Roadster Shop is a custom car company that builds and sells special projects. Since they run this podcast, they’re basically setting the stage for the kind of car work and builds you’ll hear about.
“Australian sheet metal” means the body panels/metal parts used on the car came from Australia or were made to match Australian versions. Using different panels can make the car look noticeably different from similar builds.
Concept
covid era
The “covid era” is referenced as the time when the speaker had more free time to search Instagram and discover builds. For car enthusiasts, this period often accelerated online communities, which in turn influenced what people built—more inspiration, more networking, and more access to niche parts and metalwork.
A bead roller is a tool that presses patterns into sheet metal to make raised lines. Those lines can make the metal stronger and also look really cool.
The Toyota Hilux is a pickup truck, meaning it’s built to carry cargo and handle rough roads better than many regular cars. It’s often chosen as a first vehicle because it’s tough and can be modified. In the podcast, it’s brought up because the speaker wanted to change it and make it their own.
“Airbagging” means putting an air suspension system on the truck so you can change how high or low it sits. People do it for looks and to get the exact stance they want.
Bead rolling is when you press a pattern into thin sheet metal so it becomes stronger. It can also make the metal look more interesting because it creates raised lines.
“Chop it up” is slang for cutting and reshaping a vehicle’s body—most commonly lowering the roofline or removing sections to change proportions. In hot-rod and custom circles, it’s a shorthand for aggressive fabrication to achieve a specific look.
A “mini truck” is a smaller pickup truck that a lot of people customize. Because it’s smaller, it’s easier to cut, fit, and modify parts to get the look and feel they want.
An auto trimmer is the person who works on the inside of cars—like seats and interior fabric or leather. They make sure everything fits neatly and looks clean.
Metal fabrication is making parts out of metal—cutting, shaping, and welding them. On custom cars, it’s how people build custom brackets and structural pieces.
Chassis design/build is about the car’s “skeleton.” It’s what everything else mounts to, and it affects how the car handles and how strong it is.
Concept
notches
In custom builds, “notches” usually means cutting small sections out of the frame so other parts can fit. It’s often done for clearance when lowering a truck, but it has to be done safely.
Hot rods are cars that have been modified to look cool and drive better. People often do custom work on the body and mechanical parts to get that classic style.
Airbags here means an air suspension system that can raise or lower the truck. People like it because you can adjust how low the car sits, but it’s more complex than regular springs.
Hydraulics means the truck’s suspension is controlled by fluid pressure, letting it drop or lift. It can look really cool and be very adjustable, but it’s usually more involved to set up and maintain than simpler suspension.
A Toyota Stout is an older Toyota truck. Here, the builder is customizing it heavily—cutting and reshaping parts—so it looks more modern and “luxury-like” instead of like a basic farm truck.
“Chopping” is when you cut and reshape parts of the body to change how the truck looks. Moving things around helps the proportions look right, like the truck was designed that way from the start.
“Heavy modifications” refers to major changes to a vehicle’s body and structure rather than bolt-on upgrades. In custom truck culture, these projects often require careful planning and fabrication because once you cut and weld, you can’t easily revert without redoing work.
“Sectioning” means cutting the truck’s body and re-welding it so the shape changes. It’s a big job because it can affect how everything lines up, like the roof and doors.
A “roof skin” is the outer sheet-metal panel of the roof. Replacing or fabricating one is common in custom builds because it allows the builder to create new roof contours, integrate a chopped roofline, and match complex curves to the rest of the body.
Rockers are the metal panels along the bottom sides of the car. They often rust because they get hit by water, salt, and road grime, and they help the car stay stiff.
The firewall is the big metal wall between the engine area and the inside of the car. If it’s rusty, it needs solid repair because it helps keep the cabin sealed and safe.
Pillars are the vertical metal supports around the doors and roof. If they rust, you usually have to cut out the bad metal and weld in new pieces so the doors and roof fit correctly again.
Rust repair and replacement means cutting out the rusty metal and putting in new metal. It’s important because it helps stop the rust from coming back and keeps the car solid.
Floor work means fixing the metal in the bottom of the car—usually the floor pans. It matters a lot because it affects how the car sits and how everything inside mounts, especially if rust is involved.
Cab mounts are the brackets/points that hold the cab to the car’s frame. If you’re rebuilding the frame or swapping sections, you have to place these mounts carefully so everything lines up.
A “rear clip” is a replacement section of the car’s rear structure—often including parts of the body and frame rails—swapped in during a restoration or custom build. It affects where mounts and panels line up, which is why the speaker says it will dictate cab mount locations and requires staged welding before the cab can come off.
Fitment is how well parts align and fit together—panel gaps, mounting positions, and clearances. In fabrication, checking fitment is critical before final welding or finishing because small positioning errors can compound and make later assembly difficult.
Concept
safari window
A “safari window” is a style of side/rear window opening (often associated with off-road or classic wagon aesthetics) that’s typically integrated into the inner structure and can be designed for visibility and airflow. Because it requires cutting and welding into the inner structure, the builder needs to plan when the cab can be removed and when welding operations can be completed.
CAD is how you design parts on a computer before you make them. Fusion 360 is one of those programs, and it helps you plan the chassis so the pieces fit together and can be cut accurately.
CNC (computer numerical control) machining uses programmed toolpaths to cut or shape metal and other materials with high precision. In a chassis build, CNC work helps ensure the designed parts interlock correctly and can be produced consistently.
The Ford Fusion is a regular everyday car meant for commuting and carrying people. It’s often used as a reference for projects because it’s a common car you can find information and parts for. In a discussion about designing parts, it may be mentioned as the kind of car someone wants to work on.
An ICV is basically a “built-from-scratch or heavily rebuilt” car in the eyes of the law. If you keep the original chassis, the paperwork is usually easier; if you don’t, you may have to follow tougher rules and spend more to get it approved.
A four-link is a suspension setup that uses multiple arms to hold the rear axle in the right position. It helps the car keep traction and move smoothly when the suspension travels.
A wishbone is a shaped control arm that helps guide how the suspension moves. Using it on the upper side helps the wheels stay positioned correctly as the car goes over bumps.
“Three wheel” means getting one wheel off the ground so the car is supported by only three wheels. To do it reliably, the suspension has to move a lot and still keep the car stable.
Articulation is how much the suspension can “flex” and let the wheels move up and down. More articulation helps the car handle uneven ground and can lift a wheel, but it’s also harder to engineer safely.
For big modifications, an engineer has to review the work and officially approve it. They sign off that it’s safe to drive on public roads, which can make unusual builds harder to get approved.
An auto leveling system tries to keep the car sitting level even when you add weight or change conditions. That helps the car handle more predictably and keeps things like clearance and lighting more consistent.
A bell crank is a lever that helps convert movement from one form into another. In a suspension system, it can help translate hydraulic motion into raising or lowering the car.
A hydraulic cylinder is like a powered piston that moves in and out using fluid pressure. In this setup, it’s used to raise or lower the car’s suspension height.
The lower control arm is a metal link that holds the wheel in place. When the road gets bumpy, it lets the wheel move up and down while keeping it pointed the right way.
Suspension travel is how much the suspension can move when the car goes over bumps. More travel can help the tires stay in contact, but it also needs to be packaged correctly so parts don’t run out of room.
A push rod is a link that moves when the wheel moves. Instead of the spring/damper being directly in line, the push rod helps “send” that movement to where the spring and shock are mounted.
A trailer stub axle is a wheel-support part from a trailer. Repurposing it for a suspension pivot can save time, but you have to make sure it’s strong enough for the forces on a car.
