Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Dave Harriton (AEV) on Why Innovation, Quality, and Adventure Matters

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Dave Harriton (AEV) on Why Innovation, Quality, and Adventure Matters · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overlangoinal podcast. I am your host,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Scott Brady, and I am here with my illustrious co host,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Matt Scott. And it is that time of year, it's
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: holiday season, and Matt just brought over a giant box
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: of cookies. There Laura, I did not the Laura made,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and we also gave a box of cookies to our
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: host for the day, Dave Herreton. He is CEO and
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: founder of American Expedition Vehicles, a longtime friend. We have
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: traveled extensively together and it has been so fun, Dave
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: to watch your journey of success. And thank you for
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: taking the time to be with us on the podcast
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: time that he's hosting.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, thanks thanks for having me. Yeah.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: I've wanted to do this for a while. I just
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: schedule has never worked out, and today it did.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We've talked about it a couple of times and
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: this is this is the chance, which is great. We're
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: going to take a brief break and we will be
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: right back. This week's episode is supported in part by
• 1:00
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  Speaker 1: vehicles where rack space is dedicated to other systems. I
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• 1:45
  Speaker 1: There's a lot that we can talk about, and we're
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: going to kind of let this one just take place
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: as it does. We're not going to be too concerned
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: around time, because I really want to make sure that
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: we cover some of these topics completely, because you bring
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: so much insight, I think, to the overland traveler, and
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: then also automotive manufacturing and modification in general. And then
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you have a really interesting history in a personal story
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: that I think a lot of people don't know that
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I think would be fun to talk about so as
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I remember, you started off in competitive kayaking, and then
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: that dovetailed into you going to engineering school, and there's
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: some other interesting things that happened at that point. So
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit about kind of what got you
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: interested in the outdoors and then kayaking.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and then they were kind of parallel.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: I was really involved with kayaking when I was younger
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: in college. That was something that I didn't know it
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: at the time, but it really prepared me in terms
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: of like knowing how to make molds and learning some
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: processes that I still use to this day, kind of
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: learning about some industry stuff, and even dealing with some contracts. Then,
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, when I was twenty two twenty three, I
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: started working and I developed the part of protective skip
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: plate you could call it, for a kayak that had
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: come out interesting in that part, I ended up starting
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: to talk to the company and the owner came pretty
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: fast friends. I'd picked up some sponsorship from them, started
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: making some money selling these things because he said he
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: you may if you make those things, will sell them,
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: and so I did that. That kind of parlayed itself
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: into me helping him design some kayaks and doing some
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: stuff that's still kind of the norm today on the
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: white Water scene. That also, at the same time gave
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: me enough money. I had this wrangler. It wasn't my wrangler,
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: It's actually my dad's wrangler, and he sent me off
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: to college with it. I decided that that thing was
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: too small and it was too rough, and it had
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: some driveshaft issues. So I was like, you know what,
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: I could fix that by stretching it. And keep in mind,
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: I had never changed my own oil at that time. Sure,
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: I'd never done anything with a car, But I was like,
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: how hard could it be?
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Sure?
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I went to Ace Hardware, I bought a forty
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: dollars socket set, and I came home. I took my
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: dad's jeep apart, never asked him, And that's the best part.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: I completely took it apart.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: And then I'm better off asking for forgiveness.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: I've been like that since I was a little kid. Sure,
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: but you know, they sent me off to college with
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: Triple A, which had i'd noticed had four free toes
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: and I had become friends with a guy who was
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: welder and he's like, yeah, I'll do it for you
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: for five hundred bucks, and so I figured okay, So
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: I took it apart. I had triple A come and
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: tow the chassis over to a shop and then we
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: stretched in it, towed it back, and I put the
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: short body on the long frame and towed it back
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: and towed it back. And it took me like a year. Sure,
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: And I did the hard top. You know, I had
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: the fiberglass skills and I knew how to do it.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: And it took me like a year to put it
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: together etentually to graduate business cluad to do a business plan.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: So I people seem to like my geep.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: And by the way, I took it home once I
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: got done, I took it back for Christmas, back to Pennsylvania.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Your dad still didn't know.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: My parents didn't even notice. They didn't even know what
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: happened to the GEP.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, but that's good. The cheep so much more practical. Yeah,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: but that says a lot that they didn't notice. It
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: didn't look factory.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: I even had the stickers on it.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: And now, if I remember, I think he won an
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: award for that, didn't you.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: Well, So I won the business plan competition at the
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: University of Montana, which is still going on to this day.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: But today, if you win, you get like forty grand
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: then you got a nice pat on the back.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: And then I got to presented to other schools and
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: we did really well. So they took like the top
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: five people at the university month hand and put them
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: all on my business plan. We flew around and presented
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: at different schools and we were one of the few
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: undergrads doing it. And we actually had a lot of
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: offers for venture capital, like there on the spot at
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: several schools, wow, and investments, and I didn't take any
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: of it. It just didn't seem I don't know, it
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: just didn't seem right. It didn't seem real. And I
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: was like, what are these people.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Doing and what do they want in return?
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah? What do they want?
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: And I was like, no, it just didn't make enough sense. So,
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: you know, I wasn't that sophisticated. Yeah to know in hindsight,
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, that could have been a good thing, it
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: could have been a bad thing, but.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't know. That's the challenge with hindsight is
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: it could have gone either way.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Right, And so I tend to keep things really simple.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: So what I knew in my brain is okay. You know,
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: you go to a bank, you get a loan and
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: start a business. This is all I know, my perception, right,
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: So I did that. I took the business plan, I
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: handed into a bank, and I got a thirty five
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars loan And that's how I started AEV in
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: nineteen ninety seven.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: And if I remember too, you you started off in
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: a really small shop and you were living in the
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: sh shop at the same time.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the first one didn't have any windows, and I
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: was working all kinds of crazy hours, and.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: You've always w I guess that's always kind of a
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: good thing, if you're working crazy hours.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no windows, except you didn't know, Like sometimes I'd
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: look at my clock and say like two thirty, and
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: I literally didn't know if that was in the morning
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: or the afternoon until I walked down and opened the door.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: Somethings sunny yah yah, be really calm and peaceful and
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: dark out amazing. But yeah, that went on for years
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: and then and then I moved to a different shop,
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: and that was even a crazier story because that one
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: had big fluorescent lights that didn't turn off, and I
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: was like sleeping up on the loft under these fluorescent
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: white lights all night, you know, no hot water, sure,
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: and no kitchen.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Now was that the shop that I first saw? Yeah,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: you're still okay?
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And so I lived in that and it took me.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: It was a pretty big shop. There was a big.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: Shop, but it was like, you know, I didn't realize
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: it untill now. But there's like somebody told me. He's like,
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: that's how that's how they torture people. Now they don't
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: turn the lights totally, you know, And here I am
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: just happy as could be at the time. Yeah, yeah,
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: my two dogs and well.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: You worked yourself enough during the day that when you
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: finally hit the pillow, you probably were exhausted.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: You know, I've always been that kind of guy. I
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: just I work. I get up early and I work late. Hindsight,
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't call myself a workaholic, but now, like now
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: in life, I kind of look back and I'm like,
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: oh it, cal you know, you're kind of a workaholic.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: And it's it's difficult. I think for both of us.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: We love what we do, and we're inspired by the
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: people that we work with and the things that we
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: got to interact with and it's so easy to just
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: go deeper down the rabbit.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: Hole totally, and it's for me, you know. It was
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: something I would be doing. I mean, I would be
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: making something with my hands. Whether I was off from work,
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: then you know, I'd still be up doing something. And
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: that was something It didn't matter to me that I
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: wasn't making money, you know, was barely surviving in a way,
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: you know, but that didn't even register with me. Sure,
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: I just wanted to make cool, something cool. Yeah, And
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: I knew what I wanted to do the time, and
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: the work really didn't really phase me at all.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: I remember, I think it was two thousand and five, Seema.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I think was that when you brought the Iceland trucks. Okay,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: so we're all in this parking lot and I'm I've
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: got like the one overland vehicle and I have a
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: roof tent, and everybody like nobody knows what this thing is.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: You look at that you have a you have a
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: tent on top of your car. So I've like, I've
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: got my tacoma there, and I'm putting the stickers on
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: my tacoma because last minute I'm there getting my truck ready.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Sounds like yeah, and here comes Date in with a
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: couple of flatbeds and he's pulling these trucks off with
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: these they I think they had forty inch tires on
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: him or larger. One of them I think was a JK,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: like one of the first sander.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a Commander and a TJ.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: TJ got it, okay, Commander. I liked the idea.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: It was like the first high line TJ.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: You guys were putting on the snorkel and stickers and
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: stuff in the parking lot, and I just I just
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: remembered saying to myself, is like, we're all dealing with
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the same thing. Because when I looked at what you
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: guys were doing, it looked like another universe to me,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: another like a whole another level of execution. But then
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: to see you guys putting the stickers on, it kind
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: of made me feel a little like like we're all
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: in it together. We're all just like up until midnight.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: I showed up at SEMA one time when we did
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: the in two thousand and three, we did the Brute,
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: and we didn't get that car because it was like
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: one of the very first Rubicons, like first five Rubicons
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: off the line. And they got it to us really late,
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: and like literally put that car together in like six days,
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: and it was it was just crazy. And I remember
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: we were up for five days straight, is what it was.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: And Dave YEGI, yeah, you know, it still worked totally
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: for me today. He would take he was an engineer
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: Jeep and he would take his vacation and come help
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: me get ready for STEMA. So he was up for
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: five days and I didn't realize that you would start
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: to hallucinate about day three. Sure, I remember making the
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: molds for the hard top, like in my head. I
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: just remember kind of seeing my hands in front of me.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: I could see out the door through the fan, and
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: I just remember going like light dark, light dark, like
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: over a period of three days when I made the
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: mold in the first top and then I had you know,
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: I got it painted. I mean we talked about paint
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: being wet as some of the Sema cars. This one
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: literally I showed up at Sema in clothes I had
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: been wearing for five days, with a respirator mark, with
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: red paint on my face. I mean that was the
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: closest we've ever had. And we were bolting parts on
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: there and I remember Dave and I were too busy
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: or we were too tired to drive, so we let
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: my brother drive. And he came out of a four
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: cylinder TJ. And so he's driving with a you know,
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: twenty eight foot trailer or a twenty eight foot trailer
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: with this food hunt and this brand new RAM that
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: David brought out.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: He was allowed to drive Ram.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: So it was like a prototype with a big Cummings
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: engine in it. At the time, you know, it was
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: when they stepped up to all these newer motors. And
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: I just remember waking up and looking over. Jordan's towed
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: along at one hundred miles an hour, you know, because
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: he's sure he drives and just put the foot to
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: the floor TJ.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Right, I solve every problem with wide open throttle.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: He didn't even notice, right, he just used to driving
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: the four cylinder TJ with thirty five You just put
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: your foot to the floor, and you know you can't
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: you can't speed, right, And he'd never towed. I just
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: remember waking up, you got to slow down and then
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: right back asleep middle of the night. Now, now, is it,
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: by chance? Is that same four cylinder TJ, the one
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: that turned into the brute that's sopped the parking out side. Yeah,
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: small world for me.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: I remember I remember going into Sema and seeing those
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: trucks there, seeing the Commander and seeing the TJ and
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: they had the Panasonic Tough Book laptops mounted in the
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: center dash and they were like the livelry was like
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: May over the top about this expedition and everything, and
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I just, I mean, I was taken about completely blown
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: away by because it's what I was aspiring too, was
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: that kind of level of adventure and execution and everything
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: else like that. And I think it was shortly thereafter
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: that we started to get to know each other. And
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: then I did the big trip up to tuck tuk
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Tuk in that same Tacoma and we stopped by in
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Montana and you guys gave us a tour and yeah,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: we got to go out to dinner that night, and
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: you drove the same Commander and all that. So it
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: was it was really neat to see that evolution to
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: where now you have an R and D facility in Montana,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: and you have a huge manufacturing facility outside of Detroit
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: that I've been to. It's just really impressive to see
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: how far you guys have come.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean and keep in mind, you know
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: when when that had and I mean I'd already been
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: doing it for nine years. Yeah, it is a crazy
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: I think back to you know, the very first phone
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: call I made when I started AV like I got
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: my loan. I was like, okay, I bought a jeep
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: and then you know, the modified old mine. I had
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: to sell mine to get a new TJ. At the time,
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: the very first phone call I made was to Chris
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: wood Sure. It was the West Coast sales manager for ARB.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: And here twenty five years later. You know, Chris has
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: worked for me for over a decade. Yeah.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Davey Aggy, same thing.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: You know, I met him the first year, and my
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: brother has been with me, and a couple other guys
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: have been there since, you know, nearly day one.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: M hm.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: So it's pretty funny that, you know, all these people
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: have kind of devoted their life to my gess all happy.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: So it's it's been. It's been humbling and pretty amazing. Especially. Yeah,
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: I go back east and I look at the building
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: and the facilities. You know, there's two buildings. I don't
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: know if you've been there too, Yeah, We've had two buildings,
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: so it's yeah, you.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Had the original building, which I you were you were
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: in there. Yeah, you saw the original building when we
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: came through on Expedition seven. And then recently I borrowed
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: one of your prospectors and I went to the new
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: building and that was amazing.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean, go in there. It's got a
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: coffee bar and it's you know, it's all modern and beautiful.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: And I even I still to this day I walk
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: in there, I'm like, who's paying? I mean, it's fantastic
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: right now you are pain Yeah, But I mean I've
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: got a great business partner, a couple of great or
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: two great business partners, and they really make sure that
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: I can do what I do. You know, they take
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: care of the rest. Yeah, that's super important.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: I mean I can't say enough about the staff that
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: I have now. Yeah, in the quality of people and
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: how much they care, you know, not just about the product,
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: about the customers.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: I mean just in general.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Would you say that that's been pretty material for you
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: is the fact that as you've grown, you've been able
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: to stay in that creative space as a thought leader,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: as an engineer, as a creative person, would you say
