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Welcome to the CarCast. I'm not the moderator here with Bill Goldberg. How are you doing, buddy?

You know, I'm actually sitting in the garage and I'm looking at the Cobra and I'm still stunned

from cutting two-and-eighth-inch holes in the body for the roll bar.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw the roll bar come. I saw pictures of the Cobra.

I don't know, you just did like a quick photo of trying to get the roll bar in.

So, I'm watching Manny. Manny's in the trunk and he's coming up from underneath, right?

And he's doing the pilot hole for the blade, the circular hole saw.

Yeah, for the hole saw. And you're just watching it.

I'm holding the camera and I've got my shirt over my face.

I've got my eyes closed and I just, I mean, it's just terrifying, right?

I mean, obviously, you have a little bit of room for error.

But, you know, what we did with level, with lasers and fricking, you could not have planned it out better.

Yeah, it's good.

Still, it's absolutely terrifying watching a hole saw drill three holes in your body.

And, you know, it was quite obviously, we did it after the fact, right?

After the pain, after the wrap, after everything's done, which is not the time to do it.

And, oh, Manny was that tense. And, but fuck, what a success.

The thing absolutely looks killer compared to that one and a half inch roll bar.

What a difference.

Right. So you, so this is, this is a bigger roll bar. It's a little taller.

It's definitely fit for, for you. I saw the picture and it's pretty tall now.

It has to be.

It has to be. But you know what, it doesn't look out of place. It doesn't look stupid.

I think once we seracode it, it's going to blend in more with the car.

And it'll, it'll kind of make, it won't make it disappear,

but it'll, it'll, it won't jump out at you. But I was very worried about

aesthetically what it would look like. But I think it's fricking perfect.

I really do. For that car, it could not have been done any better.

Yeah. Here's the, here's the picture that we were talking about.

So here. So yeah, cause I see you guys got it taped off.

You drilled the holes. You got it fitted in. Obviously it's not, it's just raw finish.

It's not, it's not done because who knows it was going to scratch.

It's going to not fit right. It's going to jam through the hole.

Like so you're going to get it all in there, fit it up correctly.

From this angle, you can't really see the side. I guess it just, it's just,

it's not going to have any side. It's just the, the hoop and the one down tube.

Right.

Yeah. I mean, it has a side profile, which I'll post and the angle of the third

bar is not nearly as extreme as the others. Right.

Cause if that was the case, we'd probably be installing it on top of the fuel tank

in there. But, uh, you know, I, I, with so many variables,

it really turned out great man. Yeah.

What was so funny was the next day we were up till two o'clock in the morning

doing that and the next day, you know, gauge is home. And so I wanted,

it was a beautiful day and I wanted to take him for a ride.

So I pulled all the tape off, none of the, the, the, the,

the welds had broken off already because of us kind of manipulating it.

There were only little three tack welds on it and it wasn't,

it wasn't installed. And so it's crack, you know, it's,

it's flopping around back there a little bit, you know,

and I'm like, what the hell is that noise? This car, man,

I got everything kind of dialed in and it shouldn't be, and then I figured it out.

And, uh, you know, we got a couple of bugs in the car.

Tomorrow I got the guys from snake eater coming over and we're going to run

through it again. I think we're going to change out the MSD box to a newer

version. Um, the, we have an issue with timing right now and power

or lack thereof. And so it should be interesting tomorrow going through

this car and it's, Hey man, every day is a fun experience with it,

but soon we'll have that roll bar, Sarah coated, it'll be finished.

And you know, then I can shake it down some more, but it's, it's,

I'm having a lot of fun, man.

I saw the photo and I wanted to ask about this.

I don't know if this is just what I'm looking at here in the photo,

but the front windshield looks like it's got some

tint to it.

Yeah. X spell did it.

Okay. So yeah, cause when I looked through it, I was like,

I know you can do a little bit and I know the whole theme is just

all blacked out, but I, it looked good. I'm curious from the front.

Does it look dark? Does it look like it's blacked out?

Yeah. I mean, it doesn't look fully blacked out by any means,

but it does look dark. I'll get a nice front shot of it.

It was a new coating that X spells doing it.

It was on the interior and on the exterior of the,

of the windshield itself.

As far as like the PPF is concerned, they've got some kind of new

glass treatment that they're doing.

Yeah. Yeah. I've seen that now.

So I'm seeing that the PPF done of course on the,

the body and the paint and stuff.

Kenny, when Shepherd just posted, I don't know if you saw his

post, he's in, he's in Nashville and he,

I hooked him up with X spell.

Yeah. And he's, and he's loving it cause they did,

they did his Viper, I think his ACR, which is like white with

the black stripe, but he said it took a few rock chips and

everything. So they did the black over the black to cover the

rock chips and then the clear on the rest,

which was smart and it looked, looked great.

But I'm seeing more and more exterior glass protection,

front windshield glass protection as well.

Well, it makes sense.

Yeah.

You know, it's super smart.

It's self healing stuff that protects your glass.

Right. Any rock, it's not going to come up and smash it.

I think it's a cool addition.

We'll see how it works.

I'll R and D it.

Yeah.

I want to ask you about, how's the Porsche coming along?

I think I saw another post online from the guys from CGC and

you must have brought, you must have brought Clint in and said,

we can't leave this Porsche alone.

We got to do something to it, right?

The fact, here's the story, you know, as a,

as a true numbers matching guy,

I want everything to be as original as humanly possible.

If I can't get it to, it's back to its original state,

i.e. the, the, the OEM intercooler,

then I'm going to make everything look as presentable and as clean

and as perfect as possible.

