Electric Analog Motorcycles with Brad Brownell of Land Moto

1,000 cars, sir, you have 1,000 cars.

I don't think I'd attempt to try this stunt.

Oh, we owe this horsepower to Uncle Sam's.

Too big a car.

Look, I put my beer belly on it.

Yeah.

You immediately tell somebody how many cars you have.

You'll really give those up at a yuppie, something to think about.

Stay on the bar.

Don't go off the bar with your Bronco.

1980 Volvo horns, what's right?

Meet me.

I'm a man's coolant.

And he's like, oh, I thought I'd be small.

It's for a small car.

And I'm like, yeah, but it's still an automatic transmission.

They're never going to be light.

It's definitely going to have to crash.

Starting off with Brad Beggin on the car.

That's the West.

Internet.

You know, is this a Nigerian oil print?

I also wish you drove a tan Camry.

Anyways, that's a very horrible podcast content.

Very inside joke.

They love to be driven hard.

All right, welcome to another episode of Auto Off-Topic.

What's up, Brad?

Brad or Brad's?

Uh-oh.

There's two.

Two Brad's.

A Brad and a Bradley.

Thanks for having me back.

It's been a long time, actually.

I don't remember the last time I was on.

Best guest, most guest?

At least most guest.

Probably.

I think at this point, yeah, most guests.

First guest?

No.

How dare you?

Okay.

All right.

Jared is angry and yelling at us right now.

Jared was our first guest.

Serena.

Brad, you were probably our second or third guest for sure.

Okay.

Well, anyway.

Yes, Brad Brownell here, back again reporting live from the scene of the Auto Off-Topic.

Brad's office slash Bradley and his wife Amanda's guest room slash podcast studio.

Yes.

Yeah, we're doing a little cross-country road trip and stopped into Phoenix for a couple

of days and thankful for the hospitality because my road warrior status has caught

up to me and I've been feeling a little under the weather the last couple of days.

And Brad and Naomi have been taking care of me a little bit, so I appreciate that.

He came here just for a well-stocked medicine cabinet.

Basically.

So, hi Andrew.

How are you today?

I'm great.

I'm doing well.

Excellent.

I wanted to start off this episode a little bit differently.

I wanted to have, before we get too deep into what's going on with Brad and his life,

I wanted to have a quick reminder and a remembrance.

So the reminder is it's not worth it.

No matter how angry or upset you are on the road, stop with the road rage.

You don't need it.

A very close friend of the family lost his 24 year old son on very early Sunday morning

due to a escalated road rage incident and he was unfortunately shot to death inside

his car after a minor fender bender.

So please just don't do anything stupid.

Just calm down.

Just avoid the situation if necessary.

There's no need to get mad on the road.

You've got to be 30 seconds late for whatever your thing is.

It's not worth being dead.

So I wanted a quick few second moment of silence here for Daniel Valencia and just

if we could give a few seconds here for that, that'd be great.

So rest in peace to Daniel and thoughts to his family.

Naomi and I and I'm sure the rest of our community are thinking of you and everybody right now.

So just calm down.

It's not worth it.

There's no reason.

It's the same for a lot of situations in life, but like 30 seconds of time isn't going to change your world.

Not coming home is going to change everybody's world.

So yeah, it's been a week here.

And on that note,

Well, I mean, I've been doing a bunch of miles on the road.

If I can tell that there's a lot of angry people out there and people that are in a hurry and people that are rushing around.

It's like, I'm just, I mean, I'm in a big old Sprinter van.

So like I'm hanging out in the slow lane going doing my own speed and, you know, go in my own pace.

But didn't, you know, even semi trucks and stuff now are so impatient.

And it's, it's crazy.

Yeah, just slow down.

Yep.

Not worth it.

Yeah.

I have to watch myself because it, you know, you drive the same thing over and over again, your commute.

And you're like, you know where to go, you know, the, you know, the way you want to go, where the potholes are.

And it's like, sometimes you get people that are just like, don't feel like they have any certain urgency.

Like I just, I'm trying to get to work.

I've been sitting in traffic.

But yeah, just got to take a beat, relax.

Nobody has a bad day.

Nobody gets mad.

I can show up at my work.

I'm lucky.

I pay too much any time.

Like it's just, it's just like an old, it's like from old jobs where you had to be on time that it's like drilled into me.

But this job, I can literally roll in at noon time.

Nobody would care.

Yeah.

So anyway, it's just a general, a general thought process that I've been having.

And as we've been dealing with this here with, you know, the family and friends for the past five days of thinking about it and dealing with it and learning what's going on and what happened.

And I won't go into details, but it's, it certainly was preventable and, and it's very tragic and awful.

So yeah.

Anyway, we'll move on from that somber note to a much happier note.

We do have Brad here today.

So I think that our typical podcast format, like we actually had down.

What is typical for your show?

We have very, very, very regimented segments, Bradley, where we talk about our project cars.

And then we talk about NASCAR.

And then we talk about model cars in that order every time without fail.

That's the plan.

Anyway, it's written down.

We gave up on topics a while ago.

I should do some more.

I've been thinking about it.

I've been trying to get back.

We didn't give up on topics.

We both just got too busy in real life.

I think is what happened.

So it changed to more of a conversational podcast, but I've been thinking about doing it.

So if you've got a suggestion for a topic, you should actually go to our discord and you should tell me.

I was thinking about making a thread in the discord just for suggestions for topics that I can research.

There's a good idea.

And maybe, maybe they should be crowd research and, and that would help us.

And I can, Brad and I can talk about them and then people can be part of the show in that way.

I like it.

That would be cool.

So Brad, Bradley, Ronnell, what brings you, well, we know it brings you to Phoenix around the road trip.

What is your current work situation?

Because last time you were here, I think that you were just freelancer still pretty much.

Oh, you had just started working at regardless.

Whenever it is, it's different now.

Yeah.

So I started working for a startup, which is a very interesting startup.

Yes.

And it is about something mechanical with wheels.

So I think if you want to tell us about the mechanical thing with wheels.

Sure.

That you work for, that would be great.

Sure.

So I started recently as the sales director of Land Moto.

It's Cleveland based electric motorcycle company.

