In Wheel Time Podcast: Your Go-To Automotive Talk Show

A closed high school doesn’t have to mean a closed book. We sit down with Frank Clam, president of the Spring Branch Alumni Foundation, to trace how a rescue mission for Spring Branch High School memorabilia turned into a living Spring Branch ISD museum inside the old library at Cornerstone Academy. With Houston growing outward and neighborhoods changing fast, we dig into why preserving school dis...

A great car show is more than chrome and trophies, it’s a well-run day that makes you feel welcome and leaves your town better than it found it. We head to Friendswood with AJ Loupe from the Space City Corvette Club to talk about Good Grub and Gears, a Houston-area charity car show that’s open to all makes and models, packed with vendors and food, and set in the shade and walkways of Stevenson Par...

Your next great fall drive might be closer than you think. We’re scanning the calendar and calling out the most tempting October weekend destinations across Texas, plus a couple of easy hops into Lake Charles, so you can point the car toward something fun instead of staring at another “what should we do” group text. We start with early October favorites and smart day-trip picks, including Frederic...

Your car key has been the same basic idea for decades, and then suddenly it isn’t. We sit down with Ian Televik, Senior Marketing Director at the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC), to unpack the fast-moving shift toward connected cars and digital car keys and what it means for everyday drivers who just want things to work. We break down what a connected car really is: a vehicle that can communicat...

The first cool front can’t get here fast enough and we’re already planning the drives. We’re putting together a list of Southeast Texas weekend road trips that feel like a real getaway without draining your wallet at the pump, including festivals, fairs, and car events that give you a reason to point the hood toward somewhere new. We start with classic Texas fall energy: the Texas Rice Festival in...

A single photo can hit harder than a trophy list, and that’s the heart of our conversation with motorsports author George Levy. George joins us to talk about Motorsports Mavericks, a big, beautiful coffee table book built from the late Pete Biro’s astonishing body of work. Pete didn’t just shoot “cars on track.” He captured the humor, the danger, the exhaustion, and the moments you only get when y...

400 cars in the middle of downtown. Streets closed to traffic. A Friday night cruise-in that feels like a rolling reunion. Then Saturday brings judging, awards, and a Veterans March that puts the mission front and center. We sit down with Bill Szelag and Neil Jones from the Bastrop Area Cruisers to get the real story behind Heroes and Hot Rods, one of the biggest car show weekends around Bastrop,...

Pontiacs are getting rarer, brand-specific car clubs are under pressure, and yet one Houston-area group is doing the opposite of shrinking. We sit down with Karl Wick from the American Pontiac Association to unpack how a nonprofit Pontiac club founded in 1982 rebuilt momentum after COVID, doubled membership in just a few years, and kept its identity without shutting the door on enthusiasts who do...

A car can be ahead of its time and still get remembered for the loudest headline. That’s exactly why we brought on Greg “Riley” Riley, Corvair author, lifelong enthusiast, and engine builder, to walk with us through what the Chevrolet Corvair actually was and what really happened to its reputation. We start with the 1950s roots of the project under GM engineering legend Ed Cole and why Chevrolet a...

Texas doesn’t always cool off when the sun goes down, so if you’re staring at the same four walls and thinking there’s “nothing to do,” we’ve got a better plan: point the car toward a drive-in movie and let the night do the rest. We talk about why drive-in theaters still feel special, from the simple fun of loading up a car with friends to that moment when the sky gets dark and the first feature f...

A single week on the calendar can hold the whole arc of car culture: obsession, innovation, shortcuts, and consequences. We start in 1948 with what sounds like a normal used-car buy, when Al Moss picks up an MG TC in Southern California. That small British sports car lights a fuse. Racing, driving around Los Angeles, and frustration with weak dealer support eventually push Moss to open his own sho...

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282 mph sounds like a headline until you hear what it feels like from inside the cockpit. We sit down with NHRA icon Angelle Sampey, a three-time Pro Stock Motorcycle world champion, to trace the path from a six-year-old on a Suzuki dirt bike to a driver chasing the next mountain: Top Fuel. Along the way, she explains why one moment at an NHRA race can erase every other plan and how a racing dream...

