Hard Parking with Jhae Pfenning Feb 9, 2026

Happy Birthday To Me, Drew Bunkley introduces Lil Z

Annotations will appear as you listen

0:00

51:44

Car

Chevrolet Corvette

The Chevrolet Corvette is a fast and stylish sports car that has been around for a long time, starting in 1953. It's famous for being powerful and fun to drive, and many people love it because it represents American car culture. You might hear about it because it's a popular choice for car enthusiasts and collectors.

LIVE

Monday morning, everybody got a weekend story nobody asked for.

This is Hard Parking. Brought to you by Right Hunt and

Right Toyota out of Scottsdale, AZ.

I'm your host, Jay Finning recording from my home studio here in Gilbert, AZ Coming up on today's show, Drew Buckley is back in studio. What has it been up to?

A career change? He does a lot with AI.

We're going to learn about those technologies and some of his creations and you won't want to miss it.

One of them is quite a throwback to the mid to late 90s for those of us that were around at that time.

I think you're really going to enjoy this episode coming U after this word from Spark Forge artist Foundry.

If you're in a business and you're tired of juggling tools, chasing logins, and constantly feeling like the tech side of things is heavier than it should be, this might hit close to home. That tech fatigue usually shows

up as an outdated website review slipping through the cracks, missed calls when you're busy, or social media that's always on the back burner. Most business owners know

something's off, but fixing it feels like a bigger project than they have time for. Sparkforge is just to take that

weight off. It handles the tech behind the

scenes, helps clean up how your business shows up online, makes sure calls and messages don't get mixed, keeps reviews from slipping through the cracks, and wrangles social marketing so you don't disappear. For.

Weeks if you're curious, there's a short discovery session and it comes with 90 days free to actually see if it makes things easier. No pitch, no pressure, just a

real conversation about what's working, what's broken, and what you can simplify. So head over to get sparkforge

dot AI forward slash hard parking to get started.

Drew Bunkley, welcome. Welcome back to Hard Parking

Studios, Tread and Torque this time.

Jay, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

It's good to see you, man. You're looking good.

Looking better, man. So we have a lot to talk about

today if you're doing some stuff in the AI space, which IA 100% appreciate and I respect you for because I've tried to look at some of that and I can only do some of the generative AI and some of the basic search, which is super fundamental compared to things that you're trying to do and things that you're able to do. And it's harder for, I call it

adult learning, it's harder for adults to get into that space just because technology is just so different from us, even if we feel like we've been in technology our whole lives.

Yeah, we started a new business up left Carvana back in November, so was working on some projects with one of my close friends. He's in California, he's an

engineer, so computer engineer, and he wanted me to help him with some projects. So I just was getting really

lost in it and just had to kind of dig in and kind of learn a little bit more. So it's taking a few months, but

yeah, we've made some big improvements, some big changes in where we're where we're going, so.

You have a few things on the horizon and so that's one of your projects then. Yeah, So trade and Torque kind

of rebranding. Originally I wanted to set up

like e-commerce merchandise and create a new brand after we started the merchandise. Basically I just was looking at

doing some different AI apps and different things.

So really with having the company started, just decided since I'm in automotive, the new name, just decide to start the company. And so we're doing app design,

web design, smart designs for smart AI, smart bots for smart assistance, AI assistance and those sort of things.

So ties right in with the new name.

So that's like the parent brand then?

Right. So treading towards basically my

company and then we're making apps and those sort of things.

So underneath that they have their own small companies because they'll probably be sold off.

What can you share, if anything, about the apps that you're doing? And if not much, then talk about

kind of the idea to kind of go that way instead of back into corporate America because you're you're a career car guy from your father to yourself, always dealing with cars, car dealerships, buying and selling cars, some sort of a vehicle management. You know, how was the decision

or what was the decision like? Or when did you come to the

realization that you just wanted to kind of shift and try something else? You know, it all started really

falling back on things that I love doing Passion.

So obviously the cars is my main passion, but also being creative. You know, I've got a pretty big

following on Instagram. We've got our YouTube channel.

So, you know, I love creating videos, I love editing.

And so I wanted to see how I could make a profession out of that, but not really be the face getting a little older, you know, so I have to really think about reality and how to grow a channel. For me, it was not to be the

face. It was to create something and

build based off what I already have.

So that's why I decided to do let's, you know, figure out how we can use our creativity. And it really started off.

I wanted to create an app to help me improve and do things, and once I started getting involved in creating them, I realized that this is something that other people use.

And then I decided to figure out, well, how can I market this? So that's pretty much how it all

started. Do you mess with personas at

all? Like I know they the AI space is

so huge. People think of AI and I talked

about this last week. They think of or two weeks ago,

they think of generative AI, the prompt base the text create me an image with three monkeys on a trampoline.

Or like I use, I say, hey grok, here's the transcript from this week's episode. Go through and please summarize

it. Give me 4 to 5 sentences.

Give me key chapter points. Give me YouTube tags separated

by commas and 1 / 500 characters.

Give me an HTML5 format for Spotify and it does all that.

And those two use cases are just completely different.

But that even in that is completely different than the spaces that you're getting in for apps, productivity, commerce, more on the professional level.

Yeah. So for me, when I got involved

with the AI, it was really to help me learn how to make and build things. So obviously I started off with

the prompts, doing my videos. You know, that was where I

started using and learning how to do prompts, was making videos. Then it went to business

productivity, drafting letters, emails.

Now I'm at the point where I use AI to actually operate and create code, design applications, actually run applications, test applications without having any experience or any knowledge or any training and coding or IT.

And I've learned that in the last three months.

