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156. @jamesssc @mattmcdonald and @ricky_ameser
156. @jamesssc @mattmcdonald and @ricky_ameser
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About this episode
A lively discussion unfolds as Ryan Bealman, Mercado, Ricky Ameser, James Cooper, and Matt McDonald share their adventurous journey across the country in vintage Volkswagen trucks. The episode dives into the origins of their passion for cars, the challenges of restoring their trucks, and the camaraderie that developed during their trip. With tales of breakdowns, unexpected repairs, and the beauty of the American landscape, this episode highlights the thrill of adventure and the joy of automotive community.
Topics:
road trip stories
vintage volkswagens
truck restoration
adventure travel
community building
social media influence
mechanical challenges
car culture
friendship
cross-country journeys
We got to sit down with James, Ricky, and Matt and talked about their awesome story on fetching three rabbit pickups and trekking them across the US! Check it!
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Volkswagen Rabbit
"...k. But the first video that really did well was a rabbit truck that was just like a quarter mile away from..."
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"...at we would send out because those are based on a Fox body. Well, it was the original Fox body."
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"... all started from being a kid my old man had a 78 diesel rabbit nice and I remember what color it was that tan ok..."
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Yo, everybody, what's up?
Welcome to the People's Car Podcast.
My name is Ryan Bealman.
Sitting right next to me is...
Dude, Mercado, what's up?
And right next to us is...
Ricky Am I?
You gotta talk into that mic, brother.
That is not acceptable.
Ricky Anzler, James Cooper writer.
Matt McDonald.
What's up, guys?
How are you?
Good.
Good.
Thank you for coming.
We got a few stories that we're definitely gonna kind of flesh out through this, so we're
gonna start with James.
He said flesh out.
And we're gonna see, because a lot of people, no, you were a big TikTok guy for a while,
right?
Yeah, yeah.
So that's kind of where everything started.
I really wanted to do full-time YouTube long-form videos, and I was having a hard time getting
them off the ground.
So this was like 2020, where TikTok was really picking up steam quickly.
And I had, at the time, everybody was at home.
And my neighbors were like, you should try TikTok.
And at that time, I was pretty anti-TikTok.
I didn't want to do it.
I didn't really understand that it was just short-form content.
I thought it was more geared towards younger people, stuff not car-related stuff.
So I posted a few videos, and it worked really well, like quickly gained tens of thousands
of followers.
Do you know why that is?
Wow.
Crazy.
I mean, honestly, no.
Because do you still kind of understand?
I think we have a better idea of algorithms nowadays of kind of like what works, what
does, and everything else.
But sometimes you still just get those funky just boom, and they take off.
I mean, do you feel like that's kind of where you did, obviously you prepared to do some
stuff, and then you put it together.
And I think you got a good voice for it.
I think you have, you know, so there's talent there.
But then all of a sudden, I think it's sometimes you also meet like that bit of
luck where when these algorithms just kind of like shoot people in the atmosphere
sometimes.
But it was luck because I had just bought the garage.
And for anybody who doesn't know, I have the old fire department in the town that I live
in.
Oh, wow.
And I bought that six months before I started making the TikTok videos.
That's cool.
So I was pretty new in the space, and I knew what I wanted to do with it.
So I was talking about that specifically on TikTok.
But the first video that really did well was a rabbit truck that was just like
a quarter mile away from my house.
And where it was sitting, the house looked abandoned.
And I was like, what's going on here?
Like that, like the windows were boarded up, but the truck was just sitting in the
driveway.
It looked really bad.
That's crazy, actually.
Yeah.
It looked really, really bad.
So I left the video, the whole video was like, hey, I found a rabbit
truck.
I haven't seen one in forever, and I really want one.
So I went over to the truck and left a note on it.
And that video had like 3 million views every night.
What?
Yeah.
So I don't have a, my talk is not ticking.
I don't have TikTok.
So that's like mind blowing, actually.
How fast am I going to take off?
Now where exactly are you located in Ohio?
I am about 35 minutes east of Columbus.
Okay.
Yeah.
So this is a small little town.
Just a small little town.
Wow.
I think when I first started following you was when I realized how, like, how
cool the building that you had acquired was.
Yeah.
And it was also like, you see, you see a rabbit because we're all into this
stuff, right?
I saw a rabbit.
I saw a cool building.
And then I think I started following you.
And then there was the whole, I think Danny told me, yo, there's this guy
that's going across country to get this truck.
Yeah.
This yellow truck.
Yep.
So it was that first TikTok video that spun into that.
Gotcha.
So, the first video did really, really crazy.
So like three and a half million views.
What was that like?
You woke up and you come out and you check the thing and you're like,
or my phone was on all night.
It was just notification, like comment, comment, comment.
Like my phone wouldn't, I had to like turn my phone off.
Wow.
Because I couldn't, I couldn't deal with the influx.
It was insane because prior to that, I had like 200 followers and I had
like three videos up and right, whatever, like it, it was fine.
But yeah, that video netted me like 20,000 followers.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
Yep.
And then from there on, I was like, okay.
This is possible.
Yeah.
Definitely.
So at that point, that's when Derek out in Washington, I was already friends
with him on Instagram.
I had never met him, never talked to him really.
And he saw that TikTok and he was like, hey, if you want a truck, fly out here,
we'll do a thing.
You can engine swap it or whatever you want to do.
You can drag it home or drive it home, whatever you want.
But if you come out here and get it, we'll do a thing.
Right.
And that was the other truck.
Got ya.
I did a little bit of balls.
You drove it, got it running out there, drove it and had to drag it.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we did, we did engine swap, but it had a blown up.
It was the original diesel with a four speed and it, the cam had snapped in half.
Wow.
And it was parked in 96.
Okay.
So it had been sitting a really long time.
Sure.
And we, I flew into Seattle.
He's like two and a half hours east of Seattle on the way back to Seattle.
He picked me up at the airport.
He picked up a one, six D and a five speed that I found on Facebook.
That's great.
And then that, the following two, were they already together?
It was one, was it a one?
No, no, no.
It was a package thing.
The guy was swapping in the TDI.
So it was a complete one, six D and a five speed.
And the next two or three days we spent swapping that engine into the yellow truck and
got it running and driving and.
Yeah.
What could go wrong?
Right.
Everything.
Everything went wrong.
Were you at that point?
Were you naive enough to think like you're good?
Yeah.
Okay.
Oh yeah.
For sure.
Yeah.
I was like, this won't be it.
And then when I was standing there looking it in the face, I was like, oh, I'm not
good enough for this.
That was the, I had never made the drive.
I didn't know what I was up against.
I went out 90 through Spokane, which is a rough part of the Rockies.
And it's a good thing I got the U-Haul when I did because I wouldn't have made
it.
Right.
I would have been stuck somewhere and it was like a really bad spot.
Yeah.
Nothing's going on.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Service, no people.
Right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
You hear that about like Chris Cool and some of the stuff that he does.
Oh yeah.
Like when he gets, you know, stalker, he's in the middle of summer.