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: that's pretty key to your success.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. I mean the fact
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: that it's tough. Like in the early days, it was
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: tough because I had to do all of it, yeah right,
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: and human resources and all that stuff.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: You went about the toilet paper, yeah all, yeah, all.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: There's that point where between you know, I always tell
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: I do a lot with the business program. Now, you know,
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: I try and go back help out with the business school.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: Now between twenty and you know, between one and twenty employees,
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: it's so hard. It's so hard to keep it all
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: on track and keep things moving and keep creative. And
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: once you get past that part, then it was it
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: got easier because of like twenty you get an HR person, sure, right,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: and they can kind of deal with everything, and it's
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: it's tough. I mean, I think now we're somewhere north
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: of one hundred and thirty employees. That's not just the employee,
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: but it's like their family. You know, you're dealing with
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: a lot of stuff and so being able to have
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: the staff that helps make this all happen is pretty crazy.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: And I was gonna say, like, through the COVID thing,
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: it's really brought to light how much the folks at
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: a EV really care because like we did not have
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: a lot of the problems I was seeing elsewhere, you know,
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: in the news and stuff like that. I mean, it
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: was pretty tightly knit and everybody really tried to help out.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: And really because you guys were shut down for a
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: period of time too.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we did end what was going on, and then
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: Michigan got really yeah, you know, they were pretty serious
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: about it.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: The fact that you guys weathered that as well as
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: you did.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And like I said, I mean everybody like we
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: didn't know, We didn't know what was going to happen,
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, you know, you have an
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: operation that size. The bills don't stop. It's terrifying, right,
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: but the revenue stops, So you got it. You know,
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: how you're going to keep all these people employed, right,
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: How you can keep their families? You know, a lot
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: of them are the main primary source of income. So yeah,
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: you know, there's a lot of stress trying to figure
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: out how to keep all these people going. Believe it
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: or not, to the government's credit that there was some help,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: there's some assistance, but early on, we just didn't know, right,
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: nobody knew, and so that was crazy. And I would
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: say through the whole thing, I mean I think maybe
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: we lost two employees through the whole you know, And yeah,
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: we did have to lay people off, and it wasn't
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: of our choosing. Yeah, but yeah, anyway, I mean it's crazy.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: You know, nobody knows what's going on in the future either.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: But I would say for right now, things are going well.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: It was almost good for us because we got to
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: take a step back and finish up a bunch of stuff.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: And yeah, they're calling it the Great Pause. Now I've
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: heard people say that I feel.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Like that I'm waiting for the pause to happen because
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: I can think, like.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: The overlanding, the overland thing just went nuts.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was about a month of what is going
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: to happen, maybe a month or two, and then it
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: was like we came in the spring and people couldn't
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: do anything, and then they started buying. Like when like
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: on the Max track side, we just like we haven't stopped.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: You have to deal with all the additional supply chain challenges.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: You know, we're kind of like we didn't have any
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: really staffing problems, shipping materials, all the kind of stuff
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: that go into it, and then just the stress of
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: the pandemic on top of all of this, and then
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: your business growing in a time when it's really it's
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: just it's hard to grow, not it's it's an interesting time.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: It was very interesting because we hoped that it was
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: going to be a positive outcome. So like the executive team,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: we all just sat down. We just decided we weren't
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: going to pay ourselves for a while so we could
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: keep people employed. Like it was only a couple months
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: and it's like we were roaring again hiring people. So
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: you just don't know how it's going to turn out.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: I can't say it was that good for us, Like
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: we had a we got stuck with it, like kind
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: of a tough time because eighteen the Wrangler changed, sure,
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: so that means our revenues fell and our tooling bills
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: went crazy because we had to retool everything. Every single
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: product we make. We had to not only re engineer,
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: but retool massive like the way we do things. That's
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: a massive amount of money. And we knew that was happening,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: so we had planned for that, right, you got si
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: years to prepare, you know, the wranglers had change get
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: ten years of plans, so we had planned for that.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: But then then the RAM changed almost the same time. Sure,
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: just a little change, just enough that we had to change.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: We had to redevelop you know, the bumper and the snorcles,
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: and there were some suspension changes to suspension. Yeah, so
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: we had this was like in eighteen nineteen. Yeah, there
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: were some minor changes on the suspension. But anyway, you
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: know that AD added in and then we got hit
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: with COVID. You know, now we're getting hit with the
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: chip shortage. Sure, because like the g on Bison is
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: a huge portion of our what we're doing right now,
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: and they can't build vehicles right now. We're getting hit
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: with the chip shortage like procals and our little tuning
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: devices can't take those. So now we're getting hit with
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: supply chains. So sure, it's been tough. I mean it,
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: you know, I mean that's kind of how entrepreneurship is.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: You can't can't go out and spend everything because you
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: never know.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: You always have to have money in the bank.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: I haven't taken a paycheck in a couple of years
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: only because I mean we haven't been you know, we're
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: back to like getting you know, I think next year
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: would be good because we've had a lot of time
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: to catch up. Sure, Sure, but our guys have been
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: so busy, especially on the design side, and we just
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: we just had our annual meeting, and I was trying
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: to explain the rest of company, like, our design team
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: has been so busy in the last two years, more
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: busy than we've ever been in the entire history company.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: We've knocked out more products, and yet now the rest
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: of the company is going to get caught up. Now
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: everybody else is going to get slammed. Sure, And so
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: I kind of during our Christmas meeting.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Well, because you keep expanding who you are servicing. So
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: you started off with Wrangler only, and then you started
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: to incorporate the RAM, and then now you're incorporating GM
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: products as well. I mean, that's pretty exciting, but it
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: also adds a whole lot more work.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: Complexity, and when you're doing the OE stuff, the level
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: of detail has to be so much more intense, you know,
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: and something like a RAM or Wrangler you can be like, yeah,
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: that's good enough, we know that's going to work. We've
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: got two decades of experience saying that's going to be
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: strong enough. But on the oe side, everything's got to
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: you got to prove everything.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: It's got to be crash tested and everything else.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: Probably you got to get through eleven different airbag tats
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: and you you know, do all the cooling and all
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: the simulation for cooling, and it ends up being so
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: much more work. Wow, all the airbag calibrations. I mean,
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: it's not just going through the test, but it's like
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: doing all the development.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: It's just an amazing amount of work.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Which actually leads me to one of the questions that
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you is AEV aside, if you
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: were to give some advice to someone who's looking for
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: aftermarket components, what advice would you give them into helping
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: them identify components that are well engineered and of high quality.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: I think that there's oftentimes purchases are made on price
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: or they're made on esthetics. Fortunately, AEV stuff has always
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: looked great. If someone's looking to buy aftermarket components, what
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: insights can you give them into finding good quality stuff?
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: There's so much garbage out there. What should they look for?
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: It's kind of interesting you asked that, and I'll go
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: back for a second. But when I started AEV initially
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: it was just to do long wheelbase wranglers, which seemed
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: like a sure necessity in the marketplace. Shortly after I
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: started that, I realized I wanted to buy high quality
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: parts for these strucks. I mean, I knew what I
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: wanted and what just wasn't there. It was there for
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: like land rovers, sure, but I couldn't find anything for Jeep.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: And so I realized that even if you wanted to
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: spend the money, you couldn't. Even if you want to
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: spend the money on really high quality stuff. And this
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: is going back, you know, twenty five years, it just
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: wasn't an option. And so I said to myself, Okay,
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: there's a ton of cheap stuff or you know, cheating,
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: don't necessarily ad it's just you know, simple, right, And
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: there was a ton of simple, inexpensive stuff in the
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: marketplace for Jeeps, but there wasn't anything next level. And
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: so I said, okay, you know, somebody else has the
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: inexpensive stuff handled there's plenty of that.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go this route.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: And so you know, and even today, I mean, our
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: stuff not inexpensive, right, It's I really don't care what
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: it costs. I just care that we can offer this
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: product because I know somebody is looking for that. I
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: mean it might not be everybody. It's obviously not everybody,
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: but that doesn't bother me that our stuff's more expensive.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: As long as the quality is there and the functions there,
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: I would say, you know, if you're looking for other products,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: it's it's generally kind of the tell tale is is
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: their tooling involved? Because if there's tooling involved, you know
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Math's product is that way right, Yeah, there's super expensive
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: tooling involved, means somebody, you know, spent a lot of
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: time and money developing that tooling. And so that's one
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: good way to tell if there's some engineering behind it.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: And then you know, in general, materials good quality materials.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: And it seems like the finishes too, are always a
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: great tell. Like when when you look at you can
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: see products on the floor at SEMA that have flash
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: rust on them. Oh yeah, it seems like that the
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: coatings and the finishes are also a really great tell.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: Finishes are. I mean that's literally how I ended up
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: moving the company to Detroit. I was trying to make
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: stuff in Montana. I was paying for really high quality
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: laser cutting and welding and you know, all the stuff,
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: and then I'd go to get it finished. And the
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: best I could do is general you know, powder coating,
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: and powder coating will last at a maximum eighteen months
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: outside on a vehicle before it fades, before you start
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: seeing russ popping through. Sure, they're you know, little pieces
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: and parts. And then you know, if you're laser cutting,
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: you get laser scale. You know, for the average guy
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: manufacturing parts in his garage, there's no so the finishes
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: just aren't there, yea. And so that's why I ended up.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: I say, okay, you know how the car company is
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: doing this there. You know, you don't see cars rusting
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: these days, and what's involved with that.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: So there's a lot of like the way you cut parts,
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: you know, whether it's laser of water, however you do it,
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: there's different ways to do that, the pre treatments and
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: so literally the only place I could do that, the
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: only place in the world you could do that at
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: the time was like in Japan where they're making cars,
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: or in Detroit. And so the only option for me
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: was Detroit. Yeah, sure, And so I went to Detroit,
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: and that's where we can get the right pre finishes
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: and the e coding and the powder coating and zinc coding.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: I mean depends on the part that we do. But
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: you know, like when we offer a part for the OE,
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: they require a fifteen year corrosion warranty.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Fifteen years they require that from you. Yeah, we like
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: how they only offer seven or ten.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: That's right, but the test is fifteen sure, right, So
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: we're doing all these salt spray and gravel pometers, you
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: know where they go into a bind. They were they're
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: throwing rocks at it seventy miles an hour and you know,
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: with one hundred percent humidity one hundred degrees you know,
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: so we have to do all these tests, all these
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: scratch test, stone throw tests. So a lot of our
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: parts you'll see they'll be covered in certain areas because
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: of these stones throw And the cool thing about doing
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: that on the OE side is it trickles back to
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: our aftermarket side totally.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: All this stuff.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, all that stuff that we learn that we don't
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: want to be a problem for us either. So, whether
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: it's the materials or the coatings, coatings are such a
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: big problem in our industry, and I think you just
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: had to have to know, even even our stuff, honestly,
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: you have to keep up on it. So we offer
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: like these textured paints that match the powder coat. I mean,
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: if you put a front bumper out and you just
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: go drive it in salt and ice and you know,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: getting stones thrown at it forever, I mean, it's gonna start.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: You know, after about three years, you're going to start
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: to see some little pits and if you don't take
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: care of them.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: You got to handle it all right.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: And a lot of the materials we use are galvin neil,
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: so they actually have a layer of galvanizing pressed into
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: the metal essentially before we stamp it. Yeah, the coatings
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: are one of those things. That's and you do see
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: some good coatings out there from some of your bigger companies.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: Mostly it's the companies that have some sort of OE contract. Sure,
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: you know, because they've they've learned, they know. But the
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: problem is, you know, it's like if I would buy
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: something aftermarket, I would almost want to buy it uncoded.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: And I see a lot of people doing that these days,
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: which I think is kind of brilliant. Because I offered
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: this bumper, I end up spending all this money on
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: him and I made money, and then I had like
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: one hundred percent failure rate on the coatings and I
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: had to you know, warranty it. Right, So now as
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: a little company, it almost put me out of business. Sure, honestly,
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: like selling twenty five bumpers almost put me out of business.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: Not only did I not make that money, but now
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: I had to like buy them back I double the cost.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: It was terrible, right, And it was all because the coding.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: The part didn't fail. The coding. I see some parts
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: of some people doing LINEX and stuff like that or
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: you know whatever, your real coatings and then those work
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: pretty well.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah they don't. They just don't look quite as nice.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: I don't think they don't look nice, and they kind
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: of fade over time and they you know, if you
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: damage it, it's kind of tough, like you know, you
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: don't want to be.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: It's also super hard to clean, like the bottom of
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: the earth thrower has it, and it's it's functional, you really,
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: cause it's poorous. Yeah, so it just attracts stuff, can't
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: really get it out unless you sit there with the powerwase.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: And even then, yeah, it's still it's poor us On
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: a microscopic level, too, and it's heavy, not perfect.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Adds kind of unnecessary weight in a way.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: It adds a lot of you'd be surprised how much weight,
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: for sure.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: And the concept of tooling. You know, my mind's been
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: kind of going and it's it is kind of interesting
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: how many businesses in this industry are their metal shop
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: businesses where something gets laser cutted, cn C bent powder
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: coated by somebody else and they don't really have that
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: much control over the entire process. There's really very few
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: companies I think that are like tooling up. I mean
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: I can't think of another like anybody else do's stamped bumpers.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's got to be an insanely complex.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Thinks there's some offshore stuff coming in. Oh yeah, it's
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: an insane process to stamp like we do.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember seeing the machines that quality metal. Yeah,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: it was crazy. I mean I just love seeing how
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: stuff is made and it's so drastically different than how
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: most offered industry parts are made.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean a lot of the I mean some
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: of the presses we use their five stories tall. Yeah,
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: it was huge, two from around and three above.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: And is that is that how you got interested? In
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the use of boron steel.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: Now, the boron came about when GM first contacted us
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: about the bison. That was a weird deal, right, It's
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: like GM, I'm like, this is the last people in
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: the world that I would think are going to go
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: into the overland market at the time, right, go back.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: And then they kind of told me what they had
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: come in and I was like, wait a second. They're
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: doing a Tacoma with lockers and a better engine. Everything
