Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Turning the Page: 2025's Year End Wrap Up and Overland Highlights

Transcript

Turning the Page: 2025's Year End Wrap Up and Overland Highlights · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: your host, Scott Brady, and I'm here with my co host,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Matt Scott and we're at the end of twenty twenty five,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: and it has been a big year for both of us.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: It's been a big year for the industry and there's
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: a lot for us to talk about. So this is
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: going to be our year in review of twenty twenty five. Matt,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: thanks for being here. This is our first podcast back
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: in Prescott in a long time.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you've been traveling, and I've just been working on carburetors.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Tell me about the carburetor thing because it's very cool.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Oh geez. Yeah, So this is an interesting year for me.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: I mean I effectively didn't really travel. I think it's
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: the year I have traveled the least since I was
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: probably like seventeen years old, maybe not even that.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: How does that feel weird?
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: A little bit, to be honest. You know, like we
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: have our kind of elderly rescue greyhound that's keeping us
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: at home right now. It's great, we love him. Life's good.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: It's just different, you know. So, you know, kind of
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: basing your personality around travel for most of your adult
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: life makes it a bit of a challenge, I think,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: to not do the thing that you love most. But
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: you know, I just continue to dive into classic cars.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: So I bought a Yeah, I bought a nineteen fifty
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: eight three five six a Portie and that's been a hoot.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: It's just right outside the door. I got to see
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: it in person for the first time to day.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: His name is Bertie after like, you know, like the
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: King of England. I don't know why Laura named him,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: and she's never named one of my eight thousand cars before,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: so it just kind of stuck.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I like it. It'll stay that way.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: But Bertie has seventy five horsepower, which is more than
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: he came with. And he uh, he's a stunner.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Oh beautiful.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: I just like I just like old things, like I
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: think that, you know, modern car it's more about buying
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: shit and bolting it on, yeah, or you know, these
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: high dollar modifications to kind of get some joy out
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: of it. And what I'm really enjoying about the vintage
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: stuff is I can just kind of go in my garage,
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: have a beer and fiddle, Like I like having something
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: to kind of toodle around on the garage with I'm
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: at home a lot more than I ever have been
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: in my life, and I don't know, there's something also,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: you know, not being able to travel but still loving
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: automotive adventure. When you get into a car and you're
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: daily driving it and it's from the nineteen fifties, that
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: creates its own little adventure.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: I'm just I'm just I'm not driving that far, but oh, geez,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: it just stopped. What happened? Oh yeah, this car has
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: a reserve fuel tank. Sure, you know, like a pet cock.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: And then you just find these like little things that
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: just constantly kind of happened. But it's been a fun
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: process to see the vehicle. Yeah, just just progress. I
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: guess it'd be cool to do some trips in it.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: But oh, even Drome would feel like an adventure.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Well that's the thing, And maybe that's what I'm getting
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: at is that, you know, what is it? Al Humphreys
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: is all about these micro adventures, like this attainable adventure.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: We've kind of had to focus on that a little
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: bit more like we're not hopscotching to Hanoi or you
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: know whatever. So being able to make these little routine
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: things more of an adventure is kind of fun. Hopefully
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: people can kind of relate to that.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Thanks to hankok Dinapro Tire for supporting this week's podcast,
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: Head over to expeditionportal dot com to learn more about
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: all train tire design as we interview their tire experts
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: and take a close look at the Diner Pro eighty
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: two Extreme as an example of the all train tire category.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I just finished a really big trip and I'm looking
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: at twenty twenty six being a lot like you're twenty
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: twenty five. So maybe some advice for me and for
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the others that are listening that are coming off of
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: big trips and a lot of travel, like, how what
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: did you do or how did you and Laura kind
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: of navigate that to be Oh, we're talking about expedition
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: itis exactly, how did you deal with that in twenty
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: twenty five? So expedition itis is when you're used to
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: traveling a lot and then all of a sudden you're
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: kind of grounded. I think it happens on all trips.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: You know, you're probably withdrawing from it a little bit,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: just back from literally driving the length of Africa.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Is this twice in twenty twenty five or did you
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: finish it.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I finished it in twenty twenty four.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Twenty four of the East Coast, so up in twenty
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: four and down in twenty five, which is just like
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: absolutely crazy.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I spent almost a year and a half in
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Africa in the last two years, so it's great, so cool.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: I'm so happy for you.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: You know, I think getting used to what you're really
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: getting used to when you're not traveling is all of
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: these experiences and all this excitement and all of this,
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: you know, this shiny stuff around you constantly, the constant stimulation,
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: And I think that's the hardest thing is you have
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: to find something that will keep you, I think busy.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm still always planning trips, I'm still always
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: trying to do things. But it took a while to
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: just kind of settle in, Like it feels unnatural when
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: you're used to moving.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: But does it get better? Like does it like with
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: time you find these new things and you're working on
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: your carburetors and you're going for a walk and you're
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: you know, going to the local restaurant that you really like.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Does that stuff? Does it finally get easier?
