Damn I never knew Henry Ford ate poop

11 minutes in I’m still listening to James talk about Harvey Firestone, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison having sex.

"a square of 69s. the most stable of 69 structures." LMFAO.

After all the 69 jokes how did noone make a comment about them camping at "Swallow Falls" ?!?

I literally got a Firestone ad when I clicked

Aahh, another Sunday of automotive history in my generations lingo. Thank you donut.

Fun Fact: The tire wall barriers at Barber motorsports park are all brand new firestones, deemed unusable from this situation.

For the rest of time, when I hear the term "think tank" a mental image of Ford and Firestone '69'ing will appear LOOOOOL

How did "Swallow Falls" @11:10 get by without even so much as a giggle? That's hilarious, especially considering the conversation directly bookending it!

Week 4 of requesting an episode on the Australian V8 Supercars

"In today's somber episode we cover the tragic story of how a soulless corporation killed 250 people and tried to cover it up." James: *PAST GAS PODCAST ITS ABOUT CARS IT NOT ABOUT FARTS!*

You guys should also cover the NASCAR tire wars between Goodyear and Hoosier

Speaking of 69, Swallow Falls? Was there a Spit It Out Falls, too?

Just want to point out being a Ford technician that worked in the dealership during this recall. The Firestone wilderness at tires lasted forever and would dry rot and that’s what caused this to occur. As y’all stated at the beginning of the podcast the tires were on that guys vehicle for a decade no tire should be on a vehicle for more than 5 years. These tires you could see were about to lose the tread and we would recommend replacing the tires on customers vehicles all the time even though there would be more than half the tread left on the tire you could see a crack that went around the tire at the edge of the side wall

Nolan the voice of reason trying to help donut media not get sued for slander 🤣😂🤣

@DonutMedia, those of us involved with NHTSA pronounce it "nit-suh"

Thank you guys for making these! I watched all your videos on facebook and was ecstatic when i found your past gas series. I traded TV for you guys. Thanks for all the laughs you have given me. I love you all

This problem killed one of the most famous singers in Argentina, called Rodrigo, the case was so big that today is still unresolved

Can't wait until it's trendy to be a Donut Podcast listeners here in the UK. Will be great to say I've listened to every episode, b2b, everything you need to know, science garage etc. Sending love to you guys from Northampton!

Growing up I remember passing the firestone plant in decatur, it was always a hulking empty shell for as long as I could remember. Great video on a local history piece I never realized was part of this story :)

You guys literally make me laugh so hard at work. Keep it up!

What I find darkly funny with this story, (mind you, I was in high school when this was going on) in retrospect. Folks that bought these for off-roading would've likely almost immediately changed out the factory tires & rims for rims that were more beefy & tires that were more aggressive, essentially saving their lives...

Day 66 of wanting Up To Speed back

It was 26 PSI. Bottom of the range but not unusual for large tires back then. Pathfinder and xtera also used 26 PSI.

I think this is the third podcast where Goodyear has helped Ford out after Firestone failed. First in Le Mans where the Firestones fell apart on Mclarens GT40, in Fordlandia where the Goodyear advisor told them not to build there, and now with Ford pointing out the Goodyear tires didn't fail on the SUV. Jeez.

great episode, you guys should do one about the F1 crashgate, I think it would be a good one

Please do a podcast on the Argentinian IKA Torino car and the 84 hour Nürburgring endurance race. And a podcast on Fangio. Lots of history there

gotta love this community

I’m from Decatur Illinois. One of the best episodes in my opinion. Amazing research done as always! This is a great episode. I had family members working at the Firestone Plant at the time. It was a huge deal in our city. My uncle who had worked there and said it was a mess. Again amazing episode!

My whole family worked for Firestone in the '40s. Great Grandma worked treading tires at 16 for $0.25 an hour in '48.

Just got a recall done on my Mazda. The local dealership did a free inspection on my car and found out some maintenance stuff that I've gotta take care of. I'm glad I took it in, if I'll be honest. Got to test drive the new Mazda 3, and holy hell that's a fun lil car.

