Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Field Interview with Jon Turner, Engineer and Overlander

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Field Interview with Jon Turner, Engineer and Overlander · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: John, Thanks so much for being on the podcast. I
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: really appreciate it. I mean, how fun is this that
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: we were out in the middle of the Black Rock Desert,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: literally in the middle of the Plaia, after having driven
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: hundreds of miles of trails and backcountry roads just to
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: get here. And I just thought it would be really
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: interesting to have you on the show.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Because you have this very storied.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Background that I think that our readers will really enjoy
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: and so kind of give me what was your first adventure?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: What was the first thing that sparked this desire to
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: see the world, and not only see the world as
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: a traveler like you have, but you've also worked around
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the world as an executive and as an engineer and
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: as a product planner. I mean, this is a really
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: interesting path you've taken.
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So I grew up traveling.
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: My mother was English, my father was American. I was
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: born in London, immigrated to the US when I was
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: six months old, and my parents both had a love
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: for travel and also growing up in the US in
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: North Carolina, my mother felt it was very important that
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: I understand kind of the British part of who I was,
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: and so there was a lot of travel, usually every
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: two years between the US and the UK. My dad
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: was a university professor, and so we had summers off
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: and so we were able to do some travel, some
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: extended trips to the UK where I even went to
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: school there, and things like that.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: So I just kind of grew up with.
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: Travel and going places, really just kind of being part
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: of the DNA. I couldn't imagine doing anything else other
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: than that.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: And I remember you mentioning how much your parents also
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: enjoyed travel and that they wanted to instill that in you.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: What were some of the first trips that you did
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: with them?
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: So it really was a lot lot of travel to
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: Europe and both to kind of England and France and
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: Switzerland mainly, and then a lot of a lot of
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: trips up and down the US East Coast because when
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: my parents growing up with my parents, we were a
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: good family, but we were not a especially wealthy family.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: So travel meant going to visit people and friends and
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: people whose houses we could.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Stay in and things like that.
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: So I grew up, you know, never that we didn't
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: want for anything, something like going out to eat or
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: you know, going to our restaurants or saying in a
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: hotel would have been a completely foreign experience to me.
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: So we grew up going to travel to visit with
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: people and to make new friends and experience them and
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: their culture and just kind of learn about the world.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: Everywhere we went, you know, we'd go to the museums,
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: we'd go to you know, we'd go to the historical landmarks,
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: the national monuments, that sort of thing. So I grew
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: up loving that, and then later on that expanded to
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: kind of my love of the nature, nature and the
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: back country and things like that. When my parents got married,
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: they got married in England and for their honeymoon they
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: did a tour around Europe and an old Volkswagen Beetle.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: And then when they then in the US a few
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: several years later, they did the same thing and traveled
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: all around the US again in a Volkswagen Beetle.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: And I mean, these not only sounds formative for your parents,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: but those experiences for you seem very formative. And it
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: if I remember from your story you transitioned to going
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: into the military, was that the first time that you
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: got to, as a as a single person, as a
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: young person, leave your parents and go travel.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, I tried. I tried going to college, and it
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: was something I just wasn't ready for. You know, I'd
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: spent the past twelve years of my life sitting in classes,
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: and so when it came time to actually have a choice,
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: I decided, you know what, you know, education is important
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: to me, but there's some other things I want to
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: do right now. And my father had served in the military.
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: He was a World War Two veteran. My mother's family
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: was a British naval family, and so military service tends
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: to run in families, and it certainly did for me,
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: and I viewed it as a great way to kind
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: of unplug from, you know, from moving through the education system,
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: do something different. But then also you have the ability
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: to come back and complete it and have it not
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: be kind of a negative on my resume or anything
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: like that. Everybody in America is great about this, compared
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: to some other countries. There's always this great respect for
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: military and military service. And so I can say that
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: nobody ever held it against me that I didn't go
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: straight to college, that I went into the military is
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: and listed and then went and pursued a college degree.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: That was exactly the same for me.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was hopeless first my first couple semesters out
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: of high school. I definitely recognized that I needed grow up,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: I needed to expand my horizons, I needed to find
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: my way, and.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: The military was a really great way to do that.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: And as a traveler having been in the military, where
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: did you get to travel in the military and what
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: were some of the things that you learned, Because if
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: I remember, you were doing a reconnaissance fixed wing reconnaissance
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: in the army, So that's that's a very interesting job.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: How did that start to translate into the next steps
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: for you?
