The Car Nerd with Jason Hassett

Jaksot

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  Jaguar X-Type: The Greatest Ford Mondeo Ever Built 13.09.2026 29min

  In 2001, Jaguar launched the car that was supposed to transform the company.Ford had spent billions rebuilding Jaguar, but the brand was still selling nowhere near enough cars. The answer was Project X400: a compact executive saloon designed to take Jaguar directly into the territory dominated by the BMW 3-Series, Mercedes C-Class and Audi A4.There was just one problem.Underneath, it was based on the same platform as the Ford Mondeo.The British press called it a Mondeo in a dinner jacket. Critics accused Jaguar of diluting one of the most prestigious names in motoring. And yet beneath the badge engineering jokes was a far stranger story — bespoke Jaguar engines, rear-biased all-wheel drive, one of the most dramatically improved factories in Europe, and a car that briefly gave Jaguar its best-ever year in America.This is the story of the Jaguar X-Type — arguably the greatest Ford Mondeo ever made.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now!The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury.👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEWe uncover why Ford believed Jaguar needed to sell 200,000 cars a year, why the X-Type ended up using the next Ford Mondeo's platform instead of a bespoke rear-wheel-drive chassis, and how Jaguar tried to turn a transverse-engine family-car architecture into a genuine BMW 3-Series rival.We look at the heavily reworked Duratec V6 engines, Jaguar's Traction-4 all-wheel-drive system and its rear-biased 40:60 torque split, the real amount of the car that was actually shared with the Mondeo, and how Ford completely rebuilt the notoriously troubled Halewood factory to produce it.We also explore the X-Type's surprisingly strong launch, its battle with the BMW 3-Series, Audi A4 and Mercedes C-Class, why Jaguar introduced cheaper front-wheel-drive and diesel versions, and how a car launched as an AWD petrol V6 sports saloon eventually became best known as a front-wheel-drive diesel estate.Plus, the forgotten supercharged 330-horsepower X-Type known as the Fire Engine, the Racing Concept that never raced, the transfer-case and gearbox failures that damaged the car's reputation, the collapse of its resale values, and how a programme intended to save Jaguar ended with Ford selling the entire company to Tata.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#JaguarXType #Jaguar #FordMondeo #ProjectX400 #Ford #CarHistory #BritishCars #ClassicJaguar #Halewood #JaguarCars #TheCarNerd
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  BMW E30 M3: Mercedes Accidentally Created the BMW M3 10.09.2026 31min

  In 1983, Mercedes built a car that BMW couldn’t answer.The 190E 2.3-16 had a Cosworth-developed cylinder head, sixteen valves, and a set of world endurance records before customers had even taken delivery.BMW’s chairman walked into Motorsport, turned to engineer Paul Rosche, and gave him one instruction: build a sporting engine for the 3-Series.Fourteen days later, the first prototype was running.What followed was not simply a faster E30. BMW cut apart an M1 cylinder head, bolted it to a four-cylinder block descended from an ordinary family saloon, redesigned almost every exterior panel on the car, and built thousands of road cars purely because the racing regulations demanded it.The result was the E30 M3 — a car designed backwards from the racetrack, and one that would go on to become arguably the most successful touring car ever built.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now!The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury.👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEWe uncover why the Mercedes 190E forced BMW to respond, how Paul Rosche created the S14 engine in just fourteen days, why BMW chose four cylinders instead of six, and how Group A regulations shaped almost every major part of the car.We also look at how little bodywork the M3 actually shared with a standard E30, how it took on the Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth, the controversy surrounding its first WTCC race, Roberto Ravaglia’s championship win, its success in rallying, and the Evolution models that pushed the homologation rules even further.Plus, the strange stories of the 320is, the M3 Convertible, BMW Motorsport’s one-off M3 pickup, and how Audi and Mercedes eventually brought the E30 M3 era to an end.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#BMWM3 #E30M3 #BMWMotorsport #PaulRosche #Mercedes190E #TouringCars #DTM #GroupA #CarHistory #HomologationSpecial #ClassicBMW #TheCarNerd
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  Renault Clio V6: The Worst Renault Clio Ever Built 06.09.2026 28min

  In 2001, Renault built a hatchback that could barely outrun the hatchback it was based on.The doors were standard Clio. So was the roofline, tailgate and badge.But the back seats were gone.In their place sat a three-liter V6 from a family saloon, mounted sideways directly behind the driver and sending its power to the rear wheels.Renault had taken inspiration from the legendary 5 Turbo and created one of the strangest hot hatches ever sold.There was just one problem.The first Clio V6 was terrifying to drive.It cost roughly twice as much as the ordinary Clio Sport, was barely faster on a tight road, and became notorious for suddenly snapping into oversteer — catching out even experienced motoring journalists.Then the company building it went bankrupt.And somehow, that disaster helped Renault finally turn the Clio V6 into the car it should have been from the beginning.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now!The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury.👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEWe uncover the extraordinary story of the Renault Clio V6:Why Renault decided to put a V6 in the middle of a ClioHow the Renault 5 Turbo inspired the entire projectWhy Tom Walkinshaw Racing was chosen to build itHow ordinary Clio shells travelled from France to Sweden to become V6 monstersWhy so much of the car came from Renault’s existing parts binWhy the Phase 1 became notorious for sudden snap oversteerHow a cheap Clio Sport could keep up with it on real roadsWhy the collapse of TWR forced Renault to completely rethink the carHow Renault transformed the Phase 2 into a far better machineWhy Porsche engineers ended up helping tune its engine electronicsAnd how the Clio V6 became one of the most collectible modern Renaults━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#RenaultClioV6 #ClioV6 #RenaultSport #HotHatch #TomWalkinshaw #TWR #Renault5Turbo #CarHistory #FrenchCars #ModernClassic #TheCarNerd
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  Metro 6R4: The Failed Metro That Created a Supercar 03.09.2026 37min