I mean, there's some spots where you get stuck like it actually gets dangerous.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
It's not just waiting on a side road for someone.
It's like, no one's coming.
Yeah.
No one knows you're there.
Right.
Yeah.
That's true.
Right.
Yeah.
And you can't even, yeah.
It makes it so exciting.
That's part of it.
Definitely.
Oh yeah.
Were you, were you somebody that like we're into like this kind of like seeking of I'm
going to travel somewhere.
I'm going to get in an uncomfortable situation.
I'm going to, you know, see what happens.
Like was that, was that your style of, you know, or did this just come up and
you were like, fuck it.
Like this is all kind of work.
Prior to this, no.
Right.
It wasn't my thing.
And then the opportunity came up and I was like, I'm going to go.
Yeah.
We'll just see what happens.
So what did happen on the way back?
So the truck broke down like three or four times before I finally called it.
The first 10 minutes of the drive, one of the hoses split and I looked down and the
temp gauge was pegged.
It was one of the heater hoses.
So all the coolant dumped out.
I had no idea until the temp gauge was pegged.
So I pulled off at an exit and it was the, the hose that goes from the
side of the head to the firewall to the heater core.
So it's like 15, 16, some one side and five beats on the other.
Yeah.
And it's like a cigar, the pipe shaped hose.
Right.
Nobody had that.
No.
I didn't have one.
Nobody else did.
So I had to rummage through this wall of hoses to find something that
would work and jam it all together.
And so that was problem number one.
Easy enough.
And then it stalled on 90.
It just stopped running.
Fuel issues that we, we kind of knew about.
If I kept it full, I could drive for like a hundred miles.
And then it would start to fade.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
The tank was just, it didn't have a cap on it.
So it was full of dirt and there's like a pickup screen in the
bottom of the tank.
Yeah.
That was just, just mutted over.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How far did you get back before you called it?
Where were you at?
I was in Spokane.
Okay.
So I had made it like three hours, I want to say.
So it's not that far.
But that three hours of driving took about nine with the stops.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause the first hose was a real problem.
That took a couple of hours to get sorted out.
Sure.
How did you actually, all right, backing up to like, how did
you get into these things?
How did you get into Volkswagen's cars in general?
Well, it's kind of funny.
I feel like a lot of people's story is like, oh, my parents
always had VW's.
My parents did not like VW's growing up.
Were they car people at all?
My dad is.
My mom kind of is.
But like we always had Fords and, you know, just basic stuff.
And I expressed interest in like, for one of my first cars,
I wanted like a Mark IV TDI.
And they're like, you don't want that.
They had no, they had no like reason to say that other
than we don't know anything about him.
Yeah.
So obscure why.
Yeah.
Who's gonna work on it?
Yeah.
That was their, that was their thing.
You're like, hold my beer or not that time.
But yeah.
Yeah.
So I took that.
I was like, well, now I want to know more about these things.
Sure.
This is what's the mystique.
Anytime your parents tell you know about them.
Yeah.
The worst thing they could do.
Yeah.
Pretty much.
Now look.
I'm actually curious.
Mom.
And I know it jumping around a little bit, but I'm curious
about the building.
Yeah.
In your town.
So what was that?
Was that just an abandoned building for a while that you
had tried to acquire or how did that work out?
It was originally a tractor dealership.
It was built around 1900.
Okay.
And I don't know if it was built to be an implement dealer or
what it's been added on to at least once.
It's been changed multiple times.
There was a four dealership across the street and they sold
tractors in the building that I have.
So it was a two story deal.
They had tractors downstairs and like attachments
upstairs.
So you can park cars upstairs.
There's two up there right now.
Oh, that's cool.
Like a long like ramp going up to it kind of deal.
It's kind of on the side of a hill.
So the alley runs up beside the building.
So the downstairs is half underground.
Front engine's back.
Exactly.
There's like a loading ramp in the back.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How many bays?
It's hard to tell.
Like without seeing the whole thing.
There's three overhead doors.
It's 61 by 36.
So there's three overhead doors on the bottom.
And there's like an office space that was like the
old like town office.
Yeah.
Where you know, you'd go to pay your water bill.
Dude, I think that's what so, I mean, so many car guys, you
know, they think of that building that's in your
hometown.
And I certainly know at least two that me and my wife
would absolutely love to acquire.
And one is the old garage.
The old garage.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you know, that's like kind of a dream.
Yeah.
Like to get something like that.
Well, what was funny is.
And a nightmare at the same time, Bradley.
Yeah.
So again, this was right around like 2019, 2020.
I had just finished my first swapped rabbit, which was a
VR in like 84.
You know, that was kind of like cutting my teeth on the
whole thing, learning everything I could.
Yeah.
But I built it behind my parents' house outside.
Yeah.
And I was like, I'm not doing this again.
Yeah.
Right.
So instead of buying, you know, like a house, like
an adult, I was like, well, what if I bought a
garage?
So my brother and I were walking up town.
We had walked past this building for years and years
and years.
Oh, so it was abandoned for a while.
It wasn't abandoned, but it was somebody's storage
building.
Gotcha.
There was a pizza shop next to it.
And the guy owned both.
So, and he has, I think three or four kids who
are college age at the time.
So their stuff was just, it was just full of stuff.
Is this a tiny, like one stoplight town?
Yeah.
Same as, same with us.
Yeah.
I think the borough of our town is like 1200 people.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
So, yeah, that's really cool.
Do you, do you have anywhere where you could like,
do you stay over any time?
Or?
I haven't, but I could.
I got you.
Yeah.
You could easily stay in any part of it, but it's
just, there's no bathroom.
If anyone hears any weird things that's happening
in the background, there's actually a show
that's happening outside.
There's planes that are going by the air show.
Yeah.
So if anyone hears anything weird, like Danny's
like, I could rip an ass or anything.
No, no, it's actually air show.
I mean, it could be.
I mean, I could rip that plane out, but still, yeah.
But there's, there's definitely some stuff going on.
Just say it's the air show.
Yeah.
Cool, man.
So, all right.
I mean, where do you guys want to go from here?
Because there's, there is the, I think it's cool
that all three of you have like,
you've done something pretty epic.
There's so many times where, you know,
Danny and I, we've been friends for a long time.
We've been in this together in a sense, right?
So we go on trips, you know,
if we're going down all the way down the East Coast,
like we're going together for Volkswagen stuff or whatever.
I've never been crazy enough to go all the way to the
West Coast and, you know,
Cross Country.
Try to, try to get, you know, acquire anything like that.
But.
Because you already have done a Cross Country trip,
obviously with the truck.
Right.
And then you did something else with a Ford Fairmont
wagon.
Is that the thing?
Yeah.
How much time do you have?
That's great.
No, but what was that about?
The Fairmont wagon?
Yeah.
Because I got a Zephyr too.
Okay.
Yeah.
I got a Zephyr wagon.
I bought it.
So that was the second trip after the failed
first trip for the yellow truck.
Did you feel like it was a failure?
Like, yeah.
Cause I wanted to drive it home.
And a lot of people were already following you at
that point.
Yeah.
