Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Sean Holman on Four Wheeling and Finding Your Adventure

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Sean Holman on Four Wheeling and Finding Your Adventure · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: your host, Scott Brady, and I'm joined today by my
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: co host Matt Scott. For today's guests, we have Sean Holman.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Sean has been around the off road and overland community
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: for decades. In fact, he's just recently celebrated almost twenty
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: years with publications like four Wheeler off Road and others.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Sean has driven jeeps and toyotas and everything in between.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: In fact, recently he just completed a significant trip using
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Rivian R one t's to go across the Trans America Trail.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: We get into the details on how Sean builds his vehicles,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: some basic insights onto flo drive travel. He also gives
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: some really thoughtful insights on some new trails that are
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: available in southern California that take days and days to
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: cross for the overland travel. This is a really great conversation.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Sean is an awesome guy, great talent, so special for
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: us to have him on the podcast today, So please
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: enjoy our wide ranging conversation with Sean Holman. This content
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: is brought to you by Overland Journal, our premium quality
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: print publication. The magazine was founded in two thousand and six,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: with the goal of providing independent equipment and vehicle reviews
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: along with the most stunning adventures and photography. We care
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: deeply about the countries and cultures we visit and share
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: our experiences freely with our readers. We also have zero
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: averatorial policy and do not accept any advertiser compensation for
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: our reviews. By subscribing to Overland Journal, you're helping to
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: support our employee owned and veteran owned publication. Your support
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  Speaker 1: also provides resources and funding for content like you or
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: watching or listening to right now. You can subscribe directly
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: on our website at Overland Journal dot com. So, Sean Holman,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for being on the podcast.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Man, I had to bring you a trailer, so I
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: figured kill two birds with one stone. Right.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Well, we've been we've been talking about having you come
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: out here for at least four or five years.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: It's been yeah, it's been something well, and then you know,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: I get, you know, grief from these guys over here
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: because they're like you were in Prescott, you're at Center
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Force and you didn't come by, or you were at
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: so and so didn't come by.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: So I'll take you out for beer.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: So now the Center Force guys gona be mad that
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: I saw you and not them, So I'm cheating on
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: them this time.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: So you know what, I love that. So tell me
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: more about that.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Is it prescott or prescott? Because that's that's always the
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: big thing. Nobody knows how to pronounce it.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, So I do have a story about this. Okay,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I have a story about this. I was at the
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: you've been to Crown King. I have backed the back
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: road to Crown Yes, King. It's a great full drive road, yep.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: And you get there and this there's there's this cool
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: hotel and a bar and anything like that. And I
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: pulled up to the bar and I ordered a Prescott
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: ale and this old guy looks over at me and
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: he goes, He's like, you know what's called Prescott? And
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I said, well, my name's Scott and until people start
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: calling me skit, and he's.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Like, fair enough, all right, Well you know what, I
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: got no argument for that, no argument for that. So
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: today we've had a bunch of storms come. There's been
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: super wet out here just in the in the southwest. Right,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: So I left home this morning, beautiful day. Yeah, right,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: yesterday was you know, about sixty five degrees in sunny.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: I'm crossing the desert, massive sandstorm, thirty forty mile an
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: hour winds. I get up in the mountains on my
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: way here, snow everywhere. I think I've seen everything today.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you got the whole.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: There's a bunch of snow and Prescot right now there's
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: a ton especially like a little higher up in elevation.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: And my brother in law has like two feet. That's
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: a lot of snow, and I have like, oh, we
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: have like inches. Yeah, that's a nice thing about Prescott
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: weather though. It's it's just kind of you get.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: A taste of everything, but there's never anything too extreme, and.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: You get all you get all four seasons. And I
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: think that's why a lot of Californians end up here.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, so, speaking of California, I believe that's where
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: you were born, right yep, yep, born and raised.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: And everybody keeps asking me when I'm gonna leave, and
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna be the uh, the last guy to turn
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: the lights off and hold the carpet down. Listen. I
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: had this conversation with my wife and she said, you know,
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: if we ever went somewhere, where would we go. I'm like, well,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go somewhere that's a really red state. So
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: I'm like, what's the most right o Wayoming? And she goes,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: oh it snow's there, right. I'm like yeah, she goes,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: I don't want to go anywhere with their snow. Oh okay,
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: all right, look at the map again. I'm like, you
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: know Tennessee that everybody's going to Tennessee. That'd be pretty nice.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: She goes, don't they have like freezing rain there? Yeah?
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: In big bugs? Yeah, ticks fall out of the tree.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: You know, last time I was there, I'm like, what
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: that's not fair? Like, how are they They're they're paratrooping
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: now right, So that's not gonna happen. So I'm like,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: you know, the Gulf Coast, Golf Coast would be amazing.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: She goes.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Humidity, there's a lot of humidity there, right, all right?
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Desert southwest? You know, do we go Nevada? Do we
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: you know, get a old ranched. They're going to Arizona.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: She goes, I can't do anything over one hundred. I'm like,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: what exactly do you want? You well, I want it
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: to be about seventy year round. We live there. We're
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: two miles from the beach. Like there's we're not leaving,
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: there's no you know, the taxes sucked. Everything sucks. But
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: I bought my house in the current house twenty eighteen,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: so this year will be six years. I guess it's
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: a pretty It's gone up sixty six percent value.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, in that time, that's almost Prescott in the last.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: I mean it's crazy, it's absolutely you know, so like,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: why would I ever leave. I'm in real estate. I
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: did really well in my first house. I have a
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: really nice house that there's no reason to go. Yeah,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: taxes are high, yeah, all that stuff's the politics suck,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: all this stuff. But if you don't turn on the
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: TV and you fire out to the beach and you
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: just go to the beach and you have a cigar
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: in the porch or some whiskey and you turn on
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: your gas stove with reckless abandon you don't really care
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: about the rest.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the deal is. Somebody, somebody decided
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: that gas stoves we've only been using for one hundred
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: and twenty years. Another thing, here's my thing, leave my
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: stove alone.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Like I purposely took out an electric stove ran a
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: gas line so that I could cook over fire, like
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: I did it on purpose. Now now you're you're messing
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: with that. It bothers me.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, so element are you using it?
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Well, the thing is like, so I live in this
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: neighborhood that we had a Boeing plant that's now being
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: parceled out for like Amazon warehousing and stuff like that.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: This Boeing plant supported Saturn five and all these great
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: moonshop programs and and all the stuff back in the sixties.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: It was part of the shuttle program in the you know,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: nineties and two thousands, and so when they built the
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: plant back in the mid sixties, all the houses were like,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: it's this is the future. So all the houses were
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: all electric. So it was electric stoves and electric furnaces,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: and then the only thing that was gas were the
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: water heaters. And so my house, I'm like, all right,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: I got a gas line here, but I don't get
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: rid of this electric stuff. So took out the water
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: heater because it was in an upstairs closet, which, like
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: I'll had, I had, you know, nightmares of a thing
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: letting go and ruining the whole house. Did a tankless
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: on the out side, and then that that gas line
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: that fed it.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: I was having my.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Whole house ree pipe because it was galvanized pipe fifty
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: years old. Horrible idea. So I'm like, hey, you guys
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: do gas. Yeah, what do you mean? I'm like, can
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: you run it through the ceiling to my kitchen because
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: I'm having my kitchen remodel in a few months. So
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: they just dropped it in. I'm like, yep, got my gas.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: So that's why that's why I get triggered, because I'm like,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: I put effort into making sure my.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: Gas supposedly nicer to cook over it is I think
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: I don't know how to cook.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Well, we're gonna.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Ask Laura, she'll know.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, answer, I burn water. I put water on the stone.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: He goes away.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: I got my beer belly.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: You don't have to cook beer.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: So yeah, it's funny.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Then you get all the glories.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: People do talk smack about California particular here, but it is,
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: of course, it is the most beautiful state. It's really
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, Utah, it's beautiful, but it's kind of it's
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: beautiful and different way. I like, it's the stark kind
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: of red rocks and whatever Californias has it all.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: We literally have where I live in Orange County. I
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: live in Huntington Beach. You kuld surf in the morning
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: and snowboard in the afternoon. People don't realize how close
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: the mountains are too. Southern California proper.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: Tallest mountain in the lower forty yep which is right
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: next to the lowest place.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Right, I mean bad water in Death Valley. We've got forests,
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: We've got desert, massive, the Mahabi desert in Snoring desert
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: coming together. Unbelievable. And this is what a lot of
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: people don't realize. I've got a lot of friends who've
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: moved out of state, and one of my friends is like,
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm thinking about moving to Tennessee. And I said, okay,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: that's that's great, but you like off roading, Like, yeah,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: there's no off roading. He goes what I said. We
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: are so lucky because out in the west, California especially,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: you know, you guys are have a lot of Indian
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: reservations that you have to navigate from in Arizona, California
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: doesn't really have that. We just have a ton of
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: blm land. The further east, you go obviously, it gets
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: in Texas, Montana all that it's all private. It's ranches.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: You know, everything east of the Mississippi is private off
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: road parks for the most part. So the ability to
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: go out. I mean, we have the East Mahabi Heritage Trail,
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: which is seven hundred and thirty three miles long. It
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: is one of the most incredible it may be. I mean,
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: you can fight me on this. I'll go on record