Load rating is how much force a part can handle before it’s not safe anymore. For suspension parts, you want a high enough rating because they get hit with big forces every time you drive over bumps.
Bearings are the parts that let shafts move smoothly with less friction. In a suspension, they take a lot of force, so the right bearing strength matters for reliability.
A template is a guide you trace or copy so your parts come out the right shape and size. It’s a way to make sure everything lines up before you commit to final fabrication.
An A-arm is a suspension link that holds the wheel in the right position. It helps the wheel move smoothly over bumps, and it also affects how the car steers and handles.
Those “upper hat assemblies” are the parts at the top of the suspension strut. They help hold the spring/strut in place and connect it to the car, which affects how the car sits and handles.
Term
90s high-lux arms
“High-lux arms” are suspension control arms—basically the links that locate the wheel. If you change them, the wheel’s position and alignment can change, which can affect steering feel and tire wear.
Here, “engineering” means getting the car’s modifications approved so they’re legal and safe. If you build parts from scratch, you usually need extra proof (testing or calculations) to satisfy the rules.
This is a workaround for approval: instead of making a brand-new suspension arm, you start with an original factory arm and change it. That can sometimes make the approval process easier because the base part is already proven.
Term
modifying it or building it from scratch
They’re talking about two ways to do a project: tweak what already exists, or make the whole thing yourself from the ground up. Each approach can change how expensive and how time-consuming the build is.
Term
new technique
They mean learning a specific method for doing the work. Getting better at the “how” is often what makes the final result look and fit better.
Term
round bar thing
They’re calling out a small part with a round shape. Details like that can make a project look more finished, even if it’s not a big mechanical change.
When people say “handmade” in car building, they mean the parts were made by skilled people instead of being stamped out in a factory. It usually shows up in how well the parts fit and how good the finishing looks.
Vents are openings that let air move through or around the car. Using stainless just means the parts are corrosion-resistant and usually look cleaner for longer.
Door visors are small pieces that sit above the window/door opening. They can help keep rain out and they also add a finished, custom look.
Concept
chrome vs stainless finish
They’re comparing two ways to make metal look shiny: chrome plating versus polishing stainless steel. Chrome can cost a lot and needs special work, while stainless can be made shiny by polishing it yourself.
The Ford Model A is an old classic car that people often modify or build from at home. In this story, they made a small stainless part for their Model A dash and polished it for a custom look.
A switch plate is the little panel where switches are mounted. Using stainless and shaping it to match the dash helps it look clean and last longer.
Term
32 dash
“32 dash” means they were using a 1932-style dashboard shape. They made their metal part fit that dash so it looks like it belongs there.
Concept
metal forming tools
They’re talking about the shop tools used to shape metal for car builds and repairs. Different tools are better for different jobs—like making curves, adding strength, or forming metal with consistent force.
A shrinker-stretcher is a tool that helps you reshape sheet metal. It can make a panel “shorter” (shrink) or “longer” (stretch) in specific areas so you can form curves more easily.
A power hammer is a hammer that’s driven by a motor or hydraulics, so it hits with steady force. It’s used to shape metal faster and more consistently than doing everything by hand.
Term
rigid mode
Rigid mode is the power hammer setting that makes the hits feel more firm and direct. It’s useful when you want the metal to move in a more controlled, predictable way.
Term
spring mode
Spring mode is a setting on a power hammer that makes the action feel more flexible. That can help you shape metal more gently and with better control.
Custom paint is a tailored finishing process that goes beyond a basic color change—often involving special colors, clear coats, and unique application techniques. In enthusiast builds, it’s used to create depth, color-shift effects, and show-quality surface finish.
Paneled paint is when the paint job is done in sections, like different panels or areas with intentional lines or patterns. It usually requires careful taping so everything lines up.
Multi-layer paint means you build the color in steps—layer by layer—so it looks deeper and lasts longer. The key is letting each layer set up correctly before the next.
Concept
wrapping up the cab
“Wrapping up the cab” is workshop slang for finishing the cab/bodywork portion of a build—typically meaning the metalwork and fitment are near complete. In restoration and custom projects, the cab is often a major milestone because it sets the overall shape and panel alignment before paint and final assembly.
Coach builders are people who specialize in making the car’s body and sometimes the interior. They’re the kind of craftsmen you’d call for custom builds or high-end restorations.
Metal shapers are skilled people who shape sheet metal by hand to make body panels fit and look right. They’re especially important for restoring older cars where original parts aren’t available.
Concept
stout build
A “stout build” is basically a custom style goal. The idea is to make the car look like all the parts belong together, with a consistent theme—here, inspired by the 1960s.
Airbrushing is a way to spray paint very precisely using a small tool. In this context, it’s being used to “fake” details with paint so the car looks like it has certain trim or styling without doing heavy bodywork.
Bel Air is a classic Chevrolet style people love from the 1950s. The speaker is saying you can paint/airbrush details to make your custom car look like it has that old-school “57 Bel Air” trim.
“Pro street” is a style of modified car that blends street drivability with performance-oriented upgrades, often paired with aggressive stance and showy visuals. The term is commonly associated with cars built to look like they belong on the street while still being capable and performance-focused.
They’re basically talking about how car looks go in and out of style. Something can be popular for a while, fade away, and then come back later.
Term
OBS builds
“OBS” is a nickname for an older style of Ford truck body. People say “OBS builds” when they’re building or modifying one of those classic trucks, often with modern upgrades.
A “tweed interior” refers to using tweed fabric (or tweed-style upholstery) for seats and trim. It’s a classic, heritage-inspired look that’s often chosen to give a truck or car a vintage, upscale vibe.
Term
57 bell air trim
They’re referencing the look of a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air. The idea is to borrow that classic trim style and apply it as a custom paint/trim detail on a modern vehicle.
They mention “Lucky Strike” as the person they want to do the airbrushing. It’s basically calling out a specialist who can paint custom designs for cars.
The Ford F-150 is a large pickup truck that people use for hauling and daily driving. A “Raptor” is a more performance-oriented version of the F-150, and the podcast mentions customizing it with paint and trim. That’s why it comes up—because it’s a popular truck to personalize.
“Good Guys” is a well-known organization that puts on classic car shows. In this episode, they’re sponsoring the Q&A segment, tying it to the car-show community.
York Speed Shop is another hot-rod-related business helping with the event. They’re running a special members-only lounge area.
LIVE
I doubt there's anybody listening that doesn't know your build.
We've got from Down Under.
We've got Jasmine Green.
Everybody, I'm sure, knows her as a six four stout on Instagram.
Welcome back, another episode of Oil and Whiskey.
This week we.
We'd like to do in person, but this one was a little this one's a little far,
quite the following and really excited to to have this conversation.
There's so so many questions we have.
We do. Yeah, this one is this is comes up all the time.
I'm a huge fan of your work and we've been trying to make this happen.
And I'm glad we can finally get you on here because it's
it's always refreshing to see when your stuff slides into my stories or into my feed.
I just always know you always know it's some of the nicest looking metal work out there.
It's got it's got that Australian sheet metal, it's got the Australian sheet metal
because it always looks different. Yeah.
And it's it's badass.
So pleasure to have you.
We're looking forward to digging into this.
Yeah, I'm glad to be on should be good.
Well, I guess we'll start from the beginning.
I mean, this I had to take the cliche route.
But there's so many questions begin at the beginning of how this all got started.
I know that we became or at least I became where like during the covid era of,
you know, have a little more time on your hands to search Instagram.
And this build pops up.