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, So I was military intelligence, so it was aerial
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: reconnaissance electronic warfare signals gathering. So some people take photographs
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: or take infrared pictures. I was looking for radar signals
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: in the emitters, meaning that every missile system has a
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: radar system associated with it, and if you can figure
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: out where that radar system is and the characteristics of it,
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: you can say what missile system is associated there.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: So really neat.
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: Stuff and I really enjoyed it, and I got to
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: travel a lot of places. I spent a lot of
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: time in Key West because when I was in the military,
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: there was still a Soviet Union there when they still
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: rotated troops in and out of Cuba every six months.
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: Every six months we were in Cuba in Key West
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: checking out what was going on in Cuba. And fortunately
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: one of our rotations every we went there for forty
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: five days twice a year, one of those rotations always
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: coincided with spring.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: Break, so it was very memorable. It was great.
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: So I was twenty one years old and I was
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: getting paid to go to Key West for forty five
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: days during spring break. Right, So that's where you think,
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: you know what, life is not that bad again, formative years, right, right.
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: I had a great time doing that. Later on, I
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: ferried our aircraft all the way from you from Savannah, Georgia,
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: up the East coast to Goose Bay to saundrastrom for
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: green In Greenland, Ketlovic, Iceland, Prestwick, Scotland, Stuttgard, and then
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: down into southern Europe into Egypt and then western Saudi
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: Arabia to Eastern Saudi Arabia where we then brought our
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: brought our intelligence gathering systems online. So that was a
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: that was a great trip. Yeah, yeah, and lots of
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: great travels and you know, you wish you could spend
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: more time in each place, but it's a it's you know, yeah,
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: just great things to do.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: And how did you go from fixed wing reconnaissance to
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: being an executive and director positions and product planning and
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: development for GE and Sony and Johnson and Johnson around
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: the world.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: How did that well?
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: Well, sciensition happen.
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: I was a lot more successful at my second attempt
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: at college than my first attempt. You know, the military
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: teaches you that it's not a matter of either or right.
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: You can go out and have you know, a personal life,
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: party hard right, you can be in great shape, but
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: you can also work twelve hours a day, seven days
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: a week. And it teaches you that you can accomplish
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: all of these things. It's not a REVD siding, which
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: because you don't have a choice, you kind of got
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: to do them all. And so when I went back
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: to college, I was president of the engineering student body.
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: I did really well in my classes and graduated in
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: really good standing. So when I graduated, and it was
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: an electrical engineering degree, so it tied in with my
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: electrical technician experience that I had in the military, and
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: so I got hired on by GE General Electric into
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: their Edison Engineering program, which is their technical leader development
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: program in a pretty prestigious placement.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: It meant that they felt that you had.
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: The potential to do something and they followed They backed
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: that up with a lot of training and a lot
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: of really good experiences. And so getting into that program
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: at GE really kind of helped to send me on.
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: GE sent me to Budapest to work along with my
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: wife and so that was my first international assignment working
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: in Budapest, which was phenomenal.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: And was this during the Jack Wells years?
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that was the Jack well Cheers.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: And what were some of the key takeaways for you
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: we talk about on the podcast Leadership and Management because
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: it relates directly back to us as travelers if we're
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: traveling in a group or a team, or we're traveling
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: with a partner, learning how to manage ourselves and manage risk.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: And what were some of the key takeaways for you
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: during because Jack Welsh was quite notable at the time.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, key learning.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: I mean he was.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: A real transformational leader and his impact was felt throughout
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: the businesses. One was that, you know, the GE felt
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: that they had to renew their employees and if you
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: were at the if you were the bottom ten percent,
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: then you were gone every year. And people kind of
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: knew and understood that. And I kind of helped people
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: with cleaning out their desks after they worked for GE
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: for many years, and he was just kind of acknowledged that, Yeah,
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: I was no longer the guy they needed me to be,
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: which was really really hard but uh but g had
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: phenomenal results during the during the Jack Welts years. Uh
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: and uh, you know, give me the chance to go
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: and work in Budapest, which was again you know, a
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: young kind of what behind the years engineer to be
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: sent over there to really have a chance to get
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: a feel for that business and what was going on.
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: Uh and and really impact the direction that that took.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: I had a I had a sponsor for that who
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: was a great general manager, one of one of the
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: best leaders that I've worked for. I've worked for a
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: lot of great people. Uh and uh so it was
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: just you know, you got to work with really smart people,
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: and I got to appreciate that that you you know,
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: that being able to work with the right team, to
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: work with really smart people, you can do amazing things
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: and and it's really energy exciting work.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: You're like, you're just excited to go to work every day.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: So you've got all this leadership training that you got
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: in the military, all of these experiences that gave you
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: confidence out in the world. Now you've worked with GE,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: what comes next for you?