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: I think that I've never had a period in my
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: life where it was so stable, you know, and the
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: stability is really nice. I also think that when you
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: are used to traveling so much for so long, you
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: have to go longer and go harder to get the
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: same kind of hit from it.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a hedonic treadmill of its own kind.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's you're trying to keep that mind busy,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: and when it's used to chaos, you have to find
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: more chaos so to be able to basically like reset
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: that X. Like I'm not saying travel was ever getting
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: annoying or boring or not exciting, but it it does
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: start to become work in a way. I'll use the
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: word work very loosely, but I look forward to you
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: kind of having a period off because what it's done
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: for me is it's provided me with some better perspective where,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: you know, getting on a plane randomly going somewhere was
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: kind of becoming the norm for me, or driving somewhere,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: whatever the travel experience was. I now want, i'd like
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: dearly want to travel where before it was just the norm.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: And I think that there's something cool about just resetting
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: that expectation in your life. I don't know, it's kind
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: of need to explain.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: No, it makes sense though, and it's where I'm at,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: you know, it's a weird feeling. Yeah, And I think
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I have I have normalized being a nomad, you know,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: where it's like it's just part of me to be
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: a nomad. So like right now I'm moving back into
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: my historic home downtown Prescott, and I got to put
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: all my books on the bookshelf.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: It's nice. Yeah, it's nice to get cozy and higgy
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: and like have a little bit of a routine, like
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: I think you need it, I do.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: And you know, twenty twenty five was significant because you know,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I I finished the trip across Africa, you know, the
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: East side, you know, got the Seven Continent thing done,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: and then you know, sold the assets of Overland International. Yeah,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: which it went to a great family. So that makes
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: me feel really good. But that was a big part
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: of my identity, big part of my transition.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: You know, we're now all in one We're still at
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: the same location. We're now in one building together, which is.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Awesome, Which is awesomely.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: There that there was fifteen yeah, like fifteen years of
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: being in the other building that's right, our office. That
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: would have been a lot of work to decouple from that.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: It was, so that was the hardest part for me.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I found was like shutting down the other office because
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: it was the one stable thing in my life, even
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: though like I had moved, you know, I'd gotten divorced,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: all of these things had changed. A lot of things
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: were not consistent in my life, but like that one office.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, we bought the building in two thousand and nine,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: so that was a long that was a long time ago,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: and it's.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Been the entire basically the entire history of our industry. Yeah,
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: has at least starting has run around this building in
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: some way, that's true.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: And you would have been here like twenty eleven. Twenty eleven, yeah, yeah,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: so just two years after we even got the building,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: you rocked up in your jeep. I always tell people
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: it's like my entire life has revolved around this literally
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: this building around Overland Journal, you know, then starting my
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: own business that's at the same address. Yeah, and then
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: you went and then you went to Australia did and
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: you did all times.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: But it's always kind of come back and it's Yeah,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: twenty five was just an interesting year, like I feel
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: like we're we're finally out of like the COVID thing.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: You know, it's funny how that thing still seems to dominate,
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: like it was such a disruptor, you know you twenty
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: no travel, twenty one, no travel, twenty two, starting to travel,
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: twenty three, Oh my god, it's so expensive, I can't travel.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Twenty four inflation. Wow, this is really expensive. And twenty
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: five feels like, okay, maybe it's starting to get a
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: little bit more yeah, normalized, you know, you know, it's weird.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Is by Senegal. Richard got sick, like real sick, like long,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: like five six days of fighting this thing, and then
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: it went through. It ended up going through the entire group,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: and I'm pretty sure that we all got COVID in Africa,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Like it would make sense because I, first of all,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: I never get sick, and if I do get sick,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: it's for a day. And I was sick for five
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: or six days. Now still able to operate and drive
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: and everything else like that, but just felt funky, and
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I still have a cough, so like I must have
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: had I must have had COVID.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: It's all of our collective trauma, just absolutely ignoring the
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: fact that it still exists.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: I'm not getting into the COVID politics, but I guess
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: it's still there. I looked in years exactly.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: It's weird. It's just weird. I mean, it wasn't it
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: wasn't as bad as the first time I got it.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: But that's as I understand it. That's how it's kind
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: of shifted through through time as a disease.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: But I have no no idea. I literally have no idea.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Like I am such a hobbit now. I literally like
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: I hang out with my greyhound in Prescott and I
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: walk on the square every morning.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: And it's weird.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: It's good, though it almost gives me a little bit
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: of imposter syndrome, like hanging out, Like all of my
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: life has been based around travel, and all of my
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: friends are based around travel, and here I am like
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: not doing it, but having this podcast where I pontificate
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: about it.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Well, you have you have a lot of knowledge, and
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: you have a lot of experience, and that stuff doesn't expire.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: And the fun thing is is that because you and
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I have known each other for so long, we can
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: talk about anything, Like we just spent the whole morning
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: talking about an old Portra, you know. So it's like
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: there's lots of stuff to talk about, and I don't
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: think the imposter syndrome thing ever goes away. Like even me,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: I think like, oh I should be doing this, or
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I don't have enough experience in this, or I need
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: to learn more about some subject. And it's only been
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: in the last year or so that I just realized,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: like it's like I only know one percent of what
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: I want to know, which means I'll never get there.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I'll never know enough. So I got to I have
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: to be comfortable with this is what I know, you know,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: even though this is my full time job, I can
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: never know at all and I only know a little bit. Yeah, man, Yeah,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: so twenty five was kind of crazy.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely. I think I obsessed more on the
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: stuff in twenty twenty five, which has I mean, I
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: guess I always kind of have, but it wasn't balanced
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: with the travel. I'm done a bunch of work to
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: the earth Rummer, which is cool because it's like it's
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: in dry.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Dock right now.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: I drove that thingz October. I think I drove up
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: went up to earth Romer because I think you had
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: just left for you were already in Africa just left
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: ye and getting it repainted, getting these new like I
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: have complained a lot about the Continental MPT eighty one
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: tire on this podcast with its speed limit of sixty
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: eight mile an hour, I'm gonna be able to go
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: seventy five starting the new year with these new michelin
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: X forts zls.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: That's that's big in my life right now, which seems
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: very strange.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: That it's such a nice It's such a nice vehicle
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: for you though, I mean, how long have you had
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: that thing? Now? Five years?