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: we always ask, yeah, everything everybody's always wanted, and here's
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: GM of all people doing it. And I was like, yeah,
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: we're in for sure, We're in. They're like, okay, great,
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: you know. The next thing, like you know, fast forward
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: a few months, they're like, okay, we want you know,
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: skid plates and wheels and bumpers like steel bumpers and
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: winch mounts and fender flares and all this stuff. Great, great, awesome,
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: you know, Like in my head, I'm like, oh, this
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: is this is gonna be really cool. And they're like,
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: uh and you have seventy six pounds allotment to do it.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, well, a gas tank skid is seventy
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: six pounds that can so it ended up. We ended
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: up at two hundred pounds.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Well, everything's a negotiation, so.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, anyway, yeah, I mean, but they're still trying to
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: hit their payload numbers stuff, so they had to rerun
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: a lot of tests. But one of my guys, John
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: and Tosi, he knew a boron steel. He's a long
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: time Jeep guy or Chrysler guy, and he knew the
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: boron steel because at the time they were using it,
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: I think Volvo kind of initiated the use for their
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: you know, for safety parts, like a kind of eight pillars,
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: door pillars, rocker panels, and that's really the only place
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: they had ever been used was in non visible structural applications.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: But John knew about it, and he knew it was light,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: and he's like, hey, what about this. Okay, this sounds great,
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: but there was a huge learning curve on how to
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: coat that stuff. We were the first company ever to
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: do anything class A you know visible with that material.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: You know, stamping it. It's obviously it's a hot stamp process.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: So it goes into like a big pizza oven, it
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: gets red hot, and it goes on to these liquid
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: cool dyes, you know, the running cold water through these
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: dies and it's stamped and it's quenched like hardened on
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: the die. But even just the way the coatings react
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: to that material was completely different, So we had to
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: develow up a coating process that would work for the
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: OE application. It's a hard material, so even the way
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: you mount it has to be everything has to be
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: taken into account with that material. Normal steals like called
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: thirty six ksi thousand pounds per square inch to actually
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: permanently deform it. This stuff was like two hundred and
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: fifteen thousand pounds per square inch to deform it.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: It's a good thing to make a skid play out
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: of it.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: It's per perfect and it doesn't gouge like aluminum gouges.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Aluminum is like a terrible thing. Makes skid play out
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: of this stuff is the is the ultimate skid plate
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: material really and to that point, we have one hanging
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: in our office in Detroit that was the diff skid
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: for Chadhall's race truck. And if you think about it's
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: a thirty three hundred truck and that thing goes after
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: all the trophy trucks with forty inch tires and it's
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: on thirty fives and it's just literally dragging that diff
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: through every race of the entire season.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: And then dragged across Nevada.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: I mean that thing has literally been dragged across Nevada
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: and you look at it and there's not a dent
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: and not a scratch in it.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: I mean the coating is completely worn up. Sure.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: In fact, I think we clear coded it and we
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: hung it on the wall.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Just to kind of for posterity show.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's I mean, it's just it's absolutely amazing.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: I think you guys had that at SEMA and you
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: kind of compared it to a steal one. Matt Felderman
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: was kind of pick this one up, now, pick this
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: one up. Yeah, and it was crazy how much lighter I.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: Think one with six pounds, one's like twenty six pounds. Yeah, yeah,
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: And so it does you know, weight is a huge deal,
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: especially on the smaller rigs like the Jeeps, and then
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: you know ZR two things like that. And you know,
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: I mean that Bison race truck of Chad's Halls, I
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: think it, you know, I know, it completed every single
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: race of the season with that one truck, which is
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: you know, it's basically a stock truck. I mean it's
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: basically what you can go buy. That material is impressive
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: and those kids are impressive. And if if anybody hasn't
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: gotten under a ZR two Bison, it's pretty cool to
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: see a factory vehicle. And to GM's credit, I mean,
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: they were awesome to work with and they I don't
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: think I think the engineering I mean, I know the
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: engineering team knew what they were getting into and how
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: good that thing was, but I don't think the executives
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: necessarily knew, you know, what an amazing truck they had
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: on their hands.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: For there was nothing like it in the mid size segment.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: There was just nothing that had front and rear lockers,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: diesel engine and nothing.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: And people still buy it Tacomas.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a reason to buy it Tacoma too.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: But the fact that you can go and have a warranty,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: you don't have to do anything to the car, you
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: buy it and you'd it around the world, there's nothing
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: to be done.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: I mean to me that the thing about that was
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: like to get a Toyota owner out of a Toyota
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: it's tough, impossible, right, And there were we were seeing
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: a lot of long time Toyota guys coming over to
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: a chevy of all things. You would like if you
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: had told me that at Overland Expo three years ago
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: or four years ago, you know, I would say, I mean, nobody.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: Would remember when it was hard enough to get people
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: into jeeps.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it's true. Yeah, when we started the magazine
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: there was the vast majority of the over seventy percent
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: with Toyota, and then the next biggest percentage was land Rover,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: and then it trickled down very quickly after that. Sure,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: and now double digits for jeeps, and like the Gladiator
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: really changed a lot of that.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: And I mean, I'd like to think he's a big
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: reason for that, no question. Same with the RAM too.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: I don't think anybody would have thought of using the
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: RAM before we came out with those.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Parts for it, which is a perfect segue to the
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: question that I sent you. The RAM has certainly become
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: the darling of the overland space. It has been fairly
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: amazing to watch how quickly that transformation has happened.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: You see the guy who had the.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Forerunner or the Tacoma totally overloaded, and now he's driving
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: a RAM with AEV stuff on it, and there's a
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: bunch of folks that have made that transition, and the
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: reason for it is payload. There's other great attributes to
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: the RAM which we're going to talk about, but the
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: primary driver for these people where they must make the
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: changes that the car can't take the weight of all
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: the accessories. Years ago, I mean, this was probably well,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: this was when you first built your regular cab. I
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: think you had forty ones on it or something like
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: regular Camp Ram, the white one, and you were standing
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: there saying, Scott, I just don't know that I would
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: ever build a jeep again. When I can build this.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: You said, there's only a couple scenarios where it wouldn't work,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: and you were taking it on all the trails that
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: you used to drive jeeps on in Moab, and it
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: was doing it for the sake of the listener. Let's
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: paint the picture of why a full sized truck should
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: be considered for most scenarios for long distance travel. I
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: mean maybe even the RAM in particular. But let's talk
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: a little bit about that shift and why that's so relevant.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: And I will say that jeeps still our biggest portion
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: of our business, but RAM has really settled in there nicely,
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: does a nice little business you know. And I'll say
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: right off the bat, I mean Ram. I think the
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: RAM is fantastic. Everything about it I love. I'm sure
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: the Ford's good too. I don't just haven't really driven
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: them much or the Chevy, you know. I know I
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: liked the engine and transmission in the Chevy a lot.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I just.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: I just drove the twenty five hundred HD a few
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: weeks ago. Yeah, it was the best of all of them.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I've heard the Ford trans it's really good too.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: Going back to the RAM, which is what I know, Yeah,
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: it kind of seemed like we were doing with the
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: Wrangler and everybody was overloading them like crazy. I mean
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: it's not that uncommon to see a sixty five or
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: seven thousand pound wrangler, yep, you know, and at the
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: time with a three point eight right, Yeah, it just
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: wasn't work. And I got into it because I wanted
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: to build, I mean, something similar to you know, you
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: know that they'll post to the camper jeep ging built
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: at the time. I wanted to build something like that,
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: but I couldn't figure how to do it and keep
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: the weight right. So then I was like, oh, well,
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: just kind of donned the mean, one day I was like,
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: wait a second, I've been using a RAM duly to
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: tow a fifty seven foot wedge trailer with three or
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: four jeeps on it, you know, thirty two thousand pounds,
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: no problem, and I was towing it, you know, I
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: put one hundreds of thousand miles on that sure, towing
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: it all over the country and towing all the jeeps
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: all over the country. And it just kind of occurred
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: to me one day. I was like, wait a second,
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: why don't I just build a camper on a RAM.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: It's not like I was first. I mean obviously Earth
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: Romer and Turtle and all that, but I was like,
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: I'll just do that. I'll just put it on a
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: RAM and I'll tow a wrangler and I won't even
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: know one wrangler's behind it. Yeah, it's like who cares?
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: And this is just a personal, little side project. But
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: then I kind of got into it, and I love
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: the RAM. I love the Cummings, and I love the
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: manual trans and I thought the Cummings of the manual
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: I just absolutely loved. It's still one of my favorite
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: power trains ever.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so sad that that's finally gone.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: So sad.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about it. They were the
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: last holdout. They were and I give and I give
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: FCA a lot of Stilantis now, Matt and I say,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: still land the land. That's that's impressive. That they kept
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: a manual transmission for as long as they did.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, they just couldn't add more power, right
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: and sure you have to be in the horsepower game.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: The manual that they had access to, it just wasn't
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: gonna work anyway. At the time, I love the Coummings
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: with the manual. I just thought it was phenomenal. So
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: I bought a truck. I bought it six with the
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: cummins and a manual, single cab and I was just
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: going to build that into a camp until a wrangler
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: and it was just my own personal thing. And I
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: built it and it came out great, you know, and
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: I got some flares from Iceland and I put some
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: forty two's on it and I had it. I built
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: my own suspension because I kind of realized, I was like,
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: you know, I started, I was just like, I'll just
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: buy a suspension. Somebody's got to have something decent. And
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: I couldn't find anything out there that was for real. Yeah,
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: all of it was gimmicky, typical aftermarket stuff. It just
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: you know, it wasn't function it was I mean, it
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: would get the lift well. And at the time, right
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: there was a lot of you know, if you want
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: to put thirty seven's on a ram, it was like
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: a six inch lift and that just was not going
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: to work with that suspension. I ended up developing my
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: own suspension and pushed the axle forward and did a
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: bunch of tricks and was able to do it with
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: three and a half inches of lift at the time,
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: and that thing came out so good and it drove
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: so appropriately. Yeah, I mean I just couldn't believe, like
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: it didn't really it didn't drive poorly at all. In fact,
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: it just drove like normal the way we did the suspension.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: So then I kind of got my team together, I said,
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: and we commercialized this. I mean, this is really good.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: You guys are going to be really impressed. Again, to
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: my partner's credit, you know, all of our engineers, you know,
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: everybody didn't even.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: Ask questions like sure.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: So we developed that suspension from a fully well done
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: thing where you know, I had to cut all the
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: brackets off and redo everything to a Bolton essentially a
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: Bolton kit for what we have today. And then yeah,
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: we built that white truck as a show car to
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: show it. And at the same time it was kind.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Of with that flatbed. Yeah, it was such a show stop.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: That's what Mario has.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Mario has it now, but that was that was such
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: a show st.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: It was fantastic timing too, because at the exact same
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: time Ram went to the coil in the rear, So
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: twenty fourteen they went to the coils in the rear.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: If you took the body off the RAM and put
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: it next to a Wrangler chassis, I mean, they're basically
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: the exact same thing, right, it looks the exact same
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: just bigger axles, bigger engine. You know, everybody wants a diesel,
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: so here you got even the small engine right as
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: a hemi, you know, and people are paying a lot
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: of money put a hemy in a Wrangler, but here
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: you go, you just buy it right.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Like a power wagon. Is a great example of that
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: is it is a rubicon with a HEMI.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And in twelve they went to these big you
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: joints on the front axle, they kind of get rid
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: of all the suspension steering issues that they you know,
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: RAM was known to have back in the day. You know,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: in this coil rear, they do a really good job
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: with the break clock, traction control and four low. I
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: mean almost to the point you don't need lockers. Yeah,
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: it just started to make a lot of sense. The
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: fuel tank, the mileage, everything about it was. It just
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: kind of dawned on me. I mean I kind of
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: get smacked in the face of my own success because
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: I was like, wait a second, this is perfect, and
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: I love the jeep, I love the Wrangler, but then
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: for what I do personally, I'm like, wait, I said,
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: you know, I don't want tell anybody with this. RAM
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: kind of does a better job for what I'm doing,
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: you know, and I'm.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Always you tow your boat around and everything else.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: No, I mean I literally have a trailer hooked to
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: a RAM all the time, whether it's a camper trailer
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: or a skid steer, an excavator boat or yeah whatever,
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: snow wheel trailers. I mean, those things are working all
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: the time. And I just realized that, you know, if
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: you want to cruise across the American West at eighty
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: or eighty five getting good mileage on big tires and
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: towing stuff, just not worrying about it.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Being comfortable too. And I think that's the biggest thing
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: with the full sizes. It is a shocker. I had
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: like two epiphanies with the full sized truck. One I
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: was under my buddy's Collin's truck was on a lift
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: and I'm underneath and I'm like, oh wow, this really
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: is like a little bit bigger jeep. It's everything you
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: would want to put under a jeep kind of done.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Then the second one I had was I parked my
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Gladiator next to a twenty five hundred and I walked
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: away and I'm like, oh man, it's only six inches bigger.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: And I've had full sized trucks and that kind of stuff,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: but I almost like never really took them super seriously.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: And then the parts started coming out for him and everything,
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: you know, everything just kind of clicked. That was the key, Yeah,
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: And that was the key.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: We'd started developing those parts for it, and I think
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: that's when people really started to pay attention.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: It just changed the truck. It looked like an adventuremobile,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: not a ramch truck.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Well, not just how it looks.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: I mean the function, yeah, for sure, and that was
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: That's the amazing thing is these trucks are engineered to
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: take your pick whatever, let's say thirty thousand pounds. They're
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: engineered to tow, right, So the cooling system size for that.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: There's just you know, the commercial applications, the brakes are
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: size for that. I mean, there's so much overhead for
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: what we do with trucks. For the most part, if
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: you're just towing a ten or twelve or fifteen thousand
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: pounds trailer, which like ten thousand pounds to me, I
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: don't even consider that really towing the truck's not going
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: to notice that you in these trucks, it doesn't even care.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: So if you're only towing ten thousand pounds, you've got
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: so much overhead built in for sure, that cooling system,
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: those brakes, the dry shafts, few joints, and that's something
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: the Wrangler didn't have. It didn't have really didn't have
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: enough overhead. And that's kind of the brilliant part of
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: the full sized trucks is that overhead. You're getting millions
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: and millions and millions of dollars of engineering in that
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: engineering in that overhead.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Well, if you look at two thousand and seven, all
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: three of us were driving jeeps. Yeah, And if you're
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: looking at twenty twenty one, all three of us are
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: driving full sized trucks.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's funny.
