Talk Talk Nation Feb 19, 2026

How Lucky Costa Succeeded After MotorTrend

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Concept

car culture

Car culture means the way people enjoy and celebrate cars together, like going to car shows or cruising.

Concept

drag strip

A drag strip is a special road where people race their cars in a straight line to see which is fastest.

Concept

cruising

Cruising means driving around slowly in a car just for fun or to hang out with friends.

Term

slammed

'Slammed' means the car is lowered really close to the ground, making it look cool and sometimes handle better in turns.

Term

right-hand drive

Right-hand drive means the steering wheel is on the right side of the car instead of the left. Some countries drive on the left side of the road, so their cars have the wheel on the right.

Part

chassis

The chassis is like the car's skeleton. It holds everything together, like the engine, wheels, and body.

Term

oversized tires

Oversized tires are big wheels that help a car drive better on rough or uneven ground, like dirt or mud.

Term

torque

Torque is how much force an engine can use to turn the wheels. More torque means the car can accelerate or pull heavy loads better.

Term

wheelie

A wheelie happens when the front of a vehicle lifts up off the ground because the back wheels push really hard. It's like a small stunt.

Term

differential

The differential is a part of the car that helps the wheels turn at different speeds when you go around corners, so the car drives smoothly.

Term

spider gears

Spider gears are tiny gears inside the part of the car that helps the wheels turn smoothly around corners. They can break if the car is pushed too hard.

Car

Ford Galaxies

The Ford Galaxie 500 is an old, big car that people liked in the 1960s because it looked nice and was comfortable to drive. It’s a classic car that some people collect and remember.

Term

supercharger

A supercharger is like a pump that pushes extra air into a car's engine so it can make more power. It helps the car go faster by giving the engine more air to burn fuel.

Term

boost

Boost means extra air pressure pushed into the engine to help it make more power. Devices like superchargers create this boost.

Car

Chevrolet Chevelle

The Chevrolet Chevelle is an old American muscle car famous for being fast and having a strong engine. People love it for its cool look and power.

Concept

Willow Springs International Raceway

Willow Springs is a race track in California where people drive cars fast and practice racing. It's famous for being a tough and exciting place to drive.

Car

Porsche 911 GT3 RS

The Porsche 911 GT3 RS is a very fast and special sports car made for racing and driving on tracks. It is light and handles corners very well.

Brand

Porsche

Porsche is a car company from Germany that makes fast and sporty cars, like the famous 911.

Car

The Ford F-150 is a big truck that many people use for work or carrying heavy stuff. It's very popular because it’s tough and can do a lot of different jobs. Seeing one at a Chevy place might surprise people because they usually sell different trucks.

Car

Volkswagen Rabbit

The Volkswagen Rabbit is a small car that’s easy to drive and doesn’t use much gas. It was popular a long time ago because it was simple and reliable.

Car

Ford Mustang

The Ford Mustang is a fast and stylish car that lots of people like to fix up and make look cool. It’s been popular for many years and is often worked on by people who love cars.

Car

Chevrolet Corvette

The Chevrolet Corvette is a really fast and special car that many people want because it looks cool and drives well. Some versions are made in small numbers, making them rare and valuable.

Part

transmission

The transmission is the part of the car that helps it change speeds and move by sending power from the engine to the wheels.

Car

Chevrolet Camaro

The Chevrolet Camaro is a sporty car that looks tough and goes fast. People often fix them up and enjoy working on them because they’re fun to drive.

Car

Chevrolet Impala

The Chevrolet Impala is a big car that many families used to drive because it’s roomy and comfortable. People also like to fix up old ones to keep them running or make them look nice.

Term

LS V8

The LS V8 is a type of powerful eight-cylinder engine made by GM. People like to use it in different cars because it fits well and makes a lot of power.

Car

Volkswagen Golf

The Volkswagen Golf is a small car that is easy to drive and has sporty versions for people who like faster cars.

Term

drive train

The drivetrain is the part of the car that takes power from the engine and makes the wheels move.

Part

strut towers

Strut towers are strong parts of the car where the suspension parts are attached to help the car handle bumps and turns.

Car

Plymouth GTX

The Plymouth GTX is a fast and strong car from many years ago that people liked because it could go really fast and looked cool. It’s a special car that some people collect now.

Car

GMC Cyclone

The GMC Cyclone is a small truck that can go fast because it has a special engine part called a turbocharger. It’s different from regular trucks because it’s built to be sporty.

Term

helmet

A helmet is a hard hat you wear on your head to keep you safe when racing.

Term

seat belts

Seat belts are straps that keep you safely in your seat so you don't get hurt if the car crashes.

Brand

Subaru

Subaru is a car company from Japan that makes cars known for good grip on the road and special engines. Many people like their sporty and reliable cars.

Car

Buick Grand National

The Buick Grand National is a special fast car from the 1980s that looks mostly black and can go very fast because of a turbo engine. Many people like it because it’s unique and powerful.

Term

alignment

Alignment means making sure the wheels point in the right direction so the car drives straight and the tires last longer.

Term

lowering

Lowering a car means making it sit closer to the ground, which can make it look cooler and handle better.

Term

NASCAR rims and tires

NASCAR rims and tires are special wheels and tires used on race cars that go very fast on oval tracks.

Concept

moonshine

Moonshine is homemade alcohol that people used to make secretly a long time ago.

Car

Dodge Charger

The Dodge Charger is a big, fast car that many people like to make even faster by adding special parts like turbochargers. It’s known for being strong and looking cool.

Part

turbo

A turbo is a part that helps the engine get more air so the car can go faster and have more power.

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Welcome back to Talk Talk Nation. I'm your host, Joe Weber, and this week we got to sit down with Lucky Costa.

He talked about his time over at Motor Trend, doing shows like Overhauling and Hot Rod Garage, his friendship with Tony Angelo, and just all the crazy shit that he's done in his life.

It's a lot of stuff. We had a lot of laughs. It was a really fun conversation, and I'm really excited for you to hear it.

So without further ado, here's our chat.

Welcome back to Talk Talk Nation. I'm your host, Joe Weber, and sitting with me right now is a very special guest.

You may know him from Motor Trend or his YouTube channel, Lucky's Garage Show. I'm sitting with Lucky Costa.

Thank you, Lucky, for having us at your garage.

Happy to do it.

Turns out we are almost neighbors.

Yeah, I think you're just north of me, right?

Yeah, we are a couple neighborhoods apart, and you just threatened me saying that you could throw a grenade.

Well, I could launch it.

Launch a grenade at our office.

That was a small talk.

Yeah, so if this podcast goes poorly, you will know by my obituary.

Lucky, thank you so much for being here.

I can speak from basically everyone at Donut's point of view by saying you are very influential to the startup of Donut and people getting into cars.

I appreciate that.

Where do we start, man?

I don't know. If I influenced you guys to do this, I may have to apologize later. I don't know how this is going to work out, but I do appreciate it.

You were telling me earlier that you grew up in the South Bay, and for anyone that doesn't live in California, that is the Long Beach area, El Segundo.

This area is where a lot of car culture flourished and kind of evolved.

Yeah, absolutely. Hollywood is just over the hill. LAX is right here. We're just south of all that.

It was very common when I was growing up to go to Hollywood, and I won't say caused trouble, but we weren't up there.

We weren't up there getting autographs that way.

I think we're beyond the statute of limitations right now.

Yeah, should be.

But Lion's Drag Strip was down here.

Yeah, that was down south.

They've always had races down at the Port La Beach.

I'm not quite that old. I'm sure Lion's was around when I was younger. I never went to it, but I used to go to Terminal Island, which is supposed to be built on the old Lion's Drag Race until it was shut down.

And yeah, all my friends were into that stuff.

I was born in Seattle, lived everywhere. I have pictures.

I've seen pictures of me living in Puerto Rico and in Florida and in Oklahoma and in Texas, but I don't have a lot of memories of any of that.

All my memories are South Bay, so I claim South Bay for sure.

Cool. What was it about Hollywood that made you want to go up there? Is that just where everyone could be?

I went to Hollywood for sure, but no, the cruising spot was Hollywood.

You go up there and get some trouble. Sunset Boulevard, we would just take the 405 all the way to sunset and then barrel run.

Just bonsai down sunset and get it end up on Hollywood Boulevard cruising.

Did that ever get you in trouble?

Oh yeah, we got plenty of trouble.

But I'll say some of the stuff that has scarred me the most were the, when I say scarred, I mean what influenced me.

Sure.

I can't say if it's, I've still undecided whether it's positive or negative influence.

Well, any trauma can help evolve.

Exactly.

So seeing a bonsai station wagon like slammed racing around corners and realizing that's like an old grocery getter.

How is it leaving everybody in the turns and then rolling up on it and it just being an old dirty rusty station wagon with a giant engine.

I was like, that's some of the coolest shit I ever saw.

Yeah.

And then riding my BMX bike to continuation school thinking, I'm going to get me a station wagon.

Oh, so this is like before you even had a driver's license?

Yeah.

No driver's license.

So, I mean, just a recap of my driving history and I'll show you a stack.

I used to collect tickets like it was lollipops.

And I have a stack in there.

You'll just say, is this even legal?

So I got in so much trouble from the time that I took driver's ed in high school to when they mail you your chevrore.

