Glenn Obert -The Duckman- Building Greatness and Growing a VW Community Ep72

Glenn Obert -The Duckman- Building Greatness and Growing a VW Community Ep72 DubLife Diaries The VW Lifestyle Podcast · Jul 11, 2026

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124:24

Term

air-cooled Volkswagen world

“Air-cooled” means the engine is cooled by air flowing over it, not by coolant in a radiator. For Volkswagen fans, that cooling style is a big part of what makes these cars special.

Concept

This is talking about a local community of VW fans along the Gulf Coast—people who meet up, organize events, and build cars together. The “scene” can have its own drama and politics, like any hobby group.

Topic

Oil, Slicker, Society International

That’s the name of a Volkswagen club the guest started. The episode frames it as a community where people build and hang out together.

Term

vent window

A vent window is a small window that can open separately from the main window. It lets you get some airflow without fully rolling the window down.

Term

vent clip

A vent clip is a small accessory that helps keep a vent window open. It’s basically a holder so the window stays where you want it.

Term

classic ride

“Classic ride” just means an older car that people really like and keep around. Here, it suggests the accessory is made for older VW-style windows.

Term

manual

A manual is the official guide for a car. It tells you the right steps and exact numbers for repairs, so you don’t guess and accidentally damage something.

Term

100 foot pounds

Foot-pounds measure how tight a bolt is when you tighten it. Using the exact number helps avoid problems like stripped threads or parts that don’t seal properly.

Term

tighten those heads

This is about tightening the bolts that hold the cylinder head on the engine. Doing it to the correct spec helps the engine seal properly and prevents leaks.

Topic

community getting weirder

They’re talking about how the VW car community is changing. Is it getting more strange and creative, or more mellow these days?

Concept

tech sessions

Tech sessions are meetups where car club members teach each other how to work on their cars. It’s a hands-on way to learn repairs and maintenance.

Part

seals

Seals are the rubber or metal parts that keep fluids from leaking. If a car is dripping or making puddles, replacing bad seals can stop the leak.

Car

1969 Volkswagen Beetle

This is a classic Volkswagen Beetle from 1969. It’s the kind of old VW that a lot of people restore, and in this segment the speaker is talking about fixing it up and saving parts for later.

Term

oxidized silver

“Oxidized” means the surface has been damaged by weather over time. It can make the paint look dull or faded and usually means the car needs restoration work.

Term

single port 1500

This is the way the engine is set up—basically which version of the VW 1500 engine it is. Knowing the exact setup matters because the correct parts have to match the engine.

Term

floors

The “floors” are the metal panels you stand on inside the car. If they’re gone from rust, it’s a big repair because it impacts both safety and the car’s structure.

Term

Heater channels

Heater channels are metal parts under the Beetle that help get heat into the cabin. If they’re rusted out, the car can be unsafe and you’ll likely lose heat until they’re repaired.

Term

original parts

“Original parts” are the factory-style pieces that belong on the car. Keeping them helps the car stay true to how it was and can make it more valuable to enthusiasts.

Term

oval

“Oval” is a nickname for an early-style Beetle with the distinctive oval windows. The speaker means the parts they saved went onto that other Beetle.

Term

super wide fiberglass fenders

These are aftermarket fender pieces that make the car look wider and give more room for the wheels. They’re made from fiberglass and can cost a lot because they’re specialty items.

Term

hand clutch

A hand clutch is a clutch you control with your hand instead of a foot pedal. The host is saying he figured out a way to make that kind of setup work on a Volkswagen.

Term

motorcycle clutch

A motorcycle clutch is the part that lets you smoothly connect and disconnect engine power on a motorcycle. The host is adapting that clutch to work in a Volkswagen setup.

Term

brake booster

A brake booster helps you press the brakes with less effort by multiplying the force. In this case, the host repurposed one to help the clutch mechanism work.

Term

shifter

A shifter is what you move to choose gears. The host is explaining how they positioned it so shifting works with their hand-clutch setup.

Term

steering shaft

A steering shaft is the part that carries your steering motion from the wheel/handlebars to the steering system. The host is saying their setup steers without a typical steering box, using the shaft instead.

Term

steering box

A steering box is a mechanical part that turns the steering wheel’s motion into the movement needed to steer the car. The host is saying their build doesn’t use that typical part.

Term

IRS speedle

IRS usually means the rear wheels are set up so they can move independently. The host is also talking about a spindle-like part that helps connect the suspension to the wheel.

Term

tunnel

The tunnel is the raised section in the floor where drivetrain parts run. The host is describing where the shifter comes through that floor area.

Term

shift rod

A shift rod is the metal linkage that helps move the transmission gears when you move the shifter. Changing its shape can make the shifter line up better.

Term

90 degree angle

This describes the shifter/shift linkage being set at a right angle while still maintaining correct gear selection. The key idea is that the linkage geometry can be altered (even drastically) if the internal selector movement still matches the shifter’s travel.

Car

Toyota A90

The Toyota Supra is a sports car made by Toyota. People like it because it’s fun to drive and there’s a big community that modifies them. The podcast mention is about a clever way someone set up the shifter to still work.

Term

steering column

The steering column is the part that connects your steering wheel to the steering system. Here, it also mattered structurally because rust had weakened the front end.

Term

A pillar

The A-pillar is the main metal post at the front of the car that supports the roof. If it’s rotted through, the car can become unsafe and feel like it twists easily.

Concept

scrappy yard

A “scrappy yard” is basically a salvage yard. Cars that are too damaged to fix are often kept there so people can take parts off them.

Concept

six feet of seawater

“Six feet of seawater” means the car was flooded with a lot of salty water. Saltwater can corrode metal and ruin electronics, so even if it looks okay later, it can still be badly damaged.

Term

hidden door hinges

Hidden door hinges are hinge mechanisms mounted inside the door or body structure so you don’t see them on the exterior. This can improve the clean look of the car and reduce exterior snag points, but it requires careful engineering so the door clears the fender and opens smoothly.

Term

suicide style hinges

“Suicide” hinges are a type of door hinge where the door swings open in a way that’s different from normal doors. Older versions had safety concerns if the latch failed, so modern builds use better latches and safety measures.

Car

CR 500

The CR 500 is a Honda dirt bike known for being a powerful two-stroke. In this story, it’s the engine the speaker wants to build around in a custom frame swap.

Term

engine into an SV 650 frame

That’s an engine swap: using one bike’s engine in a different bike’s frame. It’s a custom project that takes extra work to make everything fit and work correctly.

Car

SV 650

The SV 650 is a motorcycle model from Suzuki. Here, the speaker is using the SV 650 frame as the “body” to fit a different engine, which is a custom build.

Car

CR 250

The CR 250 is a Honda dirt bike model. The speaker chooses its frame because it’s lighter and smaller, which makes the whole project easier to build into something more compact.

Term

two stroke

A two-stroke engine is a type of motorcycle engine that makes power with fewer piston movements. It can feel quick and simple, but it often smokes more and needs special fueling/oil handling.

Term

one cylinder

“One cylinder” means the engine only has one combustion chamber. That’s common on smaller bikes and can make the bike feel different—often more vibration and a more basic power delivery.

Car

Ninja 250

The Ninja 250 is a smaller sport bike that’s popular for learning. It’s light and easy to ride, so you can still have fun on curvy roads without needing a huge engine.

Car

Honda 200

Term

throttle

The throttle is the control you use to tell the engine to make more power. A “light blip” is a quick, gentle press—just enough to get a moment of response.

Term

governor

A governor is a safety feature that caps the bike’s top speed. It’s there so the bike can’t go as fast as it otherwise could.

Term

200 CC

“200 CC” is a way of describing how big the bike’s engine is. Smaller CC usually means less power, so it can take longer to get up to speed.

Term

wheelies

Wheelies are when you accelerate and the front wheel comes up off the ground. It’s a stunt that’s usually easier on smaller, lighter bikes.

Term

burnout

A burnout is when you spin the tires while you’re not really going anywhere. It can make smoke and it usually wears the tires out faster.

Term

fully geared up

“Fully geared up” means wearing safety gear before riding. It usually includes a helmet and pads to help protect you if you fall.

Term

armor helmet

An armor helmet is a helmet meant to protect your head more strongly. It’s safety gear used when riding faster or when conditions aren’t ideal.

Term

end play

End play is how much a moving engine part can wiggle slightly back and forth. You want it within a specific range so it doesn’t rub too hard or rattle around.

Term

shims

Shims are thin metal pieces that you add or swap to get the correct spacing. Here, they’re used to set the right amount of movement for an engine part.

Term

gland

“Gland” here is basically a sealing area around a moving shaft. If it’s tightened too much, it can squeeze things and prevent the engine part from moving freely.

Term

cranks

“Cranks” refers to the crankshaft, the main rotating shaft in the engine. The end play you’re setting is about how that shaft sits and moves inside the engine.

Term

trim

"Trim" is the extra outside pieces on a car—like moldings or decorative covers. If those get damaged, taking them off can reveal the metal underneath that might be bent or rusted.

Term

body shop

A "body shop" is a place that fixes car damage to the outside. They can weld or repair the metal and then paint it so it matches the rest of the car.

Term

Bondo'd

"Bondo" is a thick putty used to fill dents in car body panels. It can make damage look smooth, but if it’s used instead of fixing the metal, it may not last as well.

Term

rust repair

"Rust repair" means fixing the metal where it has started to corrode. Usually that involves cleaning/removing the rust, then repairing the area so it can be painted again.

Term

wrap

A "wrap" is a vinyl sticker/skin that gets put over the car’s paint. People use it to change the look or help protect the paint—especially when the finish isn’t perfect.

Car

Volkswagen Carmen Gia

The Volkswagen Karmann Ghia is a classic VW sports car with a unique, stylish look. In the podcast, it’s mentioned because one example had an especially loud, eye-catching paint job. People talk about it because it’s a recognizable classic that stands out.

Concept

patina cars

A “patina” car is one that looks like it’s been used for years, with natural wear showing instead of being fully restored. Some people like that look because it tells the car’s story.

Concept

rat rod

A rat rod is a car that’s intentionally left looking rough and beat up on purpose. It’s usually built for a gritty, cool style rather than a clean, restored look.

Brand

Volkswagen's

Volkswagen is a car brand from Germany. Here, the speaker is saying some older Volkswagens were bought as cheaper cars and weren’t always cared for, so they can end up with lots of wear that makes them look interesting today.

Concept

neon colors

Neon colors are super-bright, eye-catching paint colors. The speaker is pointing out that in the 80s and 90s, those flashy colors were a big trend, which helped make some cars stand out.

Concept

rust patina

Rust patina means letting a car develop rust and wear over time, instead of trying to make it look brand-new. Some car people like that “lived-in” look because it feels authentic and tells a story.

Term

rust pattern

A rust pattern is where rust shows up and how it spreads on a car. Different cars can rust in different shapes and locations, so the “pattern” can look unique.

Term

airbrush rust

“Airbrush rust” means painting rust-looking effects onto a car to make it look aged. Some people don’t like it because it can look real from a distance but obviously fake when you get close.

Term

chop top

A “chop top” is when someone cuts the roof down and reshapes it so the car sits lower. It’s a popular custom look because it changes how the whole car’s shape looks.

Concept

spare parts

Spare parts are extra pieces you keep so you can repair or build something later. They’re saying this car wasn’t worth saving, but it could still help by providing parts for another project.

Part

floor pans

Floor pans are the structural sheet-metal sections that form the vehicle’s floor and help keep the body rigid. In a Beetle or other unibody car, rust or damage to floor pans can be a major reason a car is cut apart or used for parts.

Part

engines

The engine is the part that makes the car run. Here, they’re saying they got extra engines too, which can be useful for another project or a rebuild.

Concept

scrapping

Scrapping means the car is being taken apart and recycled instead of repaired. In this case, it sounds like the body damage was so bad that cutting it up made more sense than restoring it.

Term

deck lid

The deck lid is the rear door/panel that opens to access the trunk area. When people cut and reshape the roof, they have to plan around how the roof and rear panels line up.

Term

natural roof

In this context, “natural roof” means they’re trying to keep the roof looking like it belongs there, just reshaped. They’re planning the cuts so the roof still has a natural, factory-like curve even after the modification.

Term

windshield

The windshield is the front glass you look through while driving. If you change the roof shape, the windshield position usually changes too, which can make the car look lower and more aggressive.

Term

headlights

Headlights are the lights at the front of the car. When you’re reshaping the front end and hood lines, people pay attention to how the headlights sit so the whole front looks right.

Term

paint work will shrink

Paint can “settle” as it cures, not instantly become perfectly stable. That’s why body shops need to let materials cure fully so the final surface doesn’t end up with visible defects.

Term

welding scars

After welding two metal pieces together, you can sometimes see leftover marks on the surface. Those “welding scars” usually need extra shaping and smoothing so the paint looks clean.

Term

filler

“Filler” is a putty used to smooth out dents and rough spots on a car body. If it shrinks after it’s applied and you paint immediately, you can end up with lines or grooves showing through.

Term

dieback or shrink

“Dieback or shrink” means the putty can pull back slightly after it’s been applied. If you paint too early, that movement can show up as a line or groove in the final finish.

Term

chopped

“Chopped” is a custom body modification where part of the car’s body—often the roof—is cut and re-welded to make the car sit lower and look more aggressive.

Term

truck versions

They’re talking about VW builds that are turned into pickup-style trucks. Instead of a normal rear, the body is modified to make a bed.

Term

extended front ends

This means the front of the car is modified to look longer than stock. People do it to create a unique custom look at shows.

Term

1776

“1776” refers to a bigger engine size for a classic VW Beetle. It’s a common upgrade that helps the car feel more powerful than the original smaller engine.

Term

six volt

“Six volt” is the older electrical system voltage used on some classic cars. It can make starting harder if the battery or wiring isn’t perfect.

Term

stock 1200

They’re saying the car currently has the original smaller 1.2-liter engine. They’re planning to replace it with a bigger 1776 engine.

Term

pillars

“Pillars” are the vertical metal posts around the windows. They help hold the car together and they also affect how the doors and windows line up.

Term

doors

“Doors” are the car’s hinged panels. If the body opening changes (like from roof/pillar changes), the door may not fit or close correctly without re-adjusting it.

Concept

fitment

“Fitment” means how well the parts line up and fit together. If you change one part of the body, other parts like doors and windows may need re-fitting so everything works smoothly.

Term

window is going to roll up all the way

They’re worried the window glass won’t go fully up. If the window frame is angled differently, the window mechanism can bind or stop early.

Term

quack bushing

This is a small plastic bushing inside the VW shifter mechanism. When it breaks down, the shifter can feel loose and you can get rough or inaccurate shifting.

Term

nylon bushing

This is the original plastic bushing used in the shifter. Over time it can wear out and crumble, making the shifter feel loose and causing shifting problems.

Term

misgears

“Misgears” means you end up in the wrong gear because the shifter isn’t locating correctly. Worn parts can make it easier to shift into the wrong position.

Term

urethane

Urethane is a tougher, more flexible plastic used for replacement bushings. The idea is that it holds up better than the old nylon and keeps the shifter feeling right.

Term

self healing properties

This means the material can recover from small scratches on its surface. If you damage it deeply enough to cut it, it won’t be able to fix itself.

Term

delrin

Delrin is a tough plastic used in some car parts. The host says that when it’s used in certain shifter-related pieces, it can make the shifter shake.

Term

metal ring

This is a small metal retainer that keeps the nylon piece clamped. The host says it’s a bad design because it can make the part fit poorly and lead to problems.

Term

split nylon piece

This is a small nylon part that’s split so it can clamp onto a shaft. Once it’s in place, it helps hold things steady and reduces shaking.

LIVE

Welcome to DubLife Diaries, the podcast where passion meets the open road.

I'm Joe Person, your host and also a lifelong diver.

Buckle up because this ride is just beginning.