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: It's literally the longest I have owned like a vehicle,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: like a vehicle like I've had. I don't know.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Maybe the Super has a beat. Yeah, I guess you guys.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: You guys still have the Super. Yeah, we still have
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the Super. U. So Laura excu.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Laura's so great and normal and predictable. And I lose
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: interest in a car after six months, and I still
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: like my Grenadier. I'm doing that whole thing, you know,
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: I started doing some steering.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Still sucks.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's like a very beautiful woman that
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: has a horrible laugh. You know, I love the car.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, I am in love with the car. Like, again,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: I'm not traveling really right now, so I'm just doing
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: normal stuff like you drive around Prescot, drive around Presca
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: with the windows down, and I you know, I got
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: into like detailing for some reason. But I enjoy cleaning it.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: I enjoy it as like an object, and then I
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: drive it and I'm like.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: We got to get to the bottom of it. I'd
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: be curious to see how it does with the new alignment.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like maybe I'm also expecting too much of it,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: you know, like it is the granitear is so great,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: but there's a few things where I'm.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Like, I think it's fair. I mean, I think it's
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: something that we even have to talk about in the podcast.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're ninety percent of that truck. I love it. Yeah,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: they it's like they phoned in the steering.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: I can give the infotainment, I will not care. I'll
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: never forgive this speed warning that took the clickingers. So yeah,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: like there's an update for this now. But but for
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: early adopters of the Grenadier, they were rewarded with this
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: speed beep that if you went over it would click
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: fifty five, it would just the car would just like
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: click click click, and this just like a European thing,
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: I guess, like you know, like it is. Europe is
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: just so overregulated at this point. It's but we shouldn't
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: have to suffer from that. I mean, like a developer
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: in India could have fixed this for five dollars in
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: fiver and like a billion dollar company couldn't figure out
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: well in your button, sticky.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: In your It kind of makes sense. They have universal
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: health care, so they're trying to reduce the amount of
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: injuries and stuff like that related to driving. We don't
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I pay for my own health insurance. Like if I
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: want to drive, if I want to drive over the
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: speed limit, I get to do that, you know, I mean,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: of course, within reason, we pay for the health insurance.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Man. It's actually the health insurance thing is going to
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: be interesting going into next year because you kind of
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: have to have it, but it's so expensive. Like you know,
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: we're slowly planning for kind of a full time on
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: the road trip, but we're going to have to now
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: budget fifteen hundred dollars a month for basically catastrophic health
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: care that we still have to have eighteen thousand dollars
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: sitting around. But you have to have it, and that's
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: like a big part of people. It makes it harder
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: to travel.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: It takes a dent out of the budget. I mean
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: mine went from like almost seven hundred to over fourteen hundred.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: It's just crazy. And so I chose to do like
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: short term, you know, twelve month long policy.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I mean maybe when you're traveling you don't
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: need it because you're not going to be here, but jeez,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: that's an interesting one. Anyway back to Grenadier.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: But there is travel, there is travel medical insurance, and
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: it's not that it's not that expensive. So that's the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: way to do it. Before that's the way to do it.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: You still have your quarter Master, I do. I think
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: the quarter Master actually drives a little better than the
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: I think it does. I think the longer wheelbase.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: And you forgive the turning circle because it's such a
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: longer wheelbase that it's kind of seems like it should
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: turn like a truck. Yeah, but when you're in something
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: with a shorter wheelbase than a Wrangler and it takes
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: four feet more to turn it than a wrangler, Yeah.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: The Wrangler and the Gladiator are such an interesting comparison
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: to the Grenadier and Quartermaster because size wise they're virtually identical,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: you know, they're.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Except for the bodies. The bodies for the bodies is
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: much wider. The axle with is really similer. Grenier is
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: just built out over the arches. The Wrangler is built
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: out between the arches. I mean that's better for technical course,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: I mean there's a reason for that, yeah for sure.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: But owning I've had a lot of Jeeps and owning
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: the Grenadier, I think where it gets frustrating is I
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: don't want to go back to a Jeep, but a jeep.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Drives better in some ways. Yeah.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like the steering, it says more what you expect,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Like there's just been some kind of contrarian moves that
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Ineos did with that car that you know, it's like
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: there's almost like an extra turn. But you know, and
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: automotive there's like a lock to lock turning ratio. So
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: it's you turn your car all the way to the left,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: and then how many turns is it to get all
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: the way to the right. Most cars are like two
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: seven and the Grenadier's like three five, three seven or something.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: So you there's this muscle memory of like I'm going
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: to turn in somewhere. Yeah, and it's like you're constantly
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: turning half of what you think you are, right, I
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: don't know why they did that kind of stuff.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Well, and the reality is is that it isn't excusable,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: you know, like you can't say, like, oh, it's a
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: body on frame, solid axle vehicle and that's why it's
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: that way. A g wagon doesn't drive that way.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think a Wrangler drives better than a
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: solid axle g Wagon, and a solid axle g Wagon
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: drives better.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Than yep, perfect here, yeah, perfect analogy. So it can
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: be done. The steering can be done properly, and it
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: could be done even with a front diff lock and
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: everything else like that. So yeah, so I'm you know,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm still in love with the Grenadier and the Quartermaster.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited that it exists. Like for me, it's
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: like a total scotty mobile. It's nothing more scotty than that, exactly.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: And I feel the same way about mine. It's just
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: like it's awesome.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: It's like, all of a sudden, there's this vehicle for
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: your identity. But I think when you put your journalist
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: hat on, I love it. I'm keeping it. Hopefully there's
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: some updates for twenty twenty six, which i've yeah, I've
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: been hearing publicly now on forums and stuff.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I believe all that's coming. That's our responsibility. You know.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not complaining about the car, but it's important that
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: we disclose the things that there's lots that we love
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: about it, but there's also some things that need to
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: be improved, and that's our responsibility.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: My mom wants to buy one, and I'm like, Mommy,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: you might like your GX. Well your father in law didn't,
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: and he loves it. He loves it, but he's very
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: much an anglophile. So yeah, I think that was an
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: interesting you know, I'm not gonna say twenty five was
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: like the year of the Grenade ricks. Maybe that was
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: twenty four, but.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: No, it certainly was. There's a lot of aftermarket components
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: for it. They're selling a lot of cars in the US,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: not so much internationally, but the US market has been
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: a huge win for them, so which I'm grateful for.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the other really interesting car I drove
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: this year was the Truckhouse BCR Expedition Camper. I think
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: it just blew my mind.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Sinway loves it. You love it. I
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: got to drive it a little bit and was super
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: impressed by it.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: I also did drive the New Earth Roamer LTx and
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: I got to spend a night in that and the
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: New Earth Rummer Essex OESX is really cool. It's big,
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: it doesn't drive as bad as I thought.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Is it still on a Ford ff?