And at that point, it was, you know, in a dirt floor barn and, you know,
some of the stuff that was being built, you're like, what's going on?
You know, and you weren't but you weren't ever in this pictures or screen.
Like you didn't. I had just so many questions like, what is what is this?
What? Yeah. And it started off.
There's a lot of beadwork, right?
The beadwork jumps out and we keep seeing beadwork.
And I'm like, oh, no, here we go again.
This is another.
Is this somebody else with a bead roller?
And then I'm like, holy shit.
I mean, this is killer, killer fad work, unbelievable metal work.
How the hell did you get started?
Where did you pick this up?
Take us back to the beginning.
Well, the beginning.
Well, this is my second build.
So my first one will go back further.
So I started off in mini trucking.
So my first car was a Toyota Hilux.
And I wanted to modify it.
It kind of escalated like it was this.
I just wanted to airbag it.
And then, yeah, I did a lot of the sheet metal work,
like gradually sort of as I learned, I did more, you know,
more complex sheet metal work on that.
And there's a bit of bead rolling in it and pretty much I finished that build.
And I wanted to put everything that I learned
whilst building that car into this new build, which this stay out.
I've had sitting in the paddock for 10 years or more.
Like, yeah, it's sort of been in my head for a while.
And it was probably never going to be this crazy with all the bead rolling.
But I did get a bit carried away, definitely.
Well, prior to that, I mean, how did that, how did you get started?
What's your upbringing?
Were you was there inspiration for cars?
Was it in the family?
Anybody or the fabricators in the fam?
Where did it? Where did the skill or did you just pick up tools?
Yeah, look, it definitely wasn't in my upbringing.
I wasn't really interested in cars, but I always had an artistic background.
Like, as a kid, I sort of sat down in a kind of watercolors and
yeah, I enjoyed that sort of thing.
And then when I needed to get my first car when I was 17,
I met, I had my partner, well, who's still my partner now.
He had a purple mini truck and I thought that was pretty cool.
So I wanted a high lux as well.
And yeah, and then we went to like mini truck mates, mini truck shows.
And I kind of caught the mini truck and bugged there.
And that's what got me into the, I don't know, into cars, I guess.
It's just the artistic freedom.
You know, you can just with mini truck and like you can kind of just, you know,
chop it up, do what you want.
No one cares. And I really enjoyed that.
Is this is is this your full time job? Do you?
Well, the stouts is my personal build on the side,
but I'm a qualified auto trimmer, so upholsterer by trade.
Cool. Yeah.
So I do, I work for someone else four days a week.
And yeah, I do a bit of trimming there and a bit of metal fabrication as well.
And I also work part-time in the shed at home with my partner.
So it's sort of, yeah, balance there.
So yeah, I do do it for work.
Is he still building vehicles as well?
Yeah, yeah.
He's focused, focuses more on like the chassis design and like chassis building,
mini trucks, notches, yeah, getting into hot rods and stuff now.
Is that his full time gig?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So it's his business, was fab.
And yeah, I'm trying to sort of help him out where I can.
And yeah, it's a good, good partnership we got going on.
Who's got who's got more Instagram followers?
Oh, probably me.
Yeah. Yeah.
I don't know how that happened either.
That just went wild.
Good work, man.
It's just doing good work.
And he hasn't tried to recruit you full time.
How does it?
You're still, still working trimming?
You're not going to dive in?
And oh, we probably shouldn't do it.
I'm sure your employer's listening to this.
You won't get there.
Yeah. I don't know.
I'm trying to have a nice balancing.
I don't mind working for someone else who kind of breaks it up a bit.
And it's a steady income.
You know, when we're both in the same business, it's a bit risky.
So yeah, it's, it's nice.
Yeah. Just having, I don't know, just being able to break it up.
Some time, some time apart is never a bad thing.
Yeah, I guess we get along pretty good though.
Yeah. But everybody gets along.
You spend, you spend 24 hours a day on the, on the work side and the relax side,
seven days a week and all that.
It's just, I'm always interested in that dynamic.
Something we can do it.
A lot of husband and wife teams.
I get along great with my wife.
We are not working together.
No. Period.
Never going to happen.
No. Some people can do it.
Some people can't.
When, when the, when the, when the stout build started, right?
You said you had it in your head for a while.
You've had it that you call it the paddock.
I can piece two and two together.
That's the garage, right?
That's where.
No, the, the, the shop.
The shed, the shed is the garage.
We're always intrigued by the different term, you know, we, us, it's a shop.
It's a parking lot.
It's a, you know, whatever, it's a storage unit.
There it's a paddock or a shed or a workshop, right?
Well, well that's, yeah, we just call it the shed, but the paddock is like
literally a paddock with cars in it.
Like there's a crop in there as well.
Like a, a paddock with cars.
Yeah. It's something different.
Paddock, I always think of this like at the racetrack and stuff in the paddock.
Yeah. But that, I think she's saying something different.
You also, you said you got crops in there too, right?
Yeah. It's just like an area of land with.
It's outside.
Okay. It's a lot.
It's a, it's a, it's a yard.
A yard. Yeah, maybe.
Yeah.
A field.
She's going to leave this podcast like, you know, these Americans are fucking stupid.
Yeah.
She's not going to be the only person that said that.
Okay. Field.
So if coming from Alabama, it would be in the backfield in the paddock.
Yeah.
Got you.
That sounds right.
Okay.
All right.
Now, I don't know.
She's talking about cars and stuff and crops and junk that probably be more like your front yard
in Alabama.
Right.
Yeah.
If you can plant a crop, who cares if it's front, side, back, whatever.
So you had, you, you got this idea when you decide to start building that,
do you have social media documentation of it in mind or did that come right after?
Yeah, I just started the page just because I know I just wanted to,
I enjoy making videos and sort of showing what I'm doing.
So yeah, I just made it for the same reason.
You know, everyone else starts a page for the car, just, just to, yeah, show it off, I guess.
At the beginning, what was the, what was some of the key bullet points of the build that you knew?
Like, all right, it's going to have this motor.
It's going to have this suspension is going to have this or did you have,
you have the entire build planned out or just a couple of bullet points?
Not, not really, no.
I had sort of a rough idea.
Like I want it low, obviously.
And, and it was probably just going to be originally on airbags, but I want to,
yeah, put it on hydraulics just because I've done airbags.
I want to learn something though.
So, and I had a general idea of what I wanted to do with it.
Like pretty much what I want to do is take the Toyota Stout, which is an old farm truck.
Like they're not really that aesthetically pleasing.
And yeah, I want to change all the proportions.
So that's why I've chopped it so much and move things around.
And I want to make it flow really nicely from front to back.
Like, like sort of how it could have came out if it were more of like a luxury car.
So that's always been the overall idea with it.
But as far as like, you know, the bead rolling and the design that I've done,
I do make a lot of that up as I go along.
But yeah, I've just got sort of like a rough idea.
And I just, yeah, enjoy being creative with it and just, yeah, making it up.
I don't want it all set in stone because it's kind of fun, you know,
coming to the next, you know, come up to the next thing I've got to make and just,
yeah, having to think and just being creative with it.
Is any of that been intimidating for you?
I mean, you've cut that truck every which way.
There's some, some heavy modifications that require full commitment.
Not really.
Like the good thing about, well, mini trucks and sort of cheap cars is it doesn't really matter
over if I stuff it up like parts of that cheap, they're not abundant.
So, not really, no, like having start, having done that,
Hilux previously, I kind of got over the whole, yeah, chopping up the car and,
you know, the fear of.
You're obviously incredibly skilled at the metalwork portion of it.