That's like two weeks.

They stopped.

I didn't see my license until I was 28.

What?

They suspended and revoked it.

Wait, so you took the test, you passed the test in the time that they took to the mail?

Traffic school, you had driving class in school with the other kids in a little car.

That couldn't have been more than a week.

No, it's like 30 days or something before you get your permit.

So in 30 days, you racked up more points on your license?

I got driving without a driver.

I thought I was a grown ass man.

So I'm now driving with my friends and get pulled over.

I was like, what are you talking about?

They're like, you don't even have a permit.

You don't even have a permit.

I took the class.

Yeah, just here's a ticket.

Here's another ticket.

Jacked up a ticket, lower ticket exhaust.

I just, you'll see stacks of tickets.

So either way, my license was suspended and revoked from 16 and a half till I want to say, actually, I personally gotten so much trouble that I didn't have the opportunity.

The first time I saw my driver's license was I was being booked in like camp, like a juvenile detention camp.

And they had a picture of, I'm just like, is that me?

Is that a picture of me on a light?

You're like, yeah, this is your idea.

Can I get a copy?

It's like, no, you can't have a copy.

Never saw it.

I was quite the juvenile deletion when I was young.

Oh man.

You were telling me that you were locked up from 14 to 18?

I left home when I was 14 and I got out of CYA, California Youth Authority, which is, they call a prison for kids, but it's not.

I mean, you wake up, you go to school in a camp setting and you're just trying not to get into a fight and it just...

Yeah.

Have you ever seen a gridiron gang with The Rock?

Yeah.

I was in that camp.

Oh, okay.

That sounds fun.

There's a good reference right there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So either way.

Especially if The Rock is your detention office.

The Rock was not the detention office, for sure.

So you were locked up.

So that's my adolescence.

So I missed out on a bunch of stuff.

So I got a lot of stuff squeezed in really quick.

And then I got out of it, which actually my mother had the opportunity to come pick me up at any time because it was not like a criminal offender.

They called it a 601, a non-criminal juvenile delinquent.

And she's like, well, no, he's not going to listen to me.

He's just going to do whatever he wants.

He's going to end up getting in more trouble.

He's going to end up...

This is going to be his career going to court.

And so they left me in there until I decided that I...

Yeah.

Until she decided like, are you going to come home and pay attention?

Cut your hair and go to school.

I was like, yeah, mom, let's do it.

So you were 18 at that point?

Almost 18.

I was just shy of 18 years old.

So once you get out, what's your first move?

What do you do?

Oh, my mom made me get a haircut because it was really long.

So I was a grown man being told to cut my hair.

So I cut my hair and got a job at the tea house as a bus boy.

They will not hire me back.

And then I got a job at a gas station pumping gas.

I didn't have to pump gas.

All I had to do was count the numbers on the pump

to determine how many gallons sold every day.

And relay that?

Couldn't do it.

Left high school.

So then I got a job at Go-Kart Track.

Oh, hell yeah.

Yeah.

Go-Kart World.

It used to be on PC-8s.

And now it's right off the 1-10 for you.

I worked there.

Oh, still around?

Still around, yeah.

Cool.

And then...

Did you learn how to work on little engines?

Yeah, as a matter of fact, I sure did.

So I don't know if I would make a living doing it,

but I had a lot of fun.

Then we started just detailing houses, cleaning up houses,

and cleaning out garages.

And that's how we got the first car, me and my buddy,

got a 63 Nova for free if we cleaned out their garage.

That's cool.

The 6-cylinder made it run, drove it.

Registration?

Insurance?

What?

Tires?

Yeah, put air in that one every day.

So we drove that one for a while,

and then started collecting tickets again.

So that's how I got out at an early age

and had gotten in so much trouble,

they didn't send me my license.

And then when they were considering

sending me my license,

I was back in the collecting tickets again.

Oh, man.

And then it was like,

see how fast we can go.

And then I saw lowered station wagons.

It was a little bit irresponsible there for a while.

But it sounds like you had a lot of fun, though.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

And none of it was ever malicious criminal crap.

Sure.

It was just kids out acting a fool.

Yeah.

I feel like that's,

before your judgment center and your frontal lobe

fully evolves,

you're just doing stuff.

Fearless.

You're living in the moment.

I mean, honestly, I figured, you know what?

I got in trouble really early.

What's the worst that could happen?

Now I'm an adult.

I would be a little more responsible,

but I've never been to like jail.

You know, I've never,

I'm not a convict that never been convicted of anything crazy

other than just driving irresponsibly.

So, and, you know, that's how that went.

I remember one time I was driving,

this has just been out maybe a year.

And I was at Hermosa Beach,

and I had some crazy car and four-wheel drive

and steering was on the right hand side.

Just some crap I built from just a bunch of junk.

You moved the steering wheel over?

You know, it was a right-hand drive thing

called a Thames or a Hillman.

Yeah.

And I put it on a Jeep chassis and just sort of,

you know, it wasn't,

definitely was not a quality build,

but it was neat because there was a little four-cylinder

Jeep motor, military Jeep,

like an Army Jeep,

and it had oversized tires

and those things got real low gears.

So you could put it in first gear

and rev it up and dump the clutch.

It didn't make any horsepower,

but it made a lot of torque.

Yeah.

And it would do a wheelie.

What?

You would put it in reverse and you rev it up

and it would do a backwards wheelie.

That's insane.

Well, it was fun until the spider gears

and the differentials break

because the tires were so big.

But I pulled up in front of Mickey's liquor

and anybody from the South Bay,

they're going to go,

oh, Mickey's liquor, I love that place.

I pulled up in front of Mickey's liquor

and an officer pulled up

and some back and forth ensued

and nothing mean.

He's like, listen, I'm on my motorcycle.

Do you know where the Hermosa Beach Police Department is?

I'm like, yes, I do.

It was great.

I'm going to follow you up there,

pull right behind the police department

and park in the parking space.

He goes, don't try to run.

I go, that's an army jeep.

It's not going to run.

Yeah.

You know, it's not fast.

So I drove up there.

I got out.

He turned me around and put handcuffs on me.

Did I just drive myself to jail?

He's like, yes, you did.

I was like, oh man.

So he walks me in and asked me my name

and I gave him a name for sure.

And he took the handcuffs off

and wrote me a ticket and said,

I have that vehicle towed out of their parking lot

or he'll have it impounded

and don't let me catch him driving it again.

And they're still looking for that name.

Man, I'll tell you right now.

Is that your limitations?

Absolutely.

But anyway, so yeah, growing up

I was not the most responsible guy.

Do you remember the first time that you were like,

this is cool.

Like as a kid, see a car.

I'll tell two quick ones

and they both involved Ford galaxies.

So the very first car I ever purchased

was saving my lunch money

and buying it from what would now be

a clucker or a crackhead.

But back then it was just some dude

who had a car that lived in an apartment complex

and he told me for $50

he would sell me a 63-galaxy car

that he had for a galaxy.

And I was like, okay.

And I had like 30 bucks saved up.

But me and my friends we all pitched in

and came up with like 45 bucks

or 40 bucks and gave it to him.

He gave us the keys to the car.

So for under $100 you got it for a galaxy.

Yeah, but mind you,

I think we're 13 or 14 years old at the time.

So we had no business with the car at all.

And so me and my friends would cruise the thing around.

We would never leave the neighborhood

which was right here in Torrance.

And we would run out of gas

and then get our bicycles out of the trunk

and go with our gas cans,

act like we're mowing lawns

and get a couple gallons of gas

and put it back in and drive it till it died again.

So that is the first car I ever purchased.

And the first time I ever worked on cars

was the fact that I did not give the guy the 10 bucks

I owed him.

So he took the spark plug wires.

Oh man.

So I scraped up to 10 bucks.

We gave him the money.

He gave us the wires.

Now we have to figure out what these wires do.

Never opened a hood of a car.

That's kind of a fun project though.

Well, yeah.

It would be fun if it was like planned

and you were doing it at your home garage.

But we're doing this on the side of the street

trying not to catch a case.

So either way I got it running

and also that same car

is the first car I ever went 100 miles an hour in.

It's the first engine I ever blew up

in the first car I ever abandoned

in a Jimco parking lot.

Did that all happen in the same?

Probably within two weeks.

Never saw the car again.

Yeah.

So and then I started riding my bicycle to school

and I remember seeing a lowered station wagon

pull up to a intersection

on Karinshah Boulevard

and just take off.

Light turn green.

It just rolled.

Everybody else is slowing down for the turn.

This little lowered wagon was accelerating into it

and it was slammed.

And back then it was not slammed cars.

Race cars were lowered cars.

Everything else was different.

And so I rode my bike down Karinshah Boulevard

and then I see it at a race shop just slammed.

That's the coolest grandma car.

That was like a light bulb moment.

Yeah, exactly.

So I told that story to the guys

at Hot Rod Garage, Alex Taylor specifically.

And they got together and found

not the car but a very close replica of the car

and bought it and then we built it on the show

and then I bought it from the company

and sitting right there.

That's very fun.

And you were controlling the hydraulics

with your phone.

Oh yeah.

So Ritex makes a air ride control

that all works Bluetooth from my phone.

So what's it powered by right now?

