Ford Design Director Craig Metros | From F-150 to GT

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Can I ask you, how many chassis's are you guys selling a year now?

All of them.

Greg Metros, 35 plus years retired Ford design executive.

Chrysler Plymouth Prowler came up, and then we started to talk about the Prowler,

and then there's the, what goes with the Prowler?

There's the PT Cruiser, and then there was the Chevy SSR.

What do you call that style of car, and why did Ford never dabble into those goofy cars?

Working on the 2004 F-150 was pretty special, only because there's 900,000 of these things

on the road.

You're making such an impact with design directors, and there would be screaming

matches.

It's all in Italian.

These guys are just screaming, they're throwing rolls of tape at the model, and then they

go off and they get a cappuccino together and everything, so it's just going to cost

a fortune, and they weren't getting the performance and everything they wanted out

of it.

I don't know exactly how it prevailed, and then it turned into Project Phoenix,

and then that became basically an all-new vehicle, and then it was like, why don't we

just recreate the Ford GT?

Welcome back to another episode of Oil and Whiskey.

This week, very special one.

They're all special, but this one's super special.

Craig Metros, in-person, in-studio.

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35 plus years retired Ford design executive because you've held so many titles and basically

always exterior design, but it's been North America, Asia, Australia, hopping around the

globe.

Japan.

I knew I was going to leave some out.

And I did interior as well.

So all of it.

So everything.

Production, show car, passenger vehicle, Lincoln, truck.

We've been wanting to do this for a while.

We knew of you and had run-ins with you at SEMA around the Ford Design Award stuff,

and we'll get into a lot of that.

And then through Adrian Peters and Tom Peters and Andrew, we like, oh yeah, absolutely.

We're friends.

You need to connect it.

The way in.

To go after you to get you.

We ambushed you at Grand National and when you ask in person, it's hard to say no.

If you send an email, it can always be like, oh, I didn't get it or whatever.

If you ask somebody in person, it's difficult to be like, so I can do it any time?

I don't have.

You're just the best.

Leo, I'll think about it.

Let me get back to you, man.

Don't you send me an email.

I really appreciate you coming out and doing it.

Appreciate.

Yeah, you're asking me to be here.

It's great.

Well, I hate to do the cliche thing, but I think it's important to get all the meat.

We got to get to the start of like, one, you worked at Ford for 35 plus years.

So it's a good run.

It's a really good run.

You get into a lot of stuff, but how early on did the car bug bite you?

Before I remember, my dad was taking me to car shows.

I was still in a stroller.

He was, my dad was a car guy, worked at GM, his whole career, he was an engineer.

Yeah, he, and it's strange, I don't know how my dad got into cars because his dad came

from Greece, you know, hard working individual, you know, there's great work ethic, started

a family.

He just wanted to provide for his family.

He wasn't, cars for him was, you know, something that gets you a point A to a point B.

So I guess the real question for me is, I'm not sure how my dad got into it.

I think just growing up in Dearborn and, you know, that area, it's a big car area

and I think his buddies all got in the hot rods and, yeah, he just, he caught

the bug and then I didn't have a choice.

Before, I don't want to derail right off the bat, but something you said, you said your

dad worked at GM, his whole career.

We've talked about this with Tom and, sorry, I didn't even pass that over.

That's my fault.

We talked about with Tom and Adrian, you know, we've had Ralph on here as well.

Is it mostly the consumers that create this brand rivalry and die-hardness because

on the designer side and the executive side and people that work, there's a lot of,

oh, you know, my dad worked at GM and I worked at Ford and I worked at Ford for a

while and then I worked at GM and then I worked at, you know, Stellantis and I did

this, there doesn't seem to be the, I'm not going to say that you don't have

brand loyalty, but it doesn't seem to be the, the drama, the drama amongst

the executive on the consumer, the Ford tough guy and the Chevy truck guy.

That's an interesting one.

I think there's some rivalry there.

I think the rivalry may have been bigger, like in the, you know, the 50s, the 60s,

maybe 70s.

I think when suddenly the big three were now competing globally, right, the

80s, you know, Japanese came on strong, then it was, it almost turned, that rivalry

turned into a brotherhood, you know, it's like almost like a Detroit thing.

It was sort of like, yeah, now it's Detroit against the globe, because I

hired in mid-80s and that's when, you know, the Japanese were, man, they were

really coming on strong.

And so, yeah, I think, I think there was a shift, you know, almost globally, you

know, I, so I always, I wanted to work at GM.

That was my dream, you know, my dad was there.

I, I loved Corvettes and Camaro's growing up.

We, it's ironic, we, I was born and raised in Dearborn.

I literally grew up like two blocks from Design Center.

We were the only family to have GM cars on our driveway, like Ford Country.

Yeah, so I, I, my dream was to be a designer at General Motors.

I loved the cars, you know, I, my dad had a great career and, and then in 85, I

landed an internship at the Gia Studio in Torino, Italy.

So the first time in my life, I mean, except for Canada, I, I,

I went to mainland Europe, I was 20.

And it changed my life, you know, seeing the world, you know,

getting outside of Detroit, you know, I was a fan of Italian

design, Giorgio Brittoni, and it just, it just changed my whole trajectory.

I, I, I came back and thought I, you know, I knew if I went to GM, I

would be in Warren, Michigan for 35 years.

So graduated, was all set to take a job with Volkswagen.

They offered me a job in Düsseldorf and right before I accepted Ford called,

interviewed by Jack Telnack and Jack's like, hey, you know, what do you want?

The world, right?

Yeah.

I'm like, hey, I, you know, I'm ready to take a job with, with Volkswagen.

I mean, you guys sent me to Gio last summer.

I, I, it changed my life.

I want to, I want to work in Europe.

I want to travel.

I want to see the world.

And he's like, if you come with Ford, you will get that opportunity.

And I did.

After 35 years, I'd spent more time overseas than I did in Dearborn.

Well, how does the, I mean, how does the Ford job lead to that?

Like what, what's the path that takes you overseas and all over

the world working for Ford?

Well, I think it's funny because, you know, GM's global, Ford's global.

Chrysler was global, but Ford, I don't know, Ford just had, especially in design,

they just had this sort of very direct connection to the world.

It was very common for Ford execs, you know, marketing engineering designers

to experience working overseas.

In fact, there was a time, I think it's still true today that you basically

didn't get promoted at Ford unless you had international experience.

That was one of the requirements.

And I, I think, you know, part of it was timing that they don't seem

to be sending people overseas as much as they do when I started.

But yeah, I was there one year and then boom, I went back to the

Gia Studio for about a year and then it just, it turned into the cycle.

I would come back for a couple of years and then it sent me to Germany.

I was in Germany twice.

I did two, two stints in Germany.

I was in the UK.

I was in Japan and then my last one, I was in, I was in Melbourne,

Australia for almost a decade.

Really?

Yeah.

The, I was going to get to the Melbourne thing here in a minute.

On the Ford design for foreign local population, you're doing, I mean, you're

you're still staying with the same platform.

So you're doing, you know, fashion changes and stuff like that for whatever local area.

Are you doing, I don't know, I don't know all of the foreign Ford model.

So I apologize.

Yeah.

So earlier on, you know, they had, you know, they, they'd have different platforms.

You know, even though the, the, the, the little car in Europe was an escort

nameplate, at least it was an escort.

It, it, it was basically a completely different car than the escort in the U.S.

Really?

And that was years ago.

And then again, over time, just, you know, working more efficiently, working smarter

and working globally, suddenly platforms started to become global.

How much is the region you're designing for actually influence the design of that

car or truck?

I would say maybe more years ago, you know, there was more of a, seemed to be

more of a aesthetic separation, especially size, you know, size of vehicles.

Obviously Asia, a lot smaller, Europe, smaller.

Not many expeditions over there.

Yeah, not too many.

You do see quite a few F-150s in Australia, people, people bring them over.

But again, just, you know, as the, as industries started to work globally,

you know, working more efficient.

And then I think it was really the competition, you know, the Japanese,

right, they build a Honda Corp and they sell it all over the world.

And now, I mean, that's pretty much what people do now.

And in part of it too, it seemed like, like what was it, the late 80s, early 90s,

all of a sudden, like the whole brand thing started to become a thing.

You know, no one really talked about brand earlier than that and brand management.

And then that, you know, that became a thing, like, you know, sticking to

almost like a brand DNA and having its own look and appearance and feel.

And so that, that kind of all exploded in the 90s.

So and then, and then again, just efficiency, working smarter, working,

you know, financially efficient, you know, having a single platform

around the world and five different ones around the world.

It's interesting you bring that up.

It was one I have had penciled away for asking, you mentioned the DNA of Ford.

And from a design standpoint, as new models roll out and you're working

with, you know, a broad array of vehicles, especially overseas and in the US,

what are some of the core tenets or molecules that make up the Ford DNA

that you try to keep, you can tweak on, but you can't lose,

that make sure that this array of vehicles in the new model year look like Ford's.

I've always been, you know, you know, we have a really good question, Josh.

It is my question.

Well, you know, Ralph talked a little bit about it on the Mopar side of things.

If some of the things that, you know, let's say kind of did the grill deal

that was that became a thing that was a core that was, you know,

hearkening back to the fifties and even before.

What is some of the stuff on the Ford that.

Are things that you know, like, well, that's something we at least need

to be in the realm of of reality on that shape or something.

Yeah. I think it depends on the nameplate.

I think. And then, you know, the nameplate, obviously, F-150, Mustang,

you know, those are, I'd say, much more iconic than maybe, you know,

an expedition or I mean, they've been around a long time.

Ford GT. So, you know, like Ford F-150, for example, there's a.

I think there's a overall genuineness to F-150s.

It was interesting.

I'm teaching at College for Creative Studies now.

And we I teach a lot of classes that are sponsored by OEMs.

Is that where you graduated from? I did. Yeah.

And so we had we had a sponsored project with Stalantis and

a few of the Stalantis designers were there.

Mark Trossel was there.

He was talking about Ford Ram and how Ford Ram is, you know, it's

it's muscular. It's, you know, it's got some fluidity to it.

And, you know, I was just I was sitting there listening to him

thinking, God, you know, F-150 is almost the opposite.

F-150 is very it from up from an aesthetic standpoint,

there's there's a genuineness to it.

There's a strength.

We always when we're designing F-150s, we always talk about it

being a tool, you know, the body looking

like it's been stamped as opposed to being sculpted

and then, you know, cues the, you know, the sort of the

interlocking C-clamp of the, of the, you know, the headlight or

the, you know, the drop belt is a big one.

And then just the overall, just the, you know, the overall

confidence and the almost the

almost call it like a almost tonic as opposed to styled.

Okay. So it's interesting you said the nameplate does.

So I assume that, like you mentioned, you know, the cars that

have a lot more heritage and prominence or history

also have a lot more rabid fan base and loyalty to it.

So you can get away with probably screwing with the front end of a Ford

Taurus a little bit easier than you can on the redesign of the Mustang,

because let's face it on the, I mean, no matter when a new Mustang

design comes out, you get, you're going to love it or hate it.

You're going to have the people that love the earlier one.

And they're going to always talk about the headlights too big,

the headlights too small, the real, real taillights didn't do this.

They didn't do that.

It's also amazing how everybody just needs to live with it for a little bit too.

Almost, unless it's something so spectacular, everybody's reaction

is always that it's never as good as the last generation.

Yeah. And then it always like give it six months.

And then you look back at the last one.

You're like, actually, didn't look this looks way better.

Yeah. Or as soon as the new generation comes out,

the one that you talked about when it came out, you hated so bad.

You're like, oh, that one looks way better than that one.

It's funny. You see it BMW does it all the time.

And you're like, right, that's that, you know, new grill.

Now, now they went to the new, new grill and you're like, that,

that other grill is way better.

Is that just lack of like vision and creativity by the consumer?

Or did the on the from a designer's perspective,

do you guys know that going into it?

You're like, they're just going to have to deal with this.

Everybody's going to they're going to hate this at first and then they're going to love it.

Well, I mean, the hope is they're going to love it right now.

It sells more cars.

No, I mean, you know, people, they just, you know, they get comfortable.

They get used to what they what they know and what they've seen.

And sometimes when they haven't seen something before, it's, you know,

they, you know, I guess it can be a bit shocking or they're just not used to it yet.

They haven't digested it yet because it's different.

I have to say, though, the example where it really never sort of grew me was

I will never, ever forget I was probably I was a kid.

I'm in the backseat of my dad's car.

We're driving to it doesn't matter.

We're in the highway and we pass it's it's nineteen.

I think it's like the end of seventy three or maybe it's just nineteen seventy four

and we're in the freeway and we're passing a Mustang, too.

Yeah. Wow.

It's just like, whoa, it's like it was just, you know, by then I was already

right. I was already hooked.

The car thing, you know, I knew every car on the road and.

But now I assume that once you got into the nuts and bolts of the business,

you realize that that wasn't a design driven choice.

It's not a that wasn't a passion project from beauty.

That was like, we've got to do something to try.

Well, yeah, it led to a suspension and older hot rides move forward.

I've got a great something that never had a story.

So fast forward, you know what, 15 years now, I've gone through school.

I've just graduated.

I'm like first day at Ford Motor Company.

And I'm being taken around by a few of the designers.

I'm meeting everyone for the first time.

The design center, it's it's massive.

You know, I'm getting lost on my own.

So a couple of designers are taking me under their wing.

They're taking me into the different studios.

And I'm meeting all all these designers and I meet.

A designer named Buck Muck.

Does that name ring a bell, Buck Muck?

No, it doesn't ring a bell, but it kind of sounds like a guy

that could have designed the Mustang.

He's an interesting guy.

He would be a good interview.

So he he penned the original monkey mobile.

You know, he was he was a student at Art Center at the time.

Yeah, he's a he's Bucks 83 and never know it.

Like just car guy, you know, to the core.

I think he's got like 25 cars.

Anyway, I just meet him for the first time.

And we're sitting around one of the drawing boards

and we're just having a chat and they're talking about real estate.

And Bucks like, hey, yeah, I just, you know, I want to buy an old building.

I just want to buy a building and start.

I want to start buying up Mustang twos.

It's like, I want to start collecting Mustang twos.

And I'm like, dude, really a Mustang, too.

Like of all the Mustangs, you would want to buy up and start collecting.

Why would you want to buy a Mustang, too?

That's like the worst Mustang that was ever designed.

You don't need a big of a building.

This goes quiet and looks at me goes because I designed it.

That's the kind of kind of thing I would say.

It seems like you're going to get along good for a first job.

This is going to go great.

Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, I haven't even unpacked my stuff yet.

So it won't take me long.

I mean, there was the King Cobra.

You know, the King Cobra is actually kind of cool.

Try to walk it back.

Don't walk it back.

It's funny because not we're great friends.

I see. I just saw Buck last night.

He's I love Buck.

He's a good guy because I designed it.

That's cool.

I tell you, it's not to just go too far backwards, but as we're talking about

this talk about that, like the prior model and people having a difficult time,

you don't really see that with Ford.

Like I feel like that's really my experience is with

general motors typically.

Fords usually like on the trucks, they do a way better job.

It seems always a lot more progressive.

That the new the new design is always a lot more exciting.

Right.

And they never have those like questionable ones where you're like,

I don't know if I like it as much as the last one.

GM seems like you see that a lot more.

The trucks, primarily, they get a little ahead of their skis, I think,

on some of the truck stuff, but that's just personal preference.

The the Ford's you're right.

It's when the new one does come out, it usually has better stuff.

It looks better here.

They've always done a great job on interiors.

That's we have a inside running joke that because there's never the perfect,

especially on trucks.

We talk about on trucks all the time for daily drivers or work trucks or something.

There's never the perfect truck that checks all the boxes.

You're right.

Well, you know, Dodge might have better or Ram might have better this or

Ford is always one on the interiors, right?

Chevy might have a better of this.

And we've always said that there's like those conversations

in those smoky rooms of like, all right, Ford gets you get five years

to kick our ass on the interior, right?

We won't.

We're going to do a horrible job because it appears like they

they purposely do a horrible job.

And then they're like, all right, well, you get the outside

and then Mope, all right, guys, like you guys at the Ram,

you we've been kicking your asses, whatever you can put.

You can do 300 more horsepower than us, right?

Put the biggest motor in it.

We won't touch you.

We won't try to do any of that.

It's very funny how there's never that it just doesn't check all the boxes.

But Ford is always on the interior, at least for the last probably 20

something years, really done a good job at kicking GM's ass.

Yeah, I, you know, I, I got to, I got to give it to Ram.

You know, I'm, I'm old enough where.

I remember that truck, like no one bought that trucks.

No, they, they, they came out of nowhere.

It's not like it was a natural progression.

It was a, it was, it was a joke.

Yeah.

Early 90s when they had the kind of bubbled flair.

Well, that's when they, I feel like the, that's the first start.

Yeah, I call it the, they did the semi truck front end, right?

Where that the really tall grill and the lower lights.

I feel like the year right before that, it could have been 40 years older truck.

Yeah, but it was just the previous model year.

That was just the square body and I just, and just no one was buying them.

And just, you know, horrible reputation.

And then, you know, I, I got a hand it to him.

I feel like it was designed.

It was, it was probably, um, I did an internship at Chrysler, by the way,

before I went to, um, before I did the Italian internship.

So it was probably Tom Gale, you know, Tom Gale.

I've got so much, uh, Tom Gale.

So Tom, uh, he was ahead of, um, exterior design when I did the internship.

And, uh, yeah, I just, I've got so much respect for, for Tom.

I mean, he, you know, he really drove design and, and, uh, and, you know,

it was designed that, that really put Dodge Ram on the, on the radar, right?

I mean, it was a bit controversial, but I feel like that's sort of what they

needed to sort of ignite that nameplate because they, they had nothing.

They were dying and I, cause I remember I was in truck when that truck came

out and we were like, well, you know, they're, you know, they're dialing it

up and just, and every year after that, right?

They, they, they got on the radar and then they just, every year, they

just keep amping that thing.

It was like 95.

Wasn't it?

Better and better.

94.

I remember I had a, I had a square body Dakota, right?

Then that was like a 93 or four.

I thought it was a 95, but I remember sounds right.

I think 95, it was the last year of that square body Dakota.

And it was basically just like a, you know, if you just, if a kid

drew a pickup truck, right?