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: No, it's like a Chevy sixty five hundred. I'm going
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: to call it like the Kodiak, but I don't think
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: that name still applies. Like it's it's like a proper
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: medium duty chassis. But it's interesting. It has a trailing arm,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: front suspension and its air height adjustable, so it's very
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: Even though it's big, it's only like, you know, three
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: thousand pounds more than LTx, which is closest to what
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: I have. That's earth Row where you think of. But
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: it drives really good. The LTx was really cool. It
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: was interesting to drive that and the Truckhouse in the
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: same time because I hadn't driven I mean, I have
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: a lot of experience with my Earthromo suspension the same. Yeah,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: you know, drive line is very similar, but it is
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: it is different, you know, it's fifteen years of improvements
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: both in the chassis and the drive line, and that
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: thing was really impressive. You get like this rear d
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: net of layout. Now bathroom is in a different place, which.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Is similar to the truckhouse.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, for sure, I like it. I don't know,
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: I now see the difference between the truck I mean,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: the truckhouse is like half the price ish, you know,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: or like I think you can get a truck house
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: in the low fives, and I think you're going to
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: get an earth Rummer high eights nines million depending on
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: your options and taxes and all of that kind of stuff.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: The truckhouse is definitely simpler, Like I think that there's trips.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: If I was driving the PanAm or I wanted to
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: do the Silk Road or whatever, you could just do
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: that in the truckhouse tomorrow. The earth Roumers is a
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: lot more complicated, Like it's more of a luxury camper. Yeah,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Like I think that's people have asked me, like, well,
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: what's the difference. I think that the the earth Rumers
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: just more of a luxury vehicle, Like it's more of
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: a really nice little powerboat yacht type more than truckhouse.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's still really nice inside, but it's more
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: like I'm going to say, like would utility, it seems
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: not really.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: It seems like it's built much more for function, which
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: makes sense because Dave Hareton's been involved with it. Yeah,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: so it makes a lot of sense that and their
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: team in general has always lent, you know, kind of
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: lean that direction. So my experience in the truckhouse is
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: that here, this is something that was really built to
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: go around the world. Yeah, and when earth Romer started,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: it was the same they built trucks to go around
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: the world.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Well, they were similar sizes when earth Romer.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Started too, that's right, and you would see a lot
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: of earth Roamers on single cabs, the same kind of
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: vibe that you're getting out of Truckhouse. But with time,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: they you know, Earthromer had to adjust to the consumer's
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: needs and their customers. Their customers were buying multiple units
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and they're getting a little older and they want things
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: to be a little bit more comfortable, and they wanted
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: to sell more units. Whereas the truck house feels very
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: true to travel purpose, backcountry purpose, seeing one on a
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: regular cab makes a lot of sense to me because
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: it's very compact.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: It's it's crazy like the single cab truck house, Like
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: it's so small. Yeah, Like it's it's within inches of
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: a jeep gladiator in terms of dimensions, and that blows
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: my mind.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: It would probably be pretty close to the Quartermaster, except
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: for the height. It's just so much taller. Yeah, yeah,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I think they're because the Quartermaster is pretty big. Quartermasters
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: just not going to be as wide it'll be obviously,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the truckhouse will be a little wider because of the
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: wheels and the fender flares and everything like that.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: I'm appreciating what you did with your Quartermaster and the
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Scout camper more and more. I love the one. I
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: think esthetically they just match really well. You have like
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: the mushroom.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what do they call it?
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Magic mushroom is the color on your your Quartermaster and
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: then that kind of gray. It's almost like the same
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: it's not the same.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Color, but it's in some light it looks exactly.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But the idea of having this pop top in
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: a fun vehicle to drive, Like, that's the other thing
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: is you should buy a two fifty land Cruiser over
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: a Grenadier. But I never would like if you're driving South,
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: you're driving wherever. The land Cruiser is just going to work,
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: like it's going to give you no troubles. It's going
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: to be easy. But the Grenadier is now that new
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: enthusiast option, and it's so cool to see that because
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: it's so fun to drive. Like we talk about the
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: floor with like the Auto Journal had on, but I
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: love it.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: It's the vehicle I would spend my own money on.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, I just it was interesting, you know I did, yeah,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: crossing Africa, you know in these hybrid Tacomas and Tundra
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: like that was a really interesting test of these new
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: drive trains.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Was there a two fifty on that? True?
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: No, there was not, so it was two but same engine. Yeah,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: so same hybrid system. And you know they had a
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: little bit of a stumble on the worst possible fuel
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: dumped out of Jerry Can's kind of fuel. Yeah, in
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: countries that we had trouble finding fuel. But it was
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: like the smallest little change to the idol, like a
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: little bit of a stumble. The idol never shut the
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: cars off, it never threw an engine code, never created
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: a problem. But to be able to do all of
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Africa in this modern hybrid drive train. I was impressed
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: by it. I mean that the fact that they I
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: mean that Tundra has a ton of power, like almost
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: five hundred horsepower, and then those electric motors they come
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: on so well with the Tori. Yes, that's right. It
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: so to me, it's like, wow, like a two point
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: fifty would probably be a great travel vehicle. Yeah.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: I I'm appreciating Toyota's reinvigorated lineup. Yeah right, I have
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: historic kind of ragged on that Tacoma I don't know, man,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: like I kind of like the need to coma.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can find them, like in the trail
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Hunter variant with almost fourteen hundred pounds of payload, which
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: is that is a forty percent increase over the previous
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: generation to come. Yeah, it's really that's a siderable and
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: that's with sliders, front winch, capable bumper you know, and
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff that you're already doing. Yeah,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: the Toyota stuff's I'm coming around on it. Like I mean,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I've never I've never hated Toyota.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like whenever I've done serious stuff, it's always been
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: in usually a seventy.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because it has the payload that was The only
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: thing that you and I ever harped on was that
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: the payload wasn't appropriate.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and a bit of the fastes the furious crowd.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: But that's kind of calm though. It's interesting to see
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: overlanding changing. You know, we talked about COVID and how
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: this this COVID mindset is still kind of with us,
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: but maybe we're leaving it. There was a lot of
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: interest in in I'm going to use air quotes overlanding
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: during COVID. A lot of that was automotive restyling, is
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: how I'm gonna say it right. It became trendy. People
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: had extra money in their pockets. They're at home, they're
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: not spending as much money going out. We know this trope,