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: So I.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: Worked for Sony Electronics in Pittsburgh. My wife was pursuing
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: a degree at the University of Pittsburgh, and so there
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: really wasn't an opportunity for me to stay with GE.
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: And so Sony was setting up a new technology center,
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: and so I went and worked for Sony and helped
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: to set up that technology center. And this was the
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: time when General Electric and a lot of other businesses
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: were getting involved with something called six sigmare process explorence,
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: and so I was in on the kind of ground
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: floor on that as a General Electric black belt, and
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: Sony started to do that, and so I ended up
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: having a broader role with Sony and this whole thing
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: of process improvement, how do you make how do you
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: improve businesses so that they're really more focused on what
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: the customer wants?
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Uh?
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: And then I went on to Johnson and Johnson and
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: did kind of the same thing uh uh. And so
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: I was able to kind of ride the wave of
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: that into some some successively, you know, more senior positions.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: So it worked out really well for me.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Perfect.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I got a note from Paula here oh the fires going.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sorry.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: I was going to do it for you.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: Okay, it just times out. You just need to press
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: press the start button as a little more.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: And then can we are we just probably out of
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: out of propane. Maybe you might just settle. That's better.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: You're just gonna have to crouch behind that and shake
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: the bottle of it.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Started to sort of relaxed.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: Your focus is getting your eyes and stuff.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: You're right, I'm so thought.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: Okay, I'm sorry, thank you.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: No, thank you, paul mm hmm okay, we're rolling.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: So all of this business experience, and not only that
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: but international business time. In business, you start to come
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: back to the US and you start to travel more.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: You start to.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Develop a little bit of a love for land rovers
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: and and other things. What what was your first full
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: drive vehicle that you really started to explore and travel in.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: Well, my first four world drive was a nineteen seventy
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: five K five Blazer, you know, just great piece of
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: Detroit garbage.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: At the time.
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: I mean, you love it, but it rusted as you
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: were looking at it. You know, I still have a
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: great deal of affection for a K five Blazer. You know,
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: a lot of vehicles, you know, reflect what was in
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: that K five Blazer. And so that was the first
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: one that I had. The first vehicle that I started
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: to really get in trouble with was a range Rover
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: that I bought. I bought it and while I still
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: had while I still had the temporary tags on it,
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: managed to get it stranded in Death Valley, up in
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: the panaments, having destroyed two tires, and in the process
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: kind of did and my wife was with me, and
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: we pretty much did everything that you're not supposed to do.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: You know, you're supposed to stay with the vehicle. We
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: didn't do that. You're supposed to not split up. We
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: didn't do that. So we got lost separately and separate
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: from the vehicle. And well, we survived it. You know,
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: everything you survive you learn from sure. And you know,
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: there's a great There's a great saying that I love
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: is that good judgment is a result of experience, and
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: experience is usually a result of poor judgment. And so
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: so I would say that I have displayed enough poor
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: judgment to have gained a lot of experience. Me too, right, absolutely,
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: But it's all about having the right attitude. We were
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: my wife and I were stuck here on the Plaia
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: several years ago in our FUSO based expedition vehicle where
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: we buried it up to the frame rails, an eighteen
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: five hundred pound vehicle, and it took a mini excavator
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: and a bulldozer to get us out. Because we've done
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: such a good job of getting self stuck thoroughly suck
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: and but you know, but it's the thing is when
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: you tell stories, nobody wants to hear about the day
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: when everything went great, right. The great stories are when
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: everything went really really badly but you somehow struggle and
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: figured out how to make it work. And and I've
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: always loved those challenges, and uh, and I'll probably continue
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: to give myself those challenges because I just like to
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: try different things. You know, if you're not if you're
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: not pushing the envelope of what you think you can do,
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: then you're not getting better, you know. And and that
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: kind of brings us full circle to why I'm here
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: with you and why we have the Nimble evolution behind us.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely and absolutely, and you can see it in
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: our time today driving it. It was you can see
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of experience and a lot of lessons learned
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: from that. What were some of the lessons that you
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: learned in the design of your Fuso camper that then
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: you thought about you wanted to do different with the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Nimble evolution.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: Well, so the Fuso.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: Was really really heavy, eighteen five hundred pounds on a
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: fourteen thousand pound chassis that we off roaded vigorously, and
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: so we broke the frame in both frame rails completely,
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: and it was in this odd position where the camper
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: and the subframe was actually supporting the camp the frame
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: of the vehicle and not the other way around, and
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: it had a lot of flex. So I ended up
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: doing a complete root frame replacement on that vehicle, and
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: it really sensitized me to weight and also the base vehicle,
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: because weight is so important and choosing the correct the
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: correct based vehicle that you're going to build your platform on.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: I've just seen, especially especially in the truck camper world,
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: you know, suspensions done improperly, vehicles lifted improperly, there's just
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: there's a lot of work that goes out there that
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: just it doesn't hold up. And I believe that a
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: real overland vehicle needs to work on the road, because,
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: let's face it, in the US, you know, ninety percent
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: of our miles are going to be on the road,
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: and a lot of it's going to be at seventy
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: five or eighty five miles an hour. So you got
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: to be comfortable and feel safe with that. And then
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: but it's also got to work for where we were today,
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: where we went all over the Black Rock Desert.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, low range, differential locks, steep climbs and everything else.
