Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / 2024 in Review: Factory Overlanders, Crossing Europe, and Matt's First Car

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2024 in Review: Factory Overlanders, Crossing Europe, and Matt's First Car · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:06
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your
0:10
Speaker 1: host Scott Brady and I'm joined today by my co
0:13
Speaker 1: host Matt Scott. Now, this is always a fun episode
0:17
Speaker 1: for us every year when we take a look at
0:19
Speaker 1: the prior twelve months and talk about the vehicles that
0:22
Speaker 1: we've tested, the things that we've learned, the places that
0:25
Speaker 1: we've traveled, some of the changes in the overland industry.
0:30
Speaker 1: In this particular episode, we get to talk about the
0:33
Speaker 1: very first car that Matt ever drove and how he
0:36
Speaker 1: got a hold of it. We also talk about mi
0:39
Speaker 1: Anios Quartermaster project with the Scout Camper, We go into
0:43
Speaker 1: some information on factory overland vehicles. We just talk about
0:48
Speaker 1: how things are going with overlanding and the things that
0:51
Speaker 1: we have most enjoyed over the last twelve months. But
0:55
Speaker 1: most important, we just want to thank you all our
0:57
Speaker 1: listeners for being a part of the Overland Journal podcast
1:01
Speaker 1: for sending us all of your comments and feedback. You
1:04
Speaker 1: can reach me at Instagram at Scott dot a dot Brady,
1:09
Speaker 1: and you can also reach Matt Scott at Matt Explore
1:12
Speaker 1: on Instagram. We look forward to hearing from you, and
1:15
Speaker 1: we look forward to what twenty twenty five will bring
1:18
Speaker 1: and a special thanks to on X for their support
1:21
Speaker 1: of this week's podcast. Going further on your adventures is
1:25
Speaker 1: about having the right tools. The on X off road
1:28
Speaker 1: apps intuitive maps make it easy to find trails and
1:32
Speaker 1: disperse camping, and their offline maps give you full GPS
1:36
Speaker 1: navigation capabilities even without cell coverage. Personally, I use on
1:42
Speaker 1: X for every trip in North America because I always
1:45
Speaker 1: know who owns or manages the land that I'm traveling on.
1:49
Speaker 1: It also makes for a reliable track recorder and I
1:53
Speaker 1: can filter the trails based on the full drive or
1:55
Speaker 1: motorcycle that I'm using. On my most recent trip. In
1:59
Speaker 1: the quartermap, I use the on X to find trails
2:02
Speaker 1: near where I was staying in Joshua Tree. I use
2:06
Speaker 1: the difficulty rating and the elevation to determine which trails
2:10
Speaker 1: are best suited to the vehicle and the weather. Thanks
2:14
Speaker 1: again on X for your support of the Ovalan Dural podcast.
2:20
Speaker 1: We are back. We're back. We are back at it. Man,
2:23
Speaker 1: So glad we're get to sit at the table and
2:25
Speaker 1: have a look back on twenty twenty four. Yeah, it's
2:29
Speaker 1: an interesting year. Yeah, and it's just I'm sitting here
2:32
Speaker 1: and my dad's in the hospital and I'm thinking about him,
2:36
Speaker 1: and it's just this for those that are listening, it's
2:38
Speaker 1: just this reminder to spend that time with your family.
2:41
Speaker 1: I'm just so lucky that I spend as much time
2:44
Speaker 1: with my dad as I do. But I think he's
2:47
Speaker 1: going to be okay. He's getting some heart procedures, but
2:49
Speaker 1: he's getting some heart procedures done. I did a podcast
2:52
Speaker 1: with him that aired on Father's Day, and it's been
2:56
Speaker 1: just such an important part of my life. But it's
2:59
Speaker 1: just such a it's just really important to remember that. Like,
3:04
Speaker 1: it's the people in our life and the experiences that
3:07
Speaker 1: we have that really define our life, not the stuff
3:10
Speaker 1: that we buy.
3:10
Speaker 2: So stuff doesn't always make you happy.
3:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, rarely, there has been stuff that has made me happy.
3:16
Speaker 2: I'm rarely sad in a nine to eleven.
3:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. That's true. Maybe they don't make everything.
3:21
Speaker 1: Maybe they come become neutral at points in time, Like
3:24
Speaker 1: your earth Roamer is something that genuinely has brought you experiences.
3:28
Speaker 1: It's brought you closer with Laura by traveling together.
3:31
Speaker 2: And the earth Roamer is like a boat, right, Yeah,
3:34
Speaker 2: it's like our little it's our little cabin that.
3:36
Speaker 1: We get to park in a bunch of different places.
3:38
Speaker 2: I'm actually like incredibly interested in the boat thing lately,
3:42
Speaker 2: watching all of Tim and Kelsey's stuff with.
3:44
Speaker 1: We gotta go, We gotta get you to the sailboat.
3:46
Speaker 2: Oh no, I'm horribly sea sick.
3:49
Speaker 1: But it's on a lake. Up. I have the wristband.
3:52
Speaker 1: I have the wristband. Good luck, we'll clean it up.
3:55
Speaker 1: I will park in the dock. Okay, we could do that.
3:58
Speaker 1: We can just sit in the dock.
3:59
Speaker 2: No, I've been following geez, what's their YouTube channel called
4:02
Speaker 2: something Sunrise now because they changed it. It was Dirt
4:05
Speaker 2: Sunrise and now it's shoot heck.
4:09
Speaker 1: But it's great. They're great. They're great human beings. Kelsey
4:13
Speaker 1: used to work here, Kelsey.
4:16
Speaker 2: Sole Catmaran, And I'm just like, I'm just it's awesome
4:18
Speaker 2: with it because it just seems so addylic.
4:21
Speaker 1: Yes, it's for the motion sness. Now that one shot
4:26
Speaker 1: they got like at sunrise sunset with the Statue of
4:31
Speaker 1: Liberty behind them, Oh that was epic. Yeah, they're doing
4:35
Speaker 1: some neat stuff and we're going to have a sailing
4:38
Speaker 1: uma on the podcast here in the next couple of weeks.
4:41
Speaker 1: They have done sailing around the world, high latitude stuff
4:46
Speaker 1: up to s fall Bard and everything else like that.
4:48
Speaker 1: And while they're rebuilding their sailboat, they're traveling around and
4:52
Speaker 1: a Defender one ten. They've got a great YouTube channel,
4:55
Speaker 1: so they're scheduled to be on the podcast. That'll be
4:58
Speaker 1: a fun one. So I just think we're seeing a
5:01
Speaker 1: lot more overlanders being like, oh, like the sailing thing
5:06
Speaker 1: is interesting. For me. It was the only solution that
5:08
Speaker 1: I had during COVID because I couldn't travel internationally or
5:12
Speaker 1: not much hard, so it was hard to do. So
5:15
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, let's hop on a sailboat and cross
5:17
Speaker 1: the Pacific. Yeah, You're like, no, thanks, No, I'm good.
5:22
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I think that risk unit might work for
5:25
Speaker 1: you though. Yeah, we'll see, see, we'll try it out.
5:29
Speaker 1: We'll try it out. Yeah.
5:30
Speaker 2: Interesting year though, I think that overlanding as a as
5:34
Speaker 2: like an industry continues to mature.
5:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it had a better like second half of
5:40
Speaker 1: the year for sure.
5:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I feel like maybe what's cool about where
5:45
Speaker 2: things are going is it's definitely not there was this
5:48
Speaker 2: crazy growth during COVID, but I've started to explain it
5:52
Speaker 2: to people that there's like the camping travel side of overlanding,
5:58
Speaker 2: and then there's like the automotive rese stylings.
6:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. Sure.
6:01
Speaker 2: What I notice is that all of my friends that
6:05
Speaker 2: maybe got into this during COVID or around that period,
6:09
Speaker 2: the guys that are still around are the ones that
6:11
Speaker 2: are traveling or camping, whether that's domestically, internationally whatever, they're around.
6:15
Speaker 2: But the guys that and girls that were maybe oh
6:18
Speaker 2: I want to throw a roof rack on here and
6:20
Speaker 2: this lift and there more, I'm going to become an influencer. Yeah,
6:23
Speaker 2: they're more. It's like the influencers dying. Yeah, this because
6:26
Speaker 2: Instagram's changing, not to like disparage. I have a lot
6:29
Speaker 2: of friends that are influencers and whatever.
6:31
Speaker 1: Oh I think a lot of them add value.
6:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, just if you're doing it for the right rea
6:34
Speaker 2: the ones that like were never used their stuff. Like
6:39
Speaker 2: that's just the side of the space that kind of
6:41
Speaker 2: seems to be fading. Yeah, almost for the better. Like
6:45
Speaker 2: I'm a little bit more I think after twenty four
6:48
Speaker 2: I'm a little more positive on Like I I enjoy
6:53
Speaker 2: it more. I'm not there's fewer long travel ta comas
6:57
Speaker 2: with roof tents but maybe that's a good thing.
7:00
Speaker 1: I just think it's I think it's good that people
7:03
Speaker 1: are getting back to what overlanding is, which is travel.
7:06
Speaker 1: So if you were doing it for styling, there's nothing
7:09
Speaker 1: wrong with that. Yeah, people can do whatever they want.
7:11
Speaker 1: But I think that we're just seeing the industry as
7:14
Speaker 1: it matures now, coming back to a bit more of
7:17
Speaker 1: its roots. And people are going to want to travel
7:19
Speaker 1: around the world in cars for a very long time.