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: I you know, we always have our staff drive our products,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: and so at some point when we did the RAM,
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: we took everybody's wrangler away and we gave them rams.
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: It's so hard to get them back into wranglers. Like
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: when the JL came out, we want to put them
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: all back in jails. JT's nobody wants to go back.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like the jail's really nice. It's just
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: such a great view. It's the best jeep ever made.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're just so good. They're so good. But
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: once you're able to, like ye, tow a boat or
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: you're I mean, I'm able to put a camper in
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: the back that has got a heater and it's comfortable
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: and it's different.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: I've got a Diesel JT, which is I think fantastic.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: I think it's the best jeep I've ever driven.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: I really like that one.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's you know, it's modified with all of
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: our stuff, and I just think it's fantastic. And I
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: love it, and I love how nimble it is, and
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: it is kind of nice to get out of the
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: full size and get back into something more a little
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: more nimble. At least it feels more nimble. You know,
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: at the end of the day, it doesn't really work for.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Which one do you want to drive across the country? Oh?
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not even a question.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Well, and just the fact that you can you can
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: make an investment in a full sized truck that can
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: have the capability that you need, but can also do
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: all those other things. You can go to home depot
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: and load it up full of wood, you can pull
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: a big trailer with it, you can put a camper
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: in the back of it. It just you end up
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: with a lot of things that we've never been able
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: to do with the traditional SUVs. Like we all drove
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: land cruisers or land rovers or whatever, or jeeps and
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: you had a ground ten and you just you were
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: really limited on what you could do. They were great
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: for what they were. But now that we realize that
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: there's this very reliable, extremely robust platform that has, like
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: you said, all of this overhead of capability that just
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: doesn't exist in those other vehicles.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: It's funny that white ram that I built initially the
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: single cab manual diesel on forty one's. Yeah, I still
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: think that that was the most capable, best all around vehicle.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: I've thought it's like the ultimate toy, like like a
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: single cab full sized truck is it's either for work
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: or it's a toy because there's no real.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Like you're not going to take your family. You're not
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: going to take your family around me, but it like
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: takes you and your dog. I will say, if there
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: was ever a vehicle that I lusted after, it was
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: that truck. And when you called me and you're like, Scott,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about selling the truck, I'm like, oh, like
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: I've got two kidneys, like you really only need one.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: And I sold that truck to Mario with the you know,
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: understanding that if I wanted to borrow it, you know,
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: that would be part of the case.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: So he said, okay, yeah, And I and I have
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: looked regularly on car Trader and stuff like that to
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: see they're just they're hard to find that combination that's
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: not been abused. So like you can find regular cab
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: manual transmission diesel trucks they're rare. You can find them,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: but they're almost always beat They have something mounted to
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: the back of them, or like a backo.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: Horse through the roof. Yeah. Literally, just a rare Yeah,
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: the rare vehicle.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: It's like the Unicorn.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: It is now for sure amazing. One of the other
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: things that I wanted to Actually, Matt, you got any questions?
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: You want to throw it in out? Yeah, okay, throw it,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: throw it in.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: What's the favorite car you've built?
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: Favorite car that I've built would be that white Ram. Yeah,
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: the white three quarter ton Ram with the manual.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: I think the one that everybody likes the most right
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: now is the outpost. Yeah.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: For sure, that thing is awesome. I mean that that
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: is absolutely awesome. I put the Hemmy in it. I
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: wish it had a diesel. I mean, the only thing
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: lacking on that thing is it doesn't really need that horsepower.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: What it needs is to range. If I built it
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: again with today's you know, in today's day, I would
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: I would definitely start with a diesel.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: A diesel wrangler, and then build it out.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: For sure. That thing is super neat and it.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Just looks so good.
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: It looks good, it functions for a prototype for a
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: one off prototype.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: It works really when you built the whole camper yourself,
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: like by hand.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: Kind of. Yeah, that was one where it was the
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: last year for the JK, and so we wanted to
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: do something kind of special. We had these high capacity
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: springs that we were showing off, you know, for the
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: guys that have sixty five hundred pound wranglers. We thought,
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: you know, the first year of the JK, we had
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: a pop top ten I remember that. I kind of
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: like a vanning In type our top that popped up.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: And so that was how the outpost won. So that's
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: where the Outpost two came from. And we just decided
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: let's do that and again going back. You know, again,
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: this is something I've been wanting to do. I just
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: didn't know how to do it and keep it torsionally
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: stiff enough and deal with you know, mostly deal with
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: the structural challenges of cutting the back of the wrangler
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: off and keeping this thing intact and keeping the weight reasonable.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: I thought about it for a free more years and
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: I finally figured out, Okay, I think this is going
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: to work.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: But I didn't really know.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: You know, you don't know, you can only do so
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: much CEE analysis before you know, it's like, I think
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: it's going to work. I think we're good. It turns
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: out it did work and it was good, and it
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: was oh yeah.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: We took it across the altar. I mean I was
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: in the car with you. That was amazing how well
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: it worked.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: I've taken it all over the place. And the thing
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: is there's been no failures. I mean it's you know,
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: no wrenching, right, I mean altar up in where I live.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: You know, I've had it out in the snow and
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: minus ten. I've been camping super comfortable, you know, hot
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: water and everything.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: It's great.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: And I think, you know, I think we did the
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: whole camper for about eight hundred pounds. That's with the fridge,
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: with the hot water heater, with water tank dry of course,
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: but eight hundred pounds with the lifting roofs.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: How much did you probably take off of that? Because
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: it is the floor pan of the case star that's
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: gone yeah all up.
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: That weighs sixty four hundred pounds, so I'd have to
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: such bad so Chris Wood he had NAVJK with a
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: like a tent topp er on it. You know, all
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: the stuff right, the fridges and everything, and his was
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: also sixty four. It's just how much they Yeah, and
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: this one has a heavy and a Dana sixty rear
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: and a Dino Track forty four heavy, Dietract forty four
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: up front, and Dine Tracts sixty in the rear. So
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: actually I think his was a heavy also, but it
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: didn't have the axles, and I think the rear axle
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: adds few hundred pounds sure by itself. And so I
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: thought we did pretty good on the weight of that thing.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: And it is viable. It's like everybody wants to know,
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: will we make that or could you make me one?
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: You know, It's just one of those things I'd love
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: to do that, absolutely love to do it. If things
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: ever so down, that would be one of the things
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: I would do. I definitely. I mean, it is cool
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: to go to my ab and do whatever trail you
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: want to do. I guess there's a few exceptions, but
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: for the most part, you could do anything most people
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: are doing in jeeps.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: And have the camper with you.
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: It's sleep, It's really They were like on the altar,
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: you know, that night you guys were out and.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: I had so much sand in my bag.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: Everybody was covered in sand totally, you know, and my
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: dog and I were in there. I felt guilty, but
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: you know, we're in there.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: I kind of like, look the window. It was cold.
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: It was cold and windy, and these guys all have
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: three season tents and the wind and the sand came
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: up underneath the tents and just filled the tents. Almost
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: everybody ended up sleeping in their car pretty much that night.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: And you know, here I am inside. I get in there,
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: I washed my face with hot water, and my dog's
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: in there. We you know, sit down and think I
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: was reading a book totally, and you know, socks and
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: my feet are up on the couch and it was
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: really anyone. Well, then we did. We used it as
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: the base. We did everybody, Yeah, we did. We did
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: all the cooking out of there, out of that and uh,
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: for you know, what would we have six guys? Yeah,
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: that truck. I mean, it's amazing when you take a
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: prototype like that and there's really no squawks.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: It just works.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: And especially that was something we you know, we didn't
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: have much time to do that one.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Either.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: I hate when.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: People talk about like, oh, we built this in you know,
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: four weeks or something. Because generally it shows, but that
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: one we didn't have. We had ten weeks to build it.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: I sat on the computer for seven one hundred hour
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: weeks and did everything, all the analysis and the design.
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: Basically would give Jerry cut sheets, you know, he would
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: try and hold to a thirty second on cut sheets.
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: Because we were doing a lot of it by hand.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: I had a buddy of mine has a huge router,
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: and he cut all the panels.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Sure, and we used a composite core panel.
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we used the fiberglass polypropylene fiberglass three quarter inch
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: panel basically glued that to a steel bird cage.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: We did a bird.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Shage and like it's a nice way to do it.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: Fourteen and sixteen gauge.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: The reason I did that versus like a lot of guys,
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: you're using the foam fiberglass panels. I wanted to be
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: able to change it if I had to, because I
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: didn't know sure, just didn't know enough to know if
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: this was going to work or not. And I also
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: because it's only like six feet by eight feet roughly,
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: I didn't really need the insulation, although in hindsight, like
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: if I built a new one, I would maybe change
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: that a little bit. You do need more insulation, even
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: though the heater's more than powerful, cookie out of it.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: What heater did you put in it?
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: It's got an spr gasoline. They were the only ones
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: to make a gasoline one. But the problem is it
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: can more than roast you out of it. But the
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: problem is then it just cycles so much because there's
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: very little insulation. Sure, I insulated the one wall so
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: you know, the roof goes up with the solar panels,
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: it goes up sideways and all the solar. So I figured, okay,
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: you're always gonna park facing west in that way, that
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: thing would always the solar is always gonna be soulth
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: And I insulated that wall for heat. Make sense, So
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: the roof and that wall are insulated. The other ones
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: I didn't really worry about because I was like, it's
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: so small, I don't I'm not worried about the cold,
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: but in hindsight I would probably change out a little bit.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: It was cool. So yeah.
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: Anyway, we spent seven one hundred hour weeks on the
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: computer and then three one hundred hour weeks building that,
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: and part of that was painting it too, which is
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: kind of out of our control. Because we you know
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: that in Montana, we have we use the shop next
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: door to paint it for us. But those guys did
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: a great job too. But you know, and I think
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: we showed up the scenama. We didn't have the interior
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: done when we showed that thing. But then we came
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: back we finished the interior and I mean literally, it's
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: it just I fill it with water and food.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: It works so good.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it really does work. I was surprised myself how.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: And it's open to the camper right like there's a pass.
