrible, like, uh, I could, right?

And, and nobody’s positioned it again, because nobody’s, you know, So, so I, I was worried as I got involved in, in journalism that there would be pressure at these kind of events to, to say nice things and, and, uh, I, I don’t feel it and, and therefore I have almost exclusively nice things to say about what was a really enjoyable event and what was some really superb cars and, and, uh, you know, I, I say that.

I mean, [00:04:00] regular people who’ve listened to this before know that, you know, if I think something’s crap, I’m going to tell you that I think it’s crap. I mean, I’m not doing this to get paid, not in some manufacturer’s pocket. I just like to communicate in an honest way about cars, vehicles, and motoring. And this.

Best of the Bay event with the Western Automotive Journalist and Page One and, you know, these, the OEMs that gave us cars and there were 18 cars, 17 cars, something like that. Thanks to those guys. Um, from the OEMs, a lot of cars came from, um, I mean, I think only one from Hyundai, but a couple from Kia and three from Genesis, I think.

So, um, you know, overall, thank you. Um, to, you know, Hyundai and, and your sort of spinoff brands. Thanks guys for coming and supporting the event. And thanks for giving us the, you know, the cool hot Roddy ones, rather than the boring grocery [00:05:00] getters that, you know, might have been the way, you know, William Woolard’s top gear, rather than Jeremy Clarkson’s top gear, I’m pleased that this was Jeremy Clarkson’s top gear.

So thank you for that. So having dispensed with the, the, you know. Unusual level of structure for me, let me immediately begin with with the full, uh, sort of prattle as as my wife would call it. So firstly, right, the location was was in Santa Cruz. Um, and it’s right on the beach, like my room. Overlooked the boardwalk at Santa Cruz, the beach, you know, there was the pool, then there was the beach, then there was the boardwalk, you know, the waves were crashing loudly, you know, if I’d have, you know, been at somebody who needed silence to sleep, it would not have been possible because even when I had the windows and the door close, you could still hear the waves of the Pacific crashing.

So, you know, even though where I live in San [00:06:00] Francisco, you know, we have a. We are lucky enough to have a bit of an ocean view off out of that house there, especially since the neighbors just cut the tree down, um, giving us a much better view. Thank you, neighbors. Yeah, but you know, this was better than that, you know, so that was, was really cool.

Um, and whilst I’m mentioning, you know, being vaguely serious and actually influencery, which I’m not normally, but, but look, right, you know, in case anybody listens and is staying in Santa Cruz, the dream in. Um, that was the name of the place and it was cool. It’s three stars and you’re probably looking on hotels.

com being that much money for three stars. Yeah, just do it because it’s right in the heart of Santa Cruz and they’ve got decent car parking and the rooms are clean and nice and not pretentious. It’s just a decent place to stay and in keeping with the coolness of Santa Cruz, um, which I’d been to once before many years ago, but It was a date with my wife and it really didn’t go [00:07:00] well and that’s a story for another time because, uh, I guess I associate Santa Cruz with almost crashing the car on a really important relationship on a relationship I perceived as important at the time and luckily I was able to get the car out of the ditch, but I, uh, yeah.

Uh, that’s maybe that’s why I’ve never really been back to Santa Cruz. But anyway, I enjoyed this visit to Santa Cruz. I guess the other thing that I should say is that you get that you can get down there by driving on to 80 and then 17 17 is a winding highway. 17 Pretty cool if you’re, um, you know, if you like Alpine roads, Alpine, you know, it’s a dual carriageway, but if you like Alpine twisty dual carriageway, it’s pretty cool.

Unfortunately, it’s usually clogged. And even when it’s not clogged, there’s like California, like left lane, like I’m doing the speed limit. I won’t move side people. So there’s also cops always over the crest. So, you know, 17, not that much fun, but I realized PCH [00:08:00] all the way down on highway one on the Pacific coast highway.

all the way down. I, I realized that I could do that. And I thought, you know, in the past, I think it’s pretty good, that stretch of road. Well, I’d forgotten how bloody good it is. I mean, it’s too traffic y between San Francisco and Half Moon Bay. But once you get past Half Moon Bay, all the BS just goes away.

And it turns into a really good, like, British A Road, French N Road, But with the most awesome scenery you have ever seen, because you’ve usually got views of, of the ocean. And I know when my parents drove PCH up from, from LA, they said that they thought the best bit was the bit as you come up towards San Francisco.

Now I have to say, I do like it down by Santa Barbara. But, you know, that has the same issue as the bit up by San Francisco, as is lots of traffic. This bit down towards Santa Cruz, it was quiet ish even [00:09:00] in the middle of the day and, and, uh, really nice. I drove down in the truck, uh, so, you know, I just had the cruise set and was just rolling.