This podcast is sponsored by Volkswagen Magazine.

Good times, great cars, awesome Volkswagen-X.

Visit volksmania.com to learn more about this class-leading VW magazine.

Welcome back to DubLife Diaries.

Today's guest is either a misunderstood genius,

or he's a complete lunatic with a welder and an unlimited access to junk piles.

For over 20 years, he's been one of the loudest, funniest,

one of the most unapologetically chaotic personalities in the air-cooled Volkswagen world.

This man has built an empire out of scrap metal, bad decisions,

rusted refrigerators, and pure determination.

He's chopped apart cars most people are too scared to even touch.

He's engineered bizarre VW inventions with names that sound fake, but somehow actually work.

He has survived internet drama, club politics, enough fabrication disasters

to probably violate several state laws, and somehow through all of it became one of the most recognizable personalities across the VW scene.

He's got a 1956 chop-top oval beetle that is legendary.

His YouTube channel, Duckman Cycles and VW Garage, has helped inspire tens of thousands of builders to stop making excuses and just start creating.

Man, I checked it out. This dude is sitting at about 92,000 subscribers.

You've heard that right, 92,000 subscribers.

After getting pushed out of his former club during one of the biggest controversies the Gulf Coast VW scene has seen in years,

this dude came back swinging and launched one of the fastest growing VW clubs around Oil, Slicker, Society International.

They've reached about 150 club members in just under 200 days.

We'll talk about that. Built on chaos, built on inclusion, built on orange, crushing energy.

Ladies and gentlemen, hide your scrap metal, lock your Volkswagen's up.

The Duckman has entered the building.

Glenn Obert, welcome to Dove Life Diaries.

Hey, thank you so much, Joe. I really appreciate being here. That was quite an intro. Wow.

You didn't have to lie so much.

No, man, you're quite the interesting dude.

This is going to be an awesome one, man.

Thank you so much for taking the time being willing to jump on this podcast with us.

I say us because this is what I do it for. for the Volkswagen community.

Before we get going, let me give a shout out to a few of my sponsors.

First up on the list, Volkswagen Magazine. You guys see them on my shirt.

You know how I feel.

Flys VW Magazine on the face of the planet.

Give these guys a shout. Give them a check out.

Volksmania.com.

You can use the discount code, dublife10, when you check out,

you'll get 10% off of your subscription.

It only works in the US, though, so US subscribers only.

Also, shout out to Salty Dub from the beach to the bay.

Salty Dub is tearing up the West Coast.

VW is seen with epic events and swag.

One piece of swag that I'll mention right now.

You can get them on the website, Salty Dub.com.

This is our vent clip to hold your vent window open on your classic ride.

All right.

We all know you get going first gear, second gear.

As soon as you get out of second gear, ship to the third,

the window wants to come back on you and blow closed.

All right, we came up with something.

Me and my buddy, Alan, that allows you to not have to experience that.

You clip it around, bring it around the clip, clip this.

It's easy. I'll put instructions in there for you.

Check us out, Salty Dub.com.

Hey, same discount code works, dublife10,

Dub, L-I-F-E, the number 10

Last shout out, Vera, upholstery of St. Pete, Alan, Guevara and the team.

These guys do epic interiors for both the marine industry.

And now their new automotive line as well.

These guys are booked out all the way through.

I don't know. Next summer. No kidding.

I mean, booked out.

Why? Because they do some of the most epic interiors I've ever seen.

Award winning, bug jam winning, all the rest of that.

They've even recently won awards for the state and locally in Tampa Bay here

for being the top upholstery shop.

So check those guys out, Veraupholstery.com.

My friend, Glenn, it's back to you.

No more shout outs.

All right. Next shout out's mine.

Next shout out. All right.

So let's go ahead, man.

Let's roll the sleeves up.

Let's get going for those who don't know you or have never heard of you.

Tell us, who is Glenn Obert?

Who is question is one of those ones that people always get wrong

because they never really describe who they are.

They just tell their name.

But who I am is I'm a mischievous character.

I'm somebody that always gets in this stuff.

And I'm the guy that likes to take the road less traveled.

I'd like to get into trouble, not so much trouble, but that mischief.

Mischief is the zest of life, of course, and that's what keeps you going.

And somehow I always manage to get into things and I always come out smelling like roses.

And we're going to talk about some of that.

I mean, it's it's a lot about drive decisions and a plan.

And when you have those things and you put the right tools in place,

you can get to where you need to be.

And that's who I am.

Otherwise, more recently,

well, you may have known me as the Duckman Cycles VW Garage.

And you may also know me for some of my other YouTube channels,

but you might also know me from having Skeeter the Duck in the past,

the pet duck that I used to carry around everywhere to live to be almost 18 years old.

I love to be deaf.

And if you don't know me from one of those two things,

and more recently, you might know me as the director of the Oil Slickers Society.

You know, it's on this side.

So there's a lot of things that I get into.

And if I come up with an idea, I'm the guy that makes it happen.

OK, awesome.

The guy that makes it happen.

Again, thank you for I make it happen.

Thank you for your energy.

Let's get into what you do.

All right.

What's one of the weirdest things you've ever pulled out of a junk pile and thought,

you know what, I'm going to make this work for a Volkswagen.

Well, aside from the washers and dryers that people are seeing me build stuff out of,

I'm not going to buy a body part if I have something in the yard, I could just cut up.

But the weirdest thing was probably the top half of an ATV

that I welded onto the top of a Volkswagen pan.

Have you seen that one, the ATVW?

No, but I'm going to share it.

You can ride it like a four wheeler, has a hand clutch,

has a hand throttle and a stick shift on the right side.

OK.

Yeah, it's a really interesting piece.

I took it to the local motorcycle dealership down the street I've been friends with.

I towed it over there and they saw me coming down the road with it and like,

what is he up to now?

And then I drove around the back and it's wider than a beetle

because it has super wide slicks on it.

And they was just like everybody was dumbfounded

because I got the top of the chassis from them.

And they're like, now we know what you're up to.

That's actually I'm going to share that.

I can't wait to.

Where the name.

Thank you.

Where duck man come from?

At what point did people actually start calling you the duck man?

Well, back in the 90s, I had a parrot named Duck Burger.

And you know, most people usually named their AOL handle or something

back in the day after their pet.

And I did exactly that.

It was duckburgeratowell.com, which is no longer an email address.

Don't spam me.

But I became known as Ducky shortly after that.

And then I ended up with Skeeter the duck.

So people just started calling me the duck man and it just stuck.

And I ended up moving it over to YouTube.

I know she was a duck.

Oh, you said you had a duck back then.

I thought sorry, I thought you said you had a skeeter.

I'm sorry. Duck burger was a parrot.

Skeeter was the duck.

Yes. So the parrot.

Tell me what kind of parrot it was.

Um, it was actually a proper parakeet, a Quaker.

OK, Quaker.

So the green Quaker, we see him on the power lines all over Florida.

Yeah, you do over there at Tampa, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've seen a couple up here recently, too.

I haven't seen them before.

But yeah, more recently, they're up here now, too.

I had a buddy that had a Quaker when I was growing up.

It was it was trained.

It was really cool. It was a really cool bird.

It could step up, it could talk, it could do all kinds of stuff.

I was into birds, too.

African graze, cockatoos, cockatiels, even.

I had a cockatiel.

I had a pedestal sink in my house when I was growing up.

And at the bottom of the pedestal sink was this was this little kind of a nesting box.

I mean, shit, now that I'm so well, this bird used to get out of his cage,

which I let him have free range, right?

He'd walk down his little ladder.

This was the cockatiel and he would go into that little area.

And I sometimes I'd lose them and be like, oh, my gosh, where is he?

You know, I don't know where he and finally I found him.

He'd lay she would lay eggs in there.

Oh, wow. Yeah, man.

It was actually nuts.

They find their little spot and that's what they do.

That's exactly right.

That's exactly right. Cool bird, though.

But I love I've always loved birds.

So when I hear duck man and I hear about your your pass with birds,

I think it's cool conversation.

I do enjoy my birds, especially my chickens nowadays.

As I told you, I needed to get them set up this morning

before I could start the interview, because otherwise they'd be in the window

right here banging on the glass, squawking.

And I do have roosters, too, and they will just scream their heads off

if they haven't been fed.

I hear them interrupting your videos all the time.

They do.

They do. And usually they're quite quiet until I speak.

When they hear my voice, then they got to overpower me.

They're they're competing.

I know it's time.

That's funny.

So you have been building, I guess, weird stuff.

You've been documenting chaos online for time over 20 years.

The YouTube thing, like, did you ever imagine that YouTube would become

what it's become now when you started, you know, 20 years ago?

No, honestly, I didn't.

Back when I started, I mean, 10,000 subscribers was a lot.

And I remember when I got my first thousand, people were impressed by that.

And then I had my first video, which had 40,000 views on it.

And that was just an amazing, staggering number for the day, you know,

20 years ago, back before YouTube was even owned by Google.

It was its own thing.

And I didn't expect it to grow into what it is.

And it's changed so much, too.

Now everybody has such polished productions.

It's no longer about the little individual creators so much anymore.

Everybody puts these huge budgets into it with a film editing crew

and cameras and lights and a million dollar budget projects.

And I just can't compete with that.

And I do the best that I can with what I got.

And I think I do pretty good for what I got.

I think you do pretty good, man.

91 and a half thousand subscribers.

I mean, that's.

And that's just the one channel I've got several more.

And as few people don't even know about, that's me.

I've been up to a lot of things over the years.

Super impressive still, though.

Was there a moment that you realized, you know, back in the beginning, like,

oh, no, like people are actually watching this.

Like you got on.

I never had a an oh, no moment.

I had a oh, really?

Moment. What can I do with this?

Now that people are listening to me, you know, I have the power to influence

and then to discuss things with people and to share ideas.

So I was never frightened.

I've always been somebody that's been a one in the spotlight.

And my teachers used to say to school, why do you draw attention to yourself?

Well, clearly it's worked for me.

You'll never be anything.

Yeah, sure.

I think I did pretty well for myself to be able to retire at 39 years old doing this,

you know, not have to worry about anything else by calling attention to myself.

So, yeah, like I said, it wasn't so much an oh, no, it was more of an oh, really?

So the air cooled community Volkswagen community, I guess, as a whole.

I mean, I kind of feel like we're a little bit different, right?

Do you feel like VW people seem wired differently than normal car people?

I'm sure you've had, you know, your opportunity to see, you know,

a wide array of different car cultures.

Yeah, very much so.

I mean, just for the fact that these cars look so different,

there's really nothing else that's like it.

And they were produced for such a long period of time, relatively unchanged,

that it's such an identifiable icon of a character.

I'm not even calling it a car.

It's a character.

These cars have personality.

And as a result, their owners are also just as eccentric as these vehicles are.

And whether it comes to opening up a manual and looking at how these things work,

because these Ford and Chevy guys get on all the time, you're doing that wrong.

I'm like, no, this is a Volkswagen.

You don't have to tighten those heads to 100 foot pounds.

You know, stuff like that.

It's just these cars are very, very different.

You don't work in the same way.

And as a result, the entire culture that goes along with it is just different.

We're much more free thinking, I think.

We're much more sharing, adventurous.

We have more of a bond with each other.

And I think we're a big family.

We're just a huge community.

Yeah, speaking of community, is the community getting weirder?

Or is it getting softer these days?

What's your opinion there?

Well, I guess it depends on who you who you asked that.

Me, I see I see a lot of people bring cars to me.

The ones that I make the repair videos on that they're not interested in working

on these cars, they don't want to learn how.

And they expect that they could just turn the key in it and drive it for 10 years

like you can any new car off of any one of the dealer lots.

And these cars do need a little more tuning.

So I'd say it's probably getting a little softer.

But there are a lot of young folks that are coming into our club

that are joining our tech sessions that want to learn how these things work.

And Aiden was one of our big guys.

He just turned 18 years old and he tore his engine out of his beetle

for the first time at the tech session and replaced a whole bunch of seals

with our guidance, but he did majority of the work himself.

And was this a result of his car?

Yeah, he was leaking everywhere.

I mean, he was making just puddles.

His mom was so mad at him.

Yeah, but I saw him.

He got that all straightened out.

He was the MVP of that weekend.

He worked on the biggest project and the majority of it himself.

He was amazing.

And after that was done, then he was helping other people with new knowledge.

And he really absorbed, he soaked it up.

So is it getting weirder or softer?

I'd say it's probably getting a little softer because just it's broadening.

There's more demand for these cars than it used to be.

And it's just the general public is getting into the mouth.

So I'd say, yeah, a little softer.

OK, I mean, I can take that.

I saw him and I saw his success and I saw him, you know, credit a few of the folks up there

for that tech sessions.

Anyway, what he learned there, he applied and now he's not leaking,

which was really cool.

So yeah, I saw that.

And not a drop.

I mean, when does that happen?

Every Volkswagen is a little spot here and there, at least not a drop.

Right. We not a drop.

We say we're just marking our territory.

Right. I mean, that's one of the reasons for their name.

I mean, oil slickers.

I it was just we had to choose that.

We make spots. We do.

And the guy I just helped yesterday, actually, he was wearing an oil slicker shirt.

He had a sticker on his car and his car is over here right now.

The oil cooler burst on it.

So he just had a puddle on the ground underneath it where it was idling for a

minute because he couldn't even get it started.

I saw that problem. It's just low on gas and

just a puddle was amazing.

And some lady came up and looked at the stain, looked at his shirt and went,

oh,

which was totally fitting opportunity.

And I wish I had cameras on us at that moment.

It would have just been a yeah, it was one of those ones you had to have been there.

How much of your personality online is the real Glenn versus maybe this

amplified duck man chaos?

Well, you know, I get asked a lot, actually, and the people that do get to meet me

in person, I think I'm going to be crazy, climb up the walls kind of guy.

They also think I'm a lot shorter than what I am.

I'm six foot three, not five foot five.

Like some people always think I'm little for some reason,

but I'm pretty much the same person.

But on videos, I think I take more chances.

I take a lot more chances.

I make a lot more mistakes, but when the mistakes are really big or they look

just absolutely dangerous, I don't want to have other people do or copy what I'm

doing. So that's where editing comes into play.

Why? So I tone it back a little bit.

Or I say, don't do this.

And then I show.

But whenever I turn the camera off, there's always when the good stuff happens.

So I try to leave it on always and do the best that I can.

But yeah, otherwise real life doesn't allow you so many do overs.

So you do the best you can with what you got again.

And that's what I do here.

But yeah, am I pretty much the same person?

Yeah, for the most part, I'm just a little noisier on camera and I'm bolder

and I speak like this. I don't do that in person.

OK. What was your life like before Volkswagen's maybe completely consumed you?

Well, that's a hard question because Volkswagen's have always been a part of my life.

And since I was just a wee little guy, my first picture that I have of myself

sitting on my father's lap in his beetle looking over the steering wheel.

He wasn't driving it, by the way.

And it had the stencil on the door of his auto body shop that he had at the time.

And they've always been in my life, even after my parents got divorced,

my mom's boyfriend had a Volkswagen and then the stepfather had a Volkswagen.

So I mean, they were always there. Yeah, they were just always there.

So I said, Mom, I think you have a type.

Not so much me growing up with the Volkswagen.

I said, you have the type.

Anyway, she thought that was kind of funny.

But yeah, the Volkswagen's have always been in my life.

But when Volkswagen's are absent from my life, it was always computers,

technology, motorcycles and well, women.

Got a date. Yeah.

Fair enough.

What was your first Volkswagen outside of your family,

like the first one you actually purchased and or acquired?

First month was mine.

I was 18 years old.

It was a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle.

It was a gray kind of a silver gray.

It was probably just really oxidized silver.

And it ran.

It was a single port 1500 floors were gone.

Heater channels were mostly gone.

And dad, being a seasoned auto body guy, was going to help me with a lot of the

metal work and he got the floors pretty much together.

