Dave Kindig: Bitchin’ Rides Star Breaks Silence On Nearly Loosing His Business To A Client

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Dave, to millions of people,

you are one of the greatest car designers

that has ever lived.

Come on, guys.

Star of bitching rides, an owner of kidney design.

Cars are bitching rides.

I'm just a lucky stiff that loved cars so much

and never gave up.

It's time to get this car on in the road.

When I was a kid, and my mom says,

you can't make those, but your second loved cars,

you can do those, quit my job after eight and a half years,

and started a business out of my garage.

We had had a couple clients that wanted to invest some money.

About four months into it, came in,

had us escorted off the property,

was gonna take over the business.

And I remember charity and I were just balling.

We're gonna lose everything.

That was a tough lesson.

Dave, to millions of people,

you are one of the greatest car designers

that has ever lived.

Star of bitching rides, an owner of kidney design.

But in your own words, Dave,

who are you and what do you do?

I'm just a lucky stiff that loved cars so much

and never gave up on them, I guess.

Where does that come from, then?

If you had to pinpoint for me on the spot

a moment in your earliest years

that without a doubt,

a moment in your earliest years

that without it, you wouldn't be sat here,

you wouldn't be over here at Petrol Hadnism for the show

and you wouldn't have done everything to this point.

That pivotal moment that pointed you in this direction.

What would it be?

Oh, you know, that's a hard to pinpoint

because there's so many things I think

that make you crazy about one little thing,

an item, an idea, and a lifestyle.

And I think all of those things had to come together.

So I think maybe the pivotal point was

probably, I don't know if it'd be my mom

or meeting my wife, my father-in-law.

I mean, there were so many people

that had given me so much inspiration

and thought that I could succeed in doing something.

I'm a product of what if.

So I think that it's really difficult for me to pinpoint.

I'd probably just go back to the beginning.

I love to design insects when I was a kid

and my mom says, you can't make those

but your second love cars, you can do those.

And so I just started drawing

and playing with hot wheels and Legos.

And I mean, I just kind of followed that all the way through.

I've just always been kind of crazy about cars.

But it's those things like drawing from an early age,

like really enjoying doing something

because typically when we're forced into something

we go into the complete other direction.

If you take on something that you love

for whatever reason, because it relaxes you,

because it excites you,

typically that makes us so more passionate about that thing.

And we never think when you're younger,

drawing bugs that that could be

such a fundamental part of your story.

So many years later.

When you were that kid, drawing those bugs,

tell me about yourself because on camera

and when you're in the show, you're so extroverted,

so full of energy.

And then also so precise and clear at different points.

But was that you as a kid

or have you developed into that person?

You know, I think it's something you develop

because when I was the lone ranger

just drawing cars or whatever,

that was all I was the only one that had to please.

And being in business doing that,

you don't have to please the customer

that's paying for the vehicle.

And I also have to impress and inspire

the guys that are actually building the vehicle

out in the shop, you know,

keeping them involved and keeping them interested.

So I think that, you know, it's from all aspects

and all of the things that I've done,

you know, in the last 54 years

of being alive and 26 years in business,

it's just, I think that all of those things

have kind of coagulated up to create

where I'm kind of the nucleus

and all of the things moving around me

are all moving in series with the direction I wanna go.

And I think that the benefit

really comes down to the client when they get their car.

They see that all of that love,

everybody that's touched that car has been

because there's one driving force

but it's not just one person's art, it's everybody's.

Is that your favorite bit as well though,

the reaction, the handover?

Oh yeah.

I mean, you know, in our, in reality TV,

all of that stuff goes so well, you know?

But really, you know, if you've watched bitchin' rides

when we give the car back to somebody

much like when Chip would give somebody back their car

from, you know, overhauling, it's not necessarily done.

We always say that a car that we build is 85% done

when we hand it off in the show.

But realistically, driving the car, shaking it down,

you know, we wanna make a car what I call valet proof

before we hand it back to somebody.

And so when we would do the reveals and stuff,

I mean, it was very simple, it was cute,

and you know, and it's fun

and you get to see the end of the story

because at some point the story has to end

so we can move on to the next car.

But those cars would actually, you know,

stick around, we usually put 250, 350 miles on a car

before we hand it back to a customer,

especially if they wanna drive it, you know?

If something's gonna come loose or squeak or whatever,

we want it to do it to us

so that we can give it back to them perfect.

I've heard you say before,

your favorite car is always the next car.

Correct.

But should we actually take it right back to the first?

To like show where you came from

because like you said your mother was the one

that pointed you in the direction

and maybe you could do cars.

Sure.

But what was your into that?

What did your life look like at that point around cars?

You know, I mean, that point in my life with cars

was literally more toys and drawing.

I didn't grow up with the dad around.

Didn't grow up with an older brother

building cars out in the garage

or a sister for that matter.

And you know, it was just something I was into.

We grew up very poor.

And I remember hunting golf balls

to buy the bicycle parts for my BMX bike

to keep up with my friends that all had really cool bikes.

You know, this is back in the 80s.

I mean, I am from the 1900s, you know?

But yeah, the, you know, just very humble beginnings.

And I think that I always watched to see, you know,

how do people get to where they're at

and what makes them so special?

How did they get there?

And where do, how do I get the staircase

to go up to that level?

And there is no magic sauce to it.

There's hard work.

There's dreaming.

There's never forgetting where you want to be.

And always setting goals higher

because when you've reached that first goal

you need to have other goals.

And so I just, you know, I kept throwing it all back in

and just kept going, okay, that was really cool.

Let's see if we can do it better the next time.

And it's just kind of been my life, you know?

Volkswagen Beetle was one of my first cars

and customizing it was always,

what can I do out in the driveway to make it cool?

Because I didn't have any money, you know?

I remember lowering it.

Everybody was buying lowered beams

for the front of a, for an early Beetle

and I'm out there pulling leaf springs,

basically the torsion bars out of the front beam

to drop the car, turn in the torsion bars in the back

and it looked cool, couldn't afford wheels,

but that's okay.

Cars still had a good stance.

So I just, you know, and the harder I worked,

the more I wanted to experience things and do things

and pretty soon I got to where I was going.

Had some pretty cool cars that started to stand out

and people wanted to help me work on their stuff.

Me and Dave have been

at the petrol hedonism live show this weekend,

which has been utterly insane.

Such a good event hosted by Chirochampi

and that is just one of many events

that you can head to all across the UK too

and Chiro has even broken into the US

with some of his events too.

So make sure you head down and click the link,

check out petrol hedonism and all of the events

that you can attend in the remainder of this year

and the beginning of next year too.

I'm sure we'll see you there in the future.

You said though that you were keen to look at

kind of other people's journeys,

other road to successes, which is exactly like I do.

And I'm obsessed with the story of people

and the reason being that I'm obsessed so much

is typically what the matters outlook

of someone that starts a business

or the moment they start

or what that person looks like when they start something

is often so different to the actual reality.

Now people talk about the most important people in your life

and to you, I've seen you talk about your partner before

and she was such a fundamental part of you

making the decision to start your business.

So do you wanna just tell us a bit about

the recipe that concluded in you doing that?

Well, the recipe for charity and I was me convinced in her

that I felt that I can make better money for our family

and that by going on my own.

Little history in my work is,

I was kind of into clothing, cells and stuff.

The first, when I was making a lot of money

even before I had a driver's license working out of the mall

selling shoes at Tom and Ken's shoe store

in downtown Salt Lake City.

And fast forward went to another clothing store.

It was a little bit more exclusive and cool.

And got a couple of warehouse jobs

and then pretty soon ended up at high performance coatings.

Charity and I had met, we'd been married

and talking about having kids and stuff.

And HPC basically was doing a lot of ceramic coatings

on exhaust systems, pistons, valve springs,

that kind of stuff for top fuel, street rods,

muscle cars, that kind of stuff.

And so I was already kind of getting

into the automotive industry,

at least my foot into the door

which was only the exhaust systems.

But got to meet a lot of people.