And I don't know who put those band clamps on there that were

fricking purple, but they were absolutely hideous.

And, you know, that accentuates the fact that it's an aftermarket

intercooler, right?

So I want something to blend.

I want something to stay with the build.

Obviously, purple has no place on any of my vehicles.

So yeah, it was just a final detail that Clint, Clint comes

over and looks at the car and says, Hey man,

what else can we fricking turn black?

So yeah, it was an easy, easy hook.

I pulled him right into it.

The purple is a, is I don't know why it's a common color for

those, for those pieces.

And so I like what he did here.

He got the piece of cardboard tubing and put the clamps on

it and was able to, to just get it done.

He's really good, man.

Yeah.

Really 80D and he, he is a huge attention to detail guy.

And so what a perfect person to take on that kind of

responsibility.

I mean, it's great.

We went back and forth with, are we going to tape off the

clamps?

Are we going to do, did you know what, just powder cut or

yeah, just sericotium.

Yeah.

And they're just going to go back on.

So even if on the inside, I don't know if they're,

if they're still purple, who cares?

Oh no.

They're not, he did them all the way through.

Yeah.

As I would expect.

Just another good, a little aesthetic.

And, and, you know, the last thing that I'm going

through right now is the exhaust on the Porsche.

And yeah, there are, there were a number of

different options that people have done throughout the

years.

And this is an aftermarket exhaust.

And I'm just trying to make it as palatable as

possible.

You know, it's trick.

There's no doubt about it.

And it's done properly and it's a nice aftermarket

addition.

But when you're, you're selling a car like that,

you know, do you spend the, you know, three

grand and buy the original intercooler and put it

on, or do you show that you've got a better

intercooler there with the option of you going

back and purchasing the original type and putting

it on?

Yeah.

I don't know.

It's six and one half dozen the other.

I think the car would be better suited if it was

completely original.

But I, I don't know.

It's a, it's a toss up.

It's a, you know, we've got better air flow

and better performance with this motor.

But I don't know.

Yeah.

It's still an option.

I mean, I've already located the original intercooler

or an original intercooler.

And, you know, I mean, it is what it is.

And then the rest of the exhaust is, you know,

5,500 bucks.

And so, I mean, it's, it's a toss up.

What do you do?

So I'm trying to figure that out right now.

I think I'm going to keep it the way that it is.

Yeah.

And you have the option to have what's,

what's currently sitting in the car or yes,

here's where you can go buy the original.

So I think it's a great upgrade.

It increases the airflow.

No question.

But, you know, is that something that a person

at this point is going to look at favorably or negatively?

It's going to come down to how does it run?

If you've got the car dialed in and it runs well

or if it needs a tune or anything and it runs well,

that's what's going to be the selling point going,

listen, it's got a few modifications on it.

We consider tasteful modifications.

Obviously these mods can be reversed.

But if you said, like if you, if you were talking

about the car or listing the car doing something

with the car and going, it doesn't really run right.

People are going to go because of all that shit

you put on there, right?

So you've got to take all that shit off.

Like we had this issue with, with Adam's

E46 BMW that he had built with the shop

that was just kind of making their name and whatever.

That's the one that I bought from him

and had to do a ton of work on.

And not, not his fault.

These guys were like, Adam's like,

I just wanted to like do some suspension,

do a few mods to it.

And they're like, Hey, what if we, you know,

pull the engine?

What if we do this?

And he's like, I don't want to do that.

And they're like, I know, but you know,

we'll do it for you.

And it's good for us and makes a name for it.

And it never ran right, right?

If you can get it to run right, you can go,

Hey, it's good.

It's a home run.

Yeah, the beauty is it runs like a scalded dog

and something changed in the sound of that turbo.

And it, it purrs like a kitten.

Yeah.

It's sound, it's just so sexy the way it sounds.

So I don't know if that, I'm sure what they did

had something to do with that.

Yeah.

The wastegate or whatever it is, but it's,

it runs really well.

Then I think I would, I would leave it.

Like that's the way it's going to be.

If, if, if somewhere down the line,

somebody else gets ahold of this car and they own it,

then then they can do what they want with it.

But I don't think it's tastefully done.

I mean, it's not like it looks like an aftermarket butch job.

I mean, the thing is tastefully done.

There's no question about it.

You can see the quality in the welds.

You can see the quality in the work.

So I think it's a plus.

It's just one of those things where, you know,

50% says yes, 50% says change it.

You know, so.

That's the thing.

I don't think there's going to be so much of a difference.

I don't either.

Like if you were, if you were going to sell the car,

I don't think it's going to make such a huge difference.

Personally, I don't think it's going to make that huge

of a difference.

You know what?

Like if you've listed it somewhere and people are like,

it didn't get the money it got because it was modified.

I don't think that's the case with this car.

It wasn't like, you know,

you cut up the fenders and stuff.

Like, you know what I'm saying?

Like you,

You can get this thing back to almost a hundred percent

originality.

Yeah.

Right.

You know, so it's all, it's all in what the owner wants.

I mean, hey, it's a, it's a 42,000 mile, you know,

upgraded 9 11 turbo that runs like a scalded dog.

And you can take it out and have fun with it.

That's, that's how I look at it.

Yeah.

Well, you got to be a centerpiece of your collection and just

sit there.

Then yeah, you can get it back to original.

I mean, it would no problem.

All it takes is a little bit of money because I've already

IDed all the parts.

You got to, you got to take that car out and fire it up

and let us hear it.

Let us see.

Oh yeah.