And in hindsight, I probably should have ran with it from that point.

I probably could have started driving it, but he really wanted to paint it up.

But the both of us kind of got a little fatigued on the project

and it ended up sitting for a little while and then career choices came

and things happened and couldn't necessarily get back to it.

Until finally I got settled.

I got a house and I had a job in one location rather than bouncing all over the country.

But yeah, the first one was a 69 Beetle.

And when I sold it, I put all the original parts back on it.

And anything that I bought that was new or unused went on to the oval

that I have today 30 years later.

Wow. Yeah, I kept all those parts because, you know, the prices of these things

is skyrocket like those super wide fiberglass fenders on there.

Do you see what those costs nowadays?

I do. It's like 2,500 bucks for the set.

And I think then I spent $500 on a set.

I stole them.

There was something I was just glad I didn't didn't fling them or send them off

with the car, especially since the guy was just going to turn it into a manx anyway.

So he was scrapping the body.

So I was like, couldn't do that.

But yeah, first one was a 69 and some of that DNA still lives on in the 56.

Yeah. So let's talk about Beatles for just a second.

Let's touch on them.

Why do you think that Beatles actually

hook people so hard emotionally?

Well, the American public is very

car centric.

People are drawn to automobiles here, probably not so much in other countries.

But right here, we love our cars.

And people's cars usually reflect their personalities.

We get back to that whole eccentric and Volkswagen's, you know, people being weird

and different and Volkswagen's are.

So for somebody to be weird and attracted to something that's so unique and so special,

it becomes a very emotional attachment.

You love it.

It becomes a possession, not just a possession, but part of your character,

your persona and to let it goes extremely hard for some people.

And I know I've acquired some cars over the years that belong to people that they were

emotionally attached to.

And one such girl I had bought one from, she and her father were working on to

that couldn't finish it because he passed away.

And to her, it was just a huge deal to get that car back up on the road.

She wanted to see it running and driving just so she could sit in it.

She was just, yeah, it's just it was part of her life and part of her her person.

And yeah, like I said, it's very emotional thing.

Yeah, part of her identity.

It was. And I mean, these cars very much are.

And I feel so weird when I get in the Nissan or something, I have a Nissan.

And honestly, I haven't driven it in a year because I'd rather be in the Volkswagen.

And I have more Volkswagen's.

And honestly, when the Nissan breaks, which is broken right now,

the Volkswagen is the parts getter.

You never think of it that way.

Usually it's the bottom cars.

No, no, no, the Volkswagen is the parts getter.

The Volkswagen is more reliable.

But yeah, I think that's why we hook up with these things emotionally.

They become very much a part of our lives and our identities.

And it becomes a member of the family.

Yeah, it's not just a car.

Well, well said. Super, super cool.

And I agree with you.

I've had several and I feel the same way.

Some of them I've even let go and I still miss them.

Yeah, to this day.

So let's touch on fabrication for a second.

When did you know your dad had a body shop

and it sounds like you kind of always been kind of good at that side of it.

But I guess in your more or less late teens or your adult life,

when did fabrication really start to become kind of second nature for you?

Well, it did all the way back even when I was just a kid.

Despite having come from a family with money, nothing much was handed to me.

The family was just, I don't know, maybe they gave me a school of hard knocks

and they wanted me to be somebody of my own, be my own person.

So I was never given very much.

So if I wanted something, I either had to acquire money to buy it

or I had to work to acquire the knowledge and skills to build it.

And I found the building was more interesting

because I could make something that you can't buy, something better or something

otherwise. And I always took that step outside that box or outside those boundaries.

And if I did buy something, maybe I'll buy that cheaper model

because I can make it better than the better model.

So there's always some things that I did with that.

So it always came second nature to me.

It's just I always liked tinkering.

I always liked playing with things.

And when I started finding that dad had a toolbox with stuff I needed to.

And I still have all of his vintage tools today.

So many people told me, throw all that stuff away after Dad passed.

I'm like, do you know how much those tools are worth?

And the quality of these things?

I said, my craftsman tools, they might have a lifetime warranty on it.

But every time it breaks, I got to replace it.

His tools are older than I am and they don't break.

They're fantastic pieces.

I said, I'm not letting that stuff go.

In fact, I can't wait to have a shop space

so I could put all that stuff in there and actually utilize it

without it being buried in a long car garage.

But yeah, it always came second nature.

And I just I like tinkering.

I just really like tinkering.

I've got a son that likes tinkering.

And I'd like to say maybe hopefully one day

he'll have the same conversation with somebody.

And he'll say that it's always been second nature for him.

This was the guy that was taking apart stuff, 56 years old.

You know, Dad, can I borrow your screwdriver or your tools?

Or how do I get this apart?

He was always coming to me trying to get stuff taken apart.

And then, you know, he'd always come back to me and be like,

well, kind of got myself into this.

You know, what do I do now?

I'm like, look, I don't have the mechanical mind like you do,

my friend.

So I don't know.

But figure it out.

And he would.

And he still does.

He's 17 now and he figures shit out.

It's so cool to see.

So that's awesome and very relatable.

Yeah, I bet that's why I brought it up for sure.

Yeah, when I was talking to my mom on Mother's Day,

she was actually discussing with me about how she used to go in my closet as a kid

and she'd find something I had been missing for months disassembled.

And all the good stuff that was taken out of it was used for something else

because I built something else out of it.

So I was always in trouble for that kind of stuff, too.

But yeah.

So so was my my my son for sure.

Kind of cool how how that works.

He actually is also the one that is interested in helping with,

you know, wrenching on Volkswagen's when we get that opportunity to do some work.

Awesome.

Stayed up late late nights before and, you know, gets gets right down

and gets on his back and gets underneath them and just starts working.

So yeah, man, cool kid.

Well, it's touch on the Duckman cycles and VW garage.

I'm interested just to hear how did this concept maybe even, you know,

the name, how did it all start?

Well, I have several YouTube channels.

The first one started out just a personal blog kind of thing.

It's just doing a little bit of this and that around Pensacola.

And occasionally I work on my motorcycle.

Occasionally I'd work on this and that.

And this was at a time where I had a small absence of Volkswagen.

There's about a two or three year period.

I didn't have one at all.

And at the time I had lots of motorcycles.

And I started taking apart my motorcycles, doing an upgrade on this and break swap,

you know, the new chain and sprockets.

And I started making videos of that.

And I noticed those videos were getting way more views.

So we started up a new channel called Duckman cycles.

And on the Duckman cycles thing, all of a sudden I got a new Volkswagen.

So I started doing some Volkswagen videos.

And I noticed those got better views than the motorcycle stuff.

And being back in the Volkswagen world, which was my heart and passion anyway,

I started doing a lot more of that stuff.

And you see it just it's taken off over the years.

Those videos of motorcycle content, I still do some motorcycle stuff once in a while.

Like the personal blog stuff to like visiting tech sessions, car shows,

anything I might be doing around the house, if I'm doing some plumbing work

or something, I might show that that kind of stuff doesn't come up too often anymore.

Most things around here work pretty good.

But yeah, that's pretty much how it started.

And that's where it came to be.

And you know, almost 92,000 subscribers later on the biggest channel,

it's doing pretty good cumulatively across all my channels, like 130, 140,000.

I'm doing doing OK.

Yeah, I'd say so.

Yeah, doing all right.

You had mentioned earlier that, you know, maybe

people Chevy and Ford guys would would would kind of beat you up.

But but talk back to the early YouTube days,

because that's I mean, even before, you know, before we even really knew

YouTube was going to become something.

Yeah. Where people brutal to you or were they more supportive to you in your vision?

In the earlier days, people were very, very supportive.

The community was small, but it was much smaller.

We were a bunch of like Volkswagen people were eccentric.

People that wanted to talk about our lives.

And that was considered almost kind of weird at the time,

because it wasn't so mainstream, not everybody was doing it, especially on video.

Right. I mean, the community, right? Video.

I remember back to the 90s, you know, mid 90s, going to Bugjam and everything.

You know, the community was still the community.

My first beetle was 17 years old, fresh out of high school.

You know, I knew the community was something back then.

But yeah, no, I, you know, the community for sure.

But on film is kind of where this this really kind of thing ties in.

Yeah, things are different.

People at previous to that were doing typed out blogs.

You know, they actually typed out message, take a picture of something

and maybe once in a while it appeared in a selfie and they weren't even called selfies yet.

But that was earlier in days.

And then, of course, video V logging, vlogging came about and YouTube started its thing.

And, you know, back in the early days, the 10,000 subscribers was considered a lot.

And even to have a one video with a few hundred views was considered good.

You know, it was kind of an amazing thing.

But back in the day, people were very supportive.

We had this thing called subs for subs.

I don't know if you remember that if you were around for the day.

But if you subscribe to me, I subscribe to you.

We were very supportive of each other's community and commented on each other's

videos and tried to boost ourselves, propel ourselves.

Even if it was manipulated, we tried to give ourselves some better numbers.

And effectively, it was good.

I mean, that's how I got my first thousand subscribers.

I think in like 60 days or so.

And that was kind of amazing for back in the day.

I mean, that sounds very VW community ish as well.

Right. You just.

It was. It was.

Despite there being no videos for Volkswagen's on my channel yet at that time,

there was a very Volkswagen ish.

It had the same kind of feel.

Yeah. So for you, what was harder?

The fabrication side, learning fabrication or actually learning how to film yourself

without, you know, completely looking totally crazy.

I never worried about looking crazy.

I don't have that problem.

Get drawing attention to myself.

This is what I'm good at.

So I never worried about looking and saying that's probably where most of my

ridicule ridicule comes from.

If people don't understand my idea, they will criticize my unfinished product.

And you can't criticize somebody's unfinished project without actually

knowing what the direction is.

And I can't give you my my visual.

Maybe I can draw it out or something.

But even then, you know, it's only as good as my artistic ability.

But I might look like I'm crazy, probably because not just because I'm

loud and I bounce around, but because you just don't know what I'm after.

You don't know where I'm going with it.

And I think that's probably direction.

But I never worried about looking nuts because I always followed my projects

through nothing's ever done.

I like to say that nothing's ever finished.

And I get that question probably once a week.

Do you ever finish anything?

No, no, I don't.

Because if it's done, I'm just going to take something else on it

and apart anyway, and we're going to move on and make it bigger, better somehow.

Something's going to change.

So yeah, I never worried about looking crazy.

Never.

Modern creators, you know, the newer YouTube folks,

do they have it easier or do they have it harder than the original kind of

OG YouTube builders?

Well, as far as the stigma is concerned of making the videos, they don't look

as weird anymore doing doing this stuff.

So it's probably a little easier for them to get started, but it's harder

to get established.

I'd say it's much, much harder to get established.

Some people do have that magic and YouTube gods will just smile down upon them.

And I don't know for what reason, but they'll end up with 100,000 subscribers

in the first month and their videos are exactly the same as mine.

The only difference is it's a different face.

Maybe they're prettier.

Maybe they're not.

They have maybe they something's different.

I don't know. I don't get it.

Maybe it's all any algorithm.

Maybe the computer chooses something.

Maybe just it does what it does.

But it's hard to get noticed in a sea of just hundreds of millions of different

folks now when it used to be tens of thousands, right?

To get noticed.

So you really have to do something different.

You really have to be a bright, obnoxious, loud and have you got to have a hook.

Something has to be unique that draws people into you.

What's going to be different about you that stands out?

And I think for me, it's just this personality and the chickens and the ducks

and that kind of stuff. It's it's fun.

And well, I think it's a little harder.

Definitely unique.

They're not like any other video, any other people that you watch.

You're definitely a one of a kind type guy.

I think it's one of the reasons why I have the success.

And it also helps to have that hook.

And then the hook in the past has been the ducks and the chickens.

And it helps sometimes to have a pretty lady help you.

And I'm not going to say that some kind of sexist remark or something.

I protect those those ladies that come on when people say the trashy comments to them.

It's we might act trashy on camera, but we're not trashy people.

It's a show.

You know, right on.

Speaking of the show, was there ever a time in over the last 20 some odd

years that you may be considered stopping or quitting?

I have quit several times.

In fact, when I had my last girlfriend around 10 years ago living here,

I had no opportunity to make videos again.

I don't sound sexist here, but when you live with somebody that breaks things

constantly, you always find yourself repairing the plumbing, fixing the electrical,

this appliance is busted, this needs doing.

I was always around the house doing something that took my time.

And I had to step away from YouTube for about two and a half years or so.

I still got up the occasional video and but stepping back was just something I had

to do. Life just forced it.

And more recently, after the drama from last year, I took a personal hit.

It took my motivation away from me for a bit.

And I'm not going to say that these other people that did that to me won,

but I'm going to say they may have actually won a battle, but they didn't win the war.

So despite having beaten me down a little bit, you did.

You did take something away from me.

But I'm still making my videos and I'm trying to push back into it now.

I have a backlog of a lot of things to record or that just have to sit down at

this desk and edit some of them to get them online.

But we'll get to that point sometime soon.

But yeah, I have stepped away and like I said, this past year, I've kind of

stepped away. I'm not releasing things on schedule anymore.

I was pretty good for about two videos a week, sometimes three.

And now you're lucky to get one a month, maybe one every two months.

How are the views because of that cadence change?

They weakened.

They're they.

Okay.

Yeah, they've weakened.

They've softened.

And the other thing is weird too, is when I don't put up videos, I get more subscribers.

When I put up a video, subscribers go backwards.

So I don't understand that weird.

Something in the algorithm is doing something.

It's really weird.

So I'll go up, you know, every couple of days it goes up, I don't know, five,

10 subscribers.

And then if I put out a video to go negative five, 10.

But if I don't put up a video for months of plus 100 plus 200 subscribers,

what is going on?

I don't understand how that works.

Yeah.

Something you're probably not going to be able to explain with, with, with the

yeah, we'll never figure that one out.

Exactly.

I still try to figure out for my podcast, you know, for views and reach and trying

to find the target audience, which is the VW community.

But I have seen, you know, those ebbs and flows as well.

And sometimes you're all, sometimes your videos, even your, your smaller, you

know, kind of reels, if you will, uh, end up, you know, getting crazy traction,

almost end up going viral and you get tens of thousands of views.

And then other times the ones that you know for sure are going to be awesome and

have the best knowledge and information and the coolest attraction

hook, they get a hundred views.

And you're like, what the fuck?

Yeah.

You can't make no sense.

I don't understand how any of that works.

Like I said, I'll put in some videos and some of the videos I know are awful, but

I put up a thumbnail with a girl in it.

Boom.

10,000 views, like overnight.

Yeah.

It's a stupid video.

Isn't that crazy?

Yeah, it makes no sense to me.

One thing I haven't done that I just won't do because this is a passion project

for me, this podcast is pay.

I'm not going to pay for subscribers or pay for like marketing yet.

I just don't see, you know, maybe one day down the road, if I get a sponsor that

wants to, you know, I just, I don't see it as something being a passion project.

That I'm going to, you know, I guess essentially spend money on.

I spend my time on it because I enjoy it.

I enjoy talking to people.

I love the Volkswagen community.

I enjoy that side of it.

It's, you know, a lot of people come into my email and say, Hey man, with all of

this stuff that you got going on for yourself, you could really turn this into

a thriving, you know, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, yeah, not interested, man, not interested.

And a lot of I get that too.

A lot of people not.

And they, they, they want to kind of ride the coattails if you will, but no,

I'm not interested.

Yeah, I get that very much too.

All of my, my subscribers and my views have all happened organically.

I haven't bought them, well, except for the sub for some things in the very

beginning.

I mean, that was part of our community.

We were helping each other.

But after that, it has, it's been very much an organic growth.

I haven't advertised.

I haven't told people I'm going to pay you to do this.

I haven't needed it.

And I have received offers over the years for this and of that.

And that's great because that is organic.

It was brought to me.

I didn't go to get it.

It came to me.