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: saying it's the best overlanding trail in the United States.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: It's that epical, enthusiastic.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I want to tell me, tell me some more stories.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Right, So, most of the people who have traveled to California,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: like if you go to you know u Tiw, you
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: go to Moab, we go to San Hollo, right, like,
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: those are the places you go. San Raphael's well, a
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: lot of people from out of state they want to
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: do the Mohai Roads. The Mahabi Road is the original
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: original wagon road into California. So that road was used
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: by the Spanish missionaries, used by the natives they traded
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: with the coast. It's one hundred and thirty eight miles
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: long from the Colorado River into Barstow and it was
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: started by a gentleman by the name of Dennis Casepier
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: who passed away a few years ago, and it's overseen
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: by the Mohabi Desert Heritage and Cultural SERIACE. So I'm
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: on the board of directors. To make a really long
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: story slightly less long. When he developed the Mahabi Road,
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: there's a mailbox that you signed in, so everybody always
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: takes picture of the flag in the mailbox. The reason
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: that mailbox exists is so that there's a record for
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: the BLM about traffic on the road. So once the
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: roads started getting popular, they're like, hey, Dennis, can you
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: go out and map out this new trail to take
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: some pressure off them hobby road. So Dennis spent years
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: mapping out the East Mohabi Heritage Trail and the East
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: we call the EMHT has four guide books for four
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: segments and it will take about ten days to do
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: it right, maybe two weeks. Wow, you can't Bonzi through it.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: I mean nothing about this, Yeah, I did either nothing. Yeah.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: So he basically creates this trail and then in nineteen
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: and publishes the books and it's only alive for a
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: little while before nineteen ninety four. Bill Clinton signs the
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Desert Protection Act and puts wilderness areas all over this trail.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: So Dennis felt betrayed by the BLM because he had
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: so much money into it, he had the books into it.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: They asked him to do it, and then they go
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: and close all the land. So it basically died until
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: twenty I think nineteen when Billy Creech, he's now the
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: president of MDHCA. He also wrote a story for Expedition
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Portal on MHT. But with Dennis's blessing, he said, can
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: I do a retrace of it and I'll route everything
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: and make it compliant and legal. And Dennis gave him
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: his blessing, and I went from six hundred and you know,
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: thirty miles or something to seven hundred and thirty three
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: because of all the go rounds. It is epic on
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: if you are an overlander and you want to have
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: that experience of being away from everybody and you don't
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: want to do international, there are very few places where
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: you can go. Maybe you know the BDR or maybe
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: parts of the Trans America Trail, what they did with
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Rivian this past summer, maybe the Pony Express some of those, maybe,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: but the amount of desolation and history that this takes
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: you through, whether it's petroglyphs, whether it's the first African
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: American homesteaders, whether it's you know, the silver and gold
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: rush of that era, whether it's the old you know,
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: tide Water and Tonepo railroad, and you see everything. You're
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: at high elevation with Joshua trees around the Sema Dome,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: you are in low elevation in the Mahavi Sink down
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: on the southern end of it. It spans everything sand Rock.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, the entire trail is just stunningly beautiful and
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: remote for almost the entire length of it.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: And is it something that you need, like can you
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: do it with a full sized truck? So you just
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: got to have some clearance maybe I would.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Say rear locker minimum thirty threes, thirty fives, and you
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: want to have a little bit of suspension lift because
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of washouts. There's times where you're driving,
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: so a lot of World War II history out there.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: And on top of the old railroad burms. They took
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: the rails during World War Two, but the berms still
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: exist and you're in and off these berms because of
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: erosion and things like that. You're in you're finding desert springs.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: There's places where there were you know, cowboy and Indian
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: fights there were, I mean, you just it's it's so
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: varied and there's so much history. The only place to
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: that you can get all that history is from the books,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: from the MDHCA website MDCA dot org. And then you
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: can you know, book one, two, three, and four starts
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: and Needles ends and Needles. It's a massive loop, but
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: it starts and Needles goes over State Line up to Searchlight,
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: goes across the fifteen kind of where that solar farm is.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: In fact, that solar farm that's just outside of the
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: you know, Vegas right there on State Line. The original
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: trace of the road cuts through their properties. You have
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: to go along the fence line. You go down the
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: backside of Baker on your way to Death Valley Coliseum Mine.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: You come down I was it one twenty seven down
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: into Baker. You go the backside of Baker, you cross
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: over to Cocoa Weef and you know there's a giant
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: mining project out there, vast vast vistas of the Seima
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Dome and you go south from there down to the
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Mahabi Road where seventeen mile point is and the cinder
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: cones are and the lava flows. From there, you go
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: down Rocky Ridge and to the sink and then you're
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: way south and you end up on their, matter of fact,
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: the old wagon road that was like Laughlin to Prescott
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: or something like that. So that's part of the EMHT
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: as well. So it's just if if you've ever want
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: to do domestic travel and you want the penultimate trail
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: where you have to be on your game and be
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: self sufficient and reliable, that's the trail to do awesome stunt.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: Want to do it?
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: You heard it here from shown a good driver, as.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Long as you don't mind knocking over bushes and things
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: like that, I mean, not endangered bushes, I would. I
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: would say the earth Roamer is probably too big for
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: some sections of it. But I think if you had
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: something like a really well built Prospector Excel, that'd probably
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: be like the limit of something a really nice four
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: runner with suspension on thirty threes, a wrangler on thirty five's,
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: you know, things like that. I mean, you don't have
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: to be overly built. You will need low range. There
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: are going to be times where you need recovery boards
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: things like that, or potentially your wins. You shud probably
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: always go with a couple of people or have a
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: satellite communicator because you are way remote.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: Sounds remount. Yeah, I was at it when people really
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: don't go.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: I was in a section between the I think it
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: was the Old Woman Mountains in the Turtal Mountain wilderness area.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: It was getting dark and I had left my guys
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: wanted to finish the trail and they had to leave
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: out extra day. So I'm like going to I could
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: keep going because I'm good and I'm pretty self sufficient.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: And I got to this wilderness area and so basically
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: on one side of the road is one wilderness boundary,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: the other side of the roads the other wilderness bundary,
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: and you basically have forty feet of center line on
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: the road and that's it. And there's a little turnout
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: and it was getting dark and I'm like, all right, well,
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: I'm just gonna I'm gonna pull over here set up
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: a little bit of camp was on the side of
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: the road. And I looked around. There wasn't a headlight,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: a flashlight, a tail light, there wasn't a fire. I mean,
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: it was pitch black, no moon that night.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: That's cool. So I made it fin.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Made a little fire, sat there and just kind of
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: was looking at the stars, and then I start hearing
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: military aircraft overhead, and you know, it sounds like a
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Sea one thirty and probably a CASE one thirty five.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Looked at my phone that's what they are, except the
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Sea one thirty was doing orbits around me for about
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: two hours on the pilot's side.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: So I got a.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Friend who does maintenance out of Yuma and I'm like, hey,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: just curious these Sea whe thirty's come out there. I saw,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: you know, my my radar app only showed some of it.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: There are more planes, goes was the orbiting you on
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: the pilot's side said yeah, yeah, that was a AC
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: one thirty, So that was like Puff the Magic Dragon
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: or Spooky basically saw my little fire in the middle
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: of the desert and went, oh, there's our target for
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: the night, and basically orbited me. And I'm sure I
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: died several times over but it was really cool because
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: it was it was so dark. The only light out
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: there was the vegas on the horizon.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you could see that.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Maybe La on the other side.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: So four books. Have you done it all at once
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: or I've done something that people could kind.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Of Yeah, so I've done two chunks. So I did like, yeah,
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: I did one and two and then I did three
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: and four. Yeah, and it was each each one was
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: I think six or seven days.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: I mean it's it's I think I kind of know
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: the areas you're talking about. We've been back there a
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: lot of rebell rally and that kind of stuff. I mean,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: it's it's remote, and it's yeah.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: It's and there's storm. There's four mailboxes, so you want
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: to sign in for each segment. We're also working on
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: a passport program where you can stamp your passport and
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: then be a part of a special club for people
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: who have done all of the NDC trails in Mahabi
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Road as well as MHT And a lot of people
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: don't realize that goths Goffs, California, which is just north
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: of the forty west of Needles. People don't realize that
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: there's a fifth mailbox there. I guess it would be
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: a six mailbox and so you can check in there
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: and it's like the mystery box. People are like, I
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: got all five of them you're like, well there's still
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: one more like what And there's one at Goths So
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: it's pretty cool that and Goss is a cool place
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: if you ever want to check that out.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: This is cool. Yeah, yeah, that whole area is just amazing. Yeah.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: We have one of the only working stamp mills, ten
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: stamp mills in North America. When that sucker is going,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: man it is, it's so awesome.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember the first time I did Mohave Road
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: had to have been like two thousand and four, two
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: thousand and five, and I drove for hours without seeing
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: any tire tracks. Yeah. Now there it was a well
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: established trail, but there was no tracks. And now it's
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: so busy now, so busy there, I don't go back.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Everybody with the Raft four Adventure with like a puck
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: lift in like twenty eight inch tires is like, oh,
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: I can totally do it. Yeah, and you're super and
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: you can, and you can. There's a you know, but
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: the problem is those a lot of those people are
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: out there aren't equipped. Yeah, if you go sideways, but