And I actually, they gave me a lot of shit.
Sure.
They gave me a lot of shit for like not
finishing and seeing like really trying to get it home.
Especially because now, I mean, it's funny.
It was only 2020, but so much stuff has
changed with the whole, you know,
social media and how crazy people get and what
they do on their YouTube channels or
TikTok or whatever.
So like then it was like, oh man,
you could have kept going.
Now I feel like if you did that,
your tail would be so between your legs.
Oh yeah.
Because like, what are you doing, man?
You know?
Yeah.
Everybody does the crazy shit.
Now we have to make it.
Yeah.
You have to do it.
We have to make it.
Yeah.
It takes you three and a half months.
Right.
Yeah.
You don't see your family for a long time.
Right.
Yeah.
That's, that's, that's crazy.
So yeah.
Yeah.
So I can talk about the Fairmont room.
Yeah.
Let's hear about it.
So I bought the Zephyr wagon.
It was a white Zephyr.
I bought it on Facebook and I was like,
that'll make it home.
And it did.
How far away was that?
That was in Portland.
Yeah.
So it was 2,600 miles.
Okay.
I flew into Portland.
The guy that owned it picked me up.
I went up to Derek's house.
Yeah.
And then.
Why that car?
My brother had one that he bought from an auction.
And he's like, it's like a Mustang.
They share the Fox platform.
Yeah.
Basically.
It's pretty much the same car.
Okay.
So.
So no drama with that.
No drama whatsoever.
And when you don't have drama,
now do you think like,
because you're starting to become,
you know, 20,000 people following you at one point
and probably, you know,
a lot more now or whatever it is.
No drama is no fun.
And no one wants to see like a great trip.
Yeah.
That was actually a little too good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So there's that fine,
there's that fine place right in the middle
where you want something to happen.
Right.
That you can come back from.
Right.
And then you can actually, you know,
recover.
And then everyone goes,
oh, and then they go, oh, yeah.
You know.
So about two months after I got home from that trip,
and again, it was almost too easy.
Yeah.
We like changed the water pump and put a thermostat in it
and it made it home.
Yeah.
We probably couldn't have even done that
and it would have made it.
So I'm home for two months
and Derek sends me a picture of another one.
And this is a blue 1980 Ford Fairmont.
And he goes, oh, it's a four speed.
Oh.
Straight six 206 four speed,
which is pretty rare.
Like most of those are automatic.
Yeah.
And he's like, if you want it,
it was abandoned in Washington.
And he's like, he's like, yeah,
it's kind of like my aunts.
She has the son who's kind of a deadbeat
and he left the car in her backyard.
And he's like, if you want it, it's 500 bucks.
And it was clean.
It's a little beat, but clean.
So we put a plan together that we would send out
because those are based on a Fox body.
Well, it was the original Fox body.
Yeah.
You can just swap in a 302 and a T five
and make it a Fox body Mustang.
Yeah.
Pretty easy.
Right.
So I ended up trailering a 302,
a high output out of like a 94 Mustang
and a five speed to Washington.
We swapped it in three and a half days
and drove it home.
Crazy.
But like the first one, it made it.
No problem.
Right.
It made it the entire way home.
We had like a flat tire.
Now who exactly was involved in that
when you went out to pick up that car?
So Ricky, Ricky came with me
and my brother and another guy named Nick.
Nick was the camera guy.
It really was my brother, Kyle and Ricky and Derek.
That was the core of us putting that car together.
Yeah.
Were you were you starting a YouTube
at this like simultaneously?
Yeah.
Oh, and you knew enough that you said,
we had a sponsor for that trip.
That was kind of the backbone of what made it happen
because they paid for the flights.
They paid for all the fluids
and like the travel expenses getting at home.
Cool.
Nice.
So how was your YouTube doing?
I think I heard you say once like
the TikTok was just out of control
but your YouTube like you had to work out
like anybody else.
Yeah.
Like it was kind of not correlating.
So initially when people were coming over to TikTok
so quickly, I was like, oh, this will be great.
This will translate to YouTube.
No problem.
It does not work like that.
People will not leave TikTok for YouTube.
Right.
So at this point, I think I have 242,000 followers.
Yeah.
And I've probably gotten 10,000 over to YouTube.
Got it.
Which is a lot.
Sure.
So comparatively, that's a small percentage.
Very small.
It's so wild.
Yeah.
So that trip didn't go as planned as easy as the Zephyr then.
It was a lot more work
and it was so complicated that it was almost hard to market.
Okay.
Which sounds weird
but there was so much that we did in one video
that it was like people called it like overproduced.
Okay.
And actually what's funny is the Zephyr video
has like five times the amount of viewership.
Really?
Yeah.
Crazy.
All that work and the video is flopped.
Yeah.
Isn't that...
It's like almost how it does.
Every time.
Yeah, right.
Every time.
Yep.
When you try that hard, it's like it's not going to work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's so crazy.
It's so frustrating.
I'm sure it is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because I thought for sure when we were filming that thing,
I had a minivan for a chase car
and I bought the van just to be a chase car for the strip.
Right.
So I made a camera rig.
We had a remote control gimbal.
There were other shots of the interstate.
Like it looked like a motor trend show.
Yeah.
And people didn't care.
That's so crazy.
I know.
I was like that we're going to have this fun.
I'm like, yeah, here I am driving this whatever back in there.
It's like, yeah.
It's like that's crazy to me.
Yeah.
Those get tens of thousands of views.
These videos have like sub 10,000 views.
That's crazy.
Which is heartbreaking.
That's going to make me just watching that more.
So it's like I want to like see like more of this now
because I'm intrigued by that.
Like just the number of it.
I think your like main demographic is right now.
Like the, I guess, I guess you could say YouTube and TikTok
are certain.
They're totally different.
I'm sure TikTok is a younger generation than YouTube.
It is.
I'm assuming maybe I'm wrong.
It is.
I just looked at my metrics the other night.
It's my biggest amount of following are people like from like 18 to 30.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
Males.
Men.
Yeah.
95.
Is it.
Yeah.
You've got some females hanging out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I guess that's not bad.
Some people like if you could get up to like even 8% I hear like that's
like a pretty big deal as far as women go.
You know what I mean.
To watch stuff like that.
So that car actually made it back in for the most part in one piece.
Yeah.
It was.
Yeah.
We had no problems out of it.
That trip was smooth as could be with it.
