#286, James Raia Behind the Wheel: Seven Years of Stories, Cars, and Conversations

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In this special The Weekly Driver podcast episode, Michael Kahn takes the reins from longtime hosts James Raia and Bruce Aldrich in an interview with Raia, who reflects on the journey in automotive journalism and podcasting over the past seven years.

Raia leans forward and with a bit of a journalistic tone, he casually shares, “After reviewing cars every week for 21 years, I still find myself asking, ‘What’s the story behind this car?’”

With candid humor and heartfelt anecdotes, Raia shares the story of how he and Aldrich built the podcast from scratch, interviewing everyone from car enthusiasts next door to industry giants like the CEO of Fiat.

This conversation covers career-defining moments, memorable guests, and why cars are more than just machines—they’re connections to our history, personalities, and even families.

“Some of our best episodes were just like having a coffee with a friend—it’s like you forget the mic is even there,” Raia reminisces fondly.

Whether you’re a car lover or just love a great story, James Raia and Michael’s final chat offers a look back at the people, places, and stories that made “The Weekly Driver” an enduring success and where it is going from here.

Transcript

Michael Kahn: All righty. Well, weekly driver podcast final episode with James Raia being taken over by myself, Michael Kahn. What are we doing here?

James Raia: We’re doing a final podcast of the weekly driver Bruce Aldrich and I started it more than seven years ago, and I think we’re, we went past 275 episodes. We mostly did it weekly because the site’s the weekly driver, and that was corresponding to the fact that I test drove cars for each week for about 20 years before you purchased the site. And Bruce and I decided to do this podcast on a whim and we just had a blast that we got to meet a lot of important people in the car world some internationally famous, some locally famous, people with used cars, people with vintage cars, people with new cars, book authors, all kinds of different people. Analysts, anybody who was marginally related to the automotive field; we interviewed a lot of people.

Michael Kahn: Yeah, in listening through all of your episodes over the past seven years, you have such a diverse array of subjects and people you’ve talked to, friends you’ve made, and just the way that you ask your questions and tell people or let people tell their stories. It’s a really good podcast.

James Raia: Thank you.

Michael Kahn: And I know that I’m taking over and of course I have my own personality and my own direction, which is fine.

James Raia: Sure.

Michael Kahn: But I’m excited just to leave these episodes up and let people continue to listen to them. And also they’re, they’re timeless. The things that you talk about aren’t relevant to whether they were published last week or seven years ago, they remain very interesting and they’re certainly worth revisits and I’m sure you have plenty of favorites.

James Raia: Oh, absolutely. I think, before discussing some of the favorites, one of the things that made the podcast work, at least as far as I’m concerned, is that Bruce and I have been friends for a very long time.

Michael Kahn: Yeah, how did you meet Bruce?

James Raia: Bruce was a Triathlete, a pretty prominent local triathlete, and I worked at the Sacramento Bee years ago, and I did a story on him.

Michael Kahn: Sacramento Bee, being the Sacramento based newspaper.

James Raia: Yeah, back then Sacramento Bee was it was the daily newspaper in Sacramento for a long time and now it’s six days a week. And it back in the day, you know 30 years ago, it had a large budget and I was interested in endurance sports, I still am. And Bruce, I’d heard about Bruce and we met, did a story on him. And, we struck up a friendship and, Bruce inherited from his father a 1959 Volkswagen bug, and I had an old Volkswagen bug. So that kind of just got the ball rolling in terms of our friendship. And we have, other common interests and his wife knew my then girlfriend and now wife and so the four of us are friends. And it turns out we live down the street now with a new home. But I think in addition to that, Bruce’s personality and my personality we’re complimentary. I know about journalism and he knows about the automotive world. He rebuilt engines he’s gone to a lot of shows, he has friends who are car enthusiasts. So, I think we were able to bounce off kind of the lay person approach that I had with his perspective as a person who knows about engines and other things about automobiles. So that’s how it kind of developed. And I think we just had a casual way of approaching it, that was kind of fun.

Michael Kahn: And you guys definitely had a great yin and yang conversation.

James Raia: Yeah, I always, we always told guests, we’d call up somebody and we’d say we’re going to do a little bit of a countdown and then what’s just going to be like having a cup of coffee or a beer with somebody, or a glass of wine, it’s very relaxed. Some people still didn’t know exactly what a podcast was or is. And so we said it was, you know, audio only. And sometimes we interviewed people overseas with a big time difference, sometimes it was somebody down the street. And we always told them that the half hour went pretty quickly and with the very few exceptions it goes pretty quickly if you get into the subject.

Michael Kahn: Yeah. That’s always a favorite of mine, whether I’m interviewing someone or listening to a podcast, it’s just how conversations can flow and you can really tell when both the guests. You and Bruce did that so many times, time and time again.

James Raia: Yeah, we started out with literally on a shoestring budget and we had sponsor.

Michael Kahn: I’ve seen the shoestrings

James Raia: Had two strings and a tin cup, and then we mostly, we did it in back Bruce’s backyard. And we had, as we got into it, we had a little bit better equipment and Bruce was a very good editor and we took different approaches at different times and we was, we would always look forward to having, if nothing else, being friends, but just having the microphone on at the same time and it got us into a few places and we got to interview some important people in the automotive space. Some people were a little hesitant. Some people who were, like the president, we interviewed the president of Fiat one time. We didn’t know he was, we were going to interview the president of Fiat. We were at the LA auto show and there were some interesting cars there and we asked the marketing or public relations guy if we could do an interview about some of the new products they had, the guy said sure let’s do it tomorrow. And we show up and there’s a nice room and this guy walks in and he’s the president and CEO of Fiat.

Michael Kahn: That’s so much fun.

James Raia: It was so much fun and it came with a surprise and that would be corresponding to someone who I met in Midtown, Sacramento. One time, I was at lunch and this guy drove up and it was a like a 1930 something Packard and I looked at the guy, happened to see him, and I said, that is a great car. And he said, well, I have a few of them in my backyard. And so it turns out the guy was, lived about a mile away. We went over there one afternoon and sat in the back of his 50 something Lincoln Continental. And he ran a little company to take people out on fancy dates or anniversaries or whatever the occasion was. And he was working on cars with a bunch of other guys and they had, he had 10 or 12 cars and they were all great. So it was just a guy down the street in comparison to the president of Fiat. It was something.

