AutoLooks Podcast

AutoLooks Podcast runs on curiosity and opinion in roughly equal measure. Many episodes open on a plain question and then chase it through dates, model years and corporate history. In one, the host asks why anyone keeps making the long trip to the Toronto Auto Show, and which auto show anywhere can claim to be the oldest. That episode works through the early shows in Paris, New York and Detroit, the wartime years when Detroit's show was not held, and the pandemic-era stretch when an event called Motor Bella stood in for it. The 'Lincoln Continental' episode is the show at its most granular. It follows a nameplate that ran from 1939 to 2020 across ten generations. Along the way it stops on a 7.5-liter V8, a stretched wheelbase for rear legroom, flat side glass that spared rear passengers a bumped head, and rear 'suicide doors' that came back more than once. It also asks whether the Continental could return now that sedans have fallen out of favor. The opinion pieces carry a different charge. In two episodes on charging infrastructure, the host argues that EV sites have ignored a century of refueling habits. The remedy on offer is a staffed site with a canopy and working equipment, plus the coffee, washroom and windshield cleaning that make a fuel stop useful. One image sticks: a plug yanked out, dropped in the snow and left to corrode in salt and slush while drivers simply use the next stall. Industry politics drives the 'Airbag' episode. It starts from a family memory, a collision with a bear in a Chrysler New Yorker, then turns to GM and Ford resisting airbags as an added cost. From there the host links Preston Tucker, the inventor of the intermittent wiper and the Chrysler Hemi's ban from stock car racing into a pattern of the two giants closing ranks. Culture gets its turn in 'Cars in Music Videos'. It runs from the Cadillacs and Chrysler 300s that turn up in rap videos to a hypothetical pitch in which Lincoln hands a Continental to a rising artist as a brand ambassador. The host also points back to earlier conversations, on ZZ Top's influence on the industry and on why people bother with auto shows at all. Under the self-styled title 'the doctor to the automotive industry', the host describes handling everything from hosting to the soundboard, along with curating a companion website. That single voice keeps the show consistent: chatty, fond of a tangent, never shy about a verdict. Episodes close on a recurring line inviting listeners to strap in for a fun, wild ride. For a first listen, 'Lincoln Continental' shows the history side and 'Why EV Chargers Need to Borrow a Page from Gas Stations' shows the argument side.