I mean I couldn't believe how well everything went with assembling
with assembling it and then even hitting the road and driving yeah are you
actually a Ford guy at all Ricky are you just kind of like this different ride so
as much as I love Volkswagen the biggest driver in playing with it is price and
how cheap it is yeah once I start getting a little more money to start
making a little more money the doors are gonna start opening to other brands
other make sure okay yeah absolutely that's a lot of good that we got some
Volkswagen's because they're cheap were were yeah yeah not anymore as much but
like $500 back up yeah well yeah yeah right right I guess you know just like
everything you know people do things are out of control we're in a really weird
time yeah and I guess everything is just expensive crazy yeah right so how
did you actually get into cars and what made you like kids wagons so really I
always knew that I was I would just have like a drive to work on cars I
don't know where it came from my dad can barely work a screwdriver so but
whenever since I was like elementary school I'm like I'm gonna be mechanic and
that was what I went to school for okay I don't know what it was I just
always knew and then went to it in high school did two years there two years
and vocational and then did forklift training and the brand of forklifts I
worked on had Volkswagen engines oh cool it really opened up the scope
yeah working on vocal at Vox they had VR6's in them yeah yeah that's actually
really cool yeah those were like you got into it like by like industrial like
yeah that is weird yes it's like how rare I mean is that yeah that's that's the
first time we've heard that on the podcast so I've only really worked on
three TDI cars okay but I've done like over a hundred TDI timing belts and
done head jobs all kinds of rings full builds everything just forklifts that's
so cool that is really cool how do you guys know each other well well it's
funny with that actually is at the forklift dealership one of the guys I
worked with was like hey you like Volkswagen's and then showed me James's
tiktok oh from there I sent a message being like oh you're in Ohio we're
at like what's good because like they're not too many of you out there
you know exactly yeah you went far between yeah so ECS had a show and I knew
it was close to Ricky and I was like hey I'm gonna be there you should come like
bring their bring your cabriolet or something yeah so that's how we met that
was like 20 21 guy so pretty early on and and everything and who like have you
been are you like officially have you studied videography or anything like
that or no I never did yeah I went to college briefly for business okay and it
was like why am I right here I didn't like it so I left and at the time I worked
at a guitar store fall things I worked there for six years but I was a repair
tech okay and then that I do yeah that turned into I ended up doing a lot
because they at the time they were trying to really push through online
sales so I helped photograph everything because I had done I will call it
professional photography right I always had an interest yeah so that turned into
video and so I started doing a lot of it there but I know a lot about audio
equipment right which let in video yeah it that's I I feel like being into
audio myself and visually and with the sound like your debt you like your
stuff was definitely especially when we're talking about like Volkswagen
rabbits right your stuff was like just like pretty superior to a lot of stuff
that you've seen around on YouTube or whatever so I always thought you stood
out in that aspect I always thought you did it like a really good job and I've
told you before I think you have a great voice for it and I think you know
your cadence and everything else it's like you know how to do it yeah it's
not it's not always easy but yeah so it's still really foreign feeling yeah
and there's a million takes that nobody gets to see sure of course to get
it right but yeah you know so how does you guys meet well let's see this was
what 23 maybe yep 23 I was swapping my yellow car I was dropping which is what
it's a 79 four door mm-hmm I was swapping it with an AQ that I had put
together and I pulled the motor out and I'm like I wonder if this chuckle nuts
wants a motor right he's always putting something somewhere and the
bearings this thing was eating bearings like crazy so I was like but if you want
it come and get it so he came up well at the time I had bought a 1980 mountain
green like that's four door car and it had a TV this is gonna be the mountain
green night we just talked about do you know about Heather and Arles yeah very
nice so he did a podcast last night here and also four door mountain
green but good I'm sorry no you're fine I bought the car from Clint out of
Florida yeah oh okay and it belonged to Ian if you're familiar you bought the car
from Montana I think yep and it was pretty rough by the time I got it it had a
half finished ALH swap and I was like that car in Helen before yeah I'm gonna
put it back to stock and just move it up the road I didn't it wasn't as nice as
I thought guy it was pretty rough it was pretty rough yeah so the engine came
from Matt from some weird guy on Facebook and that's how we met yeah
that's really what it was I showed up and I was like wow this guy's nuts so like
how far apart are you guys all three of you guys and where do you live at in
Ohio well I'm we're Ricky and I live close we're within a 10 minute drive of
each other around the Akron area sure I'm two hours south of them okay he does
come up every Sunday for snack Sunday which is nice yeah we play in the
garage yep yep yeah two hours and yeah yeah so we're not super close but yeah
I'm the old bastard of the group you know I'm the old guy these are the young guys
yeah makes sense yeah there's always one yeah but so you before we go on the
trip with you guys before take a trip with the grumman let's talk about that
yeah so that rolls into the green car because the TDI swap that was in that
didn't realize that yeah I had just bought it yeah before I bought the green
car and tell everyone what a grumman is because I mean most people know but I'm
sure a couple people that don't yeah what kind is yours yeah yeah okay so I have a
1985 Grumman Cub Van DL 120 and the Cub Van was a failed prototype male truck
mm-hmm I've heard some other theories of what it was supposed to be I don't
really know what is true do you know the number on them how many were
produced yes they only made 500 mine is number 418 the last three of the van is
the production number it was almost like homologation for male you know right but
um so high floor low floor mine's a low floor yep yep low floor it has the like
ambulance doors in the back yeah some had like a fold up door I don't know what
we call that but did any of them have side fold up is that what you mean
well no side just in the back some did have windows on the side yeah open up
like a food truck yeah it's just so it's so weird like I don't really know the
full I you know I'm pretty familiar with them but I don't know like was it was it
different vendors that were putting together different Grumman's almost with
the same I just don't really know I guess how the logistics worked out with
that like why is what why weren't they all exactly standardized I was told
I was told after the first product like the actual USPS right-hand drive
prototypes they were built to order really yeah okay so like finding two
that are the exact same as kind of tough yeah you could spec them a number of
different ways that's including the floor height how many and if you want
windows at all I was also told that they handed you like PPG commercial
paintbook and said here's 35 colors you can pick from and whatever you want
again I don't know how much truth there is to that but mine's a color I've never
seen before and it is original it is it is what is that color do you know no
idea okay it's a metallic blue and the clear is long gone but the original
logo code anywhere on it or anything I don't think so I haven't seen it yeah
I don't know if it's part of the like the tag or anything I don't know but
it's yeah it's just kind of like a blue I don't know it's just a metallic blue
that was nice and now it's terrible because the clear is gone yeah but it
kind of it kind of lends itself to that look it does and I like that I like the
fact that it's all original yeah and really it's pretty straight a lot of
those are be to hell I know super beat they were just used for yeah they were
just cheap like work fans where did you find it it was it was on Facebook
in Ohio yeah about an hour north of me okay guy had it in a chicken coop oh really
I think it had become the chicken I was gonna say what was the chicken really
foul when I got it yeah yeah no pun intended I think I paid I think I paid
the most for it at its worst condition yeah yeah yeah so instead of buying like
the cheapest house on the most expensive block you went the opposite