Michael Kahn: Yeah. And that’s kind of what I really enjoyed about revisitings of your old episodes is just how it can be these automotive executives to marketing people to the guy down the street who just has a real passion for cars.

James Raia: Yeah.

Michael Kahn: I’m curious. Okay. So what’s your story? We talked a little about Bruce, but I’m kind of curious about the story, the origins of James.

James Raia: Oh, in the automotive space I was a beat writer for the AP covering the Sacramento Kings. When they first came to town in late 1986 was the first season, 85, 86 season was the first season of the Kings. And I was the, one of the old Arco Arenas. Now they’re office buildings. And I was sitting next to another reporter named Jeff Wiedel, and he, just chatting and he said he started to do car reviews and I asked him how he did that. And he said, well, he didn’t really know much about cars, but he’d heard about this outfit that has a liaison company to the manufacturers. And he told them who he was and what his experience was as a journalist. And I said, do you know anything about cars, Jeff? And he said, not a thing. And so I figured, well, I don’t know a thing either. But I’d been a reporter at that point for, you know, 20 years or so. And so I got started just by providing some clips of other stories. And then I got involved with a very small syndicate in Canada. It was called City Express. And I started doing some reviews for this outfit that distributed columns to a few Canadian newspapers. And developed from there. I met a guy who was early on in the internet business and we developed this Weekly Driver website because I was reviewing each car for a week and then I got to meet this fellow, Mike Kahn, who helped me develop the site and

Michael Kahn: Sounds like trouble.

James Raia: So it was trouble, a lot of trouble and, but we’re still friends. And so I just kept the car reviews going for about, well, I’m on my 21st year now of reviewing.

Michael Kahn: That’s amazing. 21 years.

James Raia: Yeah. And I think

Michael Kahn: A car a week, do the math.

James Raia: 800 reviews, something like that. And that’s also moved into some other areas where I’ve done magazine stories on cars. Again, very lay person. It’s not the how to dissect an engine or to, how to replace a transmission. It’s none of that. It’s more about, I prefer to talk about the people who own the cars rather than the cars. But it’s triggered some good assignments for magazines and newspapers and automotive shows. And for example, Monterey Auto Week is coming up on the Monterey peninsula, world famous Concours d’Elegance and many other events. So, I have a bunch of assignments to do articles before the event and then report on the event too. So I’m still doing the car reviews, but I’m also doing some other things that are related to cars in other ways.

Michael Kahn: How did you even get into becoming a journalist? How did that come about?

James Raia: Oh, gee, that was a long time ago in high school. I was a very marginal athlete, but I knew a lot about sports. And I always liked the idea of writing stories about people who didn’t get very much attention, like, center on the football team. Not the starting quarterback or not the starting point guard on the basketball team. It may be a guy who had been on the team for three or four years or a track and field athlete who was a shot put or not a sprinter that gets all the attention. So I started doing a high school newspaper column called the Unsung Hero. And now I would never call it that heroes are not athletes, heroes are you know, people who save lives. But it was called the Unsung Hero. And now that’s a sports cliche. But then I just worked my internship and I knew a friend at the Sacramento Bee and he hired me to work Friday and Saturday nights. And then I got hired on staff at the Bee. And then I left the Bee after seven or eight years and went to work for a paper on the Monterey Peninsula called the Monterey Herald. And I had met my girlfriend, now wife, who was in Sacramento and I decided to leave the newspaper in Monterey and come back and now we’ve been married for a long time. But that kind of started my freelance career.

Michael Kahn: Oh wow.

James Raia: And I thought, gee, I don’t know if, I think I’m pretty highly unemployable, but I’m decent at what I do. So I just remained a freelance independent writer for a very long time now, more than, I think, more than 35 years now I’ve been freelance.

Michael Kahn: Wow. I imagine after freelancing for that long it’s hard to imagine doing something else or even stopping those habits.

James Raia: Other than talking, I have very other little, other skills than being a reporter. I don’t think I could do much else. And I don’t think I could actually, work as an employee for anyone. I think I’d be probably highly unemployable. I would be

Michael Kahn: I don’t know, in my years of knowing you, you have a really strong work ethic, maybe too strong as a actual employee. Cause you’ll work until two or three in the morning.

James Raia: I used to be able to do that, I liked it.

Michael Kahn: I don’t think you’re supposed to do that now. You got to go home after a certain amount of time.

James Raia: Yeah. Yeah. But I think it comes with, I don’t, I no longer like the word passion, it’s become quite a cliche, but I think if you like what you do, I know people who have.

Michael Kahn: You can say, well, I don’t hate it.

James Raia: Yeah. I don’t hate it. I don’t hate it. Or they put an X on the calendar, counting down the days to their retirement. And I don’t really want to be that person because I still like it approaching 70. But I think if you enjoy it, then you enjoy it. And it’s not always as easy as it once was. And I don’t do as much, but I still like doing it.

Michael Kahn: There’s a, I don’t know what you would call it. There’s a thing that’s essentially the concept or philosophy of, in your life, you should stay curious and ask questions, be inquisitive. Don’t stop learning. And I always love going out to lunch or coffee with you because I think you’re the epitome of staying curious. You’re constantly asking questions. You’re wanting to get to know who’s pouring your coffee. Who’s doing what, like everyone, the people who are patronizing these places we go to, like everyone, you just, it’s like you nonstop wear your journalist hat and you can’t resist asking a question or saying hello.

James Raia: Might be annoying sometimes or embarrassing. I don’t know.

Michael Kahn: Well, that’s why I carry around a roll of duct tape.

James Raia: Yeah, that’s right.

Michael Kahn: All right, James. That’s enough questions. No, but I love that aspect of you and it’s like you live and breathe journalism and you can’t just, you just can’t help yourself from.