7:22
Speaker 1: So it's not like it's going to die. It's just
7:24
Speaker 1: it's becoming a little bit more of what it should be,
7:27
Speaker 1: which is, you know, not fourwell drive enthusiasts that are
7:31
Speaker 1: putting a roof tent on their vehicle. It's more people
7:34
Speaker 1: who are travelers that happen to use a vehicle.
7:36
Speaker 2: So I see, and maybe I'm more aware of it
7:40
Speaker 2: than I ever. I mean, I guess we've been doing
7:41
Speaker 2: this for a while, but the amount of Europeans that
7:44
Speaker 2: I see traveling now, yeah, they really maybe they eschewed
7:47
Speaker 2: the vehicle modification side and really hooked onto the travel side. Yeah,
7:51
Speaker 2: there's reasons why Europeans travel more. They generally have a
7:55
Speaker 2: little bit more of a geez.
7:57
Speaker 1: How do you say it? Time off, time off. They
7:59
Speaker 1: have more time off.
8:00
Speaker 2: So the amount of people that I see traveling they
8:03
Speaker 2: all there's this there always has been, but there's now
8:05
Speaker 2: this massive wave of people that they ship into like
8:10
Speaker 2: Halifax or something like that in the spring, and then
8:14
Speaker 2: they drive up to Alaska and then they all work
8:16
Speaker 2: their way down. I see so many coming through Prescott
8:18
Speaker 2: and a lot of guys and girls are in Baha now. Yeah,
8:21
Speaker 2: and that seems to be growing, and I think that's
8:23
Speaker 2: really cool.
8:24
Speaker 1: I think that's important and I think we talk about
8:27
Speaker 1: this on the podcast a lot. But when you look
8:30
Speaker 1: at your budget for the year that you're going to
8:32
Speaker 1: spend on overlanding, make sure that you are covering all
8:36
Speaker 1: of the travel that you want to do before you
8:38
Speaker 1: spend any money on modifications. So, like a great example
8:42
Speaker 1: is to tell us your newest purchase, Yeah, your newest.
8:45
Speaker 2: I think we'll get into the newest purchase because there's
8:48
Speaker 2: always a new purchase with me vehicle add Matt. I
8:51
Speaker 2: think that these twenty twenty four is also the year
8:55
Speaker 2: of this, like factory overlander. It's been a trend that
8:58
Speaker 2: we're seeing, but there's been a lot of the concepts
9:01
Speaker 2: were really realized or made available this year, and it's
9:06
Speaker 2: so easy to go do it now?
9:08
Speaker 1: It is you don't.
9:11
Speaker 2: You brought up your friends that are traveling in a
9:13
Speaker 2: Defender one ten. Yeah, ten years ago you would have
9:17
Speaker 2: bought a Defender one ten or a Troopee. You would
9:19
Speaker 2: have had to have this do a battery system, and
9:21
Speaker 2: you would have had you would have had to have
9:22
Speaker 2: built all of this stuff. Now you grab like a
9:25
Speaker 2: lithium battery pack, a fridge and you go. You know,
9:29
Speaker 2: obviously that was what I did in Africa.
9:31
Speaker 1: It was literally a Dometic battery pack, a Dometic twenty
9:35
Speaker 1: five liter fridge and some bedrolls and.
9:38
Speaker 2: So easy, right, I think that the Grenadier. So I
9:43
Speaker 2: bought a Grenadier. I guess that's the thing. We've obviously
9:45
Speaker 2: talked about them a lot. Scott's driving a Quartermaster right now.
9:48
Speaker 2: I yeah, I don't want to say I bought one
9:51
Speaker 2: on a whim. I had always been very interested, but
9:54
Speaker 2: as I maybe on the plane. You even had an
9:55
Speaker 2: early reservation, had an early reservation, but there was no
9:58
Speaker 2: dealer in Arizona. And I don't like going to southern California.
10:02
Speaker 2: I don't like driving to southern California. For a car
10:04
Speaker 2: that has a foil change for an oil changer for whatever.
10:08
Speaker 2: So there's a dealer now in Phoenix. It was a
10:11
Speaker 2: car dealer experience. There was nothing I know in the
10:14
Speaker 2: as is maybe trying to have like enthusiast based dealers.
10:18
Speaker 2: Now this was like but this is also brand new,
10:20
Speaker 2: like they were like trying to get sorted out. Yeah,
10:22
Speaker 2: they were operating out of a car wash base, so
10:26
Speaker 2: I suppose really small.
10:28
Speaker 1: It was fine. The car is interesting. Yeah, yeah, we're
10:30
Speaker 1: gonna do a deep dive. Yeah, we'll do a deep
10:32
Speaker 1: dive on that. But vehicles like the Grenadier, there's the
10:35
Speaker 1: av there's both.
10:37
Speaker 2: The Canyon and the Colorada.
10:39
Speaker 1: Those things are so cool. Yeah. I had one for
10:42
Speaker 1: a month, an at four x AEV, and I think
10:47
Speaker 1: it's I think it's the best do it all daily
10:51
Speaker 1: driver that I've ever used. Yeah, because it was shockingly comfortable,
10:57
Speaker 1: Like you could remote start it and you'd get in
10:59
Speaker 1: there and they heated steering wheel, had heated the steering wheel,
11:03
Speaker 1: The seats were heated and they're cooled, and it's got
11:06
Speaker 1: radar cruise control, and it's got lane everything.
11:10
Speaker 2: It's got thirty fives. Yes, hydraulic bump stops on the
11:13
Speaker 2: thing if you want. That's right, It's crazy. It was
11:16
Speaker 2: very good, incredibly capable off road. I think one of
11:20
Speaker 2: the things that we've been the concept that we've been pushing.
11:23
Speaker 2: It's not that you shouldn't modify your vehicles, but part
11:26
Speaker 2: of the ethos of overlining has always been like that
11:28
Speaker 2: OEM plus mentality of you don't want to have time
11:34
Speaker 2: joints and racing chocks and all this kind of stuff
11:37
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to rebuild in service when you're when
11:39
Speaker 2: you're putting miles on these vehicles. And now we have
11:41
Speaker 2: all this OEM engineering and you can go buy a
11:44
Speaker 2: Tacoma outfitted by ARB right, the trail Hunter.
11:48
Speaker 1: Trail Hunter. Yeah, and it's great. Yeah, Like I drove
11:51
Speaker 1: one a couple. It is really good. It's very good.
11:54
Speaker 1: And what's so interesting, We'll talk a little bit about
11:57
Speaker 1: mid size for a second, but this is the best
11:59
Speaker 1: too that they have. The first gen Tacoma was groundbreaking,
12:03
Speaker 1: Like it was just such a perfect size. It was
12:05
Speaker 1: really good, and there was everybody else in the segment
12:08
Speaker 1: was terrible. So that Tacoma, like the one that I owned, you.
12:12
Speaker 2: Were competing with what like the Chevy Culp like the
12:14
Speaker 2: Colorado back what not. Even they weren't even around the
12:16
Speaker 2: Ford Ranger stuff.
12:18
Speaker 1: It was like a standard forwarding. Yeah exactly. These were
12:21
Speaker 1: cars that were vehicles that really poorly engineered and just
12:25
Speaker 1: like for mass market. And then I remember my two
12:29
Speaker 1: thousand and four Tacoma quad cab with a rear locker.
12:32
Speaker 1: It was like the factory Overlander of its day. It
12:35
Speaker 1: was the first factory Overlander and as far as like
12:38
Speaker 1: a US only model. And then the Tacomas were always reliable,
12:43
Speaker 1: but now all of this competition has come into this space.
12:46
Speaker 1: This is the best Tacoma that they've ever made. And
12:48
Speaker 1: I've driven them all and it's incredibly capable, incredibly comfortable, powerful,
12:53
Speaker 1: good fuel economy. The motor is so much better, yep,
12:57
Speaker 1: so much better. More cogs and the transmission and bigger tires,
13:02
Speaker 1: better suspension, more payload. Like the trail Hunter that I
13:06
Speaker 1: tested was at twelve hundred and fifteen pounds, which is
13:09
Speaker 1: a twenty five push that improvement.
13:11
Speaker 2: Steel bumpers, les with skid play right with slider, and
13:14
Speaker 2: there's a lot of inclusions there, yes, that you would
13:18
Speaker 2: have to otherwise take away from the payload of a comparable.
13:21
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly, and it's got it right out of the factory.
13:24
Speaker 1: The Tacoma is better than it's ever been before, but
13:27
Speaker 1: the competition is more intense that it's ever been before.
13:31
Speaker 1: So now the Tacoma is and also ran of all
13:35
Speaker 1: of these other vehicles. The new Ford Ranger Raptor unbelievable
13:39
Speaker 1: and a fourteen hundred pound payload.
13:41
Speaker 2: And not it's not horribly expensive either, Like it's.
13:45
Speaker 1: The same price. It's actually less expensive than the Trail Hunter.
13:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's obviously a lot of money you could
13:50
Speaker 2: there's a lot of vehicles that you could just go
13:52
Speaker 2: buy and drive around the world with the budget of
13:55
Speaker 2: a Ford Ranger Raptor. Let's make sure we always say
13:58
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff for sure?
13:59
Speaker 1: Need it?
14:00
Speaker 2: What for a lot of people that have a like us,
14:03
Speaker 2: like we work, we have, we're not always on trips.
14:06
Speaker 2: They're great vehicles for that. There's such dual purpose machines.
14:10
Speaker 1: Which is why I really mid size. I'm such a fan.
14:13
Speaker 1: I'm such a fan of a mid size that I
14:15
Speaker 1: bought the Scout Camper with the intention of eventually buying
14:19
Speaker 1: which what I'm gonna buy. So that's why I decided
14:21
Speaker 1: that the next main gear review test for Overland Journal
14:25
Speaker 1: is going to be the mid sized trucks. So I've
14:26
Speaker 1: been spending months and months. So look at the lineup.