That's just, that's just,

it was just a truck, right?

It's a smaller version of a square body and not near as cool.

Um, but the Dakota that came right after that, you know, they did the Dakota

was when they had the RT.

Yeah.

It was very much like the Ram, you know, it was just smaller with the

stylistic wise and they did that front end.

It was like you jumped 20 years.

It wasn't a natural progression or flow of like, we're going to

change the front end here.

And you could, there was no, there was no direct lineage between the two,

besides, you know, the four, the four holes in the, in the grill.

But that, like that Dakota RT, that, that was a bank.

I was working in the good looking truck.

I was working in the body shops in that era and V eight in a small truck.

Regularly the yellow one with the purple Dakota RT graphics.

And it was like, dude, that was, they put big wheels on them.

Remember that you could, the RT's had like, I think 17s at that point.

17s in a V eight in a, in a mid-sized truck.

That's silver finish on the wheels.

Yeah.

We're going down the Mopar path.

But those things kind of disappeared like entirely.

Did they not they're right there in Dodge Nitro land?

It's off the face of the earth.

Yeah.

Five year run.

And you saw, you know, if you use, I think a lot of those

are just completely rusted away.

I'd never be sitting here talking about ram trucks.

Yes, they've gone the wrong direction.

It tends to be your off track from just the standard, like what you do,

when you do it.

I know, like a lot of that.

I just, you know, just being in industry is just one of those things.

I, you know, I, I, I just, you know, I commend them for what they did.

I, they, they really, you know, they brought that truck back from oblivion.

They did.

And today they've got them optioned out so well.

It's a, it's a, it's really respectable.

People love them.

There's a big screen, you know, TV in the dashboard.

Yeah, the opposite of what we were asking earlier, where we thought that you guys

would be like fighting each other, like the scene in Anchorman, where everyone's

coming out with pitchforks.

Oh yeah.

The GM guy, isn't the Ford, the Dodge guys.

Seeing when Dodge comes out with something like that, does that, you know,

inspire everybody on your team to, Hey, we got to step our game up?

Or how early do you know it's coming?

What's the leaks?

You have to know what it's coming.

Yeah, you know, Detroit is pretty good at keeping things under cover.

It's, it's, you wouldn't, there's not as many leaks as you would think.

I mean, yeah, I mean, we see stuff and we hear things.

I would say, I think designers actually tend to like the competition and,

and, and like to see, you know, other companies pushing the envelope

because then it gives us leverage to go back to the, to the planners

and to the finance group to push, get that budget approved, get a few

more dollars, like, hey, hey, they, you know, they're, they're

ramping this up, like, like they're offering 22 inch wheels now.

Right.

So it gives us leverage from a design standpoint to, you know, to, to try

to get the things that we want.

Because we've, we've had several different designers on here.

And we've, you know, it's the common thread is the designers can design

whatever the engineers can engineer, whatever it comes down to the budget.

Right.

And going from a 20 inch wheel to a 22 inch wheel is changes.

It changes the budget significantly across the board and all the other

things that go in right now.

We use that same tire on the expedition and this and this.

And that's, we don't want to have a new tire and new skew for the, it was funny

though, I was running around and got the water.

I was thinking of that era of the Dodge 95, the same thing though with, with

Ford, with F-150, because you think about the 95 F-150, same brick.

And then what 96 was the slant nose with the 96, right?

The arrow.

So it's Sammy.

You got to think you got Dodge hitting at the same time as the, as the

arrow.

And that's a big transition from the, for Ford on the F-150 as well.

That wasn't a slight change.

I mean, think about when the square body lightning to the slant nose

lightning, that was a, that's a way I would refer to them as the cloud

trucks, because they don't have, there's no like hard lines.

It's just kind of like a cloud, just kind of like round slippery.

Were you the, that was the arrow, the arrow era.

Okay.

You were on in that department, actually, I was working in, um, I was

in Germany when they were working on that truck.

And that, you know, you have to remember that was, that was the Jack

Telnach era.

So the, uh, you know, the, the tourist stable, um, pretty much saved for

motor company.

They, I mean, they were, I think they were probably financially, uh, worse

off than the public knew, um, they, you know, they didn't, it was

funny because when I hired in 486, um, there was such a generation

gap, like when I hired in and everyone felt like my dad, it was

just a strange, all the clay modelers who worked with the

engineer, they all seem to be like, like 10 years older and then

up from there.

And, and it was, it was because like they, they basically

stopped hiring for almost a generation.

They, I mean, they were, they were hurting.

And, um, and then they gambled on the tourist stable.

You know, if you go like, go back before the tourist stable and

someone, you know, the Thunderbird, uh, you know, those

boxy 80s, the, the future, uh, I mean, those, those cars were,

they were pretty bad, right?

It was the SHO that saved Ford, wasn't it?

Cross the Ford Tourist SHO had to be the one that just

race car, the Taurus and Sable, I mean, it, it, it, it, it

turned the company around.

So the financially and then obviously it had such a big impact

from a design standpoint and, and that was Jack Telnack at the

time was really pushing the whole, you know, arrow look.

And then that sort of umbrella, that arrow look kind of

happened.

I mean, they, everything sort of turned into the Tourist Continental

came out the Thunderbird and then they even, and then they even

applied it to the, to the F-150.

Didn't the tourists though, that, that tourist body style go, it

went into cop cars too, right?

Didn't it kill?

It was at the end of the, of the ground, the Caprice and run

because there was gas, I completely unscrewing some of this

stuff up, there was something to do with that model came out and

the V6 that it was got adopted by a lot and they killed the

Caprice on a lot of stuff because of the V8 thing.

I don't know that.

There's something there could be because of Robocop maybe.

That's what I was just, Robocop and they said, oh, every

cop's gotta have it.

It's the Robocop arrow.

All of them are.

You know, I just thought about it.

We should have had John York on here because his dad wanted, so

our fabricator and shop manager for the Hot Rod Shop, his dad was

a clay modeler for his whole life.

What's his name?

York would be his last name.

I don't know.

Yeah, he was on the truck program, I think.

Yeah, um, what's his first name?

Never, let me ask you to text John, yeah, I just as he's

talking about this, I'm like realizing, I'm like, John's

going to be listening to this and he's like, I've already heard

all these stories, you idiots.

No, I worked with him for years.

Like I'm embarrassed.

I've forgotten his name.

Yeah, he's an older guy.

I think he was in his 80s.

He was a sailor.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Um, great guy, great guy, talented, easy to work with.

Based on his knowing his son for 17 years, it was

a pretty macho guy, like tough guy.

I've never met his, I've met his dad like once or twice, but

I have to imagine to build, to create John.

Yeah, I don't know if I would say that.

You know, he was just, so, you know, back to this

generational thing, right?

And I'm, you know, there was a few of us that hired in

myself, guy named Sid Chang, Camila Pardo.

Um, we were, we were these like, you know, we

walked through the door were 22 years old and I, you

know, I'm 22, I look like I was 16.

And now I'm working with these, these older modelers who

are, you know, could be grumpy at times, could be, you

know, they don't want to listen to some 22 year old

telling them what, you know, what they want to do in

the clay model.

And, um, Chant.

Chandler, he just texted me.

Chandler.

Chant York.

Yeah.

There was a handful of guys that were super helpful,

you know, and they, they, you know, they were really

good to me and kind and, and, and, and Chandler was

one of them.

And, and super talented.

That's pretty crazy.

Yeah.

Talk about looking 16.

I would have to agree because I actually have a

little picture here of, uh, this is five years

into your employment.

Yeah, that's five years.

Yeah.

Uh, so I've already been to, I've been to

Italy already and I've been to Germany.

Whoops.

There we go.

So yeah, I've a couple of years in already.

So when you come in, it's a great picture.

I think you look like Randy Travis there.

That's just, that's, that's the little Randy.

Uh, I mean, that's styling, man, that, uh, I love that.

When I was just searching some stuff earlier and

I came up and I was like, Oh, I gotta save that.

Uh, the first project you come in, you know, you

already make a great impression first day and

offend the dude that, you know, designed the

best thing to, um, you got to, you got to do your

onboarding process and all that.

What's the, what's the first project back from

those things?

Yeah.

100% experience.

What's the first thing that they put you on?

What's the, when you go, you know, to the

drawing board, pen to paper, research,

whatever it is, what do you, what's the

first thing you're working on?

So I was in the international studio and we

were supporting a, a, a big program that was

going to come out of Germany.

It was the, I can't believe I still remember

the code was a CD, CD 127, which became the, uh, I

think it eventually became the Mondale in Europe.

Okay.

And so that was the first thing I see.

It was a, you know, like a kind of a mid-sized

four door sedan for Europe.

And then eventually they were going to send

them to the, they were sending them to North

America.

So it was, it was a, you know, global vehicle.

That was the first thing I started sketching on.

So we're back on that Mustang two story.

I feel like we should get a whole list of all

the cars you've designed or been involved in.

So you can have like some notes.

Are you saying so that I don't do what he

did?

Is he trying to, he's done some amazing.

It's well, I'm familiar with a lot of his work.

I'm pretty fixed.

It's, it's well known.

This is on at least one.

Yeah, that's your area of expertise.

It's well known on this, on the podcast to a

lot of our listeners and fans.

We've talked about it a lot that Jeremy has a

unique ability to, we call them smoke bombs.

Most people just squarely put their foot right

in their mouth and he's learned, he's learned

a lot because we've helped him.

And I'm trying to run this one.

You also have, he's had so many horrible

mistakes, generally you do learn from those.

And it's funny to watch him now and I've seen

it, you're grown so much.

And the biggest tell is when somebody is

bringing up something, usually it's a little

bit off topic and a guy just goes into

talking about something.

Based on their passion level, you should be

able to take up some social cues that that's

probably not the thing to bash on, right?

Maybe it's a social, some sort of a social

disorder that I have.

Do you think that I just?

No, I don't think it's a hundred percent.

Yeah, it's a hundred percent of social disorder.

You're getting better at it and realizing now.

I feel like I'm just passionate and maybe

opinionated is maybe the thing.

I don't know. You are a hundred percent.

And a lot of people are.

It's just it's funny because there's been

times now like we'll leave a dinner or

get in a car and he'll be like, I was

about to say something about something, but

it seemed like that guy was way into it.

I'm like, yeah, a hundred percent.

And he was telling stories about how big

into, you know, fly fishing he was.

And you were in my defense, though.

How often am I wrong?

Like maybe the thing that was said, nobody

wanted to hear that. But am I typically

wrong or is it? No.

But that night, like 99 to 100 percent

are right. It doesn't make it any more

comfortable. It doesn't.

Regardless, if you're right or wrong, it

doesn't make it any more comfortable.

You'd be the most off the wall.

Shit, too.

I hate the color blue.

That's the worst color ever invented.

The color blue. I actually make color

blue. Yeah. So, yeah, a little cheat sheet

prior to would have been really good.

Spoiler alert.

I love GTS.

It's my favorite car of all time, so

we're not going to end up with a

smoke bomb there.

So we're going to get there.

Don't worry. We're going to get there.

We're.

When does the first project

that's going to take you overseas?

When did that happen?

Or when do you start getting word of

that?

So I

I was I worked in Dearborn for a year

and then they they wanted to send me

to the Gia Studio

back to the Gia Studio where I did the

internship.

So he wasn't lying.

Like when he said you're going to get

that opportunity, that was quick.

And that was a that was part of

it was almost like a

development,

a developmental thing with Ford.

They they sent people overseas

into different studios just, you

know, just just for their personal

development and, you know, to learn

maybe different techniques and work

on other programs,

learn or sorry, meet people from,

you know, other aspects of the

company or, you know, other areas of

the company.

So yeah, so I was I was in the

international studio for a year

and then moved to back to

Torino, Italy.

And I'm trying to think what I was

working on.

They were we were working on a

show car.

I think that sort of never.

Oh, you know what?

I'm sorry.

Yeah, we were working on a car that

it sort of it like a sedan thing

that didn't happen.

And then

middle of my time there, we started

working on it was called the Gia

Seguaro.

And you can find it on the

Internet.

It's it's you don't see it very

often.

It was a little it was a

what you try to speak of.

I was already thinking about where

I was going with it.

It's it was a little it was like

a four door

very rounded, you know, it's very

you know, at the time everything

was very sort of slippery and

rounded and close.

But it was it was kind of ahead

of its time in that it was sort

of like a little kind of

future got some Geo in it.

Yeah, it was like a.

Um.

Like a sporty

SUV that was sort of on road

off road.

So and you know, this is back

this was this was the 80s.

So it was it's kind of and it's

cutting edge for the 80s.

Pretty yeah, a rally car.

Look to it with the it's got some

yeah, some saw blade wheels on it.

Yeah, it's funny that you see

some carry over though in stuff

that did come out in the 90s.

You from GM to there's a little

there's some Saturn.

Yeah, like.

Chill shape. Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

You mean so yeah, I worked on that

and then that was happening.

And then I left it and then I

they brought me back to Dearborn.

Um.

And then yeah, it's just I

it's even hard to remember.

Now I'm trying to think

where I went after this.

I just again, I got into the

cycle of coming back for a couple

of years and sending me away

and then back and I was.

I was always.

Back for.

A couple of years and then gone

for like.

A little longer.

Just a little years.

Yeah, reset and then a little longer.

And then like I said, the last time.

The last time I I was in Australia

for so long that I pretty much

thought, you know what,

I'm probably going to end my career here.

You know, I was I was there

like nine years.

Working on what projects

or what did you go there to work?

Start working there to work on.

So I just I'd worked on the 2004 F

150.

And then right after the F

150 I was working on.

We were facelifting the expedition navigator.

And then Ford wanted to do

this global ranger.

Well, I say global at the time

it was global except for North America.

But don't ask me why it was

slated at the time for North America.

But and they it was Peter

Horbury. Remember Peter?

No.

Peter Horbury.

He was he was a design legend.

He was at Ford for he he was at

Volvo and then we we purchased

Volvo.

He sort of came over through Volvo.

He was in Dearborn and great guy.

He unfortunately passed a couple

of years ago.

But it became, you know, great

colleagues and.

He.

You know, he always said he always

said to me he I think I intrigued

him because he always thought like

I had a bag packed and I was ready

to go at a right notice,

which I was.

But no, they so they

they were going to develop this

global ranger pickup in

Australia and.

They wanted someone that had a lot

of truck experience that just come

off the F-150.

Program and Peter thought I'd

be the great I'd be a great.

Sorry, not great.

And.

Peter thought I'd be the right

guy to do that to go over

there and run a small team to do

this global pickup truck.

Explain to me the the.

Business side of the decisions

to do the F-150 redesign

in Australia.

Why why there and not the US?

Well, as a ranger.

OK, well, but you just come

OK to here.

You do the F-150.

Well, so I did the F-150 here

and the 2004 was probably

from a customer standpoint.

I don't I don't know if

the customers realized it

as much as internally.

It was sort of the the first

program we did where, you know,

we would we would do.

We would design a truck.

We'd throw everything at it

and that would be the high

series and then we'd just

strip the hell out of it

and that would become the low

series and the 2004.

That's it.

We actually dialed in.

Different lifestyles to.

To determine the different

series trucks.

So, you know, the base truck

was that was the no nonsense,

you know, hose out the interior

work truck and we designed it

around that.

And then there was the family

carrier, you know, things that,

you know, a family needs

and would appreciate.

And then there's, you know,

maybe the guy that owns

the construction company

and he's taken clients to

dinner and he wants to

leather seats and he wants

all the.

King's Ranch.

He wants all the appointments

that you find in a,

you know, a luxury sedan.

So that was at least at Ford

on the F series.

That's the first time we kind

of really dialed in all these

different series and we

kind of drilled deep on on

lifestyle.

I mean, you know, at the time

we're selling what like,

you know, I don't know,

nine hundred and something

thousand units a year.

So, you know, there was such a

diversity and and and

lifestyles and how people use

these trucks and what they wanted

and didn't want.

We just, we just, you know,

we did a ton of research.

We talked to customers and just

we really wanted to understand

exactly what they need for

like these Pacific series,

not just, you know,

load it up for high series

and strip it for base.

So I think it was that

experience that they brought me

to Australia to to to dive

into the to the Ranger

because the Ranger was,

I mean, it was going everywhere

in the plant, you know,

around the world.

So they wanted to they

wanted to sort of hone in

on that on that strategy

and not just use it as,

I mean, this was domestic.

The Ranger was it was a,

you know, as a global market.

Right.

That 2004 F 150,

I had one in 2004 and FX four.

And it's one of the like few

massive like movements

in automotive like design

and evolution that I remember.

Like that was a huge thing

for it was talked about everywhere.

The way the interior

was such a massive departure

from what it previously was.

Is that viewed inside of Ford

as being like a large success

or something that really propelled

forward forward?

Or was that just a natural

progression into like, no,

it's it's the new I snow both.

I mean, it's funny.

You mentioned that because.

God, the battles, the fight,

like, I mean, so that's

we introduced a we introduced

a console with a floor shifter.

Yeah, F 150.

And when we first introduced it

and I'm not going to call out

departments or names or anything,

but I mean, there were people.

There's no way you're putting

a console and a floor shifter

in a pick like why I thought

it was the coolest thing.

Why would you do that in the truck?

Why would you do and that was

I'm going to sort of beat

my own drum here.

But like that was design pushing that.

Sure.

Another got another great little story.

So I have this

little pet peeve thing

working on trucks for years.

I I always like the boxes to look

integrated to the cab, right?

And when I say integrated,

I mean, I don't, you know, a lot of

like customers still, you know,

to their view, a true pick up,

it's on a frame and it's got to

have a separate box with the gap to

the, you know, from the cab to the

box, I get all of that.

But just aesthetically,

to me, it's a balance.

I always it looks weird to me

when you've got the belt line

sort of top of the window opening

here and then the the bed

is like 150 millimeters lower than

the either it doesn't index anything.

So I when I got in the truck,

I immediately started sketching

tops of boxes that indexed

the the belt line.

And then on this truck, we introduced

the the plastic cap

on top of the bed.

And and we like,

I literally wanted the section of that

that box cap to reflect

the section in the belt line molding

on the cab, just so you, you know,

you just had this perfect, you know,

lineup and and sort of, you know,

visual integration to the cab.

