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Mighty Car Mods (Part 1) · Rusty's Garage

0:02
A listener production.
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I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
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For this episode, I'm in a studio on the Gold Coast, sadly, but I was meant to be at the cool new Mighty Car Mods Super Garage.
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The public holiday for the Queen's recent passing meant a bit of a shuffle of jobs for me.
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I had to bring them forward.
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So I am determined to pay the boys a visit and check it out the next time I'm in their part of the world.
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But we wanted to get to this conversation.
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Mighty Car Mods, if you haven't heard of them, is a great Aussie automotive success story.
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Millions of followers on YouTube and Facebook.
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But Marty and Blair, who most of you probably know as Moog, don't think of themselves as influencers or YouTubers.
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They are just a couple of regular guys, not mechanics, who learnt through forum convos and the internet about cars and how to modify them.
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They are seriously powerful.
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passionate about them too and sharing the stories of their projects and the places that cars have taken them in this episode of mighty car mods we are here to answer the question that absolutely nobody asked that is what is faster my daihatsu midget or marty's k-truck tipper and that is exactly what we're going to be doing on this episode
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What began as a bit of fun for a couple of clever dudes who also happen to be very talented musicians has gone global.
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They're the world's number one DIY auto and adventure show.
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They're broadcast worldwide on the Discovery Channel and have over half a billion, that's with a B, YouTube views.
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They've filmed in all sorts of countries, found, driven and worked on some legendary cars –
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and plenty that you wouldn't expect too.
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Not to mention getting a call up to collaborate on projects alongside some massive film franchises like Mad Max, Fast and the Furious, Transformers and Need for Speed.
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Naturally in this convo, we can't tackle every car and every project, that's for you to enjoy by going online and checking them out.
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We will get to a few though.
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I'm really interested in sharing their backstory with you and what the future might bring.
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If for some reason you haven't seen their awesome work, you can go to mightycarmods.com.
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I started by asking them if they'd paused to appreciate just how far this whole deal had come.
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A couple of early adopters pioneering well before good internet speed, and it took off.
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Welcome, you two.
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It's nice to catch up again.
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We'll reminisce here and rewind the clock and what have you.
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But can we start by just saying, is there ever a moment nowadays where you pause and go, holy, what this thing has kind of become?
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Do you pause to...
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Soak it all up.
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Every day now, actually.
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Yeah, every day.
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This is Moog.
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I'm the one that wears the beanies and the hats.
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Yeah, all the time.
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I can't believe it because sometimes I think we can get so...
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inflated numbers all the time now.
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We're kind of used to seeing how many singles someone sold or how many people watched a movie or billions of this and billions of that.
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But sometimes I think even with some of the smaller YouTube channels that might get 10,000 viewers, but they've got like a dedicated audience, if you imagine what those people look like in a stadium, it's a lot of people.
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And I think that's the amazing thing about YouTube now that you get these amazing communities of different people that can really get into what they're into.
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You can be into anything and people can follow it.
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And so, yeah, I'm very aware of that and very grateful for it.
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Yeah, I forget and then I'm reminded because when you've got your head buried in a Honda Civic that's leaking and won't start and the immobiliser's wrecked and, you know, you're literally spending hours of your week just fighting with these shitty cars.
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Not all of them are shitty, but plenty of them are.
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Most of them are.
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You do forget because – and the good thing is you've got your circle of mates and people you know well who are going through the same stuff and, you know, just living life and doing all the normal stuff, buying toilet paper, the things that everyone does.
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And then, but yeah, sometimes you'll go to a meeting or event and there's just these, there's so much enthusiasm.
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And I think it's really cool to see that in real life because as, as my, my good friend there was saying, it's, it is easy to get caught up in numbers.
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And we got 48,000 and 50,000 and 1 million, whatever it is, it's like, there can be three, you know, dudes or girls that show up to a meet or an event and, and are so excited about whatever that is.
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shitty civic is and they're just talking about it's such a big deal to them and that's a really nice reminder i try to focus on that as a positive thing um rather than focus on the fact the car's a piece of shit marty you used in your answer there just a nice little term which which i love my good friend how the hell did you guys meet where did that start and and uh has you know this journey when you are working so closely together on this journey has it ever been tested that friendship at all
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I'll tell you quickly why he just said my good friend.
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It's because I've got two names.
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It's because Marty knew me first as Blair, which is my name that I do, you know, that I've used for music, Blair Josselin, I'm a composer.
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And yeah, that's right.
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That's me.
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But then I really like, you know, old synths and different things.
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I had a nickname as Moog, which was by music people that I got at uni.
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And so that
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kind of became a bit of a nickname that I use and that's the name that I kind of use on the show and that's the name that I'm known for mostly.
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How did we meet though?
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We met as high school teachers at a school.
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Well, we were working in a music department at a high school.
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I was a music composition teacher and Marty was running the recording studio there.
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And so we met first and foremost in a educational environment, working with kids and working in and around music.
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Awesome.
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We're talking to you today.
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You've got your own little studio because you guys
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compose, put together your own music for your clips.
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I mean, awesome to think that you're doing that now.
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Yeah, well, music is a huge component of our show and something that, you know, we've done all of the music for our show over the last 15 years.
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There's hundreds and hundreds of pieces of music.
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And, in fact, there's so many that only this year, after 15 years of the show, there's been so much music that we've had to categorise it into...
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different categories there used to just be a folder that's called like the mcm music folder and there's so much in there now It's been broken out into hip-hop rock orchestral tents, you know, whatever so that as we're editing now It's easier to easy to find stuff But I think it's in a way mighty camp was it's just been kind of one expression of our interest in trying to teach people and educate Things and that's how we met and that's what we're still doing now.
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It's just a slightly different format I think it's interesting that we're speaking on a format which would be a disruptor to radio about a format Which was a disruptor to TV?