That has a Coyote motor

and a six speed gear start transmission.

Oh, very so.

And the drum brakes

because I am still not responsible.

So you are,

I mean, everyone knows this already,

but you are a power fiend.

You put superchargers on everything.

Well, I mean, I'm definitely a big fan of boost for sure.

I mean,

a lot of my friends make way more power than me

and I don't use any of the power that I have appropriately.

Like if I set up my truck correctly

it would probably hook up and handle great.

But for now it does awesome burnouts.

And my Chevelle over there,

we took it to Willow Springs,

Big Track and Roll Race,

the GT3 RS GT.

Oh wow.

Yeah.

Just, he had a sad day that day with his,

you know, 100,000 numerous times.

Holy shit.

That seems like driver error.

Well, no, actually the guy that was driving it,

he has like 2,000 laps at Willow.

Wow.

He dominates that track.

Wow.

So, but I mean, it doesn't make a ton of power.

Yeah.

But I mean, just to keep me in my place,

he would slow, we were rolling,

we were racing clockwise on the track

and we were coming out of the last turn

at 30 and then racing to the start finish line.

And that would be two cars, three cars.

The director actually asked me to slow down.

He's in one frame.

But he would just get on the brakes

and take the turn out, the very first turn out.

And at turn one, I would be like skidding off into the dirt.

So he kept me in my place.

So some things that Porsche could do way better than my car.

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So you're talking about the Chevelle right now, 66 Chevelle, that's a pretty famous car tied to you.

Would you say that's like your personality in a car?

Um, it's probably the car I've owned the longest.

Um, I got that car from my buddy, Kailin Head, who sold it to me.

Let me do payments on it for 5,500 bucks before I knew anybody at hot rod or car.

And I had built pretty much the whole car prior to working for the company or doing anything like that.

And then when I got out of the company, I was just like, well, time to upgrade a few things.

So it's got a lot of upgrades on it.

Yeah. Originally it had a six liter LS in it.

Originally a junkyard six liter LS that I purchased from a dealership in Huntington Beach, a Chevy dealer for a thousand bucks.

And I still have that motor as a matter of fact.

And I think the guy told me, because you bring me the money today, you can, I'll sell you the motor for a thousand bucks.

Okay. I was at the overhauling deal and Chip Fuse was there.

And I was like, dude, can I borrow your truck at lunchtime?

He said, sure.

He's right there.

So I drove over and Chip Fuse's F-150 to the Chevy dealership, which is everybody at the Chevy was just like, why is this fancy ass F-150 pulling in?

And then the guy was loading it.

I said, hey, do me a favor and be real careful around this truck.

He's like, holy shit, is this Chip Fuse's truck?

I was just like, yeah, he's a holy cat.

He had a picture with the truck.

Sure, buddy.

I was like, who did you put my motor in there?

Was the bed all nice?

Oh yeah, Chip's truck is really nice.

Well, I mean, he is, it's a work truck, but it's still as Fuse.

I was, I did that just out of courtesy, but it was pretty funny.

So you mentioned living in Germany for a while.

What was that about?

Well, my kids had grown up and moved out and went through a divorce and didn't own any property.

And I was just like, you know what?

I talked to my friend.

She lived in Germany and she was in the military.

She said, you should come visit.

And I was like, all right, I got nothing going on.

So I literally, this is before any of the TV shows or anything like that.

I was just some mobile tech guy that was fixing cars.

So I had a business route, a bunch of body shops that I went to pretty regularly that put

my kids from school and bought me houses and stuff.

And I sold that business to somebody and just decided to go to Europe and, you know,

figured I was retiring.

That's awesome.

To be perfectly honest.

Do a gap year.

To visit.

Yeah.

And so I went to, uh, flew into Frankfurt and ended up hanging out there for five years.

I worked at a place called Furma Hestermann, which is, uh, this is funny.

I walked into a automotive repair shop in a town called Erlensee,

which is right outside of Frankfurt.

It said US auto out front.

Everything else is written in German there.

Yeah.

And I was just like, oh, US auto.

Cool.

I had bought a little Volkswagen rabbit while I was there.

So I have a little car, you know, cool local car that goes around.

And, uh, actually I didn't even, I had an Opel Corsa, which we called Opel Shiza.

It's just a little piece of crap.

And I went there to get some parts and I walked in and I was like, Hey,

you guys speak English and there's a bunch of guys working on like a Mustang.

Oh, wow.

Which would be like walking in here.

This is full of Porsches.

Yeah.

You know, there's no American cars over there.

So I walked in.

I'm like, Hey, you guys speak English?

Nay.

Nobody here speaks English.

Nay.

I think, well, then you should take US auto off the front.

You, it's not to walk out and they all just start laughing.

And I was just like, you speak English?

Like, of course we speak English to teach English in school.

And I was just like, Oh, you guys remind me of, of, of me.

Yeah.

You remind me of myself and I ended up working there for like four years.

Oh, that's amazing.

That's so fun to like instantly know.

Yeah.

I just clicked right in.

So that's so cool.

What made you come back to the US?

Oh, so my, uh, my girlfriend at the time was stationed over there.

And then, uh, we had, uh, bought a couple of homes in Lake Havasu.

While we were over there with the money that I earned and she earned site unseen

or was this through a company.

So I had new homes built.

And then, uh, came back and retired basically to Lake Havasu.

I wouldn't say retired, but I was going to go there and work on hot rods.

And she was going to do whatever she does.

And, uh, Havasu is sort of a retirement community.

Yeah.

I was not old enough to retire yet.

So I was just like, well, I'll be building hot rods over there.

Well, these guys are all not a fixed income, but, you know, they're not trying to hot rod their hot rods.

It's not like Glendale.

Exactly.

Now it's different.

There's lots of new builds and stuff going on over there.

But when I was there, it was just like a, you know, the car shows were all the same cars.

They all had tweet interiors, you know, they all had the same stuff.

The line of Corvettes.

They're like one of a thousand.

There was a new balance everywhere.

George.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Right.

So, uh, yeah, I was just like, well, you know what?

This isn't, you know, happening.

So I'm from the South Bay.

So we both moved back here and got rented a little house and she got a job.

I forgot even what she did.

I think she worked at a body shop.

She was a service writer.

And then I just started doing my mobile thing again.

And, uh, that's when I stumbled.

That's all that was just literally two years before overhaul.

I stumbled in the overhaul.

Wow.

And I was still going back and forth to Lake Havasu.

All my cars are still registered in Havasu.

Sure.

So this is kind of a right place, right time, moment.

Exactly right.

So speaking of overhauling, was that your first foray into TV?

Um, yeah.

That's the first thing I ever did for TV.

I did, uh, I've always done mobile tech, which as you call me, I come to your

shop at home, home shop or shop and help you solve problems or fix cars or whatever.

So that's what I've always done.

Prior to doing hot rods and stuff, it was dealerships and body shops.

This is probably going to age me, but, uh, before airbags were very common in

every car, uh, if an airbag deployed, it would just destroy the car.

And the cars weren't totaled yet.

Yeah.

So the dashboard airbag would deploy and it would, you know, uh, break the windshield

and smash the dash and they need someone body shops or body shops.

That's what they do.

They needed somebody to go there and take the dash and everything out and put

all new stuff in and not have a bunch of check engine lights and coolant leaking

and stuff on, you know what I mean?

Wanted it done right.

So that's what I did.

And then also a lot of wiring repairs.

A car gets hit in the A pillar or the B pillar.

It cuts the wiring harness or the front end.

Body shop does what a body shop does and they need someone to go there.

Now I think pretty much every body shop has a special specialized

electrical guy or dashboard guy or something like that.

But when I was raising my kids and doing this stuff, I was just

the mobile dude and I went everywhere.

You know, body shop.

I pretty much worked there in the South Bay.

So you got to know a ton of people around the South Bay.

Yeah.

But not people that are in the bubble that I work in now.

But so, yeah, the rest of that was I got called to go do a job

in Huntington Beach at 714 Motorsports, which is a pretty famous

upholstery shop and custom car place.

And he goes, Hey, this guy's got a bunch of cars in a warehouse

that are left over from a car show.

And they want them all fixed.

And it's just like, well, what kind of cars?

Oh, a little bit of everything will kind of work.

Oh, a little bit of everything.

I was like, Oh, all right.

So I wouldn't look and it was a bunch of different cars from

overhauling that did not quite get done in time.

But they were, that's when they were trying to build

entire cars, paint them in seven days or something like,

I don't even see how that was even possible.

I don't.

That seems insane.

Yeah.

It's ridiculous.

I would have never done that.

But we'd have to get a car done and then move on to the

next build.

So there'd be a car over there that needs all break lines

and the car over there needs a transmission.

This one needs a rear end rebuild and this one needs to be wired

and that one needs AC and next thing you know,

they got to wear a house full of cars and a bunch of people.

I'm sure going, Hey dude, where the hell is my car?

We did the payoff.

You know, oh, I cried.

Here's my car.

Oh, thank you.

And then they don't see that.

And they're like, yeah, we'll call you.

We'll call you next year when your car is actually done.

So I finished all the cars and I gave them the

don't ever call me again price.

Like, I don't, I'm never going to work for these guys.

The highest quote you could think of.

Yeah, well, I'm not that I didn't rip them off,

but I did not cut them any slack at all.

