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Car
Dodge Journey
The Dodge Journey is a mid-size SUV meant for regular driving with a focus on practicality. The podcast brings it up as part of someone’s personal story about their time at the shop. It’s being used as an example of a vehicle in that journey.
Term
frame rails
Frame rails are the main “backbone” beams of a car’s frame. They run lengthwise and help hold everything together, especially when you’re building or modifying a chassis.
Term
TIG welding
TIG welding is a careful welding method that makes strong, neat welds. It’s often used when you want precise control and clean results, like when building metal parts for a car’s structure.
Term
CNC department
CNC is a way to machine parts using computers to control tools. It helps make car parts accurately and consistently, which matters a lot for fitment on a chassis.
Term
TIG welder
A TIG welder is a tool that joins metal using a very controlled electric arc. People like it because it can make neat, strong welds—especially on metal parts that need to be accurate.
Term
chassis
The chassis is the main metal structure under the car. It’s what everything else mounts to—like the suspension and body—so it has to be strong and properly built.
Term
fabricator
A fabricator is someone who makes metal parts for a project. In a car shop, that can mean cutting and welding metal to build or modify the vehicle’s frame and structure.
Term
big welds
“Big welds” are the major welds that join big structural parts of the car’s frame. They matter because they help the frame stay strong over time.
Car
Tesla Semi
The Tesla Semi is a large electric truck used to move freight. The podcast talks about how they handled crates and equipment when getting it into the truck. It’s mentioned because it’s a special, new type of semi.
Term
MIG weld
MIG welding is a common way to join metal using a wire that’s fed through a welding gun. The gas helps keep the weld clean, which is why it’s widely used for car fabrication work.
Term
big wall machine
That phrase sounds like the speaker means a large, shop welding setup that’s not as easy to use or move around. It’s basically describing bigger, more industrial welding equipment.
Term
weld aluminum
Aluminum welding is more demanding than welding many steels because aluminum’s thermal properties and oxide layer require specific technique and filler choices. The speaker’s point—“can’t weld aluminum and seal together”—suggests they’re talking about a fabrication approach where aluminum needs proper welding/fitment rather than relying on sealant to substitute for a weld.
Term
helmet
In welding, a helmet is a safety device with a protective face shield that helps block intense light and UV radiation from the arc. Many welding helmets also use auto-darkening filters so the welder can see the joint before striking the arc and then stay protected while welding.
Term
puddle
During welding, there’s a small spot where the metal melts into a liquid pool. A good welder controls that molten pool so the weld comes out strong and looks right.
Term
pulses manual
Instead of welding with one constant heat level, pulsed welding turns the heat on and off in a controlled way. That can help keep the molten metal pool stable and make the weld come out cleaner.
Term
pulse machines
A pulse machine is a welding setup that automatically controls the on-and-off heat pattern. That helps make welds more consistent from one pass to the next.
Term
TIG welds
TIG welding is a careful metal-joining method where a special electrode and a protective gas help make a very clean weld. People use it when they want the weld to look neat and be strong.
Term
laser table
A laser table is a machine that uses a laser to cut metal very precisely. Shops use it to make parts that match the design without a lot of hand fitting.
Term
planishing hammers
Planishing hammers are special tools used to smooth metal after it’s been shaped or welded. They help make the surface look straighter and cleaner.
Term
powder coated ones
Powder coating is a durable surface-finishing process where a dry powder is electrostatically applied and then baked to form a hard protective layer. On chassis parts, it’s often used to improve corrosion resistance and give a consistent finish.
Term
control arms
Control arms are parts of the suspension that hold the wheel in the right position. They help determine how the wheel moves as you drive, which affects steering feel and handling.
Term
street rider
A “street rider” usually means something built to be driven on normal roads. Here, they’re just trying to figure out what kind of vehicle it was.
Term
split ID
“Split ID” sounds like a shorthand for a specific identifying feature or setup on the car. They mention it as a guess, but they don’t fully explain what it means here.
Car
Crosstrek Crosstrak
The Crosstrek is a small SUV that’s made for everyday driving. In the podcast, it’s mentioned because it was recognized as a top pick by a consumer-focused source. That means it’s often recommended for people shopping in this category.
Term
prints
“Prints” are the detailed drawings that tell the shop the exact measurements. They’re used so parts get made to the right size and shape.
Term
rear shock mounts
Rear shock mounts are the parts that hold the rear shocks to the frame. If they’re made wrong (like bent the wrong way), the suspension won’t line up correctly, and you may only notice the problem when it’s time to weld everything together.
Term
welded
“Welded” means the metal pieces are fused together with heat so they become one strong unit. Here, they’re saying welding quickly helps them complete the chassis on schedule.
Term
press break operator
A press brake is a machine that bends sheet metal into shape. The operator is the person who sets it up and runs it so the metal bends the same way every time.
Concept
capacity of things have kind of challenged it
They’re talking about a “traffic jam” in production—when the machines can’t make parts fast enough. When that happens, the shop has to change how they work or add new steps so they can still hit their build goals.
Term
plasma table
A plasma table is a computer-controlled machine that cuts metal using a super-hot electrical arc. If the shop is making more parts than the machine can cut quickly, it slows the whole production line.
Term
lead times
Lead time is the time between starting a process (or ordering materials) and having the finished parts ready to ship or install. In a chassis shop, shorter lead times can improve throughput, but they must be balanced against quality.
Term
deburring parts
After cutting metal, tiny rough edges can be left behind. Deburring means cleaning those edges so the parts fit together better and feel safer to handle.
Term
jigs
Jigs are tools that hold parts in the right spot while you work on them. They help make sure every part is made the same way.
Term
RS logo
“RS” is a badge Porsche uses to mean a more performance-oriented version of a car. Here, they’re talking about moving an RS badge/logo onto a piece of the car they were building.
Term
IFS cross member
An IFS cross member is a strong metal bar in the front of the car that supports the front suspension. It’s part of the frame structure that helps the wheels move correctly and stay aligned.
Term
Pierce points
Pierce points are fixed reference spots used to line up parts during manufacturing. The speaker is saying the new setup uses more precisely made holes instead of the older reference method.
Term
dialed in holes
“Dialed in holes” means the mounting holes are made very accurately. That helps the bolts and parts line up correctly so you don’t get fitment problems.
Car
Ford Bronco
The Ford Bronco is a type of SUV meant for rough roads and off-road trails. It’s the kind of vehicle people pick when they want something tough and capable. In the podcast, it’s mentioned as a cool, standout choice.
Concept
process thing
They’re talking about improving how the shop runs the build. Instead of relying on whoever remembers where things are, they want a clear system that tracks the steps and parts from start to finish.
Car
67 Chevelle
A 67 Chevelle is a classic 1960s Chevrolet muscle car. The speaker is using it as an example of how builds used to be handled without a formal system for tracking parts and steps.
Concept
production
Here, “production” just means how many cars/parts the shop can build and finish. If someone doesn’t show up, the schedule slips, so the team has to move people around to keep the work on track.
Car
Chevrolet Impala
The Chevrolet Impala is a large, comfortable sedan. In the podcast, it’s mentioned because of what happened with it in a parking situation. It’s basically being used as a real example from the story.
Term
powder coating
Powder coating is a protective paint process for metal. It bakes on as a tough coating that helps prevent rust, which is especially important for a chassis.
Concept
get out of jail free cards
It’s a joke/metaphor for special favors. The idea is that some customers can sometimes get exceptions or priority when the schedule is in trouble.
Concept
favor bucket
“Favor bucket” is a metaphor for a stash of favors. If you use one favor to speed things up now, you have fewer left for later.
Term
fabricated IRS
IRS means the rear wheels can move independently, which usually helps the truck handle better and ride smoother. “Fabricated” means the shop made or modified that suspension setup for the build.