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And now that disruption is being disrupted again by other formats.
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And I find it kind of interesting.
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I mean, we've been doing this show for 15 years.
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We've known each other for nearly 20.
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And yeah, YouTube as a space is kind of quite mature now.
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Once upon a time, you said to someone, you know, someone says, oh, what do you do?
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I make videos for YouTube.
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For what?
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Because, you know, when we started, you couldn't watch YouTube on a phone.
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And now most people watch YouTube on a phone.
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Over 90%.
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I think it is.
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Over 90%.
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It's a big number.
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And so there's been so many changes in that space the whole time that it's sort of like, it's not like you can go, well, there's been 50 years of TV and we're in the golden age.
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It's like, is there a golden age?
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How long does it go for?
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All those questions.
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I mean, these are bigger conversations, but I find it very interesting that this is now something we speak about, even though, yeah, we met in a recording studio.
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I want to talk poster cars in a minute and what it was like when you were younger, when it was probably more magazines or in that transition phase to internet.
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Can we just come back to the music for a moment?
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Our good friend, Ebony Doherty at Michelin, asked me in the lead up to this about music.
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My car goes...
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Right?
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What's the turd on the back seat?
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Can we share a little bit of some of these stories in relation to some of the unique music?
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You should play some of the song.
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Where are the wheels?
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Gone.
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Turbo?
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Gone.
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Drive shafts?
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Gone.
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Credibility?
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Gone.
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The stereo?
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Gone.
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Fresh air?
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Gone.
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The money?
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In the bin.
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So I messed up and now you've heard.
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What's that in the back seat?
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That's a human turd.
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There's a million ants and salmonella.
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We're going to take the engine and then we'll sell up.
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I've always loved music, and I've always been really sincere about the way that I write music, but at the same time, I've been in bands, and Marty's been in bands as well, and it seems to be that you kind of...
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There's this sense of kind of you're in a funny band, you've got your weird Al Yankovitches and those kind of guys like doing, you know, their kind of funny songs, and I think you can actually kind of be funny and sincere at the same time, which is a tricky thing, really.
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If you think of kind of...
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Music, you know, 95% of them are about love.
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There's actually a study that's done a couple of years ago.
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You know, the songs are about love.
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We write songs about turds on the backseat and things like that.
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And what's really interesting is because of the reach of the show, quite often the music is all written bespoke.
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So that we recently bought a car, Sight Unseen, off the internet.
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It was a green Honda Civic.
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it had a mouldy turd in the back and someone had used the car as a urinal.
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And so we wrote a song called Turd on the Backseat.
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And so we released the song.
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And because there's so many people watching the show,
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they go and download the music and quite often, numerous times a year, we have songs that go number one on the iTunes charts in their categories, music that has been written for and released on the show.
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And that to me is really interesting because in some ways, I became more successful as a musician doing YouTube in that commercial sense than I was as a musician by myself because there's, you know, the songs now I've had,
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millions and millions of streams or downloads or whatever that is.
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And that would have never happened if I wasn't buying cars that had turds on the backseat.
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That is a very funny video that listeners should go and have a look at.
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It was a...
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What did you say?
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I think at the time, not many, one of, internet purchase, just what the hell drove that?
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My thing is kind of search for cheapest and buy it now.
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You've got to remember as well, I think that regardless of technology changing, stories are universal.
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Yeah.
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And stories are beyond language, beyond gender, beyond race, beyond religion, all this stuff.
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Just a story about overcoming something.
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And so I think that while DIY, I mean, why is that relevant?
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Why am I saying that?
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It's because when we started, we were teaching people how to add car play to a car.
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We're teaching them how to change their wheels, how to change a head unit.
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I gather now if you go and buy probably a Tesla Model 3, I've never driven one, but I understand that's kind of the common kind of affordable car now.
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How much are they, Marty?
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50, 60 grand?
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Affordable if you're going for EVs.
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Yeah, for EV.
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But the thing is, you get one of them or call it a Golf.
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People are not changing the stereos, right?
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They don't need to.
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Plus, the stereos are integrating all the climate stuff.
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They're integrated into the steering wheel.
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And they're good.
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And they sound really good.
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You can option your car for an extra grand and get all these things.
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So a lot of the formative years of Mighty Car Mods of what we were showing people how to do are now unnecessary things to do with a new car.
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Do you need to add central locking?
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It already has it.
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Do you need to add wheels?
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You can option nice wheels.
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You know, all the safety stuff is there.
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So I think kind of as time goes on and particularly as emissions clamp down and that's probably, you know, another bit of the conversation, I don't know if people are going to have to modify cars in the way that they did in the past or whether it will even be legal.
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But we will always be interested in buying really cheap, shitty old cars and seeing what we can find in them, even if it is a turn on the backseat.
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Can we wrap up the music element of our discussion here
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Your respective backgrounds, are you kind of classically trained?
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What are you both respectively in a music sense?
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I did music since I was a kid, like the usual thing of school bands and all that sort of stuff.
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And then mostly was playing bass, guitar, guitar.
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I was doing a lot of singing as well through high school.
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So, I went to a performing arts high school and focused on music.
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I was also interested in the technology side of things ever since I was a kid.
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So, you know, recording studios, recording stuff back in the 90s when I was really getting into it, it was really hard to record stuff, as you'll hear, I'm sure, compared to what it is today.
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So, you really had to battle for it.
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And I'm like, there was a point in year eight where I was sticky taping bits of wire together into a computer that the school had just got that was the first one that could record something in 16-bit 44.1, which is CD quality.
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Yeah.
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And that was a big deal.
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And so, like, we hot-wired this whole room in my school with my band so we could make our first CD.
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So, I think I made our first album when I was maybe in year nine.
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So, that's, what, 14 years old?
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15 years, something like that.
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And, you know, working out all the technology.
