Bonus Episode: KDM Week at Escondido Cars & Coffee

[00:00:02] Okay, here we go. Here at the Escondido Cars and Coffee in the rain for KDM Week. Courage, how you doing, everybody? Good, man. Braving it in the rain, for sure. Big shout out to Escondido Cars and Coffee. Having us out and then also having the KDM Korean Car Week out here. Got some folks that braved it. I was driving up thinking, okay, nobody's coming out, but we got a little crew coming out, so it's good to be out for sure. Can you bring your mic a little closer so you can hear you better?

[00:00:28] Yeah, it's raining today. Here at Escondido, I checked the weather report and I didn't think it was going to be raining today at all. Well, at least clearing up a little bit, but today the weather is... Well, actually right now, the weather is starting to clear up a little bit. It was pouring like crazy earlier. And we were all huddling in a tent here and making sure we didn't get all wet and the equipment didn't get wet. Yeah. But here we are. Cars are starting to pour in right now. How many KDM cars have you seen so far?

[00:00:57] I think we're at probably 20 probably now. Really? Because I came here earlier. I saw nobody. You were the only one. Yeah, it was just me and a Veloster Inn over on that side. But yeah, it looks like we got a good turnout for sure. Here at Escondido, it's my first time being here at the Cars and Coffee Escondido. So how many people usually come to these things? These usually get packed. Like this whole zone over here is usually pretty packed out, obviously on a good day. And, you know, again, they usually have some theme weeks here and there.

[00:01:25] And this is one of those themes weeks, by the way. Yeah. The Korean week, I guess, Korean cars. Now, as far as Korean cars go, what other manufacturers? I know there's Kia, there's Hyundai. Is there anything else? Yeah, you got Genesis, which is... Well, Genesis is Hyundai, though. Yeah, like you got those kind of spinoffs. But you also... I love that Mike actually included Daewoo in there. Like you got Daewoo. Daewoo? I've heard of Daewoo. They're Korean? Yeah, yeah. And they don't have a huge presence here in the U.S. anymore, but they did.

[00:01:54] And so there's some older Daewoo cars. And so that's kind of the gambit that you get is like, yeah, Kia, Hyundai. Then you got the spinoffs, Genesis and some of those. But, you know, it's interesting just to see how they've grown over these years for sure. So obviously you're a Hyundai guy. You know, you got the Hyundai Elantra N series. Would you ever go Genesis? I really wanted the G70. The G70 is a little bit more of the equivalent.

[00:02:20] It's still a little bigger, but the G70 has a 3.3. They have one with a 3.3 liter turbo. And those things, you know, put out a lot of power. I missed the 5.0 they had. They did, yeah. They still have those? No, they stopped doing those. And I did want to, they had the Hyundai G80, I think it was. And they had a V8 version of that. That was one of my dream cars, like, back in the day. Oh, man. You know, they were going head-to-head for the Infiniti, BMW, Mercedes.

[00:02:48] You know, it's, I remember when the Genesis came out, they were saying, like, you can get all the luxury features of a BMW or a Mercedes for, like, half the price. Yeah. Actually, I'm sorry to cut you off, but I was going to say, there's a Kia K900 over there that was, like, basically an S-Class competitor. Really? What was the price tag on that compared to the price tag on a Mercedes? I got to look it up, but I know they undercut a lot. Like, you probably could get that for, like, 60 versus, like, you know, probably close to 100 for the equivalent S-Class.

[00:03:18] Yeah, but I think you're paying for the name brand when you go to Mercedes or BMW or things like that. It's kind of like you're paying for the, you're basically, you know, you're part of the club, the cool kid club, really. It's the badge. It is the badging, and that's why, like, a lot of people buy labels and they'll buy, like, clothing just for the brand name or the labels. I think people do the same thing with cars, too. Yeah. And I think with, like, Korean cars, it's, like, just the opposite of that, you know? It's, like, we can be cool, too, but I wonder if there's a stereotype and not wanting to buy a Hyundai because of the Hyundai badge.

[00:03:48] Yeah. There's, you know, that's been sort of the challenge, I feel like, with them in the market is that everybody kind of has a perception of them from early 2000s, even mid-2010s of this was Hyundai and Kia. It was funny. I was talking to somebody yesterday how it's, like, you get both sides. You get people who, like, you know, bought a Korean car and it broke down the day after. No way. But then you got the people that literally they can't kill the car. Like, they've had it, you know, they're basically trying to find a way to get rid of it because it just won't die. So, you've had both sides.

[00:04:18] Yeah, I've heard a lot of, like, mechanics say, like, they're horrible to work on or they're just, like, they break down. That's why they offer the 100,000-mile warranty. Does both Hyundai and Kia offer the same warranty? I believe so, yeah. Okay. They're kind of the same company, aren't they not? Weirdly enough, they are, but they do sort of kind of have their own marketing strategy.

[00:04:40] I went to the auto show last year and Kia basically took over one side of the LA Auto Show and then Hyundai took over the other. And they have all different displays, you know, even, like, some of the Kia guys are, like, saying why you should choose the Kia version of this over the Hyundai version of that. So, they share parts, but they got totally different market strategies for sure. So, what is your favorite Korean car? Other than yours and mine, yeah.

[00:05:07] Yeah, bias aside, I mean, I do, I really like the, you know, I like the Kona in because it was just a weird, you know, I was really close to getting the Kona in actually before I got the Elantra in. It's like an SUV kind of one, right? Yeah. It's like, I don't know if you can see, like, a big SUV. It's more like a mini, it's front-wheel drive, right? Yeah. So, the front-wheel drive SUV probably built on a regular car chassis, car platform. What car platform does it share a platform with?