So I'd imagine it probably comes easy to do work at that level and to finish it the way
you do and some of the shapes that you execute sort of just looks like you're,
you're one of those people that just simply has it.
Like you've obviously got an amazing talent, so it probably comes easier for you.
I think a lot of the things you're doing, the reason I'm asking is because a lot of people
would be like, shit, like when you section, like section the truck, when you make the
roof skin, when you build all these complex shapes, you sort of reach a point where you're like,
fuck, I'm in trouble, you know, I'm in trouble.
But it seems like you move through that thing really well.
Like there's some killer shapes in the truck.
I was just watching this morning woke up and it hit my feet of the door skin that you're doing.
And it just looks killer.
The work is so kick ass.
So it obviously, you got a knack for it.
I remember following when you, when you first were starting on it,
you know, in quite a different working environment than what you're working on it in now.
And it, you started with, you know, kind of your, obviously you're disassembling and
cleaning up and yarding everything out.
And then you could start it low.
Didn't you start on like rockers and pillars and firewall and stuff like that on mostly
rust repair and replacement.
Then you started to get into floor work at what point, because obviously it's
now it's, it's over the top, right?
It's been over the top for, you know, the last year and a half or so.
At what point when you start doing floors and you're doing some of that rust repair and you're
doing some really, really nice clean metal work.
Did you realize, did you realize or did you make the conscious decision that this is
going to probably go a little further than what I anticipated?
Yeah, like pretty much when I chopped it, I had to make a floor.
And then if I'm making a floor, I may as, I don't know, I guess I can't make anything
simple.
I get bored.
So that's, that's probably the reason everything got over complicated and detailed,
because I just get bored with it.
If it's too easy, I think that's more, yeah, what it is.
I just like challenging myself and, yeah.
And back to like, you know, it's never easy.
Like I never know how I'm going to do something, but I enjoy the process of figuring it out.
So there definitely are times where I'm like, oh shit, like, I don't know.
What am I doing here?
But there's always a way to work through that.
Yeah.
What skill do you think that you've come the farthest on as far as, you know,
that you were a novice at the beginning and that you've really either enjoyed the most or
came the farthest in learning?
Probably maybe just finishing the metal.
Like just, just the more, obviously the more practice I do, the better I get at something.
And yeah, metal finishing was something I always just wasn't good at perfecting.
And yeah, I've just been working at that, working at that.
And I think I've finally got to a stage where, yeah, I'm, yeah,
happier with the finish of everything.
And what do you think got you there?
Patience or is there a particular skill set or something you learned
along the way that helped you elevate it?
It's definitely patience.
It takes so long.
Yeah, that's, that's this big one.
But I don't know, it's just, just sort of getting a feel for how the metal moves and,
you know, what needs to be done.
I don't know, really.
Yeah.
When is, you've been on the, you've been on the cab
for a while.
Now you've got a lot of interior design on the cab that, I mean,
indoor door stuff is, I mean, crazy.
I've been watching that for the last few weeks.
It's just, it just keeps, it's a, it's, it's nuts.
This is, this is like when Adam Banks puts up his things of all, you know, step.
Yeah, dude, I don't know.
I might even go as far as say it's better.
Okay.
Wow.
Wow.
Nice.
Damn good.
I know you're talking about it.
But the documentation and the, the finished product or whatever,
you do a very good job and the cleanliness of it and the design.
It all flows, you know, on an Adam Banks level.
But where I was going with that is a lot on the cab, right?
And the cab is, his cab is looks like, I'm sure there's probably some finish work.
The cab is wrapping up.
It's, you got a whole back half.
There's a bed and there's front fenders and all the front sheet metal.
Are you prolonging that to start tackling that?
Or do you want to finish out the cab and then start front and back, front or back?
Well, yeah, the cab, I'm trying to just get everything in the cab working at the moment.
But I still haven't done the cab mounts.
But see, I mean, I'm building, I'm designing the chassis as well.
So it's going to get a rear clip on it.
And then it will probably dictate where the cab mounts go.
So there's a lot of it that sort of works together.
But at the moment, I'm trying to finish everything that I can on the cab.
Just while that's all clean code together, because as the cab sits, like, I can still pull the whole
roof off and pretty much strip everything down the floor out until it's just sills and a firewall,
which is tacked to some box section on the chassis.
So whilst I can get behind every panel, I'm just trying to, you know, check fitment.
That's why I did the doors.
Actually, yeah, starting to think about the rear window.
I want to like make like a safari window there.
And then where that's going to mount is inside the inner structure.
So I'm going to have to drop that out to be out of welding.
And if it was all welded together, then I can't do that yet.
And I need to weld it together to a certain extent before the cab can actually come off the chassis
before I can do that rear clip.
So it's kind of quite the puzzle.
You mentioned the chassis.
I want to pull the chassis up here and I want to get I want to get Jeremy's take.
Although there's already been 222 comments on this.
I want to hear what I have to say.
20 people already commented.
Yeah, I want to hear what I want to hear what your take from.
What my take on the chassis?
I want to get Jeremy's take on it after you explain what it is that you're doing here.
Okay, so I've been trying, well, I've done a bit with CAD and I've been trying to design the chassis
in CAD, so in Fusion 360.
So because we have a CNC class, so I want to design it all and then have it all interlock
and then cut it out and put it on the truck.
So it's just going to be a rear clip.
I am using a certain percent of the original chassis because in Australia,
it's a lot easier to get a car through registration if it uses the original chassis,
because otherwise it becomes an ICV, which is an independently constructed vehicle.
And yeah, it gets very expensive and you've got to comply to modern guidelines getting it through.
So a lot of the original chassis at the front is staying.
It will just be modified and then designing a rear clip.
So yeah, just four link, wishbone upper and because it's on hydraulics,
I want to do silly hydraulic things like, you know, get a fair amount of lift out of it
and be able to three wheel.
So it needs to be able to articulate quite a lot,
which is also a challenge in getting it through legally.
Like it's got to be certified by an engineer.
So pretty much it's just a person who's qualified to oversee the work and sign it off
to say that it's safe for Australian roads, which makes everything hard.
So when I get on the road, it will have to be limited.
Like it won't be able to three wheel and do silly things.
I'll have to limit what it can do, it'll need like a level ride,
like a auto leveling system, just like airbags.
So they don't make it easy over there.
That do they?
No, they really don't.
Are things incredibly safe over there as a result of this monumental
undertaking they have for limiting and vetting all aftermarket stuff over there?
Like does it result in just incredibly safe roadways or is it just a pain in the ass?
It seems like just a pain in the ass.
I don't think it makes the roads any safer, but I think the cars are built to a much higher level.
Because you have to.
I see on Instagram what not some really dodgy things coming out of the states,
which would be a bit scary to know you're driving next to them.
But it just stops that.
Do it dodgily once the car is registered and just drive it until you get caught.
But for the most part, yeah, you kind of got to do it properly through the system.
Got it.
Well, explain to me the hydraulic system.
What are you creating here?
How is this going to function?
So it's going to run on a coilover at the back.
So it's sort of like a bell crank set up.
So the hydraulic cylinder is purely there just to adjust the height.
It's mounted from the chassis to the lower control arm.
And the suspension travel, it'll see travel apart from when it's on the ground,
but pretty much throughout its whole suspension, like its whole travel range.
There'll be a solid push rod unless it's being adjusted.
It's just pretty much adjustable push rod then.
Yeah, yeah, you'd say that.
Yeah, so yeah, it's still like I'm still trying to design it.
I'm back and forth with the engineer because I wanted to use a trailer stub axle for the bell crank pivot.