14:30
Speaker 1: Now you've got quarter Master Trial Master, which dual battery systems,
14:36
Speaker 1: triple diff locked, factory Snorkele it fits a thirty four
14:40
Speaker 1: with no lift. That's what's on the truck right now,
14:42
Speaker 1: no lift. It's eighteen hundred pounds of payload. And then
14:46
Speaker 1: you've got Chevy Colorado AEV Bison. You've got GMC canyon
14:52
Speaker 1: at four x, AEV on thirty fives, factory available jounces,
14:58
Speaker 1: multimatic suspension, front and rear diff locks. It's they're they're unbelievable.
15:03
Speaker 1: And then you've got a trail Hunter.
15:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, you still a gladiator too, and they'll they'll give
15:07
Speaker 2: you if you buy a ham sandwich at the jeep dealer,
15:09
Speaker 2: they'll give you a gladiator for twelve bucks.
15:11
Speaker 1: I know it's so sad because it's such a good
15:13
Speaker 1: it's actually really good. It's the best value. But if
15:16
Speaker 1: anybody is looking to buy something of value, like you
15:19
Speaker 1: could buy a Willie's Gladiator and drive around the world
15:25
Speaker 1: for the money it would take to buy the Quartermaster. Yeah,
15:28
Speaker 1: like pretty comfortably drop around the world. Oh yeah, so
15:30
Speaker 1: it's a value like there. I was seeing them at
15:33
Speaker 1: the dealership here Jeff Simpson, mutual friend, he's been involved
15:36
Speaker 1: in the industry at York Jeep here in Prescott, and
15:40
Speaker 1: they had them discounted by ten grand. They were forty
15:43
Speaker 1: four thousand dollars for a Willie's Gladiator. That to me
15:47
Speaker 1: seems like the bargain of the century.
15:49
Speaker 2: It they did get expensive during COVIE. Yeah, like Jeep
15:53
Speaker 2: products like I did see something were like the that
15:56
Speaker 2: was a mistake where the jail started in like the
15:59
Speaker 2: twenties when it was first launched, and now there's models
16:02
Speaker 2: in the hundreds.
16:03
Speaker 1: Yes, and that's what got That's what heard of.
16:05
Speaker 2: That's where the Grenadier starts to really make sense to me.
16:08
Speaker 2: Is I love Jeeps? I mean I really do. I've
16:11
Speaker 2: owned a lot of them. I was looking at a
16:13
Speaker 2: like this, or I was looking at maybe like a
16:15
Speaker 2: three ninety two yep. I actually prefer how the Grenadier
16:19
Speaker 2: power train works. It's the same transmission that has a
16:23
Speaker 2: BMW Straight six with a turbo that on paper has
16:27
Speaker 2: less horsepower than the naturally aspirated V six. That's in
16:30
Speaker 2: the Gladiator. But it's how it's tuned and where it
16:32
Speaker 2: makes it. It's I just I prefer it to three
16:35
Speaker 2: ninety two, which makes its power and all the places
16:39
Speaker 2: where I'm not using it.
16:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, but all of three ninety two is really fun.
16:42
Speaker 1: It's really fun. It's just not a travel it's not
16:43
Speaker 1: a great travel via. It's totally fun.
16:45
Speaker 2: But by the time you run it through AEV, it's
16:47
Speaker 2: fifty thousand dollars more like they became. They're one hundred
16:50
Speaker 2: grand now for this final edition thing. And then you
16:53
Speaker 2: go and you spend it's a jeep. You're gonna rip
16:55
Speaker 2: everything off of it, and you're gonna spend another twenty
16:59
Speaker 2: or thirty grand on and that's g wagon money, man.
17:02
Speaker 2: Like they're not. They're They have the white plastic, terrible
17:05
Speaker 2: hard top interior is like a carryover from the TJ
17:09
Speaker 2: or the YJ. It'll be interesting because it's funny where
17:13
Speaker 2: GM I'm stillantis or whatever. Like they really took Overlanding
17:17
Speaker 2: very seriously at first. They've always supported the community. Really
17:20
Speaker 2: they're great people and whatever, but they're now on the
17:23
Speaker 2: back foot and nearly everything there's a like the I've
17:29
Speaker 2: had a couple of their hd rams. They're just so
17:32
Speaker 2: dated now, the body itself and the bulk of the
17:36
Speaker 2: vehicle goes back how long.
17:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.
17:40
Speaker 2: Plus they're supposedly doing a new transmission next year. Here
17:45
Speaker 2: we are like end of December and it's supposed to
17:48
Speaker 2: be a twenty five model year and it's still not
17:50
Speaker 2: even like out. It'll be interesting to see where that
17:54
Speaker 2: company goes. Everybody else is just like really excelling in
17:57
Speaker 2: the segment.
17:58
Speaker 1: And then you look at this other interesting news, even
18:01
Speaker 1: in the last couple of days, is the fact that
18:03
Speaker 1: like Honda's looking at merging with Nissan, which I think
18:07
Speaker 1: will be great. I think it'll be great for both brands. Actually, yeah,
18:10
Speaker 1: Nissan has made efforts.
18:12
Speaker 2: Nissan just as has always been like a price point brand. Yeah,
18:16
Speaker 2: they're like the Kirkland of cars. They're everything you need,
18:19
Speaker 2: nothing you really down at a pretty decent price.
18:21
Speaker 1: And they're reliable, like that little Frontier, Like the Frontier
18:25
Speaker 1: we talk about mid size again, the Frontier is the
18:27
Speaker 1: only compact pickup that's sold in America anymore because everything
18:33
Speaker 1: else is gigantic.
18:34
Speaker 2: I never see them like, I like forget that Nissan exists.
18:38
Speaker 1: Sometimes if you go to California, they're all over the place,
18:40
Speaker 1: but they don't really sew.
18:41
Speaker 2: A lot of them in Arizona.
18:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, jeez. But a little Pro four X with a
18:46
Speaker 1: rear locker and they got like nice little handcook AT's
18:50
Speaker 1: on them and seventeen inch wheels and you can get
18:53
Speaker 1: Rettle rock sliders for them. They're pretty cool. And I
18:56
Speaker 1: think if they can get some footing with Honda and
19:01
Speaker 1: get some of the shackles taken off, Like I just
19:03
Speaker 1: went on the Nissan Armada launch a couple weeks ago. Now,
19:10
Speaker 1: the Armada that we got in the United States was
19:12
Speaker 1: always just like a value driven large SUV seven passenger,
19:17
Speaker 1: and I think it met a lot of people's needs. Yeah,
19:20
Speaker 1: But what they just did, though, is they took the
19:23
Speaker 1: rest of the world patrol and they gave us all
19:26
Speaker 1: of those hard parts. So when you get a Pro
19:30
Speaker 1: four X Armada, which is going to be coming out
19:33
Speaker 1: here in the next couple weeks for consumers to buy,
19:36
Speaker 1: it's going to have almost a thirty three inch tall tire,
19:39
Speaker 1: it's going to have a rear locking differential, it's got
19:42
Speaker 1: multi mode traction control system, center locking differential, eighty six
19:48
Speaker 1: hundred pounds or so, of towing. It has a really
19:51
Speaker 1: nice turbo V six in it, so like it's one
19:55
Speaker 1: of the most significant leaps in overall comfort performance attributes
20:02
Speaker 1: that I've seen in a vehicle in a long time.
20:04
Speaker 1: I was really impressed by it. They gave it a
20:06
Speaker 1: bunch more approach angle, departure angle, they gave it multi
20:10
Speaker 1: height air suspension, long travel air suspension, and so it
20:14
Speaker 1: gives it like another two and a half inches of
20:16
Speaker 1: ground clearance when you put it into off road mode.
20:19
Speaker 1: So some and the just they've really refined it, like
20:22
Speaker 1: they've taken all the best of the rest of.
20:24
Speaker 2: The world patrol and brought it here.
20:26
Speaker 1: And they brought it here. They should have done that
20:28
Speaker 1: a while ago. Yes, they should have.
20:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the patrol is a viable candidate, Like it's
20:34
Speaker 2: something that you could throw into that list of kind
20:36
Speaker 2: of yeah factory ready to go vehicle.
20:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, those HY sixty threes of the Y sixty one
20:42
Speaker 1: is if I got that. That was the one that
20:44
Speaker 1: was the solid axle patrol that they had in Australia,
20:46
Speaker 1: And yeah.
20:47
Speaker 2: They were like an eighty series in a lot of
20:48
Speaker 2: ways that kept getting built. When I worked for pat
20:51
Speaker 2: Callanan down in Australia time. He was a big fan
20:54
Speaker 2: of this. He was sponsored by them, so I got
20:56
Speaker 2: to drive one for quite a bit and they were good.
20:58
Speaker 2: They were just there were nine. I feel like the
21:01
Speaker 2: Nissan plan, the Nissan formula is really simple. It's ninety
21:05
Speaker 2: percent of a Toyota at eighty percent.
21:07
Speaker 1: Of the price. Yeah. Sure, and that's not a bad thing.
21:09
Speaker 2: If you're going to be ninety percent of any car manufacturer,
21:11
Speaker 2: be ninety percent of Toyota.
21:12
Speaker 1: Correct.
21:13
Speaker 2: But yeah, I guess just again to go back to
21:15
Speaker 2: the twenty four twenty twenty four in recap thing. There's
21:18
Speaker 2: just so many applicable vehicles for this segment, so good
21:22
Speaker 2: that not only can drive around the world, but can
21:23
Speaker 2: drive to work and can drive to job site or
21:26
Speaker 2: whatever you're using the vehicle for.