Am IA 100% proficient? No, I'm learning everyday.

So that's the most important thing that I'm doing is that I've opened my mind though to learn these things.

And once I started realizing that it's not hard.

You just have to have an open mind and you have to just be willing to, you know, educate yourself.

It's something that anyone, anyone can do.

So if I'm going to use this and change into a new field, I'm using technology to help guide me that way and to help keep me moving forward. Are you going to try to maybe

incorporate this into what you've always known your whole life, or just go a completely different direction?

So I'm going into things that I've always had a passion for and ideas that come to my head. I've got about 8 to 9 different

programs and things that I'm working on.

And so, you know, people like us, you know, we have to kind of focus on one or two things and complete and then go on.

So what they. Say, maybe that's my problem, I

have too many things I have to focus on.

Yeah, we talked about that and I'm the same way.

And so, you know, I meet with my partners, we do our Zoom calls there in California and it's like, OK, we have to focus today, you know, because he's the same way as I am.

So we have to really look at pinpoint where we want to count today. Where do we see this being

completed in the next week and those type of things.

So the, a lot of the apps that we're working on right now are actually ready to test. So we create a couples app.

I did a will visualizer app that I changed into a rap visualizer.

So we got a lot of projects I love to talk about.

I mean, there, you know, there's nothing to hide.

We've got a couple things that I'm doing for some clients.

And the most important thing that I'm trying to do is find users and testers. Because there's a lot of people

that want to get involved in different things and they want to learn how to do and build different things, but they just need guidance and, you know, direction.

So talk about them. All right, my favorite is the

rap visualizer. I think I sent that to.

You. You did?

Yeah. That was pretty cool.

Yeah. So it's a really cool program.

All this basically incorporates a lot of the different AI features like the Nano Banana Pro, the Gemini Pro.

So a lot of these systems and tools you can take, you can build one app and incorporate different things into them.

So I'm able to use a visualizer that I've put on a website that people can actually see. You can go in there, you can

take a picture of your car, upload a file of your car.

You can use three M colors. There's colors built right in.

And then you can actually see what your car looks like with a different color on it. If you want to do a design, put

your logo. So it's designed to be able to

cut out, not necessary cut out the middleman, but make it more productive for the wrap shops and for the client.

Because people see different things on other vehicles.

But until you see it actually on your car, it may not look right or it may have different curves. So I think it's a great product

and we're going to be marking that and launching that commercially to shops. Well, it's cool because I think

of like Tire Rack and you do the wheel visualizer and you, you know, bigger wheels and but it still never looks right.

It looks kind of dumb. It never looks right.

And then you get the 2D versions of these things where you can see the side, the front, the rear, the top.

But even that, you know, even when you can rotate it on the screen, it doesn't look right. You know, it's just like some

sort of a not even quite as good as a video game animation, right? What you sent me, it looks like

a photographer took the photo or videographer took the photo out and about. Like if I were to go to a car

meet and take a photo of my car that's already wrapped, you know, I think that's really special.

But that in itself is just completely different than so you have the couples thing, right? So, So what?

What's contrast the difference between those two?

And then why is there such a difference?

Just because it's just more product.

Well, so couples I we created apps called couch play.

Couch play Pro is the official name of it and it's a couples app. So we're we, my wife and I, we

just had our 10 year anniversary.

One thing that I noticed the last few years with social media, she's on one couch, I'm on the other couch, I'm on my phone going through my fees doing my thing.

She's doing the same thing. Turn a movie on, you know, we

have to kind of make our time. And So what I did decided to do

was design an app that we could interact with each other while we're on our phones and it kind of brings us closer together.

So, and it creates games. So there's interactive 2 person

games that we can do, there's trivia, there's TikTok challenges. So it has a lot of things in it

to not just make it seem like this is boring, but to make it fun for couples. You can also go build date

nights. So like winners of the for the

week, they are, they get to pick the date night and you can build the date night within the app, let you know what's in your area and you can build long term trips and bucket list.

And so it's really cool. So it gives people something to

look forward to and to be able to plan together and to make it a little bit more interactive with couples when they're, you know, at home. I guess the immediately the

media thought is why not just put your phones down and.

Figure it out. Why not?

And that's the question they've been trying to answer.

You know, So The thing is, if you can't beat them, join them.

I mean, things are moving forward just like it with AI technology. I've listened to a lot of

artists that, you know, do and don't like the way AI is coming forward. But one thing that they do agree

on is if they don't start and learn how to use it, they're going to be left behind. Right.

They'll resist it, right? Yeah.

But I think it's, it's just conceptually difficult for people to wrap their heads around.

And it's the same deal. I think everybody listening, if

you're in a relationship, unless you've just started dating the person. But if you're in a relationship

that you've had for a while, it's the same deal.

You know, maybe like I'm in here working in the office working on YouTube videos, if that's my wife's downstairs grinding through a Netflix, a show that my daughter put her on or she's in the room watching something, you know, And then I've noticed at night, like we used to watch King of Queens together, hilarious fucking show, funny, funny show or Bobby Flayer or something. But she'll be on her phone and

I'll be watching TV or we'll both be on her phones.

I'm like, what are we doing? You know, So that's I, I, I

guess I kind of, I get it. That's where the world is going,

but it's crazy that that's just where we're at.

Yeah, there's a disconnect. And with technology advancing so

much, it's hard to stay focused on a lot of things that are important. So what I wanted to do was

create something that me and my wife could use together that would just give us more focus, you know, and especially since we like to do trips, I really concentrated on the trip builder. So it's called a dreamscape,

allows you to go in and create dreams and you can put in, you know, a year out, two years out, whatever the case might be.

