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The REAL Story of the Iraqi Taxi or How GM Skirted The Rules To Sell 25,000 Malibus To Saddam

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Ride along as Jason OldeCarrGuy  Carr and John CustomCarNerd Meyer talk about the Iraqi Taxi Debacle. Time for a little history lesson on cars and tariffs.

With tariffs so prominent in the news today, the guys take a look back at how GM attempted to sell 25,000 Malibus to Saddam Hussein at a time when the US could not sell to Iraq because of the Chicken Tax. Look it up :)

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Iraqi Taxi – the story of 25,000 Malibu’s made in Canada


Announcer
You're listening to the Get Out N Drive podcast fueled by AMD with your host John Custom Car Nerd Meyer and Jason Old Carr Guy Carr we'll be bringing you gearheads, everything you've never wanted to know about cars and why they should be on the road and not in your garage. Are you ready to get out n drive?

John
I know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff and I did not know about this at all. And I know, 

Jason
And you’re a car guy.

John
yeah, yeah, car guy and I know a lot about stuff and a lot about G bodies, but no, no idea about this.

Jason
If you guys. Are just tuning in and you've seen the topic of what it is we're going to be talking about. You're probably scratching your head. And we will dive into. What it is we're talking about here in great depth before we do that. I need to ask John a simple question. John, what does Saddam Hussein? The Chevy Malibu. And the Maple Leaf have in common?
John
Oh, this sounds like a bad joke.
Jason
It was a. Bad joke back in 1982.
John
3 nuns walked into a bar. You think the first two would have said something? Ohh.
Jason
Do you give up?
John
I have no seriously, I have no idea what the hell you were talking about. I know a lot about Gee bodies. I had several. I've owned several. I'm stumped dude. I have no idea.
Jason
In Canada, back in the early 80s, there was a deal that took place. GM Canada and. Iraq. Which in today's colloquial terms is commonly referred to as the Iraqi taxi. You see, back in the early Iraqi taxi.
John
The what now? OK, I thought I heard. That all right? Do you have my attention?
Jason
So let me clarify. Let me clarify and we'll talk a little bit about the nature of this deal. In the early 80s, Iraq was basically at war with Iran. They had bad ties with the US and so much so that the US had imposed sanctions upon Iraq, therefore. When this great big deal of wanting. 25,000 cars. To be produced and shipped to Iraq via GM's whatever that took the US rate out of the storyline here, because their relations were severed. Economically.
John
So no, wait a second.
Jason
So along.
John
Who ordered 25,000 cars?
Jason
Saddam Hussein.
John
Who? What, Saddam?
Jason
Yeah. Yep.
John
Saddam like G bodies.
Jason
Well, apparently so. Until he got them.
Announcer
Oh.
Jason
You like this car? You think you hate this car? Now you wait. Till you drive it. So what happened was, in GM's infinite wisdom, they said OK, well, if we can't sell them through the US, we're going to go around the sanctions, we're going to skirt those a bit. And we're going to go to our assembly plant in Oshawa ON where we build these Chevy Malibu G body. And we are going to create a spec car. Destined for Iraq? To be used as basically taxis, and there was no other company on the planet at the time who was able to fulfill the size requirements the option requirements. And simply the price point requirements of what it is was being asked. So along comes a spec.
Speaker
Wow.
Jason
1981. Chevy Malibu. And.
John
Wow.
Jason
They were oddly specked and we'll get into that here in a minute.
John
Here's your reminder to support the companies that support your right to get out. And drive.
Jason
Auto Metal Direct is a premier manufacturer of high quality restoration parts for classic American cars and trucks. AMD offers a wide range of components, including body panels, trim, glass, weather stripping and much more. Crafted to meet or exceed original equipment specifications. Be sure to visit automobiledirect.com as you get your ride ready to get. Out and drive.
Speaker 4
Hey guys I'm Jason with AMD and you're watching the get out and drive podcast. Check this out.
Jason
Jump in and join the get out and Drive podcast. What drives youth initiative by supporting these organizations that support the next generation in the automotive industry.
John
Operative talent is committed to inspiring and empowering the next generation of automotive professionals. Learn more at operativetalent.com.