And this is one of the reasons why things have grown.

And the same with oil slicker society.

I mean, I haven't paid for that.

I haven't gone out to solicit, you know, new members for our club.

It just happens.

Yeah.

Apparently just you do the right things.

People notice you and it happens.

That's how I found you.

I found you from a couple posts.

And I remember, you know, several months ago, I, I commented on one of your posts.

I'm like, Hey, we got to get some of you oil slickers on, on the podcast.

And I think that was, I appreciate that.

The first comment that you had sent back, you know, that we had started that

conversation, but yeah, no, I, I, I love the organic side of it.

And I'm, I'm in, I'm in tune.

I'm, I'm right there.

I'm, I'm, I'll be the same way.

Um, now just, just.

You're famous for turning literal, quite literal garbage into usable VW parts.

Where does kind of that mentality come from?

Well, again, I wasn't given very much in the past.

So I had to work or build what I wanted.

Um, so my ability might even make me, um, self spoiled, perhaps, you know,

I take my abilities for granted.

So that's why I like doing what I do.

And I guess, I don't know, it's just, it's there.

It's, it's hard to explain when it's just something that's always been part of me.

So that's just, that's who I am.

My identity.

I, I'm a tinker.

I have these hands.

And as long as I have my hands and my skills set, I can, I can do anything.

And I mean, I say anything.

People say, well, you can't do that.

I said, I'll try.

And I try to encourage people all the time.

Like, well, I don't know how to weld.

I said, there was a time I said that too.

I still don't know how to weld.

I get it done.

I know how to run a grinder.

So you can make anything work.

But yeah, that's part of my mentality.

It's part of my person.

It's hard to explain your actual character and who you are as a person.

When it's just something that comes naturally.

What's one of the craziest like junkyard engineering type solutions

that you've really ever actually made work?

Um, the ATVW is one of them.

Okay.

Everybody told me you can't get a hand clutch to work on a Volkswagen.

Well, I did.

I used a, a brake booster actually to make a motorcycle clutch work with it.

So that was pretty clever.

And it was functional.

It still requires a good grip.

If you're going to be in traffic, it's, it's murder.

Absolute murder.

But it does work.

And you are able to shift.

And I put the shifter on the right side on purpose because you have to grab

the clutch to shift.

Everybody told me, put it on the other side of what reach across.

That doesn't make sense.

Let off the throttle shift and then grab.

So that worked out very, very well.

Steering, no steering box.

It actually works off the, uh, the steering shaft on the handlebars.

So that all worked out pretty good.

Otherwise, traditionally, the rear end is just an IRS speedle.

It's all standard in the back.

The shifter also comes out of the side of the, um, tunnel at a 45 degree angle.

Instead of coming out the top.

And when it came out, I then bent a bus shift rod to get it up tall enough.

So that way it worked out.

So the shift pattern is standard, traditional, everything works, even though

it looks like it shouldn't, people's can't wrap their brains around how that works.

But apparently what I had done, a lot of the, um, trike builders had actually

done similar things in the past.

So what I came up with wasn't a new idea.

This is something they've done.

Somebody's guys do it at a 90 degree angle and the shifter still works.

I thought that was fascinating too, but 45 and I got that going.

One of the other ones was the, uh, chop top beetle.

When I got that car, it, I don't know if you saw the older pictures of it.

It was just caving in on itself.

And when I unbolted the steering column, the nose went right up in the air.

The steering column was holding the front end down.

It was structural because it was so rusted.

Whoa.

Yeah.

It was that bad.

You could grab the door on the car and lift the entire body and twist the body in its position.

It was the strangest thing to see that.

It was just amazing.

It was so bad.

The A pillar above the, uh, the driver's side was rotted through.

And once I had opened the doors, the doors hit the ground and the body started to fold.

So I actually just cut through the middle of the roof just to stop it from, from, you know,

twisting up the body that much more.

I was trying to save as much of it as possible, but it was destined for the scrappy yard.

But just to bring that thing back from, from death, which I get a lot of trash for,

why drew in a good car?

It's like, it wasn't a good car.

It was never a good car.

I mean, it probably was before the hurricane got it.

It was under six feet of seawater, by the way, for several days.

And then the guy put it out in the yard and left it outside for 10 years in the rain with

all the salt water on it.

So it's just, that's why it's so bad.

It was just really, really bad.

But the other thing that worked out good on that was the hidden door hinges.

There's no hinges on the outside.

Beetle hinges are external.

I put hidden hinges in pockets inside and they opened frontwards.

I didn't do suicide because everybody does those.

So I put the suicide style hinges in the front.

And that was an engineering piece because everybody told me it's not going to work.

Oh, the door is going to open.

It's going to hit the fender.

Oh, the door is never going to clear.

There's a, they work brilliantly.

And when I took it over to Earl over a classic car creations, did my paint work,

even he looked at it.

He's like, you did a good job on that.

Like, thanks.

I've never done it before.

It took me two weeks to get the first side working and then one day to do the other side.

So you get that practice side out.

I got, I got the format figured out and then I made a one day video or record

as by eight hours in and just as it was getting dark, I had the hinges working.

So that worked out pretty good.

And I also have a CR 500 Honda two stroke motorcycle I've been working on.

I put that engine into an SV 650 frame, which was kind of cool.

But then I realized the frame's kind of big, heavy, bulky.

It was designed for, you know, a twin cylinder four stroke,

water cooled engine, just a much bigger, heavier chassis.

And I said, I want to build something smaller and lighter.

So I ended up getting a CR 250 dirt bike frame.

And put sport bike suspension on it.

So that thing is going to be pretty good.

Whenever I decide to finish that up, I've kind of looked that on park for a long time.

It's one of my oldest projects.

One of the ones I started on YouTube, really digging into things.

This goes back probably about 15 years ago.

So it's one of the oldest projects that I've been working on.

So someday I'll get around to that.

But yeah, it's a kickstarted and bring the ding,

you know, two stroke, one cylinder blows out, smoke out the back of it.

And when I was riding a lot with a bunch of other guys,

I was hoping to get out on the road with all the sport bikes and stuff,

showing them up with a little motorcycle that weighs, you know, 200 pounds.

I think is the weight. Nothing.

Go out in a little twisties, which there aren't very many of in Florida.

But show them up, which I do on the Ninja 250 too.

But I can't imagine what it'd be like with 50 horsepower instead of, you know, the 25.

So it would have been impressive.

Yeah, hold on. I've also got a little, a little doodle bug.

You know what doodle bug is?

A little Coleman doodle bug.

It's a kids bike. They're about this big.

That's it. They have this balloony tires on them.

So a 200.

So the Coleman, like the campsite little bikes.

Yeah, kind of. Usually kids go on another really small.

Coleman one you might be thinking of as the adult one.

This is the kids one. I mean, it's literally this big.

I don't think you see my hands on camera. It's this big.

So I put a Honda 200 CC engine into it.

And instead of the, I think, two horsepower that has now has like 12.

And because it's so short and I'm so tall, I sit off the back of it anyway.

So you just give it the light blip on the throttle really instantly.

And I think they max out with kid on it, 10 or 15 miles an hour governed.

If you take the governor off, you might get 25, but I hit almost 60 miles an hour on it.

And I was afraid to go any faster because the brakes are meant for a child.

It's too low speed, not a 300 pounder going 60 miles an hour.

So anyway, I ran out of road because it is only 200 CC.

It takes a lot more road to get up to speed.

But I mean, that is just intensely fast on a little bike smaller and lighter than I am.

So I can admit that that it's a lot of fun, though,

because it's so small and it's so easy to toss around.

I could ride it in my little front yard and not ever go in the street.

Pull the wheelies up the hill.

I mean, it'll do burnout. It's kind of so small and it's so much fun.

And if you fall, you're already so close to the ground that you just put your hand down.

You don't actually hurt yourself.

Going that fast, though. I mean, you're probably going at speed.

Yeah, that's a different story. I was fully geared up for that.

I mean, knee pads, shoulder pads. I was wearing armor helmet.

I was fully geared up gloves.

Yeah, I was I was geared because those tires that were on there

had been sitting out in the weather for a long time and they were very iffy.

So don't copy what the duck man does.

Safety first, kids. Safety first.

So let's talk about being resourceful because I think it's a it's a lost skill.

Do you agree?

Do you think being resourceful is actually becoming a lost skill?

Um, I'd say, yeah, especially with the advent of A.I.

Although I suppose A.I. could be a resource, but if you're using A.I.

And I just had a conversation with somebody about this just yesterday.

People are using A.I. for so much of everything anymore

that they're just not using their own their own creative minds

or using their own hearts to put stories out on Facebook.

It's just for example.

Now, I don't mind using an A.I. artwork

because if you want to create a banner or something, that takes time.

And there's a lot of work that goes into that.

But for one of the reasons why it looks a little better,

and I'm going to give you a hint, guys, is I actually draw the banner out first.

Then I give it to the A.I. and tell it what I want it to do.

So then I get an actual what you're looking for instead of something that's

so you get a lot better.

But yeah, people aren't so resourceful anymore.

They're not using the tools that they have.

Now, they're relying too much on technology to give them the answer.

And I think a lot of people, and this isn't just Volkswagen stuff,

people want to put their key in their car, start it and go.

And I think that's the only put the key in the car anymore.

Now it's just put the key in your pocket and go.

But yeah, the resources, it's just not there.

People just want things to work.

They replace things that break.

They don't look into this stuff anymore.

And you know, actually related to A.I. just came to mind.

It's not even in my notes here.

A friend of mine was setting the end play on his engine.

And you know, you put the three shims in there.

It can be any anything three or more.

You can't go less than three.

He said he figured out using math to come up with the shims.

And he says, I don't think that's right.

So he went to an A.I. and the A.I. confirmed he was right.

I said, OK, what's wrong?

He says, the engine doesn't turn.

I said, so it's locked tight when you tighten up your gland.

He says, yeah, I said, well, your shims are too tall.

He says, but I did the math on it and A.I. confirmed it.

I said, stop for a second.

I said, how many of these cranks have you set and play on zero?

This is first one. I said, good, OK.

I said, how many has chat GPT set the end play on?

He looked at me. He didn't know how to answer that.

I said, well, has chat GPT ever been in anybody's garage setting the end play?

Is no. I said, OK, here's what we're going to do.

I said, take the crank off, take your shims down.

I look at the shims, you get two of the thicker ones, one of the thin ones.

I don't remember what the specs were on it.

But I said, OK, take one of the thick ones out.

Let's put two thin ones, one thick one, bolt it all back together,

put it all together, measure the end play. It was perfect.

They said, how did you do that?

I said, it's intuitive.

I've been doing this over the years.

I didn't have to measure it.

And I knew the fact that you were locked up,

so let's go one thinner and see what happens.

It's that simple.

So resourcefulness, A.I. is not what you're looking for for an answer.

Most of the time, if you needed to communicate an idea

or just to bounce things off of somebody because a human is not available

or maybe you're too shy to talk to another person for being ridiculed,

maybe an A.I. is a good tool for that.

And I do sometimes use A.I. for that.

I've got this. What do you think of this?

Is this going to be something that's a valid idea?

Is this garbage?

You know, I have trouble with empathy sometimes.

I'm broken that way.

I don't have a personality for that.

My personality is machines and animals.

You know, empathy for me doesn't work the same way as other people.

So I've learned what I'm supposed to do and what I'm supposed to feel.

But I don't necessarily have that.

So I don't understand these things.

So I will talk to an A.I. sometimes about how to approach people.

So I don't say the wrong words.

It also doesn't help that I'm from New Jersey, so I'm one of those guys.

You know, so.

So an A.I. sometimes is how I use confrontation

because I'm not afraid of confrontation.

I'm not a front of talking in front of other people.

Sometimes I just need to know the right words to use.

So I don't say the wrong things that rub people the wrong way

because I do live in the South now and I'm not from where I'm from.

And being a different personality, not being afraid of words.

These things don't hurt me because I don't experience that.

So I don't have that feeling the way other people do.

So the empathy is not there.

So I do have some trouble with that.

Me as a person, but that's getting personal.

But nonetheless, there it is.

So yeah, resourcefulness.

A.I.s.

Use them sparingly.

It's a tool.

But like any other tool, you can't use it too much.

You can't go through the garage and use a hammer on everything.

You know what I mean?

I mean, you kind of could.

Results not going to be great.

That was a good quote.

I like that.

And it's true.

Can't use A.I.

for everything.

And I can even put it over to the realm of my professional career,

which my wife and I own a real estate company here in St.

Pete, but I've been a sales trainer for 15 years.

And inside of training, it's become very easy to say, here's what I'm looking for.

Go, right?

And then A.I. spits out this, you know, beautiful outline and makes it so easy,

I guess, right?

But here's what I noticed.

When you take a lot of that human element away, you're not as impactful.

Yep.

Period.

You're absolutely correct.

You're just not as impactful.

So absolutely correct.

It's good.

You might even get good reviews and you might even hear, you know, from some of

these, you know, tech managers that I work with, hey, man, that was a really good session.

But I feel that it's not as impactful as the stuff that I come up with based on

my experience, based on my suspicion, based on what I know these guys, you know,

based on my experience.

So, so yeah, I same analogy.

You can't just, you know, run through the garage and use a hammer on everything.

So yeah, man.

No, you can't.

You can't.

And as I've discovered with this A.I. too, is I can tell when people are using it.

I don't know if you can notice it.

I can tell.

And there's only so many A.I.s out there that do creative content.

Maybe a dozen really good ones that people are used every day.

And the trouble is, is they always use the same words.

They always use the same phrases.

They always use the same style punctuation.

And it's punctuation that people don't type.

It's not on your keyboard.

And they're using this punctuation.

So when you see that, that's A.I.

Good call.

It's A.I.

I can tell you're using A.I.

And if you can't speak about your event or the things that you're doing from your

own heart.

Right.

Then it's not yours anymore.

Now you have an A.I. doing it.

The A.I. is your reporter, your news reporter on the internet.

You said it's a tool.

It's so fake.

Yeah, it's so fake when they do that.

And I use my own creative content because you hear me, I'm running my mouth.

I do this constantly.

I can get on a keyboard and do the same thing.

I can start whacking on these keys right here and just give a long string of information.

Right.

And when I do that, I might send to an A.I. for some spell check and then it

likes to change to its punctuation, which kills me.

Oh, yeah.

It's like, ah, you're changing the style of my writing.

This is not me.

Let me do it my way.

So anyway, I'll do it for a spell check or something, or if I phrase something

incorrectly or if I'm going to hurt somebody's feelings, I make sure the A.I.

gets a look at this and tells me, you know, maybe you need to make an adjustment on

that. I will use it for that.

But creative content, I create my own content and includes the artwork.

I might use the A.I. to embellish it, to polish it up.

Right.

But I don't use it to create my artwork exclusively.

It's mostly my stuff.

And like I said, just rubbed and polished a little bit to make it look better.

And honestly, A.I. does a pretty good job of that sometimes because I can give it

the most stick figure drawings and it can make it you and me out of it, which is

just amazing.

Yeah.

But the reason why they're structured and look correctly in the cars are

facing the right ways because I drew them out.

Yeah.

And I can talk on the amazing because I'm definitely one of those guys that

will lean into technology on the technology side.

And in kind of the it's cool side and leaning into A.I.

I recently asked, you know, my favorite color is green.

And my wife and I have a 71 Carmen guia that we wanted to, you know, I

guess have a little bit of fun with.

I've done some of the rust.

I fixed a lot of the rust.

We're going to talk about rust here in a second, but I fixed a lot of the rust.

I don't like the trim.

The chrome or the aluminum piece of trim on the bottom of those carbon pieces.

Yeah, I like it when it's flat.

Well, last year, year and a half or so ago, my son ran into the car with the lawn

mower and.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

And backed up, you know, bashed up one of those pieces of trim and dented the car

back there.