  Group B Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlRHygh59386nA5Cost2pUW4p3OkNMlK7In 1984, British journalists watched a rally car charge toward them on a cinema screen.Then a real MG Metro 6R4 burst straight through it.Behind the driver sat a Rover V8 with two cylinders literally cut off — because the real engine still didn’t exist.Austin Rover had decided to turn one of Britain’s most ordinary hatchbacks into a Group B monster capable of fighting Audi, Peugeot and Lancia.Williams designed the chassis. A former Cosworth engineer created a purpose-built naturally aspirated V6. And after more than four years of development, the 6R4 made its WRC debut in 1985 and finished third.That would be its best result.But the engine’s story was only beginning.It later became a twin-turbo rallycross champion — and eventually evolved into the engine used in the Jaguar XJ220, briefly the fastest production car in the world.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now!The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury.👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEWe uncover the extraordinary story of the MG Metro 6R4:Why Williams Formula One helped build itWhy Austin Rover rejected turbochargingHow engineers created a V6 by cutting two cylinders off a Rover V8How the purpose-built V64V made over 400 horsepower at 9,000 rpmWhy its 1985 RAC Rally podium was never repeatedHow Group B ended just as the car was becoming competitiveHow the 6R4 found a second life in rallycrossAnd how its engine eventually evolved into the Jaguar XJ220’s twin-turbo V6━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#MGMetro6R4 #GroupB #Rally #WRC #TonyPond #JaguarXJ220 #WilliamsF1 #BritishLeyland #CarHistory #Motorsport #TheCarNerd
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  Lancia 037: How Lancia Beat Audi With a Slower Car 20.08.2026 28min

  Group B Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlRHygh59386nA5Cost2pUW4p3OkNMlK7In January 1983, high in the mountains above Monte Carlo, men working for Lancia went out onto frozen rally stages in the middle of the night.They were spreading agricultural salt across the ice.Not because they were cheating.Because nobody had thought to write a rule saying they couldn't.Lancia was preparing to fight Audi's revolutionary four-wheel-drive Quattro with a car that should already have been obsolete: the rear-wheel-drive 037.Audi had more traction.Lancia had less weight, instant supercharged power, a gearbox mechanics could replace in around twelve minutes—and Cesare Fiorio, a team boss willing to exploit every gap he could find in the rulebook.Against almost every expectation, it worked.In 1983, the Lancia 037 defeated Audi and won the World Rally Championship for manufacturers.It remains the last rear-wheel-drive car ever to do it.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now!The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury.👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEIn this video, we uncover the extraordinary story of the Lancia Rally 037: how Lancia deliberately rejected the four-wheel-drive revolution, engineered an incredibly light and serviceable rear-wheel-drive rally car—and then used strategy, loopholes and some of the greatest drivers of the era to defeat Audi at its own game.Why Lancia Rejected Four-Wheel Drive:How Cesare Fiorio and engineer Sergio Limone looked at the dominant Audi Quattro and focused not on its traction, but on its weight, understeer, complexity and difficulty to repair.Turning the Beta Montecarlo Into a Group B Weapon:How Abarth and Dallara stripped the Lancia Beta Montecarlo down to its central steel safety cell, added chromoly tubular subframes and transformed a road-going coupé into the SE037 rally car.Why the 037 Had Two Bubbles in Its Roof:How Pininfarina created the distinctive raised sections above the driver and co-driver simply to make space for their helmets without increasing the entire roof height or hurting the car's aerodynamics.The Ferrari Engineer Behind the Engine:How the 037's two-litre four-cylinder descended from Aurelio Lampredi's famous Fiat twin-cam architecture—the same basic engine family that had already powered Fiat to multiple World Rally Championships.Why Lancia Used a Supercharger Instead of a Turbo:How the mechanically driven Abarth Volumex blower eliminated the turbo lag that plagued early-1980s rally cars, giving the rear-wheel-drive 037 immediate throttle response and allowing drivers to control its slides with extraordinary precision.Turning Waste Boost Into Gearbox Cooling:How Abarth routed excess supercharger pressure toward the gearbox oil cooler, converting air that would otherwise have been dumped into useful cooling.Why the 037 Had Two Rear Shock Absorbers Per Wheel:How Lancia deliberately doubled the rear Bilstein dampers to control heat generated by a powerful rear-wheel-drive car constantly sliding and spinning its tyres across long rally stages.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#Lancia037 #Lancia #GroupB #WRC #Rally #AudiQuattro #WalterRohrl #MarkkuAlen #CesareFiorio #CarHistory #AutomotiveHistory #Motorsport #CarNerd #TheCarNerd
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  Noble M12: The £45,000 Car That Humiliated Porsche 18.08.2026 31min

  In the summer of 2000, evo magazine strapped timing equipment to a British sports car almost nobody had heard of.It hit 60 mph in 4.1 seconds and 100 mph in 10.2—beating the Porsche 911 GT3, evo’s reigning Car of the Year.The Porsche cost £76,500.The Noble M12 cost £45,000.And its rear lights came from a Ford Mondeo.The M12 was built by Lee Noble, a self-taught engineer with no degree, almost no advertising budget and a habit of walking away from the companies he created. His earlier Ultima chassis had even been used by McLaren during development of the F1.But the M12 would become his masterpiece: a twin-turbocharged, mid-engined supercar built from ordinary Ford components, assembled partly in South Africa, with no ABS, no traction control and initially not even an anti-roll bar.It embarrassed cars costing several times more.And then the company behind it fell apart.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now!The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury.👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEIn this video, we uncover the extraordinary story of the Noble M12: how a self-taught British engineer created one of the fastest sports cars of its era from Ford parts, fibreglass and a steel spaceframe—and built a machine capable of humiliating some of the most expensive supercars on Earth.The Chassis That Helped Build the McLaren F1:How Lee Noble’s Ultima Mk3 became the basis for McLaren development mules Albert and Edward, used to test components for Gordon Murray’s legendary F1.Noble Automotive’s Five-Car Failure:Why Lee Noble’s first production car, the M10, lasted just five examples—and why customers waiting for one asked to transfer their deposits to the coupé that replaced it.Building a Supercar Without Supercar Money:How Noble avoided bespoke engines, expensive tooling and conventional mass-production methods, instead creating a steel spaceframe reinforced with bonded aluminium and a structural roll cage.The Supercar Built in South Africa:Why Hi-Tech Automotive in Port Elizabeth constructed the chassis and bodies before shipping unfinished cars to Leicestershire to receive their engines and gearboxes.The Ford Parts Supercar:Mondeo rear lights and mirrors, Ford sensors, a family-car battery—and a Duratec V6 transformed with twin Garrett turbochargers into the heart of a 1,000-kilogram supercar.Why the M12 Had No Anti-Roll Bars:How Noble deliberately allowed the suspension to work independently over broken British roads, controlling body movement through geometry, spring rates and damper tuning instead.The £45,000 Porsche Killer:How the original 310-horsepower M12 GTO recorded 0–60 mph in 4.1 seconds at Millbrook and triggered a wave of international press coverage Noble could never have afforded to buy.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#NobleM12 #NobleM400 #LeeNoble #BritishCars #Supercars #CarHistory #AutomotiveHistory #Engineering #McLarenF1 #CarNerd #TheCarNerd
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  Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution: How 22-Years of Failure Built an Icon 13.08.2026 30min