But it's just something that you can open up, you can see everyday, you can go in, you can build itineraries.

So gives you day-to-day if you do a five day trip and it'll automatically give you a 5 day itinerary for things to do based off of what you want to spend and those sort of things.

So it's pretty interactive and it uses AI technology.

That's good so if if people hear see these microphones are really good, but if you hear dinging in the background, that's because for some reason Drew Bunkley hasn't quite figured out how to turn off all his notifications. So that's coming from your

watch. I can't tell if it's coming from

your watch. That's.

Coming from the watch, this is silent.

Got it. Yeah, yeah.

But sometimes when that happens on these calls or these these conversations that never even shows up and then I sound weird even bringing it up. So then I have to kind of go

through and scrub it. But let me ask you, so how scary

was it though? I mean, it has to be scary.

I mean, you separate from Carvana, you're a grown man, you have bills, you, you know, you're empty nesters, right?

But still, I think the change is the number one thing that stops people from the fear of change is what stops people from changing. You know, people don't like

their job. You say if you don't like your

job, quit. And it's always much easier to

say or I'm going to leave this job that I don't like.

But if I take this other job for the same amount of money, or maybe it's a little less money, maybe it's a little bit more money, but I don't know if I'm going to like the people.

I don't know if I'm the atmosphere, am I going to make a mistake? And so I stay where I'm at.

And then in terms of separating from your employer, it's kind of the same deal. All I know is cars.

I'm going to get back in the car business.

I'm going to sell cars. That's what I'm comfortable

with, you know, but to take that leap, I think I alluded to that earlier, is to take that leap. You know, how what was that

like? Like how scary is that?

It's scary, Jay. I mean, when you finish up with

Carvana, you know, you've got your savings in stock and you're like, let's see what we can do. Ride this out.

You know, I put in for other jobs, employment, but I decided just because of future goals that I have, if I want to travel, I want to work remote. So there are certain things that

I was looking at the end of, you know, getting close to retirement. What do I want to do?

How do I want to go out? Do I want continuous income?

So these are things that people have to really look at within themselves. And I just made a decision that

I'm going to go forward with this 100% because I've owned my own businesses. So it's not something that is

new for me to start up. It's just a matter of let's see

what people we can get into the right places and actually build out something the right way where it's going to be profitable and successful. But it's scary, man.

I mean, I'm working everyday. I'm on calls with people.

There's incomes doesn't come in on a weekly basis.

So, you know, having to, to make sacrifices right now is, is exactly what a person has to do in order to, you know, get to those long term goals that they have set.

Yeah, being away from what you've always known.

I mean, everybody knows you, especially on this podcast as my my official Corvette guy. You know, are you still as, are

you finding yourself still as dialed in or are you kind of dropping off even though you're never going to drop it, but just because you have to be so hyper focused on what you're doing because the content creation itself is completely changed, right? It's no longer and you're still

posting some of your other stuff.

But I know, you know, it's like, OK, well, you're not.

You're no longer really in that space, but that's content that you have that you can keep on posting even though you've kind of left that behind. So what's that journey been

like? And are you finding yourself

still paying as much attention, I guess because of what you're trying to do now? Yeah, so I'm really, I have lost

a lot of attention on social media, but it refocuses to the next chapter. Well, let me ask you this.

So you've lost a lot of attention, so people have stopped paying attention to you, or you stopped paying attention as much on social media. I've stopped paying much

attention, so I'm not. I'm really I get on.

I don't get on that frequently. When I do, it's usually to make

a post, and it's a post that I've had to condition myself to make because I get lost in what I'm doing now.

But I do have plans for that. And the whole thing was to

rebrand. So I was talking to a publicist

and they were basically like, whatever you're doing with your new products, just rebrand yourself since you already have the media. So I try to continue to do some

pose and add in some new things to kind of test the market.

I'm working on the new Little Z, so that's something that I can do and I have fun doing that because now I'm creating characters based off of an idea in my head.

That was the hardest thing man, trying to figure out how to get what's up here to other people can see visually.

So do. You want to talk about little ZA

little bit? Man Little Z is a rock and

roller man. Yeah, it's funny you.

Yeah, you send me a couple of those videos.

Yeah, So, you know, I wanted to. Like I said, I created

character. His name's Little Z.

He's A little dial type character.

Corvette ZR1 right out-of-the-box, you know, guy brings him home. ZR1 guy just got a new car,

brings him home and the character comes to life, you know, so he's going to be doing car shows and talking smack.

Obviously Corvette being on top right now, he's got a lot to talk about so. That'll be fun to see how you

integrate that. So you, is your, your plan to

integrate little Z in the real world or to have little Z as I guess you could with AI? That's, that's, that's the

thing. We're in this.

We're in this crazy space where you can literally have something on screen that doesn't exist, right?

With stuff that is real or realistic in a real world.

Right, Yeah, so we I just made a one minute quick video on YouTube, Little Z. You can check them out and you

can see how it gets introduced. Yeah, we'll have to.

We'll have to play like a a short snippet of that here, you know, for the podcast. Perfect, so how you doing

though? I'm good ish.

No, I'm fine, man. I'm fine.

You got a lot going on. I got stuff going on, yeah.

Want to talk about it? I don't know.

Listen, a lot of people don't realize that.

I know, Jay, you got a lot of stuff going on.

You're president of the NSX club.

Yeah, let me ask you a question. A lot of people may not realize

you're present in an ex club. What does that role really mean

to you? It's a role that I didn't want.

And so people said that's probably why I should be the president. And it's because, you know, why

is that a role that I didn't want?

