Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / 2022 In Review: Vehicles, Gear, and Industry Updates

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2022 In Review: Vehicles, Gear, and Industry Updates · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: your host, Scott Brady. I'm joined today by my co
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: host Matt Scott. In today's podcast, we talk about the
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: year twenty twenty two. As the year comes to an end,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: we reflect back on the significant innovations that have happened
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: within the overland industry, some of the shakeups, and unfortunately,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: some of the losses that we've had as a community.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: We also talk about the gear that we've really fallen
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: in love with and the vehicles that we've also built
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: out for our own travels. So please enjoy this wide
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: ranging conversation about twenty twenty two with Matt and May.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: This content is brought to you by Overland Journal, our
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: premium quality print publication. The magazine was founded in two
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: thousand and six with the goal of providing independent equipment
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: and vehicle reviews, along with the most stunning adventures and photography.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: We care deeply about the countries and cultures we visit
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: and share our experiences freely with our readers. We also
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: have zero averatorial policy and do not accept any advertiser
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: compensation for our reviews. By subscribing to Overland Journal, you're
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: helping to support our employee owned and veteran owned publication.
• 1:22
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  Speaker 1: you are watching or listening to right now. You can
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: subscribe directly on our website at Overland Journal dot com.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: All right, Matt, we're talking about twenty twenty two. We're
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three. We are, Yeah, so it's we're
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: going back in time.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: It's for first couple of weeks. The twenty three twenty
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: nineteen was great. Twenty twenty was like what happened twenty
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: twenty one was like the entire industry was holding onto
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: its you know, shoelaces, and then now now we're here, Yeah,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: we're here, and travel is now opening back up again
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: pretty much in most ways, unless you want to cross Russia,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: which would probably be a little complicated what like and
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: having cross Russia. I don't know that it would be
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: high on my line.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: I really want to do the trans Serberian Railway.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: That would be worth while.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: And every time that I'm like, like, that was one
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: of the things I really wanted to do during the pandemic.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: You know, we I think, you know, we all sat
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: at home for the most part, and we're like, oh, well,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: where are we going to go when things open back up? Yes,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: I've always wanted to do the trans Serberian Railway, and
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: every time I get close to doing it, Russia invades
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: someone exactly because I want to come to your country,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: because there's such a wealth of history there absolutely has
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: been basically for our generations blocked. There's all this wonderful
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: history of literature and art. And yes, like I mean,
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: you've been dissent and the people are wonderful. I mean
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Saint Petersburg, beautiful city.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: What's the museum in Saint Petersburg? The starts with an
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: h armitage armitage. Yeah, totally want to go. Yeah, it's great.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Let's open up the borders and let's let in tourists
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: and let's all have a good time. A couple oleague
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: guards don't get the Yeah, they were their new toys.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: They were issuing ten year visas and you can go
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: and multiple country stuff. Well, so yeah, that's how twenty
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: twenty two started for most people.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Was a very inconvenient.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: War that drove up gas prices, made overland travel even harder,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: started crashing the economy. So we've covered that. Where do
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: we go from there?
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that twenty twenty two, I mean, it's
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: just good to look back on the year. I mean
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: we as an overland industry, we lost Bill Swales of
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Earth Roamer. Yep. For me personally, he was a good friend.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: He helped us start Overland journal as a magazine. He
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: founded Earth Roamer as a company. He was featured in
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Four Wheeler Magazine on a regular basis. Which is which
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: is that he had That's right, he had a ram.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: It was his first earth Roamer. And that's another loss
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: that we have in twenty twenty two is the end
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: of four Wheeler magazine. This was for me when I
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: would read the stories of Bill swalees or Gary Amano
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Coescott of the of the Turtle Expedition, these were formative
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: stories for me, and four Wheeler was always a little
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: bit more thoughtful, a little bit more travel oriented. And
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: it's the end of an era. I mean, there are
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: very few off road magazines left and that is simply
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: because the industry has definitely shifted towards overlanding. So fortunately,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: like Overland Journalism a publication, we're doing great and we
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: continue to grow because the industry is growing. But sad
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: to see four Wheelers growing too, and I in.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Certain ways, just not in that way. They had a
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: lot of redundancy in titles. You know, the magazine has
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: got thinner and thinner and thinner and thinner, and the
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: ad percentages seem to just go up and up, and
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: it seemed like a lot of recycled content towards the end.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: And you know, they had huge distribution, and I they
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: had really great people. I mean, they had Sean freakin'
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Holmet exactly, like total talent, huge talent, and you know
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: that dude would have done anything, but it just felt
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: like he was in handcuffs or something. It seemed like
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: because there's no reason that he couldn't have made that
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: work if allowed to.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: And I think he made it work a lot longer
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: than anybody thought was possible. I don't know se Sean
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: will go on to do great. Yeah, Sean's a stellar
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: talent in the industry. Yeah, absolutely, so, yeah, you know,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: and then personally, you know, I lost my mom and
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: that happened in January of twenty two and I look
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: back and my mom was always the one that liked
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: to know what was over the next horizon. You know,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: both of my parents were always so encouraging of me
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: doing whatever it is that I liked. But my mom
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: always had that creative spark. She was an artist and
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: her dad was a chief warrant officer in the Marines,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: and they traveled around the world. They lived in Guam
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: and they traveled all over the place. She loved. That
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: was your spark. Yeah, she loved to be able to
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: do that, and she was always such an encouragement of
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: me traveling. So for me personally, of course, that's a
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: huge loss. And for those that are listening, when you
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: lose a parent, it really does start to shift your
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: perspective in some ways, and it just makes me all
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: the more grateful for the time that I spend with
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: people that I love, doing things that I love. Makes
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: me even less interested in the stuff. So, you know,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: for me, that was a pretty formative change, and I'm
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: just so proud of my family for how we've all
