Brycen Smith of PRD Design

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It was like wild-ticking UTI, they would always have commercials on. Wild-tick had it from the marketing side, they were always way cooler looking at UTI stuff.

UTI obviously felt like a NASCAR pit crew guy you would go, it just had the uniforms, the look, the wild-tick felt more exotic.

It also doesn't sound like something that your girlfriend tells you she just got either.

Do you have any idea what was going on? What was going to happen?

I was hoping it would maybe get to like 55 or 60, and that was just out of total, in my head, that was kind of a pipe green.

That was the home run number, that was like the home run number.

And then there's very few times in my life that I've actually been speechless.

And when that thing, you know, when the hammer dropped at 130, I just did like a new challenge for SEMA for Jeff Dunham.

It was like on the most part stage at SEMA and the whole thing.

You had to have a little car seats in the back for all the little dummies and socks.

But the Godzilla is actually about six inches narrower than a coyote.

I think the coyote, George Potete said it best.

Oh, here we go. I agree with you, but here we go.

When George said, Jeff.

Good coyote.

He did. You never felt VTEC.

I was just going to say that.

I mean, I felt it.

I know you can't feel VTEC. You're next still fine.

You've obviously never felt VTEC.

You're listening to another episode of oil and whiskey.

I'm your host.

No, I always wanted to do that.

Sorry.

This week we have Bryson Smith fabricated metal, Instagram handle fabricated, spelled with a Y.

Just so it should show up, but just so everybody knows.

Owner of PRD designs, right?

PRD design.

All the way in person in studio.

Bryson, good to have you.

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Thanks for coming out, dude.

Thanks for having me.

It was a fairly easy drive over here.

We actually made it multiple times this year.

We come over to a company called Ready Strip.

It has things stripped.

Yeah.

A little closer that we do.

Make the haul all the way out there.

Yeah, I mean obviously when you live out in the middle of nowhere in Iowa, you're going to find where places can accommodate what you're trying to do.

How far of a drive is it?

Well to hear was five and a half hours, but yeah it's like right at five.

It'll be about nine going home to get a snow storm to drive through.

It'll be fun.

Well, I was going to stay the night because I was looking at 4.45 this morning.

Yeah, so yeah.

And then it was like, yeah, it's supposed to snow and I was like, oh, it's maybe just in Chicago.

And I was like, nope, it's supposed to do the same thing at home.

When it does snow, it usually follows the exact trajectory of like your path home.

So I don't always get straight down 80 all the way.

It'll die out right.

It'll die out 20 minutes for you.

Exactly.

Well, Bryce was kind enough to bring us a, this is the first wrapped fully wrapped.

This is exciting.

It's my first gift for you.

It's a present of the year.

It's time to go ahead and open that thing up.

I'm a good kid this season.

Yeah.

It's a confetti bomb.

I was thinking about the radio.

Jingle all the way.

You see that?

It's an Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Sinbad.

It's thinking.

It's nice.

Yeah, we got to look carried away with the tape.

Sorry.

Okay, branding.

Never miss an opportunity.

There you go.

Yeah, right there.

I was going to have some wrapping paper made that I figured that was a little overkill.

Look at that.

Right there.

Overhead.

So PRD stands for project, ruptured duck.

It's what it, yeah, it's what it stands for.

Yeah.

That was what I actually, I was doing the car project and came up with a website for the

car which was PRDDesign.com and then when it came down to the shop, it was kind of like,

you know, I was going to kind of keep that for the shop name as, you know, kind of a way

that in the future, someday when the car gets finished by the time I die, it'll kind of live

on as an ode to the car project of, you know, something that's affected my career a lot.

So.

Well, this one's a new one.

Oh, they got name tags on them.

Sorry.

This one's an absolute new one.

I wanted to bring something from Iowa figured to get an Iowa whiskey in there.

I've never had it.

Seat of Ridge.

Seat of Ridge makes some pretty good stuff from what I hear.

I have had theirs a little bit by the time.

The quintessential signature blend.

See, handcrafted from pure, multi-barley, agent, American oak and uniquely cast finish,

the particular sort of married matured with upfront, deep stone fruit balanced by a subtle

peat finish.

The single malt sets a very similar to a rich and complex sweet thanks, dude.

Oh, man.

I figured, you know, candies, free ridges, fillery, yeah, appreciate that, man.

I've got a little sweet treats on the side there.

I dig it.

Thanks, man.

I appreciate that.

That'd be cool.

Let's crack this open.

Yeah, absolutely.

Seater.

We're going to need some of those, Josh, before you scamper off with them.

I don't know unless I'm tricking at it, fills the mess.

Oh, see, poor Phil can't be with us tonight.

I'm going to eat all Phil's candy though.

Well, he already opened it.

So he's already going to have to do that.

I don't know what happens.

He's already going to have to do that.

I don't know what happens.

And they sucker for a snickers.

Yeah, I'm not much of a regular candy person, but usually if I go to a candy bar, it's

a snickers.

I eat like a fat kid candy when I'm away from my wife, not allowed to have that.

I got you.

Centuries old techniques.

Man, thank you very much, Bryce, and that's amazing.

No problem.

Some dude.

And you wrap that yourself.

I did.

Get attention.

Don't do that.

Don't know how you...

Cheers, dude.

Yeah, absolutely.

Cheers.

Look at that.

That's a great glass.

Oh, yeah.

Single malt whiskey.

Yeah.

Damn.

That's pretty damn good.

Quite drinkable.

It's for someone who's enjoyable.

Generally not a PD guy.

That's got very much more like bourbon kind of sweeter notes than it doesn't have the

band-aid aftertaste.

I love it.

It needs stuff.

The band-aid aftertaste.

That's a rough one.

Yeah, when I was getting nervous with scotches and stuff like that, especially when somebody's

like, oh, man, this one's, you know, 27-year, and it's super this, super that, and it's

whoa.

Or when the description has leather, hints of leather shoe in it, then you know it's like,

oh, it's going into it.

I don't know.

How big of a hint of leather shoe is that?

How many miles are on those shoes?

It's just like a smidgen of it.

Oh, man, we've been looking forward to doing this and this can be fun.

There's a lot to your story.

A lot.

Yeah.

You've been around the block, man.

Done some cool stuff.

Yeah, it's been, it's been an interesting journey.

I don't, you know, I kind of feel like I watched some of these, you know, podcasts that

you guys put on, and I'm always, I'm always, you know, I'm always intrigued, obviously,

you know, guys like Troy and Ring Brothers and all that just to hear what they've got

to say, obviously, the amount of experience and all that stuff because they're old, you

know, and then, obviously, we're going to do this.

I'm like, I'm going to talk about it and, you know, I start, I've mentioned it a few

people and they're like, dude, you don't know what kind of stuff I'm like, I guess I need

to.

Yeah.

You guys don't need to go back to my own story, my own head.

Yeah, you probably get numb to it, right, because your head's down, you're on the gas.

You're not thinking about where you were, thinking about where you're going.

I'm assuming.

Yeah.

And you got a cool thing going now, but I mean, damn, I've known you since your iron works

days.

Yeah.

You were before that.

If that's where you cut your first place, yeah, right at a wiretick, and was there for

seven years, and then went to work for Alan Palmer for a year, really, there's no Alan

per well.

So worked for him for a year.

That was kind of my way out of the first place and then went from his place to Scott's

Outrads.

And was there for six years and obviously it was Alan like super non-committal in hiring

you.

It is a problem with commitment.

Great guy.

I can't commit to shit.

Would you love him to death?

Would you build when you were at Alan's?

Was that the Mustang?

They already had it mostly done.

I did.

I don't know if you guys were calling that the white Mustang.

Yeah.

I like that.

Yeah.

If you looked at the door windows in that car, it had metal door frames like around the

top of the windows.

Yeah, really?

Even though it's a Mustang, it's not straight ahead of that.

But for whatever reason that was something I wanted to do, and I shaped all those things.

So the glass actually slid up into a little sheet metal channel.

Yeah, I've done it.

It was.

Yeah, that was kind of a lot.

I mean, other than some other little tiny mechanical things, whatever it's about all I did on it.

I don't know.

When I was at Alan's, I think we did like a new challenger for SEMA for Jeff Dunham.

It was like on the most part stage at SEMA and the whole day.

Do you have a little car seats in the back for all the little dummies and stuff?

No, but it was, it was purple and it was.

He's into weird shit.

Yeah.

Dunham's into weird shit.

Well, so one of the things we worked on was one of the, I don't know which specific one.

I think it was from the Batman Returns with Catwoman and Michael Keaton.

Anyway, one of the Batmobiles that Jeff Dunham had, we kind of restored that deal and, you

know, whatever.

I did some work on that.

It was kind of just bouncing around everywhere.

But.

Take us through the hiring process at Ironworks because coming right off the heels of listening

to Levi's story, coming out of a wild tech and, you know, sending out resumes and getting

hired.

I want to hear about how that process was and when did it start.

A lot of guys out there that are, that are, either trying to get into the industry,

haven't gotten into or just got into it, I think it's a, it's something we don't talk near

enough about about the landing of the job when you have limited, limited skills, limited,

limited skills.

Yeah.

Interesting.

I'd be interested to hear how you arrived at, like, that's the spot.

This is where I want to go because you're, you were Iowa guy originally, right?

Oh, Ohio.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Went to, went to Blair'sville, Pennsylvania, Ohio Tech campus and then, you know, was there

for 10 months this or whatever and then, yeah, basically it was either, you know, move

home and try to find a job in a dealership or, you know, whatever that way.

You know, by the time, I mean, this is 2005.

So at the time when you would graduate, they would have you list a couple of states that

you'd be interested in finding jobs in and if they had any, any contacts that were looking

for employment or employees at the time they would send information out.

And so I just put, at the time I put Ohio because that's always the way I lived and then

I put Florida and I put California, I was actually born in Florida and part of my thought

was just good weather and, you know, whatever down there.

But then California because, so I graduated high school in 2004, but right before then

that was when American Hot Rod was on TV.

And I mean, California, man, that was hot rod.

That was when the light bulb went off, you know, like, hey, that's the mecca.

You mean you can get a job working in a hot rod shop, like working on classic cars and

like, that's what I want to do.

And get talked to like that every day.

Well, obviously as a high schooler looking at it from the entertainment standpoint, that

side of it didn't really click in my head.

No, of course not.

But it was, no, it was, I mean, we talked about it a hundred times is, that's the unfortunate

thing that's missing today in the high school side of things of the selling that, that

wow, and that cool, and that like holy shit, I can do that for the living.

Also creative.

Well, part of what made me go to Wyotick was that American Hot Rod was on TV.

And then Wyotick would also have, it was like Wyotick and UTI, they would always have

commercials on whatever, but then also like right about that same time, one of the reps

for Wyotick came to my high school and we walked into lunchroom and he had like a table

set up and had a TV behind him and they had this promo video on.

There's just hot rods on the screen and all of a sudden I'm like, I can go there and

learn how to work on hard work.

Wyotick had it from the marketing side.

They were always way cooler looking at UTI stuff.

Yeah.

UTI just always, I don't know, they had a ton of commercials, I mean, if you were watching,

I don't know, was that spike TV at that point, or was it still the Nashville network?

Spike TV, probably.

Probably spike at that point.

Nashville is before then.

Yeah.

But I mean, those UTI, they were just like a repeat, constant repeat, but UTIs just felt

like a NASCAR pit crew guy you would go, like it just had the uniforms, the look, Wyotick

felt more exotic, like it had a lot more to offer.

Well, it doesn't sound like something that your girlfriend tells you she just got

either.

I should have changed the name, like that's not, yeah, not the best.

Somebody said, at some point in the early days, it should have probably come up.

Well, I think, to your point, I think UTI kind of had, it was almost like they were appealing

more towards commercial-wise anyway, more guys that wanted to work in.

The other mechanics stuff.

Yeah, Wyotick was more geared towards, their marketing was all based on the cool factor,

the hogrod, the custom car, the whatever, because they obviously had their base programs,

but then it was like, come take our street ride class, so when I went, I mean, obviously,

Wyotick's gone through insane changes since I went, but it was chassis fabrication class,

and then it was also mixed with high performance engines, and then they had their streetrod

class, which was then you learned how to do custom painting and sheet metal repair and

that sort of thing, but it was, they did such a good job around that end of it of just

marketing that to, hey, come take our base classes, but be cool and take these classes

like for fun, you know, and yeah, so, you know, like I said, the light bulb went on,

I went there and, you know, it was broke as a joke, and basically I wanted to take more,

I wanted to take the streetrod class, but then just had zero money to make it happen.

So, you know, all of a sudden my stepmom called me up one day and was like, hey, they sent

you some information about a place in California looking for, you know, people, and I'm like,

I can't afford to move to California, like, you know, it was just kind of a pipe dream

at that time, and a good friend of mine who lived next door to me when I was at WIOTEC, you

know, I'm like, hey, yeah, there's this place. I actually, so I called him up, Dr. Roger

at the phone, on the phone at the time and, you know, he's like, yeah, fly out here and

try out for the job, that sort of thing. And then, little did you know, it was just West

Texas. It wasn't really California. You say you can't afford California. I mean, that's

like L.A. Bakersfield, yeah, you can probably, now you're like, yeah, I can afford this.

When you're in Blair'sville, Pennsylvania, and you have like 20 bucks to your name, everything

is expensive. But, yeah, so I talked to him. He's like, yeah, fly out here and try out for

the job. I was like, well, okay, yeah, sure. And then I was telling my neighbor about it.

And I'm like, he's like, what are you going to do? I'm like, I'm not flying out there.

I'm like, you know, I can barely buy lunch, you know? So, but he was actually from California.

And he lived in, he was like from the corona area. And actually, I think he still lives there.

His name is Rory. But he, he was like, I'll do it all alone. You the money to fly out there.

Like, that's no problem. Just, you know, get out there, get the job and then pay me back.

And I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to take your money. And he's like, no, seriously.

And he like gave me the cash for a plane ticket, which was nuts, you know, and, uh, and, uh,

it's at the 20% interest rate.

Well, so, yeah, so I, uh, you know, I hung out, uh, you know, in Baker'sville for a couple days,

you know, Rodger off me the job. And, uh, I called, I called home and, uh,

because I had a round trip ticket, you know, and I was, so I talked to my dad and I'm like,

you know, he's off me the job. He's like, what do you think? I'm like, well, if I fly home,

I'm gonna have to get a job just to get the money to fly back there, you know, because I'm here now.

Quite the predicament. Yeah. So, uh, he's like, well, why don't you just stay? He's like, you

can find a place to stay. We'll ship your clothes to you, all that stuff, you know, I'm like, okay.

And, uh, so yeah, Rodger's like, we can sleep on, I got, I got a spare room. I don't have a bed.

So I literally for like the first four months, I slept on the floor on some blankets and, uh,

ran at a room from Rodger for a couple months. That was, uh, yeah, but it was, it was cool at the,

I don't know, about a year or two. Well, I guess it would have been probably another year and a half

or so after, uh, after I got out there, I went to SEMA and ran into my, my old, uh,

next door neighbor from Wyotech and, uh, gave him his money back for his airplane ticket. That was,

that, that's pretty cool. And it's cool. That was a legit feeling. Yeah. I was like, yeah, that's bad.

Yeah. Anyway, because I, you know, we kind of lost touch a little bit, but then when I saw him,

I'm like, dude, I owe you money. And I just, you know, it's like, this, this is going to happen. It

felt so good to like, that's cool. Pay that favor back. But uh, sure. Yeah, it was just, uh, really,

I mean, I was, like I said, I mean, I was so broke. I probably took any job at that point. But, uh,

what, what, what Rodger senior, what, what was the interview process? Like, what he put you on?

How does that work in interview? Yeah. I mean, he had a couple guys working for him. Um, and I think, um,

you know, really, it was just having some ability, like, I knew how to basically tick well. I mean,

it was fairly terrible at that point. But, uh, um, you know, I mean, I think you just saw that I was

at least somewhat capable. And uh, I think I started working for him with like nine bucks an hour.

And, uh, you know, I think that's what he's still paying, guys.

I guess, um, roadstitch up way more like if you, if you're, you're, you're, you're, you're a priority design

case. Still hiring employees, by the way. Um, but yeah, so, uh, I started off like, I mean,

just literally anything. It was like, you know, hey, I need somebody to do this. I'll try it.

You know, that was the thing for me is like, uh, I guess if I mess it up, I learned something.

You know, and I still have that mentality. I'm like, you know, obviously even trying to run a

business. It's like, you know, well, I messed it up. Well, do you guys have learned something?

Figure it out. How does that apply? And we were going to bounce all over. We're going to come

right back where we're at. Yeah. Thinking back about you starting out at Rodgers sticking your hand

up. Yeah, absolutely. I'll do that. We also know that, you know, a lot of that stuff, when you are

learning and you have a limited skill set, also when you watch the shows, you went to class,

like, it would be a hot rod builder. Never on any of those ads, rightfully. So they shouldn't have.

Never on any of those ads. They showed the car coming in and they're like showing the disassembly,

showing the antifreeze pouring out, you know, and then the showing you're like, you know,

busing up undercoat underneath or, you know, it's chopping tops and painting. Yeah, it's exactly

all right. But they don't ever do the dynamite sticking to your dickies and stuff like that.

They don't ever. Well, yeah, because I mean, I remember like the, I mean, because I moved there.

So synchody mile was my first day of work. That's it. All I always remember that is for John

York. That's the fifth. The rate and cases.

The reason, obviously, I always remember that because that was the first time my life, I ever had

legit Mexican food because obviously when you're from Ohio, it's like very Midwest Mexican food.

And that's the first day of work. We went to Mexican restaurant in California. And that was

I was addicted to Mexican food. I am too. I can't help it. It's hard not to when you're

I mean, our shop, our shop used to be in Elgin, which is like 40 miles west of here. And

Elgin's basically like Mexico, right? It's, it's high population of Mexicans. It's very authentic.

Like, and everywhere you go, I mean, it is legit. So many different ways you could have said that.

There's a lot of authentic Mexican food in those tacos every day for lunch, man, and good stuff.

Oh, yeah. Love tacos. So you remember synchody mile, authentic Mexican food.

Yeah. And I mean, that's like I said, that was my first day of work out there. But I guess

some trying to remember where I was going, oh, the summertime to your point about what

what they show and don't show about hot rod building is, yeah, you know, you get a job like sweet.

I'm going to be, yeah, chopping tops and painting flames. It's not a little shorty cigar.

I see no gas welding. You know, you're stuck in Bakersfield and it's 110 degrees and you're scraping

grease and dirt and oil and whatever else out of the inside of a frame rail of a 57 Chevy pickup

truck. And just that kind of stuff, you know, it's like, yeah, this, I don't recall this in the

commercials. But, but now thinking through that and now being a shop owner and having employees

and hiring new talent, right? And then doing, getting them to do those things,

does that, do you think about that when you're like onboarding a new guy and saying, hey,

this is some of the stuff you do or that's so long gone? It's, you take it for granted. You're just

like, no, you're going to strip all that undercoat and you're going to cut the tunnel out and you're

going to do that. Like, that's part of it. Yeah, I think, I think for me, obviously growing up,

you know, from being 18 literally getting my first job in hot rod shop to, you know, where I'm at

now is like, I see the process of things and even for the guys, I think anybody that I do hire,

they probably have it better than I ever would have had it back then. Now, I mean, when I started

at Ironworks, I mean, we're like a 23 hundred square foot shop and, you know, it was not a very

large place. So a lot of times I say, you know, in order to do the dirty work, you got to be outside

doing it because there's just no space. You know, and even then, I mean, I've got 7,000 square feet.

So it's not huge, but, but even still, like, I'm always like, how can we get this clean, the fastest,

quickest way to where, yeah, to where I don't have to pay a guy ridiculous amount of hours or whatever

it may be to go scrape stuff, you know, outside in the sweltering heat, there's always going to be

some of that, you know, it's obviously, I mean, there's a truck we finished last year that

the entire truck from the tail pan of the bed all the way up the top of the firewall and the

whole bottom side of the hood was all done in that black tar undercoating like way back in the day.

But we were building this truck to save the original paint on the outside.

It makes it nice. So it was like, because it was a very nice survivor, and, you know, it was like,

sorry guys, but you're going to spend a lot of time outside grinding undercoating also.

I mean, literally like three weeks of billing on grinding undercoating and gets, you know,

because I mean, you can't leave it on there because then you can't code anything over the top of it,

because it's all that oily tar stuff and just mirrors. Oh, it's all, yeah, wire, push it.

I don't care what you go at it with. There's no good way to get it off. So, yeah, the customer's

like, can we sandblast this? I'm like, how are we going to save your original paint?

If you were dry, I splashed any of it. I would love to try that. I have looked into it.

It's just such a, the closest place I found to us that does it is like now in St. Louis.

And I'm like, we've done it a few times. The local welding supplier will rent you the machine.