So and it all works.

Anyway, so here's my story.

So we're doing the all new 2004

F-150 and it's got a carry over box

inner

because of money, right?

I want to save money.

So the box inner is carry over

from the soft.

We're just totally different.

96. Right.

Well, when you when you put

the carry over box in, you know,

but now you're carry over box

or sorry, your carry over box

inner is now it's going to dictate

the size of the outer.

So the inner was about 120

millimeters lower than the belt

line and truck.

And I'm like, there's we can't like

it looks stupid.

It doesn't doesn't line up anything.

So we we this is the beauty of,

you know, being in the studio,

working with Clay model, you like

sometimes you can show things to

kill them.

And that's what we did.

So we did a clay model of this

like the blue one in the box

lined up perfectly to the belt

line and look balanced and just

visually looks integrated.

And then we did one just like that,

except the top of the box now is

about 120

millimeters lower than what you

see there with the door handle.

So it's not lining.

Yeah, you could not.

Yeah, I guess you could argue

maybe now it's indexing the

door handle.

And we had the two clays and

the

program manager at the time,

the chief program engineer comes

in.

And we're, you know, he he wants

to enter. He doesn't want to pay

for it.

And we're we're pushing back.

So we we showed the two

properties.

And I mean, the lower one just

looked horrible.

It just looked like you

retrofitted this box that

doesn't match the cab.

And so we had a we had a

dinokton in rad side by side.

And it we've pushed so hard

that it's going all the way at

the time it was Jack Nasser was

our CEO.

And so before Jack comes in,

you know, I'm taking the chief

program engineer through it.

And he just he just doesn't

want to pay for it.

And he doesn't see it.

And I keep telling him, like,

you know, it's not working.

Like we got to raise the

inner.

We this has got it in that.

And he got so irritated at me.

He he had a like a like a

folder in his hand.

He threw the folder at me.

So it's a passionate business.

I get your guns.

And and so that, you know,

it's like, OK, whatever.

And then Jack Nasser.

So this is our studios.

They just rebuilt the Design

Center, but the old studios,

they were massive.

And the two trucks were parked

at the very end of the studio

and everyone's nervous and

are waiting for Jack to to

come over and have this formal

review.

And so I think it was me.

And I don't know, it might have

been Pat Giovanni, one of the

truck directors.

We so we we meet Jack at the

door.

He comes through the door.

He's he's standing at the

door looking at the I mean,

the studios really long.

He's looking at the end of it.

He can see the two silhouettes

of the trucks.

And we and all the teams

waiting by the clay models

at the end of the studio.

And Jack's like, OK, so

you know, what am I looking at?

I'm like, well, Jack, this, you

know, the the first truck

is to carry over enter.

It's dictating the height of

the bed.

We want to raise the height of

the bed so that it, you know,

it relates to the cab

aesthetically.

And he looks at it and he's

like, oh, you got to do that.

Yeah, you need to raise the

you need to raise the box

enter and turns around and

walks out like that was the

meeting.

He didn't even walk over to

the team.

But now the team's furious.

But yeah, in the end, we, we,

you know, we got what we want.

We won that battle.

So that was one, the console,

the dropout, the dropout.

I know.

But at the time that was on

the super duty and man, there's

a lot of chatter about, hey,

guys, you're don't you think

you're stepping on toes of super

duty?

Like we need to separate it.

And and no, we thought,

you know, it could be,

you know, it could be a

signature for the truck.

So again, I am tooting my

design Hornabill, but but no,

I mean, design, you know, we're

passionate about this stuff.

And we pushed hard on it, even

when, you know, people didn't

and with Ford, you know, you

get you get a lot of opinions

from people outside of design

and, you know, you know,

sometimes they just don't

like something or, you know,

and we just let's like, yeah,

well, you know, it is some

the drop belt thing is I'm

from somebody that's driving

their very first F 150 and it

has a drop belt line.

The it definitely looks good

stylistic wise as you company.

It's been around for hell,

20 years now, 20 plus years.

But the ergonomics on the inside

and how it does with the mirror

and your controls and there's

a it feels good.

I came from nothing but,

you know, Sierra's for years

before, which is something

when you don't think about it

until you're living with it.

And you're like, man, it's so

it was a little controversial

on on the 150.

So do you know the story

about the drop belt and no duty

so you can get the mirror lower?

So the superduty when

it the when they separated,

I mean, there's always

well started out.

Well, I've got an I've

have a 1950 F1, right?

And then that started the

name for it and then F 100

and then, you know, F 150

and then F 250, right?

And so this was always

the 1500 truck.

And then the superduty

was always the heavier truck.

But they always they look the same

until was it the mid 90s

where they did the they

they separated the look

of the superduty and they

would be the 97 change over, right?

When they went to the slant

nose or 96 and they went

to the slant nose and they changed

they changed the new F 250.

Maybe that was it.

And when they when they divorced

the two aesthetically.

That door on the superduty

came off of the.

What's the it was the semi truck?

The big Ford.

Semi truck we built.

That was the that was

the carryover door.

Really?

They put on the superduty.

So.

Which at the time and I

wasn't on I wasn't in truck

at the time, but you know, that was.

You know, when you're telling designers,

hey, we're like, you got to carry

over this part, you know, no,

designers never want this

like carryover part, right?

They want to design their own thing.

That was a that was a big deal.

Yeah, I think that's it.

98 versus at the.

Yeah, Jen, I think

they carried over the square.

So that door, if you go to what's

the is it the six thousand?

What's the big?

It's still the front engine truck.

It's not the cab over, but it's the

it's the bigger like a six fifty five

fifty six six six.

See something six thousand?

The big the thing that

like toes, semi trailers.

I can picture it.

I can't I can't remember

the name of the.

Anyway, that's the that's the carryover door.

Really, I always looked at that the other way.

I figured that they when they

were doing those big trucks,

they were just putting like big front ends

on the truck cab parts.

The small like the two fifty.

And again, that that door

was designed for that big truck.

And in your right, it was so that,

you know, those things are so big

and you're sitting up so high

it so you can like see the mirror

and sort of look down and see,

you know, part of the front

fender is that it there?

That's six hundred.

From ninety seven.

Can you can you?

Yeah, I'm trying to find.

That's the still the square body.

They had they had one.

This is the white one.

That that second shot.

Is that it?

That's still a square.

For the next year, 98.

Anyway, so yeah.

But yeah, I mean, back to the dropout.

I mean, I talked to, you know,

guys at GM and.

Stalantis and they're, you know,

they like that's a kind of a big deal.

You know, it's a.

Oh, it's iconic that I mean,

Nissan now is starting to pick it up

a little bit on their trucks.

Yeah, ninety eight F six hundred

is the first year it went to that.

Huh.

That's wild that they did that.

Yeah, anyway, so moving through.

Where does the first?

Rumors or notification or anything

that this GT project is happening?

So I'm not even in the country

and I'm in Australia at the time

and.

And, you know, I'm hearing things

or they're looking at doing this.

I think it was like Project Silver.

They were looking at modifying a Mustang

and it was really.

I really think it was

or at least one of the.

One of the players that that had

a pretty big voice at the time,

it was Rajner.

He was the.

Product planner at the time.

He.

He I believe and again,

I wasn't even in the country,

but I hear he went to Bill and said,

hey, you know, we need to do something

for the 50th anniversary of Ford,

you know, beating Ferrari at Le Mans or,

you know, 19.

It was what 2016 was going to be

the 50th anniversary.

So.

They started looking at modifying a Mustang

and they were just going to have to do so much to it

and.

It's just going to cost a fortune

and they weren't getting the performance

and everything they wanted out of it.

And I don't know exactly how it.

It prevailed and then it,

you know, then it turned into Project Phoenix

and then that sort of became like

and like basically an all new.

Vehicle and then and then it was,

well, like why not?

Why don't we just recreate,

you know, the Ford GT, right?

And this is what two years out from Le Mans.

This is.

No, it's more because I came back.

So Le Mans was 2016 was the race, June.

I came back in 14.

I came back in the middle of 14.

So I came back and took the North American

exterior design director job.

So basically I had everything that's

and from an exterior standpoint

coming out of North America and GT was,

was, you know, one of like, you know, 20 projects.

So it was when I came back, it was already,

I mean, they had already like it proportion was laid out.

Engineering was laid out.

Packaging was, was pretty much settled down.

I mean, there were a million detail.

They didn't have any lights or no details at the time.

But so no, they, and again, I don't,

I'm kind of guesstimating here.

They were, I'm sure they started to talk about it

probably around 12, realistically.

Probably that's when maybe they were kicking off silver

and experimenting with what they could do

with Mustang to make that happen.

And then realize they weren't gonna get there.

I mean, there's, there's so many questions

I've got around that on, I mean, design wise, you know,

for sure, I think you would like to talk about that.

But there's on the production standpoint

and the amount of people involved.

The team on the design side,

the team on the production side, you know,

we had Jeff Clark on from Roush.

And, you know, he talked about how much, you know,

Roush's involvement was on getting things ready

and, you know, obviously everybody knows multi-matic,

you know, and their involvement, I'm putting,

there's a lot of cats to wrangle in a project like that.

It is, but it's really, just on a bigger scale

of what we do here, right?

When you get into a project, you know, you've got,

you're hitting Justin at Dakota for the gauges

and Mark Bowler is gonna do the trans

and Casey Wagner is gonna do the,

you've got your network, it seems very similar.

Yeah, you just gotta do like,

but it's just a much bigger, you know.

And you gotta go win the biggest race ever

because you're talking shit.

But it's the same concept.

It's the people that are in your network.

Yeah.

You know, actually,

GT was, I don't wanna say, I'm not gonna,

I don't wanna say it was easy,

but it was,

it was very streamlined.

It was very different from typical Ford

production programs.

Number one, no research, so no marketing.

So when you, when you don't have research or marketing

or, you know, a billion opinions

on what this thing needs to look like,

you're like, I mean, you are streamlining it already.

Multimatic engineered it.

So, you know, in Multimatic, they,

you know, they're the racers, Larry Holt.

I mean, he, he's a racing legend.

I remember times he's been in the Le Mans and who knows.

And talk about like, connections and networking.

I mean, he knows the global race community.

So, you know, I think it's a very, very important

so, you know, he was on board to,

and that's a whole nother universe, right?

When you, you know, when you want a certain transmission,

well, then they, well, the people that build a transmission,

well, are you, you know, are you gonna be working

with this oil company?

And, you know, it's all this, it's networking

and it's all interconnected.

And Larry was the right guy to do that.

I don't know if Ford could have done all of that.

So, in some ways, and then just the people involved,

sorry, the people involved at Ford,

it was a tiny team, it was a tiny team.

We had the designers, we had keys.

It was done in the skunk works in the basement.

It used to be like a storage area,

like horrible space, like zero windows in the basement.

It would flood when it rained.

But, so it was very secretive, but they had a,

there was a mill and a plate down there, two plates.

So, you know, we could, you know,

we could do all the clay models into your exterior,

we could know back immediately.

And then we just, because it was such a streamlined team,

we, that's how we, you know,

the press didn't know about it

until we released it in Detroit in 2015.

We would have design reviews outside, we would do it late,

we'd wait till everyone left, we'd cover the car,

we'd put like cardboard boxes on the clay,

so it's got the silo out of it,

and they pulled it up into the hallway.

Even people in design center,

they kind of knew there was something going on in the

basement, but didn't know exactly what was happening.

So, you know, when you do that,

when you're cutting out like three quarters of the team,

and then you don't have marketing involved,

you're working with this company like Multimatic,

that's what they do, they build race cars,

they're carbon fiber experts.

So, you know, the whole car is carbon fiber.

It was an extremely streamlined program,

and happened really, like it happened

in half the time in normal production.

Have you cut out finance too, at that point,

because it's just, it's gonna.

No.

You know, that's a funny one.

I don't know, you know, because, you know,

we'd always, I'm not sure, I mean, I remember,

yeah, there's a budget, but I don't know,

it just seemed like, you know, Raj,

so Raj was a, you know, he was a product boss

at the time.

Raj is a racer, he's very passionate about racing,

as a long racing history, and you know,

you know, the whole, I mean, there were certain things,

like, you know, we would cut out, you know, finance or,

but with the GT, it was such a, it was so focused,

and we knew it was, you know what,

we're going back to Le Mans in 16, and we wanna win.

Like, that was, like, that was the goal.

That's the same philosophy back from the 60s again.

Yeah.

You're not going, you're building a car to win, come on.

Yeah, so.

Don't tell me that, like, we gotta use a crossover,

another wheel, or we gotta cut some corners here for money.

So, you know, and Raj will, you know, he'll tell you,

well, you know, it's a race car,

like that thing was designed in the wind tunnel, you know.

And yeah, I mean, we, you know,

we obviously, we spend a lot of time in the tunnel,

a lot of time around, you know,

air management is very important in a race car.

I mean, there was so much time

in terms of aerodynamics and air management

that went into the bottom of the car

and the top, right?

I mean, they spent just as much time

below, like, what you don't see.

You know, it mattered.

I mean, it was, it's a, it was a,

you know, it was, it was basically designed,

engineered, and built to do one thing.

And that was to go back to Le Mans and win,

and it just so happened because of the class,

the GT class, we got a road car out of it.

So, and that's what companies do now, right?

When they go back to racing and it's a class

where it has to be a production car instead of,

and I think that's the issues

they were having around Mustang, right?

Instead of taking a production car and making it a race car,

you design a race car and then you figure out

how to make it road legal.

And that's what the GT is.

How do you set like the guardrails on something like that?

Like some boundaries because with all the resources,

all the technology, you can pretty much create anything.

Like if you look at like a Koenigsegg,

I think is the car that pops in mind to me.

Like that car, they seemingly just do anything

they could possibly dream up.

How do you like put a ceiling on it to,

to not fight against the department?

Yeah, probably.

Well, I think there are a couple of things

with the GT program and the GT40 history at Ford.

So again, from a design standpoint,

I feel like the, so Camila Pardo and Bill Mangan,

and there's a whole great team

that worked on the 0506 car.

And that car really was a tribute to the original GT40.

That car was all about, sort of looking back and,

you know, bringing back that heritage and that look

and just that golden period of Ford racing where,

but what's interesting is I feel like that car

sort of enabled the new car to be able to do that.

And that car to go in the opposite direction

and to, you know, push the envelope from,

you know, what's next?

Like we don't want to look back.

Having said that, we, yeah, but, you know,

there were things we still wanted,

you know, we wanted the car,

when you saw it for the first time,

we wanted people to still recognize it as a GT40.

So there were, you know, there were a certain,

I call them aesthetic attributes that we picked

from the original car that we want, you know,

the shape of the, like the way the headlights

are executed on the surface.

The, you know, the header kind of peaks at its height

and then it sort of drops from there.

The rear haunch, the giant air outlets in the front,

you know, so there were elements,

you know, the round tail lights.

So there were elements that we,

we definitely wanted to integrate into the new car,

but we wanted the new car.

It was all about looking forward,

as opposed to looking back like the 0506 car was.

The motor was dictated really early on, right?

The motor was like this,

we're gonna build it around this motor.

Yeah.

Yeah, motor was laid out very early on.

And then, you know, to someone,

you guys had a comment about,

well, you know, what's the, you know,

what's the, you know, what's keeping you guys

from not like going like, you know, pie in the sky.

And again, it was, part of it was Raj.

You know, Raj is, you know, he's run a ton of programs.

So he knows the financial side of things,

but he also, he's the race car guy.

So, you know, it was all about, you know,

it was, you know, kind of we were talking about off 150.

It was, it was functionality.

It's like, hey, like, do we need this?

Is it going to improve the race car?

And if it is, we're gonna do it.

And, you know, so it was, I mean, if you,

have you guys had a GT4 or the GT the latest,

have you had some time around the?

We've had some time around it.

We've never driven one.

We've never driven.

It's, you know, I mean, it's a, it's a great car.

It's, I mean, I love it.

I'm biased.

It's a, you know, it's a space show.

They gave everybody on the design team one, right?

Obviously when it was handed them out like candy.

Here you go, yeah.

There you go.

Yeah, like candy.

No, they, it's, you know, it's, I mean,

it's a beautiful, it's pretty radical looking car,

but it's, you know, it's, it's, it's pretty straightforward.

Like the interior, like it's very, you know,

it's very, it's functional.

What's the roof height?

God, I used to know that.

Is it?

Is it less than 40?

No, no, no, it's, it's, I think it's like, is it 43?

Okay.

Something like that.

It's, it's pretty low.

Who did, who did Ford sell GT40 rights to?

I don't know.

Who's the company?

I've been to the,

Is it super?

Maybe.

I've been to their, I've been to their shop in California.

Yeah, so Lance is responsible for not being able to

sell it.

Not being able to call it a GT40?

Yeah.

But at the same time it'd be a GT43, wouldn't it?

I mean, ultimately.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I mean, it was, you know, again,

the project was already going when I, when I came on

and, you know, at that level, you know,

I'm design directors, you know, you're, you're sort,

you're orchestrating, you're, you know, you've got

teams of, you know, young, talented people that are,

you know, doing the sketching and they're, you know,

they're awesome.

So you're, you're kind of guiding and, you know,

pointing things out and.

But that had to be, that had to be an,

even doing that, even just leading a team, right?

That had to be a very unique experience

and an exhilarating experience, but you talked so much

about that it was function, function, function, function.

Does this help the race car?

Does this help us win?

Does this aid in the wind tunnel?

Does this do this?

It's a completely different mindset than you've ever

been involved in any design before for, you know,

your co-holders here or something like that.

Concentrating on the lifestyle of the King Ranch.

Yeah.

You're catering to each lifestyle on other models.

Yeah.

But then you do have the, yeah, it's a race car.

We do have to win the road car.

Well, you know, do we do cup holders?

Do we don't do cup holders?

Like what's the ergo of the switches

and what's some of that stuff?

That's a, it's gotta be an interesting.

Yeah.

I would assume.

Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's all part of it.

Yeah. I mean, that's all baked in.

And, you know, the people that design it and develop,

I mean, we know that, right?

And we, we, you know, we had to hit all those requirements.

The road car does have a cup holder.

Like the console's like that.

That why it's like.

Yeah. And it comes out from the cup holder.

Yeah.

