The Weekly Driver Podcast Podcast Por Michael Kahn arte de portada

The Weekly Driver Podcast

The Weekly Driver Podcast

De: Michael Kahn
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Hosted by James Raia and Bruce Aldrich, The Weekly Driver Podcast dives deep into the highways and byways of the automotive world. Each week, we put you in the driver’s seat, exploring unique, unusual, and often untold stories from across the industry’s spectrum.© Copyright 2025 The Weekly Driver Ciencias Sociales Política y Gobierno
Episodios
  • The 2025 Hemmings Motor Club Rally: Paso Robles Returns for an Encore Drive Through California’s Wine Country

    The 2025 Hemmings Motor Club Rally: Paso Robles Returns for an Encore Drive Through California’s Wine Country
    Oct 23 2025
    The Hemmings Motor Club Rally: Paso Robles returns for its second edition October 24-26, 2025, bringing enthusiasts from both ends of California together for three days of back road driving, poolside gatherings, and the kind of automotive camaraderie that makes the hobby worthwhile. The car collector car community has a fresh opportunity to celebrate what these machines were built for: driving. It seemed like the perfect opportunity for The Weekly Driver to grab one of its own collector cars and join in on the rally to Paso. The timing of the rally coincides with Paso Robles' most energetic season. Harvest typically runs from late September through November, with October designated as official Harvest Wine Month. October traditionally delivers exceptional weather in this region. Warm days cooling into comfortable evenings perfect for outdoor dining and fireside conversations. More than 100 events occur throughout the month, including specialty tours, winemaker dinners, grape stomps, and live music performances. The harvest atmosphere creates an electric environment throughout wine country. Many California wineries harvest between midnight and early morning because cooler nighttime temperatures help concentrate and preserve fresh fruit aromas and flavors while stabilizing sugar levels. This 24/7 activity gives the region a unique energy during October. Rally participants benefit from this timing. The region's 300-plus days of annual sunshine typically deliver daytime temperatures in the 70s and 80s with comfortable evenings, ideal conditions for outdoor dining and sunset vineyard views. This event converges in Paso Robles during harvest season, when the wine country radiates with golden vineyards and the energy of winemakers working around the clock to bring in the year's crop. Rally participants have a choice: depart from either the San Francisco Bay Area or northern Los Angeles County. Both routes cover roughly 220 miles of California's most scenic backroads before arriving at Rally headquarters, the River Lodge Paso Robles. The Northern Route: Bay Area to Paso Robles Bay Area participants gather at Alice's Restaurant in Woodside at 8:30 AM on Friday, October 24. This starting point holds significant weight in California car culture. Built in the early 1900s as a general store for the logging industry, Alice's became a restaurant in the 1950s and was purchased by Alice Taylor in the 1960s. The location sits at the intersection of Skyline Boulevard (Route 35) and Route 84, surrounded by towering redwood trees. Alice's has earned its reputation as the Bay Area's ultimate car hang-out. The wooden building, which remains family-owned, serves as a world-famous stop for motorcyclists, sports car enthusiasts, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs alike. Kawasaki chose this location to release its landmark Ninja in 1991, and Tesla held test drives here in 2008 with on-site electric charging stations. The drive to Alice's through the Santa Cruz mountains on any given weekend rewards visitors with an impromptu car show. Vintage Porsches parked beside modern EVs, custom choppers next to pristine BMW motorcycles. From Alice's, the northern contingent travels 136 miles through the Santa Cruz mountains, past Moss Landing, and into Monterey before stopping for lunch at Baja Cantina & Grill in Carmel. The restaurant was founded by Patrick and Gina Phinny, whose love for racing and automobiles directly shaped the venue’s distinctive character. Patrick Phinny, a longtime car enthusiast, recognized an opportunity after spending time vacationing on the peninsula. Despite the area hosting the world-class Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, he noticed a lack of gathering places specifically catering to car enthusiasts. When he discovered a location that reminded him of a Route 66 gas station, he decided to share his extensive personal automotive memorabilia collection with the public. Vintage car memorabilia covers the walls, creating an atmosphere that appeals to both casual diners and serious collectors. The collection reflects Phinny’s decades of passion for automotive culture and racing. The route then continues 123 miles through Carmel Valley, Lockwood, and around Lake Nacimiento. Carmel Valley offers a striking contrast to the coastal environment. As drivers leave the deep blue Pacific behind, the landscape transforms into rolling hills, open meadows, and vineyards. The winding road climbs to 2,000 feet, providing sweeping views of the Salinas Valley before descending again. Cattle graze on hillsides shaded by overhanging oaks, creating a pastoral scene that defines California's inland beauty. The Southern Route: Los Angeles County to Paso Robles Southern California participants start at The Stonehaus in Westlake Village at 8 AM. The 136-mile first leg takes drivers through Ojai and the Casitas Valley before reaching Los Olivos for lunch at Plenty on Bell in Los Alamos. The Stonehaus was conceived by Westlake Village ...
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  • #286, James Raia Behind the Wheel: Seven Years of Stories, Cars, and Conversations

    #286, James Raia Behind the Wheel: Seven Years of Stories, Cars, and Conversations
    Nov 4 2024
    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. Michael Kahn and James Raia driving the 2023 Lucid Air Pure. 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...
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    57 m
  • #284, Volvo software chief talks new EV SUV, relationship with Nvidia

    #284, Volvo software chief talks new EV SUV, relationship with Nvidia
    Mar 25 2024
    It was just before the opening evening session of the recent 2024 Nvidia GTC conference at the San Jose Convention Center and it got quiet quickly. Alwin Bakkenes, Russell Datz, the carmaker's national media relations manager, Bruce Aldrich, the co-host of The Weekly Driver Podcast, and I all stepped in and closed our respective doors of the 2024 EX90 electric SUV perched in the corner of the expo hall. The 2024 all-electric Volvo EX90 sport utility vehicle was presented at the recent Nvidia GTC conference in San Jose, California. Volvo and Nvidia, the multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, have had a business partnership since 2016. And with the conference an in-person gathering for the conference for the first time in five years, Volvo was among several manufacturers' representatives in attendance. Despite his software engineering expertise and his explanation, Bakkenes didn't need to apologize for his lack of speaking abilities. He's a skilled corporate spokesperson and he was our guest on episode #284 of the podcast Aldrich and I started in August 2017. "This particular car is the start of the new era for Volvo Cars," said Bakkenes. "It's born electric, it's born software-defined and it's very safe. What we have done is build the software architecture based on what we call our core technology which we built with Nvidia." What Bakennes means, and how the soon-to-be-available EX90 is different from the current Volvo lineup, is the subject of our podcast. Please join us as our guest explains how the new vehicle's powertrain, chassis systems, and the driver assistance features all operate on their own computers and what that means to consumers.
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    19 m
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