I charge them retail.

So you're, you're, you're like, I'm never going to hear from

these guys.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I'm not married to the customers.

I know all the cars are safe.

I go, you know what?

Thanks so much.

Television people.

Here's the bill.

They're like, Oh, thank you.

So that's so and just pay.

Yeah, I didn't even look at it.

I was like, I think I left money on the table here.

And they're like, Hey, how would you like to be on

the show?

It's like, no, I'm good.

Thank you.

And then they're like, well, no, we'd really like to have you

there for the deconstruction.

And then on the payoff data, make sure the cars, they're

running, we can pay you this much every episode.

I'm like, well, okay, but I mean, I make more than that

in the real world.

Well, you don't have, you only can be here for a few hours

when we take the car apart and when we put it back together.

You can still have your mobile business and do this.

Yeah.

Well, that turned into seven days a week, six or seven days

a week, eight, 10, 12, 14 hours a day for like two years.

That's the thing with production is they tell you, oh, you're

only going to have to be here from two to four, but you have

to get there at one.

Right.

And then there's like a two hour commute.

Yeah.

And it's always inconvenient.

Yeah.

So it would be great.

Fortunately, I met a lot of cool people and did, you know,

lots of fun stuff I would have normally done.

So.

So television was always your side hustle.

It was never like a goal.

Yeah.

No, it was just a stop on the route.

Yeah.

It was.

So I did that for the longest time.

And then when that came to an end after two seasons

and 20 or five cars or something, quite a few cars.

Yeah.

Got a phone call from.

Uh, Kailin head going back to Kailin.

The guy that sold me my Chevelle and he was the tech center

supervisor and said over here at a motor trend.

I was just like, yeah, where's that at?

It's right over here.

And I was like, yeah, I don't really go in that area,

but okay.

So, uh, I went over there and it was a.

It was Mike Finnegan.

You know, Mike Finnegan.

Yeah.

So his El Camino, they had put a transmission in and something

caused a transmission to fell on the first drive.

And so they needed the next day to drive.

So they said, we have to go do this.

It's typical, you know, the talent has to go do something that

continued with the show, but we need to drive this car tomorrow morning.

So I went there in that night and swapped the transmission out

and put it back in and met the guys.

Everybody was cool.

Told them how much to have me there for a few hours,

you know, after hours and they're like, he had double that.

Wow.

And I was like, oh, awesome.

That's cool.

Yeah.

That's cool.

So I did that.

And then I don't, maybe a week or two later, David Freiberg said,

do you want to put LS in a van on camera?

Do you have any experiences?

Well, yeah.

An overhaul.

That kind of just proves like if you do good work and.

Just get it done right and be fair.

Yeah.

Was there, um, cause I mean, have,

obviously having a mobile business, you had to work with

what you had and you didn't really have, you know, like.

You had to, maybe there weren't lifts at the time.

Yeah.

Everything was on the ground.

But that's also too.

It's one of the reasons I do electrical work.

I mean, now I do everything, but back then it was just

electrical.

Like I'm a grown ass man.

I'm not crawling around in someone's driveway.

No shade on anybody who does that.

Yeah.

Good for you.

I just, my knees don't want to have anything to do with

it anymore.

So yeah, um, I'll put it on the lift for sure.

I don't care if I look like a sister or not.

Yeah.

But the point was that like you've got this mobile

business, you're used to kind of doing things on the

fly, doing things fast and, and making sure that

they're safe.

There's no wonder that like once you start doing stuff

for, you know, television, television productions

and you're doing, working faster than, you know, the

hosts do on their own.

They have to deliver lines and stuff.

And they're distracted and they have to break for

launch and stuff like that.

Dude, that is so funny that you bring that up.

Cause that was just my biggest, the biggest

problem.

I was working slow.

Being not, no, not even host working slow.

Cause I'm, well, I was turning wrenches on

overhauling.

I've never really been a host.

I used to just talk so much crap about hosts.

I mean, one time I went on, I forget what it was.

I was on stage somewhere and they're like, Hey

lucky.

So what's it like and blah, blah, blah.

Bro, I'm not a host.

I just work on cars.

I go out.

I'm not an actor.

I don't act like an actor.

I'm not.

And I didn't realize that like there are people that

they're professional hosts.

Yeah.

And there's a total skill set that I just don't have.

I just, I call it like I say it.

I see it.

And I just try not to cuss on camera.

So you've never tried to like put it on for the

camera.

You just always try to be yourself and

swear a little bit less.

Careless.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

I think we talked about that a little while

ago.

Yeah.

I got a truck driver's mouth.

There's no doubt about it.

I try to keep it reasonable under control

when I'm on camera.

Basically on power tour one year, a guy came

to me with his two little angel daughters.

And they were just like, lucky.

Thank you so much for keeping it so clean.

And so I watched this.

This is the best time I spent with my kids.

I was just like, wow, that's awesome.

I consciously try not to disappoint that guy.

Sure.

So.

And then you start working on overall,

then you go over to Hot Rod Garage.

Your co-hosting with Tony Angelo.

Correct.

That whole run was super epic.

I mean, you talked about all the cars that

you did.

You did for almost 10 years.

Right.

Hot Rod Garage.

Yeah.

And it was awesome too, because Tony had like,

I don't know if he contractually had creative

control, but we didn't, first of all,

we never had a showrunner.

Didn't know what a showrunner was.

Really?

Yeah.

Never even heard of a showrunner.

It was just basically everybody sitting around

and I was just like, hey, dude,

I don't give a shit what we're building.

Yeah.

Let's just build it and have some fun.

And I think you had asked me earlier about,

you know, isn't it weird working with people

that are moving fast and are moving slow

and you're moving fast?

Yeah.

That was, I wanted to touch on that.

So that was the thing.

They're just like, lucky, stop building the car.

We have to film this.

I got that all the time from our director,

Haven.

And I was just like, oh, man.

So I got to the point.

I was figuring out what the money shots were,

what needed to be filmed.

Yeah.

Nobody wants to see a film,

well, two and a half feet of steel.

They want to see the first 45 inches

or 45 centimeters and then that's it.

Did you ever have to like, you know,

unscrew a couple of bolts and be like, all right,

just finish it now?

No, I'll say stuff like, hey, do you guys want this?

I'm putting the differential there.

And hey, do you guys want this?

And they would come over.

They'd get a little bit, you know,

usually it's, I would work right through lunch

because I wanted to have the car done.

I have always been the,

I feel responsible to get the car done.

I'm not, never, ever, ever would be in Tony.

Did we half build a car and send it to some place

and have it finished and have it come back?

Yeah.

Which is commonplace in the whole industry.

I will say, Donut does not do that.

And I really appreciate it.

Well, you know what?

There are many times that me and Tony

had been sitting around talking to other people

about the way they do their show.

And our show was always 100% us working on cars

and we would finish the cars.

And if they weren't done,

we would just look at each other

like which one of us forgot to do something.

And it literally was always the same thing.

You know, maybe somebody forgot to do this

or somebody forgot to do that.

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Was there ever growing pains like going from working in a shop,

being able to say whatever you want,

to being on camera and having a corporation like Motor Trend

watching over you like that?

Was there ever like an HR situation where they were like,

hey, Lucky, you can't...

Well, not. You know what?

I thought there would be an HR thing

because I've said some colorful stuff

and maybe you'd forgot I was mic'ed or whatever.

I do recall a couple of meetings.

Like technically I've always been a sublet guy.

Like I don't have to go to HR.

They'll just say,

we're just not going to call you anymore.

You know, that's just where that boils.

They're not going to reprimand me.

They're just going to tell me

I'm not going to be here anymore.

We don't like you.

But I mean, nothing crazy that would go over the top.

But I've been in meetings before

where people have neutrally said,

just in general,

just so you guys know your microphones are on

and some of the things you say in personal conversations,

may or may not go through somebody else's monitor

at some point.

And it may or may not offend other people

over in the editing.

I call it the dark side.

The dark.

And I was just like, oh, that makes sense.

All right.

So you'll see it.

If you ever see footage of hot rock garage,

like behind the scene,

I'm always doing this.

Like, am I mic'd?

Am I mic'd?

So this is what happened, right?

So the guy pulled up next to me and I'm just like,

oh, wait, am I mic'd?

Okay, let me tell you the best of the story.

That's so funny.

Like David Freiberger likes what you do.

He likes your work.

He invites you on

and then he makes you introduce yourself.

Yeah.

Well, the first time when we were doing the van,

he let me introduce myself

and then went back and forth and we had our fun.

And then I don't know, it was a while ago.

I don't know if it was weeks or months.

It didn't seem like it was that long.

He was just like, hey,

would you consider doing some off camera stuff with Tony?

Yeah.

Tony Angelo had taken over hot rock garage.

And I was like, yeah, of course.

And then I, I mean, Tony's a great guy,

but I think the internet just wasn't ready

for change at the time.

So I remember seeing the comments when Tony was doing it,

trying to do it alone, which is a lot, dude.

Anybody would slice it.

No one's doing a show by themselves.

And the one thing about my sarcasm

that some people call humor, but it's actually sarcasm

is it only works if you can pop it off somebody who can take it.

You know what I mean?

And Tony is a funny guy.