James Raia: I had, we had a learning experience, my wife and I and, and two other friends, husband and wife went to Italy and Sicily. And my only request was that I didn’t have to make any decisions. Because if you’re self employed and I don’t care what you do, but if you’re self employed and you make your own arrangements and you schedule your own interviews and you do your own payroll. You constantly have to make your own decisions and be responsible for yourself because there aren’t any secretaries or people who do your bookkeeping or you do the whole thing.

Michael Kahn: A lot of hats we wear.

James Raia: Yeah. And so, a lot of hats. And so on this vacation, it was a learning thing for me that pretty much I said tell me what time to be in the lobby in the morning when the tour van was supposed to Automotive, by the way, Mercedes Benz Sprinter vans, pretty nice vans, showed up and I didn’t want to make any decisions but it was hard because I’m so used to going some place for an assignment, having to be somewhere at a certain time and being responsible for me. And that’s a little selfish, but on this trip, there were a couple of occasions where, you want to be sensitive to other people’s wishes to do certain things on certain days. So a couple of times my wife didn’t want to infringe on what somebody else wanted to do, and other people didn’t want to infringe on what I might want to do. So I did have to make a couple of decisions sometimes, which was fine. But mostly I just said, what time are we meeting in the lobby? And I’ll be there. That’s all I wanted to do. So I learned that vacation is vacation.

Michael Kahn: Yeah. I don’t know what that’s like. I have no idea what that’s like. I’m with you where you just make so many decisions and even traveling. I have so much set up. And even if it’s not a strict schedule,

James Raia: Right. And I think another part of it also is that we were just discussing this last night with friends. We were talking about traveling internationally in the airports and I’ve done it. Not as much as some people, but I’ve, you know, been to a few dozen countries and, and you have to, you know, be cognizant of where the signs are, if the plane’s on time, where, if you’re fortunate, where the lounge is or all these different things. And my wife doesn’t have as much experience doing that as I do. And she was fine, but you don’t want to make the other person feel uncomfortable. So if I was by myself and I, and I got the wrong sign or I went to the wrong gate. I could only get mad at myself. I couldn’t be frustrated with somebody else. So I’m very used to that. Sometimes I’d get it right too. I don’t mean to say that I can’t find my way, but it was just a different experience traveling with three other people. We all got along great, but all of that as an independent journalist I would find my way a lot. And if I screwed up, it was on me, you know, that kind of thing.

Michael Kahn: Yeah, no, I know exactly what you’re talking about.

James Raia: Yeah.

Michael Kahn: It’s, I don’t know, it’s hard to imagine traveling with someone and just letting other people make decisions. I’m so used to just setting everything up. I’m fairly well traveled as you are. You’re being modest about your own travels, but I know you’ve been around recently. But we know how the system works and how to deal with things going wrong and so you just

James Raia: Yeah, you, or you and I have traveled a few times and we got, we seem to get along just fine. I think if for example, if you go, if you have friends or colleagues or acquaintances and you go to different days and you’re in a media room or the same media room every day and you see the familiar faces at the end of the day, you get to go your separate ways. And then you say, Oh, I’ll see, I’ll see Mike tomorrow. It’d be great. But for tonight I’m going to be on my own and, and chill out a little bit. I always look forward to that. I like talking about myself, I’m a pretty extroverted guy, so I like that too.

Michael Kahn: It’s a different type of extrovert because you’re with your work colleagues in a specific environment. But then you want to go to a restaurant or a bar or somewhere where there’s people and interact in a much different way.

James Raia: Yeah, I wasn’t that kind of guy before when I traveled. I was pretty reserved, but I’ve appreciated since you mentioned bars and restaurants, I’ve appreciated, as I’ve gotten older, going to a place and having a conversation. It energizes me when you meet different kinds of people.

Michael Kahn: Yeah. Especially when you end up meeting someone who has like some incredible story that can tie into why you’re even there. I love those.

James Raia: Yeah. And with testing cars, for example, you get to go to some events and incredible experiences.

And, for example, I went recently to a Lucid function in the Bay area and it was a couple of nights and you got to meet nice people and but when you drove the cars, you drove the cars by yourself. And Lucid has a car called the Sapphire and it’s very high end, they’re only gonna make, I don’t know what, 500 of them or something like that. And it’s the fastest production car you can buy. Right now it’s under two seconds, zero to 60 miles an hour, and I was driving it by myself, you know, in the foothills of the Bay Area. And I just thought, well, this is great, but there’s nobody here, there’s nobody here to share it with. And I would have liked to have had a friend, whether it’s Bruce or you or another automotive friend, anybody who would say, gosh, this car is really faster. That was an experience I wish I would have shared with someone else because it’s a phenomenal car and it’s cost, it’s 250, 000 and it’s very beautifully made and it’s very fast and that would have been a nice shared experience.

Michael Kahn: Well, I think that’s part of the purpose of why you and I are in this business is we’re sharing our experiences with the world, with our friends and the world.

James Raia: That’s right.

Michael Kahn: Reflecting back on the hundreds of episodes you’ve conducted and published with the Weekly Driver’s podcast, what are some of the ones that stand out to you and what stands out about them?

James Raia: Well, the one that I’ve referred to on other occasions is that I had a chance a few years back to meet Alex Honnold, who’s a Sacramento guy who free solo, El Capitan, they ended up making a movie about it.