A used car can be “clean” on the outside and still be expensive on the inside. We sit down with Patrick Olsen, editor-in-chief at Carfax, to talk about what a Carfax report really does for buyers and sellers, how “show me the Carfax” became part of the culture, and why VIN-based history changed the way people negotiate, price, and trust a deal. We get practical about the stuff shoppers worry about...

A Dakar-designed Ford Raptor T1 showing up on American dirt isn’t just a cool headline, it’s a real test of two racing worlds colliding. We talk with Matt Martelli, CEO of Unlimited Off-Road Racing, about why Ford chose the Reno to Vegas run for the Raptor T1’s American debut and what makes this 550-mile, mostly graded-road course different from punishing US staples like Baja or the Mint 400. If y...

Electric cars finishing first and second in America’s first auto race sounds like a headline from 2026, not 1896. We kick things off with a fast run through automotive history that’s packed with proof points: Peugeot showing early gasoline reliability with a 1,271-mile endurance run, a Rhode Island horse track hosting the first US auto race in front of a huge crowd, and Volkswagen returning to Ger...

Adventure vehicles are one of the most misunderstood corners of the car market, because most of us buy them for the trips we imagine, not the ones we actually take. We sit down with John Vincent from U.S. News and World Report to unpack the 2026 Best Adventure Vehicle Awards and the real criteria behind the picks, from approach and departure angles to the stuff that makes a vehicle easy to live wi...

A timber-frame “cathedral” packed with Mopar muscle cars and vintage neon sounds like a dream, but it’s real and it’s sitting just outside Brookshire, Texas. We sit down with John Hovis, the creator of the Hemi Hideout, to hear how a lifelong love of late-60s and early-70s Dodge and Plymouth performance turned into a 21,700 square foot car culture landmark that stops visitors in their tracks.  We...

A $700,000 Audi supercar with three electric motors should sound like a clean break from the past. Instead, the headline is the part Audi refuses to delete: a big, loud V8 sitting at the center of the Nuvolari’s nearly 1,000-horsepower hybrid setup. We talk through what that says about the luxury performance market, why “all-electric” still isn’t the default at the very top, and how hybrids are in...

6,300 miles in about 11 days sounds unrealistic until you meet Andy and Mercedes Lillienthal, the kind of rally couple who treats the map like a promise. They’re heading back to the Alcan 5000, one of the most iconic endurance road rallies in North America, and the goal is not raw speed. It’s precision: a time-speed-distance rally where you chase a master schedule, hit invisible checkpoints on tim...

A castle with a drawbridge and moat sits just outside the Houston area, and that is only the start of our Saturday lineup. We share a set of easy driving destinations that make a full day feel bigger than the miles, including Belleville’s Newman’s Castle, the living-history feel of San Felipe de Austin, and the water-and-wildlife mix you get near the Trinity River at Fort Anahuac. If you have been...

A steering spindle installed wrong. Shock reservoirs that can detach. A rear spoiler that can fall off at speed. We start with the kind of recall roundup that makes you double-check your own VIN, then we swing hard into pure car-nerd fun: guessing what vehicles actually sold for on Hemmings online auctions and arguing about whether the prices make any sense in today’s market.  The auction game tak...

An 80s and 90s “dream garage” hits different when it’s built for the era you actually grew up in. We sit down with Denny Moody, owner and curator of the Ultimate 80s Garage in Fulshear, Texas, to talk about what it takes to create a space that feels like a time capsule: the cars, the memorabilia, and the little details that instantly spark stories. His point is simple but powerful: nostalgia is fu...

A movie trailer is one thing, but a movie promotion inside your car’s dashboard hits differently. We react to BMW’s Spider-Man screen takeover and the owner backlash, then zoom out to the real question every driver is about to face: as connected cars become software platforms, who controls the cabin, and how much marketing will we be asked to tolerate after we’ve already paid for the vehicle? From...

One minute you’re laughing at our auction guesses, and the next you’re doing a double-take because a V12 Aston Martin sold for less than you’d expect from a “dream car” badge.  We kick things off with fast, useful recall talk that hits the stuff drivers care about most: visibility, signals, and safety systems. If you own a Tesla Model 3 or Model Y, a Rivian R1S or R1T, or you pay attention to Toyo...