Is there more pressure being involved in a car like this

that needs to be that iconic versus something like an F-150

or F-150, you gotta hit sales numbers that have to be, you know,

a million a year where this they're going to sell 20 a year.

Yeah, you know, it's it was such a different animal.

You know, again, it was all about going back to Le Mans and winning.

And then there's this time limit.

So, you know, the pressure was really on to, you know,

so the car it debuted at Daytona in January.

That was like the first race out of the box.

And it didn't do like they couldn't think the door kept opening.

And, you know, it's just this fresh car, right?

And it's supposed to like run 24 hours in Le Mans like six months later.

So there was just a lot of pressure around, you know, getting it right

and going back and and and winning.

You know, I think from, you know, being iconic,

I just think, you know, the proportions and

I just I think we, you know, we sort of knew it's it's it's going to be iconic.

It's, you know, I mean, you know, the proportion.

I mean, to me, you know, it's a little bit like, you know, real estate, right?

It's location, location, location.

To me, design is proportion, proportion, proportion.

And, you know, when you've got a car that's, you know,

43 inches high and, you know, the right size wheels and tires

and the right amount of overhang and balance of glass, graphic to body.

You know, I mean, it's it's it's like it's awesome proportions, right?

And it's it's it's beautiful.

Those are cars we've it's crazy.

There's there's a couple of them out there that do this.

But that one in particular.

You can see it in pictures.

All you want to you can you can walk up to it at a show and be all around it.

You know, touch it, feel it, look at it, stand back from it and look at it.

It's the surprise appearance of it when you're not expecting it.

Yes, there's been times where you turn around or you're on the road,

you're driving, you're something like that, where it's a surprise,

like it's there and you weren't expecting it and you see it.

That's when the the chills go.

That's when you're like, oh, fuck.

I remember there's been a couple of times in Vegas.

The one in Vegas that that was just one of those moments.

We're we're coming out of Courtney Hansen's party.

Actually, going into Courtney Hansen's party at the at the Mob Museum

in downtown Old Vegas, walking in and.

We're we turn around and in a new GT is pulling in, right?

And his wife and their pull.

And it's one of those things where you're not expecting it and it just hits.

You're like 12 feet away from it.

It's kind of coming up a hill.

Highlines right, the sounds right, the lights right.

And there's there's been all those times where you're like three little kids.

Yeah, you're like, you know, like.

It's just a it's a completely different thing than that.

First, second reaction, like that's proportion.

Yes, that's what I'll never forget when I so 22 year old,

two years old, I get sent to Italy for the first time, right?

And like, I am freaking out, you know, the food,

the fashion, the girls, the car.

I mean, just everything is just right.

Where have I been?

Like, oh, my God, I'm living my best life right now.

And I will never, ever forget the very first time I saw

Lamborghini Countach on the Auto strata.

And my first second reaction was like,

like I'm looking at a car without a greenhouse because it was so low.

You know, you like in the, you know,

the interesting thing about the Countach is which I

I kind of love that car.

I'm the new Lamborghinis.

I there's I don't know.

There's something to do or to piece in the body.

No, it's no, that's no, that's what you're supposed to do.

So it's the combination of it's the slanted windscreen.

But it's the amount of tumble home that's on a

the side angle of the glass.

They call that tumble home.

OK, so like enough one fifty has like upright tumble home.

Right. So it's a box.

Yeah. Lamborghini Countach is like it's like this.

And and when you like first see it,

you know, it's just the proportions are so radical.

The shock to the system.

Yeah. So like again, my my brain was respite.

Like, like did someone like chop off the greenhouse?

What happened? Yeah. Oh, it's a it's a Kuntai, you know.

Yeah. So again, and that's proportion.

That's what you that's your that's what you're first seeing.

That's why when vehicles that, you know,

companies are trying to save money and they carry over all this stuff.

And when they don't change the underpinnings of it,

they're not changing the proportion.

So you're, you know, you when you don't change the proportion,

you're to me, you're not you're not getting the the the newness,

the freshness out of it that you could the second,

the second gen GTs do the same thing, the 506, like,

but that's proportions.

And then it's the throwback too.

So then it's like it's it's it's isn't that the old one?

Oh, it's the new one, but it's but it's low.

There's that I don't know if you've ever seen one of the crazy cool.

Pretty cool car.

Do you guys you like the 506 car?

That's that's that's somebody's favorite favorite car.

I love it.

There was a lot of I mean,

I have colleagues and friends that worked in the car.

And I when I was in Australia, I was keeping my eye.

I wanted to buy one.

I mean, I love that car.

I still want one.

And I, you know, I just I kept looking at it.

It was a brief window about seven or eight years ago.

I was in Australia when everything was burning down.

That's when I bought up.

I bought a model a hot rod and shipped it to Australia.

Because I was going to get into that story.

How that happened here was, you know, melting down, right?

And I'm being paid an Australian dollar.

Now the Australian dollar is taking over the US dollar.

So it was it was a crazy time.

But yes, I'm watching GT prices and I really wanted one.

And then I ended up coming back working on the new one.

And it's like, well, God, I knew I'm working on it.

Right. Yeah. I never worked on the O5 car.

But there's got to be some forward like employee pricing on something like that.

Right. Do you have a new one?

And I have a new one. Of course.

Yeah. So then you don't need the old one.

They're like, that's a used car.

There is an employment.

There is an employee price.

It was what the price was.

Yeah. What what colors? Black.

Did you is there anything special about yours?

Did you know there's just no, it's

now pretty basic.

I I optioned up the carbon

trim and then the harnesses for or the brackets for harnesses

if I want to track it.

You're going to keep that car, right?

I think that's it.

When do you talk to?

I know, I know.

I think your wife has already sold.

We would like a vacation.

I don't I don't.

Yeah, I don't know.

We got we have so many other things going on at the moment.

And I've got I've got two.

I've got more cars and garage space at the moment.

So there was another designer that was on.

He sold his.

What was the the what was the other one that was on the GT?

But he sold the maroon one.

Oh, Marie Calum Murray.

Yeah, he sold it.

When do you find yourself using that car?

Like what is is that like a fair weather?

Just beautiful day.

You that's the problem.

I just I mean part of it is, you know, it's not it's not

at the hot.

I don't have a big car.

You drove over here, dude.

He's doing transport.

Yeah, he's running Uber.

I yeah, I'm just I'm not using it.

I have like I've driven up north.

I've taken it on some road trips.

But I I just how many miles are there's like, I think I've got

like 1500 on it now or 1800.

Something like that.

That's just I'm just awesome driving experience.

It you know what?

It's I mean, I love it.

And it's a pretty cool car.

It's just, you know, it's a you got this thing sitting

there and just you know, it's just a there's a lot of money

sitting there tied up, right?

We missed our one opportunity.

We have we have a customer who's he's no longer with us.

George Poteet.

Sure, you know the name.

And he had one George.

Everything at George's is a little bit like elevated, right?

This was custom painted.

But we did a photo shoot with that car and a similar

color palette on a second gen Camaro that we did.

And George like green lighted just take the car

do whatever you want with it.

But it was raining like crazy.

I didn't make it to the you were there.

I got to see it drive around a whole much.

Yeah, but it was a takeout rain.

Let's see what it'll do.

It's good pictures and it just rained.

Man killed it all.

It was like that's too there.

He could touch it.

But yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I've had mine out in the rain.

So it's not going to melt.

Honestly, I think it reflects poorly on Scott.

I think for not having one.

Wait, don't you think it does?

Yeah, we've got a customer who's got some really good stuff.

And he doesn't have one of those.

No, I feel like he should have one.

Knock him down.

Yeah.

He's the thing is this is what you got to tell him.

He's got some really nice stuff that's easy to get.

He needs a nice thing that's hard to get.

And that's hard to get.

Anybody could go buy a couple of Lambos.

But what is the project or vehicle that you have worked on?

And it may be the GTN and completely understandable.

What's the one that you've got the most personal connection

to for whatever reason?

That's a good one.

Yeah, I mean, well, you started to go there.

The working on the GT was that's like every car designer's

dream, right?

I mean, it was just a magic time.

The team was great.

Small team.

Everyone was so focused.

It was just a great energy.

They rebranded Ford Performance at that time.

And there was a real, Raj was he was our product boss.

And he's a race car guy.

And he could be tough sometimes with the design team.

And of course, he's very opinionated.

But he green-lighted the program.

I mean, he made it happen, which is great.

And he drove the team hard.

So there was just a lot of great energy.

We'd work late.

We just absolutely loved it.

And then we'd all go out to eat afterwards.

And it was just awesome.

It was just a magical time.

So that was great.

Working on the 2004 F-150 was pretty special.

Only because you work on this thing

that there's like 900,000 of these things on the road.

I mean, it's like you're making such an impact.

So that was big.

That was great.

Ranger was another one.

I mean, being global and I had the opportunity

to go to multiple launches, South Africa, Europe, Asia.

That was pretty special.

Do you notice, say the 2004 F-150 or these other,

do you notice those cars, vehicles, trucks on the road

more than you think normal people notice them?

Because you were so familiar?

Oh, yeah.

It's not just cars.

It's like, oh, there's another one.

I remember that.

Oh, yeah.

Exactly.

I remember that.

Is there ever a problem with you and your wife?

Is she ever like, get here.

I'm right here.

Kelly's a designer.

So she gets it.

And Kelly's awesome.

She puts up with me.

Now, were you married with all of this globetrotting

and world traveling?

No, I started very late in life.

I was almost 50 by the time I got married.

It makes sense.

I was too career-focused.

Yeah.

Well, I was in an industry where I

was surrounded by divorce.

Like everyone around me was getting a divorce.

And I'm working with these older clay models,

like, kid, don't ever get married.

You know what?

And I just, I don't know, it kind of,

I guess it had an impact on me.

You know, I was just, I was so passionate.

I was so, I was a workaholic.

Like I said, I would, you know, they told me like, hey,

can you be in Germany next week?

Yeah, I'm gone.

You know, I mean, I couldn't have done the things that I did

if I was married with the families.

But you just wouldn't have been married long.

You could have done them.

Yeah.

You know, I don't know.

Everyone says, you know, you don't, you know,

it'll happen when you meet the right one.

And it sounds corny.

And I never believed in that.

It's 100% true.

And then I met my wife at Ford, actually.

That's awesome.

And she's, she's great.

What, what design department is she in or what's her?

She was color materials.

And we met, we were with different people at the time.

And then I'm getting ready to go to Australia.

And then I go to Australia and then we find ourselves

single and I'm coming back to Detroit.

And we're having a relationship.

But, you know, she's here.

She's in Detroit.

I'm in Australia.

And then not long after she took a job with Nike.

She moved to Portland.

And so we were, we did long distance for a while.

And then we got married and then she moved to Australia.

And we were there.

We were there together for about a year.

And then I, the design director promotion brought me back.

It's got to be hell picking out wallpaper at the house,

no, between the two of you guys.

How does that work?

We don't have wallpaper.

String color, carpet.

Just leave it neutral.

You know, it's so funny because everyone asks us that.

No, we're, we're, we're actually, we're, like,

it's crazy how compatible.

Because she's very, you know, she's very Miss Zen and, you know,

like clean and super simple.

I'm, I'm pretty, like, industrial, cold, you know.

I've seen, I've seen a little bit of your art.

Glass, yeah, there you go.

That says it all.

You did the basement.

And then she did the powder room.

Yeah, but we, I don't know.

We sort of, like, I think it, I don't know.

Our, our taste, like, it, it, we meet in the middle.

That's cool.

Yeah, it's really cool.

We're going to get into the model, like, because I wanted to know.

So this, like, when I see your car collection,

the things you're interested in, if I just had, like,

a lot more talent, I, I could have been him.

I mean, we have, I've got a 29 model, a coupe,

like very similar style.

Oh, cool.

And is it here?

No, it's not back home, but that's a rad hot rod that you've got.

It's just the talent thing.

It's, it's all missing.

God, I love that car.

Both, yeah, there's so many similarities.

That's just sticking your foot in your mouth.

He has a GT.

You don't like a GT.

But yeah, that's a good looking hot rod.

Really good looking hot rod.

You buy this in 08 and ship it to Australia.

Yeah.

Sight unseen.

My dad's like, what have you done?

Like, you know, my dad was always like, you know,

call on an ad, go to look at the car, kick the tires,

take it for a, you know, take it for a spin.

I'm on the other side of the planet.

I see this thing online.

It was on the ham.

Oh yeah.

Dangerous.

And I, I buy it.

Sight unseen.

I'm calling this guy.

He's in, he's in Washington state.

And I buy it.

And then my dad's like, what have you done?

Like, have you lost your mind?

You know, and I, and now it's the nuts.

So I ship it over and I get a call from the dock.

It's like ready for pickup.

And the night before I'm gonna go to the dock,

I get a trailer from a buddy

and I'm gonna drive the dock, pick this thing up.

I don't sleep.

I'm like, what?

Like there could be like a million things wrong.

Like the chop could be off the, you know,

and I just, I just went through this like, what have I done?

And then I go to the dock and it's sitting there.

And it's just like, yeah.

I mean, I did a million things to it.

I did a lot of little things that, you know, people,

you know, I change, you know,

I've changed things millimeters and tweaked and finishes.

And I mean, I've changed almost everything on that car,

but it's the bones, like the chops, the chop, the channel.

I did, I changed the attitude a little bit,

but you know, it's got like a four inch channel.

I dropped the, redid the radiator

so I could drop the grill shell and the hood, just give it.

I wanted it, it looked like the hood was sort of riding up

toward the front and drove me nuts.

So I redid all of that.

Thing looks good.

Did it come with the wide fives?

It did.

It had the 36 caps on it.

And, you know, funny, I took the caps off

when I took it to the race of gentlemen.

And, yeah, and I'm looking at this thing

and I'm like, why did I take these things off early?

Like these are awesome.

So then I repainted the hubs

to match the block of the motor and yeah, I love them.

Yeah, I just kind of love that car.

It's just, you know, it's not a,

I mean, it's a hot rod, right?

It's not a, I mean, you know, you don't get in it

and take it on curvy road.

I mean, it's just, it's like driving a tractor.

That's what I tell everybody about mine.

Driving a tractor.

It's a tractor.

But I know something about it.

I just love the rawness and the sound of a,

so my dad had a 40 Ford coupe

that had a Mercury flathead in it.

And that was my introduction to flatheads

and the sound of a flathead.

And I had this exact conversation yesterday.

We're looking to buy a 44.

I said, we should do the wide fives on it.

He said, we got to do a flathead.

They just draped it so cool.

Nothing sounds like a flathead.

I mean, dead, dog, slow, but man,

they sound good.

It looks like a flathead with a three on the tree.

It's a fun, with straight pipes, fun mode.

I know you guys, do you guys interview Dave Shudon?

Yes.

On the back. Dave's great.

We're going to be going out here

before the end of the year to his place

and we're going to do another one.

No, this will be the first time

but we're going to do the interview.

We're going to do it back again there.

Disney world.

That's what I keep hearing.

It is mind blowing.

But Dave, Dave's funny.

Dave's like, why would I spend all this money

on these motors to go slow?

Like, he just doesn't get it, you know?

I love it.

I mean, I get where he's coming from.

We've been telling Mike Herman from H&H Flathead,

he's a good friend of ours.

We've been telling him that for 20 years.

We've been going to a small black pole

three plug wires.

But again, it's the damn is it cool.

To bring it back full circle

like we talked about at the very beginning of the OEs

like, where can you get?

Flathead's got the sound and it's got the look.

It just can't have the power.

Chevrolet was like, all right,

you can look good and sound good

but you just can't make no power.

Small block, we're not going to look that great.

We're going to sound okay

or we're going to make way more power.

Anyone doing a Flathead conversion kit for an LS?

So you can just put Flathead on it.

It'd be hard to really sell that one.

There's just, yeah, there's something about,

something about a Flathead,

especially in a model A or.

Is that like a 39 box in it?

Or what's the, what's the trans?

Yeah, it's a top loader.

I think it's, I think it's 39.

Is it, could it be 36?

Could be, yeah.

There's a lot.

I say that because there's a ton of 36 parts.

It's got a 36 dash.

Wheels are 36.

I think it's a 36 top loader.

You won a 40th, a 36 coupe would be.

And that's, that's 36 roadster.

That's my other one on the Ham right now.

Original paint, black, 36 coupe, 22 grand.

Reasonably.

36.

Beautiful.

Like the perfect car to do a survivor of.

The Colfosters.

Yes. Yeah.

So Colfosters car is the roadster, right?

No, he had a coupe.

The car he built for the Metallica guy.

Yeah, they have a different one.

Yeah.

Thinking of, no the, it's not James, is it?

I thought it was.

No, it was ours.

We can just look it up.

It's not ours.

I thought the other guy, the guy,

I can't, I can't.

I was going to say what I know.

But.

I really like Coles work.

It's just so subtle.

So timeless and simple.

Jesse James is doing, redoing this.

It's 48 to 54 Chevy truck right now

he's doing, he's swapping it on our chassis.

But.

Kirk Hammett.

That's a good looking truck.

Yeah.

He's putting it on our chassis.

The truck to pick up.

Look up that, it's 48 to 54.

They're all the same, but it was Salinas.

Oh, it's for Colfosters.

Yeah.

He built the truck.

Yeah, he's putting it on chassis.

I saw that the other day.

Can I ask you, how many chassis's

are you guys selling a year now?

All of them.

Yeah, there's a lot of them.

That's awesome, man.

Getting to 1200.

Yeah, you're getting a little past 1200.

Wow.

That's great.

Do you have competition?

I mean, there's other guys out there doing it.

We, you know, we, we focus on what we're doing.

So, you know, I don't necessarily view them

as competition.

They might view us as competition.

Yeah.

We build our thing

and there's some other guys out there doing it too.

Yeah.

It is, it's like the LS thing.

It's like, yeah, just like Roadster shop.

It's like that.

It's just, it's like turned into a buzzword on most.

That's good.

That's the way we want it.

It's great.

Yeah.

I mean, there's nobody that's been able to do,

I mean, again, we're tooting her own horn a little bit,

but the passionate skill and craftsmanship at volume,

the engineering in, you know, for a scale,

but also be able to pivot and do a completely custom one-off

no matter what it is that the customer wants

and do it at the volume that we're doing.

I don't, there's nobody even comes.