So I ended up taking the trim off and there was this little hole that was

exposed and I was, you know, I'm going to rip all the fucking trim off this thing.

So I ripped all the trim off and I'm like, oh, dude, now I'm stuck with all

these holes.

So I brought it to a body shop.

Somebody's familiar with Volkswagen's and I had all those not Bondo'd.

I had them all welded and I had them all closed and done properly.

And then they, you know, they painted.

So now the whole bottom of the car, it used to be this beautiful, you know,

forest green paint, you know, new bumper as it was a great looking car.

Now it's nice looking paint up top primer on the bottom and rust repair fixed.

My wife started saying up through a year ago,

I don't even want to be seen in the damn thing.

I think it looks like shit.

I'm like, no.

Yeah, I'm like, OK, well, let's get it painted then.

Well, so we started looking into that and then she's like, no, let's let's

wrap it. Let's wrap it for our brand.

Oh, OK. That's kind of cool.

Let's look into wrapping it.

Dude, I went to a couple of different wrap shops.

They went over $5,000 for.

Oh yeah. Yeah, it's expensive.

I'm like, you can pay for that.

Exactly. That was my point.

So we kept, you know, kind of tinkering with what we were going to do.

Anyway, I'll make my point.

We lean into AI. All right.

So I uploaded a picture, a cool picture of my car in front of a mural.

There's murals all over Saint Pete.

I take pictures with my cars in front of murals.

Big, huge murals on the side of these buildings.

They're so cool looking.

And I said, create a futuristic paint job out of five different colors of green

and, you know, kind of give us this like comic book slash cartoon style image.

And, dude, it spit out this ridiculous crazy ass paint job.

That was the coolest thing ever that I ended up sending to my friend.

I don't know if you saw any of my posts, but I ended up sending it to

my buddy, Matt McAllister, down south.

And I said, hey, what's your thing of this, man?

He goes, dude, I can do that.

I'm like, nice. No shit.

This is the car in front of a mural.

Oh, wow. You know, that's what I visually imagined, too, which is what's crazy.

All right.

And I actually have a mountain do.

I have those wheels.

Those are the the the porch, the the foam dials.

I've got them in.

I bought four fronts.

So I got the 15 by seven because the eights are wider in the rear

on the carbon gears, tough to fit without fabrication.

So plus I have the wheel spacers to adapt the the lug pattern.

So I had to go 15 by seven all the way around.

So I've got those wheels on it, too.

But anyway, there's there's that. OK.

Now check this out.

I'm cheating looking on your Facebook here.

I see. OK.

I see this is actually underway, isn't it?

It's underway, man.

He's got. Excellent.

He's down in the. Wow.

Look at this.

But this is there. It is.

Yeah, that's what I'm looking at.

Amazing.

And then I'll show you.

Makes me want to drink a mountain do.

Yeah.

Here's a.

You got all the lines.

That's what I'm looking at right now.

Excellent. Wow.

I'm going to come in and then.

Let's see.

Carmageddon, huh?

Carmageddon, that's what I named it.

I'm again. Nice.

Yeah, Carmageddon.

It's instead of Carmen, Gia, and instead of Armageddon,

because the paint job was just so fucking nuts and out there.

I'm like, you know what?

Armageddon, Carmagea, how about Carmageddon?

It's nice when those names happen organically,

just like other things happen organically.

These names just happen.

Yeah.

And whether it be my cars or whether it be my chickens,

I just let the names just happen.

Everybody was asked, what are you going to name it?

I'm like, I'll wait till it happens.

And you know when you get the right one.

And if you name it, the right one always comes later.

And you're like, I should have.

Yeah.

Armageddon fits though.

And we this.

It does, it does.

And you pick the right one, I think.

Yeah, she's had it for a couple of years, several years now, in fact.

And she named it Cleopatra first, because it was like this emerald green,

you know, kind of a deeper green.

The original color on the car from 71 was Irish green.

So it is kind of deeper, more of a, you know,

a little bit more of a glossier, deeper paint job.

But once I got the rust fixed and everything, no, we went full on completely nuts with it.

So now, yeah, now karma, karma, Gedan is the name now.

We've, we've, we've retired Cleopatra.

It's sharp.

And I mean, he's not even done yet and he's really got something there.

I can't wait to see what it turns into.

Yeah, man.

That is really nice.

Yeah.

I figured you'd like that.

So talking about leaning in to to AI, you know, that AI concept was actually

You know what I mean?

A computer, an algorithm.

Right.

But I've ran with it and so did, so did Matt, you know, and he, dude,

he's, he's, he's doing a really killer job.

But anyway, all right, let's get back to this.

Let's talk about rust.

Why rust?

Yeah.

Why are Volkswagen people so attached to rust?

Um, I'm not.

I'm not.

I like things shiny.

I suppose the rest that I'm attached to is the, you know, that, that project car.

And maybe that's the way I look at it, but the rust quickly gets cleaned,

removed or patched up.

And then, you know, of course, glossy coat is put over it.

Maybe I was raised that way.

My dad just didn't like rust on cars either.

He'd see patina cars and it would really bother him.

Now I see patina cars.

I think it's really cool, especially for the car to show its war wounds and

those scars for all those years that it's had.

And each one has a story.

And my dad didn't appreciate that, but I do.

But I wouldn't.

I don't think I would have a patina car or a rat rod.

It's just not my style, not my thing.

So I'm not necessarily attracted to that, but why are people attracted to it?

You know, these, uh, Volkswagen's were throwaway cars.

I hate to say that in either way, but they were, they're a budget throwaway cars.

They were treated as such.

So these cars have a lot of wounds.

They have a lot to show for all these years.

And I think that there's not too many other American cars that are remaining.

They have quite the same amount of, you know, disrespect given to them that

turn into character.

That's probably the best way, just maltreatment, just lack of attention.

And they're still around.

These cars are still here.

You don't see the patina on these old American cars quite so much.

These Volkswagen's are the ones that have it.

So I think it might be even our thing.

It's might be ours, you know, the Volkswagen community thing, but, uh,

maybe that's, I can't really speak for others.

I'm just, just, you know, spitball in that one.

But yeah, I'm not attracted to Russ necessarily unless it's a project.

I think it's become very popular.

Especially because shiny was cool, you know, in the, in the 80s, into the 90s,

the, the, the hot pinks and the, you know, the, the, the purples and the, you know,

the bright kind of themes, you know, into the early 90s, the whole neon colors.

Yeah.

Neon colors.

That was all kind of really popular rust patina, you know, where they really

wasn't a thing.

When I got back into the Volkswagen community in early like 2018, 2019, right?

Before COVID, uh, when I had got back into it, um, was after, you know,

raising my kids and probably taking a good 12 to almost probably 15 year hiatus.

I had noticed when I got back into it, that the patina and the rust was like now

this new kind of celebrated badge, uh, of almost of honor in, inside.

Yeah.

And I, you know, even going to the shows and stuff, I'm like, you know, at first.

It kind of hit me and I'm like, why, why are we celebrating this beta?

Like what happened to shiny and cool and restored and, you know,

lustrous and, and all that.

But the more I saw it, and like you said, you said it perfect.

The more I saw it, I kind of started to respect it as this kind of badge about

this war scars, this, you know, we look how much this community, these, these

cars have been through, look how much they're worth now.

Look how much it's celebrated.

And to be honest, brother, I started even saying to myself, shit, I, I might

want a patina car.

I mean, it's, you know, it started to actually becoming a little bit more

attractive to me.

So when I thought about this outline and thought about your projects and thought

about all the shit you tinker with, I thought you could definitely talk on why

people, especially the Volkswagen community are maybe more emotionally attached

to patina or to rust.

Respectfully, I respect that you're not into it yourself, but I love what you

said, you know, because we do celebrate, you know, the, the, the war scars and,

and the bad and I think that, that we as a community are proud of that.

And I do.

I think it's character.

It's personality.

Personal.

Yeah.

These, these cars are all very, very personal.

They're, they're very fine, intricate details.

Every frickin one is just a little tiny bit different.

And, you know, and, and even in the patina, the patina patterns are different.

You know, the rust pattern is different.

It's just, it really becomes this kind of whole thing.

And I agree with you.

And maybe it is just us.

Um, I've seen, you know, some other car cultures have to airbrush, you know,

rust, they got it over the top of a beautifully restored, you know, body,

but then it looks like it's rusty and shit.

And from a distance, you're like, oh, look, then you get up to it and you're

like, well, hold on a minute, man.

Oh.

I got a friend's beetle.

It's like that.

They, uh, they, they polished as much as the steel as they could.

So I had swirl marks in the steel.

Some of the rust got through in a couple of spots because I guess it didn't

attack, uh, attack it as attentively as they should have.

So it's just clear coated over that.

And like I said, when you get up to it, it's like, wow, it looks pretty cool.

You get up too close to it.

And you're like, that wasn't very well done.

It's probably one of the ugliest cars in town.

In fact, he won an ugliest car trophy at one of our car shows a few years back.

I mean, there was no card.

It was uglier.

We were all looking at that one.

He was just like, Oh my God.

That was just so bad.

I'll show you pictures of that one too.

For it's just awful.

Even whenever I put it on my YouTube channel, people are always like, what is that?

Yeah.

Cool.

Kind of cool.

And it looks even worse now because he's he's just beat it up over the years.

Let's touch on the chop top.

Let's get some.

Let's talk to him on the on the chop top.

When did I guess this vision for this car first first hit you?

Tell me, tell me this back me up.

Tell me the whole story.

Well, I always wanted to beat it, as you know.

And when I got my first one, I was 18 years old.

I was very proud of that car and I knew I was going to be cutting it up

to repair all the rust and problems that it had.

But I went to some just random car show and this was in Fort Myers.

I used to live down there and in Fort Myers, they had just just cars and

motorcycles. It was I don't even remember where it was.

It's just stuff.

Anybody could bring anything.

And some woman rolled in and a chop top beetle.

That's the first time I had ever seen one.

I didn't know that a car could look like that.

And I thought it came that way.

I'm like, Dad, when did they make these?

And my dad's like, that's a chop top.

Somebody built that.

And I had no idea that such a thing could even be done.

I just my mind hadn't opened up to that idea yet.

I said, that's what I want.

And my dad went, not to a beetle.

Like, why?

He says, because all those curves and all those shapes, it's going to be the

hardest one to cut.

And he says, I'm just not interested.

This is a seasoned body guy that have been doing body, you know, 40 years.

He's like, I just I don't want to touch that.

This is not interesting.

It's too hard.

So what if I bought a welder and I started cutting, he says, you'll never finish it.

He's probably right.

18 years old, I wouldn't finish it because I didn't finish the car.

Ultimately, because we both moved on with our lives and other things.

But yeah, that was when I first had the vision for it.

And as you know, I ended up selling that car and I pulled the parts off of it.

And then I ended up buying a 69 and a 73 up here.

Years later, we're talking 15, 10, 15 years ago, and I had those two cars and I'm

looking, I'm like, I want to chop one of them, but they're too good a shape.

You know, they had some four pan problems, but that's not body problems.

If the body were just collapsing, that's the project I'm looking for.

I said, I really want an oval.

So, all right, well, I'm going to take the saw to this 69 beetle.

We're just going to cut it up.

And then on Craigslist, that same night, I saw an ad for an oval just down the

street from here, right across the street from a Walmart.

There's this oval sitting over there and the guy's looking to scrap it.

He wanted like 3,500 bucks for it.

And I was like, that's not worth.

I mean, the cars, you know, was just everything was just caving in on it.

The doors were shaking.

The whole body was just twisting.

I said, there's no way it's worth that much.

There's not that much there.

I mean, this is spare parts for another project.

You'd have to make everything to hold your spare parts together.

He knew that.

And he liked me.

He took a liking to me and he liked my vision.

And he says, I want you to have this car and we worked out a really good deal.

So much of a good deal.

In fact, he gave me the car, three floor pans with a couple of extra engines.

He just said, clear my yard of all the Volkswagen stuff that you see.

He says, I got to get it out of here.

This is why I'm scrapping everything else.

Okay.

So we took the, uh, the beetle off of his trailer because it was going to go to

the scrap yard that day.

He says, I had given up selling it and I came home and I looked at it and I said,

this is the one, one we're going to cut this one.

And I made the first video of me cutting it apart and, uh, oh, I caught a lot of

hell about it, but nobody understood just how bad it was.

I had to shake that door.

The door would literally do this.

You could just lift it up and down.

It was like a Lamborghini door.

It didn't mean to be, but it just fell right up.

So, uh, yeah, I knew that was the one that had the vision.

And I said, we're going to cut this one.

And my, my, um, thoughts changed a little bit.

I wanted a slightly different style.

I didn't want to just lower the lid and I have been studying roof chops for

over all these years.

They even made a few model cars to understand the shapes and intricacies of

how I wanted to cut this thing.

And everybody told me you have to cut it into six pieces or eight pieces.

You got a section that roof and this and that.

I said, no, you don't.

I said, it's not going to look right.

I said, look at that one.

That one's been sectioned.

That car is flat.

Everything's goofy looking.

It's all spread out.

It doesn't look right.

That natural curve, that bubble is gone.

Somebody says section and then put a bubble on it.

I said, well, then your roof gutters look straight.

You get this dome out the top of it and it looks like the top of my bald head.

I said, that don't look right either.

I said, that's no good.

So I decided I'm going to do this with one roof and, uh, Eric Fernan, you know,

Eric, no, he's one you need to interview too.

He had a whole chop top beetle that he had built 10 plus years ago on,

on a Volksrods.com.

I guess it was, I think they're still around.

They have a forum and he just documented his entire project from start to finish.

And I looked at the way he cut his roof and he didn't section the roof.

He actually took the roof and cut it diagonally from the back windows down under

the deck lid and push the whole roof forwards.

And I said, I like what he did there.

So I'm going to base some of what I'm doing on that and then spread the pillars

out instead and do all the little intricacies in the pillars to make the

pillars open up so that natural roof is there.

But when I do this natural roof, I want to tip it forward just a little bit on the

front, bring this down.

So the windshield is actually only about that tall.

And it got a lot smaller than it would have been otherwise.

Otherwise it might have been like that.

But, and the back windows look a little bigger as a result, but it gives it that

aggressive stance.

It's leaning forwards and she just looks angry.

So I put a little duct tape on the headlights just to give a little angry

eyes and eyebrows kind of.

But that was the vision I went with and I ran with it and I use one roof with a

couple small slivers from this and that.

Because remember, I did have to cut that roof in half when the car broke.

So I had to graft it back together and I had to extend it about that much in the

middle just to give it a little bit more reach so I could get that natural curve.

And the natural slope was there.

And when I brought it to Earl over at Class of Car Creations and he had it for,

I think about two and a half years while he was doing the paint and the work on it.

Because you know paint work will shrink.

So he did all the fill in all these places because big chop top is all this and that

is welding scars and he had to do a little bit of this and that to it.

And if you start putting filler on things, it has what he calls dieback or shrink.

So if you immediately paint over it, your paint shrinks and you get a groove.

So it just looks awful.

So any filler that you put on a car, you have to make sure to accommodate for that.

So he had lots of time to let the material shrink back.

But when he finished it up, he's looking at it and he goes,

I saw a regular beetle the other day.

It looks weird.

He says, I'm so used to looking at this chop top and it's so beautiful.

The shapes are just perfect.

He says a standard beetle looks weird.

Says it just doesn't look right to me anymore.

I will admit, before I ask you about your biggest challenge on that car, I will tell

you, I will admit this.

I want a Volkswagen and it's only in recent times, last probably 24 months or so.

Really, it's been since I've started doing this podcast and I've had a few

guys on that build them and that have some really bad ass cars.

I, they stand out at shows.

I look at them now, love them chopped.

I love the truck versions that they make.

I love the larger back tires.

I love the extended front ends.

I'm really just having this attraction towards them.

And I keep going back and forth, man.

I've got a 62 beetle that is, it's pretty solid, man.