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: And I think part of my love for land rovers
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: and especially the solid axual era of land rovers, is
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: that there really was that that passion that it had
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: to work in both worlds. It's easy to build a
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: very capable off road vehicle, easy to build a really
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: great car for cruising down the highway. The challenge is
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: how do you how do you make those two things happen?
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: And for a real overland vehicle, you got to have both.
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: It's got to work in both worlds.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: You're right, because we have so much distances to cover,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: and if the vehicle isn't. If it can't go fast enough,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: it takes us that much longer to get where we
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: want to go play, or if your grip the whole
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: time that you're doing it, then the driver's fatigued and
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: you have the opportunity for accidents.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: And we've both seen that.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: Yes, I mean, coming here, we probably did maybe two
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: hundred road two hundred miles of asphalt, fifty miles of
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: fairly good gravel, right which you want to be able
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: to drive it fifty miles an hour otherwise it's just
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: going to take you forever. But then you know, then
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: the road gets twistier and it starts to climb, and
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: then you got to kind of change modes and to
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: have a vehicle that'll that really functions, especially carrying a payload,
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: you know that really that's really gets to be a challenge.
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: And I like challenges because I really think it's got
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: to work in all those different environments to really be
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: to really be the right stuff.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: And you've kind of developed a little bit of a
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: love for the Ford platform share with the listeners. Why
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: have you kind of settled on the F three fifty
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: or the Ford F series Super Duty as being kind
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: of your weapon of choice for travel.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: So we'll build on whatever chassis anybody wants. There's one
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: ton of grater that meets certain specifications. But what we
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: really like, what we really advocate, is what Ford is
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: doing with their F three fifty. You look at the
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: Super Duty where they have the Tremor package. You look
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: at the of the halftime when they had their Raptor,
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: and you know, they really seem to be taking the
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: off road the people that off road these vehicles series
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: and to really be looking at that for the one
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: ton trucks is amazing. So I like that. I like
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: that Ford is being creative. And you look at what
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: they're coming, what's coming down the pipeline for them. You
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: look at the reception that the Bronco has. You look
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: at this magnificent seven point three liter motor that they have,
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: which is meant to be a long life motor. It's
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: a fleet motor that construction companies, that municipalities, that utilities
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: are going to use. It's an old school push rod
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: V eight normally aspirated, just a fun motor, tons of torque.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: It has almost five hundred foot pounds of torque. And yeah,
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: a couple of years ago you had to buy diesel
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: to get that Torquie fun to drive. None of the
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: emissions concerns with a diesel. You know, I have a
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: couple of old school diesels myself, and no death, no
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: particulate filters, and I love them all right.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: We've talked about my van that.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: I had things all fantastic, But if I looking on
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: a new vehicle, I wouldn't buy a diesel.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: It just it's too much hassle.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: I've heard too many stories from people who had their
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: diesel go into limp mode. They had to get it
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: towed to a dealer, took them five days to look
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: at it, and it ended up being a blown fuse
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: or a little fifty cent censor. But it just it's
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: absolutely immobilizes you. A little thing just immobilizes you. And
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: and I don't want that if I'm if I'm out
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: in the back country.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very true.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: And also the challenge internationally is finding ultra sulfur diesel,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and that's another reason why so many more international overland
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: travelers are picking gasoline engines. I mean, I think about
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: a Ranger that I've been driving for a little while now.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: It's got plenty of power and torque and it gets
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: well into the twenties miles per.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Gallley, even lightly modified.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: And I think a lot of that comes down to
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the fact that they're getting so much more power out
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: of small engines there. That's not the case of the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: seven three, but a lot of these motors, they're turbo
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: charging them and then they're putting they're bolting on a
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: ten speed transmission. And that was what I noticed most
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: about driving the seven to three is with that five
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: hundred foot pounds of torque, I'm going from first to
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: second all the way up to tenth gear, and it's
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: keeping me in that power band, in that sweet spot
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: of the torque range. And it was very evident driving
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: it that this is not the you know, the five
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: to seven, it's not the five to three, it's not
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: the the engines of three h two's, for example, the
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: three fifties that came before it. These are definitely motors
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: that have evolved.