  In 1974, a four-door Japanese family saloon entered the most destructive rally on Earth.The East African Safari Rally covered roughly six thousand kilometres of flooded public roads, volcanic dust, mud, rocks and mechanical punishment. Porsche led—until its suspension collapsed. The car that came through to win was a Mitsubishi Lancer driven by Kenyan mechanic’s son Joginder Singh.It was Mitsubishi’s first World Rally Championship victory.Twenty-two years would pass before a Lancer won a world title. Mitsubishi spent most of that time building rally cars that were too hot, too heavy, too late—or simply the wrong shape entirely.The result of those failures was the Lancer Evolution: a brutally effective road-going homologation special that transformed an ordinary commuter saloon into one of the most successful rally cars ever created.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now! The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury. 👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEIn this video, we uncover the extraordinary history of the Mitsubishi Lancer: how a lightweight family car conquered the brutal Safari Rally, disappeared from competition, returned with a series of deeply flawed machines—and eventually produced the Lancer Evolution that dominated the World Rally Championship.What’s inside:The Family Car That Survived the “Car Breaker”:How Mitsubishi reinforced an ordinary 1.6-litre Lancer to survive six thousand kilometres of mud, rocks and flooded Kenyan roads—and defeated Porsche and Lancia in the 1974 Safari Rally.Four Lancers, Four Finishers:Why simply reaching the end of the Safari was considered an achievement, and how Mitsubishi returned in 1976 to finish first, second, third and sixth.The Turbocharged Lancer That Cooked Itself:How Mitsubishi created one of rallying’s first electronically controlled turbo engines—then discovered the car could not compete in hot countries without overheating.The Group B Mitsubishi That Never Raced:The story of the carbon-and-Kevlar Starion 4WD, its front-midship engine layout, experimental three-valve technology and the rule change that killed it before it entered a single World Championship rally.The Galant That Was Too Big:How the Galant VR-4 introduced the 4G63T engine, full-time four-wheel drive and hydraulic four-wheel steering—but remained too heavy and unwilling to rotate on tight stages.Compressing a Galant Into a Lancer:How Mitsubishi transferred the Galant’s complete turbocharged four-wheel-drive powertrain into a smaller saloon and accidentally created the first Lancer Evolution.The Evolution That Couldn’t Handle:Why the original Evo was ferociously fast but suffered from chassis flex, severe understeer and suspension geometry that changed in the middle of a corner.Fixing the Evo ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#MitsubishiLancer #LancerEvolution #MitsubishiEvo #TommiMakinen #WorldRallyChampionship #WRC #RallyCars #AutomotiveHistory #CarNerd #Engineering #JoginderSingh #TheCarNerd
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  Alfa Romeo 166: The Most Miserable Car Ever Built 11.08.2026 32min

  In 2009, Glass’s Guide examined more than six thousand three-year-old cars in Britain to find which had lost their owners the most money.Second, third and fourth place were all Rovers—a brand that no longer existed.But the worst depreciating car wasn’t a Rover.It was the Alfa Romeo 166.An Italian executive saloon with double-wishbone suspension, one of the greatest V6 engines ever put into a road car, and technology that would eventually transform the diesel engine forever.After just three years, it was worth 14.4 per cent of its original price.The remarkable thing is that the Alfa Romeo 166 wasn’t really a bad car.In many ways, it was an extraordinary one.It was simply built by a company that repeatedly made exactly the wrong decision at exactly the wrong moment.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now! The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury. 👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEIn this video, we uncover the extraordinary story of the Alfa Romeo 166: a beautifully engineered Italian flagship that arrived late, launched with the wrong face, pioneered technology its rivals would profit from, and became one of the fastest-depreciating cars ever sold in Britain.What’s inside:The Alfa That Had to Replace the 164:How Alfa Romeo began developing its new flagship as early as 1990, initially planning to simply reskin the existing 164 before Fiat management realised the resulting car would already be obsolete by the time it reached showrooms.Turning a Lancia Into an Alfa:How Alfa abandoned Project 934 and started again using the Lancia Kappa’s Type E platform—then threw away much of its suspension and engineered something considerably more sophisticated underneath.The Diesel Technology Fiat Gave Away:How Fiat developed common-rail diesel injection, created the system that would revolutionise modern diesel engines, then sold the patents to Bosch because it lacked the money to industrialise it.The First Common-Rail Passenger Car:How the Alfa Romeo 156 JTD became the first production passenger car in the world sold with common-rail diesel injection—and how the same technology would become crucial to the 166.The Busso V6:The story of Giuseppe Busso’s legendary aluminium V6, its chromed intake runners and the 2.5-litre, 3.0-litre and extraordinarily strange 2.0-litre turbocharged versions offered in the 166.The Two-Litre V6 Turbo:Why Italian tax laws encouraged Alfa Romeo to shrink its famous V6 below two litres, bolt on a Garrett turbocharger and produce 205 horsepower from an engine designed almost entirely for its domestic market.The 166’s Forgotten Four-Cylinder:Why the entry-level Twin Spark—with variable valve timing, a variable-length inlet manifold and two spark plugs per cylinder—was far more interesting than its position at the bottom of the range suggested.The Final Busso 3.2:How the facelift brought the 166 its ultimate engine—a 3.2-litre, 240-horsepower Busso V6 paired exclusively with a six-speed manual gearbox.The Car Worth 14.4 Per Cent:How catastrophic depreciation, weak dealers, expensive cambelt servicing and reliability concerns reduced a £30,000 executive saloon to a fraction of its original value.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#AlfaRomeo #AlfaRomeo166 #BussoV6 #GiuseppeBusso #Alfa166 #ItalianCars #CarHistory #AutomotiveHistory #CarNerd #Engineering #ClassicCars #TheCarNerd
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  Smart Car: The Most Expensive Mercedes Ever Made 04.08.2026 24min