So they bring it in with just this massive tub of dry ice and it's, it's like 50-50. You get the

right car and it is like the secret weapon and it just sheets off of there and you've got just

mint original metal underneath it. But the stuff like you're talking about the like gooey tarry it,

you could be there and you'll know right away. You either hit it and it starts like flaking off

or just sheeting off or it just says, fuck you. You'll push it. Just sort of like,

he's like, you're going to come harder. Yeah. Yeah. No, I hear you there. It's a,

because even when you go out with a wire wheel or whatever it may be, I mean, you're either like,

all right, this is coming off easy or it's like, I'm going to be here forever. Is anybody figured out

the technique? Like, we run it all the time because we're doing survivors and there's just certain

thing. There isn't a tool that exists. Like, we'll take just a little propane torches and a,

you know, like a gasket scraper or a putty knife to try to get the bulk of it because you hit it

with a wire wheel. It just gums up. You can't touch it with an abrasive pad because it's just

gone. Like, there's no good tool for when you're not going to, what are you going to mask the whole

car, put it on a rotisserie, push it outside, sandblast, and even that it's, there's,

if it does tarry tarry sandblasting doesn't, it's either the only thing. I mean, I think there's

something to the dry ice thing. I just, I don't know if there's a way you could freeze it. You know,

because when it's all gummy like that, there's nothing you do with it, but yeah, when it's a,

if you could somehow freeze it and then, you know, chip it off or grind it off at that point and be,

I don't know, but, you know what liquid nitrogen would do. I used to think, like, first

shatter the native floor. Just liquid nitrogen and then just like going there with an air hammer and

hit the floor and just shatter it. Oh, that's going to go in a 10 minute job. I feel like this needs

to be like a Mythbusters video or something. It does. Of course, somebody's got to have the answer

and chime in and like comment on that because somebody's going to be like, oh, you guys have been

missing the boat for all these years. That's what I'm open for. With all that stuff, do you feel like,

you know, how generally like, as a father, you usually want to, I don't know, do better than,

like, we're not not subject to your kids to the things you had to put yourself through. Do you feel

like you're in that position or are you more than like, you fuck that? I did it. You're gonna do it.

You're gonna get it done. I bust my ass doing this stuff. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot after.

I mean, I think there's something to be said, obviously, when you run in the business, you know,

you don't have to do that stuff anymore. But I mean, I like to think for myself, I try to think in

the way that like, there's nothing I would ask my guys to do that I wouldn't be willing to do myself.

Yeah. You know, I mean, obviously it's all part of the job that needs done, you know, and the TV in

general has made the hot rod building into such a glamorous, glorious thing, which obviously,

we all do it because we love it. But, you know, at some point, it's work. It's dirty work. It's,

you know, hard work. It's, you know, there's times where you're gonna be riding the undercoating off.

And like, what'd you do today? Well, here, let me explain it to you. And then it's like, well, it doesn't sound

very glamorous at all. But it sure helps to have that under your belt because to your point, like,

you never want to ask somebody to do something that you wouldn't do yourself. But I know when I,

when I got my start working for Bill, the very first thing that I did was that he handed me this like,

sandblasting helmet must have been from like the 60s or 70s.

Yeah, it's called diving helmet. And a homemade pressure blaster sent me over to Home Depot to get

silica sand like playground sand because he didn't want to spend the money on like actual abrasive sand

and made me put up like a party tent in the, like a cheapo party tent in the backyard. And then I

took some old 33 three window cube back there. And the helmet plugged into compressed air like into

your piston compressor. So I was breathing that all day. And then the rest of the crap I was breathing

was all the silica sand. And in the middle of the summer, I think I spent like a month out there.

And that sand, I mean, that sand doesn't do shit, right? You're just irritating the car.

Just more from the metal. But haven't gone through that. Now it's like, dude, I don't feel bad asking

you to grind some undercoding. Like the car's on a lift. You've got like fresh air. Like there's

a exhaust fan right behind you. You got all the tools you want. You're not standing on the beating

side. Exactly. So going back to ironworks. So they're there. You're just doing whatever it is

and slowly progressing. When what was the first bit of skill set thing that started taking off

before others, you know, some people it's tubing work. Sometimes it's, you know, forming,

sometimes it's welding. And I mean, in the very beginning, it was a lot of chassis work type stuff.

And I think in general, for most people, it's probably just to learn that because of, you know,

obviously the sickness of the metal, it's a little more forgiving in certain aspects and whatever. But

there was, I don't know, I can't remember what year it was that we moved from the 2300 square

foot shop to the 10,000 square foot shop they had. But the, there was before we moved and we're

still in the small shop, there was a 57 Chevy truck that a local customer had brought in that the

entire inside of that roof like above the windshield. There was a big eyebrow panel there. It was all

rusted out, you know, rotted out. And you know, he's like, well, how do we need to build this? You

know, I was just again, I'll try it. You know, I had no clue what I was doing. But, you know,

worked with a guy that, you know, he would always teach me little bits and whatever. And I

remember building that panel. And I'm sure if I looked at it now, I'd be like, oh,

but I remember that at that point, I was like, and this actually looks pretty good. Like, I was,

you know, I was pretty excited about it. And that gave me, that gave me the bug for the sheet metal

side of things. And that's where, you know, I just felt like, I don't know, it was just a different,

you know, it's a different type of fabrication. I mean, the chassis stuff is, you know,

is what it is, you know, but the sheet metal, there's just a whole different level of, you know,

I guess, intensity as far as the way you get to think about it. And, you know, understanding how

the metal is going to move and, you know, react. And we know what are you going to do. And so,

that gave me the bug for the sheet metal stuff. So then, yeah, I really started trying to hone in on

that. And, and yeah, over the next, you know, years, like I said, whatever opportunity I got to

do sheet metal work, that's, that's what I always gravitated toward because it just, like I said,

that's just what I got the most enjoyment out of. I mean, I, I've kind of always tried to

know how to do as much as I can evolve it. And that, because I think, you know, in general, as you

know, when you're trying to hire people, I mean, the guys, you know, if you get one guy that knows how

to do 10 different things fairly well, he might be more valuable than the one guy that can do one thing

really, really well. You know, and that's just because you can kind of split him out. And so,

that was always my mindset. It was like, all right, you know, I might not be perfect at any of it,

but if I know how to do more of it, I can at least broaden what I'm capable of doing on all the

different projects. And then eventually I'll find the couple of things that I really hone in on,

you know, until those skill sets, you know, yeah, rise up. So you said you're at Rodgers for

what seven years? Seven. So come to the time, move on. I'm not see how to phrase this. I mean,

I'm interested in, I'm always interested in. There's no, this isn't a dig, there's no right or wrong

answer, isn't it? You just talked about coming out of wild tech. I mean, coming out,

yeah, coming out of wild tech and just so happy to be doing the job, right, getting a job. And it's

a job and a hot rod shop. And you work there for seven years. And then there's a time of I'm

going to leave this job. And for whatever reason, you know, there's everybody's got the reason

stuff. I'm so interested in the where your mindset was at the point you were leaving and the things

that happened along the way. Oh, everybody's all, I mean, the time times come to make a change,

you know, but there's, there's, I'm interested in the, in the mentality or the mindset at that point

of why, why, you know, why? And then you look, sometimes you'd be look back and like, man,

wasn't that long ago? And I was like, just super excited over the moon to have this job. And now

I'm like, I just can't take it anywhere. I got to find the next thing, you know, and nobody's

to blame for that. It's just, it's the things that happen. I mean, I mean, I just had a guy

leave a couple weeks ago and, you know, no hard feelings on my end. I mean, I don't, you know,

if somebody's off for a better opportunity or what they feel is a better opportunity, it's not my

place to be mad about it or, you know, whatever. So, you know, and that's where for me, you know,

being the employee and working for people, that's helped shape my mentality when it comes to the

employer side of it is like, you know, if somebody wants to leave, like, I mean, I don't, I mean,

obviously, if I'd be bummed to lose people in general, because you hope people enjoy what we're

doing and want to stay. But, you know, so like for me, at those times, you know, it'd be different

things. I mean, so, you know, I mean, even at that point, I was 24 years old, whatever it was,

maybe there's 25 anyway. You know, but I think in general, just looking for a fresh start,

just, but also, you know, there was a, that was a, even mentally, it's a huge, it's a huge thing

to be at your first place of employment and then leave that place because there's that side of

your mind that tells you like, what if I can only do this there? You know, and if I leave here,

am I capable of the same stuff? You know, and I think that's a huge finding out for your, for

people, and personally like me, it was like, once I moved even to Allen Shop, you know, Allen

didn't have nearly equipment. And, you know, some of that stuff as far as like metal shaping in

those things. But for me, it was, it's even, even with the scaleback equipment, I was still capable of

doing things that I was doing. And so it, you know, allowed me to kind of build up personal

confidence in my skills. And then when I moved to Scots, like I said, I worked around for about a

year, I moved to Scots. You know, I, I came in and Scots had a lot of equipment, you know, so

that it was kind of feeling like getting back, you know, to lease some machinery and stuff I was used

to. And then, you know, starting to shine over at Scots, it was just, I think, again, you know,

obviously there's different reasons I'm wanting to go into all that stuff. But as far as like

leaving, it was just, you know, looking for something different, I was getting ready to get married.

It was different things going on in my own life and just looking for a change. And so

made it happen. And then, you know, again, part of building the confidence of my own skill set was

being able to go somewhere else and still achieve what I thought I was capable of achieving. But

was nervous because I'm like, oh, can I actually do this somewhere else? You know, but, yeah, I mean,

I think in general, I think I think we all, you know, when it comes time to leave somewhere,

matter why that is or what it is. You know, when you're the employee, I mean,

if something's going to better your life, I mean, it's at least the way you feel, you know, anyway.

Well, there's a couple of things. I mean, at the risk of getting too, too deep, but I think it

when you say, like, you know, if somebody's going to get going to a better opportunity, there's

no hard feelings, you know, I'll agree. All that's great. You know, and most people would say,

especially, you know, in public, where it's being recorded and everybody can hear that, uh, oh,

yeah, is this being recorded? Uh, interesting. Where this is going. You know, it's, well, it's just,

everybody's listened long enough. It's real, real, real, you know, and this is something

in my mind. And I want to talk about it and say, Phil's not here, so should I time stamp it to

edit? No, Phil's not here, so we don't have to edit anything. There's, uh,

being a business owner and a manager of people now, right? You have a different mentality. And

there, regardless of what you want to say, anybody wants to say, and this isn't a wrong thing,

there is, um, employees, fabricators, um, that come through car builders, CNC machinists, uh,

all kinds of employees in this industry that come through at different stages of the game in

their life and in your life of the, of the shop. Um, and as those progress through and it's time

for them to move on, they, they, not all are the same, right? Sometimes there is absolutely zero

hard feelings and the time has come for everybody, you know, and it's, you wish and not the best,

you stay. There's other times you can stay friendly and it's not hard feelings where you're like,

fuck this guy. I want to see him fail, but you can't, you can't pass up the, you can't not talk

about the personal feelings where it's like, mm, that one hurts. Yeah. And he feels talking about

Roger's thing like Roger let you sleep, you know, in his room, you know, he had a room for you,

put you up, he saw you from very little to what you are. Again, no hard feelings. I'm not trying

to get too deep, but there, there is a time when that happens, you're like, man, moving on, like,

I feel like I've invested in, you know, again, you don't want to be the one like, I'm the one that

made him, right? But you're like, you're the, you know, personal, you're like, human nature is to be

like, now what? Like, I've done all this to just get to the good. Now we're, now we're supposed to be

at the good point. Like now he's supposed to be my ace employee. Now we've got another seven years

of doing, you know, what we need to be doing. And there's going to be those times with you too,

where you're like, man, I, you know, I give the guy alone and I give this and this is how he

repays me. It's the other, the flip side to that is talked about seven years, you know, it's time

for a change, it's time for this. Both the employer and the employee, after you have a period of time,

you can look back about it. I think the thing that's not talked about a lot is when you have very

limited to zero skills and you're consuming it at a rapid pace and you're trying to be the best,

you see fairly large steps and gains up this, up the stair step, right? You know, from,

from day to day and week to week, you're like, man, 10 days ago, I couldn't even do this

and I'm doing this now at a fair and you keep doing that. You keep doing that. Well,

the belker, you know, after you get to a certain point, right, you're, you're pretty good at a lot

of things. Well, going from pretty good to the best doesn't happen in those same steps, right?

It's over years. So then you get to where you think that you've stalled, right?

The employer is kind of like, well, man, he's now he's get to the point where like now we're ready

to start cranking and doing things. You're looking at it's like, well, now I'm just like, I've plateaued,

there's nothing else to do. I've need to go to the next shop to get, again, I bring up the dopamine

rush, you know, all the time and it is that. It's like, no, I need to, what's the next thing that's

going to push me to learn? And I think, I think that's the, at the detriment of a lot of

employers and employees, if not understanding that, that metric, and then also realizing like, well,

if that's the thing I'm wanting, maybe I need to have an honest conversation with the shop owner

or the manager about like, I just feel like I'm not seeing those stair steps anymore. So what can we

do here? Because those things generally don't exist at the other shops either, right? Because once

you get to a certain level, it's just the same. Does that make any sense where I'm going with it?

Yeah, I'm tracking with, I mean, it's, it's, well, it's very interesting and it's almost like,

you know, as you're saying that I'm taking it, it's like, it's like this puppy turned into a dog,

right? This is puppy's journey to a dog. There's all these mile and it's happening like,

yeah, but it's like, I'm learning to weld. Now I can shape, oh, I know how to shrink and stretch,

like, I can stand in front of the English wheel. Oh, I learned how to use the pole max.

But once he's growing up dog, he's growing up dog for a while. And it's like, now I know all these

things. There, because there is a plateau, it's like, once you sort of, you're not going to

master it, but you've got the resources and you're comfortable with using the equipment and you're

making things now. And then there's that sort of plateau period where it's like, okay, now I'm just

using these skills. And now I've reached the point where I'm a productive employee and asset

to the team. And that always seems to be right about the time when it hits the, I want to grow as a

fabricator, which is what I want to, I want to ladder step. Right. Because it's like, we'll do,

you, right now you're in this sweet spot. Use, now you're, now you're an employee. Now you're

valuable. But it's, you know, it's human nature, I think, in this industry that that's right

about the time that maybe boredom sets in curiosity. What else is out there? Instagrams, I mean,

just this vast sea of seeing cool shit that's going on at other shops. And then, you know, you

start poking around. And that wasn't a question. There's no right or wrong answer. I think it was

something interesting to kind of go through that because it really is. I think, I mean, I think,

yeah, you're spot on all of it. I mean, I think, you know, for me, you know, decided to leave

ironworks. It was, you know, there's a guy Sean McDougal that worked for Roger at the same time. And,

you know, he was like kind of my mentor, you know, during those seven years. And he kind of would,

he left for a little bit and would come back and, you know, whatever. But he still knew a ton. He

was just like, he just has that. He always used to joke that he was left handed. So it was just his

art, his artistry side, you know, you know, coming out at him and all that. But anyway, he, you

know, he taught me a ton. And just, you know, I learned so much from him. And, you know, like I said,

I think he, I think at one point, he had left kind of there towards the end. And pretty much

everybody else in the shop was younger than me. You know, and I was only 20, you know, 25, you

know, and so I just felt like I just felt like I was at a plateau. Like I just felt like where am I

going to learn more from? You know, because the guy that I considered my mentor was kind of in and

out, whatever. And there was, you know, different things there. And I just felt like, you know, for me,

I didn't know where next would be. And I didn't, I don't know if I didn't really like that feeling

of, of feeling like, you know, I'm at this plateau. But am I only here because of where I'm at?

Or can I take this further? You know, you know, somewhere else than whatever. And, you know,

again, like I said, you know, when you leave somewhere, you know, I was, I was on a personal journey

a little bit of trying to find out about myself a little bit, you know, as a, as a fabricator

and whatever. And I think my perspective on it now is that like, you know, I knew, obviously,

I even look back at things I know I did back then. And I'm like, I know I would have just cringed,

probably if I looked at it now, you know, but as far as like, you know, quality of working on

sort of thing. But like, you know, when it comes to, I guess the overall picture of what I can do,

I've, I felt like just the fabricator guy. Like, this is what I am. I'm, I'm a fabricator guy.

This is going to be, but, you know, when I moved on to Owens and I want to move down to scots,

you know, I felt like my, always, my mentality of always trying to push myself to learn more

and to do more, you know, scots, I really got to do a lot more. I mean, I was only there for

six or eight months and you made me shop for them. And, you know, next day, and though I'm like

wiring cars and, you know, doing stuff like that. So we're, you know, I started broadening out

my skill sets. And to me, I was kind of my journey of becoming, going from just being a fabricator

to kind of becoming a builder. You know, and knowing more about the entire thing. I mean,

obviously, scots does tons of, you know, suspension stuff and, you know, whatever that way. But just

learning, I guess that side of it, too, is like learning, you know, just not how to weld sheepnote

together or, you know, weld some, you know, two backs from member together or build some

headers or whatever, but just actually taking that and understanding why we're doing what we're doing

and, and planning the whole process out and kind of becoming more of a builder. And I think

that's the journey for me was kind of going up to that next level of multifaceted. It's important

to be a car builder in this industry. That's probably one of the biggest issues I see with guys

that are solely focused on sheet metal is that when it comes time to venture out past that,

there's a lot of other aspects of building a car. And they just, they're great at it. They focus

so much on their craft, but it's like, dude, then just do that because these are, there's a lot

that goes into plumage. He's a unit. No one that thinks around that. So to hear, but either

pursue it, learn it all and become sort of a multi tool or stick, sting your lane, stick with

what you know, don't, yeah. When some people, I mean, some people are better served just staying in

their lane. Yeah. I mean, and it's not a slight anybody like, but two tubing guys, tubing guys.

No, because they, I mean, there's some that are out there. I mean, I've brought this up before,

but truly talented tubing guys, right? They're like, exhaust tubing turbo tubing.

Yeah. I mean, okay. But if you're doing like, I always saw like motor sports fabricators,

motor sports, they look, they, you know, they see in a different dimension, right? A third or

fourth dimension. And they can do things that people only dream about doing in tubing stuff. But

by and large, there's exceptions, but by and large, you hand them a flat sheet of metal,

right? And say, put a, put a 90 break in the middle, right? We're going to put two holes there to

mount that. It's like, can I just like bend it out around bar and I can do it. I'm tubing and

then do a bracket. That's when the, the dike comes out and they paint the whole sheet. And then there's

a height gauge somewhere involved in that. And it's not a, it's not a slight at all. It's just

different. It's like much with the sharpening. It's a different skill set. But the same goes to

the guy that by again, general statement, the guy that can completely scratch form, you know,

reverse curve, deli, hey, you know, front fender, whatever it is, and match the other side.

Then you're like, hey, can you like, we're going to run the exhaust on that thing too. It's like,

what are you thinking? Like, just straight and like an H-pipe or like, what is what are you doing,

mitochondria? It's a skill set difference that, you know, especially as you, you know, we've

talked about the telescope thing is you get more and more focused and more and more skilled.

In a certain skill, it's more difficult to have your brain think. Sometimes when you're talking

about that and broadening out, it's interesting when you think about the double-edged sword of

the curiosity and the constant search for fulfillment creatively and skill set wise across

this entire industry because that's the single thing that generally is why we still exist as a whole,

as an industry is the, from the customer level to the manufacturer level to the shop owner,

is the constant scratching of the itch, so to speak, and to try to do a little bit better or do

something that haven't done before, learn a new skill set, build a different type of car,

play with a different type of technology and learn that. The, you know, employees and fab level

side of things is the exact same thing and that's also what causes the most grief for shop owners

is that constant drive for the next thing. The problem is, is sometimes that, again, I think there's

that we owe a duty on this to, not to be a Debbie Downer, but to, to, there's peace and clarity

on some things to know that sometimes that drive when you get to a certain level, it's easy to be like,

man, tired of like these deadlines and I'm tired of like, you know, budget and I'm tired of

liking this, I just want to go and I just want to like, from scratch, build a car from scratch and

have it take as long as it takes and touch everything on the car and nobody ever have a problem. Like,

but that reality doesn't exist, you know, and that's, that's sometimes the problem of like,

well, man, I'm tired of like doing trans tunnels and wheel tubs and doing stuff like this and

like that. I want to just build from scratch. It's, I think there's, and I see some great

fabricators do this is that maybe you are doing the same task over and over again, but you personally

can change it and improve it, make it better and learn from it and get like better and better

and better. You know, I watched certain guys in the shop do things and some guys will like

build an exhaust system and like that, they just build an exhaust, they know how to do it and if

they build one today and they build one next week or one next month, it's going to be exactly the

same. And I watch other guys do it and everyone's better and it's more detailed and there's new

techniques and like the hangers are different. Hey, I was thinking about doing some of this.

Yeah, and the finish works different. It's like, dude, you're obviously, you're elevating your

game. You're sort of challenging yourself and the out, the byproduct is that they're getting

that fulfillment, I think, out of it rather than just saying like, well, fuck this all I do is exhaust

systems. You know, it's like, do better yourself. Yeah. Or set some goals. Find like, set a shot

search in each individual one of those projects. Yeah, can I do it quicker?

Maybe this is the one that I'm going to, I've got, now I've got the skills down, I've got the finishes,

I've got the technique. I'm going to shave six hours off of this one. That's the next challenge.

Right. Just keep moving the needle out. Yeah, sometimes the challenge is necessarily doing it

better, but sometimes it's doing faster. Or even that one that you're doing, you're like, you know what,

I'm probably going to do another one of these. So I'm going to go ahead and while I'm doing

it, I'm going to knock out this jig and this jig. I'm going to go ahead and attack this together

because I know this is my, you know, profile jig. My ex-pipes, I'm going to knock on an ex-pipes

in 30 minutes now. You know, whereas it used to be, again, I think that's an important thing of

finding your own personal challenge creatively or a level of difficulty in each of one of those

projects. I want to think, you know, once obviously I moved to Scott's and everything and then

built some pretty cool stuff there. And then, I mean, honestly, since my armor stays, I'd

been dreaming about my car project, you know, and it was kind of a, you know, it was more of a pipe

dream back then. But then I got to a point where I'm like, because of me pushing and trying to learn

more skills and grow in my knowledge of what I'm doing and not just, not just, I'm not just a

welder or a fabricator, but I can become a builder because I know how and why I'm doing all these

different parts. And, you know, that's why I kind of decided to start pushing forward on the car,

was that it was a dream that I had. And I'd already kind of started putting a few things together.