way exactly yeah yeah yeah this guy was like he was a crazy old guy and he was
like oh who else would own that yeah he had like 14 derelict volvos in his
front yard I'm like that this tracks I'm like I know I'm at the right house of
course yeah definitely so did you have to did you have to pull that like out of
the weeds kind of the thing pretty much I had a yeah I had to come along and you
haul trailer and that took like an hour just getting another trailer all the
tires were flat and oh yeah planning was really bad on that one and yeah and you
towed that back yes on a trailer yeah yeah yeah yeah that's cool I mean it's
it's exciting it's an exciting find right yeah yeah that was people had tagged
me in the listing and it had been up for two hours and it probably had 200 saves
already on Facebook marketplace I mean I knew I had a jump immediately it's
so funny because in as far as Volkswagen's go like you get that weird
obscure stuff the Grumman everyone wants right like I think a lot of people I'm
sure some people I fucked that yeah because I don't use for one but but
there's so much use for it's just a it's just a storage box yeah it's so much
fun it's I'm sure it especially I mean you drive around with the door open oh
yeah like you have to yeah like on a nice fall day man I'd love that thing
it is the most fun mark one chassis car I've ever had yeah yeah really sure I love
rabbits but that thing is a blast yeah but I was gonna say like then you get
something weird like like a fox and people like this is very similar things
right not right not at all right so Matt how'd you get into like all this and
like where did that start well it all started from being a kid my old man
had a 78 diesel rabbit nice and I remember what color it was that tan okay with
the peanut butter interior nice it was a four-speed and I remember being six seven
years old shifting and I turned 16 and I'll be damned there was one for sale by
the house and so I bought it was my first car I've had one ever since yeah
that's cool it's just a you know it's not just the car it's the VW
community everybody it's just it's it's awesome it's amazing yeah no we agree
especially being in Rust Belt like it's hard to find something that's like a
decent car it is that's a great segue to our trip absolutely yeah that's a
really good segue because we know about it's like they were talking like our
other friends that are down Georgia like they don't have rusted out cars no we
do it so like we're like oh it's a little rust that's a solid car we're
like they would like that's a car should be going scrap yeah and like we just have
a different perspective on these kind of cars and what is save a bone what's not
but we think like most everything's sayable they're like no junk quarter
size flake a whole rust yeah it's crazy yeah it's a different perspective yeah
yeah alright so how did it whose idea was it where to come from well Derek
from Washington went to madness in 2024 so we were all together had a few
drinks and we're like hey what if we all went and got trucks yeah that's really how
it started and it was it was kind of a joke at first so shout to madness for
putting this together exactly yeah madness madness really is now was this all
your first time at madness no we had been quite a few times okay it was the
first time for Derek he flew in and drove my cub van that's nice yep the
masses from time good yeah and I think basically once we started talking about
Matt kind of became the driver force behind it I was like he wanted to let's do
this shit then like we just talked about it let's quit talking about it and let's
do it so I went on Facebook and I said hey I just bought a truck get your
ass in gear really yeah so I bought I bought my truck right off the bat right
off the road else is like alright man here we go I went I went in there
trying there was a couple there was like a lot of three cars and I was like
oh shit I'll buy all three of these yeah it was like a 78 and two trucks and I'm
like hell yeah that'd be perfect well the guy sold one and then sold the other
one and I bought the third truck yeah well I hunted down the guy he sold
that truck to and I said hey I know you paid a hundred fifty bucks for this
truck yeah I'll give you 500 for it right now he said sold wow okay and that
$500 goes right into my price range yeah I'm not a huge fan of any number above
a thousand yeah I saw 500 I'm like it's okay it doesn't have brakes it's okay
it doesn't have suspension it's okay it doesn't have engine transmission seats
anything yeah we'll get you over that thousand real I can make that happen
that I could put that stuff on like a credit card like sell some stuff you
know but basically that's how that one lended itself to come by it's cuz it was
right in the price range yeah but that shell is the cleanest truck probably
I've ever seen really I mean it's unbelievable there's absolutely nothing
anywhere wow crazy and somebody parted that thing out everything is gone like
where was it sitting how is it so clean where when you got there like was it
was it in a building was it outside so they were in central Washington yeah
and your east of the Cascade mountain range at that point and it's a desert and
it's unbelievably dry there sure a lot of people assume that oh well it's up
north of course are gonna be rusty they don't really use road salt yeah they
use like if it's really bad they'll use like coarse rock salt yeah but that's
like you can't even hardly drive at that point yeah they grade the roads
they use sand and stuff but there's no humidity there so they really it
doesn't rain that much there's no humidity they just last forever that's
crazy yeah it's it's incredible so it's kind of a oasis for old cars yeah did I
fall off a little bit though because I'm I'm only hearing there's two trucks at
this point or was it yeah so it was originally gonna be the three right
it's and then what what happened was they they sold the two and I bought the
third I ended up chasing down the other one okay which is Ricky's guy James his
truck was a little different yeah so I did a job out in Seattle it was a
marketing job last September and I was staying with Derek for a couple days and
he's like we should go find you a truck he's like I know where there's one
sitting on the side of the road okay and that was the gold truck that I bought
right it was literally on the side of the road had been for 10 years how how
did nobody else nobody that up nobody cares it's some people had asked but it was
a it was a funny funny timing thing because the guy that owned them lived in
town these trucks were at a lot outside of town and like there was a house
across the street and they were sick of people asking clearly yeah but they said
oh it belongs to Jerry he lives in in Yakima go ask go find him go ask him
and I guess he had been telling people no for years sure until Derek asked it was
just the right time you know what I have been thinking about sure and that was
a pretty complete truck then yeah it was yeah it was very complete it was
disgusting there was no rear window and there hadn't been a rear window for
probably everybody 10 years so I'm it looked like a cat had died underneath
the passenger seat and it smelled like it too it's like mess up it's Christmas
weekend under the chair that's fantastic this is the one for me yeah yeah I knew
when I saw it buddy but no it was complete it was an 81 it's a 116 in a
five-speed and the only thing it was missing mechanically where it was the
fuel injectors we roll the dice it was too grand yeah it's too grand and it
was it's just unbelievably clean that's awesome no damage like there's not a
hardly a door dang on it wow the bed is no rust beds perfect that's always nice
yeah I mean how are the beds on all three trucks my my bed's a little beat up
your bed actually isn't terrible it's pretty good yeah James's bed is like
perfect yeah so mine ended up rolling a hundred thousand on the drive home okay
it was under a thousand yeah it had like 98 thousand when we left so let's
start from when you guys are like all right we're doing this you know so Derek
obviously has helped to get this really yeah none of this was possible without
Derek yeah because yeah once they were bought from there Derek got sent on nice
little journeys to go trailer one home and then trailer the next home so it
was like little updates and he was he was basically the main reason it could
even happen the fact he's out there could drag him home but yeah at the
next after step after buying them was him getting him to his house and then he
kind of went and where's his house in yack yeah okay okay we had seven rabbit
pickups at his house at one point seven so there's why where are the other
ones what were the other ones were just who's buying them where are they
coming from the other ones are his oh okay he has three Gaia and then there
was a parts truck involved and then the ones that we had bought but that way we
knew that they were all safe they we were counting on somebody like you know