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: like the vehicle can do it, but you don't have
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: a strap, and you don't have enough water, and you
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: don't have a blanket and.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: All that kind of suf But let's talk about that.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think that's something that the media could
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: do a better job on the space, is to stop
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: fixating on just a couple of trails. And it's so
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: cool to be able to highlight this new project.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: It's it's yeah, I mean, there's so many places to go.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: There's there's a third trail that Dennis mapped out that's
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: been closed for a long time, hoping Billy gets around
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: to getting it reopen. We're working with the BLM. We
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: have an MoU with the needles Field Office. We're wor
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: kind of MoU with the National Park Service for the
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Mohabi National Preserve, which the majority of the Mahabi Road
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: goes through, to be the stewards of all that. So yeah,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: so much tourist dollars that come from that.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's I mean people that are if
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: you go out for a day trip or for a
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: couple hours, you spend X amount of money. But if
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: you go travel like you did for seven days or
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: ten days, I mean that's that's a lot of money
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: for the local economy. Yeah, help a couple gas stop,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: gas stops grocery stores.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think with what you're saying initially is
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: is it takes that strain off of just one particular.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Well, that's the problem with land closure closing. In my opinion,
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: land closure is not helping the land because you're starting
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: to squeeze people in the smaller and smaller areas, and
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: so you're actually being it's a detriment to those areas
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: now now because of that, they want to close those
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: areas down, and you squeeze people more, and it's a
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: self fulfilling prophecy. Whereas if you can teach responsible recreations,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: stay on the trails and be able to I was
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: a big proponent of cherry stem roads and existing trails
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: remaining open. You can't create new ones. You can't go
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: over there unless you walk. I'm fine with all.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: A lot of places there's no need to create new tracks.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, in Arizona, there's so many.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Ye open up on X and you can see just
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: you know, there's trails that you probably have been on
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: or or came across. Where's that one go and like
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: to have a you know, some sort of a mass where.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: That shows that map is just like a large chunk
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: of fluorescent green.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. It looks like a yarn ball or something
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: that's confused. My cat's been playing with it. Well.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: And then once they close the trails, then people still
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: go out there and recreate. They just do it illegally,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: and because they're pissed off that it's closed, then they
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: knock over the signs and you seem driving all over
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: the place.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why we can't have nice things, right. It's
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: a it's a small group of people. But on our podcast,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: we've we've done the whole like try to do the
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: education part of it. You know, if you want to
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: go out and explore in your truck, like that's great,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: but it's not excessive to have a week's supply of
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: water or extra clothes or blankets or food or people
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: joke with you know overlanders that were overloaders. But there's
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: a reason for that. I mean, honestly, if you're going
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: for more than a couple of days, like you know,
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: you have a pretty good amount of gear. I think,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: you know, somebody was asking me what I thought the
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: next big thing in overlanding was. I think it's lightweighting.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: I think people got to a point where they realized
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: how heavy they got and how poor the suspension performance. Yeah,
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: and now people are figuring out what do I take
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: that I've never used, or what can I take or
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: what material is going to use for my boxes or
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: my drawers or whatever that are going to be lighter
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: than what I did before, So I can get some
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: of that clawbacks on that payload and ground clearance well, and.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Just take some pressure off of these lightweight vehicles. I mean,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: a Tacoma is a lightweight vehicle and was it.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Nine hundred fifty pounds something like that? You know, a payload,
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: and so you put two people in it, two good
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: sized dudes that are two hundred pounds and a.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: Week my wagon has more payload than that. Yeah, it's
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: crazy on that, you know, the lightweight stuff. Does it
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: almost seem to you guys that like these trucks that
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: are like over built, they just kind of look a
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: little tacky, trying too hard. Now, Like I'm not trying
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: to be like a fashion still overlanding.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: But I think that's what it is.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: Though.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: It's fashion.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: It is fashion, I mean otherwise you wouldn't have, you know,
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: not everything needs to be mill spec anadized. Yeah, but
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: now get your antidize and all sorts of colors and
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: things like that. Cool as a pop of color. Some
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: stuff does need to be millspec because you're relying on it.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: You don't want to corrode on your vehicle. But the
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: vast majority of people are just doing it for the
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: you know, for the vanity of it, or for the look.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, they don't think of how many people their
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: soft cover for the rooftop tent got uv roached before
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: their tent got their first use, right just from driving around.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: And I had a you know, twenty j L with
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: my go fast on it, which I absolutely loved, and
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: I tried not to hang anything off the back other
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: than that. And then I've got a three ninety two
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: and I'm getting away.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: When you talk about the three is awesome.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: It's seen the videos. The photo of me in the
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: blue one on two wheels, was.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: That that was like when they first came, when you
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: had like the pre production one.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was awesome.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're insane.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just it's it's a it's a stupid amount
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: of fun. Yeah, And they sound good.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: And the three ninety two is the perfect transition from
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: what we're you know we're talking about you know, you
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: had like the twenty twenty JL, and I know that
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: you did a supercharger in yours. I did a supercharger
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: on mine. I don't think either of us were happening
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: like I know. I mean, I I ended up taking
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: mine off because, like the magnuson one, I just so bad.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: I thought the quality cost me more to take it
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: off than it did. Yeah, back on quality, the kid
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: I had was good. Yeah, but you have the Edelbrock.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: You know what they're doing. I'm not saying Madison doesn't.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: But I had the California Compliant version, which I think
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: really kind of neutered it. Yeah, And so I was
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: now a horsepower and which a big deal which I
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: loved having a manual. In fact, it pained me when
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: I got the three ninety two two to. It's the
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: first new vehicle I ever bought that was automatic.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Interesting, it be hard to do going forward.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: When you said that's coming in, I'm like, oh, yes,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: well he won't be here to visit Center Force have
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: a manual exactly.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Well, And it's it's if you think about it, like,
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: why does everybody love the g X platform because it's
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: a fore Runner with the V eight, right, yeah, and
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: I mean kind of the same thing with the jail.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: The three ninety two is is something that only AV
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: did the aftermarket before Burnsville or Americas Most Wanted or whatever.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: But full warranty, four hundred and seventy horse power, four
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: hundred and seventy pound feet to tour, all wheel drive,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: transfer case zero to sixty four point five and a
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: half seconds, that's insane.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: The quarter mile is like I want to say, it's
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: twelve five at like one oh two or something, and
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: it's it's funny because it's got the uh the exhaust button.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: I love that though.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: So you pull up and you know, you'll see like
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: some douchey kid in like his stanced import and he's like, yeah, man, man,
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: you're like he starts looking around, He's like, what's making
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: that noise? Right, and and uh yeah, and then you
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: just you it's all wheel drive. So then you just
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: leap on the dude. And like one kid tried to
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: catch up with me and he looked and I'm lifted.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: I've got an AV jail three seventy so I'm up
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: fairly tall and I'm looking at the passenger seat or
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: through the passenger seat or the passer window, and I'm
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: looking at him and I could just see this much
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: of his head and he's looking up like what happened?
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: He caught up?
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Although I will say there was a totally done up,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: super stealthy, clean Volkswagen Golf and he ran he ran me,
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: and at the next light he just nodded. I'm like, yeah,
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: all right, I'm done picking on little cars. He just smiled, all.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Right, I got it.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's it's it's incredible. And then people don't
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: know this, but there's a defective sport mode on the
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: three ninety two which makes it even more rowdy. So
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: the off Road Plus button, if you hit off road Plus,
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: it changes the shift points, it changes the timing, It
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: makes the exhaust crackle and pop on DCEL, and it
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: tightens up the shifts. It automatically turns off traction control.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Would you want to turn back on on the street
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: because it's just it's it's just stupid.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: Run that into well there all wheel drive.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I have a Taser so I can run
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: in tool drive if I want to, which is kind
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: of which is kind of nice. It's just a stupid
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: amount of power. They just sounds great, and you know
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: the feel economy is actually on the highway's okay, Like
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: I'm on thirty seven's with you know, the factory four
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: to fifty six. Because when I started out as an XR,
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: I get about sixteen on the highway. I get ten
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: eleven around town. That sucks, but yeah, but on the highway,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: I mean that, you know, from a twenty gallon tank,
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: that's good. My it's better than what my supercharger got.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: So the supercharge Jeep was about a mile per gallon
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: better in the city and about two miles forgot and
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: worse on the highway.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: So for going to.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Utah and all the trips, like I can go three
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: hundred miles on a tank which I was around two
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: fifty two forty with the supercharger, which just kills everything.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Like not being able to go to eighty three hundred
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: becomes a problem, especially out in the West where you're
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: trying to make time and get places.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because in it.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Kind of times I got to go to the bathroom,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: I got to get some food, get to get you
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: know whatever.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, can you just take a moment to reflect on
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: the fact that this vehicle exists on how awesome, thank you,
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: thank you Jeep.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: So the reason exists in that and not the Gladiator,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: I'm sure because everybody's like, when's it coming to the Gladiator?