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: come together. So but yeah, you know, that was a
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: big change for me. And then of course in twenty
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: twenty two, we also lost the land Cruiser, So, like
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: you know, twenty twenty two was not a great year
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: for North America in any way. Overlanding we have more
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: and more solutions, and you listen to Toyota, and you
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: listen to the executives at Toyota say that we're all
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: in on overlanding. That is a direct quote from the
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: VP of Marketing for Toyota North America. We are all
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: in on overlanding. And yet they removed the most significant
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: overlanding model, which is the land cruiser, from the lineup.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: It just couldn't compete in the US marketing, right, I mean,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: it was an expensive vehicle, it was, but it was
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: it was a vehicle that the expense came in durability
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: and quality, not short term what's hot now kind of thing.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, like Americans bought more convertible ferraris than land cruisers.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Like whenever I talk to Australian companies and they're like, oh, yeah,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: you know it's obviously like I import stuff for a living,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: and it's well, yeah, land cruise with this and land
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: cruise with this, I'm like, dude, like there's no market
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: for it, Like, oh, we sold fifty thousand a year.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: I'm like, well, we buy more convertible ferraris than we
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: do land cruisers. And that is not a fact.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: That is not a joke. Look it up, but we
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: do get the Lex six hundred. So it's the Lexus
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: version of the land cruisers, like the Bain Mask. Yeah, yeah,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I mean the Lexus design language that applies to their cars,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: which I think is very personal choice. It's fine, yeah,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: but it does not translate. Yeah, and you know they
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: have some models that are a little bit better.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: But like I know, people say, like we have the
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: LX six hundred. I'm like, yeah, well who cares honestly,
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Like I like it makes sense, like the lex Yeah,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: like it drives nice that it has great underpinnings, but
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: you have to rip off so much of that vehicle.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: True that you're taking.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Now, what is one hundred thousand dollars plus vehicle with
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: labor and parts and everything. In these days, you're looking
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: at one hundred and twenty hundred and thirty thousand dollars
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: vehicle to get something that.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you won't rip its spoiler off on a curb.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Now we have things like the Grenadier, so yeah, but
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: we have gladiators, and we have Grenadiers, and we have
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: all kinds of other great vehicles that are other options.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: You're talking about the three hundred coming back. I thought
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: there were some news and some rumors. I saw lots
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: of fomers. Roman from TfL kind of had a little
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: scoop on that.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: There's lots of rumors. I think what we're going to
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: see is an even more capable version of future Forerunners.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Toyota has a huge network of platforms that they can
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: draw on to build interesting cars.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Was almost like, I mean this is maybe controversial, but like,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: is it the downturn of Toyota, Like, think about it.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: The Tundra launches to major problems. I mean I think
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: it's the first time Consumer Reports didn't recommend the Tundra.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they forgot to put toe hooks on the front
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, Like there's like there's no excuse that
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: you can come up with where that makes sense.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just a mistake. They'll get it right. But
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: like the Forerunner, like the Forerunner literally hasn't changed. And
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, are we at a decade? I mean they did,
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: they did. They did a new headlight in two thousand.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, more than it were more than a team were
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: more than a decade.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: They're reliable, there's a good aftermarket support for them. They're
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: a great choice, but the whole product line is long
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: in the tooth. I mean, the Tacoma is just a
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: redesigned ye this generation.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it got a new engine, but yeah, the
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: chassis and the suspension architecture.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: I was skiing this and I saw a prototype in
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Arizona of the new Ram, not halftime.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I guess it'd be medium, mid side, mid size. Yeah,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: I mean heavily camouflage. You couldn't see anything other than
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: it was a heavily camouflaged Clearly it was a Stillanis
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: product because it was flanked by all of the Stillanis
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: vehicles with manufacturer plates. One of the most heavily camouflaged
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: vehicles I've seen since, I guess since going back to
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the Gladiator, where you could tell a little bit more
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: raked back windshield. It wasn't a Gladiator, Yeah, but they
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: have the Gladiator platform to draw them.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: But I guess that's mid twenty that's twenty twenty three,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: and I'm being naughty.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: We should Yeah, so I think, I mean in twenty
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: twenty two is definitely the year of and so was
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: twenty one of overlanding, and it continues to grow. Toyota
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: says we're all in on overlanding. GM is now GM
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: the one that's all in, all in on overlanding, and
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: they're making like all of these really honest vehicles, like
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: you can go buy an aev GMC Like this is
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: like it's you know, steel bumpers, truck, full sized truck,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: winch capable, multimatic suspension, front and rear lockers, thirty three
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: inch tall tires, rockslider. I mean, it's like there's nothing,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: there's nothing like it. I really I had no idea
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: there were that many off road enthusiasts at GM, but
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: they are there and they're very vocal. Again, this is
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: this is where it makes the difference. Is they start
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: the AT four lineup, they sell like crazy. It actually
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: starts to outpace the Dinali line and they realize like,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, we have to make more off road
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: capable vehicles because people buy them. So they're realizing that
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: and we're seeing a lot. They're the company that's all
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: in on overlanding. I would also just complement Toyota on
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: like supporting people like X Overland who they're super legit
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: overland travelers. They care about the industry, they started when
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: the industry started. Toyota is supporting big expeditions for X Overland,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: which I think is just something to be complimented on.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: The Sequoia is low and wide, so it is meant
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: for barge like activities, but it is very easy to
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: lift and and put thirty fives. I mean, I think
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: it looks good.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: I think the TRD pro one it looks really good.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: I think it's cool that they're doing that. But yeah,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: they're going to crush it with that. That's a really
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: great model.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: That's it. I think that they got out of the
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: gate with a with a good solution on that. But again,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the thing is like you can make a change.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: But like these name plates, you know, if they would
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: have called that something different, all of a sudden, it
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: has a different image that comes to mind.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Maybe maybe I think this is why did you buy?