Weirdly, like two and a half blocks from my house in Cleveland.

That's very convenient for me because I can just walk door or ride a Land Moto or ride a Land Moto.

Yes.

So they're they're slightly smaller than your average motorcycle, but they are not an e-bike.

It is an e motorcycle.

So it does require a license.

They are plated and insured and they have, you know, headlights and turn signals and

everything that makes them street legal, highway legal.

They go 73 miles an hour.

It starts at seven rams, you know, up to 5.5 kilowatt hour battery pack, 23ish horsepower.

If you're light enough, it'll go from zero to 30 in one second and it'll go from zero

to 16 about five.

So it's pretty quick, torquey, a lot of fun, lightweight and nimble.

They're about 200 pounds.

So lighter than, you know, your average.

Me.

Yeah.

Basically, it's the same weight as like a like a 250 dirt bike or something.

Like it's a small, lightweight, super easy to ride.

I think that's neat, too, because you can probably hang it off the back of a pickup

truck like a not a bike rack.

One of those like the sideways ramps you see sometimes in the receiver hitches.

Yeah.

Because it's not at 800 pound motorcycle.

Right.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So I actually hauled the road trip that I'm on is like a seven week cross country,

you know, visit to dealerships and expos and customers and a bunch of stuff.

We started with Overland Expo and we went to Austin City Limits and the US Grand Prix

in Austin.

Then we came here and we're going to LA next.

And then we'll be heading up the coast and then over to Salt Lake City down to Vegas

for SEMA where we're launching something very interesting that I can't really talk

about in public yet.

And then over to Dallas for Electrify Expo and then back to Cleveland.

So lots of miles.

I think it's 8,000 mile or yeah, something like that.

It's a lot.

I did a thousand miles the other day.

So yeah, it's a good long road trip.

And I'm, I mean, I'm a road warrior.

I've been on the road a lot, but this one's definitely probably the biggest one I've

ever done.

It's cool though, because at least you're being sponsored by the company in a company

van with company gas and company gas card.

Yes.

You're probably paying for hotels and a meal stipend.

So yeah, it's not your typical road trip where you're trying to budget the whole

time at least.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

It is a company trip.

And yeah, I mean, when I'm not staying with friends or camping or whatever, yeah,

that we do have hotels and stuff.

So that's nice.

But yeah, I mean, I've got five bikes in the van.

And to what Brad was saying just a minute ago, we do have one hung off the back

on a motorcycle carrier because yeah, they're 200 pounds and it will handle

that no problem.

So it's been on the back for 4,000 miles now and hasn't had any issues.

And the only issue is that it's a long wheelbase sprinter extended box with

a bike hung off the back of it.

So in Phoenix where there's no gutters.

When the road dips, it scrapes basically every time.

Yeah, I can imagine that.

For anybody that hasn't driven Phoenix, we have a lot of water.

There's a word on the situation.

Yeah, like water routes for the water to go, basically.

The word I can't think of right now.

Canals?

It's kind of like gutter.

He's not in the canals.

He's in the canals.

He did a problem.

These are just like channels cut across the streets for water drainage

because it's so flat here and because a lot of the soil here is so hard

because it's rained for so long that when we do get a monsoon rain,

all of a sudden we have floods so we need to place the water to go.

So it results in pretty deep channels cut across the roadway

in a few places and if you're not careful and not paying attention

and you hit one at speed, in any car you're going to bottom out.

Yeah.

Let alone a 20 foot long Sprinter van with a bike hanging off the back.

Yes.

So, yeah, I mean, it's a very large rig.

It's certainly the biggest thing I've ever driven long distance.

But, you know, it's not bad.

It's pretty, it's actually easy to drive once you get used to it

and you kind of get used to the size and the space that it takes up.

So, yeah, it's not so bad.

But it's definitely a juxtaposition between driving that

and then riding a land is like one of the lightest things

that you can ride on the street legally and then one of the biggest

and heaviest.

You don't need a CDL for it.

Right.

You don't need a CDL for it.

So, what is land exactly?

Are they based off of another manufacturer?

Is it a new manufacturer altogether?

Is it an American manufacturer?

Like on a percent?

Is it like what's the...

Yeah.

I just fired like three questions at you real quick.

Yeah, yeah.

So, land started in 2020.

The CEO actually had a gas motorcycle company called Cleveland Cycle Works.

And it was relatively successful and he spun that off and sold it

because there was really not any innovation in the gas motorcycle space

in the, you know, for a reasonable price and trying to get everything to market.

So, he sold that company and started up land.

And it is a fully, we do all of the design, engineering, manufacturing

and assembly basically in-house.

The only things that are really imported are, you know, the standard things like tires.

There are some tires made in the US, but it depends.

So, the ones that we have are imported.

And then like some switch gear and things like that.

But the chassis, the frames are made in Pennsylvania.

The seats are made in Wisconsin.

We build the batteries essentially in-house from the cells come from India,

the battery cells, like just a standard EV cell.

And yeah, the design and the engineering and everything was done by us.

And it's not based on any other manufacturer's products.

So, we are the manufacturer of the bike.

And it's a 90-ish percent, 95-ish percent made in America product.

That's pretty cool.

I think that it's probably a simpler process to have a startup motorcycle company

than a startup automotive company.

Oh, because there's so much less regulation.

They ask so many fewer parts and there's so much less expectation

for something that needs to work perfectly every single day all day.

I'm not saying your bike wouldn't work perfectly every single day all day,

but I'm just saying there's that much less of an expectation from the customer.

Customers generally are expecting to do something.

Yeah.

When they buy a power source.

Sure.

So, we went to production like two and a half-ish years ago

and there's a local guy in Cleveland that bought one of the early ones

and he's got almost 20,000 miles on his,

which is way more than your average power sports user,

especially electric.

But they have a range up to about 120 miles in the city

and he's basically doing that every week,

like, you know, 150, 175 miles or whatever a week.

So, yeah, you can charge it up at home.

The battery is removable so you can haul the battery inside to charge it

if you live in a city or whatever.

Like power wheels.

Kind of, yeah.

But highway legal.

Sure.

And yeah.