I met Chip Foos back when he worked for Boyd Coddington,

Bobby Allaway, some of the greatest builders,

Troy Chapanier, great builder.

Somebody I always admired and watched

and Ken Fennacle at Poseys.

I mean, there was just so many people

back in that day building street rods

and that was kind of the thing.

And that was really something that was like,

wow, I really like the vibe here.

I like customizing cars, old ones,

muscle cars, whatever and I always had kind of that

in my mind that that's what I wanted to do.

Drawing cars, that's where I kind of got discovered

when I was working at HPC.

Charity and I were very poor as we were sweating

a $235 a month apartment payment.

And when we first moved in together after we were married.

And we would rent a couple of movies for the weekend

or whatever and I would have a sketch pad

and I literally would just sit there

and draw cars and color them

while we were watching movies over a weekend

and I'd end up hanging them in my office at HPC.

And the Rod and Custom AmeriCruz had come through

back in like 94, 95, 96, somewhere in there.

And I had a lot of friends that were in that space

that I had made over the eight and a half years-ish.

And one of the guys was Ed Capen.

It worked at Arizona's Bean Reign,

which fast-forward ended up being the right-hand man

to the Gary Metters for good guys, Rod and Custom.

And Ed says, hey, who does those drawings?

I said, I do, it's just a hobby.

He goes, those aren't bad.

He says, you ever thought about doing those for magazines?

I said, man, I'd love to.

And it wasn't very much longer

that I ended up getting a chance to do something

for Super Chevy and Chevy Hard Performance

for a 69 Camaro that he had commissioned me to do.

Fast-forwarded did a couple others

and then all of a sudden,

I was designing the 99 Chevy Silverado

for Arizona's Bean Marine, the ASMSS edition.

It had trends, billets.

I mean, you gotta remember,

this is back in the mid to late 90s

and it had the Budnick wheels,

Wings West body kits, the trends grill,

billet stuff and all of the errors

on the speed and marine performance stuff.

And they gave me an opportunity

that was in Super Chevy and Chevy Hard Performance.

And I was just like, or in a trucking magazine as well.

And pretty soon, everybody outside of Utah

thought I was a big deal designer in Utah and vice versa.

And I finally convinced my wife, I was like, look,

I can draw a car in the kitchen in one evening

and make as much money as I'm making in 40 to 60 hours

on a salary at HBC.

Which are quite like life-defying in moments.

It is.

On that journey, isn't it?

Because we're almost unlocks another door

that you didn't think was that.

Right.

And that's the thing is I finally had convinced her

because we now had Bailey, my daughter,

and we were getting ready to have our second child.

And she goes, all right, here's the deal.

You can quit your job.

We'll cash in the 401K, which was a whopping $4,800

after eight and a half years.

And she says, as long as the insurance pays

for Drew's birth, we're good.

Just let's go ahead and quit.

Because I had a line of like renderings

and I was selling some parts on the side

doing graphics that I'd taught myself how to do

in the garage that I'd built.

And everything ended up working out that way.

Drew was born, everything was paid for.

I cashed in my 401K, quit my job after eight and a half years

and started a business out of my garage

with two babies, two car payments and a house payment

and no insurance.

Did you always know you were gonna start that business

and make that decision, though?

No, I think I always kind of pushed for it.

I dreamed about it, but I, you know,

those things are something that you,

when you have the right person in your life

that you're sharing it with,

you got to make sure you're not leaving their cheese out

in the wind.

Five years prior to that, would you have still believed

that you could have done it in yourself?

No way.

So probably not.

I would have dreamed it.

Those doors opening that made you more confident,

more confident, more confident.

Yeah, I think, you know, really

when I built a couple of my vehicles,

there was a, you know, there was a time

where people started watching what I was doing.

You know, I was just doing stuff out of my garage.

I had bought a 91 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser

when it was great big, like, you know,

station wagons that were really popular.

Moon eyes was building some stuff for light,

doing those in like reds and creams.

Exactly.

Colors, didn't they?

Yeah, exactly.

And I ended up doing some really whacked out paint job

that was kind of based off of a Tom Taylor design

for a truck they called Stinky,

that was on Hot Rod magazine's cover.

It's a good friend of mine, Jason Brains,

A1 truck parts are done.

And long story short,

with them in the car just stood out pretty soon.

People are kind of knocking on my door

when I was still working at HPC and wanted me to work on,

you know, do a graphic on their car

or do a design or sell them some parts

or lower it or whatever.

And, you know, pretty soon, it was just crazy.

Just snowballed.

I was so busy, I couldn't go to work.

I mean, I still did.

But, you know, it was like, hey, this is this could be

something.

And I really just said, you know what,

I'm going to put it all in and let's just go.

And if it doesn't work, then I'll stop,

you know, upsetting my wife by saying,

I want to quit my job.

Let's talk about the word vision, then.

Your life has been about vision.

Everything that you design is because of vision,

because of what you see it becoming.

So what was your vision of even just starting out in the garage

and all that coming together?

What was your vision for like the next 10 years

where you were going to go?

Well, you know, I always thought, you know, what if,

you know, what if I doubled my square footage?

What if I had more people that were working for me?

What if I did more aspects of the build?

Because really, when I first started out,

I was lowering cars, selling parts, doing graphics,

a little bit of paint and body work.

And, you know, that's kind of where I was at.

The more cars that I got in, the bigger projects,

the more ideas that I had,

the more I needed to have better skills.

I never went to school for any of this stuff.

I didn't have, you know, a big long journey of welding

and growing up doing that stuff.

It was something I had to continue to learn.

And also the back end of the business,

because like I joked that in your Instagram bio,

I think it says something like, tax payer again, didn't it?

The tax liability is what I am.

Yeah, the tax liability.

Yeah, and so those things really kind of just have to come in,

you know, natural charities are a whiz at the numbers

and that kind of stuff.

And she does a great job running the books

and making sure that we have somewhere to land.

That's kind of the thing between Charity and I

is we've been together for 35 years this year

and married for 33 of them, one day off of the two.

And, you know, she's always been kind of that,

you know, the grounding.

I'm the go, go, go.

She's the whoa, whoa, whoa.

You can jump.

Let's just make sure you got somewhere to land, right?

And then she'd follow the lead of what I'm doing,

but she'd also give me the, you know, the back,

kind of the background.

Hey, from the outside looking in,

in your mind, you think you're gonna go here.

Let's be cautious that we don't land here

or fall off the ladder, right?

And so just, you know, her and I have been just a,

you know, a powerhouse of communication back and forth

and making sure that we're both on the same page,

the direction we're gonna go.

And, you know, let's go live the what if.

Hey, and make sure you subscribe to Road to Success.

The problem is along every entrepreneur's journeys

is they have moments that at the time,

they feel like this is the end of the world.

Like it's all coming down on you.

And for you, I heard you speak about like taking on

initial investors right in your company.

Like you can only plan and only land so many times

from your own planning without getting something wrong.

Was that the first time that you think was,

there was a huge lesson along your journey?

I think you never know how well you've done

until you find out how bad you can land.

My wife and I, we had had a couple of clients

that had decided that, hey man, you know,

you're doing this car for us.

We really like your program.

We wanna invest some money.

We're like, oh, okay, cool.

We don't know.

We didn't go to school for business management

and that kind of stuff.

It was something that we basically were,

you know, school of hard knocks.

You gotta figure it out.

And that couple had given us about $120,000

and invested in the company.

The lady that we were working with

was the one that was doing all the books.

So, you know, we didn't really know

everything about what they were doing.

And basically-

Were they very hands-on?

No, they weren't.

So they would work in the office.

They'd give me ideas, you know.

They weren't in the business though.

Yeah, yeah.

No, they weren't.

They were car collectors.

Okay.

Yeah, but they were into, you know,

doing books and that kind of stuff.

They were accountants and the other guy

was a disabled from something.

So I think he had gotten a bunch of money

from, you know, a settlement or whatever.

And so long story short,

they had gotten involved with us

and about four months into it,

they seemed that we already had kind of a calling.