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: we get that, but it's like the automotive restyling side
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: of overlanding, it's kind of fading away and it's but
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: the travel is still.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Kind of staying around, which I like. I think it's
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: a great adjustment.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying that I'm happy that the industry is smaller,
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: because there's definitely there's been a lot of businesses that have,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: you know, closed up shop, and I know that these
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: people worked really hard and you know, I'm not trying
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: to be, you know, like negative towards them, but maybe
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: the silver lining is I'll tell you one silver lining,
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: it's a lot easier to get campsites in twenty twenty
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: five it has been in twenty four. In twenty three
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: and twenty two.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: Visit expedition Portal dot com and join us for an
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: advent true through the Smoky Mountain, a national park and
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: our experience driving the tail of the Dragon and a
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: Ford Bronco on all trained tires thanks to Han Cook
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: Dinaprobe and they're eighty two extreme.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that for me, twenty twenty six is
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: going to be Quartermaster project. I want to do a
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff to the Scout. I have a bunch
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: of ideas around electric only systems, so induction. I was
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: actually geeking out heat, heating, cooling, everything all done by electric.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: There's enough. There's some nice space in the Quartermaster where
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: the factory dual battery system is where I think I
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: can get about three hundred amp hours in the space,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: maybe even a little bit more, and then I'll have
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: more than enough power on board to be able to
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: run an electric heater run and air conditioning. If I want,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: you know, if I'm in a hot environment, you know,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: cook on induction. You know, my coffee maker is electric.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: It's just I think it'll be a really interesting test
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: a study.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: We've both kind of come to the same conclusions on
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: this electric thing. You know. Now you have like these
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Have you seen those Stoke voltaics pot system They're like
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: pull like a thousand watts and it's a it's like
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: a I'm not going to say an induction burner, but
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: they have kind of a jet boil style thing, and
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: they have kind of a camps okay style thing. Okay,
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: you know, we've been looking at those because they're super light.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: It, you know. But really what I'm getting at is
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: that lithium has started to become really cheap, particularly in
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. Like I did a little custom lithium
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: system in my goose gear drawers in the Grenadier, and
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: I was able to put a one hundred amp hoer
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: heated internally heated lithium battery. But it was like seven
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: inches by five inches by seven inches tall or something like.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: It's it's mind blowing how small it is. Sure this
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: is the energy that used to be too large. It
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: is a group thirty one.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: It was a group thirty one to get one hundred
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: ampowers and depth of discharge to fifty percent.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Energy has become like pretty cheap, like that battery was
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: from energy and was like two hundred seven bucks.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: That's you know, it's still a considerable amount of money.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: But the freedom that that gives you, Like you can
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: run everything that you need to do in a small vehicle.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: You know you can do so for your scout being
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: able to load it up with lithium and have an
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: induction burner. I mean you because you do the electric
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: or the twelve AC or it's not twelve old, it's.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: The it's it. Actually the new one is forty eight
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: volts and who makes that that is Eco flow.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: I've heard that those are actually really good. It's great.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: It's got plenty of air conditioning output, has got plenty
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: of heating output. It's like maybe six thousand btu heater
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: fifty eight hundred beaches.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: And it's pulling then from the inside of the car, right,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: So the more earth the camper, so the more it
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: heats up, the more efficient that heat.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: That's it's working Yeah, it circulates both AC and heat
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: from inside. You don't have to replummet. There are some
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: other units that work as a heat pump, but then
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: you have to change the tubing, whereas this one just
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: it all works out of the same vent, just like
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: it does in your house. It's like a heat pump
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: in Phoenix. It's like every house has a heat pump
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: in Phoenix, because it provides the AC and it provides
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: the heat and it works great. I mean, I don't
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: need to run the heater all night long. I need
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: to run it when I'm first going to bed to
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: get comfortable, and then I need to put probably get
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: it down to fifty or so in there so it
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: doesn't freeze ye, And then I want to be able
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: to it's cool. I've just opened up my phone.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're just laying there and and.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: I can change. I can fire the heater up to
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: sixty eight degrees or whatever I want it to be
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: and it'll warm the thing up.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: I think the biggest thing is that with this revolution
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: and affordable lithium, you don't have to carry other fuels.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: And that's really what it's about. I think for me
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: is I don't know how many times I've been like
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: wherever and I have to find a gas station that
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: has propane yep, or somebody has a betane stove, and
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: then you have to you know, sometimes these things can
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: be found a gas stations most times, but then you're
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: making an extra stop to get this one thing. But
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: you're you know, when you're when you're on the road
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: for a long time, you're doing these things continually, so
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: to be able to just remove that and.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Propane is dangerous, yeah, you know, they develop leaks and
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: it fills a cabinet full of propane, and like there's
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: a reason why, you know, people don't want them on
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: sailboats and everything else because it blows stuff up. So yeah,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: you don't just you want to try to avoid propane
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: if you can. Like when I did the trip that
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: I just did with X Overland, you know, they were
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: all electric other than the heaters. The Wabasto heaters are
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: gasoline heaters. They come right out of the fuel tank,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: so they're super safe. They have lots of safety features
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: to them, and they can run in extreme cold conditions,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: you know, and cause these are big, like these alucabs
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: are big tents, and I I was surprised, Like I
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: like the Alucab stuff now. I mean I didn't dislike
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: it before. I just didn't have enough experience.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: But they have, They've gone through some like we're a
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: lot of brand. When they came into the market, when
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: did they come in probably six fifteen sixteen.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Yep, I would say, when they came into the US market.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know you get it through okay four
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: real drive and but they have gone through man three,
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: four or five product life cycles and there's stuff's really
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: it's really good interesting now it's really still has that
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: African kind of durable, simple kind of vibe. Like I
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: think a lot of the products coming out of Africa
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: right now are you know, they're like they're simple in
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: how they're done, durable, simple, that kind of thing. So
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: you still get that benefit, but but.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: It lacks some of that like injection molding or fiberglass
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: or things that make it look maybe a little bit
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: more integrated on a vehicle.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: But you know they're stamping steel panels on these or
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: aluminum panels on these value cab tents now for rigidity,