And he was part of the group that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary when they did the movie about him. And I met him when he first did that. And I think he was a pretty unheralded guy in Sacramento, even though in the climbing world, he was the best ever. He is the best ever. And so I had a chance to interview him. And then we went down to the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas, and he was going to be appearing there because he, he drove his parents old van around the country and lived in a van for ten years and then he had a sponsoring company that provided him with a new truck van. So I asked Bruce when we’re going to go down to Las Vegas to this, maybe we can do an interview with Alex Hunnold. So we drove out to his home in Las Vegas and interviewed him and he showed us around his new van and very easygoing, absence of ego, a great guy and I ended up writing a few stories about him as well and meeting him once after that as well, but the interview and podcast with this guy who was so unassuming and yet had done something nobody else has ever done. Being from sacramento, we had a connection there. And so that was a very enjoyable episode because he was a very, is a very famous person in his world, but he also had this background of driving a beat up old van around the country and then getting a new van when he got a sponsor. And so the interconnection of this great athlete and a very nice young fella and his life in a van made for a good podcast episode. Other than that, I mentioned earlier, meeting the president of Fiat and that was an interesting occasion. But I also think that one of the companies that stands out to me, I was unfamiliar with, and it’s called, it’s lowercase, I see, S-E-E, cars iSeeCars.com, and it’s an analytical, data analytics company that has data points when they do surveys for like, it’s a survey with a million cars. Or 1. 6 million cars or 500, 000 cars and they do all these analyses of best value for new cars, most expensive repairs, less, least expensive repairs, dependability after five years. And so we got to know the editors and the president of that company and I had never heard of it. And I think it’s still pretty unheralded to the public, but it’s a great website for the automobile industry, iSeeCars.com. In the same line of subjects we’ve interviewed people from Car and Driver, Edmonds, Kelly Blue Book, you name it. We’ve interviewed pretty prominent journalists in the niche of the automotive world. And they’re all happy to talk, they love their jobs they all have opinions, which is good. What’s a good car, a bad car, a new car, the EV industry, all those things. And so we’ve done that. We’ve probably interviewed 30 book authors, people who have very niche interests. Little cars, photography books, barn finds, all kinds of different authors. Children’s authors on books. When you talk to an author of a book, they want to promote their book, and it’s

Michael Kahn: Right.

James Raia: Very much, never in a bad way, you ask them about their book, they’re going to share in it. It always made for a good episode. Race car drivers, we did a, the stunt driver for automotive movies a guy in San Francisco and told us how he takes actors and puts them on the simulators and makes them into racecar drivers when they’re not really racing, driving a car and so we interviewed those kinds of people and

Michael Kahn: Oh yeah, that’s so much fun.

James Raia: When you think about the automotive industry, it ties into a lot of subdivisions, if you will, because almost everybody has a car, or is in a car, or knows somebody who has a great car, so it all worked out.

Michael Kahn: There’s so many specific things you can talk about.

James Raia: Yeah, yeah, so we had a, the first guy we interviewed was a guy also from Sacramento who is a race car driver, but he does this thing that you have a Volkswagen Bug and I have a Corvette, but we time each other to see, we say, I’m going to finish a quarter mile in 11 seconds. And, but the other guy says, I’m going to do it in 11. 2 seconds. And so it’s these competitions time trials, if you will, based on how you think you’re going to finish. And this guy was a national champion in that with a car that he built with his father or brother, I forgotten now, but it was his pride and joy. And he became really good at predicting exactly how he’s going to finish compared to the other guy. And then what kind of a a starting advantage you get or disadvantage. So he was the first guy we interviewed when he had just won a national championship. So that was that.

Michael Kahn: That’s so much fun. I’m sure that was really cool to have that interview and just learn these different things that you have no idea aren’t are in existence or how they work. And just learning from these people’s stories about that.

James Raia: Yeah.

Michael Kahn: I want to ask you.

James Raia: Sure.

Michael Kahn: What was the first car you drove?

James Raia: First car I drove was my dad’s, my father’s 19 62 Corvair. Which was a car that eventually became a car that was called unsafe at any speed. It was a book written by Ralph Nader who ran for president at one point. And so I drove that. My dad wasn’t a car guy, but somehow he ended up with this convertible 62 Corvair. And that was a blast.

Michael Kahn: Was it unsafe for you?

James Raia: Pardon me?

Michael Kahn: Was it unsafe for you?

James Raia: No, no. It was okay. We didn’t, the It was very lightweight and it would tip over if you tried to make it into more of a sports car than it should be.

Michael Kahn: How old were you?

James Raia: 16.

Michael Kahn: 16.

James Raia: And then, I bought at 16, I bought my first car, which was a 1962 Volkswagen Bug. It was my dad’s best.

Michael Kahn: What color?

James Raia: Light, it was beige and I got painted light blue. And, it was a family friend, my dad’s best friend’s car that became his son’s car and they bought it new. And so I bought it in, let me see, it’s 16. I would have, it would have been 1971. So it was about 10 years old and I bought it for 500 dollars and I kept that car for quite a while. Of course, I wish I still had it.

Michael Kahn: Of course.

James Raia: And then I had a Carmen Ghia convertible, which was stolen and they found it had been you know thrashed and then you know series of cars through the years that you just like anybody if you have any interest in cars, “Oh boy. Why did I sell that 62 Ford Falcon station wagon?” You know, “why? Why did I sell the the Saab? 1985 Saab sedan that I had that was wonderful, but the engine froze?” You know?

Michael Kahn: That’s how I feel about my 1995 Toyota Camry is why did I sell such classic?

James Raia: Yeah, right, but Although, funny, you triggered a thought. At automotive shows, there was a show this now no longer held but It was during Monterey Auto Week and it was called called Concours on the Avenues in downtown Carmel. Always a wonderful setting, no pretentiousness or very little pretentiousness. And I remember meeting this woman who had a, the fourth Toyota Corolla ever made.

Michael Kahn: Wow.

James Raia: And she had an area rug at downtown Carmel on one of the side streets, a little area rug. And she had an umbrella and she was just dressed in a little nice little sundress with her parasol, and gloves on, and she made a little area for herself and was so proud of her Toyota Corolla. So why not go talk to her? You know, the 4th one ever made and they make, I don’t know, there’s like 30 million Toyota Corollas. It’s the best selling car in the history of cars. Right? And she had that one. And, so those kind of cars, you get to drive fancy cars, yes I do, but boy give me a vintage car any day.

Michael Kahn: They’re a lot of fun.

James Raia: They’re a lot of fun.

Michael Kahn: And something that has such a unique story.

James Raia: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Michael Kahn: When do you get to drive the fourth car of anything that isn’t some obscure luxury or sports car?

James Raia: Pardon me now?

Michael Kahn: When do you get to drive the fourth car or see the fourth car of anything that isn’t obscure or rare?