21:28
Speaker 1: Look at the new two to fifty land Cruiser. It's
21:30
Speaker 1: just like the stuff the hits, really, the hits just
21:33
Speaker 1: keep coming. The hits just keep The Grenadier is great,
21:36
Speaker 1: the Colorado's great, They're just all I looked so much better.
21:39
Speaker 2: At the two fifty land Cruiser.
21:41
Speaker 1: I still call it the Prato for whatever reason, it
21:43
Speaker 1: is a proto, Yeah, proto land Cruiser.
21:46
Speaker 2: I think the price points great on it. Yeah, I
21:49
Speaker 2: like the form factor. People bought the GX because it
21:52
Speaker 2: was a fore runner with a better a little bit
21:54
Speaker 2: more power and a better form factor. But this is
21:56
Speaker 2: just like the best of both worlds. Yeah, I really
22:01
Speaker 2: I think it'll be very popular for the segment. I
22:03
Speaker 2: think it's like a it's a no brainer for travel.
22:07
Speaker 2: Even though I just bought this Grenadier. If I was like,
22:10
Speaker 2: I have this, i'll call a litmus test. If you're
22:12
Speaker 2: gonna drive to u Shwia tomorrow, what would you take,
22:16
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, like, I would still probably take the Grenadier,
22:19
Speaker 2: but that two fifty proto would just be like sitting
22:21
Speaker 2: there like whispering in my ear.
22:22
Speaker 1: You'd have no problems with me because it would just work. Yeah,
22:26
Speaker 1: for sure. And they sell it in all of those countries. Yeah,
22:29
Speaker 1: that's the nice thing. There's a couple things that I
22:32
Speaker 1: think some of the more diehards have missed with the
22:34
Speaker 1: two point fifty. They're like, oh, it's not a land cruiser.
22:37
Speaker 1: It is a land cruiser. They've had land cruiser protos
22:40
Speaker 1: around the world since the nineties.
22:42
Speaker 2: Nineties.
22:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, since the nineties. So you drove that one, that
22:45
Speaker 1: seventy series proto that we had, which is a land
22:49
Speaker 1: Cruiser two, so they've been called land cruisers. They're a
22:51
Speaker 1: J series, they're not the heavy duty three hundred series,
22:55
Speaker 1: but they are built with that intention in mind of
22:58
Speaker 1: being a proto for the rest of the world. So
23:00
Speaker 1: they're a very reliable platform. The fact that they're also
23:03
Speaker 1: being sold in like almost two hundred countries, so you're
23:08
Speaker 1: going to be able to get service on this thing
23:10
Speaker 1: if you did need it. If you needed if you
23:13
Speaker 1: broke a CV axle or you had problems with the
23:15
Speaker 1: springs or whatever, you're going to be able to find that.
23:19
Speaker 1: The fact that it has a front swaybar disconnect really
23:23
Speaker 1: improves the performance off road. It is a little bit low.
23:26
Speaker 1: There's like we got to talk about some of the
23:27
Speaker 1: downsides too, so like the ground clearance is like eight
23:31
Speaker 1: point seven inches, which is very low. So when I
23:36
Speaker 1: was on a super cross track, yes, and not to
23:40
Speaker 1: mince words, it is low. Like the car is low
23:43
Speaker 1: and we when we were just doing some mild off
23:47
Speaker 1: roading in Colorado, there was a lot of scraping of
23:50
Speaker 1: the bottom of the car and the lowest part of
23:53
Speaker 1: the car is actually at the front where the skid
23:55
Speaker 1: plate comes down to the arms. So this vehicle really
23:59
Speaker 1: benefits not so much from lifting it that much, because
24:01
Speaker 1: I don't think people should lift it. But there's a
24:03
Speaker 1: huge wheel, so stick some like thirty four to ten
24:06
Speaker 1: fifties in there and then all the problems go away.
24:09
Speaker 1: And it's the same with the Grenadier. The Grenadier will
24:11
Speaker 1: take a thirty four x ten fifty seventeen with no lift. Yeah,
24:15
Speaker 1: that's what I've got on the Quartermaster right now, and
24:17
Speaker 1: it works perfect. But that two point fifty is sweet,
24:20
Speaker 1: and the GX is fricking awesome.
24:22
Speaker 2: The GX like I like the Lankers or more than
24:25
Speaker 2: I like the GX.
24:26
Speaker 1: Oh, it's interesting because I'm the opposite.
24:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of my friends would probably
24:30
Speaker 2: think I would like the GX more, But I like the.
24:32
Speaker 1: Nineteen fifty eight base.
24:34
Speaker 2: Yes, lankers are like a lot to be said for
24:37
Speaker 2: that anything else on it.
24:38
Speaker 1: I want the base motor. Yeah, it's totally enough. I
24:41
Speaker 1: just I think even the base one has a locker
24:43
Speaker 1: in the rear.
24:43
Speaker 2: They're like fifty.
24:45
Speaker 1: Fifty eight fifty six. Yeah, but that's Wrangler territory. Again.
24:50
Speaker 2: It's a lot of money. Everything's expensive these days. Right,
24:53
Speaker 2: but I think that it's good value. Whereas you used
24:56
Speaker 2: to go out and buy a four Runner, I guess
24:58
Speaker 2: there's a four runner now, Yeah. Do you not understand
25:02
Speaker 2: that dynamic?
25:03
Speaker 1: And I didn't. Neither do but don't I didn't either,
25:05
Speaker 1: So I asked Toyota, I'm like, can you explain to
25:08
Speaker 1: me what is your internal messaging on the difference between
25:13
Speaker 1: the land Cruiser and the Forerun And.
25:15
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's worth to say like
25:17
Speaker 2: they're on the same for listeners that don't know, they're
25:18
Speaker 2: on the same frame. They have the same wheelbase, they're
25:21
Speaker 2: made on the same assembly.
25:22
Speaker 1: Same engine, everything. Yeah. So what was explained to me
25:27
Speaker 1: is that it's purely demographic. So the Forerunner will be
25:32
Speaker 1: a younger buyer, the land Cruiser will be an older buyer.
25:36
Speaker 1: It'll be a more mature buyer. And I think that's
25:38
Speaker 1: going to be how it's going to play out. The
25:40
Speaker 1: land Cruiser will be slightly more utilitarian, whereas the Forerunner
25:44
Speaker 1: will be slightly more kind of fun modified. The land
25:48
Speaker 1: Cruiser has more interior storage space. Yeah, so it's an interesting.
25:53
Speaker 2: I just can't, different the life of me, understand why,
25:57
Speaker 2: because the price points are I'm going to say identical.
26:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't know yet, but it's maybe they might have. Yeah.
26:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just think the form factor of the two
26:08
Speaker 2: fifty is what makes it like you have room to
26:10
Speaker 2: live out of that car.
26:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's bigger on the inside. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
26:14
Speaker 1: And I think Toyota like people know Forerunners and like
26:19
Speaker 1: they sold like the last year of the previous generation
26:23
Speaker 1: for Runner, which I think was engineered when you were
26:25
Speaker 1: in grade school. Yeah, but that thing they sold like
26:29
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty thousand of them, Like, they sold
26:32
Speaker 1: so many Forerunners.
26:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can't just remove it, yes, so I
26:36
Speaker 2: guess they're just adding.
26:37
Speaker 1: I think that's what they're doing. They're just giving you
26:39
Speaker 1: one more option, which like the consumer wins, Like, it's
26:44
Speaker 1: not a bad thing in my mind at all, So
26:47
Speaker 1: the consumer wins on that.
26:48
Speaker 2: Thus, people that really the Forerunners, like that's their thing.
26:51
Speaker 2: And they offered in two wheel drive.
26:52
Speaker 1: Which, oh I didn't know that. That's cool.
26:54
Speaker 2: It's maybe something that I wouldn't go for. But if
26:57
Speaker 2: you're just like driving around the suburbs and.
27:00
Speaker 1: Live in SoCal and yeah, ok, driving to the beach.
27:03
Speaker 2: Brian Door at gear Junkie did a really good, like
27:07
Speaker 2: highly detailed comparison of the two that kind of helped
27:09
Speaker 2: me sort them.
27:10
Speaker 1: So that's a good Oh yeah, go to that resource.
27:12
Speaker 1: I know he did a like a real deep dive
27:14
Speaker 1: on that. Yeah. Yeah, he went rain Man on it.
27:17
Speaker 1: That's good though. Yeah, yeah, what else is going on?
27:21
Speaker 1: The talking about more travel centric? The trans Globe Car
27:26
Speaker 1: Expedition is still in process, so this is really significant.
27:31
Speaker 1: We've talked about it a little bit on the podcast before.
27:34
Speaker 1: Andrew Picard ACP so he's yeah, he's well known in
27:41
Speaker 1: the automotive industry as a professional driver, precision driver, and
27:46
Speaker 1: I talked to him about a similar idea to this trip.
27:49
Speaker 1: It has to be ten years ago now. We met
27:53
Speaker 1: in southern California and just had coffee and finally he
27:56
Speaker 1: found a way to make this work using this partner
27:59
Speaker 1: out of Russia, and they ended up driving these high flotation,
28:05
Speaker 1: giant tired vehicles over the North Pole. So they drove
28:10
Speaker 1: it to the North Pole and then they finished in Greenland.