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a full pass through. Even that is something
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: I'd probably changed next time. You don't use it, turns
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: out you don't.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: You don't use the pass through as much as we
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: think that we would. I've never used it. Then you
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: have to like you're just like kind of awkwardly like, okay,
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: and now I have to figure out how to make
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: my leg.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: H this leg the most. You might toss some stuff
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: into the passenger seat just for convenience, but.
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: In a ram maybe it'd be different. But in the
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: jeep it's too small. Yeah, I don't even fit through
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: the seats. And I'm not a big guy. But it's
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: like i'd have to turn sideways get through the seats.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: It's kind of nice because you have the heat and
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: everything if you needed it. Yep, you do with the
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: s bar.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: The best part for me with the pass through is
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: my dog can lay on the couch and I can
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: look in the mirror and see her. And yeah, that's
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: the best part of having the pastory. But the worst
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: part is like just rattling. You know, you hear everything
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: in your fridge moving around, hear your dishes moving around. Sure,
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: even if you have all the dishes you know, super nice,
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: like the earthrower guys have everything just so perfect. Even
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: then you still hear stuff rattling around.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Then your spices rattle or like something and something in
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: my convection microwave oven thing rattles, and since everything is
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: so quiet, it's just like this right little annoyance.
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: So that was something I have. I've used that thing
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: for a few years and I've made several pages of
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: notes on what I would do different. So if we
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: ever do come out with something for a consumer, it'll
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: have a lot of thought and history but into that. Yeah,
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: so that's something I'm always looking at, whether it's ram
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: or whatever. I'm always trying to use real life situations
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: to save somebody real life hassle.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: It's almost like you need a separate division that you
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: guys could spool up to make trucks like that where
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't put a lot of load on your existing resources.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know in my opinion.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, and there's a lot of companies that do
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: a really wonderful job like g XP and Earthrower and
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: earth Cruiser Yeah, yeah, earth Cruiser and trying to think
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: of Mark's name up in Red Deer. They do a
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: great job. For me, I've never really seen how I
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: could do it financially successful because at the end of
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: the day, you know, it's not look, it's not about
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: the money, but you still have to be viable.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: One hundred and thirty employees to support.
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: You gotta yeah, you gotta turn some volume. And I
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: don't know how to do a camper type vehicle like
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: that where everybody kind of wants something a little different. Yeah,
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: that that becomes the problem. So unless you can knock
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: it out of the park with like, you know, a
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: ninety nine percent well.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: And the cost to do it to that av quality
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: level would have to just be it's.
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: Going to take a lot of tooling, right, so you
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: can't change it A nice thing about well, I mean,
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: Earth Romer is probably the only one that has really
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: tooled anything now they have that, you know, all their
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: composite bodies, and they're really going I.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Think they're the only ones that make real money too.
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: I don't know, you know, I guess the Earth Cruiser guys.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: But the problem with molding stuff and doing that is
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: you have to be really sure that that's going to
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: work for all of your clientele. And that's the part
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: I don't like, because I do like the tool stuff,
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: and I like the tool it in like, if I
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: can't make a thousand of something a year, then it's
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: generally not worth tooling.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: I don't think any of those guys are doing a
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: thousand a year.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: No, they're doing a couple months if they're really lucky.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, but that's kind of what it
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: seems like looking around. But so for me, it seems
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: like if I could ever step away, maybe I could
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: do something like that for fun, sure, and that and
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: for me that would be a fun way to wind
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: down my career. Sure, So it's something that's been in
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: the back of my head for a while, you know,
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: doing that because you know that the customers that buy
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: that kind of thing are generally really really good, fun
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: people to work for.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: Interesting folks.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, they're interesting and they understand and they they're experienced,
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: and they just tend to be like really like they
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: become friends.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: They also they're buying into your your dream and your
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: belief and you know, there's always there's something about that
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: that's kind of cool.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll post three on a RAM.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: I think that would make the ultimate travel truck.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying, I don't know.
• 51:02
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• 51:05
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  Speaker 1: along for the ride, no matter how far you plan
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: to go. Available in multiple sizes, the CFX three is
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: built for the demands of outdoor use and comes with
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: a handy app that gives you complete control at your fingertips.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: It's the state of the art, designed for rugged use
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: cooler that you can rely on and enjoy for years
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: to come. You've got your first two sign ups right
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: now at this table, where do we sign first?
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: Cruiser is doing one that size now, Yeah, and it
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: looks good exactly my only.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: Beef and I get why they do it, because they
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: do it so you can fit into the shipping container.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: But I just wouldn't want a pop top.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: It depends on the environments that you go to. I
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: mean I chose to do hard side. You chose to
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: do hard side because.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: My dog chose to do hard Let's be real it just.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Like all my buddies, I mean Matt, like Dave, Mike,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: they all drive these bigger expedition vehicles, and so there
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: was no incentive for me to have a pop top roof.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: I just might as well have a hard side.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And you know I've had a to hang
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: out when the weather's bad.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've had a four er camper. I thought it
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: was awesome. I spent some time in Alaskans. I thought
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: they were awesome. Yeah, so I think it can be done.
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: I mean the outpost is a pop up it is.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. The Alaskan, in my opinion, is such a
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: cool design.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: I love just the same design from fifty years ago.
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, but it's now become cool. Yeah. They're
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: super heavy, yeah, but I love the fact that when
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: it does pop up, you're relatively covered. I want to say,
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: it's only like the cab over portion.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: No, even that has dropped down hard panels.
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: There's a company that does do one with fabric pop up. Yeah,
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: they just changed names Nimble.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: Yeap Nimble does want on Instagram.
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, I really like to look at the GXV,
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: like the Rimm GXP.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: They use a lot of our parts.
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: These the their adventure trucks.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they look really good.
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: Don't know, but I see them at over It looks
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: really good and I'm kind of like, Yeah.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: The thing that they're the ones that do, like the
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: cool thing with I think with GXP is they really
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: do a lot of custom stuff. They do you know
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: earth Room or earth Cruiser. It's like you know earth
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: Room where you can have a different configuration of your
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: d net or something on materials for material Limited and
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, but like g XV, like they
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: really go like deep and then they do like the
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: heavy duty trucks the man's.
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sure there's a whole for it. Yeah, I mean,
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: you can't do it and not pay for it.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: You just got to pay for it. Yeah, it's the
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: only way to make a business work.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: And and so to me, the problem with that is,
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: even if you pay for it, sometimes it's hard, like,
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: how are you going to do that and make it?
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: Put the development in where people aren't going to come
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: up with an issue somewhere?
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how do you maintain serviceability?
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: How do you make you know, how do you supply
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: them with a wire harness ten years down the road?
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: I mean from that's where I kind of I get
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: ahead of myself in my thought process, where it's almost
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: like perilous by analysis.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: Sure, I can't figure out how to do one of
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: these products on a mass production level that's gonna be
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: really high quality, Yeah, because the last thing I want
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: is somebody wrenching on a truck in the middle of
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: a trip.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: And I can honestly say, you know, all these trips
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: that we've done, how many times have we ever gotten
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: out and gotten wrench, set out and gotten under.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: One minus forty degrees up in North Canada. Nothing every
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: time those trucks started.
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: Right because I'm as sissy like that, I don't want
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: to get out, you know, so I make sure.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: Do you remember us.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: We were in I think we were in Yuvik or
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: something like that, and we were trying to put death
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: in the one truck and it was so dang cole
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: out there. I just remember it. I mean, like nobody
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: wanted to do it because it was it was minus
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: forty trying to put death in these trucks.
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: Not being able to get the filler doors open.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah that was tough. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so.
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: They couldn't literally couldn't get the filler door.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: That was one of the most epic moment moments was
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: when you took that white truck out onto the Arctic Ocean.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: So now we're we make it up to tuk tyak
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: Tak and Dave decides that it's going to be a
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: good idea to like just start driving towards the North Pole,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: and he did, like you were way out there, you
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: were way up there.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: It was awesome, not going all the way to the
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: Arctic Ocean, not driving on.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: And then and then because that's a big deal because
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: you can't normally do that. Yeah, you can't get past
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: dead Horse for people that aren't Dave.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: It was yeah, it was. It was cool. Yeah, that
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: was really amazing. I mean you were driving on sea
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: ice with all the flows and everything. That was really
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: that was very cool. That was a good question. What
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: other questions you got? All right, so outside of poor
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: wold drive? I got, Okay, you go on, commander. I know,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: I know that this is real obscure, but.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: To tell the guests, who's what the commander was?
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the commander, the commander. I wanted seven c GPSUV
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: made from what like O four to seven or No.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: Six to like ten I think, yeah, like really limited production. Listen,
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: this wasn't like it probably was a Chrysler's finest hour
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: on some of the things that they did. It always
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: interested me that you actually did something with that car.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: And it's one of the ones that nobody really kind
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: of talks about. It was on forties, like it was.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: It was really cool.
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and that was just you know that the
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: truck was basically a Grand Cherkey. Yeah, everything on it
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: was a Grand Jerkey, just new Cap put on it
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: new hat per se. Yeah, I thought it would. I
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: thought there was some.
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: It looked good it had I liked the squire.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: I liked there.
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: It had a Hammy, it had a really good Fortal
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: drive system. Grand Cherkey has a great fortal drive system.
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: Have you guys driven the wagon are yet?
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: I have? Yeah? I haven't. I've sat in them and
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: there it's really it's really nice. The interior is phenomenal.
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: It's next level.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: And so that's a that's a RAM fifteen hundred. Yeah, essentially,
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: you know, the different rear frame, different rear suspension.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: I kind of but I almost like the look of
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: the commander yea, yeah. I mean I know that the
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: different periods of design, different periods of what you could
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: do with design, but it felt I.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: Don't know, I like, and it looked cool on forties.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: Occasionally that that av commander comes up for me, like
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: whatever I'm googling, I'm like, where did.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: That car go?
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: I sold it to Brad Kilby, Okay, sure, Koby Enterprises
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: Air Compressors, and I don't know. I think he sold
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: it pretty shortly after. I really don't know. Every once
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: in a while I'll get like random email from somebody
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: who ended up with one of these cars.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: Sure, and you.
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: Know it's kind of funny, Like the very first long
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: wheelbase Wrangler. I know exactly where it.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: Is that car you need to get back. That'd be
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: worth getting back.
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: That guy him and his son just did like a
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: frame off restoration on it because they had been in
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: Florida and had seen some salt. Sure, so I think
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: they they had. Yeah, I think they just got done. Probably,
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: I'm sure they're done by now.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: Like Barrett Jackson and twenty years of first Kilby Sprightly,
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: you'll have a cane. That's going to be the very
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: first age we can hope Scott used a cane to
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: break my knee.
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that wagon ear kind of has me looking at
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: it twice even I'm not like, I'm not in love
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: with the exterior styling, but I'm always kind of like,
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: can I can work with that well?
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: The only thing that I don't care for is the
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: wheel well aspect. I mean, if the wheel wells are
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: too low, if you open those up AEV style, that
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: would totally change the look of that truck because then
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: you could fit a thirty three in there and it's
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: just a belt line is awkward.
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: We don't forget it probably has damn close to thirty
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: threes on its stock.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's it's a big it's a big,
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: big truck. Yeah it is.
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: It's much bigger than you'd expect. And it doesn't drive big.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: No, it drives really nice.
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: You know if you think about it's a ram fifteen
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: hundred underneath. So this is a great war structure.
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: I mean you're driving a two r X, right, Yeah,
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: and you know, then I start to think, oh, man,
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: if you took you know, if you start mixing matching parts,
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: maybe you know, could you get something pretty? You know,
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: could you get a two hundred series land Cruiser.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like two hundred series thing, you know, where
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: with people on the two hunderd put the tundra control. Yeah,
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: and it gives you that like kind of oie larger stance. Yeah.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: So are they going to put the diesel in that?
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: I haven't heard that.
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: Ye, honestly don't know. Yeah.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: The one I drove had the six four. The one
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: I drove had the six four drove great. I drove
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: the five of the regular. It wouldn't be the grand
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Wagon ear it would just be the wagon ear. Yeah,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: I drove that one after the program them back, and
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: that also drove great. I mean, it's just it's a
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: really nice vehicle on the inside, very gooch.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: The money that people spend on G wagons. I mean,
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: right now, if you were lucky enough to put an
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: order in for a twenty twenty one G wagon because
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: there's no twenty two G wagons, if they're selling between
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: one hundred and two hundred oversticker, there's so they're good,
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: they're nice, they're good trucks, they're well built, whatever. But
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: there's this isn't just happening a couple of times. This
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: is happening with like the entire production of the twenty
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: twenty one model year. Yeah, I mean, right now, everything's
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: everything's crazy, but there's money out there for somebody that
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: wants something different.
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: And that's kind of why it intrigues me because I
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: know they're you know, I mean, at two hundred series Lankers,
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: there's a really nice yeah truck and and I look
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: at that thing and I'm like, eh, that thing has
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: pretty good bones. Wagon here looks like it has pretty
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: good bones. Oh it's a little weird. I don't know,
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: if you guys are crawled under one, but the the
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: half shafts on the rear end come through the frame,
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: so that's what has an independent rear. It does have
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: an independent ruar air sprung air sprung, there's a coil option.