James Raia: Yeah, that’s right. And of course the Monterey auto week. I had this idea for a story coming up that we’re going to go to the, this thing called the Mecham auction and Mecham has,

Michael Kahn: You have a bunch of podcasts with

James Raia: Yeah, but yeah, we have several, with them and their Monterey location is the smallest auction, 600 cars, but it attracted, the revenue that they generate is the most of any of their auctions. All of that said, they also have cars that don’t have… What do you call that? They don’t have limits on them, so there’s not a minimum. They’re not reserved prices, so you can go and still find a, some great car that somebody had. Let’s say it’s this woman who’s selling her Corolla, and maybe it fetches 10, 000. So my goal is to call the public relations guy and say, I know you’re going to have Ferraris and Lamborghinis and expensive cars. But give me the, can I have the name and address and phone number or would you contact them to see if it’s okay to speak to them about their 65 Studebaker or, you know, their Ford Falcon station wagon or whatever. And that’s, to me, that’s far more interesting than the guy who’s got the

Michael Kahn: Your unsung heroes?

James Raia: They’re unsung heroes, thanks Mike. They’re people who

Michael Kahn: That’s called a callback in case you’re wondering.

James Raia: Yeah, that’s right. That person is just Incredibly interesting to me. Why they save or why the corporate attorney in downtown LA who we interviewed, I interviewed one year had, you know, a Rambler American and he drove that as a daily driver in downtown LA. Why did he have that instead of a fancy car? He said, because you look in Wilshire Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles and the foothills, that’s all you see Lambos and Ferraris. So, I get more attention in this car. I’m not looking for the attention, but this is more unique than any of those other people. So I’d just as soon drive my Rambler.

Michael Kahn: I remember going to an event with you in Beverly Hills and I was talking to the valets asking about the cars that stood out. They definitely listed some unusual ones. It wasn’t the Lambos or Ferraris or anything like that. They kind of turned up their noses at those cars. Those are the everyday cars.

James Raia: Yeah.

Michael Kahn: I’m curious.

James Raia: Yeah.

Michael Kahn: In doing so many, I’ve been thinking about this while you’re talking, you’ve done so many car reviews. How do you, and I’m sure you, you probably get questions like, Oh, what’s the best car? What’s the worst car? I don’t care about that. How do you keep it so in reviewing these cars that you don’t feel stale or like you’re just repeating yourself? How do you keep it fresh for each car?

James Raia: Mike, that is a very relevant and good question because sometimes I do feel that way. I have to kind of step back and say, how much of the manufacturer’s statistics and specs do I want to include in this? Because that’s an easy way to do it. And people want to know that. But am I overdoing it? Is zero to 60 miles per hour all that much, all that important? Or should I forget that? And should I say, well, what if, what if I have a buddy in the car and he’s a tall guy or a heavy set guy? Or what if I have a friend who’s, who’s not that tall or not that big? Or what if my wife’s in the car? How do they see out the back window? Then I think that becomes more relevant than zero to sixty because some people, hey, if the car is satisfactory and it gets me where I want to go, I don’t really care how fast it is. So I balance it all the time to say, am I still, am I repeating myself too much? And somebody who’s reading this, why do they care what I have to say?

Michael Kahn: Yeah, how many people are pulling out the stopwatch function on their phone and timing themselves going zero to sixty?

James Raia: I think it’s important to say that when I get a high performance car that if you’re in traffic or you’re approaching some situation on the highway, that could be problematic. If you have a car that accelerates well, you can be past that situation safely faster than it might be if you have a car that doesn’t have as much horsepower. So there’s plenty to be said for having performance in a car that, in particular, I think, you know, driving’s gotten worse since the pandemic. I’m convinced of it. And so if you have a car that can, that you can remove yourself from a pending bad situation, that’s important. Whether the car goes 0 to sixty in three seconds or 2. 8 seconds, I think is irrelevant. But I think I may be in the minority in that too because car performance seems to be very important to a lot of people.

Michael Kahn: Yeah. I personally cannot relate to that, but I do understand that for many, it’s a big deal.

James Raia: Yeah, I’ve kind of come around to and I’ve tested it. I’m not a speed guy so much. I don’t really understand it like you, but there’s been a few times where I’d say, okay I’m hesitant to do this lane change right now, but I’m going to do it anyway. It’s all in the scope of being safe, but if it was a car that might not be that, I might have just backed away and I wouldn’t have done it. So there, I’ve been assertive. in a couple of occasions, maybe more than a couple of occasions where I said, well, now I get why people like this.

Michael Kahn: Yeah, I can feel a huge performance difference when I’m driving my 91 manual transmission truck versus a more modern vehicle.

James Raia: Right.

Michael Kahn: You know, I drive completely differently and my defensive styles change. It’s like I’m a totally different person. I can’t do anything aggressive in that truck. It goes zero to 60 in about 20 seconds on a good day. That’s a downhill!

James Raia: Downhill. What that triggers your, thought, the topic triggers the thought. I never was a pickup truck, I never had any interest in pickup trucks. Why do people have pickup trucks? I don’t get it. And now, I get it. I mean, they’re so efficient, they’re comfortable. They’re like small apartments on wheels in some cases.

Michael Kahn: Well, I view it as essential as a homeowner for those runs to the home improvement stores and picking up supplies.

James Raia: It’s been the last five or six years where I’ve really come around to, okay, I get this.

Michael Kahn: I can’t fit plywood in the Miata.

James Raia: No, you certainly can’t. I mean, you could stand it up and have somebody hold it up at the top, but, your point’s well made there. They become four door pickup trucks.

Michael Kahn: Or road trip adventures.

James Raia: Road trip adventures.

Michael Kahn: Load up the kayaks.

James Raia: All that.

Michael Kahn: Luggage. Everything you need for a weekend trip.

James Raia: Yeah, and vans as well.

Michael Kahn: One of those beautiful drives through California.

James Raia: Oh, in a pickup truck? Sure, let’s do it. And if you have to sleep in the back seat, you can, right?