Car
Chevrolet C10
The Chevrolet C10 is an older pickup truck that many people restore or customize. In the podcast, they talk about a C10 they built for someone, and they mention it has great patina, meaning it looks naturally aged and full of character. It’s being highlighted as a special project truck.
Term
LT five trucks
“LT5” is an engine name people use for a particular GM V8. They’re saying this truck was an early example of using that engine in a pickup.
Term
patina truck
“Patina” is the intentionally worn, naturally aged look a vehicle gets over time. Here, they’re describing the truck’s style as having that cool, lived-in character.
Term
stance
“Stance” means how the truck sits—how high or low it is and how the wheels look in the wheel wells. Builders chase a specific look when they set up the suspension and tires.
Concept
private label stuff
“Private label” usually means parts or products made for a specific shop or brand. Here, it sounds like Roadster Shop is using those specific items for customer builds.
Person
Paul Atkins Nash
They mention Paul Atkins Nash as someone connected to a specific part or setup used in these builds. It sounds like customers ask for that exact style or configuration.
Term
rear end
“Rear end” is the back axle area of the vehicle. It includes the parts that send power to the rear wheels, and it can be upgraded or changed for a build.
Person
David Meyer
They’re saying David Meyer is associated with the rear-axle setup on that build. So customers want that specific rear-end configuration.
Person
Bill Steele
Bill Steele is brought up as a reference build that Roadster Shop has done before. They’re basically saying, “We’ve built this kind of setup many times.”
Concept
progression
They’re talking about the build process moving forward step by step. It’s the satisfaction of seeing the project improve as it goes.
Car
G-Class G Wagon
“G wagon” usually means a Mercedes-Benz G-Class. It’s a tough, square-looking SUV that’s famous for being able to handle rough terrain, and it’s also popular as a luxury status car.
Car
Chevrolet Corvette
A “Callaway Corvette” is a Corvette that’s been tuned or upgraded by Callaway. Callaway is a company that makes performance upgrades, so the Corvette is usually faster or more powerful than stock.
Place
Trump Hotel
They’re talking about where they are—outside a hotel associated with the Trump name. It’s basically a location reference, not a car-related technical detail.
Car
Jeep Grand
The Jeep Grand Cherokee is a mid-size SUV that can be used for normal driving and can also handle tougher roads. It’s a popular model people may have owned early on. That’s why it’s brought up as something many listeners would recognize.
Car
GMC Yukon
The GMC Yukon is a large SUV meant for everyday driving and carrying people comfortably. The podcast is clarifying which Yukon version it was, because trims can differ. So it’s mentioned as the specific SUV in their conversation.
Car
Chevrolet Blazer
A Chevrolet Blazer is an SUV model from Chevrolet. The conversation is basically figuring out which Chevrolet SUV it was—Blazer or Tahoe—because they’re different vehicles.
Car
Chevrolet Tahoe
A Chevrolet Tahoe is a large Chevrolet SUV. In this part, they’re describing a specific version—two-door—and some styling details like fender flares.
Term
barn doors
“Barn doors” means the back of the vehicle has two separate doors that open like doors on a barn. It’s a specific rear-door style you can spot on some SUVs and trucks.
Term
charcoal fender flares
Fender flares are the plastic or trim pieces around the wheel area. “Charcoal” just means they’re a dark gray color, and it helps identify the car’s exact look.
Car
Ford Mustang
The SN95 Mustang is a specific generation of Ford Mustang, from the late 1990s into the early 2000s. People use “SN95” like a nickname so they can talk about the exact kind of Mustang and the parts that fit it.
Car
G body
“G body” is a nickname for a certain older GM car platform from the 1970s and 1980s. It’s used by car people to quickly say what kind of older GM car they mean.
Term
five speed
“Five-speed” means the car has a manual gearbox with five gears you shift through. It can change how the car drives—especially at highway speeds and during acceleration.
Term
rear drive
“Rear drive” means the rear wheels are the ones that get the power. That can affect how the car grips and how it handles when you accelerate or turn.
Car
Lambo
“Lambo” is just a nickname people use for Lamborghini, a famous Italian supercar brand. Here it means someone had a Lamborghini, but the exact model isn’t specified.
Car
240 sx
The “240 SX” is a Nissan sports car that lots of people modified for racing and drifting. It was popular partly because it was cheaper than many other performance cars, so it became a common choice for beginners and hobbyists.
Term
drifting
Drifting is when a driver intentionally makes the car’s rear slide sideways while still steering through a turn. It takes practice to keep the car under control.
Car
Mustang Fox Body
The Ford Mustang is a sports car that’s known for being fun to drive. The podcast mentions a “Fox body,” which is an older Mustang style that many people like to restore or modify. It’s brought up because it’s a well-known car people often talk about.
Car
Nissan 240SX
The Nissan 240SX is an older Nissan sports car that lots of car people modify. It’s rear-wheel drive and has a huge parts community, so it’s common for things like drifting and custom builds.
Term
donut
A “donut” is when you spin the car in a tight circle, usually by turning the wheel and using the gas to make the tires lose grip and slide.
Car
Chevrolet Silverado
The Chevrolet Silverado is a large pickup truck made for towing and hauling. People often modify them with lifts and performance changes. In the podcast, it’s mentioned as a big, loud, standout truck.
Term
T-tops
“T-tops” are roof panels you can remove, so you get an open-air feel. Instead of one big open roof, there are two openings with a bar in the middle.
Term
subs
“Subs” means subwoofers, which are the speakers that play the deep bass. Putting them “in the back” usually means the bass speakers were mounted there.
Term
Sierra Classic style
“Sierra Classic” refers to a specific GMC Sierra look from an earlier generation. They’re saying the truck looked like that older Sierra style.
Car
Beetle Vw Bug
The Beetle is a small car with a very recognizable rounded shape, often called the “VW bug” style. The podcast mentions it as something cool and asks who is working on it. That usually means it’s part of a custom build or restoration project.
Concept
pre-runners
Pre-runners are off-road vehicles built for desert driving. They’re set up to handle rough terrain at speed, often with stronger suspension and off-road tires.
Term
four by four
“Four by four” means the car can drive all four wheels, which helps it grip better on slippery or rough ground.
Term
wheelbase
Wheelbase is the distance between the front and rear wheels. It changes how the vehicle feels—longer usually feels steadier, shorter can feel quicker but less stable.
Term
travel
“Travel” is how much the suspension can move when the wheels go over bumps. More travel can help the tires stay on the ground better off-road.
Concept
flip over
“Flip over” refers to a rollover, where a vehicle tips onto its side or roof. Rollover risk is influenced by factors like center of gravity, suspension setup, tire grip, and how the vehicle is driven.
Car
Chevrolet Camaro
The Chevrolet Camaro is a sports car, usually a coupe, built for performance. It’s the kind of car people talk about when they’re into faster, more exciting builds. The podcast highlights it as a standout choice.
LIVE
The Fab Shop, Hot Rod Build Shop, then we went through the sales department, and now we're
at Chassis Production and all things Chassis out the door.
You're the last person to interact with that customer.
You're the last person to do things.
We had this meeting the other day, you know?
It's like, you might think that the way you put those nails in don't mean shit, right?
But when the guy's been waiting that five months and he spent that much money and those
doors swing open to get that chassis, those three, those four nails on the end of that
board right there is the first thing he sees.
Or the way that sticker's put on that crate is the first thing he sees.
You might think it's not a big deal.
As long as it sticks on there, it could be half-assed crooked.
And at the end of the day, half-assed crooked, not the end of the world.
But when the customer that paid, you know, what he paid and waited, what he paid, waited,
it's a representation of what might be.
Like, we can't even give a shit about putting the sticker on right.
The last thing that you guys do is the first things that that guy sees.
Like the engineering and some of the other kind of stuff, some of the most important
stuff, but it's not the first thing that guy sees.
I have been in your life since what you were eight years old.
Yeah.
So you started right about the time we moved into this facility.
We were getting the shop, you know, we were renovating this place.