Believe me, it'll probably happen tomorrow.

Yeah.

I mean, if you get, you know, if Gage is there to

help you with the camera and the weather is good,

you got a little break in the weather, just something

for, for, for social media because it's such a cool

car and, and I don't think anybody here in all the

years we've been doing the podcast has seen that car

actually seen that car because, you know, it's,

it's traveled with you guys and it's been storage

and then, you know, and it was in the garage back

home out here in Bonsol and.

You've had it for 25 years, man.

I mean, yeah, one of those cars that because it's

not the, the, the exact type of car that is,

you know, representative of my collection.

It's kind of not, it's not in the front and center

by any means.

It's always been shoved to the.

I know, but it's always kind of Wanda's car

as well.

Right.

So, you know, it was, you're right.

It wasn't in the garage with all of the cars.

It was at the house.

Right.

And now it's in the garage with the other cars,

but it's, it's, it's a cool car.

And you should definitely show that thing.

And I think now that now it's the right time to like

give it some attention because.

Oh yeah.

You know, Goldberg's garage is done.

You've got, you've got your friends.

You've got your crew.

You got guys like Clint over there going,

you know what, when this car was built,

they, they did the modifications,

but nobody really thought about the aesthetics.

Like you're talking about little things.

Now that you guys have done the Cobra and you're

talking about every nut and bolt detail.

Yeah.

Right.

Like now you're obsessing over that.

Yeah.

I think I need to define that a little differently now because

I'm looking for, I'm looking for little tabs on the.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

I'm trying to be as perfect as possible.

But yeah, I like that.

And that car always was a cool piece.

Like I, I, I saw the car when it was out here,

but I don't remember even if we fired it up.

If you did, you didn't pull it out.

It was in the garage.

I just think it was just in the garage.

We just came over and took a look at it when I stayed over.

We've probably put a thousand miles on it in 25 years.

Yeah.

If that, you know, probably not even.

Yeah.

Well, it's a, it's a cool piece.

So yeah, you should definitely show everybody that car because

you're right.

It's, it's different from what's normally in the

collection of the muscle cars and the trucks and stuff,

but it's by no means any less cool.

No, I think it fits well.

It's just, it's completely different.

And for what it is, it's just a fantastic car.

I mean, I, and in doing all the stuff that I'm doing to it,

I'm learning a lot more about it and a lot about its history

and how many were built and, you know,

why the 92s are, you know, this much money compared to the

94s and I guess in 92, 91 and 92,

they only made 3600 and 60 of them or something in the two

years.

And then in 94, they only made 800 and then they made the

S and they did.

So I'm learning a lot about stuff that I never knew about.

Yeah.

You know, it's kind of cool.

Yeah.

It's a cool piece.

That I'm doing a voiceover for the new Dodge commercial.

So,

I know we got to be, we're going to,

we're going to keep that tight lip for now.

We're going to keep that tight lip for now.

People will know that it's Santa Claus's voice.

And the Chapman commercial,

you teased a little bit of that.

When did we get the full version of that commercial?

We're going to continue to sprinkle it out.

Okay.

I don't know whether they're going to drop it probably Christmas

time.

I'm not sure, but I do know that the Dodge has kind of caught

wind of it and they think it's quite entertaining and we had

a great time shooting there.

We really did.

It was a lot of fun.

Yeah.

It was really nice.

It's fun.

Yeah.

I'm familiar with the dealer.

You know,

being from Arizona a long time,

they've been there a long time.

Yeah.

They're pretty strong, man.

I didn't know the footprint that Chapman had until I

did there, man.

It's fricking strong.

Yeah.

Last week,

we talked about,

you were telling the story of,

of the time you got to drive the McLaren F1.

And while that,

while you were telling that story,

the RM Sotheby's Abu Dhabi auction was happening and they

had the McLaren F1 and I'm going to bring it up,

but we knew they were 20 million plus,

but this one 25 million,

$317,000.

It's sold.

It's a 94 McLaren F1.

I know white's not your jam,

but this car looks sharp.

Beautiful.

The one I drove was silver.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

You know what?

I don't care if it's pink.

That's the coolest car on the planet.

It's cool, right?

It's like,

it's just a really cool,

mean little car.

It's the pinnacle of,

of driving.

I mean,

in a nutshell,

that's the coolest thing ever built.

It's just so fricking sexy.

And powerful.

I mean, it's,

I mean, look at the black one.

Oh my God.

I'm going to scroll down on some of the images,

but by the way,

up on the RM Sotheby's website,

if you go to auction results,

go to Abu Dhabi and you can see the beautiful,

talk about photos.

I mean,

the toolbox that it comes with,

everything is like shot in a studio,

the tool kit,

like this thing is so

all inclusive.

Like everything you can imagine is there.

It's such a cool car.

It's such a cool piece,

but holy cow,

25 million bucks.

Now,

which is interesting is that same auction,

auction,

one of the Gordon Murray T 50s, right?

And it was like 5 million in change,

which I thought was good money for that car.

But the,

the one of five,

like LM cars that we talked about that he made,

that's based off of the 250 sold for

20 million.

So it took a T 50,

that's 5 million,

rebodied it,

got rid of the fan,

made it limited edition to five units,

sold one publicly,

and it was 20 million dollars, right?

So his thought

of going,

hey,

we should have Gordon Murray automotive,

but for the few cars that won't fit

the mantra of that company,

the direction of that company,

we need Gordon Murray specialty vehicles.

And here's the payoff.

20 million dollar payoff

for that car, right?

Pretty cool, pretty,

pretty special.