Jason
The RPM foundation safeguards the critical skills necessary to restore and preserve collector vehicles by supporting hands on training and engaging the next generation of Craftsman and women. Learn more at RPM dot foundation. So John, your, your, your GM Canada and your phone rings.
John
Here.
Jason
And Saddam Hussein? Are you a fanboy?
John
That's a rough call that has to be, like, super financially driven. Because he wasn't friends with a whole lot of people in the world.
Jason
No. And the ones he was friends with. We're helping them fight these wars.
John
Right.
Jason
Why do you suppose he they, they ultimately settled on the. Malibu.
John
My guess is cheap. High production drive train availability. Uh. I don't know. Maybe you have more.
Jason
Well, one would think so if we go back into our. Timeline and we say, OK, well, you know, why was the Malibu so popular? Why were G bodies in general so popular? Yes, they had several different powertrain options and pretty much all of which were damn near bulletproof. OK, so out of the V6 engines, these Iraqi taxis were donned with the infamous I would no not infamous. The famous 3.8 liter V6. Which went on to become several different generations of that same setup. We saw them in the G body Buick Grand Nationals, which they turbocharged. We've seen them all the way up into the Buick Park Ave. ultras, when they went front wheel drive and they supercharged.
John
Them.
Jason
This engine and this drivetrain this was around for a long time. They then decided we're going to option these out with A3 Speed manual. Which again, it was a dog. And I'm sure they probably had some stupid. 270 gear ratio in the rear. So they wouldn't. They wouldn't even spin on Sam. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe that was the.
John
2. Deal. Yeah. 2/2/73 with A3 speed. Can't get out of its own way.
Jason
Right. So when they did that, they said, OK, we've got this car, this platform is. We love the platform.
Speaker
Yeah.
Jason
All you G body guys out there know exactly what we're talking about. They're. They're sought after in any form, whether it was the 2 door coupes, whether it was the four doors. Or the wagons. We all loved these, and we still do. These G body Buick Regals old Cutlass. What else was out there? Pontiac Grand Prix. And the Chevy Malibu. Right. So. That day was what the these G bodies were. And because of price point, they only came in a few colors. Right. Tan. Silver. I think there was a light blue in there somewhere. They were 14 inch steel wheels. Dog dish? Hubcaps or vinyl seats? They had their rear window defrost. Delete. You don't need defrosted windows in the desert. The rear door windows did not roll down. They that was.
John
Like a station wagon.
Jason
Kind of like a station wagon because they had the vent windows, the quarter windows.
Speaker
Yeah.
John
Yeah, the four doors, the windows don't go down in.
Jason
The back and they had an odometer or a speedometer that was registered at 200 kilometers an hour. So for those of you that listen to this podcast, that can't do the conversion, that's 125. Mph like. That's. Nothing. Nothing in 1881 was registered above usually 80. Am I? Am I standing correctly?
John
Own US mandate for 55 miles an hour. For those of you can remember the little circle over the top of the 55 and your speedometer only went. To 85.
Jason
Yeah. So these parts.
John
That's the fun thing about the DeLorean that could go to 88 miles an hour. They had to have a special speedometer made, but that's a whole different. Topic.
Jason
So now that you guys kind of know. What the car was. John, what are your thoughts on this initial, you know, this thing is destined for the desert. What are, what do you suppose are a few extra options that these things need to have to survive in, you know, 110° weather on a daily basis?
John
Air conditioning. I mean air. You got a back windows that don't go down in a car.
Jason
Yep. So they were. They were equipped with air conditioning and a heavy duty 4 core radiator. Which again proved to be problematic, which leads to. The demise of this deal, which again we're going. To get to but.
John
Because all of these were all of these were ordered as severe duty. Taxi high, high mileage. Severe duty cars.
Jason
Absolutely. Right. Yep. So you're good. You're driving them in the desert. The hottest. Some of the hottest places on the planet on a daily basis. And they send a Chevy.
John
A 231 Buick V6 and even then they were they were. I don't know if that was a carbureted special for those people for that situation, but I know I've had several 8081 Buick V6G bodies and they had computer feedback carburetor. And that was a terrible mess.
Jason
Yeah, and. And those cars had all of what? 100 horsepower.
John
I think I think BHP on that was about 100 horsepower and that was probably very forgiving.