We already had the new,

the footprint 9,000 square feet that we were in.

And I think they had it all the time

to take over the business and push us out.

And one day we was going to lunch

and they showed up and it just,

it wasn't awesome to see them pop in there.

They had just divorced themselves

rather from the business.

And long story short, they came in,

had us escorted off the property,

was going to take over the business.

In three days, we had the ability to go back in.

We borrowed a bunch of money from,

from Charity's dad to pay a lawyer,

go in and basically force them out of the business,

turn it into a simple loan.

But they did basically try to steal my company

and turn it into a multi-part restoration shop.

And would you?

With no investment.

I've imagined that the people

that you met and first sat down with

and obviously gave you the excitement to do that,

could actually do that.

Yeah.

Well, and that's the thing is,

you know, when they, when they came in,

we thought that that was the way that a business succeeds

is you have an investor and then all of a sudden

you have some money in the bank account.

And realistically, what they had done

is they tried to say that we had embezzled $44,000.

There was never in $44,000, even the bank account.

You know, we had bills, we were buying equipment,

that kind of stuff, that's what we used the money

with them for, was to grow the business.

And what their intention was basically just to grow it,

but in a sense, steal it.

But you won and got them out?

We won, turned it into a simple loan, they went away,

they couldn't come within 500 yards of the shop,

which was really cool.

And so, you know, that was a tough lesson.

I remember charity and I were just balling, you know,

we got dropped off, our phones were taken away,

the company vehicle that we had had, you know,

was taken away and within a couple of hours,

I mean, that was on a Friday.

We thought for sure, well, it's a weekend,

they just booted us out of our business,

we're gonna lose everything, you know?

Getting with the lawyer that we did,

he ended up knowing the judge and there was a lot of,

it's probably more stuff than everybody needs to know,

but basically it just ended up being a win,

but it was a very, very tough deal to go through,

to think that you're gonna lose it all.

It was funny when we got back, everybody was still there

and they were like, we couldn't believe that.

You know, I still had, I had Valerie, Will,

there was a whole bunch of, Kevin was still there,

I mean, there was all of my employees

that you see now, a lot of them anyway.

They were laughing, they were saying,

you know, they said, why do you think people come here?

Well, they come here for good work.

Yeah, now they come here for Dave's ideas.

He says, and they were like, just laughing at Sean and Sherry

that had tried stealing the company from us.

They're like, you might as well just go out of business

right now, kind of a thing, you know?

That's why they come here,

they come here for his ideas and his designs and stuff.

You guys can't just do that.

They said, we'll hire a designer from California.

That's what they said.

And that still is a going joke today.

It was like, hey, Dave takes too much more time off.

We'll just hire a designer out of California.

But to get to that point where your guys are saying that

and they believe in you so much,

they obviously see the vision,

they see the business growing,

they see and are passionate about the designs you make

in terms of executing them.

It's becoming a legend at that early point

of the business of in design.

And we use this word legend to talk about lots of things

in the world.

People talk about the legend of the Loch Ness Monster,

but then we also use it to talk about

the success of individuals in their field

and how good they are.

They say that yourself, Chip Foose,

legends of car design.

But it makes us think that you've been doing it for

so, so, so, so, so long,

but to become a legend when you've already got so much to go

means that you had to take some pretty quick steps

along that first part of the journey.

So like, what were some of those builds

that you were doing at Kindergarten Designs,

which really put you on the map to begin with?

Sure, you know, actually we were doing a lot of stuff,

you know, for like local stereo shops,

that kind of stuff.

I was doing graphics and custom wheels and stuff,

and they were doing big, you know, CES-style builds

to go to CES in Vegas.

That was kind of a big one.

There was Rocky Mountain Raceway.

They had the midnight drags for trying to keep the kids

from drag racing on the streets.

So they would basically do it late night,

Saturday or Friday nights

and out of the racetrack that was local there.

And I remember the dealer that owned the racetrack

and asked me to build a car to represent, you know,

the tuner style, which was a big deal at that point.

I mean, it still is now,

but at that point it was something that was pretty intricate

from whether you were doing a mini truck,

a lot of mini trucking style was into those sport compacts,

you know, a lot of graphics, a lot of ground effects,

that kind of stuff.

And I was doing a ton of those.

And we ended up building this vehicle.

And I remember handing him a very large request

for a deposit to buy parts and to go towards the later.

Going how much was it?

It was like $79,000, which was a ton of money.

That was the whole build that's all I could come up with.

Cause at that time I thought you had to give somebody a price

to tell him how much something was going to be.

Fast forward, we'll get into that.

But basically I handed him that bill

and he says, Dave, that's a lot of money.

He says, can we go to lunch?

And I said, sure.

And Spencer Young was the gentleman

that owned the Young Chevrolet in Salt Lake.

And he says, we're on our way to a nice little

lunch place.

He's going to buy me a sandwich.

So that was, that's a pretty big request for a deposit.

And I said, yeah.

He says, do you make money?

I said, hand over fist.

I was broke as a joke.

But I told him that I do make money.

Cause nobody wants to be anybody's hero.

That was the smartest answer I'd ever come up with.

Nobody prompted me to say that.

Nobody, and I just, it just popped in my head.

I was like, we make a lot of money.

We do good.

So I deserved to ask for that kind of money.

Cause if I had said, well, you know,

I got taxes I owe and I've got a couple of paychecks

that I'm behind on myself.

I never missed paying any of my employees ever.

The charity and I went four or five months sometimes

almost losing our house.

You know, just trying to keep the business running.

But I said, yeah, I make hand over fist, I make money.

And he says, okay.

And he gave me a check for the full amount.

If I had told him that I had all those problems,

though he would have been like, oh, well,

he's in trouble so I could get it for less.

And any smart business guy might feel

that that's the right thing to do for their business.

Not saying that Spencer was doing something before.

Yeah, no, it's just the way that humans are.

It's the way that they are.

He's a businessman and I needed to be smart.

I needed to be a businessman as well.

And by doing that, I realized that cutting myself short

or telling somebody that I might have some issues

with, you know, finances or anything like that

makes them not comfortable given a large amount of money

to somebody I wouldn't.

Yeah, yeah.

Cause you think I would be like,

I don't know if your hero might do whatever.

Exactly.

Because all of a sudden if I'm your hero,

I know you're in trouble and I give you all that money

and then you need more money.

Now I'm your hero again, anytime you're in trouble,

you're gonna be calling me wanting money, you know?

And I just figured that was the wrong way to go.

So by showing the confidence, oh no,

my business is doing good.

And he's like, okay, okay.

So that really was one of the big points

where I was like going, okay.

And also, you know, back to the point of those,

the couple that tried to steal our company,

we were so upset with them for the longest time.

But then this is the funny part

that most people probably won't understand is

we then looked back and thanked them in a way

because we learned about contracts.

We learned about making sure we had money

in the bank account to pay the taxes.

We made sure not to take, you know,

to rob Peter to pay Paul

because a lot of businesses go out of business

by doing that.

They get so far in debt

because they went out and bought a motorcycle

with a deposit instead of working on the car

and earning it.

And it also makes you realize

that like when Charity is saying, right,

we just gotta land on our feet

that it actually means something

because that is if you get it wrong.

That's how bad it can actually feel.

Well, as fast as you can go blow a bunch of money

on stuff you shouldn't,

is about as fast as you can imagine going out of business.

And if you do that,

the best thing to do is to earn the money.

Don't spend money you haven't earned yet

and make sure that you have some reserves

and make sure you've got your people taking care of,

your parts taking care of,

make sure that everything's taken care of.

And then you see your success

because you actually have something left over, you know?

It didn't happen overnight by any stretch.

I mean, we've worked so hard

and we've had so many learning curves

and things that we would do differently

and then great successes.

I remember one of the very first successes that we had

it was a 60 Corvette that we had built for a gentleman

at a house up in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho in America

and then also had a place over in Hawaii.

And we had done this vehicle for Frank

and his son had crashed the car

and put it on his side.

