Hagerty’s Viva Bastardo Show takes a look at the obscure and overlooked in everyday life

01 September 2022

Part of the Hagerty Podcast Network, The Viva Bastardo Show is a celebration of all things interesting that have been hidden in the shadows (or under car covers in this case). The title, “Bastardo” means an embodiment of the contrarian spirit, the person who sees the normal and proudly declares, “this is not for me!”. Hosted by Phil Toledano, The Viva Bastardo podcast features a variety of interesting guests from the worlds of automotive, watches, sports, entertainment, and of course, the obscure or overlooked in everything in life.

Phil Toledano is a former ad agency guy, a self-proclaimed contrarian, a conceptual artist, photographer, documentary film maker, and an enthusiastic collector of interesting cars and vintage watches. He may be more familiar to some through his Instagram username @MisterEnthusiast. To give you an idea of the way Phil desires to find his own taste in things, his current car collection includes “non-mainstream” cars like the Jaguar XJ220, a wild looking Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution, a DeTomaso Guara, and a Maserati Shamal. Phil is the type of enthusiastic collector who focuses on both the overall experience, as well as the aesthetics and shares this with the listeners.

Magnus Walker and Phil discussed a lot of obscure topics during their time together, plus saved time to talk about what non-Porsche cars Magnus owns, and tease Phil some.

Each week a new episode is released with a guest that is often from the auto industry or has an interesting car collection themselves. Phil calls his podcast a contrarian look at life. He describes it as, “Seeing the things unlooked at, focusing in the direction people are not looking towards.” He wants to highlight areas of the automotive world that maybe haven’t received as much attention as they deserve. “I wonder why film directors are often famous, but not car designers? I’d like to shine some light on them.” Phil shared.

In one episode automotive designer Tom Gale was featured sharing stories about the world of car design. He is the man responsible for the look of everything from the Lamborghini Diablo and Dodge Viper, to the Plymouth Prowler and Dodge Stealth. If you attended a car show or subscribed to a car magazine in the 1990s to early 2000s, you’ve seen some of the 50+ concept cars he helped create for Chrysler. During his interview Gale answers the question, “What specifications SHOULD the Plymouth Prowler have had?”, plus tells some great stories about working alongside Bob Lutz. Toledano was especially interested in learning how the minivan helped give Chrysler the ability to create all the cool stuff they were doing in the 1990s, and why designers include parts into concept cars they know will never make it into production. Some of the best parts of each episode are when the guests share what’s in their car collection, and Gale definitely has some cool stuff.

In addition to automotive focused episodes, there are those that look into pop culture with interviews of record producers and clothing designers. With Phil’s love of watches, the world of timepieces is often discussed like in an interview with the founder of DIMEPIECE (a brand which aims to empower women in the watch industry), and an episode with the founder of the watch website, Hodinkee.

Celebrity guests have also joined the podcast like the ultimate Porsche 911 man Magnus Walker, Jalopnik founder Mike Spinelli, and NFL Hall of Famer and American television personality Michael Strahan.