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: and they've got insulation. I've been looking at doing one
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: of the pop tops on my Grenadier.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and makes sense.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: You know you've been able to you know, Dan Grek
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: had his Africa jeep that had the pop up on it.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: But the problem with jeeps is that you have this friggin'
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: rollcage in the side. Yeah, you know, the jeep's almost
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: starting to feel a little Barbie. I know people have
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: always kind of given it that, but you know, it's
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: really small inside, and it's like I'm going to take
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: the doors off. Like you're never going to take the
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: doors off, dude. Like the Grenadier just has such usable space,
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: Like it's not quite a troop carrier like the seventies series,
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: but it's pretty close. And it's nicer to drive than
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: the seventies.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. I've spent a lot of
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: time in seventies and the Grenadier is a much nicer car. Yeah,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: So I don't know, I think, yeah, the pop top's cool.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: They when I finished the trip in Cape Town, we
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: met up with some of the Alue cab folks and
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: they brought the Grenadier out they have and I was
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: crawled around up in the thing and it's it's cool
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: how it's set up.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: I keep geeking out on this GP factor interior that
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: they've made. Well, there's the GP Factor interior for the
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Alucap pop Top and then there's the Goose Gear interior
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: for the pop top that Brian did. They're both great.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: They're both great. I think the Goose Gear is a
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: little more like I'm treating this like a home, and
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: I think the GP Factor is maybe a little bit
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: more casual. I would say, I don't know what I'll do,
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: but they're both pretty interesting.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: You should me some cool stuff like some of these
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: integrated water tanks that you found from buzz Overland. Yeah,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: I mean that looks all that stuff all looks great.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just man like, I keep going back to
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: this freaking Grenadier and it sounds like an ad, but
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: I like it, Like just for what we do, it
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: really works. And I think that that was like to
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: see the development of that platform in twenty twenty five
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: for North America has been really cool because a lot
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: of the other stuff's gone. You know, the Broncos kind
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: of gone, go fast, Desert racer, King of the Hammers,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: and then the Wranglers kind of I don't know what's
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: going on with the Wrangler.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: It's just always been a Wrangler it's time for a
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: refresh clearly, which is coming. It's imminent now.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it's like the same thing they've done with that,
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: you know, Stillanis as a parent company. It's done with
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: the ram Is like the RAM cab dates back to
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: like twenty twelve. You know, they've continually upgraded it. But
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: it's like that company. I don't know if they put
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: all of their eggs in the EV basket because people
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: certainly aren't gonna be buying the cheap recon. Yeah, that
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: thing's useless. Have you driven it yet? No, But let
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: me tell you why. It has less than three hundred
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: miles range. It has like two hundred and forty miles arrange,
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: which means it has two hundred miles arrange like my
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Tesla has three twenty and it has maybe two eighty.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: They never really get that peak thing right. But so
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: you're buying a first generation vehicle from a company that
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: hasn't historically done super great with a lot of infotainment,
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: EV technology and this kind of stuff. And what is
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: the one thing that all consumers bring up with electric
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: cars range? It's range. So you're launching a car to
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: the market that is subpar for all vehicles like you're
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: competing with, like the Rivian. Let's say, right, the Rivian
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: has four hundred and ten or four hundred and twenty
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: miles of range, and then you're expecting to be competitive
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: with a two hundred number. The customer has already spoken yeah,
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: and no one at Jeep listened, and they're continuing on
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: with this with this new vehicle. I've talked to people
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: who have driven it and they say it's great, but
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: none of it will ever matter because two hundred something
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: miles of range isn't enough.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's too narrow of a customer base. I make
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: it successful.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: I drove my Model Y to California for the first time.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: I also got a free sell driving trial, which was
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: crazy going down like the one oh one and the
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: four h five in traffic at eighty five mile an hour,
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: and it's driving for you better than I would do.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: I'm going to say that not a super great traffic guy,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: but pretty good driver.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: Well, it just it guarantees that the things always paying attention.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: It's it's impossible for a human being to always be
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: paying attention.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like, why would you want to drive in
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: traffic if you didn't have to. But anyway, so we're
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: coming back. We had to charge in quartzite three hundred
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: mile range three hundred and it's a model wide performance,
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: so it's a little like three fourteen or something. One
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: hundred percent charge in quartzite. It's like one hundred and
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: sixty eight miles to home because it's all uphill. I like,
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: I made it with like ten percent battery left. So
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: that means that if I ever wanted to drive a
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: JEP Recon to California, I don't think that I could.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: You'd have to go through Wickenberg. You'd have to charge Dulkenberg.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it would make it to Wickenberg.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, like maybe.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Probably because it's flat enough. Maybe yeah, but you'd have
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: to stop and charge for another couple hours in Wickenberg.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Recon, Man, that's gonna be a pretty Jeep's
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: gonna make that a significant launch for twenty twenty six.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: But how tone death?
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's it looks good. I love electric cars,
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: but that's the we know that is the wor what's
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: the price on it? I think they're gonna be like
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: seventy grand Oh my gosh.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: So they're trying to compete with a Rivian.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: So it's gonna it's gonna it's like stop while you're ahead.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm just saying, like, go drive a Rivian. Yeah.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: The thing is, I mean I would spend my money
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: on a Rivian, Yeah, because they're awesome.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: They're in a way I wish I here we go,
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: four hundred and twenty miles of range. I still don't
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: think it's enough in an ev with the current, like
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: for where we live.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: In the West, you know, I'm having you don't think
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: four hundred and twenty in the Rivian is enough?
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, listen is but I want that five hundred number.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I just like that's maybe where the scout comes in.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: You know, like if I want to go to southern
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: Utah with a vehicle, there is now a supercharger in
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: Cayenta that gives me kind of access then to Bear's Ears,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: which is my favorite area. You know. It's just that
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: there's like there's a couple chargers, right, And I just
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: don't think that for my fun car, which is kind
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: of what my Grenadier's become. I just don't know if
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: I like I want it to be an Evy, but
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know if the network's there yet for me.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's where the Scout. Maybe that's where the Scout
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: comes in with the range extenders.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: The Scout's going to be really.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: Cool, Honkok Dina pro Tire, welcome to you to visit
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: Expeditionportal dot com and enjoy a series of adventures from
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: the Jeep Beach Event in Florida, the Broncos Stampede and
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: Jeep Invasion in Tennessee, and the off Road Expo in California.