18-volt power wheels.

Yeah.

It's 72.

And you can, the main reason that the battery was removable,

it's not integrated to the chassis is that as battery technology improves,

you can replace the battery without having to scrap the whole bike.

So, if, you know, solid state has been on the horizon for the last 10 years,

if we get solid state battery technology to come on and be, you know...

Compact and lightweight.

Yeah, lightweight and higher density and more efficient and whatever.

Maybe Andrew's company can get one of their steel or rust batteries in there.

Then you could...

Triple the weight.

Yeah.

You could theoretically, you know, triple your range by swapping in a new battery

and you wouldn't have to buy a whole new bike to do it.

It's fine.

That's the kind of future-proof thing that I think about with EV cars all the time,

especially working in the insurance field where, for instance,

what's the Mercedes EQS?

EQS, yeah.

I have written three appraisals for EQS's and I've totaled every single one of them.

Yeah.

Because the battery pack is the chassis.

Yep.

And Mercedes has a tolerance for scratches and scrapes that once you've surpassed

that, you have to replace the battery pack.

But because automotive EVs have the world's worst resale right now.

Yes.

And that with the Mercedes resale, which has never been good, there were,

they're $90,000 plus and when they're two years old, they're $44,000.

And the battery pack's 60.

Yeah.

So it doesn't take much total one, unfortunately.

Right.

And I think about that immediately because obviously we're trying to do batteries

and electric for environmental purposes, right?

Sure.

And if we're just throwing things away every two years, they're not very environmental.

And cars don't have that thought process yet of a universal battery pack.

Like your Mercedes battery pack is not your Ford, is not your Tesla, is not your Kia.

There's no interchangeability, even if the cells are the same inside.

Right.

Interchangeables.

Exactly.

I think that's what has to really happen for the mass adoption of electric vehicles

is to have more universal battery technology, I think, because.

Or at least rebuildable batteries.

Sure.

You know, if you could, if you could just put all those cells in a new case and it wasn't,

you know, a $40,000 procedure.

Right.

That that might make more sense.

And that's kind of where we are with these is like we just have a stainless steel case

with a handle on it that you can, I mean, it's sealed from the factory,

but like we can take it apart and replace an individual cell if need be.

We haven't had to need to do that yet.

But that, you know, in theory, that is what's possible in the future.

And like we do our batteries are smart, smart batteries, so like we can remote into your

bike and see the degradation of a cell from, you know, home base.

And we can tell that, hey, you know, this either the battery needs to be replaced

or whatever.

Again, this is something we haven't had to do, but it helps with diagnostics.

It helps with future proofing.

It helps with, you know, further on down the line.

Future proofing is important.

Yeah.

It's part of the reason that I don't like a lot of modern cars because I'm afraid of

the future.

And it's probably like old man yells at cloud, right?

In 1985, somebody was saying the same thing.

Well, man, when this 85 regal dies or we're not going to be able to fix this

computer and the car is never going to run again.

Right.

Here we are fixing it.

So maybe I'm being a little too negative here.

And I'm sure Andrew will is laughing in the background too.

Because I've always said stuff like this, but I do like that future proofing

thing because right now we're seeing like, if you drive like a 2012 car,

your Bluetooth might not work with your new iPhone 73.

Like, yeah, it just it's not compatible anymore.

It doesn't work very well.

And there's no way to really update the factory part of the car.

And bless you.

I would modify obviously with the head units and stuff.

And then you can't even do that anymore either because the head units are

integrated into the dashboard.

And well, it was a little thing.

So what was the thing recently where like 3G like went offline?

Yeah.

So like early.

Yeah.

All done.

So early cars that had 3G are just can't use them anymore for that.

Yeah.

So yeah.

I am against a lot of that stuff.

But or just the other day we had, you know, Amazon Web Services went down

and how many things couldn't be used because AWS was down.

You know, you don't think about it.

But like people's smart mattresses, Star wouldn't win haywire.

It's dumb.

That's one of the things that I love about our bikes is that while

they are smart and they have like tracking and all of that kind of

stuff, the bike doesn't do anything that the rider doesn't want it to do.

Okay.

So like there's no turn home jeeps.

Yeah.

There's none of that for sure.

But like we're it's, we kept it super, super simple.

So like we won, we don't even have ADS on our bikes, which like there's

arguments for either case on that, but like I like the ability to say

when I'm breaking, it's me doing the break.

Sure.

And it's doing what I want it to do.

And I also like, there's no traction control.

There's no anti-wheelie.

There's no anti-stoppy.

There's no, you know, some of these bikes that are coming out today

have this like Bosch eight axis, what they call a IMU.

And it controls like lean sensitive traction control.

So like the traction control is more active when you're leaned over.

That was how my contact batch is left.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And then there's like, it'll, it'll throttle your throttle when you

want to do a wheelie.

It will, it has anti-wheelies so that you can go faster.

So I'll like launch control and all that kind of stuff.

I think we might be going too far with this, like the whole point

of a motorcycle is that it's man and machine, you know.

So, and people always ask me, like, does it have regenerative

braking and it doesn't.

And one of the main reasons for that is like, well, it's,

it wouldn't be any more weight.

But the, the issue with regenerative braking is that the

bike is breaking without you intending to break without

you pulling a lever.

So if you go down, barreling down into a corner and there's dirt

across the corner and it locks up the rear tire and spits you

out the other side, you could go off a cliff or something

and like, you wouldn't even know why the bike did it.

So I don't really think about regenerative braking in

concert with ABS, but obviously it has to our car for the

same situation because the same situation, while less

dangerous, could certainly happen in the car.

It wasn't ABS.

Yeah.

I never thought about that.

Yeah.

We drive them.

My work car is a hybrid.

Namely, Maverick's a hybrid.

It's just become a normal seat to have a car where you just

come off the gas and the car almost comes to a stop on

the tone, thinking about it.

Yeah.

One pedal drive it.

We don't quite have one pedal do that in our cars,

but it's.

It'll serve in some with it and it definitely is like

disconcerting a little bit.

I mean, if you're used to it, you're used to it,

but like.

Yeah.

I wouldn't want that in a motorcycle.

I wouldn't.