  In 1993, the man who saved the Swiss watch industry decided to reinvent the car. Nicolas Hayek imagined a cheap, colourful electric runabout that people could personalise like a Swatch—small enough for two passengers, city streets, and, in his words, “two cases of beer.”Volkswagen dismissed it as an elephant’s roller skate. Mercedes-Benz agreed to build it.The result was one of the cleverest, strangest, and most financially disastrous cars ever produced: the original Smart Car. Its steel safety cage could survive an impact with an S-Class, its plastic body panels could be swapped in under an hour, and its tiny footprint allowed it to park sideways in spaces ordinary cars could not use.But beneath the brilliant engineering was a compromised design, a hated gearbox, a near-disastrous stability problem, and a development programme that reportedly cost Mercedes billions.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now! The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury. 👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEIn this video, we uncover the extraordinary history of the original Smart Car: how a Swiss watchmaker’s electric dream collided with decades of abandoned Mercedes engineering, produced an unmistakable automotive icon, and became the biggest money-losing European car programme of the modern era.What’s inside:The Watchmaker Who Wanted to Reinvent Cars:How Swatch creator Nicolas Hayek imagined a cheap, personal electric car—and why Volkswagen rejected it almost immediately.Mercedes’ Secret Microcar Project:The forgotten experiments that Mercedes engineer Johann Tomforde had been developing since the late 1960s.The Electric Car That Became Petrol:Why wheel-hub motors, experimental batteries, and a disastrous frozen-lake test forced Mercedes to abandon Hayek’s original drivetrain.Engineering a Two-and-a-Half-Metre Car:How a rear-mounted engine, staggered seats, plastic panels, and the exposed Tridion safety cell made the Smart unlike anything else on the road.The Rollover Crisis:How the Mercedes A-Class failed the infamous Swedish moose test—and exposed a potentially catastrophic problem inside the Smart just months before launch.The Safest Tiny Car in Europe:Why Mercedes crashed a 730-kilogram Smart directly into an S-Class, and how its rigid passenger cage survived an impact that should have crushed it.The Most Expensive Cheap Car Ever Made:How bespoke components, dedicated factories, glass-tower dealerships, and weak American sales reportedly cost Mercedes around €3.3 billion.Crossblades, Roadsters and a Twin-Engine V6:The bizarre performance cars Smart created while the company was already losing money—including a Brabus prototype with two engines combined into one.The Car Hayek Wanted All Along:How Mercedes eventually removed the petrol engine and hated gearbox, installed batteries supplied by Tesla, and finally created the electric city car Hayek had proposed decades earlier.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies, and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#SmartCar #SmartFortwo #MercedesBenz #AutomotiveHistory #CarNerd #Engineering #ElectricCars #NicolasHayek #Swatch #TheCarNerd
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  Ford RS200: The Fastest Failure in Racing History 30.07.2026 24min

  Group B Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlRHygh59386nA5Cost2pUW4p3OkNMlK7In the Ford RS200, the engine sits behind the driver—but the gearbox sits ahead of him, down by his knees. Power travels the entire length of the car to the front, then turns around and comes back again.Ford built it this way to create the most perfectly balanced rally car possible. It spent more than £10 million developing it, produced barely enough cars to satisfy the rulebook, and arrived just as the championship it was designed to win was being outlawed.The RS200 raced in the World Rally Championship for a single season and never won an event. Yet after Group B disappeared, it became one of the most dominant rallycross cars ever built—and eventually the fastest-accelerating production car in the world.So was the RS200 a catastrophic failure, or simply a brilliant machine built for the wrong moment?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK “History Written by Losers” — out now!The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury.👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEIn this video, we uncover the complete story of the Ford RS200: the clean-sheet Group B rally car born from the failure of the abandoned Escort RS1700T programme.From its bizarre forward-and-back drivetrain and Formula One-inspired chassis to disputed homologation numbers, fatal crashes and its extraordinary second life in rallycross, this is the story of a car that arrived too late to fulfil its original purpose—but became legendary after the rulebook that created it disappeared.What’s inside:The Rally Car Ford Threw Away:How Ford abandoned its championship-winning rear-wheel-drive Escort, spent years developing the obsolete RS1700T, and was forced to begin again after the Audi Quattro changed rallying forever.The Rally Car Built Backwards:Why Ford placed the engine behind the driver, the gearbox ahead of his feet, and sent the power forwards before sending it back to the rear wheels.The Questionable 200-Car Homologation:How FIA inspectors counted two hundred RS200s, despite factory records suggesting that only around 144 to 148 complete cars were actually finished.One Season in Group B:The RS200’s promising podium debut, the tragedy in Portugal, the fatal Rallye Hessen crash, and the chain of events that brought the most extreme era of rallying to an end.The Failure That Became the Fastest:How the RS200 found its true home in rallycross, produced as much as 800 horsepower, and later set a 0–60 mph record that stood for twelve years.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies, and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#FordRS200 #GroupB #Rally #AutomotiveHistory #CarNerd #FordMotorsport #RallyHistory #MotorsportHistory #Cosworth #TheCarNerd
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  Reliant Robin: The Car Built to Dodge the Taxman 28.07.2026 30min