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: Thanks Han Cook.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: And there's rumor that that range extender motor will run
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: like all night while you're in camp, Like it'll just
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: sit there in idol at optimal efficiency while you're in camp,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: and you wake up the next morning and it's fully charged.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, imagine for a second what all of
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: this kind of means. Let's I'm going to lump the
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Rivian in with the Scout. Is they're both going to
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: have like this. The Rivian has a camp mode. I
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: mean so does the Tesla, and I'm confident that the
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: Scout will you'll be able to sleep in a climate
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: controlled vehicle totally anywhere, like go do the most remote
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: trails you want because you still have you have the
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: best of both worlds. You have an evy drive train
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: that's being charged by a gas engine when it needs
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: to be. And that's I mean, the electric vehicle drive
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: train in a lot of ways is just better. Oh,
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: there's few removing components.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: From an engineering perspective. Absolutely.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, I like cars. People that listen to the
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: podcast now have had a few. Electric cars are just better.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna say it there the next generation. There's just
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of misinformation going on around.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: It's still the most baffling thing to me that somehow
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: evs became political. It's just like baffling to me.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like I said, I just drove the This is
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: a completely pedestrian trip. Like I drove from Prescott to California.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Big whoop.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: But the car drove me there, I know exactly. Like,
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: And the thing is, this has been going on for
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: a while, like years. Yeah, imagine the misinformation I'm gonna
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: sound like Joe Rogan here, but imagine the misinformation campaign
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: for a car that my house charges for free because
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: I have solar otherwise it's like twelve cents of kill
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: a lot. Yep, you know you have a ninety kilo
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: battery or something like, it's not that much to charge
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: and it will drive you there. It has no maintenance,
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: it's silent.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no oil change.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: I never get into a hot car because the car
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: just warms itself up. I never get into a cold car,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: you know. And people are still like, oh, give them
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: my twelve valve Cummings and they won't like they've been manipulated,
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Like this is cheaper.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: And there's nothing wrong with loving a twelvelve Commings. It's
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: just don't why be so upset about the fact that
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: someone else thinks that an EV is a good idea
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: for them. It's like it's like a personal affront to
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: them that someone likes an EV.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: It's like it's the messaging has been so specific and
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: so consistent, I guess. I mean, but there's think we
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: know how PR works. We deal with PR people all
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: the time. Like, think of all of the companies that
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: are based around an internal combustion society. True, I mean
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: think of the governments. I mean we go to we
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: send the ust military to war for this stuff, and
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: I mean we could just choose not to and you know,
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: put some more solar panels up and be good but yeah,
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: it's crazy. That's an oversimplification, ha ha, But it's also crazy.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: It's just creazy, Like are you so insecure about yourself
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: that you care what kind of vehicle another person drives?
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: That's insane to me. That's literally the definition of insight.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: I will say in twenty twenty five, I get coal
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: rolled on a lot less because I drive at Tesla. Yeah,
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: so that was actually maybe a positive thing in my
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: life because I think that the coal rolling crowd doesn't
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: hate musk as much anymore. But that's maybe getting political
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: and we'll change from there. It'll just be interesting going
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: into twenty twenty six to see where kind of the
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: EV stuff goes, because you know, I mean, we're going to.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: See it's still early days. We're three years away from
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: the seven hundred mile pickup. There's a new batteries. Yeah,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: it's all gonna like, it's all going to happen. Yeah,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: it's gonna toe better, it's gonna happen. There'll be a
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: thousand mile range truck within the next five years.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: I think that these range extended evs are like really smart.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: I know this week for said it was killing the lightning.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: I mean that also seems really dumb, Like I get
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: that you can't just continue to if the consumer doesn't
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: want it. That's kinda that's your decision, right.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: That's why they killed it is it was low consumer uptake.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: But they've already announced what the next one is going
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: to be, and it's gonna have huge range, and like
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: they're gonna it's just gonna keep getting better.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: I haven't spent like a huge amount of time in
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: the Lightning. I have driven it. My dad had one
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: as like a rental car.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, quite a bit off.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great, it's enough one fifty. It's everything you
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: expect enough one fifty to be. But it did feel
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: kind of like a lame excuse for a truck when
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: you knew what was out there from Rivian or even
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: like the Hummer. When you have a brand that has
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: the heritage of the H one, why would you take
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: the H two.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: Right as you're go full H one one?
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: And some of these car companies like I'm going to
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: go back to the Recon and the Lightning, these traditional
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: car companies, I mean, oh no, nobody bought our electric cars. Jeez,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: We've got to just keep making the same old thing,
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: you know, It kind of feels like that when you
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: have these innovative American companies Rivy and Tesla, what Scout
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: is coming out? I guess they're gonna be American.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe they're gonna be made in the USA.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: And then you have those what are those little like
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: twenty thousand dollars trucks they're coming out slate, yeah, slate, innovative,
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: and then you have the establishment kind of feeding us
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: drool and wondering why we're not eating it.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Like it's a difficult challenge for big businesses like that
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: to pivot, and that's why they.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Run into the government like, oh, no, our company is
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: gonna be screwed. Yeah, because you're you're releasing in twenty
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: twenty six an EV that has a two hundred and
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: something mile range that wouldn't have cut it ten years ago.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it still doesn't cut it now. So it'll
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: be interesting. Yeah, and it'll be interesting to see how
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: it'll come. I'm excited to drive the Scout. I think
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: that'll be super fun. The range extender makes a ton
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: of sense. I've got a new Rivian coming to play
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: with in January, the brand new SUV with all the
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: things so I'm super excited about checking that out. I'm
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: a huge fan of the Rivians. I think that they're great.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: They really care about off road, they really care about overlanding.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: They build their vehicles, their engineers go out with Overland
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: trainers with.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: All the time, all the time. I mean, Bill Burke
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: likes them.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they're cool. They're super cool. I'm a
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: huge fan of the Ruvians. But yeah, twenty twenty six
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: will be good. I'm looking forward to us having more
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: time around. We're going to be able to do more
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: podcasts in the office, We're going to be able to
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: work on more testing. We're going to bring a lot
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: of testing back into Overland Journal, which is exciting. We're
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: getting a lot of support from the Overland Collective for
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: the magazine, making the magazine the very best that it
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: can be. So for those of you that subscribe to
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Overland Journal, we're very grateful. It's the reason why this
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: podcast exists is because the magazine is supported by people
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: like you, So we're really grateful for that. You know,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Paul is crushing it on doing all of the editing
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: and keeping us on time. Thank you, Paula for being
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: amazing and She is amazing. So everybody knows the reason
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: why this podcast is a success is because of Paul Burr.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: Matt and I just get a pontificate and yeah, I
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: think that we're funny. And then yeah, Matt talks about
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: electric cars and goes off off as rocker. But that's
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: the whole point of podcast is for is for there
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: to be a discussion around things. So I think twenty
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: twenty five was cool. It was neat to see the
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Greenland film come out to the movie to the movie theaters.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: It was really fun to go do that. You know.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: It was weird for me to sell the building that
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: over Land Journal was started in, but we're still here.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: We're just tenants now instead instead of the owners of
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: the building. So my life has changed a lot. But
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: the one thing that everybody can rest be rest assured
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: of is that I plan to be doing more travel
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: and more creative work than I've ever done in the
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: past because I don't have to run the business now
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: that's being run by Rachelle, who's more of a CEO
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: than I ever have been. She's awesome, you know, and
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: we have a full team of people that are doing
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: a great job. So it's going to allow me to
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: really focus on the things, the few things that I'm
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: good at.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm I continue to be thankful for the
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: over and collective. I've been party to acquisitions of businesses
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: as a writer, as a business person, and this was
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: just handled really well. Like I'm, I can spin my
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: top pretty easy, and I have had zero reasons to
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: spin my top. Yeah, everything's kind of stayed the same.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: It's just better, and I'm really it is better, and
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: it's everything that we needed. We needed a lot of
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: support at Overland Journal and Expedition Portal. We needed more
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: team members, we needed people with better specialties because I
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: was having to do a lot of it and I
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: wasn't doing a very good job of it. So the
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: fact that we now have these professionals in these key roles,
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: it just changes the business in such a positive way.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: And to hear Rachelle commit to maintaining the editorial integrity
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: of Overland Journal, Like Matt and I, we get to
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: talk about whatever we get. We just talked about Toyta
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: toyotas and the things we don't like about toyotas, and
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: no one ever tells us not to, so we get
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: to we get to maintain our journalistic integrity, which is
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: really important. No one has ever told me no. Yeah,
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: and so that continues from from before.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: That's right. So yeah, it's really important that we are
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: able to advocate for our listeners. Yeah, so if we
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: want it to stay the way that it is. Yeah.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: But so what are you looking forward to in the
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: next couple of month months, Matt? What's coming up?
