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RHDGUYS Year In Review - EP.109
RHDGUYS Year In Review - EP.109
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About this episode
Reflecting on a busy 2024, the Right Hand Drive Guys share highlights from their year, including a memorable trip to Japan for the Tokyo Auto Salon and driving experiences at Fuji Speedway. They discuss significant milestones like hitting 100 episodes and having their first guest, Ryan Zumall. The episode also covers industry news, including Nissan's struggles and the future of the GTR lineup. With plans for 2025, the hosts express excitement for upcoming guests and potential new ventures in the automotive space.
Topics:
year in review
Tokyo Auto Salon
Nissan struggles
GTR future
first guest
100 episodes
drifting events
car wrapping
Japan trips
upcoming guests
Cars:
Nissan Skyline
2024 is over already? How did that happen? In this episode we review our year and how it went for us. We chat episodes and events. Listen along, how did your 2024 go? How could it have gone better? Whats up for 2025? This is the year in review!
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"...e met Jay and Jesse on that trip in Japan and the R34s that they were driving are now in CaliforniaAnd t..."
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Hey, and welcome back to the next episode of the right hand drive guys podcast the podcast for guys who like right hand drivesI'm your host Bobby. This is your host Aaron. Yeah, yo, and we are back yet again for another episode and this is episode 109
NiceYeah, and so we just we just broke into December here, right that pretty much means the end of the year Christmas is coming upYeah, right on the corner. Yeah, and then it's New Year's Eve and then boom we're thrown into 2025
So we're like all right. Well, what are we going to do like how are we going to kind of recap 2024 in our own way?
Yeah, well pretty simply by recapping 2024 in our own way. Hell yeah, let's go.
Yeah, we're just going to kind of chat about the year review it how everything went you know a few I guess you could say significant eventsAnything like that yeah, and then at the end we can kind of just chat about the future in any plans we have or anything you know that might be going onSo all right, so January was actually a big month I think January 2024 was a big month
We went to Japan and that was obviously sweet we get to attend our first Tokyo autosoloneYes, and that was very sick. Yeah, and so that that was excellent
We also got to check off the bucket list driving a 34 on Fuji Speedway. Yep, that was also very sick. Yep, which in turn introduced us to Mickey Android
Yeah, later down the road we end up having on the podcast. So that Japan trip was pretty pretty awesome for only being seven days
Yeah, it was pretty pretty jam packed. We get to go to the Tokyo underground meet. Oh, yeah
Yeah, like always a treat. I don't think I think especially because it was the first trip for Tokyo autosolone and whatnot
And then meeting Jesse and Jay and like getting access via them to certain things I'm not sure if you know I went backLet's say for another Tokyo autosolone if I could have that same experience. Yeah, because of the way it went
Right, and it was good. It was so jam packed full. Yeah, yeah, it was seven days
But like every single day dude was just non-stopYeah, which is usually how we do it right just because you're paying for JapanYou're you're paying that flight tax you're over there like whether you got seven days or 14 14 better feel like 21You know like because you only get these opportunities every once in a while soYeah, Japan was was definitely much needed in January and then we also
In January hit 50 episodesWhich for us at that point was a pretty big milestone. Yeah, 50 episodes right
AndAlso the 34 GTR became legal and that's when we first started seeing these things pop upBecause the guy's already had them on the boat and yeah, yeah, yeah, they're starting to trickle in and yeahLike you said we met Jay and Jesse on that trip in Japan and the R34s that they were driving are now in CaliforniaAnd they're whipping them around yeah and
That must be so cool like just to kind of come full circle I guess you could say yeah so they bothThey like yeah obviously but they both are like yeah, I wish it was like still in JapanYeah, give you another excuse to get back on the way exactly so I mean in that but yes full circleAnd I'm sure I'll feel the same thing when I drive it on these roads for the first time and it's kind of like wowThis sucksNo, it's cool. I'm excited for it which I'll get into later
But did you can you remember anything else in January? Not too much I mean other than the Japan trip
Which like another big thing for me on that trip was going to fat five land. Oh yeah, I go side
Yeah, seeing all the daigo stuff and dude that was that was one to mark off the list for sure. Yeah, like that was sick
