Ep11 Dennis McCarthy

Okay, Fast and Furious fans, welcome back to another podcast.

My name's Amelia Hartford and I'm so kaying the reason why I say Fast and Furious. Our guest today built

all the cars starting with Fast three, one of those cars being Hans Are seven.

Yes, he built so many iconic.

Cars that we shouldn't try to name them all.

It's great to see him take his passion for cars and convert it over to movies.

Yeah. We have cool conversations about cars dropping out of

planes on Fast and Furious seven, and we.

Also talk about the future of practical cars and CG cars and movies.

Yeah. Yeah, we joke a little bit about the street

takeovers becoming a.

Thing which we would say this gentleman we're going to speak to is actually responsible for unintentionally. Yeah, and without

further ado.

Dennis McCarthy. Everybody.

I think people know the cars in the film, but nobody knows you, Dennis. Like I even the people that

work on the movie. It's like they don't know, like

where you're from, like where you started, Like you know, I want to share that story, Like I want to share Dennis's story, Like how'd you get into cars? Where'd

you grow up, like what was the history prior to you coming to fest?

And fears like why cars?

Yeah, I'm like that guy behind the scenes and like no one ever sees me, you know, I just you know, cars show up and you know, and that's it. But

I've always been in the cars made since a very very early age as long, honestly, as long as I can remember.

I mean, I you know, my.

First memories, first memory of a car as being you know, somewhere around two maybe three years old, my dad had a sixty nine Camaro for speed car with the Hurst white shift nob and you know, I would reach over there and shift gears, you know.

From the passers.

City's a little tiny kid, so I think it was just something that was always where it was. And with wheels, motorcycles, bicycles, skateboards,

you know, everything in my life was kind of focused on that. I think I had a bicycle repair shop

in the third grade with my own business cards.

I'd pass out at school.

You know, So I was just kind of always working on something, fixing something, or playing with something or driving something.

So you know, long story short.

In high school, I was a bad example in today's society, but I did street racing was like my number one hobby, you know, Like my my buddies played football, played baseball.

I went street racing. So that's what I did, you know,

And I knew all the hot spots. I knew all

the times to be there, the days to be there, and you know, eventually, of course got in trouble here and there for that reason, but nonetheless it was.

In the long run, I guess it was worth it.

Where'd you grow up?

Burbank? Burbank? Wow?

Yeah, So you know we used to race out by u you know, Peoria Street, Roxford Street. You know, we'd

go way up Wheatland. There was a long stretch there

we could. You know, there was a lot of great

places actually right down. It's funny when I started the movie,

it reminded me because one of the places we would race was right off of Fletcher. I remember the first

time going down and saying, oh man, that's my street, right you know, they're all the burnout mark Shore right there.

Everything.

You know, it's like one of my favorite spots. But

h got a job at a dinosh job. I worked

at the Glen Dail's Speed Center for it. So that's

like if you ever noticed in Fast nine, the credit car says Glendale Speed Center on the hood. I put

that there because that's where I worked when I was in high school. So you know, I always try to

slip a few things in and it's and it's funny.

It's like we did some mock up with the car. Actually,

you know, your friend Jose at Extreme Wraps and I do this hood and then you know, I'm asked, well, do we have clearance? I go, yeah, and I called

the owners still around, you know, I got a hold of them and we got kind of cleared. But nobody

asked me where it came from. And I think what

happens in these situations is I think that probably the director maybe assumed the production designer came up with their vice.

Versa or producer.

They disassumed that it came from somewhere that nobody ever bothers to ask me, what's the Glendail Speed Center?

You know what I mean.

But it's, uh, you know, there's so much going on when you're you know, when you're you know, doing fifty some cars, it just all kind of blends together. But anyways, Uh,

I started working there and then you know, shortly thereafter, you know, I went to a trade school. I went

to Valley College briefly for engineering and just ended up on my own shop by thinking around maybe twenty twenty one.

I have my own.

Business, so been doing that ever since. And you know,

so it's really you know, people always ask, wow, this must be great. You know, what's it like compared to

with this, And it's really the same thing as what I did. I mean, I had a shop with you know,

maybe six guys, what would build a bunch of cars.

I do the same thing now, just on a much bigger scale.

That's all.

It's just a tighter deadline, right.

The deadlines are tight. Yeah, you know, like you know,

you can say, yea, I'm gonna bild you a custom car, you know, frame up, you know everything else. You know,

you can say, yeah, give me about a year to do it. You know, we'll have to build you know,

sixty cars like that in the span of three and a half months. So you know, it's a different it's

a different speed, we'll say, for sure, grabbing another gear there for sure, but you know higher accordingly, get the right guys.

It always gets done.