And so I got it in,

we did the insurance,

you know, got an insurance claim for it

and he decided, you know,

I think I'm gonna invest in another Ferrari

and send that back out to Hawaii.

He goes, if you want, he says,

why don't you just buy the car from me?

And I told Charity, I said, you know,

he'd sell the car, we can fix it.

We're probably only gonna be X amount in it

and we can sell the car and make some money

and, you know, put it all back into the company.

She goes, yeah, let's do that.

I was like, you're gonna actually let me do that.

It was an R Morrison frame,

it was a nice car, one-off wheels from E-Vott.

I mean, there was just some really,

really cool stuff on this car.

We bought that car, fixed it.

It wasn't totaled by any stretch,

but it was, you know,

it had a little bit of fiberglass damage,

rather repaint to most of the car.

And we sold that car and made $87,000

in our bank account.

We had never seen an amount of money in our life

like that.

We paid off every bit of our debt except for our house.

And it was like,

wow, this worked.

And she goes, we need to do that again.

And so I kept looking for other things

that we would take a little bit of time,

put our own work and money and efforts into.

And we'd turn around and flip the car and sell it

and make some more money, paid off our house.

Moved into a new building, or, you know,

we bought our building.

We bought a house, you know,

but we just kept doing that over and over again,

going, hey, you know what, let's invest some money.

Great one.

I still hold the world record

for the Volkswagen bus.

That 65 black and white with red interior.

I sold a Barrett Jackson.

It was funny as we were building that,

I bought the vehicle.

It was an old kennel dog van.

It had, literally, it was orange

and it said some kennel company for dogs.

And the vehicle smelled like dog pee, you know?

We had a soda blast, did all the work on it,

took it to Barrett Jackson.

Every time I had to cut a check or buy something for her,

she's like, stop spending so much money.

Don't spend so much money.

Don't have to be public.

She goes, I was like, just trust me, trust me.

And we were like, my cost was almost like $90,000.

That's like the hard cost.

And this isn't that long ago.

And so that was pretty inexpensive

compared to what I typically build.

But she was like, you know,

I'm draining a little bit of an account.

And we go to Barrett Jackson, we pull up there.

She's got a couple of her friends

and, you know, she's smoking hot.

All these hot chicks are hanging out the sunroof.

Kevin and I are up in the front.

We pull up, we have the safaris.

We're doing all the, you know, hang loose.

We get out the vibes awesome.

We stand there.

And when you're on the stage of Barrett Jackson,

looking into the crowd on Super Saturday,

the place is packed, right?

It's about three o'clock in the afternoon, Super Saturday.

And right above you, you can see the van.

You can see yourselves.

And also the number that the cars bid at is.

Yeah. So I can never understand the guy on the mic.

Right. I can't either.

That's why he's trying to, I'm going to confuse you.

I think on the Barrett Jackson CF1 video,

where it sold for like half a million dollars.

Yeah. Yeah.

It was like, boom, it's like, really?

Yeah, right?

So when you're up there, man,

you're just hyped out, right?

So we're all just kind of standing there.

The auctioneer's right behind us.

We can see the crowd and we see the number.

And it stalls at $75,000.

And I'm like, oh, and she's squeezing my hand.

And then they talk about it again,

and boom, 85, 100, 110, 120, 130, 170, 180,

200, 220, 240, 280, 285.

They go back and forth.

275 hammered it.

It shows at 3025 because they put their 10% on it.

She squeezed my hand when it hammered,

she's like, and we're all like, holy crap,

that just took off.

And she gave me the biggest kiss on TV.

We're walking off and she goes,

we need you to get another one of those.

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Today is why we wear the uniform.

ABC Tuesday, the rookie returns.

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But don't do your best.

Do my best.

And for the first time ever,

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You're like, we need to get it right.

It's over.

Look, we're done with that.

So, you know, those are,

those are great wins that we've had.

And I think that, you know,

all of the tough times

and all the things that

we proved to be able to move through

we're starting to really, really pay off.

How do you keep a great relationship

with someone that you're also

involved in the business with so much?

Because you can't typically agree on everything

in 30 something years, right?

Like, what's that process of working with your partner

and keeping that good?

You know,

love, I think is what it is.

I mean, you know,

really if you didn't have the trust and the love

there's no reason that,

I mean, why would you waste your time with something?

You know, and especially when there's so many things

that are riding on it.

You know, our house or our families

or, you know, our friends,

all of the things that we do,

if you didn't have that trust

and the belief that you're not always right,

you know, she's not always right.

Trust me, she's gonna watch this, isn't she?

Shit.

But I'm not always right.

And so by having a little bit of a committee,

just the two of us,

that is the most important thing

is make sure that we're both on the same journey.

We're both going the same direction

because as soon as you start going different directions,

that's when everything just goes stagnant.

And we've never had that problem.

You know, we've always believed in each other

and, you know, held our breath sometimes, you know,

just going, okay, is this really how...

Yeah, because you're all in.

Yeah, you've got to be committed.

You have to be committed.

You have to be committed to what you're doing

and who you're doing it with.

And I think that, you know,

Cherry and I have that magic, that commitment

that, you know, we go into the darkness together,

you know, follow me and trust me

and I do the same for her.

To all my loyal listeners listening on Spotify,

Apple and other streaming platforms,

I urge you to do me a quick favor

that you might not know that you could do.

You can actually follow if you're listening on Spotify,

the Road to Success podcast

and also rate it with how you feel

these conversations have been,

how they may have helped you

or if you're just enjoying

the one that you're listening to today.

It really will help us

if we're able to grow our streaming platforms

beyond hundreds of thousands of monthly listeners.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the podcast

I really hope to bring you some more inspirational guests soon.

We've also got a touch base

on when bitching rides actually came

as part of this story in this journey.

So you've built some cars for some insane celebrities

over the time, but I think it's important to figure out

when bitching rides actually started

because I've got a business away from doing the podcast

that employs a lot of people

and it's street food and chicken wings.

And every time I go into our main unit,

I think, my God, we've just got to start filming all of this.

The stuff that happens in it,

I know I'm going to go to prison for a bit,

but the stuff that happens in it,

we've just got to get it on camera.

What was that moment for you,

like starting bitching rides

and like bringing all those guys into the film?

Well, you know, I already had a great crew.

We would actually, we had been guests

on a bunch of other TV shows.

My classic cars, car crazy, hot rod television,

we had been on a bunch of different episodes.

And so there was a lot of vision

of our cars already being guests

or on other TV shows.

When we sent out a media blitz

that we were going to do a GM Futureliner,

one of the 12 parade of progress buses,

it happened across the desk of Bob Scanlon and David Lee,

which had also been at Speed Channel,

which had started Discovery's Velocity.

And they said, okay, we've seen these kids' cars

and builds before.

What's he doing with a GM Futureliner?

And they actually called up and they said,

hey, we'd like to talk to you

about maybe doing a little series on this

or maybe even a full TV series on Cundigate Design

and watch the build of this.

And I'm like, sure.

So they sent in a company called Fisher Productions,

which was out of Park City and they did a sizzle reel,

six minutes short of kind of showing how the shop is,

the layout, the communications between me

and the guys and the gals.

And they said, yeah, we like it.

We want to put you under contract.

And that was kind of where it all kicked off.

Not atypical because your show

is completely unscripted, correct.

And a lot, especially in America from a Brits perspective,

a lot are scripted.

A lot is to produce drama to bring those moments in.

But everything that you guys do

is just straight off the bat, right?

Yeah, that's correct.

So we actually, we had no scripts

and it was actually part of my contract.

I didn't want to have a bunch of made up stuff.

I wanted to build cars and capture us high five

and when we win.

And so I just told them, I said,

be a fly on the wall.

You've seen the way that we communicate.

We're going to have some fun.

And they got us the right producer.

Nick Maher was still a great, beautiful man

and a wonderful friend.

And he knows how to put a story together.

So he'd find little snips of things

that might be a bigger challenge

or maybe a quirky little thing about the build

or whatever we'd follow that through.