Jason
Yeah. So, like we look at it and knowing what we know now, not just about these cars, but about this particular drivetrain and the car itself. They're nowadays, we look at them and say, well, they were pretty reliable. We thought they were. And in Canada and in most of the US where we're not talking about extreme use, they were daily drivers. Somebody was putting 15 to 20,000 miles a year on these things. And they were. They were fairly reliable. But let's up the ante.
Speaker
What's?
Jason
Daily drive them in severe taxi conditions, severe heat conditions, city driving. And all of a sudden, these things were plagued. With problems.
John
I had. I had done a little bit of research after we talked about this and I think sand. Was a big deal. Absolutely was.
Jason
Yeah, it doesn't matter how many cores your radiator is, the fins will catch sand.
John
I mean something. Well, right, especially because it's got you've got a radiator that's going to be a four core and it's going to be nothing but a. Scoop shovel. For sand and you've also got a condenser. In front of that. And all of that situation is going to become extra heat. For the engine anyway, that's crazy.
Jason
Severe duty suspension, almost like a cop car. So these things sat a little higher than your standard. That did help with air flow, but nonetheless we're still talking. You know, severe. So the sand became an issue. It was plugging up the radiators and the condensers, so the AC's would run hot and they would quit. The cooling systems would run hot and overheat. The clutches in these three speeds tended to be a little bit of a problem, so much so that GM sent. 10s if not hundreds. Technicians over there to service this updated clutch system on these cars, again costing GM money. The initial order on these cars, John was 25,500.
John
Wow.
Jason
All of which 13,000 made it to Iraq. Before Saddam Hussein. And. And wisdom canceled the deal. Mid shot some are saying because of build quality. Most are saying because he was running out of money fighting a war with Iran. Regardless. The Canadian government stepped in. Long before Saddam Hussein ever cancelled the deal, Canadian government stepped in and said we guarantee. This deal.
John
They bailed them out.
Jason
To the point. They bailed them out, Canadian government said. If whatever you don't, whatever they don't buy, we will. We'll guarantee them. So along comes 13,000 sorry 12,500 remaining. Malibu Iraqi taxis that the government subsidized heavily. So that they could sell them at a Canadian dollar and listen to this, I'm going to I'm going to give you the Canadian dollars. I'm going to give you the inflation for today's money and then I'll convert. It into USD. In 1981, they were selling these to Canadian consumers for 6800 Canadian dollars.
Speaker
Wow.
Jason
Add inflation to 2025. Canadian dollars. That's $24,000 for a brand new car. That does not exist in 2020. 5 so just.
John
Seems pretty cute.
Jason
So we're clear and 24,000 USD is 17,000 and change U.S. dollar. Wow, that's a brand new car, regardless of the spec.
John
So in in $81.00 that was 400 bucks, something like that.
Jason
Around that, Yep.
John
Yeah. OK. Wow. I mean you. Couldn't you could barely get a Volkswagen bug or something like that in? In the US, for that price at that time.
Jason
So again, we're talking Canadian market and you guys down there. You didn't see these cars? Because they were specs.
John
I've never seen one at all.
Jason
Yeah, because they were spec for Iraq. They weren't even spec for the Canadian market. They were emissions.
John
Like. No, no, nothing, no.
Jason
And the Canadian governments with the. Like I don't know about the cats, but I do know that they were emissions exempt and the Canadian government just turned a blind eye to that.
John
OK. OK.
Jason
And bailed these things out so that the Canadian consumer could buy them and buy them cheap. Oshawa ON GM Oshawa plant. Employees were absolutely ****** because they got shipped out to dealers. Before they had a chance to buy them, they wanted them. They wanted to buy one.
John
They were, they wanted the cars because they were cheap.
Jason
Yeah. And they were building. They knew the quality. And they knew that they would last in Canada. These cars were such a hot topic back then that in almost every community you could see them going. I had a I had a middle school teacher who had one. In fact, I actually got to drive that car later on when in in life. Him and I became kind of close friends. I would babysit his two boys when I was in my teens just trying to earn a few. 4 bucks and there was a few times where he would just tell me when he come home from wherever he was going, he says here. You could just. Take my car home and I'll come pick it up in the morning. So I've driven that car a few times and I mean back then you're 1617 years old and you're thinking you got the world by the balls and these things were just dogs. They were gutless.
Jason
Right.