We're at number ten, fast and fear as ten and you started the same time you did, Yeah, Fast and Fear As three. So could you give us thenus a

little history of how you got into the whole Fast and Fear As franchise.

Yeah, sure, I mean it's uh, it's going way back.

But I was just you know, custom car builder had a business in Burbank for forever, like literally since I was twenty years old, and somehow, through a front of a friend, I ended up working on. His name was

Jim Brubaker at the time, he was the head of the studio. Yeah, so he got referred to me to

work on his cars through a friend of his son.

So anyways, it really just started off working on I think he had he had seventy one L Camino.

He had a couple of cool cars, you know.

So one thing led to another and he wanted me to build a modify a vehicle for a scene in a movie called Dragonfly. Okay, it was a movie, Uh

Kevin Costner and his wife dies going off a cliff in a bus. So they had purchased this old army vehicle.

Probably the worst possible choice, you know. I mean, there

could have been a lot of things that you could as bought and would have worked. But anyways, they bought

this old army vehicle that had no suspension, manual transmission, no power. I mean, it was just very not user

friendly at all. So they wanted a V eight. They

wanted air ride, suspension and automatic, you know, just all this different stuff so we could go down the hill smoothly with a camera mount. It was a point of

view shot as all it was. So they had basically

the front of the bus then goes off.

It's cliff.

So I said, yeah, no prom at all, you know, So got that done for him, and then he called me again for Bruce Almighty needed some help with some cars.

They had a Saline S seven. Long story on that one.

I won't go into a bit.

It was I want to hear the story, please, That's why you're here to tell his stories.

All right, Well this is a funny story.

Yeah, I mean it's really not funny, but I guess it was funny from being on the outside of it.

So he asked me to come to set to check out this Saleine S seven and it had been postponed, postpone because the car wasn't ready. This was literally right

when that car was debut. It was just you know

there was one in existence, which was owned by Steve Salan.

That was the only car that existed. So they kept moving,

the shop moving, the shot waited on this car. So

I'm there that day. He wants me to wait and

stand by and just check this car out, make sure everything's cool. He wants me to be the guy that

places it. You know, shows Jim Garrey had to get

in out of it, all that good stuff. So like, okay, yeah, great,

it sounds like fine. So I head out there and

trailer roll up and the car had to be still right.

Don't if you saw the movie, but there's a scene where the car, his silver Z morphs into the same lane.

So the color was a critical part of it. And

they'd already shot the Z. So trailer shows up, but

it's got a yellow one and a sober one. That's strange.

Wonder what they're bringing? A yell, I mean, what good

does a yellow car do us? So anyways, cars getting loaded,

and the rep says, hey, I apologize, but the silver car is not done. It's it's cosmetically cool. It's a

good static car, but it doesn't run. And we just

figured you guys could just you know, either do a static shot or you just do a change the car to yellow. I'm going, well, that's not that's not my call.

So anyways, everyone comes over and that's not gonna work.

It's a driving shot. The car has to be silber.

They're talking about Tobar's is that. Nothing's going to work. So, uh,

you know, I'm asked, hey, can you fix the car?

I said, I look inside the car. You know, there's

no wiring, harness, there's no fuels. It's been haws a

motor sitting it. But that's about it. I go, not today,

you know, that's not gonna happen. So this is right

about the time that there was something called peel coat paint that was around. It just kind of started, you know,

being used in the studio business. Basically, yeah, exactly, but

it's but not as good. It's like it's almost like

a rubberized it feels like a Latex glove on the car.

And then you spray paint basically the latext you know how it works, and you have to spray it on with a special gun kind of like a gun similar to like a linex or a rhino lining gun.

You know.

So we send guys in all these different directions to get the gun, to get the paint, to get the you know, the peel coat product, and we reconvened in a body shop. A friend of mine jacked out a

body we I called, I got a nine to one one.

I have to have this car back on setamorrow five am, you know, get this down overnight.

And he goes, yeah, yeah, no problem. This is, you know,

probably three in the afternoon.

By this point, by the time we get all the materials, it's probably five and we start trying to spray this car and it was freezing cold, right, spraying the stuff, spraying stuff, but the stuff is too cold and it just keeps orange, peeling really bad, and then we have to clean it all off, start over again.

We go through this process.

By the time I get to uh god, it was probably ten pm, eleven pm at night, and I'm just going, man, it's not gonna work. You know, we can't. It's just

it's about twenty five degrees too cold. So I call up,

call up, you go, hey, man, I got a little problem.

I said, It's just it's not gonna work. I said,

the only way I can, you know, have this car for you tomorrow morning. At five am, and Silver is

if I just paint the car. I don't want to

use profanity on your show. But he goes, yeah, I

paint the car. I go, okay, all right, great man.

