It’s part trivia, part hijinks, and all fun. It’s Shift Talkers, an all-new show that’s just launched on the MotorTrend App featuring personalities from across the automotive spectrum battling it out to see who can impress host Jeff Glucker and outwit each other—all for nothing at all.
OK, that’s not totally true. There are some bragging rights involved as Glucker, a veteran automotive journalist and founder of the Hooniverse.com, hands out “laps” to each editor who best brings the noise and the knowledge on a wide swath of automotive topics.
The debut panel features hot rodding hero and the superstar of the Roadkill franchise, David Freiburger; MotorTrend Group senior editor and diesel truck and Mustang expert, KJ Jones; senior editor at Jalopnik, lover of slow cars and author of “Robot, Take the Wheel: The Road to Autonomous Cars and the Lost Art of Driving,” Jason Torchinsky; and Tim Stevens, journalist and editor-in-chief at CNET’s Roadshow.
Topics for the first episode were as varied as the panel, with questions and discussions ranging from how long you should keep a car, to the merits of a Chevy LS engine swap, to opinions on what electric drag cars need to be exciting. If you’re Torchinsky, you want to see them shower sparks out the back and throw Tesla coil arcs down the ’strip. Not a bad idea—give that man a lap or two, Glucker. Later, it was stump the editor time with a guess-the-photo series (Freiburger has a big miss here) and an amazing chase scene you have to see to believe.
“From a production/presentation standpoint, Shift Talkers takes a pretty big page from ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption, and I dig the way the format is applied to the car/truck hobby,” Jones said. “It really doesn’t matter what a person’s favorite segment of the automotive hobby is—I think all gearheads are going to enjoy this show!”
Each week, Glucker will host a new group of gearheads to talk shop and get their laps on. So if you’re up for some goofy, eccentric auto-themed banter, be sure to tune in—you may even learn a few things along the way, like what made the steam car revolutionary. File it under things only Torchinsky would know.
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