And, you know, whatever, but it just, it was, that was kind of my next push, was like, I want to do

this, because it's a dream of mine, but also I have, you know, Justin allowed me to stay after hours

as long as I wanted to, you know, use the shop and, you know, build stuff in there and that was

cool. You know, and that's obviously, you know, I'm sure I probably cost him a lot of money

keeping the lights on and, you know, whatever, but I, you know, I greatly appreciated, you know,

that opportunity, but man, just, you know, using even just my own personal project as a way to,

you know, to continue to compound on what I know and what I'm capable of. And, you know,

obviously, you know, I'd never built anything out of aluminum before really. And so even just trying

to, you know, no, I mean, because you work with steel and it's one thing, you know, then you go to

aluminum. And it's like, what, what, like, oh, it's just so much easier to shape and you're like,

yeah, go to like, well, because welding is a whole different animal. And the metal finishing is

a whole different animal. And it's just, you know, there's, there's still more, you know, I don't care,

you know, I still, I say it all the time, I tell my guys that sometimes too is like every single time

I grab a piece of metal to do something, I really want to try to learn something new about it. And

and even if that is a, you know, I love headers and exhausts for one of my favorite things to do. I

love building headers and exhausts. It's just, I don't know, it's not, I don't find it super

complicated. I mean, I understand, you know, I have built enough of them now to where it's, you know,

it comes pretty easily to me. But I, you know, I'm, you know, I'm, you know, one guy, a piece of

tubing and he's like, what am I supposed to do with this? Like, you know, it's a totally different thing.

And so, you know, the math part of it gets me. Well, and just even understanding, you know,

we're how to cut a bend properly because if you're cutting through a radius, you can't, you know,

if you cut it wrong, you're going to end up with a big, long oval like this. That's the math part of it.

Yeah, that's the thing. So he just run a tubing cutter around it to describe it. And then this,

I do it the stupid way that tubing's never been a strong point of mine. Like I could get through it

like building exhaust system, but I'm not, not the guy that's going to like knock out a set of like

bad ass headers. And my mind just isn't, it, it's not program. That way some guys they just see.

And, you know, like every, like I'm the guy that there's, there's more little slivers welded in

there than should be, you know, because I'm not like taking just even uniform 45s and cutting

everything like imperfectly getting there. It's like, hmm, how come he did that and it all landed and

came out square and I got a fucking weld all these slivers that I can math. Maybe that's the problem.

I just can't, I can't, yeah. Geometry. Yeah. I always, I don't know. I think, I know, I

did like, I don't know, whatever. I don't remember what age I was. They did the, you know, whatever,

they want to rank you as in your knowledge of certain things or whatever. But I remember testing

as like a, if I recall, it was like eighth grade year, something like that. Maybe it was high school

entrance or something like that. But I remember ranking that's like a junior in, or a sophomore in

college in geometry. Like, you know, as far as just understanding. So I don't know. I think that

side of it's just always been something. Did they, they rank you at all at the answer center? Do

they have that program? Yeah, that's no, they didn't. The funny thing is this side, you know,

I graduate high school. How much do you have that one? I graduate high school with like a two,

three GPA. I was not really interested. Yeah, not my, not my thing. I graduated high school with

the two. I was second in my class of three. So the, the personal. That's true. That's a true state.

That's a, that's a good, that's a good one to chat about. I know of it. I know I've followed

you for years, you know, but to everybody listening, I'm sure not everybody's familiar with the car.

But the rupture duck, right? That's, that's what you were referring to. And where did that start?

Where the concept, the idea, is it, was it just scratching itch? Was it to improve your skills?

I think we all have, we all have cars that we look back on other people built that just

or even a couple that, between those, they just, they just do something in your mind that you

can't stop thinking about. And so one of those for me was, uh, Fouce built his P32. Yeah,

it was cool. And the car wasn't anything like insanely over the top. It's just super well executed.

You know, the concept, kind of the P40 warhawk, you know, knows, you know, mixed in with the 32

and whatever. So there was that. And then, uh, you know, and then about the same time Dan Webb had built

the, uh, his little tribute, uh, golden submarine, which that car, you know, yeah. Ridiculously,

it's still the, the couple of times I've seen it over the, you know, the last 15 years or whatever

it's been that every time, every single time I see a person, I'm just like, that's one of those that

makes you not want to do it. Is it too good? You know, 100%. So I mean, I guess, you know,

obviously those two cars were massive inspiration as far as just like pushing myself, like I saw

those and I was just like, you could build that out of nothing. Essentially, I mean, you know,

the Fouce, obviously it was a 32, but the front end was all aluminum and all that. But, um,

you know, that one, uh, you know, that web bill, like that car just blew my mind. You know, just

from the pure aspect, which is no one, somebody took flat metal and made that thing. And, you know,

so, you know, the car project, obviously, I mean, it's basically how it looks right now. It's

actually perched up on top of my office to get rid of, open up some floor space. Uh, you know,

I made the mistake of moving across the country and then having, uh, starting a business and

having two children. So now I have zero time, uh, to, to do anything as far as one project. So,

you can always come back to it. It's not going to rust. Yeah. No. And, you know, someday we'll start

working on it. I'm not worried about that. But yeah, I mean, you know, the whole, so the whole idea

of the car, um, was I started looking around at airplanes because I, I started, you know, I mean,

this is probably 2007, 2008. I mean, I mean, I've been doing this for a couple of years at that

point. So when, like, I, you know, I wasn't capable of doing what I did to the car now, you know,

even when I started it. So, um, but I, you know, just started looking around at airplanes because

obviously looking at Fusus car. I was like, man, I'd, I'd like to make a car that actually,

you know, there's so many cool warbirds that I'm like, there's got to be something that would

look kind of bad ass on the front of a car. And I always loved the 30s era. Like, you know, we

built 99% truck stuff at the shop, you know, but I would love if somebody came in and was like,

here, build me a 32, whatever, or a 30, anything from the three, I love the 30s era. I would love

to get into more of that. Um, but, you know, so I was kind of looking at 30s coup style bodies. And

I actually had bought a 27 Dodge coupe from, uh, uh, I think, I think Roger owned it at time,

or any of my, it was like, paid like 500 bucks for it or whatever. So I kind of took some of that

body and I was like, oh, I can do this and that. I had these ideas. And then it, I was like,

I was like, this body's too different from what I actually wanted. I just ended up selling it

to somebody else and kind of kept the measurements. But I, I, I think I was sitting in, uh, it was,

uh, right up by Roger's shop. There was a, uh, there was a McDonald's. They just built there and

they, it was right by the airport. So they had like a bunch of airplanes up on the wall in the

McDonald's. And we were eating lunch one day. And, uh, I mean, some of the other guys and one of the

pictures was a B 25. Um, and I was like, man, the front of that airplane looked bad ass on the

front of a hot old 30s hot rod. And so that was kind of the mindset at first. And so I started,

you know, kind of looking, I was like, yeah, that would actually really work pretty well. So

anyway, had these all, you know, concept in my head and, you know, whatever. And then, uh,

really, that's, this is kind of where it ran from. So well, then when it actually came time,

about 2015 that I started building the car, I'd, I'd kind of built a chassis and I actually had

a little 270 baby hemmy that I bought off of Roger at the time. Uh, you know, and I was kind of

thinking about keeping it old school straight axle and all that. Well, then, obviously, I'm young.

So I wanted something that would actually maybe be fun to drive. Uh, and not I was talking to

your guys said, uh, you know, you wanted to go for riding the Model A. And you asked him if he knew

what it was like to ride an attractor. That's it. I was like, that's, you know, that was where my

mind went on the straight axle stuff. Yep. You know, it's like, I don't want something at all.

Super cool tractor. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's for sure. Um, but yeah, that, you know, so I was like,

I'd be cool to run in a petting up front and all that. So I ended up when I was a Scotts. I'd,

you know, went through and I basically cut off the back half the chassis and cut off the front

half the chassis and used a little bit that I had made in the middle, but we had a slip road vendor.

So I'd curve the two, you know, the two rails and, uh, and all that. And then, uh, you know,

built the front end and I'm probably going to rebuild the front end again, because there's

things I don't like about it. But, um, I decided to actually put a 20th. It's at the time. It was

all new technology because it's 2016, but it was 2015 Mustang rear end, uh, which is all the

independent stuff. And so at the time, just to get the car rolling, I just mounted the cradle to

the tube frame. But since then, I've gone through and totally, I got rid of the cradle and built

all the mounts incorporated into the tube chassis. And so it's, you know, it's Mustang based,

but it's, uh, it doesn't look exactly like Mustang stuff and, uh, and all that career. But yeah,

so that, you know, the body was just, you know, do it out of aluminum, make it look like it'd be 25

in the front end. That's why the windshield looks like it does. And the nose is kind of a different

shape. Obviously, the, uh, you know, decoded digital at the time, that was the most expansive gauge

cluster system that they had done at the time when I got that deal. Because obviously, it's got all

the different, uh, you know, stuff in it. And it was kind of, uh, for me, it was like, how do I,

I'm mixing like three different worlds here. Obviously, the hot rod, you know, performance world,

you know, a little bit with trying to make it, you know, so it's got the two, three EcoBoost in it.

So I want something different too. And then, you know, Ford released that they were going to

be coming out with the EcoBoost in the Mustang. I'm like, that'd be pretty sweet in a little aluminum,

you know, 1800 pound hot rod. So, uh, one with that, the six bead, uh, did the Mustang rear.

So I'm mixing, you know, so that side of it, the modern stuff with the old school bomber,

you know, things and just trying to tie it all together. And so, um, I actually have a real

set of B-25 Mitchell cockpit seats. Oh, wow. And, uh, yeah, there's a guy on California that

at some point, he bought the entire remaining surplus of B-25 parts because they were at a

service and all that stuff. And so, you know, I searched him out and was like, you got any seats?

He's like, I could probably find something. So yeah, it was, uh, I get those and I got a number of

other B-25 parts. There's some of the gauges I have for the dash and I'm going to repurpose,

you know, that still have the faces and everything from, you know, B-25 gauges,

stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, it was, the car for me was just a way to build something cool,

kind of push my skill set forward and, you know, whatever. And then I got into the name,

you know, just researching all the B-25 stuff, trying to figure out how to make this all work. And

then, uh, the, the, the do little raid where they bombed Japan after, you know, it kind of

in response to Pearl Harbor, you know, they took the B-25s off the aircraft carrier and, uh,

and, you know, did a whole thing and just diving into the actual history of it, you know, the,

so the rupture duck was the number seven bomber that took off the aircraft carrier and then they,

you know, crashed in the China Sea and then they got rescued in the pilot, ended up writing the book

30 seconds over Tokyo, which then they made a movie of, uh, and all that. But the, the, that bomber

is actually kind of what started nose art a little bit on airplanes, uh, was because they,

they were doing the practice takeoffs at the runway in Florida and they would, they'd park them out

on the tarmac and they'd rev them up, you know, full, you know, full gas and then they would release

the parking brake and the planes would just jump forward and they'd kind of start skipping across

the runway before they'd actually take off and so they joked that they looked like an injured bird,

you know, hopping along before it flew off and so, uh, that's somehow they joked that your plane

looked like they looked like a rupture duck, which the rupture duck was slang term to give the,

like, uh, honorable discharge pin, uh, which was an eagle with its wings spread.

But the castings were so bad back in the 30s that they said it looked more like a duck than an eagle

and so they nick, you know, it was like a service, you know, the service, you know, it was a slang

term, like, you know, you're ruptured duck, like because you get, you know, yeah. And anyway,

so that's where that came from. Anyway, they, somebody, you know, they, one of the crewmembers painted

the nose art on the side of the plane and then right then do, do little should, do little showed up

to the deal and they were like, oh, oh shit, we just defaced government property, you know, and then

he was actually like, this is awesome, like, yeah. And then so then everybody started painting

those arts and, uh, and all that. Anyway, so that because of the book and the, you know,

it's all old stuff now, but because of all that history, I was like, you know, the rupture duck,

that would be a pretty good kind of a cool one. It is different now. It's like different, you know,

the history there. And, uh, so anyway, I've, yeah, I dove way off the deep end in the history side of it.

And that's, that's some of the stuff that I, I mean, even in high school, that's probably the one class I

actually got an A and was history because I don't know for whatever reason I was like that stuff. And,

yeah, as a diving into the bomber stuff and, you know, trying to figure out how to incorporate all

that stuff together. And I mean, I've still got so many different plans for the car and, uh, you

know, and all that. But, uh, yeah, I mean, at this point, you know, it's, it's a, it's a body shell sitting

on the chassis with an engine and trans and, you know, all that stuff. Um, I kind of just have to

finish the inner structure in the body and then build the doors and, uh, it's a huge undertakening.

And there's no doubt about it. I mean, I'm already, I don't know, I'm probably 1400-ish hours

into the whole car right now the way it sits. And obviously there's at least that to go. Yeah, about

at the halfway. I think that's an interesting, uh, project that when you think about guys wanting to

advance their skillset, aluminum's not that expensive. Uh, steel's not that expensive. It didn't

use to be. You're going to run through a lot of aluminum. But, uh, point being, it's not like you

got to go out and buy a project car. If you're really enthusiastic about something, get a sheet

and start building something. Yeah, like start, start building something. And he doesn't have to

be a, doesn't have to be a car. It could be a, you know, a, build yourself a little bomber chair

for your room. Yeah, you know, I mean, and if you take the car, like, I remember, uh, you know, uh,

the tin man Brian Limberg, he started week. We're all kind of the same age. And early on, he made

this, like, tea kind of style roadster. That's cool. Very cool. I mean, that's sort of what he made

a name for himself doing and nothing prevented him from going out there and grabbing. When you see

guys like making it Chris Rungy, um, he builds up. Yeah, yeah, this Porsche, like kind of rearranging

stuff. Um, I mean, he's just a dude that just started forming metal on his own just for kind of

for fun. And then it's, I mean, you look what he's doing now. It's just like my gosh. And it's all

because he just started messing with it. And there's no, and that's where, you know, when it comes to

the push and skills forward, I mean, I mean, I don't think there's an excuse for anybody to, I mean,

now, obviously, you know, we all have time that we have that we can spend doing extra things. But

I mean, if you really want to push your skills forward in something, just make time. Right. Well,

you did it at the right time. You, you have an excuse. No, you have a business and you have two kids.

Yeah, that's that's a multiple really good excuses because that things really do change.

Oh, 100% at that point. And I'm sure, I'm sure you've realized, I mean, for me, I find it,

I wish I had the, I guess the energy at the end of the day to go pick up some sheet metal tools

and just and get after it. You know, it's seven o'clock at night. But, you know, you got a business,

you got a house, you got a wife, you got kids, things change rapidly. I kind of wish 30s and 40s.

Sometimes I wish I, I, I either wish I had a small personal shop at the house that I could

have some tools in because then I just parked the car in there. And then when the kids go to sleep

by eight o'clock, I can, I can go out there and have to take her for two or three hours. And

then I'd probably actually get something done. But now, everything's at the shop and, you know,

10 minutes away. It's like, I'm not going to go back there. Obviously, and, you know, that sort of thing.

But, you know, again, as, as kids grow older, it'd be fun to, you know, obviously get it finished

up at some point here and, right? I think there's just a window of opportunity for guys. You've got to

hit that sweet spot. Yeah. Well, if you're, you know, 20s, early 30s, like it's, you know, it has

a shelf life when you can get after it and sort of do things like that. Well, half of it is the time,

but there's also the portion of it that is your, your, your fulfillment is coming from different

things, too, because if you were not getting fulfilled, you know, with business, wife, kids, and

life things, let's face it, the time wouldn't be a problem. You would, if you had to be fulfilled

by doing that thing, we do all kinds of things with no time, because it's something that has to be

done, or it's fulfilling for the businesses like that. So it's like, yeah, you are, you know,

there's the creativity and the, and the, and the search and the, and the building something by

building your home and building your family and building, you know, the kids and doing so like that.

But as time carries, you know, kids could, I mean, I'm, I'm basically empty nest now. The kids

are gone and there's things. And so you start looking and you're like, you're that old man? Yeah,

I'm old. I'm super old. That's what's going on with that model train said in the basement.

Yes. I have no problem making time for that. What were you were making H.O. class?

What is that? This is a big class, the big one. Okay. But you were making some Indiana, Gary,

Indiana, what are you trying to replicate down there? Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a full,

full scale model of a 1986, Gary, Indiana. Okay. Yeah, down to every last detail.

Yeah. No, and I think, I mean, to your point, obviously, we all, you know, if we,

if there's something we need out of our time, you know, I mean, you'll find a way. But I mean,

part of that for me is, obviously, that was a way to push forward my skill set and it definitely

opened up opportunities, even while I was building it to do things I never even thought I would be

able to be doing. You know, but then, you know, now, obviously, owning the shop, I mean,

it kind of fulfills a lot of that because I'm still, yep, obviously, as a builder, using that.

And now that it's not that the dream has changed me on some day, I definitely will finish the car.

But like now, you know, I get a ton of fulfillment at a fulfilling other people's dreams, you know,

like when a customer, I mean, with the truck we finished last year, the customer picked it up

from the shop and drove 2000 miles back to San Francisco. And then he's been, you know, he drives

it all the time. The dude's got a Porsche GT3 RS. He's got a Porsche to car. He's got a Bronco. He's

got a bunch of other stuff. You know, but he, you know, he tells me all the time, like, you know,

like, yeah, I just, I just love driving the truck, you know, which I'm like, you're driving on 71 Ford

F2 54 by four. And you're choosing that over, you know, this thing's when he's got like over 7,000

miles on that thing, which for a year's time, it's awesome. Yeah, you know, it's pretty good,

especially when you got, you know, the other things that, you know, you have the easy choice of

going, being able to drive and, you know, whatever. And so, you know, getting to do that stuff for

people and, and I don't know what it is with the truck stuff. And I'm sure you guys see it too.

And it's like they would all car. So I can't really say it's just the truck stuff. But for some

reason, it seems like with the trucks, there's, there's a slight bit of different connection

that some customers and people have with trucks because their grandpa had one for working,

that's wherever, you know, they would ride with their grandpa on it or they'd go with their

dad and or whatever it would be. Or, hey, I learned my grandpa had one great point. Like, I don't

know what I mean, people have this about muscle cars. But in general, muscle cars were still

specialty a little bit. So most of the stories that you hear from customers and other, you know,

enthusiasts and customers, the story about the muscle car was generally the thing they saw,

right? Well, in the truck. Well, it's in the truck, right? But it's the thing that they didn't,

they wanted to experience and now they're building it to experience that, which is fine. Yeah,

absolutely. But the level of connection is the truck, there's so many times it was, I experienced

a majority of life or some of my greatest memories in life was in this truck. Not just I knew a guy

down the street that had one. It was my grandfather had one. This was the first thing that I ever drove.

I remember every Saturday going, you know, doing this in this truck or my dad drew this truck.

I used to remember listening to the truck coming down the driveway because I knew my dad was,

so there was, there's very significant visceral memories around those vehicles. So the recreation

of that is a different connection than this bad ass down the street that used to bang all the

chicks had this Mustang. I want to have one. You know what I'm saying? It's, they're all, they all

mean something. Did that absolutely like resonates with me? And that was the, the sole reason for

doing the legend trucks. That was the, that was the reason behind it. When we came up with the

concept, I mean, that was probably 2017, something like that. That was exactly why we did it. It was

that, man, everybody's got a story about a square body Chevrolet. Like you bring it up and it's

my grandpa had one. My dad had one. Uncle had one. We plowed the fields with it. We went hunting

with it. We did this with it. And to this day, every single one we've built, every single one of

those guys has one of those stories. And it's different on everyone. It's that I'm building this

because my dad had the same, and I remember doing this. I mean, I've got countless memories of them

from my dad that had multiple like different square bodies. And it, yeah, everybody's trying to

sort of relive that. And there's more of it in the truck community. And I think, you know, like

so the green truck that we finished last year, you know, that truck, the customer had,

and I might box the story a tiny bit. But the, and from what I remember, if I remember correctly,

was his dad on this company. Yeah, it was that one right there in the middle. His dad on this

company, and he, is that an engineer that worked for him? Is it the engineer bought the truck new

or or at least fairly new drove the truck for a while? He always saw it as he was a lot younger.

I always saw it, you know, always at his dad's place. And then he went to college,

graduated, started working for his dad's company. And then that guy sold that truck to another

engineer that worked for him. And then basically he told the, he told that guy like, you know,

he don't fuck it up because I'm going to buy it off. He's some day, you know, kind of thing. And

so eventually, you know, the guy, you know, he came to him and was like, hey, you know, that old truck,

he's like, yeah, I'm done with it finally. And so, you know, he, he acquired, so he's known the truck

for just years and years and seen it, you know, around his dad's company. And then it was a two-wheel drive

and, you know, we converted it to four-wheel drive and all that stuff. But I mean, that again,

just the level of connection, you know, chasing that truck and, you know, having the memories with it

and then finally getting the opportunity to buy it and then turn it into something that he really

wanted, you know, in general, because he, you know, it was a two-wheel drive. He's like, I like the truck,

but I was like, I was wanted to be, I was wish it was four-by-four. And then, you know, he watched

a video on the truck that we did that I converted it to four-by-four and he was like, I don't even know

that was possible. And then, so, you know, we talked about what made it happen. But then, you know,

again, you know, just to turn it into something that's original paint on that truck. So, just to,

you know, also to be able to take something like that and make it look, you know, and drive, again,

he flew out to Pella, Iowa and drove all the way down here in state 80, all the way to San Francisco.

So, to be able to do that with it, you know, it's impressive.

Pretty cool at that point, you know. But again, you know, there's another truck that we've got in

the shop. It's a 71-wheel drive long bed that the guys, I don't know, I might have a picture of it

up on the Instagram. I don't remember if I do or not, but, you know, the customer, you know, his

grandfather owned it new. And then, I think his uncle had it for a while. And then, you know, he ended

up with the truck. So, it's got this long family history. Well, now we're, you know, it's on a

Scotch chassis and it's on, it's getting a supercharged Godzilla. And, you know, we're going to paint it

back to its original colors just so it has grandpa's truck feel. You know, but still just the connection

with the truck. And just, you know, I don't know, like I said, I mean, it's just to me. It's,

I know because we do primarily trucks, that's the stories I hear, but it just seems like with trucks

in general. There's just that, I don't know, there's just that extra. Well, let's get into that.