Because I'm, I'm so relationship driven, you know, I, I try to, not to be too far on one opinion or the other.

And the, the car world, as you know, is very bipolar, right?

The cars bring us all together, but we could all be in the same parking lot and not really like what's on the other side of the parking lot. Or I'm having a personality

issue with this person over here because this person over here doesn't like this person over here.

So I've spent most of my life trying to be Switzerland.

You know, I think everybody understands the reference of being Switzerland neutral. But when you take a role of a, a

president of a club, you, you can't really be as neutral because you have to be focused on what is it going to take to move the club forward. And the prior president, you

know, I, I stepped in as I was asked to step in as vice president when they, when a person was, you know, no longer going to be vice president. But that condition of that, the

expectation was for me to take over as president.

Now, I ran for president and a lot of people, I wouldn't say a lot of people, some people had took issue with that because I'm good friends with the prior president, but I also ran unopposed. Right.

So, so, you know, if you want to be president, step up.

Yeah, put your hand out. Otherwise, shut your mouth.

Right. But I said if if we're going to

do this, I say we because you have to build your own administration, you have to build your own.

You have to take the existing regionals, get them on the same page, and then you have to start forecasting for the future.

And I said, if we're going to do this, we're going to make some big changes. We need to change the website.

We need to give the members what they've been asking for for years, Little stuff, little wins.

They want to store. We haven't had a store in a long

time. We finally gave them the store

stores doing all right, websites know where where I want it to be, but I think the members overall are kind of happy with it. But you know how I am it's like

what's next? What's next, what's next?

How do we improve? How do we improve the the member

experience? And so when we don't hit goals

that we've told the members we're going to do, I take that personally and I and I also get very upset.

You know, I get upset at the club magazine sometimes.

It's in a better place now, but if that's the one thing we're offering members, it's got to be the best thing we're giving them. And it hasn't always been, you

know, and I've taken as a creative myself, it's hard to be there to be on top and be a very creative person and see some of these simple mistakes that a lot of times are just because people are lazy. And a lot of times you hear

excuses. It's like, well, you know, we're

all volunteered. We're in a volunteer position.

I go, OK, well, we're, we're in a volunteer position, but we're also elected officials. And so we have our duty to make

things better. We can't be like, well, I'll do

it when I, you know, I'm working 40 hours a week.

Well, if you're working 40 to 50 hours a week, then maybe you shouldn't decided to be an elected official because guess what? I'm busy too, right?

I'm very busy. And myself, the vice president,

you know, our current, our current group of officers, which is the president, the vice president, the treasurer and the secretary, club secretary, the it's like a Secretary of State.

It's an incredibly important position.

It's not like an administrative assistant secretary.

And with the current regionals, you know, we have things that we need to do and that's becoming president.

It was a lot. More work.

Than I ever anticipated it being and there's times where I've said, well, no wonder the club hasn't progressed because getting everybody on the same page is hard.

And you can give these speeches and everyone's like, yeah, I'm down, I'm down and you the light is green and everyone's supposed to be walking. You turn around and have people

just standing there and it's like, OK guys, if we're going to do this, we have to do it together.

So that's what that's why I'm president.

This is an election year. I, I, I wasn't sure if I was

going to run again, but I've been kind of told and suggested, you know, an urge and nudge to do it again.

So I think we're doing stuff for the most part, right?

Well, that's good. You know you need more than one

term. Yeah, to get it done right.

Yeah, yeah. And then it's, it's funny

because it's a car club and but it's not, it's not like your local club. I mean, it's an international

club. We have members all over the

country. We have members all over the

world, you know, it's kind of a big deal and the biggest fear about coming in and making all these changes.

And you could apply the same thing to what's going on in America right now. You know, the more drastic

changes, they don't mean shit if the next person comes in and changes everything, right or allows it to lapse.

And so we have to make sure from the NSX club, the stuff that we do is is repeatable and is able to be carried on by the next group. And you got to make sure the

next group isn't lazy. So the story still has to be

maintained. You know, the money has to be

maintained. You know, everything that we're

doing has to be maintained. Otherwise it's going to fall

back to where it was before. And it wasn't in a very good

spot 6 to 8 years ago with the current president through me, things have been on the up and up.

And we've just had success after success after success after success. And when we have a failure, I

get pretty irate about it. And I say never again.

But you know, none of none of these changes mean anything if they're not sustainable. Gotcha.

You guys just had a great show I heard a month or two ago right up in. So NS Expo was in Seattle?

Tacoma. Yeah, and that took place last

September of 2025. And this year is going to be in

Orlando Nice Wednesday in October.

And you know, we're working with the Orlando crew because this is what we do. People like, hey, you should

bring it to our our place. It's like, well, you need to get

people in your area that are members to put together a former proposal. You know, what are the

activities that you think we're going to be able to do?

What hotels, you know what, what is there around there?

What's the traffic situation? How easy is it from the airport?

Like all these things matter. How much do you think it's going

to cost because people have to pay to attend these events and so we have to vet it. And then whoever puts together

the best proposal as we decide as a group, that's where we announce the next NS Expo for the first year.

We've announced 2 years in a row.

So this year is going to be Orlando, 2027 is going to be Cleveland. Now, that could change if

something were to fall through a Cleveland.

But right now the Cleveland team is starting to assemble.

But it's hard to plan stuff over a year out.

Just. I mean, it's hard to.

You can't get, you know, a hotel to be like, yeah, you know, two years out. You know they run everything 6

to 12 months out so. Well, let me ask you this here,

let's switch to another another note, I know you're involved in a lot of charities and you've got 1 coming up.