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: You like, it's not a good story.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Tim Kiniskus, who ran Dodge, who was Hellcat Everything guy
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: as a pet project, came to Jeep. He's only a
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: JEP for about a year and the code name was
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: J nine and so they they put the hemi and
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: they went, well, why why just do the regular hemmy
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: lists put an srt hemi in there, and so that's
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: how it became. Well when he went back to Dodge
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: and Jim Morrison, who was originally at Jeep in marketing
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: and all that went to RAM was running and then
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: came back to Jeep to run Jeep and replace Kniskus,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: that's when the Stalanta stuff kind of happened, and the
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: focus on EVS and four by E became more than
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: three and eighty two. So it was never poureded over
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: to the Gladiator. And so sorry Gladiator guys. And I
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: also think as much as I love I love the Gladiator,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: I just feel like the jail rear suspension is so
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: much it just feels like a next generation in terms
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: of ride quality and everything. Where there's holes in the
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: factory set up on the Gladiator, it just doesn't feel
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: as refined or.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: It's pretty busy, actually more busy than the wheelbase should.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: At agree, the Gladiator is a fantastic vehicle.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: But it's not a good jeep and it's not a
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: good truck.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: That's yeah, right, I mean interesting, it does everything. But
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: I parked mine this is before I went to my
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: prospector excellent, because I parked mine at the dealer for
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: service next to a twenty five hundred, and I realized
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: it's maybe six inches shorter. Yeah, and it's just as wide.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: So people wonder why they're so long, And that's because
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: on the jeep you have to have the front actual
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: so far forward to clear the oil pan so you
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: can get that articulation. So because you're locked into that
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: front bumper to a pillar length anyway, because of where
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: it is where if you look at a Ranger or Tacoma,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: that front axle is closer to the firewall.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the engine's like sitting underneath your.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: So the jeep is already at a disadvantage because of
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: the architecture of the front and then they still want
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: to have a five foot bed in it, and so
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: you kind of it is the size that it is,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: which is why it's almost the same size as AV
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Brute because the same same issue, right, It's they're really close.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: To People criticize the Gladiator for that, but I think
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: the way you said it is, if you had anything
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: less than a five foot bed you you wouldn't be
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: happy you have at that point.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's it's The Gladiator is a great vehicle,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: especially after you take it to the aftermarket. Like I know,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: the aav kid does wonder for the rear suspension, but
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: stock they're, like you said, they're busy, especially on a
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: non rubicon like it's. I know, it uses a lot
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: of ram DS parts or DT parts on the back,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: which is good and bad. And you know, it's good
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: because it's familiar parts, bin and stuff, but it's bad
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: because it's not its own suspension, right, So there's some
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: compromise in there.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean your suspension. I had never necessarily
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: thought of it as a fault, but that is where
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: I struggled with mine, putting the camper on it, and
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: I had unfortunately sold mine before AV did the high
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: capacity springs, which I think would have made all the
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: difference on you really would have made a lot of difference.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: But I don't know, really really cool car though, glad
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: it again, glad it exists. Cool that you can have
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: a pickup truck that you could take the doors off, Yeah, YadA, YadA.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: I'm just happy I can park my three ninety two
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: in the garage and not leaving the tribe.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: That's the thing that I think is so cool about
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: the three ninety two JL is. I mean, you live
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: in a pretty urban area, suburban or whatever. The Wrangler
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: is a great city car. Oh's so maneuverable anywhere, and
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: if there's a curb there cares like you're up high.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: But good visibility, and you don't ever feel guilty about
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: driving it. Like I remember back in four Wheeler of
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: the Year, you know, back in five and I remember
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: there's one year we had a Hummer H three and
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: we had a I don't know whatever the rest of
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: the SUVs were. I guess it doesn't really matter for
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: storytelling purposes, but when you get in the H three,
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: you just didn't care about you It just you weren't
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: worried about it. You just drove it, and the jeep's
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: the same way, Like you can get in and just
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: drive it. You take it off road. I'm not worried
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: about scratching the pain or the bumper and the you.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Know, the theade for it.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're using it as intended. And if you hit
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: a curb or you mess up on a line and
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: drop into a hole, it's it's rugged enough. It just
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: shakes it off. It doesn't care. I think that that
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: ruggedness and durability that's inherent to that platform, you know. Yeah,
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: it's it's not as nice on the highway to drive
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: to say a New Bronco or something like that, which
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: you know I would consult. It's funny, like my my
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: career in journalism for all these years, I can point
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: to you things on like all you jail guys who
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: have a you know, garage door opener on your visor.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: That was me on my JK. I bought one off
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: a black Expedition interior and wired it to my cigarette
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: lighter and put it in my apillar. When the executives
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: road in my jeep and was like, what's that so
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: my garage or opener? Why aren't you worried about somebody
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: opening your garage if the if the top and doors
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: are off, I'm like, no, it's tied to the ignition.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Like I don't know why you guys don't do it well.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Jail has it.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Also, if you talk to Tonyllo, who recently just joined Steersmarts,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: was at Best Hop, but he was at Jeep for
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: a long time. You know, offer the plus was mine too,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: so like that was that was a whole thing, So
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: I can claim parts of that. So if you love
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: those parts of your Jeep, I'm gonna go ahead claim
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: those things.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: But you've had so much influence on the industry, Sean.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: I mean when you when you just left Motor Trend
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Group and four Wheeler, I mean you were running the
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: entire truck group.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I had all the content for the truck
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: and off roadside, so all you know, at one point
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: I had diesel Power and work truck and truck Trend
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: and truck and mini truck, and I had four wheeler
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Pierson for and off road JP. You know, we were
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: touching every part of the industry through all those different brands,
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: and as it consolidated, it narrowed and we weren't as
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: able to, you know, to do as much fun stuff
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: as we used to because we're only working with you know,
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: a few primary brands. But yeah, I've had the opportunity
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: to work with General Motors, Nissan, Ford, I did a
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: bunch of stuff with Bronco. But yeah, I think that
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: brings us back to the Bronco comment was, you know
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Jeep is it's a Jeep and people go, well, that's
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: just an excuse, and you're like, yeah, but if somebody
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: today came to you and asked for about this because
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: they had a lot of teething problems. Somebody came to
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: you and said, Scott, I wanted to make a new car,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: and you're like, okay, Like it's got to be four
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: wheel drive, yeah, no problems, gonna go down the freeway
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: eighty miles an hour, Okay, it also has to go
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: off road, Okay, it has to have low range, yah, yeah, whatever,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: the doors need to come off, it needs to be
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: a convertible. It would sound like a Homer car And
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: you're like, nobody would ever build that today, right, And
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: so it's a Jeep, it's a Bronco. It's but that's
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: the flexibility of being able to do all those things.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: The Jeep is special, you know, to have why they
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: sell so many of them. They're eighty thousand years.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: They're so good. You drive around Prescott.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: Like, yeah, you can't go free Jeep city.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: You cannot.
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: I have.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: Everybody moves here, trades in their Mercedes and get and gets.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: Well, it's like I've got a mid size solid axle
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: V eight vehicle.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: I think the last time you could get a mid size,
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: solid actual VA vehicle from the factory.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: Anywhere twin turbos maybe the ge Wackt.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but they even they went to yeah, yeah on
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: the new one.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: And it's better for it, but that chest moved back
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: to nineteen seventy nine.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah for that, for that platform and for that buyer,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: it's it's fine, it makes sense.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: No, you're absolutely right. I mean until like the Grenadier
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: now yeah, I mean, which is still as in a
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: V eight. But but just the fact that jeeps exist,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I think is so cool, and I actually think it's
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: good that. You know, when Humber went away, I was
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: actually worried for Jeep because I always think that when
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: you exist in a vacuum, the scrutiny only goes with
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: that one company. So I think that four came back
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: with Bronco was actually good for Jeep because I know
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: for a fact that there's some stuff cheap engineers have
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: wanted to do. But because it was such a successful program,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: there's no competition. This company's like, yeah, we don't really
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: need it, We're not gonna spend the money on that. Well,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: now they have to because they've got competition in the space.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: I think it's good for four.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: It seems like a lot of people at Silanus have
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: had the handcuffs. Yeah, literally and figures that we've taken off,
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: like I cannot wait for you know, Jil two point zero.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: It's coming up soon, right, I mean it has to
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: be there. They're on like clock work, ten year product
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: cycle with a five year refresh.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Well and until they realize that we're still selling above
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: our business plan, so we can kick that back a
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: few years. But yeah, the mid cycle refresh is coming
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: and I'll leave it at that.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and these are important updates, you know, and we're
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: going to see more electrification, which some people it's going
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: to work great for.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: Well, I think the four is cool.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: So you know, here's perfect example of my driveway, my
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: wife has a brand new Grand Cherokee four by E
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: and I've got the three ninety two and and the
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: use case is perfect. My wife her commutes about ten miles.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: She has twenty five miles of electric range. We plug
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: it in at night. She went from filling up every week
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: to filling up every three weeks, and she's we plug
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: it in and she goes and then by maybe the
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: end of the day she might have five or ten
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: miles of gas or you know, if she has a
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: long day. Now she can plug in while she's somewhere
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: ev only right, yeah, plug in, and she's It's a
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: beautiful car. It has the same torqu as my three
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: ninety two. It's a second faster than the Grand Cherokee
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: two row V eight and actually just drop the V
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: eight and now they have V six and four by
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: E and the two gorgeous cars grew together. The interior
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: is amazing on it. We've got a summit so good,
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: so different than my three ninety two. Yet we're okay
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: having that. So I had a four y e a
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: Wrangler for a few months. It was actually I actually
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: pre ran over Land Adventure, which was a four week
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: event that we put on this past year entirely in
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: the four by E and it was kind of cool
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: because what I didn't realize is the gas tank smaller
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: because of the batteries and so it's only eighteen gallons
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: to twenty one and a half, which I wasn't planning
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: on because I drive a wrangular every day, so I
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: was expecting my range to be a certain amount. I'm
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: heading out to Goths and about ten miles short, I
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: run out of gas. Well, this is one thing that
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Jeep doesn't to my knowledge, nobody else does, which makes
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: the electrification brilliant for the enthusiast. They have three modes.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: One is hybrid, where it decides whatever the most efficient
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: mode of transportation is. It has battery only where it'll
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: prioritize battery, and it has E save, which charges the
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: battery while you're driving and doesn't use it unless you're
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: you know, wide open throttle passing or whatever. You override that.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: But in normal driving what you said, I typically would
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: drive around an E safe mode because it would be
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: nice to cruise in the neighborhood at night silently or
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: on the trail. There's places where electrica's a lot of fun.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: That's my favorite.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: So I see quiet, it's like, you know, running out
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: of gas. I'm like, I'm ten miles short of the
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: gas station. I just went over. I hit the battery
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: mode and was on electric the rest of the way
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: in and it's like whoo. So it's like having an
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: auxiliary tank if you use it right, which is kind
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: of cool. Right, and then off road again, it's the
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: torque of it. And it's from my experience in the
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Ford Lightning, the Hummer, the rivan and the four by e.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: In electric mode, you see so much more wildlife in
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: animals when you're on the trail and it's it's weird.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: It's almost as if the tires on the ground or
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: remind them or they think it's a hoof of an animal,
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: because we've had antelope and stuff, and they look and
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: they don't care.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: They shrug you off.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: You come in an internal combustion engine and they all scatter.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: So we've come in the middle of this wildlife in
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: those things. You know, he's walking alongside you in silent
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: mode is looking like, oh, look at that big, ugly coyote.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: There is something right, It's been our experience. Yeah, it's
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: so good. There's a place for it, and it's not
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: for everybody.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: Everybody everybody just loves to hate on evs.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, well, I think it's because they're being
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: forced on people, right, And and I think if we
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: were honest about EV's and it wasn't zero emissions, and
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: it was you know, here's the things where it's better,
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: here's things where it's worse, here's your use case. There's
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: a summer choice, consumer choice exactly. It's a tapestry of
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: technology that will take us in the future. They shouldn't
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: be mandating one winner. Consumers should choose the winner. And
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: I think that's the heartburn that a lot of people
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: have with.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: And it's understandable. And we do know that evs are
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: not emissions free, right. It takes an enormous amount.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: We're off shoring them to feel better about ourselves, right,
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: and off shoring the waste. And most of especially in
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: the Southwest, most of our plants are natural gas anyway,
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: And going back to the stove, it's like, hey, you
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: can have all electricity, but you can't have natural gas.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: But the electricity comes from natural gas. But just don't look.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: Door number two doesn't exist over here.