well we got 500 bucks on this one hopefully he won't sell it yeah so Derek
went and picked him up they were at his house and plus we knew what they
needed right so we kind of we would FaceTime and like okay so like go through
the breaks what do we need to buy we were sending him you know boxes from
Rock Auto yeah yeah I think we sent over 40 boxes now he's just stockpiling
them in that corner and then you guys are gonna get to it all and okay on my
Instagram is a picture of just my bed entirely filled up feet high with just
boxes my Rock Auto order was I think $1,100 $132 parts 11 shipments holy
shit it was a lot once yeah one go yeah plus 12 tires we were sending tires
yeah we all sent tires out there so he's just got my piles of tires all over the
place trying I mean it was so bad were you guys kind of when you that's a I mean
so you're ordering tires are you all ordering the same tires I mean it was
that pretty much yeah you guys are kind of like this was around Black Friday and
they had some like stupid you could get four tires 413 for like 120 bucks
shipped nice yeah yeah yeah what were they Chinese tires oh yeah
Accelera I think right right I don't know 3899 full ways yeah
Ling longs oh yeah those are kind of expensive
all right so many things being shipped to his house we got seven trucks just
sitting around three of which are yours yeah you know what's funny before we
get into more of it this morning came down and obviously we're here we're at
the show so I just threw on 1998 YouTube video of
Werthersee right and you just see all these cars around not a single pickup
out of like like almost a two-hour video and they weren't cool for a long
time right that's like they everyone wanted a golf a GTI like it was a
hatchback thing like it wasn't and a couple sedans right like you have a jet
of coupe or whatever but back in the day people were rocking no hiccups you know
over the last like 15 years or so like people really like pickups and now it's
like where all the pickups there's more pickers than I ever seen let's line
them all up let's take pictures all these pick you know it's it's a fun
thing so like they're kind of still out there like well I'll speak on I'll
speak on Derek's behalf I mean the reason he's in the VW is the way that he is is
his dad's a machinist and has worked for himself for years and years and years
and his truck like his shop truck was a rabbit pickup yeah yeah this big like
ladder rack on top where he would put parts and like he'd go to the steel
mill and buy 20 foot sections of pipe and stuff and he would haul around
with his rabbit so it really was just a tool for him yeah he didn't
necessarily love them right but that's what he grew up with right exactly
yeah and now I mean people I they're so ironically like small and cool that like
you know you see you obviously like you find the biggest truck you can and
park right next to a picture because that's awesome yeah so okay so you
guys are gathering up all your parts and then what do you do you hit the
road well we we spent a few months gathering so that was probably nine
months six seven months I don't know seven or seven it's all blurry at this
point we'll say seven months from when this whole thing started to when we
flew out there yeah because you're not putting together one truck you gotta
get three trucks up and running right ready to make a truck across the
country yeah right so Ricky's truck had no engine my truck didn't run it
had no compression and then Matt's truck ran and drove but needed some
stuff yeah yeah so they were all in varying condition and of course we
were worried about Ricky's truck because it needed so yeah had nothing it was
bare I mean yeah I mean bear like and everything was gone didn't bother me a
lick I'm a little bit overly optimistic and mildly delusional so my head I'm like
I'm going out there I'm bolting some parts to it driving it home all there is
to it I mean in reality that's exactly what you're doing it's just
important yeah if you always boil it down that is what you are doing for sure
you weren't wrong so I think this third trip whatever's next is gonna really
bite me in the ass because like these first though that Fairmont smooth truck
smooth I'm gonna get humbled on this next one oh yeah third time's a charm yeah
yeah so so what happened like anything anything wild we got everything yeah flew
out there and I had seen the trucks because I was out there in September
at that point they had picked up Ricky's and Matt's truck and we went to look at
mine so I'd already seen everything these guys hadn't seen him yet so it was
their first time seeing him and Ricky going oh god oh boy yeah cuz it's one
thing to think about it men to see it but you know what's so nice like you're
all there together for one goal right yeah so it's so much easier than just one
but guy go I mean how did you guys tackle it was it were all three of us
are gonna work on this truck and then we're gonna move over to this truck or
was it just that was scattered out that was the plan initially right and then by
the time we got there we kind of just scattered and worked on all three at
the same everybody was excited about their trucks so everybody got there
saw their truck and just went to work on it and at this point we have some
other friends in Washington so they were over we had like 10 people at
Derek's house helping get all these things going and how long did this
process take four days I think it was about four days long days right long days
so like was it kind of like your truck semi easy so that let's move on to the
problematic truck I'll be honest with you I pulled it apart I checked the
timing about everything was beautiful I didn't do shit to this truck to be
honest with you I didn't I I checked everything I got the brakes to work
and I used the original brake pads I didn't do anything wow oh wow topped it off
I got some of the lights working the you know turn signals nothing really works
you know get all the all the mice out of the blower yeah that's pretty standard
operation and yeah I kind of filled it up and just hit the road I mean I
didn't do much yeah so within that seven months between us starting this
idea to flying out there Derek had picked up all the trucks and he started to go
through mine because we didn't know if it needed a engine or not right so he he
discovered that the valve seats were so dirty it couldn't make any compression
so he actually rebuilt a head for it put it together enough to know that it
would run to say okay we don't need an engine for this thing like it'll it'll
make it home yeah so by the time we got there I it actually ran great it
ran one of the better running one sixes I've ever had wow so at that point all I
really had to do was you know brakes tires and clean out the inside yes the
rear window back in yeah yeah that's important right just right and then
Ricky's truck yeah yeah them for mine I got lucky with the drive train I
found there's guy who pulled out the one five up with the carb and the
trans for a hundred bucks he was selling it so I went and got that and luckily
James when that trip they had to go over there we got his truck was able to take
it out there for me so that covered shipping and everything so once I got
there the very first day was in it within an hour I had all the suspension
pulled just start basically stripping it yeah up on jack stands so tried to
knock out what was easiest first yeah start get so call the suspension all
the brakes get the exhausts hung so it was all the whole exhausts was there it's
still what was hanging there that hangers were gone but then just clean out the
interior which mine out of all of them was the only one that didn't stink at all
still doesn't smell it doesn't smell like rat pee it doesn't get wet in there
it's like one of the few that I personally don't mind my sense of
smell is not very good but I don't I don't think it's too musty in that
personally again ask everybody else yeah which which is like which was the
roughest body out of all three probably mine yeah yeah for sure it's it's not I
don't even know how to explain it how would you explain that it's rusty but
not rotten yeah I had some ruster on the rear window okay and then like maybe a
little bit in like the pinch welds but comparatively again yeah it's a little
the trucks here yeah I mean yeah the parts that matter were perfect yeah so yeah
it's not bad as there's no holes there's not rotten it's just got a little rust on
it yeah so four days later you guys kind of are quote-unquote buttoning this up
right we hadn't driven Ricky's truck yet actually didn't even run until
Saturday night we left Sunday morning and you knew you were leaving Sunday
morning like that was a deadline yeah yeah yeah we had to get back to work
so yeah Saturday night we rolled Ricky's truck out of the shop and basically
just got fired up and took it around the block and tried to iron everything out
as we could luckily it wasn't too bad but there's a handful little issues that