That's probably overshadowing everything I didn't January. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure I mean yeah, it's hard you know when again this trip is jam packed
And you have so many memories in just like this seven day period. Yeah, I almost forgot about fat five land
But that was amazing to see the way daigo is so such a creativeYeah, like it's it's interesting because you think of him as this like insane drifter from JapanYou know that's one all over the world, but really he's like a super creative guy. Yeah, you know and just like it seems like enjoy
Just creating experiences right from whether it was his stacked containers with Ferraris and stuff in them with itWith like a paddock on top or like his grotto that has like a water slide and like the rocks from DisneyYeah, like it's just like yeah, so I definitely appreciated that as wellMoving on to February February I feel like especially because it's a little shorter month but I feel like February especially living up here
Right because we're from Maine and like our cars are already like put away for this seasonYeah, they sprayed salt last week so yeah, that was it right there once I heard that truck go byI knew I wasn't getting out again. Yeah, yeah, I put the cars and storage on the insurance called it good that was it made the call
But so we we don't really get much action, you know in FebruaryIt's more we're watching everyone else kind of you know, so one exciting thing in February for us though was having our first guestIf you have been a long time listener if you have mad respect but you would remember that last yearThe December 29th we did kind of our New Year's resolutionsYeah, and one of our new year new years resolutions was having guests we had never had a guest on you know
In those first 50 episodes and so finally we were able to get Ryan Zumall in onAnd if you're listening to last week you'll recognize the name he actually just came back on the podcast but Ryan is the owner of Carrera MediaAnd he publishes books more notably the cult of GTRYeah, and so yeah very cool book likeDefinitely if you're like one of these guys is like dude like these cars are awesome but what's all the hype what's the deal with it like his book really tells you about the behind the scenes so to speak like the history
Right and not like a formal history like the raw history that like actually mattered I guess you could say yeah he touches on a lot of key points in that bookHe touches on things you're like dude what the heck you know like the trust kakaku kid working at target and like gets gets the job and now runs you know tkgt or whatever it isSo yeah, no having our first guest Ryan was was pretty cool I can imagine you didn't probably have a ton for February huh
No, not for me either it was basically probably just working on the car but you know trying to get it ready for the for the next seasonSo what you probably started to wrap your car in February, which is April main June July yeah that sounds about I was going to get that one to the next monthMy bad my bad I'm jumping the gun I think that's when I ordered the rapOkay, cool that makes it yeah, so March was our one year anniversary and I brought Aaron Flowers and I got him some chocolates yeah for sure the flowers are dead and chocolates are rolled out just good
But yeah, that was also another milestone for us as far as you know we're just two guys here just trying to stay connected with the culture from afarAnd so to hit we you know we all know this right we've all started projects that fizzle out right like you know it's part of it like whether you lose interest your time disappears whatever it isAnd for us to make this a priority for 365 days straight and not miss a week of dropping an episode like that was huge for us you know one year is like okay you guys are sticking with it
Yeah, you know what I mean and so what is this the month is this the month with the rapper yeah I believe I started yeah iceAt the end of March I started rapping my car and that was at the end of March that was at the end of March so yeah it was one of those things where I came across a decent deal on some vinyl and it was one of those things I've thought about it a lot like thought about rapping my car and thought about you know how it would be
And so I did a bunch of videos and all that and honestly it never prepared me enough for the job yeah that's tough but obviously to your credit it was you didn't get the best vinylYeah, no I didn't like I said I found a deal on vinyl and that's probably the first red flag of the whole thing if your buddy is ever like hey like I found a deal on vinyl just walk awayMy whole thing was I'm gonna get double the amount of vinyl so I can mess it up as much as I want and you know I can redo it if it looks like crap but like can you that wasn't the case the issue was the vinyl would not form right yeah it was it was junk so yeah as one of those things where in retrospect I wish I would have just spent