I mean, we've kind of skipped past how that even came about. So, before we even get there,

we blew over your whole, like, I'm going to kind of step away from the hot rod industry.

Yeah, that's right. I'm going to try something different that we're going with you. Yeah,

no, I was going, you know, you leave Scotts, you know, you go ahead and the next thing would,

you went to trick tools, right? After Scotch and what was the, to Jeremy's point in question,

what was the thought process there of trying some different, you know, working at Scotts and

everything, obviously pushing skills forward, doing all that stuff. You know, and then, you know,

we cranked out a number of seammobiles within a certain, you know, a couple of years that

there and I just would, it was, I mean, there was one seammob that I worked like five and a half

months of hours and three months time before seammobiles. And I was just, like, didn't see my wife.

You wanted to progress as a fabricator, right? Remember if you wanted to get to the next thing.

That's how you progress? No, 100%. Yeah, no, 100%. And, you know, so I think, you know, Justin was

talking about moving to Tennessee. And I, you know, my wife wasn't keen on the idea of leaving

California. Obviously, we did it anyway. But, you know, I was just kind of trying to figure out

what my next opportunity to be because the original plan was actually to stay in California.

You know, keep my wife close to her family. My brother had moved out there after I moved out

there to follow me out there. So it was kind of like, well, maybe I should, you know, stay close.

So that was the original plan. And then in 2016, I took the car to SEMA. And it was in the

trick tools booth at SEMA in 2016. And, you know, at that point, Bruce, uh, that owns trick tools,

he was like, you know, hey, I had this crazy idea if you ever feel like me with the fellow Iowa.

And I was like, yeah, okay. Right on. Like, you know, because at the time of my kiss,

I'm not moving to Iowa when he talked about, like, um, but, but then also there was that part in my

mind that went, what he actually has in mind here, you know, and, you know, it was mainly to bring

somebody in that knew how to actually use the equipment that they sell and then be able to help them

make marketing content in order to obviously help them sell it. So, um, you know, at the time,

I think I was feeling a little bit burnt out just from the number of hours worked and all that

sort of thing and just, uh, you know, wanting to, um, I guess wanting to kind of maybe get out of

the shop a little bit. I mean, I've, you know, I want to even go into my health ailments. Uh,

I've got a bum hip and my back's always hurting me. I mean, literally every day I'm

limping for some reason, uh, you know, and I'll just give it a few more years, buddy.

Oh, trust me. I'm, I'm, I'm already due for like a full hip replacement.

He saw my crutches in the corner. And I just, I take that leave those there. I don't want to be

on camera on crutches. No, I'm, I'm, and I mean, seriously, I'm due for like a, either a full

hip reconstruction or full hip replacement. It's like, it's, but part of that stems from

issue ahead as a child. So it's not just a, because of working thing.

Well, if it's any consolation, my mother-in-law had it done, it's like nothing.

Just like, she's like running week later. I've heard it's pretty good.

The problem is, I mean, I'm, I'm 39 and they, they say they only last about 20 years.

Uh, you want to do it once. So that's what they say. So, so at this point, I'm,

I mean, they're due for this, if they do the hip reconstruction, they basically use everything

that's there and they just reshape everything. And then it takes like six months to heal and,

and you're back at it. And apparently, you can basically return to normal life as much as possible.

But with the hip replacement, there's always limitations, weight limits and lifting and all this

other stuff. Anyway, that's holding everything. But, um, um, but no, for, so for the mood of the trick

tools, um, you know, um, I just started talking to them like, hey, what did you have in mind?

You know, he's talking about it, you know, whatever. And so it just started to become one of these

things to me in my mind that I just felt like if I didn't try it, I would always kind of wonder what

if, you know, because I felt like I could still use my skills, you know, and still, you know, did that

way, but maybe, you know, less pressure situation where I'm not just, you know, having to work 70 hours

a week or, you know, whatever it may be, you know, uh, you know, in that realm. And so, um, you know,

with, like I said, with scots moving, I lived in California, but I don't, I'm sure there's a certain

amount of money you could pay me that I would maybe live in Los Angeles, but it would have to be,

it would have to be an extreme amount of money. I mean, I'd just totally despise LA and

San Francisco areas, like we lived in Ventura when I was at scots. And that's just far enough outside

of Los Angeles. And it's right by the beach, uh, which helps that it just, it didn't feel the same,

you know, but, uh, yeah, my, my prospects at the time were like, okay, I can move further into

Los Angeles, or I could go live up in the Bay Area. And again, I just, I can't stand either of those two

places. So, um, you know, so the, the trick to this opportunity was kind of a deal for me where it was

like, I could still use my skill set, maybe in a little bit less pressure situation, you know,

maybe have a little, you know, bring back some fun to it a little bit. Um, you know, and like I said,

it was just kind of a what if situation, you know, and so just decided to make it happen. And, uh,

you know, my wife, obviously, whether it's been from me spending lots of after hours building the car,

or, uh, you know, moving to Iowa, you know, my wife has been a major trooper. And probably more than

I deserve, you know, when it comes to, uh, you know, dealing with my, uh, my dream chasing. So, um,

you know, but, uh, you know, we made the move out here. And it, you know, I mean, it was,

the move for the job that, that part was easy to move for the personal life and being able to try to

submerge into a totally new place. I mean, I, I was, I was used to it because I grew up,

I was born in Florida, moved to Ohio when I was five, and then moved to California when I was 18,

and you know, so I'm just kind of used to bouncing around. I think I went to like nine or ten

different grade schools when I was growing up too. So just always finding new people and new,

you know, so that, that stuff's more easy to me. She acclimates to that, though. I mean, coming from

Venture, California to sort of, yeah, so I know, I mean, there's not a lot of pop ed. My plan,

my plan worked out great, and I brought her to Iowa at the worst possible time. So it was,

uh, like negative 12 the first night we were in Iowa. And so it was like, hey, just, you know,

anyway, no, so it was like, hey, we left the beach for what? And, uh, you know, it was, uh,

yeah, that was pretty, it was pretty good. So I mean, the biggest part of it is just family.

I mean, you know, obviously, you know, leaving family behind, uh, and only getting, when you're

used to seeing them, you know, at least every couple weeks or whatever. And then all of a sudden,

it's now, you know, maybe twice a year at the most, you know, and that's, that's obviously the hardest

part about it. Um, you know, and, uh, you know, she got a great job right in town and, and made a

lot of new friends at first and everything. And so, um, that really helped ease the transition in,

and all that. But, uh, I think, uh, you know, it's, it's still, no matter what, it's, it's tough.

Obviously, when you're going to a whole new place and having to just start fresh, really, um, but we

was before kids to there. Did you have? Yes. Yeah. This is before kids. So, um, I mean, yeah, in California,

and that was, that was part of it, too. I mean, you know, once we started looking at Iowa, it's like,

we smoked. We could actually afford to buy something. You know, it's like, uh, you know, I'm, you know,

if you, I mean, my house right now, we live in this tiny. I don't live in a big house or anything. And

it's, uh, I have an acre of grass and which is awesome. But, you know, if you took my house and my,

my lot right now and dropped it in Ventura, I mean, it'd be over a million bucks. Easy. And we paid

140,000 for it. So it's like, the kids can go play outside without like, we're in their plane with

needles or messing with bombs or like, you know, we, when we left Ventura, my, uh, California, you can't

exactly like just let them roam free. Well, we had no yard in California at all. So, I mean,

yeah, I would have been a year ago, making no friends. Am I wrong? No. The California is a big

state, though. Oh, yeah. I mean, right. But we're talking about LA proper. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well,

I mean, I mean, these days, I mean, COVID changed that place even more. I don't even go that

anyway. But, uh, um, yeah, I mean, I think, uh, from the, from the personal life perspective,

you know, that's obviously the hardest part about making a big move like that. And that's where,

you know, when you're trying to hire and talent from, hopefully, anywhere, because you hope that

you just want to come work for you. But man, it's like, you know, trying to, hey, come, come move

to the middle of the cornfield. You know, it's like, uh, it's not, uh, it's not that easy to do. But

I don't know, man, post COVID, it's, uh, maybe that's more enticing than you would think. It should

be because I've never been happier to live in the middle of nowhere. I bet. That's COVID. It's, uh,

like, what, what's going on? Well, my brother, I just hired my brother actually to, uh, he's kind of

come on as a guy to help me manage business stuff. And obviously we're selling more product and,

and all that. And so we're getting more to those things. And so, uh, but he was a shared

deputy on California for 17 years. And so, uh, you know, I talked to him about just the stuff he had

to deal with. And, yeah, I'm living out in the middle of cornfield. So pretty nice. Uh, so you,

how long were you at trick tools? Uh, four years. Um, yeah, four years. And then you move

you wife out there, you start a family and you're like, you know, what would be cool?

Well, so I, uh, so I, uh, my wife started complaining in that, so in that when I first moved to

work at trick tools, like we didn't really have a shop setup in the warehouse yet or anything

like that. And that was part of the, the process of getting in there. Um, and so, um, you know,

I went from building and fabricating stuff every day to nothing. And, you know, we would shoot

some videos on a product or whatever. But like, I wasn't getting that fulfillment. And like,

you can talk about just, you find ways to fulfill yourself. So I, you know, I was just getting

in. My wife was complaining. I was grinding my teeth at night, which I've never really done.

Those wives be complaining. Don't they? You know, she's like, she's like, you didn't grind

in your teeth a lot of night. And I'm like, well, that's what, but I wake up. You know, my job

be hurting. You know, and I'm like, I don't, I don't know why I'm doing that. And then I've,

it kind of just dawned on me. I'm like, I don't, I don't think I'm using enough brain power during

the day. Like, it's got to be what it is. And so, um, you know, I kind of got this thing in my head.

Like, I were living in the Iowa, like, be fun to just buy an old Ford truck of some type. And,

you know, have something as a beater. I can drive during the winter. And, you know,

these kind of things. Well, then, uh, there's a, there's a, there's a junkyard outside of town.

And the guys got just probably a couple thousand old classic cars out there. And uh,

I was gonna hold up on Iowa. It's rusty. I mean, okay. But they salt out there. They use, like,

it's all standard beat juice. Well, they use, it's salt. And then they'll put the, the brine

stuff down on the roads. It's miserable. Yeah. Um, but, uh, I'd never walked this, the junkyard

was out there. And I just never walked through it. So it was like end of September. And, uh,

my wife was gone at a trade show, uh, for her work. And, uh, so I went and walked around out there,

just, you know, in heaven looking at a bunch of rusty old cars out in the junkyard. And so, uh,

I came around the front and I walked up and I see the back end of an old 67 Ford. And I'm like,

it's a pretty nice looking truck. You know, and I, I'm, I never was a patina guy, which is funny,

because now it seems like everything we do is patina. But at the time I was, we ever done

with show cars, you know, that everything with scots was all painted. Everything before

them was all painted. And so my mind said, you know, patina was cool at first, you know,

this first go we see. And then it was always like, uh, like another one, just paint it, you know,

but I didn't fully understand it until I bought this truck. And, um, yeah, you might have to go,

you want to go. The enjoyment that you can get out of it if not worrying about perfection.

Yeah, that's what I didn't understand. I'd keep going, uh, it's a blue. Yeah, I know,

it's probably down there a little bit further. But you had it in a carousel here somewhere.

It is. It's probably just down further. Um, but, uh, in any way, I bought this truck as a tool

drive. Oh, there it is right there. Um, but, you know, it was just a tool drive truck. And I'm like,

man, I've always wanted one of these old forges. I just, I've always liked that body style. I just,

you know, and it looked exactly like it does, except for its tool drive. And it was just oxidized,

like crazy. I mean, it was almost white. It was that oxidized, you know, that, that color,

there's certain Ford colors in those years that if you don't, you don't keep them up, they just,

I mean, they basically turn chalk. Yeah. Um, anyway, so, um, but it had a lot of cool lettering on it

on the bed. It says, I, I have a realty company ink, which are still in business. So I thought,

oh, this is cool. It's, you know, it's kind of got some cool, cool stuff. And on the door,

it said the farm and ranch department, Des Moines. And that's when, whenever before this truck,

when I would see patina that I really liked, it was when it had some kind of old lettering on it.

That was truly old, you know, that you, you know, we're like, this thing's got some history too.

Anytime it's got a phone number with no area code, it's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh,

so I just, you know, I asked him what he wanted for it. And he was $2,500. And, uh, you know,

it was, for, for Iowa truck, it was very solid. I mean, obviously rough around the edges, but, uh,

you know, so I, I decided to buy it. And then, you know, first, I'm like, I'm just going to fix

this thing up and this will fix my, my mental thing of not work on anything. So, um, I was like,

I'm just going to get it running and we'll start driving it. Well, you know, obviously,

then I get back to the shop and then I realize, oh, yeah, I guess I didn't pay attention hard

enough to the inch and a half deep of my scrap on the floor and, you know, stuff like that. So,

uh, you know, it was, it was pretty rough as far as cleaning it out, but it was all definitely

usable and savable. And then I was like, man, I've always wanted a high boy. So I'm like,

what are harder to be convert this thing? And so I just, you know, figured that out and converted

four or four or next thing. And no, I, I went through the motor myself and, you know, didn't do

anything full, you know, crazy with the motor, just kept it stock and, uh, 352. And then, uh,

decided, that's to be cool, some vintage air in it. And, uh, I should probably rewire with

the Myronauto wire and then, oh, decoded it will gauges like, you know, it's snowballed.

It's snowballed, of course, like, like, no project ever. Um, but, uh, yeah, I just went through it,

had, uh, you know, had the paint polished up on it, um, just to bring the blue back out in it.

And then I put sweet patina all over it. And then, uh, yeah, just, I mean, it was purely just to

fill this void in my mind of, you know, working on something and, uh, it took me about two years

to finish it. But that was just nights and weekends. Again, another one of these projects

that my wife was very gracious on with me spending extra time and, uh, and all that. But, uh,

yeah. And then, uh, so I sold the truck. Uh, it went on, bring a trailer in, uh, I guess it was

October 21. And, uh, do you have any idea what was going on? What was going to happen? I was hoping

it would maybe get to like 55 or 60. Um, and that was just out of total, like, in my head,

that was kind of a pipe green. That was the home run number. Yeah. That was like the home run

modern and then, uh, it by the, the morning of the auction or that it was going to end, um,

the, the one of the bidders called me. Um, and he's actually the guy that we ended up building

the, uh, the orange patina truck for, um, he called me that morning because I'd talked to him a

couple of times previous. And he's like, uh, he goes, uh, um, if you, he goes, uh, you're

that's the first thing he said was, are you ready for me to blow this thing up? And I'm like,

that only means something. If somebody else wants to blow it up to, you know, so, uh, you know,

I was like, yeah, you know, that'd be cool. You know, obviously, and, you know, he goes, well,

I promise you this, if I don't win that truck, somebody else is going to pay a lot of money. And

I'm like, fair enough, but you still don't know what that means fully. And, uh, but yeah,

that morning, it was art at like 50 something. And I'm like, and he hadn't even bid yet. So I'm

like, okay, so then obviously the numbers start going up. And yeah, I, I, there is very few times

in my life that I've actually been speechless. And I, when that thing, you know, when the hammer dropped

at 130, I would just totally like, it's a game. Is your wife following along at the same time too?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. So we ended up talking on the phone real briefly, like right as it was ending,

because I'm like, I feel like we should just be on the phone for this. And, uh, so back story to

even that is that I had actually sold the truck once and then bought it back. Um, I'm going to

go and invest that story, but I bought it back. And then, but the whole reason I bought it back was

that I also had this something in my head was telling me, like, you really should just put this

thing I bring a trailer. And I basically tripled my money. So, uh, that was a pretty good intuition

there. So, uh, you know, it, it, it, it definitely did way more to help me expedite open in the shop

now. And then also the, so the guy that called me and asked me if he, you know, wanted me to blow it up

or whatever it, and, uh, he, uh, you know, he was, he ended up not winning. He got, you know,

he was first loser. And so he was pretty bummed out. And I said, Hey, you know,

somebody that the guy that did want to did pay a lot of money, he was right. Exactly.

Well, that's what he said when we talked about afterwards, he goes, well, I told you, if I

wouldn't win, somebody else could pay a lot of money. But it was just, you know, he would

bid a thousand. He never got to bid five thousand. He did a thousand. He got to be five thousand.

It was just like, he's like, I can tell the guy just wants me to go away. And, uh,

so anyway, it went off. And again, Wade, you know, just expedited any plans that I had had

because I just didn't anticipate having, you know, that kind of cash to be able to do anything with.

And, um, I'd mentioned him, you know, Hey, I know you're bummed out about missing on the truck,

but if you feel like building something, you don't get hurt at my shop, you know, um, and it's,

you know, that's kind of why I sold the truck was like as a sacrifice to like hopefully get this

thing going. Um, and, uh, you know, so I did that. But yeah, you know, the project that with that thing

was really to fill that void of working on something. And then also we got the shop going at

trick tools, which then I started working on the car a little bit more. We did some things on the

car at the shop at trick tools. Um, and so that's really what, you know, started that. And then

obviously, you know, selling that thing for what I did, I just got known as the guy to take four

trucks, too, which it's fine with me because I like them. But it's bad. It's tough looking. It

looks to be like if you were to Google toxic masculinity and like Wikipedia had a photo example.

And there it is. I think that's what like liberals would think of. Yeah. That is the

tradition. Short of missing a gun rack in the back window. Otherwise, well, stop me. Stop me when

I'm when I'm off base, right? So you sell the truck that expedite starting the business,

right? You're like, this is awesome. I had so much fun building this truck to different,

you know, level of creativity of, you know, of restoring some things and doing some history and

doing so. It's a usable. It's a great experience with the customer, you know, with the guy that

purchased the truck. And I could do more of these. This is a business, a great business model,

right? And I'm going to have so much fun doing it, right? Because I enjoy doing it on this truck.

And then it's like, well, I mean, I probably need a little bit of help. So I'm going to employ,

you know, I said, but we're going to have so much fun building these trucks. And then fast forward

to now, it's a full blown business. And like, it's just like any other car build business.

Yeah, I mean, it's a, you know, I would say. And you're not working on the vehicles at all

anymore because you're running the business. And going back to the, I guess, learning and growing

bringing on new skill sets, you know, I kind of take on the running the business now as a new skill

set. And so I kind of try to hone in on, you know, how I can improve, you know, what ways I can

get better just even from running the business standpoint. So is it, is running the business quite

as fun as maybe, you know, getting to actually put these things together full time.

That would be a tough, that'd be a tough distinction to make between picking one or the other.

I mean, I love, I love running the business side of it because I get to, I get to treat people

the way I want to treat people. I get to, you know, I get to, you know, actually get the first

hand interaction with customers when we're talking about builds and why we're going to do what we're

going to do. And, and then also helping guide them into understanding what they even want.

Right. You know, and that sort of thing. And so I really enjoy that side of it.

Like it goes and going back to making people's dreams come true. Like that's kind of a

aspect to me that I've, I've really taken enjoyment out of is, is getting to deal with the customers

and, and turn what, you know, little ideas they may have in their mind. And some of them have

all the ideas. And I got one customer who, you know, we actually, the same junkyard, I bought

that truck out of that guy somehow scored a super, super low mileage. Very, very nice,

rust-free condition, 73 F 100. And, you know, I was like, hey, you should check this truck out.

It's like super nice survivor. And he's like, yeah, let's do it. I want it. And so he bought it.

And we're already doing a 69 crew cab for him. But he's the kind of guy where he just,

he just takes on the part side of it. So he, here's what I want to do. And I'm going to get this

part from there. And the next thing I know, you know, there's emails messages, hey, I'm doing this.

Here's, here's a quote from this place. And he's just all over it. And that's cool. Because I like

customers that want to be involved. And it helps. Yeah. And it obviously from the parts. And then

I don't have to do all that stuff, which is, which is great. You know, too, but it's, I appreciate

the different levels of input that the customers do want. Because some, some basically just want to be

like, here's a comment. Here's a nutshell. Just let me know when it's done, you know. And then the

other ones are like, want to be super involved. I mean, the one tool drive that we're building

the customer stops by every week. And it's always like, hey, what do you think about this? And

all right, like that. Maybe we could do this. And also, and, you know, it's a constant building

process on what we're doing, you know, that way. And so like I said, every customer is different.

So kind of honing in on how to, how to deal with the different customers and deal with the different

challenges that they all present. You know, whatever it is is kind of a, again, goes back to the skill set

side of it where I try to, at this point, hone in on that side and really, you know, make myself

better. And I try to be as funny. Actually, I was on my way up here. I don't get all the time

to listen to every podcast, but I was listening to, you had Fat Guy Ryan on here and under her and

just listening and talk about just the, I'm sorry, my mind is trying to think where I was going with

that. But I guess dealing with customers and each different build and how to make,

what they won't make them, and help them understand what they want and why and why and what choices

are maybe bad, what choices are good. But at the end of the day, when the car, when the vehicle's

done, it's something that both you and them can stand back and look at and be proud of, no

matter how different it is from everything else you got in the shop. I mean, that asset that they

just built, I mean, I haven't seen it in person. But when they first put out pictures of that thing,

I was just like, oh my gosh, like, yeah, what it, like, I just feel like that's such a different,

I mean, I look at that and then I look at the assets and I'm just like that, you know, it's just a whole

different ballgame, you know, and you'd be honest with you, though, I think the chick that's

sitting shot gun in that with you. She's probably a little, a little more wild, a little more fun,

probably a little sexier than the one that's riding shot gun with you in that asset, no disrespect

to the asset. I don't know, my wife only cared that it had your condition, so that's a, that's a,

yeah, I'm just going to agree with you. Where were you going to go? I'm not going to go anymore.