It shows you what the original,

it just shows you the weight,

the original poles in the,

in the market.

It's unbelievable.

The other thing I want to show real quick is

I can't show the video,

but there's a new Jim Connit video.

It's got your buddy Travis Pastrana,

and it's the Aussie drift,

but they took a Subaru brat,

and obviously super over the top.

If you follow Hoonigan on social media,

you'll start to see,

I think more stuff about the car

and a little behind the scenes of building the car

and the crazy stuff that they did.

I watched the video,

it's like 11 minutes.

Honestly, I thought it was fun.

I thought they did some cool stuff in there.

The car going over the water,

you know, like kind of skipping a rock,

you've seen that, you've seen,

I don't know if you guys have seen this,

but it's been happening for a long time.

The guys that had the dirt bikes,

they hit the water and they can glide over the water

and it's kind of like skipping a rock.

Well, he did it with the car.

And at the end of the video,

they try to do it with like just a Subaru

and it just sinks.

So that part is,

it kind of made the point.

They're like, did they fake it?

Did they put something underneath it?

No, you get, you get the angle right.

You get it right.

And that car with that splitter on the front,

you think all it has to do is scoop a little bit of water.

It's just going to know his dive into the water.

But it worked out cool.

And there's a,

it's basically him going through the Australian desert

for the most part,

a little bit of stuff in the town.

And then there's a scene where he kind of like

breaks into a sports car race.

And he's out there with the drift car

in the middle of a sports car race with,

I guess BMWs or something that are out there.

And for me,

it's like, it's a little bit of like Dukes of Hazard

was like, they had that race in town

and they broke into the race.

And it was like an episode of that.

That's a good idea.

Yeah.

And it was cool because they did like a side by side

with the,

I think with one of the BMW cars,

race cars and that car.

And it kind of showed just sort of overall,

like the power of the differences of those cars,

how quick they are.

And it got kind of a thumbs up from the other driver,

even though they kind of broke into the race.

So they made it,

they made it fun and with a little bit of a,

you know, with a sense of humor as well.

So it's nice to see that it's back.

Like what do you,

without Ken Block, like what do you,

what do you do?

And I think Travis is the right character and,

and clearly the right driver.

You know, like, I think it was,

they did a good job with it.

I think it was fun to watch.

And I'm trying to see how well it's doing for them.

I think it's been out for a day.

It's, yeah, it's been out for a day.

It's 1.9 million views.

I'd say that's pretty good.

I mean, listen, I, I think,

I think, I think so too.

I think you'll find a lot of the comments being very supportive

going, you know,

Ken Block would be proud.

We love what you're doing.

Keep it up.

This is so much fun.

It was good.

Yeah, it was good.

I can't wait to see it.

Yeah.

And it's like, it's 11 minutes.

It's not like a 30 minute thing.

It's on YouTube.

You can watch it.

It's like 11 minutes.

Okay.

So what else we've got coming up is,

we're going to throw to an interview with,

with a guy named Britt Coulson and Chip Fuss.

And Britt Coulson is not necessarily a name that you know,

certainly not compared to Fuss,

but he owns Coulson Aviation and Coulson Aviation is

the group that is basically on call out here and some other

areas, mainly in California.

And they do,

they put out the fires.

They run the aerial team.

They have helicopters,

they have airplanes,

they drop the,

the,

the gel and the foam and the water and all those things for,

for the forest fires,

something like the Palisades fire out here,

Franklin fire,

Altadena,

but they're car guys and you'll see that coming up with,

with Britt.

He talks a little bit about the company.

You can see this amazing fleet of,

of aircraft they have.

How,

how it is,

how,

how dedicated to this that they are,

what skilled pilots they have on,

on this team,

like it's,

it's,

it's amazing.

This is not by any means something easy that they can do.

Hitting their mark,

the training and they're,

they're basically have to just be like on retainer.

They're on call.

They can say,

they,

I think,

excuse me,

they can,

excuse me,

they can get the call and be up in the air and over a fire and

roughly 15 minutes.

Like,

like they are,

they are spot on.

Now they got to get the call.

That's the,

that's the thing.

That's where the politics get involved.

But anyway,

they're car guys.

So what they did is they teamed up with chipfus and they

want to do a contest,

a giveaway,

if you will,

sort of overhauling ish that anybody that may have lost

a vehicle or damaged a vehicle and any of the fires that

out here in California,

they want you to,

you or friends on your behalf or family on your behalf,

can submit an application,

tell your story,

tell us about the car.

They will pick 10 cars,

10 stories that they think are worthwhile.

Tell those stories online.

And then everyone,

even us,

the public can vote to see which story,

which person or people are the most deserving to get their car

rebuilt.

Coulson Aviation being car guys,

they launched their own little group called Coulson Automotive.

Chipfus is coming in to help out and design it.

And they're going to rebuild the car.

And they're just,

is it going to be,

is it going to be done based upon the coolness of the car

or the rarity of the car,

or is it going to be done on the coolness of the story?

I think it's going to be based on the story.

It's going to come down to your story.

Yeah.

You know, because Chip is no stranger now after so many years of overhauling

and so many other things of doing everything from just a stock restoration

of a late model car to,

you know, the muscle cars and trucks and crazy things he's built.

So it's called Coulson Aviation.

It's C-O-U-L-S-O-N.

It's the website is Rise.CoulsonAviation.com.

R-I-S-E Rise.CoulsonAviation.com.

You'll see the contest stuff there.

You'll see the story there.

You also,

you guys can check out this company Coulson Aviation

because it's just fascinating on what they can do.