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: But you know, well, at the end of the day,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: it does have some pretty interesting bones. I think you
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: could do some cool stuff with it, but I don't know.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: It just kind of intrigues me. Although you know right now,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think we're we just don't have time.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: You're busy.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: I want to, but I don't. Yeah, I am, I'm
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: so busy right now.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: So okay, I guess this will be my question. So
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: outside of full drives, what's one of your favorite vehicles?
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: You own some vehicles that aren't foil drives, and what
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: do you like and what do you like about it?
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: I have a number of vehicles, a number of really weird,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: eclectic vehicles for the most part.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: Don't you have a ram charger like the one that
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: they made in Mexico? Yep?
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: I went and I went down to Mexico and I
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: had a friend, a customer, one of our dealers.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: I had him.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: I told him I was looking for one. For those
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: who don't know, RAM made a ram Charger full size
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: sport utility based off the Halftime Ram for a few
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: years in Mexico about I think it was ninety nine,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: ninety nine to maybe two thousand and one, they made
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: this full size sport utility Twuodor like an old two
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: door full sized Bronco Sure Laser. Anyway, I always thought
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: it was kind of just such an odd ball that
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: I needed one. But they were all two wheel drive,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: they were all automatic, they were all half ton, and
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: they were all gas. So I went down my customer
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: found me a really really nice one. I think it
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: had like thirty five thousand miles on it, and most
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: of those things when you go down to Mexico, they're
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: just beat.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they are so beat tough conditions.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: So he found one that had been garage capped and
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: it was really nice, and I went and bought it,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: and I brought it back when I didn't try to
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: imbord it or anything. I just I drove it in
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: and you know it would just have to get scraped.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: So what I did is I kept the body, and
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: then I bought a three quarter ton truck, single cab
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: manual diesel RAM, and I used all the body components
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: and shortened the frame, and I actually used the rear
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: of the RAM charger frame on it, but I used
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: the whole front engine and everything from the RAM and
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: then put the back of the RAM charger on it.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: So basically I ended up with a three quarter ton
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: Commons manual eat passenger diesel RAM charger.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: So cool, and it is really cool.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: It's a two door, right, but it's like, I mean,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: if you see it, the whole liftgate they histed off
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: the caravan.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: Right off a minivan. That's great, Mark.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: Allen told me because I think that was like his
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: first project when he went to when he got hired
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: at Chrysler. His first project was like, you know, take
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: this RAM and make it into this and use as
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: many parts as you can find off the shelf. So
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: you know, basically they designed some new body sides and
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: a roof and a rear bumper facia and that was
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: you know, it sure has all caravan parks and stuff
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: and mix and match. It's really cool. And yeah, so
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: I have that truck. I put it all together and
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: I hardly ever drive it because I it's cool, because
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: it's like a one. You know, it's period correct commings.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: It's a high output with the disc brakes. You know,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: if you remember those trucks, like when you start them,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: I mean it sounds like a garbage truck. They are
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: loud and it's hysterical. D right, it's a twenty four
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: twenty four yeah, but it's it's similar motor, but it's
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: still really loud, like a twelve ol.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: It's always amazing.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: I drive that thing around and I wouldn't really expect
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: people to get a big reaction. I mean, it's only
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: got thirty four's on it, f g AT's, it's got
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: a set of EV wheels on it, but other than that,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: it's basically stock. And I drive it around and I
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: cannot get over how many times I see people taking
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: photo of it, like in traffic or you know, double taking,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: especially when it starts. Sure, it's just kind of a
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: sleeper that I wouldn't expect people to notice, but a
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: lot of people notice that truck.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: All right, So you've got you've got this ram charger.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: What else do you have in the fleet deck? What's
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: what's KOOKI well, ram charts kookie.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: My daily driver's an electric fie out five hundred what
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: most people wouldn't expect me to drive?
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: And didn't you say you tended the windows principally so
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: that people wouldn't see you in it? Yeah?
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: When I first got it, no, I mean people, I
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: paid a sixty five hundred bucks for that car. I
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: want an electric car. This was years ago. This is
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: like and I guess I bought that in seventeen, but
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: I kind of could see the riding on the wall.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: Bought it as an experiment. I was like, sixty five
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: hundred bucks. Great because they were at auction right from
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: least returns. Somebody knew to you if they were good.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: They were so cheap.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: I figured, you know what this is. When I was
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: trying to build my Ram Camper, I was like, sixty
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: five hundred bucks. That's a twenty four killable battery pack
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: for sixty five hundred bucks, you know, thinking ahead in
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: my su I'm like, that's pretty cheap for my camper.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: I was like, if this thing doesn't work perfect, you got.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: A whole battery package.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I was like, this is that's pretty cool. I
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: was like, worst case, I've just bought this giant battery
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: for with all the charging and yeah with everything liquid cool, battery,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: with all the stuff. And I was like, okay, this
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: is that's why I bought it. But it ended up
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: being a great car. That's what you said. It never
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: leaves a valley, right, it just just runs me a
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: few miles, you know, to my office. But it's perfect
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: for that. I've got a Viper, a fifth gen Viper,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: which is absolutely fantastic.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: It's a carbon fiber tube frame race car. Yeah, it's
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: a full on race car. And I don't have anything
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: that scares me. Like I mean, it's it's like you
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: get used to it. That's fun, but you still get
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: out of that car and you know, you little rattle,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: they'll be shaking little. It's like riding something. It's like
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: riding you know, a really scary sport bike or something.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: It's like you get off it and you're like, I
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: shouldn't have just done that.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: That fact, how many times did I almost die?
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: Just now?
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: Even if everything's fine, Yeah, sure that car is phenomenal.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: And that was kind of my first kind of gift
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: to myself when I started making some money. And sure,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: you know, and I don't have kids, so I can
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: do these things.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: I've got a McLaren sixth that one I bought. It's
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: kind of interesting. If you look at the suspension on
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: that car, it's a cross linked hydraulic suspension. That car
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: is fantastic, and I wanted to see, you know, going back,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: the ninety nine Wrangler was supposed to have something very
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: similar kinetic suspension, and I think the Lan.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: Cruiser actually does it.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: You know, it did get it right, but the ninety
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: nine Wrangler and Grand Cherokee were scheduled to get it
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: even before the lan Cruiser, and I knew from experience
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: how good that was, and I wanted to I was
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: kind of looking to see if I could do something
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: with the Wrangler or the RAM with that kind of setup.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: Signed up buying that car. All these things I try
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: and take bits and pieces of and bring it back
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: into the business.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So I would say on the McLaren there's engineering wise,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: it's so impressive, at least at that time, their build
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: quality and their engineering was so good that it's really
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: it's amazing to look at, you know, and have this
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: carbon fiber chassis and try and look at how they
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: did some of the pit body, you know, even the
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: way they do their body panels. It kind of goes
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: into what I want to do if I could ever
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: do the Camper. Sure, so you know, I'm looking at
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: all the way they're doing their structures and all that stuff.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: And I ended up buying the car. I thought I'd
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: just keep it for a little bit, and I ended
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: up falling in love with it. I still have it.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: So it's not the wisest move financially, but it's such
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: an amazing car, and I think it's I think both
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: those cars are completely underrated, and I've been saying that
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: and now I look at the Viper prices and.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: Oh man, it's doubled from what the people finally realized. Yeah,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: now it's getting a point last year. Yeah, so as
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: we're down in the seventies, eighties and now under eighty. Yeah,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: it's crazy, But think about it. V ten two chassis
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: carbon panels.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: Naturally asked for eight point four manual transmission, and I'm
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: never going to make a car like that.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: There's never so much fun to drive. I remember driving
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: those at Skip Barber when I was doing the racing thing,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: and the amount that those things would rotate. I was
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: really really fast, and because I drove sprint cars, and
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: sprint cars are all about rotation, and you could get
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: like fourteen degrees of rotation or something out of a viper.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: I mean you just like steered with the rear.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: It had a bad rep because you can't just jump
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: in that car and drive it like you would if
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: you were a journalists. Yeah, you have to spend time
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: with that car, and you have to appreciate that car.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: I mean McLaren's like anybody could jump in that car
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: and be fast, you know, it's so precise. Yeah, but
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: it's those two cars are so different, so opposite ends
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: of the spectrum. They're both the same power, the same speed,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: you know, same everything, except they're completely different. You know,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: one you get out of shaky and the other one
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: does it so easy that you don't even know. Again,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: like I said, I try and bring you know what,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: both those cars. I try and bring bits that I
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: learn or you know, I'm really into motorcycles, all different
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: kinds of motorcycles. Same thing, you know with the adventure bike.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: And we've talked about it. Yeah, I mean I've learned to,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: you know, go light and don't bring everything. You know,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, you and I go together well, because we
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: don't bring very much stuff, don't That's kind of funny
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: for an overlander because a lot of guys trying to
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: bring everything. And I think if you spend some time
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: on an adventure bike or camp, the best.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: Way to learn it's the best way to learn how
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: to camp is take a motorcycle.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: I recently bought a Aviat Husky, which is a fantastic
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: platform for exploring. Sure, you know it's only about twenty
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: nine's on it, but you know a lot of guys
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: are running thirty five's on these back country airplanes.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: It's kind of funny.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, they're so cool, and it's interesting the parallels. We're
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: seeing more of that now where you see the overland
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: traveler and he's also using a backcountry aircraft or they're
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: using they're also with a sailboat.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: Person, right, yeah, the same person. I mean.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: I try and take a little bit of everything I do,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: whether it's stone bailing or motorcycling or whatever, boats, I
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: try and bring it back to my business. I try
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: and learn something from all those things, and aviation is
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: a really good one. You know. The mindset is you
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: don't really get a second chance. Yeah, so you know,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: bringing that kind of durability and this general discipline into
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: like into my shop. You know, for instance, you know
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: you don't want to I mean a mechanic, you know,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: building somebody's car. Right if they get a cell phone
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: call from their wife, Right, they shouldn't have a wrench
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: in their hand at the same time. I mean, you know,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: it's things like implementing stuff, that kind of stuff, you know,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: just the discipline. All this stuff really helps, right. I Mean,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: I've always been an adventurous guy, and I always like
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: doing different as much different stuff as I possibly can,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: because I bring it all back into the business one
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: way or the other.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: And do you feel like that maybe those moments on
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: a motorcycle or those moments flying in a back country aircraft,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: do you find that that gives you, like a creative
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: impulse as well, Like being in something totally different, doing
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: something totally different than your day to day job. You
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: feel like that that gives you a creative reset as well,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: a reset?
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. I Mean it kind of helps in
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: a couple of ways. Because one, I'm not thinking about
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: work for just a split second, like for that bit
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: of time, it gets me out. I'm not worried about
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: some engineering problem we're having, you know, some how are
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: we going to do this? You know, you know, we've
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: already paid for this tooling, and now we have this
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: problem like what we're going to do. I don't worry
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: as much about the stress when I'm doing that stuff,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: but like I said, it benefits me in that way.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: It keeps me mentally straight, and it also keeps me
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: I just realized things. For instance, when you're camping with
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: a backcountry airplane, right, how do you warm up your motor?
