00:00موسيقى
05:33ترجمة نانسي قليل
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07:41ترجمة نانسي قليل
07:53كان شهرات بقيا اية امرأسين طوالثة
07:57من عبادة جادة بقيا وليست جديد في توني كله
08:02قمتلك الهاتف
08:03الموامر اي خداف الهاتف
08:04إنة اي عائدا شيء لذي توني
08:07او أي عائدا في دي
08:09التوني بإغاث ربون مره
08:11الآن ع intermedi أنا
08:13وارسة اي عال هاتف مرحلة
08:14المرحلة التوني اهند أن يتعب اي عائدا
08:16تلاج إلى جديد
08:17إجري قسمان جديد
08:19السورة الوثي
08:21The W was for Weigert
08:23And went into marketing overdrive
08:25He maximized his press coverage
08:27And there was this sensation created
08:30That the Vector was a real car
08:31And in production
08:32There was only one
08:33We just painted it a lot of different colors
08:35In fact there were journalists that made fun of us
08:37They go oh they're trying to pretend there's a lot of different cars
08:40They said that because you were Rob
08:42And you could forgive them for wondering
08:44If there was some other pretending going on
08:47Vector was on the cover
08:49Of Car and Driver
08:50But the guy who wrote the story
08:52Didn't get a chance to drive the car
08:54Because while the styling was almost complete
08:57The mechanicals were not all that complete
08:59And the claims
09:00Well we'd seen them already before
09:01600 plus horsepower
09:03And potential top speeds
09:05In excess of 200 miles per hour
09:07And you just wondered
09:08Hey man you gonna build some cars?
09:13Things came to a head
09:15With a 1987 write up
09:16In Auto Week
09:1715 years after Jerry
09:19Jerry had first conceived of his fighter jet for the streets
09:22The guy blasted us saying
09:24That this is never gonna happen
09:26It's all a big scam
09:27It's a con
09:28It was not flattering
09:29And it characterized Jerry
09:31As somebody who was raising money
09:32But never gonna produce cars
09:34It was clear that Jerry needed help
09:36Getting this fighter jet for the streets
09:38Off the ground
09:40So he found a fighter jet manufacturer
09:43From Northrop Grumman
09:44I was working on the F-18
09:45And F-5 fighter program
09:46And he was used to managing production
09:49Something Jerry
09:50You gonna build some cars?
09:52Could use some advice on
09:53I said not only are you not ready for production
09:55I don't think you really understand what it is
09:57But doing things Mark's way?
09:59Rent facilities
09:59Hire people
10:00Set up benefits packages
10:01Counting the system
10:02Tooling equipment
10:03Would be more expensive
10:05Through the 80s
10:06The total amount we'd raised
10:08Was less than a million
10:09So Vector Air Motive
10:11Went to the capital
10:12Of investment capital
10:14The stock market
10:16Jerry found an underwriter
10:18To take us public
10:19Glender Robinson
10:21Had 2,000 brokers
10:22They were the biggest penny stock firm
10:24In the country
10:24He was very good at
10:26Manipulating stock
10:27Say what?
10:28And we knew this
10:29Stop while you're ahead Rob
10:31Geez man
10:31Does your lawyer know you're here?
10:33They basically launched an IPO
10:35And that was the startup money
10:37At the time we got funded
10:38We promised the shareholders
10:40That we'd have the first production car done
10:42In a year
10:43So all the team had to do
10:44Was dust off the original plans
10:46And see which components needed to be
10:48There were no plans
10:49Ugh, come on guys
10:51We're on a deadline here
10:53That's pitiful
10:53They had to disassemble the prototype
10:55And lay the pieces down on paper
10:57And trace them
10:58And then make a drawing out of it
11:00And by the time we were done with that process
11:02It's like everything's different from the W2
11:05We should just change the model name
11:07So that's when we came up with that
11:09W8
11:108 was the cylinder count of the car
11:13Which still sounds like the name of a tax form
11:15But whatever
11:16The important thing is
11:18Mark Bailey could finally get started
11:20On what he had been hired to do
11:21That is, if Jerry Weigert would let him
11:24Jerry and I got it at odds
11:26From time to time
11:27Because we just had differing priorities
11:28We had all kinds of marketing campaigns
11:30Heads turn
11:30And eyes are drawn
11:32To this distinctive car
11:34A restoration of a GMC motorhome
11:36They wanted to use to take to shows
11:37So he would borrow
11:39My production personnel
11:40And work on his motorhome for the day
11:42Without talking to me about it
11:43Which sounds like a pretty dysfunctional way to work
11:46Especially now that there were shareholders asking
11:49You gonna build some cars?