Jason
UM. You know, not very well optioned out the AC did not work in this particular car at that point in time. But you know what they had that distinct 3.8 liter sound. They had a little throatiness in the in the exhaust. And you saw them going everywhere 3 speed manual. 3.8.
John
I've now I've seen a couple down here in the States and I don't know if they're Canadian built cars or not, but I've seen a couple that are manual G bodies. Very, very scarce down here. I've seen a couple that were like station wagon strip, just completely strippers, bench seat manual, and a couple of bucket seat cars that were manual, but over the hundreds of thousands of G bodies. I've seen. I've seen probably 4 or 5 manual. Factory manuals.
Jason
And we've talked about this before about, you know, getting stripper cars, you know, with just kind of bare bones and this. And that and. You and I, for the most part, would likely prefer a, a pretty bare bones vehicle. The last electronics, the last computer, this and that. The less problems you're gonna have in in the long haul.
Speaker 4
Hey, you're watching me. Get out and drive podcasts. And I'm Jason with AMV. Check this out. It's Blinky, but it's not Pac-Man Blinky. My gosh. Eddie roll.
Jason
Here's your reminder to support the companies that support your right to get out and drive.
John
Racing junk has been a longtime supporter of our podcast. You may have seen this podcasting live from the raging junk booth at SEMA and PRI. Racing junk is the world's #1 racing and performance marketplace. You just can't beat their free classifieds filled with cars, parts, antiques, trailers and.
Jason
Be sure to speed over to racingjunk.com. Find those parts you've been looking for, or to list the stuff that's taking up space in your garage for free. Is this a spec car or that John Meyer in 1981? Would have jumped on board for, you know, 6800 Canadian dollars.
John
I don't know. Maybe. With the intent of doing something different with it. Yeah.
Jason
And that's and that's just it. Like the small block Chevy was still a huge thing. You could have dropped any powertrain into this car on a weekend and had yourself a pretty damn good hot rod in a light. What do those things weigh, like 3000 lbs.
John
I think it was 26 or 28 something like that. I think the wagon and 4 door were a little heavier than the coupe.
Jason
Yeah. So I mean you, you. So you drop a, you know you drop a V8 into one of those things. That's. A little rocket ship.
John
And you've already don't you have to worry about getting a clutch pedal and all that jazz out of an S10.
Speaker
Right.
Jason
So that was the. That's the story on the 4th Generation G body Chevy Malibu in 1981, the Canadian government stepped up to the plate to try and make this deal happen with Iraq, so that those people could have taxis expect out for their climate.
Announcer
Hmm.
Jason
But. Didn't work out. But when the when GM, Canada and the Canadian government saw $100 million on the table, they jumped at the chance to make this deal happen regardless. And they did. They put the deal together. They built 25,000. 500 of these cars. Sent roughly half of them overseas, I'm sure. I'm sure I am standing here today, that there are Iraqi taxis still roaming the streets of Baghdad. Is that where Baghdad is in Iraq? Like I'm, I'm sure they're still out there. Dry climate. They're not going to rot away. They're going to sun fade away.
John
Well, they have to. I mean, they have to be popular. I'm sure somebody out there that's listening has to be can tell us, you know, if you've seen one over there. I mean that anywhere UAE, all that stuff over there. They love square body GM trucks and for whatever reason, Suburbans and long bed step sides. Oh my, they are everywhere over there. And for some strange reason as well, square Caprice. Now I don't know why. I mean, I'm not interested in it. Maybe somebody is. But over there it's that seems to be a big deal. So that era, maybe they found a good home.
Jason
And if you're watching this on a platform and you can see us right now, we're going to flash up a couple of pictures here of these cars that became quite I'm going to use the term infamous here in Canada that, that, that, that became a legend. In its own right, and if you've ever seen one of these Iraqi taxis roaming the streets of your hometown, let us know in the comments or in the show notes down there somewhere, wherever you can, let us know. Tell us if you've ever seen one. Maybe you've driven. Maybe you've owned one. Tell us a story. That we don't know about yet. I'm in Canada, John's in the US, he's never really had the opportunity or the misfortune to have his hands. On these things. But you know, growing up as a kid in the 80s, these things were everywhere. We saw them. You wouldn't think that, you know, 13,000 of them means a lot. But they were they were popular enough that even in my small town there were two or three. Of them that always roamed around.