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So, those two loves were sort of always there from the beginning.
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And then through high school, you know, still studying music.
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Classically...
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classical clarinet and classical singing was my thing.
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And then once I finished that, it was mostly once I finished school to make money and just because it was fun with my mates, we'd play gigs and so I was playing mostly guitar and fronting the band and then I had a couple of mates that would come along and play as well.
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And I did that for nearly 15 years until there was like lots of fans in the audience who wanted selfies because of the car show and then I'm like, okay, I need to like flip gears here.
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Marty's downplaying it a bit, let's be honest.
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He was in a successful band that's playing three, four, five nights a week every single week for a decade.
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And large crowds of people.
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I mean, oh, I play a bit of guitar, whatever.
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That's how he was making his living.
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That was a good... That sort of supported.
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And funnily enough, my love for wagons, and especially fast ones, came to the fact that I couldn't drive a standard hatchback because I couldn't fit a PA and a drum kit in it.
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Yeah, so that's why I got so into wagons, ended up with Subaru wagons.
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Who makes a fast turbo wagon that's less than 20 grand?
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Subaru does.
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And so that started that sickness.
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And then all those things kind of melded in together, and I did that all through high school as well and sort of continued to a bit today.
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It's more cars now and, you know...
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because we've got this show, then people love it so much and there's a lot of work that's involved in that.
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But we still do a fair bit of music together.
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Yeah, I mean, I started playing piano when I was really young.
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Before I had lessons, I was really drawn to playing music and playing instruments and I grew up in Grafton and my pop had one of those big organs, those double-layered organs, and I loved playing around with that.
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And I think for my eighth birthday, my mum gave me piano lessons and that was, you may as well have just given me a remote-control helicopter.
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I was so excited.
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I was just like, this is the best.
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And so I would spend hours a day kind of just fiddling around with the piano.
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I didn't realize it at the time.
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I didn't know.
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I knew that there were composers, but I didn't know that that's what I was going to be because I really wasn't that interested in the notes that were on the page.
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And I would go to my piano lessons with my teacher, Mrs. Whale, and she'd say, please.
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play the notes on the page.
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And I was like, oh, but I think it sounds better if I do this.
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And she'd say, you know, she wouldn't say I don't care, but she didn't care.
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She was like, play the thing on the page.
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And so then I went to the conservatorium and did my grades.
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And it was only probably when I was about 15 or 16 years old, I kind of realized that I was being graded on my proficiency as a musician on how well I replicated music written by hundreds, like hundreds of years ago.
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And I kind of went, that's kind of, it's a really strange way of assessing someone's ability.
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I was um I'd started making my own music by then I was playing in bands I played drums in bands and really into death metal and heavy stuff and then um I went to uni and so I did my I did four years I did an honours degree in music and and only in like the second year because the first year you had to perform and I wasn't as good as everybody else and then second year you got to choose your kind of the main thing you were going to study your major and I was like composition and then I just flourished and just absolutely loved it and so when I finished um music school I
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I just decided I would do any work I could that I could earn any kind of money.
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And I have spoken about this before, but I did pornos, fitness videos, on-hold systems, TV commercials, late-night sexy SMS ads.
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And in fact, to get by, I remember there was a tyre shop in Jural, which was near where I lived, and I needed a new set of tyres, either for my Holden Camaro or my Mini, because they were the two cars that I had at the time before I moved into a VL Commodore.
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And I rang them,
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And I said, I need some tyres, and I gave them the specs, and they said, we'll just check for you.
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And when they put me on hold, this... And when they got back on the phone, because I had no money, of course, I said, why isn't it that when I'm on hold...
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Why aren't I hearing more about your services?
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Because they said, oh, we also do pink slips.
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And I said, you know what?
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I actually have a studio.
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I didn't have shit.
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I was in my bedroom.
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But I was like, I have a studio.
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If you want, I can do you on hold system.
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How much are the tires going to cost?
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And they said, oh, that's $250, you know, so $1,000 or whatever it was.
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And I said, well, that's funny because an on-hold system costs about $1,000.
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So why don't I just come up and we'll have a meeting and we'll do a straight swap.
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Now, the way that we did it back then was that I had to buy and supply a little portable Walkman and that would be plugged into the wall and it would have a cable going out that would go into the phone system and it would be my voiceover.
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And so I would make original...
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The thought now that actually for $1,000 you get original music and, you know, whatever, later on, Marty and I would be charging...
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you know, 10 times that to do some music.
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But anyway, and so I would make some music that I felt sounded like tyre shop stuff.
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And then I would say... Do you need a pink slip?
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You're called Dural Tires.
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Yeah, exactly.
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And it'd be really exciting and it'd go something like this.
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It'd go...
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While you're waiting, I know you guys are probably calling for tyres.
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Did you also know we do servicing?
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Old cars, new cars, European cars, we've got you covered down at Dural Tyres.
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Come on down and someone will be with you shortly.
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And then the music would play again.
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And then, sure enough, so I started...
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I started going, well, music, no one ever paid me a thousand bucks, but I started swapping music, and I would ring a bunch of companies whenever I needed something, and I'd say, oh, just put me on hold for a second.
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I've got to check something.
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And if they didn't have it on hold, I would sell my services.
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And I reckon I had like a 30% success rate of the 10 companies I spoke to, three of them I'd get through.
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And so I started making money.
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saving money, not making, well, I guess it's the same thing.
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I started saving money by trading on hold systems.
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Later on, just very quickly, then Marty and I took over a big studio in Sydney that did advertising, music for advertising.
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And then I moved on to another one from there and I've written music for hundreds of different brands.
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And so I've written music for Mazda, Toyota, Visa, VB, the supermarkets, the banks, you know, I've done hundreds of different music jobs.