There's an event coming up with one less and United Food Banks, is that right on the 20? 1st, you know, that's what I

talk about every year and it's, you know, Mimi of Rad or die Mimi Morgan, she's been instrumental in this and this is something that she and Juan Otto has done.

This is our 8th 1 coming up with the United Food Bank this year.

Our title sponsor is ELG Accident Attorneys, which is great. NSX Crew, a local law firm.

So by the way, there's so many law firms, right?

So when you're driving into Phoenix, every can billboard, there's like 8 of them. But you hardly see ELG because

they don't, they're very successful, but they don't, they don't really advertise on them being ambulance changers, right?

You know, personal injury attorneys, accident attorneys.

But this is a big deal. That's coming up February 21st

at the United Food Bank here in Mesa.

And it's a car show. It's a food drive to help feed

the hungry. And I think right now the

current statistic is one in five people are go hungry in, in, in Arizona. But it's a big deal.

And we're trying to raise, you know, feed or create like 150,000 meals, which is a lot. But last year we shattered our

previous record. And then this year, hopefully

we'll, we'll shatter, we'll we'll reach 150,000.

But what happened was 2019 I believe is when the first one was. She was not doing her thing at

the. Time she was part of the one

auto council, but she's out doing her thing and she has her own ride or die promotions that she does event planning.

She's really good at it. She was approached at like a

Dutch Bros about doing a thing United Food Bank.

So then she brought it back to the council and we said OK, let's do this. So we're going to run this as

ride or die and one auto. And so that's really what it's

been this year. It's tagged as ride or die

presents in accordance with one auto.

But that's been very successful. And I've kind of let her run it,

run it with all the planning. We kind of we, we bump heads a

lot because we're both creatives.

And I'm just like, all right, you got this.

Just let me know what you need. And and she does.

She's, she's great at this. And she was, she was born to do

this. So yeah, I signed up to.

Volunteer and thank you. Yep, you can go online, anybody

listening to the website and they can donate if they can't show. But yeah, definitely it's going

to hopefully is a big turn out. I mean, we're going to be on the

Saturday, February 21st, 21st, Yeah.

And that's a good, good deal. Thanks.

For bringing that up so anybody could.

And we've had people actually in the past years donate from other states because it's, you know, you get your tax donation receipt anyway and. When?

People register. We're limited to 100 cars.

We're going to have a bunch of motorcycles this year too.

But when you go to the link, which I have a link at the One Auto movement page, there's one at at 1 less 1 less car show I think is our Instagram. I don't know, I can't think of

that right now. But yeah, the One less Car show

Instagram page, the link in the bio, if you register your car, I think it's 20 bucks that counts that all of that goes to toward donation. And so people can bring, they

can bring their food and all that.

All that stuff's listed on the website of what you can bring to donate. You don't have to bring anything

to donate. If you register your car, that

is a donation as well. We have limited number of

T-shirts and then people can also go in and sign up to help assemble food bags, which is actually a lot of fun.

Doesn't sound like it's a lot of fun.

It's a ton of fun. You burn calories.

We got the whistle, we have music going.

And at the end of the day, the, the the people that get the the food bags benefit and then everybody has fun.

And it's just this, it's a it's a great event that we do every year. Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah. I.

Can't wait. Definitely.

Me and my wife, we've done a few volunteer works down the homeless shelter. So yeah, feeding people, giving

back to the community, you know, it's really important.

That's a big thing because also. What we do with one Otto and and

Edger's kind of like my, my #2. He's the vice.

And basically he, he almost at this point runs one Otto.

I always joke with him because if he were to leave, he almost moved for a job and I was like fuck, what am I going to do?

Because before him was Mimi kind of being the main person with me. And we, she and I would always

have conversations because we have people that that are part of the council, but they kind of just, you know.

Don't do anything. And I know I'm going to get in

trouble by saying that, but the whole point of being part of the council is to help bring ideas, say hey, like you've done before with with Andretti Indoor go Kart racing.

It's like, hey, Jay, we have this event coming up, do you want to be a part of it? Can we get together and let's do

it? And that's what ideally part of

the council is. And Edgar brings stuff to me all

the time and we talk about it and I bring stuff to him and we say, hey, let's do this. Are you available?

Am I available? And So what we've done every

year is we do a cruise. In the last couple years, we've

gone up to Cottonwood, about two hours north of here.

We've gone to the, to the Old Town Mission and everybody brings their donated items from here, food, clothes, anything you would normally either donate to Goodwill with the exception of food, right? And we go to Old Town Mission

and they give a presentation, they feed us and we do a car show up there in the, in the small town of Cottonwood.

And so we've done that and it's all about, it's trying to find small charities that don't get a lot of recognition.

Everybody around here does the the children's, you know, hospital and but they get so much, they have such an endowment, you know, the big one, you know, but it's also a popular thing to try to link your.

Your effort to. Because more people are going to

be like, oh, OK, Phoenix children.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they get so much.

And it's not that they don't need it, but they literally have warehouses full of donated items.

And and so let's try to find those.

Other people who get no recognition, even Saint Mary's Food Bank, you know, we did a small thing with them and ELG and, and Kaylee Slaughter, which is a local huge, huge influencer on a motorcycle. And so, yeah, I saw the.

Instagram Yeah, tag this. She's awesome.

And she's, yeah, that was her. Guest.

Yeah, awesome. Well, great.

Well, listen, I appreciate your time.

I got one more thing to kind of ask me about.

I mean, you're about to join the club, so a lot of people are going to be coming to see you soon, you know, you want to tell people about what's going on for you, yeah.