money and you know bought more correct materials and had a less of a headache and a better looking outcome but hey you live in the learn you know it's one of those things but it also another thing was I was rapping my car gray and it was already gray before like one shade yeah it was like one shade off so like even when I got it finished before I put you know the splash on there people were just likeso you're wrapping your car like is it done like when they starting yeah they didn't get it and then you know I had the white roof the white like the white cap on it I guess you could say and they're like oh when you gonna do the rest like not realizing that you know the whole car has been wrapped in just the roof hood and you know the flat spots were a
different color white yeah so no one really understood it and don't know I'm not not check it out that's the original color that's the other great and then the whites up there yeah yeah exactly so this one of the say where you you live in your learn and so when did you actually finish that you started March you finish so I finished it like a week beforein Portland so July March April May June dude wrapping a car is no freaking joke yeah well you know it's it's one of those things also like I couldn't dedicate you know
a full work day you know 40 hours a week on to it you know it was kind of chipping away here and there and kind of learning and figuring it out but maybe a four hour spur or something right and yeah it's it's tough you know I itI have the utmost respect for people that can wrap cars and make it look good or you know people they can just wrap it and you know yeah people that have the skills it was one of those things that you know I didn't really think about in the beginning but you know I feel like some
rappers get a bad bad name or not a bad name but people like little palm dude like everybody can have bad name dude but people give like rap jobs like oh it's not paint you know it'sstill superior but like do what people can do with some vinyl is pretty sick and I trying to myself only gives me more respect for him in March we also had our friend Jesse O U G on the podcast as well as Trevor from Kizzo so we really started picking it up after that first guest April April
that was the month that Mark Banna decided he was going to throw his inspecter on tracks dude on tracks that is wild he is wild yeah hitting the Jersey Shore yes hitting the Jersey Shore with your R 34 with your R3xyeah so guys a wild man and you know now that it's snowing out I'm I'm thinking like yeah I would rather it's seen into it in the snow as opposed to that sand yeah yeah like the snow would be sick the sand I don't know it's a little abrasive
500,000 car yeah but then we also had the drift games fire right around the same time which if you don't know about that drift games had just built out their HQ yeah it was amazing it was you just look it up it was dope literally I this had to be within four to five monthsburns down to the ground yeah yeah it's definitely unfortunate but they have definitely bounced back and they're starting they're starting to build out their new HQ believe on one of their latest videos they were pretty much making their garage space two levels like I didn't watch the video yet so it looked pretty sick though
there they're definitely carrying on the theme and they got a good style and a good look so they know what they're doing they'll they'll be back in no time for sure 100%so moving on to May may is when Nissan dr announced the two special R 35 models that would commemorate the end of an era yeah a very longera yeah holy cow about time yeah and so you know for a lot of guys this is scary because the R 35s done we all remember 2022 in the R 30 earth sorry 2002 when the R 34 ended and so it took them however long six
eight years to come out with the next one yeah so a lot of guys are scared because they're like well wait like what's next and so there's a lot of speculation electric you know all these different things we we got to see at the Tokyo Underground meet the hyper forceGTR which was insane yeah I can't even put into words what the thing is too much it's crazy so futuristic yeah it really was no dude they did some work on that thing yeah I and of course we couldn't see under the hood you know to see what that thing actually was it's actually like a
verse of motor just toes that little thing around yeah yeah but yeah you know coming into June June was scary for skyline owners because that skyline was stolen from port in June inWashington yeah so I don't know if it was ever found like it kind of died off you didn't hear much about it like I'm not sure I believe a chaser was stolen at the same timethat ended up being recovered yeah but dude I've heard some crazy stuff coming out of Washington like lately like a guy had totaled his JZX 100 and it was stolen from the tow in yard told if the car was total like eight pillars crushed and everything and they took the car they stole it from like the impact