Sure. No, I'm 100% sure. I should just agree with you. Okay. You mentioned

investing, you know, the new creative aspect is learning the business and running the business side.

Funny, scary timing, completely unplanned, however, just like we were going to do over the next

few podcasts, we have to talk about a opportunity for people to invest themselves and get better

business from your boss, Roger at Ironworks. This is development class coming up February 20th

through 21st at Muhammad Delanoi at BBT. Let's face it, if you're going to do one, it's way cooler

to go to Troy's shop than Bakersfield. Who wants to go to Bakersfield? The Mexican foods probably

better in Bakersfield, I would have to assume. Every time I go through there, I would stop at Troy's

place. It's right on 74 on the way to Columbus or the way to Ohio to Vietnam family or whatever.

I always stop by there. It's coming up. They sold out on that one? No, as of this morning,

no, because I told them we're not going to talk about it if it's sold out. It's a waste of

fucking airspace. But no, as of right now, go to IronworksSpeed and custom.com. That's custom with

a K right at the top. You got business development class. Everybody that we have talked to in various

aspects of business has gotten a tremendous amount out of it. I think it's a really good thing

that Troy and Roger are doing. We were talking the other day about... We talked last time about the

cost and everything. You got to invest in yourself. It's like a good set of tools. It's going to cost

some money. A good business class is going to cost some money. There's something we're talking.

It's interesting, too, that regardless of the quality of the information that is in there,

if you pay for it, you're going to retain it and treat it with a little bit different of respect

versus getting a free pamphlet and reading through it. If you're giving it away for free,

I mean, how good of advice this could be. There's something to be said for that. Let's face it.

I mean, they get two lunches. They're flying across country. They're doing a thing.

It's got to pay for what you're going to get. I do think that it's a great thing that they're doing.

Roger, you're going to come back out here soon and do another podcast and talk about some things.

I think that we're going to probably be able to take the last couple of podcasts. He's done

and go ahead and just condense everything from the business class. This is great for a while,

but until we put out our digital oil and whiskey version of Roger's business class.

You think we can monetize it? I think we can monetize it. You don't want to go ahead and go ahead and just

just download the overview version. We'll talk behind the scenes. I remember it was going to say

about the fat guy Ryan, by the way, and my mind just went blank, but it was a partner he was talking

about being kind of a good self-evaluator or being able to look at your own self and really

see what you're doing well or whatever that way. Just hearing him talk about that,

I was like, man, that's how I view everything that I'm doing. I think that's where whether it's

running the business or building something or whatever, whether it's picking up a piece of metal

trying to learn something new or whether it's dealing with customer or whatever it is, being able

to look at myself and see how it can improve. This was fine this time, but how can next time be

even better? That's from a customer experience standpoint or whether it's something on a vehicle

or whatever it is. That was my whole point with them. You've definitely

came on strong. It's funny how when the thing that for a lot of times, no plan, but the thing that

puts you on the map and gets to the next build, it's the similarities. You've done a lot of

Ford trucks because you did a Ford truck and now you've done all Ford trucks in it except for

a 76 Mercedes 450 SEO. That's an interesting topic because I'm really curious about that. If you

you're deciding to go off, you have thoughts of doing this on your own, starting your own shop.

Did you ever sit down like before that Ford truck was finished? You said you bought it as just

a hobby. Did you ever sit down and just not that it had to be super structured, but did you

formulate a plan that I think a viable business path would be to get a facility, seems like

Ford trucks are pretty popular. Not a lot of 4x4 so I could convert them, could grow that into 4x4

bolt-on upgrade components. They don't stop good. Maybe we spawn off of that and start break kits or

did it just happen? You built a truck, it was a cool truck, it sold all of a sudden you saw the

opportunity and then you jumped on the opportunity. Obviously I had built the truck that truck and before

it sold, I met another local guy that he had some Ford trucks and we just met up as fellow Ford

truck fans and all that. Well then he started talking about, hey, what do you think about building

a crew cab at some point? I don't really have a shop, so I don't know how that's going to happen,

but then we kept talking and whatever and then he ended up, hey, I found a crew cab on the

buy. It's over in Omaha and I rode with him. We got it and then that turns out to be a truck

that we are working on currently to hopefully debut. It seemed like this next year and it's

going to be pretty wild. It's that one right there. It was, I mean, these trucks are pretty rare

from 67 to 72. They only made about 20,000 crew cabs. So if you take 60 plus whatever years of time,

most of those trucks were used for hard work, so they got really beat up, most of them ended up,

you know, a lot of them in junk yards and rotted out, whatever it may be. So you look at how many

are actually left. You know, the numbers of crew cabs are, I mean, you see them, but they're just

not that plentiful. And so, you know, he had found that truck and it was ordered from the factory

and they call it Swiss aqua, which is like an aqua blue color. And then it was also ordered

with Ford calls it the flair side bed, but steps side for all the Chevy guys. But it was

enough unique combination on the truck that we really decided we wanted to make it into something

that was unique for what it already had also, you know, more. So he had already asked me about,

you know, maybe building the truck and I didn't have the shop yet and everything. And then

selling my truck, I'm very trailer and then the customer about a month after the auction,

I've got, we kind of talked about it real briefly and I said, hey, you know, I'm going to start a shop

whatever wasn't. I figured he's probably just bummed out on the truck and he's going to move on

to something else he can buy, you know, whatever. And then he started all of a sudden,

get a random text and it's like, hey, check out this truck. And I was like, okay, now he's thinking about

it, you know, and want to do something and, you know, and then he, you know, followed through,

bought a he actually bought a red crew cab. I got a picture on it somewhere and then he ended up

buying this other flair side bed orange single cab high boy that he bought it off a brand trailer.

And then he's like, I want to do this one first. And so that crazy enough, that truck was an old

fire truck from Ventura, California. Well, it still says it on the door of the Ventura City Fire

Department. So I didn't even know that until it actually landed at the shop. Red what's on the

door. And I was like, man, that's kind of just crazy because, and then I looked at Ford has the,

like on the Marty reports, but gives you all the factory information. And they, that's a cool logo.

Yes, so the easy care was his company. That's his company that he owns. And anyway, the,

the Marty report said it was sold new from the RE Barber Ford out of Ventura when he said,

drive by that like every day. I'm a way to work at Scots. That's wild. You know, so just it kind

of had this extra connection. I guess it's crazy, like, you know, but it was just a really cool survivor.

I mean, rust-free, you know, I think I had probably had five or six hours in a rust repair on it,

which obviously is nothing. You know, so, you know, we went through the whole truck, left all the

outside, you know, left all the paint on the inside of the cab because it was all in good enough

shape. And you know, just showed a little bit of wear, but just the history that the truck showed.

Like, that's the part that when the truck deserves it, like that one, in my opinion,

like I kind of dork out on the history and the kind of the way it is a little bit. So,

somebody had changed out the mirrors to something else. So we found what those are the mirrors that

the truck originally would have had. And so we found an NOS set, put them on there, just stuff like

that, you know, just to kind of return the truck back to normal. So that was his driveway.

That's the mountain. That's the decent view. Yeah, you think? No.

John Dutton's driveway. Jesus. Yeah, I know. Trust me, I went out there to pick that thing up

back in the bad ass. Beginning in May, I picked it up from this place because it was going to take

you to the Grand National Fronteners show and whatever. And I pulled him to his driveway in that

mountain in the background. And I'm like, this is, and I already, I'd seen pictures already

before. But I'm like, this is, this is ridiculous. Where is this? Durango, Colorado. So it's

very southeast, southwest corner of Colorado. But just, I mean, just beautiful. But I mean,

that truck is right at home there. I mean, it just, it looks like it was made for that. Yeah.

You know, but, you know, so that was part of, you know, the way we built the truck is he's like,

I'm, you know, I'm up at the mountains. You know, if I want to leave here, I got to go over

a mountain pass and we're down or, you know, whatever, so elevation changes, he's like, I don't

want to have to mess with carburetor and blah, blah, blah, you know, all that stuff. So he's

like, I just put something, you know, fuel injected in there. So the, the other photo there, the

engine bay, you know, you see the, you got the top one. Yeah, the cut, it's a gen two coyote. And

I actually cut down a bumpside hood and made that little engine cover. So it still has the same

center body lines as a bumpside hood and things like that. It was just a way to kind of spice it

up a little bit, you know, whatever that way. But from a drivability standpoint, so then that truck

there was the very first truck that I put a disc brake kit on the front. And so I just, I don't

know how, I don't know how, or the last time you guys have purchased like an OEM part from a

part store to replace something like a brake caliper on a, a classic, well, that's car. So it's,

I mean, what you can buy nowadays for classic cars is just junk. I mean, I bought

and even just here recently I replaced because we're doing all these brake kits, which I'll get more

into, but I had bought a two-wheel drive F250 and it had factory discs on the front. And I just wanted

to, and the truck didn't run a drive. We made it run a drive. So rebuilt the whole brake system

all stock, because what we want to do is stock stop tests to, you know, get distance and, you know,

how it stops all this stuff. And then we're going to put our new stuff on it and then do the same

thing. So I bought two brand new brake calipers from the same brand from the part store and

one shows up and it's just bare cast steel. The, the other one, which is, I mean, just the right left

part number difference, but same brand, same box, everything. That one is zinc plated. You know,

but it's just that kind of thing. It's like the, the, what you can get for the factory parts of

the part store is just crap. And so, and there's nothing else available for these three quarter-ton trucks,

especially the four wheel drives. But even more, I mean, even the two wheel drives, there's just

nothing for break upgrades, especially if you guys got drum brakes. So that thing just being an

all drum brake, being an old high-boy. So they didn't even have disc brakes on the high-boy,

you know, fours until 76. And so we put a 76 axle in the front, but I'm, I'm, I buy like calipers,

and I'm like, I don't know how, I don't think I can trust these things as far as I can troll them.

Like, they just, you know, just just the quality aspect of it, or, and you can have it too, or I bought,

you know, there's two calipers I was just talking about. Like, I bought one, I bolted one side on it,

fit fine. I bolted the other side on, and it was like rubbing the rotor hat, you know, and stuff.

And I'm like, I just, you know, so there's just challenges to the factory parts. So I built the first

disc brake kit for that truck to replace the factory disc, you know, calipers and stuff that were on

it. And so we used the wheelwood caliper and put it over a factory rotor, because most guys with

the four trucks like to run 16 inch steel wheels, just like they had from the factory, that sort of

thing. And so the brake thing started with that truck, and then it was like, well, if we can do

this front kit, we can do a rear kit, because all these Danish 60s and the rear are basically the same,

you know, for a lot of these years. So we, you know, developed a rear kit, our first rear kit went

on the green truck. And then since then, it was kind of, I started selling the first year,

with that very first kit that it fit 76 to 79, Dana 44, and Dana 60 axles. And that kit, I sold

like 12 of the first year I was selling them, which for very limited advertising and whatever I was

like, hey, 12 kits, that's cool. You know, but then we added the rear kit and then I've since added.

So the 75 and basically Ford's, Ford's very first factory four by four was in 1959. And those

used it, they called it the closed knuckle front end, where it had a, a see a white, it was kind of a

big ball end on the axle, and they had a white per seal and all that stuff. And they actually had

lubricant that was inside of there. But those trucks never had disc brakes. It was never an option.

So since then, since we did the rear kit, and we've developed a bolt on disc brake conversion for

the, all the closing knuckle axles. So it fits 59 to 70, 75 closed knuckle axles, which there's

a small closed knuckle, and there's a large closed knuckle. And it fits both. But we're making

a, we're making our own spindle for that kit. So it replaces the factory spindle. And that

allowed us to use a different wheel hub that, you know, then achieves what we're trying to do with the

disc and everything. But it still fits a 16 inch wheel. It uses a six piston wheel caliper in the front.

You know, so then we, from there, again, the phone rings all the time, do you guys make a kit for a

two wheel drive? I got one of its drums. I mean, you can really, it's like, oh, that's a list, you know,

is like, you know, we can't, more phone calls. And so now, um, we basically have all two wheel

drive and four wheel drive covered from, I still need to test some of the late 50s two wheel drive

stuff. Um, but I know back to like 61. Um, yeah, but basically all the two will drive for sure,

back to 61. I know we fit, uh, have it, have kids that fit those. But again, you start, obviously,

when you start down parts, you start finding all these little factory nuance differences. Like,

oh, if it had this GVW use this model, this and this GVW use this, you usually find out the hard

way after you sell the guy the kit. Yes, exactly. And then he's, so it was a 63 and a half.

And there's, and there's definitely those things. I mean, even on, you know, I was buying wheel bearings

for, uh, that, um, that orange high boy. And in 69 and a half, Dana changed, the, they changed

something on the rear end where it uses, uh, uses a different outer wheel bearing and it uses

a different wheel seal. And it's just like, well, I just need it for a 69. Well, which one do you

have? Do you have the early one? Do you have that? He can't forget about the Canadian trucks and the

Friday trucks too. That's, that's, that's, I've never seen one like that ever. That's come up

before. Yeah. Yeah. Complete nonsense. But like guys argue over, I think I think this one's

Canadian. Oh, yeah. It's not Friday for sure. It's the wrong barn. And even the way that it's

funny when you, I mean, all the modern cars are so precise because everything's all, you know,

machine built, you know, essentially, uh, you know, that we, if you don't deal with old cars

every day, you kind of forget and you take for granted how nice, basically all new cars are

as far as fit and finish. Yeah. Um, and then you know, you look at these trucks and it's just like,

oh, these are both single cas, but I look at the way this one's welded right here and look at the

way this panel fits. And it's like, you can, you can measure this. This is what the tape measures

in my crometer. Yeah. Yeah. You can, uh, the square bodies is the same way. I mean, the, like

body panels are so bad. Yeah. The crew cabs, like the cab corners roll out on some and like

that body line right where like the belt line, some are pointing this way, some are pointing

this way. It's, they're tough to make look presentable. Yeah. But they held together too.

So they didn't hold tolerances, but they held together. You got one now today.

Absolutely. Absolutely great tolerances. And then it won't last 30,000 miles without falling

a fucking part. That's true. But look at door gaps. The rockers are matching the same to the left,

left or right? And, you know, like these, these crew cab trucks, I mean, those were

Ford started building them in house a little bit in like 1965, but in 67 when they went to

the bumpside body style, they started building all of them in house. But it's still, all they did

was take a single cab. And they would, they would literally assemble, essentially assemble a

single cab. And then as it went through the line, it was like, Oh, this one's, it doesn't need to be

a crew. And it would split off. And they'd literally just cut it really and lengthened it out.

They looked at it. It's like an extra door on the back that doesn't really jive. It is,

it is a front door that they cut down. It is not, it was not its own stamping at all. Like it's,

when you look at the structure, the way the structures may, I mean, they literally cut the front of

the door off and slapped a piece on there. And it's, and the, the, the pillars, the only thing,

really the only couple of panels in a crew cab that are independent of a crew cab is the B-pillar

and the flat floor section in the back, you know, right under the seat, and then the roof panel.

But everything else is just think about that though, that, that Ford in 67, right, for several years,

but they're, they're doing a fairly large amount of crew cabs in the overall schema things, right,

for back then, for back then, right, fairly large amount. And they're like, no, if I could just cut it

off and use the thing in 60, you know, Pontiac, for example, on a Catalina, right, 61. That's a fairly

low volume vehicle for that one year. And they're like, nope, all new body panels. I want new doors.

I want new fenders. I want new cords. I want all new trim. All new bumpers. All new grill had

different views on the truck manufacturing and the car manufacturing and the trucks were obviously

utility vehicles. Yeah. Well, that says it. I mean, you know, I made 20,000 over six production

years. So it's like, you know, but now, I mean, good luck finding a single cab. If you're going to

go to the Ford dealership by a single cab, they might have two, you know, but they're going to have

400, you know, crewcads, but it's just that's how the mindset has changed on them. But yeah, I mean,

it's they were so utilitarian and people back then, people were like a Ford or truck with the heck,

do you want that for? Like, yeah, it's not like you were throwing your buddies in it and going out,

like snowboarding for the weekend, you know, it was dark bucks. Even the red, the red, the red one,

that customer bought that we have at the shop and there's a picture on there. It's rough. I mean,

I have never driven a classic vehicle that still ran in original condition. That's that one right

there. It's the start of that video. But, but that truck does, it does not want to move like more

than any other old vehicle I've ever driven. Like when you started up, I mean, it kind of labors

to start like the starters more now, you know, and then you, you go to move it and it's like you hit

the gas and it goes, but as soon as you let off the gas, it's like the brakes are on already,

even though they're not like the truck just, no, it just, you know, it's just so much

stitching and all the moves of that truck belong to a logging company. So when it came to us,

it had a big old winch on the front of it. Like they've just literally stretched the front bump.

The front bumper was like two, two, three feet out in front of the truck. It was just

ridiculous looking, but it had a big old winch in there and like, I mean, that truck was used and

then abused as a logging truck. And, you know, like miraculously, the cab is basically rust-free

and actually in really nice shape. And that truck is actually one of 769 factory four by fours

made in 1970. You know, so they just, they just were rare, they were just rare trucks.

Very rare. Well, this truck come about, this thing is sweet. So that truck belongs to a customer

named Chris. And he has no boroughs. Yeah. That's boroughs is brother-in-law. But yeah, he bought

the truck off me and wanted to, you know, he came, he was buying the truck and he's like,

yeah, I just have you build it. Okay, cool. So fours had a chassis in stock. Yeah. So boroughs had

a chassis and then, you know, it's the stuff. So they, you know, he's like, well, boroughs,

the chassis made it set up for an LS motor and I'm like, we're not running LS motor.

So we, it's easy to change. Yeah, we put a Gen 3 coyote in it and all that. But it's, it's

an original patina truck. Good looking truck. Well, I say original patina, the entire driver's

side of that thing has been replaced at some point. Like the fender door and bedside were like

replacement Ford parts. And they had been repainted, but like obviously way back in the day because

the patina still matches everything. Did the patina, it was it back in the day or did boroughs fluff

that all in? No, it's original. Yeah, it's original. And there's a few parts that actually we,

we touched up. I had to do some fender patching and the driver's side rear corner of it, you know,

basically under the gas fill and all that had been smoked when they replaced all those other

panels and it was a bunch of bondo on a stuff. So we fixed it in metal and then I, I kind of

did some patina matching on it. But that thing, you know, so that's the first time I've been able

to use one of your guys chassis, which it's a, you know, that thing obviously sits so low.

So we built the custom bed floor, you know, for the 345 retires and, you know, that truck was

really the first opportunity for me as a shop with my own business to highlight some of the metal

working capabilities we have. Because they're, you know, these four right floors, a side

for ruster pair. There's no, there's nothing custom there, you know, unless we decided to do

something, but yeah, that truck really allowed us to highlight, you know, you can see some

in Birmingham. And I mean, the problem with trucks too is none of them have package trays.

So the package tray is notoriously where you do all your metal work, right? Like that's

but yeah, so, you know, I won't, you know, we kept the tobes kind of factory shape as far as like

the little, you know, kind of half octagon shape there and, you know, whatever that way and then

just obviously the step up over and, you know, built the whole bed floor and everything for it,

tunnel transmission, the whole thing and then, you know, wheel tubs up front or the

interfenders. Like I said, that was kind of the first opportunity to really show off what we're

capable of. I mean, I've got, you know, part of my, when I opened the shop, the, the, my, I had

mandatory tool items. It was like, I'm not open in shop. If I don't have an echoed craft former,

got a K of 170. I mean, that was, that was, and that wasn't, you know, I've got a 36 inch cast

pearl line hammer. Did you get a tactfully procure these pieces of equipment while you were still?

Well, I'm sure you got a good discount. Well, first of all, I didn't ask for any discount.

But he did, he was gracious. He was gracious enough to give me a little discount on there,

which I was, I was very thankful for. But yeah, I, you know, I kind of, I made up a list of, you

know, what stuff I, you know, had to have and all that. I had already bought one chassis table.

Um, well, you know, some people wouldn't use that as a chassis table. It was only 10 feet long,

but my car was only 12 feet long, and it fit on it perfectly. So, uh, I had already bought one of

those, uh, really nice, segment tables. Um, and then, um, they had kind of a scratch and dent one

that they had there. So I bought a second one because I knew that we would end up working on these

four wheel drives, or, you know, these trucks and end up doing conversions and, you know, whatever.

And so, uh, you know, bought a second one of those tables. And I have a 20 foot long table that we

can build, uh, you know, these, these truck frames on, and, and all that, which came in handy with

that 71, uh, F 350 crew cab, because that thing with the bumpers on is 20 feet six inches long.

And, uh, it's a big old truck, but, uh, um, yes, we converted that chassis of four by four, but yeah,

the, uh, that 67 there, um, dude, like, so we, I, I was thrashing so hard to get that thing to

triple crown. And we just, so my, uh, my wife had, had my son, uh, on August 26th. And, um, it,

it, you know, obviously was right before triple crown. So me, you know, the guys are at the shop,

trying to work on the truck and we were thrashing. Then a week after, uh, I get back in the shop,

and we ended up pulling it all nighter, trying to even just get the truck done to get it down to

triple crown. Um, so we ended up missing the first day, but I'm like, well, Chris is down there,

you know, all that. I want him to be able to see the truck. And so I sent my brother down with the

truck. And then we parked in your, as a booth, they're at the show. Um, but now we got, we,

you know, we brought the truck back, you know, a lot of stuff finished out on it. Um, I've got,

I don't know, I think I've got about 800, 850 miles on it or so now. But dude, that thing just,

it's, it is such a good driving truck. Like everywhere I have taken it, you know, whether it's been,

I did take it to a couple of local, you know, cruising shows and whatever. Um, and everybody's like,

they're like, the truck's cool. I just don't like them airbags. And I'm like, it's not on airbags.