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And then I'm
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More recently, the Netflix series Tales by Light, which is a beautiful documentary series where, you know, I've got to play big drums as the lion runs across the savannah and eats animals, which is great.
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So that's it.
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Music is definitely my first love.
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And I just, I absolutely adore it.
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I think of it constantly.
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And when I get to drive around in the car and listen to music, that's like the ultimate of my two interests.
18:45
It might feel like we've deviated a little bit from cars here in the discussion, but for those that are listening, I think this is the beautiful sort of melding of all the parts that you guys have brought together and what you're now doing in Mighty Car Mods.
18:56
Firstly, just before early cars and poster cars on the walls and stuff, you spiked my interest with Chimera.
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Can we have a little bit more on the Camira?
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I've never heard someone say that ever in my life.
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You've sparked my interest with a Camira.
19:12
That's literally no one says no one.
19:13
Rusty, the only way I could have spiked your interest is if a Camira is somehow superior to your first car.
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And I want to know before we go on, what was your first car, when was it, and how did you acquire it?
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And then I'll tell you my Camira story.
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Beige 81 Holden Gemini SLX, four-speed.
19:31
bought it around the corner yes oh marty marty's just fallen off his seat with excitement yes oh the reason i spotted the whole chimera thing i just can't recall the last time i saw one on the road i can't you know can you even find those at the records anymore you know that we know why that is right they're all broken they're all broken they haven't survived do you know why everybody hated them so much rusty like because you know why philosophically people didn't like them is because it was the first front wheel drive exactly yeah
19:58
And Holden's were real drive, man.
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They just were.
20:00
Even the Gemini ones.
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And then in 1985, when the Gemini's went front wheel drive, all the Gemini guys lost their minds.
20:05
Yeah, okay.
20:06
What's this front wheel drive crap?
20:07
Yeah.
20:08
Because it was, at that point, it was crap.
20:09
I mean, you go and drive a, you know, Golf GTI now with a good diff in the front.
20:13
I'm sorry, it's chopping every Camara, every mate.
20:14
Ever mate.
20:15
But yeah, no, back then they weren't great.
20:17
But the Camero was...
20:20
Mine only had 40,000 Ks on it, which I was really impressed with.
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I was like, this is mint.
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Because it couldn't go any further because it was too broken.
20:27
No, no.
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Give me a break.
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But here's the weird thing.
20:30
Here's the mystery.
20:32
On my driver's side door was a square about 20 centimetres by 20 centimetres and on the passenger side door was the same thing and the paint on that square was...
20:43
was much brighter than the rest of the car.
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Now, that was a mystery that would later be solved when I met somebody who told me that that car was a learner plate car that had actually done...
20:58
Its clock had gone all the way over and I was on the next 50,000 Ks.
21:03
And that car had been doing the traps around the place.
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And I ended up lending it to a mate who needed a car.
21:09
It broke down in Pendle Hill and he left it there.
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And I got a call from the police saying, we've got this car.
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It's registered in your name.
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And what do you want us to do with it?
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And I said, can you get rid of it?
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And the Pendle Hill police just got rid of it.
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And I've never heard of it ever since.
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I didn't have to get rid of it, which was great.
21:22
What's the first one for you, Marty?
21:24
Come on.
21:25
First car.
21:26
So, my story is, funnily enough, related to a Camira.
21:29
So, I made in school, had a Camira, and he was like the first guy to get his license.
21:33
He was like a couple months older.
21:34
He was the first dude.
21:35
And so, you know, that was my introduction to having a car in high school, last year of high school.
21:40
And then he also worked at a bowling alley.
21:42
And so, we didn't have much cash, and I'd saved up a few hundred bucks or whatever.
21:46
And then...
21:46
He came to school one day and said, oh, one of the dudes at work at the bowling alley is selling a Gemini.
21:51
Do you want a Gemini?
21:52
And I didn't even really know what it was.
21:54
I mean, at that point, sort of reading some car magazines.
21:56
I had an interest in it, but, you know, I was mostly interested in getting my first car so I could drive around.
22:00
And I said, oh, okay, let us know.
22:02
And so he asked the guy, and the guy said, I'll take 300 bucks for it.
22:05
And...
22:07
And so I went home and spoke to my folks and they're like, oh yeah, that sounds like a good idea.
22:11
I said, it needs some work.
22:12
They're like, great, you can learn how to fix it up.
22:13
It's a good skill to have.
22:14
I'm like, excellent.
22:15
Can I just say, I just want to interject by saying how awesome are your parents for you to go home and go, a guy at the bowling alley knows someone selling a car for $300 and your parents said, that sounds like a good idea.
22:27
That is some excellent parenting right there.
22:29
So good.
22:30
Because my mum's really into cars.
22:31
I mean, she loves them.
22:33
She had Volkswagen Beetles, and like she talks about all the time, she really got into her Subarus.
22:37
Now she's... She just sold her two-litre turbo all-wheel drive Subaru that we modified with an STI engine for a Tesla, and she loves it.
22:45
Anyway, that's another story.
22:46
Anyway, back to the bowling alley.
22:47
Back to the bowling alley.
22:48
So I said, yep, sounds great.
22:49
He goes, great.
22:50
Be here on the weekend to pick it up.
22:51
It's got no red, you need a tow truck.
22:52
I'm like, great.
22:53
Never called a tow truck before.
22:53
This deal's getting better as it goes on.
22:55
So I went out to, I think it was... Parkley, wasn't it?
22:59
Parkley.
22:59
Sunny Holt Road, Parkley.
23:01
And I rocked up there and he goes, here's the address.
23:03
And then we got to the address and he goes, no, no, it's around the side.
23:05
I think at that point, there wasn't even text messages.
23:07
It was stuff I'd written down from a phone call.
23:09
When you get there, just go around the side and I'll meet you around the side.
23:13
So when I got there
23:15
Like fencing with barbed wire everywhere.