It wasn’t like I was doing anything crazy. Um, and, you know, really enjoyed the drive down there and, and those roads are, are absolutely awesome, which is, of course, why. It was picked for, uh, for, for the event. So look, before I talk about the, uh, the test route there, just let me have a look at my checklist here and make sure I haven’t, you know, missed any of the bits and pieces that I should have covered, right?

Because it’s the best of the Bay thing, all of us had to drive each car and all of us had to commit to be there. Therefore, throughout the time. And [00:10:00] stick to a precise timetable. In other words, literally, it was like 930. So I must be in the Lexus. But by 10, you had to be back because then you’re out in the ionic 5n.

And, you know, you had to be back. Right. And, and the reality is that although. You know, if you think of it, you’ve got like lots of cars back to back, you’re bound to be leaping out and taking a pee and you’re bound to, whilst you’re learning the route, maybe take 35 minutes instead of 30 or something like that.

And that, and that compounds, but, but, you know, there were, you know, to be honest, it. Worked out really smoothly. And anytime, you know, somebody else was out in a car that, you know, you were meant to be driving that particular time. You weren’t like, damn it, where are you? It didn’t feel like that at all. That was an opportunity to, you know, take a pee and eat an energy bar in and feel like you could, uh, you know, it was quite a nice little, little respite.

And then at the end, we voted, right? And there were various different categories. [00:11:00] And, uh, you know, I’ll post, uh, post links to, to, to those, but let’s, let’s talk about this. So how do you compare cards of all different price points? And how do you. Name the best of the bay when you’ve only driven, uh, you know, 18, 17, 18 cars.

The answer to that is, well, of course, if you only driven 17 or 18 cars, you know, it is, it’s not going to be the best of all the bay. It’s going to be the best of the people who showed up for the event. Right. But. That doesn’t mean to say that if we’re going to recommend one car over another, that doesn’t mean that in the eyes of a punter, you know, a customer that might be worthwhile looking at the one that we recommended over the one that we didn’t recommend.

So you must drive each. You’ve got 30 minutes with each car and a designated route to drive. I’m going to talk a bit about the designated routes. There were two. One took us out of the hotel, um, [00:12:00] along like a 30 mile an hour, like bus lane, like just obviously pit lane, speed limit section fundamentally. And, and then.

Um, there was a stoplight and, and if you went straight over the stoplight, it sort of wound you up a little hill. And I guess when they were planning it, it’s a dual, so it would have worked quite well. But there was a rock slide and there were people work or mudslide and there was trucks working in the road and 25 mile an hour limit that seemed to be very badly placed.

And I saw there was a college up at the top of the hill. And there was a. Cop issuing tickets there. So I, although I use that route sometimes just for a bit of variety, most of the time I use the coastal route that they’d laid out and that ran West from Santa Cruz, but like stop signs and like strip mall and all of that.

And then that slackens off actually surprisingly quickly disappears. [00:13:00] And then you’re like out in the sticks. So in other words, if there’s members as you can pass them easily, the traffic’s thinned out any of the meaningful traffic that’s actually trying to get anywhere. It’s going to be leaving on highway 17 and leaving that way out of Santa Cruz.

It’s not leaving on highway one. That’s just like local traffic on, on highway one. So hence the fact that the traffic clears quite quickly and, and. Um, you would think half an hour wasn’t enough to explore the performance of cars with 400, 500 horsepower. It was, I’m not saying like, you know, I tested every vehicle’s top speed and naught to 60 and you know, I G meter on that.

No, right. No, of course not. But what I mean is. There was enough road for you to really get a seat of the pants feel for the cars. So at the end, when you were asked to compare them together [00:14:00] and say which the best was, you know, you felt like you had enough information to be able to do that. Just to talk about that process a little bit, so yeah, so we drove the cars and then at the end of the day, we did an, we did an online ballot, um, which most of us did, you know, that day before we left, we were able to post comments, qualifying comments as well, but I think a really important thing to note is something that Michael Coates said a couple of times, which is that we’re all capable of judging these cars as being the best at what they set out to do.

That’s what we’re judging them as being. Is this, is this the best, uh, what it set out to, to do? Very bluntly, a lot of the cars we drove were really expensive and that weighed heavily on my, you know, on my decision making. I mean, I mean, I can, why don’t I cut straight to the chase? There doesn’t need to be any like, you know, [00:15:00] tension, uh, uh, around the, the, the.

You know, my opinion around the awards, I felt all around the best car was the Camry that we drove, Toyota Camry, 2025 Camry. I know, right? Shocking. First he buys a Toyota, then he thinks one’s the best car. But really, it’s just most of the people, most of the time. And it does such a, you know, it doesn’t do a three star job.

It really does a four or a four and a half star job. All of the things, so I’ll talk more about it in a little bit, but, you know, that was a bloody good car. And therefore, and because of the price point, I liked it, right? An awful lot. Now, if you took that out and you said, you know, uh, they also had to do best SUV and best technology and that kind of stuff.