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: And I've been thinking about like, oh, okay, well we can
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: do this this and this, there's this, there's this, this
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: thing from here or this thing. You know.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: I can just kind of mix and match now, interesting
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: between boats and airplanes and cars and trucks.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: Like the Russians where they take the pro pane takes
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: and they just like they literally like run flame on
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: the oil somep Yeah.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: I think I mean somebody's got a back into your
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 3: heater for an airplane. I think it's kind of used
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: the whisper light sh stove and you can heat them up.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: There's just I just see a lot of parallels, you know,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: a lot of fuel bladders, guys.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: Yous in.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: And you know it's kind of like the fuel bladders
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: for airplanes, which work really good for cars, and they
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: don't take up all kinds of room.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the big advantage of a bladder, which is
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: why we use them for motorcycles. So like you know,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: we'll we'll use the we'll never use a solid extra
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: fuel can for motorcycles.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: We always using the word sense.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you just roll it up and then now you're
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: space efficient again.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, as soon as you burn that fuel, you put
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: it in and you're done.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: And but the stuff for the airplanes is even higher quality,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: interesting stuff that I hadn't seen before that I can
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: bring back into the.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: That's where I first found the fuel bladders. That's how
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: they'll get planes really long distance and extend them as
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: they have these like insane fittings on them, and.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: Right, yep, yep, the fitting quality. All this stuff just
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: adds up if you're paying attention. There's opportunities to be
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: found in all these activities, you know, whether it's rock
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: climbing or paramotoring, I mean, all that stuff, even that
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: little tiny stuff, there's opportunities to bring it back into
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: the overlin community or engineering. You know, you might see
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: something that might strike a chord with how oh hey,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: I can do the fog light mount this way, you know,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: and you might be looking at something completely off the wall,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: but it's like, oh, that's a clever way that this
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: cessenic guy did this. Yeah, you know, I look at
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: old Sessmas and I'm just completely blown away at what
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: people did with no computers and how they built it
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: and optimized it, you know, no topology optimization like we
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: used today. I mean, they did it all by hand.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: And you're you know, these planes are flying, they're seventy
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: years old, and they're they're.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: Awesome, and they haven't really changed that much.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: No the yeah it, but I mean there's there's a
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: lot of reasons for that. I mean they should change now.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: I mean if you could take like McLaren engineering for
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: the safety cage, the carbon fiber safety cage, and put
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: that into a lightweight backcountry plane today, I mean it
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: would be fantastic. Problem is there's not enough volume. Yeah, right,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: so you can't. So the technologies exist. I mean, a
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: carbon cub is kind of misnomer, right, It's not really
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: a carbon there's a lot of carbon on it, but
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: it's ye call it superficial. And you know, if you
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: could do a carbon fiber safety cage in that, I mean,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: it would be fantastic.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: I'm kind of always looking at how like, how how
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: do you do this? How do you do this? What's
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: the right way to do that? Yeah, And I'm just
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: always it's just kind of how my brain where I'm
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: always looking for opportunities you know, somebody else might not
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: have seen.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: Kind of bringing it back to the travel subject, where
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: have you been in the world where again you felt
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: the most inspired, Like the trip that you did that
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: like kind of shook you to your core a little bit.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know if any place is there.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: You know. Here's the thing. I live in Montana on
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: the Idaho border.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: There.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: For the most part, when I travel, I realize how
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: amazing it is where I live.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: You love where you live.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: I love like you know, I love the valley, and
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: I just I'm like, man, we are so lucky. Sometimes
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: sometimes you travel and you realize how you start to
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: appreciate how much you have. Yeah, I love you know,
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: Central America, love that area. But I've never been to
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: some place where I'd like, oh, I want to live here, But.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: Have you been in New Zealand though I have not,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: don't go then, But I mean that looks like it
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: except there's a black sand beach.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I mean that does look super cool for sure.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: And I do love jet voatings. I could probably I could.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: Probably make that work.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: Yea, yeah, I haven't been there, so I'll leave that
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: one on the table.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: But like, for example, that Rafiki Safari Lodge in Costa
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: Rica that I mean you went to and you you
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: told me about those guys and then I ended up
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: going and that place was amazing.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: Buddy of mine. Yeah, looky, yeah, I mean I love
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: to travel. I think you know, it's more like the
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: places I haven't been. I know you've been to Russia.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: I really want to go to Russia. I mean that's
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: and again the cool thing for me what I think
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: about with Russia, Like the one thing I want to
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: get and take away from there is they developed all
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: their stuff kind of in a vacuum, right, So a
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: lot of times you look at anything mechanical and it's
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: kind of the same anywhere in the world, you know,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: motorcycle or whatever. It's kind of the same, but in
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: Russia it's not. And so I look at that as like, oh,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: there's this huge opportunity to go and see things and
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: maybe take away. Yeah, stuff that isn't normal.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: There is like some crazy Soviet engineering like the jet
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: powered trains. Everybody else would be like no, with Russia,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: we do it well.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: Or go into like the man truck facility or whatever.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: That would be amazing. That would be amazing, all of it.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: It's the latitude. I like, sure, I tend like ye
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: that latitude so right, that new KTM adventure bike across there. Yeah,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: I'd be perfect, be perfect. I would love to do Russia.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: I think the next like photography trip we do with
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: aev I want to do. I really want to do Bolivia.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: We talked and then through the Auta Kama because I
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: haven't been there.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: High altitude desert.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think I think for a RAM, I
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: think that would be really cool. And now that the
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 3: you know, the Wranglers have some turbos and I think
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: that'd be really cool thing to do. So I think
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: that's you know, as soon as the world quote unquote
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: gets back to normal. I mean that's kind of the
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: next we had that trip planned right before everything hit
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: and so we canceled it, and uh, Tunisia, I'd love
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: to do. I love to go to Tunisia. I mean
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: that seems like a really crazy, really easy, relatively easy
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: trip to do. Tunisia is one that I that's probably
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: those two probably next next to on my list.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: Would be amazing. Go see Louie over in Saudi Arabia
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: or something.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's it. That's been a heck of
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: an invite and I'd love to go. I would like
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: to start traveling, but.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: You know things, you're busy.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, my business, my life has been so busy the
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 3: last two years, like since COVID hit, I basically have
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: locked up in my condo and I've been designing NonStop.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: I'm on you know, I get up.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: I work East Coast hours in the morning, so I'm
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: up at you know, four thirty. I'm normally on calls
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: by five at least a few days a week. I mean,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: it's funny. I don't know, maybe it's just my age,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: but like my eyes I think have switched my near
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 3: sighted and since I haven't been getting out much, I mean,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 3: you know, I put like four hours on my boat
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: last summer, right, Yeah, and I put two hundred miles
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 3: on my sled. I mean, I just I just haven't
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: been getting out like I used to. I've just been
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: so focused on work this last two years that it's
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: been hasn't been real good for me. Like hopefully I've
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: needed a break and it starting to wind down. We
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: had this opportunity to do a bunch of new vehicles,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: and so we've just been working really diligently on that.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: And I got to give my guys credit because I
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: mean they've all stuck in there and we've been asking
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: like insane hours. You know, all of us have been
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: working nights and weekends for better part of two years now.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: You know it's not uncommon for me to be on
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: meetings at eleven o'clock at night with the same people
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: I was on meetings. You know, their time seven am,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 3: my time five am, And you know they're still working
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: and I'm still working. So it's this whole COVID reset.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: I don't know, like I didn't get a break.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: Ye, yeah, reset in the wrong direction.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: We've been working hard, but I think, you know, I
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: think it'll all pay off. And we've been learning a lot.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: And yeah, we can't wait to see what's coming out.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: So you know, yeah, that's the other crazy thing. We're
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 3: working on stuff so far out that it's funny. The
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 3: stuff that's going in the production now I've already forgotten about.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like, I didn't even know.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: I have to ask, like, I don't even remember what
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: that looks like, right, because it was two years ago? Sure,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, it's like mind boggling to me.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: I literally we've we've moved on to two or three
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: generations past what's just coming out, and so I literally
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: get what it looks like. I have to go back
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: and remind myself. I'm like, that looks pretty good.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's cool. Well we'll get to see it. Yeah,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: it all come out.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you will start to see some stuff coming out.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: And I don't know if you've seen like the new
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: Wrangler bumper, I mean that was kind of the first
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: one where if you look at you know, to me,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: if you look at a bumper, it's one thing to
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 3: look at the front side, what we call the A surface.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: It's another thing when you look at the backside, the
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: b surface.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: It's absolutely crazy.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: And yeah, because you just put one on your on
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: all the thought that goes into every little fold and
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: bend and yeah, I mean, you know, getting that thing
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 3: the fold so it doesn't really bend the frame of
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: the vehicle if you were to hit something hard and
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: trying to get all that stuff worked out, it was
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 3: you know, and make it fully functional. You know, we
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: like on the Wrangler, it's a tough one because we
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 3: had we only have once every ten years to make
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 3: the design changes we really want to make, and so
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: that one was interesting because we were able to really
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: raise that bumper up and we were able to really
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: give you a lot of access to the winch if
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: you had to dig out a rope.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: Which is a problem most most of these modern bumpers
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: don't give access to the winch.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: Well, there's little things like the internal routing of the
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: wire for the lights, Like when you look at it,
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: it just looks right like it's meant to have these
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: spotlights there, and then you kind of like, that's one
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: that when I got mine, when I got the ex
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: parking the garage, I cracked a beer and I just
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: like kind of looked at it, and then you keep
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: realizing these different styling elements to that and then when
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: it was getting installed in the guys at the Summit
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: Cheap were doing it. I'd stop by and then you realize,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: like you were saying, there's there is that surface that
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: you see, but then there's so much behind it. Yep.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: That is just like like I never would have noticed
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: the wiring channel for the lights.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: Oh now we have a camera, right, so we have
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 3: to hide cox cable too. And some of the newer stuff.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, we've got all these new sensors for all
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 3: this autonomous stuff. Sure, trying to design it. How do
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 3: you design a steel bumper that has to be see
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: through for all these sensors. Sure, it ends up getting
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 3: the more technologically advance these cars get, the more difficult
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: it's getting to do really off road worthy parts. And
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: it's really becoming a challenge. I mean, my guys are challenged.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: Every single part we do is not the same. I
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 3: mean it's like completely different. The architecture we can't really
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 3: copy well.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: And that's an interesting opportunity for AEV though, because how
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: many other companies will be able to respond to that call.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: Very few.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: I mean it's so it gives you guys challenge, Yeah,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: it gives you guys a unique competitive advantage in some ways.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, I mean, you know, the writing's on the wall,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: the autonomy, electrification. The electrification I don't think will be
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: too disturbing, but the autonomy is going to be a
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 3: real disturbance to our industry. Interesting, we're working with that,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 3: but it just makes everything that much harder.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: Well, and also the OEM's focus on integrating so much
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: aftermarket reflection in the new vehicles that are sold on
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: the lot, so I think it takes a lot of
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: opportunity away from the aftermarket when you can buy a
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: jeep with air recon with thirty four's and lyft and yeah,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: wench and yeah.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 3: I think that's deep in particular. Yeah, I mean I
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: think they really want it all for themselves. They do,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: And one hand, I hate it. On the other hand,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: I think I'm responsible. Yeah, a lot of what they're doing.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: Well, if you look at yeah, it's a lot of
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: the things that you've done.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: So start Yeah, exactly, let's start with let's start with
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: a lot wheelbase, wrangler, wrangler hmmm, root, double cab.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: Hmm, highline fenders, highlight, highline fenders.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the hoods, you know, even the hoods are like
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 3: pretty similar theme, right.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: So actually the whole reason why we brought you on
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: this podcast, Matt wanted to put you on the spot
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: to get us to get us set eyeline fenders.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, you don't need them, right, the jeeps come
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 3: with them.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: Now he needs a first first TJ.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: Oh So, I was just down in Chandler, Arizona, and
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 3: I saw there's an unlimited TJ with highline fenders.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: Where was it? Where is it located?
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: The Chandler Airport? Okay, okay, do you remember the aisle
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 3: hasn't moved in six weeks?
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: Well, if you see it moving in the next couple
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: of weeks.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 3: I trying to find out who owned it.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: What's your next question? Where are my highline fenders?
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 3: Just to clear the air about that, that was something
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 3: I never wanted to stop producing. We had hired a
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: company to make the flares for us. It was an
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 3: Australian company, and unbeknownst to us, they partnered with a
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 3: company somewhere in South America. They shipped our tooling down there.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: Then that partnership went sour, so all of a sudden,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 3: we couldn't get our flares and we couldn't get our tooling.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 3: That company didn't pay this company. They didn't want to
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: give our tooling back to us because you know, so
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: it was at the time of the end of TJ
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 3: production and we couldn't.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: They were on sale like you had like a bunch
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: and you did like a final clearance on them. I
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: know that because those are the things I find on
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: the AEV forum.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, ah, yeah, I know hindsight, but we
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: couldn't afford to retool them at that point, and you know,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: the sales weren't there to do it. And again you
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: got to be viable.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: No, that's good for people to know, because like it was,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: it was such an impressive solution that I bet there's
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: there's dozens of tjstening.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: Is it that, you know, slepping for a vehicle that's
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: now twenty plus years old, and some of them, these
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: parts are becoming like super sought up because they just
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: were so well done.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: They were like yeah, yeah, and like an finding an
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: nth degree suspension or whatever, you know. Shout out to
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: Jim on that. I mean, just like people that really
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: redefined the way that you build a jeep.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: Well, people still haven't done better. Things like you go
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: back to the first thing that we talked about, what
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: should people look for and that tooling thing that you
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: said is keeps coming up. Yeah, because there's no shortage
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: of high clearance fenders for a jeep, but they're like
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: metal cardboard, aated design. They're limited to kind of basic
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: traditional fabrication techniques and you're just not getting a stamped,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: proper fender.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 3: Not getting something to look like it came out of
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 3: jeep itself. Yeah, for sure, that was I think where
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 3: we really succeeded. You know, a lot of my guys
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 3: have worked a Jeep or Chrysler or.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: It's another benefit of the Detroit thing, Like you're talking
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: about the boron steel, Like could you do that anywhere else?