It, you know, it's got a few spots.

Passengers side floor needs to be done.

Couple spots up on the car rusted and need to be done.

And I keep going and forth.

I'm like, Volkswagen this thing or restore it and lower it and kind of, you know,

do some of the classic beetle stuff that I also, you know, I'm a classy guy, man.

I like that look too.

I don't, I just don't know.

Right now it's a project.

It's a, I've got a 1776 in my garage that I'm waiting to, to put in it.

It's got, you know, it's, it's a, it's stock 1200, a six volt in it now.

Pain in the ass.

It never wants to start the battery.

You know, every time, what do you jump it with?

Exactly.

So every charger that I keep on it plugged into an extension cord.

And then sometimes that doesn't work.

And I'm like, man, this is just, it's just, it's too much.

So now it sits under the cover and I'm really trying to decide what I want to do

with this.

Carmen Gia is the project that we're completing and working on right now though.

So this 62 is taking the back burner.

But the point was I want to Volkswagen.

They're so sexy.

They're so cool.

I like them so much.

I even like when you open up the back, you know, and this 1776 that I have

came off of a trike.

So it's already got that external kind of, you know, spun around and big ass

exhaust that just shoots straight out, you know, which I was going to have to

take off to put into the car.

And so now sometimes I look at the back of the, for some of the Volkswagen,

I'm like, man, they took that off, that off.

That engine would just sit right back there, man.

It looks so good, you know, yes.

Right in.

So yeah, anyhow, this ain't about me.

This is about you back to this car though.

What was what was one of your biggest challenges?

What was one of the hardest parts of building it?

Was it the roof?

Actually, that was easy.

I had the vision for it.

And because the roof is one piece, it's just put it on.

The hardest, the harder thing for that was making the pillars line up because

the roof, as you know, they slope upwards like this.

So the pillars get more narrow.

So when you drop the roof down and you cut a section out of it, the pillars

don't line up anymore.

Yeah.

So you have to take all the pieces and stretch them.

This bottom ones have to widen, top ones have to come out.

Everything needs to be just, yeah, a lot of work went into that.

But the roof was actually the easy part.

The roof, if I were to redo one, I could probably do it in a weekend.

That's not too hard.

The doors were a lot harder because a lot of moving parts in there and

there's more pieces that need to fit right.

And because of the roof sloping forwards and the pillars having changed,

now the doors needed radical adjustments.

And I don't even know if the window is going to roll up all the way yet

because of the way the pillars lean.

I'm going to have to come up with a solution for that.

You still have the solution, right?

This is the story.

Oh yeah, it's in the grudge.

Yeah.

That's what I thought.

It's in the grudge.

Yeah.

Have you ever thought about selling it or is it just that it absolutely no way?

Never will.

You know, the question comes up very often and I get offers all the time.

In fact, I just got an offer a few weeks ago again.

It's just, it's not where I want to be because to me, the car is priceless.

It's something I've wanted my whole life.

And you know, it's an 18 year old dream.

I'm finally getting it now.

Middle-aged man finally getting his toy car.

So I don't think I could let it go unless somebody really gave me a stupid offer.

And then if that happened, you know what I'm going to do?

Back to the garage, you build another one.

That's it.

So let's touch on some of your inventions.

I think it's, it's really cool.

I want, and I'm excited to hear about this.

At what point did you start to think, you know, maybe some of this stuff I'm creating,

I should maybe start thinking about selling it or yeah.

But tell me kind of how this started to metastasize.

Well, I had solutions to problems.

One of the problems I had, particularly with my quack and bushing is that little nylon

bushing and I'm sure you've replaced these things.

Everybody has, if you own a Volkswagen, you're going to replace it after some time.

Explain what quack bushing is.

Well, we're going to get to that.

The original bushing is just a nylon bushing that goes in your shifter shaft.

It slides right in a little hole in your shaft goes through it.

And I'm not trying to be perverted here, but it slides right in there.

And that, that bushing will fall apart and then you have a loose hole

and your shifter will bang around you, misgears.

And it's just a horrible, horrible experience.

Now, the parts are relatively inexpensive.

They used to be less than a dollar.

Nowadays, it costs you up to five bucks for one of these nylon bushings.

And when you install it, it breaks.

Like I just spent five bucks on this thing.

It's already broken.

So you better buy two, because hopefully the second one will work.

But I created a part that completely replaces that out of modern materials.

This actually uses a, a urethane, a modern urethane that's soft and squishy

and has self healing properties.

So if it gets a scratch on it, it'll actually heal itself up.

Won't heal if you cut it. If you cut it, it's ruined.

But if you put a little scratch in it, yeah, it'll self heal.

These things are soft, so they still absorb vibration.

There are other solutions on the market that are made from brass or delrin.

But then your shifter vibrates.

And everybody that I know that used one of those has the same thing.

The shifter shakes all over the place.

The mind doesn't do that.

You get a nice soft piece in there.

It also eliminates the metal ring.

There's a metal ring in there that holds that split nylon piece closed,

which is just awful because when you push them in, they start to do this.

They just, my piece is concentric and closed.

So when you install it, then you push your shaft into it.

It stays locked in the place.

It goes nowhere.

And it has to be completely obliterated for it to even fall out.

So they should last a lot longer.

And my experience, because I test all my own products, they've made it

through the hot summers here in Florida and they made it through the freezing

winters where it snowed here in Fedscola and they never felled up.

They never shattered broker, you know, they never just a shifter feels

just like it did from the day I installed those bushings.

And in addition to the quacken bushing, which is the piece that goes

underneath the shifter, I also created a set of shaft huggers that I called them,

which is the pucks that go in the back that holds your shifter out to your transmission.

And I designed those a little differently too, so they wrap around the shaft rather

than being two flat things on a round surface.

Because what does that do?

It rolls, wants to just shift and roll.

This actually will hold or hug the shaft.

So these things have just worked really, really well.

And whenever I go to an event, I always have some in the car

because people always like, I want one now.

So here you go.

We started out with just a small batch.

I fixed a couple of my own cars.

A lot of trial and error went through it to make it work.

And then somebody said, I want one.

So I made a couple of them and I sold a few.

And then all of a sudden it was, I want more.

So I made a batch and that sold out quick.

And I'm like, now I need to make a big batch.

And now at this point, I need to invest in some new tooling to make some more

because I nearly out of them again.

My tooling is starting to fail.

So I got to get some new parts made up.

I love that.

Love to hear the the innovativeness, the inventive side of that and that it's successful.

That's so cool.

How the heck do you come up with these names, though?

Part of my personality.

Again, I can't tell where these things come from.

Maybe I have a link to an ultimate dimension somewhere.

I just have an antenna.

I'm receiving signals from aliens.

It's just that the names just come to mind.

And being that it was a duck thing and it's a bushing, I was like quack and bush

as somebody's name.

How about a quack and bushing?

So I Googled it and there's nothing on the internet about quack and bushing.

So I called it dirt quack and bushing or quack and bushing.

I'd like to say it.

I'm probably using a poor accident for that and added a little trademark next to it.

And it's my product.

So now when people mention quack and bushings, they know it's the duck man

and they know what it is because of what it is.

So one name for everything.

And that's how I came to that mind.

A shaft hugger is well, I mean, it's literal shaft hugger.

Something else I saw in your in your background was the was it the logic converters?

Yes, the logic converters.

Yeah. What were you what problem were you trying to solve with coming up with these?

Three into two wiring for tail lights.

I had a gentleman bring over a car here that was doing a 12 volt.

This wasn't a 12 volt conversion.

It was a partial 12 volt conversion.

He had a six volt car and he had these little 12 volt adapters.

He wanted only on certain lights and it went.

What are you doing?

Because this is the way I want to do it.

I want to change out the generator.

I want to do keep everything six volt.

I'm like, well, everything's not six volt if you're using these adapters.

So anyway, he got some 12 volt LED snowflake tail lights.

And the wiring that goes into them is three wires as a ground and as a bright and a low.

And that's all there is in there on later model tail lights.

You have three wires that goes into it, your tail light, your brake light and your

turn signal. So you got to comply in those three wires into two.

And that doesn't mesh.

They don't work.

And if you try to double two of them up, then you end up a goofy things happening.

You know, your brake lights come on on the wrong side or your turn signals

turns on both sides. It's just it's it's it's bad bad situation.

So what the logic converter does is it separates these signals out to where

they're supposed to go.

So if you have a brake light signal and a turn signal come on at the same time,

it makes that one side flash.

So it turns the on signal.

If this makes sense, the brake light is currently on.

Instead of being on, it turns it to an off signal.

So it turns the brake light off.

Instead of it flashing, it turns it off.

So it's logically converting the signals into what it works to.

So he had this goofy setup.

He had his 12 volt lights.

He had the wrong turn signal switch.

And I said, there's only one way I know how to make this work.

And I said, we can use a trailer adapter, but then you're going to have these wires

and it's going to be a mess.

I said, I'm going to design you something that we can actually take your Volkswagen

plugs and just plug them all in right to where they belong.

So simply just pull your wiring out, plug it into this, maybe an extra jumper wire or

two and solve your problem.

Anyway, I went and I produced the product, produced a circuit board.

And that was the original prototype.

And it worked so well on that car.

I said, OK, we have a prototype that functions.

Let me make a couple of adjustments to this and let's sell them.

And as soon as I put them on the website, they started selling too.

I impressed myself with that.

And I even run one myself and I turned it around backwards because instead of it

being for tail lights, it works on my double glass headlights, which has a little

running light in the bottom.

I put an extra bright bulb in there and now it's a running light and a turn signal.

So the running lights are currently on.

It gives an off signal to this side.

So we'll shut it off.

So I worked out really nicely on there and I'm very proud of my product and I use it.

And in addition, I have another product here, which is on my desk, which

a little dusty. This is my original prototype of it.

But what this is, is my signal switch headlight control.

It eliminates your headlight switch.

This is something I haven't released yet to the market.

I have the prototype is currently running.

Well, actually, the production version is running in my car.

This is the prototype.

But how it works, eliminates your headlight switch.

How do you turn your headlights on?

I always liked Japanese cars in particular, because you can turn

the headlights on from your turn signal stock, a lot of Nissan's and Hondas in that way.

I said, I wish I could do that on a Volkswagen,

but there's no stock that you can replace that has all the switches in it.

You just have a high beam low beam.

So I said, what if we had a little computer

that controls your high beam low beam switch?

So if you pull the switch one time, running lights come on.

You pull the second time, the headlights come on.

You pull it a third time, your headlights, your high beams come on.

And then it's high, low, low.

Hold it two seconds off.

Yo, you have one wire, one wire controls all your headlights.

Is that clever?

So that's what this little guy is right here.

This is the prototype of it.

Webfootenterprises.com, my website yet.

So it's a it's a great little product.

I've been running it for, I guess, almost a year now.

This was an idea that goes into and I'd show you it's out here on my desk.

This is my whole computer for my 56th level.

I have an entire circuit board here, several circuit boards.

That's going to control the entire car.

Every single light will come on independently if I so choose.

Everything is controlled by a computer.

So I can break out my phone and I can click headlights on.

I can click start car.

All that stuff from my my phone.

It's all available from there.

I can even have it make sound effects.

It's all built into this board.

So it can talk to me if I wanted to.

Doors are unlocked.

Yeah, it could quack.

It could whistle.

I mean, it could talk like Knight Rider if I wanted it to, you know,

kick could could become alive.

I probably use a sexy female voice because probably more fitting.

But but yeah, it has the ability to do all this stuff.

It turns on is 32 circuits that I can turn on individually.

And there's 32 different switches also that can control it.

So I can have things do different things.

And each switch doesn't necessarily control one item

because the switch can be programmed to do multiple things.

Like I did with this thing where you you pull the switch multiple times

and it does different things.

You could double tap things and have things do things.

You could hold things for two seconds and it does something different.

So I try to set it up intuitively.

There's a lot of programming that's going to have to go into it.

That's another one of the things that do computer programming.

That's actually my background.

So I've since retired from that mostly, but I'm using my skill set

into building this this board here.

It's sitting right here on the desk.

I just can't show you because it's got

temporary wires and things bridging to circuit boards

and things that are just going to fly apart.

So in a test mode right now,

I probably shouldn't ask then what's next because that is next.

Right. That is that is something that I'm working on.

Yes, it is something.

There's a lot of different somethings.

I mean, after this car gets together, I do have my 67 bus

that I need to finish up.

I was working on that.

I forget the name of the hurricane that came through here,

but I was out of town at the time.

So I had just lost my father at the time

and I was down at his house cleaning things up.

And I was on the way home when the hurricane hit up here.

And it was forecasted not to come here, but it did.

When was it just made a.

Oh, I want to say 2021 maybe 2020

It was in September.

Was any anniversary of Ivan?

I can't remember the name of it.

God, I'm trying to I'm drawing a blank, too.

I keep wanting to talk about the ones from just a couple of years ago.

Sally, Aline was Sally.

OK, Sally. Yeah.

Ever came Sally came through in late September.

OK. OK.

It was on the anniversary of Ivan, which happened in 04,

which is the same hurricane that messed up my beetle.

Now messed up my bus, you know, exactly

sixteen years later on the same day.

Anyway, my bus was out in the yard.

I had just bought ten thousands of dollars

than 10000 dollars worth of patch panels and things for it.

I mean, I have all kinds of stuff out there.

And I had it nicely covered with a tent out in the yard

and I've rolled it out, worked on it, rolled back in.

And I was very actively working on this thing

when a hurricane threw my tents up in the trees,

threw my body panels all over the garage or all over the yard.

Rather, flash rusted everything.

Everything just flash rusted.

And I just became completely discouraged with the project.

I put a new tent up, put it all away.

And I said, I'll get back to that another day.

I'm trying to get a shop and some workspace.

That's also one of my near future things.

And I want to put the bus in there and take it apart.

And I mean, really dig into it, just like it do with his beetle.

That's the reason why the beetle has such a unique shape.

It isn't because I just chopped the roof.

I actually built that car up in pieces because it was just so, so gone.

So everything is just finicky on it.

And I want to do the same thing with the bus.

Just take it all apart, go through every single piece,

get all the rust out of it.

Again, no rust and put it all back together.

So that's where I'm at with that.

That's another project coming up.

I'm cool with that, you know, too.

My wife feels the same way.

She doesn't understand the whole patina thing.

And she didn't want any rust.

There was a couple of bubbles coming up in her lights.

Up near the headlights on the guillotine.

And there were a couple of spots at the very bottom in some of the rocker.

And she just didn't know she was like, no, let's let's have it fixed.

If you're having all those trim holes, trim holes fixed,

let's have all the rust fixed too.

So we did. So yeah, dude, I totally get that.

Totally get that the no rust thing.

You know, and then you even know, like even people that don't know

that much about rust or body work, they probably rust is really kind of

almost like a cancer. It's yeah, it can be.

It's right. And it's and it can be it can become something that continues to grow.

And then even, you know, pops up in areas close by and that type, that kind of stuff too.

So yeah, yeah, I'm I'm with you to an extent.

I do love a little bit of patina these days just because it's grown on me

and probably more than anything, what's grown on me is Volterrods.

They're just so good. I mean, it's nice on the right car.

Absolutely. By the way, check out Eric Fernan's build.

I'll send that information to you later.

You're probably using a picture of him here in a video, but he's got a Volkswagen.

And I based my roof job off of his project.

I recognize that. Beautiful.

Do you know, beautiful down south of me, you know, Lance Cone?

Yeah, he's friends with Lance. Yeah, they got the same job. Yeah.

They usually roll together.

They do. Yeah.

Lance came on the podcast last year and we talked about its rods and his builds

and he's got that truck and that other badass Volterrod.

He's one of the guys I was telling you about that really kind of

not necessarily turned me on to him, but really made me really start pushing

Fordport wanting one.

He had mentioned his buddy, you know, Eric and stuff back then.