It tells you how to enter.

It's open now on November 20th.

It runs through January 20th.

And then the public voting is February 1st through the 15th.

So this is kind of the overview of what it is,

but I'm going to throw to the interview and let those guys tell you a little bit more about it

and more about what Coulson Aviation does.

But I just wanted to share that.

And yeah, listen, before I throw to them, anything else we got to touch on?

No, man, going over the Cobra tomorrow.

Trying to get her dialed in, man.

And this is a great thing what these guys are doing, man.

I can't wait to see who they choose.

And I'm sure it'll be a worthy recipient.

I want them to come back at some point and tell us a little bit about,

like, what did they pick or what did they end up doing on the car?

Totally up to them.

So they're going to start the car in March.

They pick the final car in March,

and then they're going to debut it at the LA Auto Show next year.

So they'll have like nine months to get it done.

So it'll be interesting.

It'll be fun.

At least it's not a TV thing where they try to jam it into like two weeks of work.

Like they want to do the car right.

They want to do good by this person, whoever it is, they get selected.

All right.

So thanks so much for listening, guys.

So let's throw to Britt Coulson and Chip Foos.

Hey guys, it's Matt again.

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Okay, here we are with Britt Colson

and we have Chip Foos on the line as well.

How are you guys doing?

Britt, how are you?

Doing great today.

Chip, how are you?

You're with us on the phone?

I'm doing fantastic. Thank you.

Thank you for having me on the call.

I know you guys are busy and you got your hands full.

But Britt, I wanted to talk about the program

that you guys are doing together with Chip as well

and for victims of the fires in California.

But just backing up a little bit.

Britt, tell us a little bit about your company

and what it is that you guys do.

Because I don't think people will fully understand

the scope of this. It's pretty amazing.

Yeah.

Our family owns Colson Aviation

and we're the largest aerial firefighting company worldwide.

So we have operations in the United States,

Canada, Australia, as well as South America.

And in addition to fighting fires around the world

with our large air tankers and large hella tankers,

we are also extremely passionate about the automotive scene.

And back to kind of the end of World War II,

automotive and aviation have really kind of been combined

and gone together and share a lot of the same team members

and a lot of the same different types of workmanship

and craftsmanship.

And so we thought what better way to combine our passions

together and give back to the community

than work on this project which we've got

a giveaway program where team members can submit

or people can submit their vehicles that have lost their,

maybe their cars and their trucks in a fire,

maybe lost their homes in the fires earlier this year

in Los Angeles.

And we'll go through, we'll select the team member,

the person that we feel is deserving of this opportunity

and then work with Chip and his team to design it

and then we'll bring it back to our shop and build it up

and make it, you know, restore back to its original glory.

So just talking a little bit.

I'm going to cut in here.

Are we picking several cars and then we're going to have

people vote on it?

We are.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Yeah.

Okay.

So Colson Aviation, what you guys do

are essentially firefighters.

You have an incredible fleet of aircraft

and the fires that were out here

that devastated the Palisades and Malibu.

You guys are the aerial team.

Is that the best way to explain it?

Just using helicopters and planes

and whatever means necessary to fight those fires.

Am I explaining that right?

That's what you guys, that's the core business.

It is.

Yeah.

So we work under contract with the host agencies

and as an example on the Palisades and Eden fires,

you know, Franklin fire kind of end the last year.

We delivered over 50% of the volume on those fires.

You know, we were there from, you know,

start right through the finish.

Okay.

And you guys are, where are you guys based out of?

So our US home base is in thermal California,

just by over by Palm Springs.

We've also got home bases in Australia and Canada

and Chile as well.

And the crew you have, the fleet you have,

tell us a little bit about that.

Like how many people do you have?

What is it, what is required to put out

some of these massive fires?

Yeah.

I mean, it's, it takes a group of very committed men

and women to do what we do.

So our group is over 750 people.

A lot of ex-military team members,

the aircraft we fly are primarily ex-military

or military derived.

So, you know, Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft,

Boeing CH-47D Chinook aircraft.

We're, you know, we're building the fleet out right now

with Boeing 737s.

We've got some of the, some smaller helicopters

like the Sikorsky S61.

So it is a very diverse fleet of aircraft

that, you know, are crewed by first responders

that just have that same passion

for protecting lives and property

and protecting the environment.

This, I always thought about this is like,

the pilots you have, the crew you have

just have to be the best of the best.

So top notch to be able to hit their mark.

I mean, even just thinking about the training process

of dropping the fire retardant,

what if it's, I don't know if it's just water,

but there's different versions of things

like foam and gel and stuff that you guys can use.

But just the process of taking it, hitting your mark,

when there's wind, there's heat,

like there's just an incredible amount.

I can't even imagine how much it goes into training

and prepping for this type of work.

It is, it's very intense.

There's no two drops that are the same.

As you mentioned, there's so many variables,

you know, fire behavior, fires are always moving.

They're always burning in different places.

You have different wind, you know, different,

now we do day and nighttime firefighting as well.

So 100% of our rotary fleet are all night capable.

So they go out under night vision goggles

on initial attack.

It's a very dedicated, like I said, group of people.

And it's a very paramilitary type activity.

So one of the reasons that ex-military aircraft

are so desirable as well as the ex-military team members

is because they have so much training,

you know, they train in low level environments,

they train day, they train night,

and you've got to be ready to go to moments noticed.

You know, all of our contracts require wheels up

in 15 minutes from call, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Wow. It's amazing.

I mean, you think we, in cases like forest fire stuff,

you think we would have a little bit more notice than that?