I will never forget winter of 2017 here in Ft Worth, TX.(Christmas Day) Driving my 1st vehicle a 1990 GMC Suburban(most loved vehicle ever.....) up 287 off 35W north out of Ft Worth on my way to Rhome, TX to a family function. When I experienced a firestone tire blowout.... my cousin had given me a tire and rim as a spare. I just had a blow out the day before. Needless to say the tire failed and when it did it literally sounded like a 12 gague shotgun went off on my back passenger wheel well. The belt separated from the tire and slapped the wheel well so hard it bent and mangled the inner STEEL wheel well, it's an old suburban its like a freaking tank..... I was 17 at the time and had no clue about these firestone/Bridgestone tire failures/lawsuits till later in life.... looking back I'm glad I was driving a Suburban and not a P.O.S. Exploder LmAo Thats my experience, glad mine was a halfway decent one and I made it out unscathed, unlike many others.....

You guys should maybe do either past gas or wheelhouse on racing controversies. Two parts that covers the bad ones like the F1s Crashgate, and the other parts that covers the cases of rule-bending attempts like Smokey Yunick, Adrian Newey and Ray Evernham.

I have a 96 4Runner I got from my grandma that she bought brand new. Put new suspension on it the other day and dropped the spare original wheel and it was a Firestone Wilderness AT LOL. I have one of these tires right now...

Between 69ing, Cops being called “Dicks”, 2inch thick books and “Swallow Falls” and I’m not even 10 minutes in yet, going to be a good episode lol.

You mentioned the Takata airbag recall. Well I used to work for Toyota and the service writer who was training me told me that the airbags were being replaced with the same exact airbag that was being recalled. 😳💀

NICE episode

My step dad worked at the Firestone Decatur plant. Can confirm it was a hell for the union guys. I’ve never bought Firestones because of his stories. Even though the company has greatly improved.

Was it Ford or was it Firestone? It was both. Put a set of Firestone 721 radials on my 73 Valiant slant 6 sedan in 1974. I was commuting from Athens GA to Atlanta where I was working for IBM. 150 mile round trip commute. 55mph speed limit then and it was being enforced. Belts started breaking up in the first set at less than 7000 miles. Replaced under warranty, no charge. Second set did the same thing. Dealer was ready to replace them again. I refused, bit the bullet and paid twice the price for my first set of Michelins. Still a Michelin only customer. I had the opportunity to see how closely Michelin controls quality when I was selling industrial lubricants in 1990. Outsiders such as I was were not allowed on the production floor. Period. No unapproved materials, chemicals, etc. were allowed on the production floor until approved by corporate lab testing. Trying to sell to them is a royal pain, but it's because they are absolutely dedicated to quality control.

Not wanting to buy a product you work with yourself reminds me of a stint I did as a baker in San Luis Obispo (the town next to where Nolan grew up). We never ate the bread bowls due to the cleanliness issues we saw. Was a really popular place, most locals have eaten at this place at some point.

Living in Lakeland I remember this on the news. I was a kid when this was on the news.

I love this podcast

I owned one of these explorers, a 98. 1 owner forest green eddie bauer with only 65,xxx miles in it, still had its showroom stickers and paperwork on it, it still had its firestone radials as the owner didn't believe in recalls and kept it in his garage all its life. almost rolled over in it twice and it had major electrical problems, the headlights kept turning off and on and even if you tried to turn them off or on they wouldnt work, the 4wd tranfer case made a weird metal clunk whenever you turned and the interior was bandaid beige and burned you if it sat in the sun for too long. Ended up selling it and trading it for a 07 accord

My ex father in law worked at the Decatur plant. He swears the cover up goes down to Ford placing all blame on that plant. It ended up costing everyone there their jobs and the town was already dealing with companies leaving. The idea was it was easier and cheaper to blame that plant than acknowledge it was several plants because they'd be closing a plant in a dying town. Which, that town has been losing more and more companies since and especially due to the pandemic. Fun facts, Decatur, Illinois is the original home of the Chicago (at that time Staley) Bears. Also, almost all corn syrup ever made comes from Decatur.