Jimmy, how old were you when you came?
I think it was just turning 19 when I got here.
And in full transparency, you turned down the first offer of management.
And I tried really hard.
I generally take not getting my way pretty well.
So I just kind of moved.
That's the thing about you.
You usually just roll over.
Yep.
I kind of, oh, well, Kyle, would you agree with that?
No, come.
Stay out of that.
Welcome back.
Another very special episode of Oil and Whiskey brought to you by HP tuners
to tune all the toys.
So we've been doing a lot or several, a few of these roadstores shop specific
department employee episodes.
These have become fan favorites.
Yes.
The, yeah, the listeners have spoken.
They're going to fucking hate that.
The last one.
Yeah.
We went through, we did, you know, the fab shop, hot rod build shop.
Then we went through the sales department and now we're at chassis production.
And all things chassis out the door.
Yeah.
We saved the best for last.
We did.
Let's be honest.
Two great stories, 22 very fantastic shop is largely known for fantastic chassis
that these two outstanding gentlemen oversee that department.
So lots to unpack tonight.
We've got Kyle Blannis and Jimmy Emily.
Glad to have you guys.
Thanks for having us.
Yeah.
Happy to be here.
Which is weird.
That's the same.
Your last name is the same as my wife's maiden name.
Oh shit.
That sucks.
Yeah.
It's really crazy.
It might be bad.
So you are my uncle.
It's uncle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uncle Jair's.
Well, Phil's my uncle.
Yeah.
It was always uncle Phil for sure.
Yeah.
They actually convinced me at one point when I was like eight years old and then it's
like, that's your uncle.
Like, like really it's my uncle.
Like, yeah, it's your uncle Phil.
Phil's a classic uncle name.
It's a solid uncle.
Uncle Phil really is.
You look more of an uncle than a dad.
I'm sorry.
Thank you.
Bring that.
Bring that back a little bit and go ahead relax a little bit.
We had one share breaker.
You couldn't.
Yeah.
I say it looks like you're about to.
You command a presence and you're getting me a little nervous up on up on the chip like that.
Yeah.
It's a stark contrast.
Try to piece it.
I'm a little nervous right now.
You know, don't be nervous.
Don't be.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, we have all this is I ever steered you wrong.
I'll get we'll get through this together.
All this is live.
All this is live.
And right now let's see what we got.
We got we got 11 live viewers right now.
11.
All right.
Well, that the above camera.
Will it pan to get a shot of like a bicep comparison between the two?
How'd you ever do bicep comparison than a fucking calf comparison?
I'm just trying to see is it twice?
Is that twice your arm?
I can't tell if it's probably two of them.
You think he's a big boy?
He's.
Thank you.
Well, thank you for.
Yeah, well, I've been nice.
I've been pretty nice to you lately.
So yeah, it's time to break it down.
Hold on.
Yeah.
Super nice.
Think your comment right before yesterday's podcast was something along the lines of go fuck yourself.
Was the text?
Yeah, you're right.
Okay.
So it was seconds before going live.
You said that in the nicest way, though.
I think it's honestly one of the nicer things he's probably done.
Yeah, there wasn't even an exclamation point after it.
It was all lowercase.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Anyway, your eyes took it the wrong way.
Yeah, let's get into it.
This is going to be a fun one.
You saw in all seriousness, you guys do have some really great stories as far as your path
and journey through the Roadster shop and the many different roles that you have filled.
And then to be managers and overseeing what you're overseeing, it's a great one.
It's a great story.
We're going to get into that.
Yeah.
So first off, how many years?
How many years you've been here?
Thinking about 13 this year.
That's if you don't count all those crazy winners in between college breaks and all that stuff.
From start to now, it's 13 years.
About 13.
Jimmy.
I'm at 12 right now.
12.
Yeah.
Close to the same time.
Yeah.
Little before me.
Think you started.
So we did.
We moved a lot of sketchy things done in the early days.
Oh, yeah.
Definitely learned a lot.
I mean, I think Kyle learned a hell of a lot about how to operate, how not to operate a forklift.
Yeah.
And that's how you learn how to operate.
Yeah.
So you got to find the limits.
Right.
I remember there was a like a breaking day where you were like, you know what?
Like you really impressed me today.
Like you, you really got down that forklift.
Well, you've got a certain anybody that's ever seen the guys that work at the go kart tracks, you know, like that's usually like a guy who ended up there accidentally.
Like he's not.
That dude's usually not super stoked to have that job, but yet they embrace it.
Oh, they always try to look cool.
So there's like, you can't just get in the go kart.
You got to like, it's one foot in, out.
You kind of drive it like standing up almost like you're grabbing another one.
You're running to him at the same time.
That was like Kyle's early years on the forklift.
That's kind of goes riding.
Yeah.
One foot in.
It's like, how's the only dude I've seen that can bro out a fucking forklift.
Right.
Right.
Like a jet ski.
Exactly.
Yeah.
But you can also use it like a surgical instrument.
I'll give him that.
So what did you, what did it, when you came on, what did you, what was your, what did you start doing?
What was the first thing they had you doing?
I think it was D burn parts and just sweeping floors and just kind of just getting gritty
and whenever I could or step away.
We, Jeremy, show me some TIG welding that I absolutely was atrocious at and.
So are.
And then.
Okay, fine.
Got him behind the desk pretty quick.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You got me there.
Um, but, uh, yeah, started building frame rails not too shortly after that and, uh,
just kind of worked and until I figured out the TIG welding enough.
And then, uh, and then, uh, kind of took over, uh, multiple positions, got into the
CNC department and then, uh, here we are.
It's just kind of a fast forward into this.
That's been, it's been quite the long road for you.
I mean, for those who weren't reading between the lines, Kyle is my brother-in-law.
I have, uh, been in your life since, uh, what you were 88 years old.
Yeah.
So you started right about the time we moved into this facility.
We were getting the shop, you know, we were renovating this place.
You were here for, you know, you were slinging, uh, drywall and trash and getting dirty,
getting down and dirty.
And then, uh, man, what was it?
You were just out of high school, spent some time in college and, uh, you and I had sort
of a heart to heart.
Yeah.
And I said, uh, you know what you should do, Kyle?
You know, there's some people are cut out for school.
Some people maybe aren't.
Right.
And I, I, speaking from experience, I am not one of those people that has cut out for
school and, you know, talking to Kyle, I said, maybe you aren't either.
Yeah.
No disrespect, but some people are built to do things with their hands and, you know,
in their mind and conjunction.
And I thought that that was a good career path for you.
And you came here, uh, you know, shit, you must have been 19, 20.
Yeah.
I was, I think 21.
Okay.
Yeah.
21.
And, uh, started at the absolute bottom.
Just like you said, sweeping floors.
Yeah.
It was, I mean, it was wild cause walking in here, it was, uh, just trying to see all
the talent that was in here even early on and just understanding the fact that
everybody in this building had like this strict role of building these awesome
cars and we were already building cars like that, like to our level now back
when, and so trying to figure out which lane and which guys that to clamp onto
and cling to and learn from and stuff.
It was, it was confusing to be honest, cause everybody was, uh, everybody was,
uh, really good at their jobs.
And so, um, it was really never like a bad avenue to try to reach out to someone
and learn a thing or two.
And before you know it, you're just learning everybody's job and there was no
limitations to that.
And you get after it.
And before you know it, you're a TIG welder, you're a fabricator, you're
building a chassis and it's like, it was the good old days.
It's a little different now, but, you know, it's, it's come a long way.
Yeah.
You know, I think that's that they, both of you guys sort of embarked on that
same journey.
You know, it's sort of the same, the journey that I kind of went down.
I skipped the important part of learning how to, you know, get behind a computer
and, uh, you know, program some machines and stuff, but fortunately, you know,
you were better than me at that and took to that.
But both of you guys had a very cool career path of starting at the absolute
bottom, sweeping floors, grinding frame, building frame rails.