And that gave you a chance to talk about other things. But the best all around [00:16:00] Vehicle there was, uh, the, there’s an, we had an entry level Lucid to look at, you know, a couple of years ago I drove the 1100 horsepower one. Um, it’s my first pod. Fittingly, right, because I said it was an awesome.

groundbreaking car and and since then they’ve steadily decontented and they brought us a pretty decontented car and I was really keen to try it and what I found was something that did not feel that decontented it didn’t feel like Knock your socks off like the 1100 horsepower one had not in a luxury way, right?

The materials in that car was so nice. It had a moonroof. This car didn’t have that, but it also had a 70 grand price point, which, you know, well, 80 grand with the trim, the one that we had, but, you know, that kind of price point, like a semi normal price point, you [00:17:00] know, a lot less than the Hellcat Durango that we drove.

That was bloody a hundred and. 13 like 115 I think anyway, like way, you know, so, so for given, you know, those, those parameters, um, the lucid was clearly the most superior, the thing that fitted the definition of best car best for me, at least, um, I think for, for a lot of the others, uh, as, as well Questions they asked was, you know, if it was your money, what would you do?

And, you know, this is a Genesis sedan, a G80 sedan. It’s a 3. 5 all wheel drive turbo. It was everything I love about my E55. More, and new, and not going to break, and golf club presence, and just more, you know, more performance than my [00:18:00] Mercedes. Let’s be, let’s be real. And, uh, um, no, I’m gonna. put a number on it, but at the kind of speeds where you can measure a difference between a 20 year old sedan and a brand new one, this was a mighty.

Really, that’s really a mighty product was very, very impressed with the Genesis G80. So that’s what I’d bought with with my money. But look, right, whilst we’re talking about whilst we’re doing a like, you know, highlight, we drove this Fiat 500, right, which was easily the cheapest like EV there. It was in no way inadequate.

It did the job just fine. Right. I mean, I personally don’t like the driving position on Fiat 500s. I always feel like you’re sitting on the car. I always want to make the seat lower, didn’t buy one of the Abarth ones for exactly that reason. And this had that feeling, even though it’s like one of the new shape ones and all, [00:19:00] but you know, big trunk and nice inside, you know, basic, but you know, you’re bloody three of them.

In comparison to a lot of the other cars there, so, like, what’s not to like? That was really my thought, what is not to like? And that really is, is the takeaway. The, the, there were a lot of really good cars here, some absolutely brilliant ones, some many with absolutely breathtaking features, and really nothing that I was like, this is terrible.

There was stuff that I wouldn’t have wanted or Didn’t care for particularly and, you know, just the sheer eye watering price of new cars at the moment. I mean,

I’m sat in the garage here as I [00:20:00] always do when I record these, these pods, and I’m looking at 91 GSXR 1000 that I rode earlier today. And, and, uh, We, we just went around the block, you know, didn’t get into third gear, certainly didn’t get, you know, anywhere above 50 or 60 miles an hour, maybe.

It broke down, you know, stalls on me when you have the throttle open for a little bit, when you close it again, doesn’t want to run. Can’t bump start it at the side of the road trying to start it, won’t go. That experience. Both the heavy clutch and your hand hurt in trying to hold the throttle open slightly because it’s got these Mikuni flat slide carbs on it.

So the throttle [00:21:00] really takes some twisting. So like balancing the clutch when you’re like at idle speed, oh my word, it’s painful. It’s like an instrument of torture until all of a sudden it’s the most amazing piece of poetry ever. It’s like when you get whiskey. You know, or I’ve found in the cupboard some tequila that my wife bought for me ages ago, like ages and ages ago, and I was like, I’ll try this.

Why not? It’s amazing. Like I don’t know what I was missing out on. I was like, I don’t know what I’ve been doing with it for the past decade. I just forgot it was there. It’s incredible. So what am I trying to say here? Let me bring this first part to a conclusion by saying that whilst many of these cars were good, great, fast, they ticked every single box you could want them to tick if you were a spreadsheet box ticking kind of person, none of them fulfilled my soul in the same way as the Gixxer did.

None of them. And that’s the tequila parallel, [00:22:00] right? That you can’t rationalize why tequilas Awesome bro, really good tequila. This one’s awesome. I mean, you can try, but you just sound a bit silly. The point is that these are things that you feel in your gut, and great as a Camry is, you don’t feel it in your gut the same way as you do a Gixxer.

Great as a Lucid Air is, you don’t feel it in your gut the same way as you do a Ducati or a Harley Davidson. It’s just how it is as the machines get more efficient. They just get less interesting. An AGA is much more interesting than a brand new Hyundai microwave, but we all know which is going to heat your cup of coffee.

More efficiently and quickly. Thank you, Drive Thru.[00:23:00]

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