yeah Washington's crazy if you have a right-end drive car in Washington lock it up you promise to you yeah for for even dealing with yeah Propsey for dealing with living in Washington yeah so yeah I mean for a lot of guys that was a little nerveracking because like wait these things have only been coming in the port for six months and they're already starting to get lifted like what hopefully mine doesn't you know I'm sure that went through a lot of guys heads but we also don't know the back story how any of that happens
July we hit up in port Alliance July was was fun we got we bought a double trailer and we loaded both of the skylines on there yeah we did and we drove 20 ish hours from Augustamain to Nashville Tennessee drive that we both made you know multiple times yeah plenty plenty yeah and so this is exciting because if you haven't listened to any of the
important Alliance episodes our good friend Dawn is a creator of important Alliance and so we don't only go down there and this is also where Aaron is from yeah I alsolive there for almost four years so we got a lot of friends there so it's kind of in a sense like homecoming when we we go there there's a bunch of friends a bunch of people you know there to kind of welcome us so to speak in
that was a blast so and we got to finally interview Tim Schultz yeah which was cool because right and we know we both known him for a real long time so to sit down with him and and kind of have thatconversation was pretty cool yeah yeah important Alliance was dude it was so sick like obviously got to drift my car and that's probably the first time drifting inalmost 10 years I think and yeah I mean there's nothing else like that yeah yeah for sure for the first time and also having my dad there was sick you know getting rides in my car was was a good time yeah for sure that is that is cool as far as being able to share that you know
with your dad and like having him see our booth and see what we're doing yeah that that was for sure cool and this year since we drove we got to actually come correct with the booth and you know really kind of show out and and itdefinitely contributed to us getting a lot more attention which hopefully one of you guys listening yeah was there and now as a faithful listener August August for the 34 guysAugust if in a lot of you may not even know this in August Benatech and Nismo parted ways there so Benatech is the producer for all of the carbon for Nismo and so these Z-Tune parts that
that discontinued or put on hold you know and a lot of these other parts that kind of has have slowly fallen off those were Benatech produced parts yeah so basically what happened was is in January when we were there Nismo stop taking ordersbecause they knew in August their contract runs up with Benatech and it had not been resigned and so they halted orders on the Z-Tune stuff in order to make sure that they could fulfill what they already had by the time the contract was up yeah maybe they split ways because Nismo couldn't pay the bill yeah I don't know man seeing how
Nissan's been lately hey I'll pay the bill though like get me a few of those like holy moly yeah so in in now you know the Z-Tune full kit which is hood from bumper fenders if you can find a guy with it 30,000 plus that's it say 30,000 dollars plus for a hood bumper and fenders so whenever you went to was at ours day you got the carbon fiberfinisher for the exhaust on the bumper sorry meeting ours meeting yeah what I say ours day a bunch of dudes have been doing that lately and I'm like guys come on my bad my that's okay sorry I'm a GT guy over here so yes no I don't believe so I wonder if that was like them trying to
feel out of new vendor because yeah what he's speaking of is I found some exhaust what do you call it surround or shield finish or whatever basically that little accessory piece directly above the exhaust amounts to the bumperyeah and so it didn't come in an ismo box it did not come with an and I bought this from a mori factory yeah and they just like that like you know because there's a huge group of us rated open right and it's
like they're like oh yeah I don't forget about these and they like polar like handful out of my to freaking closet dude and like okay like whatever they pull a handful of these carbon parts youknow these surrounds out of a closet and they're like yeah we got these and I'm just like yeah I guess like get me one dude like cool I mean I don't remember the price I don't think they were ridiculous but yes I would assume like that was a trial run or that's something because
I don't know never gives you their stuff like that right and just a plastic bag with R 33 they usually has some sort of part numbers stick really yeah yeah I couldn't tell you the part number yeah so and it doesn't they it doesn't saythat's what I wanted so is this them trying to figure this out I'm not sure but this is bad for any of us who want OEM or nismo parts that are carbon this is bad news and in what I was told by Dylan satler is that the plug yeah the plug there's no current there's no