You know, Jimmy, I don't know if you've spent much time.
I got to skip that one.
I got to skip the frame rail department.
We all, we all skip, we all skip the big welds.
So I just, uh, do all that.
There's still a time to beat you at that.
Jimmy, okay, I'll beat you.
I'll give you that.
I'll give you that.
But Kyle laid it down on some frame rails for a long time, but it, uh, all that
experience, I think made both of you guys what you are today and put you guys
100% in the right position with the right experience to, to be in management
positions, which is ultimately what both of you guys are.
You know, Kyle's managing, uh, RS two, as we call it.
And, you know, overseeing the entire assembly department and big portion of
fabrication over there.
And Jimmy is, uh, managing RS one, um, overseeing the entire chassis
fabrication department here and, uh, lending your expertise, which is, I mean,
you guys are huge assets and it's, uh, it's been awesome to see the two of you
guys grow.
It has been, I'm, we're going to get into some of that too.
I'm like, you know, even discussions we've had, uh, together.
And then, you know, the three of us have where it's like, there's times where
you're, that you're transitioning from that, you know, employee and transitioning
like coming on the other side when that, like the, the light bulbs start going off
whatever, and you know, you start getting like frustrated or, uh, goal oriented on
the same kind of goals and stuff that we've had, you know, and it's seeing that
transition, you're like, Oh man, it's so cool.
Like, cause it's like, Oh, you're a little frustrated about that thing.
So now you wasn't a big issue when you were doing it.
But, uh, before we get that, uh, Jimmy, how old were you when you came?
Uh, I think it was just turning 19 when I got here.
So yeah.
What made you come?
Um, I was, uh, honestly, I saw the ad on Craigslist.
I thought it was going to be sweet to go work on old cars and rebuild car braiders.
Never did either of those here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I just, uh, I always had a passion for cars and saw that ad come up and
figured I'd try to get my foot in the door.
She just came in and said, I want to work.
Yeah.
I'll do whatever.
Yeah.
Uh, I think I met with Jeremy for the first time and, uh, kind of walked me
through the shop, asked me what I can do, kind of settled on, Hey, you're going
to be bending brake lines and doing some light wiring work.
I don't know where that came from.
Never did wiring work here.
Dude, I say a lot of things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, uh, no, kind of just started from the bottom.
You know, I mean, it was, he was right.
It was just extremely light.
Oh, it was extremely light to zero wiring work.
I mean, every once in a while, you've had to wire up a plug on a welder.
Make an extension cord.
Yeah, you got a point.
You got to know that.
But we were, you know, back in that era, we were definitely less structured.
There was a lot of crossover of like the hot rod shop, the chassis shop.
It wasn't as struck structured and departmentalized as it is today.
So yeah, it's hard to explain that to people, like, especially employees that
work here.
It's like, we've got impossible.
Like if you think you're having problem with this department,
should be a little bit different.
It's like that never was a department.
That was just like Jimmy going over there and fucking doing it.
You know, that was, that's all it was before.
That was, you know, nothing bolted the chassis together and throw them in the
cradle in the crate and shipping out the door.
It's like, oh, yeah, it's whatever department needed.
Need to work.
The word is there process.
Yeah.
Has definitely been implemented very hard here for sure.
Yeah.
Thanks to Phil and Josh.
Yeah.
Really took the fun out of that one.
You can build a lot more when Jimmy's not doing assembly and crating and
by the work lifting, sweeping and to share.
Absolutely can.
The what?
So your first job, first week, whatever, been in break lines?
No, I think I'd started running break lines after a while.
I think I was pretty much just taking out trash, helping Zach, not bolt
chasted together and I think shortly after that, our crating guy either got
quit or got fired.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Creating guys were.
It was always all over the place, but I found myself building crates after that
and and assembling chassis, sweeping floors, whatever, whatever need to be done
pretty much.
Just not to really sidebar, but you've mentioned crating and.
You just want like things the way things used to be.
I'm not saying everything's perfect.
Right.
We have come a long way specifically in the crating of chassis and the
that creating department and the processes, if you will, think about
about some of the things that were major five alarm disasters in the
creating department that was.
How many tailgates did you ruin?
I pick up trucks.
Oh, I don't think many actually.
I think that's pretty good at that.
We've gone through another tailgate.
Yeah.
It's just like.
From nail guns to nails to screws to screw guns to it's just like from,
you know, it's a lack of process, lack of planning people.
You take for granted sometimes and you start thinking back and
like, yeah, no, we spent all day long putting that fire out.
That one I don't take for granted because both.
I mean, me, Phil, even my dad at one point was the crater.
He was a carpenter, so it seemed like a perfect fit for free labor.
But the way we used to build crates back in Elgin, we just take 22
by 12s, I think two by 12s or two by eights.
And you just kind of build this like spine and everything sat open.
And it was just like you would just banned the shit out of everything.
And, you know, sort of say a prayer is went out the door and send it.
It's come a long way.
I mean, the crates are people comment a lot about the quality of the
Roadster shop crates.
Yeah, I know they are actually pretty durable because I remember going
outside and Jimmy was like about ready to go home.
I'm like, Hey, Jimmy, I got this crate for you.
I'll load it for you.
No problem.
I remember that one.
And that's the one that's going and yeah, this back when we need like
something to bounce the crate as we put it into the semi truck.
I'm not going to say what that something is, but it might have been breathing.
Um, and, uh, we fork lifted it out there and a UPS driver comes roaring and dude,
I'm so late.
I'm sorry.
I'm like, okay, just stop right there.
Stop right there.
Dude, stop right there.
Destroy the crate.
Jimmy's clocked out on the way out the door.
I come around the corner and Jimmy looks back and puts his hands on his head.
He's like, dude, like what happened to them?
Like Jimmy, can you like clock back in this truck?
Destroyed this crate.
Good news though.
Chassis is fine.
Like now I know why you asked so many times beforehand what you can and can't talk about.
It's all coming together now.
He's been here a long time.
He knows where all the bodies are.
It's dangerous.
You were adamant about like, no, tell me exactly what it's like.
Let's just roll with it.
I mean, there's no question about it that the shop has evolved.
When we in the early days, I mean, you got to experience it sort of when you started,
it was a man, Pa, like, you know, just a I don't want to say back like a backwards operation.
I mean, we had some structure where you're building stuff.
Very small business.
You're just getting shit done.
You had to get it done.
There wasn't the equipment.
There wasn't the manpower.
There wasn't the facility to do it, you know, ultimately the way you would like to do it.
That's part of growing, you know, it's part of the best way to do it at the time.
Yeah.
Yeah, it gets a bad experience.
Bad decisions, build experience.
Yeah.
That's the thing you missed out in college is learning that like fulcrum point of like,
where, you know, where something balances.
We'll see that's what I learned it here.
I guess, too, like, you know, staying on creating specifically, that was,
you know, there was a significant transition right there.
Right when, you know, I came in, we were trying to implement, you know,
a process, a process, another word.
That's another implementation, the implementation of the process.
It was all it looked at was let's just get fucking organized, right?
Let's try to do things, you know, but I came from the same background of just get it done,
right? Just get shit done.
So when you're trying to streamline some stuff and you're trying to, you know,
I'm not going to use all of the stupid terminology that, you know, forced to use today.
But when you're looking at actual numbers and goals and stuff like that, you know,
but when you're looking at that stuff, when you come through the simple act of a
guy repairing his hose end, right?
You know, he's building a crate and now he's repairing his hose end.
And you start noticing that a guy spends a lot of time, like a couple of times a
week repairing a hose end.
And that's the kind of things that you can't really do a process for.
It's just a, hey, what the fuck is going on with your hose end?
Why are you, you need a new hose, right?
And you needed to, we need to change something different because that's frustrating when
you just are used to getting shit done.
You shouldn't be doing what you're doing all the time.
So you're doing something wrong to get to this point.
Well, dude, that, I mean, you basically summed it up right there.