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: Years ago, natural gas was the clean energy. It's energy
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: is natural gas the clean energy. Like, well we have
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: we're the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. If we changed
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: our entire infrastructure from petroleum to natural gas, we could
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: be almost completely independent. I mean, it's amazing how much
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: reserves and natural gas in North America is incredibly clean,
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: incredibly clean burning, and and we don't leverage that. Could
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: you imagine if all of a sudden, like the politics
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: of needing, you know, the Middle East, it didn't exist anymore.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: You're like, no, we're on we got our own stuff. Yeah,
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: and then all the world would stop and go, well,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: wait a minute, does this mean right? We can't fight
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: wars with each other for you know, oil anymore.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: So you've had all these great vehicles, Which one was
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: your favorite?
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: Oh? I mean that's a loaded question. I've got a
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: nineteen forty two GPW that was perfect, the very first
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: four by four ever drove on my uncle's ranch. Oh yeah,
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: and he yeah, he called me a couple of years
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: ago and he's like, hey, thinking about getting rid of
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: that old flat fender and my kids aren't interested in it,
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: and I want to see you go to somebody. And
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: I know you have some sentimental value, so it's up
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: at the ranch, come get it all right, see you
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: next week. Yeah, And so I've got that it's in
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: various states of of being so fixed right now awesome,
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: So that thing's cool. And then for newer vehicles, obviously
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: the three ninety two I had a tr Extra a year,
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: which was phenomenal of that thing all over the desert.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Didn't have any issues with it. I mean, you're going
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: over stupid size stuff at sixty miles an hour, airing
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: it out and hucking it over landing sideways, and it
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: just feels like a marshmallow. Like it's just so much power.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: And it was funny how at the beginning of that loan,
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh my god, seven hundred and two horsepower,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: And at the end of the loan, I'm like, come on,
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: give me more. Yeah, because you just you just calibrate
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: to it. And even the you know, the four seventy
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: and the three ninety two, it's it's the TRX chassis
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: can handle. The Jeep is like at the bitter limpments
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: all You're like, I don't think it was a super charger.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: I'm like, what's wrong with you? You maniac. Right, I
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: haven't spent as much time.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Could you imagine the torque?
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Oh so when I this is a party trick, I've
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: had my friends, I'm like, all right, I'm gonna you know,
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: remote start and we all stand out, and when it
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: fires up, it the whole body moves just like an
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: old muscle car. And so all the old guys were like,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: oh it sounds great. Did you see that the whole
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: car movement started up? Reminds me of my Chevelle or
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's stupid. That thing is is is phenomenal,
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: But I also love my twenty even with the blower
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: on it. I'd one hundred and one to one crawl
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: ratio with it. It was all everything aev that thing
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: took me. You know, I think when I sold it
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: had thirty five thousand miles on or something, and I
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: guarantee you probably fifteen to twenty thousand miles were off
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: road because every because I always had another car, so
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: every trip was driving somewhere and then wheeling it off
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: road for a week and then driving it home. Yeah,
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: that's amazing, and it was. I never had an issue
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: with it. It's just so capable and I'm hoping for the
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: same experience with the three ninety two. And one of
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: the good things about three ninety two is all the
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: jeeps have that stupid oux lillary battery, the little one
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: that goes bad. It leads you stranded when you least expected.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: No electronics starts stopping at three ninety two. One cool,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: so you don't have to worry about your little battery,
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: you know, hosing you. Plus the gross peakle waight rating on
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: a three pint two xsrs like sixty two fifty. So
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: from a tax ride off standpoint.
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: It's only eighty percent for the twenty twenty three. Financially,
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: not that I know anything about writing cars.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: I'll take that eighty percent because I've got two businesses
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: that just got fired up at I'll use every bit
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: of it.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: So that's right.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: I just think the three ninety two is going to
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: be an end of the era car.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's peaked gep.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know if it will from an enthusiast perspective,
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: I don't know if it will get any more emotional. Yeah,
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: cars will always always get better. Yeah, Well, in five
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: years we'll be sitting here and they'll be some crazy
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: electric Yeah.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: But I don't want I don't want to steering wheel
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: this pod to pull up outside and take me to
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: my hotel.
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: What I'm saying is that there'll be a there'll be
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: another crazy fast cheap, but this will be this is
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: a once.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Well EV allows that, right, Eve allows that fact. But
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: is it going to be solid axles and super capable?
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: And it's just it's a special It's a moment in time,
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: whether it's a raptor are, whether it's a three two,
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: whether it's a tr Rex, it's the end of an
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: era if it now's the chance if you've ever been
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: on the fence about purchasing a V eight enthusiast vehicle,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: car or truck or haven stop, so this is it.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're in your last couple of years of
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: being able to do that as electrification comes in, and
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: to your point, there will be things that match the performance.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: But I was with my friend Gail Banks, who owns
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Banks and so I give him a ride in it,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: and we were just giggling the whole time, and he
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: drives a black wing Cadillac CT six V and it was,
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: you know, we were talking about the old hot rodders,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: like there's nothing that's like a a V eight at
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: full tilt. There's just nothing out there and that emotion,
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: that visceral feel where it's not just sound but you
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: can feel it.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: You can.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just you're like, it's amazing, you know, having
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: the world stretch out in front of you, but also
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: having the soundtrack to go with it. And you know,
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: we just on our on the Truck Show podcast, we
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: just had episode three with Gale on it. There's one
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: quote that he says, he goes, he's talking about V
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: eight's and he goes, there's just nothing. I can't remember
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: what his term was. It was exciting or or emotional,
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: because there's nothing emotional about you know, and but but
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: he's right, you know, it's it's I've driven a lot
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: of fast electric vehicles and they're cool and there's a
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: place for him, but they're not emotional. It's a it's
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: it's a different emotion. It's a great toaster, right, like
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: it'll go fast.
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: And but a lot of modern cars are still they're
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: just internal combustion toasters these days, right, Like I'm not
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: talking about the three ninety two, but there's nothing special
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: about a Pentastar V six. I mean Yeah, it's fine,
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: it's there, it works, it's reliable, Okay. Cool. And and
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: then you get into you know, commuter cars. Like I
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: always say in La, most people in LA should be
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: driving an electric car. They're sitting in traffic half the time. Yeah, no,
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: it's it's the perfect use case for that sort of thing.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: I think where the argument with electric cars is steered
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: wrong with the enthusiasts is that nobody's saying that you
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: can't have a cool old car. Nobody's saying that you
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: can't have a three ninety two.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Yet the delippery slope, My friend, what's they take here? O?
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: And then you're no, they're taking anything?
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's certainly possible. I mean, although I mean,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: Arizona exists. There's actually a lot of prominent car collectors
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: that are moving to Arizona for that reason.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: No.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: We you guys have the awesome historical plates here.
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I don't think in Arizona people will
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: ever try and take it away.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Burne Simon's who worked with us a four wheeler has
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: a let's just say it's a Frankensign jeep that has
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: a flat fender grill on it and has a copper
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: plate on it. Then we're at a show it one sometime,
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: I think, and you tell me stories. Somebody walked up
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: and said, that's not a Wheeli's how you get that plate?
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: And burn's responsible? What are you a cop?
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: You got your license plate on anything in this state?
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Pretty much.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: I gotta love Arizona.
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: My trials bike doesn't have a headlight or a seat
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: and it has a.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: License plate everything.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Now, it's been so cool to see all the projects
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: that you've built through the years. And a lot of
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: the reason why even Overland Journal exists is because of
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: four wheeler. I mean, I remember, I mean I've told
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: this story before, but the first magazine I ever picked
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: up was it was a camel trophy on the cover,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: and I think it was either off road or or
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: a four wheeler. It was one of them. And I
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: just you know, I was a nineteen year old kid,
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: just completely wonderstruck by this by this publication.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: And then I a land Rover defender on logs crossing
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: a like fee Notch Waterfall Canyon. It's so good with
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: some dude smoking a camel you know, like.
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: Not only does that look awesome, but that dude looks
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: cool exactly exactly, you know, And I grew up in
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: southern California too, But I remember the feeling when I
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: that all came full circle and I got a hold
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: of Phil Howell and the guy actually replied to my email.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: And I think the reason why he replied to my email,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: I sent him a complete package. I sent him the story,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: copy edited all of the images with.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: It.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: Was ready to go, and he was and he said,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: you know, this is the first time. The only thing
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: he told me, he says, some of the words too
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: many syllables. Knocked that back a little bit, But other
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: than that, it was my chance to actually be in
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: four wheeler. Yeah, an off road in those magazines. With
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: the announcement of four Wheeler closing, I think that it's
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: a loss for.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: The sixties sixty years. I mean, you think about you know,
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: we were really the original overlanding magazine. Yeah, literally the
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: very first issue, I think the tagline was the magazine
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: for back country Adventure or something like that, and that
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: was in February of nineteen sixty two, and we were
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: showing people camping out of their jeeps and their Toyota
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: land cruisers and things like that, and you flash forward
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: to the eighties and you've got Turtle Expedition with Gary
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: and Monica. Yeah, and I mean that Turtle Expedition one
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: through five, six, whatever it ended up being, was prolific
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: for a lot of people. And recognizing that you could
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: have this lifestyle of living out of this vehicle and
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: traveling the world and meeting people in a way that
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: you only thought a cruise ship or an airplane could
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: take you. And now you're going to places that most
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: people would never see through their eyes. And then onto
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: the original or the I'm sorry, the current you know,
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: overland movement, which I would say probably started in about
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: two thousand and seven two thousand and eight, earnestly in
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: the US ARB bringing over the Simpson rooftop tent was
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: kind of one of the things that launched that bowl bars. Oh,
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: I have something Australians have, right, And I remember we
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: built for SEMA twenty ten four runner, the new body
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: style at four wheeler wrapped with four wheeler four Sema
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: in twenty ten in the Toyota booth with full ARB
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: everything on it. And at that point nobody had so
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: all these people who think they're doing new things with
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: four runners, like I'm sorry to tell you two thousand
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: and nine, twenty ten, I was already on that.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: Boat, so sure, and it was still the same and it's.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: The still the same vehicle. It is still the now.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: You guys are using more gold on your wheels now
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: than you did back then, and extra ladders and lights.