popped up and I think we worked till two or three trying to iron those out
on Sunday the last day that would have been was that Saturday no wait what
did we leave set Sunday yeah yeah it's a blurry yeah so blurry but basically we
worked on it for about three or four hours before we hit the road to make sure if
I remember correctly you know this guy is so optimistic though yeah I mean like
dude you need it yeah we show up with a book with a pile of parts that nobody
even knows what anything about it right what it actually doesn't either
doesn't because like if you have nothing in there yeah what do you what
did you replace so if it wasn't for that parts truck I would have been really
dead in the water yeah like booster master brake lines so out there out there
since there's no rust Derek's never replaced a caliper he's never replaced a
brake line unless it was ever missing like they don't why oh they don't rust
and see that they say like you use like the factory brake pads on you know I
just cleaned it up put it back together yeah I mean the break all the
emergency brakes work everything works perfectly wow and worked from the
get-go there was nothing on the truck break that was the only thing that was
there right wow yeah it's hard to like wrap your header on there yeah I mean it's
just it's just not where we live yeah yeah yeah driving around Yakima as a
fever dream because there's old everybody has an old car yeah and
everybody's old car rocks yeah super clean super nice like even if it's just
a shitty old car to them it's like sure you know Fairmont wagon so like hey
honey where do you want to go on vacation now Florida no Yakima yeah what's
in Yakima wait it's fantastic out there really dry there
bloody noses and little trucks yeah right bring the ocean yeah yeah so you guys
like took off and this is like your main voyage all three together yeah and did
you like I'm sure people are like holy shit you're probably getting looks on
wait phones jammed in the window taking pictures yeah so we went the same route
that I was gonna go with the yellow truck okay there's a few different ways
you can bring it all around yeah so we went out 90 through Spokane yeah as
we're driving through I'm like oh man here we go again yeah only this time
we're killing it right we nothing had gone wrong we had gone it was super
hot yeah I mean this was late May and again we're driving to the desert
it's unbelievably hot yeah 90 plus oh yeah it was low low to mid 90s yeah so
we're driving and we get through Spokane into Idaho and it was just it was awesome
it was so great yeah but instead of just staying on 90 and cutting like down
through Chicago we went through Montana and kind of like into the side like the
West entrance of Yellowstone okay so we drove a piece of Yellowstone under
the Grand Tetons that was unbelievable scenery you guys were posted on believable
you guys got the video it's like epic it's just it's just incredible it was
amazing it's just fantastic mm-hmm and then even better yet when we had the
first breakdown in Yellowstone I got to replace my fuel pump looking at the
geysers it was fantastic oh yeah it's our fuel pump to the crowd oh yeah so you
guys guys are of your own yeah so you guys actually had parts with
you to just in case oh yeah yeah so both of the issues I had on the trip starting
with the fuel pump were things that I essentially didn't have time to do or
I was like well what's on there works okay leave it be so like the truck maybe
the fuel pump was still yeah you had the original mechanical pump and then when
that died I had just some cheap $10 am like yeah to use so just imagine a
35 year old pump mechanical pump it made it 700 miles yeah that's pretty
impressive that is impressive yeah I mean I was shocked kudos to that shot to the
pump did you guys did you guys stay there did you guys stay in the park or no we
didn't stay in the park we got through that night because we were already kind
of behind schedule just taking our time because there's so much to look at oh
god there's so much to look at and we did have a couple little issues along
the way so we were stopping a lot and I think that night we stayed just
south of Grand Teton National Park okay so we had just gotten out of the park
probably a couple hours you know from that point you're kind of like working
your way down towards interstate 80 yeah you kind of meet it at Cheyenne okay
then you're headed east from there right so do you have what you have
Montana and Wyoming are just right there on the corner right yeah right
right so a very small part of the park is in Montana yes most of it's in
Wyoming were you guys camping at all or I think we talked about it but by
the time you're there and trying to get home it's like yeah we're gonna get a
hotel right yeah yeah yeah I mean it's so it's like poetic right it is you know
you all have these trucks you could be camping in the trucks looking on this
you know at the stars but yeah I get it too yeah we especially sweating your
ass off right oh my god right a nice shower does right until we got into
Yellowstone once we got into Yellowstone there was three-foot of snow
on the ground really yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah there was snow everywhere yeah
well okay so that's another good point the elevation 13 inch Chinese tires couldn't
go through didn't we didn't really account for the elevation in Yellowstone
and especially Grand Teton we hit 10,000 feet and Grand Teton and I think at
that point the 160 was making 19 horsepower yeah it was
unbelievably smoky and slow just just no air I mean yeah yeah it's amazing like
you don't think about that until you're there did you guys feel it at all yeah
yeah oh yeah for sure yeah oh yeah my little one six was puffing it was puffing
black smoke out it was not having a good time we kept having to adjust the
carb on it but they had one point when we got up near the 10,000 foot
elevation point it was nothing but snow there were no cars I might just be
a wuss personally but I was in the back of the line looking at the two feeling
cold drafts of like 32 degree weather and I was that's the first time I was like
okay now I'm scared right we break down here it's cold there's nothing yeah
one and I don't know these two thought I was fine but great that's fine that's
the best part about going with other people when you go at this alone in
some shitty old car you're thinking about everything that can and
go wrong but when you guys do other people with you and a lot more fun and
you get to well it's just you push each other to keep going to right what keeps
the mood light to yes and that's you get in your own head it's yeah exactly you're
kind of fighting yourself at that point yeah 100% yeah once once we hit 10,000
feet I think Ricky could only go like half throttle right oh yeah mine would
start bucking every single time you try to give it a throttle it would
just start kicking it felt like the engine was gonna jump out the hood how long
was that how long were you that high in elevation we were between 7 and 10,000
feet for hour to three okay so then it was it was a better part of the day yeah
it was quite yeah because by the time we had gotten in the Yellowstone we were
already at 6 or 7,000 feet what do you think average speeds were going
through all this slow yeah the speed limit through there is 35 oh okay so which
is I mean almost doesn't matter because that's about as fast as we can go yeah
honestly I mean some of those hills you're in second gear matted yeah I mean I
spent a lot of time in second gear that's that's amazing yeah just smoking
and temp was yeah it was not great but did you guys find any good spots to
eat any good places that stick out or not really we didn't really plan anything at
all so when we were going through places it was typically at ridiculous hours yeah
so we we had no place to go everything lives in small town everything shuts down
six o'clock hits everybody goes home yeah okay so the night that we stopped
after Grand Teton and fight in the elevation we wanted a place to eat and
there was we asked the guy at the hotel that checked us in sure anyways like oh
there's a there's like a store just up the way they closed in five minutes we got
our cars and we floored it up there and they were like flipping the sign around I
mean they were like okay come on in it's just a crappy grocery store there's no
restaurant yeah there's nothing anywhere out there there's why there is
nothing in Wyoming just a bunch of beef and cheddar sticks yeah as far as
you can see water yeah some cashews maybe it's just amazing yeah I'm sure it
unreal worth it right oh I mean it sounded like quite an amazing trek you guys
run I was fantastic anyone hit or kill a deer luckily not yeah that's good come
from I mean some people do it you know we saw moose we did side of the road
wow yeah yeah a couple of me that's it oh you're done yeah trucks totaled it's
walking away yeah yeah so when did you guys feel like you were like almost on
the home stretch I bet you all had like different feelings about all that yeah