The width of product line.

And yeah, I mean, we pride ourselves on.

If you want to show, like doing cool stuff.

You want to show the width,

cool stuff and the width of the product line.

Yeah.

You want to show the width,

cool stuff and the width of the product line.

Go to our latest social media posts

because as a designer,

this will be right up your alley.

This will blow his mind.

This is pretty.

I'm sure he's going to love it.

This is a Ford.

It's a Ford.

It is a Ford.

So we just did a chassis for this.

Really?

We did.

Cool.

And it's.

What's even wilder is the guy that painted that.

We found the story out when Eddie was on here.

The guy that painted that had to hurry up

and do it in a weekend to get to California

because he was the designer

of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

So you had to get out there and start his new job.

Got it.

So there's, there's the six wheeler chassis.

There's that.

What was the final length on that thing?

Long?

All of, yeah, long, long.

You guys have a designer on your team?

We do.

I wish he, you know,

wish I could introduce you.

Chris Gray has handled our design stuff

for probably 15 years now.

Oh, cool.

A really talented guy.

And anything like the renderings that you see that we do

is, it's all in his hand.

You work not that one, unfortunately, that's out.

That's a little out of his wheelhouse.

I don't know.

Yeah.

All right.

We're going up to standard questions.

I did want to ask one thing though

before we get to standard questions.

You mentioned early on,

I get this thing to work,

when you went for your first internship at the Gia studio,

how your mind was blown, things were different.

You were several years into school,

university at that point.

What was the first standout thing that was different?

Was it ideology on design?

Was it techniques on the design?

We had Nikita from Oilstein Lab on a couple episodes ago

and I got a really crazy story of him and his brother

and they went over to Italy for design school

at like 15 or 16 years old.

Same kind of thing.

Mines were blown on the Italian ideology on design.

Man, I'm choked up thinking about it.

It's good.

No, I'm just joking.

Have you met those guys?

Like a water in a water.

By the way.

Crazy talented guys.

I don't know if I may have at one point in California,

I feel like when I go to California,

there's so much happening out there

and you meet so many people

and then I used to work with Freeman Thomas

and Freeman Thomas is, I mean, he's the Porsche guru.

He knows everybody and he's constantly

introducing me to people.

So I may have met them.

I can't remember.

If I met them, they were still early on.

They just had sort of their...

Kind of rat-rod version of them.

Yeah, they were, there was a lot,

like they hadn't started anything physically.

Okay.

I think you'd enjoyed chat

with them in a very, very talented...

Yeah, really cool guys.

Cool stuff.

But back on, I mean, what was the takeaway there

from traditional American design

that you were being taught

and going over there for the internship?

So my first internship was 94 at Chrysler.

Which, you know, I used to,

I would drive my dad to work at the gym,

building, drop him off

and then drive to Highland Park, right?

I'd be in his Chevy pickup,

so I'd have to park way in the back

of all the non-Crysler products.

And you know, it was, I mean, they were great.

Tom Gale, I can't say enough nice things

about Tom Gale and John Hurlitz.

Unfortunately, he's no longer with us.

He was on the interior side.

This guy's, they were such kind gentlemen.

You know, it's always a balance, right?

When you're a designer, you have to be vocal

and there's times where a good designer

is about like pushing back

and pushing for what you believe in.

And, but there's this balance of like,

sort of pushing back

and sort of being the jerk in the room,

but also like, you know, try to be a good human.

And those guys were that.

You know, Jack Telnick was that.

You know, just these guys were class acts.

But, you know, very, you know, very conservative tie,

you know, everyday white shirt.

Guys like sleeping at their desk during the, you know,

lunchtime.

It was, it was.

I think Chris should start dressing like this.

You know, it was, it was interesting.

And then I go to Kia and it was,

it was a little bit more laid back.

You know, there was a language barrier.

A lot of the clay modelers didn't speak English.

You know, and at Chrysler, they're taking coffee breaks

and Kia, they're taking wine breaks

and the wine, like they all made their own homemade wine

and they're drinking it right in the studio.

It was, I mean, it was awesome.

And then, yeah, then the process,

at that time it was so different.

So here, you know, we've been doing clay

since what, the thirties.

There, they, in the 80, they weren't doing clay yet.

They used this material called Applewood

of sort of like a Bondo.

So they would, they would mix it up.

It would be soft and then they would, you know,

sort of slap it on and then it would harden

and then they would sort of rake it down and sand it.

But it was hard and it was, you know,

to make changes wasn't, it wasn't easy.

So,

so there was that, you know, there was sometimes

like you'd wanna make changes and the, you know,

the modelers don't wanna make change

because it was, you know, it was this hard material that was,

I mean, you'd have to like, you know,

clay, you just, you know, rake some away

and then just add it on.

I mean, you can do it in minutes.

Applewood, you're having to like,

this stuff's rock hard, so you have to like chisel it off

and then you have to, you know, remake them.

You know, it just, it was a long process.

So that was, that was a bit different, the passion.

Over there, I mean, the design directors

I mean, they would be like screaming matches.

Just like, just, and it's all in Italian

and these guys are just screaming,

they're throwing like rolls of tape at the model.

It just, you know, and then they,

then they go off and they get a cappuccino together

and everything's like fine, like nothing ever happened.

So yeah, there were, I mean, there were differences,

you know, but it was, but again, it was,

you know, it was so new to me and I just,

I just ate it up.

I was so, I just, I loved it.

You know, just, just the design history

in Torino, all the Cazarillas, the, you know,

Ital design, Bertone, Pinaforena, you know,

they're all, they're all there.

And you know, I had a chance to go

to the Torino auto show back when it used to be

like a bus show to go to and all the new show cars

from Ital design, Gisaro and Bertone.

I mean, all those guys, they were, you know,

they were all there.

They were all still living and presenting their designs.

It was just, it was amazing to experience that.

That's pretty cool here in the stories.

I can't imagine being that age, living your dream

in that type of landscape.

I mean, the first time I went, I was,

I don't even think I was 21 when I first went over.

Yeah, I mean, I was, I was young, so naive, right?

But it just, you know, just kind of blew me away.

What is it about their design that generated thing?

Like you've got Lamborghini Mura,

which came from a company that really didn't do anything

beautiful until that.

And then you've got like Chevrolet Corvair.

What's the, what's the difference?

How did that, how does that get to be so beautiful,

so shapely, so iconic?

Were those, does something like that happen accidentally?

Or...

Where were you ranking the Corvair?

I'm just throwing it out there.

I'm just taking like Aira and Aira.

Chevette.

Chevette, Chevette.

Like just saying the American car of that era

versus that of that era.

Yeah.

It's a, I mean that's...

That's a good question.

I mean, I don't know, I could, you,

I mean, you could argue, I mean,

the GT40 in a time was beautiful.

Sure, sure.

I mean, I thought some of the, you know,

not necessarily the production stuff.

Although, you know, I mean,

the early Corvettes were, were,

I thought really nice.

Some of their show cars at that time

were, you know, beautiful.

Even like, you know, you mentioned Tom Peters

or the Indy Vat.

Yeah.

We talked about it with the...

It was in school when that car came out.

That car.

I built many models.

That was just, I mean, like, I remember,

I didn't even know who Tom Peters was.

It was just like this, you know,

this myth, like these sketches of this,

like just this cool shape and these pit crew around it.

It's like, I mean, he, I think I influenced,

like he influenced a generation of car designers.

There's so much...

Camillo Pardo, Sid Chang, myself,

you know, Peter Lawless, I mean, the list goes on.

I mean, we just, that was, you know, our era of just like,

we would see these.

And then the car styling book came out that had,

it was the edition where they had all the sketches

of the Indy Vat and the Clay Mod.

And it was just like, that thing was gold.

It was the Bible.

And we just thought, wow.

So, I mean, I, you know, I'd put the Indy Vat up there

with, I mean, the mirror, yeah.

It's probably what, top three.

It's, yeah.

But it's funny though, like what you're saying though,

it's...

Yeah, I think the difference is,

like they got it in production.

Yeah.

Well, I think it's like, is it that,

there's some beautiful designs,

but then they were concept cars.

They never made it to production.

Yeah, yeah, that's, yeah.

And they, and these guys did it.

Like they,

I just,

They're probably building for a lot smaller audience too.

Sorry?

They're probably building for a lot smaller audience.

Well, yeah.

I mean, those, yeah, the units.

Yeah, I mean, those, I mean,

how many mirrors did they build?

I mean, it's not...

It's hundreds.

It's not thousands, I don't think.

Built, right?

The, what's funny, and...

You're probably also not seeing,

or we're not seeing any of the European economy cars

that were a veteran.

No, that era, that junk.

Yeah, you're just seeing the glamorous stuff.

I could probably,

we could all be proven wrong on this statement.

I'm sure, because there's gonna be

exceptions to this rule.

Reason I said something about Corvair,

because this would be an exception, right?

Corvair kind of bucked

that current GM styling of that era.

But, Mira, for example,

and you can think about some other Italian designs,

and even some German designs,

whether you like the design or not,

where I'm going with this is,

we talked so much about,

from a forward standpoint and a design standpoint,

how much you're changing your crafting

for the population that's gonna be purchasing that,

right, the local population

for that you're gonna be doing that.

You can look at Tom Peter's stuff,

especially the IndieVet

and a lot of the other designers of that era,

and even some of the Ford stuff.

There was so much

space, NASA, current, Americana inspired.

And you can almost see the drawing

and be like, that's American,

regardless of its production car.

And then you can see others where you're like,

that's Italian and got some sweep.

So that's German, that's Eastern European,

that's got, of that era.

And I think things have changed now in modern cars,

but you can almost,

if you've been around it for this long,

you see what I'm saying?

You can almost get a little bit

on the concept design stuff

where you're like, that's got some Americana in it.

Like the way you do some of the,

I mean, Harley Earl stuff was Americana

and Jetson Space Age, you know?

But it was, the Russians were going to space too,

but the Russian spaceship shit looked different

than the American spaceship.

What did the Russians have some legendary,

what are the most known foreign car design?

I think it's the Hugo, right?

Not a lot, but what I'm saying is it's not because,

you know what I'm saying?

You're not all space inspired.

It was American space inspired.

I mean, back to your question,

I don't know if I have the exact answer for it.

My take on it is

at that time, you know, you had these manufacturers

or you had Fiat, you had, I mean, even Ferrari, right?

Ferrari, Fiat, what are some of the other manufacturers

over there?

Alpha, thank you, Lancia.

So, you know, they're manufacturing companies,

but especially Italy, Italy had this unique thing

where they had these, they called them carterias,

but they turned into these like design houses, right?

You had Etel Design, Pina Farina, Bertoni.

There's others that I'm forgetting,

but and that's all these guys did was design, right?

I mean, they, you know, their thing was

we're just, we're gonna pump out like beautiful designs,

do a show car, and then we're gonna offer them up

to these companies to take them and then build them.

And I think that could be the difference.

You know, so, you know, they're off separate

just doing their own thing, they're not, you know,

they're not worried about finance and marketing

and all these other inputs that you're getting

when you're, when the design team is part of the OEM.

I think that's probably, that's kind of my take

on possibly how that happened.

Mira was not designed by Lamborghini,

it was designed by, would it agree, yeah?

I don't know if it was responsible for it, honestly.

Well, I mean, it came out of the,

didn't come out of the Bertoni, what it was.

The Kuntas did.

The Kuntas did, but wasn't it,

I thought it was, wasn't it Giorgio,

it was Giorgio, who's the gentleman who passed

not that long ago, Gendini?

I'm not a historian in this stuff.

It was a couple of these guys,

I thought they were all at the time.

Or so again, Gendini.

Working at, working at Bertoni.

Got it.

And I mean, that's all these guys did, right?

Their goal was to do the most fresh,

beautiful designs they could do.

They weren't, yeah.

Then it was up to the OE to figure out how to build it.

They weren't being constrained by this.

They're not going to allow like the crash bumpers

and carry over parts and finance.

They're not carrying over like the unibody

from the Espada.

No, yeah, they're not being encumbered by anything.

Right, that's a good point.

I mean, that was kind of the answer.

Again, I don't know, I mean, that's my take on it.

But there's something to be said

for sometimes, especially in car design,

sometimes the stars just align

and everything adds up.

And because if it was just about sheer talent,

you would have way more bangers out there than you do.

But it's not just about the sheer talent of designers

because I don't think any of the OEs

are lacking in talent of designers.

Yeah, sometimes just has.

From the last, you know, 100 years.

But think about some of the iconic Corvettes

and then think about how many Corvettes

are just like, oh, it's fine.

It's the next, it's just the next generation.

It's the new year.

It's whatever it is.

But you don't look back about them

as the most iconic things.

The 70 Nova, for example, right?

That fill a degree is maybe not the best design.

No, I get what you're saying.

You know what I'm saying?

Like the Ford GT is a perfect example of like,

the stars aligned and it allowed,

because everybody bought in and it was like,

yeah, we're gonna do the throwback, right?

And we were gonna.

The 0506.

0506.

And then it was the, hey, we're just gonna win.

We're gonna win them off, right?

We're gonna go back.

We're gonna do it.

That's the performance.

And you got, you know, lots of other cars

that have the stars aligned and just hit.

You know, there's stuff that just worked better

than other stuff.

It's not the fact that it's.

You're right.

Oh, those guys just don't have the talent

and everybody's fighting over the thing.

I think that from the CEO down to the,

even the consumer client,

I mean the consumer client.

The time you're building.

The time in the building the car,

like has a lot to do with it too.

Like, oh yeah, they would eat this shit up, right?

It's time for it.

Well, look, I know you're pushing

for standard questions, but while we've got you here,

I've got to ask you this

because we're building a Pantera right now.

It's one of my favorite cars of all times.

And we're radically modifying it,

but that was a gear design.

What's missing from, what did they do wrong?

What could be better?

When you look at that car, it's a beautiful car.

What year do you have?

That's like 71.

What's the chrome bumpers?

So yeah.

What was the term when you refer to the way

that the side glass lays in?

The tumble bump.

Is that car's got that?

And it's striking and it's got the proportions.

The ride height was always terrible.

So just by fixing that,

but we've got some crazy ideas.

The ride height in it,

the attitude was always a little funny, right?

It was like nose up, but it was wedged.

It's broken at the nose too though.

Yeah.

The door run up and the nose go down.

But do you look at that car

and do you just, do you see something

or I'll put you on the spot, I guess, you know?

But oh and up.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, I mean, it's a great car.

I mean, it's interesting how these cars,

you look at them today and they're, you know,

they're still considered absolutely beautiful,

but you know, you like, you know, the tire offsets,

you know, like they're super deep inside the wheel.

You know, just like we would never, you know,

today it's all about, you know,

getting the tire out, like getting the stance right

and getting the, you know,

sidewall of tire right at the sheet metal.

And those cars, they, you know,

some of them just kind of ignored it, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, the tire was like an afterthought sort of.

No, I mean, I mean, look at that.

Things, you know, it's, it's.

That's a beautiful car.

That's cool.

You know, just like, I always love these

early Italian cars.

The, the earlier Corvettes did this a little bit

where the, especially that, that orange front three

quarter view we had up just a second ago.

Like I love how the, like part of the rear end

just sort of goes away.

Yes.

You know, it's just all tire hanging out.

It just terminates.

Yeah, I love that.

Our plans to, to, to fill it up with like all the tire,

like a Avon tire, like a little bit of GT 40 tire out

to the tire out a little bit of flair,

but massive Avon tires in the back.

Like, if I look at that view, it's like, I just love that.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a good view.

You know, the, I mean, the original GT 40 was like that,

you know, that sort of that sweeping rear end.

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Yeah, very cool.

Standard questions.

You ready?

I'm ready.

Brought to you by?

H.R.E.

The standard.

I hope Elliot takes care of the, yeah.

We're not doing good.

We've done it enough though and Elliot can put it in

because at the beginning of this,

I didn't even say that this episode was brought to you

by WeatherTech.

I was thinking it, it wasn't gonna correct you.

You should have corrected it.

I might need a break.

Yeah, let's take a break.

So we can do a break.

Let's rest her and break.

Best part, standard questions.

Yeah, I think it's time for everybody

to get a little refilled before we go into

standard questions.

Brought to you by the standard and wheels, H.R.E.

See, that's how you do it.

Nicely done.

Here, I can outpour, if you want to know what we're about to do.

What else is there?

Great job.

It's the table's full.

Yeah, what else has we got to do with that?

I don't know, what's your problem with it?

It's a glass, dude.

It's throwing a glass just like haphazardly.

I don't do it on airplanes, so.

I will, so we're gonna get into standard questions.

I got one, I know I said that was it,

but I got one more thing.

I just, I feel that it's very important to talk about

because if anybody at Ford or GM for that matter

is listening, I think that either

do to our own uneducated selves or naive or whatever.

For a long time, we talked about this with Tom Peters.

We talked about this with Ralph as well.

Us on the hot rod, custom car, building world

felt like there was a massive sea

in between what we do and what the OEs do.

And we never really realized

that anybody was paying attention, right?

Or there was, even if the designers were car guys

in the last 20 years, this podcast and the conversations

we've had have been instrumental,

but it's also been the kind of the backstory

around the Ford design awards and the GM design awards

and at SEMA, what that meant to us

and so many other builders to know

one to get recognized is one thing.

But then there was, once you know that it was recognized

because it's car guys recognizing cool cars

and not just like a publicity stunt, right?

Not just a, hey, it's a thing to put our logo on.

There's so much validation and so many,

honestly, it's one of the greatest moments

of all of our careers of being able to be.

It's the design awards.

Yeah, the design awards because there's so much.

Now, I will, no offense to Adrienne and everything

she did with GM.

Ford design awards did it just a little bit better, right?

Because they didn't do it at 6.30 in the morning.

They didn't, but they also, they did a dinner at night.

I'm not familiar with the GM award.

I mean, I knew they did them,

but I don't know how they...

They did it in a different way.

It was great.

It's still an amazing thing.

There was just what you guys did at Ford

with those design awards,

the promenades there on the stage and the award,

but then that dinner at night with just those winners.

And I mean, you're sitting there with Bill Ford

and people and you're like, they actually,

they actually give a shit.

That's the thing that I don't,

and it, you know, I just wanted everybody to know

that it meant a lot.