[00:05:33] I think they're all on the same chassis, I think, because they all have the same wheelbase, essentially. Right. The same as yours? Yeah. Oh, so, essentially, it's your car with, like, an SUV, like a... Yeah. I might be wrong. I'll probably fact-check myself later, but I think it was, I think they tried to do almost, like, you know, like Nissan, Infiniti, like, kind of have, like, a platform that they can build multiple different, you know, versions of a car off of. So, I think a pretty, you know, similar scenario. Sonata, as well, is kind of like that. I love the Sonata end lines. They're really cool.

[00:06:02] But I do like a lot of the Genesis products. Like I said, I would have loved the Genesis G80. Even the G90 is also, like, this long, kind of stretched-out wheelbase version. Those are cool. But I've heard that there's a lot of really cool end stuff coming, particularly for Hyundai. Oh, really? What you got? Hot take. Hot take. Yeah. I was looking at a couple news articles the other day, and there's been question of whether Hyundai's going to stick with the 2-liter turbo or if they're going to upgrade to a 2.5-liter turbo that they've used in other cars.

[00:06:32] And there's basically confirmation because of a racing series that they're going to enter where the limitation on, like, the size of engine is either from 2.1-liter to 2.7-liter. And so it would make sense if it's, like, a homologation for them to stretch out and go with the 2.5-liter because they can get more power out of it. And so they've released, like, you know, sound clips of the motor, and they've already kind of made their place in that racing series. So people are saying that that's going to probably be the new in-car motor. So we shall see. There'll be a real tight-lipped about it.

[00:07:02] Do you think it'll be rear-wheel drive? Don't think so. As much as I would want, you know, as much as everybody wants that, I just, I don't know quite if that's, like, in their ethos. Well, speaking of rear-wheel drive cars, have you seen any of the Genesis Coupes here today? No, that's a, and that should have been on my list. And it's weird that those kind of get, like, almost put in their own little, like, bucket of, like, all the older Genesis Coupes. Dude, that's, like, the only, like, I'm not saying inside of your car, of course, but, like, I like the Genesis Coupes. They stopped making those.

[00:07:32] Yeah, rear-wheel drive, manual. Very similar to the Z. Very similar to the Z. Yeah, so I miss those, you know, and. My neighbor has one, actually. I don't know if you, he probably wasn't there when you, when you paid that visit, but he has a, I think his is a 2014 or something like that. Is it the 2.0? 2 liter, yeah. Okay. The turbos, those were the base model, and then they had the 3.8 as the, you know, premium package one. You know, big V6, very similar to the Z, very similar power output, you know. The Z was probably a little high revving.

[00:08:01] I don't know the specs on the motor compared to, but I just know, like, the horsepower seemed very similar to the Z's horsepower output. Things like that. But they are loud, though, I know. If you, if you just, like, with a Z, if you just straight pipe them, you know, they get very loud. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that's kind of the car I was going to think about getting if I was going to go into the Genesis realm. Yeah. Was the, was the Genesis Coupe. Probably a 3.8 liter. Mm-hmm. But, because it was probably very similar to a G35, G37 Coupe. Yeah. Things of that sort.

[00:08:31] And, you know, they, and I think they had a, the V8 version, not for that car, but they had it for their sedan. The 5.0. Was it the Genesis sedan? But I don't know if it was the, wasn't it? Oh, yeah, you're right. Yeah. It wasn't the Coupe. The Coupe didn't get it. Yeah. I can imagine they put a 5.0. I know somebody's, like, swapped that motor in there at some point. Just, you know, but that, that would have been, I always thought the same thing with the Z's. If they would have put in, like, that four, that four and a half liter that they had, like, in the FX45 and then the M45. Oh, right.

[00:09:00] If they would have brought that and put that in the Z, how cool that would have been. But, again, the Z has never had, like, a V8, so it would be really, you know. That's true. Changing the ethos a lot, for sure. I don't think a little Hyundai could pretty much do whatever they want, you know. Like, that's the thing they're kind of doing. I wonder if Hyundai is kind of, like, following, like, I know some of the design cues they've got, they picked up from other manufacturers, you know. And interior and exterior, things like that.

[00:09:24] Do they build their own motors in-house or do they have to, somebody else build them and they just put them in their car? I heard that they do a lot. They have a lot of manufacturing within the company, even, like, manufacturing their own steel and different things where some companies will go out and source those parts from others and bring them in. I've heard that a lot of their construction process is actually in-house, which, you know, they're doing their own manufacturing and everything.

[00:09:47] Even one thing that they've said about, like, some of the components of the in-cars, like the bucket seats and the brakes and things like that, is they didn't want to go with, say, a Sparco seat or, like, a Brembo seat. Because that would mean that they would then have to, like, charge more because they're charging a premium to those. And so they manufacture all of that stuff kind of straight out of the gate on their own. And so the performance is still there and, like, you know, even the aesthetic of, like, you've seen the seats, like how they look like sports seats and everything.

[00:10:14] They've decided to try and have that be their cost-saving, invest in themselves and then be able to kind of pass the benefit down to the customers. But, yeah, they do a lot on their own, which is pretty impressive. I'm not going to lie. Well, that's pretty awesome, man. So hopefully we'll get to chat with some people from there with their cool KDM cars today here at Escondido. The sun, hopefully, is coming out soon. Yeah. Looks like it let up a little bit. Yeah, I see some blue skies somewhere around here.

[00:10:42] So we will catch you on the flip side. See you.