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Why did this? Why do people buy Sequoias? Why did
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: they buy them? Is because it was a seven passenger Toyota.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: But then why gee, I wish I could have afforded
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: the land Cruiser. It's like buying the Cayman as a
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: nine eleven, you know, like Jeremy Clarson's kind of said
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: that as like it just seemed like a weird price point,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: kind of.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Well, you can't buy a land cruiser anymore. Yeah, so,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: and they significantly improve the Sequoia. It's a much better vehicle,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: and it's got a lot of aftermarket support right out
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: of the gate, so they're they're going to do really
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: well with that, but they need to make sure that
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the next vehicles that they come out with are the
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: same kind of from the previous Sequoia to the current one.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: It's such a huge leap and huge performance and desirability
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: and attractive, like everything across the board. Is just a
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: way better vehicle and hopefully Toyota continues to do that.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: In my mind, but across the board, you've got entire manufacturers,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: huge manufacturers, GM and Toyota, the two largest OEMs in
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: the world, and they are both wanting to make a
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: lot of overland vehicles. So it's pretty exciting.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: The Bronco Raptor is crazy cool. That's another new one,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: I guess for twenty twenty two. Yeah, I haven't driven
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: that one yet.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: I drove it. I drove it. It is not fair
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: for me to be negative at all about that vehicle
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: because it has a very unique application that does not
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: align with the off road honey via yeah, it doesn't
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: align with any of my values or my interests. I
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: did like, and I do like the Bronco. So there
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: are versions of the Bronco that I find very attractive
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: and would even drive and own that is not the one.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: So it's just I think that the like the wild Try.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's like twelve different Broncos exactly, it's hard
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: to say. Some of them just like already, are aging
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: really bad. I think, like the one, the wheel wells
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: are too big for most of the models that people
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: are buying.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I think they're I think that I am wanting to
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: pick with Bronco. I think they're awesome, So I really
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: like them. I just don't. This is probably the best
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: way for me to describe it is that we have
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: consumer available vehicles that are intended to be driven, driven
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: at speeds that the consumer is not trained properly to do,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: and that public roads never intended for them to drive.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: The speed limit in the National Forest is twenty five
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: miles an hour. I actually didn't know that twenty five
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: miles an hour that's the speed limit on a National
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Force road. I am a felon in that well, and
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: so am I. I have gone twenty seven. Well, it's
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: not it and I and I do drive faster than
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: I should at times, but we have to be really
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: mindful of the fact that we have also responsibility there.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: We have to tread lightly. We have to be careful
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: with other people that are on the trail. People are
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: out walking their dogs, they're riding bicycles, there's grandparents driving
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: around and you know, in their tacoma. And here comes this.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: The typical raptor buyer is not a qualified operator of
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: a vehicle, of course, so the challe that's a challenge.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: It's a challenge. So I and that's that's not what
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: this podcast is about, but it's really it really is
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: a concern for me. So I'm I'm a little careful
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: about promoting those kinds of vehicles because the manufacturer doesn't
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: take any responsibility about educating the consumer of their responsibilities
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: when they use a vehicle that.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: That's that's that fast power is great, but knowing how
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: to eat it and Wendy use, I mean like that
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: TRX I had, I think it was mental, it was crazy,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: there's crazy fun. The problem is, I think we're in
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: this age of like go fast overlanding, not go fast campers,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: but like my overland truck has to be a rock crawler,
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: a Baja one thousand truck.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: The cool thing about doing all that stuff to your
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: truck is that you don't actually have to spend any
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: energy traveling anywhere. So that's the dichotomy of today, is
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: that we have this enormous amount of energy that is
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: spent in money that is spent on stuff and accessories,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: and this impression of capability, and no one gets training
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: and no one actually travels anywhere. Very few do, but
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: that will shift. That's common.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: I think the breaks proety at the middle to the
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: end of twenty twenty two. I think we started to
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: see the brakes get put on that, you know, like
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: this unbridled spending in the industry, you know, at all
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: of a sudden. I mean, like I go back to
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: when I started working for you in twenty ten, twenty eleven,
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: it was like if you had a new car, that
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: was just like, oh my gosh, it was unheard of.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: It was unheard of. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with spending
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: money on your vehicle, and we can maybe talk about
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: These are some of the philosophical considerations that I had
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: after twenty twenty two is that in our life, we're
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: trying to balance wealth, and we're trying to balance experiences,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: and we're trying to balance our time. We're trying to
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: balance our health, and I think anytime those things get
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: out of balance that you end up with this very
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: dysfunctional result. So there's nothing wrong with buying accessories for
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: your vehicle, but if you're spending more money on the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: vehicle and the accessories than you do on the experiences,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: then that will be something you will regret later on
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: in life.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: And it just it always remains true of all the
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: people I talked to, and you know, I've met a
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: lot of just wonderful people through this community, But I
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: wish I had the money to travel. It's like something
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: that so many people say, and then I look at
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: you add up what they've spent and I'm like, jeez, like, well,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: you do have the money to travel, you just need
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: to prioritize it. That's right, right, And and I do
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: see this trend starting to happen of less extravagant vehicles,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: simpler vehicles. I'm like, I'm seeing a lot more crossovers,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: I'm seeing a lot more vans. Things that enable people
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: to get out, and it's like the I feel like
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: the guys that had the Hanna Civics with the wings
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: that all of a sudden had kids and got into overlanding,
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: they're now like they're they're onto the next thing. It's
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: just a trend and it's left the core people that
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: actually want to go and do stuff. And I have