James cracks me up bro 🤣

I have been listening you guys at spotify from beginning and now i had to come here to comment. I like to hear some stories from Finnish racing drivers. You have teased lite at some episodes and you know that from Finland come lot of good racing stories so please just one episode for your finnish fans also.

Currentley listening to this while playing the new snowrunner dlc!

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone, I hope someone loves you as much as we all love cars!

I am writing this right as I start the video, while I'm thinking about it. I might repeat something that's in the video, but I want to relate the little piece of the story I heard. I worked at a Firestone location for a little bit, about 15 years ago. I actually found one of these tires in the spare position on an Explorer that was in for service; we replaced it at no charge to the customer. The one thing that I heard from my manager, which absolutely makes sense to me as a mechanic, is that the first Explorers (along with a few other, much smaller vehicles in that era) had a recommended tire pressure of 26 PSI cold. So, sell these to a bunch of commuters and soccer moms, who, like most drivers, don't pay attention to tire pressure, and after a few months or a year of normal air seepage, you're below 20 PSI at highway speed. The lower you let that go, the more the tires sag under the weight of the vehicle. This causes the sidewalls to flex a lot more as they rotate and come into contact with the loaded area of the tread, and the tires basically just get hotter and hotter until they fail. It'd be better to have your tires set to 100 PSI than 10. Low pressure will cause a blowout, but they're designed to withstand surprisingly high pressures. Fill 'em up!

Love the reusable straw James!

The fact that I got a Firestone ad while watching this is hilarious

i always remembered this but never understood why. now i do. this was announced to the public on the day i was born !!

Yall should make one about drifting or something

I remember helping some ladies out that had a Ford exploder with Firestone tires. The center of the tread literally just exploded up.

Jesus I work for a Michelin plant in the rubber prep side (I make the parts of thr tires, then they go down the line to be built). Hearing about the Firestone culture yall mentioned, especially abusing the rubber and semi built tires (you'd get fired on the fucking spot if you purposely put a production piece of rubber on the bare floor, let alone all thr other shit). I do get how the culture gets poisoned though by management cutting back. Moral plays a huge, huge part in the quality of tires produced I've seen more than my share of ebb and flow. Crazy stuff buds.

Does donut mind posting their source? Need for an essay tonight 😭

Nah man, my tires are finally ready for the drag strip, have slicks finally took ages to get them like this 😁

Really wish we could get these uncut

I got a Firestone ad haha

just a perfect "cmon, what can go wrong" storm scenario

what a sexy episode for valentines day

A friend of mine had a 97 explorer. And by that time, it had better tires on it. That thing had the worst, squishy suspension in anything I've ever been in. We would mess with him by just rocking back and forth. 2 people doing that could rock the body enough to mess up the already awful handling it had.

Were do you go to find recalls

It was a joke back in the really late 70's early 80's about having a Ford Pinto with Firestone 500 tires on it being a great gift to your enemies. This wasn't the first controversy here.

You guys should talk about Prototype C and the birth of the Porsche 956/962c!!!

As a Brit, I did not know about this. An interesting one. Well played beys

I was killed in 95 in an Explorer

Crazy my dad had a 94 explorer new and was my first car. But from new till I broke it at 16 in 2006. It always had the marshmello man tires lol. I dont think it ever had Firestone tires. But im glad it never did.

Nolan is the angel on your shoulder James is the devil on you shoulder XD

I'll tag this episode a Harvey Firestone, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison Val Special. Lol

Not sure if this would be a good episode or not, but I know that growing up overseas, specifically on Okinawa, we had a huge car community. While military personnel definitely were part of the community, I'm specifically talking about high school kids who started drifting and modifying cars in the early to mid 2000s and going full send on the streets and tracks in Okinawa. Since the driving age in base was 16, but off base was 18, kids would drive illegally off base and risk jail time, deportation, or worse to go drift and race streets and touge's for shits and giggles. A lot of these kids kept drifting once they got to the states. Most notably people like Ross Petty and Bison Garage, but there have been countless who retuned from Japan to establish shops and garages specifically tuned toward drifting and JDM cars.