These are the very high level processes.
Why we, why we brought you on, which will be a whole nother prop.
Everybody's wanted the Josh Hennigpro podcast.
And that's that.
That's the kind of thing we'll touch about, like touch on.
That was a big, big change.
The point, the point is the hose end, it doesn't SOP of the hose end.
It doesn't go straight to processes and you forget about other things.
It's those little things that do stick out that you're like, you are right.
It's there's got to be a better way than what we're doing with this.
Yep.
But you don't like you take those things for granted now because there is,
you know, organization and processes and stuff that it's just putting myself
in that mindset right now, hanging the fucking hose in a different spot.
Yeah, I know.
There's like, this is a, I also think he probably cut it off
just so he could spend time sitting there and putting the thing on.
The 40 minutes trying to get in.
Fuck building breaks.
Yeah.
The so what?
Talk, take a Jimmy on your side, like the transition as you're going to the other jobs.
What did you have an idea?
I'm not going to say early, early on, right?
Because you can't you got the job.
Holy shit.
I'm just glad to be working at the road to shop.
At what point are you starting to identify like some things that you would like to do
or strive to do or skill set you'd like to learn?
I remember the first roaster shop party thing we had out back and they took me back
and you want to teach me how to mig weld and.
You know, tried it out, completely destroyed his mig welder.
I don't know what the hell I did.
Realize I never wanted to pick up a mig welder after that.
And then kind of saw, you know, a couple of other guys that have been here
for a while, building chassis and they're all TIG weld in the chassis.
And it's kind of cool.
You know, I never really take one of those two.
Yeah, I was like, I can probably fuck that up pretty good.
I never really take a big wall machine.
I've never broken TIG.
Try that out.
So like three times the price.
It's fine.
Now I just thought it was a cool process.
And, you know, some guys could TIG weld really good.
The other guys could TIG weld.
OK. And I was like, well, you kind of suck at that.
I can do better than that.
And kind of just try to learn, you know.
Well, how did you learn?
Take us through that process.
I learned staying after work, you know, coming in weekends, kind of just finding
whatever is in the shop that can be welded together.
Realize can't weld aluminum and seal together.
So that's interesting.
You you're saying that you took initiative and found time to learn.
So you didn't just say, hey, I'm going to clock in and somebody teach me.
No, no, I never I never really looked for anybody to teach me on that stuff.
I just wanted to learn.
I've always been a self.
Taught person, you know, kind of throughout growing up and something like that.
So I kind of took that same initiative to welding.
And it's watching YouTube videos, you know, watching stuff online,
watching other people, what they do.
And it's kind of taken that running with it pretty much.
Do you remember who were like the standouts?
Who who did you see as a chassis builder that caught your eye
and made you think I want to do this?
I mean, things squared would definitely be number one.
He he he definitely impacted me to not dress code wise, but no, the dress code wise.
I mean, yeah, he taught everybody how to do things and not do things.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He was great at both.
I'm saying phenomenal.
I mean, Chris, phenomenal, talented guy.
Yeah, yeah, very, very skilled fabricator.
No question about it.
Sorry, Chris, if you're listening.
That's dude, we're giving him a compliment.
Oh, yeah, right.
Exactly. No, I mean, I looked at his welding and I was, you know, amazing.
And then it's kind of wanted to, you know, do whatever he was doing.
I wanted to do exactly.
Did you drink as many energy drinks as he did?
No, I know I can do that, man.
No, I mean, I don't know.
I mean, did you work turtle next to nothing?
I don't know if you've seen Ethan's Bay of Red Bulls and Pepsi down there.
I didn't know they'd make one liter of Red Bulls.
He's got a little Chris squared kind of.
Oh, definitely.
I had one on there.
Chris squared would.
I mean, I've never seen anybody chase Red Bull or a monster with a cigarette.
Like it was.
Like, dude, that is just look like a hard time.
Yeah, look terrible.
He's still going strong.
I bet you he was.
Was he pulsing or just shaking?
He went through as well.
He's just so here.
I'll take you want to talk about pulsing.
So Chris squared, if you ever watch him well, because he he's probably
the most impressive welder.
Yeah, I would say maybe to date.
That fucking dude would shake violently when he well.
Because I even went as far to watch him with through a helmet to watch his process.
Because he had a puddle.
Yeah, he had a very unique way of how he pulses manual.
That was before we ever had any pulse machines.
And his hands would be like and the fucking weld every comes out full lawless.
You would think he was guaranteed to be failed to like.
No idea how he did it.
The most beautiful TIG welds you've ever seen.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, that's how I learned is looking through the helmet at his weld.
And literally like every time you'd look at it,
like this is going to come out like shit.
Right. It's going to look terrible.
Yeah. And then you take your lid off.
It's like, all right, can you like show me one more time?
What?
You just do it.
I try to drink red bull and say to do that.
It reminds me of when I tried doing that engraving stuff
and you're spending the whole day looking through a magnifying glass.
And the whole time you're like, this is fucking horrible looking.
And then you take you get out of the magnifying glass
and you're seeing this thing from through your normal.
And you're like, oh, wow.
I'm like, yeah, I'm kind of a pro.
Like Jesse James better send me some pistols.
I got I got this.
But that's how a squared was a talented, talented dude.
But it's interesting that you guys caught you.
You know, you picked up on that.
You found somebody that obviously stood out to you
and then you wanted to emulate what he did or learn from what he did.
That's cool.
What about you, Kyle?
What was some departments or job wise when you start realizing that, man,
I kind of like to learn that or kind of like to be a part of that
or do that or I was honestly open to I was an open book when I came here.
So it was like whatever Jeremy really wanted to throw me into is what I was open to.
And, you know, trusted him with with the judgment of like, hey,
I think you'd be good at doing this.
So give it a shot.
And I he had such a great record, too, of shooting you in the right direction
really and having your best interest at heart.
So he's obviously somebody.
We're related things.
We're we going back to childhood here.
Oh, yeah. But we're not going to go back there.
Yeah, we can. I mean, that's a track record.
That's one of the things we probably shouldn't talk about.
Well, we don't need to talk about all that.
I did some good things in the in your early years. Right.
Yeah. Yeah.
I don't even know where to start, though.
No.
Do you teach him how to V cut his Sutter's khakis?
And he was after that.
That was yeah, because I had been like 2000.
2000, 2001.
Maybe I came into your life.
Yeah.
This thing is I think it was 2000.
Yeah. Yeah.
But honestly, back to the thing of where it was headed for me.
I mean, it was start at the rail shop.
Work there, see where the problems are.
See where people are slow.
See where you're fast.
See where I'm slow and learn from it and just always look at your negatives
and then build on that and turn them into positives and moving into the TIG
welding position.
I was building front ends for a long time, building fast tracks.
And the guy who taught me and was stating that he can build two fast
track front ends in one day.
Well, I can do two fast track front ends in one day.
And it got to the point where I built more fast track front ends on
and stacked them up on pallets to the point where I ran out of room.
And Jeremy's like, well, I mean, you don't need to build any more fast.
Fast tracks.
I'm supposed to be bravo.
Yeah, like, just, you know, start building parts or something.
And then came processes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's going to be the word of the day.
And then Dean, a fellow that worked here for a long time,
taught me some things as well.
He was moving on to just building cars and we needed a position to fulfill
the laser table.
And that's kind of, sorry, plasma table at the time.
And that's what really kind of changed my direction the whole time.
Because the whole time I'm thinking I'm going to be a fabricator.
I'm going to weld things, grind things, get building, good at building cars
and panels and things like that.
Eventually learn the planishing hammers and all that stuff.
Never touched them because there was a problem at hand and started off at 120
chassis a year, I think at the time and moved into how can we build more chassis?
How can we get more done?
How can we?
You did build chassis for a little while before you landed with Dean.
Yeah.
It was like, yeah, I built a few tri-fives and things like that.
So he can, he can TIG weld.