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: to wonder if that's not going to be better for everybody.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: I think it will. I think that people are becoming
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: more aware of just being honest with themselves about what
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: they really want. But if you look back at like
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: a Dan Grek that he leaves Canada in his Tudor
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: soft top Geep, but he drives all the way down
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: to the end of Southomore, we don't want to Dan
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Greg exactly because the guy he went and had the
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: experiences and people say, I wish I had more money. Well,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: would you trade places with Warren Buffett today? He's worth
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: a hundred billion dollars? Would you trade places with Warren
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Buffett today? Most people are going to say no, because
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the guy has an expiration date that's coming up quickly.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: He's ninety one, ninety two years old. How much of
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: that hundred billion dollars can he actually enjoy at that
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: stage in life. The end of the day, all we
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: really have is time and experiences with the people that
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: we want to do things with. And if we're willing
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: to give up time, because every time you buy something,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: you've had to trade some of your time that you
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: worked for it. So how much of my time am
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: I willing to trade for this gadget? Or how much
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: of my time am I willing to trade for something
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: that is just a signaling device as opposed to actually
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: having an experience. That's why you and I like to
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: go and go do things. We want to go have
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: a experience. I started.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: I started like doing things in the last year or
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: two and just not telling people about them.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Sure, you know, if it doesn't happen on Instagram, it
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: didn't happen in this space sometimes, you know, I encourage
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: people to go camping and leave your camera, turn your
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: phone off.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a that's a good idea, figure out. I
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: feel like it. I think that's a positive thing that
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: I've seen is people are getting out and traveling and
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: people are talking about where they want to go again.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Richard and Ashley, they're shipping their vehicle over to Europe
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: and they're getting ready to travel. Of course they are.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: So you've got all of these people that are saying, Okay,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: we're going to go do this, and we're going to
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: not they chose to use the tunder that they already had.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Certainly could have weighted and bottom more expensive vehicle and
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: all that other stuff, but they said we're going to go.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: And I think that that's something that's really encouraging for
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: me to see. So and I also think that twenty
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: twenty two was kind of the year of tech within overlanding.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: So one of the most significant developments, and this personally
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: affected me in so many positive ways, was the availability
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: of mobiles starlink. So I spent my entire summer driving
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: around in my eighty four with a Scout camper. Got
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: got a boho chic on it. Well, I just like
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: just camped out every night and I could work. And
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: the starlink enabled me to be at nine thousand feet
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: up in the aspen trees with not a soul in
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: sight and I could do the work.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Cool technology, and it's going to continue to expand you know,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: right at the end of last year, we also you
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: know there's I guess there's been three different Starlink dishes.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: There was round dishy, yes, which square dishy yep, that's right.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: And now we have the mountable in motion high performance dish.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: I guess that is what they call it, which.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Is still shit sitting in my garage that I need
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: to install.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: But and they work on a sailboat, and they work
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: on an RV and they work on a you know
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: whatever in motion as well. So the ability to do
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: knowledge work remotely from a whole new definition of remote. Yeah.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: So you're not just in the cabin where you've got
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: still have internet connection. You're anywhere you want to be.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: And that is it's so exciting for me. It's personally
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: so exciting to tangable. It's reliable technology too. It's I
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: use it every single day and you know, where I live,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: I've got Starlink, and when I travel, I got Starlet.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: It's a different dish. I got Starlink and I use
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: it every single day and it's incredibly reliable, very little downtime. Yeah.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean I think that that has the
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: I think like for van life, like I think that
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: that's going to I think that the industry is going
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: to continue to move more towards these live in vehicles
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: or off road trailers or whatever, because it's a paradigm
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: shifter of all of a sudden, I don't have to
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: be I don't.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Have to be sitting at home.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, people have been able to work
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: remotely for a while, you know, with cellular based stuff,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: but it was only so good. Like you notice certain areas.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: One of my favorite parts of the desert in Arizona
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: is around where Burg. It's this unique combination of a
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: little bit higher of elevation so it's a little bit cooler.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: You get the drainage from like Hasiampa River, so it's
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: pretty lush. There's like two or three places out there
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: that I mean, it's like tent city because there's a
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: cell tower there.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Ye.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Now, the last time I was down there, you know.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: And we're in that season of boon docking, which is awesome.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: People can go a little bit further, and I think
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: that it will almost as as overlanding becomes more popular,
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: and I mean not even just as overlanding as boon docking, rving,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: this this mobile lifestyle becomes more popular. It allows people.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: To disperse a little bit more which places less strain
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: on very specific places. It totally does. Like so for
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: I've been traveling recently with this Explore trailer. It's an
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: X one four or five, so that's the one that
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: you were charging. The actually charged the toe vehicle that
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: I was towing it with a Rivian. I was able
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: to charge the Rivian from the trailer, so one thousand
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: and eighty am powers of lithium my own batteries. There's
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: got a thousand watts of solar on it, and so yeah,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: I pulled it out into a remote area outside of Wickenberg.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: It was absolutely stunning, right along the boundary of a
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: wilderness area. There's not a cell tower or cell reception
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: in sight, which means there's no other people. And I
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: set this thing up, got it leveled, and I spent
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: days working and just hiking enjoying it got rainy. The
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: new trailers and the new campers are just awesome. I mean,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: this is definitely the most Scotty approved trailer I've ever used.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: It's got the Cruise Master's suspension underneath it from Australia.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Super robust platform has a dry bath, so you can
