Episode
Jeff and the Glorious Mazda Fail-Diesels
- Podcast
- It's Not the Car
- Published
- Mar 31, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2860
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/it-s-not-the-car-6747786/episodes/jeff-and-the-glorious-mazda-fail-diesels/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/it-s-not-the-car-6747786/jeff-and-the-glorious-mazda-fail-diesels.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
Ten years ago, INTC's Jeff Braun helped a Japanese carmaker go IMSA racing with a 180-mph diesel prototype. The car was cool. More than 700 lb-ft of torque at 2800 rpm. Gobs of potential. Also: It blew up every five minutes. (An exaggeration, of course. No race car blows up every five minutes, even an underfunded, production-based coal-roller cranking around Daytona. That would be silly.) (It was probably more like ten minutes.) Mazda's diesel Le Mans prototypes of 2014 and 2015 were one of the most admirable, ambitious, and ill-fated efforts in American motorsport. Jeff was on pit wall for the thick of it, helping make those cars faster. Sam is here now, asking questions. This show changes format weekly, because squirrel. We call this format “JEFF TELLS A STORY.” This episode was produced by Sam Smith. Thanks, as always, to our friends at BFGoodrich for supporting the show! ** Who We Are + Spicy Merch: www.ItsNotTheCar.com ** Support It’s Not the Car: Contribute on Patreon www.patreon.com/notthecar ** Topic suggestions, feedback, questions? Let us know what you think! [email protected] ** Check out Sam's book! Smithology: Thoughts, Travels, and Semi-Plausible Car Writing, 2003–2023 ** Where to find us: https://www.instagram.com/intcpod https://www.instagram.com/thatsamsmith/ https://www.instagram.com/j.v.braun/ https://www.instagram.com/rossbentley/ https://rossbentley.substack.com/ https://speedsecrets.com/ ** ABOUT THE SHO…