It means a lot and kudos to you guys.

I mean, again, I'm not speaking on GM's half,

but like from a Ford standpoint,

I mean, it like, we're passionate, right?

And you know, it's funny how, you know,

especially on the design side,

we're, you know, we're kind of envious of what,

like you guys do, right?

Cause you're, you know, you're just, you know,

you're sort of, you're probably not, right?

You're working with a client

and the client has certain class and yeah,

but it appears that you guys have freedom

and a, you know, an open checkbook and you're just,

you know, you're, you're, you're building your passion.

I mean, that's what it feels like.

The finance guy here that says, no, we can't do that.

It is not a no, but yeah.

And I mean, and, and when I would go to SEMA, I mean,

it was, you know, it's always, I mean, again,

I'm passionate about all this stuff,

but also, you know, some of the builds,

God, they were so good.

I mean, it, it was inspiring us.

You know, there were things they were doing.

It's like, wow, this is.

Has there ever been something at SEMA that you saw

and then that an iteration of that made its way

into a production car later, whether it's just a, you know,

a line or a door handle or something like that.

I don't know if there's anything like that direct,

but I was, so the Rob Ida car, yeah, 39.

Yeah, Rob's, Rob's, Fender's, yeah.

So that car, yeah, I mean, I, that car just,

that car just blew my head off, but the story,

you know, he took me through the car and explained how,

you know, it was a car and I'm not like a theme car guy

that always kind of bums me out a little bit,

but he just, he had this story of

Utzel not being happy with the way the 39 Mercury came out

and if, if he had his own way and, you know,

he did what he wanted to do, like this is how he would do it

and just how everything was like visually sort of period

correct, like the engine and the materials he used and,

I mean, it was.

He did a phenomenal job.

I mean, well, I mean, it's beautiful to look at,

but then when, you know, he starts opening the hood

and taking you through the motor and how the headlights

work and, you know, how, you know, you can access the,

you know, the fenders and the tires and the, you know,

I mean, he took me through everything and I was just,

you know, I love that, you know, I mean, you know,

it's one thing to build a, you know, whatever you call it,

a hot rod, a custom, a rest of my, you know,

whatever you call it, redo an older car and modernize it,

but it was like he was going beyond that.

You know, he had the story and then he was like really sticking

to the story and how it just, it was just like,

he just took it to another level and I just,

that car had a huge impression on me.

You know, a couple of, it was probably more,

it was later on, it might have been the last SEMA I did.

Some guy had a Maverick.

And do you know that car that like a white Maverick?

Light gray.

Yeah.

There's some, some dude.

I don't know about the guy that built it.

It didn't win a lot of other awards though.

So he's a good friend of ours.

A good friend of ours.

Did you not like that car?

No, we loved it, but it came out at the same time

as the car we did and it beat us in everything.

What car did you do?

We did a second gen Camaro that had like flares

and it was kind of raining.

So we didn't do a Ford, right?

No, we didn't do a Ford.

Yes, that was, it was a good car.

We're going to hear about this.

We make a timestamp for LA to edit that out.

So Jesse doesn't hear it and he's going to get a big head.

Jesse Greening.

Do you think Ford comes back

in similar way that they used to at SEMA?

Well, I mean, I, I don't know.

I have, I've been, I'm kind of out of the loop.

Yeah, I know.

I mean, I, did they come?

I don't know.

I mean, they're back, but I don't know if they've got,

like they have the space that they did.

And I mean, they, they dominated.

I know.

I mean, they, and it was such a,

you know, I'm not a big Vegas guy,

but I, you know, I really like SEMA.

I like, I like, I love the passion.

And I mean, I would tell everyone,

you know, you go to SEMA and you've got to get

through like 20 bad cars before you get to a good one.

Right.

I mean, that, that's, yeah, that's right.

I mean, there's some

pretty bad stuff. Yeah, there's some rough stuff there, right.

And, you know, Vegas, you know,

I don't know, I've got like this love hate with Vegas,

but SEMA, I don't know something about it.

I just, like that's one of the things I really miss,

like since retirement, I mean, I know like pandemic

and it shut down and Ford kind of backed out,

but and that all happened after I left,

but I like, I couldn't wait to like SEMA time.

I just, I, I don't know.

I just really,

I felt connected to the builders

cause they were, it was just, it was just about passion.

These guys are doing what they loved

and putting their heart and soul and so much time

and effort went into these builds and.

Well, I want you, I want you and everybody

that was involved to know that you guys really,

you filled up the gas tank in so many customers, builders,

so many people's lives either in this industry

that kept on pushing for the, just the hope

of getting noticed, you know, by the Ford Design Awards

for the next thing.

And I don't know, I don't know Farley

from the outside looking in.

It seems like he's about as car guy as car guy

as you can get, you would, I would have thought

that they would be back to the same level

that they used to be at SEMA by now.

But again, I'm not, we're not in the finance department

and it's a, it's a big lift and I get it, but.

That was always the coolest thing.

I mean, it was like Michael Jordan, you know,

shaking your hand, saying nice dunk or something,

just validation.

Yeah.

That's nice to hear.

It's one thing when you're on level.

It's one thing when your peers tell you,

but when you hear that.

Yeah, we'd put all the designers

on such an insanely high pedestal

like you're never gonna meet this guy,

you're never gonna talk to him.

Yeah, really.

There's a, you know, a team of people

that are like walked away

and then you get to meet him on the floor

and you're like, that's an average car guy

and holy shit, he knows who we are.

Yeah.

He saw the car, he pointed out something like.

Well, especially, I mean, you too,

or it's like, oh, you're a hot rod guy,

you got, you know, Model A and you got,

it's not, you know, it's, you know, this,

when you meet, you could have differing opinions

on so many different things,

but if you're a car guy, you're a car guy,

you can connect on that.

Like, you might listen, you completely disagree

on politics, completely disagree on music choices,

completely disagree on so many things.

There are car designers that, believe it or not,

aren't, you know, they're not that in the cars.

I imagine.

I made a job to job at the end of the day,

but at the same time, it's great

when you see that passion on that side

and then recognize this.

Again, it's validation.

The best way to describe it is validation.

Well, I mean, it was the same on our side.

I mean, I just, I was so inspired and, you know, just,

I mean, I'm not a builder,

but I do know I've been around, you know,

building show cars at Ford and just even my own stuff.

I mean, I know exactly what goes into these builds

and it's not, you know, not everyone can do this stuff.

And what was so exciting about it is every year

I just felt like the bar just kept getting raised

like year after year and just,

I just loved going and just,

just having my head blown off, you know, this,

oh my God, this is just like next level.

I mean, it was inspiring.

I just, I loved it.

Oh, maybe they'll come back.

I'd love to see Ford come back.

It just, it's never the same.

It always felt like you're walking out like

on the Super Bowl field,

because you'd round that corner into Ford's booth

with the blue wall and like the fresh carpet

and it just, that's what it felt like, you know?

And it's, it'll never be the same without them there.

I felt so proud.

Like when Ford guy and like, you know,

people are like, oh my God, like your boot,

you know, it just, it was just a real high.

Right.

Toyota.

That's like awesome.

I mean, yeah, I've heard.

Can we get some insider information on like,

what goes on in that glass?

Oh, the little thing that's floating up there.

Oh yeah, that's a, yeah, that's like a conference room.

So we used to go, that's like,

That's the crow's nest.

I used to, so I would, you know, present the awards

and I had a, I had help.

I had like a speech writer that would help me.

Like I would, I'd tell her what I want to say

and I'd give her the words,

but then she would structure it for me.

And so that's where we wrote all the speeches up there.

It was like a, it was like a conference room.

Like, but I mean, you know, you're,

I mean, there's people that are all weak,

but then they're, you know, they still have meetings.

So they're, you know, they're on computers

and having meetings back in Dearborn

and they got to do business stuff.

You're doing business stuff.

Yeah.

They do like interviews up there.

Looking for an award.

I forgot about that.

The glass cube is like the floating glass cube, right?

We're supposed to be doing a podcast from there.

One of these years, but we just haven't been able to.

You can't, you can't land that?

No, I can land it.

We just got to like commit to doing it.

What we're talking about then?

Oh, look at that.

Yeah, look at that.

Yeah.

Well, there you go.

2016.

How about that?

That's awesome.

All right, standard questions.

We're actually doing it.

Okay.

Can I, can I fire away one last one?

It'll be short and sweet, but it comes up.

We were just having this conversation yesterday.

We were traveling.

And somehow the Chrysler Plymouth Prowler came up.

And then we started talking.

We're like, oh, the Prowler.

And then there's the, what goes with the Prowler?

There's the PT Cruiser.

And then there was the Chevy SSR.

What do you call that, that style of car?

And why did Ford never dabble into that,

like those goofy sort of cars?

Like we look at it, it's like,

we kind of like poke fun at that.

The Prowler?

The Prowler HHR.

HHR.

SSR.

The PT Cruiser.

But Ford never entered that like.

You could argue the Thunderbird.

Okay.

Maybe, but the Thunderbird kind of had a,

like some pretty nice style.

Very representative of the original.

You had one, didn't you?

My mom did.

Your mom had one.

My mom had a teal one.

I think somebody had to go to New York

and drive that home and get stopped

at every single tow booth.

You did?

Oh, people love, I drove it a few,

people love that car.

The Thunderbird?

Yeah.

Which one?

Teal.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

Tiffany Blue.

Yeah, it was the whole like retro era, right?

You know, Volkswagen, reintroduced the Beetle.

Right.

Yeah.

The Mustang was a big,

in that era the Mustang was a big throwback.

Yeah, but it wasn't like a,

it was still cool.

Like a goofy kind of,

it wasn't a shock at all.

Well, I think that's,

you mentioned goofy.

I would say, and again, I don't,

you know, I don't want to,

offend your friend.

You're not speaking poorly.

You know, he's, all my,

he's an element of cool about it.

He still lives in Detroit.

No, but I would say that,

you know, maybe like,

they were almost like,

characters, you know,

they were,

they were kind of,

characters of,

Yeah.

You know, like the,

the PT Cruiser was like a,

you know, like,

like an old Ford bubble fendered car.

It just, I don't know.

I mean,

it was purposeful.

I think it wasn't like,

I don't think they set out to sell

millions of that,

but it was a brand builder.

It was,

Yeah.

Like my, you know, my dad,

my dad loved that car.

I think my dad had a,

my dad had a,

he had the Chevy version.

Is it the HHR?

HHR.

He had an HHR.

He, you know, he,

it was like this throwback.

It reminded him of, you know,

Well, Casey Wagner's dad,

I think they sold half of them,

half of the PT Cruisers to him.

He was a PT Cruiser.

Did he?

Yeah.

He had a lot of PT Cruisers.

Yeah.

The PT Cruiser wasn't horrible.

The PT Cruiser just,

if you take the bumpers that,

you know, they made them put off,

but, and it's,

it's just a street ride at that point.

Oh, you don't think it,

The Prowler.

I'm sorry, the Prowler.

I meant the Prowler.

The PT Cruiser was horrible.

The PT Cruiser was horrendous.

I just saw the Prowler for sale the other day

on the side of the street.

I would like to spend some time with one.

I'm not, I'm not going as far.

You weren't the matching trailer.

I wouldn't go so far as owning one.

It's so funny.

I wouldn't.

You mentioned that because,

I mean, I don't know if I would ever do this,

but no, I'm surprised.

And maybe someone had,

I'm surprised someone hasn't taken a PT Cruiser.

I mean, I'll,

Prowler.

Sorry.

And, and literally gone through it.

Hell yeah.

I just saw one on Facebook

and they put a hell of a do it.

Okay.

But I mean, not just the engine,

but I mean, I mean,

I go through everything,

like, you know, work on the body.

I mean, everything just,

is it could be done cool.

I want to do a,

I want to do a Prowler

and paint it like Bobby's

Rats glass,

just recreate the shades of the past

street, rider cover, flame it.

I think you need,

if you're going to flame one of those,

you need Mike LaValle real.

No, I don't know.

I want to do it.

I want to do it right.

Old school hot rod flames.

I don't, I mean, I'm,

I, you know, I love hot rods.

I don't, again,

I don't know that I aspire to own a Prowler,

but what, what, no,

but I have to say this.

I mean, from an industry standpoint,

and I, I mean, I was working in the industry

when it came out.

Like, I was always amazed.

They did it.

Yeah.

You know, they, they,

they really did this thing and like,

like federalized it and like,

all the requirements and just like,

like, wow, like they did it.

And they, you know, and they did it at a time.

I mean, they were, you know,

they were kind of,

they were coming out of,

you know, tough times.

Right?

But it's, it's funny though.

You, if you start going down that train of thought,

like you're saying, like Ford,

they, they didn't do that.

There's so many things that you can put on,

on Chevy and Dodge that were just like a swing

for the fences, right?

Or kind of going out.

I mean, look at the, the, the sky,

the Pontiac sky, the V8.

And that was a completely one-off while.

Why didn't they have a V8?

People swapped them.

How does that get?

Yeah, people swapped them to V8s.

What was the Saturn's view?

Saturn view and the.

Yeah, they weren't V8s.

Oh, they weren't V8s.

They all swapped them.

Okay.

Well, the stylistic why is that car?

Pontiac solstice.

Solstice.

Yeah.

Solstice.

The little roads, they're right.

Yeah.

Okay.

The Saturn sky.

Yes.

The Saturn sky or Pontiac solstice.

The ill-fitting top.

But then, I mean, the things, even things that Mopar did

with, you know, the SRT-10 trucks or whatever.

I mean, you had a V10, you had a V10 short world-based

regular cab pickup truck, right?

That Chevy didn't do stuff like that.

Chevy did some crazy, it was, it was cool.

Ford kind of just.

I kept it clean.

You had, you had Cobra, right?

You did some stuff with the Mustang and the, the.

But what?

But you didn't screw around with just,

we've never done this before.

Okay.

Look at this.

So what, like the fact, I guess what I'm thinking

is that Ford's generally done it better.

Like everything.

They're more mature.

They've done it better when they brought the GT back.

It was pretty spectacular.

When they brought the, the T-bird back,

whether you love it or hate it,

it was actually a pretty damn good-looking car.

If they brought the Cobra or like a 32, like Highboy back,

it would have been something,

if they would have done something in that kind of.

It would have just looked like the Prowler,

there was a flat nose.

No, but it would have been better.

That's all you could have done.

But it would have been better.

You know?

It's been interesting to see.

Yeah.

Standard question time.

I had to check that by, you know, I was curious about it.

The GTD though is not doing what it should

against Corvette though.

Different car.

It's just, well it's not, it's the halo.

Yeah, but the engine's in the front,

and the other's in the middle.

They could have put the engine wherever they wanted to.

They built the car.

Yeah, it's still a pretty spectacular vehicle, right?

It's a spectacular vehicle,

but for the price point and what it did,

I'm just saying.

You gotta call a spade a spade when it is.

Ford's got nothing but wins this whole two and a half hours.

GM at least gets a win on the new VAT.

There's, they're pushing back on that though, right?

There's gonna be some little back and forth.

Supposedly there's another 10 seconds

to be shaved off the ZR1 time though.

That'll be interesting.

Yeah, and then Farley said there's more time

to be shaved off of the GTD, so.

Yeah.

Have you driven one of those?

I have not.

I'm not driven one.

Looks to be a pretty spectacular vehicle.

It looks, they're brutal.

Yeah, it looks like a full-on race car.

Yeah, it's a full-on race car.

Yeah.

Standard questions.

All right, first up, favorite car movie.

God, I have too many.

If there's two, if you pick two of them,

I'm getting up and walking out.

Is that Ford versus Ferrari?

No, it's.

Well, that's one.

I mean, I've got handful, right?

Ford versus Ferrari, American Graffiti, Bullet.

Just don't say two-lane black top.

Why?

Because then y'all are twins then.

Yeah, I mean, I like it.

I don't know if it's like my top.

You know, another car, another movie I like,

I like, is it Ronin?

Ronin.

Ronin's just a great movie of that.

Have you gone back and watched Ronin's first movie?

I go back and watch, because the people that all mentioned

Ronin are always like very interesting,

articulate people that we have.

Ronin is a great movie.

So like Paris is like, you know, that's like my top,

like three places in the world.

So there's that, and you know, I've always been

kind of a denier old fan.

I mean, everything, right?

It's just a good movie.

Yeah, it's a good movie.

I gotta re-watch it.

And just the sound of that car.

And then it's not a movie.

There's a, is it called the rendezvous?

Where they, I think it was shot

in like the late 70s, and they put a camera on a Ferrari.

Oh, the dry, yeah.

Just rifling through these tight streets.

Yeah.

And it's either in Paris or Italy somewhere,

and he's flying.

It's just a soundtrack, basically.

It's just a video and a soundtrack.

I've never seen that.

Oh, you've caught it.

Like cobblestone roads, and like.

Is that what it's?

It's rendezvous, I think.

It's called the rendezvous.

What's the model?

Is it a 308 maybe?

You don't see the car.

You just hear it.

Right?

You see the, I think you see the hood,

and then you hear it.

And then you, and this thing's just like

blasting through city streets.

You know, having said that,

I haven't seen this in a long time,

so maybe it doesn't hold up, but I just,

I just, the times I've seen it,

and it's been years now, I just, man,

I just love that thing.

Oh, it's right there.

It's second one down.

For eight to seven years.

Oh.

I apologize for that.

What does it have to do with Senna?

Was he behind the wheel of this thing?

Was that a two?

Yeah, it is.

It is Paris.

Maybe it is Senna driving.

Well, yeah, then it makes sense.

Does it say what year of the shot?

76.

That is cool.

I love this film.

It's amazing.

I first saw it, I was at CCS, someone showed it to me.

The other cool video, when you talk about Senna's,

him driving the NSX and his loafers,

have you ever seen that?

No.

It shows his footwork.

Oh, I bet.

It's pretty cool.

It was like a publicity for the NSX

when it first came out in 91.

He's driving a red NSX

and just flogging this thing on the track.

I love that documentary, Senna.

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

What else?

I feel like there's one I'm missing one.

You know what?

I'm gonna probably, you guys are gonna

call me out on this one.

I like it.

I know it's a hated Le Mans.

That's cool.

I just, I know it was a box office flop,

but there's just the, like the level of detail,

like the sounds and just, you know,

things that he sort of focused in.