You know, you could kind of see it coming,

but I guess not.

We sort of underestimate how quickly that stuff can spread.

It does, and it grows exponentially.

So there's no amount of money too great

that you can spend in the first hour on a wildfire,

because that's when the fire is at its weakest.

And if you don't get it, it's always going to cost more.

So, you know, when you look at an elapsed time of a fire,

you know, it might be, you know, half an acre within 20 minutes,

but in double that time, it won't be one acre,

it'll be four acres.

And then, you know, in another 20 minutes,

it could go from four acres to 20 acres.

So it grows so quickly.

And when we look at Southern California, you know,

it's probably one of the highest population densities,

and there is no real ability to strategically catch the fire.

So a lot of times out in the wildland, you know, in the forest,

they'll catch it at ridge lines,

or they'll catch it at, you know, watersheds,

and then they'll try and anchor and tie into that

to effectively capture it.

In Southern California, there is no next ridge, right?

From where the fire is to the next ridge,

could be 500 people or 1,000 people's homes.

So it's that speed and force that works the best down there,

where that initial 911 call comes in,

we automatically dispatch the fleet.

We go out there along with the agency aircraft

that we partner with, and, you know,

we just pound that fire until there's nothing left of it.

Ground crews come in, work with us on it,

ultimately get it cleaned up.

We go home and wait for the next one.

So we're going to get into the program,

the contest in a minute, but tell us what happened

for these Palisades fires, for Altadena, for Palisades?

Like, how did this get so crazy, so quickly, it seemed like?

And almost uncontrollable,

just like it literally is just uncontrollable

for such a large amount of time.

It was, you know, it kind of started with Franklin Fire

in December of last year,

which was kind of the first Malibu version of that.

And in California, over 90% of wildfires are human started,

but started by people.

And so everybody saw the weather coming in.

They saw the Santa Ana wind events.

So we were all at the highest alert we could be.

We knew that those were going to be red flag days

where if anything got started, it would,

it was just going to blow up.

And in four years, Franklin Fire was the first fire

in Southern California that we had lost any structures on.

So we had an unblemished record up until then.

Franklin happened and then got put out.

And then, you know, less than a week later,

Palisades started up again,

which it sounds like was a rekindled fire

that LA City had fought earlier that they had put out

that had restarted again.

And over that week long period, there was over 75 fires

that were either started or lit.

The majority of them got put out.

You know, Palisades and Eaton were obviously the two biggest ones

that did the most damage.

You know, as soon as Palisades started or restarted,

we were on it,

but a lot of the tactics had to change.

So in that type of fire behavior,

all the aircraft up there were working on life

and structure protection, not perimeter control.

So while the perimeter, you know,

the fire was growing and got much bigger,

we were focused on, you know, protecting the highways

for the one road in, one road out communities.

We were focused on protecting ground firefighters

and working with them to try to evac people.

So, you know, when it's a resource constrained situation

like it was in ultimate fire danger, fire behavior days,

we had, you know, the agencies have to prioritize

and we have to prioritize.

And like I said, you know, we were,

we spent hours and hours bombing the roads

so that we could keep the fire back

so that people could come and go

or could leave from those one way and one way out communities.

But it was, it was probably as close to Armageddon

as we could, as you could think of.

And when, you know, Hawaii happened a couple of years ago

or a year ago, everyone looked at it

as Lahaina was a once in a lifetime event, right?

That type of fire behavior had not been traditionally seen.

That area doesn't traditionally burn

and everybody chalked it up to that.

And then we saw that same thing repeat

in California earlier this year.

And I think what it's highlighting is as the world changes

and the world warms up, you know,

every half a degree or every degree,

it increases the fire behavior exponentially.

And the process of activating you and your team,

do you guys monitor the weather and the fire

or you wait for a call?

Like somebody has to call you and give you the go ahead.

So we're on contract with the agencies all the time.

So especially down in Southern California,

there's probably nowhere in our view in the world

that does it better than SoCal.

They have large aircraft on contract 365 days a year.

And so all of our crews are on 15 minute call out

day and night.

So as soon as that call comes in again,

it could be you driving home phone 911.

Hey, no, I'm driving down the 110 out to my left.

I see a fire.

You give your approximate area just based off of your call.

They're dispatching everything.

Yeah.

So it's quick.

Yeah.

Okay.

So the program that you're teaming up with Chip on

is this Colson Aviation,

this wildfire vehicle restoration contest.

Now we're trying to give back a little bit

and make it kind of fun in the process.

And this is Chip in a sense,

a little bit like overhauling, right?

Like this is where we are going to allow people

to submit their stories,

to submit their cars,

the photos and whatnot

that were vehicles that they lost or were damaged

in these fires.

And from there,

you guys will pick a vehicle and a story,

a group of people or a person that you think deserves it.

And of course, I'm sure many people do.

And you guys are going to rebuild a car.

Is that correct?

Yes.

And, you know, the minute I heard about it,

I thought, wow, this is really cool.

And I got to thank Colson Aviation for the opportunity.

I mean, it just reminded me of what overhauling was all

about, where we got submissions.

But this time we're going to get submissions from people that

have lost cars in this fire.

And we're going to pick several of them.

I don't remember how many we're going to pick,

but then we're going to put those online and let the public,

you know, they're going to vote on it,

on who we should pick and build that car.

And I'm really excited about it is, you know,

I really enjoyed doing overhauling and it's doing something

that's really cool for somebody deserving.

And that's exactly what we're doing here.

And Colson Aviation is going to be the ones that are

donating the time and the funds to make this happen.