28:14
Speaker 1: They were not allowed to take the vehicles into Greenland,
28:17
Speaker 1: so I don't actually know where they ended up yet,
28:20
Speaker 1: Like they were the vehicles were stuck there, so they
28:24
Speaker 1: hit pause on that part of the trip, which is
28:26
Speaker 1: interesting because for example, when we did Greenland from the
28:30
Speaker 1: south to the north, we finished about where they came
28:33
Speaker 1: in from the north, so I think they ended up
28:36
Speaker 1: on some island because they wouldn't let them get onto
28:38
Speaker 1: the mainland. And then they took some of their other
28:44
Speaker 1: vehicles and they shipped. They went across Europe. They did
28:47
Speaker 1: a bunch of traveling around Europe, and then they they
28:50
Speaker 1: took them by ship to Namibia, and they drove around
28:54
Speaker 1: southern Africa, and they just put them on a ship
28:58
Speaker 1: to Antarctic.
29:00
Speaker 2: Good I saw as they were like a couple days
29:02
Speaker 2: stuck in pack ice.
29:03
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, which is amazing and the updates are great,
29:06
Speaker 1: so follow them on Instagram. It's a really noteworthy expedition. Yeah,
29:12
Speaker 1: for them to have driven across including the North Pole.
29:17
Speaker 1: It has been done once before on a highly specialized vehicle.
29:21
Speaker 1: But that's a very significant accomplishment. It's very difficult to do.
29:25
Speaker 1: There's a lot of risk to it, and you have
29:27
Speaker 1: to have just the right year, and they got just
29:29
Speaker 1: the right year, so they were very fortunate.
29:31
Speaker 2: They left from Canada. But where in Canada they leave from,
29:34
Speaker 2: it was like alerts or something.
29:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then they went up to the pole and
29:41
Speaker 1: then back down to Greenland. Yeah, so it's pretty pretty
29:44
Speaker 1: significant accomplishment. And now they're getting ready to try to
29:48
Speaker 1: get this ship to Antarctica so they can unload the
29:52
Speaker 1: vehicles and then drive them across Antarctica, which is awesome.
29:55
Speaker 1: So it's the thing to watch.
29:57
Speaker 2: Interesting about this trip is you've been able to follow along, Yes,
30:01
Speaker 2: because they've had starlink the entire way. That's something that
30:05
Speaker 2: wouldn't have happened.
30:07
Speaker 1: Even during Expedition seven, just only ten years ago.
30:10
Speaker 2: When I went to Tuck in twenty two, starlink existed,
30:14
Speaker 2: but not that far north. It was just it was nonoperable.
30:19
Speaker 2: Suck to be able to like follow with considerably further north,
30:22
Speaker 2: Like you think you're far north in Tuck or dead
30:25
Speaker 2: Horse and then you realize nord Cap is even further
30:28
Speaker 2: You're like halfway us. Right, It's a considerable achievement and
30:32
Speaker 2: it definitely.
30:33
Speaker 1: Does that technology. That technology is amazing. And then speaking
30:36
Speaker 1: of Europe, then after I finished the drive across to Africa,
30:41
Speaker 1: in the.
30:41
Speaker 2: City you ship from Jibouti to Greece and.
30:43
Speaker 1: I did Athens. Yeah, and that we haven't really talked
30:46
Speaker 1: about that part of the trip yet. So yeah, So
30:49
Speaker 1: we shipped it into Athens and Tavy and I flew
30:52
Speaker 1: over and it was a pretty easy process of getting
30:55
Speaker 1: the truck out. The battery was very dead. That is
30:57
Speaker 1: something that I think will need to be worked on,
31:02
Speaker 1: is some of the parasitic draw on that from that vehicle.
31:05
Speaker 1: You had a really early one. I did. I did,
31:08
Speaker 1: and that maybe they've resolved some of that. But it
31:10
Speaker 1: was so dead that the battery was actually killed, Like
31:13
Speaker 1: it killed the battery. We couldn't bring it back. So
31:16
Speaker 1: then I'm like and I'm like taking the battery out,
31:19
Speaker 1: and it's like in this shipping yard, and these guys
31:21
Speaker 1: were amazing. They were so helpful, and he's like, hey,
31:23
Speaker 1: just hop in my car with me. I'm taking this
31:25
Speaker 1: like group thirty one battery. And we go to this
31:28
Speaker 1: bosh little hole in the wall bosh place and sure
31:31
Speaker 1: enough they had one. Yeah, like they had a group.
31:34
Speaker 1: They had an AGM Group thirty one bosh battery. Perfect.
31:38
Speaker 1: So like eight thousand euros later, I'm out of there
31:41
Speaker 1: with this battery. Yeah. I don't remember how much it caught.
31:43
Speaker 1: It was a lot. I think it was like a
31:45
Speaker 1: five hundred euro battery. So I'm out and we drop
31:48
Speaker 1: it in the car and the thing fires up and
31:50
Speaker 1: it's back to life now, and which was just it's
31:54
Speaker 1: always such an exciting feeling to get a vehicle out
31:58
Speaker 1: of a container. Oh, that's another thing that's interesting about
32:01
Speaker 1: the Grenadier. So the Grenadier doesn't really show that it
32:04
Speaker 1: has a neutral position in the transfer case, but it
32:07
Speaker 1: actually has one. It's underneath. No, you have to just
32:12
Speaker 1: massage it into the right position. So like the vehicle
32:15
Speaker 1: was in the container and there was no way to
32:18
Speaker 1: go into neutral. Oh, because it's electronic, that's right, It's
32:21
Speaker 1: all electronic, and everything was dead. Fortunately I was able
32:23
Speaker 1: to just like massage that mechanical shifter into neutral and
32:29
Speaker 1: then we were able to pull the vehicle out. Most
32:31
Speaker 1: modern vehicles everything's electronic, so if your battery is dead,
32:34
Speaker 1: you can't get it out of the container unless you
32:36
Speaker 1: drag it out. So I was able to actually roll
32:39
Speaker 1: it out of the container and then we were able
32:40
Speaker 1: to work on it. But yeah, so then I got
32:42
Speaker 1: it back into Athens. Just finding a place to park
32:45
Speaker 1: it in Athens was a challenge, and I wasn't I
32:48
Speaker 1: was staying not far from where you and I stayed.
32:50
Speaker 1: We were there with land Rover maybe twenty nineteen or
32:54
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, something like that, and twenty nineteen probably, Yeah,
32:59
Speaker 1: And then we drove it through Greece, which was beautiful.
33:02
Speaker 1: It was just incredible, and it's just such a neat
33:05
Speaker 1: country and it does have its problems, but it never
33:08
Speaker 1: felt unsafe and it was a great value the whole time.
33:13
Speaker 1: And then we got into After that, we went into Albania, Montenegro, Albania. Yeah,
33:20
Speaker 1: we went into Albania, and that was a total surprise
33:23
Speaker 1: of the trip. Albania was the surprise of the trip
33:26
Speaker 1: because there there is so much overlanding to do there,
33:30
Speaker 1: and we did some of We did the very best
33:33
Speaker 1: overland routes that I've ever done in Europe, huh, excluding Iceland.
33:37
Speaker 1: So yeah, I guess that's fair. Yeah, half and a half.
33:41
Speaker 1: It's being torn apart by Europe and North America. Yeah.
33:45
Speaker 1: So Albania was incredible, beautiful, high mountains like proper low range.
33:51
Speaker 2: I've only flown over that geography, and I think I
33:53
Speaker 2: know a little bit about what the world looks like.
33:56
Speaker 1: And there's snowpeaked oh yeah, Albanian Alps and there's this
34:01
Speaker 1: little town called Teth I think is called and it's
34:04
Speaker 1: like the Swiss Alps of Albania.
34:06
Speaker 2: We forget about that part of Europe. I feel like
34:08
Speaker 2: Americans just don't really consider it, Like we'll consider Greece, yeah,
34:14
Speaker 2: but we won't even going to Croatia. For a lot
34:17
Speaker 2: of people is like, oh it's Croatia, like.
34:22
Speaker 1: And Albania is so cheap and the beaches are just
34:25
Speaker 1: as nice as Croatia. Now Croatia has a lot of advantages.
34:29
Speaker 1: We'll get to that in a second. But like when
34:31
Speaker 1: I was in Albania, when you would because you can
34:34
Speaker 1: pay for everything in euros there even though it's not
34:36
Speaker 1: on the euro but they take it just like Mexico
34:38
Speaker 1: takes dollars. But like you go and you have a
34:41
Speaker 1: fantastic cappuccino with a croissant and it's one euro, so
34:48
Speaker 1: it's it's super cheap.
34:49
Speaker 2: It's super super ch And I think that that's something
34:52
Speaker 2: for travelers really to consider, is that a lot of
34:56
Speaker 2: with inflation and everything, like a lot of places have
34:58
Speaker 2: gotten like very expensive and to find beautiful places that
35:03
Speaker 2: are I'm not gonna say I think Albania is not
35:05
Speaker 2: off the Beaten path. If people know about Albania, sure,
35:08
Speaker 2: but it's just interesting to it's awesome.
35:11
Speaker 1: You'd love it, you guys would have such.
35:13
Speaker 2: Europeans will go down there on the overland travels, but
35:16
Speaker 2: you never really hear about Americans because is it it's
35:18
Speaker 2: not Eastern Europe.
35:19
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's eastern Europe. Yeah, and it's like on
35:22
Speaker 1: that other side of the Adriatic. And it was super
35:24
Speaker 1: cool because there was this couple from Germany that had
35:27
Speaker 1: a g wagon, really bitching g wagon and like we
35:30
Speaker 1: saw him at the gas station, really gay, and because
35:32
Speaker 1: I have the grenadier and his age, and then I
35:36
Speaker 1: was on this super long, super remote overland route in
35:40
Speaker 1: Albania and who comes around the corner the gewagon the
35:43
Speaker 1: other direction. So I got to tell him what I
35:45
Speaker 1: experienced on the trail. And it's really rough after because
35:48
Speaker 1: his was lifted and everything, and of course the grenadier
35:51
Speaker 1: was stock and I'm like, I think we got It's like,
35:53
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's really rough, and of course it
35:55
Speaker 1: was easier than what I had just gone through. So
35:57
Speaker 1: it's all perspective. It's all perspectived. Is pretty good off road,
36:00
Speaker 1: it is.