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: actually spend like weeks living out of the thing, which
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: is kind of a game changer.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: No, I love a dry bath, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: just sometimes a wet toilet gets old.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Well it's just if you're going to go
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: live remotely, sometimes you need a few creature comforts if
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: you want to be working. So I choose to work remotely,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: and that is totally feasible for me. So I think
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: that that's a big deal. Obviously. Evs are another huge
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: development around technology, Like.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: The year that the ev started to get taken seriously, Yeah.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Twenty five thousand Rivians were produced in twenty twenty two.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: We drove them, drove both models there. They provided us
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: with no compensation. They're not an advertiser. But the Rivian
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: R one T is just an amazing truck. The R
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: one s the suv. It's one of the finest SUVs
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: I've ever driven of any kind.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: They're really good. Yeah, they're really really good looking yep.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: As opposed to the Hummer. The Hummer obviously is like
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: impressive performance and whatever. For me, the Rivians are just like,
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: if I was to design an EV, it would be
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: as of a first gen hundred it is, which is
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: it's perfect, Like, yeah, it's perfect, and I love the interior.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: It's like a Herman Miller chair on the inside. The
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: design is very simple and elegant, and they're very capable
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: off road Eves as far as I'm concerned, like we've
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: got to remove this political stuff. The biggest mistake that's
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: happened around EVE was this whole regulation of internal combustion
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: vehicles in California, Like, like, that is the worst thing
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: that could ever happen to EV's because now people are
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: going to feel like, why are you telling me what
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: to buy?
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Which you cannot tell Americans what to do.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Well, because it's also a bad idea. Let the consumer
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: choice dictate which products are going to be successful in
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: the marketplace.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: When California did that, I'm sure if you like watched
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: your home value on Zilo, it probably.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Jumped immediately after that.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: You can really like internal combustion engines, which I do, yeah,
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: and like electric cars.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: So of course this whole EV hate thing is it's
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: just hilarious to me, but of course, you know, it's
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: the way that people people have to be.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: A lot of times people only read headlines and then
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: we get in we were like victims of the algorithm. Right,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: and people just get into reinforced that group of the
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: same things. And I also think that a lot of
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: the information that people are reading is I'm not going
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: to say inaccurate, but very outdated. Yeah, a lot of
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: the things that people are saying about the lifespan of
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: EV batteries and the recyclability and whatever, that was very
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: true ten years ago, five years ago.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: And it's gonna you think about it. The first version
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: of the iPhone was pretty good. The current version of
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: the iPhone is it's amazing that it even exists. It
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: does every I don't charge my battery any like I
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: charge it at night, and like I know. And so
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: they're gonna they're going to resolve all this stuff around EV's.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: It's not going to be for everybody, but we were
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: interested how they work. So we drove the hummer over
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: El Camino del Diablo, which is the longest, which is
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: an accomplishment. It's the longest unsupported overland route in the
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: forty eight States. And then we drove the Rivian R
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: one A to the most remote point that you can
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: access on a dirt road in the United States. So
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: to say that you can't overland any EV is obviously ridiculous.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: So you can come up with some obscure use case
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: that nobody actually ever does that maybe an EV wouldn't
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: do well at But to me, it's just not a
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: big it's just not a big game. The infrastructure is
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: a problem infest well, yeah, exactly. Eds are not the problem.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: The infrastructure is the problem. Another thing on the tech
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: side is iPhone now has an SOS feature, So those
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: who have a fourteen pro of any variety, you now
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: have the ability to do SOS from your iPhone. So
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: we're seeing more and more support for remote travel through
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: the use of technology. So if you have a starlink
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: and an iPhone, you now have some redundancy around remote
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: communication and it's just built into the phone that you use.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Every thought about what that will do to like the
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: necessity for in reach or the necessity for the spot
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: devices like that was something that I hadn't really explored well.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Currently it's not a better solution because an inReach allows
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: you to do non emergency communications, so you can you can,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: you know, update your family and have even make some
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: decisions around work. There's a lot that can be done
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: from an inReach. Eventually, the phone will have two way
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: communication was my model. Yeah, exactly, But they're going to
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: figure that stuff out too. We're going to see an
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: inReach and a watch before we know it. So to
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: be able to have a smart watch from Garmen with
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: an inReach capability built into it, that's pretty awesome. You know,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: they're already working Garman and Android are already working together
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: on a program for Android phones and Android devices to
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: incorporate satellite communication. It's going to just continue to improve,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: which all enables us to travel more effectively, which is
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: which is awesome. You know. Let's let's go to like
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: just fun stuff. So like what was your favorite new
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: gadget for this year? Like and it has like let's
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: pick an on over landy gadget, Like what was your
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: favorite thing that you got this year? And then what's
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: what was been it's been your like your favorite over
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: landy gadget and you putting me on the spot. Here
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: you go first. Okay, So this demetic water system it's awesome. Yeah,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: it's like, did it take that long to figure out
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: like the easiest way to have running water in your
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: camper or what? And I use it in the scout.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: It's charges by USB. The tanks are square and they're smaller,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: and so I'm super impressed by that thing. It gets
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: a little the tappy thing. It's just amazing. Yeah, it's amazing.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: So that one I'm super impressed by.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, this is like incredibly obscure, but I really like tools.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Motion Pro makes the seal Polar that has like a
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: little pokey thing on one side. We're going to put