So next thing, you know, man, I got a crew guy sand in this you know, brand new sanely S seven and we painted at silver and we were up on set the next morning five am. I'm touching up

the little little flaws with a sharpie. You know, I'm

just like, I'm literally right there as they all come out.

I been silver sharpie.

I was using a black sharpie because I didn't have a silver sharp but the black was better than yellow.

So it was kind of like in the door seams and everything, I'm just using a black sharpie and I'm trying to hide any kind of any that's of yellow.

And we got it done.

There's a lot of discussion after that about that whole process and potential legal action there, but anyways, we got the car pain and we had it on set. It

looked great, and uh, you know, everything went well from that one.

So not only paint but also prep a car within that timeframe. I hope people listening can understand how unreal

that is.

Yeah, it was. I mean we did the car.

By that point, it was probably eleven at night and we had it, you know, probably gave us about four and a half hours.

To was it was the paint dry when you showed up on Satacky.

We brought it back in an enclosed trailer so get the bugs off of it.

But now it all worked out. But it was a

that was kind of my start in the business I got.

I got some sidetracked there. So back to the original question,

that's how I got kind of hooked up with Universal and then uh, you know, one thing led to another, and in regards to Fast and Furious, I get a call once again, same same same man, Jim brup Hair calls me after Zombe because, hey, what do you know about this sport and drifting? You know, in my head,

I'm thinking when I was in high school, man, I you know, slide cars right into a curb, you know.

So anyways, I said.

Yeah, that sounds yeah, I know, I know everything about it, like you know, the usual answer, you know. So he goes, great,

can you do can you do a little research on the topic for me? He doesn't tell me what it's

about or what it's for I mean, in retrospect, it feels like I turned it like an eighth grade report on the sport of drifting. You know. I did a

notebook with a picture of a card drifting and just kind of went through the history of the tracks, the key players and everything else, and uh, very rudimentary, but just you know, brought to him and kind of sat down them and just kind of went through a page by page and showed them where it's at, the different organizations that run and everything else. He sayes, great, Great,

I totally appreciate this. I said, okay, all right, thank you,

I can no problem. You know, left thought that was

that was the end of that. He calls you back

a few days, Lady, just had like you to come up and talk to a few people. I said, yeah, no,

no problem. I head up to the Universal. We'll go

up to the eighth flour conference room and you know, there's a whole bunch of people there. I'm you know,

horribly underdressed. You know, I'm just I was not not

expecting this. And they've actually made a copy of that

book and they've spread it around the whole table to everybody there, and I'm just like wow, I woke. A

little heads up would have been nice, you know, like a little bit of a hey, this is what we're going to do. But just you know, I come and

blind and say, you know, same conversation, Can you explain the sport of Christian to us?

Yeah?

I did a little pitch on it, and uh. At

the end of that meeting, they say, well, hey, we'd like you to go to Japan and do some research for us. I'm like, great, you know, but it happened

that quick. It was literally, you know, walked out of

that room, hooked up with travel, looked a flight.

And you know, I think within a few days I was, you know, I was in Tokyo. So that's how it started.

That's how I got hooked up with the franchise, and that's you know, that was my first experience with you know, fun with a whole bunch of cars.

Amelia and I were talking about the street takeover donut scene.

Do you understand that, Dennis, I do.

Not understand it. All I've ever seen and it goes back.

I mean, this goes back to when I was a kid, probably the sixth grade. You know, my my buddy's dad

was a big stock cartan. We'd go out to Sagas

and I remember, you know, when getting the seats, you' always said, oh yeah, you never never sit on the outside of the turn, you know, like we'd always you know, you know, PLoP down in front of the straight away or somebody.

Oh yeah, you know, the cars can climb the fence.

I've seen it, you know, all this stuff, so at a very early age, you know, don't stand on the outside of a sliding car.

And I watched these street takeovers. The cars are.

Doing donuts and the streets are packed five or six deep.

I mean, if something does go wrong, you can't get out of the way.

It's just but it does, and it does.

Oh yeah, I just excited over getting hits.

I watch it.

I just don't understand what has happened to common sense, you know. I mean that's something like when we were

like even my buddies, like, we would never do that, you know. I mean, yeah, we might go into an

air so that should do a bunch of donuts, but it's going to be, you know, somewhere where there's nobody else around. And that was great, and we drive away

really quick to it. Don't get a ticket, you know,

but to do with a huge crowd. It's I don't know,

it's beyond me. No one's you know what. I just

I just figured it out.

Huh.

I know where it came from. It came from I

might be off one movie, but it came from Fastened Furious Sport. We did that sequence down at downtown LA.

We had a BMW doing donuts. We had a huge

party scene.

It was down I want to say, take that back movie, But it is so funny though, I just we have the FBI.