So you guys, you guys had a good rapport?

Yeah, we got along fine.

So, and I knew when he looked at you and said,

let's wrap that shit up.

That's about as far as I want to go with the short jokes

or whatever, whatever I was doing at the time.

It's like, okay, so there's Tony's button right there.

Yeah.

So we started doing the show together.

So I was a co-host and he was the host

and the Hot Rock Rock show was awesome.

We did it for 10 years

or we did it for a long time and a lot of episodes

and right from the beginning when it was literally

we would shoot every single day of the week if we could.

Yeah.

And these are like long days, right?

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Every one of us.

We would just make up shit and just build it.

We just make stuff.

Hey, let's get a 70 El Camino

and put a Cummins 12 valve in it.

I'm like, let's do it.

So Tony would come up with some crazy ideas.

I'm just like, it should fit.

Yeah.

We don't need a hood.

Hoods are stupid.

Get rid of the hood.

So we did the diesel Camino.

We did that and then.

So I know when we had Fry Burger on,

he loved to come up with pun names for his cars.

Right.

Did you guys come up with the pun names too?

Yeah, we did.

But Fry Burger's theory is the car should earn its name.

Sure.

Yeah.

I agree with that.

Yeah, but I don't see how that works for Roadkill

because Hafters didn't barely run.

So everything would be like,

it should be like a dead duck or a dead goose.

Something's broke down on the freeway,

but I love like Crusher Camaro.

I did a ton of work on the Crusher Impala,

the same thing they save those cars.

So he builds cool stuff and they have good names.

So our stuff wasn't so good.

We did a, well, I think our stuff was okay.

We did an Impala and we got like an 06 Impala, I think.

It's the one that looks like a Nissan,

looks like any other little import.

Yeah.

But they have LS's mounted sideways in the front.

Oh.

So it's front wheel drive.

Right.

So it's front wheel drive with an LS V8 sideways in the front.

Wow.

So we're like, why don't we get two of those

and take everything out of the front

and want to put it in the back.

Yeah.

And Tony's like, yeah, that's exactly it.

He had Tony had already written the creative.

He was on the roll there.

Yeah.

So I did one in Germany.

I lived in Germany for a few years.

And we did a Volkswagen Golf for Rabbit

and we put a drive train in the front,

drive train in the back.

Yeah.

Because if you think about it, they have four strut towers.

Yeah.

So why not take the front struts, move them to the back,

modify everything, lock out the steering.

And now all you have to do is make sure they shift at the same time

and run relatively good.

Well, I don't know if I told that to Tony or not,

but either way, we found like a GTX, which is the Impala.

Yeah.

And a nice, nice black SS Impala.

And we put two inches of one in the front,

one in the back, call it the Twin-Pala.

And then that was OK.

It worked well?

Yeah.

And then, well, now the sketch level is way too low.

Let's twin turbo it.

So it was all wheel drive.

It's not dangerous enough.

Let's add some turbos to it.

I made myself motion sick driving it straight.

Accelerated so hard, my brain just could not figure it out.

Really?

Yeah.

I literally just thought, well, I don't feel good, Tony.

That's crazy.

And then Tony's idea was to roll down

and put the back in front and forward

and the front and reverse and turn the wheels and matte the gas.

What?

So you've seen donuts, right?

Like a cyclone donut?

Wait, you're familiar with the term donuts?

Yeah, I think so.

They go in a circle?

Well, axis spins?

It's just like, if you have all four wheels spinning,

the car doesn't do a donut.

It just spins until you vomit.

Oh, god.

That's like a vomit machine.

Yeah, exactly.

I was just like, vomit comet?

What are we going to call this thing?

Yeah.

And yeah, it stuck with Twin-Pala.

And I was just like, yeah.

So you had rear wheel steering on it, too?

No, no.

We locked out the rear steer.

OK.

We just turned the wheels and put the back in reverse

in the front and drive or vice versa.

And they fight against each other.

The car just starts spinning in one spot.

Yeah.

So it's like donut holes.

That's crazy.

It's awesome.

God, that makes me sick just thinking about it.

Yeah, exactly, man.

It's just like, this is awesome.

I don't ever want to write it in it again.

It was super sketchy.

We took it drag racing.

And the story goes, Tony went back for tech inspection.

And the guy looked down.

You just see the clean SS-Pala.

Hey, you got a helmet?

Yeah.

Got belts in it?

Yeah.

Because it looked like you drove your mom's car there.

Signed the tech card.

Here you go.

I think its first pass was like 148 miles an hour or 130.

What?

Something crazy.

And the transmission was shipped at a different speed.

So it was just going down.

And he drives around the burnout pit.

And everybody's like, what the hell's going on with this car?

Because we had to open the doors or anything.

Yeah.

There's just gauges bolted to the dashboard all the way across.

So it looks kind of dorky.

So he pulls out.

And oh, yeah, let's do it 120 or 130.

And the transmissions are shifted at a different size.

That's crazy.

And he comes back.

He's like, that's the scariest thing I've ever done.

Tony Angelo, this is the scariest shit I've ever done.

Damn.

So yeah.

Wait.

So like, what does that even look like?

I can kind of like.

Well, you go fast.

You want it to be low.

But now if something in the back is starting to shift a little bit slower, a little bit

faster.

So I want to pull the front end up.

It starts shifting.

Yeah.

It just started doing all kinds of crazy stuff.

And Tony made a few passes with it.

I think that thing went 10s easy.

Wow.

Faster than that.

It's got to be heavy, too.

But after the first pass and the crowd lost their minds and he brought it back around.

The tech guy comes rolling up on his scooter.

He's like, what is going on?

Hold on.

There's a back door.

He's like, look at that.

He's like, I got to tech this thing and it passed tech.

But yeah, that was some funny stuff.

Yeah.

We did our own stuff.

I think that's super admirable.

And I feel like, like I said this with Weston, too, but like the authenticity that comes

from you and comes from your work is why people glom onto you and like follow you and

now have followed you from Hot Rod Garage 2, your YouTube channel, Lucky's Garage show.

Right.

Shout out to Lucky's Garage on YouTube because it's not my show.

It's a coffee house.

The coffee house has a YouTube channel?

Yeah.

Yeah, called Lucky's Garage.

Awesome name for a garage or for a coffee house.

Yeah.

Lucky's Garage.

I like it.

So mine is Lucky's Garage show.

Do you find it weird?

No coffee.

No coffee on mine.

Do you think it's just because of the long hours that there's so much crossover between

like motors and coffee?

Because I feel like that is a common, you know, like up in Oregon or in Portland, they

have like CC coffee motor garage where it's like motorcycles and coffee.

Right.

In LA, we have dais.

That's like a coffee shop and like a motorcycle, a parallel and stuff.

You think it's because mechanics are always just tired that there's that strong crossover?

Maybe.

Is there Red Bull in coffee?

Or Red Bull in cars?

I know a lot of mechanics love Red Bull for sure.

Yeah, that's true.

Monster in cars?

Yeah.

Oh, I mean all those energy drinks sponsor.

Keep you up all night working on those cars.

Yeah.

And they also sponsor like Motorsport too.

There could be a thing.

Yeah.

I think we stumbled upon some conspiracy.

I mean, me and my first wife, we were going to do a pizza place.

Oh, nice.

And a hot rod shop in Lake Havasu.

That's cool.

And do a big glass bunch of windows and two units next to each other.

And then there was something to do with insurance.

They want to insure one or the other because you're going to be grinding or well, you

know, we're here and someone's going to fly through the window and some kid get

at Cold Stone or something to do with toxic hazardous flammable flume and fumes

and a restaurant.

Yeah.

Brake cleaner.

Yeah.

Brake cleaner.

Flamethrowers and torches.

Yeah.

People try to have a nice dinner.

Do you, are you, you like to cook at home a lot?

I do not.

Oh.

Yeah.

I do not.

But you have a good pizza recipe.

What was?

Actually, I can't eat cheese.

So, yeah.

I have a, I call it a Italian tostada.

It would be a pizza with no cheese.

I don't know what Tony was just disgusted with me when I couldn't eat dairy.

I ate the order of pizza for me when we were in Philly.

Yeah.

I go, hey, can I get a pizza?

I'll get this for you, buddy.

Hey, let me just get a pie.

I had to keep it on the DL.

Oh, you don't want to.

Shout out to Tony Angelo for saving my street cred.

I was in Philly.

What did you like to eat on Motor Trend shoots?

Well, that was the one thing, I'm not saying that I'm a, you know, hard

body now, but I was a round guy.

I think a lot on Motor Trend or on working there because they'll get you

whatever you want.

Yeah.

You know, craft services.

I never even heard of that on overhauling.

It was just like, Hey, lunchtime, you know, we would go into the

spot and be like, what do we have in the day?

Oh, cold sandwiches.

How awesome.

But yeah, no, craft services.

Hey, what do you guys want?

Yeah.

I'm like, seriously.

And then I realized, yeah, Carl's Jr. Number two.

Carl's Jr. Number one, no cheese.

So I kept it very simple.

We had one guy that would go, he was a director.

I won't say his name, but he's the one I told you about the

file called the iPhone garage.

Yeah.

So he would get some crazy ass drink that was 18 bucks.

Yeah.

