Cars, consequences, and side roads.
Overcrest treats car enthusiasm as a way into bigger stories: endurance, taste, risk, repair, ego, memory, and why people chase impractical machines. Chris and Jake move between shop talk, interviews, history detours, and jokes without sanding off the rough edges.
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Overcrest is an automotive culture show with a habit of refusing to stay neatly automotive. Cars are the entry point. People are the point. Chris and Jake move through episodes with the energy of a garage conversation that has a stack of research notes on the bench and too many unfinished tangents nearby. A discussion can begin with BMW, Lamborghini, manual transmissions, EV write-downs, or a Pikes Peak Porsche, then slide into aging, ambition, shop life, or the strange pride of owning the wrong thing for the right reason. The show’s best moments come from that friction. It understands why low-mileage dream cars can feel silly, why a hand-built Mustang still matters years after completion, and why a shop’s meeting schedule can reveal as much as its finished builds. Interviews have room to breathe. Betim Berisha’s episode connects BBI, Pikes Peak, Gunapigasus, Type 99, and a massive heart attack into a story about returning to the edge after almost losing everything. Chris Ashton’s conversation uses game development habits, physical craft, and a finished Mustang to talk about building something that lasts. Vin Anatra’s episode treats car collecting, dealership dreams, online tribes, and broken to-do lists with equal parts affection and ridicule. Harrison Schoen brings in the Unimog, Johnson Valley, Arctic travel, kayaking from Panama to Colombia, and the practical math behind reckless-looking plans. Overcrest also has a history streak. The Forgotten Explorers episodes turn brutal journeys through the American West and the Arctic into vivid survival stories, then undercut the gravity with jokes about introductions, bookstores, and not knowing what the future cold open will say. It can be funny in a baldness ranking episode, sharp about modern performance brands, and unexpectedly grave when death or near-death enters the frame. The pacing is brisk but not tidy. That is part of the appeal. Overcrest gives enthusiasts the specifications and names they want, then keeps asking what those machines reveal about the people who chase them.
Made for: For car enthusiasts who like mechanical detail, road stories, shop talk, and interviews that leave room for bad ideas, real risk, and dry humor. It also fits listeners who enjoy adventure history and character-driven detours more than polished industry chatter.
What sets it apart: Overcrest treats automotive culture as biography, not just machinery. Its loose structure lets Pikes Peak builds, used-car anxiety, Arctic travel, forgotten explorers, and brand skepticism sit in the same lived-in conversation.
Automotive culture, history, and the people who live it -- hosted by Kris Clewell and Jake Solberg. 500+ episodes exploring the intersection of cars and life: interviews with industry insiders, collectors, designers, builders, and thinkers. From the philosophy of analog driving to forgotten automotive history to the business of car culture, Kris and Jake bring a journalist's eye and an enthusiast's obsession to every conversation. For people who #takethecar.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Overcrest connects cars with risk, ownership, travel, and the stubborn reasons people pursue demanding hobbies.
Overcrest follows car enthusiasm into the choices, costs, and stories surrounding it. Kris Clewell and Jake Solberg move easily between joking arguments about manual transmissions, close attention to automotive industry decisions, and personal accounts of bringing home an old…
A W124 pickup shares space with family loss; your car talk can hold the hard stuff.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Mileage jokes, dealer fantasies, and the bill that comes with both.
Overcrest turns a chat with Vin Anatra into a blunt, funny look at what it costs to love cars. It starts with low-mileage dream cars and the tongue-in-cheek idea that people should be mocked for not driving them, then slides into a used-car-dealer fantasy, including Vin's story…
A loose garage chat that ties manual purism to hybrids and industry recalibration.
Overcrest starts with a manual-transmission gripe and quickly opens into a broader argument about where car culture and car companies are headed, moving through Lamborghini, hybrids, and the industry's expensive recalibration.
A grounded conversation about choosing the long way around, from a million-dollar button to an Unimog bound for Argentina.
Harrison Schoen comes back to the podcast with a clear sense of direction: even a million-dollar button would only change the speed of his plans, not where they point.
A W124 road trip turns into a funny, uneasy reflection on loss, bad planning, and smarter risks.
Overcrest follows Chris's W124 road trip through family loss, desert darkness, sunset footage, and the practical dread of figuring out where to sleep when Vegas is still ninety minutes to two hours away.
A shark episode about perfect photos, real fear, and the people still drawn into the cage.
Sharks finds an easy current between childhood fascination and genuine unease. It begins with rubber shark puppets and the animal's familiar place on shelves, then moves into cage encounters, apex-predator proximity, and the kind of person willing to step into that space.
Photographer and shark guide Euan Rannachan joins Overcrest to discuss his intimate experiences with great white sharks.
Host Chris Clewell returns to Overcrest after a family loss and recounts a road trip to retrieve a 1990 Mercedes-Benz 300E (W124) from Orange County.
The hosts discuss shipping cars for an upcoming rally in Appalachia and attending the Luftgekühlt 11 car show at the American Tobacco campus in Durham, North Carolina.
Overcrest interviews Magnus Walker about reducing his car collection, changing priorities, and deciding what remains worth keeping.
Tommy Thomas tells Overcrest how he completed three Cannonball runs, including a 28-hour-50-minute time that he says places his Cadillac among only 12 sub-30-hour cars.
This episode recounts the tragic story of explorer Frederick burying his companion George Rice in the Arctic after his death, highlighting themes of survival and friendship.
This episode features an interview with Betim Berisha, founder of BBI, discussing his near-fatal heart attack and subsequent return to racing at Pikes Peak with new ventures like Type 99.
This episode explores the harrowing stories of forgotten explorers who faced extreme survival challenges in the American West.
Chris Ashton discusses the satisfaction of hands-on car restoration, comparing it to video game development, and shares insights on managing meetings and team growth in his automotive shop.
This episode explores a humorous and dramatic story about a tennis player's panic over his hairpiece falling apart before a major match at the French Open.
Overcrest opens by joking that low-mileage dream cars deserve a little suspicion.
Chris and Jake kick things off joking about a bluegrass version of their intro, then wander into the same old manual-transmission debate about why there is not much left to reinvent when something already works.
Harrison Schoen is back on the podcast, calling in from the Unimog in Johnson Valley just after King of the Hammer wrapped.
This episode discusses the emerging rivalry between American manufacturers like Ford and Cadillac in Formula 1, featuring expert insights from Charles Bradley, a motorsport editor.
This episode discusses the emerging rivalry between American manufacturers like Ford and Cadillac in Formula One, featuring expert insights from Charles Bradley, a motorsport editor.
Rob Howard, founder and CEO of Kindred Motorworks, explains how his company modernizes classic cars like the Ford Bronco through extensive engineering rather than custom builds.
The hosts discuss what specific features make a car cool, starting from a humorous tangent about footwear and leading into a deeper exploration of stock vehicle attributes.