It's on coilovers. We what? Like, we got to bottom out on everything. I'm like, I've driven

the wheels off the thing. I haven't hit one thing with it. You know, I mean, obviously,

you don't want to go jump in curves, but, you know, it's a, you know, no different than driving a

sports car. Just, well, that's like pay attention. That's, yeah, exactly. That's why I told him,

I'm like, you know, you can't, you can't, you got to drive it like you would like a Corvette or

something. You know, like, you know, think about it in that mindset. But yeah, I mean, the

front frame right height is, you know, four inches off the ground. It's, it's dumped. But I mean,

you don't, all you said, I haven't, I haven't rubbed it on anything. And, but that thing,

I was, we were getting some dyno tuning done on it, which I use, obviously, I don't have a

dyno, but I use power, but I'm not power. They are Palm Beach dyno. I'm just familiar with them.

They're out of Florida. They do all the remote long stuff. So basically, you know, we have the

HP tuner stuff and we do all the data logging and whatever for them. We send it back and forth

and they send files. And so, yeah, just the other week before all the snow started flying. I was out

with it. And, yeah, I was supposed to get a wide open throttle log in fourth gear. And they wanted

it from like 3,500 RPM to 55. Well, that'll take you from about 55 miles an hour to 110 and not

a whole lot of time. And, but the one thing I was actually super impressed about the truck and

chassis was just how planted straight and under control that felt. Like, I mean, I've been fast

in other cars, but that thing just, it just went straight. Like without, I didn't feel any bit,

like the, it was going to steer weird, nothing like it just went. And I was like, wow, this is,

I wasn't expecting it to feel so planted, being that the truck is so light, you know,

yeah, that's awesome. In a short bed, you know, and whatever. But it just, yeah, I was super,

super impressed with the, just the drivability on it. But I mean, I drove it. I was driving,

I drove it to Des Moines and back. I had to go to the drive shaft shop for another car. And,

so I took it up there, you know, and pull over in a gas station. It's a top it off. And

SCV pulls up and it's a little old lady. I mean, at minimum, probably 80. And she says she pulls

up her list. You be, that's a, that's a nice truck you got there. And I was like, I was like,

well, thank you. You know, and I wasn't expecting it, you know, from that audience. But she's

like, what year's that? I said, it's a 67. That was a good year. You know, she's like, you have

a nice day, you know, and I'm just, you know, it's going, going back to the truck thing, though,

it's like, I wasn't expecting that at all. Right. You know, and it's not that, obviously,

they can't appreciate it, but just obviously it being so slammed to the ground with the big

wheelies and all that kind of stuff. But it's still the patina thing. I think maybe struck a

chord a little bit or something. And that's cool. But just the, like I said, cruising back and forth

from Des Moines, I mean, just going on a, just a normal drive, like 65, 70 down the highway,

just pure enjoyment, you know, just easy ride. Sweet. Sweet is supposed to be. Yeah.

Got to go. We got a month, got a Monday chassis. Good chassis. Or maybe a two.

I think, and part of that is in general too, because I'm so used to driving these damn

least spring highboys that as when we do what we do with them, they drive as good as they

possibly can. But it's a different, it's a different, it's nowhere near, it's nowhere near,

you know, the modern technology suspension, you know, that way. So yeah, to get those trucks, I mean,

to get them dialed in, it's the ride quality is always going to be rough, but you can make one of

those I'm sure with all the stuff that you're putting on them, they're stopping good, they're steering

good, they're going on the road good. Yeah, it's just probably not going to soak up everything like

a lower to IFS. It's just the nature of the beast. That's what, you know, with the least spring trucks.

I mean, first thing we do is 100% brand new least rings. I don't mess around with rearch and spring.

I mean, some people rearch springs and all that. It's like, you're still messing with 60 whatever

year old metal. That's the, I'm sure the metallurgy side of it, they could probably explain it, you know,

in a way that it's probably changed over, you know, 60 plus years of probably doing this down the road,

you know, so, you know, we've got a new spring. That's what I say, it's old as shit.

So, you know, new springs, new bushings, you know, and all that, and then we put fox shocks on the

high boys and all that, and then it really helps to, you know, in the least spring trucks, especially

the front ends, you know, you hit a bump in the spring, just wants to do this for like a few seconds

afterwards. Well, the, you know, putting the nice shocks on there, settles down. It settles it down

quicker, which, you know, to me is a really important aspect of that, because when you do hit a

bump, it's one thing to feel it. It's another thing to hit it and then be like, keep feeling

afterwards, you know, so visual when it does, you know, settle down. It's damp and so nice that way.

You know, with the high boys, though, I mean, I always tell people, like, the four hundred percent

necessary upgrades, if you want to at least enjoy the drive, is better brakes, power steering,

because so any true high boy, well, the 73 to 77 high boys had a power assist steering. So they

used a ram on the axle like a tractor. So it was like this weird servo deal and a good bunch of

lines everywhere anyway, but that was always kind of a crap system anyway, but true power steering

on a high boy, better brakes, and then, you know, usually air conditioning. Those are the three

mandatory things. Like, if you want to have more enjoyable drive, like have better brakes,

better steering and air conditioning, and you can pretty much enjoy a high boy, but, you know,

the high boy stuff. I mean, I was talking when you guys earlier that, you know, the funny thing

in the Ford world is that like, I mean, you know, I guess some of it depends on what part of the country

you're from, but in general, high boys in the Ford world are kind of like the top tier truck.

Like, help me understand the terminology. Where did high boy come from? Is it straight?

It's a slank. It's a slank term. I mean, you know, the like the, well, my truck that I built,

I converted it to four by four, but I used factory four parts. Like, that thing is not lifted.

It's just on stock style suspension. And same thing with, you know, like the green truck that we did

last year, the orange truck that we did, that's all stock style suspension. So the trucks just sit

super high off the ground, and it's because the least springs are literally mounted underneath the

frame rail. And then you have the axle underneath that. And then it's everything's just so tall by

the time you get up there. So, and a true definition of a high boy is a divorce transfer case truck,

you know, with with weak springs. This is essentially what it is, but high boy term is just a slank term.

It was purely a slank thing. It wasn't ever a factory terminology, but that's just what everybody knows

them as, you know, that way. So, yeah, I mean, like I said, we rebuild them in a way where, I mean,

like I said to it, whether my customer who drove that green one to California or, you know,

like I said, it's orange truck, I would have totally, you could ask me to drive it anywhere and I would.

You know, because I, you know, the way that we make them drive is so different than factory.

Even though we're still on least springs, you know, and that's where I kind of, I take pride in that

aspect of like really dialing. I mean, if you really want the high boy, but you want to enjoy it,

like this is what you need. And is that going coyote upgrade? Does that get made into like a

10R80 Atlas T case? Yes, so the, what's on the backyard? Yeah, the, so the orange truck has a,

that's a Gen 2 coyote with 6R80, and then it still has the divorced, it's an NP 205, which

is a real similar, I guess it like to Atlas is whatever, but it's a factory Ford transfer case.

Really, the NP 205s were like the dense side years, like 70s transfer cases, but they're,

they're still a nice, you know, we rebuild them. And we actually, you know, for the Godzilla-powered

trucks, we custom build them with beefier input, now put shafts and things like that to, you know,

obviously make them, make them hold up to the power because you'll 360s were not a whopping 200 horse,

you know, and whatever. So, you know, when you're going to a Godzilla and, you know, double in horse power

and torque, yeah, you know, we just like to beef them up that way. But the, so we make a, we make an

engine mount kit actually to, we're working on a coyote version that will bolt a coyote into a

high boy, but the Godzilla's are such, it's kind of a new up and coming engine that we, you know,

we wanted the, you know, we wanted to get the mount kit done to where people could just buy our

mount kit and bolt a Godzilla right into a high boy. You know, which, you know, it works out great,

we'd line it up right up the transfer case like it's supposed to, you know, have to cut the frame,

you don't have to cut the body like it, you know, it fits right in there, even with the 10R 140,

which is a freaking Titanic size transmission. If you haven't ever messed with one, there's like,

I think I'm pretty sure I think the transmission like bell housing, the tail shafts, like 40 inches or

something. I mean, it's just gigantic. And, but they're, but they're also big, you know, around too.

But it's, you know, it's a super duty transmission. So, you know, the green truck we refer to,

just the green monster, the one we finished last year. I mean, he said, like, I'd be cool to,

you know, if I wanted to, I can, he's got a nice wooden boat that he keeps out on Lake Tahoe.

But he's like, if I want to tow it, you know, somewhere nice to be able to, you know, hook up and tow.

And so we're like, yeah, you know, the 10R 140, I mean, if you buy the, if you buy the Ford performance,

you know, Godzilla with the automatic transmission, it comes with the super duty trans. So, it was like,

well, you know, let's, let's make this thing be able to do truck stuff. You know, I mean, that's,

that was, you know, I do know guys that do swap in the 10R 80s because they, it's a less rotating

mass. They wind up a little faster, you know, whatever. But I'm like, you're in a 5,000 pound

four-wheel drive, you know, classic four-wheel four. So, to me, the, you know, having the motor wind up quick

and all that kind of stuff, it's, you know, it's not really good to deal with. Yeah, to me, it is.

But the drivability in the, you know, Godzilla's is phenomenal. Yeah, I don't even experience with

them. We've, we've set up a lot of chassis for them. We're getting ready to do a Mustang, 71

Mustang, spec chassis going underneath. That'll be the first Godzilla 10R 80 that we've done. So,

sort of let's go over to that. Yeah, I've got, well, three of the trucks in the shop right now,

have Godzilla's going into them. Well, then we'll have a fourth one going in also next year.

Yeah, they're, I mean, they're, it's, it's crazy because it's 445 cubic inches, I think,

from the factory. But, and it's still pushrod. So, the, the coyotes, the cylinder heads are so

freaking huge, you know, because the dual overhead cam and all the stuff, but the Godzilla is actually

about six inches narrower than a, than a coyote. I think the coyote, George Potete said it best.

Oh, here we go. I agree with you, but here we go. When George said,

George, fuck a coyote. He did. He said fuck a coyote. I know people make good power with them.

They can sound good instead. I just don't get them. It's just, in trucks, I can see it. I don't

like the way they perform like in a muscle, I don't like the power bands weird, the torque's weird.

Well, they're so, they, they, you got to get into the RPM. They just ain't got names.

But every time you get into the RPM, you got to, you got a shift. Like, right when it's about

time to do something, either the trans shifts, or you got a shift. They're great. I'm sure Bronco's

with them. It's a great, just running, performing reliable motor. I just, I mean, I'm driven them

supercharged, built, NA, you name it. I just don't love them. All bar, no bite. All bar, no bite.

I mean, it's like I said, that, that little six, seven short bed, that thing, I bet. I think it's

with it. And obviously it's, you know, it's a different setup. But I mean, that thing, you know,

the thing that I blown away, like even that truck, I mean, we built that exhaust to be a little bit

loud. Like he wanted it to be a little bit rowdy. Yeah. You know, it sounds like a Mustang. I mean,

when you, I mean, when I hear it, if I close my eyes, I just, I, all I hear is a Mustang GT.

You know what I'm saying? What I'm doing, I'm trying to slide that. Yeah, that too, you know.

But, you know, I spent some time, I spent some time with Justin Pollack, who's a formula drift

driver. Okay. And he drove a Mustang for a Falcon tire. And anyway, I helped him out, you know,

and when I ride in the car of SEMA, and then I also went to St. Louis and helped him pick her

a little bit, you know, one time and, you know, whatever. But you know, his car's got like thousand

horsepower. But just I don't, I don't really care when he says, like to me, the coyote is just

the sound of that engine. It's just, it sounds amazing. I mean, you know, when you're spinning it

around, they sound good. It just sounds like it just sounds like it's going 150 miles an hour when

it's just going, you know, but that's the problem. It sounds like it's going 150 miles an hour. It's

only going 30. I hear you, but, but like even in that truck, though, like I hear it, I'm like, it

damns the sound. It's a good, but, but even from a drivability factor, like even in that thing,

I mean, it's, you know, it's a 10 R80 and, you know, there's, I mean, it's a bone stock engine

as far as that goes, but it's the drivability part of it is really nice. I mean, I think as,

as loud as the exhaust is, when you're cruising down the road at, you know, 1800 RPM or whatever,

I think it's so quiet, it's the weirdest thing. It's, they're very smooth too. That, the coyote

and the, and the 10 speeds, it's a smooth operating, rotating assembly. That's what, that's what I,

I just did a video on the drivability side of the, of that orange high boy, and I was trying to

take a little bit inspiration from your driving videos, because I'm always like, don't, Jeremy,

don't do that. Jeremy does a good job with these driving videos. Thanks, but don't take inspiration from

me. I'll read the comments. Because you're putting all the comments. And Matt's not in the comments.

I don't, I don't really care. I mean, I, you know, I, obviously, most of those mass-cured

comments are from people who, you know, probably had never driven anything, but they're on the,

probably, you know, anyway, but, uh, point being, uh, you know, the, the, on that orange truck,

like, that was one of the comments. I mean, the video was like, just the, the smooth power,

like, the coyote, like, it's just, you know, it's just a smooth, like, and I honestly feel like it was,

really, it was really well-mannered in a, in a big, four-wheel drive. Like, because,

even if you did wind it up a little bit, like, the truck is big enough to where it needs that,

it needs that extra, like, RPM, maybe a little bit, uh, you know, to, to get the truck move

down the road and, you know, whatever. And I, I mean, I agree with you there as far as the smooth

part. I mean, I, you know, I, I've never driven one in a, in a muscle car, you know, or whatever that

way. But, um, I don't know. How does that stack up against the Godzilla motor? You've done a

both what, and in the trucks, what's, what's the difference? How do they feel?

There's definitely different. The, I mean,

I mean, after driving one with the coyote in it so much, then you jump in with a Godzilla,

it's, it's just different because the Godzilla makes all the power out of way lower RPM range,

because of, you know, the cubic inches and the torque and the whole, the whole deal that way.

And so you don't realize you're really in the power because you're, you're, if you're listening

for that coyote kind of wind up in the Godzilla, like, it's not there because it's, it's totally

different. And, uh, you know, in the next thing, you know, you're like, wow, I'm actually,

I'm actually kind of in this thing. And it's, you know, the, like, said the RPM range is different.

It's, it's definitely, I mean, it's a completely different animal. I mean, for sure,

and the, the drivability though, I would say usually when a customer calls and they, they want to know,

well, I'm, I'm open to Godzilla coyote, whatever you think. I'm like, what are you doing with the truck?

Like, what's your goal here? Um, and you know, if, if it's really just about just

drivability and being able to just cruise somewhere, I actually might even tip somebody towards

the coyote because I think from just a cruise ability and drivability, you're going to get better

fuel mileage out of it because I mean, you're obviously shrinking 150 cubic inches almost, you know,

so fuel mileage, you're going to go down like some of that kind of stuff from a drivability aspect.

But if, if a guy has any inkling towards wanting to do actual truck stuff, like maybe tow something

or, you know, whatever, I definitely would go towards the Godzilla that way, just because the power

to me, you know, and then obviously having the beefier transmission and all that other stuff,

like, you know, it was built for truck stuff. I mean, it's a super duty. It's like it's big

block versus small block, that's a hundred percent. Yeah, and, and, um, you know, I, I know guys that

maybe think differently than that, but you know, based on my experience, I mean, I think, you know,

we just, we just got one started up in a, in a 75 crew cab. Um, and, uh, you know, it, it,

it feels a little different to me because when that truck came in, it had a 572 big block forward in it

with 650, whatever horse, like it was an animal, but it was in a six thousand pound truck.

You know, it's like, you got this like high performance big block. Yeah. In a six thousand pound,

you know, 19 foot long crew cab, like it's kind of wasted, you know, and the, the drivability on

it, that point was not good. Um, you know, the transmission was clumsy in it and whatever so the

customer wanted better drivability. So we put the Godzilla in it and get it done. Uh, you know, it's,

it's definitely, you know, it's missing some horsepower compared to that big block, but, of course,

drivability. It just, no replacement for displacement. I've heard it said a few times before.

The, uh, I, uh, listening to your story, there's an awesome takeaway here that I think that anybody

listening should realize that everybody's always searching for like what, what to do. You're getting

in business. You're trying to like, you're starting a hot rod shop. What you, what it sound, what

you've done here is simply did something well and sort of believed in yourself, I think,

and the byproduct was that more of it came. It's the classic like you build it. They will come

recipe. Yeah. You know, it'd be interesting to be sitting here listening to you lay out this

business plan that you had of going into this said business and then the success that followed,

but it's really like from what I'm gathering as you're talking, it's like, dude, I just built

like a badass truck and then another one came and I made that one really good too. I learned a

little bit more. I tried to make this one better and I knew how to handle that. I enjoyed like

working with the customer, paid attention to the customer, handled the customer and then another one

came and it's like, it's a great, it's a great example of how you get started. I think a lot of

people are intimidated when they sort of get into business, you know, you got to have this like

master plan. You just do something really well. A master plan is just going to cause you frustration

because we all know along the way, you're going to pivot, right? And being able to pivot is what

is another secret to the success, but having to pivot when you lay out such a very detailed plan and

say on Tuesday, this is going to happen on Thursday, this is going to happen and then on the second

quarter, this is going to happen and we're building this is anytime something goes, even if it's not a

bad thing, it's a derailment or a, you know, a pivot, then it's like, well, fuck this, everything's

going to shit. Well, so this goes back to another one of those things where my wife has been

incredibly gracious with me because she is very much the, have to have a plan, figure it all out

beforehand and then go into action, you know, kind of thing and, you know, I'm, I'm not that way

all the time, like, because, you know, at some point to me, like, you know, on my own and it's like,

you know, you can talk all you want, but again, no matter what, you know, you can have everything planned

out, so you think, but as soon as you get into it, bam, everything changes, because of whatever,

you know, and so, you know, and to me, what makes a good fabricator or even a builder in general,

is you have to be a good problem solver. And so if you don't have the problem solving capabilities

to be able to look at whatever the issue is or whatever the problem is or whatever you don't have

in front of you and you need to figure that is, you know, out, like that translate into business

for me. Like, you know, there's, because that's just problem self. Yeah, I mean, you know, every

day's like, you don't expect something and they're saying, you know, the phone rings or, you know,

a guy comes to you, hey, I accidentally broke this or whatever it may be. I mean, there's just,

there's all it's just constant. The one thing you can expect is problems. Yeah, like, you can expect

that what you are expecting that day is not going to happen. It's going to be something different.

The best thing to do with, with your wife on the planning and stuff, because I've had to learn

this a lot with, with Phil in particular, is you can still plan, you just change the amount that

you're planning because very early on, it was like, all right, you know, we're going to go to

Seema, you know, if we need to leave by this day and then where we're going to stay, blah, blah,

it was like, oh, yeah, we'll like figure that out, you know, we'll figure it out, figure it out.

So now it's, and I would always get frustrated. I'm like, well, no, we're going to plan this, but

so now it's just the plan is we're going to Seema when we go and we're going to stay somewhere.

So that's easy. You could just plan for that because then we will stay somewhere and we will go.

So just, you know, with the wife and plan and stuff like, hey, next year, we're going to succeed

in business and we're going to do better next year than we did this year. Let's just plan on that.

Let's all together agree and plan that we're going to do better than we did this year.

Well, in the way that, and then, and then there's that's easy. Okay, no problem. I feel better.

We plan it now. It's good with the way that the way that things have gone. I mean, I've been open

for, well, I opened officially kind of in April. So I'm going on four years, but the first year

and a couple of months, it was just me by myself in the shop just working, you know, building stuff.

I built 95% of that orange high boy we did by myself, you know, and all that and did a couple of

the projects in that time and whatever. But then, you know, I got to a point where I'm like, you know,

I really feel like I really need some help in here because I just can't do everything. You know,

I used to call my forklift my right hand man because it was like, hey, I need a hand.

Oh, hey, I'm just going to use the forklift. I don't think I get build a car without a forklift.

Oh, I know. Having one, having one you can just use, so I put hoods on with them, you know,

all kind of stuff. It's a, it's a, you know, so then I decided to hire my first guy. And it was like,

it was, that's a huge, I mean, making the decision to open up an opportunity for somebody else to

trust in you enough to support their life. Big responsibility. Massive. I mean, just making

that one jump to hire one person was like, wow, this is like a, this is a big deal. And like,

I, you know, um, you know, for me, it was like just hoping that you find a guy that's actually

worth something, you know, whatever. And I got super lucky. You know, the, you know, I feel like

that the guy that I hired Josh has been phenomenal. I mean, super hardworking guy. Rare with a Josh,

too. Very great. It comes to Josh's. Here we go. It's been a, it's been a, it's been a long,

it's been a couple hours without it without a fucking hurtful comment. So you did pretty good today.

But, but no, he's been, he's been a phenomenal. I mean, he came from, you know, there's a,

there's a company called Vermeer right in town. And they're a huge, huge manufacturing company.