no contract basically that's insane so they're just going to give up on the yeah I mean they probably got a slim down a little right yeah so September 2024 dawn came so that's our buddy that runs in port alliance yeah and so he has been you know super good to us anytime we're in Nashville he's he's always so welcoming and so he was you know kind of coming toBoston and New Hampshire and stuff to visit some people and he's like hey guys what's up and we're like dude yeah let's do it yeah and so that was really cool you know kind of showing him our side of the country and we took him on a hike up a mountain we took him out to eat at you know a local eatery we you know did the whole thing he you really had one full day and then the next morning with us next morning we took him to our favorite bagel spot it was yeah
it was it was just a good time all around to you know see him and you know I don't know I think it's what's 20 I've known him about 20 years like 19 years 20 years so that was a great one um oh wow that is yeah I realized it I know about the same time that's a long time it is yeah yeah yeah oh I thought you're going to say you finally get done wrapping your car in that oh my God yeah so October we hit 100episodes oh yeah another milestone for a couple guys that are just doing this you know just to do it right there's there's really you know podcasts and monetization of podcasts and there's no money here for us there's just the enjoyment of connecting with you guys and you know putting out this info so 100 episodes was a pretty big milestone for us if you haven't
listened to that episode you should definitely check it out I went back to Japan to ours meeting in October like Aaron mentioned and just listen to the episode you know did ours meeting had a good time yeah another week triptrip I don't love the week the seven day trips because it is so much packed into this short time and you feel like you can never get it all done kind of so like seven day trips I don't know and then we did our first
new net search in October we decided to switch up the marketplace episodes and we decided we would go ahead and do a good net search so then you guys could kind of see what's available in Japan instead of what has already come over here and so might do another one of those you know at some point that that felt pretty good to me yeah it's always good to see yeah and then of course last month in NovemberNissan revealed its big struggle oh yeah big time big struggles big losses big loss of profits yeah and potentially a CEO six to 12 months to live that's insane with rumors of Honda buying the majority that's insane dude if Honda buys the
in the majority of Nissan that will be cool that would be insane it would be bad but it'd be cool because the one thing is is like I don't know the history and like the path that Nissan's taken you can never take that away from them no matter who buys themajority right but it's just a little different if they're competitor now on some yeah but however I did hear some speculation or so yeah this is bad speculation
speculation that the only company that's going to come forward with the type of money Nissan needs Chinese oh yes and they said because because what they're going to try to do Idon't know this is just speculation is the Chinese company buys Nissan now this Chinese company has warehouses dealerships has the whole infrastructure in the United States to start pushing their Chinese cars
yeah they don't have to break into the market they slide into the market by using Nissan as like the stepping stool which is very bad very bad the soul disappeared the soul of Nissan is already struggling the souldisappears when the Chinese company buys it yeah I mean you know what what happens to all their manufacturing when that happens is everything going to be manufacturedor in Japan or in America because you know I know a lot of people that work or have worked at the Nissan plant right there in Smirna so that's like a lot of jobs
I think they'd be assembled here I see that parts would come from China and they'd be assembled here yes and that's how they get past the tariffs that Trump's going to levy on them or whateverright wow because that's why they don't just want to come here and open a shop crazy move I know but I was my head went somewhere completely else with it yeah whatmaking team who cars I mean kinder right like they're making 34s again yeah they make the team of 34 you can get the shell on
they might have a better idea yeah I don't know I mean if they put out 34s again could you imagine it would be crazy it would be people be buying them I know yeah 100% dude if they however we need to have more faith in Nissan that they willnot sell to a Chinese company that they would only do business with the Japanese company whether it's Honda Toyota Mitsubishi I don't care who it is yeah I don'tthink but I guess hey dude if it's either sink or swim and you might be able to swim a little with the Chinese better than sinking I don't know that's tough last month we also had the first GTR