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: But yeah, think about it. The same same drive train,
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: same drive transmission.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: I think the transmission is did go from is it
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: five speed or still speed?
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Still a five speed? It's unbelievable and there's still worth
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: so much money. I know, it's just unreal.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: And it's funny.
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: Is I have before they work?
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: A buddy of mine who has they do work a
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: his son turned sixteen and he's like, I'm looking for
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: a Tacoma and the pricing is insane and I'm like,
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: don't get a Tacoma because you're gonna overpay. Go look
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: for Frontier Pro four X. Yeah, totally super underrated, fully
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: boxed frame, rear disc brakes, four lead V six with
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: more torque on it, Super reliable, super simple vehicle.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: They're awesome.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: Rear locker on a Pro four x thirty two inch
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: tires data you know, forty four rear axle so he
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: starts looking at things. He goes, these are almost as
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: expensive as Tacoma's a go really, because what happened was
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: they didn't build as many of them, and everybody's figuring
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: out in the secondary market. Oh my god, that was
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: a great truck that I never even paid attention to.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: But it's perfect to get into this for my kid
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: or or whatever. So we found one and he's been
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: wheeling the snot out of it. And it's funny. I
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: was on there's a Facebook group about wheeling the San
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: Juans and somebody said, Hey, I just got this frontier.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: I don't really know about enough about it. Could I
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: do all the trails? And I'm thinking, Oh, here's going
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: to be the bash fest. It was amazing. Everybody's like,
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: that was my first truck. Put us out of rock,
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: rails on it, don't do anything else, have fun. You
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: can do anything out here in that thing. And it
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: was awesome to see this community that kind of got
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: their start, or guys showing off their frontiers. And it's
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: a shame that platform has so much going for it and
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: the aftermarket has largely ignored it, and that's really the
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: only thing that's hurting it. Yeah, I think because from
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: a capability standpoint, you look at the f Alpha architecture
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: and it has a deep drawn frame rail, which it
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: shares with the Titan half to and if you look
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: at Toyota. One things that always bugged me about the
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: Toyotas was the frame rails aren't very tall, and so
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: the transfer case hangs low and has that skid plate
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: that hangs down. Look at a Frontier, it's almost totally flat.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: Nothing hangs below the bottom of the frame rail. Because
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: they have these really deep drawn frame rails. It also
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: makes the truck really strong and rugged. And so I
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: always tell people, I'm like, Toyota is living off the reputation.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: It's a great truck, don't get me wrong, They've earned it,
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: but it's not always the best choice. At least go
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: look at a Frontier, go drive it.
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: And people always say, oh, I wish they sold the
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: Highlux here. Well, Nissan sells their equivalent. Yeah, it's called
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: a Navara elsewhere. I know there's a few little changes
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: and things like that, but it's it's here.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I was just so surprised that they didn't bring
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: the five link from the Navara.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: You and I were in Morocco driving that eighteen thirty two.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: Oh it's so good, so good. I'm looking at them
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: and it's like, guys, like this this you it and
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: now you know Ranger Raptor is going to have it.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: Sounds like the next will have five link and Tundra.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: They already have the geometry figures.
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: I'm like, ah, that is my beef with the with
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: the Frontier is that I drove the new Novara in
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: twenty thirteen when I was running magazine in Australia. Yeah,
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: and it's a much better vehicle than the one that
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: they're selling now.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: Well on the one that just got redesigned, I think
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: is they nailed it on. The styling looks great. The
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: nice thing is that looking the chassis is basically the same.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: All the hard points are the same, all that as
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: the previous truck, which means that all the accessories like
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: suspension and stuff is a direct Bolton And you can
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: still do the Titan swap where you do the Titan
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: V eight and front end on the current truck, just
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: for anybody who wants to get a little wild out there.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: But all that's available like that stuff all still works.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: So but the truck is is. It's a great truck.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: It's completely underrated. I happen to like them a lot.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: So my advice for somebody looking for something midsize at
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: least go drive one and you might be surprised. You
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: might find out like, oh.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: This is this. I thought the ride quality was great,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: the first gear is better. It's got a couple other.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: Caught extra, little more payload.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Ye, no, that's pretty good. Speaking of the Morocco trip,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: You've done a bunch of international trips in your time too.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: Were you on that infamous two thousand and seven Wrangler launch.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, the one in Africa and uh falls or something Zambia, Zambia.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I heard that was just that was one of
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: the most challenging. There's two waves of events.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they actually And when you said the infamous, are
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: they going to say the Iceland trip where everybody almost died?
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: That was John Stewart got stuck on that one. That
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: was a really bad trip that went really sideways back
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: back in the day. But no, did jk Africa.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: Here about that?
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: I don't know all the stories. I'd probably making stuff up.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: You got to get John on the horn. Yeah, but yeah,
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: so the Africa trip was amazing. They actually brought all
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: those vehicles my understanding was through South Africa and drove
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: them up to Zambia. Yeah, they left them all there
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: at the end of the media drive. Every vehicle they
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: brought is still sitting in Africa. Then they just handed
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: the keys to like a chief of a village and
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: was like here you go. You know how fun it was.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: It was one of the most magical, one of the
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: most well run, one of the most special. I still
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: have a picture on my wall of all of us
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: landing at the dirt strip and Mafui I think it
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: was with a Zambian you know, Bill in it.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: The whole trip was funny. There's two waves.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: I believe I was.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: On Wave two, but I can't really remember the whole adventure.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: That trip started at lax We took United to London
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: and London to Nairobi and we get on the plane
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: and Rick peiway. I'm sure you probably had Rick on
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: the show or yeah, we need to you know down
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: in Wickenberg. That's right, Yeah, you can. You should get
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: him on. He'll have way more stories. But he's standing
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: there and we're all in business class, right, like this
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: is an international trip. The journalists are going to get
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: taken care of him, like yep, this is gonna be great.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: And Rick gets his name called to the podium and
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: we're like, what's called? What Rick got his name called?
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: What's going on over there? And Rick walks on the airplane.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: So finally comes down to board business class. Rick's in
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: first class and we're all in business He's like smiling
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: and stuff. They're holding the plane door and here comes
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: the passenger that Rick bumped back to business class. It's
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: Paris Hilton flying to London. So she sat next to us,
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: which was super weird. And I remember her reading US
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: Weekly with her girlfriend like like, oh my god, that's
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: so hot, like her tagline in person. Oh yeah, it
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: was peak Paris holding for sure. And I remember like
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: she has really pretty skin and huge feet. Those are
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: the two things I remember, And it was just it
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: was the funniest thing. So like that's how that trip started.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: And I remember in Nairobi. You get off the plane
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: in Nairobi and there's no jet, it's all stairs and
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: we're on Triple seven, which is obviously a massive plant,
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: and the ozone just hits you in the face and
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: your eyes start watering and all the pollution, like, oh
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: my god, where I where have you taken me? And
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: we were at this British hotel the first night, had
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: this amazing food and everything. And the next day we
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: go back to the airport. We take a charter and
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: DC nine to a small airport, went right by Mount
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: Kilimanjaros and landed switch planes to assess in a caravan
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: had to go to a dirt run where they couldn't
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: find the runway. We're circling in the air and I'll
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: never forget sitting in the very back row and a
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: caravan's like fourteen people that's in cool planes. They are
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: cool planes. They're super rugged. But I'm thinking, not only
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: am I the last one to die, I get to
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: watch everybody crush me as the sucker goes down right,
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: Like if I can't find the field and you're going, well,
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: run out of gas please. We land there and there's
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: all these jeep executives and PR people and all the
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: jeeps are all lined up on the side of the runway.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: It was really special and it wasn't Duncan Barber, the
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: guy who put all together.
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah Dunk talked about that.
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Duncan was great. And then Robin, who can't think
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: his last name, was a friend of Duncan. He just
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: passed away and not too many years ago of cancer.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: I think because I caught up with Duncan and I
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: had asked about I think it's Robin. And we went
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: on all these great trails you're talking about, like elephant trails,
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: not jeep trails, elephant trails. I remember the elephant grass
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: was so high on this hill and the slope was
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: so steep that the rear of the jeep was sliding
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: sideways as we were side sloping this thing on the
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: elephant grass, and everybody's jumping out and walking next to
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: the jep with their hands kind of holding it, and
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: you're looking down hill and there's all these like Africa
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: will kill you fifty different ways, like the TC flies,
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: like you hit them and they shake it off and
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: they look at you and they bite you again. And
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: there's lions. Every rock is super hard, Every tree is
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: as hard as a rock. The bail bob tree is
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: gonna drop like the fruit on your head. Or there's
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: gonna be a giant, you know, African be nest that's
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: gonna kill you. The villagers that we saw. I brought
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: my first digital camera because we just swapped over to
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: Canon Tende's and so I would take pictures of these
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: kids and we brought them like pencils and Smarties candies,
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: and I would show them their picture and they just
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: went wild. They had never seen anything like that. We'd
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: be driving through these villages and these trucks that were
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: going into the city had one hundred people on them,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: and they would put these boards on the side and
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: bang nails up so that people's feet couldn't go on
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: the board to hang off the truck. And they figured
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: out a way to hang off of it anyway. And
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: they're all topsy, you know, top heavy and the whole
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: just I will tell you I never felt unsafe in Africa.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: It was the people there are amazing. You couldn't find
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: more animals than the San Diego Wild Animal Park. I
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: mean there was We had these these huts that have
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: like an open shower, like a half wall. Monkeys would
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: come down and grab your soap while you were taking
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: a shower. Had I had a hippopotamus hit my door
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: trying to break in in the middle of the night.