And I think we even may have even talked about trying to get Eric to come on.

But I don't I don't know if he wants to or didn't want to back then or whatever.

It's all good. No big deal.

But he's a nice guy. I know he would.

I mean, I reached out to him back in 2020 because he lived in

or still lives over in West Palm and I was in Fort Myers and I was just I'm down here.

I really want to see your car.

I said, I built so much of my own project based on on your cuts

and I did so many things based on that and I have these same shapes and ideas.

And I said, I just love it.

He says, is there any way I can come over there and see it?

He's like, sure, come on over.

And he's just very inviting.

You meet me over here and we'll take a ride in it.

I'm like, cool.

Anyway, I got there and I didn't expect that everybody was going to know

who the duck man was because they did and they had a party for me.

They took me out.

They had a soul cruise for me and they had all the the Miami guys came on up

and probably about 30 cars.

It was just a huge adventure.

They were so warm and inviting and I didn't expect any of that.

I was just figured to be, hey, we'll have a drink or something.

Laugh, you know, look at your car and then I'll go home.

No, I spent the whole night out there and it was just it was an adventure.

I made a whole video of the day too. It was it was fun.

It was really fun. I'm very thankful.

Let's go opposite end of warm and inviting. All right.

Oh, here we go. Yeah, I know.

We like to save the best for last. All right.

So the best stuff for last. Yeah.

Without name and any names.

Tell me, tell us, tell us what happened that that you've kind of touched

on a few times here in this in this episode that that pushed you to leave your old club.

Well, it was a leadership table.

While Bill, who was the president of our club, I said a name that's the only one I'm going to say,

decided he's going to retire from the club for multiple different reasons.

He had some stuff going on and wanted to get out.

So I thought about stepping up myself and he was for the idea.

He's like, you probably should do that.

But I was like, I don't have time for this.

I retired for a reason.

I don't want any of this drama. I don't want the nonsense.

I don't want to have to be the leader again and run another business.

And he's like, well, maybe you should rethink about it.

And I kind of did.

And then all of a sudden somebody else stepped up and it was somebody else.

I was supportive of it. I was like, good, this is a good choice.

Well, negativity came out of it.

Just a lot of negativity.

A lot of people just towards people, ideas.

There was just a large amount of anger, arrogance,

difficulty with sharing things and ideas, trying to steer this person or people

in down the right road and just steer them in the right direction.

I said, you're taking a path of no return.

You're damaging the reputation of the club.

And it turned into outright hatred towards me.

And I'm like, I'm trying to help you.

I'm on your side here.

So this is my club, too. This is my home.

And if everybody else is hating on these ideas that you're doing

and these things aren't working, we need to make adjustments and we need to do them now.

I said, you need a PR guy.

I'll do your PR. Who could do better?

I'm the guy that draws attention to himself.

And they said it themselves. You're the face of the club.

Well, if I'm the face of the club, then I need to be the face of the club.

You don't want me talking to people, apparently, for whatever reason.

There was these personal problems with me.

They didn't like me personally.

Maybe it's because I'm loud, maybe it's because I'm obnoxious.

And my name and picture were to be anywhere in the dictionary,

probably being next to the word obnoxious.

So very often I do rub people the wrong way and very often it's on purpose.

So when I got to the point that anything that I was trying to do

that was helpful to steer the club in the right direction was being just

just trying not to be foul, because I never used foul language in any of this stuff ever.

And that's important here.

And that's part of this topic because this other people can stand up in front

of a crowd of the club and curse and swear.

And I've never done that.

I stand up in front of the club and don't sit down with my knees to my chest.

I give people respect, absolute respect.

So this, the way the club was being treated, the way the people were being

handled, the way things volunteers, elected officials were being kicked out.

Things were just, it was, yeah, I know you're elected to be this way.

To be this role for the next year.

You don't like the way they're doing things.

You kick them out.

That doesn't work.

You kick me out because you don't like me.

And I'm this.

I'll never understand this.

I'm from New Jersey as I make clear.

And where I come from, whether you're a wise guy or not, the biggest

earner is the one that determines their rank.

So if you're coming in with the most money, and that's something that I was,

I'm going to toot my own horn here.

I come in with about two thirds of the money every year to that club.

And you're not on the side of the things that I'm doing and you're not helping

me to do my job instead, you're working against me.

Yeah, you're kind of in the wrong spot.

You kind of don't need to be there.

And the way I see leadership is you have to take your, actually, there's two

types of leadership.

There's the one kind of leader that can take somebody and make themselves

look above them by knocking them down, whether they be condescending,

maybe they, they criticize their work, maybe they overwhelm them, maybe

they're just rude, all those things happen.

Or there's a second kind of leadership where you take the people that are

below you and you put them above you.

You say they're doing a better job than me.

I know they can do this.

They can handle this.

And you give them all the tools that they can to succeed.

That's the leader that I want to be.

I can't say that I am.

Somebody else has to tell me that.

That's the leader that I aspire to be.

Instead, we were getting a ladder and that just pushed me.

It just pushed me.

And it got to the point.

One afternoon where all this negative PR, because they don't know how to handle

PR and they don't know how to say the right things to people, has aggravated

and upset not just our club, but the club surrounding us.

So a 250 mile radius from New Orleans to Tallahassee to, you know, north of us

in Alabama, everybody's upset because we had the biggest car show in this local

community and to watch everything just crumble and fall apart was very upsetting

to everybody.

So people began to reach out to me and ask me what's going on.

And I said, well, I'm not doing the PR.

I can't.

I can't say I'm not here to tell you negative things.

I'm here to tell you positive things.

And if they are doing something that's off, maybe you need to use the right words

to make it sound good, polish it.

Instead, you're giving a turd to everybody and you're telling them it's a turd

and you're expecting them to eat it.

And that doesn't work.

At least make it shiny and put a little seasoning on it.

You know, make it better than what it is and you're not, you're not getting that.

So that day that I said, if you don't want help with this, I'm not going to help

you anymore.

And I used the Batman quote and I forget what it was.

It was where Christian Bale was on the subway train and he was about to stamp

somebody or something.

And he's, and the bad guy said to him, oh, so you're just like us, huh?

And Batman says, no, I'm not going to kill you, but I don't have to save

you either. And he jumps off the train and the train crashes and explodes and

everything like that. So I gave him that Batman quote and I stopped answering

them. I was done the following morning and I don't know if you know, but I

actually ran the website and all that such.

And I just started pulling plugs at everything and shutting things down.

I mean, it was going down.

And then I got a nasty phone call and says, uh, you've been

fired from the club and like, I quit yesterday.

You know why I quit?

I quit because you wouldn't listen.

You wouldn't listen.

This is exactly it.

You didn't listen to me quitting even.

So anyway, I wouldn't answer the call.

I got voicemail.

I listened to half of it and the answer was we're going to do everything on paper.

Get rid of the website.

Okay.

This is the leaky.

Boom.

I talked to my legal advice to make sure I did the right things.

He says, you're good.

He said, it's always that possibility.

Somebody might sue you for it.

I said, well, the timeframe, they're going to sue it.

They'll never get it.

He says, still can happen.

I said, I doubt it's going to cost money.

Who's wants to pay money for, you know, a nonprofit?

I said, I want to be disconnected from them.

He says, do they have their data?

I said, yes, I put a failsafe in place.

So that way, if anything ever happened to me, and this is being a wise IT guy

seasoned for having done this 30 years, if something happened to me, what would

they do?

They have their backup.

All of the backup data is in their PayPal account because every order that comes

through, I send a copy of it over there and a full invoice.

Here's your car registration.

Year, make, model, name.

Right.

He bought a T-shirt.

What size?

It's all there.

They have all their data, but they wanted my data because my data is nicely

formatted and it's got to this and it's got to that.

It's a list and you could, it's been manipulated.

Go manipulate your own data.

It's on, it's on your PayPal.

Go get it.

And this is where I told him, if anything ever happened, and I more than once

express that you can find your stuff here.

They didn't want to do that.

Instead.

This is the best part.

They turned me into the demon.

He destroyed everything.

He stole the whole club.

He's the most awful person in the world.

And then of course they turned on all the personal things.

He's a womanizer.

Oh, he's, he's doing this and I told you some of that.

I'm not even going to elaborate about that because those topics are radioactive

and disgusting, absolutely disgusting.

And the things that I don't do is touch people or touch their cars.

And I mean, I'm being loud about that because I can't express that anymore.

You don't mess with people or their cars.

That's part of our community.

That's an untold rule.

You don't have to say that.

You should just know it.

You don't mess with people in their cars, period.

So after I had quit, I probably said some things that some people have made

them upset because that's my right here in America.

I get to voice my opinions on things and I even use opinions.

I use facts.

This is what happened.

This is why it happened.

This is where we are.

No name calling, no threats.

I didn't say I was going to hurt anybody.

No, this is it.

This is it. One polish shiny done and I'm out.

And then I just watched everything go.

He started collapsing and I I I'm laughing about it now because we can.

Then it was just it was frightening.

I mean, I was upset.

I was really upset because this is something that I had built

along with Wild Bill, who had a 30 year legacy in this club.

And I have a good eight years running a car show registration and everything else

through our website.

I took our car show from 80, 90 cars to over 200.

And it was just growing continuously.

Just to watch this all just fall apart because some new people stepped up and

decided that they didn't want things the way they were and that things worked.

But they didn't like the way it worked.

They wanted something different.

And unfortunately, the public generally didn't agree.

They just generally didn't agree.

So very quietly, I sat in the background

and I started planning the things that I do.

And

I kept getting asked by other people in the local community, are you going to start

your own club? And it was it was a no. No, no, I don't want to start my own club.

I really don't.

I said, I'm really not interested in that.

And then I started getting people says you need to start a new club.

I think so.

I said, yeah, I said, what we have is just just not it.

I said, you were doing things before we liked the way you were doing things.

People know who you are.

People respect you.

I was like, but this is not what I'm seeing.

I said, these these people are telling everybody these things and others are

believing it. I said, no, most of us don't believe it.

We just want to be included in a car club culture.

And this is the only club we have.

OK, so I started planning.

Came up with the name first.

There's oil slickers.

And I'm like, oh, there's another oil slickers.

Can't do that.

Now, it's like, well, why don't we make it sound like a little culture or some kind

of a private group or organization, something secret, a secret society?

And I was like, oil slickers society.

Now we got something.

OSS. OK, we got an idea.

And then I said, OSS, OSS, OSS, that don't sound right.

Ozzy Osbourne had just passed the time.

And I was like, Ozzy, OSS, I, international.

Let's think big.

Oil slickers society, international was born.

I got this all written out on paper and this was sometime in late September.

Star with the logo.

Yeah, I came up with a logo.

I came up with a color orange.

Did that because it's warm and inviting.

It's also was a seasonal thing.

We launched on Halloween of all things.

Just coincidentally worked out that way.

And our colors just happened to be black and orange.

So I was like, this is just just it's it's meant to be.

Everything just worked out that way.

So I launched it silently without saying anything on Halloween in the afternoon

evening, I was the first registered member.

The next day was the show in New Orleans.

And while Bill had gone over there and I was watching my machines,

which were actually in that closet behind that door where my servers live.

And I was sitting right here at this desk,

making sure that nothing fouled up because everything that I had built for

this website, everything in the structure, everything was untested at this point.

Nobody had been through the system yet, except me.

Is it going to work?

And more importantly,

are people going to want what I've built?

Are people going to be interested in this?

And my original plan, my original goal,

which isn't even happened yet,

supposed to be mid summer, because we just started summer last weekend.

So sometime mid summer, I wanted 20 to 30 members.

That was the goal.

Twenty to 30 members, I figured about nine months of time I could get 20 or 30 members.

I'll get a decent following and we could finally start organizing a show or something

with that. Well,

the first week we had 50.

I still can't believe that myself.

First week, 50 members.

Tell me this, what is member?

What does it take to be a member?

Well, it's real simple.

Hop on onto the website and pay your fee.

Twenty dollars.

That's the initial thing as far as the paperwork is concerned.

What does it take to be a member?

You want to be part of a community.

That's really what this is about.

It's about love and sharing.

This is about being a we culture.

It's not about a me culture.

It's not about a I culture.

You said it best in your other posts, which is what made us communicate.

It's not us versus them.

This is a we.

Right. And we includes this other club.

It also includes all the clubs that are around us, even though I was told by the

other leaders that other clubs don't matter.

They matter greatly.

The entire community matters around the world internationally, which is again,

one of the reasons why we chose that name.

We as a Volkswagen culture support each other,

even if it's just verbal, we're there.

We make sure locally here.

I'm sorry.

I was saying so you probably didn't expect your near

150 members, a little under 200 days.

Impressive, brother.

In the first two months, it was 100.

So by the end of the year, we had 101

and 155 sitting right now currently.

The last I looked at actually could be different.

Let's find out.

I'm curious.

Go ahead. Come on.

Let it refresh you.

Let's do something dramatic.

No, still 155.

So 155 members with 173 cars registered in the system.

250 photos.

Very cool.

Yep. 17 different states, five countries.

I mean, it's it's it's growing.

Cool.

I was thinking out of the box once again.

I was thinking bigger.

It's not just about Pensacola.

This is about all of us.

And as the analogy had been using,

because I had been hearing from others that the other club was saying

that there's not enough room in this town for two clubs and it's going to be a turf

war and like, come on, guys.

You know, there's this pie, which is our community.

And this is an analogy I used every single time.

And there's only so many so many ways you can cut up that piece of pie.

Until you're getting these little tiny slivers for everybody.

And everybody likes pie.

And do you want a little sliver of pie or do you want a big piece of pie?

You tell me, you Joe, you like pie?

Depending on what kind of pie I'm down with pie.

But would you prefer a small piece or a reasonably big piece?

I'd probably have a reasonably big piece.

Right. Well, here with the Oil Slicker Society,

we're taking all the pieces of the pie and giving to you at the same time.

You get the whole pie.

Nice. You get the whole pie.

It's not about pieces of the pie anymore.

It's not about arguing or picking or choosing.

It's now giving everybody everything.

You get all of it.

It's our entire culture.

It's our entire community.

Everybody is joining together on this thing.

And because of this culture, which I don't think.

Yeah, everybody else hasn't really put this into to print or into a bylaw's

structure or anything else until I might be the first until I came along and

actually did this and I was at everybody's going, you know what?

It doesn't mean I might make a lot of goofy mistakes on YouTube,

but he might be on to something here.

And I kind of don't have a lot of followers from it.

I mean, people from all over, people I've never talked to before,

people in other states are just like, I want to support you in what you're doing.

We really like this.

And I've even been approached in other other states and other areas to open

other chapters already and we're so young.

I know, isn't it? It's amazing.

It's really amazing.

I have to think bigger.

My targets are no longer on the Pensacola Bay area.

My culture or the targets.

Yeah, there you go.

We've thought about that with Salty Dub with same thing with Salty Dub.

I think it's not a club or anything yet,

but the Facebook page has over a thousand, 1200 followers.

And it's it's just our business that we started to start promotional events.

You know, we do like four or five events per year here in the greater Tampa Bay area.

Me and my buddy, Alan, he's the guy that owns Vera upholstery.

But same stuff.

People email us and they're like, Hey, man, we need a Salty Dub, you know,

Central California, Southern California.

We need one in New Jersey and New York and, you know, Miami wants to get on.

And it's not something that we've established or even have put thought behind yet.

We both have full time jobs and all of that.

But again, this is not about me.

I just think it's interesting to hear how

when things I feel like are meant to be and your heart is in the right place,

the general public ends up showing up and they want to get behind it and they want

to support it, dude, you know, that's the words I keep hearing.

A lot of people were saying it's proofs that it was needed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just happen to do the right thing and then I just I'm amazed that it was me.

I figured it would have been somebody else to do something like this.

I mean, I'm an idea guy, but I'm an idea that builds things for myself.