Michael Kahn: Yeah, or you can get one of those accessories.

James Raia: Yeah, all accessories. One of the cars I’ve come around to also is the the Honda Odyssey. You know, the van.

Michael Kahn: Those pack in quite a lot.

James Raia: Yeah, so if you’re a single person or a family of two or a family of six, it’s pretty versatile car and of course it’s Honda and they have great resale and they hold up pretty well so I’m a big Honda Odyssey fan too as being a good versatile car.

Michael Kahn: And you’re a soccer mom at heart.

James Raia: That’s right I’m a soccer mom at heart. That’s a secret aspiration that I have.

Michael Kahn: You heard it here first.

James Raia: I want to be a soccer mom.

Michael Kahn: That’s what you’re doing now that you’re quitting the podcast.

James Raia: That’s right. Don’t tell anybody Mike.

Michael Kahn: How does it feel to just? I mean, this is essentially a goodbye. I remember you called me a few weeks ago and told me that you felt that you were done and

James Raia: Well, it was a combination of things. I think Bruce Aldrich and his wife, Alene, they bought an RV a few years back and Bruce is my age and they’d been doing more traveling and I’ve been taking on some other projects and we bought a new house and so we were like, Bruce would say, James, I’m going to be gone for a couple of weeks. And I would say, gee, I have three assignments or I’m out of town this week. And so we, we were finding that our time was more limited and we just couldn’t do it any longer on a weekly basis. And we, there were some other interests that Bruce had in his world, other hobbies. And I kind of felt the same way. And, of course you publish the Weekly Driver now and I’ve been kind of, I don’t want to say slowing down is unfair to me, but I’ve been, a little bit more

Michael Kahn: Reprioritizing.

James Raia: Yeah. Maybe not working the 60 hour weeks that I used to work

Michael Kahn: Now 58 hours.

James Raia: 58 hours, or my wife would say zero hours, but, being a little bit more selective and it’s not a disparaging mark about doing a podcast with Bruce or with you or anybody else.

Michael Kahn: Of course

James Raia: It’s just changed a little bit. So. Kind of wanted to do it, keep continuing it, but it was taking a little bit more time than was available. And I think, by and large, we had a really good run.

Michael Kahn: Yeah.

James Raia: Not to say that we couldn’t do it again.

Michael Kahn: I think also it’s harder if it starts to become a chore to make it happen. Not once you’re in the situation.

James Raia: Yes.

Michael Kahn: Talking to people about, like, the logistics of getting there and remembering that you have to record, edit, publish.

James Raia: Yes.

Michael Kahn: That becomes a bit of a chore and kind of takes away a little. It’s not as exciting.

James Raia: I’ve been to some journalistic conferences and they have sections on podcasts. I can’t remember the woman’s name, but she did a parenting, a family camping, family vacation podcast.

Michael Kahn: Okay.

James Raia: And it took her about two years to get on her feet. And then she started getting sponsors and then she had a large budget. It was expanding and she had the budget and the time and found the right person who would do advance. They would go out and interview, pre interview Mike Kahn or James Raia, whoever the person was. And that was really helpful to her because her podcast was set to go. And she had the subjects and she had help, which made it better for the sponsors and better for the subject. And hers was an hour long. And so the successful podcasts, when you start getting a budget involved or a substantial budget, I think that’s some nice incentive as well.

Michael Kahn: Yeah. All right. I could never get on board with the pre interview. I really liked the spontaneity of some of the questions and how conversation evolves and I feel like the pre interview takes that away if you do too much. I think it’s okay to like, for at least my style and how my mind works, is I can go over like basic subjects. Like we talked a little bit about what we’d be doing today, but we didn’t get into specifics or details. Just let’s talk about

James Raia: The spontaneity is very important.

Michael Kahn: Yeah, but I don’t want to look at a list of questions like, “Oh, yeah, I need to ask these specific things.”

James Raia: No, I should add to that, that I think I remember her talking about the person who would go to some person who maybe didn’t have any media experience at all, or might be nervous. Like what’s a podcast still? This was, I mean, it’s now podcasts are everywhere and people know about them, but a few years ago it was still kind of in its infancy sort of. And so she tended to interview people who had never been interviewed before, which is a good thing, but she wanted, I think the person who went out, the advanced person would be kind of a calming influence too, as we talked about it. We’re just going to sit in your living room or we’re just going to sit in your RV or whatever and we’re just going to have a conversation and there’s no reason to be nervous or and I think she did a video and audio and I think that person helped in that regard. Although some of the spontaneity may be gone too, but I think overall it helped.

Michael Kahn: Yeah. Well, I know once you start setting up this equipment and people see it and they see those lights turn on and it gets intimidating.

James Raia: Right. So there, but there’s been all kinds of, calling people overseas is always a blast because they’re up late at night, you know, or early in the morning and we got to know people that way. There’s one particular this guy who’s written 10 books, very meticulous, 400 page books about the nuances of, you know, since I mentioned Volkswagen, the nuances, the differences between a 58 were different sort of styled headlight or the gear ratios were a little different between 61 and 62. And he had done all this work over the years because a lot of people have interest in that world. Why should I get a 62 Volkswagen as opposed to a 61? You know? So those guys were always interesting. They, somebody actually wanted to talk to them about their book and they had spent two years on it and it’s, it is great. So.

Michael Kahn: It’s funny, I see your eyes light up in talking about these stories. I wonder if you’re gonna get an itch and a little bit of wanting to jump on a podcast again and

James Raia: Sure.

Michael Kahn: Interview someone.

James Raia: When you talk to somebody who isn’t hasn’t done a thousand interviews already, that’s when it becomes pretty interesting. Because if they’re comfortable and the questions are decent using that word spontaneity again, it makes for pretty, pretty snappy and pretty lively and everybody involved enjoys it. Sometimes, I’ve interviewed athletes and it’s just the same. They’ve answered the question a million times. And so I don’t really want to do any of those anymore. That said, I’ve been going the last few years to IndyCar type racing. And I hadn’t covered that sport for 30 years away from a podcast. But I interviewed the athlete and I specifically said up front on the interview, “Hi, I’m James and can I have a few minutes of your time?” And they’re all really nice young guys. And I said, I just want to let you know that I really haven’t covered the sport in a long time. So if I ask a question that you’ve answered many times, or it doesn’t show that I’m an insider into the sport, I apologize in advance. And so that way they

Michael Kahn: I think that’s a great approach.