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't want a hippo in here. You know,
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: I've got.
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: Pictures of the I think hippos kill more people.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh, they flip boats. We had to go across
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: this river and it could only hold a thing two
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: jeeps at a time. And there was this cable and
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: these guys had think of it as like a shape
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: like a guitar or a club, but it was like
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: a question mark, you know, And they would row the
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: boat by clipping on this cable and pulling just two
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: dudes and they're pulling a jeep across this river on
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: this guide wire. And so they're like, oh, this is
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: going to take a lot of time. Do you want
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: to go out in the in the boat and get photos?
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: And it's a canoe or like a little metal canoe
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: that has a motor on the back. And they're like,
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: I'll get you close to the hippos so you can
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: take photos because what they do is I'll knock the
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: boat over and then attack you in the water. And
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: I'm like, all right, is it safe? He goes, well,
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: as soon as they go into water, be ready because
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: we have to move. So he gets me up to
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: the hippos. I get these pictures, and you know it
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: looks like the jungle crews right, and all of a
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: sudden they disappeared. He's like, you're trying to not fall
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: out of the back of the boat. There was we
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: had a camp king Kobra's are like slithering through camp.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: I remember Douglas mccola, who was the editorial director for
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: we there at the time, stepped out of his tent
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: in the middle of the night to take a leak
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: and fell down a five foot burm where there all
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: the crocodiles had been earlier in the day. No, I mean,
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: it's just it was just and there's a wildfire. We
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: were driving through a wildfire on our On our trip.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: One of the guys, Todd Goyer from Jeep and Colin
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: McBain run a two door Jeep and rolled it and
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: the airbags went off the inside impact. They were shaken up.
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: Jeep was okay, but we the top was messed up
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: in the windshield frame. So we drove it the rest
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: of the week with no doors, no top and the
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: windshield folded down perfect And you're just completely you're as
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: dirty and you worked in a coal mine, and like
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: me and Pey, we were fighting over driving that thing
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: because They're like, screw the other ones. This is a
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: two door and now open top jeep with dents all over.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: This is awesome.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: That trip. I remember I started my watch when we
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: when we left Zambia and when I lent and did
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: at Lax thirty six hours later, because I was curious
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: how long the total time to get home was. Yeah,
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: And when we went through customs in Nairobi, they asked
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: me if my camera was real, and so I just
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: took a picture to show them, and I got swarm
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: by security because you're not allowed to take pictures of
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: government officials. I'm like, no, I'm just showing you at works.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: And so that almost became a big thing. I mean
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: the whole the whole trip, everything about it, but just
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: the the food, the people, the experience. I went to
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: the New Zealand launch in twenty nineteen, twenty seventeen for Jail,
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: and the guys who put that on a couple of
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: them had been on the Africa trip. We're having dinner
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: one night and they're like, tell us the truth. You're
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: one of the only people here who has been on both.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: Which one's their favorite? And I'm like Africa and they're
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: like what like It's New Zealand was incredible. It's top
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: top five of media trips of all time. Africa will
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: probably there was a moment in time where a company
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: was willing to spend a million dollars to have ten
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: journalists fly across the country to have an experience in
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: their new vehicle. They knew that JK had to be
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: revolutionary and they had to get everybody at every major
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: publication there. The landscape of publications is different now. The
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: people who are in the know or who are the
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: trusted journalists are in different places now. I don't know
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: that you'll ever quite have a.
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: Trip like that. It was that special Defender, Yeah, Defender
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: in Namibi. It was pretty good.
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's not on the same level as that.
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: I mean we were doing.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: We landed on a dirt run, we did all this.
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: I remember having to dunk in with her to fake
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: Land once to get the goats off of them.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: Well that happens, yeah, Well, and I've got photos. There
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: were some sketchy stuff that we did in the jeep.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: I mean obviously driving up wood kind of camel trophy.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: We had to drive over these wood bridges that were
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: maybe thirty feet over a ravine that were laid out
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: and you only had inches on either side of the wheel.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: Your wheel placement had to be perfect, and we had
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: to cross this really fast moving river and my rear
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: end started washing away and I dropped off the stone
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: road that was underwater and had to like gun it
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: with water going over the hood, just showing you like
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: how high the water forwarding is on those They're like, oh,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: you're you're gonna get washed away. I mean, we did
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: some serious stuff. There was one particular so I heard
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: it was just the most difficult. Yeah, there was nothing
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: light that you would not take your average journalists and
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: say drive this. Would they would fear for their lives.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: That's not the exaggeration. There was one place where we
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: dropped into this unbelievable like Granite River canyon, and it
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: was probably a forty five foot drop. It was exactly
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: the width of the jeep and as you know, Jk's
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: were a lot wider than TJ, so we weren't used
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: to the with At that point, you were scrubbing your
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: sidewalls and as you dropped on the front, your rear
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: lifted and there was a complete drop forty feet to
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: your right, So if you would have stabbed the brakes
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: and get a momentum shift, you would have rolled and
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: crushed yourself in this ground. I mean it was This
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: was one of the things where you go, these guys
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: are the real deal. There's a lot of manufacturers who
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: you watch their commercials and as the Jeep executives will say,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: now they're trying to be jeep right. You have kias on,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: you know, going to Pell's revenge. By the way, swaybar
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: was disconnected, different tires. There wasn't stuck right, But wrap
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: fours are out there super wilderness and they're they're good
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: vehicles in their own right, but they're not this. And
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: it just showed that these engineers and this vehicle was
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: the real deal and it was special.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: It was special. Yeah, special. Well, Sean, if someone's getting
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: new into overlanding and they liked to do more challenging terrain,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: what would be a couple pieces of advice that you
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: would give them for driving off road? What would be
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: your top your first five things that you would tell
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: somebody to pay attention to when they want to do
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: a better job or protect their vehicle and technical terrain.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: Take your time, it's not a race I think people
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: rush themselves through or they get nervous because somebody's watching them.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: If somebody's spotting, you take one person's advice and tell
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: the rest to go away. One of my pet peeves
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: is somebody's spotting another guy jumps and think it's like
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: and I always tell the driver you decide who you want, like,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to kick these guys out, but you
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: can only have one, you know. And don't be afraid
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: of the winch. So many people think it's like shameful
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: to grab your winch cable and they'll have this like
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: twenty five hundred dollars winch set up on their two
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars bumper and they'll be afraid to grab it
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: because what will people say? No, that's why you have it,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: grab their win for people to ask them. Yeah, and
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: don't be prideful and air down. The number one thing
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: you could do to your vehicle and make it more
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: capable of ro is airing down. You know everybody think.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: And beadlocks are nobody overlanding needs beadlocks. You don't need it.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: They're dangerous. You have to torque them. You can get
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: injured if you do it. Improperly. There's no if you're
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: overlanding and have a load, there's no reason to ever
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: be below fifteen or fourteen psi. And at that psi
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: with the weight you're carrying, you're not cutting the wheel
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: enough to pull a beat anyway. Don't run beadlocks like
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: on my AV wheels. I have it in protection ring
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: mode because I can replace the ring. It doesn't scratch
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: up my wheel. That makes sense, don't. The other thing
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: I'd say is a stock vehicle is incredibly capable. Learn
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: your stock vehicle and get comfortable with it first. Don't
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: feel like you have to have all the upgrades everybody
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: else does, because if you don't understand stock, you're not
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: going to understand modified. It's kind of like if you
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: haven't had a bad day, you can never really understand
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: what a good day looks like.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: I think too many people go and make a Frankenstein
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: vehicle of all these great brands that never were designed
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: to work together. So do simple mods at a time,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: figure out they work together. Don't do a whole Oh
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go drop fifty thousand dollars the day I
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: buy it and have it completely done with all these
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: different parts, unless it's maybe like an AEV, which it
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: has been holistically designed for all the parts of words
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: for sure. But too many people rush out and they
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: build their vehicle and then they're not happy about it,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: or they get death wobble, or they get an issue.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: It's like, did that issue exist before it with Stock? Well,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know because I never drove a stock and
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: so you don't really have a baseline to start from.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: And I think ego gets a lot in the ways
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: of people. I think that's when mistakes are made, there's
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: no shame. And you know, Chris Caller is one of
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: those guys who who always has a good quote, and
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: he said it best good roads bring bad people. Bad
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: roads bring good people. Be respectful of the people you
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: run across on the trail because you're not calling Triple A.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: You may be calling that guy to come back and say.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: You may need them.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I recently on four whee there of
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: the year this year we get up the backside of
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: Big Bear in California. We just had a ice storm
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: and about five miles of the trail with a sheer
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: drop on the north side of the mountain facing Johnson
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: Valley is a sheet of ice, and where you've got
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: all stock vehicles and there's a girl who's absolutely petrified,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: who's been stuck up there for two and half hours
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: because she filled her jeep slip and she just parked it.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: And we get to her and we're like, hey, you know,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: are you okay? She's like no, like I don't you know,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm gonna do, Like I'm scared.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: I'm going to you know, I mean, like heart stopping,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: can't breathe, full on panic attack. I said, okay, terrifying.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: It was enough ice where I couldn't I could barely
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: walk next to the vehicle to get up to her.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: So we talked for a while, kind of earned her trust,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: and I said, I said, do you would you like
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: one of us to drive it? She goes, yeah, could you?