I think it's great.

I think it's a great idea.

I think it's a fun idea.

I think it's a small way of giving back.

And it's going to be cool to do.

But Britt, so tell us about how you were guys

putting this together.

I guess it kind of starts as your car fans as well.

Like you, the people you work with,

you guys must just be car guys and girls as well, right?

We are.

I mean, our, you know, our family loves cars.

You know, I build cars in my spare time,

when I'm not with the kids on weekends, you know,

we do have an internal car shop now.

And, you know, we love that old school craftsmanship,

you know, almost that coach builder style where,

you know, it's become so commercialized now where people,

you know, slap a body kit and paint on and call a custom,

which, you know, I appreciate, you know,

I appreciate the art that's in every vehicle,

whether it would be my choice or not,

but partnering and being able to work with someone like Chip,

you know, in our view, you know,

the premier car builder in the world,

he's got the best eye.

I mean, he's just the cars that he builds are next level.

Amazing.

And so to be able to work with him to restore somebody's

vehicle that, you know, they'll treasure and keep forever.

Again, it's very close to our heart.

We love the automotive scene.

We love the aviation scene.

And it just, it is like a dream come true for us to be able

to put this relationship together and be able to give back

to somebody that's deserving of it.

So people can start submitting now, right?

It's, the applications are open.

And that is rise.ColsonAviation.com.

I'll put those links up in the podcast description

as well as social media as well.

So you guys can check that out again,

rise.ColsonAviation.com.

Submissions are being taken now.

It'll go through, I believe, end of January, January 20th.

So you must submit your applications by January 20th.

And then in February, the first couple of weeks of February,

you'll be able to publicly vote on the car that should be done.

And then the winner will be announced in March, right?

And then we will debut the car.

Well, then you guys got to get to work, right?

You start in March and you got to work on that car.

And Chip, I imagine Penn goes to paper and start figuring

out what to do with that car.

And it's interesting because without knowing this story,

you never really know what you're going to do, right?

You don't know if it's going to be a restoration

or a modification.

It really just comes down to the story behind the car

and the owners of that car, right?

Yeah.

When we pick the car, then there'll be a lot of questions

back and forth with whoever we're building the car with.

And I'll sit with them and do a drawing.

And when we come up with the idea that they think

that's what they want, then we'll start building it.

Yeah.

OK.

So again, I'll put the links up for that.

Before we let you guys go, Chip, you got to tell us.

I saw the amazing car that you did at SEMA.

You got to tell us a little bit about that.

This is the Lincoln Continental.

And of course, what's going on in the shop back there?

Well, that's Pat and Linda Velasco's Continental 56 Continental

that we finished for them.

Now, we made it a full-time roadster.

It does have side glass, so I should say a convertible,

but there is no top at all.

Those were only sold as coupes.

We cut the top off.

We did a lot of body modifications.

Of course, we dropped it down one-off wheels.

It's got a blueprint engine in it, an LS motor.

But we dressed it to look like the original Continental

motor, but much more reliable.

And just a car that Linda Velasco, it's for her.

She can get in and drive anywhere she wants.

Since SEMA, we've brought it back here,

and we're doing all the final little details that we've got

to get before we give it to her.

We will have it at the Grand National Roadster Show,

and then it's going to go to Amelia Island in March

to the Concourse.

And then Pat and Linda will take over and just enjoy it.

Yeah, I mean, talk about an amazing car.

I went over, I saw it, I grabbed a quick video of it,

which I'll just go ahead and share it right now

while we're talking.

But words don't really do it justice.

I mean, what you guys done here is pretty amazing

and the subtleties to it.

I mean, the paint is gorgeous, the bodywork,

the interior, but it's not so...

It doesn't scream radical modifications,

although I can't imagine there's anything that isn't untouched.

Like the interior isn't insane, right?

The interior is done to give it sort of the original DNA.

Well, when the viewer looks at the car,

I never want them to really know exactly what we've done.

What my goal is is to have the viewer look at the car

and say, I don't remember this car being that beautiful.

Yeah.

And when I modify something,

I consider that what I'm doing is it's like tailoring a suit

to fit somebody.

And I just tailor all the different parts of the car.

I'll start from the front.

You know, we pulled the bumpers back.

I narrowed up the sides,

made them a little more flush to the sides of the bumper,

changed the line on the side of the body.

I dropped the headlights down

and back 5 eighths of an inch.

Down a half inch and 5 eighths back.

Of course, we cut the top off,

so we had to make moldings on the top.

Got rid of the windshield wipers

and the hood ornament at the front of the car.

I changed the door handles.

I went to a 53 to 6 Ford F100,

so they're a little softer.

I thought they'd go with the body lines of the car

much better.

I radius the lower back door corner,

where it was real tight, squared, 90 degrees.

I put a little radius on it.

I think that just stops from having an awkward corner there.

We changed the deck lid as far as the...

There's kind of a spare tire cover, looks like.

It's in the sheet metal.

We dropped that 3 inches down.

Of course, pulled the bumper, the rear bumper,

also in and narrowed it up.

And then you just fit everything a lot better.

And then the top, once we cut the top off,

had to make a cone molding that fit all the way around that.

And then we built new rocker molding all the way around the bottom.

And instead of just being on surface,

they wrapped and went around the corners

and they're flush in the wheel well.

So it's a lot of real subtle differences,

but things that most people wouldn't even know

what's done to it until you have it sitting

next to a stock one and you can see those changes.

Tell us about the rear quarter panels.

On top of those fenders there,

we've got some sort of vent going on.