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you know, I just I think the vehicles
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: should be fun to drive. And I'll ask you, is
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: that f three fifty with the seven to three fund
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: to drive?
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: It's well, especially when we hit really fast speeds.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: On the plan.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So it's just it's fun, right, And did
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: you miss the diesel?
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: No, I didn't.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Especially one of the things that I did notice now
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: at very low speeds off highway when you're in technical terrain,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: a diesel does have that very reassuring torque to it.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: But this isn't far behind it. Again, at five hundred
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: foot pounds of torque, it would be similar to one
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: of the earlier seven to three diesels for actual torque output.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: So they've just they've come so far, and the fact
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: that you have that flexibility of a much broader rpm range,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: the vehicle is able to be much more responsive in
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: my mind.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah, it's fun to drive. Totally.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: It totally is. So what were some of the other
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: things that you learned from the range rovers? Now you
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: had p thirty eight range rovers.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I'm gludd for punishment, but you know, you
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: joke about it, but says it's the last solid, actual
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: range rover. It is the last of its, last of
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: its kind and and kind of just a you know,
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: an unsung hero.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: You know, I've really loved mine.
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: The you know, it had some truly innovative technologies on
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: it for the time, you know, first hkate shifter instead
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: of having to have a separate shifter for the transfer case.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: The traction control system an actual the hydraulic traction control
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: system instead of just an airpower. It's a really really
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: strong you know. They there's a lot of innovation in
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: that platform. And I have one that's twenty years old,
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: and I still you drive it on a regular, basic basis.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: We will it on a regular basis.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: I've got a you know, twenty year old Magiolina rooftop
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: tent on it which performs well. And if I'm going
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: to Moab, that's what I'm taking because I'm I'm driving
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: the trails in comfort.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: I'm camping and comfort. But it can go everywhere I
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: want to go.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: And one of the other vehicles that you have that
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: you've talked about and have a lot of love for,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: we both have some love for the Zookies. Talk a
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: little bit about the Samurai.
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: I mean, for a day tripper, right just to go
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: out and play, it's hard to beat the Samurai. Yeah,
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: I mean it's a you know, two thousand pounds vehicle
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: with a one point three liter engine, but it just
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: putt puts along, you know, And I'm used to driving
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: these big, heavy vehicles, and so you know, I can
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: drive through things where I would sink to the to
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: the axles if not in the frame immediately, and I
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: can just kind of bounce along on top with the Samurai.
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: The Samurai is a great, great platform. And where I live,
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: I'm surrounded by BLM land and there's lots and lots
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: of ATV trails, side by side trails, and my Samurai
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: is smaller than most side by sides, and so I
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: can get big, right, and I got a license plate
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: on it, so I can actually drive it to the
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: trail legally.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: And with all of this, all these different vehicles that
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: you've had in these building large expedition campers, and now designing,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: helping to design improvements around the nimble vehicle, working with
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: your team on that, and launching now this prototype. If
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: someone is looking to build their a camper or buy
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: a camper, in your mind, what do you feel are
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: some of the most critical components or decision sets around
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: purchasing or building their own camper?
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, so the first thing is that you know,
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: I'm a I'm a DIY guy at heart.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: I love making stuff, and so.
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I always have a lot of time for people
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: who are saying they're going to they want to build
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: their own camper, because I think that's great. I mean,
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: there's if it's something that you really want to do,
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: then you should do it, right. I just don't believe
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: that necessarily it'll save you time or money to do it.
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: But if it's what you want to do, it's what
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: you're passionate around, do it. We uh, we're a Wobasto
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: authorized reseller, and so we're factory trained. We know how
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: to make the Wobasto's work. We get a lot of
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: people showing up saying, hey, you know, I got my
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: heater installed. I bought it from some kind of gray
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: marketplace because Wobasto won't sell you a heater without an installation,
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: and so it's hard to get for them to get support.
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: But we'll say, you know, we charge you our minimum
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: diagnostic fee, we'll take a look at it, see if
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: we can't get you going. And for probably ninety percent
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: of the people where we get them out and under
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: an hour, you know. So so you know, I think
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: that doing it yourself is good, but also knowing one
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: to call for help is good, and you know, and
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of professional builders, you know, not
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: just me, but everybody has a lot of time for
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: somebody that's trying to do it themselves, because we've all
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: kind of been there. We just have a lot of
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: cycles of learning and I've figured out how to do things.