So he'd create a story without saying,

hey, go do this or do that because that was,

you know, that's just a lot of nonsense

to be building a car.

You know, we had one of the big experiences

for like hot rod television.

Absolutely loved the experience doing what we did

for Apollo O'noe, the speed skater, the Olympic champion.

And we built a 64 Cadillac for him.

But when we filmed, we only filmed for like two

and a half days, the entire build

for a half an hour episode.

That's a lot of film on the floor

for building an entire car, right?

And I remember the last day of filming at the shop

before I went down to Vegas to debut the car,

we were on and off, taking parts off of the car,

putting it back on, changing camera angles.

And it's like, we literally have like eight hours left

before we need to leave to go to Vegas.

And we're taking the back wheels back off this car

for one more camera angle.

And I finally was like, hey, I told the producer,

I said, if we take one more thing off of this car,

we're not going to make it.

We still have to pack and get some sleep

and drive six hours to Vegas.

This is just not going to work, right?

We have to go and eat like literally

in less than, less than 24 hours.

And so I was like, if you haven't captured it,

you're going to just have to make it up.

And we finally got him convinced that,

hey, just let us put the car together.

So we finally did it, we made it down there,

we did the unveil and whatever.

But I learned from that experience

that if you just set up some go pros

and do a little voiceover and stuff,

and then we can just build the car.

We're not going to build it, take it apart, build it,

take it apart, change the angles.

That's just silly.

I'm not a production company for TV,

I'm a car production company.

I build cars, capture what we're doing,

the magic will be there, trust me.

And Nick's always done a great job

of putting those stories together.

Which is amazing that you also can give the trust to do that

because your journey's all been about vision.

It's been about drawing, making, producing something.

Does it actually give that creativity

over to somebody else?

Does it show that within any business

that you've got to actually hand over

the parts to the other guys?

And a lot of your guys have been there

since the start, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So who was the first person that was like

a major part of taking that business to the next level?

You know, I think Kevin has always been

one of the biggest major parts.

I mean, he's been there.

He and I worked together in SPC.

I didn't know you were gonna say that.

Well, because, so Kevin and I,

we have a very great relationship.

So the riff raff as we were,

I had a custom Volkswagen,

I was in the Volkswagen Club.

He was in the mini truck clubs in Utah.

And we'd go to the outdoor park shows and stuff

and the street rotters would be all up front.

And they put the riff raff, you know,

the Volkswagen and the mini truck guys at the back.

And so he'd be sitting on a cooler under a tree

and just having a great time and hanging out.

We got to know each other.

He was looking for a job.

I was still at HPC at the time

and I got him a job there

for about the last two and a half,

three years that I worked there.

And so we just became friends, you know,

we're just into it.

He was doing the lowering jobs,

part-time in my garage with me

when I first started after I'd given my notice and quit.

And it was funny as he had changed his schedule,

go in about midday, do a swing shift

so that he could do lowering jobs in my garage.

Well, one day about two weeks into business that I was,

he was over there doing a lowering job

on an 88 Chevy truck doing airbags.

And I got him to work

because his truck was broken down.

We were actually doing some stuff on it.

And so he got dropped off, finished the job.

I take him to work.

He's about 15 minutes late.

And I get, I dropped him off.

I get back on the freeway and my phone rings

and it's Kevin.

He says, hey man, I got fired.

Can come back and pick me up.

I said, yep, I turned around, went back and got him.

I was like, he goes, man,

I can't believe you fired me.

I said, don't worry, man.

We got shit to do.

That's literally what I said.

And 26 years later, here we are.

Which is insane because imagine

if you're both in that truck at that point

and you could have a little window into the future

seeing what you guys have done with the TV show,

seeing the build, some of the people that you've built for.

Like, what would you guys have said to each other

if you could have seen that in that window?

I can't believe what's coming.

That's literally, I think what we would have said.

If we had had any idea where we would be right now,

you know, he's amazing.

He treats my company as if it's his own.

I trust him entirely.

He's always just put the business first, which is great.

And we've taken good care of him

and he's taken very good care of us.

Like I say, I can put $3 million of the cars in that rig.

And he's from a long family line of truck drivers.

He cares about what he's doing.

He's very cautious and he's a professional.

He doesn't drink and drive by any stretch ever.

And you know, that's one of those things where I trust

that you know, he'll put the vehicles in,

they're strapped down perfect.

He takes perfect care of the rig and he's a workhorse.

I mean, the guy just won't stop working.

He's awesome.

Anybody would give a million dollars for that guy.

No, but he's just that good.

When you talk about some of the cars

that you guys have built together and sold

and you've got the result that you knew was possible,

just like that VW.

When you bring that right back to what you grew up with

and everything that your mother did for you

and then how that transpired into going and working

as hard as you could just to cash in like $4,800

that you'd put together, like,

what did your mom think about this journey?

Like, how does she see it?

Oh geez, everybody she would talk to.

She'd be like, oh, it's my son.

Have you watched Bitchin' Rides?

That's my son.

So you don't watch every episode?

Oh my gosh, if the guy's there to fix the TV

or a faucet or something at her house,

he's like, do you ever watch TV?

That's my son.

And it's like, oh my, I'm like, mom, that's so embarrassing.

She was so proud of me.

I lost her this year.

I lost her at the beginning of the year.

And, but she was always, no, that's okay, thank you.

Yeah, she had a wonderful, wonderful life.

And obviously I still wish that she was around,

but she was always really secretly,

I was admired by her, I guess,

in the sense that she never would let me

be on the phone with her

and not tell her how proud she was of me.

And I'll miss her, she's always with me,

but she was always just blown away with what we had done.

She couldn't believe it.

We had a pretty rough time with her health

and some of the life decisions that she had made,

being married three times and breaking her leg

and going on welfare.

I mean, we just had a lot of really bad things

that had just come down.

And there's just, sometimes that stuff happens.

And I looked at that going, okay, well, that's that direction.

How do people get out of that direction?

Almost seemed that, not everybody in my life,

but there was just a lot of things

that people didn't really feel like

they can be somebody or do something

or get ahead or have a wonderful life.

And I was just like, I don't wanna do that.

There's plenty of examples around me

of just waiting for a government cheese check

to show up or some new program

that'll make it to where you don't have to worry

about stuff, but you actually don't have anything.

And I was like, no, I'm gonna live what if.

I was about to say the two words you kept using

this whole podcast, what if the whole times?

Is that what you do with anything?

Can any of those situations,

good, bad, negative?

You always think, well, but what if it was like this?

Cause people often just go to the negative

straight away at any point of life,

but you wouldn't have got to where you are today

if you'd have done that, right?

Well, if you focus on the negative all the time,

then you basically are surrounding yourself with negative.

And if you think, okay, well, this could happen,

but what if we go up here?

What if we try and land up here?

And if I land just below, that's not so bad.

And I've told people, set your goals really high.

Everywhere I've ever talked to anybody,

set your goals very high.

And if you land just below them,

it's not so bad, keep going.

And then continue to set those goals.

I mean, I think that I've really lived that way.

There was a gentleman by the name of Steve Lacey.

And I'm not sure if Steve's still around,

he was a co-producer of Footloose and a couple other things.

He was a mentor to the high school I went to

that was inner city in Utah, in Salt Lake, West High.

And he told me once, he says, you know what, Dave?

Surround yourself with pitchers

and things that you admire the most

and the people you admire the most and want to be,

you'll be admired like those people and have those things.

And it didn't make a lot of sense at the time

because I'm like going, man,

I got like my cousins borrowed shoes

that that's where I'm wearing, you know?

I mean, it just, I mean, it wasn't that bad,

but you know, I just didn't have anything.

And I kept keeping that in mind.

And then pretty soon I'm like going,

I had all these Lamborghinis and Ferraris posters

up on my walls and at my house and I've got those.

And you got an 812 Superfast, do you know what I mean?

No, I got a 458 Italia and a 512, yeah.

