Vice President Joe Biden told a gathering of auto workers there's one "overwhelming reason" not to run for president -- a chance to drive General Motors' new Corvette Stingray.
"That new Stingray! Yo, oh, oh, oh," Biden exclaimed. "Zero to 60 in 3.9 seconds! Not that I like speed."
He said he'd like to match it up against a friend's Porsche, "if I was just not in this job."
And he noted, "everyone wants to know whether or not I'm going to run for president. There's a lot of reasons to run for president but one overwhelming reason not to run for president."
Biden noted he attended the Detroit Auto Show last month and called himself a "junkie" for cars.
"Have you seen the new Chrysler 200?" he asked the crowd. "Enough horsepower to bring back 900 jobs at Sterling Heights!"
And he told the crowd he's still got his 1967 Corvette, which his sons had rebuilt -- at a cost of 7 times the original sticker price, he said.
The remarks came as Biden talked jobs and the economy at the UAW’s 2014 UAW National Community Action Program Conference at a DC hotel.
He offered a passionate defense of unions, telling the audience that the reason employees now enjoy workplace benefits is due to organized labor. And he said studies show that as union membership has declined, so have middle class wages.
"You guys are the only guys keeping the barbarians at the gate," Biden said. He warned against an "well-financed, well thought out war" against labor.
"They know without you there they call every shot," he said, criticizing right to work legislation he said would weaken the bargaining power of public unions in states like Michigan.
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