Yeah.
I've seen it.
It's been approved by someone.
I guess it wasn't that bad.
Those are the powder coated ones.
Yeah.
Right.
But yeah, the volume of the chassis and stuff really sparked my interest here.
And seeing what number we can crank out.
And that's where I believe the number thing actually came from.
How much can we sell and how much can we fulfill and how many chassis we can get done by the
end of the year?
It's like, at the end of every year, I was always asking, what was our number?
So intrigued by that.
And what can we do this next year to get it that much more and build on that?
And there's so many other aspects to that with marketing and shows and things like that.
But I was always like ready gung-ho and do it.
But that's the phrase that you taught me, which is just got to throw a little fucking
cowboy in it.
Hey, that's what gets it done.
Processes are one thing.
They are important, but a certain percentage of having some cowboy in you.
You can't create any type of system to out system hard work.
Hard work has to be a part of that equation.
It's to get that hard work to the most efficient outcome as possible.
Now working with, you know, Dean's a guy who internally, and Dean's a great friend of mine.
Dean's a colorful character.
Love him to death.
How was that experience?
He's a great friend of you.
Dean's a good podcast by himself.
It would be interesting.
He'd probably do it with his pan stone.
He's grown up a little bit.
It was quite the experience.
Talk about oil and vinegar.
It would not blend very well.
Going into the position, I was kind of left into it, well, if you can't figure it out,
it's all good.
I'll just do it myself.
Don't worry, I'll figure it out.
I honestly think he was just trying to make me not see the amount of dicks that he's
drew on the early years.
Look, we said there's things we can and can't talk about.
I don't think there's any harm in discussing that there was a lot of male appendages drawn
cut in the early years.
Serious question.
The very first time that the plasma table was up and running and the software was up
and the rep and the team left.
You guys are good.
You can start cutting.
Was a dick the first thing it was cut?
I don't think it was the first thing that was cut.
It was nested in with a set of rails.
It was definitely cut within the first week.
But you look at, take Mike O'Brien, for example.
Mike doing these experimental projects and these side projects, all the things he learns
that are then applicable to chassis building and the betterment of the Roadster Shop.
The dicks were kind of the same thing.
Dean learned how to etch with him.
He learned all sorts of different radiuses, proportions, like literally there's elements,
there's stylistic elements that need to be etched, not cut.
I mean, this is serious stuff, dude.
There was a folder probably with 87.
I would say one.
I still to this day, one of my wrenches for my seven inch grinder is phallic.
That's what's going to happen with a bunch of guys.
Occupational hazard.
Yeah.
Jimmy, on your side.
When you said Dean, I was like, well.
That's what came to mind.
Let's count down.
When you started TIG welding, what were you doing first?
Small parts?
Yeah, pretty much I started on small parts.
Did that for a while, moved to control arms a little bit, moved to front ends.
Just kind of jumped around everywhere.
Then finally got that chassis roll after, oh man, that's probably five years, six years
after welding small parts.
I can't remember exactly.
Right.
Yeah.
Who taught you chassis?
Taught me chassis.
The first chassis I built was actually a photo shoot with McGrathen that we did on a 32,
34 Roadster, I think.
Kind of just got thrown to the wolves on that one.
I remember Adams kind of said, figure it out, good luck.
That was a complete shit show.
Struggled through it.
You're trying to give you an early rise at this point.
I was going to say, was that a street rider?
Yeah.
It was probably a road tour car.
I was going to say, was that the split ID on it?
Yeah.
So it was nothing to actually, yeah, that was not fun at all.
Remember those?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can figure it out.
Yeah.
Just read the prints.
Read the prints that don't exist.
Yeah, the printers.
Processes.
Yeah.
Processes.
Cowboy.
Cowboy.
Cowboy.
Processes.
No, I think those guys, I'd have to definitely think a little Mike and probably a Potato
Head too.
I know how you feel about Potato Head.
I know how we all feel about Potato Head here.
That's a name drive.
I haven't heard that one in a lot of MPH.
I don't know Potato Head.
Oh, no.
We've had the characters.
Shouldn't have brought them up, but anyway.
But he's a heater.
You learned stuff from everybody, man.
Yeah.
We've had some interesting guys over the years, but there's been a lot of talent.
He was a very artistic guy.
Came from artistic sort of sculpture background and stuff, and he was out there.
But he's a skilled dude.
As much as I wanted to give him shit, as much as I did give him shit.
Yeah, you guys did.
There was another oil and water thing going on there.
That's another theme.
There's a common denominator there for a while.
It was me.
But the chassis stuff with you, Jimmy, definitely clicked.
I mean, it wasn't long before you were clearly a standout.
Like, dude, this guy's got it.
This dude's got it going on.
The welding, you know, I'd say you're right there neck and neck with squared.
I haven't looked at it through a helmet to see if you're.
Not as shaky.
I don't know.
It doesn't have to shake.
The finished product is, dude, it's top notch.
I mean, some of the best stuff that's come out of Roadster Shop over the past, you know,
several years has been through your hands.
I mean, phenomenal.
TIG welder.
And you've done a lot of amazing chassis work.
So you just both you guys are sort of examples of just either got it or you don't.
We've seen a lot of guys come through the shop and some guys get clicks.
Guys doesn't.
The thing I think I've always been most impressed with both of you guys.
Jimmy, for sure, on the chassis side of things, just because of, you know, our, we have more
interaction on that way.
Just like a clinical machine kind of like.
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Not a lot of drama, not a lot of bullshit and not a lot of conversation about anything.
It's like, hey, chassis build.
Done.
Chassis gets built.
And it's a lot of figuring out on your own, like manage yourself.
And it's right, it's done.
If a problem arises, handle it correctly.
It's just like, you'd have a lot of chassis under your belt, obviously by that time too.
But it still was like, there's just a, the way you clipped your bay, the way it's like.
Probably maybe that bled over from little Mike.
Yeah, a lot of that definitely bled over.
Little bit of an OCD thing.
Yeah, I mean, certain OCD myself, when it comes to things, my garage is, you know, a
little crazy.
But can we get this garage to look like your garage?
Dude, I would love to, man.
Like over here.
I would love to.
The organization is ridiculous.
Ship has sailed.
I tried the first couple of weeks I was in this position.
I tried real hard and nobody seems to want it.
It's a shot for you coming up.
That's tough to juggle.
I mean, the volume, the pace, you know, it's sort of, sometimes that's the, you know, the
cleanliness is can, that can be the last thing to look at.
Yeah.
That's one thing.
It's not exactly always true, however, but one thing George Botead always talked about.
He's saying George's voice.
I can't do George's voice.
He always talk about how there's a, there's two ends of the spectrum, either to clean
and organized of a shop.
He says they're not getting shit done, right?
They're not doing anything.
They're just cleaning and trying to make a show.
And then there's two shitty of a shop.
He's like, I'm never going to get anything done, right?
They're hunting for parts.
So there's that proper balance of, you know, shittiness and unshittiness.
Yeah.
Yeah, pretty much.
Just tell there's work going on there.
Stuff's happening.
Organize there.
Yeah.
You're paying attention and cleanliness.
I think it's the same thing goes all the guys.
You can tell who are the standouts.
You can tell by how they dress, how dirty they are at the end of the day, as long as
they're not at like frame rental department where you're just going to get.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Kellen defies that a little bit.
Yeah.
A little bit.
Kellen's still maintained.
Kellen's got his sort of dojo though.
Like his.
He knows what he's doing.
Nobody else can go in his bay and work.
I'll tell you that.
If you move that washer.
Nobody else can work in that bay.
If you move that washer, he will know.
Oh, he will know.
Yeah, even though it's in a pile of 1000 washers.
Everybody does.
You know, you create your own, you know,
you know, your kind of own ecosystem in your bay and everybody's got their own
style.
You know, the welds based on, you know, who did it.
You based on their welds and, you know, the signature.