I'm very lucky that I have a 458 as well.

Like they are absolutely the best.

Yes, absolutely.

And I drove that thing like I feel dirty

the way I drove it, but I don't care.

It was an amazing car.

I got one that was six years old.

I bought it in 11.

It was six years old with 966 miles on it.

It was when the 488s came out

that everybody started unloading the 458s.

And once they got rid of their 458 and got the 488,

it wasn't the same.

And all of a sudden,

so I bought right perfectly

and went right through the roof after that.

And I'll hang onto that car.

You know, I paid cash for it

with the winnings from the Volkswagen bus auction.

I paid off my investment,

the $90,000 that I had spent on the bus,

the rest of it went towards Ferrari.

I don't, you don't finance your toys.

That's another very good lesson.

Don't finance your toys.

And when did you learn that?

Right before I bought any toys.

I listened to somebody that was smart.

You know, good times come and go.

The economy, really when you work really hard

and you survived going through the up and downs

and whatever, we found ourselves get to a point

where my clientele, their finances don't flow.

They don't go up and down that much.

And something for notice that they were

over a big stage of time as well.

Well, yeah, I mean, a lot of the end to the start.

Exactly.

We don't, you know, we do time and materials.

Any good builder is going to do time and materials.

They give you a ballpark that I think you might land in.

But things typically change, you know,

in the build, sometimes they amplify,

sometimes they simplify.

And so, you know, you don't want to,

if you're given a number, then you have to cut corners

if you're going to be over budget

or else you're going to be in the hole.

I don't like investing my money into somebody's car

that can afford to pay for the car.

And so it's a business contract

where you have a time and materials,

you have an agreement.

We do it very simple and it's actually,

I think it works really well for the client.

We work off of a deposit.

The money isn't an account.

As soon as we earn it, every single day

we take the time that any of the,

any of the technicians that worked on the cars

have 43 employees right now.

They write down what they've done

or they haven't got to log now on their phone

because we're pretty technical.

These kids these days.

So anyway, but anyway, everything is tracked down.

We actually do the transfers the next day

as they get close to the end of their deposit.

They get an invoice for the parts,

they get an invoice for the labor

and make, ask for another deposit.

We continue to work off that

as we get close to the end of the build

then we might turn the tap off.

I've been able to just go, okay, well, we're finished.

We have too much of your money.

Just wire it back to them, you know?

But typically we will just request

until we're done the build.

They get pictures as we're going along.

I keep them involved.

I develop colors for them.

We do so many things that it just keeps them all like.

This is cool.

You said something interesting there though,

which is like about the finances

and about different times of life

and it can go up and down.

Didn't you have a four year

or have a four year wait list

to actually get a build into production at the minute?

So for a full build right now,

if depends on who it is, depends on what I'm doing

because if I'm really excited about a project,

I'll likely bring it in sooner.

But typically if you just call in,

hey, I got a 68 Mustang, I just want restored.

It's like, yeah, I'm eight years, 58 million,

eight years behind

and that doesn't include my car company of the CF ones.

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Terms apply.

So if you're in a position like that

with that much backlog

and you're talking about people

and that's the way that you guys work,

do you often find that sometimes on those journeys,

a lot can change between the time that someone's like,

yep, let's go for it

and the time that you're like,

can I have the last check, please?

Like we need to finish this car.

Does a lot change sometimes in between that story?

No, you know what?

Actually, and I think that's part of my job

is to keep the customer interested

and excited about the project.

You know, if you're just cutting checks for a year,

that can be pretty boring.

And if you don't see what it looks like,

that can be pretty nerve-wracking.

But with that many people on the shop floor

and also that many customers

and then also that many customers waiting

at the same time as a lot of people.

Now, one of my top three favorite quotes

that I've had since my dad said it when I was younger

is you can only keep some of the people happy

some of the time,

not all of the people happy all of the time.

Is that true that it's difficult

to keep that amount of people happy at once?

As far as employees or clients.

I'd say the whole mix

because sometimes when you're doing one,

the others can pull the other way.

No, so, I mean, I think the best way to describe it

is that we have, I've had the ability

to keep a good relationship with any of the employees.

They all have their position.

We all stay very busy and we treat them very well.

They all have benefits and all that kind of stuff.

But I've also inspired people.

When I'm having a conversation with a group of people,

whether it's students or whatever at a college

and I have my crew back there.

It's like going, hey, you know,

set your goals high, dream, go start a business,

everything else.

And I realize all my employees are behind me.

It's like, maybe I should stop having

these inspirational talks with my employees around.

So I've had some of my employees have left,

most of which are actually very great friends.

That is a fine balance, that.

It's a terribly fine balance.

And the problem is, is you can't fault them

for wanting to do their own thing

and to start and go and live the same journey that I did.

But at the same time, it sucks when I've inspired them

and I don't have them anymore

because we build typically at any given time,

16 to 22 cars at a time.

And so when you talk about 43 employees,

it sounds like a lot of people,

when you're building that many vehicles at a time

and doing all aspects from body and paint, wiring,

metal shaping, systems, all that type of stuff,

developing colors, polishing.

I mean, we build the entire thing, upholstery,

everything is done in one place.

I've seen this application, it's insane.

I think that's the part that blows my mind the most

to be fair because when we start messing around

with materials when we're younger,

typically when we get into metals,

it's where it starts to get quite tricky

because you can't mold it, you can't move it

very easily just with your hands alone.

Do you have to learn so many skills

to be able to do that?

Right.

And that's the thing is adding to our forte

was anytime we were making money,

it was like, okay, we can put some more in the bank.

But what the bigger ability to make more money is

is to buy more equipment.

CNC machines, working with the Stratasys

for our 3D printing, Farrell 3D scanners,

newer GFS paint booths and prep decks

and that kind of stuff.

So as we continued to go,

and then the old school metal shaping stuff,

you know, we got pall hammers, we have POMACs,

we have English wheels all over the place.

I remember the first English wheel,

I thought we were the coolest people on the block.

You know, oh, you can make a salad bowl in five minutes

if you learn how to use this thing, you know?

And now I've got like five of them.

I've got shrinkers and stretchers

and all these great JS tools and bead rollers.

And I mean, you name it.

And so it's really exciting to walk into our metal shop

or anywhere because now you have the ability to go,

okay, well, there's a big panel sitting there.

Let's go make something really cool

that's got a lot of organic shape

and there's actually guys that know how to use it.

And a lot of these builds do end up

as we mentioned earlier at SEMA

because people are going to want to take them somewhere

to show their cars off companies

if they've done a build for the founder

are going to want to take them and show that car.

Have you missed years of SEMA

or is that something that's been really consistent for you?

No, actually, so this year going to SEMA

will be, I believe, my 35th, 34th or 35th time there.

People treat SEMA as like a pilgrimage.

I'm absolutely convinced.

It's like, it's that one week of the year, like in Vegas

where Vegas just shuts down for something insane.

And there's cars everywhere.

Every valet is just stacked with supercars

and hot rods and whatever

and all of the great stuff in the building, right?

You know, you've got the main halls

and then you've got the set of stairs up to the left

and that takes you over Skybridge to the other side.

And I was at SEMA for three days

before I realized there was an entire other area

a 30 minute walk away, like it's just enormous.

But like that must be for you after 30 years,

like just surrounding yourself

with the like-minded individuals for a week, right?

Do you feel like your brain can breathe

and really look at stuff that you want to incorporate

into your next designs?

You know, so they, in my industry,

they don't call it copy and they call it research

and you'll get inspired by things.

I don't tend to take a lot of pictures.

I tend to just kind of snapshot in my mind,

hey, that's kind of cool, whatever.

And then I just leave those things in the basket, in the back.

And when I'm building something

or trying to come up with something unique or whatever,

I don't hold anything back.

If I've got an idea and I'm working on your car,

I'm not gonna hold it for the next car.

If it makes sense to go on yours,

I'll come up with something else for the next car.

You know, your car, I got this great idea,

I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that

and boom, it's, you know, all of a sudden it's like, wow.