Yeah, ultimately, I did build the club for myself.

If you Bruce through a browser or bylaws, you'll see that all the things that I wrote

up in there were the things that happened to me that I'm not ever going to let

happen to another member. Yeah, good, good.

So all that was written up in there.

And one of the big things is our freedom of speech, our Bill of Rights.

We have that in this club.

You can speak. Of course, we're asking you to be nice.

You know, you go to an event, don't start cursing and swearing at everybody and,

you know, flipping off children kind of thing.

But keep keep yourself civil.

But freedom of speech is encouraged.

We want you to speak out because we want your opinions.

We want to fix things and make them better if they need to be.

So that's why we're here.

And so far, I think I've done the right things because

not many people have wanted to make any changes at all.

People are really on board with what we're doing.

And it's growing.

It is growing.

It's growing so fast.

So fast. It's it's scary.

There's even no proof.

All this this positivity that we have here is just we don't have negative press

releases of any sort.

And I haven't had to say anything bad at all to my members yet,

except one of our products wasn't selling that well.

So we're just going to discontinue it.

So what?

Everything has been good.

But, you know, with negativity,

you can't have that be the basis of your club or your organization, your culture.

I said, negativity isn't sustainable unless you're a weatherman.

If you're a weatherman, the negativity is great.

You know, if you're the press, negativity is great.

People buy this stuff for us.

No, we don't need that here.

We don't need that.

This is about positivity.

It's about growth, it's about helping the community and making things better for

everybody.

Let's touch on that community aspect.

What are what are things that come to the top of your mind that the Volkswagen

community gets wrong today versus what are some of the things that they actually

still get right today?

Oh, community.

That's a very good question.

Ah, seeing as how I'm very actively involved in the Pensacola community.

And I have been elsewhere.

I've been in Western Kentucky before.

I've been in Fort Myers.

I did New Jersey.

I got to say that our community here is in general more inclusive.

There's a lot more Volkswagen owners that want to do things.

And I think getting people to actually participate in things is probably what

people aren't doing right.

If you enjoy your Volkswagen, you enjoy the culture.

Get out there with people.

You know, don't leave that thing in the garage to rot because guess what?

It's going to break.

It just sits there.

It's going to break.

So you have to get out there and you have to participate in your community.

It doesn't mean spend money, but it doesn't mean get out there.

Be seen.

Get noticed.

If people are traveling in the car group, we're doing this on purpose because we

want the people to see us.

It's our advertisement.

And as a nonprofit, we're trying to help our community and we eventually will be

earning more money because of more recognition that being seen.

So do participate in a community.

And if you can spend money, great.

Spend money in the local businesses, spend money at local restaurants and do

these events together.

And that's one of the things that we do with Auto Slickers.

We're very active and we do 23 events a week.

We're very busy.

And that might be one of the other reasons for our success, because other things

weren't happening elsewhere.

There was nothing going on for months at a time and we pack our calendar, which is

another thing, by the way, we got a beautiful calendar on our website.

You see that?

I haven't.

The calendar is awesome.

You want to share your screen and show it?

Ah, no.

OK.

Only because I have multi monitors, six of them, and I don't know what it's

going to do.

So you might end up with a screen this big.

So yeah, that won't work.

But if you go to oilslickers.com forward slash calendar, you can actually have a

look at it, but all of our events are right up there on our calendar.

And it's not just our events.

It's the entire Volkswagen community events from its 250 mile radius.

That's all the way from New Orleans to Tallahassee all the way up to

Tannehill, where our Northern Morse show is that.

So everybody that's within that umbrella can put their events on this calendar.

Now, we might put some that are slightly outside of that.

If it logically makes sense, of course, you know, if you're 30 minutes past our

pass, it's fine.

You want to participate with our community.

You can put an event on there, but it also doesn't have to be a Volkswagen

specific event.

There it is.

You got it.

So it doesn't have to be a Volkswagen specific event.

It can be any event that's Volkswagen friendly.

And you see tonight we have that one that's flashing there where we're going to

be meeting over at Bubba's 33 for the Volkswagen takeover of the bad boys event.

The bad boys are mostly American American cars.

And they invited

Emerald Coast Volkswagen Club, which is the other club over to them.

And they posted an event for that.

I said, you know, why don't we tag along?

It's the whole community.

Let's get all the Volkswagen's out there.

Well, needless to say, the oil slickers dominated the event.

We have more than the American cars.

Even we just took over.

So they're so happy to see us.

They can't wait to have us.

We're going to be there again today.

And Fred, the president of the bad boys, which is again, mostly American cars, was

very thankful that I came out also a New Jersey guy from right where I'm from.

So we're very easy to relate to each other.

So it's a blast.

All events, anything Volkswagen or Volkswagen friendly from our umbrella can go

on that calendar.

And in time, as we start to expand out to other chapters or the regions or whatever

we start doing from there, we'll add other events to this calendar.

And I'm going to dial them in so you could say, here's my zip code.

Give me a mile radius.

Show me everything on the calendar.

Boom, boom, boom.

There it is. Cool.

Now, again, being a programmer and having all this data at my fingertips,

it works out really nicely and anybody can add an event.

There's a button on the top that says add event.

If you don't have a oil slickers account, you don't need one.

Just go ahead and put a name, password in there and gives yourself something to

And then I police them just to make sure that they do meet the criteria.

Again, being in the area, being Volkswagen friendly and not being pornographic or

something nonsense, because you know, people like to put garbage in these things

and poison the systems.

If anybody knows anything about poisoning a system, it's me.

We have our salty dub website and we get you would be, well, you wouldn't be.

You would probably be right in line with understanding the amount of spam and

bullshit that people post, even like if we post an event on the events tab on

Facebook, because of the traction and the amount of people that are following our

events now, you know, in the thousands, there are people that will comment below

one of our events and say, oh, you know, we're still selling tickets.

If you want, just send us an email and it's like, who are you?

Oh, those spammers.

Yes, it's completely.

Yeah.

And we do is a.

It's a way to shut that off.

I'll talk to you about that later.

We did. No, we did.

We didn't got it.

I'm just relating to you in experience in experience that the spam or spam is terrible.

Yeah, yeah, it is.

All right. All right.

Yes, I got a final question for you before we final question.

We almost done already.

Fire.

Well, I know we're already two almost two hours, 15 minutes in.

And I promise I'm having a good time.

I promise not be minutes.

So I don't want to take too too much of your time.

But I told you to get in your microphone.

I would talk.

I love it.

This is going to make a fantastic episode.

Again, I thank you so much for your time and your energy.

Here's a here's an awesome question for you, though.

Describe the Volkswagen community for me in just one word.

Inclusive.

I haven't heard that one yet, even though it's so true.

And it should be one I hear all the time.

I haven't. Good word.

And that's a strong one.

It's inclusive.

Everybody has to be together.

Super strong.

Got to be inclusive.

Yeah. All right.

If I were to give it a second one, I would say loyalty.

OK, man.

Both fantastic words.

Usually I hear things like family, you know, that type of stuff.

But inclusiveness.

Yeah.

I like it, man. Thank you.

Good, good, good stuff.

All right. Rapid fire questions.

These are questions that demand a fast response.

All right. Now, OK, if a story comes of it, I'm cool with it.

I'm not going to derail you.

However, rapid fire means typically top of the head, first response, go with the gut.

Just spit it out there.

All right. I got I got a feeling this thing will be hard for you.

These used to get me in trouble with my guidance counselor.

You ready?

Yes. All right.

Rapid fire. Here we go.

Split bus or oval beetle?

Oh, that hurts. Both.

Nope. Got to pick one.

Ah.

I'm going to go with the oval just because I'm more done on it.

There you go. Oval it is.

All right.

Most overrated VW trend in today's market.

Chinese parts.

Oh, OK.

Well said.

Yeah. Most underrated VW modification.

Oh, I got to think hard about that one.

Oh, there's one.

It just comes to mind.

My cracking, pushing.

I mean, everybody needs a good ship pushing.

I'm going to give myself a plug.

That's a very important piece.

OK.

That's a very important piece.

And so many people don't fix it and it shifts like garbage.

Yeah, the crack and pushing.

Got it. Cracking, pushing.

Best junkyard score ever.

For me? Yeah.

That has to be the oval.

OK. All right.

Yeah, my oval.

One tool you can't live without.

Oh, this computer.

Oh, OK.

Yeah, this computer.

I have to do all my editing on.

This is a big piece of my life.

I have a feel I know where this one's going to go.

But carburetors or fuel injection?

Oh, I do like both.

But ultimately, if you're taking care of an air cool Volkswagen, I say carburetors.

But I am going to do fuel injection on my own car because I'm challenging myself to

do a technology thing, so I will be doing some kind of homebrewed fuel injection

system on my beetle. Cool.

Favorite VW engine sound?

Flat 4. OK.

Most hated automotive phrase.

The people that confuse cranking the car with turning over the car with the car firing.

You understand what I'm saying?

Because those are all different terms and they all be used differently.

But at the same time, but if in context you're using it improperly,

I'm not going to know what you're saying.

Those always get me.

The car cranks. OK.

So it's firing off. No.

So it turns over with the key.

No. OK.

So it's not cranking.

It's just you know what I'm talking about.

Yeah.

OK. OK. Good.

And interesting.

Tell us one thing that people misunderstand about you.

Ah, most everything, actually.

A lot of people can't relate to me because I'm just a different person.

I'm a unique personality.

And even when I've been studied for personality traits all the way back to

school and even when I've taken personality tests online for fun,

I always come up with some very unique results and these things say just I'm not

like everybody else and I get that and I know that.

So very often people don't understand where I'm coming from or what I'm doing or

what my intent is.

So very often I'm looked at in a negative light.

You know, maybe I'm nefarious or I'm dangerous or I'm harmful.

None of the above. I just I'm different.

Usually that's the the one that gets the most attention, though, in the most energy.

Right. Is that is the different one, the unique one, the one that's the one of a

kind type person.

You know, what comes with that, though, usually is a following of a lot of people

that actually relate to it because we're so

surprised.

We're all a little different.

And it's different.

Yeah. And that's what I like about people, actually.

It's the one thing I like about people.

And I never realized I was a people like her until I did this club.

I started to realize how much I do like people.

I used to be a real misanthrope.

I think people are always going to do the wrong thing.

And I noticed that people when you have somebody that's put the right things in

place, that people are making the right decisions, they are making the right

choices and they're taking care of each other.

And this inclusivity that I mentioned before is important.

And yeah, that's where I'm going with that.

What do you want people to remember about the duck, man?

Oh, like after a die or something?

Sure. Legacy.

We can.

Yeah. What do you know?

I got the Frank Zappa answer to that one.

Doesn't matter. I won't be here to know.

Doesn't matter.

On that.

So tell us this.

Where can people find you online?

Where can people join oil slickers?

Give us the details, the data so people can that don't know you or don't know

about oil slickers yet can actually locate you.

I am very, very easy to find.

You can search Oil Slicker Society International or just even oil

slickers up on YouTube, Facebook or on Google or any of your favorite search engines.

You're guaranteed to find us.

If you want to hit the website up directly, go to oilslickers.com.

And if you'd like to have a personal conversation with me or you want to know

more about my YouTube channels, I'm really easy to find also.

Duckman Cycles is the easiest way to look for me.

Search for those and any of your favorite search engines.

Look for me on YouTube, Facebook.

I'm there. I've got Facebook groups for chat.

I got so many Facebook chat groups just for me, which is amazing.

But again, draw the attention to myself.

But you can easily find me in all these different places.

And if you want one place that you can find everything and I know you're going to

love this, check out duck shit dot net.

All of my links to my social media are there.

All of my contact information is the best way to reach me always.

Because if I change anything, you'll find it there.

OK, duck shit dot net.

Let's let's go.

Duck shit dot net.

Right.

Final message to the Volkswagen community from you.

Final message.

Yeah. I love each other.

I mean, it's really important.

Take care of each other.

If you have somebody that's broken down, somebody needs help.

This is part of our community, our culture, other clubs, other cultures

are not like this.

You don't see them all part of guys rushing out to get a tow bar to bring

somebody home. It's about the Volkswagen guys.

So take care of each other.

It's really important. Embrace the new people.

You get new people to come in here.

They don't know this stuff.

And I mentioned that early in the video, they don't they don't even maybe not

even want to work on these things.

They just want to be part of that culture.

Even if they don't have a Volkswagen, then they want to be part of their culture.

Invite them in.

And we have some some members that have Camaros, some members that have other GM

products, somebody in there owns the Nissan, a Cadillac.

It's like, why are you here?

It's like, I want to be with you guys.

I want to do what you do.

So come on out.

Bring your cabaro.

Come on. Join us.

And that's really it. I mean, just inclusivity.

Bring everybody, bring your friends.

This is your family.

We have chosen you and I want you to be there.

That's really what it's about.

So tell everybody that and include everybody in whatever it is that you do.

And that doesn't mean you have to give them free parts.

So you have to give them free help to everything.

But be there for them when they're looking for help.

Find them the answers that they need.

Just be there.

You can find us on all socials at dublife diaries or shoot me an email.

I'm not hard to find dublife diaries at gmail.com.

Until next time, keep the engines humming and the wheels turning and always follow

the road that inspires you.

This is Joe Person.

I'm signing off.

I'll catch you on the next ride.

About this episode

Glenn Obert—aka “Duckman”—talks about two decades of building chaotic, junk-pile VW creations and turning that energy into a massive online following. He shares the origins of the Duckman name, including a Quaker parakeet and later a pet duck, and recalls his most bizarre build: an ATV top welded onto a VW pan. Glenn also explains how YouTube growth changed over time, why he never had a fear moment, and how he bounced back after club politics to launch Oil Slicker Society International, growing to about 150 members in under 200 days.

12 volt conversion 12 volt lights 1776 200 CC airbrush rust air‑cooled car air-cooled Volkswagen world A pillar body shop bondo

Chevrolet Camaro Honda CR-V Honda S2000 Toyota Supra Volkswagen Beetle Volkswagen ID. Buzz Volkswagen Karmann Ghia Volkswagen Type 2

Original notes

What does it take to become one of the most recognizable personalities in the air-cooled Volkswagen world?

In this episode of DubLife Diaries, I sit down with Glenn Obert, better known as The Duckman from Duckman Cycles & VW Garage. With over two decades of creating VW content and a loyal YouTube following of more than 90,000 subscribers, Glenn shares the stories, successes, and challenges that have shaped his journey.

We talk about his legendary chopped 1956 Oval Beetle, how he learned to fabricate using whatever materials he had available, the evolution of YouTube, and why authenticity still matters in today's creator economy. Glenn also shares the inspiration behind founding the Oil Slicker Society International, a Volkswagen club built around positivity, inclusion, and bringing enthusiasts together.

Along the way, we discuss creativity, resourcefulness, the future of the Volkswagen hobby, the impact of AI on learning real-world skills, and what keeps Glenn motivated after decades in the community.

Whether you're restoring your first Beetle, fabricating your dream build, or simply love hearing the stories behind the people who make the Volkswagen community special, this is an episode you won't want to miss.

In This Episode

Glenn's journey to becoming "The Duckman"
Building the iconic chopped Oval Beetle
20+ years of YouTube and content creation
Growing Duckman Cycles & VW Garage
The story behind Oil Slicker Society International
Why creativity and resourcefulness still matter
The changing Volkswagen community
Advice for builders and content creators

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow DubLife Diaries, leave a review, and share it with another Volkswagen enthusiast. Your support helps us continue sharing the stories of the people who keep the air-cooled community alive.

Connect with Glenn

Youtube : Duckman Cycles & VW Garage

Facebook : Oil Slicker Society International

www.DuckShit.net (All Glenns contact Info is here).

Follow DubLife Diaries

New episodes featuring builders, collectors, racers, restorers, and Volkswagen enthusiasts from around the world.

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DubLife Diaries The VW Lifestyle Podcast

Joe Person

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