  In 1972, a Grand Prix engineer who tuned Formula One cars for Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart sat down to design a cheap runabout for people who couldn't afford a real car. The result? A lightweight, three-wheeled fibreglass hatchback with an all-aluminium engine that saved its parent company and gave working-class Britain affordable independence.Yet decades later, this clever piece of engineering was rolled down a Sheffield high street on prime-time television until an entire nation agreed it was a national joke. But how much of what we "know" about the Reliant Robin is actually true?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now! The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury. 👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEIn this video, we unpick the true history of Britain’s most misunderstood motoring icon: the Reliant Robin. From exploiting a post-war tax loophole to pioneering mass-produced fibreglass and all-aluminium engines, we dive into how Tamworth’s underdog automaker built a genuine success story—and how television, pop culture, and rigged stunts permanently ruined its reputation.What’s inside:A Car Built Out of a Rulebook: How a motorcycle licence loophole, £10 road tax, and an economic crisis created the ultimate budget commuter.Grand Prix Engineering on a Budget: F1 chassis designer John Crosthwaite's brilliant tricks to keep a three-wheeled car balanced, low-slung, and planted.Pioneers of Fibreglass & Aluminium:How Reliant beat the giants of the auto industry to lightweight, mass-production materials.The Top Gear & Del Boy Myth:The truth behind the famous rolling stunt on TV, and why the most famous "Robin" in pop culture wasn't even a Robin at all.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies, and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#ReliantRobin #AutomotiveHistory #TopGear #CarNerd #BritishCars #Engineering #MotorsportHistory #Reliant #TheCarNerd
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  1992 Suburu Impreza: The Car that Saved Suburu 23.07.2026 27min

  In 1993, Subaru was on the brink of collapse, burdened by crashing sales and oddball engineering. But out of this desperation emerged a compact, turbocharged blue-and-yellow icon that would permanently rewrite the rules of modern rallying. With a flat-four boxer engine and symmetrical all-wheel drive, the Impreza transformed Subaru from a struggling Japanese automaker into a World Rally Championship powerhouse. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now. The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury. 👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEIn the early 1990s, the World Rally Championship was fiercely competitive, and Subaru's parent company was posting its worst financial losses in history. Desperate to justify its motorsport division, Subaru partnered with Prodrive to replace the struggling Legacy with a shorter, more agile giant-killer: the Impreza. In this video, we dive into the fascinating underdog story of how a small, quirky carmaker out-engineered its massive rivals, the vicious intra-team rivalry between Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz, and the brilliant technical warfare of 1990s motorsport. From the unmistakable crackle of anti-lag to Toyota's highly illegal turbo restrictor bypass, we explore how the Subaru Impreza cemented its status as a rally legend and saved its parent company from ruin. What’s inside:The Blueprint of a Legend: Subaru engineers cut down the Legacy floorpan to create the Impreza. They perfectly paired the low-slung EJ20 flat-four boxer engine with a symmetrical driveline for unmatched balance and cornering. Beating the Restrictor: Prodrive fought the FIA's 34-millimeter restrictor plate rule by clawing back air density. They also created the fire-spitting "bang-bang" anti-lag system to eliminate turbo dead spots when coasting. The Greatest Cheat in Motorsport: Toyota engineered a brilliant, hidden spring turbo bypass that dragged the restrictor out of its seat to provide up to fifty extra horsepower. They were eventually caught and completely banned from the 1996 championship. The 1995 Title Fight: A brutal, uncompromising rivalry formed between Colin McRae and two-time champion Carlos Sainz. It culminated in team-order mutinies at Rally Catalunya and a historic championship victory for McRae at the RAC Rally. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies, and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#SubaruImpreza #ColinMcRae #WRC #GroupA #Prodrive #RallyHistory #AutomotiveHistory #90sRacing #MotorsportIcons #TheCarNerd #JDM
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  Austin Montego: The Masterpiece that Killed the British Car Industry 21.07.2026 34min

  The Austin Montego didn't just challenge the survival of British Leyland; it stood as a fascinating, flawed monument to the desperate final years of Britain’s state-owned automotive giant. In the mid-1980s, the World Rally Championship wasn't the only high-stakes automotive battlefield; the UK fleet market was a ruthless warzone dominated by Ford's Sierra and Vauxhall's Cavalier. While competitors sprinted into the aerodynamic future, Austin Rover fought for its life with a car built for the decade that was already ending—wrapping a compromised structure in high-tech promises and a talking dashboard that would famously lose its mind.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now. The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury. 👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEIn April 1984, the Austin Montego arrived as a vital, uncompromising statement from a brand desperate to reclaim market share from all-wheel-drive and rear-wheel-drive giants. Beneath its futuristic electronic promises lay an incredible piece of complex, delayed engineering that pushed British Leyland's troubled era to its absolute zenith. In this video, we dive into the fascinating, complex mechanics of Britain’s ultimate underdog and the high-stakes technological arms race that defined 1980s motoring. From the engineering compromise of its shared doors to the mechanical violence of the fastest production MG ever made, we explore how the Montego became a terrifying icon of reliability struggles—and why it stands as the final, untamed monument to an era of racing to fix it now and doing it right later. What’s inside:The Talking Dashboard Masterpiece: Breaking down the revolutionary solid-state digital instrument pack and its voice-synthesis unit that, thanks to poorly shielded wiring and British electricity pylons, would hallucinate phantom faults and tell drivers they hadn't "closed the oil pressure." The Space-Saving Illusion: How Lancia... wait, how Austin Rover utilized a high floor pan to give the award-winning estate a completely flat load floor, masquerading a compromised engineering platform as a cavernous, award-winning family hauler. The Front-Wheel Drive Evolution: The story behind the 150-horsepower MG Montego Turbo, which used an ingenious, pressurized carburettor box to out-sprint the Ford Sierra XR4i to sixty, only to fight its own driver with violent, permanent torque steer. The Fatal Legacy: How a car built to conquer the fleet market tragically marked the end of the Austin name itself after years of heartbreaking rust issues, cementing its status as a beautiful, terrifying engineering marvel born of uncompromised ambition and state-funded survival. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies, and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#AustinMontego #MGMontego #BritishLeyland #FleetWars #80sCars #Turbocharged #AutomotiveHistory #TheCarNerd #BritishEngineering
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  Lancia Delta S4: The Car that Ended Group B 16.07.2026 29min