11:51Mark was trying
11:52It's a very complicated, complex vehicle to manufacture
11:56Expensive too
11:57Which is why sometimes a few corners had to be cut
12:00The gearbox for the Vector
12:01Was mated up to what was basically
12:03The front wheel drive transmission
12:05Out of the GMC motorhomes
12:06And since Jerry's motorhome was off limits
12:08We went rummaging through the junkyards
12:10Looking for transmission castings to use
12:12In the first couple cars
12:13It's not like we were ever gonna let anybody know
12:16Where they came from
12:17Sure
12:17Why not?
12:18And it's highly doubtful
12:20That this decision will come back to haunt them
12:21At the worst possible time
12:23Speaking of time
12:24We were scrambling to finish the first cars
12:26The LA Auto Show was the big unveiling
12:28And after almost 20 years
12:30The Vector was finally on the market
12:32Price tag in today's money?
12:34Over $1 million
12:35It was literally what Jerry envisioned
12:40Aerospace technology for the street
12:43It had a screen on the left side of the steering wheel
12:46And it had a little set of buttons
12:48To change the view
12:49You could look at the chassis
12:51And see if anything was open
12:52You could see your speedometer on another screen
12:55And as you speed up and accelerate
12:57That whole bar graph moves
12:58All aircraft circuit breakers
13:02Every one of these push buttons in the dash
13:04Are right out of the cockpit
13:05In a military fighter aircraft
13:12And don't forget the
13:15Semi-monocoque aluminum honeycomb chassis
13:18So a bunch of these things
13:19To us at Vector
13:20Seemed like logical things to do
13:22Jerry was pioneering
13:23But he was still far behind on one thing
13:28And so the first Vector production car
13:31Serial number 001
13:33Was finally delivered to its Saudi prince
13:36I believe it was about a 10 year cycle
13:38From the time he made his investment
13:39And soon enough
13:40Even more of those aforementioned
13:43Wealthy individuals
13:44Started lining up
13:45To kick the tires
13:47But billionaires weren't the only ones
13:49Lining up for joyrides
13:50Of course then all the car magazines
13:52Wanted to come and do a story
13:54Automotive journalist
13:55Chabacherra
13:56Would be getting behind the wheel
13:57To test the Vector's performance claims
13:59At least that was the plan
14:01Suddenly the transmission is packed up
14:05The engine was still running fine
14:07But no matter what gear you selected
14:09The car is coasting
14:10At that point
14:12Pulled over on the shoulder
14:13And there was a Vector guy with me
14:15A guy named Casca
14:16Oh this guy?
14:18Really?
14:19I hadn't had that problem before
14:20The front wheel drive transmission
14:22Now the GMC motorhomes
14:23Motorhomes
14:24Motorhomes
14:26Luckily
14:27There were two cars available that day
14:29We called them pre-production
14:30One and two
14:32It kind of got nicknamed PP1 and PP2
14:35Good thing
14:35Because David was in deep poo-poo
14:38And so we proceeded with the second car
14:40But as soon as we started
14:42Some of the acceleration runs
14:44The car started overheating
14:46What?
14:47There's steam wafting out of
14:49The various grills behind me
14:50I'm thinking this car is just
14:52You know, half-baked
14:53Nope
14:54It's fully toasted
14:57With two broken cars
14:58Chabacherra's road test
15:00Of the Vector W8
15:01For Car and Driver magazine
15:02Had hit the skids
15:04We couldn't get a test done
15:05And Jerry says
15:07You know, stay another day
15:07We'll get the car fixed
15:08But I was on a flight
15:10The next morning
15:11Sorry, Jer
15:11So I go back to my hotel
15:13And Dave went back to the shop
15:15To check on PP1
15:16Or was it 2?