And yeah, it's got to be at a certain load rating.
So he's going to get back to me whether that's suitable.
Otherwise, I'll have to make something.
But I'm just trying to use a part that exists just to save time.
For the bearings and all the shafts and stuff, yeah.
Yeah, that's it.
This is the bearings that are the problem, the load rating on the bearings.
So yeah, if they're all good, then that part of the suspensions, yeah,
pretty much how it's going to be.
And then, yeah, for the front, the front's interesting.
The front, I'm going to scroll down while we're talking.
The front was something that I love the look of and wow the amount of.
The arms are cool.
The arms are awesome.
Great metal finishing.
You did a lot of work.
It looks like it.
Yeah, I followed how you did those tapered cones and everything that was cool.
Yeah, you did a really amazing job.
I think we when I saw this picture.
Well, the lead up or this let's say go to this picture when I saw this picture.
I was like, wow, that's not what I'm used to seeing on this page.
She's tying some stuff together.
Fucking mock up, dude.
Get a template.
I get it.
At first, it was initially a little alarming or scary on the holding things in the place.
Well, that's because when she mentioned some of the dodgy stuff you see in the US,
there's some people that would run that A-arm exactly.
That would be the finished product.
I've seen it on TV.
That is a finished.
But I see how what you did and how you got to where you're at to hold those three pieces
basically in the correct plane of what they were and adjust your ball joint angle some.
You're building a template and the jig.
But from there to then as sexy as these parts came out to be, everything just nests.
Looks so awesome.
Thank you.
Really well done.
Yeah, that were a lot of work.
Then that's the kind of thing that you can do either on your own project when you're not
billing yourself or for a customer that has a near unlimited budget.
It's like, yeah, that's absolutely.
You might be surprised.
Smooth it out.
You might be surprised.
What kind of time do you think you've gotten that?
That particular piece that we're looking at, like the upper hat assemblies, the pair of them.
What is it?
It's hard to say.
I can usually work it out by looking at my Instagram and how long it took me.
I know I do roughly 10, 15 hours a week.
So you can kind of work it out that way.
But I couldn't say off the top of my head it was a lot.
And I wasn't really thinking about that while I was making it.
I was just trying to get it done.
Yeah, I can't say.
Yeah, it's going to be a complete guess if I do.
But yeah, there's a lot in it because I had to use part of the original.
So well, it's not the original star arms.
I use 90s high-lux arms because I've got an abundance of 90s high-luxes in the paddock
from building my previous car.
To get it through engineering, if I went with a fully fabricated arm,
it would need some really expensive testing.
It would all have to be sort of modeled and tested.
So a loophole around that is to use a factory arm and modify it.
But I don't think the engineer quite expected me to modify it that much.
What's there about like 2% of the factory arm?
We're splitting hairs there on modifying it or building it from scratch.
The cat seems to like it.
What's the cat's name?
His name's Turkey.
Because we had a friend who had an orange cat called Meatball.
And I don't know, we just called him Turkeyball.
And then it says Turkeyball.
I don't know, it's silly, but that's his name.
But he's coolly.
He came with the house.
He's just, yeah, he hangs out in the shed.
He sits on the tractor.
He's a pretty chill cat.
The tractor would be in the paddock.
I got that.
Okay, so we're following along.
It's all tracking with me.
Yeah, we're getting it now.
Yeah, it seems like every little project, you're like either exploring a new skill,
trying a new technique, picking up a new skill.
Oh, this is just the round bar thing.
Like this little detail there was cool.
Yeah, such a simple thing that absolutely, you know, elevates it in such a,
I don't know.
I'm really in love with the simplicity of the shapes and how everything looks.
Well, it's nice to see the element of handmade.
I'm never one of those guys who's like,
fucking handmade, like you can't machine it.
But it is cool to see the talent.
Like, you know, it's a dying skill for sure.
So, you know, you see it with Henry at Steadfast.
You see a lot of his work where like,
he'll blend some really cool stuff and great metal finishing and,
you know, great thought process and how he makes brackets.
And this is the same thing.
It's just cool to see.
Thank you.
Where I was going with that is just a little, you know,
completely out of nowhere, you know, as far as like following the arc of the build.
But I love the little stainless vents, the little door vents.
Where are they at?
I think I saw them.
Oh, the little visors.
Yeah, little door visors.
Oh, really cool.
And a great, like, step by step.
Again, like a little hammer form thing.
Is that how you did them?
No, a mixture of sort of bead rolling.
And I use the press to make a die for those lindens.
That's cool.
And then just rolled it over a bit apart.
Yeah, I like stainless because you can work with it and then polish it.
And then it's finished, you know.
Doesn't need to be so much for it.
It saves me money on chrome because chrome is going to be really expensive,
but when it does come to that time.
So yeah, stainless, it's a nightmare to work with though.
It's, yeah, it distorts.
It's so hard to polish.
But when you finally get there, it's definitely worth it.
Yeah, there's a sense of, like you said, it's like a, it's a finished thing.
Now it's not, you know, got to go chrome or paint or whatever.
It's like, well, that one, yeah, that one's done.
That was one of the first things I did on the Model A we built at home years ago.
I built like a little stainless switch plate and like contoured it to the 32 dash and polished it.
I was so proud of myself.
Dude, when you make your first thing that's like metal finished and polished.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
That was like disposable camera days, so it didn't make it over.
Oh, wow.
There's no social media, but I remember the feeling.
Felt very accomplished.
Oh, fully boxed the backside.
No, no, I have asked.
Tell me about these tools.
So I've been following these metal masters tools.
We don't have them in the States, but you see it pop up a little bit here and there.
And it looks like awesome stuff.
And it looks like pretty affordable compared to a lot of this stuff that we have available here.
The hammers, the bead rollers, shrinker stretcher, all that stuff.
Is it quality stuff?
How do you like working with it?
Yeah, no, it's really good.
Like I think we're pretty lucky in Australia to have, you know, this abundant range of machinery.
And it being really affordable too.
And yeah, I can't really floor it.
Like, yeah, the bead rollers awesome.
Like we only just upgraded, but yeah, we've had the same bead roller for like
probably 15 years now.
And yeah, it's been awesome.
Yeah, I don't know what else to say.
You get the hammers reciprocating too?
Or is it just a power hammer?
It's a power hammer.
But it can be either in spring mode or rigid mode.
So it can work like a full max as well.
Yeah, if you've ever checked that stuff out.
Yeah, from the last, you, whatever, you brought it up on
or other episodes or whatever.
And I looked to check it up out of that after that.
Yeah, I was trying to dig in a little bit to like get some YouTube videos or reviews,
but they're sort of like just, you know, like your typical like the manufacturer type videos.
It's not, you want to see some like first hand make some videos, some YouTube stuff for, you know,
some review videos on the equipment for all of us Americans that would love to get our hands on it.
You know, it's like, dude, it is a fraction of the price.
Really?
Like some of the name brand stuff you get here and it looks good.
Yeah, I think you can get over there.
I'm not sure whether they should, but yeah, I could do.
The, um, what are some skills, whether it be metal shaping, welding, finishing,
painting, bodywork, what are some things that you are still looking to
learn?
Okay, uh, probably, I don't know, I want to learn everything really.
Um, what are you most intimidated by coming up?
Yeah, um, well, I just bought an engraver because I want to do like, you know,
your low rider kind of engraving on some of the, you know, the metal or like the stainless and
aluminum work, um, which I've sort of played around with it and it's hard.
And I'm going to need a lot more hours, like anything to practice before actually
do any of the parts in, you know, engrave any of the parts.