And I don't watch trends.

I don't really care.

I like to look at other people's art

and I look at cars as art.

I've always explained it.

If you walk into an art gallery

and everything's Michelangelo,

there's no Rembrandt, there's no Monet,

there's no other things.

After a while, you're looking at the same artist's work,

you know, constant.

It's not that interesting.

I think that that's kind of the beauty

of our industry and the flavor of life

is to have things that are unique

and different, different takes and different aspects.

So where I really appreciate somebody's work

on a modern exotic car

that they've done some modifications to

versus a mini truck or a sport truck

or a classic truck or, you know, a Volkswagen

or some sport compact.

I think that there, I always say

there's an ask for every seat.

And when you appreciate what they've done

with that vehicle, you can see what their passion was

and what their take was and stuff

and it gives that unique personality

to that vehicle and to that person.

They don't all have to be the same.

You know, I just go with what I feel.

I don't watch what everybody's,

if they're all doing matte finishes

on the inside of an engine bay,

that doesn't mean I have to do it.

Right?

So does that annoy you when like,

because with millions of people watching,

you're going to go up to the bar and be recognized.

You're going to go up to the counter at a store

and be recognized.

Does it annoy you if people would be like,

also you're in competition with Chip right

and these other guys like, how'd you get to build?

Because I've even seen that the hypercar designers

I'm obsessed with like Christian Boncone

in second Horatio Pagani talk about how like,

no, our customers have both.

Like, and that's like your version of theirs

and that's for every scene, right?

You know, I'm sure somewhere one of my collectors

has got a Chip Fuse car and they have a Kinde car.

And like I said, Chip has always been such a great

inspiration to me.

I've always watched and admired what he's done.

And as I said, you know, it's funny

as way back when he was working for Boyd,

he wasn't the same Chip Fuse

that everybody recognizes now from Chip Fuse's,

you know, work that he's done on his own.

And, but he was still a big deal.

I remember being at the Pleasanton Good Guys show

and in Pleasanton, California,

way back before I started my business

right before I had left.

And I had my car, my station wagon was

in Colorado Customs wheel booth outside.

And I was working inside at HPC's booth.

So we drove one of my buddies from HPC

and I drove to California in my car,

cleaned it up, put it in their booth.

We'd drive it back and forth to the hotel.

And I remember getting on the freeway,

leaving the show one night and Chip pulls up

behind or by me in a BMW,

I think it was a 850 or something like that.

You know, the lift up bigger body,

hard top BMW back in the era in the mid 90s.

And he stopped me, gives me a thumbs up

and I'm like, that was Chip.

That's cool.

We got a car, you know, wow.

But it wasn't the same like,

holy crap, it's Chip Booth, you know, that he is now.

And, but he's always just been just a, you know,

the great guy doesn't turn his nose up

at other people that do the same thing.

We don't, I don't look at him as competition

in the sense that he builds one of the most amazing cars.

There's no doubt about it.

But I don't look at anybody,

whether it's Chip or Troy or Jesse Greening

or anybody that's in the industry and go,

oh, I don't think I can ever beat them.

I don't care.

Being there and doing my job

and having a great build and a camaraderie

with my family of workers that built the car with me,

the high five from the customer I built it for.

And you know what, I'd rather sit at a bar

with other builders and other designers and stuff

and just have a beer and just talk shop

because we all get to live the same thing.

We can't build them all, you know, ourselves.

They have to get kind of spread out.

Have you had that chance?

I've had that chance quite a few times.

Oh yeah, yeah, well, yeah, actually just not very long ago

Chip and I and Joe Martin were in New York together

at a car show and Chip got in there pretty late

and he goes, hey, are you guys still,

are you guys still hanging out?

And I said, yeah, we're at the bar.

There's a big wedding.

Well, I went to the wrong bar on the top of the building

instead of the one in the lobby

I didn't see off to the side.

And he got into like 1130, he goes,

so save me a spot and so he came down

and had a beer with us and we just sat there chit-chatting.

I brought a good friend of mine, Anthony,

one of my best friends and, you know,

just to be part of my entourage,

my wife was taking the weekend off

because we have a granddaughter and which is so much fun.

And they were sitting there and it was funny

as Anthony's taking a couple of pictures,

you know, kind of candidly and he's like,

can't believe I'm sitting in a bar in New York

with Chip Fuss and Dave Kendig sitting there

chit-chatting about cars and stuff.

And I'm like, you know,

I guess really if you think about it that way,

I can't believe I'm sitting here with Chip Fuss either.

And of course, one of my best friends,

you've got to learn to appreciate those moments

and everything you've done because there's a lot of life.

There's a lot, we spend a lot of it driving,

a lot of it on our phones,

a lot of it looking at the finances to buy a new machine,

a lot of it worrying, a lot of it battling people,

but like those are really those little moments

that we live for, isn't it?

And I think for you, another moment

that you've lived for would have been the CF

because that car is just breathtaking.

It's the one that I spoke about earlier,

setting over half a million dollars at that auction

when you made, it was a one-off, wasn't it?

For the auctioneer for...

Yeah, so that was a number eight CF one.

It was done black with red interior

and had the Barrett Jackson logos on the valve covers,

on the identification tag on the front of the cowl.

We'd put basically a CF one logo

and it says who the car was built for

and what serial number it is.

And yeah, we had that great opportunity.

They've actually sold for more than that.

So another one sold at 605.

That was number four,

which was a week after Kassemi, Florida,

number five sold for 770,000.

Do you always auction them?

No, no, no.

Actually, it's funny is I just know,

so that one that I'd done for Barrett Jackson,

number eight was actually a spec build

for that particular auction.

All of the other ones are always built

with customers, you know, money.

And did you think that one was gonna achieve that auction?

I thought it actually had gone more,

to be honest with you.

So it is what it is, you know?

That's the thing about an auction is you can't ever go,

well, I think my car was worth more than that.

It's like, well, you shouldn't have put it in an auction

if you didn't think you're gonna get at least what you had.

And if I always just go in, like I say,

I go in with confidence going,

I think that the car is gonna do just fine

and we're not gonna worry about it if it doesn't.

You know, it is what it is.

You know, you're putting it

in the hands of the auction gods in the sense,

whether it's, you know, whoever's auction it is,

it's up to who's in the audience.

If you built something that people would desire

or want to have, and then hopefully, you know,

all of the stuff that you threw at the wall sticks.

Is there ever been a moment where you've wanted to stop?

Where it's all like, you've had a moment

where it's grounded you back,

a little bit like the investor situation.

It could be the investor situation

that you thought like,

I'm not sure we can do this anymore.

Is there ever been that along 11 seasons

and all these years of doing it?

No, never.

Do you think there ever will be a moment

that will make you wanna stop?

Would you think you'll do this to the day?

No, I mean, I really can't see anything like that.

You know, a lot of it's obviously changed since COVID.

I think everybody's industry across the board,

whether it's workers, finances, that kind of stuff.

I think a lot of things changed.

We didn't.

We stayed busy the entire time during COVID

and since then.

It's been a little bit different

because there's a little bit

of a different mentality for workforce

that it's really, really hard.

And you can ask any builder,

I'm sure you've heard it before.

It's very difficult to find craftsmen.

You know, somebody to come in

and actually wanna do that job.

And it's like going, yeah, this can be hard work.

It can be dirty work and whatever.

But if you're doing a great job,

it's a great living

and it's a lot of fun to go and create something

that you're basically working as a professional artist.

The way I look at it,

I don't look at it as I need a body panel, man.

You know, I need an artist.

There's plenty of panel-beating jobs out there.

This is something that you come in and do.

So do you start with an artist

and make them into a panel crafter

rather than start with a craftsmanship as an artist?

No, that's the problem is I don't have the time.

I have it in my heart to try and inspire people

to get better at what they're doing.

But we don't have the time.

That's the problem is we're so backlogged

and we're so busy

that it makes it very difficult to bring in people

to bring up in the skill.

If they have skills, certainly I'll give them a job

and then we'll add to those skills.