And he came with a glass that if you brought it back, you could

get 10 bucks at something.

Yeah.

But he would always get like two of those.

I'm just like, we're, and then people were like, oh, we're

going to get Thai barbecue or Korean this and Alex got

bobas.

And I was just like, what?

Give me a couple of cans.

You guys stopped at Carl's Jr. on the way?

Sometimes I would say a bunch of food would get there.

It's like, oh, lucky.

Yeah.

I was like, I'm going to do this.

I figured you'd like it.

I was just like, awesome.

I'll be back in a half hour.

And I just go get my own food.

But yeah, Alex got me into boba.

Oh, you like boba now?

Well, I did while Alex was making me get it.

We did boba runs for test drives on the cars.

What's your word?

You guys would have said jelly bellies and tea.

You could have just saved me the boba fuss.

What do you order at boba?

I don't, whatever Alex gets me.

I make sure there's no cream in it.

So you just do like a tea or something with?

Yeah.

Something very basic.

So that wasn't like a weird texture to get used to?

No, it was kind of weird.

It was kind of weird.

I seen a meme of, I think it was a rabbit taking a poo.

The guy had like tea.

It was just like little pellets falling in.

And I seen it to Alex.

Like you want some boba?

The big ass straw.

Well, thanks for ruining boba for all of us.

Yeah, there you go.

You even got a rabbit.

You can have boba at home.

Yeah.

So when everything kind of fell apart when, sorry,

I went straight from boba to something serious.

Sure.

But when motor trend got bought out by discovery

and then kind of went under.

Yeah, even which time?

Dude, I don't even know.

I know.

I've said it a million times.

I don't do meetings.

I do cars.

Yeah.

I just crack wise and I work on cars.

Are we working tomorrow?

I would say that.

Yeah.

Are we working?

Do I still get a job?

Yeah.

Let's party.

Let's get something built.

So you put your mobile business kind of on the sidelines?

No, I still did it.

You still did it?

I've always done it.

Always had a small shop.

It was 1200 square feet and now I'm 8,000.

So you were just a contractor the whole time with motor trends?

Yeah, the whole time.

That's why I would say stuff and then be like,

you're going to get stuck in HR.

No, dude, I'm not.

Just don't call me anymore.

So you always had the safety net,

which was your bread and butter.

Yeah.

Zero trust in the industry.

Is that what they say?

People in the industry.

Isn't that what they say?

Yeah.

The industry.

Yeah.

Zero trust, zero loyalty.

They find somebody with a different shade,

color, hair or a lighter eye or more tattoos or whatever the trend is,

then guess who our new host at Hot Rock Garage is next year?

It's just so there's no loyalty there.

I mean, it worked out for you.

Yeah, absolutely.

You never had like kind of downtime,

whereas maybe other people at Motor Trend came to work for Donut.

Thank you for your services, everyone.

And that's another thing too is it's a business.

So as long as I'm having fun, I said that a million times,

as long as I'm having fun, I'll show up every single day early.

And I did always early, always the first guy there.

Pretty close.

But never the first one to leave.

Well, that's not true either.

But still, I had fun.

It was a good time.

And as soon as it stopped being that, it worked out well.

So I mean, Alex did it for like three years.

It got bought.

I met a new guy.

Who's that guy?

Oh, that's the new boss.

He's the guy with all the bracelets.

He's the owner of the business.

I forget the guy's name, but he was a nice guy.

And he bought either Discovery or it was mine.

And this is the guy that looked like Vince Neil.

No, no, no.

That's somebody else.

So yeah, we keep, yeah, save that.

Okay.

So get me canceled.

Get me canceled on the street canceled.

But what should we call it?

I don't know.

He was one of the executives that bought the company.

Yeah.

Discovery.

Yeah.

New boss or whatever.

Very nice guy.

I talked to him a bunch of times.

It was very complimentary to me.

And then, uh, and then, uh, I just remember somebody else going,

yeah, I see the meeting.

They had a big zoom meeting and we're all sitting around a table.

And everybody, I people, I don't know around the monitors.

I'm just, do I even need to be here?

I'm just like the custodian or something.

Yeah.

And, uh, I thought, oh, nothing's going to change.

You know, we really love the way everything runs here,

blah, blah, blah.

And a month later,

I went around and fired 300 people from Florida and relocated

people here and then let them go.

Just all kinds of stuff.

I just heard this stuff.

I'm not privy.

I don't, I don't do those meetings or watch that on the internet.

So, uh, yeah, it was crazy.

And then there was another person and it was, oh,

this is the new guy.

And they would do a tour through, look at all the stuff we had.

These are all of our cars and walk through the, the video.

The new guys doing the tours.

Whoever the new guy were, you know, we'd be at the studio

and people would come through like in, with a tour,

all these people and they'd be like, hey, just,

these are the bosses.

They're just walking through the place.

I'm just like, oh, the new boss is okay.

Yeah.

And they're not race car guys at all.

They're not car guys.

They're just walking through, looking at, look at our,

their money.

Look at our million dollars, a million dollars, whatever it is.

These are all our assets.

Yeah.

And I'd be like, hey, can you weld?

Come on.

We need some help back here.

They'd be like, ha, ha, ha.

Yeah.

We don't know who that is.

Let's move on.

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So you saw the tides changing and you were like, I didn't

consider it.

I was riding the wave.

I did not foresee it happening and I was just like, hey,

shit's changing.

And then the next thing you know, there's somebody else

and then it's like, oh, guess what?

You work for Warner Brothers.

Awesome.

I used to watch their cartoons when I was a kid.

I love it.

Yeah.

And then Christmas time we would get stuff from Harry Potter

shit.

We just show up at my house like around Christmas and around

my birthday.

They didn't even.

They're like, oh, well, that's the same company.

They own it.

So this is a Harry Potter wand that you can say

something and do this and it would turn your TV on and

shut your lights.

I'm just like, awesome.

Yeah, it's in a box over there somewhere.

I don't know.

So I was just like, that's cool.

Well, we're not going anywhere.

That's a big ass company.

Yeah.

And then the next thing you know, guess what?

Man, how did you feel when they finally canceled

our garage?

You know what?

At the point, I mean, it had definitely run its course.

So it canceled.

They canceled all the shows except for a few, like all

the roadkill trilogy stayed at the one with Derek.

What's it called?

Derek Beary.

Oh, I know what you're talking about.

Vice Grip, but they called it something else.

Roadworthy.

And which is funny because nothing he works on is

worthy.

Shout out to Derek.

And then, yeah, have you seen his show?

Yeah.

It's just like I found a rusty piece of crap in

the middle of nowhere.

Let's make it run.

Oh, Wasp.

Kill him.

You know?

Yeah.

Brakes.

Who needs them?

Let's drive it home.

Yeah, OK.

I love that guy.

So then me and Alex were doing stuff.

And so they canceled all the shows, but kept

us.

We're like, well, they kept us for another

season.

They kept us for three years longer than they kept,

you know, most of the other shows.

And I'm just like, well, all right.

I mean, during the last thing, I started

accumulating more units in the complex here,

knowing that I wanted my garage to be bigger.

Yes.

And taking more jobs, knowing that that wasn't

going to last forever.

Tony got out, you know, three years before it

ended.

And I was like, oh, you left three years with

the money on the table, in my opinion.

So, but he's doing awesome on his YouTube

show.

He's doing great.

Yeah.

So which is called Stay Tuned with Tony

Angel.

Yeah.

So he came in here not too long ago.

He's friends with the comedian dude,

Tosh.0.

Oh.

Daniel Tosh.

Yeah.

So he lives out here and he went on Daniel

Tosh's show.

And then Daniel Tosh had a little Subaru.

Tosh.0 is the car guy?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Well, he's got a couple of cool cars.

Okay.

But he had this little Subaru van that's

a mini car.

Yeah.

A little with Suicide Doors factory.

It's two-stroke.

Wow.

And it didn't run for shit.

Tony had it towed over here.

And then Tony flew in.

We were on our way to some event and

we did a little thing on his thing,

on his Stay Tuned where we got the

thing running.

Sure.

So you still stay in touch with?

Yeah.

We talked every once in a while.

The funny part was on the show,

it's Tony Angelo.

First of all, if you Google Tony

Angelo, you're going to see a car,

tires in the air, smoke, fire,

something.

Yeah.

There's no cool pictures of Tony

Angelo.

He's just sitting around with a

fella.

Something crazy is happening if Tony

Angelo is involved.

So I worked with the guy for ten

years or something and he's like,

hop in.

We're going to go for a ride around

the block.

I'm a grown man.

I know better than the ride

passenger with a nut.

And so every episode was the same

thing.

Okay.

This thing's good.

Hop in.

Let's go.

I'm like, hard pass.

You go ahead and have your fun,

young man.

And there was one we did.

We put a 5.0 Mustang in an MG.

A 5.0 Mustang motor and five

speed transmission in an MGB,

a little one.

Oh, wow.

We called it the 5.0 MG.

And so it was an old, it was a

race car, like an SCCA car.

Yeah.

So it was all gutted and just

all this craziness.

I cut the firewall out.

We wedged this motor in there.

He had worked a gas pedal with

your left.

You know, it's just all of you

could barely squeeze in that

thing.

I couldn't sit in the car and

drive.

Tony fit.