  Group B Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlRHygh59386nA5Cost2pUW4p3OkNMlK7The Lancia Delta S4 didn't just challenge the visual and physical limits of rallying; it shattered them with a violent, twin-charged Italian swagger that completely rewrote the rules of motorsport. In the mid-1980s, the World Rally Championship was dominated by Audi's pioneering quattro system and Peugeot's lightweight mid-engined packaging. While others refined what existed, Lancia took a radical leap forward, wrapping an aggressive Kevlar-composite silhouette around a tube-frame chassis, and dropping a mind-bending, supercharged *and* turbocharged inline-four engine into the middle of the car.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now. The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury. 👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEIn late 1985, the Lancia Delta S4 arrived as a menacing, uncompromising statement from a brand desperate to reclaim the WRC crown from the clutches of all-wheel-drive giants. Beneath its loosely production-resembling exterior lay an incredible piece of complex engineering that pushed the lethal Group B era to its absolute zenith. In this video, we dive into the fascinating, complex mechanics of Italy’s ultimate rally weapon and the high-stakes technological arms race that defined 1980s motorsport. From the engineering brilliance of its advanced four-wheel-drive system to the mechanical violence of its twin-charged powertrain, we explore how the Delta S4 became a terrifying icon—and why it stands as the final, untamed monument to the most dangerous era in racing history.What’s inside:The Twin-Charged Masterpiece: Breaking down the revolutionary 1.8-liter inline-four that combined a Volumex supercharger for low-end grunt with a massive KKK turbocharger for top-end power, virtually eliminating turbo lag.The Space-Frame Illusion: How Lancia utilized a lightweight chromium-molybdenum steel tube chassis wrapped in easily removable carbon-Kevlar body panels, masquerading a purpose-built race car as a humble family hatchback.The All-Wheel Drive Evolution: The story behind Lancia's shift away from their rear-wheel-drive 037, developing a sophisticated center differential system that split power dynamically to handle the car's brutal output on dirt, tarmac, and ice.The Fatal Legacy: How a car built to conquer the world tragically marked the end of Group B itself after the heartbreaking accidents of 1986, cementing its status as a beautiful, terrifying engineering marvel born of uncompromised speed.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies, and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#LanciaDeltaS4 #DeltaS4 #GroupB #WRC #LanciaMartini #Twincharged #RallyHistory #AutomotiveHistory #80sRacing #MotorsportIcons #TheCarNerd #ItalianEngineering
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  Ferrari F40: The Last Car Enzo Ferrari Ever Approved 14.07.2026 28min

  In the late 1980s, Ferrari faced a crisis of identity. Porsche had just unleashed the 959—a computer-controlled, four-wheel-drive technological marvel that snatched the title of the fastest production car on Earth. Witnessing this digital revolution from Maranello, an aging Enzo Ferrari grew desperate to take the crown back before he died. Rejecting the wrong future of electronic driving aids, he ordered a no-compromise, analogue weapon built for exactly one purpose: to beat the computer without becoming one. By combining a raw spaceframe chassis with cutting-edge carbon fibre and Kevlar panels, they wrapped a terrifying twin-turbocharged V8 in an uncompromising, ultra-lightweight shell. The result was the F40. It was a purist’s dream that routinely embarrassed the digital establishment—yet it faced a bizarre uphill battle against its own legendary status.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now.The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury.👉 [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEAt the turn of the decade, the supercar market was obsessed with computerization, but Ferrari decided to bring a minimalist scalpel. Guided by an old man's final wish, a hand-picked team under Nicola Materazzi secretly developed the ultimate fortieth-anniversary halo car in just thirteen months. In this video, we dive into the brilliant, incredibly bittersweet story of the Ferrari F40.From the secret factory lines at Maranello to the explosive twin-turbocharged power delivery and the frenzy of the global investment market, we explore how a legendary brand built a dangerous animal that the world simply wasn't ready to actually drive. When it hit the streets, it couldn't escape its own stopwatch reality—but on the bedroom wall, it became an undefeated icon.What’s inside:The Secret Rescue Deal:How an eleven-month deadline forced Ferrari to turn abandoned Group B race wreckage into a road-going weapon. We look at the corporate alliance inside Maranello that combined a thin steel spaceframe with flat carbon fibre and Kevlar panels, creating an advanced, ultra-light structure that was a fifth lighter and three times stiffer than before.An Objectively Better Porsche?:The unexpected engineering choices made to defeat Stuttgart. With a flat composite underbody for high-speed stability, zero driver aids, unassisted Brembo brakes, and an identical pair of parallel IHI turbochargers, the F40 didn't copy the 959—it rejected its architecture entirely, matching a raw cockpit with a torque-heavy, Formula 1-derived powerplant.The Curse of the Griffin:The tragic irony of the F40’s commercial reality. Despite capturing the world's imagination, independent testing revealed the factory's 201 mph claim was outrun by the very Porsches and Rufs it was built to bury. Combined with Enzo Ferrari's death just thirteen months later, the car became a victim of its own hype—turned into a speculative financial asset rather than a machine to be driven.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly deep dives on the cars, companies, and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#FerrariF40 #Porsche959 #EnzoFerrari #NicolaMaterazzi #Supercars #TwinTurbo #TheCarNerd #AnalogueSupercar #Maranello #Hypercar
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  Ferrari 288GTO: The Greatest Ferrari that Never Raced 09.07.2026 25min