I know, it's just so funny. When you ask that question,

where did it come from? I thought about I know,

I've seen this one before and it just popped in my head. That's where I saw it. But we rigged

at BMW. Now what we did was we actually had

a BMW that was rigged like a like a track on a spinning thing, so it couldn't get away. It

couldn't go anywhere, but you know it could had the right look on screen.

On the set of Grand Tarrismo, I saw my first pod car, and for the listeners who don't know what a podcar is, everything that controls the car is now on the roof and the actor gets to sit in the driver's seat where you can't see anything because the cameras are blocking your view, and the stunt driver drives and you get to pretend like you're driving.

Yeah, because you can always tell when you're watching a TV show of film or whatever if they're on a process trailer just has that no suspension. Look, the car

sits too high. It's just it's just not the same.

But with the pod, it's really the car's doing what it should be doing, but a stuntman is on the roof driving it. So just imagine if you had a

roof rack with a lawn chair and a steering wheel.

That's about what it is. He's sitting up on the roof.

He has gas pedal, he has Oh, this was another first too on Grand Turisma was a pod with a manual transmission. Now, the only way we could do it

was because it was electronic shifted, so we didn't actually have to have shift linkage because it was on the steering wheel. So he basically just took the GT three

steering wheel, put that up on on the top, rewired everything and put a coluct pedal up there, which was hydraulic.

So but it was pretty cool. Because that's something that

you usually don't get with the pod. But anyways, bottom

line is it just puts the actor in the car for reel at real speeds and it just sells. It

just makes it makes the movie that much better. When

you can do that, it's a pretty cool way to film an action car movie, for sure. I mean it's

really the best.

What's the fastest you've been in a quarter mile?

M Let's see. I don't know.

I've driven a lot of fast cars, but I can't say, okay, this is a quarter mile. I'm gonna hammer this car

and go, oh you know what, Okay, I do have I do have something to back this up. So on

Tokyo Drift, we built these Monty Carlos right and uh one of them had a five seventy two was a Richmond four speed, had a fourty six gear in it.

We went out to uh Cameral Airport and we literally marked off a quarter mile with Edmunds online. Then we

ran all the cars. I got in that car to

make a pass and something broke.

I forget it.

I think the shift link and something something happened. I

couldn't make a pass, so we came back. I went

through everything just to the valves, got anything ready to go.

In the meantime, we ran the other car, which was a five hundred and nine cubic chain car, which coincidentally, I still own that car. I have that car in

my shop right now. But in that car, i'd have

to go back and watch. I think you can still

pull it up. But I think it ran an eleven

something in the quarter mile. And they had, you know,

all the proper equipment and everything else. And anyways, long

story short, I get back in the car with a big motor and it's got slicks, I've got the air perer.

I'm really I want to get a ten second time out of this car. And uh, you know, they got

the light green go, and for whatever reason, the first you know light didn't trigger the car.

So I never got a quarter mile time.

But I went through the lights in one hundred and thirty miles an hour, which is pretty damn fast. I mean,

in a nineteen seventy Monet card, to go through the lights at one hundred and thirty miles an hour, it had to be I'm going to in my mind, I believe it had to be a ten second pass. But

you know, it never got officially recorded, so that.

Was very impressed about.

And the other thing that was horrible about that day is, you know, that's not a real incredibly high Revy motor, and there was no and I knew there was a light at the quarter in the quarter mile, but there was no visual reference, like we should have put a traffic car. So I didn't want to shut up early,

so I was going to hold it in extra long. Well,

I kept going forth, gear, ran out of ran out of gear, and I ended up scattering that motor. I

mean scattered it to the point where you know, connecting rods came through the side.

Of the block, windowed the block.

Yeah, oil on the airstrip, and I think that was the last time we were ever allowed to do that again because of that, because it dumped you know, seven quarts of oil right onto the airstrip. But anyways, all

that lawn the motor up, and I still want to get a recorded quarter mile, So I'm still very depressed about that.

It's okay, there you go.

I'll tell you guys a sad story of the car that I wanted more than any new car. I can

probably say my whole life was the new CTFI V Corvette.

I'm sorry, black Wing, black Wing Cadillact.

I got one hundred and twentieth anniversary one.

You're gonna love it.

I'm so excited for it.

So when the black Wing, I started reading about it as I going, oh my god, this is a car.

I can get a Cadillact with four doors on a clutch.

I said, I must have this. So and we were working,

we were on a show, we were doing something and I missed the order day.

I just missed it.

And I was devastated because they were they all they sold out like instantly.

Luckily, I have a couple of friends.

Her named Sandy from General Motors, but she was huge help in making some phone calls to Michigan. She got me,

she got me the opportunity to order one. So I

ordered you black, the carbon seat, everything exactly what I wanted.