It's kind of the same cadence, you know, this amount.
And it's it's interesting at scale to see kind of all those, you know, work
in harmony.
It's also difficult and, you know, kind of where we're going to get into this
next kind of chapter of.
Coming from just to get it done.
Coming from.
Positive.
But competitive background, right?
And being like, well, if you can do that many, I can do one more.
And I used to do this and I used to do this and I could do this.
And that's.
Same thing on the chassis side and not just you, but also being a part of a
standard, right?
And, you know, as those things change and, you know, new people come in and you
grow and you have a larger team than we had.
And then also managing that team.
It's difficult to kind of be like.
You were once with that.
There's all kinds of different nuances.
It's difficult, but you were once a part of the team.
Now you've got to make sure that you've got buy in, you know, not be the
dickhead manager, right?
Obviously going to be like, oh, yeah, got your soap and office job.
You know, and, but then also, you know, holding to the same standard that you
were accustomed to.
And, you know, you don't want to be the old man and be like, well, man, back
in the day, we used to do this, but at the same time, back in the day, we used
to do this, you know?
And that's you've done a really good, both of you guys have done a really
good job with that.
And there's been, you know, growing in maturity along with that because it is.
It's difficult to be like.
Say what you want to say, but sometimes you got to say it in a different way.
I get that.
Yeah.
I think that's my certain point.
That's my outlet with you because I have to adhere to that like all day long.
You, I do get to just say it exactly how I want to say it.
So that's not filtered, huh?
No, oh no.
That is.
Straight from the barrel.
You fucking crying?
Oh, no, I guess.
But I mean, it is, I want to talk through that on, you know, some specific stuff
of like, you know, there comes to individual production numbers, right?
Of like, well, these chassis should take this much time, you know, but then
there's the nuance of it's a new guy and then changing stuff.
And you're like, he's showing promise.
And, you know, it's.
You guys have done a really good job and I'd be, I'd like to hear some
of the your side of like that process of how hard if it was, you might get
like fucking easy for me.
I mean, it's, yeah, no, it's definitely hard.
I kind of, you know, throw in new guys and new roles and stuff like that.
I have the problem with myself that everybody knows how to do those jobs
kind of thing, you know, everybody has that ability to figure it the fuck out
and just keep rolling with it.
Times have changed.
Yeah, that's not, that's not a thing anymore, man.
It's a lot of, I don't want to say handholding on certain projects, but
there's a lot of, a lot of handholding here and there, which is fine.
I mean, everybody's got to learn.
Everybody learns their own way and it's not, not a problem.
It's just kind of a lot different from heaven.
When I was building small parts at them, thrown some parts in my head and
being, Hey man, this is fucked up.
Fix it.
I'm like, all right, cool.
I got to figure out how I fucked that up, fix that problem.
I'm not going to go tell Kyle I fixed or fucked up the problem because
now he's got to cut me out more parts and he's going to be yelling at me.
So I'm just cutting parts and some shit and fixing it myself, making it look
like nothing happened where some of these guys where it's like, you know,
what's the problem?
Can't you just cut out another one?
Yeah, it's cut out another one.
It's like, well, he just bent it a little bit off the line, man.
Just fudge this a little bit and make this work, blah, blah, blah.
It's like, there's a lot of that that I definitely have a problem with,
with myself just trying to learn everybody's skill level, you know.
And I think I've definitely been doing a little better job at that, I hope.
There's a lot more tolerance, I feel like nowadays.
It's like we have to, I mean, in that, not in a bad way, but it's just,
you just have to learn how to tolerate some of the things that you didn't
tolerate yourself when you were learning these things.
Yeah, you can look at the growth of the company as a whole, though, and see like
that's exactly what I was thinking.
Because you look at engineering's gotten better.
So there's, you can say with, you know, almost complete certainty that
that the design of that part is not incorrect.
The etch line on that part is correct.
Like the part is good.
Mm-hmm.
It's just gotten better now.
And even then the guys have gotten better.
There's fewer, but that used to be something that was almost, I mean,
you know better than me, but it was a daily occurrence.
Hey, this got bent backwards.
Hey, this doesn't fit.
The processes have gotten better.
The people have gotten better.
We've gotten more dialed in, I think, as a whole.
Yeah.
Those parts move through some pretty damn complex parts.
Oh, yeah.
Honestly.
And that's why, I mean, obviously, that's another reason
why production has gone the way it's gone is because of dialing that stuff in.
And it was always the worst too, because the way for those that aren't fully
aware of how the operation works, you know, as small parts run through their
course, you know, they're bending those and welding them to prints and then
bending those parts to number and kind of staging those.
So some of that stuff might be done 345 days before the
chassis builder starts building the chassis.
They build them the way they build them.
Chassis builder grabs his rails, grabs his front end and grabs his small parts.
Right.
He could be generally the way it worked as he it's a Friday at 3 30.
And it's the last part that he needs to weld on.
And that those rear shock mounts are the ones that were bent, you know, wrong
or whatever.
You didn't mirror them and you got two lefts, you know, whatever it was.
So there's not really a way to catch it until it's right at the wrong fucking time.
So that's generally the time of like, oh, shit, I know he's about to duck out
because it's 3 30 on a Friday.
And I'd much rather have just a part cut really, really quick and welded so we
could get this chassis done because then on Monday you can come in and start.
That's the kind of where it comes.
I like, yep, a lot of blame to point, you know, maybe it was the press break
operator, maybe it was a small parts guy, whatever.
But right now let's just get this.
You don't see that near it near as often, if ever at the same time, the capacity
of things have kind of challenged it as well.
You know, when you're cutting things out and you're stressed out because at 120
chassis that we used to cut isn't 120 chassis, but you're still at the
limitations of a plasma table.
Right.
And we just couldn't.
Capacitate that stuff as much anymore.
You know, once upon a time when Dean used to have time to draw dicks, we don't
have that time.
Yeah, there's no time for forcing around.
You know, you can't do that anymore.
And now we got to.
Well, keep that number going every single year.
And now it's getting to the point where this plasma table just can't keep up
anymore and leads to the next levels of things and new processes and getting
after.
Yeah, well, take me through that because I think, you know, we were talking a
lot about speed and quantity because that's, you know, there's certainly an
element there of lead times, keep it up with lead times, getting stuff out the
door.
But at the same time, the equipment, the processes, everything has sort of scaled
to cover both.
We've got to get stuff done.
We've got to hit some lead times, but we have to increase the quality of the
Roadster Shop product.
And when you look at the leap from the plasma to the laser, like the plasma
ultimately cut, cut speed, like the plasma could keep up with it.
But I think where we fell off was where you start looking at like, hey, how much
time are guys spending deburring parts?
How inaccurate are parts?
How many jigs are required to make parts?
So the transition to the laser was a huge move.
I'd say, you know, the focus was primarily the quality of the chassis and what
we could do, how we could expand our capabilities.
The byproduct was that it made things happen a hell of a lot quicker.
That was one of the biggest turning points I think we had for sure.
I mean, from the standpoint of fabricating these chassis, I mean, the
RS logos, I think was the first thing we pulled out of that machine.
Yeah.
Let's take an RS logo.
I do like RS logos.
Guilty of the RS logos.
I think you headed that too.
But we took an RS logo out of a tri-five mid-plate.
I remember this vividly and put them next to the side by side and Jeremy's like,
oh hell yeah, like this is awesome.
You know, and like, I remember you made a Facebook post and I'm like, dude,
Jeremy never makes Facebook posts.
And I did make a Facebook post to the RS TV stand you made.
Oh yeah.
And Jeremy welded that, I think.
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, beautiful.
Yeah, it was actually Cody.
I welded something though.
Let's just, I don't know.
Can we just, let's romance.
Let's not talk about Cody.
It was Jeremy.
It was Jeremy.
I was wrong.
Oh, it was the table.
It's Chris Gray's table.
That's right.
No, but afterwards we held them side by side.