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: a link to it. It's like twelve dollars.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Nice. I use it like daily. Nice.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Sorry, but that's that's my favorite gadget. Like I the
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: seal Polar. The seal Polar, I like it. I can
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: take radiator hoses off really quickly. It's it's a motorcycle tool,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: but I use it for everything. I'm trying to get
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: a little. Sorry, I know that that is incredibly boring. No,
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: it's not boring.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: It's what you like.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: But that like as far as a gadget, I mean,
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: that's my thing. It's favorite thing that I acquired in
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: twenty two.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: I really love my likea SL two. Yeah, I thought
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: you'd say that beautiful.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I had shot cannon for a long
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: time and not necessarily having to work or have profit
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: associated to my images is when I really started to
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: dive into a like. I mean, I've been in Alika
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: for probably ten years now, but on the rangefinder M side.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: So I finally decided, Okay, well, I love the ethos
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: of this company.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: I love the build quality. I like how the lenses
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: that I'm buying are.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: I don't want to say investment pieces because I think
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: the word investment is just way over you doing what
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: you say to your wife to justify buying something. This
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: car is an investment. Yeah, ok is that one too, buddy,
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: But you know they last for a long time. The
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: El Mount alliance is Panasonic, Sigma and Leika. Now, so
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: if there's an obscure. The problem with working with Alika
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: was always if you need a particular lens for something,
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: the lens is going to be more than what you're
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: going to, you know, make in a month of shooting.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Sometimes sure, so it was very hard to justify. But
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: now if I need to get a weird wide angle
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: or a tilt shift or this or that or or whatever,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: I can buy the Panasonic version, or I can buy
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: the Sigma version. Obviously you buy Leika for the glass.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: I did the fifty millimeters some Alux, the twenty four
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: to ninety Vario el Mar and the ninety to two
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: eighty and I have the range set again. Gadgets and
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: stuff is cool. But going back to travel, as we're young,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: I'm thirty two and we're starting to fill out our
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: home together and we're planning trips. You know, we're going
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: and saying, oh, we want to cactus landscape on that wall.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So now we're.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Going and we're taking the roam route and we're going
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: to create a memory that's on the wall.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Now listen, like, as our a luxury, I get that
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: you don't need that to create good images, but that's.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Something that you like. That's I like it, Yeah exactly.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: And ten years of collecting rangefinder lenses, I haven't lost
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: a cent on any of them.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great. So you know another thing that I was,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: you know, I look back on the year and I
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: was super impressed by is that three liter turbo diesel
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: in my truck. I was just just the other day
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: I was looking down at my average miles per gallon
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: over a four hundred miles, Sam.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Because you got that in twenty two as well, I did.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: I did well and actually I got it in twenty one,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: So I got it in twenty one. The miles per
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: gallon was twenty three miles to the gallon average over
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: four hundred miles. That's on thirty fives with a three
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: and a half inch lift over a stock height. What
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: was the lifetime no for the last for the last
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: four hundred mile for the last four hundred miles, twenty
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: three miles of the gallon. That's crazy. It's a full
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: sized truck on thirty fives with a three and a
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: half inch lift and crew cab, six and a half
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: foot bed and twenty three miles of the gallon average,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: which some of that average included towing that trailer. Some
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: of that average is interstate, some of it's city driving.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: I mean I've definitely, like when I'm on like a
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: fifty five mile an hour road, I've seen high twenties
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: out of that. So, like it's pretty amazing to me.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I like that truck. It's the right size.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: You have a six and a half foot bed, yep,
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: so you have the same bed that's on the prospector
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: you get better gas control, I mean you have forties.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: So yeah, that was that was probably my favorite car.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: That. I know it wasn't you know.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: The wagon was my favorite one, but my favorite overlandy
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: thing was I had always wanted a prospector. Yeah, and
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: the stars finally aligned for me. You know, that thing
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: continues to impress me. I get fifteen to sixteen on it.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: I get about fourteen towing a race trailer.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: It just goes.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: It's comfortable, it's quiet, it's impressive. Like it works. I'm
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: about to re register it, yeah, which is something I
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: don't know.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's quite the statement. You have a car
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: lock on of trucks. We both have pickup trucks. Yeah,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: and I get it now, like I never got it before,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: but now I get it. The best daily driver I've
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: ever had is a full size. They're just American made
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: a competitive segment. It's good, It's really good. You know.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: That's how you end up with this three leter diesel thing.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Like it's kind of a shame that Ford's diesel didn't
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: really go anywhere, but.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: It was also from Jaguar. They didn't pair it with
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: the right transmission, and then they also had a really
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: efficient turbo V six, so it was really closer to
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: post motor is It's really good is a chef's kiss. Yeah,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: so you're not you're not really incentivized. But if I
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: was to compare it to the the V eight for
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: this same truck, I would never pick the V eight.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: I don't like, I don't like LS three. I don't know,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: I don't I don't care for it's it's loud and inefficient,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: doesn't feel any more powerful than my diesel, and I
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: get twice the gas mileage.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: So it's a really nice truck, super quiet inside. It's
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: like just likes are like hemetically sealed.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I like that's it's a luxury truck brand,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: and it feels like it when you drive it. It's
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: just like a really I got you know, air conditioned
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: seats and a heated steering wheel, and like it's got
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: heads up display and all the gadgets. The heated cheering
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: wheel is a game changer for us.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: That's for us in Arizona that suffer through very very
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: cold temperatures.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's well, like it's cold here.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: There's somebody in North Dakota that's watching Left and it's Left.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: That's their summer high. Yeah, exactly cold. Exactly what do