I feel like standard controls on a motorcycle are even more

important than a car.

Yeah.

It's part of the reason I've never bought like an early

sixties British bike because with the throttle and

everything and shifting on the opposite side of the

shifting on the opposite side should clutch and brake

opposite.

Yeah.

Probably crash it immediately.

Yeah.

And you wouldn't be able to go back and forth from a

new bike to an old bike because of that.

So.

Yeah.

Right.

Maybe one day I'll try it, but probably not.

Yeah.

So yeah, it's really interesting going from being,

you know, a journalist for as long as I was to now being

on the OEM side of like, okay, I knew what OEMs wanted

of me.

Now I need to do that for journalists and dealers and

all that.

So it's all relationship building and a lot of cool

stuff.

So if you know a motorcycle, if any of your listeners

know a motorcycle dealer that wants to sell lands,

hit me up.

Excellent.

Well, that's very cool.

Yeah.

So now that the promotional push is over, what in your

personal life, you have a fleet of cars.

We've talked about a few of them.

We won't get into anything.

It's been dormant for a long time, but we have not

talked about probably your 996 turbo.

I bet we've talked about it because you drove it.

We talked about it then.

You haven't talked about it since you completely

restored the car.

That's true.

So that's your project car update status for this

episode.

What is new on that car?

Because it is one of the cooler Porsche turbos out

there.

I appreciate that.

That's high praise.

Yeah.

So when I got it, it was kind of a track rat and

it was beat up a little bit and it had seen better

days and I liked driving it like that.

But also I've never really had a nice car.

So I was like, you know, if I'm going to do a nice

car, this is the one to do it too.

I mean, this was the 996 of auto hot topic style.

Like it was a beat down, ratty key.

Mesh panels.

Yeah.

It's not a Porsche Club of America.

Sure.

Show car, polished all the time.

It still won't be.

I'm still going to pile miles on it.

Sure.

I'm just saying so that Liz Mears, who are

you talking about our Rusty a little bit?

Yeah, I thought immediately because we're talking

about a turbo Porsche.

Yeah.

Luckily, no rust.

I bought it from California.

I driven it across the country a couple of times.

Excuse me.

The Polars hit me.

So, yeah, it's a 2001 911 Turbo.

Typically those are all wheel drive, but this one

has been rear wheel drive converted.

The front diff has been removed for lightweight

and steering purposes.

And it was in a kind of boring seal gray color,

like a dark silver and the interior was just gray.

And I didn't really like it.

So I sent it to a paint shop and the whole idea

with this car is to kind of do a throwback.

A couple of years ago, a Porsche built a car

that they called the I think it was a 996

club classic hoop and it was supposed to be

their vision of like what the ultimate 996

would be with modern technology.

So they took like a Carrera 2 and put a GT3

engine in it and they used like a modern blue

color and they put a updated the interior

and a bunch of stuff, but it didn't look right.

It didn't fit my idea of what a 2001 car would be.

So I was like, I'm going to do something that's

more period correct than what Porsche did.

Your brain said there's not enough aqua.

Yes.

Exactly.

So we chose, I talked to the painter

and we chose Ocean Jade Metallic as the color

and it is like a teal or 94 Ford road GT.

Kind of.

Yeah.

Very, very aqua, very teal, great color in person.

It doesn't photograph particularly well

and like whenever you tell people about it,

they're like, man, that's going to look terrible.

But then they see it in person and go,

oh yeah, I get it.

That's awesome.

And we color matched the wheels.

So that's interesting and very period correct.

And it was a sunroof car.

So we took out the roof and replaced it with a carbon fiber panel.

And then right now the full interior is getting redone in green

cloth and leather.

So it's like a, it's like a lighter shade of green.

It's not like a forest or a hunter or something,

but it's a good quality Italian leather with like a wool

insert for the sun.

Green is kind of like, if you made a nicer version of like,

it's not, you know, I had an idea right ahead

and thinking about it more, I don't like it.

So I say it's not a military green at all.

It's a very light, light, light green.

It's like a really light olive.

Yeah, kind of.

Like a pimento olive.

Maybe.

Yeah.

It's a very, it's good.

It works.

It fits with the Aqua.

Yeah.

And your brain right now,

I know everybody listening is saying,

yeah, it doesn't work with Aqua.

Yeah.

But it does work with it.

It definitely does.

It's in the same family.

Yes.

You don't think it would, but it does.

And we also paint matched the center console

and the back, the seat back of the driver seat

because the driver seat is a sport bucket

from a later nine on one.

And I'm throwing numbers out that I know Brad's

just like his eyes are glazing right now.

But I've been forced to learn portion numbers.

I can't, I can't avoid it.

But yeah, it's really cool.

It's almost finished.

The seats are done.

The door panels are done.

I put the carpet in.

We just need to do the dash and the headliner

and the rear seat delete.

And then it'll be ready to ride.

Just got a bunch of mechanical work done.

So it drives better than it ever has before.

I need to do coilovers this winter.

Add that to another project of mine

that I need to do this winter.

And yeah, that's, that's where we're at.

So the, and then other projects this winter.

A friend of the show Alex Stadel signed me up

for the Alkan 5000.

So we're going to co-drive that in my 2014

Cayenne diesel,

which technically is my wife, Amanda's daily driver,

but now it's going to be the rally car.

Last race car.

Yeah, race car.

So I need to prep that for the rally next summer.

And then I'm doing some like fuel injection

upgrades for the 912E.

And I just bought a Ducati monster like a year ago

that needs a belt service.

So I'm very nervous about doing that myself,

but I'm going to learn and figure it out.

So those are my winter projects.

Nine and six is almost finished.

And that'll be like my first real big boy project

that I've finished from like start to finish.

So excellent.

Yeah, it's very cool.

Adder, will you get any project updates this week?

Other than, so I'll comment the interior color.

So I've only ever seen it pictures.

To me, it looked more on the teal side,

but I'll take your word for it.

That's more of a olivey color, I guess.

But it's weird to say.

It's not teal.

Yeah.

It's not really olive and it's not really teal.

It's like a tall of, it's like hail leaf green, maybe.

It does complement.

Yeah.