23:19
And there was a hole that he'd cut next to his little house inside this place.
23:24
I don't know what it was, but the car was just sitting sort of outside the thing, and he ducked out from inside the fence, and he's like, yeah, here you go, mate.
23:30
And I gave him his 300 bucks, and we put on the tow truck, and we left.
23:33
And only later did I realise that it was some kind of correctional facility.
23:36
The address he gave me...
23:37
It was jail.
23:38
So I think he was going to jail or had just got out of jail.
23:42
Anyway, it was a bright Kermit Green TX 1975 Gemini with a hot 1.6 litre in it that I blew up exactly one year later.
23:51
But I had to fix it.
23:51
I had to get it through Rego.
23:53
It was big dramas doing all that, and it sort of inspired me to really learn how to do stuff myself.
23:56
Because, you know, that classic story of went to a mechanic, mechanic sees an 18-year-old kid coming or a 17-year-old kid coming and basically, like, you know, it takes him for six months' worth of casual work just because he can.
24:06
Like, that happened, and, you know, a couple of times and a few dealings with insurance companies and registration, all this stuff.
24:12
So I learned very quickly that I'd need to sort of skill up and be able to work on it myself.
24:16
So we fixed a bunch of stuff, and I drove it around, and I absolutely loved it.
24:19
I put a massive stereo in it because I love music.
24:22
I built an iPod in the boot because back then you couldn't get iPods and I wanted more than 18 tracks on a CD.
24:27
So I hot-wired all this old computer gear that I'd installed into the boot with a little keypad and you had a list of a thousand songs and you just pressed the number and then the song would play.
24:34
This is in like 1999.
24:35
Was anybody helping you?
24:37
Like in terms of the car's mechanical, was anybody helping you?
24:40
Like how did you know?
24:41
There was no internet to check.
24:42
Oh, there was very early internet.
24:44
but not like forums full of info with recipes.
24:46
Nah, it was like crappy forums that, you know, you do your dial-up modem and it'd take three days to load and then you'd go and read a thing that someone...
24:52
So a lot... Also, there was a big community back then, which is what I like about YouTube stuff now.
24:56
There's a good community then of people who would help you.
24:58
So my engine won't start.
25:00
Something's going on.
25:00
Cool, try this, try that.
25:01
You know, get some manuals, go to the library and get manuals.
25:04
And a bit more old school, but definitely internet was the dawn of that time, which is why I'm very much attached to, yeah, being able to help people out, because I've got a lot of help myself.
25:25
Hi again.
25:26
I've been thinking.
25:27
What can a car do for you?
25:29
Keep listening to hear about the Roller Jeep Wrangler, a Daihatsu Mirror and a studio called Gas, join together to help start this adventure.
25:39
What was the poster cars as you were growing up?
25:41
And give us the influences.
25:42
I mean, you talked about your mum there a moment ago and I guess the impact of family.
25:46
I mean, family for a lot of people, if you talk to racing drivers or sports people, things that go on in your early life influence often where you're going.
25:55
So where's the love of cars come from for both of you?
25:57
The world that they opened up was definitely it for me because I mean, lived in the suburbs, very typical Aussie upbringing and lived in the suburbs and a car was the ticket out, you know, to go and do stuff and be able to explore.
26:08
So I wasn't that fussy at the time of what car it was.
26:12
I just know that 300 bucks is a good price for a car.
26:15
But yeah, mum was interested in cars, my pop was interested in cars as well, and had a couple of old books and things.
26:21
But I didn't have that teenager bring up of going to racetracks and stuff all the time.
26:25
That just wasn't...
26:26
I was playing sports and I was doing music stuff.
26:28
That's what I was doing as a kid.
26:30
So those three things I still do.
26:31
I love sports, love music and love cars.
26:32
That's sort of what I'm into.
26:35
But yeah, my mum had a couple of cool little old cars and then we had some crappy cars when I was a little kid.
26:40
My dad had lots of crappy cars.
26:41
He had Daewoo's and just all sorts of terrible stuff.
26:43
I think I came home from hospital in like a Tirana, but the Sunbird one, the Fuel Crisis four-cylinder one that's really slow that everyone laughs at.
26:50
But now it's probably worth heaps of money because in the late 70s, that's all you were buying.
26:55
So, yeah.
26:55
I think similar to Marty, I wasn't interested in what a car was.
26:59
I was interested in what a car could do for you.
27:02
And so I was born in Grafton, you know, half an hour, 40 minutes out of Grafton City.
27:06
So you needed cars to get around.
27:08
I moved to Tarragore, which is a little town in between Goulburn and Canberra.
27:11
So you needed cars to get everywhere.
27:13
So from a very young age, I was used to if you... And adventure started in a car.
27:18
You know, an adventure started by getting in a car and going somewhere because you knew you were going somewhere exciting.
27:22
And my dad would often come home with weird cars.
27:25
He had an Alfa Romeo.
27:26
He got a Ford Falcon LTD with power windows.
27:33
And that was the first time I was accused of being a liar in my life that I remember was driving to school with my dad.
27:39
And I would drive from...
27:42
Terry going to Goulburn where I was going to school and he dropped me off and I said to the kids when I got to school, I was in year one, and I said, my dad has a window in his car.
27:51
You press a button and it goes up and down.
27:54
You're a liar.
27:55
No, he doesn't.
27:57
I don't.
27:57
There's a button.
27:58
There's a button.
27:59
You press the button and it goes, no, it doesn't.
28:01
That kid's a liar.
28:02
And then I think, you know, I know someone tried to beat me up or something.
28:04
I know because you're lying about a thing.
28:06
So I remember being really excited about technology in cars at that time.
28:10
And so, and I don't know why my dad had, you know, quite a few different ones.
28:13
My mom loved minis.
28:14
Her parents had minis, I think, as well.