I mean, they make everything from hay baler. They're a company that invented the round, big round

hay bales. They invented that technology. So they make hay balers. They make underground drilling

rigs for land utility lines. And they make wood chippers and all, I mean, they've got like

over 3,000 employees and they've got like a mile long stretch of manufacturing facility. I mean,

there's some massive operation. Anyway, he came from there and was a welder there. And he,

you know, he, he just came in and, you know, obviously, you don't, you don't know somebody

tell you working with him. As far as, you know, work ethic and all that. I mean, and uh,

but he came in and he showed me all these old four trucks that he's had over the years. And,

you know, all that. I'm like, well, okay, he's, you know, he likes the old four trucks. So we're

on the right path here. And yeah, he came in as just a, you know, super hard worker always forwards

thinking, you know, like, if something needs done, like, and he knows it needs done, he doesn't have

to wait from, you know, I don't have to be like, hey, Josh, you know, he just will jump right on

stuff without me having to say nothing, you know, and that to me is just, you know, super valuable,

just, you know, and having somebody like you can trust and that, you know, that you feel like,

you know, that they will just take things by the reins and get the job done, whether you're standing

there or not, you know, and then, you know, hired my second guy and hired a third guy. The second

guy hired about six months later, yes, and hired a third guy about 10 months after that. And,

you know, it was all just that necessity. Okay, okay, we're doing more of this. I really could use some,

you know, and the way I looked at it was like, okay, here's everything that I'm doing.

All right, now you have this portion of it, and then, oh, it'd be really nice if I had somebody

handle this portion of it, and then not need somebody to handle this portion of it. So,

I was kind of taking what I've done and started kind of trying to divide it out, like, okay, like,

how can I get rid of the things in my time as far as like, maybe the things that I don't have to

be responsible for everything. And obviously, you know, as we start building more projects,

you need people who know what they're doing, you know, to be able to, you know, get stuff built

in the right way, and that sort of thing. But, you know, jumping off the deep end into, you know,

being an employer has been an interesting, that was fun. It's fun. Did you do an amazing job?

I mean, this whole conversation has been so eye-opening and understandable, the progression,

you know, and to echo what you're talking about is the takeaway is that is the key is to

find the thing. Don't overthink it. Don't overthink it. But, it's funny, the passion that, and I don't

think you even realize it. I know you don't realize it, the passion in the knowledge of all of these

Ford trucks and these parts and the things and these high boys and the, the, from, I mean,

amount of patina stuff, four-wheel drive stuff, you know, is never been in any of your wheelhouse

in the last, you know, 15 years of experience and skill set, but it's part of the journey. But,

there isn't the, to what you're talking about is don't overthink it because there is no way

coming out of wild tech. You could have planned. Like, all right, this is going to be a long plan.

But, this is, this is the deal. This is what I'm going to start out doing and then I'm going to go

there and I'm going to go, there isn't a way. It would look like an unsolved mystery. Like, if you

yeah, that's a spaghetti map of nothing. But, a hard left here and it's so, it is.

Seeing, seeing the passion in your knowledge base about all of these and working with these

customers and building these users and the, the, the stories behind them and the, it's, it's really,

it's really, really cool to see. We have reached the time where it is standard questions time.

That's the time. Brought to you. Brought to you by the standard and wheels, HRE.

This is a, this is the second time, second time we're going to.

The last podcast was great because Josh is bringing, bringing some really good new content

to the table. Yeah, I've got even a couple of new ones. Standard questions, but also new,

new, new standards questions. Yeah, brought to you by HRE. Standard wheels, right? A little long.

Yeah. We'll work through that little wordy. First and foremost, first,

bring back a favorite car movie.

Favorite car movie. That's,

it probably, honestly, for me would ultimately have to be four versus Ferrari.

I'm sure that's a standard answer, but it's just because of the story of that whole deal.

Obviously, it's Hollywood eyes a little bit with the movie, but at least the main premise

of the whole thing, it had a pretty damn good job at it in my opinions, but also just,

obviously, I felt like it wasn't too far out in left field as far as car-related topics are

concerned. Right. Usually you watch a car movie and you're like, that's, that wouldn't happen.

No, that wouldn't happen. No, that wouldn't happen. I always, I can't help myself,

but lean back to Fast and the Furious Days because, obviously, it was early high school.

And when that movie came out, it was like, obviously, it was on fire for everybody at that time.

It's great. They progressively get a little more far from the original.

Yeah, but original. But the original one was on it.

I'm talking about 99 or 2000. I was thinking 2001, maybe it was 2001.

2001 or two. Anyway, I mean, I watched that movie in a drive-in theater in the back of my

dad's Mustang convertible. And I just, I would never forget just watching it.

Hey, yourself? No, my dad, my stepmom, my brother, and myself.

But anyway, it was, yeah, I was just lonely by myself.

I watched the show, place eight. I remember rolled in in the Camaro, looking for some action.

We watched the debut, told this story a couple times. We watched the debut at the theater,

but we had just finished up Jonathan Gullsby's CRX. It was wide-body.

There was going to SEMA, and it was inside the theater for the launch of the opening night of

the movie. It came in like we were like, King Kong.

I mean, I think like a lot of people that are probably my age, obviously, that movie was kind of

groundbreaking in a lot of ways. I don't know. I don't know. I feel like car movies before

then. I mean, there was some, but it was just another movie that was solely dedicated on like more

on what was relevant at that specific time as far as cars. And so in such a, I guess it was obviously

very Hollywood, but just in a way that really brought extra outside viewers who maybe weren't in

way deep in the car world or at that point or whatever. But like, I mean, I was still in high school,

but that was so obviously just being a kid still, essentially, and looking at what was possible

with any modern cars. My first car was a Honda Civic, and I turned that car into a road race

car sort of, it was kind of lame, but it was a 991 Ford or Civic. So I've always had a soft spot

for that CRX body style because that's what the front of mine was. But a roll cage in it and

Will would break single over it came or dual. I swapped it to a B16. So yeah, 1.6. And that thing,

I guess I took that thing. I took that thing that you know all this stuff. You don't like that,

do you? I took that thing out on the road. A lot of stuff still up there. Hey, I did a lot of

stuff. I mean, just swapping that motor, I doubled the horsepower in the car. So it has B18C1 in mind.

So there you go. Yeah, that's like said, I got it. I still, I still joke with my wife. Sometimes

it on like one of these days, I'm going to buy one. It's just like my old one. And there was one,

I don't know, probably year and a half, two years ago, it popped up for sale. It was identical to

my first car color, everything. And it was meant. It was like some old lady's car, you know,

so probably stuffed in a way in a garage forever. It was like super low miles meant. And it was like

12 grand. And I'm like, man, like that would be just supposedly mine is is still out there in you

didn't rec close. No, not the civic mine is I sold mine was that was in the the show car stage

when it, but it's supposedly very close to what I sold it as. And it's still out there in

making the rounds. And no, no P is coming back. Um, they're actually doing a big, they're doing a

big announcement at PRI. They did it. They came back last year in Atlanta, but they're making it

now. And it's coming back. And they're actually doing like a split of like newer tuner stuff,

but then throwbackness. That basically, that's how old we are. That yeah, it's also old civics from

notepie back in the day. It's going to be like the street rod nationals of going. I've seen,

I've seen you are the old, I never fuck with that stuff. You've seen some Japanese stuff that's

been selling to bring a trailer. It's nuts. I mean, I get it. I mean, it's, it's the guys that

grew up with that stuff. We're having one that are now older and have money in there. You

just been 80 grand on a good integrity right now on a tight bar on a, yeah, I'm a good, oh, yeah.

Yeah, I'm telling you, you ain't never lived. Never been in one. You never felt V tech.

I was just going to say that you haven't, I mean, yeah, I felt it. I know you can't feel V tech

because your neck's still fine. You've obviously never felt V tech. I can tell

because we were talking about YouTube comments. Again, some dude fucking annihilated me over

being in the, in breeding that shit in Brent's C10. When Brent was driving, he fucking stands on it.

Cars 1,000 horsepower and it's got just a bench seat in it, right? So literally, as he accelerates,

I think I was like, and this guy chimes in, he's like, fucking moron. Like, wait, wait,

oversell the torque and pull this car by making your neck like snap back dude. Like,

bull, like, this is ridiculous. You don't have to do that. I'm like, dude, I'm like,

because I'm like, did I really do that? And I walk back up literally like,

I can't dude. Mother fuckers fast, right? But 1,000 horsepower will make your neck snap back

a little bit. Yeah, imagine 1,000 horsepower V tech. V tech's more like a slow roll.

I didn't know the NSX has that shit, right? It's a power band.

The reason it's like it's become so famous, it's like a 250 shot is from Kyle's. It's a 250 shot

of night. Kyle's sound effects on it. Kyle does the fast, does the tech sound followed by a

drift. He's good. I actually, you know, I said I was taking inspiration from videos and my inspiration

was that when I was doing a driver video, I made sure that I kept my neck straight. Yeah,

don't let it do. And I was the guy in the comments actually. Don't do not and definitely don't

exaggerate it. Don't even let it naturally happen. But do not exaggerate it in your next video.

You just yeah, I'm being like, yeah, like, dude, stop. You should wear a police wear a neck brace.

2026. Do me a favor. Shut it off. It's like, it's like the first. I know I'm just don't even don't

even look. Yeah, the whole all of 2026, your resolution. Do not read a single comment. Yeah,

let it be, man. Like Lenin said, let it be. I'll throw in a last, I guess, what do they call it?

The, not the first runner up or the, the consolation prize for this car movie would be just the

gun in 60 seconds wouldn't engage in it. Cause that to me was, I grew up when that movie came out,

you know, and so it was like, when that one, I mean, I've seen the original, but then when that

would come out, you know, obviously, you know, jumping the Shelby Mustang over the bridge and I hope

that it was just, yeah, you've checked the boxes, man. You've got, you've got the bang. I

cage coming back out. You got a new movie coming out. I saw that John Madden speaking of what,

because I've ever seen the pig with him. It's called the no, I have not. I've seen, I've seen it,

it like the trailer. It was, it's a great movie from like the acting and all the stuff.

Well, he's a good actor. No, if you ever want a movie, like he sort of why he ended up like doing

the sort of volume of films and the type of films he did for a little while. Yeah, he had to,

he had to make the money. You ever watched, you watched the Charlie Sheen documentary,

haven't you? Yeah. He had, he had, he had some bills to pay. He had a lot of bills to pay.

Well, the, my wife, we watched that movie together the pig and she, we got to the end and the

end will make you, I'm not, I'm not going to spoil it, but she was just like angry and was like,

this was such a dumb movie and she was all, you know, but if, if, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm not

like a acting, you know, judge or connoisseur or whatever as far as all the, you know, whatever,

but I just thought that the movie in general was, was pretty good. So if you're looking for something

that's obscure, it's like an independent film. It's totally obscure off the, you know, whatever,

and it, you know, it, you know, something to make you brave. The way I felt about Eddington,

I watched Eddington a few weeks ago and it's the same thing. It's acting is amazing. It's everybody's

in it. Good grief. There's some amount of people in it. I mean, Emma Stone's in it and you've got

the walking Phoenix is in it. And then you've got a sedude from Narcos, the

tooth and mustache. Famous. Anyway, I can't, I can't already hear my wife making fun of me for

saying I like that movie. Eddington is a wild movie. It's based in pandemic time like 19,

the 2019, 2020 in New Mexico. Just a very, very well written acting is great, but a weirdo,

kind of like indie kind of film. And then like in hour and 40 minutes into it, it turns into a

Tarantino flick and you had no idea it was coming. What is going on? Like bloody. Yeah. And absolute

just, I mean, I said Tarant, like everything Tarantino to the max all the way to the end. And then

it's like, I don't, you don't know how to feel about spending my time with this. You want to talk

about a good movie. My son who's 14. He continually, we try to do family movie night like on

Sundays. And he gets on something. He's going to be the same. He's on bad Santa. Is it just bad

Santa every weekend? Let's do it again. Let's do it again. My wife is like, absolutely not. And

then I'm like, well, he's 14. Like he's a freshman in high school. Like how bad can I haven't seen

it in a long time? So she'll look over there. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, well, that's cool. Maybe he

should like learn. So I go, uh, she vetoed it. Well, I go downstairs a couple nights ago.

Sunday, well, Sunday night. Yeah. And he's watching it in his room. So I'm like, oh, cool. I kind of

want to watch this. So mommy's not here. Like let's watch this. It's so funny. Ask. Yeah, it's funny.

It's horrible for a 14 year old. Do you think it's, is it, is that wrong at 14?

You're going on 15. You're the wrong person to be making the judgment call. You've told

the story that your dad said, hey, watch easy riders when I'm gone. Yeah, he watched. So he said,

watch this while I'll be gone. Yes. And he also, we never had like the birds in the bees talk.

He had, he let me sleep in, uh, he had a boat. And it had, uh, you know, a little cabin in it.

And my mom was up in the house and popped in a little VHS tape that kind of explained most of the

things that you need to learn in that birds is the bees talk and a young Jeremy Gerber. Yeah,

a young impression. I'm just like, so that's how it. Okay. Huh. And I figured it all out. But, uh,

I don't have 14. You know, that was, I mean, that was much younger than 14. But if 14,

you can't watch bad Santa. You don't think it's bad. Yeah, you watch bad sin. Okay. Yeah. But Billy

Popper, I can watch bad Santa. Oh my god. Is he fucking funny in that? It's just him. Yeah,

it's just him saying whatever, whatever he wants to say. It's a great one. Uh, all right. Next

up. Next question. Yeah, why you can watch bad Santa? Tell him it. Tell him I said it's okay.

Uncle Josh said it's fine. Uh, let's see. Next up, uh, curve ball, complete curve ball. This is

a brand new one. We got new ones coming. This is one of the new ones. This is the newest of the new

first time ever. If you could go back in time at any point in time and tell yourself one piece of

advice. What would it be and what would you tell yourself? I feel like that's not new. Didn't we

did. I feel like we did that before. Don't, don't, don't, don't be, don't be one of the guys in

the comments. Okay. Maybe it, when we would write it back, maybe it's been, maybe it's an order when

we're bringing it up. Oh, last Josh for getting shit again. He's like, you're a groundbreaking.

That sings fast. Wow. That's funny. Um, man, that's, uh, you're getting deep. Uh, I think I would say

maybe it's in some, in some respects, it would be to maybe try to, um, just recognize what I would

want to do with like my future goals, like, because, you know, like even, you know, from the very

beginning, getting started building cars, you know, trying to be a fabricator or trying to build

hot rods. Like, I had no clue what that meant. Like, you know, straight out of high school. Like,

why would take makes it look fancy? You know, flames and chop and tops and I'll hold the whole deal.

You know, but, uh, you know, I still, you know, I look by that point and I don't know that I, like,

I know for a fact I had no clue what that actually meant. Like, what does it mean to build cars?

You know, like, obviously it's putting classic cars together. But if you would have told me now,

uh, or then that I'd be doing what I'm doing right now, I'd have been like, that's, that's crazy.

Like, and if you explained all the stuff that I got into, you know, hit, you know, into that. And so, um,

and I, I think it goes back to your point. You made earlier about, um, teaching young kids,

you know, high school kids or whatever it is. Like, uh, you know, whether it's a trade or whether it's,

uh, you know, what is possible, um, you know, with, with hard work and with something you are

passionate about it. I think for me, um, I think it would be just trying to, you know, because I,

and I think obviously there's some positive to trial and error stuff. Um, you know, obviously you

gotta try stuff sometimes before you even know if you like it or if you're gonna, whatever. But

I think there's still ways to, um, that I wish, I wish I would have known more of

what I need to be ready for, you know, uh, and whether that's, I mean, because, you know,

I mean, people are like, oh, that's pretty cool. You're on your business. You're like, yeah, but it's

like, I'm flying by the seat of my pants. Like, I didn't take any, I'm on a business major. I didn't

take any business classes. Like, I'm learning every day, you know, and it's every day, um, you know,

and even 10 years ago, uh, you know, so it's 2025, 10 years ago, 2015. I was at Scott's. I'd

been there for a couple of years, you know, and even then if you asked me, like, oh, do you,

you know, and I, because I remember saying people, because people would ask me, like, oh, do you,

you see opening your own shop someday? And my answer was always like, ugh, no, like, that sounds

terrible. You know, but it was because I had such a, you know, I obviously worked for people,

uh, you know, but you see all the stresses and all the different issues of a business owner and

all that. And I'm going through those things now as the business owner and learning those things.

And I'm at a point in my life where I'm old enough and I've experienced enough stuff where I can

again self evaluate, I can look at those things in a way that, um, you know, I'm mature enough now

to be able to, you know, adapt and be able to adjust the way I need to do things and learn. But

when I was younger, I feel, you know, I feel like if I would have could have been told, like, hey,

you're going to be doing these things someday, you know, maybe you should prepare a little better

for that, you know, uh, and, and that's not even necessarily to say that I should have gone to college

necessarily, but maybe I should have focused harder on, you know, uh, just trying to learn some things

that were beyond just being a good tig welder or, you know, being, uh, you know, whatever. Um,

and also, I think, you know, some of it just from a personal standpoint, just, uh, you know, um,

you know, obviously we all grew up and you guys have kids and, and all that stuff. I mean,

just learning, uh, you know, I mean, my wife and I had kids late, so my daughter just turned four,

right before Thanksgiving there and then my son's three months old, uh, and, uh, you know, so we're,

you know, we're late in the game when it comes to kids, uh, but, um, you know, it's kind of given a

different perspective on why I'm doing what I'm doing, like I'm doing it for myself in the sense of

like, this is what I'm passionate about. But now, like I'm also doing it because I want to provide

my kids with an excellent future. And that was not always my mentality of like thinking about

that aspect. I mean, I knew at some point I'd probably have kids and, you know, that sort of thing.

But now, you know, my mindset is, you know, everything I'm doing, I'm trying to do better because I

want to give them better. And, you know, same thing for my wife, like I want to do better for her.

I mean, she stays at home every day with our kids and deals with a screaming baby who's always hungry

and he's super chubby because he doesn't stop eating and he's, you know, uh, you know, in my daughter

who's an opinionated four year old and, you know, all this stuff and, you know, she's got a super hard

job and, um, so how long do you think you're going to want to give your kids better all the time?

Really? Interesting. Why do you say that? Let them get a little older and see.

Well, I wanted to give my, they're all I would, I've talked about this before. All I wanted to do

is make up for all my stakes. I wanted, I wanted my kids to have everything. And I, and I did.

And then there was the time with like, hey, you're 19. You're 21. I did, I did everything.

Well, so now it's time if you want to make your life better, make it better. I did my best to

make your life better. So figure it out how to make it better. One of the, the trough is closed.

I think, I think when I say that as far as like make their life better or do stuff for them,

it's more, it's for me, it's more in the sense of not necessarily the item. I stuff, but it's like me

being the best version of myself that I can be for them. You know, because I, I mean, even at

the shop right now, like I, I mean, I have to work overtime, obviously, because I'm the business

owner. And so I'm trying to do stuff all day long. And next, you know, before, you know, before my

son came a couple of months ago, I was working, you know, six thirty in the morning till six or six

or six thirty at night, you know, and, you know, working extra and whatever. And now I've scaled

that back because I'm doing another year and a half before that they won't even know.

You're just, it's just a, a boob that gives in food right now. Like just keep going for another

year, year and a half and then like bonus round right now. Yeah, just get after it. You know,

and I'm obviously trying to be home, you know, as much as I can. And it's, you know, man, that's a hard,

that's a hard balance. You know, balance and, you know, really little kids at home, you know,

with obviously trying to run a business. I think it's a, you know, it's a, it's a tough balance

between the two. But I think, like I said, when I say do better for them, it's more of me being the

best version of myself that I can teach them the things that I had to learn the hard way.

Not necessarily the, not necessarily the giving them of items or, you know, anything like that.

It's more of the, you know, I mean, you know, I look back at, you know, when I first moved to

California, it's over in fireworks. I mean, I didn't even know what a credit score was. Like,

I didn't know nothing about personal finance. Yeah. Anything. You know, and next thing you know,

you go a couple of years and you're like, wait a minute. What, what's that? What's the credit

score? What's, you know, I, it just, you know, and part of me, you know, I think, I think in general,

school systems do a great disservice to kids in general, not teaching personal finance, because

in general, general life skills, general life skills. Yeah. You know, because, you know,

obviously I kind of, I think I failed, not failed, but didn't do well in chemistry and these other

things. But it's like, to me, those aren't real life skills. How many times have you found yourself using

like, how many buns and burrs have you come across like in your daily life that like, I mean,

I need to, I need to figure out when I was in high school, the molecular chart here. My chemistry

teacher, we were learning all the periodic table and all that crap. And, you know, I was just

frustrated, because I was having a hard time with it. It wasn't my strong suit. I was frustrated.

And she's like, you know, I just, straight up point my gas. I was like, when, when am I going to use

this someday? Well, you know, what do you want to do for a living? And I said, oh, I want to build

hot rods. And she's like, well, you know, yeah, you can use this. And, you know, you'd mix

in oils and this and like started going into like, you know, wanting to like make my own oil for my

cars. And so I'm like, you know, like nobody, like, you know, it's just, and that's what I said,

talk about like the, the life skills, like that, that. I said the same thing. My attitude was always

when am I going to need this? And I think that's how I found myself and geared up for learning,

Josh, that if you don't think you know, I think you're right. I mean, we can, we get, we're going

on a rabbit hole, but it's talking about kids learning, you know, life skills and credit scores.

And, you know, writing it, you know, nobody writes it, check anymore. But you think, you know,

things like that that they're like, you don't have to do that. I understand. I've said the same

thing I've gone through this before. However, had those classes been given or those lessons been

given or somebody been said, I know I, I'm not going to speak for you. I wouldn't have given

a fucking shit. Even if they were trying to teach me about it, I didn't care. I don't know

anybody they would have cared. I prioritized it though, because you were focused, at least I was,

I 100% knew that 90% of the shit that they were trying to teach, I was never going to use.

And I was right. And the comment was like, how many times somebody told you, do you think you're

going to have a calculator in your pocket? Like, there's not one thing that I miss. Like literally,

single thing that I miss, except those simple life skills. Like, I understand what you're saying.

But there's no, they were prioritizing math and English because they think that you needed it.