I'll give you that.

Yeah.

So yeah, I've been-

Who's in Pantone family.

Yeah.

Sure.

Yeah, I've been trying to work on the Volvo.

I've now been waiting almost two weeks for alternators.

The one with the pulley that I ordered

is somewhere in UPS, somewhere.

The tracking is just like in the system,

no delivery date all of a sudden,

which is really confidence inspiring.

I think this happened to you before.

I thought I wanted to go on something else

and just showed up eventually.

The intakes, but the intakes were coming from Sweden,

so it wasn't even USPS.

These were coming out of Texas.

Okay.

So yeah, that's kind of annoying.

It was just in Texas.

I could have picked it up for you.

Yeah.

Look, this is a big place, man.

No.

I mean, I drove across the whole thing, so.

Yeah.

So yeah, that's been kind of annoying.

So in lieu of that, my dad and I started taking apart

some of the wiring that was wire nutted together

under the hood.

I cut out a bunch of extra wire that didn't need to be there

a while back because it was obvious

that it didn't belong there

zip tied to the existing OEM harness.

But then we were looking down by the corner lights

and there's a bunch of wire nuts for like,

what's going on here?

So we're waiting for the alternator to figure out

that wiring.

So yeah, it turns out somebody had cut up the wiring

and reattached it to turn.

There's on the front of that car,

the outside of the headlights is a marker light.

And then the turn signal is down low,

like above the bumper.

And then of course, because it's a 69,

there's another marker in the fender

right next to the turn signal marker.

So it's really funny, right?

They had that legislation where they had

marker lights at the side of cars in like,

68 or something.

Yeah.

So we were looking at it

and the turn signal is a dual filament

and it has a marker.

And maybe it just doesn't turn on or something.

But I'm like, that they really didn't need to add

the side one because it wrapped all around

and you could see it on the side,

but somehow they couldn't maybe get away with it.

Or maybe there's a height regulation

for where the marker had to be

off the ground or something.

Yeah, maybe it can be shared with the same lens

as the one on the front or something.

Some weird thing because it's like,

it's like two inches from the other light

that already exists.

But anyway, somebody tried to wire in the marker

on the grill to be a turn signal

with the other turn signal in the bumper.

And that's why there was all wire nutted.

So I'm going to return that

to just being a marker light

and fix that wiring.

And I think there was also wire nuts

because when you,

if you have to do the headlights,

you have to take the grill out

to get to the headlight buckets.

And those marker lights,

maybe they had connectors at one point

and maybe somebody cut them

and they were just wire nutted back together.

So I will put a little,

a little, you know,

weather tight spade connectors in there

just to pop them out

if I need to change the headlight

instead of cutting wires again.

So that's not a big deal.

Once we looked at that

and used the PowerPro, it was like,

all right, this is pretty clear what is going on here.

So it bought a kit off Amazon

that has all of the standard

like 60s and 70s car connectors.

Maybe I'll send you a picture of that

and you can see if it looks...

I don't know what's supposed to be in there.

I have spade connectors that'll work.

It's just a power and a ground for this marker light.

It's a...

It's a Fuse...

Concourse points, Andrew.

It's a Fuse bulb.

That's what they're called, right? Fuse bulbs.

Yeah, that's a glass bulb, basically.

Yeah.

So yeah, luckily this car

is what this car is going for.

It's from the 60s and the wiring is very simple.

So...

Turn signal, headlights, tail lights,

starter, ground.

So we were confused though

because we were looking at it

and there was wires that were the same colors

as the wires going to the regulator,

voltage regulator.

My dad's like, I think those are patched in.

I was like, no, they're definitely not.

I was like, that is all OEM, luckily.

So these wires are going into the

upper fender on the driver's...

on the passenger side.

I was like, no, something else going on here.

And they're following the antenna cable.

I was like, this is weird.

So I looked under the fender

and of course there's no fender liner.

I don't think there's supposed to be one.

Somebody retrofitted

a power antenna to the car

and had switches inside the car to turn it on.

Like on the dash

to put this antenna...

Use the convenient of power on radio

to power there.

Power antenna instead of adding a switch

to put the antenna up and down.

I can tell you, I took about two minutes

and cut out a bunch of

aftermarket wiring

behind the glove box and it already looked so much better.

I knew when I saw it

that there was a bunch of extra wiring in there

but I also saw the wire nuts

and I was like, this should come out with one good yank.

Yeah.

Well, you know that you're doing

dealing with a good quality

wiring job

when there's wire nuts in a car

application.

It's just a bad idea.

One, they're not weathertight.

Almost as good as butt connectors.

Two, they're

not resistant to vibration.

I'd rather have heat shrink butt connectors, honestly.

At least they're not going to fall apart on you.

Yeah.

If they're heat shrink, that's better.

But yeah, if they're just

long on there.

Until the outlier comes

I'm going to try to fix those.

I was going to do that tonight

but we decided to podcast instead.

So probably do it tomorrow night.

And then I have to mount

an aftermarket fuse panel

with relays.

Mount that under the hood.

The car is not original anyways.

We might as well make the wiring

into

this century.

The plan is to run

the ignition off a relay

and then that relay will trip the starter

or it will power up the starter relay

or whatever.

It runs stuff through relays that doesn't have relays.

Ideally

when we power the car

on it doesn't burn itself down.

Well, it won't burn itself down

and everything will have a cleaner

clearer power

path.

Definitely a good plan.

What we're working on, it's not

I definitely was way more intimidating

fixing the wiring on the glance or something

because there's just wires everywhere

but this is like alright now we can

see what's going on, it's not a big deal.

It's just going to take a few hours of just

stripping

and gripping stuff back together.

Super simple.

Yeah, that's

pretty much

odd to work on for Project Carus.

Well,

I committed the Cardinal AOT

SIN. What did you do?

I farmed the car out to be fixed.

Uh-oh. Which car?

It's not really an AOT SIN

but it's my own personal SIN. I like to just have that

I did it myself

mentality right? The most

again. But

the Arizona Rising Sun rally

that I host is happening this Saturday

so that's

a couple days away

and in a couple of days I don't have time

to do the job.