  In 1984, the fastest road car on the planet emerged from Maranello wearing a badge Ferrari hadn’t touched in twenty years: GTO. This wasn't a cynical marketing exercise; it was a no-compromise machine engineered to dominate a radical new racing class. It qualified, it was built, and then—it never turned a wheel in anger. The category it was made for was banned overnight, leaving an incredibly expensive development program stranded in an empty room. Yet, what Ferrari did with the wreckage of that canceled racing dream is the exact reason the most legendary supercar of the 20th century exists at all.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now.The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury.👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEAt the height of the 1980s turbo revolution, motorsport offered a golden ticket via the FIA's wild Group B regulations. Seizing the opportunity, Ferrari bankrolled a twin-turbo masterpiece aimed straight at Porsche and the prestigious grids of Le Mans. In this video, we dive into the brilliant, incredibly bittersweet story of the Ferrari 288 GTO.From the secret mathematical loopholes in the FIA rulebook to the unhinged, 650-horsepower Evoluzione prototypes, we explore how a sudden tragedy canceled a racing class but birthed an icon. It’s a story of corporate survival, Grand Prix metallurgy, and a stubborn engineer who helped an aging Enzo Ferrari deliver his final masterpiece.What’s inside:The Group B Loophole:How the FIA’s radical new rulebook opened the gates for top-level racing by requiring just 200 road cars for homologation. We look at the clever engineering math Ferrari used to slip their 2.8-litre twin-turbocharged V8 right under the governing body's strict displacement ceiling.Grand Prix Tech with License Plates:The unexpected engineering overhaul that separated the GTO from the standard 308. By rotating the engine ninety degrees, expanding the wheelbase, and utilizing Formula 1 composite materials like Kevlar and aluminum honeycomb, Ferrari created a 400-horsepower weapon that stopped global automotive conversations.The War That Never Came:The tragic irony of the GTO’s competitive life. While Porsche readied its 959 rival, the circuit class evaporated, and a series of devastating, fatal rallying accidents in 1986 forced the FIA to ban Group B completely—leaving Ferrari’s race car without a single race to enter.The Evoluzione Blueprint & Second Life:The incredible resurrection of a stranded program. We explore how Enzo Ferrari and "Mr. Turbo" Nicola Materazzi saved six homeless, 220-mph GTO Evoluzione prototypes from becoming dead factory stock, using them as rolling laboratories to build the legendary F40 in just eleven months.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies, and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#Ferrari288GTO #FerrariF40 #GroupB #AutomotiveHistory #Supercars #EnzoFerrari #NicolaMaterazzi #TheCarNerd #Motorsport #Turbo
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  Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500: The Ugliest Car in Racing History 02.07.2026 33min

  In the mid-1980s, Ford had a massive problem: their radical, aerodynamically obsessed family sedan—the Sierra—was a sales disaster. Desperate to change its public image, they decided the only way to sell the "Jellymould" commuter car was to turn it into an unbeatable racer. By teaming up with legendary engine builder Cosworth and aero-specialists Tickford, they took a mundane chassis and bolted on a massive turbocharger and a physics-defying rear wing. The result was the Sierra RS500 Cosworth. It was an uncompromising homologation special built for exactly one purpose: the absolute annihilation of Group A touring car racing. It was so fast, so dominant, and so aggressive that it completely broke the rulebook, forcing entire racing series to change their regulations just to stop it.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now.The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury.👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEIn the 1980s, Group A touring car racing was an all-out war between manufacturers, and Ford decided to bring a nuclear weapon. Guided by motorsport boss Stuart Turner, they bypassed traditional displacement and embraced lightweight aerodynamics and massive turbo boost. In this video, we dive into the brilliant, incredibly dominant story of the Ford Sierra RS500.From Cosworth's genius YB engine to the absurd "whale tail" aerodynamics, we explore how a family hatchback became a track monster. When the RS500 hit the grid, it didn't just win—it rendered every other car obsolete, ruling the BTCC, DTM, and Bathurst. And when it hit the streets, it became a working-class hero, a getaway driver's dream, and ultimately, a modern legend.What’s inside:The Cosworth Heartplant:How Ford convinced Cosworth to transform a mundane Pinto block into the legendary YB engine. They engineered a 16-valve, twin-cam masterpiece bolted to a Garrett turbocharger. For the RS500 evolution, they added a thicker block, a massive intercooler, and a secret second set of fuel injectors that were disconnected for the street but unleashed 500+ horsepower on the track.The Aerodynamic Weapon:The relentless wind-tunnel development that turned the slippery Sierra into a high-speed downforce machine. Unlike primitive spoilers of the era, the RS500 featured a deeper front splitter and a massive "whale tail" rear wing with an added Gurney flap, forcing the rear wheels into the tarmac and making the car an unstoppable force on high-speed circuits.Group A Annihilation:The absolute carnage the RS500 unleashed on global touring car racing. We explore how this homologation weapon made a mockery of BMWs and Holdens across the globe, scoring back-to-back championships in the BTCC, dominating the DTM, and conquering Bathurst. It was so overwhelmingly superior that it essentially forced the death of the Group A regulations.The Blue-Collar Supercar:The Sierra's bizarre afterlife on the streets of Britain. Because Ford had to sell 500 of these road-legal race cars to the public, it sparked a "Fast Ford" frenzy. We tell the story of how this working-class hero became the ultimate status symbol, one of the most stolen cars in the UK, and eventually, a six-figure collector's holy grail.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies, and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Chapters:0:00 Intro2:57 Why Ford Built the Sierra9:49 The Public Hated It.14:28 Time to Go Racing20:22 Introducing the RS50028:37 Sapphires & Success#FordSierra #RS500 #GroupA #AutomotiveHistory #Cosworth #80sCars #Motorsport #TheCarNerd #FastFord #TouringCars
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  Porsche 959: The Greatest Rally Car That Never Raced 30.06.2026 36min

