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Past Gas

S1 Ep82: How Eminem Helped Save Detroit

Past Gas

Donut Media

Leisure, Comedy, History, Automotive

4.9 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Detroit has always been the beating heart of American car culture. But how did crisis after crisis nearly destroy not only its industry, but the city itself? You’ve probably seen photos of Detroit’s urban ruins and wondered what happened. Today on Past Gas, we’ll give you the whole story, and how the city’s history is inseparable from the history of American cars built by Ford, Chevy, and GM. How did Motown fall? And can it rise again?

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey, what's up? My name is Nolan. I'm from Past Gas by Donut Media. We're an automotive history show.

0:04.8

This week, it's Santa's cold bag. We took all of our listener submissions that we've gotten over the years here

0:10.6

and we put them all into one episode. Little ideas that weren't long enough for a normal one.

0:15.1

We put seven ideas into one hour episode. This is super fun. A real grab bag of different stories

0:23.0

and letters from our listeners, maybe even you. So check out Past Gas wherever you get your podcasts

0:29.7

today, Past Gas.

0:41.6

The year is 2011, the event, Super Bowl 45. The Pittsburgh Steelers versus the Green Bay Packers.

0:48.4

Aaron Rogers was MVP, Christina Aguilara sang the National Anthem. The Black Eyed Peas performed

0:53.6

the halftime show in truly furgulicious fashion. It was peak 2010s in every way, but arguably the

1:00.7

biggest moment of the event was an epic two-minute commercial titled, Born of Fire, better known by

1:07.6

its catchphrase, imported from Detroit. As Marshall M&M Mathers drives a Chrysler 200 through

1:14.3

darkly lit Detroit streets and an instrumental version of his song, Luzer Self plays in the

1:19.4

background, a gritty male voice growls. What does a town that's been to hell and back know about

1:25.4

the finer things in life? Well, I'll tell you, more than most. You see, it's the hottest fires that

1:32.4

make the hardest steel. At hard work and conviction, and the know-how that runs generations deep in every

1:39.0

last one of us? That's who we are. That's our story. Now it's probably not the one you've been

1:45.1

reading in the papers. The one being written by folks who've never even been here don't know

1:50.3

what we're capable of. Marshall M&M Mathers parks his Chrysler outside Detroit's iconic Fox Theatre.

1:57.1

Inside, a black choir adds their voices to the music from the stage as Marshall walks down the aisle.

2:03.3

On stage, the rapper turns to the camera and says, this is the motor city and this is what we do.

2:10.0

The what we do was clear. Detroit has always been the center of American car manufacturing.

2:15.6

But how did the city get to the point of needing a super bowl ad to sell itself? What was the

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