So by the time this episode. I guess I've been forced for

this to be the next episode. Yeah.

So by the time this episode comes out, actually this episode will come out on my birthday. So that's.

Monday, February 9th. That's when I officially turn 50

you. Join the club, buddy.

Join the club. How's it feel?

Does it feel real yet? It started feeling real when my.

Back was always hurting. You know I need to hit the gym.

Do you have your membership? Is it up to date?

AARP. No, the gym membership.

You know what I do have A gym. Membership, it is right across

the street and I haven't been now in almost two years.

Yeah, you got to physically. Prepare your mind and just

that's what I have to do, man. I have to because I'm working

from home. I have to set myself like 10:00

out the house, get dressed, put on some clothes and go to the gym. Get out of the house for a

minute or drive around, come back and then refresh myself, get new thoughts. You got to do it, man.

So here's the deal. My employer.

Is West Coast and some people know this about us here some people don't but our time we don't touch our clocks but we we go back and forth between Pacific and mountain time and so. They start work at 8 which?

Is 9 for us now, so when the clock shifted I left my alarm for 6:00 with the intention. Of eventually.

Getting up and going to the gym like I used to do in the mornings and coming back and working my day.

I have yet to do that. Next thing you know, I mean, it

was a March. Do the clocks change again?

Yeah, right. Yeah.

So maybe I. Maybe I have to wait till the

next cycle spring forward, you know, or just, or just get up, it's at 7 and go to the gym. Because when I first started

doing that a couple years ago, I got up too early and the gym wasn't open yet, which I was surprised.

So then for a little while, but what I do when I go there, I just hit the treadmill and I walk.

Yeah, I, I speed walk just enough to burn fat.

I don't do cardio, none of that shit.

And then I might do light weights because you're, I mean, I'm 50 and, and your body like literally starts to deteriorate.

So you're sustaining muscle. You're not necessarily building

muscle. You don't have to listen to

people talk about that, that are, you know, fitness people and, and people who used to compete with bodybuilding.

And that's the thing. Once you hit 5055, you're not

going to be big like a 22 year old ever.

Not naturally. You know, those are those weird

exceptions like like an RFK junior who's who's weirdly built like a superhero to be, I don't know, 75 or whatever he is.

But I still need to get in there for my health.

I need to get back with a physician.

I haven't had a doctor in a couple years, you know, so it's.

Time to get those. Normal checkups, get the get the

blood work just to make sure you know, if if I'm genetically, you know, predisposed, you know, the diabetic or pre diabetes range.

Just make sure I keep my health because now with the grandkids, yeah, I can't believe I can't. Believe I'm saying this.

You know, but man, those, you know, Zeke is, he's special.

He's the oldest. But those girls, man, those

fucking girls, they're they're, they're the best, you know, and I'm just looking at them. I'm like, man, and I'm starting

to do the math in my head. You know, the youngest.

One just turn. One Yeah, the.

One that was previously. Like I was her favorite person

in the world. Now I'm one of the top five.

And I'll leave. I'll leave with the top five.

You know, it's like just just 10 years from now when I'll be looking at turning 60, you know, she'll be 15, you know, and and Zeke, you know, he'll be, you know, So it's just like he'll be getting out of the high school. And I'm.

I'm ready. I'm not ready to see it, but

I'm, I'm welcoming it. So I got to take care of myself.

Yeah, you definitely do. We all do.

Yeah, it's important. So, yeah, my youngest daughter,

she just graduated high school last year.

She's got her freshman year. She's in college down in

Georgia. So proud Papa, you know?

But yeah, we got to take care of ourselves, so we're around.

So since I'm hosting the show at the end, want to make sure people tune in? And if you want to check out my

websites, check out Couch Play pro.info.

You can also check out treadandtorque.info for

information on what I got going on.

I'm going to throw it back over to Jay to finish up here.

No man, that was perfect. Appreciate it.

Hey, who do you have? In the Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl. I've got, you know, he's

playing, right? Yeah, I got Seattle.

That's right, because you're an. NFL guy because you're.

Atlanta and you always got your Bijon Robinson jerseys on Yeah, so I got I got Seattle. Yeah, I.

Think. I think I picked Seattle on last

week's episode when I had QQ on the Zoom.

Cool. Guess what I made?

A Super Bowl app. You made a Super Bowl app made a

Super Bowl. App I'm going to.

Probably publish it tonight. It's basically a it's a like a

fantasy draft when you come into the house, but you're not drafting people, you're drafting plays.

So it's going to be special plays that may happen.

These are generic plays because. You don't actually know the

playbook, correct? You got to check it out.

It's. Not plays like exactly or things

that happen, like a safety return for a, you know, touchdown, those sort of things. So like fantasy football?

Almost. Plays.

Exactly. It's a fantasy football.

Type draft and then we're going to have a football trivia for halftime with Super Bowl commercials and old Super Bowl themes. So there's a contest on one of

my sites that I'm using it to build a Super Bowl app.

So all right, I put this together and I'm probably going to publish it so people can maybe use it this weekend.

Sounds good, Drew. Thanks.

For coming through. Appreciate you having me over

here. All right, next time.

Hope you guys enjoyed that. Episode with Drew Bunkley.

It's always a pleasure having him in studio, you know, as I sit here, I have an entire desk full.

Of. Birthday gifts, bottles, I mean,

you can imagine, right? I mean, I just turned 50 and it

was such an amazing weekend. This microphone is like in my

face. Let me lower it a little bit.

It was such an amazing weekend and man, you know so many social media happy birthday, so many text message.