And uh, it's the coolest car ever. I mean, it's

absolutely Yeah. It's in my garage. But this is a

sad part that I have. I've had it for I

think a year and it has a thousand miles on it.

Like I don't drive it. You know, it's in my

garage at my house with the car cover on it, and it's like we're going out here.

No, I can't ballet park this car.

Really burn the clutch out.

Screw it up. I'm not I'm not doing that. I

don't leave it anywhere.

Yeah, I feel that way about the Corvettes. But I

like when I tell you I'm so excited for this black Wing, I like, I literally just can't wait to go get it. It's like, what the last combustion manual

transmission car.

That is the coolest car ever. Like I said, that's

so cool. It's the one that I'm.

Going to daily drive. That's going to be like my

I joke that I'm buying the car from my dog.

I'm not that, you know, it's not really the case, but like I don't even know if she's ever gonna sit in it. Now they say it, but I was.

That was my intent. It was gonna be my daily driver.

But I'm gonna try to start putting some more miles on it, for sure.

Congratulation. That's that's fine that we own the same car.

At first we work on the same movie and then we own the same car.

Pretty cool.

Then, as you know, I have to working in the Hollywood and with all these cars, what is your favorite like car movie like that you've worked on or that you just go, okay, this is this sets the bar for a film that has cars in it.

Yeah, that is a great question, you know, and I mean I lean back to like the older stuff, you know, like seventy stuff. I mean, as a young kid, my

all time favorite movie was The Gunball Rally.

One of my favorite.

Scenes in that movie is it's a four to twenty seven Cobra and a Ferrari Daytona racing through the La River and it's just awesome. And there's there's backstories so

that too. There was a body shop in in Bertman

called Auto FM, which is coincidental where my dad took all his cars. But he was one of the guys

that was responsible for fixing the Cobra overnight because they spun the car out and went into the channel in the center and you know, this is the old days of film, and they had one Ferrari, they had one Cobra, so when they wrecked it, they had to bring the car back overnight, bring it back and it was it was a.

Real one too, a woman and body car.

But it was a real Cobra. For twice seven.

Yeah, which back in nineteen seventy eight or seventy six whatever, it was meant next to nothing. You know, it was

a four thousand dollars car back then.

But today there worth so much of course.

Yeah, so anyways, but if you ever get a chance, check that movie out, you know, and really, I mean what I like in the movie is realism. I'm not

a huge fan of massive CG. You know, I really

like it. You know, to me, if you're watching a

movie and you you can believe that the stunt is really happening as you're watching it, I think it just adds to the project. And I think that's one great

thing about the Fast and Furious franchises.

We try to do that now.

Obviously over the years, the cg's gotten a little bigger, but we still try to keep the car stunts, you know, being a real car stunt.

Do you watch car movies the same too? I mean

you're probably working on all of them, but do you watch them the same today? Are you constantly looking at Oh,

I see how they did that? That's an interesting element.

I nitpick things that you know, like, hey, the wheels are different on that car. You know, it's just little

things like that that I'm because I you know, I would always criticize myself, you know, and it happens if we screw something up, if a car looks a little bit, you know, like I said, we're building to set it ten cars, they all need to look identical, and if something's off, I'll definitely catch it when I'm watching it.

But I unfortunately, I can't get that out of my mind.

So every time I watch a liver of the car chase, I'm looking for a flaw. I'm looking for a double

car that has a different seat or a different interior, things.

That a lot of people probably wouldn't notice just watching it, but you probably those tune die for it.

Right, yeah exactly.

I mean everything else is probably blur outside of that, but the cars I'm focused on.

It was really cool on the last film where you know, the director was leaning on you to like help the dialogue to make it, you know, like legit because in the past, I mean, the fans are complaining, They're like, yo, man, you guys are in space. Well bro right, there's like

it's seventy thirty. It's it's like seventy percent. You know,

Like when I'm outside there. You know, the fans will

be like, I'm gonna watch the movie anyway, but hey man, it'd be nice if, like, you know, you could go back to the cars. And then thirty percent is like,

fuck you guys, man, you guys this bullshit. You guys

are in space and what the fuck is that?

Like, it's not a car movie and you are right, so right right, yeah, no, I'm with you.

I mean, like I said, I I would love to see, you know, like a flashback, like an old school flashback and that maybe the maybe the history of uh, you know, Toretto Seniors street racing days or something just kind of ran that back. I mean, it's really it's hard to

do it today because it's just not really done today.

If it is, you know, it's like you said, it's more of the street takeover. I don't know of any

you know, or I mean, I know it's out there, but I guess I'm just out of the loop on it.

But uh, but I think it'd be great to have like a flashback or something that goes back to the to the real roots of you know, maybe you know, the unknown where the franchise came from or something like that.

You know unknow where the Touretto name came from, you know where where that'll stem from. Would be pretty awesome.