John
When do you think the last time you saw one has been a decade?
Jason
Or more. No, probably about three or four years ago. This the son of one of the guys that works for me was looking for a car and he found one.
John
OK.
Jason
And it was it had no drivetrain, but it wasn't a rocky taxi, and it was kind of this light green color. But it was it was specked as an Iraqi taxi. So. It was a little too far gone ahead, sight kind of off to the side and the tree rose a little too long. But that's what happens to them when something goes wrong. They were such a cheap car that nobody, not many people, opted to fix them. They just went out, bought another car. You know, we're talking of a time where, you know, in the early 80s, people, people mid to late 80s people, people were able to go out and buy a decent car for a decent price and not break the bank back then even still most households.
John
Right.
Jason
Every single income house. People not like today, where you have to have, you know, 2 1/2 three incomes just to just to make ends meet sometimes. But you know we see the spec on this new slate truck that's been making its way through the Internet. If you guys don't know what that is, go look it up. I'll give you a brief overview. It's a bare bones. Plain Jane. It is an electric truck, I believe, but it's just like your base Ford Ranger. Tiny little thing. Two people can get into it. You can customize it any way you want after you buy it, but it comes as one. Spec. And it's supposed to be cheap, I think.
John
Let's roll up Windows, I think, he said. Has roll up.
Jason
25%. Windows. Yeah. So you know that needs to be that needs to come back. I've had this conversation with several different people over the past few years. Base model vehicles need to make a comeback, in my opinion.
John
I was. I was reading of something. I don't remember what online platform it was, but I thought I saw Toyota or Nissan was going to start making a single cab. Shorter long bed, but a single cab small to mid size truck. To compete with Maverick and Ridgeline.
Jason
Yeah. And actually I think Ridgeline is actually outside of that, I think they. Want to compete with? Yeah.
John
Those are the 2 they mentioned for that that you know because you can look at a Colorado and it used to be kind of small. But you look at a Colorado and it looks like it's bigger than a F-250 was in. In the 80s and. In the 80s and 90s, this giant you see a Colorado, especially if it's 4 wheel drive, you know, 2018 and up Colorado is the.
Speaker
Yeah.
John
Thing is huge. Yeah. And I think they were saying for small market I don't know.
Speaker
Right.
Jason
But I think that there's still a. Market there. Again, we said it earlier, I'm the type of guy that if I wanted to go and buy myself a brand new truck today, I just, I could not bring myself to spend 70 eighty $90,000 on a pickup. I drive old stuff and you know.
Speaker
OK.
Jason
I I've made the claim before, I am the original recycle. Order. Of automobiles. You, me. A lot of our listening audience. We prefer to drive a lot of this older stuff and maybe you have a newer vehicle to, you know, to take your long trips on or whatever and. You know, to each their own. I can work on my stuff. I can change a broken brand new Chinese fuel injector on the side of Interstate I-83 in Harrisburg, PA.
John
Allegedly. Allegedly.
Jason
But yeah, I mean a handful of tools and you can you can do just about anything that you need to do a lot of the newer stuff, it's all this, it's all computer, it's a lot of this. I don't have a lot of this and the older I get the. Less and less it gets.
John
I was I was reading because of my catering company. I was I was reading a little about some Ford Transit, the 2010 to 2013 Transit Connect. We've got one that has panel. Windows on the sides. I'm thinking of changing it to. Tenant privacy glass. So I'm looking up and I come across the video and it's a conspiracy theory about Ford transits. And I said, well, that's got my attention click. I learned and they said conspiracy theory, theory. Maybe somebody knows more about this again than I do certainly tell. Us in the comments. But they said that. Everybody's talking about tariffs and everything now political. That even then. They called it the rabbit tax. Excuse me. Not the rabbit tax. The chicken tax.
Jason
Chicken tax, yeah.
John
Chicken, are you familiar with that chicken tax? And I won't get in depth on the chicken tax, but it has something to do with the mid 60s and chickens and all sorts of jazz. You people can look it up. It's stupid, but that stuff continued up until recently and.
Jason
Yep.
