Jimmy Car Car” is taking his show on the road. Or rather, the man who still answers to that childhood nickname — Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley — is now doing a show about the road.
Farley has taken on podcast hosting in addition to his role leading America’s second-biggest automaker. His weekly show “Drive” debuts Wednesday, May 25, on Spotify.
He interviewed celebs (actor Dax Shepard and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel), a fellow CEO (Harley-Davidson’s Jochen Zeitz), a race car driver (actress Emelia Hartford), and royals (the Duke of Richmond) for the show, as well as one GOAT (quarterback Tom Brady). In seven snappy 20- to 25-minute episodes, Farley will delve deep into what drives his guests.
This all might sound like a marketing ploy by Ford, but the automaker says it isn’t contributing a penny to production. Farley did interviews in his spare time on Saturdays. Spotify is footing the bill for putting together the show; it’s sponsored by customer-relationship software giant Salesforce.
Farley said he wasn’t sold on the idea at first. He initially turned down Spotify when the company approached him a year ago in search of a business podcast.
“I told them I love cars, and I’d love to talk to people about cars. And I don’t want this to be work,” Farley told Bloomberg last week. “So we kind of co-created this idea with Spotify.”