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: But you know, it's building your own is awesome if
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: you have the garage for it, if you have the skills,
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: it's uh yeah, it's all. But the process of building
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: it needs to be fun for you. Yeah, if you're
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: just trying, if the end result is to just get
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: an expedition vehicle, buy an expedition vehicle instead of working
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: to build it, work over time or work a second job,
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: take that money and use it to buy it, and
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: you'll be ahead of the game. But if you really
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: like making stuff, if you like figuring stuff out, you know,
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: build your own, you'll have a great time.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: And what would you say would be like the three
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: most important performance attributes of an expedition camper?
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: Uh?
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: So I think it's uh, of course comfort uh and
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: then capability and security. Right, so, you want you want
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: a vehicle that you're going to be able to, you know,
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: to be comfortable in. Uh, and depending on who you
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: are and where you are in your life, your definition
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: of comfort is going to be different, right, you know,
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: twenty years ago my definition of comfort was these therm
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: arrests are really cool things, right, and then I moved
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: on to, well, you know this roof time is really cool, sure, right,
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: But then you get then you say, you know what,
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: it's kind of nice to not be forced to camp
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: outside the camp or if the weather's really bad like
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: tonight is great, right, but if it were raining, it'd
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: really be nice to where we could do.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: This inside the camp or to have this chat.
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: Right, So being able to have that option, being able
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: to have for me, being able to have a bed
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: that isn't also my dining room table, right, so for
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: my wife and I've that's one of the things that
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: we figured out that you know, to you know, certainly
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: having a bed that converts into a table is very
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: space efficient. But when you're on the road from months
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: at a time, it's just a hassle, you know, and
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: you don't want you just you don't, you don't want
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: to do it, and it's nice to have some separate
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: areas that you can be and so having that having
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: a shower, you know, being able to cook food, being
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: able to to to keep food cold, things like that, Uh,
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: you know, not things that are exclusive to to what
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: we do. But to me, that's that's a lot of
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: that's a lot of.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Those important facts.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: And one of the things that I noticed driving the
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: vehicle today was how well it did off highway. What
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: are some of the things that you think are critical
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: around full drive performance for these big, heavy campers, And.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: So I've been I've been doing this for a long
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: time with a lot of different ways. Uh, And the
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: most important thing is to really set up the suspension correctly.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: You know, do the shocks, do the springs, and do
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: it right. I see a lot of people when they
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: build a vehicle or even nobody has a truck camper
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: that they're putting on and it's heavy, and what do
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: they do. They add air bags, they add helper bags,
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: and that's just that's just get kind of covering up
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: a problem. It doesn't solve the problem. The real problem
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: you have that the real problem is that your suspension
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: isn't right. And so when we when we do a suspension,
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: we have a couple of great partners. We have a
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: icon that we use their their quote. They do a
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: really slick coil over conversion that we're doing on the front.
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: We do their remote reservoir shocks all around. For the rear,
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: which is leaf sprung. What we do is we actually
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: when we have the flatbed built, we have four thousand
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: pounds of concrete that we put on the flatbed and
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: we take it down to a partner of ours in
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: downtown Sacramento, Sacramento Spring that we call the Leaf Spring Whisperers.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: They have been doing leaf springs. I think there's two
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: brothers in between them. They've been doing it for like
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: sixty years, and so they are just the masters that's
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: setting up leaf springs for US Local US. There's some
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: other great companies. I have Diver Springs, Zaba Fuso. Got
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: nothing bad to say about Diver. In fact, I've never
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: heard anybody say anything bad about Diver. But we have
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: Sacramento Spring Local Dusts and they're fantastic as well. And
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: so I think it's really finding somebody that instead of
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: patching the suspension with airbags or something to try and
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: compensate for the deficiencies, and it really just take the
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: time to set it up right. And you know, it's
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: it takes some time, but when you look at the
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: total budget for the project, setting up the suspension is
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: not it's not a big part of it, but it's
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: so important.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: I would agree.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: In fact, I think that suspension, despite the use case scenario,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: is almost always the time that's best spent in my mind.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Okay, all right, yep, no problem.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: Cameras, which was like one and a half questions.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, but we got an audio.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: We started rolling again.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah that's fine.
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: Rock do you want to cut and start?