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna January, I'm gonna fly into Denver, pick my
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: Earth Rummer up, and then spend that road trick heading back.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Nice. So cool.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: I mean literally, between between Prescott and Denver is like
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: one of the most special places on the planet. Like
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: if I could a lot of them, if I could
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: only be in one, if I could only explore one
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: place for the rest of my life, it'd be the
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: Colorado Plateau.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: Like it's beautiful. So I'm looking forward to that trip.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: And that's where my mind is right now, is just
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: these small, little attainable adventures. I'm sure a lot of
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: people can relate. When you have stuff going on home
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: with family, that's where your focus has to be. Yep,
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: and planning, continuing to plan for my pan am trip,
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: which has gone from earth Romer to van to Grenadier
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: with Thataptop and every time I approach it keeps getting simpler.
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: And yesterday Laura was like, it would kind of be
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: a flex if we just took the Subaru, and yeah,
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: that kind of sounds like an interesting thing. Yeah, like
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: it would do thirty five miles to the gawn, would
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: do great nine inches of suspension or clearance. I should say, sorry,
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: but yeah, not that much. Mean what about you. I mean,
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: You've got to be friggin tired.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: I am exhausted. It was a big year. I do
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: need some you know, I want to focus on back
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: from trips.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: That was you flew into Morocco, then you went to
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: Western Sahara, then Mauritania, then Senegal, then Guinea Guinea.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: Then Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, been in and then into Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: so the Republic of Congo, which by the way, was insane.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: It was so good. We're going to talk about the
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: trip and if you the whole details on the trip
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: in the future. But yeah, so the Congo into Cabinda,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: which is a little satellite state of Angola, and then
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: into the d r C which was mental like it.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: We'll tell you the story on that. We basically got
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: escorted through the country, which they told yes in air
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: quotes for our protection, and then we went back into Angle.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: And Angola is like the next hot spot for overlanding
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: in Africa. Angola for sure, good infrastructure, super cool people.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: Fuel is seventy cents a gallon. Oh and it's got
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: everything that Namibia does and everything that South Africa does.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: And it's got beat big, beautiful parks, desert jungle, it's
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: got all the things. And you could easily get into
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: the Congo, which I think would be worth it. I
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: think doing like a a Congo. An Angola trip is
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: like it's the next place to go for sure.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Africa always continues to surprise me every time I go.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: I absolutely love it. I you know, in the cities,
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: I'm a little okay, Like when I'm in joe Burg,
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: I do consider where I'm at. Yeah sure, but the
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: rest of it, I'm not even thinking of it. People
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: are so great, it's so attainable. It's so easy. You
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: could pool your credit card points, fly to Cape Town
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: to joe Berg.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: To rent a Highlex or rent a series.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: And do like I did and stay in luxury hotels
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: for like fifty bucks a night, don't even worry about camping.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: But the lodges are so great and the food is
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: so great, and the people are wonderful. I mean Africa.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: To me, it feels like home. It always has and
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: you know, even though Prescott I love and it is
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: my own, but it does have a bit.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: Of an Africa. It does drive north, Yeah, it does
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: for sure.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So that was a big that was a big journey.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: So I'm looking forward to I think I'm gonna buy
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: this Quartermaster. So I'm gonna try to work on a
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: deal with that to buy it, and then I'm gonna
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: get the scout all sorted out for travel, and then
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: I want it to all be ready so that way
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: I can at least come with you for part of
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: the journey on your trip south. Heck, yeah, heck, you
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: go travel together, do some podcasts from the road.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: Sweet, that's how I intend to pay for it.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: Perfect. That sounds awesome, Matt. Thanks for the chat. Thanks,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: it's nice to be back. I'm glad we could work
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: a little, do a little year in review. Lots to
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: talk about. We're gonna we're gonna We've got a bunch
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: of ideas for the podcast into twenty twenty six, and.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: We'd like to hear your ideas. Yea, if there's things
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: that you miss. You know, Scott's been gone a lot,
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: I've been kind of been a hobbit, so we're open.
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: We're open to ideas.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, please reach out. So you can reach Matt
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: on Instagram at Matt Explore, and you can reach me
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: on Instagram at Scott dot a dot Brady, and we'd
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: love to get your feedback and things that we can
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: do better, less of, more of. We really appreciate everyone's insights.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: So thank you for listening, and yeah, thanks for making
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: a great year. Ready, and we'll talk to you without
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: the listeners. We'll talk to you next time. Thanks guys,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: Thanks Matt,