But that's the latest thing that I want to learn and I'm trying to learn.
Um, and then eventually I want to learn custom paint.
So like full sort of paneled paint, multi-layer sort of, yeah.
Yeah, just to flow with the floor and everything else that I've done.
The engraving stuff's wild.
You know, I've talked about it before.
Oh yeah.
Oh, I did a master engraver.
Yeah.
You went to a master engraver class.
I went to a master engraver class.
That I did.
I went to a class for a dude.
Ray Covers was his name because I'm always, I'm fascinated by it and it is,
it's very intimidating.
Like once the initial like picking up the graver and getting started,
you're like, this is fucking impossible.
But what's interesting, you sit, you know, it's all done under a microscope.
And so it looks horrible the whole time you're doing it.
I spent like three days doing it, but occasionally you'd step back and you pull
that part out from under the microscope and you're like, damn, dude, I did it.
It looks pretty cool.
I had this vision of like wanting a hobby and it seems, it's a cool thing because
it doesn't like stuff you in the garage.
Like, I feel like, you know, you could set up a little space in the house and sit
there and it's just a new kind of hobby.
But I am absolutely with you.
I am so intrigued by I love.
I don't care what it is you engrave it.
It's fucking cool.
Like I love it's probably my favorite like artistic style when it comes to battle.
I love everything about it.
I am so intimidated because of the the dual like the two handed thing.
Right.
That's that's where I can't I can't do.
Right.
Yeah.
You're turning it with one hand and you're the turn and the and the pressure and the
slight that that is something that I feel like if I could if I could sketch it or whip
it like you're doing a tattoo, right?
If I could, yeah, I could be pretty OK, right?
If I was doing it that way, but the you could sheet it.
You could just get a like an air engraver.
Yeah.
Some guys do that or like a Dremel tool and just do it like two dimensional.
I know, but that's not it's not.
Yeah.
It's not well enlisted.
And no.
Who's the girl on Instagram that's phenomenal?
Melissa follower in Florida did some Jesse James guns.
Not sure.
Yeah.
That's probably one of the coolest things out there as far as like metal work goes.
What do you think with all the stuff you're good at?
What would you say that you do better than Adam Banks at this point?
As far as like metal work and things like that?
Nothing.
She moves at a faster pace.
It looks like she's been working on it's only been a year and a half and this
thing's almost like wrapping up the cab at 36 to like 17 years.
I'm just kidding.
We give Adam and Troy both a lot of shit because of they're so talented and people
can't stop bringing them up on the podcast.
Honestly, it's getting.
But, you know, well deserved.
But every now and then you got to, you know, remind them that they're human.
We're all friends, right?
So you got to give them some shit.
They give us our fair amount as well.
So do you communicate with any of those guys?
Any metal shapers, coach builders bouncing back in DMs with if you reach a snag or.
Yeah, there's a few in Australia.
There's sort of like a little community of metal shapers.
So, yeah, I mean, in a group chat with them and yeah, it's interesting to see, you know,
what they're working on.
And if anyone has questions, they sort of put it in there.
And yeah, it's a good little community here in Australia.
That's cool.
Yeah.
What what do you get?
I'm sure it's going to be everywhere.
But what are some go to places for inspiration on the artistic side, design side, you know?
Well, Instagram is obviously a big one, but even just going to, you know, a local car show
and just looking at cars from like, I just look at cars from the 60s and see what quirky sort of
things they have, like look at the style and because that's what I'm trying to sort of emulate
with the stout build, just that that 60s style, you know, with all the trims and patterns and
textures.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like I don't just want to, you know, shave anything like shave everything like what I did,
you know, with my other mini truck.
I just want to just make everything flow.
But have every component look like it's meant to be there.
So yeah, just looking at cars that exist from that era, really, that's probably the biggest one.
I mean, if you're into the mini truck and there's no sense in spending all this time
learning how to make it in metal, just airbrush that shit on there.
You know, airbrush the door handle.
You make it look like Bel Air, whatever you want, you know, 57 Bel Air trim.
Say what you want to that shit's coming back.
You think so?
Airbrush stuff's coming back.
Airbrush trims coming back.
Oh, yeah.
Really?
What makes you think that?
Because everything full swings.
It's pros because pro streets coming back.
Pro street, I could see, but I think it'll pro street will omit the airbrushing portion of it.
I'm not saying you should airbrush trim, but airbrushing and wild graphics and stuff's coming back.
You don't think wild graphics and stuff's coming back?
I could see maybe wild graphics.
I think the right colors, wild graphics with that comes
airbrushing.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's coming.
I don't know.
I feel like the trim might be kind of like fanny packs.
Like it's something that just needed to go away.
Some people tried to maybe dabble it, bringing it back and it didn't stick.
Airbrush trim.
Fanny packs.
Oh, fanny packs.
You're saying airbrush trim is like fanny packs.
So massive.
It's like just let it let it go.
I just I think that things swing around even if it's done for fun.
I mean, we've we've dabbled around in things on some OBS builds, whatever,
with a nod to the 80s and stuff like that.
So there will be some things that come back.
I think Tweed interior.
You'll see Tweed interior come back.
Yeah, we just did it.
Yeah, we did it in John's truck.
Yeah, I think I'm not saying I'm a fan of airbrushing things on fake,
but I'm just saying you'll see some of that stuff make its way back.
We should get Jeremy from Lucky Strike to airbrush some 57 bell air trim on your raptor.
Be cool.
These are the kind of ideas we come up with on this podcast.
Talk about generating ideas.
And this is just, you know, maybe airbrush or red R on the back of it.
All right, we come to standard question time.
This week's standard questions.
This is all brand new.
This is breaking news.
Just so you know, this week's standard questions is brought to you by good guys,
Rod and Custom Association.
Good guys is kind enough to come on as a sponsor of the standard questions.
We have some standard questions coming from the good guys staff that we will be implementing
as well if they're good.
They said, we're going to do some questions.
So that's got to understand.
Is bunker bringing those?
We got a high bar.
I think they're going to do a round table and try to bring the heat.
I'm looking forward to the minutes.
We got to mix it up a little bit.
Yeah, we do.
Coming up, good guys is doing a brand new show in Nashville, Fairgrounds, downtown Nashville.
All new location, nostalgic celebration of hot rod history and culture
being tribute to the roots of the hobby.
They got over 500 curated and iconic pre-65, pre-65 only.
Enjoy live performances all weekend long on the advanced plating music stage
presented by Allaway's Hot Rod Shop.
And awards, awards are coming back, big awards.
So Bobby Allaway and Allaway's Hot Rod Shop is doing the Builders' Choice Awards.
York Speed Shop is doing the members only Speak Easy Lounge
presented by Ethos Craft Brewing.
Some Roachershop people might be there, maybe, may or may not, TBD.
Artists scheduled to perform on the stage include Stacey Mitchell, Michael Ryan Vance,
Austin Moody, Backlit, Alexandria Thomas and the Nashville Palace Band,
Haley Bundy and Jen Bostic.
It's going to be a new show.
I think it's going to be really cool.
They're taking the Hot Rod of the Year.
They're also doing the Tanks, Inc. Hot Rod of the Year again there.
They're taking what has been great about Nashville with the Hot Rod of the Year
and trying to curate it more to that pre-65 and make it a make it a cool.
It's supposed to be like invite only curated, kind of a tighter.
The Fairgrounds was always a neat place to have a show.
It puts you right in the heart of downtown Nashville, right off the Broadway.