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we've got just a couple of questions left.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: So okay, yeah, his screen went black.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, we'll just keep Yeah, perfect, thank you, No,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: it's all good.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they have that thirty minute shut off. No problem.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: So you guys are talking about if you want to
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: pick it up at the end.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: It was the question before you were talking about the
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: comfort of the dead.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, maybe we'll maybe we'll the audio.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: No, that's fine, it happens, we're.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah you rullin. So I'll just ask that question again.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: So when we think about preparing expedition campers like the
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Nimble or something that someone has made themselves, or even
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: a competitive brand, I've certainly got things in my mind
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: that I see is very important, like performance and driver
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: fatigue and that the chassis is rated for the load.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Those are things that I immediately look towards, and I
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: think that a lot of companies do it right, and
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: then there are a few that don't do it right.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: But in your mind, what what are the most important
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: attributes when you look to design and expedition camper.
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: So so we look at it in terms of comfort
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: and capability. So the comfort is the habitat and also
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: the you know, the driving position as you mentioned, because
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: the distances are huge in America, right, so you have
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: a lot of highway mails and so having a really
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: well appointed cabin is you know, is nice, and it
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: just you know, you have less driver fatigue. In fact,
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: these new vehicles they'll even tell you if they think
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: you're fatigued. They this f three fifty will literally tell
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: you it's time to stop and have a cup of
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: coffee because they're watching you as you drive down the
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: lane and they see as you start to wander. And so,
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: you know, one of the things that we put a
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: lot of effort into is maintaining all of those comfort, convenient, safety,
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: features that these vehicles have. It's why we have this
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: bumper built by descent off road force instead of a
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: huge brush bar thing. Because we wanted to maintain the stock,
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: the stock approach angle. We wanted to maintain the straw,
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: the stock sensors, both the vehicle position sensors, the forward
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: view camera, the active cruise control, because those are all
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: great amenities you know that I like, uh, and you
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: shouldn't have to give those up. So so that and
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: then also the comfort of the of the cabin, uh
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: for me, having a separate bed, a real bed and
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: we have a memory phone mattress in there that's really
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: nice and comfortable as you can say.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, for sure, slept in it last night.
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and uh, you know, but also having it separate
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: from the the the.
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: The the kind of the day use area, uh, you know,
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: the the the d net with seating and things like that.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: We have a little map table.
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: Or you can actually plug in your GPS and and
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: plan your next day or review what you did the
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: day before. Having a having a full you know, having
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: a full shower and enough water to do that. You
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: we have seventy five gallon water tank and making it simple, right,
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: So one of the changes that we've been able to
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: make is that you don't have to you don't have
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: to settle for diesel appliances if you have a gasoline vehicle.
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: So we match the appliances to the vehicle and we
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: run it directly from the vehicle fuel tank. So you
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: want to buy the F three fifty with the seven
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: point three, which we really like, then your appliances are.
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: Going to be gas.
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: If you want to buy a RAM with Cummings diesel
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: in it, then you're gonna have diesel appliances.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: You're not gonna have to worry about.
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: It's gonna be the same controls, it's going to work,
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: but it's going to be kind of worry free. And
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: so you know, I think that's I think that's important
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: using using name brand components, you know, not using we
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: we really make an effort to make sure everything that
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: we use is of top quality by brands that you'll recognize,
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: with warranties that you'll like, I mean, the the lithium
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: ion battery packs, we come like that. We're putting an
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: outcome with ten year warranties on them. It's amazing, crazy, yeah, uh,
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: and it's and it's a we try to buy local,
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: and that's a local company for us.
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: Battleborne does it. They're they're an hour away from our shop.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: One of the things I noticed was that the vehicle
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: has a lot of emphasis on performance, particularly off highway.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: The on road is a given and it works, it
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: works as you would expect it to. But what what
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: I was really surprised by was the the off road performance.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: And it really for me, it came down to the
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: suspension setup. So what are some some of the things
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: that you see as being critical around suspension setup?
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: The well, having good partners, right, because we're not We're
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: not a suspension house. We're we're in an assembly expected
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: and assemble it uh, and to finding the right pace
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: people and making the right choices because really that's what
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: our customers are relying on us for our expertise, and so.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: We worked with Icon.
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: Icon has a really nice coil over front suspension that
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: we really like when we use their shocks all around,
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: we use their we use their wheels, and then rear
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: suspension is the trickier part because there's no kind of
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: off the shelf leaf spring package that you can put on.
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: So we're lucky that Sacramento still has a large agricultural community,
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: and there's a company called Sacramento Spring that does a
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: lot of agricultural spring repair in addition to custom springs
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: for folks like us. And they've been doing it for
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: sixty years plus, and so these guys really know what
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: they're doing. What we do is we we build our flatbed,
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: we put four thousand pounds of concrete on and when
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: we take them and we take the truck down to
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: Sacramento Spring and say, right, set up these springs to
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: work for this load. And they do it, and they
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: do amazing work. And Sacramento Spring they're just they're just
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: local to us and we really like them. But there's
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: a couple of others around the country. Diver comes to mind.