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: you have going into twenty twenty three for vehicle projects,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: like what, like, what are you focusing on in twenty three,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: You've been tinkering with the WORL wagon lowest G wagon.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have a I have a night
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: teen ninety one W four six three G Wagon and
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: for two years only, they made them with a manual transmission.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: It was imported out of Germany.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: So I've been working on this thing and it's really
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: just been a you know, I pulled in the garage,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: I crack a beer, and I like, okay, like I'm
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: going to clean this door hinge. I'm really trying to
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: kind of bring it back because the cool thing with
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: the G wagon is that they're so well made. Oftentimes
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: it's just a matter of cleaning and service. Oh sure,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: to keep them going. That's how I kept mine going
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: for twelve years. It has one hundred horsepower and one
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: hundred and forty two pound feet of torque, and it
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: weighs probably as much as my prospector.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: They're heavy over five pound.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like the doors like you could kick it
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: and it would be fine. Yeah, But it has that
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: very eighties Mercedes feel, even though it was made in
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: ninety one, and it's just it's fun to actually like
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: really drive something.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: I think it's awesome. It puts a smile on my face.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: It was, as far as G wagons go, a comparative bargain,
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: you know, G wagons of particularly during the pandemic, they're
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: the Gucci handbag of SUVs. The cool thing is, in
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: like five or ten years, when all of these people
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: move on to the next thing and all of these
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: G wagons are just going to be sitting there on
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: the market, We'll have all these fantastic, you know trucks.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: They're just always in the weirdest colors for overlanding, like
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: they're either like black or pearl white.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: This one's just purple or something. You know.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: Obviously Scott and I love G's but yeah, that's that's
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: been really fun. And then I also have a nineteen
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: sixty five bmw R fifty Slash two that I've been
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: working on and I keep that in Chicago with my dad,
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: and it's been a really nice project to be able
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: to fly out and each time we tackle something like
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: we're working on carburetor tuning now and realize that just
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: you know, float was bad and kind of the carb
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: slides messed up and we had to buy some new parts.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: So the next time I'd come back. But I think
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I'm going to try and ride that route sixty six.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, that'd be awesome.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that one has very slow all but it's
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: so good. I bought the BMW, reissued a toolkit for it,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: and I changed the oil, rebuilt the carburetors, did everything
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: just with the factory well quasi factory toolkit that fits
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: in a little compartment behind the rubber knee pad in
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: the tank. So you have this vehicle, you know, you're
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: talking kind of this. The idea of classic overlanding, to me,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: has become really my focus. I guess in twenty twenty three,
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: that and you know, grand touring in classic vehicles. You
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: know we've talked about on the podcast before that a
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: lot of a lot more people are doing overlanding than
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: ever and the world's a lot more paved than it
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: used to be, so that opens up new opportunities for
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: vehicle based exploration.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Totally. I'm working on this road.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this sixty eight, nine to eleven, So it's the
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: first there's any Porsche geeks out there, it's the first
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: nine to eleven generation.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: It's a short wheelbase, so it's.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Kind of the I'm not going to say the purest
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: nine to eleven, but no radio, no nothing in it. It weighs,
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: it's had some things stripped out of it. It weighs
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: about twenty one hundred pounds, and it's just a little
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: smile on the face and gorgeous and I'm trying to
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: figure out where were the most beautiful cars. But again,
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: it's it's all about for me. I do feel fortunate
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: to be in a place to have these cool toys,
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: But if you don't get out and use the cool toys.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: What's the point. It's all about experience.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: It's about the experiences, and I happen to love cars
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: and the experiences that they bring.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Me and the connections and the community that comes around it.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Twenty twenty two is also kind of the year of off
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: road porsches. I guess, yeah, I know which is I'm
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: going to hijack this that we had the nine to
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: eleven to car, Yeah, I don't even know.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: That was a cool project that has Max tracks on it,
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: shameless plug. And you know, this off road Cayenne thing
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: has become like a movement because you can go and
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: get a Cayenne. I mean, I kid you not like
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: go on Craigslist or I say craigslist. What I mean
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: by that as go on Facebook or whatever. You can
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: get a pretty decent Cayenne for five to seven thousand
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: dollars and for like a thousand bucks you can lift
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: it and put thirty three's on it and it is
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: like a rally car. I mean, Porsche came out and
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: said that the lineage of the nine to five to
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: nine is the Cayenne. N nine is this hyper limited
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: production nineteen eighties supersports car. But those things have like
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: blown up and they're affordable, and I love it. I
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: like how the Tacoma is the bougie thing and the
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Porsche is like cheap and affordable. It drives some people nuts, Yeah,
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: but they have.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: A locking rear differential, they have low range. Yeah, they're cool,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: air bag suspension. And then like Safari nine eleven's very
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: very trendy, very on trend. Right now, the only Porsche
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: I ever a Porsche that I ever think about and
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: lust after, is that white sixty eight that you've got.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: That's it. That's an amazing, beautiful vehicle.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: My dad warned me, about Porsche people when I was young.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: He's like, Oh, all they care about is the build
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: sheet and the specifications, and they go to Porsche Club
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: mets in there, and I'm like, I've realized in twenty
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: twenty two, I am the Porsha person my dad warned
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: me about. But I think, you know, anyways, my little
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: project grand touring eccentric kind of classic vehicles, older vehicles
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: that you know you can hop in the prospect or whatever,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: and you're so isolated from the experience, not to say
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: that that's bad.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: But just something new. Like we've both been doing this
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: for a while, you longer than I. Well, and I'm
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: looking at what project would be next, and I just
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: I just don't know. I think maybe it would be