I mean, have you been to Le Mans?

No.

Have you ever been?

No, I would.

That's a bucket list.

So I've been a few times.

Well, I mean, I lived in Europe.

So, you know, I would go and then of course

I went in 15 and then 16 and see who you went.

Yeah, you had something going on

with business and stuff like that there.

Yeah.

And you know, I just, I mean,

people hate, you know, there's like no,

there's like no one talks in it

for like the first, what, like 35 or 40 minutes,

but there's something, I mean, if you're a car person,

I don't know, just, I'd, yeah.

Something about that movie, I just,

I could sit and watch it right now.

I think that Le Mans, they did,

it's basically like the drive to whatever the Netflix F1,

Drive to Survive.

Drive, whatever the, it's at the name of it, Drive to Survive?

No.

What's the Netflix F1 series that really propelled F1

to or whatever the good grief need for?

I don't know it.

It's a Netflix series.

It's like, you know what I'm saying.

So basically it's in the fourth season.

That's what has made F1 a household name now

was the Netflix special.

So the Netflix special goes in

and they've got some of the drama and the stories

with the drivers and the teams

and the, you know, the lives that are living,

but what they got with the soundtrack

and the things about the cars

and teaching you about the cars,

but the noises, the sounds, the things behind the scenes,

that's what Le Mans did without the stories of the people.

Right, they just got the mechanical thing.

It's really the thing that we've always strived for

on our videos when you're trying to capture

the mechanical noises of the vehicle

without it being, you know, fake.

You can't, you want to hear the,

and you want to hear the things.

Yeah, just the way, you know, the way it was shot,

you know.

I don't know, I just, I really like that film.

And then I just saw F1 at the theater.

Was it good?

We haven't seen it yet.

Yeah.

Was it a good movie?

I don't want to, I don't want to spoil it for you.

Okay.

We had some time to kill last two nights ago.

We were in Kansas, we were,

so we looked up, we were almost going to go see it,

but then Phil said we couldn't go.

Phil brought up a good point that he wanted to go see it

with his son.

He wanted to see it with his son,

and I agree with that.

I would like to see it, why I didn't think it was cool.

I'd love to see it with my son

if he would do anything with me,

but he's grown up and gone now.

I think it's with me.

I mean, as a car person,

it's worth checking out.

Okay.

Next up.

Go ahead.

You got more.

If you got more, let's go.

I'm also a moving geek.

Okay.

No, that's it.

What's the car in Ronin?

The M5.

It's an M5?

M5 is one of the ones that's in there.

And it's an Audi as well.

Yeah, there's an Audi.

S4.

And this is like an 80s flick, right?

No, this would be late 90s.

Late 90s.

Yeah.

And just the sound of it,

that thing's just screaming and I just said I liked it.

I've watched it.

I've watched the car scene hundreds of times

because that was my go-to to sell home audio.

So when I was it, when I was at Twitter,

high-five buyers.

You didn't go to Nora Jones?

No.

Well, that was, you'd do that for high-five,

but if you're selling a complete stereo surround system

with the brand new Pioneer Plasmus TV.

Got it.

That was 27 inches, I think at that point,

that was $19,000.

I'd love to see Josh and the dockers with the tucked in.

With a tie?

Yeah.

That's exactly what I had on.

Yeah.

Made commission, buddy.

It's done.

You turn the base up and you turn the treble down.

Hey, I'm not supposed to turn it past this thing.

But nobody's, my manager's right here.

I'll watch the door.

I'll turn it up.

We're selling big systems, man.

Whatever it took.

Were you looking just for one movie?

I've kind of mentioned six of them.

No, that's fine.

All of those, all of those works.

Those are all good ones, yeah.

All good stuff.

Le Mans is a very rarely,

I think it's come up two or three times.

Yeah.

Ford versus Ferrari comes up a lot.

Ronan's come up several times.

I'm kind of a movie nerd and then I'm a car guy

and then I'm that guy that,

you're watching a period film

and then the film's supposed to take place in 57

and then there's like a 72.

That's what Ford versus Ferrari did a great job on though.

I don't.

You pick up stuff on it?

Oh yeah.

Okay.

Maybe I didn't.

What'd you pick up?

Because I always look for that.

I'm scouring for even like a one year off car.

So at the very end, they show the same car.

It's supposed to be the Mark IV,

but it's the Mark IV livery,

but they didn't change the body.

Okay.

The Mark IV is a completely different car.

Right.

There's some of the wheels are larger than period

and there's a few things, bits and pieces,

but again, I'm,

So you're, I mean, you're in the deep day.

It's not like there was a,

Yeah.

Like a 86 F 150 in the background.

Right.

I always keep an eye out for that.

I will say I have gotten.

Oh, sorry.

Yeah.

You're hitting the nerve movies.

That's fine.

That's great.

The original Mad Max.

Oh.

Awesome.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Australian Falcon.

My dad, my dad was a, for whatever reason,

my dad's a preacher and his dad was a preacher.

His brother's a preacher.

I grew up in a very Bible house.

My dad was, it was like a guilty pleasure.

It was a guilty pleasure.

And he was 100% like he encouraged

to hate Mad Max's on.

And I loved, and I remember being young, young

and being like, this is borderline.

Like we're not supposed to be watching this.

And then now like growing up,

I watched like if I, if I,

if I come across it being on,

I'm watching it.

I'm having, I've got it.

That's a cool movie.

I love it.

It was just so, you know, when it came out,

it was like a, it was, it just felt very cutting edge

because everything was slightly off.

The cuts, the jump cuts and the way this, yes.

Oh, just, yeah.

So then like fast forward, I'm living in Melbourne.

I'm living like, where are they?

It's like between Melbourne and Geelong.

So I was going to all these areas.

I went to the train station.

I went to where they're, where they debut the VA.

It's in a parking garage.

That's like Melbourne University parking garage.

Really?

Down the street from my apartment.

So I went to all these areas where they filmed

and it's just, oh man, it's so cool.

That is cool.

Yeah.

There was something, I mean, there was so,

that movie that you think about like scenes of that movie.

It was other world.

Yeah, it was.

Like the cops in the police station

you've just got so like that Eastern European like punk rock

and there's just, but short of Thunderdome,

there's not a bad Mad Max.

No.

There's not a Mad Max that I don't enjoy watching.

Short of Thunderdome, wasn't a Thunderdome fan.

There were two movies when I was a kid like,

you know, I mean, I don't know what 10, 11,

like when I first, my parents would leave me at home

alone for like those formidable years.

And I remember it was two movies that they're like,

hey, my dad was like, watch this.

Well, we're going out.

Me and your mom are going out to dinner.

One was Mad Max and the other was Easy Rider.

So I watched both those movies.

Easy Rider's an adult.

Yeah, but I watched both those movies as a young kid,

like by myself.

That explains.

And it wasn't that like, you know,

a kid that age wouldn't, you ordinarily wouldn't

watch that, but it was like, you know,

I looked up to my dad and like him telling me to watch

that I'm like glued to it.

Like, and Easy Rider was pretty cool.

You know, I remember easy, but both of them were very,

very cool movies.

Fury Road and Furiosa, both.

I mean, hold, that's a completely different style movie.

But if you've got.

It's for a Mad Max guy.

Man.

I wouldn't say I'm a Mad Max guy either.

I just don't remember the most of them.

I'm a huge sucker for anything post-apocalyptic.

I love post-apocalyptic creating.

In that space?

Well, yeah, that, but I also love,

I love trinkets, creations, the things of like,

when you start catching things,

putting together and you're like, well, they made.

Burning Man, you should go to Burning Man.

Isn't that like that?

I would, if I could watch a movie about it, it'd be fine,

but I also don't like loud noises.

So I wouldn't want to be there

and have to live Burning Man,

but I could, I've watched all the like videos

of them building Burning Man vehicles.

It's cool.

That's kind of that vibe, right?

Yeah.

It is.

And just something about like, I love Waterworld.

I love all.

Waterworld is cool.

That's a good movie.

Mine was Blade Runner.

Blade Runner?

Yeah, Blade Runner is cool.

There's just something about the, I love the...

I agree.

Everything's gone to shit.

The only people that you're watching,

the ones that have made it

and they are making these things go together.

That's just, I'm a sucker for that.

All right.

Next up, going through a couple of different ones.

No, I'm just trying to see.

I got an old one I think we need to bring back.

Go ahead, get it.

Fire away.

Oh, you had it ready right there.

I was very lost, you're gonna have to word it.

Now you lost.

What was the car that grabbed you as a young

and that kind of inspired you into the car design world?

Two, 1963 split window corvette.

Cool.

My dad, my dad's friend.

And then later, they partnered in business,

but so I, we were at the whole house.

So I must have been about five.

So I was born in 63, so right?

So the car is now five years old, buys it secondhand,

black on black, split window.

And I just, I just freaked out.

And it's the little things, right?

Like opening the door and how the door went up

into the roof.

It's like, wow, it's like an airplane, you know?

You get in it and the, you know, the console's so narrow

that they took the, they took a conventional radio

and sort of turned it upside.

And I just, that just like blew my mind and just thought,

yeah, that I just, the 63 split window vat

and then series one, E-type, yes.

I remember seeing a kid, I mean, cause I,

my dad, I mean, I grew up in Dearborn, Michigan.

Not a, you know, just all forward cars,

not a, not a ton of foreign stuff.

And I just remember, like every once in a while,

I would see a foreign car go by and I,

and I just, I'll never forget.

And cause I'd ask my dad, I'm like, hey, what's that?

And I'll just, an E-type coupe went by and I just,

yeah, again, it was sort of like the vat.

It was just like, you know, it's like a spaceship,

you know, just, I was five years old and then just,

and you have to remember, you know, I was,

my dad's bringing home, you know, what it would have been,

what it would have been like a 67 Pontiacs

and 67 Osmobiles, you know, and here's,

and here's, yeah, huge, you know,

and here's just like this E-type thing on,

yeah, I just so, yeah, the Corvette

and the Series 1 E-type, those are two cars

that left a huge impression on me.

Bringing it back to Rob, I'd have you seen his,

that black cat.

Dude, y'all, it's beautiful.

But so I love any types of car I will absolutely own.

So I've been playing around with this one.

Would you chop that car like that?

That's got like maybe an inch taken out of the roof.

This does?

Yeah.

It's got an inch out?

Yeah.

Oh, it doesn't really?

That's awesome.

It's a car I will own a hundred percent.

Did you see Rob's?

Yeah, Rob's is extreme, but it's very cool.

It's awesome.

That was a two plus two.

Yeah, which a two plus two, you gotta take,

you know, two plus two always look like a helmet.

Yeah.

You know, it needs to be chopped, right?

No, that, so I love when, so I've got a,

I have a 1950, I always wanted working on F-150s at Ford.

I, you know, I just, I grew to appreciate F-150s

and I, one day I was like, you know,

I want a first gen F1 truck.

I really want the, you know, the first generation.

And I finally found one out of Ohio, bought it

and I was having some work done on it

and I came so close and it's all original.

It's beautiful, right?

So it looks like original farm trucks,

got the flathead in it.

Sure.

The eight.

I came so close.

I was gonna chop it an inch.

Yeah.

We, well, when we get over,

we got, we got something to show you in the showroom.

And I shop, you know, and it's always that thing where,

you know, people, you know, it takes a lot of money

and effort and time to do that, right?

So everyone goes big, right?

They get their, they get their money's worth.

And I'm the opposite.

I, I, I almost-

Just enough for the portions to be right.

Yeah.

And, and I like, I want it, and that's this car.

Like you, it's like, hey, what, like, is that chopped?

You know what I mean?

Like, you're not, you're not sure.

Just looks right.

It should be that way.

Yeah, right?

I mean that, you know, I mean, it's high.

That thing is, the cab's like so tall in that thing.

But in the end, I didn't do it.

But this, this car even-

I love that.

That's great.

I even printed it out because everything,

anything you're gonna do in paper,

paper translates to metal.

So however you cut paper generally, you know what,

like when you're talking about chopping a top or shaping metal.

So I, I did a side profile and I started like cut,

just to see where you would have to cut it.

And how you, how you would pie cut it to lay

that kind of fastback down.

It's not bad.

Yeah.

It, it can be done pretty easily.

So would you change the pillar

or would you stretch the roof?

I would stretch the roof, but it, you would,

you would, you pie cut it through, like,

I mean, that would ordinarily be the sale panel,

but the car doesn't really have a sale panel.

And then the whole top kind of lays down into it

and it's, it's subtle, but it,

but it's also a gorgeous car as is, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Those are the two cars that left a big impression

on me as a kid.

That's a, before we press on,

that's one we've never internally discussed.

Either you guys got one that was the car that,

mine was a 69 Camaro.

Really? Yeah.

When did you see it?

I don't remember.

Probably me. You saw me driving.

No, wait, my brother's fucking awesome.

It was just that line coming off the front wheel opening

down the side of the car.

And I don't even know what it was.

And then I remember as John Butler's mom asked me

what my favorite car was.

And I was embarrassed to say 69 Camaro,

probably said 69 in it.

And she was an old Camaro.

She was a school teacher.

Sweet lady.

How about you?

Probably Orbitron.

Okay.

Roth, that was, that was young, young, young.

But that was the first one.

It was like, oh, so you can just do anything.

Yeah.

You can just do whatever you want.

Like that was, that was the creative freedom

that probably hooked me.

After that, it was probably like an actual,

just real car, not anything custom,

whatever, 60 Starliner was a pretty,

pretty wild.

Not having seen that car before

and then seeing a 60 Starliner,

like the first time you ever see a 60 Starliner is

like there's nothing else that's even kind of close.

You could argue that a 60 in Palo is kind of close,

but the front end ain't even close.

I mean, a 60 Starliner has got it all.

It's a good looking car.

There's nothing.

Yeah, probably those two.

But Orbitron was, cause young, young.

But I was also, it's what's always funny is

like hearing Tom Peters and some of these other designers

talk about how much influence they've had

off of Roth and some of these cartoonish,

like non-proportioned.

So for me, that stuff all came later.

I mean, the 63 Corvette, I mean, I was probably five.

But then the crazy, the Roth cars, the Barris,

all the crazy 70s, Autorama, like that stuff,

that all came a bit later for me.

But yeah, it was, I mean, at all,

like I just, it fed my enthusiasm to,

you know, I was like Tom, I was building kit models

and I'm customizing, I mean, I never ever

built a kit model to the directions.

The directions, no, so that's brings what holds it up.

I can cut it in half and it'll be half as low

or twice as low.

But I think, and just as you're asking,

I've probably never even thought about it,

but there's so much of my early childhood

that was influenced car wise on illustrations.

Not like physical, like new body style cars

or even old just, you know, cars.

It was from the cartoons, remember the cartoons?

And then in the back of Hot Rods,

they always had like the single page cartoon

that was some, you know, quippy saying

of something like that.

It was, you know, F100 or something

and, you know, a chick with big boobs

and cartoon character or something.

It was always the cartoon, not cartoon,

but the illustration stuff of, you know, flames,

big motor, a little bit of exaggerated proportions

that was reminiscent of things that you could do.

That it was the illustration part

that really always got me.

Yeah, that's cool.

That I think back about as being like,

just had to consume that all the time.

And then probably first couple of cars

of trying to like, within reason,

recreate like a cartoonish.

I mean, I remember the 76 F100,

the first thing I ever drove at 13,

the first thing in my mind was,

can we put the bumper on the ground

and the backup in the air?

And like, what do I do about a motor

that can stick up to the hood at 13?

You know, I'm not, I'm not realizing

like those are like things, you know,

it's just like, let's just make it like that.

That's the stuff I was drawing.

I was drawing like these cars jacked up,

huge tires in the back, engine blowing through the hood.

Right.

Yeah.

Because at that age, especially like at 13, 14,

it was like,

I think everybody, all of us grow and mature

along the way, but that point's like,

if you're gonna do the work, like much to the chop,

like if I'm gonna chop it,

I want everybody to know.

Like if I'm gonna put a motor in it,

I want everybody to see it.

If I'm gonna like slam it, I want everybody to know.

If I'm gonna like, I want everybody to see the big back tire.

You just, if you're gonna do it,

you want to be at lower than anybody else,

louder than anybody else.

Like it's the competition part of like customizing.

What was yours?

I don't have any like major standout.

The only things I can remember are like one time being in,

like we're driving somewhere on the highway,

being a young kid and looking over

and there was like, I don't even know what car it was.

It must've been like a Skylark or something,

like a base, like a post car or something.

But I remember the dudes, they looked like fucking Buddy Holly.

They were like two guys driving in the car.

And I remember just being like, whoa,

like, like, pompadour, like slick back.

And I'm like, that's fucking cool.

You know, that was one I remember,

but it wasn't so much the car, it was the whole thing.

And the only one I remember is my dad

had body shops and he did the police stowing

and he impounded a coontosh.

And he had a coontosh in the shop.

I mean, I was probably 10 or 12, something like that.

How about that was a big deal?

Yeah, and it was purple.

Bigger deal is that there was a deal

where after so many years of storage

or so many months of storage,

you can take possession with the mechanics lean on it.

Yeah.

And it was like, we're counting down the days.

We're getting a coontosh.

Dad's getting a coontosh.

Dad's we're getting a coontosh, like it's gone.

But I remember it had, there was gum all over it.

Remember, it was like,

because there was a police chase and they chased him,

but there was like gum stuck all over the roof of the car.

But you're already figuring out

how you can clean that out and like, that'll be fine.

But you talk about like the proportions

of just seeing this thing in person for the first time.

That had to be big time.

Yeah.

Remember just it's sitting in the corner of the body shop.

I mean, I looked at it in a poster only for years.

Yeah.

Instead, we got a purple crest with a baron.

Yeah.

I bet you I was probably 20 the first time

I ever saw a coontosh in person.

But at that time, it probably, I mean, at 10, 10 years old,

that would have been in the early night.

It wasn't, it was almost a new car.

Yeah. That's a big deal.

All right. Next up,

best piece of advice you ever received?

I've had a lot of advice.

I mean, I have very supportive parents.

Yeah, probably my, my mom's mom.

I remember starting at Ford.

And I remember her telling me, you know, I was,

I was just, I was so green.

And I, you know, didn't know anybody.