But uh yeah, I like, you know, street races that are you know, as real as they can possibly be, you know, I think would be great.

A lot of people ask what happens through the cars.

From I was just thinking that.

The cars usually, as you know, they get destroyed during filming.

You know, for instance, let's take a domb charge in a Fast and Furious movie. You know, if we get

two that make it through, you know whatever, we've built ten, twelve, fourteen of them, we're doing pretty good. And when I

stay destroyed, I mean really destroyed. I mean you know

it's on some effects rig, it's cut up, there's things well to do it everywhere, So it's uh, you know, we're definitely hard hard on vehicles. The ones that do remain,

you know, we'll always go into Universal's asset warehouse and then they'll be used for tours, for special events, they'll be on display at the theme park. Eventually some of

them do get sold. They're typically to sold to you know,

someone that has a museum or as a collector, you know, so not a lot of the cars really survive and I actually get out there.

I mean, you see them.

And the other thing too. This is something else that

always cracks me up. There's a lot of fakes that

are portrayed as real cars, so that I see all the time. You know, cars like I know how many

cars were made and how many cars survived. And there

are several cars out there that I know none survived, or if there's one, I know that it's part of the universal. But yet here's one for sale, you know,

for a million dollars or something. So yeah, so you

have to be careful of that one. You know, a

lot of a lot of counterfeits out there.

Yeah, like anything, I'm sure.

Yeah, who would have guessed?

I guess.

I guess you're doing good. Yeah, they're kind of fitting

your cars he built, that's I guess. I said something.

But you're right by Jay Leno's garage right where else You're very close.

Yeah. We see him every day, you know. I mean,

he's one of the coolest guys ever.

He's always riding a motorcycle, driving a steam car, driving something, you know, And like I said, he drives right by our shop. Sometimes you'll see him three different times in

the day driving a different vehicle. But one time I'm

coming down San Fernando. I'm making a left onto my

street and I see him pushing a motorcycle like an.

Old the Indian or hardy.

I don't know any what it is, but he's pushing his motorcycle. Then he's a ways off. I mean, he's

probably a good mile from his shop or more so.

I pulled over to go, Jay, what are you doing?

Man?

It broke down?

I go, well, do let me let me call State Bed.

I'll get someone down here. We'll load your bike. We'll

get me O.

No, no, no, no no. This is a this is my

exercise planning.

I ride the bike. When it breaks down, I push

it back and he was like, take off, go I'm good.

He's all by himself, just pushing a motorcycle, you know, through the streets of Sime Valley and a true car lever motorcycle lever.

I mean it's yeah, what are you working on next?

Anything you can talk about?

Yeah, we're working on let's see right now, I'm working on the Joker too.

We're working on a joker too.

Cool?

Yeah, what are you building for?

Are you building the moment?

His car or no, well, still in production there, so yeah, I can't reveal too much about it, but I will say there is a couple of cool cars. It's well,

as you know, this isn't a secret, but those cars always have kind of like a late eighties early nineties feel to them.

You know, it's they're never really like a peerod movie.

They just don't specify what it is, but all the cars are in that era.

But it's cool.

We're working on another movie this this one's very painful.

I'm working on another movie. Jennifer Gardner's in it, and

we're We've built five sixty nine Camaro convertibles, which is one of my favorite cars. You know, not maybe the

convertible apart, but sixty nine Camaros in general. I really

has always been one of my favorites. And I love

it because it's such a cool thing to do. But

I hate damaging sixty nine Camaro convertible. There's systemthing that's

so painful, but you know, it's it's funny. So that

the car count kept increasing and we bought I started with three real convertibles, and then we built a couple of stunt cars, and then we needed another stunt car.

Gosh, and I.

Don't have time to start over and buy hard top and cut it because luckily the top is always plays down.

So yesterday we were you know, had to put you know, all this rigging and rollcats and safety stuff in the car.

And I was so depressed about it. But my guys can.

Get Hey, man, you won't believe how you know, fucked up this car is? We you know, we pulled the

convertible top bad. You can see the quarter pounds them

and smashed in and spliced and patched poorterally. And I

was like, ah, thank god, it's a piece of shit, you know, I was so happy that the car was, you know, not a nice car. But we're always maintaining,

you know, whether it's batmobiles, we're prepping some cars for the next Ghostbusters movie, you know. So it's always there's

always something going on there. It's always you know, it's

never a dull moment.

Put it that way, Hey, Dennis.

For folks that are listening that want to do what you do right and get in the business of what you do, you know, there's no book and there's no class they can take on like how to go and break into Hollywood. I mean, what are some of the

values that you've taught your children like that you apply and you're because you're super successful, you're like at the top of your game, like you know, And if you were to give like a young person advice on you know, the traits that they need and the habits they needn't need to be successful, and not just in Hollywood, but in anything, what would you advice?