I appreciate every single one of you all 12 of you watching this or listening to this on Spotify and or YouTube IA 100% appreciate you. You know the weekend started off

with you know, Saturday. It was really hectic.

I had my 50th and you know, Wes Tankersley had worked really hard behind the scenes and a lot of.

Our. Really loyal friends from One

Drink Wednesday, the show that he and I do.

And I don't talk about that show very much, but of course we do that every Wednesday on Instagram Live.

And The funny thing is a lot of people look at that and they say, hey, I watch your podcast, the podcast that you do with bourbon and the podcast that you and Wes talk about.

And I go, that's not a podcast, that's just the Instagram Live.

And you know, you're welcome to join us.

You don't even have to have a real alcoholic drink, you know, like we drink, but we have our, we call them family at this point. We have family that join us

every week and sometimes they're drinking, sometimes they're not.

We talk about. Current events.

This Day in History, the national What day like today could be National Pineapple Day. I don't know.

And then we do a trivia movie trivia and it's a lot of fun.

But you know, I want to think I have a lot of.

People to think. But I want to start this weekend

off with with thinking Wes for getting my weekend started.

And everybody in those videos, you know, he kicked it off with no one else in front of the show.

Obviously son of actor Craig T Nelson.

And you know, we've met him through relationships with with Catherine Cox, who I did not have at my get together.

But she will be here in studio really soon and she'll probably yell at me for it and and I deserve it.

And you know, we had our our good friend CC and you know, it took a lot. It takes a lot for her to to get

on camera and talk and and and show face.

And it meant a lot to me for her to do that.

You know, Shawn Tessier, you know, all of our favorite people. You know, Anna home one drink

Wednesday. Awesome.

Emilio. There's so many people Bob chat

like so many people chimed in Ramsey of automotive specialty tool and a dear friend of mine, he's the only one who brought up our disagreements in in in politics.

So this was pretty much a a, a a political free weekend, which is always great. But you know, one of my my my

best friends. I mean, it's it's hard to say my

best friend when I have I have so many and I consider myself enriched and wealthy in the relationship category.

You know, my dear friend Greg came into town from Washington DCI, went to his Army retirement two years ago and you know, we had worked together for a little bit, but he was one of.

The two best my. Two best men at the at my

wedding and then, you know, my good friend Jeremy and his wife Kristen, I guess she's my good friend now.

You know, they, they came in from Grand Rapids, MI and Alex and Jen, of course came in from Seattle.

And you know, my boys came over from from California.

Lamar Lyons, who was on the show last year, former Raider defensive back, former Baltimore Raven defensive back Lamar.

He brought over his friend Lincoln Kennedy.

Lincoln effing Kennedy over 10 years in the NFL, Offensive lineman. Such a nice guy, gentle giant.

I mean, this guy is probably 6-7, but he was at my birthday party. My good friend Jay Jones drove

over. He has over. 300 pair of.

Jordans I gave him. Well I didn't give him, but I

have the original flue game. Jordans.

And I tried to sell them online once and people said, no, those aren't, those are retros, those are remakes.

I go, no, these are the O GS and I even have the box from Finish Line. And I told Jay about these and

he came over and he took the box with him.

And I said, dude, just sell them.

I don't need them. They're just sitting in my

closet. Sell them, take your vague, take

your your profits off of it and give me the rest.

I don't care if it's 5050, just sell them for me.

So he's going to try to sell those for me.

And obviously, you know, Jay Tuck was over here, the famous Jay Tucker from the stories with Dre.

So Dre and Leo over here, Valeria, which is Jay's wife.

And of course, surrounded by many.

Of my. Friends and I have.

I have. I've got so many people.

This was an RSVP event that my wife put together.

But there's a lot of people there's, there's AI would have loved to have enough money and had enough room and just open this up and I probably could add 100 people here.

But I'm so blessed for the people that were here, family friends, you know, my wife of like I said, my son, my daughter, my sister-in-law came into town from, from Austin and she's always, she always pulls through with the party decorations and preparation. And man, you know, it was weird

not having the grandkids at the party.

They were at home. It was more of an adult thing.

We had a a bourbon theme, but wow, like what an amazing weekend. And I haven't touched any of

these these boxes and bottles and stuff in front of me or haven't opened any of the cards yet.

But it's always funny because I and also Kurt Olvey, if you're listening to this, thank you so much for the real time rye.

I did open that now and I I, I got it in the mail and I go, huh, from Kurt. This is interesting.

Then this is either coincidental or he sent it to me for my birthday. Then he sent me a text.

Message hey. Don't open the box until your

birthday and so I finally opened it in a real time rye.

I got a lot of 1 drink Wednesday stuff here that I need to get through. But it was just, it was so

amazing. We had the big 50 balloon in

the, in the, in the swimming pool, had a DJDJ Steve Swankaroon, shout out to Steve for being able to make it.

And then I had people local that RSVPD and just couldn't make it.

And you know, it's just, you know, I, I look at that event, I look at the people around me, all the laughing and then even Super Bowl Sunday. By the way, congratulations to

the Seattle Seahawks and Sam Darnold.

You know, Q And I talked about that last time they they won pretty convincingly. That game was in hand.

You know, I want to pivot really quick.

I was watching, I saw a clip of Shadour Sanders and he was playing flag football and he threw the ball to Jamar Chase and it went off of his hands and they got picked off by the defense. And I'm like, oh, OK.

Well, oh, they're playing. It's pretty good.

They're playing these skills challenges.

And then I realized that that was the Pro Bowl.