36:01
Speaker 2: Gewagons are surprisingly not it doesn't have as much articulates.
36:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't have the same articulation exactly because those
36:07
Speaker 1: are radius arms, I think, less articulation. Yeah, and then
36:11
Speaker 1: into we went into Montenegro and then went into Croatia.
36:16
Speaker 1: And Brian Bass, who's been on the podcast a couple times,
36:19
Speaker 1: he got his PhD in archaeology when he was in
36:23
Speaker 1: that area. So he was doing these like early human
36:26
Speaker 1: sites in Croatia and he was there like after the
36:32
Speaker 1: fall of the Wall and everything else like that. So
36:34
Speaker 1: early nineties he's there and he bought some property in Croatia.
36:39
Speaker 1: So Brian's he goes stay at my house in Corchila,
36:42
Speaker 1: which is this little island, and Corcial is like the
36:45
Speaker 1: old walled city. It was the equivalent of Venice, but
36:49
Speaker 1: on the other side of.
36:50
Speaker 2: The Aria, because that was all the Venetian Yes, I'm
36:53
Speaker 2: not gonna say a Venetian.
36:54
Speaker 1: Empire, but that's exactly what it was. And so Marco
37:00
Speaker 1: Polo's family had property in this little village of Cortila.
37:05
Speaker 1: It's that's that's where Marco Polo did his like last
37:09
Speaker 1: resupplying before he went east like he is. He was
37:12
Speaker 1: literally the first tourist like the first significant tourist in
37:16
Speaker 1: history and like trust fund kid, basically that's what he was.
37:21
Speaker 1: Like his family had lots of money and he's I'm
37:23
Speaker 1: gonna go. I'm just gonna start cruising east and that's
37:25
Speaker 1: what he did. He wrote it around and he writ
37:27
Speaker 1: it's exactly what he did. But like, Corchila is over
37:30
Speaker 1: the top beautiful and it's very reasonably priced. It can
37:35
Speaker 1: get super busy.
37:36
Speaker 2: That I've been to Greece, but I would love to
37:38
Speaker 2: do that.
37:39
Speaker 1: You'd love it, Yeah, and I had never done it either.
37:41
Speaker 2: Did you camp most of the time or like we're
37:43
Speaker 2: a hotel because you do get to this point where
37:45
Speaker 2: like hotel, there's a cost to camping.
37:47
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, time usually time.
37:49
Speaker 2: And then in the Western States of America we have
37:52
Speaker 2: BLM or National Forest it's free. Yeah, makes sense, but
37:56
Speaker 2: we need to pay for camping. I'm always like, pay
37:58
Speaker 2: for camping.
38:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. By the time I got through Albania, I had
38:05
Speaker 1: decided that I was on vacation. Okay, Yeah, so I
38:08
Speaker 1: stopped camping. Yeah, and I never camped again until I
38:13
Speaker 1: got back to London. Yeah. We once we got through Croatia,
38:16
Speaker 1: then it was Slovenia, Austria. I went to the Grenadier
38:19
Speaker 1: factory in Hambach in France, and so i've I watched
38:25
Speaker 1: the Defenders being made, the old, the original classic Defenders
38:28
Speaker 1: being made, and I watched the Grenadier being made. Anybody
38:33
Speaker 1: that thinks that there's any correlation between those two cars,
38:36
Speaker 1: there's zero correlation other than its basic shape, I do
38:41
Speaker 1: not get.
38:41
Speaker 2: I know that in every written story it's Grenadier is
38:46
Speaker 2: the new Defender. No, it's the g Wagon that you
38:48
Speaker 2: always wanted.
38:49
Speaker 1: Like it's a gwagon we can afford. I also wanted
38:52
Speaker 1: to take a brief moment to thank all of you
38:54
Speaker 1: for listening to the Overland Durl podcast. By listening to
38:58
Speaker 1: this podcast and subscribe me to the Overland Journal magazine,
39:01
Speaker 1: you're supporting our employee own and veteran owned business. Impartial
39:07
Speaker 1: reviews and in depth content like this would not be
39:09
Speaker 1: possible without your support. If you enjoy the podcast, I
39:13
Speaker 1: think you'd really love the print magazine as well. And
39:17
Speaker 1: one percent of that subscription price goes back into creating
39:21
Speaker 1: the content like you're listening to right now. And as
39:24
Speaker 1: a special thank you for your loyalty, we're giving twenty
39:27
Speaker 1: percent off any subscription and that even includes our special
39:32
Speaker 1: lifetime subscription, which includes numerous lifetime only benefits. You can
39:37
Speaker 1: go to Overland Journal dot com and use the Code
39:41
Speaker 1: Overland podcast at checkout. Again, that's Code Overland podcast at checkout,
39:47
Speaker 1: and I'll give you twenty percent off. I sincerely appreciate
39:50
Speaker 1: your support.
39:51
Speaker 2: The g Wagon was on one road, and then the Kardashians.
39:54
Speaker 1: Have and then that was about the time I wanted
39:56
Speaker 1: to get rid of.
39:56
Speaker 2: My jub The Grenadier is the alternate universe in which
39:59
Speaker 2: that didn't.
40:01
Speaker 1: It's so true.
40:02
Speaker 2: There are so many components on that car that I
40:04
Speaker 2: just like, I feel like I recognize from the g Wagon. Yes,
40:08
Speaker 2: like the drip rails are like I'm not saying it's
40:10
Speaker 2: the same machine, but it's definitely.
40:11
Speaker 1: It was engineered in the same place Magna Staire. Yeah,
40:14
Speaker 1: like Magna engineered both cars, so they're going to have
40:18
Speaker 1: a lot of similarity.
40:19
Speaker 2: Door handles are the same, Like the way you shut it,
40:20
Speaker 2: the doors are the same. Like everything feels more g
40:23
Speaker 2: Wagon and then.
40:25
Speaker 1: But then it looks like great Defender looks and yeah
40:29
Speaker 1: and a little bit g Wagon. It looks like both.
40:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's the love Child, right.
40:34
Speaker 1: I definitely in the US, I have In Africa, nine
40:38
Speaker 1: out of ten people thought it was a new Defender.
40:42
Speaker 1: In Europe, nine out of ten people thought it was
40:44
Speaker 1: a g wagon. Yeah.
40:46
Speaker 2: I've had limited so it looks experience, but I've had
40:49
Speaker 2: people say, what's that g wagon looking thing?
40:51
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly in the US, same thing. Yeah, very few
40:54
Speaker 1: people know what a Classic Defender is, but they do
40:57
Speaker 1: know what a g wagon is. But yeah, so the uh,
41:00
Speaker 1: the factory was incredible. It's a Mercedes, yeah factory that.
41:04
Speaker 2: The way I understand it is like one foot is
41:07
Speaker 2: in France where the address is, and then one foot
41:10
Speaker 2: is in Germany.
41:11
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like you could throw a rock and hit
41:12
Speaker 1: Germany and a lot of the people that work there
41:14
Speaker 1: live in Germany. So it's an old Mercedes plant. Not old,
41:19
Speaker 1: it's a relatively new but it was a Mercedes plant.
41:22
Speaker 1: And they still do some assembly for Mercedes in the factory,
41:26
Speaker 1: components of like subframes and things like that. But to
41:29
Speaker 1: watch the Grenadier being produced, the amount of robotics that
41:32
Speaker 1: are used, the way that it's welded, the way that
41:35
Speaker 1: it's most like. What I was most impressed by was
41:37
Speaker 1: the corrosion resistance and the painting process that is at
41:42
Speaker 1: the highest levels, like it's painted in corrosion resistance like
41:45
Speaker 1: a Mercedes. So it's really good.
41:48
Speaker 2: I enjoy at night detailing cars or something, even beer
41:52
Speaker 2: in your garage and you just say, yeah, spending time
41:54
Speaker 2: with yourself. The paint on the Grenadier's actually like I
41:57
Speaker 2: can't find a flaw with it.
41:59
Speaker 1: It's really good.
42:00
Speaker 2: It's really actually quite good.
42:02
Speaker 1: And people wonder, like why does it cost so much
42:05
Speaker 1: money to have the second color on the top like
42:08
Speaker 1: where you have, but the roof is a different color.
42:11
Speaker 1: They actually they paint the entire car. Then they have
42:15
Speaker 1: to run it into this little it comes around, it
42:17
Speaker 1: splits off from the assembly line, and it comes around
42:20
Speaker 1: again into this other workstation where they tape off the
42:23
Speaker 1: entire car except for the roof, and then it runs
42:27
Speaker 1: back through the paint booth again to get either the
42:29
Speaker 1: white roof or the black roof or whatever color roof
42:32
Speaker 1: you ended up with. So it's to me, it's shocking
42:36
Speaker 1: that it's only nine hundred bucks, Like it seemed like
42:39
Speaker 1: there's so much effort that goes into that that that
42:42
Speaker 1: was surprising to me, Like you'd think that maybe there
42:45
Speaker 1: would be an easier way, but I don't run car plants.