But bringing somebody in as like an apprentice

is just, it's never worked for me in 26 years.

It's just, I'm the apprentice.

I bring the professionals in

to teach me how to do this stuff.

You always have talked about the next thing though.

It's always been the next thing,

like getting the show or getting the new equipment

in the shop, getting the new vehicle,

doing the next car is going to be the favorite one.

So what is the next big move for the business

in the next five years and everything that you do?

Is there something that you'll get to do

that you've got your eyes on?

You're like, we've got to do this.

Well, you know, just recently,

the CF1 really is one of our biggest,

I think successes as a company

because we were already doing really well

with the custom stuff,

but developing a program to design

and build a custom car that is,

basically we build all the parts for the car.

There's only four pieces that actually fit

an original 53 Corvette.

The grille surround, the glove box door,

the bezel around the passenger side of the dash

and the bezel around the glove or the speedo.

That's it.

Everything else is custom built on that car,

all the sand casting for the windshields,

the trim, the sides are parts that we have manufactured.

The wheels are all one off.

The headlights are literally 3D printed, chromed.

We machine the lenses.

We sandcast the rings.

We assemble all those.

It's really, we are building truly

a production turnkey vehicle.

I've become the licensed manufacturer

from the National Highway Travel Safety Board.

So I'm actually generating 17 digit numbers

as a replica of the 53 Corvette.

Plays off of that anyway.

And it's a Kindig CF1 Roadster Cabriolet.

We're debuting this year at the SEMA show.

The Fastbacks, which all carbon fiber,

the bodies are made up in Tacoma, Washington

with our molds by Doug Graff,

which was CRC Corvettes.

And next year, second quarter,

we're gonna try and start working

on the Nomad wagon version.

So it'll be fourth body style.

This is where it begins.

This is where it's at.

I mean, I've sold 31 of those cars so far.

And that's great.

You know, I'm actually, you know,

you got Ford, Chevy, DeLorean, Kindig.

I always throw the DeLorean thing there

because I just think it's funny.

But you know, that's kind of really been a dream come true

is now I'm actually a car designer

in a manufacturer, which is different.

You know, you think of Coinsag or any of those guys

that have had that vision and wanted to do that.

They've gone and done it.

How many years was that in your mind

to wanna do that before it was executed?

Was that always part of the vision

for what you were doing?

Well, you know, I always wanted to be a designer

for one of the big manufacturers.

And I remember when I was a kid,

I drew a side view what almost looks like a XJ220 of a vehicle,

but I had this idea of putting the scoops

underneath the car and my grandmother thought

that was a great idea.

And so she packaged up a copy of it

from the library copy machine

and sent it to Chrysler to Leia Coca back in the day.

This is, I'm very young.

I was very young at this time.

So those things are going,

wow, you can do whatever you want.

You know, those things also came in

to play a lot with my grandmother

just going, you can do anything you want.

And I'm like, well, no,

because there's not a program for that yet, you know,

but there was just a lot of things in my life

that I always thought, well, you know,

wouldn't that be cool

if I did have a car company one day?

You just dream of those things.

I remember the first time

when I first moved into my building 26 years ago,

I had one of the 4,500 square foot suites.

We'd outgrow my garage in two and a half months,

moved into this 4,500 square foot suite.

And I remember just standing there one day,

it was after work, I'm having a beer.

I look out, there's one suite to this side

and four more that way.

And I was like, wouldn't that be cool

if I had this old building one day

just filled with cars?

And I'm like, oh, silly, that would never happen.

A couple of years later,

I'd outgrown the 4,500 square feet.

I called up the guy

that I had signed a five year lease with,

the landlord and I said, hey,

the other end of the building is open.

That's double the square footage.

Can I cancel this lease

and sign a new five year lease

and move into the double square foot?

He goes, yeah, because that's obviously smart for him.

So we did, that was actually Missy Marlowe's

Gymnasium Training Center for the Olympics.

And so we built our showroom and we did all this stuff.

We put in a paint booth

and we moved our paint booth rather fast forward.

About four years later,

I had already outgrown again.

I called up and I said, hey,

the two center ones are actually open.

Do you care if we cut this wall out?

We'll support it.

We'll do all this stuff.

And I said, I'll take over another 9,000 square feet.

And he says, yeah.

So I signed another lease, expanded.

And at that time, I seen the growth

and I seen the potential

and we started getting busier and busier.

And about three, four years later,

the end of the building came open.

And I was like, hey,

can I just lease the whole building?

He goes, yeah.

So we lease the whole building,

filled it up 27,000 square feet.

And it's like, holy crap.

Literally, if we went to the very west side

of the building, start digging right now

within three days,

I bet we could probably be underneath the cooler

for the beer at the 7-Eleven.

It's an alien building.

I was like, let's do it.

So anyway, yeah, we took that over.

And in that time, we had become really good friends

with the gentleman that owned the building.

And that building and two others,

at the time of his death,

he was pretty old,

Cline Dally, great guy,

he owns the Mazda dealership and Infinity and so forth.

And basically we had set up

that when he passes away

that we would buy the building.

We had a great price put together

for purchasing it from him.

And we're like, this is what we're gonna do.

Cherry D'nice house got broken into

for the third time that we'd been in for 23 years,

the smallest, crappiest house on the block

that I had doubled the square footage myself.

I had built the addition.

I had built a four-car garage in the back

and all this stuff was going on.

We had saved up money to buy the building

and Cline still was around.

I was like, you know what?

Let's go and buy us a house.

Let's buy us our dream home.

And we looked and looked and looked.

We found it.

We bought it and literally three months

after we bought it, Cline passes away.

He's like, come on man, we're timing and all that.

But we had such a good rapport with him

and his accountant stuff that they were cool.

We worked through getting the loans

and putting everything together,

coming up with some more money for the down payment.

And we bought the building.

The guy that we bought it from Cline,

it was pretty cool is those buildings were to be sold

to donate all of the money to Weston, Idaho

where he grew up, a very small town

for college scholarships.

So it was pretty cool the fact that he had already given

all the dealerships and properties and stuff to his kids.

And basically this was the last things.

And so that went to help a lot of kids,

hopefully go do something and dream big or whatever.

More importantly, we were able to get the building.

And that was in 2015 that we bought the building.

That's when things really started to change

because now my overhead just dropped

and we're building equity in the building.

We outgrew the building again by 2018.

So there was another 10,000 square foot building

about three blocks north and a little bit different city,

but it was just literally through the neighborhood

we're boom, another 10,000 square feet.

That's where we'd keep our rig

and I put a bunch of my cars and clients' cars waiting

to get in back stock of our t-shirts

and tool bags and detail kits and that kind of stuff.

So it was kind of cool.

I think your story, Dave, is the epitome of what if?

Like what if you have a go?

What if you quit that job?

What if you do the next thing?

So thank you so much for spending the time

to tell me about it.

In the back of my very strange band here

in the random hotel car park in the middle of Luton,

but we've been at the Petrol Hedonism show,

Chiro Champi, Petrol Hedonism Live.

How have you found that?

It's been awesome.

I'll tell you what,

so this is the first time I've actually been to England.

And I have had a wonderful time.

The people here are so warm and friendly.

I've had a great time

and actually taken a little bit of a vacation.

I brought my lovely wife, Charity.

I've got my son, Drew, his wife, Kara, my granddaughter.

And I also brought my father-in-law.

So.

You got the whole gang?

Got the whole gang.

We're gonna hang out.

Well, when I head over to the US next in our US van studio,

I'll make sure that we stop on by on our tour,

get the doors open with the cars in the background

in your facility and catch up once again.

So Dave, thank you so much for your time.

I look forward to seeing you in the future again soon.

Same here.

Dave Kindig: Bitchin’ Rides Star Breaks Silence On Nearly Loosing His Business To A Client

Volkswagen Beetle

Chevrolet Corvette

Volkswagen Bus

Volkswagen Crafter

Delorean DMC-12

Ford Got Ford

Jaguar XJ220

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