28:16
And so my first car before I had got the Camaro was actually a mini.
28:19
And we had a circular driveway.
28:20
And I just started round and round and round and round.
28:22
And I still, like, I still own a mini now.
28:24
But, yeah, anyway, that was my influence.
28:27
So correct me if I'm wrong in joining the dots here, but something like a bit of mucking around on Marty's mum's driveway in 2007 is kind of a light switch moment.
28:37
Did the peer review sort of go, hey, this will be a bit of fun, there'll be shits and giggles?
28:43
Where did the conversation to sort of start this whole thing come from?
28:46
That's a very good question, Rusty.
28:47
I'll tell you exactly what happened.
28:49
So I often pendulum between these two various states of car stuff.
28:55
So one week I'll be like really excited about going four-wheel driving and the next weekend I'll want to take a Lotus to a track day.
29:03
Like that is just – and I can't –
29:05
Yeah.
29:22
And I drove it around for about six weeks.
29:26
And as I said to someone, a Jeep will go past absolutely anything except a petrol station.
29:32
You could see the thing.
29:33
You could see the needle just going down.
29:35
And so, again, I swung the other way and I heard about these little cars called a Daihatsu Sior Kyori, which means kiss, Marty.
29:42
Is that what it is?
29:43
Yeah, Italian means kiss.
29:44
It's Mira in Japan.
29:46
And I had to mirror and I was like, it's a tiny little two door car.
29:50
This is great.
29:51
I'm going to buy one of them.
29:52
It was $4,000.
29:53
It was a really economical on fuel.
29:55
Antithesis of the Jeep, which is just me, which is just, it's just what I do.
30:00
And I'm still doing it now.
30:01
I'm swinging side to side.
30:02
And so Marty and I, by that stage, we were working together at a studio called Gas in Pyrmont.
30:07
And so it was a studio that we ran ourselves.
30:09
Originally, I was in there by myself and we were competing with two other big studios that were supplying all the music for the big advertising agencies in Sydney.
30:16
And so they had teams and producers and audio posts and we just had Marty and I in a big room pretending that we were more than we really were and some support staff down in Melbourne.
30:25
And so...
30:27
We'd been making these funny little videos that I guess now would be pranks or gags on YouTube.
30:31
And we went, look, there's this website.
30:32
It was not monetized.
30:33
No one was sponsored.
30:34
There was no influencers.
30:35
That didn't exist yet.
30:37
And I said to Marty, I bought this little car.
30:39
I love it, but it sucks at the same time.
30:42
It's got the stereo is not good.
30:43
It doesn't have central locking.
30:44
And Marty said, you know what?
30:45
I know how to fix all that stuff.
30:46
And because while I was studying music, I also did filmmaking and...
30:50
animation I'd always been loving filmmaking and editing, I said, why don't we just make a little video and put it up there?
30:57
It was not motivated by anything other than just pure fun.
31:01
And so I drove the car to Marty's house and it was a bit of a big trip because by then I was living around Parramatta and Marty was down in the Sutherland Shire.
31:09
And so we'd drive over and basically the idea would be that I would present, Hi, how are you going?
31:14
My name's Moog.
31:15
I've got a little car and we're going to get someone to fix it up.
31:18
This is Marty.
31:19
And Marty's role in inverted commas wasn't to speak much.
31:23
It was to kind of do the techie stuff.
31:25
And then I would go, next up, Marty's going to do the whatever.
31:29
And then he would do that.
31:30
And at the end of it, we would have a video and my car would be a bit better.
31:35
What we did do in that very first episode is I think I needed some tires, Marty, from Tempe Tyres or some wheels.
31:41
And I do believe that I went to Tempe Tyres and they said it was going to be $800 for wheels and tyres.
31:47
And I said, we're making a little documentary about it.
31:49
And they said, we'll give you 200 bucks off.
31:51
And I was like, wow.
31:52
Like, so the very first episode, you know, we got some...
31:56
Sponsored content.
31:57
Sponsored content.
31:58
Yeah.
31:59
It's just a good deal for everyone.
32:00
It worked great for them.
32:01
It was great.
32:01
And so we got about 300 views.
32:03
And here's the thing.
32:05
If you're an artist, you're an author, you're a musician, when you release something, you know that your friends and family are going to be really exciting.
32:12
You know they're going to support you in the first week.
32:14
And then in the next week, maybe they're going to share with some of their friends.
32:17
Hey, have a look at this.
32:18
Have a look at that.
32:19
Getting outside of the circle of the people that love and support you, I think is probably the hardest thing in...
32:24
business or arts or filmmaking or anything creative because everyone that loves you will support you and i realized that 300 views on a video i didn't have that many friends and so i went this was before you know facebook you know everyone's got 10 000 friends and all these guys so i realized
32:42
because we got 320 views or 330 views, more people were watching than people that we knew.
32:47
And I went, oh, people must like something about it.
32:49
It was motivated by telling a story.
32:51
For me, it was motivated by telling a story and sharing educational information about cars while having fun, for me.
32:58
And this was part of how we shared that initially.
33:01
So, yeah, Facebook was very new.
33:02
I think YouTube started in 06 and we started at the end of 07, early 08.
33:06
And it was still postage stamp size.
33:07
It was very small.
33:09
Facebook was very basic as well.
33:10
So, there wasn't really this huge social network to share stuff through.
33:13
So, a lot of the original views actually came from these forums I was mentioning before.
33:17
uh just through word of mouth as well it's also worth remembering this is very early broadband days so even watching a video on the internet at that point was a bit of a trip you're like whoa we can watch video on this this is crazy you know downloading music napster had only just gone away things like that so but the mods we were doing on on the little red car that was pretty much what i was doing on the driveway with my mates from back in the gemini days this is you know six or seven years after the jet the gemini's demise but that's pretty much what we did on weekends we just you know mod cars work on cars like learn just hang out together it was kind of it was good
33:47
And we just started doing it every weekend, didn't we?