If they would have prioritized math, English, and also good finances and investing and credit

along the same way, why would have that thing, but you know what I kind of actually was intelligent

enough to know what I thought would be useful and what wasn't like, maybe you would have. I don't

think that I clicked that graphic design that was the first year that they came out that I was

like, dude, this is man, there was like something I got an A in and it just like, it clicked. The

teacher was an actual like successful, that's the difference. It's not the subject. It's how it's

being presented. Well, when I saw the validity in doing it, like what how this could be applied to

your life and be useful. Right. And he delivered it in a great way that was like, well, this guy's,

he's an architect and a builder. And most of the time during the class, he'd get you going. And

then I'd see him over there like working on his own price. It's bad ass. It's double different.

He's got like a business and this is cool. And like, it was inspiring. I understand. Where's the other

lame ass, but that's the, that's to my point. It's the, it's not just the message. It's the message

germination. And it's the, it's the way things go to my, like my, my daughter was really, really good

at listening and asking questions and listening to things that we had to say and trying to teach

life lessons, you know, at 16, 17, you know, she worked, you know, pretty much full time from,

you know, 17 years old. She was working at 16, saved her money. The son, the opposite, right.

He had, you know, my son's very much like me. It does not matter. Right. There's, I'm not going

to use any of this stuff in, in school. I don't really care about it. I'm not going to need it. I'm

not, I do that. I've tried to talk to him. And it's, it's been the messenger, right. It's been the,

that's not the message. It's the messenger talking about, hey, this is some things you need to

look at on credits, credit cards and stuff. We'll try this. Never really been a thing that he's ever

not disrespectful, but not interested enough to like take it and apply it. Now, however, with where

he's working at now and some of those other people, you know, he's coming home and I was so and so

just got, you know, this new for 488. This kid's 24 years old. He's about as new Ferrari. I'm like,

yeah, we got to understand. He's like, no, dead. I understand. You know, he's got a 860 credit

score at 23 years old. And the reason he got this credit scores because he's got to get these two

credit cards and he used these to do this. I've already got the same thing. My credit score is already

this. I'm like, so six months ago, I'm trying to give you this lesson and you don't have anything to

do with it, but it's presented in the message, the same message is presented in a different way

with things, right. That he wants to have. That's my point was in school. You can't have

miss Sanford, the English teacher also say the thing we need to talk about is credit score, right.

The graphic design guy that was cool that was presenting in a way, you're like, oh, man, this

this is something I can get behind. That's the thing that needs to change. The types of messages

that were given them, but the messenger and the way it's being presented is a very important thing.

I want to think that's why that kind of goes back to my point. Like, when I say, you know, I want to

be better, you know, in certain ways, like for my kids and stuff, it's like, you know, I look at

my dad, you know, and my dad has always worked his ass off. You know, like, there's one thing I ever

know about my dad is that he's worked his ass off. I mean, it was four of us kids and my mom didn't

work, you know, up until I was like in high school, and my parents actually got divorced and

that sort of thing. And that's when my mom went back to work. But then, you know, but my dad,

my entire life, like was always working over time, whatever it took to pay the bills and put food on

the table and all that kind of stuff. You know, so I, you know, I get, I probably get some of my

work ethic from him as far as that goes. But I still think that there's aspects that, you know,

being that I, you know, I looked at my, you know, everybody looks at their dad in a certain way, you

know, you know, but like, you know, for my dad, it was always like I always knew he was going to be

a super hard worker, you know, and he, it seemed like no matter what, he knew how to do everything.

I don't know why he was always like the, I'm the jack of all trades, the master none, but like,

I mean, it didn't matter if he was trying to do some construction project around the house or

work on the cars or whatever it was, like he always, he just did it, you know, as a kid that was

always mind blowing to me, I'm like, how do you know what to do all this stuff? That's the same thing.

But then, you know, with my dad, though, you know, he'd always like, nah, you know,

whatever I could, you know, but I mean, he dabbled in a lot of different stuff. You know, but then

it goes back to, you know, I don't want to be just, you know, for like, for my kids, I don't

want to be just just the dad who just works my ass off. I want to be the dad who also is involved

to teach them those things because of the, like, because of my position in the way that they see

me, like I want to be the guy that they, everything that I say in general, like I know obviously

it's their kids and at some point it's right over the day as they get older and that sort of thing.

But in general, like, you know, if I at least for myself am doing the best that I can, whether it's

teaching a lesson about, you know, your personal finance or teaching how to change the brakes on

your car, you know, I want my kids to be able to look at those later on and be like,

oh, they actually was trying to teach me this stuff and actually trying to like set me up for success,

you know, later on as an adult, as opposed to, you know, and I'm not saying my dad didn't do those

things, but like, in the sense of personal finance and those types of situations and all that,

like, it was basically just like, you know, figure it out on your own kind of thing, you know,

and that goes back even to getting into Wiotek. I mean, the couple weeks before I was actually

supposed to move to Wiotek, you know, they basically called me and we're like, yeah, we don't have

all the money required in order to put you in school here, you know. But my parents had nothing,

you know, and so it was, it was, you know, I mean, I remember crying in my room thinking I

wasn't going to go to Wiotek, you know, because of, you know, we didn't have the money sort of thing,

and, and, you know, again, it's more about, you know, being able to teach, and obviously back,

I didn't even know what that meant. I'm like, what do you mean without the money? Like, I thought we

just went to school. Yeah, you know, but, you know, but again, thankfully, you know, Wiotek people

did some things and, you know, we're able to secure a little bit extra money for me to be able to go

to school. But again, just being able to set, you know, things in motion for my kids later on that

maybe they don't fully appreciate in a moment, you know, but that later on, you know, that they will,

you know, take forward with them. And so I think, I don't know, obviously, it's a, we've got long

winded on this, you know, question as far as like what I would tell myself, but that's a deep one,

man. It's a lot to unpack there. Next up, most memorable law enforcement interaction story.

It's probably not really exciting compared to most, you know, some people, but, um,

is it Tim Pellazole still in the lead with the attempted murder charge?

Is was good and, um, uh, Kindig's bailout story was pretty good too. Yeah, a couple of great

ones. Go back and listen to some of those if you listen now. I've never been in jail or anything

like that. My brother was a sheriff's deputy for a long time. So, you know, I,

TJ Russell's was good too. I, uh, um, I don't know, I mean, I've had a couple of just random weird ones.

Like, you know, so one time in Venturo, when we were my wife and I were, we had a six-hundred square

foot apartment and it was this guy had built his house and he built this apartment above his garage

and it was the whole, it was all just one building, but it was above his garage and that was our

apartment. Um, and I drove at the time, it was actually the day I was moving my toolbox from

plumbers to scots to, you know, move my stuff over there to take the job of scots. I was moving my truck

and, uh, with my toolbox and got rear ended on the highway, uh, you know, whatever that way. And so,

I just went out and bought a little commuter car. So I had a little black, uh, it was a 2013 Ford

Focus, uh, little hatchback, little, you know, five-speed car, fun drive, just something,

good gas mileage, zip around, whatever. So I had that and I was just, you know, driving out for a little bit

and, um, I mean, I don't even remember what time it was in the middle of the night. It was

midnight, I don't know, 1 a.m., something like that. All of a sudden, there was just banging on

our door. Well, our door was upstairs above the garage and we had to go down along Stairwell

that had a door at the bottom of it too. Um, and so they're just banging on that bottom door

and I'm like, there's just like lights out there, you know, flashlights and whatever. I'm like, what

is going on? And, uh, I go down there and open the door and there's just like eight police officers

standing there and they're like, you drive, you own the black car out front. I'm like, yeah,

I'm thinking like somebody hit it, you know, because it's just out on the street and, uh, they're like,

well, you know, where were you at this time? You know, uh, it's got stuff so my, my wife is,

my wife's at the top of the stairs. She's yelling like, I don't even remember what she was

yelling, but she was yelling like, uh, she was trying to yell answers down the stairs.

And I'm like, you can't do that because that makes it look suspicious anyway, but it was just

pretty funny. But, uh, you know, but they're like, where were you at this time when they were,

I don't know, they were looking for some random car, uh, you know, and it was a black hatchback and it

came down the road that went right by our neighborhood. I don't know. So they were looking for

a black hatchback anyway. So, uh, again, not very exciting. It wasn't amazing that I did, but it was

just one of those times where you get woken up in the, you know, middle of the night. I mean, like,

not just knocking, just straight banging on the door and, you know, they're like, uh, you know,

there are all these questions. Yeah, my wife's yelling answers down the stairs. I'm just like,

get a warrant. I'm like, I'm gonna get arrested here because she won't answer.

And, uh, yeah, I just was like, I literally drove home from work that night and the car has been

sitting there ever since. Like, I don't know what to tell you, you know, sort of thing. Again,

I don't have very great law enforcement interactions aside from I did get pulled over one time. Uh,

I didn't necessarily see the cop, uh, but I accelerated fast in my Honda that I had. I still had

it when I first started working at ironworks and, uh, took off from a light and I kind of accelerated

fast with neighborhood was right there. So I, like, accelerated and, you know, never broke the

speed limit and then just dipped in the neighborhood to go to the house. And, uh, next thing,

and there's lights behind me and, uh, yeah, the officer was just, uh, I had been working. I

don't, I think I'd worked super early and was working late because it was dark out already. Um,

and, uh, I'd probably been working 13 or 14 hours that day or whatever it, you know, at ironworks

at the time. And, you know, my eyes were bloodshot red just from being tired and whatever. And so he's

like, the cop asked me if I was smoking a little reef reef. And I was like, I was like, I don't

need to smoke weed. And I know that that's a weird term. Yeah. You know, a lot of friends that had,

but, uh, no, man, you got some. Uh, no, no, no. Yeah. I don't know. Like you said, my, my

law enforcement interactions are pretty minimal. Um, in that sense, but, you know, nothing exciting.

You already did first car. Um, the, the newest one, the newest one. Are you sure it's the newest?

This is brand new. I really like this one. Yeah. Good one. Okay. If, uh, the day comes, you have the

means financially and otherwise. And you are, you're at the point where you're going to have your

dream build vehicle built. Who builds it? Who do you hire to build it? And it can't be you. Who do

you hire to build it? And, uh, what is it? What's the vehicle and who's building it? That's a fantastic

question. Um, unlimited budget, obviously. My wife always gets frustrated because I'm going to

talk about dream vehicles. It's always, you know, I have like classifications of dream vehicles. So

is it a muscle car or is it a 60s, you know, big, you know, but there's got to be one that's got to be

one that pops into your head instantly above them all. Honestly, the one that pops into my head

immediately, when you said that, so I'll just, I'll just put this one out there. Uh, I, I have

a soft spot for like a 63 Lincoln continental convertible. Okay. So it's definitely one to pay

somebody to everybody and unlimited budget. Everybody wants one of those and nobody wants to build it.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I've worked on one. So I understand. You know, the, the, especially the convertible

stuff, the, uh, man, all the, you know, retractable. Oh, yeah, it's, it's pretty what, when you see

it work properly, it's, it's pretty incredible. But, uh, it's the fact that somebody figured all that

crap out in the 60s is amazing. I mean, even the 50s, I mean, you get the retractable hard top

they were smoking some reef reef when they came up with the way that it works.

Free reef reef, like, yeah, yeah, 60s early 60s. There was marijuana around for a long time.

It wasn't like real mainstream. Yeah, it was LSD and stuff in the, in the 60s. Oh, in the 60s,

early 60s, you're like, you're, you're coming off the tail end of the 50s. Is that people? Yeah,

they're smoking the shit out of me. Really? I mean, there was a absolute hell of a time with pills in

the 50s shits and equaludes and stuff. Yeah, that was 50s. In the 50s, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know. Um, so it's fine. I keep it clean. I don't know. And it's fine.

Body's a temple. I get it. I know everything. I know everything about music or musicians and what

they battled with. And there's what was Johnny Cash doing fucking ludes. Yeah. Yeah, but the ludes

L the same way. Well, in the era was late 50s. 50. Okay. Yeah. There's, there's there's smoking

referred hell. There's smoking referred. Or before, I mean, obviously, way before Vietnam war,

had hell of a reef has been around for damn hours. People that are like weed, a fish, you know,

I know we are the stupidest sounding people right now because we literally, yeah. I'm not

when something grows out of the ground, it's been around for a long fucking time. All right. So,

they've been spoken weed. It was invented in like 61. I don't know. There's got to be a year

where it like became mainstream in Bible days. We've been around forever. I'm gonna Google that.

That's fine. It's fine. I don't know. They're making their clothes out of it back then. I'm gonna

Google it right now. Google it. You're gonna be surprised. 80 BC. You know, when you type into

Google and it like tries to finish your question for you, it usually does it correctly because other

people have also, you know, it's like when was weed invented? Like, that's gonna be the

I can see that's what's going on his phone over there. You guys just keep going. I'll just just

don't mind me. Yeah, what you got the answer right there. It goes already popped up. Oh, I thought it

popped up already. So as far as the Lincoln, my vision in my head, you know, and it's funny.

Obviously, like you said, with the trucks and all the other stuff, like the Lincoln seems kind of

out and left field for me, but it's a I've always wanted one with like a that was like kind of

off-white, like almost like a Ford Wimbledon white, but with like a Wimbledon white, but with like

some type of like a silver or blue pearl over it. Just real subtle, like nothing wild, but

but I've always wanted like big wires on it. Okay. Yeah. And then probably like red interior.

Who builds it? So who builds it?

You're paying big money for your dream build as a builder. That's a perfectionist. Who builds it?

At this point, for the style that I weren't, I feel like it would have to be Troy.

It's like in twice a row. This is dumb quiet. I'm not doing this question anymore.

I'm not doing this honestly. We did twice and it's over with. It's too and done.

For me, it's more it's more of it's more of the it makes sense because I envision the car being

like having this elegance to it. That's good. Right. He's the right guy to build that car because

like I look at I look at like I build a Lincoln with wires on it. I'm just telling you right now.

No, I hear you. But he would. He would. If I was no, he would be he would be the person too

hired, but he would never build a Lincoln with wires on it. I hear you. I just mean like so when

I look at the cars that he's built for like the ride deals. Yeah. Just the elegance, the amazing

elegance that are in those cars like that's that's that's how I would envision this Lincoln being

in my head. Like just a car that when you look at it, you're just like holy shit.

Dude, even even in this fictitious question, where I'm like, you know, unlimited budget,

I'm going through it now. I'm like, nah, I don't know. Dude, I don't know if you can afford Troy.

Like, even in the unlimited budget, I'm like, yeah, he's going to probably make

I can't even afford myself. Oh, it's just funny how I hear that. That's twice. And we

asked it's why we asked the last Levi and asked you. Leave that with Troy. Same thing. What

yeah, the car was a 59 Invicta. Yeah, I know. It's a I'm going to start clarifying the budget thing

a little bit more. Well, also, we need to start. It's it has to stay in this in six figures.

No, I've got to even better better. Go ahead. This is going to make it even more interesting.

So the question, but now you're feeding into that whole like, of course, of course,

you know, when you get that kind of budget, like, no, that's a stupid thing to say.

No, I'm not saying anything about money wise. A little bit, but the question is going to be

preface to assuming that there's a timing factor this, right? So, hey, this is the question.

This is probably not going to happen tomorrow. So it's going to be happening over next few

years. So at that point in time, I mean, let's face it, it'll be, it'll be Adam's bank's hatrods,

right? I didn't want to say it again. Right. I said it last.

Troy's not going to be able to build another car in 20, in 20 years,

Troy ain't building them or cars. No, like two next year, he's that that fall he took

is another I see one more icy step and he's paint booths miss happening. Yeah,

did hire somebody next time for Chris. You're getting too old to fry. You're too valuable.

Yeah, no, he doesn't need to do that again. He didn't get no more lies left in.

I hear you. So obviously, you know, living in California for a long time, you know,

whatever just moved here. So going to have stuff done over here at Ready Strip. The first time I went was

it was last October, so a little over a year ago. I came down here, dropped some stuff off and

I'm like, dude, I'm like, this close to rad rides. I've always wanted to go by there. Like,

and you know, unplanned and you know, whatever it was like, well, I was like, I hope they're,

you know, hooked it there. I don't, I don't remember what was going on, but I know obviously,

you know, I'm not up on every single show that happened. So I don't know where they might be,

but I stopped in and yeah, and you know, Adam Troy were there and everybody's there working in.

You believe that they built all that stuff out of that barn that dirt floor barn and they built all

that stuff. I did. Their shop is pretty badass. Yeah, it's just tired of hearing the good stuff.

I know I hear you, but I think I'll buy it as some weird shit. You know, I was just kind of,

you know, one of their guys, I don't remember his name, but you know, just like, yeah, go ahead and

look around. Okay. So I was just kind of walking around and Adam was like, you know, he,

you know, got my attention and just was asking some questions and just showed me around a little bit.

It was kind of talking what they're doing and then Troy came over and I talked to Troy for probably,

I don't know, 45 minutes or so. But just, you know, one thing I've always appreciated about,

you know, the Hot Rod Road in general is just the, you know, the shows are hard because obviously

it shows everybody's getting pulled into many different directions and there's some shit going on.

You know, when you stop into somebody's shop, you know, and you can sit down and have a conversation

and, you know, talk about, you know, whatever it is, you know, and, you know, to have a guy like Troy

at the time, you know, be interested in, you know, these rusty old forts that I'm working on over in

Iowa, you know, that kind of stuff. It was just, that's one thing I was appreciated about, you know,

in general, for most people in the Hot Rod world, it's like just the camaraderie and the kind of

the brotherhood that there is, you know, in this, in this market, you know, in general. And obviously,

you know, it's, you know, there's always a few bad apples here and there, but in general, I think

overall, we, you know, we, we all kind of end this together a little bit, you know, and it's pretty cool

that way, you know, like if you had the name, the, the baddest apple, like who would that be?

Like the worst one, like the worst one. Just in some of the bad apples.

Just a general example of the bad apple. Yeah, just in general.

Bryson has been an absolute blast, man. This has been a fun time.

Absolutely. You brought an amazing single malt that I was a little scared because

I didn't think Jeremy was going to like it. Just reading it, not, not tasting it. It's great.

It was, it was really, really good. I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed reading chat, GPT,

Proof Josh, fucking wrong. Okay, coming. Yeah. Regular recreational cannabis

usually didn't become popular until the late 1960s and early 1970s.

When was the early, in the early 60s marijuana was not mainstream. That's not, well, that was not

the question. That's what I was getting at, dude. No, you didn't say what you said when it was

invented. Well, is that what I said? Yes. Obviously it existed. I don't think that's

when everybody's listening. I think I said if people were doing it, I think it was the word

that I used. We could go back and I'm sure Ellie will have a blast because that's one together.

For our top day, we're smoking some reef reef when they came up with the way that it works.

Three reef reef that, like, yeah, 60s early 60s. There was marijuana around for a long time.

That wasn't like real mainstream. I have LSD and stuff in the 60s.

But beetles openly smoked and talked about it in 64 to 65, which is a year after the 63, Lincoln.

63, 60, yeah. So Hendrick's Grateful Door Woodstock 69 made it seem communal. By the early 70s,

it became mainstream. So because the beetles didn't talk about it till 64, it is far

fetched that anybody did it. It's not like I don't think that the beetles were wandering through a

field and we're like, oh, look at that. Exactly. It's just in plan. Exactly.

Run it up and smoke it, shall we? So there was people smoking weed.

You have to do the entire next podcast in that episode. And the John Lennon voice.

Look at that. It fucking existed, dude. Like, well, that's what I was saying.

Popular. That it existed. You said, did weed even exist?

We'll have to go back in. Okay. That's fine.

Well, Troy installed a big, serious system.

Yeah, he did. Maybe he did the one for that manny. What was the?

Any fresco? That's a different one. The ball player.

Oh, Lincoln. No, that was for the skater.

No, I just I was that thing. Yeah, he did. I don't care. I don't care how good the exhaust sounds.

I got Lincoln's got a thumb. I got it. Well, I don't care what it is. It's got to have a good

stereo system. I got to I got to have music. I'm a music junkie. So yeah, trucks are hooked up with.

Oh, yeah. There's a lot of room for stereo in there. The problem is, is the convertible,

and you're going to wash out your highs when that top drops. So you're going to probably have to have

you probably have to have some, you might have to have a roll bar with some remote mounted tweets

really to get to get the whole soundstage where it needs to be. Yeah, the roll bar would look cool

in there. The tweeters on it. It's sick. And that's why you picked Troy to build it.

You think that was my style? You said it. No, you're you're starting to really piss me off.

You're starting to really piss me off. You said it. You said it. All right, Bryson has been

absolutely amazing. Make sure to lick Phil's glass before you leave. I want everybody to know.

Where does everybody follow you? How do we find you? Fabricated metal. Fabricated metal. And

obviously it's with a Y because of my name. Fabricated metal is my personal page and then

underscore PRD design on Instagram. And Instagram has been an amazing tool. So it's something

we continue to use. And you know, puts stuff out there. But yeah, I mean, we hopefully get out to

more shows here in the next couple of years. And we get that 67 out to some shows and show it

off with your guys chassis and stuff. And yeah, appreciate the opportunity to be out here.

Appreciate you coming out, man. Keep fucking ripping. Great, uh, trucks, great products.

Keep up the good work, dude. And we look forward to seeing what you're rolling out in the future, man.

Thanks for showing out. Appreciate it. See you again next week.

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Brycen Smith of PRD Design

SEMA

Coyote

WeatherTech

1957 Chevy pickup truck

sandblast

57 Chevy truck

turbo tubing

exhaust tubing

wheel tub

transmission tunnel

exhaust system

Ford Mustang 2015

roadster

Porsche 911 GT3 RS

two-wheel drive

four-wheel drive

four-by-four

tool drive truck

Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL

Limited production 1967-1972 Ford F-Series crew cabs

mirrors

carburetor

fuel injected

brake calipers

Wheelwood

Dana 60 axle

Dana 44 axle

closed knuckle

GVW

Pontiac Catalina 1961

chassis

About this episode

Original notes