This is the all-new Legends of Hot Rodding presented by BASF May 15th and 16th at the
all-new Fairgrounds downtown Nashville.
That's going to be a banger.
Do you ever get out to the States?
Yeah. Last time I was out there was 2019, so I had to just walk over here.
I'm glad I went when I did.
And yeah, it was amazing.
Really good.
You had any shows?
Yeah, you went to a show.
What show did you go to?
It's called Scraping the Coast down in Mississippi.
Biloxi, Mississippi.
Yeah, Biloxi.
Great show.
And mini truck show.
It was good.
Yeah, we flew into L.A. and we just road tripped it all the way across.
Oh.
Done it twice there.
That's quite a journey from L.A. to Biloxi.
Yeah.
That Scraping the Coast is a fun show.
Never done it?
Done it many, many years.
This was way back in the day.
When she, as soon as she said it, I knew that was a Josh type of show.
Scraping the Coast is a fun one.
Yeah.
The old, old schools like Greenville, Greenville Show, Texas Heat Wave,
and some of that stuff was way back in the day.
But Scraping the Coast in Biloxi is great.
It's fun.
A little bit of everything.
Fun time, too.
Nice.
You come into, when you, you got to come to SEMA at some point, right?
Yeah, look, I want to.
Yeah, it's soon.
Yeah, I'm not sure when, but because we just had bubs.
I guess you'll have to come.
Vegas is a great place for, for a new point.
I say that all the time when I'm there.
I'm like, you know what, people should bring more kids here.
Some people do.
And I am judgmental about people.
We're, we're, we're being funny.
Don't bring it.
Don't bring a newborn to Vegas.
It's the worst place for a kid.
I swear it's absolutely the worst place.
It's the worst place for adults, let alone kids.
Yeah.
That'll be good a couple of years.
Well, let us know.
We would love to have you at our, at our party.
We'd love to meet you in person and show you some of the things we do.
Standard questions.
First up, uh, we're going, we're going to our roots, uh, favorite car movie.
Uh,
far out.
No, maybe, I don't know.
Ford first Ferrari, I guess that's a good movie.
I don't watch a lot of movies on two.
I'm in the shed too much.
To damn busy.
I was gonna, I was thinking kid and play with all this mini truck talk.
Nobody's brought that up.
No, they haven't.
With the dance and bed and stuff.
Yeah.
Was it a little monster or something?
Yeah.
Must be 2,200 I think.
Um, Ford vs. Ferrari is good.
Uh, have you seen Mad Max?
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
You might like it.
It's pretty cool.
It's okay.
Yeah, it's good.
Um, so you don't watch much movies or in the shop all the time.
All right, we're gonna, I'm not going to even try to guess first vehicle because
whatever I call it, you've never heard of it.
Whatever you call it, I've never heard of it, but we know that it looks like
something that we've seen before.
Your vehicles over there are wild to us.
We've talked about it all the time.
Comrade or.
Yeah.
Aselica looks like a truck and a, you know, yeah, there's so many different things.
So you're very, I want to, I want to know what your very first vehicle was
and a great story about your first vehicle.
Well, I've actually already mentioned it.
It's, um, it's the Hilux.
The Hilux was your very first vehicle ever?
Yeah.
What age did you get that?
Hey.
What age did you get that?
Yeah, 17.
Yeah.
So I needed a first car and you went straight into your first car and like,
it's going to be a mini truck and I'm going to chop it up.
Yeah, but I wasn't planning on chopping it up, but.
But you did.
I just needed something to carry the dirt bike around.
So it had to be a U. Well, we call, you know, you call them a truck, a Ute.
Right.
And, um, yeah, I just liked Hilux because my partner had a purple one,
which I thought was pretty cool.
How long until you started chopping that thing up?
Uh, it was the first thing I did.
I shaved the door handles in the back.
That was maybe a year or two.
It wasn't straight away and neither lot of work to get on the road.
It was, um, yeah, I got it cheap and it was pretty rough.
It was, yeah, an old Hilux, you know.
Uh, best piece of advice you've ever received?
Oh gosh.
Uh, um, I've thought about this.
I can't think of anything in particular.
Um, I don't know if it's advice as such, but, um, we went, my partner and I,
we went down and we saw an old school coach builder, um, Brian Tante, and he just opened
our eyes to the metal shaping world.
Like he taught us so much.
And yeah, I didn't really understand metal before then.
And after seeing him and what he told and showed us, um, that was, that was, yeah,
pretty, the thing I look back on the most, you know.
How about advice you'd give to somebody yet?
Like an up and comer, somebody who's, they've been fabricating, you know, they're past the
fundamentals and now they're, they're trying to make stuff elevate their game
and make it as beautiful as what you're doing.
What's the advice to, for a fabricator trying to take it to the next level?
Pretty much just don't be scared to just chop it up and make mistakes and learn from those
mistakes.
And, um, if you, you know, if persistently keep at it, eventually you'll get there.
Like it's only metal.
It only moves like it straight stretches and sort of bends and whatnot.
Like it can only do so much.
So you'll, you'll eventually get it once you understand how it moves.
And yeah, just don't be scared to chop up a tunnel pretty much.
Also don't be scared to throw it in the scrap and start over.
That's a, I mean, honestly, that's a, yeah, it really is.
It really is.
It's good.
Both of y'all's pieces of advice are good because sometimes throwing it in scrap
bend and starting over is a path of least resistance.
Sometimes you spend more time trying to save it because you put the effort into
doing it in the first place.
You're like, oh, I'm not going to scrap this.
I'm going to save it.
But it's not a waste of time.
You can't look at it that way because you learned something along the way.
Right.
And the next panel is going to be better.
Right.
Unless it's a big panel, then the sheet metal is not cheap.
Then just fix it.
Hammer it flat and go straight over.
Um, y'all have the police over there, right?
Mm-hmm.
Y'all call them popo, like we do.
Popops or, yeah, the fuzz.
Do you have a, a memorable law enforcement interaction story?
Uh, not, nothing like crazy.
Like, oh no, I've been, yeah, defect and speeding fines and that sort of thing.
But, oh, when I was in the States, um, we, um, had a hire car and I'm not used to
modern cars at all.
And it had like the thing that sets your, so like cruise control, adaptive cruise
control thing at school.
Yeah.
That's the distance.
Yeah.
I must have had it set too close and the couple pulled me over because he thought
I was like tailgating, but I don't know.
It was just the car.
That's what it was set to.
And, um, because when we're in the States, um, I got all the bits for my
high luck.
So I got to comb my bed sides and I had them chopped up in the back seat and a
bumper, like the seat folded down and a bumper poking through and all this stuff.
So, and he thought we were in a wreck.
Like he thought we were in a crash and he was asking us questions and we had to
explain.
Now we're from Australia.
Um, we don't have this particular model where we are.
So I'm like bringing it back and it was quite funny.
How did you get those components?
Did you fly with them?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just checked them.
Yep.
Yep.
So the bumper, I went to Walmart and I got a sleeping bag, like the biggest sleeping
bag I could get wrapped it up.
Got some tie-down straps and some, um, thread and a needle and made them, made it all
look legitimate.
You know, it kind of looked like dead body.
Yeah, checked in as oversized luggage and it didn't actually cost me any extra with
the airline.
Oh, that's awesome.
That is cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then the suitcase was, had our clothes all wrapped around these bed sides that
were chopped in half.
And when I got back, I wore them back together.
That's being resourceful.
See, this is the kind of stuff we want to hear about.
Yeah.
You start doing that.
That's a full-time job.
Like, so it's a long flight, but you've moved enough product.
It's like Johnny Cash style.