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: a gladiator, maybe it'll be of full size, heavy duty.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: But actually, right now, everything that I'm considering buying or
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: doing goes through this filter of is this where I
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: want to spend my time? And if you spend money,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: you're also spending time. That's the most important thing to
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: remember is every dollar that you spend or every hundred
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: dollars you spend and is worth x amount of your life,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: your life, energy, time. You don't get it back. So
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: it costs let's say, a certain number of hours to
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: make one hundred dollars. You know, for some people it's
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: maybe one hour or whatever, but it takes a certain
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: amount of your time to get that hundred dollars to
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: then spend it on whatever. And so for me, I'm
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: just I'm just not feeling motivated to spend time on things.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Well, you have the freedom to go and do, you know.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: And it's been a very intentional process, and it's required
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of giving up other things. I don't have
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: a dog, which I love dogs, but I don't have
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: a dog because I want to have, you know. I
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: guess the goal for me in twenty twenty three is
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: to just be able to be my own sovereign individual,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: which means that I get to wake up in the
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: morning and I get to do the things that I love,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: which happens to still be my job. So I'm not
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: really willing to sacrifice that for any things. So I
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: might might not have I might just keep driving the
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Defender around. That's where I think I like some of
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: these factory capable vehicles is then you could buy something stock,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: leave it stock, and then just go have experiences with
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: it's the grenadier man, Yeah, the grenadier or or anything aev.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: It's all that stuff is great done.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: And I think that, you know, we really in twenty
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: twenty two started to see, you know, just the availability
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: of turnkey packages because it's not really that easy to
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: build something on your own these days. I mean, shops
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: are you know particularly it's not as bad now, but
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: looking back at the last two years during the COVID thing,
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: if you wanted king.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Shocks for your truck, it was impossible.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: It was like you're you ordered them and you know,
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: when restaurants were still closed and you just got them
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: last week. It's so attractive to just I'll take that one.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: I'll take you know whatever whatever. Camper. Have you seen
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: those supertramp campers.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, those are nice. In fact, I used one. It's great.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: It really super simple, really nice, build quality small business.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: They really care about the product. Yeah, yeah, they're very
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: they're very very cool.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: I just think like stuff like that, like moving, elevating
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: the truck camper. Yeah, sure is going to be an
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: emerging market this year and after that.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Because it also just really works. It really really does work.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: And I think twenty three is also going to see
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of people getting back out and traveling. We're
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: seeing a lot of people hitting the road that I'm
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: very excited about. So it's going to be stories for
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: us to tell on the podcast. And the podcast has
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: done really well. We're getting close to our one millionth download.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: We're so lucky to have Paula Burr our producer Colin's Dope. Yeah,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: she is dope because she makes all of this possible.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: She keeps me on track, keeps Mad on track. We
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: produce a high quality result because of her care and
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: energy that she puts into the podcast. And Matt, thanks
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: for you being on the podcast and putting in your
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: energy and expressing your opinions. I do have opinions, but
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: I like the fact that you say what you think
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: because there's there's a lot of filters and that doesn't
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: protect anyone. So our Alaska podcast, we got a bunch
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: of feedback that we didn't just say Alaska was perfect.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: There are times that of the year that Alaska is
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: better than others, but there's also truths that need to
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: be told to help people understand this is what you're
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: going to You might experience when you go do this
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: overland trip on your own. So that's where for us,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: we're going to continue to focus on a journalistic perspective,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: which means we're going to always be open and honest
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: about our experiences, even if they're contrary to popular opinions.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think it's important to I do
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: have strong opinions sometimes, but.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: Well, and I think so strong opinions. This is my
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: take on it. Strong opinions are critical, but they need
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: to be loosely held. So strong long opinions firmly held,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: that's arrogance and ignorance, right, So that's the flat earther
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: strong opinion strongly, I think.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: It's the ability to change Europe.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: That's right. So strong opinion loosely held, Yeah, which means
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: that I feel strongly about this or this has been
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: my experience, but if someone shows me something different or
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: I have a different experience from it, and I'm constantly
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: learning and I'm growing, which means I'm changing my opinions.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: Strong opinions loosely held is the way that we want
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: to go about it, and that's what allows us to
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: continue to be a student. We get to learn, we
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: get to continue to grow.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm a walking contradiction. I completely understand that
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: I'm the guy that says buy less stuff, but I'm
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: the guy that has a lot of stuff. I get it,
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: but I do both and it's fun.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: It's about being intentional about our decisions by the stuff
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: if it gives you the experience of course or other
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: things joy in some way. We really appreciate you all listening.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: It's been twenty twenty two, has been a formative year
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: for the industry. So much has happened, there's so much
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: to look back on. But your feedback is so critical,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: super critical. So please me in check, please I ramble, well,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: please reach out so Matt people can find you on Instagram.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: How's that, Matt Explore, That's right.
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm not on it though, Yeah, that's okay. Like
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm currently taking I think it's good.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: To take breaks from course. It's super important. And you
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: can reach me Scott dot a dot Brady on Instagram
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: as well. You can reach out on any of our
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: social media channels at Overland Journal on Instagram to give feedback,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: ask questions. We just really want to support our audience
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: and we also want your feedback on the topics that
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: you'd like to hear, or things that you'd like to
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: see different. You matter a lot to us. We do
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: this because we love it and and we appreciate you
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: all listening, and we'll talk to you next time.