I'm just going to say, it's really not the answer people are looking for, but it's it's really a lot of it is luck, you know. And that's how I said,

I end up this business. Was just told you the backstory,

just working on a guy's car, turn into this, and turn to that. But that being said, the best thing

you can do is get a job on a movie with the you know, picture card department of the transportation department.

You know, at least pet your foot in the door sea what goes on, see how it works. I mean,

I wish I had some some of that history, but I don't. You know, I literally started off, you know,

doing Tokyota, you know, I mean like it was like I started off my career doing like the biggest car movie ever and the first thing I did is I looked up who did the last one?

I hired them, you know what I mean.

I because I was like, wow, I'm really you know, it was it was crazy what a huge production that was.

And I mean like as you know, you know, we were scheduling changes, We had to you know, last minute replicate all the cars in Japan because there was not time to ship them to Japan. I mean, just crazy stuff.

So for me to get thrown into like a car movie of that scale for my I mean granted it was maybe my third or fourth job, and the other jobs were like you know, like I mentioned standing by here or they're not doing a whole lot. But for

someone that wants to do this, you know, the key would be going to work for someone like myself or you know. And it's hard too because it's it's very regional.

So you know, there's Atlanta, New Mexico, you know, I mean, there's just not a lot of big.

Car guys outside of those areas. I mean, I I really,

if I.

Think about it, in Atlanta and La a couple of guys in New Mexico, but outside that there's not much going on. So but if you could get a job

with the you know, with a picture car company that case you're familiar, gets to your foot in the door.

And I mean, I have a ton of guys that have worked for me to actually do what I do now, you know, which is great, you know. I mean, I

you know, couldn't be proud of these guys. And they've

done that by just you know, they're being on set, they're taking in their cars. I guess to the point

when hey, this guy's great, he's responsible, I can leave him on set to run it and not be there.

And then you know, sometimes you know, they get hired for a new gig outside of that. Okay, great, that's

kind of the normal sequence of things. But yeah, I

think you just need to get some experience and then meet some people and just do the best job you can be as responsible as you can.

Never be late.

Try to solve every problem you can solve without making a big deal that it's a problem, like that's one of the things that I do. We might have something

absolutely catastrophic going on, and the last thing you want to do is we got a blown up car, you know.

I mean, so I'm like, okay, before I alert that there's a problem, how can I solve the problem? So

you always want to have an answer to the problem before everybody knows.

There's a problem. Now it's not always possible, obviously.

But were you always like that growing up or do you feel that's something that you learned in business over time.

I feel I was always that way because I had a shop and I was always building cars, and as you know, in the world of building cars, there's always.

Problems, you know. So so for instance, you.

Build a car for somebody, and you know, nine out of ten times, it's not your fault.

The part fails. It just happens.

So you're always trying to well, back then, I'm trying to appease the customer. Hey, I'm so sorry about that.

I'm gonna get a flat beat out of my ticket.

You know.

I was always into customer service, which is why my shop did very well. But I just basically trans transferred

that same mindset into what I do now. And that

was the one thing that's that's funny about this business.

When I got in this business, that was non existent, you know, like like when I, you know, would work with these old school car guys. It's like that the

car broke to you bad you know, like everybody kind of had that attitude, like, man, how do you guys get hired of the next job? You know, it shocked

me the lack of you know, customer service and you know, I always look at the studio as your customer, and you want to get repeat business, so you try to do the best possibility you can so they call for the next one. And uh So it's really I think

just one of those things that's you know, more of a general you know, just I think the way people should always be in life that I think has helped me, you know, excel in this business and you know, get the job after the next job.

That's great advice, I mean, but don't be a part of the problem. Be part of the solution. And anytime

anytime you and your your boys are on set, like there's never any stress, I mean, or at least.

The right exactly, try not to show the stress.

There's something that's gonna happen or something that is not working.

But everyone's like chill and everyone leans on you, Dennis, like they're like, doesn't call Dennis, You'll figure it out.

You're right there. That's it.

That's the key though, It's just you know, try to be a solution person, not a problem person, and and just try to you know, not you know, make my picture card, apartment problem or whatever. That issue is a

problem for production, you know, So that's always the goal.

If something happens, try to fix it, or they call for the car, try to you know, try to make a handle.

Then have a backup plan. In the backup plan.

But you know, like I said, it works ninety percent of the time. But you know, sometimes you just plane

run out of cars. That's the way it is.

So yeah, do you feel like with you know CG and now with all this, you know, the special effects that are happening with the volume and stuff, you think car builds are going to be limited compared to what they were when you started. I'm sure because when we

started talking drift, they would let me actually drive the cars.

I remember, which was great. I drove every single car.