15:18I get a call at 2.30 a.m
15:20No such thing as a good phone call
15:22At 2.30 a.m
15:23It's Jerry
15:24And he says
15:24We got a car together
15:25Yay
15:26And this time
15:28The car is running reasonably well
15:30I got a 0-60 of 3.8 seconds
15:33I got a quarter mile of 12 flat
15:36At 118 miles an hour
15:38Which was nowhere near
15:39The W8's reported top speed
15:41However
15:41The transmission was acting up
15:44Again
15:46And it wouldn't shift into third gear
15:49We potentially have a really bad
15:51Write-up coming here
15:52This is not good
15:53But it wasn't all bad either
15:55Based on that test
15:56The Vector performance wise
15:58Was in league with the two fastest cars in the world
16:00The Porsche 959
16:02And the Ferrari F40
16:04And when the write-up hit newsstands
16:06A world wonder or a great pretender
16:08But at this point
16:09The Vector W8
16:11Needed some definitively positive optics
16:13And soon enough
16:14Jerry Weigert found them
16:16Tennis pro Andre Agassi
16:18Bought a Vector
16:19It was not quite finished
16:21And he wanted it right now
16:22Apparently Jerry asked the tennis pro
16:24Not to drive it
16:25He took it for a spin
16:26And apparently the carpet in the back end
16:30Set a fire
16:32We didn't sell another car after that
16:35So we were running out of money at the same time
16:36And I left the company
16:37And with the tenure of his captain's cut short
16:40The short
16:41Jerry was left all alone
16:43Atop a crumbling empire
16:44But Jerry's joyride wasn't over yet
16:47An Indonesian firm called Megatech came along
16:52Megatech
16:53Megatech
16:53An investment group so mega loaded
16:56They bought Lamborghini
16:58And they basically told Jerry
17:00If you make your production numbers
17:01We will continue to invest
17:04If not, we're going to take the company
17:05But this was the moment he had been training for
17:09His whole life
17:10And with the fresh infusion of Megatech's investment capital
17:13Jerry did not make the production numbers
17:15And they tried to take over the company
17:17Megatech
17:18Megatech
17:19Megatech
17:19Megatech
17:20Megatech
17:20And as the vector board prepared to vote on Jerry's ouster
17:23He hatched a plan
17:25Jerry essentially barricaded himself into the Wilmington facility
17:28Then he just hired a security service
17:31They called it the Waco of the West
17:32Not the best look when the press compares you to the Waco from Waco
17:37The standoff dragged on for six months
17:40Until a judge ruled in Megatech's favor
17:43Corporate law says the board has control
17:46Jerry was finally removed by sheriffs
17:48And just like that, the joyride was over
17:52Megatech took over the company
17:54We could sell this car for less
17:56If we run the Lamborghini engine and drivetrain
17:58Now it was not the all-American supercar anymore
18:01And so they had trouble selling cars
18:03Then a bunch of money turned up missing
18:05And the whole thing collapsed
18:06And guess who was there to pick up the pieces?
18:10Jerry was excited to get Vector back in court
18:12And then Jerry launched another attempt
18:15But his WX8 would never make it past prototype
18:19Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer
18:23In January 2021, at the age of 76
18:27Jerry took his final flight into the vast blue highway in the sky
18:32Three days before he died
18:34He was talking about going to the Middle East to finish WX8
18:39A consummate salesman to the very end
18:41People might look at Jerry and think
18:4520 years developing the Vector was ridiculous
18:49But it's also spectacular
18:54We should applaud his audacity
19:03I think a lot of people would have given up
19:08We're trying to do what any car company has
19:11Like 500 people doing
19:12And there's like two people doing that amount of work
19:20Jerry and his small band of upstarts
19:22Took on the European giants in the most American way possible
19:26Doing it cooler
19:28Doing it better
19:28Doing it faster
19:29But wait
19:30Did they go faster?
19:32We actually never broke 200 in them
19:34We got 198, 199
19:36Well, at least it topped 200 in one way
19:39I watched the temperature gauge
19:40Went up to 250
19:43And if the ride was bumpy
19:45It was only because the Vector was blazing a new trail
19:50It's a fighter jet plane on wheels
19:53It's just flat out badass
19:58But you know, I can't help but wonder
20:00Maybe it was just a little bit ahead of its time
20:03This does not feel like a 90s car at all
20:05This thing could have been built today
20:08It really does feel like that
20:09In other words, it might have been just a little bit too much too soon
20:14And there couldn't be anything more American than that
20:18It did make a mark on history
20:20It was a little smaller than we would have liked
20:21But it's there
20:23This is the Vector
20:25The very first true American supercar
20:39I kill you!
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