So I

sent my Eclipse over to

StepsOnJordan

who has some time to do it and he's actually

started last night, should finish it tonight

and have the car back tomorrow with AC in the car again.

So

it's not out of my capability, not out of my

skill set, but it's out of my

timeline. It's the problem.

So

I'm knocking this one out by having it

done by somebody else.

So I can't

really say it's a project car update but I guess it is

because I don't have to do it now.

He's also a really good tech.

He's also a really good tech and no offense

he'd probably do it quicker than you anyways.

No offense taken. He will

definitely do it better than me. Not better than me, quicker than

me. Um, because

he is a tech. That's the difference between

a tech and a hobbyist, right?

Like a tech gets in there, gets it

done and moves on to the next thing

where a hobbyist takes it apart and then looks at it

for a while and then looks at it for a while

and then works on something else.

So 100%

it'll get done faster.

Could I do it in two days if I had nothing

else going on? I probably could

but I'm hosting a

30 car

200 plus driving rally in two days

and there's a lot of prep work we're still doing

and I just, I wasn't

going to have time. I knew I wasn't going to have time.

I went to drive the car today and I was making a very

concerning knocking noise

and my hope is that it was just that

compressor clutch

making the noise.

Um,

it's not like it was and I was just like I don't want to

drive this thing on the rally with the back compressor

and then have the clutch

come apart and take out

the timing belt again or the

rest of the belts and

I just don't want to have a problem with it

on the rally that I'm hosting. I need to be in a

reliable vehicle. Yeah. So

I just was like, you know what? I'm just going to

I'm going to take

the win and

loss at the same time and

let it be done by somebody else. So

be ready for it. I'll get the car back

tomorrow and that will be enough time

to do an oil change

and get it cleaned up and ready to go.

So

it's tactically project car

progress. I just didn't do it.

That's okay. It's fair.

Yeah. This is what

I'm having to understand.

You know, the eclipse is basically my

daily and

sometimes it's hard to have a branch of cars

daily and sometimes you just need to

pardon my language

but get shit done. Yeah. Yeah.

I

like knowing that I

can do it

but I'm fine with paying someone to do

it if it's

a timeline issue or

like

I don't do I mean

occasionally I'll do my own oil changes but like

it's often cheaper

to just take it somewhere.

That's one of the things I can't

farm out because it's so easy. Yeah.

I just do it. I understand why you wouldn't do it

sometimes. It's easy but like the cost

of doing it yourself

is basically the same as having

someone else do it. Sure. And then you don't have to deal

with a gallon of oil

sitting in your garage for

a year. The other

kicker for me with this car is that I was

incredibly frustrated with it because

it was a year ago

when I had the entire head off the car and I

could have easily just

had I known it needed it slap the compressor

on then. Yeah. Obviously it wasn't

broken then

because the compressor on the 4G63

is under the intake manifold

so it requires removing the intake manifold

or not technically

removing the intake manifold it's easier without the intake manifold

on I should say. It can

be done with it in place but I just

again it was time

I ran out of time. That's

my great shame

sorry

sorry for the AOT

garage warriors that do all their own projects

but

I can't do it this time. Yeah.

So

if I didn't also have the Corolla

Tornavart in the garage and all of

the timing belt stuff for the 944

and just this and this and this and this and this

I just I haven't

didn't have time. Yeah.

It's life. Yeah. It's life.

Anyway Andrew, that's my entire

project car update status is that I haven't done

anything and I'm having somebody else do something.

All right. So that's fair.

Can we build a podcast on that? Can I just

pay somebody to the rest of my work the rest of my life and still talk about it?

That's what every other podcast is. I mean yeah

there's a lot of high-end podcasts

that's what the guys do so

you know what I'm talking about. It's not me.

I definitely

know who you're talking about.

There's more than one. There's several.

There's one specific one that I'm sure we're all thinking of.

Yeah.

What do you think it is?

NASCAR?

What do you think?

Eat a race.

Telling it was awesome, right?

That was a really good race. Especially the last

12 laps.

It was a really good race. I mean anybody

in the top 6 go to one that race.

And they did.

Wrong 1-1, but

it is what it is.

Could have been worse. I don't mind Chase Briscoe.

No, I don't mind.

If a JGR driver that's not Hamlin has to win,

Chase Briscoe is okay.

It was awesome watching Larson

just run out of gas though.

Who never said?

That made the entire race for me.

Watching Larson fail is always

my favorite part of a NASCAR race.

That's pretty good.

And then Byron getting spun

ended up in 25th.

Yep, also

I was not upset with that.

I'm just like very anti-Hendrick

very anti-Pensky.

As one should be.

Although we only root for

Pensky in Le Mans

because it's the American team.

Although JGR is quickly becoming a dynasty.

Potentially, yeah.

Unfortunately,

there's no

small teams left in the playoffs.

No.

We have to pick the

least bad of the bad.

The best bad?

The least bad guy?

I guess.

The Toyotas in general have been dominant

in the playoffs. It's crazy.

Yeah, they have been for sure.

It was a really good race.

I'm looking forward to this weekend

while I think it will also be a good race.

So,

there isn't a lot to talk about. It was the last

10 laps of the race, really worth the race this time.

Yeah.

And our boy Bubbo is really

close to winning again.

The man is like

top 5 more than

his entire career this year.

Also,

I believe

Pennsylvania was top 10.

Maybe 10th?

He hit a day.

When he spun going

into the pits when he hit that spot of water

and he's like, I hit the water

and the commentator is like, there's no water.

And then back at the replay and they're like,

huh, he hit the water

because there was like a seam

in the track and it had waned

the day before or the evening before

and as the

race was going on and the cars driving

goals were it, they must have been causing enough vibration

for water to come out of the seam

and when they all came in off the

banking to go into the pits

you see the spot of water right in front of them

and you see his wheels hit it and his back wheel hits it

and the car just, it does a little wiggle

and he just, his tires are wet and he can't catch it.

And he did a pretty good job

saving the car though and not hitting anybody

or taking anybody else out.

So it still managed to not lose a lap

because he didn't lose a lap

and he got back out there and

yeah, he was top 10 on Superfeedway which is like

SVG will eventually dominate

NASCAR. I was going to say is

once he fully figures out

oval racing, he's

a champion for it. 100%.