festival which if you haven't listened to the previous episode awesome event put on by some Aussies awesome Aussies Aussies all say the JDRs everywhere yeah I mean which is cool it just allit did is help progress the love in the United States in the culture you know which I'm all about anything that that kind of provides to the culture because that's really what we're living in you know like the cars are awesome but
it's the culture you know what I mean so I'm all about the GTR festival I hope they were super successful and I can attend next year yeah I definitely I'm definitely into it this year I was like Iwant like yeah no I remember you like not do they just freaking drag race freaking guys and I'm like yeah but like I just yeah it was one of thestings where I was just well those are always the highlights right highlights are always them doing drag races right and I'm like Texas drag racing skylines
this is going to be an R35 track yeah yeah yeah it's a TX2K yeah but it wasn't that it wasn't that it looked completely insane there was a bunch of builds that were there that youknow came over probably from SEMA so if you couldn't get up close and look at your favorite bill at SEMA then it was definitely look at it thereand so the future right like 20 25 what's what's 20 25 looking like 20 25 for me looks like my 34 is finally coming over from the
motherland yeah what is that it's it's a December car so it should ship mid-October yeah so I won't be able to attend I wouldn't be able to attend R'smeeting so this was my last one and everything else so yeah I mean that's that's 20 25 for me I would also love to get the 33even though we just kind of talk negative about it out to Washington for to be stolen yeah sure it's Friday we're going to talk about it now to go to UP garage and kind of
just get it to the point that it needs to be yeah yeah they got they got the skills to do it what do you got going on for 20 25well go ahead yeah right now I'm currently working on SR swapping my carthat's right SR 20 or 32 32 photo yeah so I've really just been working on that I'm going to be trying to put it in the car
sometime around spring early spring that way I can enjoy it all summer definitely would like to hit some sort of drifting events that be real coolthat's that's on the list you know as long as I can get the car running yeah and we screaming it's going to be screaming dude it's got an S on it what do you meanbut yeah really beyond that I'm just I'm just the kind of guy to play it all by year and you know would definitely like to get out to Japan again
Japan again you know that's always on the list well yeah of course dude I mean mainly it's just going to be getting the OSR running in the R32taking me back a few years and yeah yeah I mean for sure there's nothing wrong with that man it's a good reliable platform so you can actually enjoy the car instead of you know just be wipe and oil spots off the garagefor and shit all the time but I'm just kidding but it gives you the opportunity of focus on having fun instead of you know trying to fix things right right that's the main thing
as far as the podcast you know guys we're just going to keep doing what we can we got some pretty big name yeahguess that are lined up for the beginning in 2025 I guess I guess I can tell you one of them because it's not 2025 it's going to be in a few weekswe're going to have RJ DeVera on the podcast let me get it yeah and so if don't know who that is just get out from that
for sure like RJ isn't necessarily a limelight guy he's not out there look at me look at me right but he's been behind the scenes doing stuff foreverand I believe he must be the first guy to play Gran Turismo on an actual theatrical movie you know like that's pretty dope hey yeah he was soyou know how to civic know less and so yeah we got him coming so that's going to be great and then some other really great guess and then ideally this year we'd like to start
selling some cars in parts right like of course the podcast is awesome but we really have a passion for the cars in the partsand you know everybody's kind of doing this you could say right but we got our own version you know we got our we got our own plans and sowill they happen time will tell but the intention is there and so hopefully you know this time next year we'll be talking about how the website has
legit parts and we have legit cars to offer now we have containers land and yeah containers landing yeah I mean that was that was2024 and a little bit of 2025 for you guys we definitely appreciate you listening showing us the support tell your friends that's that's the one thing we could we could ask for new year is just tell your friends you know get us a little bit more exposurebut otherwise follow us on the socials at our HD G UIS and if you do want some of that merch our HD G UIS dot com but for episode 109 on Bobby this is Aaron see ya peace
POOTH
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