33:50
And so that's how our weekends were filled.
33:51
That's right.
33:52
And back then there might have been, you know, 20 videos in a year and now there's 80.
33:57
Yeah.
33:58
And basically the roles were that I would say to Marty, I'd really like central locking in a stereo and a this and a this and a this and I would pay for the stuff.
34:06
Marty would pick up the kind of equipment that we would need.
34:08
I forgot.
34:08
I worked at Jcar at the time and I had a staff card.
34:11
So that's the other reason it happened.
34:12
So we used to crank all this, so a lot of auto-electrical stuff and audio stuff, which I was interested in still, while I was working at studios, and I was studying audio engineering and doing everything else, which smashed this stuff on the J-Car staff card.
34:23
So thanks, J-Car.
34:24
And then afterwards, I would get my camera, which I'd saved up and bought, which was like $1,800 or something for this JVC camera.
34:30
Then I would take the cards away...
34:32
I would edit up during the week, put it together, do the voiceover, add some music that at that stage was made in GarageBand, and then upload it to the internet.
34:41
I mean, now we're coming to you from a purpose-built space that Marty and I actually worked with builders and designers to create, and we've each got an edit suite with, you know, there's...
34:51
one, two, three, there's four pieces of glass between us in acoustically designed spaces, and we're editing videos, and he'll come to my room, Marty, can you do this voiceover?
34:59
And they all go to his, can you do this voiceover?
35:01
Oh, I need a bit of music.
35:02
Oh, we need to shoot this thing.
35:03
So we're working really collaboratively, but back then, it was Marty's job to get the gear, and it was my job to sit by myself after I'd finished my real job and edit into the night and finish the video.
35:14
And it would take like three days to upload something.
35:16
It took ages.
35:17
It was a big risk.
35:17
It's like he'd upload and then you just cross your fingers and come back a few days later.
35:21
Hey, can we talk – I mean, the space you've created, by the way, is phenomenal and testament to the great work that you've been doing.
35:27
But in those early days, I would imagine – and the clear – one of the clear reasons for your success is, dare I use that overused word, authenticity, because it's just you guys.
35:40
It's the people I'm talking to now.
35:42
Were there any early learnings in that where you –
35:46
You don't need to put on the facade and be some sort of serious presenter or actor.
35:51
It's just you guys, isn't it?
35:54
When did that click?
35:55
Yeah, I think we didn't know how to.
35:58
I think now if you kind of look – there's books on how to –
36:02
how to be an influencer.
36:04
There's books on how to be...
36:05
I mean, sitting here talking with you now, Rusty, like when we met you for the first time, you are just so good at what you do.
36:13
Your research is excellent.
36:15
Marty and I stopped doing interviews a couple of years ago.
36:16
We don't do them anymore, you know, and so we just don't do them, you know, for a variety of different reasons.
36:21
Mainly at the time that we stopped was when everybody wants to be a millionaire on the internet and Marty and I were seen as a success story and we'll tell you how to do it.
36:28
Overnight success.
36:29
You know, you can be an overnight success.
36:30
You just need to work for 15 years or whatever.
36:33
But the thing is, what you do comes really naturally and you're obviously super experienced and you know your stuff.
36:38
You know, that's really clear.
36:39
But there are books that will try and detail how you can formulate yourself to do that.
36:46
But I would argue...
36:47
that it's your experience and you as a person that is making your show successful and makes you really good at what you do.
36:51
Because each time I talk to you, I go, he really knows his stuff, you know?
36:54
And so I don't necessarily really know my stuff to the degree of a master mechanic or even a normal mechanic that's kind of doing it every day.
37:03
But what I do hope is that I can be authentic in terms of my enthusiasm and my interest
37:08
around cars.
37:09
And I think that's what it's always been.
37:10
And how to communicate it.
37:11
So one of the biggest things that people sort of take for granted these days, there was no front-facing cameras.
37:16
I know I'm coming back to the technology side of it, but partly what we've been able to do is the technology of the time, as it was quite new, we've been able to utilise it.
37:21
So there was no front-facing cameras.
37:23
No one was taking selfies.
37:25
They were years away.
37:26
And people were shy being on camera.
37:28
So it was actually a big deal.
37:29
I can still remember the feeling of going, what, we're going to film it?
37:31
That's weird.
37:31
Isn't that what happens on TV shows?
37:33
And so there was that democratisation of that area.
37:36
And...
37:37
you point a camera at someone, they sort of freeze up.
37:39
Now, it's like everyone's got a phone in their pocket and they've got some social media thing going on and they're selfing about what they did that day.
37:45
In fact, Marty, that's a good point.
37:46
It's the opposite, isn't it?
37:48
Major, major change.
37:49
People liven up now when there's a camera on.
37:51
They do.
37:52
If I go back and watch those first ones, which feel a bit cringey, but also it was a long time ago.
37:56
I'm proud that we managed to do it, but I do also remember sort of being a bit like, oh, yeah, then we're going to put in the central lock.
38:01
And now I would try and...
38:02
project it a bit more and understand that the audience you're talking to are very interested in it and try and communicate it.
38:08
And it comes back to what we were just saying then about it's not just knowing it like a mechanic.
38:11
I don't assume to be a mechanic or have all that knowledge.
38:14
I've got a lot of experience from DIYing for like 20-something years, but it's also being able to communicate in a way that people understand.
38:20
I always try and think about...
38:22
I'm not talking to a crusty 56-year-old mechanic who's been there and done that.
38:26
I'm probably talking more likely to a 20-year-old dude or girl who's like, I got my first car, I want to do a bunch of mods, what do I do?
38:32
I'm a bit confused about where to start.
38:34
I would be if I watched a sewing video.