100%. So Hamlin better get a championship

this year because it's not going to be long

before SVG is in Avalon.

Honestly, I

hope Hamlin goes away.

Yeah.

I missed this race because I was at the F1

race in Austin.

So I know you guys think that's boring and that's

fine. Listen, we gave you five minutes

talking about Porsches. We're not going to have to

grab the F1 now too.

I will say,

my wife and I went to

an F1 race in 2007

at Indianapolis

and the vibe there was so much better

than it was last weekend.

Because now it's all

hype. It's all

right. People want to be

there to be seen

being there or whatever and like

half the crowd started leaving with 20 laps

left. I was like,

why would you pay this much

money to be here and not stay for the whole

thing? What is wrong with you?

For the light body t-shirts.

Yeah. And I think when we

went in 2007, the tickets were

$70 and

this time they were

$275.

Oh, that's not as much as I thought.

That's a lot.

$544

for both of us.

It's not cheap.

No. But I've heard horror stories of

$1,000 plus tickets.

Well, this was general admission sitting in the dirt.

So, yeah.

I don't know

what it was to sit in

the stands, but a lot

more than what I thought. Probably $700.

Yeah, probably.

Yeah, I wouldn't

not go to an F1 race. I just wouldn't

probably go out of my way to go to an F1 race.

It was cool.

But

we were walking out and it was like, yeah, it'll probably

be another 18 years before we do this again.

Maybe by then

F1 going to Apple TV will cause it to fail

because that my people will subscribe. It'll be out of the country.

I don't think so.

Just like it a lot.

It's really big. I know

it's so many people that aren't

super car people are in F1.

Yes.

Because Andrew, it's a lifestyle brand.

Yes.

It's no different than people who don't play basketball wearing Jordan's.

100%. Yeah.

It is exactly that.

It's the

you know,

Monday morning quarterback. It's the same thing

of like, I watch the sport.

I feel like I'm a part of the team. I have a guide

a route for, I like the drama.

I follow all the, you know,

off track stuff as much as I do the on track stuff.

All

of the drivers have their own street wear brand.

I, you know, it's

a thing like I don't subscribe to any of that.

I just go for the racing, but like

that's because you were a fan of the racing before

it became what it is today.

Right. This was the same thing that happened.

Well, to a much lesser degree,

the same kind of thing that happened to NASCAR

in the early 2000s when it got over

over.

It's hard to say over commercialized NASCAR

because literally rolling billboards that we watch go around track

to three and a half hours. But

I mean, that's what racing is. Yes.

Rolling billboards. It just got overhyped

and over

built. And there was just too much of what

is happening to F1 now. And I think that's

where a lot of my

current anti F1 status comes

from. Sure. Is that I became

an anti NASCAR fan during that period

of NASCAR. Shouldn't obviously be talking about it every week

now. And I sit in the couch for three hours

every Sunday and watch NASCAR

because I'm absolutely obsessed with it again.

Yeah. So it's just funny

because you've got people that have gone out of it

because they don't like it now.

And I'm like, no, I like it now better than I did

back then. I don't know why. Yeah.

True racing fans.

We like the good racing. We don't care about

the drama. We don't care about there being a reality

show about one of the drivers

or we just don't care. We want to watch the racing.

Although the NASCAR series,

sorry, the Netflix series on NASCAR is actually pretty good.

It just covers the playoffs.

It's pretty good. It's worth watching.

So many, so many hours in the day

to not watch more television shows.

Yeah. So many things to watch.

Yeah. I watched Drive to Survive

the F1 show during the pandemic

and after that I was like, no, I don't need

to see that. Like I watched the whole season.

Why do I need to watch a recap?

Sure. Like an eight hour recap

of all the racing that I just watched.

Yep. No, thank you.

Anyway,

Andrew,

it's about an hour

It's about an hour. Yeah.

I think it's a good show. Do you want to do any scale

out of cast for us? Do you have any

to talk about? About what I did.

Well, you did.

We have been talking about how we got it back

into RC where you got me back in RC.

We did. Which got you back in RC.

Yeah, I played myself on that one, huh?

You did. But you know what?

It's a fun hobby because my son likes it too.

So it's something him and I can do together

because it's kind of hard with a five-year-old

to build a model kit. It's kind of hard.

The attention span is not there.

But you can get them to drive a RC

model truck around.

Exactly. But you can get them to drive a RC

model truck around.

But anyway, I was like,

I remember

back just kind of when we started getting out of it,

RC drifting was becoming a thing

and basically they're just taking like

four-wheel drive chassis and you put like

plastic PVC tires on them and they drift around.

I was like, that's kind of cool.

And I kind of

kept track of it a little bit

and then get back to the hobby.

I was like, oh, RC drifting is still a thing.

It's probably the most real RC hipsters

and we had front-wheel drive RC cars.

Yeah.

So I was like, it's probably mostly a

West Coast thing.

I kind of assumed it was

like touring car racing and off-road racing

where it was just bigger in California.

It was just like

not even worth looking around here for

and that's kind of why we got in the

crawlers because

the crawlers you can use them out here in the woods

and go for walks with them

or use them in the yard or something.

And they're scale and that's what we like is scale.

But the drift stuff was always kind of scale.

I was like, I thought that was kind of cool.

So then just kind of randomly the other week

we were talking about it when I was texting

and I was like, I wonder if there's one

in Massachusetts.

Cheating on the discord. Private texting.

I was on Instagram

and

sure enough, there was one

there was a track 10 minutes from my house.

So we were talking about Scott.

Oh boy.

So, yeah, I was like, well

when did they do stuff? Oh, Friday, Saturday,

Sundays. Okay. So last Friday night

I was like, let me just take a

ride up there and see what the vibe is

before I even think about buying a chassis or anything

because if it's just like

weird people

I'm not gonna be into it.

Yeah.

Weird people.

Never mind.

I mean, you don't know.

Me? I want nothing to do with it.

You never know. I mean, sometimes

you'd go to like RC racing

back in the day and the guys would not be very nice to

you. Sure.

