#286, James Raia Behind the Wheel: Seven Years of Stories, Cars, and Conversations

In this special The Weekly Driver podcast episode, Michael Kahn takes the reins from longtime hosts James Raia and Bruce Aldrich in an interview with Raia, who reflects on the journey in automotive journalism and podcasting over the past seven years. Raia leans forward and with a bit of a journalistic tone, he casually shares, "After reviewing cars every week for 21 years, I still find myself asking, 'What’s the story behind this car?'” With candid humor and heartfelt anecdotes, Raia shares the story of how he and Aldrich built the podcast from scratch, interviewing everyone from car enthusiasts next door to industry giants like the CEO of Fiat. This conversation covers career-defining moments, memorable guests, and why cars are more than just machines—they’re connections to our history, personalities, and even families. "Some of our best episodes were just like having a coffee with a friend—it’s like you forget the mic is even there," Raia reminisces fondly. Whether you’re a car lover or just love a great story, James Raia and Michael’s final chat offers a look back at the people, places, and stories that made "The Weekly Driver" an enduring success and where it is going from here. Michael Kahn and James Raia driving the 2023 Lucid Air Pure. Transcript Michael Kahn: All righty. Well, weekly driver podcast final episode with James Raia being taken over by myself, Michael Kahn. What are we doing here? James Raia: We're doing a final podcast of the weekly driver Bruce Aldrich and I started it more than seven years ago, and I think we're, we went past 275 episodes. We mostly did it weekly because the site's the weekly driver, and that was corresponding to the fact that I test drove cars for each week for about 20 years before you purchased the site. And Bruce and I decided to do this podcast on a whim and we just had a blast that we got to meet a lot of important people in the car world some internationally famous, some locally famous, people with used cars, people with vintage cars, people with new cars, book authors, all kinds of different people. Analysts, anybody who was marginally related to the automotive field; we interviewed a lot of people. Michael Kahn: Yeah, in listening through all of your episodes over the past seven years, you have such a diverse array of subjects and people you've talked to, friends you've made, and just the way that you ask your questions and tell people or let people tell their stories. It's a really good podcast. James Raia: Thank you. Michael Kahn: And I know that I'm taking over and of course I have my own personality and my own direction, which is fine. James Raia: Sure. Michael Kahn: But I'm excited just to leave these episodes up and let people continue to listen to them. And also they're, they're timeless. The things that you talk about aren't relevant to whether they were published last week or seven years ago, they remain very interesting and they're certainly worth revisits and I'm sure you have plenty of favorites. James Raia: Oh, absolutely. I think, before discussing some of the favorites, one of the things that made the podcast work, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that Bruce and I have been friends for a very long time. Michael Kahn: Yeah, how did you meet Bruce? James Raia: Bruce was a Triathlete, a pretty prominent local triathlete, and I worked at the Sacramento Bee years ago, and I did a story on him. Michael Kahn: Sacramento Bee, being the Sacramento based newspaper. James Raia: Yeah, back then Sacramento Bee was it was the daily newspaper in Sacramento for a long time and now it's six days a week. And it back in the day, you know 30 years ago, it had a large budget and I was interested in endurance sports, I still am. And Bruce, I'd heard about Bruce and we met, did a story on him. And, we struck up a friendship and, Bruce inherited from his father a 1959 Volkswagen bug, and I had an old Volkswagen bug. So that kind of just got the ball rolling in terms of our friendship. And we have, other common interests and his wife knew my then girlfriend and now wife and so the four of us are friends. And it turns out we live down the street now with a new home. But I think in addition to that, Bruce's personality and my personality we're complimentary. I know about journalism and he knows about the automotive world. He rebuilt engines he's gone to a lot of shows, he has friends who are car enthusiasts. So, I think we were able to bounce off kind of the lay person approach that I had with his perspective as a person who knows about engines and other things about automobiles. So that's how it kind of developed. And I think we just had a casual way of approaching it, that was kind of fun. Michael Kahn: And you guys definitely had a great yin and yang conversation. James Raia: Yeah, I always, we always told guests, we'd call up somebody