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: Could you get that? You couldn't get the talent if
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: you wanted to hypothetically start a bumper company in well,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: let's just say Montana. I mean, I guess now maybe
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: you could get people to relocate, but you're relocating everyone,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: like the cost of that, you're not going to get
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: that collective talent.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Now, Detroit made a lot of sense. And yeah,
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 3: you know, and I love Detroit. I mean, I don'
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 3: it's a cool city, but a cool city. It is
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: totally good. It's got awesome art, food, music, you know,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 3: car scene. Obviously everybody's in the car industry. So I
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 3: love going there and I love hanging out with my friends.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 3: There always a good time. And it totally why Detroit
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: has such a bad app because it really has. There's
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 3: so many positives that.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: I've always had a good experience. I mean when we
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: hung out at Camillo Pardo's place that night, and like,
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: it was so good.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: That was so good.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: That's probably a wild night a different podcast. Detroit's just
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 3: one of those places where it was the only place.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 3: It is the only location I could do what I
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 3: wanted to do at the quality level.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: Like, one of the last questions I've got is someone
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: coming in new to overland travel travel by vehicle. What
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: are the first couple of things that you would recommend
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: them to do if they're going to modify their vehicle. Hey,
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: I just bought a gladiator. What would you tell them
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: they should think about before they even start modifications? What
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: should they do? What are the first couple of things
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: that they should look at before they go off on
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: their adventure.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 3: Look, the vehicles are more than cape. Right off the showroom,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 3: floor there you go right at the end of the
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: until you gain some experience and really run into an issue,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 3: there's almost no reason to do anything. A lot of
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 3: this stuff you're going to do is actually going to
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 3: put you backwards in terms of engineering, reliability, durability. So
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 3: I think it really just depends on what you need
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 3: to do with that truck, you know, whether it's a
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 3: Gladiator or zero two you know, ram whatever. I mean,
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 3: the RAM is one of those things that's kind of
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 3: an interesting question because on the RAM it's a little different.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 3: The RAM is so heavy and so under tied. You know,
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 3: you hit this thirty seven inch tired threshold on the
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 3: RAM and it completely changes that truck. It changes the ride,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 3: changes the handling all for the better for what we're doing,
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 3: and it changes the footprint enough where it gets over
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 3: this threshold where it's you know, a thirty seven inch
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 3: tire on a RAM is probably the perfect tire for everything,
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 3: for doing everything. I mean, the forty inch trucks, they
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 3: all look great, oh totally yeah, and they do work
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 3: really well. There's this whole learning curve with forty inch tires.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's a lot of mass that you're moving
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 3: so and you.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: Feel you feel it going down the road more than
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: the thirty seven. So the thirty sevens track a little better.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 3: And yeah, one hundred percent. I mean I don't know.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 3: I mean they here's the deal. If you if your
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 3: tires aren't like your forties, if you have them and
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 3: their balance good and they're tracking good and they're relatively new,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: I mean they'll drive every bit is good.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: Sure, I drive routinely.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 3: I mean set the crews basically as high as it'll
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 3: go and go, you know up in Montana, you know,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 3: even towing right, I mean my trailer tires can't keep
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 3: up with what the truck can do. Sure, that's one
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 3: thing I found out. You know, I'd say for somebody
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 3: just getting into it, just keep keep the vehicle stock
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 3: and kind of learn and try not to get carried away.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 3: And you need this, you need that. You know, here's
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 3: a guy makes a living selling aftermark bones. You don't
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 3: need hardly any of it. I would say the first
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 3: thing I would buy, honestly is a satellite text like
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 3: the spot next messenger. I mean that would be the
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 3: first thing I would buy. And keep it on. You
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 3: don't keep it in the vehicle, keep keep it on
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 3: your person. I mean that is the one thing I
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: literally will not go out in the woods with, you know,
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 3: whether it's on a snowmbill or jet boat or car
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 3: or airplane or anything. I mean, I keep that thing
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 3: in my pocket all the time. And I learned the
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 3: pocket thing the hard way when a friend of mine
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 3: lost a jet boat and lost his phone and all
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 3: his stuff for a week in the bottom of the
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 3: river before we got it out. You know, had that
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 3: been a different situation, I mean, that could have been
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 3: a real problem. So yeah, keep it on your person.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 3: And that's the only thing I would say you really
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 3: need in a pretty good education to you know, figure
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 3: out what you do and don't need. You know, just
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 3: what you want to do with the truck.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: When the vehicle's not doing what you needed to do,
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: then maybe consider changing something. Yeah, but it's incredible how
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: capable they are. We just got this this little Ford Maverick.
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: Now it has no low range. Cool, it has no
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: low range. It's like a mini truck. It's actually super charming.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: I mean I'm not gonna I haven't tested it fully
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: to give an impression, but just the idea of it
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: is very charming. But I took it out the other
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: day on our test track which is covered in snow
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: right now, and this little thing was just it was
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: doing all of it like it was going through. I mean,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: I'm paying attention and I have some experience and all that,
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: but it was incredible how capable it was. And it's
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: just and all will drive. It's not no low range yep.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: And it has a truck bed that you could like
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: actually lift things into.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: Like I just want one to put my dirt bikes
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: in because then I would actually ride my dirt bikes
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: because currently I can't get them into my truck. Yeah easily.
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: And it's got like great little set of tires, good
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: tracks control, Like I mean, I would go drive it
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: over the Mohabi Road tomorrow, no problem.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 3: And that's that's kind of an interesting thing, is that
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 3: the technology has gotten to the point, especially if like
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 3: breaklock traction control that wasn't there five years ago.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: You sure you're there now? Yeah.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: These os they do a pretty good job. All of
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 3: them do a pretty good job of getting these things
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 3: that work pretty good. You know, there's certain things I
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 3: don't like, like the Rubicon Gladiator. I do not like
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 3: the suspension at all, like stock, I think it's terrible.
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 3: It's wishy, washy, it's all over the place.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 2: Super soft. Yeh. Heat it is even worse, and then
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 2: you can fix it with an avy two and a
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 2: half jewel sports lifting.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, don't get me in trouble here, but but you
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 3: know that. So there's some there's some like most are
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 3: wins from the OE, there's a some some fails, but yeah,
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 3: i'd say most wins, you know, totally. I think it's
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 3: only going to get better.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: The small displacement turbocharged engines are actually phenopenes, totally surprised,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: and their torque band is just like, oh, it's so surprising.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and even even more impressive is the transmissions.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: That's where cars are getting faster. That's the difference between
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 2: your McLaren and your Viper. Like the reason your McLaren
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 2: will smoke it. Yep, it's because like a manual transmission
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: is only as fast as the fleshy bit inside. Yeah, yep.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: And yeah they're amazing, like the eight speeds that they're
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: putting in, I mean speed in a Wrangler. The ZF
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: eight HP is such a great The only thing, I mean,
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: I somehow talk about this transmission all the time, but
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: it's the only thing that Bentley and Rolls Royce agree
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: on is that is the transmission to use.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 3: I recall it's in all the BMW's, all themw's in
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 3: the TRX. Yeah, the ninety five's in the TRX. That
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 3: nine hundred horsepower yet thousand feet of torque that thing
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 3: will handle from the factory. That's the ZF radio, right,
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 3: And that might be mixing those figures up, but it's
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 3: that's where they were getting issues with the manuals. You know,
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 3: they couldn't And that's the thing with automatic, right, they
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 3: always love it because they can detune when they need to.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 3: You know, they don't have to like the manual. You know,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: you got to rely on the person sure brain in
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 3: the right foot. On the automatics, you know, they always
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 3: love it because they can they can back that stuff
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 3: off if they think you're really going to do something stupid.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and now they get good fuel economy and they
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: drive great.
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 2: They usually like d tuned power and like first and
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: second gear and a lot of the like the big trucks.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 2: I think. Yeah, there's all kinds of strategies.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know again going back to that
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 3: thing about the you know, I see a lot of
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 3: people making big mistakes, and normally it comes like one
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 3: of them is cooling that is like a huge pet
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 3: peeve of mine. You know, they put an led light
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 3: bar in the hole in the pumper that's made to
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 3: give the inner cooler power right point, and like when
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 3: we're doing work with the oees, I mean it's literally like, okay,
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 3: you know there's five hundred and eighty six square millimeters
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 3: of surface area in this hole. You guys cannot violate
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 3: that by one millimeter, and then we have to hold
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 3: these holes and these airflows. I mean, it's really really specific.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 3: You see guys doing it, right, They put a big
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 3: light bar on the front of the RAM and they
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 3: just don't know that it's going to derate immediately where
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: I see it the TRX, like, oh yeah, I see
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 3: people putting on these different bumpers and changing the airflow
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 3: and everything, and just you know, keep in mind that
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 3: these engineers spent a lot of time and there are
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 3: literally thousands of people, you know, like I have meetings
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 3: like zoom meetings now with two three hundred people on
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 3: the meeting and we're talking about things like that, And
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 3: there's so much that goes into the OE engineering that
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 3: if you're going to modify your car, really you take
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 3: a step back. There's a lot of considerations that you
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 3: may not know right off the bat.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: And ultimately you end up with a poorer performing vehicle
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: because you're not.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 3: Even a lot of the companies in the aftermarket don't know.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 3: They just don't have the experience to know sure how
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 3: critical some of the stuff is because you know, maybe
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 3: where they live, they've gotten away with it, they didn't
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 3: notice anything. Then you go and send that product somewhere else.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 3: That's one of the tough things with avs. We're doing stuff,
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 3: you know, typically left hand drive, right hand drive, gas diesel,
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 3: all over the world world, so every different country you
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 3: should see. We have spreadsheets on spreadsheets of license plate
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 3: specs for every single country.
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: Sure they're all different. Yeah, sure, they're all like a
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: millimeter different.
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 3: Getting back to that, it's just like there's a lot
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 3: of the stuff is engineered for really important reasons.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: It's not just aesthetic. So you just be.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 3: Careful when you're modifying a car that think about those things.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: You guys have all heard it from the guy who
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: makes some of the best aftermarget components in the world
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: is just be mindful of the things that we do
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: change to our vehicles. And it's an understanding that every
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: modification may come at a negative cost as well.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and typically if you're going to have
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 3: a positive in some area, you're going to take away
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 3: in another. It's just kind of how it is, right,
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 3: And I'll say that even about my stuff. I mean,
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 3: you're adding weight, you're changing arrow. You know, you're going
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 3: to have a deduction somewhere else, maybe field mileage or sure,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 3: wherever it is, it's going to happen you very little
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 3: free lunch.
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: Maybe the Boron skod plates.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 3: Those are pretty fantastic. The problem with those is, you know,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 3: I'd love to do those for Wrangler or something or RAM,
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 3: but it's so expensive. Sure, the tooling is so expensive
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 3: that unless you have really high volume like we had
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 3: on the Bison, you can't really afford.
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 2: To do that. Sure, Yeah, that makes sense.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 3: I wanted to do one of those for a KTM
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 3: for four to fifty dirt bike. I've tried these aluminum ones. Yeah,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 3: they just gouge, get ripped off. I finally went back
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 3: to a plastic one because I think, you know, maybe
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 3: they I mean for the most part, they take the
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 3: hit and they do okay. But I thought, oh man,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 3: if I could, just if I had the volume, if
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 3: I had an inn in the industry, I wanted to
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 3: do it. Bre On steel would be insane good for
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 3: that because it weighed less, you know, maybe way the
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 3: same as a plastic. It would be absolutely indestructible. And it
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 3: feels good too.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: They you know, the stiffness that would have had to
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 2: chassis too.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 3: Well, it's slippery on the rock too. It's not like
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 3: you know when you hit like.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: For a branch or whatever, all logs, rocks, all.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 3: That, and you guys have ridden like a bigger nine
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 3: to ninety type bikes, I mean with an aluminum skid.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, I been on the rock, but they're just
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 3: gouges and you can just feel it, like you know.
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: Screen hitting the brakes, Yeah.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 3: Hitting the brakes big time. That stuff is so hard
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 3: it's just sure slides right off.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: That's amazing.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: Doctor J.
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 2: Highland.
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: You know Dave's got one hidden back in the backshelf.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 3: Actually, I'll sell you a TJ. I have a TJ
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 3: with thirty four miles on it. Two thousand and four
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 3: with a high line kit.
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: Is that the one that I think I know and.
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: I think it might be coming up for and on
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: that Bomb show. Well, Dave, thank you so much for
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: being on the podcast.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: It has always been so enjoyable to spend time with
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: you and the adventures that we've been on and the
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: inspiration that you have been to me and so many
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: other folks in this industry. Your business, your team, the
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: things that you guys have created. I think it's such
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: a high water mark that many of us aspire to
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: and you should feel a lot of confidence around what
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: you're doing.
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: It means a lot. Thanks.
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 3: Well, I couldn't do it without the whole team that
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 3: I have, you know in Montana and Detroit and you
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 3: know all those people, all these products. You know, you
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 3: can tell that people put their heart into it.
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, you know, you.
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 3: Know, even the guys at GM it's amazing. Like I mean,
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 3: you might not think like a oe there would be
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 3: people who would care, like take it personally, you know,
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 3: when they're working within company with thousands and thous and
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 3: thousands of employees. That's not the case. And I'll say
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 3: the same thing about keep guys.
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they do care.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, people people take this stuff personally and
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 3: they really argue and strive to do the best and
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 3: to get that best product out there for the customer.
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 3: So the customer really should have a lot of confidence
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 3: buying a lot of these products.
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: Well, thanks again, Dave, and we look forward to your
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: next adventures. We look forward to hearing more about your
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: flying adventures and everything else. So we'll make sure to
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: keep track on that. We need another cover image for
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: Overland Journal, so maybe the Bolivia trip. Thank you again,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: Dave for being on the podcast. Matt, anything else you
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: got man, Highland Kit.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 2: Thanks Highland Kitting, Thanks for just doing the next level
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: stuff like totally, you know, particularly with the RAM, Like
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 2: I really just think because of av It's it's made
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: this whole segment possible. Yeah, totally.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: Like so five years ago there was nobody was talking
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: about full size trucks.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 3: Well even the power wagons weren't selling very well now
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 3: and then now you know, you can tell they're selling
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 3: better because you know, you just see them all over now,
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 3: right like five years ago you didn't see those now,
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 3: I mean that's that's a pre Do you need full truck.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: Tis super cool truck. It just needs more payload. It
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: really does. They need a power wagon HD or they
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: need something that competes with the truck Cross. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: it's just a payload solution. So well, we thank you
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: all for listening. We'll talk to you next time.