So I was like, whatever, I'll go check it out

to see what it's like.

So I go up there.

It's super cool.

We talked to the two owners. They're super nice.

Yeah, it's doesn't, you know, it's like usually

20 bucks if you want to run a car

but obviously you're spectating. So yeah, you just hang out.

Well, some

talking to a couple guys there. One of the guys was like, you want to drive my car?

I was like, okay.

So they like let me drive one of

his cars around for a few laps.

It is way harder than it

looks. It is like trying to drift a real car.

Surprisingly, it feels like it.

It's kind of interesting.

They were showing me some crazy

super rare one off like drift chassis

things that are like

nobody has like, but they've

been, you know, they use like parts

of other RC cars and they have like

I forget what the chassis was

but it had like a

had an axle from a Tamiya

off-road truck

and a four-link suspension with a watts

link setup

and a front motor in skill

110 scale. Yeah.

He's like, there's like 50 of these chassis.

He's like, it's not

super common.

But anyway, yeah, they're

showing me and like you basically

you combine off-the-shelf chassis right now

from like Yokomo and the thing will drift

pretty well out of the box.

So yeah, anyway, I bought one.

And

yeah, that showed up today. So that

didn't that didn't last long. I was like, that's

pretty cool and it's only 10 minutes from the house.

I don't have to drive like an hour to go do it.

I drive an hour to go do it here.

Yeah. And

I was like, this is a good excuse to

like not do screen time.

What I'm saying, go home and watch TV

instead of like, you know, after

dinner after kid bedtime, I can

drive 10 minutes and

do drifting for an hour or so and not feel like

I wasted a bunch of time to get there

and just, you know, do

something in real life instead of

doom-scrolling or something.

So, no, that's a

that's a good way to deal with the real world.

That's a new not be in the real world.

Hyper niche exception

obsession.

I mean, it's hyper niche, but there's a lot of people doing

it right now. It's not an uncommon.

I didn't realize that a scale 70

scar body and scale tiny

Watts and Mike, it's

yeah, it's

apparently a lot bigger than I thought it was

and it's interesting because I bought

a bunch of the stuff. I've been buying a lot of RC stuff

from a main. It's kind of a big website, but

they've really good deals and stuff

and it's interesting because I bought a bunch

of drift stuff

and you look at your invoice afterwards and it was like

included drift magazine

and I was like, what is this?

So I got the box say, yeah, sure enough, it says

US produced

indie drift magazine

and it's at the first issue

and that's cool. It's like,

you know, you can definitely tell it's like

kind of homemade kind of ish, but

yeah, it gives me like

it's physical media.

That's what's coming back brother.

It's coming back. The internet

is dying and physical media is coming back.

It gives me the old RC

car action vibes and I was like, this is pretty cool

and then it's funny that

the guy, whoever is the

I don't remember his name at the column. It's like

it's more about

you know what we were talking about with the Tamiya stuff or Tamiya is

whatever you want to call it

using the old school cars.

It's not, for you and I Brad, it's not about

building the fastest thing

to go super fast. You just want to drive it

around the yard.

We're just, we're just vibing RC

RC vibes. I don't know. That's sure.

And that's what the thing is.

Yeah, you just like

you go and you get into the little

rhythm and you just slide around the track

and I was like, you know what, I can get into that.

It's not cheap, but it's a shit load cheaper than

drifting a real car. Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

The entire cost of your setup in a year

of running it would be one evening

in a real drift car. Exactly.

One set of tires. Yeah.

So that's pretty cool.

I will report back

with how that goes. Yeah, I expect

a full hour episode just about RC drifting

once you've actually done it.

I'm going to actually try to make

some little video content

of building things. So I have some stuff

stacked up from other things, but

I should get on that. I do.

I don't talk about that all the time.

But I think that having Bradley here today

is a kickoff to get more guests back on too

because we also have this

my internet is fixed

and we have

it's a lot easier.

Yeah, the podcast

software is working well

and I think we can

have some more guests on.

So, look

we have somebody who's as close to our friend as

Bradley on first just to make sure if it does

arrive. They don't waste their time because

they're just our friend.

Yeah, you know, every once in a while

you'll have a guest on and then

that episode will just never come out

and you just have to go, well

Bradley's talking from experience here, but it's because

he was on the 300th episode special.

So

I don't worry about that. So

if I'm doing my content right

this is 395.

Oh, wow.

So, yeah.

Wow. 400 almost.

We started in 2016.

Let's tease a 400th episode. They're not doing anything about it.

Just blank the whole week.

We'll just read that line and then right back to 401.

What happened to 400? Don't worry

about it.

Those episodes are secret just for us.

That's between you, me and the walls.

But that's Patreon only. Those are only fans

only episodes.

No, she exists.

No, Brad. I'm recording that right now.

Yeah, we're coming up in

November. We started November

2016. So not quite 10 years.

Next year will be 10 years.

We'll hold a sale.

We're old by podcasting standards.

We should have been millionaires by now, but

we don't grift anyone.

That's your problem there.

You got to do a little grift.

I got a closet full of hats.

I haven't sold a bit of loan grifting.

All right.

Bradley, where can I find you?

Oh, God.

I don't even remember where I'm at.

Plug in hybrid on most

social medias.

I'm not really active on Facebook.

Occasionally on Twitter, even though

I probably shouldn't be. No.

Why should I have to leave?

The content sucks.

There's good stuff there if you know where to look.

But yeah, it does suck.

I still post on Instagram.

So you can check me out there and then

find Landmoto everywhere and give us a follow.

You can see some cool motorcycle content.

Maybe I'll ride one later and talk about it next week.

You should.

Definitely should.

All right. Yeah, you can find me

by using your

Threads, Blue Sky, whatever.

Also, another topic

on Instagram

and Threads

on Scale Autocast.

Mostly try to Instagram these days

all that stuff.

So, Bradley, where can I find you?

Mostly on Instagram,

the same Scale Autocast and Auto Off Topic

and my personal account is

always N.

As much as I've changed it probably never will.

S350. All right, cool. As always, keep your eyes analog. And

name is Roses.

Electric Analog Motorcycles with Brad Brownell of Land Moto

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