James Raia: I think it’s a great approach because, if you think you know it all and you, and it comes to the fore, and you don’t know it all, they know that pretty quickly. You know, this is not a guy I’ve seen before or a woman I’ve seen before. I haven’t, this person is new, but I think if you tell them, Hey, I don’t know, cycling, could you explain, you know, when you started your sprint or I don’t know much about IndyCar tire changes, could you explain to me why you went with the white tire or the yellow tire and how do you make that determination? And I think if you state it up front. It’s fine. And I think we did that with the podcast too.

Michael Kahn: Yeah. And that’s what I’ve done with you is I don’t know anything about podcasting and here we are.

James Raia: Yeah, that’s right. And you know, you and I have talked about interviews just in general. You’ve had people, I mean, this is not disrespectful, you’re still fairly new at it. But you’ve had people say to you, it’s quite a compliment, hey that thank you for that interview. It’s pretty nice. It says that to you It’s like oh my gosh.

Michael Kahn: Unsolicited. I’ve had a few good ones.

James Raia: Yeah.

Michael Kahn: A few good compliments like that. Still waiting on yours, by the way

James Raia: Yeah,

Michael Kahn: I know you can fake it.

James Raia: It’ll come it’ll come I’ll have to have a few drinks.

Michael Kahn: I’ll hold my breath. I’ll feed you some, a couple beers.

James Raia: Yeah, some beers, I’ll say almost anything, but, a very famous woman runner, I’ll never forget her name was Greta Weitz and she was a, she won the New York City Marathon nine times and she was from Norway and she’d, in the Olympics and World Championships and I interviewed her in a hotel in San Francisco and she’d been interviewed a lot and I was pretty young and maybe a little nervous and the public relations person was sitting there, you know, kind of eyeballing every question. And I, you know, I think I did fine. I might’ve stumbled on some questions or spoke too quickly, but when we got up and shook hands, she said, nobody ever asked me the questions you just asked me.

Michael Kahn: That’s such an amazing compliment.

James Raia: I mean, it wasn’t, I just, to this day, I remember how nice it was. And then of course I’ve had people say, are we done? You know, I think it works in all ways. But, the podcast was when I listened back on my voice, sometimes I would drive and I’d have another podcast on and I’d put it on. You know, Apple podcasts or whatever the platform was, and I would listen and I could self grade myself that, Oh gee, I was speaking too quickly or I stumbled or, Hey, that was pretty good, you know? So I think, Bruce and I would critique each other. Mostly pretty good. I think.

Michael Kahn: Yeah, that’s helpful. It’s really hard to listen to your own voice.

James Raia: Or when the times you go on TV and you see your face on TV. Oh my gosh, that’s

Michael Kahn: Like, that’s what I look like?

James Raia: That’s what I look like.

Michael Kahn: Why didn’t somebody tell me?

James Raia: I got it. I’m getting old. So that it makes me appreciate, although it’s pretty easy to make sometimes fun of broadcasters. There is an appreciation there that they have they’re so close to that camera and they do it every day. And, man, you’ve got to be, have some confidence to do that.

Michael Kahn: Oh yeah. Well, here we are at the end of an era for you.

James Raia: Ah, just another podcaster.

Michael Kahn: Yeah, just another.

James Raia: Yeah.

Michael Kahn: So modest. Do you have any, insights or anything you want to share with your listeners from the years gone by?

James Raia: Oh, let me see. I think asking someone about their car, their first car or the cars they’ve had through the years, I remember, I go to a dentist Michael Casagrande, his father was Stephen Casagrande, and he had a 1957 Chevy with an accompanying, trailer that had gotten quite rare, and he had four brothers, and they shared this car throughout his life. And now Michael Casagrande has this car. And we did a podcast with Dr. Casagrande Sr. and it was very emotional. He, and I saw him the next time, he said, you know, I hadn’t talked about this component of what my brother and I did. We, you know, we went on a camping trip with my father. And we had a great time. And I thought about my uncle and the questions you asked. You know, it really brought. legacy of our family to the forefront And he passed away a few years ago, and now my current dentist Mike has the car. So what am I saying about all this is that I think? For some people a car is just transportation, and there’s nothing wrong with that I don’t care that much about cars, a person might say. And others you get him talking about the car and they went on family vacations, or they went on their first date or whatever it might be. Sometimes cars mean a lot to people. It’s like asking somebody about their wristwatch. Many guys particularly have been, you know, inherited a watch from their father or their grandfather. You get them talking about their wristwatch or their car, it’s usually pretty fun.

Michael Kahn: Those watch purveyors.

James Raia: Watch purveyor, yeah. The guy in the Wall Street Journal does a great job of it. It’s called, My Ride. And he’ll talk to somebody about their car and kind of rework their words and it’s in the paper every week. So I always look forward to seeing those columns because invariably it’s somebody who when they were a boy, they wanted a 55 Dodge and then they became an adult and they found a 55 Dodge and they bought it and restored it and they’re going to give it to their son or their grandson.

Michael Kahn: Mmhmm.

James Raia: So I think the human element of car reviews and podcasts or something that I would still enjoy doing, the automotive industry, with EVs, electric vehicles is in as unbelievable transition. Are they going to catch on someday? What about hydrogen? Are the companies going to fail? Are the mandates we’ve set up, are they going to work? What about stock prices? You know, it’s a n industry that changes almost every day. The price, the new price of, and the average price of a new car is skyrocketed. What’s going on with that? And then when we had all the ships that were out on the Southern California port and the ports and they couldn’t get parts. You know, the car’s prices were stock. You order a car, you couldn’t get it for two years. All these things are in flux. It just seems to me a lot more than it used to be. So that’s of interest. Still as I get older, but yeah, it’s still fun. Maybe less frequently than we did it at first, but it’s still fun. We’re going to automotive week coming up in Monterey Peninsula, the LA auto shows on the horizon. So, it’ll still be, good occasions.