38:36
That sense of community, you talk about forums and some of the early stuff, is that where all of the learnings for you guys came from?
38:44
I'm assuming there's trial and error and things clearly went wrong maybe in those early days as you were going.
38:49
And then sharing those tools.
38:51
It was also, yeah, so much of it was also access to tools.
38:55
I realize as well that, you know, because also we're going back 20 years when I first bought my tools.
39:00
Like, you couldn't get as good stuff either.
39:03
And if you could, it was really, really expensive.
39:04
And so I feel every time I use a really nice tool now, I'm like, oh, this actually makes this easy.
39:08
You know, get the right tools for the job, which everyone says, which is fine to say that.
39:11
But if you want $300 for your weekend job and the tool is $600, you're not buying that thing.
39:15
Yeah.
39:15
You know, like, you're going to try and make it work.
39:17
So, a lot of that does, you know, breed some ingenuity by having to come up with how to fix it.
39:21
But, yeah, a lot of learnings from the initial dawn of the internet in terms of forums.
39:25
And then, yeah, you know, people are writing how-tos.
39:28
People are also very happy to share that, and I still am.
39:30
Some people are not now.
39:31
They're a bit more like, no, this is mine, and you can't have it, which I don't really like that as much.
39:35
But if I know how to do something, I'll...
39:37
100% give people the recipe and I consider a lot of this stuff recipes when you're talking about how to engine swap something and what will fit and what won't fit and what bolts to use what about cars that came along that you uh modified and then perhaps moved on because you had to get to the next thing have there been regrets have there been ones where you've gone oh man we really shouldn't have let that one go and what were they I would say now that um
40:01
There's no regrets at the time, but I think what some people do is they look at the financial state of cars now and go, I wish I'd never sold my Silvia.
40:08
Silvia, what are you talking about?
40:09
Because now that's worth $50,000, and back then, you know, you can get an S15 for $8,000.
40:15
So I don't really have regrets because I really see them as stepping stones to do more.
40:21
There was a period of time, though, when I remember someone in the comments kind of going...
40:25
man, these guys have got so many cars, they're really baller.
40:28
You know, like, they must be doing really well.
40:30
And what they didn't realise, we only had one car, but we would sell that car for 10 grand, buy another one, make a bunch of videos, and often the car that we'd sold for 10 grand was going to a friend, and then in two or three videos, we would borrow the car back to do some more mods.
40:44
So it would start to look, I guess in a way it's kind of fake it till you make it, but it would look like there was a fleet of cars.
40:51
And actually, we just had one car each, but we still had access to some of the old ones that we'd sold.
40:55
uh there's there's there's probably one or two but yeah i've very much learned now that um the car is you know a metal mechanical thing it's it's the experiences you're probably more thinking of i know people get very nostalgic especially as they get older about going oh that was the best car no you're just having a really good time you had your mates around you maybe you had a girlfriend or boyfriend you're like you know who knows there's all these sort of things that people tie back so it's probably more about the time than the car in terms of um
41:19
Just good cars that just worked really well.
41:20
Yeah, there's been some where I'm like, how did that thing survive?
41:23
Like, we just smashed it.
41:24
We did so much with it, and it just loved it.
41:26
And then there's been one or two lemons.
41:28
But I'm just slowly sort of, what I keep coming back to, and I mentioned it earlier about the wagons, like, I keep coming back to this car that can do so many things well.
41:36
And the technology that's out there now to make stuff fast is just incredible.
41:39
Like, what you can do and the parts you can buy and how inexpensive it is to do something really good is definitely what's changed.
41:45
I feel like when you're younger and you're getting into cars, in a way, when you can afford the car you want, I kind of look at it philosophically like your car is a machete, right?
41:54
It has one tool.
41:56
It does it really well.
41:57
You go into the bush and there's all this stuff.
41:58
You just cut, cut, cut.
42:00
But I feel like as you get a bit older, your machete has to turn into a Leatherman or a Swiss Army knife.
42:06
And so what I mean by that, a Lotus is a machete, right?
42:10
It just cuts around the track really, really fast.
42:13
You don't do your shopping in it.
42:14
It's not great for date nights.
42:15
Ask me how I know.
42:17
It's not great for daily driving, going over speed bumps and stuff like that.
42:20
Whereas you go, okay, well, what is really good for that?
42:23
Cool.
42:23
Let's choose a base model goal for a Focus or something.
42:27
That's great for going and getting your shops and doing all the different things you need to do.
42:32
Then you go on a date night and your girlfriend goes, this car's boring, and you go to the track and it's not that fast.
42:37
So you're kind of swinging between...
42:40
I'm swinging between these two things.
42:41
And eventually, I think, as you get to a certain age, you realise why everybody is driving dual-cab utes and you realise why people are driving Subaru wagons, WRXs, Golf R wagons, because they are really this Swiss Army knife that does a whole lot of things really well.
42:57
But that's a very sensible way of looking at things, isn't it?
43:01
Which is a bit boring sometimes.
43:01
Some people just like cars that are red.
43:03
Yeah, that's true.
43:04
Yeah.
43:05
I like the red one.
43:13
That's the end of part one of my podcast with Marty and Moog from Mighty Car Mods.
43:18
What a yarn.
43:20
Two guys, as I'm sure you can tell here, who aren't focused on clicks, likes and shares, but have been curious and tech savvy enough to forge their own online path, telling cool yarns about cars, modifying them, and it's taken them all over the world.
43:36
We are not done yet telling this impressive story.
43:41
Head back to the Rusty's Garage Library and check out part two, which is all loaded up and ready for you to enjoy right now.
43:48
From an Aussie classic they haven't tackled yet, maybe they'll have to after this conversation, what the future looks like and how they remain very hands-on with their car content creation, passionately connected to it all, despite how big their following or community has become.
44:05
And the Super Garage.