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: I've used Diver Springs on my fuso. They do great work.
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: I've never heard of anybody say anything bad about Diver,
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: And there's a couple of others. But it's it's almost
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: kind of a dying art because springs are just these
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: throwaway things now. So to find a company that can
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: actually reforge or forge springs as tough, but to get
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: it done right, that's that's what you gotta do. You
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: can't just put airbags on. It just doesn't work. It
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: doesn't hold up. Yeah, it doesn't hold up at all. Well,
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: those that's all really good advice. There's a couple questions
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: that I like to ask during these interviews. Do you
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: have a couple books books that have been influential in
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: your life, either.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: In business or as a traveler?
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Is are there any books that come to mind that
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: are sitting on your or that maybe even give away
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: as gifts.
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: It's hard to answer because it seems like I get
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: so much of my content bite sized on the internet
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: these days. You know, the some of the best training
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: and guides that I've had, and this is actually more
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: of a DVD series, but the work that Bill Burke
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: has done, I've done over the years, months and months
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: of training with Bill Burke, and so you know, for me,
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: it's not it's it's more experiential than just reading a book,
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: but it's having somebody that can actually teach you. And
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: and I'm a big fan of Bill those other great
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: trainers out there, But it's kind of the equivalent of
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: you know, when people say, well, I know how to
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: drive off road, nobody can teach me something that's kind
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: of the same. Well, you know, suppose I was able
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: to set you up with a Formula one driver for
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: a week. Do you think you would learn something from
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: that person? Or do you think that your automotive skills
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: are so good that you couldn't learn something from a
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: Formula one driver. Some of these trainers out here, these
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: formal drive trainers, are so good that they're just at
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: such a different level, and you can, in the course
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: of a day or a week, it can just soak
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: up some information from them, become a much better, more
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: confident driver, able to take on more obstacles, and basically
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: just enjoy yourself.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes so much sense. We invest so much
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: in the vehicle. Yeah, and these trips are sometimes the
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: trip of a lifetime yep. And for it to be
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: cut short because of a lack of driver's skill or
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: a lack of awareness of the right technique, I think
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: that's money well spent.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah, no, I would agree.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: And if someone is just getting into into overland travel
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: there or just thinking about their first trip, their first
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: big trip, what would the what would be the first
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: piece of advice that you would give someone who wants
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: to go travel?
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: Uh mhm, stay local at first, right, put training wheels
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: on and even though you're planning to go again across
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: the country or something like that, or go to your
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: going up to the Arctic Ocean, or you know, going
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: south down into Mexico and points furthest Out or down
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: to Guatemala, whatever. Uh, you know, start local. Put you
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: start with training wheels, Go and camp at the at
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: the closest campground you can find. Because that's going to
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: be enough of an experience for you that first time out, uh,
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: you know, and then and then ease into it now,
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: especially if you have partners that are maybe a little unwilling,
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: you know, or whatever, you start to take baby steps
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: because it's going to be enough. You know, you're going
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: to find out that you forgot stuff first time out.
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: You're going to find out you forgot something ridiculous. You know,
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: that would completely sink the whole event. So but if
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: you're in town, you know where the Walmart is or
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: the Target or the RII, and you can go and
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: solve that problem.
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: So so he's into it.
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: You know, there's there's gonna be great adventures ahead, but
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: you know, get ready for it first.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's step by step, that's great. That's great advice,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: because even on this trip, I'm I'm always I'm always learning,
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: and I'm so grateful for the for the fact that
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: every time I travel, I take away some realization of
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: something that I could have brought that was different, or
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: something that I could have left at home, or something
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: that I could have done different as a traveler. Yet
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: you're right, every single even the local trips, you learn
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: so much from it.
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: It's either the well that worked really well, I'm gonna
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: have to remember that, or the well, I'm not going
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: to do that again.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: I've had a lot of those don't do that again
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: moments for sure. John, Thank you so much for the time,
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: and thank you for showing me northern Nevada and the
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Black Rock Desert. And I mean, what was the trail
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: that we did today? We were up in the mountains.
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: It was the Calico Mountains that we went up to
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: until that was amazing, not even one of the popular trails,
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: but we really neat Yeah, yeah, you know there's I
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: think I told you I love the lesser known trails,
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: the things where you just get out and see what
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: you can find, versus just say, well, we have this
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: obstacle and this feature. When you've got a guide, it's
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: just going out and exploring.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, and we did that today and that
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: was really fun. Well, thank you again, thanks for being
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: on the show. I appreciate it, John, and we will
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: talk to you next time.