Michael Kahn: Yeah. Well, I hope in the future episode, you are able to join me on interviewing someone and we can have some fun with that and get some good stories.

James Raia: Sure. Anytime. I think anytime.

Michael Kahn: Almost anytime.

James Raia: Almost anytime.

Michael Kahn: If you’re not doing something else.

James Raia: I’m glad that we’re in your air conditioned house.

Michael Kahn: Yeah, it’s working overtime today. It’s 110 out and I don’t think the AC is gonna turn off all day.

James Raia: We did the preheat, you know, in the morning, turned it on, and then yeah, our new house is pretty good. It’s got a good amount of shade.

Michael Kahn: Those big trees help so much.

James Raia: Yeah. Yeah. Mike, I don’t know if I need anything else other than that. You know, it’s been a nice podcast to have because I think, repeating a little bit when you talk to people who have not been spoiled or who aren’t jaded because they’ve been interviewed so often, it just makes it so refreshing. I think a lot of journalists are that way when we used to sometimes say quotes from heaven because somebody will say something and they just go off on a, not a tangent, but they go off on a story. It’s just the best. So I, I still appreciate doing that.

Michael Kahn: I know that you can feel that when it’s happening. Like, Oh, this is the moment.

James Raia: Yeah. Yeah. Or, if you’re doing the print version, not that it’s not a podcast, but when someone tells you something and in your head, I would say, and I’m sure you do that. There’s my lead, you know, there’s just, there’s the lead to the story because they just said something that’s.

Michael Kahn: And sometimes you get several and then you have to.

James Raia: You have to decipher go back and listen to the tapes.

Michael Kahn: Sounds like a good problem.

James Raia: Yeah. So that, that, that kind of is still interesting to me. That’s about it, I guess.

Michael Kahn: Okay. Well, thank you for coming down and talking with me for a little bit and

James Raia: Sure.

Michael Kahn: Saying, maybe not quite a farewell since I’m sure you’ll pop in and out every now and then.

James Raia: Yeah. As you said earlier, you’ll have your own perspective on it. If you continue to do podcasts.

Michael Kahn: Yeah.

James Raia: And the guests you get will be different than the guests we got and the, and the approach will be different. You have a suit, more of a soothing, you know, maybe Bruce and I got a little bit more animated if you will, or a little excitable, but you have a, you’re almost the guy who would be a late night jazz star.

Michael Kahn: I don’t know about that.

James Raia: And you have to get a little covarcie in you or something and I’m sure you’ll have some good guests too when you, in your travels you meet somebody along the way. What kind of car do you have? Oh, you have a de soto. Oh, can I talk to you about your de soto or you know, whatever it might be. I’m sure you’ll have some good guests along the way too.

Michael Kahn: I’m looking forward to those Yeah All righty. Well, thank you once more and Until next time I don’t know how to say goodbye to you.

James Raia: Oh, don’t say goodbye. Just say

Michael Kahn: Goodbye. Don’t call me. I’ll call you.

James Raia: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Weekly Driver podcast. How about that?

Michael Kahn: How about that?

James Raia: It’ll be, for now, it’s a kind of a hiatus, if you will, of podcasts on, on the website. I think we did what seven, seven plus years of it. And, I’m sure there’ll be maybe when I go to the Monterey Auto Week, I can’t resist and I’ll tape it on my iPhone and forward it to you and you can

Michael Kahn: Yeah, go for it.

James Raia: And, and you can edit and, and produce it on your end if you have the time or at the LA Auto Show, there’s a lot of new things going on as there is every year. Maybe we’ll be at a reception and there’ll be somebody and it’ll be somebody who’s in the automotive field or we’ll turn the corner and there’s Jay Leno and we get to interview Jay Leno or Wayne Carini, I know you know Jay Leno, I don’t think you probably don’t know who Wayne Carini is.

Michael Kahn: Just Wayne Gretzky.

James Raia: Just Wayne Gretzky. Wayne Carini is a guy who, people who want, expensive cars, they hire him to go around the world and determine whether the car has been, has Bondo on it or if it’s legitimate or if it’s, you know, they’ve used the wrong parts and it’s the car’s legacy and it’s, as we would say in France, it’s Paul Maurer’s. It’s legacy. So he’s gotten quite popular, Wayne. So maybe, maybe I’ll just turn the corner one day and there’s somebody who I can’t resist. And I’ll say, can I?

Michael Kahn: Go for it and send it over.

James Raia: Yeah. I’ll do an interview with…

Michael Kahn: we’ll do the occasional surprise episode.

James Raia: And Taylor Swift has a lot of cars. Maybe we’ll get to interview Taylor Swift someday.

Michael Kahn: Yeah. Keep it a little bit more small lesser known celebrities.

James Raia: Yeah. Yeah. Less celebrities. There’s some, some celebrities, I’m sure like you, he couldn’t care less, but there’s some who are. Pretty interesting like, I don’t know if you’ve ever watched I know we were gonna end but in the show called Breaking Bad with Bryan Cranston, he has a Pontiac Aztec. And yesterday there was a Pontiac Aztec in the parking lot at the supermarket and I had to stop and take some pictures of the ugliest car ever made that got very, very famous in that TV show.

Michael Kahn: A lot of people search for that car on the Weekly Driver website.

James Raia: Yeah?

Michael Kahn: For some of the pieces that you’ve written in the past years.

James Raia: I should post a little, post that picture. The Aztec was in pretty good shape.

Michael Kahn: Yeah, share that.

James Raia: Yeah, I’d like to buy one just to have the anti car. Forget all these fancy six figure cars. Yeah, just want a Pontiac Aztec.

Michael Kahn: Alrighty, James. Well, thank you so much.

James Raia: You bet Mike.

Michael Kahn: And until next time,

James Raia: Let’s go have lunch or at least a cold beverage. Yeah.

Michael Kahn: Lunch. Definitely.

James Raia: Okay.