They don't let you drive them anymore. We can't even

put them.

We can't even reverse the car.

Yeah right, exactly do you pull up there someone else comes to back it into the spotroam.

Oh that's so crazy.

Yeah, yeah, I get nervous because the CG. I mean, honestly,

if you go, like in the in the video games, like I'll walk by my kids playing you know whatever, you know, Grand Tarisma or whatever game they're playing.

It's like, are they watching something like that's a game?

You know, Everything's become so good it scares me because you know, I think that at some point we don't need cars, we don't need a stunt driver. Just you know,

draw it out, do a storyboard or whatever it is, and do a pre visit. Yeah, do that, and then

it'll just show up on screen. So I don't know,

I think. I mean, like I said, we talked about

it before. I want to go to a movie where

I see cars doing car stunts and sliding around, and you know, I love like French Connection, for instance, is a great one. You know, car just sideswiping stuff, hitting stuff,

but real no CG. Which I guess is why I

always gravitate to these older movies when I'm looking for a good car chase. But yeah, so I think you're

definitely onto something there. We could be in trouble.

So but people can tell the difference.

I mean, when you when you feel like you can, you.

Can they at one time there were they know we don't need actors anymore.

But you can, you can definitely tell.

I just I'm just worried about five years from now, you know, five years, can you tell?

I don't know.

I don't know. I just can't imagine even just sitting

with the green screen acting like you're inside the car like.

I'm sure they do it now to a certain extent, but I don't know. There's also that point of realism

that an actor wants to have to so they don't lose touch with connecting with the character in the moment.

Yeah, I think it's I think, what's what helps you know, you know, my cause or your cause, you know, for realism would be behind the scenes videos that show how a stunt is done. I think, Yeah, I think it's

really important because a lot of people don't realize. I mean,

for instance, you know Fast seven the cars coming out of the plane. You know they're throwing cars out of

a plane. I mean it's with parachutes, you know. And

it was a I'll just tell you guys a real funny story about that day.

I wasn't there.

I sent one of my guys, brad be even you know Bright sent to send b rats be rad out to Arizona for this whole you know plane deal, and we had like maybe eight cars that we were gonna you know, launch out of this airplane.

And it was completely real.

I mean they had the cars, they had the shoots, they had everything, and one Camaro it was one of the sixty eight Camaros.

A shoot didn't open for some reason.

And uh, I mean pretty crazy to see a car that drops out of the sky for a mile.

And did anyone capture it on video?

I don't think so. The landing was not caught on video.

I had the car the aftermath that my shot. But

then there was another one where they wanted to, you know, launch a car.

I can't.

I think it was a charger, but they didn't have time to pack the shoot because they were losing light. No,

we just got to just sent a car we just built, Like one of my favorite cars is like, we just built this car. There's probably with it with labor and material.

There's probably one hundred and fifty two hundred thousand in this off road charger and literally just chuck it out of the plane.

We don't have time.

I'm like, no, Brad, don't let them do it. Like

Brad's call me go, no, but you know, some of those decisions are way above my head. So they just

they do it, you know, and we have to be.

I'd be like, I get it. They have to do

it because they're like, but that car.

It's hard.

It's hard, you know, because I do love cars, but so it's hard sometimes with these movies because you know, to a studio or product, they're just expendable.

You know, yeah, it's just in their car. Yeah, bring

it on the one up, you know.

So anyways, but because especially with Dom's chargers, that they're these super rare cars now, I mean when you started there were plentiful.

Oh my god, I know it kills me because you know, we used to wreck a car, scrap it, send it to the scrapyard, and you know, today I'm spending twenty grand plus for some damage crash charger from nineteen seventy.

We've been working with, you know, a couple of different companies, Buddy Mind, Dave Selvagio last time built us complete carbon bodies.

So it's really ninety five percent. It's not a charger.

You know, there's some pieces that aren't made yet, but I think next time around, but you know, like we'll use like the factory firewall and eight pillar for the door hinge mounts. You know, some of the sheet metal

towards the back of the car, but that's about it.

Everything else, quarters, roof doors, everything's carbon fiber.

But I'm hopefully in the next movie.

I really, I think we just have to have a charge that we can build purely from the ground up with no you know, no original car.

I mean literally, we're finding chargers out and so.

You're the reason I'm struggling to find one.

Well, I don't know.

I think the Dukes of Hazzard still has us beat on wrecking chargers. I don't think we've hit that number yet,

but but yeah, we definitely have destroyed our share, that's for sure.

It's been great insight to get to know you more, get to know the man behind the cars, you know.

So thank you Dennis so much.

This has been so great. It was great to meet. Yeah,

totally appreciate me. Thank you.

Chevrolet Camaro

Chevrolet Corvette

Ferrari Daytona

Dodge Charger

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