So Tony would drive the thing

and we took it up to Penga

Canyon.

Yeah.

That sounds like a death trap.

Yeah.

So that's the gig.

So we're at the racetrack and

I'm sitting on an Apple box next

to the passenger side outside

and they're shooting low from

the other side.

And I do the intro.

And this episode of Hot Rod

Garage and Tony like tax it

and just does a burnout.

I'm just sitting there on a

box and I'm just like, I'm

still not riding with this

guy.

So every episode was

something like that.

Like, I'm not going to

ride with Tony.

Yeah.

So he came in and we worked

on this van and got it running.

So hop in, we're going for

a drive.

I was just like hopped in

about the other side to double

slide.

And I go, dude, I'm still not

riding with you.

Crazy.

He took off out of here.

I heard he had it on two wheels.

So yeah.

The YouTube channel thing is

it's a little bit difficult to

do successfully for me.

Like I see a lot of people,

they hire people to do it

like legit, like it's their

job.

If it's your, if it's, if I

have to do that as a job,

that's not what I want to

do.

I'm not looking for content.

You know, if you want to

see what I'm doing, I'll

point a camera at it,

but I'm not trying to,

I don't want to be a great

build as if we did this.

That's what the show was.

Yeah.

And it's not here.

You know what I mean?

That that thing, that's gone.

So I just shoot what I'm

doing.

Like customers cars can,

they can check on their stuff

and see how I built it

anytime they want.

It's right on the spot.

Do you have any customers

that ever are like,

don't show my car?

No, no.

One of my customers

and who has become a friend

is Dax Shepard.

Yeah.

So I refer to him as

Kristen Bell's husband.

That's what Cher called him too.

So he's the nicest coolest guy.

I'll play you off camera.

Did you build his station wagon?

I've rebuilt a bunch of his stuff.

Like redone it.

So I think most of the stuff

he had done was done with

people with limited time

and obviously no limited budget

but limited time because it was

filmed for built for something

to be used as filmed.

And whenever you doing stuff

in a hurry for a production

company, they don't really

care.

Yeah.

They just want it to look good.

They're just like, yeah.

And so I've redid a bunch

of stuff on his van,

on his road master.

Yeah.

And that thing's sick.

Yeah.

We dynoed it.

We got like 500 to the wheel

on that thing.

That's very fun.

And I got pulled over,

followed by the cops in Torrance,

me and the tuner,

tuner Tom.

Shout out to my boy,

tuner Tom.

He, we're doing passes over here

in a little industrial area

like late at night.

And it's right by a police

substation.

I know they're over there.

Yeah.

We're not hiding.

We're not drifting.

We're just making passes

and turning around and go

the other way.

And they pull out

and we make a pass

and they pull up behind us.

And he's over there.

They don't say anything.

We turn back around.

They act like they're leaving.

We make a pass.

They come back around.

They park behind us.

The police.

And I'm just like,

it's kind of weird.

Well, they ran the plane

and it came back,

you know,

Dax and Kristen.

Oh.

And they're like,

all right.

They just go on their way.

If it would have came back

to Lucky Costa,

Lucky Costa,

pull that guy over.

Yeah.

You did that on my license.

Come on, an idiot has a name

named Lucky.

Clearly a gang member.

Do you feel like you're a

Lucky person?

Oh, I'm super fortunate.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

I get that when I go to

the spots,

like the bubble of car

people,

if I go to like

Grand National Roadster

and say,

hey, aren't you Lucky?

I'm very fortunate for sure.

That's awesome.

And it's also my name.

Luck as a word

gets misconstrued a lot.

I feel like

you make your own look

a lot of times.

You know,

if you

prepare enough,

what do they say?

Luck is like

preparation meets opportunity.

Yeah.

But see now,

I would agree with that.

Like I'm sure it's,

I mean,

well,

anyway,

you could view it anyway.

I've been known to go to the

casino and act just an idiot.

Just not like some big ball

or just blowing money.

But you know,

what are the chances of

walking up to a hundred

dollar slot machine

and putting in 500 bucks

of spending?

Yeah.

I mean,

I'm sure everybody does it.

I literally have video

of me doing it

and hitting the crazy jackpots

and Mark

in there,

he's a gas vets mark.

He,

me and him have been to the casino

like at LS Fest

and whatever.

And he's like,

all right,

well,

let's see one of these stories.

And I walk up to the

dollar slot machine

and playing 25 bucks

of spin or something,

which isn't a crazy amount.

But normally I'm a

normal responsible people

are playing pennies

and Nicholson

and $5 max,

you know,

I'm just like,

oh no,

you know,

20 bucks,

50 bucks,

25,

bonus,

handpay,

like I'm waiting for a hand

pay on this.

A hand pay is anything

over 1200 bucks.

And so I went

two or three grand on this.

I was like,

I'll play the machine

next to it

while I'm waiting to get

paid on that one.

Boom,

hand pay.

That machine said,

I got three machines tied

up for handpays

like six grand

and Mark's like,

yeah,

I was with,

it started out,

I went to LS Fest

with Holly

and we were staying in,

there's a casino

called the Canary.

It's a real small casino

and everybody smokes.

So,

Bill Tischner,

the president of Holly,

he's like,

they call it the Smokery

and they even call it the Canary.

So I'm downstairs

waiting for them

to come down

so we can go eat.

I see some random machine

on an island by itself.

You know,

let me just throw a couple

hundred bucks in this.

I'm playing,

playing, playing,

balls flying numbers.

I go,

it's like,

Kino,

I don't get it.

Boom.

It says grand.

I was like grand.

Oh, cool.

I'm down about a thousand bucks.

I just want a grand.

And then now,

while it's doing all this,

like, wait a minute,

they don't call it a grand.

When you get a grand prize,

it was a grand prize.

Holy shit.

Times two.

What?

So when it's all said and done,

ding,

lights, boom,

boom,

the person comes over

because oh my God,

never seen anybody win

on this machine.

$98.

And then Bill walks over.

He's all,

you're buying lunch.

It's like,

what?

So I took that money.

I set it aside.

And then that was the only money

I would gamble with 10 grand.

So I left Vegas with,

I think,

18,000 bucks that weekend.

And then I went to Paula

and a bunch of other casinos.

And within a year,

my gambling budget was like

35 grand or 36,000 bucks.

So it was just the money.

I was gambling for free.

That's a good year.

Yeah, that was good.

According to my account,

I gave it all back.

But man,

he told me, yeah,

you need to,

you might need to seek

professional help because,

I don't know, man.

You leave all the money.

I think you should just keep riding.

You leave all that money in the casino.

I was like, yeah,

I get you, bro.

I would say that you're a lucky person.

Super fortunate.

Absolutely.

And then you also,

too, that wasn't once or twice.

Yes.

Mark gas rats.

This is so,

yeah, just,

I'd stop doing it

because I don't really have

extra free.

Nobody's giving me free money

on the 30th of every month anymore.

Shout out the motor strength.

But I do feel like,

like your name kind of dooms you.

Like when you get named as a baby,

it kind of dooms you for life.

Yeah.

Whether that's good or not.

as someone named Joe,

I do feel like I'm always fighting

the average.

Right.

Well, Joe blend right in.

Yeah.

So it's not a setback though.

It's not a setback, but like, you know,

I'm never going to be,

there's sloppy Joe,

there's average Joe.

Oh, you know what?

That's a good point.

Yeah.

So I do feel like I'm sloppy sometimes,

but most of the time I'm average.

Right.

And I feel like if I was named like

Victor or something, you know,

maybe I would have won more football games or.

You know what?

That's possible.

It's possible.

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Let's

reset and

talk about

what the future holds

for your shop, for your YouTube channel.

told you I was going to talk about this Merc

in the background. You showed me a little bit beforehand

but this is a very special

Mercury and you've done

a lot of cool stuff to us. Is this

your baby right now?

Actually, so me and

Mark, I always mention my buddy Mark.

So Mark Matthew, Gas Rats

Customs on social media.

Me and him have been buddies for a long time.

He's the guy that kind of helps me put together

my videos and stuff and

he's not a media guy at all.

He has enough time

to sit down and figure stuff out. Whereas

I'll just look at something. I do everything on my phone.

I have badass

Apple computer 15 inch with all the touch.

Yeah, I've opened that thing twice.

I looked at it and I don't even see, I

movie on here. It makes

zero sense to me. So

I shoot stuff. I upload it and he takes care

of it. So I mean, if you like

my videos or you don't like them,

shout out to Mark.

But anyway, me and him went in halves

on a 53 Merc and

it's a very simple story that's been told a

million times where

I want to say we are on Facebook Marketplace.

He had just sold off one of his

old hot rods, which was the Meady

Meteor and

had a couple of bucks and didn't have any

hot rods. He had a super charged

long bed truck, which is cool.

But he kind of wanted a little muscle car.

I go, well, dude, I'm in the muscle

car business. Let's go find you a ratty

piece of crap and we'll throw an LS

in it and get you driving.

And Facebook Marketplace

that was a 50 53 Merc

for $7500.

We get there. It's on like

three and a half flats. Somebody had

lowered it and then lowered the lowering.

It had lowering blocks stacked in

the back and then front springs heated to

the point that didn't exist. It was

just cool yard art when we got there.