  In the mid-1980s, Porsche set out to build a Group B rally car, but accidentally ended up creating a technological spaceship that redefined the modern supercar. By taking the iconic 911 silhouette and stuffing it with sequential twin-turbos, an aerospace-grade Kevlar composite body, and the most advanced computer-controlled all-wheel-drive system the world had ever seen, Porsche created an absolute weapon: the 959. It was a relentless, uncompromising engineering marvel meant for the dirt, but the WRC Group B class collapsed before it could ever turn a wheel in anger. Left without a racing series, this 200-mph laboratory went on to conquer the Sahara Desert, spark a bitter rivalry with Ferrari, and was deemed so illegal in the United States that a billionaire had to alter federal law just to drive one.Group B Video: https://youtu.be/2KJNhIRrrhgPorsche 928 Video: https://youtu.be/1p3oURcvnAg━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now.The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury.👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEIn the 1980s, the supercar world was an unregulated arms race, and Porsche decided to out-spend and out-engineer everyone. Guided by chief engineer Helmut Bott, they bypassed traditional rear-wheel-drive limitations and built a perfectly balanced, all-weather giant-killer. In this video, we dive into the brilliant, incredibly expensive story of the Porsche 959.From pioneering sequential turbocharging to developing the revolutionary PSK all-wheel-drive system, we explore how a heavily mutated 911 beat the world to the future. When the rulemakers took their sport away, Porsche simply pointed their masterpiece at the grueling Paris-Dakar Rally. And when the U.S. government refused to let it cross the border, one of the world's richest men went to war with the Department of Transportation.What’s inside:The Group B Spaceship:How Porsche ingeniously used aerospace materials like Kevlar, Nomex, and aluminum to keep weight down while packing in unprecedented technology. They engineered a complex sequential twin-turbo flat-six to eliminate turbo lag, setting the blueprint for the next thirty years of performance cars.The AWD Revolution:The relentless development of the Porsche-Steuer Kupplung (PSK) system. Unlike primitive 4WD systems of the era, this computer-controlled marvel could dynamically shift power to the wheels with the most grip in real-time, making the 959 an unstoppable force on any surface.Desert Domination:The tragic 1986 fatalities that forced the FIA to suddenly abolish Group B rallying left the 959 without a natural home. We explore Porsche's audacious pivot to the 8,000-mile Paris-Dakar Rally, culminating in a historic 1-2 finish in 1986 that proved this hypercar wasn't just a delicate garage queen.The Billionaire’s Contraband:The 959's bizarre afterlife in America. Because Porsche refused to crash-test four multi-million dollar cars for the DOT, it was strictly banned in the US. We tell the unbelievable true story of how Bill Gates and Paul Allen bought them anyway, sparking a 13-year legal battle that ultimately birthed the federal "Show and Display" exemption law.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies, and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#Porsche959 #GroupB #AutomotiveHistory #ParisDakar #80sCars #Motorsport #TheCarNerd #PorscheClassic #Supercars #BillGates
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  Peugeot 205 T16: The Greatest "Diesel" in Racing History 25.06.2026 29min

  In the mid-1980s, the fastest rally car on earth hid its monstrous capability inside the shell of an everyday French supermini. By taking the heavy cast-iron block of a workhorse diesel, fitting a 16-valve head and a turbocharger, and mounting it mid-ship in a custom four-wheel-drive chassis, Peugeot created an absolute weapon: the 205 Turbo 16. It was a ruthless, pragmatic engineering marvel that conquered the wild Group B era and won two world titles before the sport was abruptly outlawed. Driven into exile, it went on to conquer the desert, right up until the moment one of the cars was literally stolen for a multi-million franc ransom. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now. The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury. 👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEIn the 1980s, international rallying was an unregulated arms race, and Peugeot decided to out-spend and out-engineer everyone. Guided by Jean Todt and backed by a staggering budget of up to fifteen million dollars a year, they bypassed the nose-heavy designs of their rivals and built a perfectly balanced, mid-engined giant-killer. In this video, we dive into the brilliant, often chaotic story of the Peugeot 205 Turbo 16.From exploiting rulebook displacement loopholes to surviving the tragic fatalities that ended the Group B era, we explore how a little French hatchback beat the world. When the rulemakers took their sport away, Peugeot simply pointed their masterpiece at the Sahara Desert and the towering peaks of Colorado. What’s inside:The Diesel Foundation: How Peugeot ingeniously used a tough diesel block to withstand massive turbo boost. They also worked FIA mathematical multipliers backward to drop the car into a highly advantageous, lightweight class. Group B Domination: The relentless winning streak led by drivers like Ari Vatanen, Timo Salonen, and Juha Kankkunen. The 205 T16 proved more complete and balanced across all surfaces than brutal rivals like the Audi Sport Quattro and Lancia Delta S4. The Reckoning: The tragic 1986 fatalities that forced the FIA to suddenly abolish Group B rallying. This abrupt cancellation sparked a bitter, high-stakes legal war between Peugeot and FIA leadership. Desert Exile and Ransom: The 205's bizarre second life conquering the Paris-Dakar Rally. This era includes the unbelievable true story of Ari Vatanen's leading car being stolen from a service area in Mali for a 25-million franc ransom. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies, and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#peugeot205gti #GroupB #RallyHistory #AutomotiveHistory #ParisDakar #80sCars #Motorsport #TheCarNerd #PikesPeak #WRC
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  Ford Probe: The Failed Front-Wheel Drive Ford Mustang 23.06.2026 30min

  The Ford Mustang is an American automotive icon, but in the mid-1980s, Ford was quietly preparing to kill it off. Facing lingering anxieties from the oil crises and a massive surge in popularity for efficient, front-wheel-drive Japanese imports, Ford executives made a controversial decision: the next-generation Mustang would be a front-wheel-drive, four-cylinder sports coupe built on a Mazda platform. It was a radical, pragmatic shift that made perfect sense on paper—and it ignited one of the fiercest consumer revolts in automotive history.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now. The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury. 👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🏁 IN THIS EPISODEIn the late 1980s, the automotive landscape was rapidly changing, and Ford believed the thirsty, rear-wheel-drive V8 was a relic of the past. Partnering with Mazda, they spent years and millions of dollars engineering a sleek, aerodynamic, and technologically advanced replacement for the aging Fox Body Mustang. But when word leaked to the motoring press, Mustang purists went absolutely nuclear. In this video, we dive into the fascinating, dramatic story of the car that almost ruined a legacy. From the boardroom panic to the last-minute scramble, we explore how a massive public relations crisis saved the V8 Mustang and birthed an entirely new 90s staple: the Ford Probe.What’s inside:The FWD Revolution: Why the gas crises of the 1970s and the dominance of Japanese imports convinced Ford’s top brass that traditional rear-wheel-drive muscle cars were destined for the scrapyard.Project ST-16: Inside the joint venture with Mazda that engineered a futuristic, wedge-shaped, front-wheel-drive platform fully intended to wear the iconic galloping pony badge.The Enthusiast Revolt: How an explosive AutoWeek magazine cover story sparked a massive, coordinated letter-writing campaign from fans that forced Ford executives into a corner.A Compromise is Born: The scramble to find the budget to keep the aging Fox Body Mustang in production while rushing to rebrand the ST-16 project into a brand new modelline: the Ford Probe.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH📺 Documentary channel: https://youtube.com/@thatjasonhassett🔔 Subscribe for weekly post-mortems on the cars, companies, and engineering decisions that shaped modern motoring.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#FordProbe #FordMustang #CarHistory #AutomotiveHistory #FoxBody #80sCars #Radwood #MotorTrend #TheCarNerd #MazdaMX6