And I just remember my grandma just saying,

you know, like just,

oh, I think I was talking about what I mentioned earlier

about, you know, it was a generation gap

and some of the older modelers, they were, you know,

kind of grumpy and sometimes a little hard to deal with.

And I just remember my grandma just telling me,

you know, just like, you know, just, just be nice.

Like, you know, whether it's the person sweeping the floor

or, you know, the guy working on clay models with you

or whoever it is, just, you know, just treat them,

just be nice, treat them, you know, be respectful.

You know, and I did, you know, I, I just,

just tried to, you know, just treat everyone with,

you know, just kindness and fairness and,

because it, you know, you're dealing with,

you know, you're, you are,

you're dealing with the, like, people will come in

and scrape the floors, they scrape the clay off floors

and you've got like, you know,

vice presidents coming in.

All angels, yeah.

You know, just this crazy hierarchy of individuals and,

yeah, my grandma just used to say,

just, you know, just treat whoever they are,

you know, just treat them with respect and,

and then my, my grandma was very spiritual

and she used to say, and then I, you know,

and there, I mean, there were times where I was working

with someone or working for somebody

and I was struggling, you know, I was just,

you know, the industry can be very political

and can be very cutthroat

and I just remember having some experiences

where I was struggling and grandma would say,

you know, you need to pray for that person.

Just, just pray for that person.

I got that at the same advice a lot of times.

I'm like, yeah, but he's put my head in the toilet three times.

I'm not, I'm not praying for him.

Oh, that was just an exaggeration.

All right, first car, we try to guess most of the time.

Was your first vehicle a gift or did you purchase it?

Purchased.

You purchased.

Yeah, my money.

At 16?

Purchased the car?

Yeah.

I think I was 17.

Okay.

All right, you grab, what year did you turn 16?

79.

79, so, hmm, it's a different era.

Was it something that you like desired

or something you bought just for transportation?

Desired?

16.

It's probably a 79 transient.

Dad was a General Motors guy.

I'll just grab him my phone,

because I want to, on the show.

Okay, okay.

Dad was a General Motors guy.

At that point, he didn't make the decision

that he was gonna, you know, fly the,

fly the coupe and go, any.

70, 70, Camaro.

Do you think so?

70, Camaro.

It's leaning towards early square body

or early second gen.

I don't know.

Well, early second gen.

Midway, that, that pan, that,

I'll tell you that the damn transient comes up so much.

Everybody wanted a transient.

The weather though, it's Detroit.

Yeah, you're wrong.

I didn't think about that.

I'm going early square body.

Yeah, but at 16, you don't think about that.

You don't.

Yeah, you don't.

I'm gonna stick with it.

Yeah, it could be off a few years.

I'm going split bumper.

Split bumper.

It's 70, split bumper.

That's 70, split.

Yeah, I love that car.

Well, you guys are good.

Any, any, I mean, that's a,

that's a designer's, that's a designer's dream.

I mean, that's it.

Really good.

Well, well.

So I love that car.

I also, the split bumper,

it was the full grille.

Yes, full grille.

I love that car.

I also loved 1970 Chevelle sports.

So that, there's my, this is,

I think this is senior year.

That's me.

Oh, 71?

Yeah.

72.

72 Chevelle.

71, 71 had the split in the.

Marker.

Indicator.

Yeah.

And that was, that was pretty much it.

And it was a big change from the 70,

but I really wanted a 70.

And this was sitting in the parking lot

of a SWAT meet.

My dad and I went to, it was a Georgia car.

It was, it was so clean.

And I just, I had to have it.

I just, it would have had everything.

See that for a second.

I get a little.

As a car designer, should the 70 have had

the 71 rear bumper on it?

See that with the round tail lights, round headlights,

round headlights.

The 70 had the.

Ask that again.

70 Chevelle had the two round headlights in the front,

square tail lights in the back.

71 had a single headlight in the front,

two round tail lights in the back.

Boys thought they missed a year in that rear bumper.

Yeah, you know what, can you pull one up?

I can.

71.

Roger blended him.

He did.

Roger blended it.

I agree with you.

I mean, I did really like the 71, 72.

I love the, just the round, simple tail lights

in the, in the bumper.

But I also thought that.

It is all 1970 tail lights might be the same.

I don't know.

I mean, you know, you couldn't analyze this to,

you know, to your blue, but,

but then you look at the 70 and I always thought that,

you know, I get how they came, you know, just,

I don't know, the square tail light kind of relates

to the, to the upper part of the body.

It just all sort of relates,

but then you can argue, yeah,

but then the headlights are round, right?

So this is 72.

Yeah.

And that's 70.

So, I mean, what you don't see here is,

there's a lot of plan view in it.

And so they, you know, the, the square tail lights

also relating to the plan view shape of the,

of the, you know, the bumpers relating

to the plan view of the body.

Plan views, top.

Top, top view.

Top down.

Yeah, so it, where the trunk cut line is,

there's a break in plan view and that,

that surface comes outboard.

So they were, you know, they were kind of playing up,

like it sort of works with the plan view.

So, when you put on, you know, you,

side by side it, like it all, I mean, again,

I, I love, I ended up loving my 72 and I,

but it is almost like, well, they just,

they had this, all the surface going on.

And then they just like, bam,

they just punched these holes in it.

You may ask you about plan view and, or top view

because one, the, the latest gen GT,

the 2017 or whatever, top view on that plan view.

It's crazy.

It's the best.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

Unbelievable. It's a spaceship.

Yeah, it's a hundred percent spaceship.

It's like a jet fighter.

Yeah. And it's, you got that perfect,

when we, from a headlight to the peak.

Yeah, it's my favorite.

One shape and then the overlapping.

It's, it's amazing.

But from a design standpoint,

you never see a car marketed with a top view.

Like it's so, it's so important to a designer standpoint,

but you never see it that way either.

You never see that car that way.

That's interesting.

If there's one you should see that way.

It's that car.

Oh, it's, it's, it's amazing.

You can see if you get it.

Well, designers, I mean, we, you know,

you know, it's funny, you're right.

But at the same time,

designers spend a lot of time on plan views.

And a lot of the studios like at Ford are like designers

sit in a mezzanine and they look down

really into the studio at clay models.

So you can, I mean, you're going to be on the floor.

You're going to see the side view every day.

But you also, from a design standpoint,

it's nice to like be able to see the plan view as well.

And you, and the, you know,

the new studios and GM, they did that.

So when they built the new wing,

all the designers are in the mezzanine.

So they look down onto the.

But you never go into a dealership and be able to see it.

And you never see any marketing materials.

Well, yeah, they did show the plan view of this one.

That one they did.

Yeah.

But you're right. Yeah, they never, yeah.

That's just a crazy view of that car.

It's nuts.

Look at that.

Right there.

Now jump to the, or the gen before it, 0506.

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Do you guys do any Porsche projects?

We just did a chassis stuff.

Yeah.

Did you 356 with a really newer 3.8?

Yeah, I don't know what the order was,

but I want to get into them.

We just haven't had the opportunity yet.

Yeah, the 930 stuff is interesting to play with.

Like from a suspension standpoint,

it's such a popular platform.

You guys do follow Rod Emery stuff at all?

Yeah.

We had Rod out on the podcast.

Oh, you did?

Rod's awesome.

I mean, Rod's another one of those guys.

He's kind of sort of like Rob Ida.

He's got like a really wild kind of detailed style

that's super unique and really cool.

So my Rob Ida story.

I didn't get any pictures of that car from the top.

I think it's disappointing.

It doesn't even exist.

I'm a race of gentlemen.

In 2015, I took the model layout and we're on the beach.

And it was awesome.

It was such a blast to do that.

But there's all these people have driven up

to watch the race.

And there's muscle cars on the sand and a bunch of stuff.

But then there's this beautiful red.

And I'm not a red car guy, but it's a red 356.

But this thing, and it's a little beat up.

It's not precious.

But the stance, like the right height, attitude,

positioning of the toe, like it was spot.

I couldn't take my eyes off this thing.

I kept walking around it.

And body was a little beat up.

And I just, oh my god, I just, I love this car.

And then found out like, I don't know, like a year later

that it was when I met Rob at SEMA that that was his car.

That's crazy.

That is cool.

Yeah, Rob's like, he's awesome, man.

That guy, that guy's really cool.

The 356, that's a tough car.

Like I've spent my entire career focused on stance

and proportions and how to sit a car with wheels and tires.

The 356 just reminds me of like a bar of soap.

Like it's hard to, you can set it up.

You can set it down.

I'll sit down on bathtub.

Yeah, it's like it's soft.

Like all of a sudden to put it at such a stance

where you're like, whoa, damn, like it's,

but it's a beautiful car.

It's a cool car.

It just doesn't hit you to me.

A little speedster instead.

Yeah.

It's just, yeah, it's just, it's just, you know,

it's a study, it's just, you know, purity, right?

It's just so simple.

Yeah.

I like it because it's, it's a,

you could go kind of hard enough

where it's almost like something that's like from the war.

Yeah.

Like it's got a little bit of like, it's so raw.

Yeah.

Utilitarian.

Yeah, it's so utilitarian.

I mean, it's war era.

So it's like, it's like.

Take.

Yeah.

Last but not least, everybody's favorite.

Your most memorable law enforcement interaction story.

So I, I, I lost a cop once he's lost one, lost a cop.

So I'm in Europe and I'm in a.

Oh, lost him that way.

Got you.

Oh, what are you?

Sorry.

No, you got it.

He was in your possession and you lost him.

No, he was coming, he was coming after me.

Yes.

So I'm on, I'm driving through, I'm living in Cologne.

I've got a Cosworth escort.

It thing was so awesome.

It car was a rocket and I'm, you know, driving like my hair on fire.

And I'm, you know, in, in Germany at that time, there were quite a few auto bonds.

The speed limit was limitless.

Right.

They have a sign that looks like a speed limit sign, but then it's got the lines through

it means, you know, hammer, have at it, right?

And at the time it was everywhere.

Well, being, you know, a young idiot, I drove all of Europe like it was Germany.

So anytime I went through Brussels or France or I drove like I'm in Germany,

like there's no speed limit.

Well, there's their speed limits.

And I'm, you know what I said, Brussels, sorry, I'm in France because I'm coming,

I'm driving to Paris and I'm coming up to the, there's a giant, they called the

Peffery, it's a giant ring that goes around Paris.

It's huge.

Okay.

I believe that's the road that Princess Diana was killed on.

So when you, when you get to the, it's just giant thing and you, you know,

you can go different ways and I just thought, and so anyway,

I'm driving, I'm way above the speed limit and I'm driving by a,

it's like a equivalent to like a rest stop here.

And just in the corner of my eye, I see a police car coming out and I'm

watching them and I'm sure enough, man, he puts the lights on, but I am,

and I'm flying and he's just like, he's just getting up to speed and

there's already quite a few cars in between us.

And I just, and I am like, I'm, I'm probably not even a mile,

I'm a half a mile from this Peffery and I thought, you know,

once I get, he's not going to know which way I've gone.

He's did, and I just thought, you know what, and I just left the hammer

down and never saw him again.

Oh, that was nice.

That's, and I was shaking, man.

I was like, you know, afterwards I was just like, you know,

and then years later, I was like, what was I thinking, you know,

was there an initial lift and then years hammer down, you know,

it was immediate.

I just thought, you know, let's do this.

Split second decision.

Yeah, it's always, it's a pivotal, pivotal, pivotal decision at

that point.

The car was so fast.

That's Cosworth.

Yeah.

That it, that was a, it was, I think it was like a Volkswagen

Golf.

And I just thought, you know what, this guy, he's not going to,

he's not going to catch me.

I just, I don't know.

Yeah, sometimes those happen.

Like you said, it's, you've got a split second to make the

decision.

And that's it.

It's once, when you sleep on it, you lose the window of

opportunity.

There's so many other factors.

There's, like you said, there's the, the traffic, the

speed that he's going.

That was the last one.

How many exits there are to get off.

If you know the area well enough.

If there's like a gas station, you can park behind.

I mean, all, all kinds of things that go into it.

Well, and then also too, you know, when you're living

there, you know, you're always in this mode of, you

know, hey, if something happens, you know, I'm the

dumb American.

I'm like, I've got this American, you know, I, I

had an international driver's license that like doesn't

mean anything over there.

Right.

I just, I just, I don't know.

I just thought, you know what, I, I think I got

this.

I had that one.

Last time I got, I got a ticket in the legend truck

going down Indian Creek, which, you know, that they

set you up on that road.

That's, that's an Autobahn with a 25 mile an hour

speed.

And it was, I'm doing like 45 and a 30, you know,

not the bad, but they, you know, I see him and

I'm like, damn it.

I know, because they're too lane street coming

at me.

And I know I see the brake lights and I see

they're about to make the U turn.

You should have just posted.

I, yeah, it was that moment where you didn't have

the garage door clicker on there.

I could have just fucking punched it and I'd

have been gone, but it's a small town.

You had your son with you too, right?

My daughter.

Oh.

But I'm like, she wouldn't have told.

No, she would have been fine.

But that truck is so recognizable.

Yeah.

It's a, the only tan 70.

So there's no way to prove that you were

driving it, but then.

I guess.

Yeah.

Trust me.

I've made that, I've made that argument

before.

I slowed it down.

It's in Spanish.

Prove to me that I was the one driving

this red Civic with the big wing.

Yeah.

I do have one more story.

Yeah.

It's not as exciting as that one, but I,

so I, I'm, I'm in the GT and I took,

um, do you know, uh, have you heard of

Bill Jaggenau?

He owns brothers customs and Troy

Michigan.

So he's a, uh, you know, independent hot

rod shop.

Okay.

Yeah.

Brother, they're very traditional.

Yeah.

Very traditional hot rods.

He's the guy that has a super cool

engine stands.

Like they always should cast.

He's got, yeah.

Yeah.

He's got all this old equipment.

Yeah.

You know, beautifully restored.

He's a, he's sort of turned into

kind of like, he's like the local

flathead expert.

I mean, he's itching.

He's turtle deck T.

Right.

He's, he's got a, um, 27 T that

it's like my favorite.

It's, it's this, I mean, it's

just awesome.

Uh, just, you know, good friend of

mine, great dude, you know, very

talented.

And I, his son, he, when the

GT came out his son, just, you

know, sort of like me with the

Corvette, right?

Yeah.

And I just thought I had this

like full circle moment.

It was his birthday, Liam.

And I, and I told Bill, I'm

like, Hey, you know what, I'm

going to come over your house

and I'm going to take Liam out

for a spin and he's like, oh,

my God, this is going to be

he's going to get it.

So I took him out and yeah,

there were a few times I was

probably, you know, slightly over

the speed limit.

And then I, I come back and I

drive up and I park in the, you

know, in the street along the

curb in front of his house and

there's a police car behind me

and the police car pulls up

and then it pulls over and

then he gets out and I thought,

oh man, and he gets out and

he just starts asking me about

the car.

He didn't know it.

I mean, it was pretty early on.

I mean, it was probably the car

had only been out maybe a couple

of years and like he would just

yeah.

Like I don't think he had ever

seen one before.

He didn't know what it was.

And he just, he was just so

like enamored with the car

and fascinated and he just

started to ask.

It was all about like the car.

It was kind of wild.

So get in a jail free car.

Yeah, that car for sure is.

Yeah, there's nothing again.

I think about.

There's been a couple of times

with that one in Vegas.

It was like, oh, wow.

Yeah.

And then quickly went into dude.

You want one bad.

You don't have one.

That one's cool.

It goes that way.

Yeah.

This has been amazing.

Absolutely amazing.

Yeah, it's awesome.

Are you still doing your art?

Is that your release?

How often do you do that?

Not as much as I want to.

Art is my, I mean, I love cars.

I, you know, I'm constantly

tinkering on my cars.

That's my real love.

But also like arts right there.

Art is my, it's my happy place.

It's my, you know,

your stuff is, your stuff is amazing.

Yeah, very cool.

I want a piece for the studio.

I just, I love it.

I just.

What's the story with the

Milner's Coupe?

Well, I'm a huge American

graffiti fan.

As am I.

Just always, you know, growing up,

just thought that car was the coolest.

So that formula Ford you just had

up, that's a piece I did for.

So Raj Nair was, he was our product

guy and he was based in

Asia when I was in

Melbourne.

And he used to come over to the

studio quite a bit and I got to know

him and he's a, he's a race car

driver.

And then when he got his promotion,

that, you know, he moved back to

Dearborn and, you know, he was a

vice president.

He had this massive office on

Mahogany Row and

he made mention of like, you know,

he's like, yeah, I'm in this big office

and now I just like, I need

something on the wall.

And so I, I did, I was still

in Melbourne at the time.

So I did that, that piece is pretty big.

So I did a, I found

a picture of his old

car.

And I use, I, so that's all

stencil, hand cut stencil and then I

use a lot of found objects and

it's so

American

military pop

art race car.

It's just a lot of work.

It's funny you mentioned that because

that's all the stuff I like.

And there's none here, but I also

like I'm a space geek.

I like the Apollo era

Mercury, Jim and I, all that stuff.

I like, I love that stuff.

In fact, I love that.

My last opening, I did a

did a show gallery

with a friend of mine and it was

just called space. And so he

he does these giant acrylic paintings

of he had like

paintings of astronauts and then all

my stuff was all like NASA

influence. It was a lot of fun.

I mean, I just, I think it's

that's cool. Amazing.

Do you do like

any canvas prints of those like

that? The

I

printed the Milner coup.

Yeah. Yeah, that's the only

print I've ever done.

It's cool. And then I

had someone interested in it and

they bought some prints.

It's, you got to

let us know when there's a more

amazing. Oh, look at that.

Cool.

Yeah, amazing. Correct.

Absolutely.

Beyond our

expectations and I and we had some

pretty high expectations.

Seriously, it was an amazing time.

It's an honor to be here.

It's an honor to have you, man.

I really enjoyed this. This was

I could thank you. We could ask

questions all night long. I could

keep going for hours.

I love talking about cars.

We'll have to do it again. Now we've got all the

like meeting each other out of the way.

Now the next time can just be story time.

Now we can just like tell stories.

Oh, I love it.

Thank you for having me. Thanks for coming

out. Thank you. Appreciate it. See you

again next week.

Ford Design Director Craig Metros | From F-150 to GT

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