So another thing just done, right?

Yeah, those vents are stock.

And they were in everyone,

the air conditioning units in this car,

there were two of them.

And they had one for the front that blew on the front seat.

And then they had one in the trunk

that blew on the passengers, you know, the people in the back.

Yeah, okay.

Those guys pulled the air in

and went through the air conditioning system.

And that's, you know, that's a factory air duct

that was in the quarters and we left it here

because we do have an air conditioning unit still in the back.

Oh, okay.

Well, I imagine 56 two air conditioning units

still barely worked, right?

Yeah, we put a, you know,

a vintage air system that works a lot better in it now.

Yeah, it's been down if you have two of them,

that's even better.

All right.

So what else have you got going on in the shop?

Well, the biggest project that I'm really excited about

is something I've wanted to do for about 35 years.

And that is a Duesenberg.

Now Duesenberg, the J model Duesenbergs were designed in 1928.

And then they started producing the chassis.

And when you bought a chassis from Duesenberg,

that's what you got was a chassis.

It would have had fenders if you wanted them

and a grill and a hood that came down to a cast aluminum

firewall or came back to a cast aluminum firewall.

But Duesenberg didn't build the body.

You bought the chassis and then you took that to a coach builder.

And this was back in the late 20s, early 30s.

And they would give you a designer who designed your body

and then they would build it and then put the interior in it.

And the year that that vehicle was finished is the year

that they also registered the vehicle.

There's a lot of J model Duesenbergs that are registered from the late

20s to about 1936.

And we bought a car that the original body had been destroyed in a fire.

When they were restoring the car in 1969, the chassis was done.

And the body was in a paint shop in the paint shop burn.

So somebody built another body that wasn't really beautiful.

And we didn't get rid of something that was of great value.

We bought a car that had the right, all original good chassis.

We pulled that reproduction body off of it.

And now I'm designing and we're going to build a new body.

I'll work with a friend of mine, Luke Delay from Marcel's Custom Metal.

I'll design a new body, we'll build it and then we're going to finish it.

And I want this to look like it could have been built around 1935, 1936.

Maybe over in Europe with a little more exotic, you know,

beautiful flowing lines.

Okay.

Instead of what typically is a real boxy design that most Duesenbergs are.

So we just picked up, I just loaded up an image of the Duesenberg,

of a Model J Duesenberg, just to see sort of the stock version,

what it looks like.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a gorgeous car already.

Yes.

But if you've ever seen a car that I built called the Impression.

Yeah.

It's a complete hand-built car. I didn't start with a car.

It looks kind of like a 36, 37 Ford.

Imagine that car in a Duesenberg scale.

It's about twice the size of what this car is.

That's kind of what I'm going for on this car for Rob and Jeannie Hilari.

And they've got nine Duesenbergs already.

And I'm really excited to have one in their garage.

Yeah.

I'm bringing up Impression right now.

This car I've always loved.

I think we talked about this car maybe years ago when you were on

on CarCast with us, maybe in the studio.

But just this car is just amazing from and going to your site.

By the way, you guys just as a reminder, you can go to ChipFuze.com.

You can see a bunch of the projects and stuff that he's worked on.

He's currently working on as well.

But what a gorgeous car.

Thank you.

I remember when you guys were just taking this to the show

and winning the awards.

And yeah, it was just an amazing car to see.

The two most sought-after awards in America right now

in the hot-ride industry are the Riddler Award in Detroit.

Yeah.

And the Grand National Roadster Show, America's Most Beautiful Roadster

in Pomona, California.

And the Impression won the Riddler Award in 2005

and won the America's Most Beautiful Roadster Award in 2006.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

I mean, I think I was out to the Roadster Show

and saw the car.

I wasn't there during the awards.

But I was the one that like day before to see the car.

Yeah.

Amazing stuff.

Listen, I appreciate what you guys are doing.

We got to get into this a little bit more.

Maybe we'll follow up at some point when the car is getting worked on

or something along those lines.

We can figure out who's involved and the story behind it

and what you guys are going to do to it.

And a little bit more follow along with that car.

I'm excited to see what it's going to be.

I know it could be pretty much anything, which is exciting.

Car, truck, you know, it's just anything out there.

And I'm interested in seeing the submissions as well

because thinking about that area and what cars were hidden

in garages and even just looking at,

if you guys are following Adam Corolla,

he's been going out there and talking about the construction

or lack thereof, it seems like.

And just walking around and even seeing some of the carnage

that was there before it was getting cleaned up.

And you see remnants of a car.

You're just seeing, you know, trying to figure out what it was.

And I'm sure it's massively devastating to so many people.

So I appreciate what you guys are doing.

Chip, always great catching up with you.

Congrats.

Thank you.

On the Seaman car as well.

That thing was amazing.

And yeah, we're going to, we're going to follow up with you guys soon.

Again, the website is rise.

It's a colson aviation.com.

R-I-S-E dot colson aviation.com.

And I'll throw some links up there.

So guys, thanks so much.

I appreciate it.

And we'll chat again soon.

Mariette Bonvoy is the official hotel partner of U.S. soccer.

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with exclusive perks, unforgettable experiences,

and benefits that go beyond the pitch.

Spring Hill Suites, part of Mariette Bonvoy,

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and spacious all-sweet accommodations,

perfect for the whole team, with room for up to six guests.

Make your next getaway a win.

Learn more at springhillsuites.mariette.com.

Chip Foose teams up with Britt Coulson to bring you the Coulson Aviation Wildfire Vehicle Restoration Contest.

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