I think the last day is is the home stretch yeah right cuz like that's the
one day where you're like okay I can actually get home tonight yeah supposing
nothing happened how long and all did it take from when you left the debt
driveway to when you pulled into your house three and a half days four days
almost as four days almost four days wow yeah we like the first two days we
only went like four five hundred miles a day we were kind of taking our time
yeah and then obviously going through that elevation you had right yeah
I always say the first third of that drive is what you're there for yeah
the remaining two-thirds is terrible right cuz you're in Nebraska yeah there's
nothing else there and we did break down in Nebraska oh did you that was when my
ignition like my point system failed it was about a I think it was a four lane
exit ramp into a city which led directly into the police department so
we're dead at the light three trucks deep police department none of the trucks
completely legal yeah so then we have to push it across the intersection caddy
across the long way across into the parking lot and then luckily the cops
there were cool they didn't really care they checked plates right and that was
where we ended up having to swap to so like the electronic ignition off of
like seat later CIS okay and which that was kind of iffy because it was stuff
I had out of my been at home I shipped to Derek's so like my
distributor like connector on it is broke and dangling so when we put it in
we're like is this might work this might work and luckily it did yeah but good
enough to keep you going good enough to keep me going yeah yeah like you said
it's like you know I'm not really completely legal and it's like that we've
done a lot of dumb shit over the years oh yeah we're like your dry things with
in our defense we tried we did we did we tried and they make it hard they
make it hard for us so that's true that is true right yeah yeah it's not easy to
do these crazy trips exactly yeah yeah yeah we had in Washington you can buy a
three-day temp pass okay called a pass not even a temp tag so you can't even get
home on that and they're like well by the way this is only legal in Washington
sure yeah why is that is that for if someone were to say to be moving and
they had a car that was just sitting on their property maybe to just get it
from I think legally I think and another way obviously to get money well in Ohio
you can buy like a 60-day or 45-day okay real temp tag you have to have the
physical title yeah it doesn't have to be in your name right but as long as you
have the title you can you can get one oh well we didn't have the titles yeah
oh you there's no title these drugs did we didn't have them in Ohio before we
left was that a pain in the ass to the whole title thing and everything
else well I still am working on getting my guy as the truck is curvy and wild in
New Jersey from Ohio it's great if my plate was ran it might actually be a
cabriolet okay no I listen it looks like a cabriolet I have two silver wagons in
my house and one smart for Jetta one to be five applesot but they're both
silver wagons and the plate probably goes from one to the other back and
four yeah it's totally fine so I'm at like it's a six to eight window of like
basically mailing the title out in Washington for the dude whose name it
was in for hate once he mailed it out it was six to eight weeks were about at
the eight-week point now that truck that truck wasn't owned by the same
guy that owned well he bought the truck he signed it filled it out and then
decided that was all I wanted never put in his name and he's like no I did my
part and I was like no you're skipping taxes yeah thank you to court and he's
just like oh no no sorry yeah just gonna figure it out let's man I want this in
care yeah and they started being nice worked with me so nice hopefully any
time it should be shown up in his mailbox and then it can finally be my truck
yeah it can have some real plates yeah Washington is very strange they they will
let you jump four times on a title oh okay and so four different people can sign
the same damn title that's not in anybody's name so like yeah so try bringing
that to Ohio sure yeah and Ohio is a notary state too correct so they're
looking at this going what is this legitimate what are you doing is to
look at you but get fucked yeah how have we not standardized that across I don't
know it is the toughest part of this whole thing it is when you bring
something from Georgia do I have problems yeah what is this well they
look at it and you'll stump those people behind the desk right and that's their
job they're like yeah this isn't right you're like well why every time we walk
in so to our title place you don't know if you're coming out with yeah you like
you don't know what you're getting yourself into you think you got your
shit together and oh someone always goes wait a minute you fuck you know yeah my
wife hates very strange on Tampa because she knows every time I'm coming out
with not what we need yeah so like my truck I got from Texas Pennsylvania
sorry get sidetracked here really Pennsylvania will truck talk yeah truck
so because it's considered an actual truck it needs to be weighed and Pennsylvania
likes to do these things of like you've got to have verification for that weight
so you've got to go get it weighed and then have an inspection place sign off
on it just to put in your name right it's like what it's a rabbit pickup
truck we have a seventeen hundred pounds right it's like I think my way like
twenty one eight year two thousand eighty six like yeah we have inspections to
yeah so crazy yeah well some of you don't I don't know yeah part of the state
does but really yeah yeah half the state does half the state check right yeah
there's a checks and half the state radically different yeah that's why
seven counties in Northeast Ohio have it only seven that's it I'm in the
Wild West where it's cool yeah yeah we don't have a missing in our areas for
just for the couple counties we're in yeah that's true yeah yeah yeah is there
anything notable that we're gonna try to keep this right around an hour so we're
about there is there anything notable that you guys would like to talk about
other than your awesome trip it's an adventure that so many people won't do
they'll they'll look at it and they'll be like man that's something that
would be a lot of fun yeah and kudos to you guys for actually getting off
your ass and doing it yeah definitely we said that so many times you know like
you only live once and something like that is something you'll remember until you
get Alzheimer's and don't remember every time we get together every Sunday we
get together we talk about it yeah yeah friends family kids kids kids whoever
watching this and seeing this big wow these guys did what yeah in pickup
trucks right you know it's great I have like a normal job with normal people
you know so when you say something like that people are they just go to work
they go home they watch football they go back to work they go home they eat their
dinner and they couldn't even fathom doing something like that they won't
drive an hour away what you can you know and it's something to be proud of I
think yeah and like with with that being said I'm going school for
engineer I've done a couple engineering co-ops and when I tell people at my
co-op like that that I'm going across the country yeah in a few days to do this
trip that no one ever understands yeah caught off guard by it yeah and some
people really they're almost like offended yeah they're almost like seriously
yeah they're like why would you do you know you get the scrunched up face
why would you do something like that why wouldn't yeah yeah that's my sister
that's how she is yeah I've done it oh this was probably my fifth trip
I think and the best I mean the more people you take the more people you have
with you it's yeah for sure it's amazing that's awesome yeah well I thank you
guys for coming on I thank you for sharing the story if there's anywhere
where people want to follow you guys you guys can anyone of you can say
anything I'm just Ricky Amser on Instagram that's about all I got
cool Matt MCD 22 on Instagram yep I'm James see on Instagram nice well thank
you guys for coming on thanks for having us yeah it's been a blast yeah I
appreciate it yeah cuz like really like you know we follow this all the way
through and it's like seeing everything I've seen for you guys over the years
too and it's like seeing your shows and be able to actually get together sit down
talk about it it's it's cool yeah well we'll do it again and then we'll come
back definitely you're always welcome back can't skip the shout out to Derek Ripley
because he's the reason all this can happen in the main place like in the
first place so I think his Instagram is just there Ripley on there Derek dash
Ripley okay yeah thanks man all right guys thanks we'll catch you next time
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