42:47
Speaker 1: But that was pretty cool. Watching the marriage of the
42:51
Speaker 1: drive trains was really interesting. Like the diesel and the
42:55
Speaker 1: gas motor they use, it's all that. It's the same
42:58
Speaker 1: basic engine plat form three liter yeah BMW, and they
43:03
Speaker 1: just they don't even care. They just like this one
43:05
Speaker 1: goes there and this one goes there. And watching the
43:07
Speaker 1: dash it was super cool. It was really neat for me.
43:10
Speaker 1: It was a neat thing to see. Yeah, and then Germany,
43:13
Speaker 1: then Luxembourg, then Belgium, then Amsterdam. Hung out in Amsterdam
43:19
Speaker 1: for a little bit. No long story, Yeah, it is
43:23
Speaker 1: a long story. Yeah. The one of the few times
43:26
Speaker 1: in Scotty's life where we had some cannabis because it
43:31
Speaker 1: was legal, so and I and anyways, it didn't turn
43:33
Speaker 1: out well because I basically I built a bomb and
43:35
Speaker 1: burnt half my eyebrow. So moving on. Yeah. So then
43:42
Speaker 1: then we shipped from Amsterdam on a ferry. There's a
43:46
Speaker 1: car ferry that goes from Amsterdam to Newcastle. Oh cool. Yeah,
43:52
Speaker 1: so that was very cool. It's an overnight ferry. It's
43:56
Speaker 1: very nice. You can get you can upgrade the rooms. Well,
43:58
Speaker 1: we just parked the Greanity down in the in the
44:01
Speaker 1: whole of it, and then you arrive in Newcastle and
44:05
Speaker 1: we went through customs and immigrants. They were very con
44:09
Speaker 1: the by the plates and by my US plat because
44:12
Speaker 1: the plates are from the UK, my passports from the US,
44:16
Speaker 1: and they're like, where did you come from? I'm like
44:18
Speaker 1: Cape Town. The guy he's like, how did you get here?
44:23
Speaker 1: And I'm like, you want the short story of the
44:25
Speaker 1: long story? I would like to hear the long story,
44:28
Speaker 1: so I might explaining every country that I went through.
44:31
Speaker 1: And by the time, like he was finally over the
44:34
Speaker 1: story because like the story was either I'm lying out
44:37
Speaker 1: of my stamp next exactly, but he thought that was cool.
44:41
Speaker 1: So anyways, then we were in the UK and I've
44:42
Speaker 1: always wanted to go to Johnna Groats, so the northernmost
44:46
Speaker 1: point of the UK, and the only reason why I
44:49
Speaker 1: knew about it was because of the long way round
44:51
Speaker 1: when Charlie and Ewan went all the way up there. Yeah,
44:55
Speaker 1: and it was totally worth it. Scotland was a high point,
44:58
Speaker 1: Isola Sky was a high point. Guy so great. It
45:01
Speaker 1: was gorgeous. It was just all gorgeous. Food was me
45:04
Speaker 1: but everything else was fantastic. Yeah.
45:07
Speaker 2: I don't like, like there's good food in the UK.
45:10
Speaker 2: It's just like it's good, but it's no different than
45:13
Speaker 2: average American restaurants. I agree, we just see cheeseburgers or whatever.
45:16
Speaker 2: Like people just have their comfort food that they can eat.
45:18
Speaker 2: It's just you can get good food, you can't get
45:20
Speaker 2: great food. But I would love to spend some time
45:23
Speaker 2: in the UK again. Yeah, and then I guess you
45:26
Speaker 2: drove down to the Grenadier Pub.
45:28
Speaker 1: I did, and I finished the trip that was the
45:31
Speaker 1: full and then Felicia exactly exactly. And then the car
45:36
Speaker 1: was supposed to come to the United States and then
45:38
Speaker 1: it ended up not Chucks. Yeah exactly. But now I'm
45:41
Speaker 1: in the Quartermaster and I'm digging that. So I think
45:43
Speaker 1: I think that's about everything that we were going to
45:45
Speaker 1: talk about. When we look at my list here, oh,
45:47
Speaker 1: I'm using this new remarkable color pro It is a
45:52
Speaker 1: distraction free tablet and like I'm this isn't like an
45:56
Speaker 1: affiliate link or something like that, but it's like for me,
46:00
Speaker 1: it's what I write on almost all the time now
46:03
Speaker 1: because there's no there is no social media on it,
46:06
Speaker 1: there is no browser, so I'll do all of my
46:09
Speaker 1: first drafts on here. So if there's something that I think, oh,
46:12
Speaker 1: I should look that up on Google to get some
46:14
Speaker 1: speck or whatever. I just put in some x's and
46:18
Speaker 1: a little note of what I need to look up,
46:20
Speaker 1: and I just keep writing. So I just get I
46:22
Speaker 1: get all of the first draft done, and it's probably
46:25
Speaker 1: saved me thirty or forty percent am I writing time? Huh? Yeah,
46:29
Speaker 1: because it's got a built in keyboard and you can
46:32
Speaker 1: also use you can make notes on it and stuff
46:34
Speaker 1: like that, which I do too. But yeah, I think
46:37
Speaker 1: we hit all of our Oh and then you should
46:41
Speaker 1: talk about your uncle's Portia.
46:42
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's my newest project. The first car I got,
46:45
Speaker 2: the first car I ever drove, not like the similar
46:48
Speaker 2: make and model, but literally the car that like. At
46:52
Speaker 2: age four, I sat on my uncle's lap and got
46:55
Speaker 2: to drive his eighty five nine to eleven Carrera and
47:00
Speaker 2: he indoctrinated me in air cooled stuff from a very
47:03
Speaker 2: young agent. The idea always was that I would get
47:05
Speaker 2: the car. And yeah, about a year ago I got
47:08
Speaker 2: a call and I talked to him. It's like, you
47:09
Speaker 2: should take it. It's not running, it has some electrical problems.
47:12
Speaker 2: There's a point in which these air cold nine elevens
47:15
Speaker 2: were like really cheap comparatively.
47:18
Speaker 1: They weren't what they are today.
47:20
Speaker 2: So yeah, So I have this eighty five nine to
47:22
Speaker 2: eleven that is now in my garage. It's the first
47:24
Speaker 2: car I ever drove. I'll never sell it. It was
47:26
Speaker 2: a gift for my It will be the first car
47:28
Speaker 2: that Matt will never see.
47:29
Speaker 1: I won't.
47:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, so well you can't, Yeah, I can't.
47:32
Speaker 1: That would be yeah, the douche move of the century
47:34
Speaker 1: right there. So I have to do a full wiring
47:37
Speaker 1: harness replacement on it though. That's good though.
47:39
Speaker 2: Oh, it's a lot of work for somebody that doesn't
47:42
Speaker 2: exactly like wiring. Yeah, it's not that I don't like
47:46
Speaker 2: wiring it.
47:46
Speaker 1: Stuff always called you'd call a friend called Darren when
47:49
Speaker 1: you need to. Yeah, I'm trying to do most of
47:51
Speaker 1: the work myself because I think that's in the spirit
47:54
Speaker 1: of the vehicle.
47:54
Speaker 2: But the plan with it is to do a there's
47:59
Speaker 2: nine eleven so far, and there's nine eleven rallies. My
48:02
Speaker 2: idea is to do the nine to eleven travel so
48:04
Speaker 2: to build it to be able to drive it. You
48:07
Speaker 2: can take a nine to eleven pretty much anywhere to
48:09
Speaker 2: begin with.
48:10
Speaker 1: They yeah, they've done the roof. They've raised the roof
48:12
Speaker 1: of Africa, raced a car.
48:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, they just have good angles to how they're.
48:17
Speaker 1: Done totally, and the weights over the rear tires.
48:19
Speaker 2: So if you just looking at some rally suspension and
48:22
Speaker 2: like this, they make these tiny, little baby like twenty
48:25
Speaker 2: seven inch BFG tires that are like what everybody runs
48:30
Speaker 2: on them. I don't want to run a super big tires,
48:32
Speaker 2: want a durable tire.
48:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, that sounds so fun.
48:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's guards red, it has the Champagne tan interior.
48:38
Speaker 2: It's the quintessential eighties nine to eleven, which I think
48:41
Speaker 2: is fantastic. And yeah, just trying to learn and do
48:45
Speaker 2: everything myself, like I'm gonna have to drop the engine
48:47
Speaker 2: and reseal it at some point, but yeah, trying to
48:50
Speaker 2: make it this little Survivor travel nine to eleven project.
48:53
Speaker 2: I think it would be so cool to send it
48:55
Speaker 2: to Europe one day or yeah, we've got to do it,
48:58
Speaker 2: drive it to Grease or something.
48:59
Speaker 1: We got to do it go through Albania.
49:00
Speaker 2: Because there's so many I guess my idea with is
49:02
Speaker 2: that there's so many places in the world where you
49:04
Speaker 2: just don't really need a built four wheel drive No,
49:07
Speaker 2: most of the places. Yeah, like I want to spend
49:10
Speaker 2: some time in Europe. I want to spend some time
49:11
Speaker 2: in Asia.
49:12
Speaker 1: And yeah. The last issue of Overland Journal is a
49:15
Speaker 1: three five to six in Uganda in like ankle deep mud. Yeah,
49:20
Speaker 1: send the three five sixes are perfect.
49:22
Speaker 2: They're not Volkswagens, but they're just mechanically so simple, as
49:26
Speaker 2: are nine to elevens. There's not And you want to
49:29
Speaker 2: talk about car that's easy to get parts four. Not cheap,
49:31
Speaker 2: but easy to get parts four nine eleven because they're
49:33
Speaker 2: everywhere and they were always special enough to be saved. Yeah,
49:38
Speaker 2: it'll be a cool project.
49:39
Speaker 1: It's awesome. It's an awesome.