John
They said that that carried over even with the Ford transits because they were trying to get the US to build vehicles in the sixty 70s and 80s nineties and it just they never took it away that way. You wouldn't be able to import everything from another country well. The US government had tariffs on commercial vehicles they were trying to get vehicles built in the United States. Ford had this new transit platform and they said. I want to import these and the US said you're getting a 25% tariff. For a commercial vehicle so forward in their infinite wisdom, they put rear seats in these transits and a removable floor. And when the vehicles got to the dealership, they took the seats out of them. They took the put the floor, the flat floor in it. And they converted the passenger vehicles into commercial vehicles. Skipping the tax, skipping the tax, skipping the tariffs. And I said that that can't be right. And because I've been looking at a lot of transits and I'm always into customizing stuff, and sure enough, the rear floors in those transits, you can take the rear floor out, there's hooks for seats. There's places for seats. Else everything in there to make that a passenger vehicle you can physically take out the panel on the on the sliding doors and put in a window if you want. All the electronics are there, everything is there and it's ready. That's bonkers. I don't understand why a company would do that, but they it. From what I read, that's true. Have you heard anything about that? Jason.
Jason
Well, I've, I've heard. I've heard that same thing and. And the whole idea behind it is, like you said, it's evading this ridiculous tax. I don't want to get political and I'm going to try to evade that as, as, as, as much as I can.
Speaker
Hmm.
Jason
But yes, just like in the US, we want to produce and be self-sufficient in building our own vehicles for Canada. Our market is so much smaller than the US. However, in the US. Like you want to keep as much of your manufacturing at home as possible. Why? Because it puts people to work. It builds an economy, it keeps the things moving and. That gets political, and this is what happened. So even though Ford and GM and Chrysler or Stellaris, I guess if you want to call them operates globally, they have several platforms around the world that they want to use in the US and the US government says, well, OK, you can do that, but you're going to pay a premium. And so do it in order to avoid that premium in this particular case with transit. They just built a. You know, a people hauler. Passenger vehicle that may have cost them an extra. 1500 to 1002 thousand dollars maybe to put seats and seat belts on floor. And when it gets here, they take that out and they've got a commercial vehicle, which they probably charge the extra premium on to begin with anyway. And they save 25% tariff.
Speaker
Right. Wow.
John
And they kept the customer base with the price point.
Jason
Yep.
John
Wow. I mean I know. I remember 80s, nineties, 2000s Asian import vehicles in the United States were heavily tariffed as complete cars. So they were bringing knockdowns over. And they were considered parts and pieces, lower tariff. Build the car here and that's why your window sticker says globally. You know, it says US assembled with globally sourced parts.
Jason
You know, we all and we all know about the whole China situation, how everything on like you take a look around you right now at point at it and I guarantee you it was likely made in China. This microphone we're speaking into the webcam that that, that you guys are viewing me from in the computer that sits in front of me, likely made in China. And the whole idea of China being able to Peru produce brand new car. At a fraction of the cost. I bet you guys didn't know that there's 100% tariff on Chinese made automobiles. Meaning, if China can build it for 25 grand. And they bring it to the US to sell. It's a $50,000 automatically because of this 100% tariff, it doesn't make sense. Why can China build them so cheap and we can't. That's what I that that's what I don't understand.
John
OSHA.
Jason
Right.
John
Just my opinion.
Speaker
EPA. What did you?
Jason
Say Paul, EPA. EPA but again.
John
Oh, I've. I've been there. I've been to China five times.
Jason
If they can build these cars. Yeah. So the EPA standards over there are non existent, but if they can build these cars to meet US EPA standards and Canadian Environment Canada standards. Why not let them in? The simple reason is because if they can sell it for 25,000 and all the domestic stuff is being sold for 50 or 60, they're going to undercut and nobody would buy the domestic stuff. They'd just keep buying the cheap Chinese stuff over and over and over again. Right. What happens when your laptop goes bad? Nobody. Your prayers. They throw them out, they get another one for a couple 100 bucks.
John
Oh yeah.
Jason
Throw away market, maybe the same thing with cars could have a junkyard full of five year old Chinese cars. But to wrap this session up, if you guys know of a car story that you'd like us to investigate and report our all of our knowledge on, then make sure you hit us up on our website getoutndrive.com Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you can go to our listener hotline. Tell us what you want to hear. We'll do some Research and we'll make up everything that you never wanted to know about said topic and try and create a entertaining podcast for you guys so make sure you hit us up.
Announcer
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