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: I said, well, or I'll walk with you and you
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: drive it. And I said, I'm going to even walk
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: on the passenger side, so if you go down the hill,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: I go with you, because that's how I know you're not.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: I'm going to show you that I trust that we're
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: not going to go down the hill. I'm gonna between
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: you and the fall, Okay, And so we worked on
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: it for about twenty minutes, like literally inches at a time. So, okay,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: it's not gonna do anything. Oh just slip. No, no,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: it fell into a hole, dicey, It's fine. By the
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: end of that she was driving and talking to me.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: She was going, you know, ten miles an hour. I
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: hop in with her. She had some friends that met her.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: The rest of the day. All she did was drive
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: on ice, and I got her Instagram and we've become friends.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: And she texted me and she said that moment of
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: your patience walking me through all the rest of the day.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: I fel had so much confidence. All I did was
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: drive on the ice all day long and I had
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: a blast. And that goes to like taking care of
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: people and not leting the ego get in the way.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: And I didn't go, oh, you know, what the hell
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: are you doing up here? You don't belong here. These
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: aren't the right tires for I. So you've never done
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: an ice people, it's so cagy. What yeah, And it's like,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: what do you need? What do you need to feel comfortable?
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: Let's get you down there. You've got a great build vehicle,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: you can do. This is mental. Let's walk you through it.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: And I just I've seen so many people be dismissive
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: of other wheelers. Oh, I don't like their vehicle, I
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: don't like their setup, or I don't like whatever, or
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: or somebody driving being like I don't want to pull
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: my winch because they're going to think less of me.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: It has nothing to anything.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: They're the same people who don't like beginners.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: But they were yeah, but they were all ye, they
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: are beginning.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they never stopped.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: Learnings and they started a year before that in person.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: The other thing I would say, I enjoy spotting. People
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: always say passenger and driver's never say right and left
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: because you're right and left, and that's how people have accidents.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: And you see, you know, the qualified captain equivalent of
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: a dude, you know, assover teakettle coming down, you know,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: from a bad spot, say driver or passenger use hand gestures.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: I always cape, so you know, for most people who
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: don't have a hand license, GMRS with a ten year
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: family license is kind of the best thing going. It's
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: really great plug and play consumer out of the box.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: Midland make some great radios. You replace the CB. You
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: don't need to have the technical acumen of a ham radio.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: They're perfect for the next generation of consumers wheeling. What
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: I like about them is you can still have the
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: handheld ones. So I have my Hardmount Midland and I
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: also have a Midland X talker hanging off off my
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: grab bar. So if I hop out and everybody on
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: the trails on it, I take my radio with me
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: so I can spot them and they can hear me.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: So always grab if you've got a GMRS, grab the
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: little walkie talkies because they can become invaluable if you've
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: got to walk away from the group or you've got
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: to spot somebody, and you know, a lot easier than
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: yelling at somebody with the engine or whatever, and somebody's
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: not embarrassed because you're like, no idiot drivers right now,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: you're on the radio, Okay, a little bit more, a
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: little bit more, and you can be a little bit
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: more calming than it is if you're trying to talk
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: over exhaust or engine sounds or a crowd gathered thing
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. What other questions you got for Sean, I.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: Want to know about your new magazine.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah exactly.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so so I recently left Motor Trend like
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: this for you. So I recently left Motor Trend and
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: I've got a lot going on. I'm never somebody that
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: does anything halfway, so I don't know what the future
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: is going to hold, so I'm kind of hedging my
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: bets and I gotten involved in a lot of things.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: So I took over our podcast, the Tructional podcasts've been
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: doing that for five years, which is a great podcast,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: by the way, it's it's it's great if you're into
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: trucks and busting with your buddies and having a good time,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: and and we've we've got great interviews and we just
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: have fun with it. I own that now, which is
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: which is huge. And then I started a new company
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: called Us for Adventure and that's sort of like freelance marketing,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: consulting and adventure stuff. And then the third project I'm
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: involved in is this new magazine here which is called OvR,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: so it's Outdoor Vehicle Recreation four wheeler. Unfortunately was canceled
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: and so the print magazine's not around anymore. And a
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: friend of mine who was a tromed To alumni who
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: started Recoil, this is his baby. He's been trying to
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: get me over here for two years. My leaving motor
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: trend and four Wheeler being canceled coincided with the launch
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: of it, and they gave me an opportunity to buy
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: in as a minority partner in the magazine. And it
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: fits the perfect space we were talking earlier. I think
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: it's sort of, you know, not as aspirational as Overland
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: Journal is, but a little bit more technical and a
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: little broader than maybe tread It's kind of that middle
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: ground that I think four Wheeler lived in really.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: Well, oh for sure.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's OvR hints at overlanding, but it's about wheeling,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: it's about gear. You know, there's not a lot of
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: magazines maybe you guys, and I can't really think of
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: any others. There's a lot of people do gear review
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: from the vehicle based exploration perspective. You go to gear
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: Lab or Outdoor or some of those. It's always like,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: we really love this mattress, but we couldn't take it
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: with us because it was too heavy for a backpack
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: or didn't stow. And I'm like, that's exactly the mattress
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: I want for my you know, rooftop ten or my
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: shift pod or something, right, So, you know, I think,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: you know, it'll be great to be able to give
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: those kinds of advice and gear review from the back
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: country traveler vehicle based exploration plan on doing destinations, trail
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: rides tech. You know, maybe not as hardcore as four
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: Wheeler was, but you'll still get a lot of that.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: It's an oversized package that just like Recoil Magazine was.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: It's the same team that did the design for this
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: and the design for that.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: It looks great.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: I'm excited. I think it's going to be really cool.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: It's sort of a dream come true for me. I've
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: worked for somebody else my entire life. I've worked for
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: the same people for almost twenty years. To have the
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: opportunity to be an entrepreneur and get on the ground
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: floor of, you know, something that I really believe in
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: the space, to still be able to start a company,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: helping other companies in the space, and then to maintain
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: ownership or to take over ownership of the podcast they
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: started five years ago. The future is bright. It's super exciting.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: I kind of am breathing, you know, drink through a
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: fire hose right now. You know, lots of spaghetti on
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: the wall. We'll see what sticks. The world is pretty
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: exciting and lots of options. So we're super proud of you, Sean.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, I've known you for a long time. I've
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: always been so impressed with your attitude. You've always had
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: a positive attitude, and you've done a good job of
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: maintaining not only professional friendships, but a great reputation in
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: the industry. And say that's going to serve you really
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: well as you go on to these new things. And
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: it's just been so fun to have you on our podcast. Well,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: I appreciate the invite in being able to make it happen.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: Like I said, I think you know, the key to
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: my success was when I started in the magazine world,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: I wanted to be in the off road space. I
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: realized that everybody wanted to drive a Ferrari or Lamborghini,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: and they ended up driving minivans. And you have this
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: entire room full of minivan experts. I'm like this, that's boring.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: You know, forget the exotics. I want to go drive
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: off road vehicles. And you know, when I came up
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: with you could count on one hand the number of
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: people that were well versed oe trucks and aftermarket. It
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: was maybe Alison Harwood, Mark Williams, John Stewart, maybe Rick
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: Payway to an extent. And I just realized, like putting
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: myself in that company where I could go on both
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: sides of the oe and aftermarket fence and really follow
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: my passions. And you know, I've always been somebody who
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: values the relationships with people. And you know, people are like,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: are you mad about motor training? I'm like, no, they
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: gave me a tremendous opportunity. I had an amazing twenty years.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: I put a post out and I said, you know,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: Johnny Honkins had said it best. He said, we have
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: the best job in the world, one day at a time,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: because we all know that it's the magazine. World's been volatile.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: I had seven ownership changes in the twenty years I
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: was there. Yeah, I had a lot of those one
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: days strung together. I was very fortunate, very blessed to
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: be able to have that lifestyle and to experience those things.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: I've been wheeling on four continents. I know, I haven't
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: been to Antarctica like you have. You're one of two
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: people I know with the Antarctica Pass Florida stamp, which
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: is super awesome. But I got to wheel on four continents.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: I've gotten to you know, wheel in Africa and Australia
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: and New Zealand and the Sahara sand Dunes when we
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: were out there with Nissan that was so good. Europe,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: you know, with land Rover Canada. I've raced in the
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: Baja one thousand. We won with Josh Hall. Got to
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: know people like Gale Banks and Rod Hall before he
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: passed away, and all these greats of the industry, you know,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: the jay Lenos of the world. And it just to
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: have those experiences. I've lived five lifetimes and have gotten
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: the access that people dream about. No, I'm not bitter
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: at all. I'm excited and.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: And you're just getting started.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: I'm just getting started now because I got to go
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: out of my own You're a young guy, still, you
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: got it all all. I don't know when nobody tells
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: you when you when you hit forty five that there's
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: a lot of noises and things that heart like, what
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: is this right? My oldest daughter's fifteen, she'll be sixteen
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: this year. My youngest is five. And I think with
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: my oldest kid, I was like the young, cool, energetic dad,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: and with the little one, I'm like the old tired. Well,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: we're'd all my energy go dad, right, But yeah, no,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: this is I love the space. I love the people.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: To see what you've done with this, this magazine and company.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, how many years has it been? Fifteen?
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's gonna be twenty years, Oh my god in
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: February since we started.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: That's crazy, Wes, Yeah, that's crazy. I mean just to
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: see the growth that you guys have done. And you know,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: people come and go out of these industries. You know
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: who the real deals are and people that stay. You know,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: I think this industry is a lot more special than
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: other ones because of the closeness of community. It's it's
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: a it's a small world out here, is It's it's funny.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: You know, you're a five hour drive from me, but
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: I may not see you until we're in Europe or Africa, right,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just it's crazy. You'll you'll be had
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: some media thing and you know you flew twelve hours together.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: You're like, I could have just driven to see you.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: It's special. We're lucky to be a part of it.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: And I appreciate your kind words and u and supporting
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: me and.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: Oh man, awesome. Now it's been so impressive what you've done.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: Any other questions, Matt.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: I want to have a beer. I could go for
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: a beer. Hold on, let me check with HR. Yeah.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, Sean, thanks so much for being on the podcast,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: and we thank you all for listening. We'll talk to
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: you next time.