Doughnut. 11/5/21 I was ran over at Ford by a 6.2 250. They sold it before doing a uci. It wouldn’t even fit on my lift due to its chassis. No wheel chocks either. Had a hard time starting. They told me I could arch the starter to get it out of there. That’s after I changed the oil. Arched it three seconds later it started moving. Not to mention later everyone posting how I was ran over on Facebook making fun of me. They didn’t report it to OSHA. Morgan and Morgan said I had a claim them six months later I didn’t. Was harrassed at work. But moved up really fast by working hard cause I’m not going out like that. Got my degrees and my school certificates to from ford so I could be certified. Made great money. And even Hand r made it to where on my checks I only claim one instead of 4 so they wouldn’t pay out so much cause my boss couldn’t afford it. I guess he could silence me or I would slow down at work by paying me more. Any problems I had at work he said bring to him. He just played me and ended up wrongfully terminating me in the end. Even I have every bit of proof. He knew I was looking for a new job and tried to bait me in a one in one meeting. In the end he contradicted himself and he knew it. So he fired me. Would have found a new job sooner, but wife was going through stage 2 cancer. She beat it! Doing what I can to get this out there even talking to CNN. Nothing has changed since Ken miles! If it wasn’t for Ken or Shelby. Ford wouldn’t be so popular’ and I’m a huge Ken block and Vaughn fan. I’ve worked too hard and done good for them to be treated like that. But that’s bowling green Ky for you!

The “Think Tank” was in Swallow Falls. Nobody? We’re just gonna let the easy ones just fly past all 3 of you? Where am I right now? 😂✌️

11:16 - 11:55 just made my day! lmfao!!!!! 😂🤣😆

Dude I live in Decatur and it sucks the Firestone factory is all abandoned and all that is still here is corn and bean products

wow my dad worked at the decatur firestone plant

I had to pause the pod cast to come here to comment on the fact that you missed an opportunity with the “think tank” at SWALLOW FALLS!

You gotta do an episode on fangio !!

my mom, uncle, and grandma passed away from them. July 1st 2000 towards temple texas.

Lol my 98 3.0 vtec Accord Honda ist also for recall because of the takata airbag. Can you imagine the cost for such a old car. They needed to start making it again for a hand full people here in germany. I'm certain the ones in usa are already replaced

I got a Firestone ad lol

Can you do a past gas on the International

Can u do a realtime racing version or Rodger foo .

This podcast has really outted all of Ford’s dark history. The higher ups of Ford are more monster than man

"Think Tank" @11:19

I'm from Michigan and I can tell you a think tank for any UAW company is called that cause they couldn't tell people they were going to some place to snort a bunch of coke

@15:39 widen the wheelbase ? Wouldn’t that be track ??

My dad never recalled his odessy which has the defective takata air bag so whenever I go with him I sit as far away as possible from it

wait.... 0:44 he had THAT tire on his car for a decade ?!? and people wonder why it shredded ?!

Someone needs to officially add a "think tank" to the Urban Dictionary. 🤣

2:17 *Nolan in shock*

I literally have that on my ranger 235/75/15 . By the way walmart will do all 4 with warranty for 466 bucks.

At 2 minutes, James be sounding Like Joe Rogan

You can picture it being like that south park episode when they go to EA " Well boys this whole situation reminds me of an old Ford saying. . . . Get the fuck outta ma office, I shit on yo faces!"

Those tires were on that Explorer for 10 years? I'm pretty sure they should have been changed long before they failed. Petroleum products (which are what tires are made of) break down over time.

I like my brain as smooth as my brain

Haha these fords feel like they want to flip when u drive them lol

Lmfao got a add for Firestone while watching this

We still call them Ford Exploders

nice