49:41
Speaker 2: It'll probably do some human seats and just try and
49:44
Speaker 2: make it comfortable. There's a company that does like electric
49:48
Speaker 2: air conditioning for them.
49:49
Speaker 1: Now, okay, so I think I'm going to do that.
49:51
Speaker 1: It has no AC right now.
49:52
Speaker 2: It has AC, but there's the asthmatic blowing over an
49:55
Speaker 2: ice cube comparison. Sure, but it's just not that good. Sure,
50:00
Speaker 2: but there's been so many advances. But has three different condensers.
50:04
Speaker 2: Like one of the condensers is in like the very
50:07
Speaker 2: front of the car and blows down with trunk air
50:09
Speaker 2: and it's huh.
50:11
Speaker 1: Doesn't really work. Yeah, and then what are you excited about?
50:14
Speaker 1: What are you most excited about for twenty five? Oh jeez,
50:20
Speaker 1: hopefully just traveling more. We're a little grounded.
50:22
Speaker 2: We've got to rescue greyhound that I've talked about before.
50:25
Speaker 1: He's just getting older.
50:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's hard to you make a commitment to
50:29
Speaker 2: an animal and you have to see that through. So
50:33
Speaker 2: we're really just trying to make sure that he's comfortable
50:36
Speaker 2: and happy and safe and secure and all that. And
50:39
Speaker 2: I don't know, twenty five is a little It could
50:42
Speaker 2: go a lot of different ways for us. It might
50:44
Speaker 2: be the year that we drive to Yeshuaya. It might
50:48
Speaker 2: be the year that we go spend a couple months
50:51
Speaker 2: in Southeast Asia, or it might be the year that
50:53
Speaker 2: we hang out and press it and just work on
50:57
Speaker 2: our business. Yeah, we're launching this new overlim kidd, a
51:00
Speaker 2: website that we're trying to sift through all of the
51:04
Speaker 2: junk that's out there. Like Laura and I have such
51:06
Speaker 2: great experience in this industry and we've been doing this
51:10
Speaker 2: for so long that we're trying to curate some of
51:13
Speaker 2: the products that works. We know what works, and I
51:15
Speaker 2: don't want to be like a large e commerce retailer.
51:20
Speaker 2: I don't really want to do that. But I like
51:22
Speaker 2: helping people solve problems and I like finding these little
51:25
Speaker 2: cool products or bringing in like the Melville Moon stuff.
51:28
Speaker 2: It's not for everybody, for sure.
51:30
Speaker 1: Oh you bring an in deflate, you're now selling Snowpeak,
51:34
Speaker 1: which it makes some really.
51:35
Speaker 2: Good I have Snowpeak stuff that like, Like I'm contemplating
51:38
Speaker 2: for building out these product listings, and it's I want
51:40
Speaker 2: to use the beat up photos of here's what it
51:42
Speaker 2: looks like in five years after three hundred nights of use.
51:46
Speaker 2: And I've definitely got some of those, and we're trying
51:48
Speaker 2: to like I guess the products that we've used and
51:51
Speaker 2: we've really validated just.
51:53
Speaker 1: To sell that. Yes, it's so much stuff on the
51:56
Speaker 1: market that just and you're doing some Goose gear stuff.
51:59
Speaker 1: Yea Goose gear.
52:00
Speaker 2: We're going to do a Goose gear in the back
52:02
Speaker 2: of the Grundy Deer. I'm just trying to figure out
52:04
Speaker 2: exactly if I want to get rid of the rear
52:05
Speaker 2: seat or maybe just one of the rear seats, or
52:08
Speaker 2: just I think you have to get rid of both
52:11
Speaker 2: of them or just or keep them. No, you can
52:13
Speaker 2: get you can see, that would be like a no brainer.
52:16
Speaker 2: I always like to have one extra seat. Yes, you can,
52:19
Speaker 2: you know, keep the little one back there. Yeah, that
52:21
Speaker 2: would be cool. But I think that'll be fun. And yeah,
52:23
Speaker 2: I am just loving that kind of deer Mysterian's terrible,
52:26
Speaker 2: but everything else about it is.
52:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really cool. Yeah, which we like them enough
52:33
Speaker 1: that we want to go do a like a full podcast.
52:36
Speaker 2: On Yeah, we're going to do one. Yeah, I bought
52:38
Speaker 2: my there's no affiliation with any awesome.
52:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, you went down. You didn't even get an employee
52:42
Speaker 1: discount or anything like, just walk down and buy all them.
52:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I don't know what's twenty five for you.
52:49
Speaker 1: And like I mentioned in the beginning of the podcast,
52:51
Speaker 1: my dad's in the hospital. Actually, while we're on the podcast,
52:53
Speaker 1: I got noticed that he was out of his procedures.
52:56
Speaker 1: So he's uh so we'll see how that goes. So
53:00
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm just gonna keep things on hold and
53:04
Speaker 1: make sure that he's good. I do have a lot
53:06
Speaker 1: of Syria is gonna most likely be opening up. I
53:10
Speaker 1: have a lot of interest in doing Saudi Arabia, Oman Jordan,
53:16
Speaker 1: northern Iraq into a Turkey. That's of interest to me
53:21
Speaker 1: if things open up in Sudan. One of my priorities
53:25
Speaker 1: right now is to have a motorcycle that is ready
53:29
Speaker 1: to go around the world, that is literally just sitting
53:31
Speaker 1: here and Prescott where if any of these big opportunities
53:36
Speaker 1: open up that I can just like it. Literally it
53:38
Speaker 1: has everything organized in the panniers. It's like it's ready
53:43
Speaker 1: to go around the world, and then I can just
53:45
Speaker 1: ship it very quickly anywhere I want to go, which
53:48
Speaker 1: might be to Addis Ababa, it might be to Saudi Arabia,
53:52
Speaker 1: and then I'm not worrying about left hand drive, right
53:54
Speaker 1: hand drive, different regulations. It's really easy to just ship
53:58
Speaker 1: bikes by air around the world. So I want to
54:00
Speaker 1: have a motors I just have to decide what that
54:03
Speaker 1: bike is going to be. I was leaning a little
54:06
Speaker 1: bit towards the new KTM three ninety adventure R because
54:11
Speaker 1: I want to be able to just go do really
54:13
Speaker 1: rugged routes. But KTM like may not even be a
54:16
Speaker 1: business soon, so like, I think they're going to be fine,
54:19
Speaker 1: they're too big to fail.
54:20
Speaker 2: But well, yeah, the problem with KTM has is they
54:23
Speaker 2: were selling the same motorcycle like five different ways, like
54:26
Speaker 2: they would buy these other failing brands and then rather
54:29
Speaker 2: than we didn't need a gas a Husky. I mean
54:32
Speaker 2: they even had Husaberg at one point and a KTM
54:34
Speaker 2: version of the same, right.
54:36
Speaker 1: Thing. That's gotta be tough. But the new three ninety
54:40
Speaker 1: R is very compelling as a really remote rough track
54:45
Speaker 1: bike because it's very lightweight, it has a larger fuel,
54:49
Speaker 1: it makes forty ish horsepower, has cruise control.
54:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you don't. You just don't need anything.
54:54
Speaker 1: You really don't, not for where I want to take it.
54:56
Speaker 1: I want to be on the dirt for days at
54:58
Speaker 1: a time, and just a lightweight, high performance bike like
55:04
Speaker 1: that with a long service interval, so three thousand plus
55:07
Speaker 1: mile service interval. All of those things allow it to
55:09
Speaker 1: be like a proper around the world travel bike. If
55:13
Speaker 1: that doesn't work, and actually I haven't decided, it's either
55:16
Speaker 1: gonna be that or it's gonna be maybe the Ducati
55:19
Speaker 1: Desert X. I really like that, but I should get something.
55:22
Speaker 2: I'm just sitting here looking at a picture of you
55:25
Speaker 2: loading a a twelve hundred.
55:27
Speaker 1: Gs into a DC three.
55:28
Speaker 2: I just don't know if I can imagine you and
55:29
Speaker 2: anything other.
55:30
Speaker 1: Than a GS.
55:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just like a big bike for a.
55:33
Speaker 1: I know it's gonna it's gonna look like a circus
55:36
Speaker 1: act with me on a little bike.
55:39
Speaker 2: So yeah, whatever happens in twenty.
55:41
Speaker 1: Five, yeah, we'll see what it. We'll see you and
55:43
Speaker 1: we'll keep everybody up the date. And we appreciate everybody
55:47
Speaker 1: that listens to the podcast. You guys are the reason
55:49
Speaker 1: why Matt and I keep doing it because we do
55:51
Speaker 1: get your notes. On Instagram. You can meet Ratt Matt.
55:55
Speaker 1: You can reach out to Matt on Matt Explorer on Instagram.
56:00
Speaker 1: You can reach out to me at Scott dot a
56:02
Speaker 1: dot Brady on Instagram. You can also check out Overland Kidded,
56:06
Speaker 1: which is Matt's newest ventures. You've been doing it for
56:10
Speaker 1: a while, but you're starting to really spend some more
56:12
Speaker 1: time on it.
56:12
Speaker 2: Be it's been a little bit of a side.
56:15
Speaker 1: Project that's becoming our main thing, yeah, which is gonna
56:18
Speaker 1: be awesome. I think the industry needs that really tightly
56:21
Speaker 1: curated stuff, so I think that's going to be a
56:24
Speaker 1: good thing. But we appreciate you all listening. Please reach
56:27
Speaker 1: out if you've got any comments, feedbacks, things that you
56:30
Speaker 1: could like, you'd like us to do different or more of,
56:32
Speaker 1: and we'd love to hear your comments on that, and
56:35
Speaker 1: we'll talk to you next time.