It just looked cool on the driveway.

You couldn't have to drag it up the

trailer. So this guy is smoking something

if he wants 7500. Well, I mean, if

it was a clean ass Merc, it would be worth it.

The parts on it are worth it. The bumpers are worth a ton of

money. All the parts are very rare.

And so I go, you know what

this is? We open the hood and the rats,

the carbs missing, the exhausts

missing, the motors just covered in rust

and rat poo.

It was a science project.

The inside was filthy.

We don't need a project. This project is too far out.

So we told the guy, I knew something was up.

We pulled up to Chatsworth,

middle of nowhere. Well,

very far from where we are now.

We pulled up. The guy goes, oh, hey, Lucky.

I was like, oh, shit, he watches the show.

So I was just like, oh, hey, nice to meet you.

Thanks for watching. And we look at the car

and I was like, I don't want to be a dick.

I don't want to low ball them.

It's a good project and we're looking for it.

But thanks for your time.

Oh, give me, give me

five. Give me four grand.

He's arguing with himself.

Yeah, this guy just talked himself down.

I couldn't say anything.

I go, well, I was thinking, man, four grand.

I could just tow this back to the shop and just sell it

for five grand.

I'm just like, man,

well, you know what, we're going to go have some lunch

and we'll get back to you.

So then we go to leave and I was just like,

we go to McDonald's and like, I don't know

if you've done it before.

If you're out to buy something, damn it, I'm buying something.

I don't know, what do you mean you left

looking for a hot rod and you came back with ATCs

and an electric bicycle, you know?

We got something.

So we're at McDonald's having some gourmet food,

some of the local cuisine

and both surfing through our phone

like who's going to find something stupid

to ask to buy first.

And I was like, dude, let's just head back.

Truck and trailer, we're ready.

We got hundreds, truck and a trailer.

We're good to go.

We're driving back.

I'm going to call that guy off from $3,500.

For $3,500, we can drag it back,

pressure wash it and get our money back easy.

Yeah.

He called and told him $3,300.

The guys all, come get it.

Oh, damn.

I was like, oh, this guy low ball himself.

All right.

So we're back.

He's a nice guy, nicest guy ever.

Oh, shit.

And I look and whoever built the car,

which wasn't this dude, this guy had bought it from somebody.

Whoever built the car built the entire thing

with a settling torch, no mig welders.

It was old.

He said it was a biker gang or club vehicle

or something.

Lots of cool stuff on it, but then lots of very,

you know, I know a guy who can fix it.

So the frame was great.

It's got an El Camino frame that was

grafted onto the original frame.

Then I look at the steering and when you turn the wheel

and clunk and steering is not safe,

brakes are sketchy.

And then I look at the frame and it looks like

it's got like diamond plate over where they put

the new frame and the old frame.

I get it on the lift and there's nothing on the bottom.

You can see where they had to hack saw the frames apart.

It was just diamond plate.

It looked like it was just built for looks.

And then I start looking at the diamond plate.

I'm like, oh, you ever looked at the back of a pickup truck

and they got the camper, camper bumpers?

Yeah.

It was cut up camper bumpers.

I was like, oh, I'm going to get it and clamped it

and gas welded it.

I was like, somebody's going to die with this car.

So, you know, this video, I mean,

cutting the frame and just letting it fall on the ground

and just starting over.

And so I was going to help him by throwing the motor in

and we ended up, I'll show you some pictures.

There's full four link in the back.

Got a quick performance, nine-inch,

got a gear start transmission.

The rear end of this thing is absolutely insane.

I can't wait for you guys to see this.

And if you're on audio, sorry,

go watch the video because it's so cool.

Yeah, it is a sick car.

So the paint's original. I fixed and rusted in the roof

and we pulled out this.

There were some holes in the floor under the gas pedal

which ended up being just patching the entire floor

from the back seat to the front,

the entire trunk,

the front suspension.

It's all QA1.

We haven't really released what motors in there yet

but it's got something that looks a lot

like an FE motor in it.

Like a nice Ford motor for sure.

The motor is worth checking out.

You got to go subscribe to his channel

because it's so cool.

And it's awesome. Fires up, it screams.

It's cool.

We just got the thing aligned and dialed in.

We're going to lower it a little bit more

and get people like, I think it looks kind of cool.

I love the stands right now though.

It's like NASCAR rims and tires.

It's pretty awesome.

Really cool.

I think we're going to get a couple crates of mason jars

in the back with water so it looks like we're running moonshine.

That's what it looks like.

It looks like some old moonshiner from back in the day.

It would be cool.

To make a gas tank look like a bunch of jars.

That would be interesting.

That would be kind of hard.

That is your main project right now?

Yeah, well I actually just finished.

I have a two door station wagon.

So in 1964 and 65

they made a Chevelle Malibu

or Chevelle station wagon.

That was two doors.

They made a million four doors

but they made very limited like 2,702 doors.

And I looked forever

to find one.

It was sort of my car I wanted.

That was the one I'll never see.

And one of my buddies years ago found one out

in Golden Valley.

Just the back half of the car on a trailer

behind a chain link fence in the desert

with a four sale sign

that had melted to its owner.

It had been for sale that long.

He got the number, he bought it

parts with it and all the rare stuff

but once again no motor, no transmission

just that.

So he sold it to me

after some negotiating back and forth

and I then took the body off

it's painted butternut yellow

which is a cool color in my opinion.

So the license plate says butternut

and then

it has a six liter

in it all aluminum with AFR heads

gear star

4L65E

I believe.

Quick performance 9 inch ride tech

suspension front to back

Wilwood brakes front to back

all the frame reinforcements, frames

boxed and painted

and very nice with big sway bars

and then custom built

rock valley

tank 34 gallon fuel tank

in the back and then I put a turbo

charger behind the rear end

but in front of the gas tank

just one giant turbo in the back.

And I plumbed it up

so you look underneath the car you see two exhaust

no mufflers, you don't need them

no intercooler, don't need them

so it's a very simple system

so my other buddy

turbo mark, it's a different mark

he vary into exhaust

velocity and just he's a

very and super gifted welder

he came by in a couple of days

and built

eight into one

exhaust system

two and a quarter inch

all the way to the back where it

slowly comes up to three inch

V-band into the turbo

exactly. I bet that thing sounds awesome

that sounds awesome and then

out of that it's a two and a half

it's yeah two and a half into

the other side it goes

all the way forward comes through the floor under the

driver's seat lays next to the trans tunnel

creeps under the dashboard

and then goes through the firewall and then charges

the top of the motor. What?

I'm going to put a fake air cleaner that just

bolts to the charge hat so we look in the engine

compartment there's no waste

there's no turbos

intercoolers there's just a little LS motor

and a fake air cleaner

it's going to look awesome

we're already driving it

I've had my tuner, tuner Tom

I've got a bunch of stuff here that makes

all kinds of noise and plenty of horsepower

he's like this is the fastest car

he goes up front and feels super light at high RPM

the thing launches, I launch at this

and by the time I get to that crosswalk

it is just a friggin

rocket it's hilarious

what do you reckon it makes? Oh I don't know

it makes double what it does without the crank

so it's putting

almost like

12 or 13 pounds into I haven't

turned it up all the way but I'm going to

E85 it just so I can turn it up more. Damn

so that is a real monster. Yeah it's crazy

and you reach in and turn the key it fires up

that's awesome I love the bumper

sticker too slow AF

if you look really close it says slow

and fun

because kids don't want to wear a hat to say

slow AF. No that's very

cool. There's another sticker on there too

that says this vehicle is equipped with a fair

amount of irresponsible goodness

the wheels may burst into smoke

at any time without warning. That's very fun

oh that's that little warning on the bumper

I told him to make it look like carb sticker

yeah

well you got a lot of really cool

shit in here

but that is what

yeah that's my goal right there yeah

to be surrounded by a bunch of cool shit

I think you've achieved your life goal

and you know like for a lot of people

watching and listening to

you're a good you know north star

to follow

in your footsteps

but yeah double check some of those facts

thank you so much

for joining us on talk talk nation

this has been such a blast for me

I hope that we can continue

to work together in the future

some projects and stuff

someone's at the door right now so we're going to go

perfect timing

check us out

check out lucky's garage show on youtube

subscribe like

follow all his videos

if you don't already follow dona podcasts

and subscribe to us we come out with

a talk talk nation every two weeks

and in between jimmy eats cars

which if you haven't seen already it's an insane show

you got to check it out

thank you for watching thank you for listening

and we'll see you next week

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About this episode

Lucky Costa shares his unconventional journey from a troubled youth in South Bay, California, to becoming a well-known figure in automotive media through Motor Trend and his own YouTube channel. The conversation covers his early car culture influences, rebellious driving days, time in juvenile detention, and how those experiences shaped his passion for cars. Lucky also discusses his unique builds, friendships in the industry, and the humor and challenges behind his career. The episode offers an honest, entertaining look at how perseverance and love for cars can lead to success despite a rocky start.

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Original notes

This week, we’re hanging out with Lucky Costa, one of the most entertaining, talented, and unfiltered personalities on TV. We talk wild and irresponsible hot rodding, internet chaos, what it’s actually like trying to make cars run for television, and if he considers himself a lucky person or not.

Talk Talk Nation

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