Like I, I completely forgot that they don't wear pads anymore in the NFL Pro Bowl. And it's ridiculous to look out

there and see these people playing flag football, flag football. They should just cancel.

The Pro. Bowl.

They should just name people to the All Pro Team, which they do.

They should have the All Pro, AFC first team, second team, All Pro NFC first team, second team and that's it.

They get the accolades towards their Hall of Fame, excuse me, toward their Hall of Fame career, and that's it.

Because if you're. Not going to show up and ball

out. And I get it, you your body is

worth a lot. You get paid.

Sometimes the the team ownership doesn't want you out there, but it's just a mockery of the game at this point.

And I was talking to Q about it and he said it's just it's it's just as bad as the NBA All Star game.

Those guys don't want to play the regular season games that are always trying to sit out. You think they want to go play

this shitty pick up? Basketball.

Game but anyway, I wanted to rant about that a little bit, but I want to thank everybody for being here such an amazing weekend and I guess I'll go ahead and wrap up this this episode. One thing right Honda and right

Toyota Sparkforge AI from Marcus foundry auto cannon officially licensed haunted accurate gear. Hey, I wish I could have had my

boy Michael from Auto Cannon over here.

I feel bad about that. And Patreon business supporter

Kuya Automotive out of Winter Garden, FL, the aforementioned automotive specialty tool of Owings Mills, MD Big house small home design out of Ashford, Virginia and Traverse City of Michigan shipping success. Treasure Valley out of Boise, ID

and that's W Tankersley's his his gig.

You know, if you want to support the podcast, you can, you can go to patreon.com hard parking Podcast.

And if you're watching this on YouTube, you can just click the little thing and become a member.

It's like, I don't know, $2.00 a month or something.

I, I don't know, I don't know. But you know, those type of

things really motivate me and keep me going.

Hell, our our. Podcast guest Drew was of course

here. Of course, right.

Of course Drew was here. So I want to thank Mark

Stoneman, Katherine Cox, City Rommos, Richard Graves, Byron Jones was here. Bojang Alice Camino this here

Drew Bunkley Andre Mullins e-mail the show [email protected] You can subscribe on YouTube.

Like I said, follow me on Instagram.

Hard parking pot. I'm really trying to grow that

Instagram channel. I can't grow like you're telling

the world how good the show is. I know I haven't said that in a

long time, but you know what? I'm bringing that back.

So let's do this. Let's grow this thing together

and I will talk to you all next week.

Shut up.

About this episode

Drew Bunkley returns to discuss his career shift from Carvana to the tech world, focusing on AI and app development. He shares insights into his new company, Tread and Torque, which aims to create innovative applications for the automotive industry. Highlights include a unique rap visualizer app that allows users to see how different colors would look on their vehicles, and Couch Play, an interactive app designed to enhance couple's time together. Drew emphasizes the importance of creativity and continuous learning in his new ventures.

Chevrolet Corvette

Original notes

Hard Parking with Jhae Pfenning – Episode 312

Drew Bunkley is back in the studio! After leaving Carvana, Drew dives into his exciting pivot to AI and app development under his new brand Trenton Talk. We talk:

How he's using AI (Gemini Pro, Nano Banana Pro & more) to go from zero coding experience to building & testing full apps in months
The vehicle wrap visualizer app – upload your car photo, apply custom colors/logos, get realistic previews (game-changer for wrap shops & clients – far beyond Tire Rack visuals)
Couch Play Pro – the couples app designed to fight "couch disconnect" with interactive games, trivia, TikTok challenges, date-night planners, dream trip builders & AI-generated itineraries
His hilarious AI character Lil Z – a sassy mini Corvette ZR1 doll that comes alive, trash-talks at car shows & stars in short videos (check the intro clip!)

Jhae celebrates turning 50 with an epic birthday weekend recap – huge thanks to Wes Tankersley, the One Drink Wednesday crew, friends from near & far, family, and everyone who made it special.

Also in this episode:

The real challenges of being NSX Club president & pushing sustainable change
OneLess charity car show & food drive for United Food Bank – Feb 21, Mesa, AZ (register & donate!)
Super Bowl thoughts, Drew’s new fantasy plays draft app, and a rant on the flag-football Pro Bowl

Timestamps / Chapters

00:00 – Intro & weekend vibes
02:24 – Drew’s career shift from Carvana to AI & apps
05:55 – Adult learning in AI – from prompts to full app creation
08:56 – Vehicle wrap visualizer deep dive
11:37 – Couch Play Pro: reconnecting couples through tech
15:47 – Fear of change & betting on yourself
19:48 – Little Z character & AI video content
21:27 – NSX Club presidency, changes & challenges
29:04 – One Last Thing United Food Bank car show (Feb 21)
35:19 – Jhae turns 50 – epic birthday recap
40:05 – Super Bowl app, predictions & wrap-up

Main Show Sponsors

Right Honda: https://righthonda.com/
Right Toyota: https://www.righttoyota.com/
Arcus Foundry: https://arcusfoundry.com
Autocannon Official Gear: https://shop.autocannon.com/

Contact Hard Parking with Jhae Pfenning

Email: [email protected]
Website: www.Hardparking.com
Patreon: www.patreon.com/hardparkingpodcast/
Instagram: instagram.com/hardparkingpod/
YouTube: youtube.com/@HardParking

Hard Parking – cars, culture, real talk. New episodes weekly. Subscribe, like, and share to help grow the show. Let's keep the parking lot full! 🚗💨 #HardParking #AIinCars #CouchPlayPro #LittleZ #JhaeTurns50

Hard Parking with Jhae Pfenning

Jhae Pfenning

View classic page →

0:00

51:44