and we'd say we're going to do a little bit of a countdown and then what's just going to be like having a cup of coffee or a beer with somebody, or a glass of wine, it's very relaxed. Some people still didn't know exactly what a podcast was or is. And so we said it was, you know, audio only. And sometimes we interviewed people overseas with a big time difference, sometimes it was somebody down the street. And we always told them that the half hour went pretty quickly and with the very few exceptions it goes pretty quickly if you get into the subject. Michael Kahn: Yeah. That's always a favorite of mine, whether I'm interviewing someone or listening to a podcast, it's just how conversations can flow and you can really tell when both the guests. You and Bruce did that so many times, time and time again. James Raia: Yeah, we started out with literally on a shoestring budget and we had sponsor. Michael Kahn: I've seen the shoestrings James Raia: Had two strings and a tin cup, and then we mostly, we did it in back Bruce's backyard. And we had, as we got into it, we had a little bit better equipment and Bruce was a very good editor and we took different approaches at different times and we was, we would always look forward to having, if nothing else, being friends, but just having the microphone on at the same time and it got us into a few places and we got to interview some important people in the automotive space. Some people were a little hesitant. Some people who were, like the president, we interviewed the president of Fiat one time. We didn't know he was, we were going to interview the president of Fiat. We were at the LA auto show and there were some interesting cars there and we asked the marketing or public relations guy if we could do an interview about some of the new products they had, the guy said sure let's do it tomorrow. And we show up and there's a nice room and this guy walks in and he's the president and CEO of Fiat. Michael Kahn: That's so much fun. James Raia: It was so much fun and it came with a surprise and that would be corresponding to someone who I met in Midtown, Sacramento. One time, I was at lunch and this guy drove up and it was a like a 1930 something Packard and I looked at the guy, happened to see him, and I said, that is a great car. And he said, well, I have a few of them in my backyard. And so it turns out the guy was, lived about a mile away. We went over there one afternoon and sat in the back of his 50 something Lincoln Continental. And he ran a little company to take people out on fancy dates or anniversaries or whatever the occasion was. And he was working on cars with a bunch of other guys and they had, he had 10 or 12 cars and they were all great. So it was just a guy down the street in comparison to the president of Fiat. It was something. Michael Kahn: Yeah. And that's kind of what I really enjoyed about revisitings of your old episodes is just how it can be these automotive executives to marketing people to the guy down the street who just has a real passion for cars. James Raia: Yeah. Michael Kahn: I'm curious. Okay. So what's your story? We talked a little about Bruce, but I'm kind of curious about the story, the origins of James. James Raia: Oh, in the automotive space I was a beat writer for the AP covering the Sacramento Kings. When they first came to town in late 1986 was the first season, 85, 86 season was the first season of the Kings. And I was the, one of the old Arco Arenas. Now they're office buildings. And I was sitting next to another reporter named Jeff Wiedel, and he, just chatting and he said he started to do car reviews and I asked him how he did that. And he said, well, he didn't really know much about cars, but he'd heard about this outfit that has a liaison company to the manufacturers. And he told them who he was and what his experience was as a journalist. And I said, do you know anything about cars, Jeff? And he said, not a thing. And so I figured, well, I don't know a thing either. But I'd been a reporter at that point for, you know, 20 years or so. And so I got started just by providing some clips of other stories. And then I got involved with a very small syndicate in Canada. It was called City Express. And I started doing some reviews for this outfit that distributed columns to a few Canadian newspapers. And developed from there. I met a guy who was early on in the internet business and we developed this Weekly Driver website because I was reviewing each car for a week and then I got to meet this fellow, Mike Kahn, who helped me develop the site and Michael Kahn: Sounds like trouble. James Raia: So it was trouble, a lot of trouble and, but we're still friends. And so I just kept the car reviews going for about, well, I'm on my 21st year now of reviewing. Michael Kahn: That's amazing. 21 years. James Raia: Yeah. And I think Michael Kahn: A car a week, do the math. James Raia: 800 reviews, something like that....