Yeah.
One part, one part at a time.
Yeah.
Saved on postage.
Hell yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
And it was good fun going all the wreckers or you call them junkyards over there and
trying to find the bits I needed.
Yeah.
I bet that would be cool.
Like the crossover stuff, but different.
Yeah.
Back in the day on the import side of things, right?
That was big to go over to Japan and get the JDM, the Japanese domestic market version
of these marker lights didn't have these.
Are you about to drop another story on me that you did that too?
I didn't ever go to Japan.
No.
I would have told you that before.
But no, that was a big thing.
First of all, don't act like you don't.
You've learned a lot in the past couple years.
I've got a whole bunch of JDM parts.
Yeah.
You've got a lot of JDM stuff.
I've got like half a car full of them.
Right.
But there's things, you know, you've learned that the, you know,
taillights a little different.
The marker lights are different.
There's the, like what you would have Euro spec and BMW and Mercedes stuff.
You have JDM and Honda stuff.
Dude, I might have to grow this hair back just to bleach it and do the cheetah thing
like you.
When I get this Honda done, you know.
That's enough.
Let's grow it back first.
Then we'll worry about what's going to happen.
Because I think that's going to be.
How long does it have to be if we can cheat it?
Oh, I did it with the link.
Mine is right now.
Okay.
I'm short.
Yeah.
You don't have to grow it.
I mean, can't, but I wouldn't.
Yeah.
The two.
So you, you came from the mini truck and background.
I came from similar, more on the import side of things, right?
So a lot of your traditional import shows, Nopi being one of them, but we crossed over.
So you do a lot of the mini trucking shows as well.
You know, they kind of mini trucks and imports there for a while.
You know, we're kind of a second cousins because we're, we're all kind of outcast
from your traditional larger car shows and media publication.
So you kind of had to, you know, mini truck and there for a while was running import stuff,
you know, and car audio would run, you know, both of them.
And so there's a lot of crossover until, you know, kind of import when it's, when it's way.
But I've lived a lot of those, those similar lives and stories and fun times at shows.
We've joked now that we've got into the hot rod side of world and a lot more mature, I would say.
I don't know if that's the word I'd use.
I'm not saying we are.
No, I'm saying the industry.
The industry as a whole is significantly more mature, made up of more mature people
than the import and mini trucking scene.
The, the byproduct of that is don't have near as much fun as the mini truck and import world.
At least did I assume still does.
So they make, they make fun of a lot of my style choices that I have made
from clothes and hair styles.
But I mean, you've come from the mini truck stuff.
You realize that you had to have, you know, hair and clothes that you might have been
just as bright and wild as your, as your vehicle you were driving.
You know, so I had to, I had to have cheetah print hair.
I'd have orange hair.
I had to have, you know, lots of bright things.
This is also, I'm significantly older than you.
So this was in the late 90s.
So quite some time ago, early 2000s.
Nopey actually.
It's the show I keep talking about, right?
It was in Atlanta.
It's coming back.
They had, they had another one.
They had a new one last year and then this, this year's gonna be even bigger.
That was, that's when all the fun stuff happened though.
That's when you had like drag contest.
That's when you had like actual cruising around the area.
You had bikini contest that got pretty wild.
Like that was, those were fun times.
You know, now we go to, you know, sit and hang out and drink a couple beers and talk about like.
Go to bed early.
What medicine we're taking because we're getting old.
Let's see.
Last question.
You have unlimited budget.
You can build whatever you want.
Besides what you're building right now, what, what vehicle is it?
And you're paying somebody to build it.
You're not building it yourself.
You are commissioning a shop to build your dream.
What's the dream and who's building it?
Gosh.
I mean, firstly, not, not building it yourself kind of takes the fun out of it.
It changes it up a little bit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The sense of sort of, you know, accomplishment and satisfaction that you get.
But as far as cars go, go probably does something from the 50s.
Like, you know, a 50 Chevy or a Mercury or, I don't know.
I just want to build, like if I was to do another build, it would be a 50s car because
like I've done 60s.
I've done, you know, the newest stuff with the mini truck.
So just all 40s.
So yeah, I don't really have any particular.
You like the late fifties when the trim started getting wild and flamboyant and crazy or the.
You want like pointed with fins or you want more rounded in shoe boxes?
Like early, early fifties.
Like think of like, you know, pretty much.
Yeah.
Trying to look for like a early 50s Chevy at the moment.
And there's nothing around.
They're expensive over here.
But I'd love to build one of them.
Maybe like a sled.
Cool.
I just want to do it myself though.
It's not as fun.
50, I can see 53 Chevy with a visor, you know, kind of bomb style.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Um, I don't know.
Or the early caddies.
I like, I like caddies.
Yeah.
That'd be pretty cool.
Something like that just slammed.
As I said, like a sled.
Yeah.
Cowl Dragon.
Yeah.
That'd be cool.
I'll tell you those 57 brooms keep getting me, man.
Every time I see.
Really?
There's something about it that just makes me think of like Johnny Cash.
Like I just feel like you'd be getting out of that thing in a black suit.
I don't know.
Something just cool about black, you know, jet black.
I mean, okay.
I can see where you're going with the stainless roof and stuff.
It's it's got it.
There's some awkwardness about it.
It's got it.
It's got a like a.
Like the front doesn't go with the back.
Yeah, it's got it's got a thing.
I think it's when the doors are open that gets me the most when you look at the view
of the doors open and you see the way the seat like, you know, kind of floats in there.
It's just that's a car you pay somebody to build.
I know you don't build it at all.
You don't want to fuck with that.
Yeah, that's it.
That's it.
Well, who just did one?
Rutters, right?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I haven't seen that yet.
I haven't seen in person either, but probably pretty cool.
I've seen pics.
Looks cool.
Well, Jasmine, it's been a really fun time.
I you got to let us know next time you come to the States.
You're going to have to make a make a way up to Chicago.
Come see the shop.
Yeah, that'd be cool.
I've been out that way.
So yeah, see you later.
Yeah.
Come on up here to beautiful Mondelein, Illinois and bend some metal here.
Be cool to have you.
Yeah, I'll keep that in mind.
In the meantime, keep up the good work.
We're all fans.
Everybody in this industry loves your work.
So keep it up.
It gives us all something to to to look at, follow and admire.
So keep rocking.
Thanks to have me on.
That's been good.
Absolutely.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Take care.
All right.
See you.
All right.
About this episode
Jasmine Green (@six_four_stout) talks through her wildly detailed Toyota Hilux “Stout” build—how it started as a mini-truck project, then evolved into a decade-in-the-paddock dream with heavy chopping, bead rolling, and razor-clean metal finishing. She explains her artistic background, her patience-driven metalwork process, and how she’s designing the chassis in CAD (Fusion 360) to stay legal in Australia. The conversation also covers her hydraulics plan, engineering constraints, tool preferences, future goals like engraving and custom paint, and her favorite shows and first car.
This week on Oil & Whiskey, we sit down with Jasmine Green, better known as @six_four_stout.If you’ve seen her work, you already know. Some of the cleanest metal shaping and fabrication out there right now, all coming out of a shed in Australia.Jasmine walks us through how it all started, from getting into mini trucks with her first Hilux to building her now well-known Toyota Stout. What began as a simple project quickly turned into something much bigger, pushing her skills in metal shaping, design, and fabrication further than expected.We get into her process, learning as she goes, figuring things out without everything planned, and the mindset it takes to tackle builds at this level. A lot of the work you see is not mapped out ahead of time. It’s built piece by piece through creativity and problem solving.