I remember Josh walking over and you're like, yeah, man, it's pretty, it's pretty
cool.
It's pretty sweet.
Like, it's like, you don't understand.
Like, this is huge right now.
Big change.
Just by, obviously you understand, but it's just, it was just the RS logo in itself.
An entity was like, wow, this is going to be next level.
Now no one's going to bitch about anything being out of town.
It's going to, because the curve is so tight and everything.
And then the first complaint came in made me a super asshole.
What was that first complaint?
It was shoot.
I think it was a rounded hole on an IFS cross member.
And, and I'm like, look, man, like these aren't Pierce points anymore.
These are just absolute dialed in holes.
He's like, well, you know, it's just not the bolts not going through.
You got the wrong damn bolt, man.
I can't know.
It's a sometimes you get those old ones.
Oh, bolts.
Yeah, yeah, you got to throw those out.
That's a bad one.
I was going to just let it slide and see if it.
Yeah, that's a bad one.
Yeah, but honestly, that was that was the biggest change in what I thought was
the quality of our product, too, because we knew we could take weld.
I mean, we can weld the shit out of anything.
Everything was structurally sound over engineered.
Just absolutely beautiful, but it just made everything that much more nicer for
clientele to have something to really set.
It really set the stage for everything.
It really should be someone's like a timeline thing.
There's there's before laser and after laser.
It's a it's a completely change in everything that the Rocher shop did.
The in it, it's set in the motion like changes across the board.
I mean, engineering wise now are rethinking.
Yeah, how to build things, how to design things.
And then, you know, slowly, but surely you're going back because obviously
at that point you're going forward, but then.
You're still building some old stuff.
Man, you know what?
This thing needs to be some.
You know, we need to be some redesign, right?
There's there's more efficient and better looking, better quality ways
to build some of this stuff.
So we're telling you get that capability.
You end up making a better product once you learn it, figure out what else
you can do better and solve more problems and yeah, then it just makes a better product.
Right back to smart Mike, though.
You give him new toys.
He's going to figure out some cool ways to use them.
So yeah, he's definitely done.
Yeah, there's two things.
If you give us space and equipment, we will.
Maximize it and find its limitation.
Use the hell out of it.
Except the vacuum ceiling machine.
That was yet to be.
Right.
That was still on the shelf.
That one just didn't.
It's still on the shelf.
No one really never got wings.
It's day will come.
I know.
I'm not.
It will be used 100 percent.
Well, and when it when it is used, it will be epic.
I promise you that.
You're setting the stage for some pretty.
Yeah, it's going to be too small.
We're going to get a bigger one.
It's cold powered.
We've got something.
I think we cut the cord off of it anyway,
because we need to lower extension cord.
Yeah, I had to be wider that.
A little wire job for you.
We've got a product right now that is going to be impact
and will be game changer.
Probably be in a box.
You think so?
Yeah, it needs to be in a box and some foam.
I think better.
Say that you like a box, right?
Yeah, that's not a pack.
That's not a vacuum seal.
I'll say vacuum seal the box.
You know, there is the best of the world.
Probably a little overkill, but we could do it
just to make use of the machine.
Absolutely.
But no, you're right.
It just sets into motion and makes you rethink
like how things are done and move into different stuff.
You on on Jimmy moving into management
and then we're going to get into your transition as well,
Kyle. You had significant chassis under your belt
and significant milestones in roadstrips shop history
along the way.
And in full transparency, you turned down the first
offer of management and I.
Tried really hard and I generally take not getting
my way pretty well.
So I just kind of moved.
That's the thing about you.
You usually just roll over.
Yep.
Like, oh, well, no, I tried.
Yeah.
Jody says that all the time.
I do.
Just push it.
You're a push over.
It's so easy to get along with.
I don't like.
Kyle, would you agree with that?
No, come.
Stay out of that.
Super easy to get along with.
Troubled waters.
Just agree that I'm right to my face
and in the enemy behind my back and we will be great.
Let's just get to the.
But no, and I didn't, you know, I didn't like it.
I understood it.
I didn't like it, but I and I also thought that you were wrong.
I was like, I don't.
I don't think he's giving himself.
And I didn't know if it was a confidence thing
or it was not wanting the responsibility thing
or or a little bit of everything.
But I just was like, damn it.
This sucks because, you know, this is I think this is the right path.
But at the same time, we've always talked about this.
We've talked about internally, you know, you can't force somebody to do some
take on a job or something like that.
You can't talk them into something.
They might do it for a short time.
But if it's not, if they don't really want to do it,
then it's going to come back to bite you, right?
And so we, we, you know, we pivoted and we did some other different things.
And then opportunity arose second time around and kind of like.
I don't like being told no once.
I definitely don't like being told no twice.
So kind of like, you know, me and Phil talked, you know, and Jeremy as well.
We kind of like, man.
Yeah, I was like, Josh, you cannot do it at gunpoint.
I know it's persuasive.
But what if I hold it sideways?
It's been worse.
Remember, I grabbed the.
Yeah, you turned it.
I remember that.
But, you know, I came, I came to you and, you know, we talked and it was a
it was a completely different conversation then.
And then I know you said I need to think about it.
But even at that point, I was like, Oh, he's going to think about it,
but he's doing it like I can tell.
Yeah, I came up there and I knew the conversation was coming.
Yeah, it was, you know, well, it was all going on and pretty much had it set
my head that I was going to take that position.
First time around on the fence about it and didn't take it because I didn't want
the extra responsibility to have the head of the little kid going on and all
the stuff going on at home.
It didn't seem like the right fit.
Yeah.
Well, things happen for a reason.
Yeah.
And I mean, I think it's definitely worked out for everybody.
Yeah.
Why walk and you can run, Jimmy?
I mean, that's right.
What I think.
What?
I think you were you were cautiously optimistic.
I'm speaking for you and correct me at any time and all the times that I'm wrong.
Just let Jimmy say it.
I know I'm standing.
It's fine.
It's no force.
We'll bring him in here.
How did you feel?
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Yeah.
Good.
You're great.
There's like a there's like a process to this.
Got it.
Podcast master.
I could be trying to implement something.
No, it's a podcast process.
It's a this is a process.
The I I I think after talking to you that you were cautiously optimistic, but I
could tell that you had already some ideas, right?
Um, and is that true where you you had a little bit of confidence, but at the
same time, like being cautious of like, all right, there's, there's, there's
ways to do this right.
There's ways to do this wrong and take me through the first like day.
Like what was your thoughts that next?
Oh man, first day, like I started in the position.
Yeah.
It was, uh, as usual, the training was awesome of a little mic not doing
anything for me to train at all.
No.
I love that guy, but he was to get out the door already.
So, um,
appreciate you showing up with a suit on.
I mean, it looks I want to look professional at the part.
I thought the suit was a little weird.
I mean, he did, he did give you the, as he was peeling out of the driveway.
So like it was over the four hours training.
Hey man, you got this.
Good to go.
Text me anything.
It's not the first person that's done.
Yeah.
But, uh,
do you think about tuxedo t-shirts for managers?
It's not a bad idea.
You know, that's what Kellen drew.
Josh is his first cartoon of Josh.
He drew with a tuxedo t-shirt.
Pretty good one.
I have it on my phone.
It's fucking course you do.
He's got it made into a poster.
I'm sure.
Has he ever done one of me?
No, he has.
Come on.
No, he doesn't have one of you.
I haven't seen one of you.
I don't think he's done one of you.
Yeah, definitely me.
Definitely Jimmy.
Oh yeah.
Got me and little Mike connected together.
Oh yeah, he made you a single person.
Yeah, that is probably Jimmy with hair or Jimmy without hair?
With three lines, speaking capture somebody's essence.
It's honest to God, probably the most unbelievable talent I've ever seen.
It's really incredible.
Kellen's ability to draw people.
It's because they're almost like that John Lennon.
What's that?
There's like a famous John Lennon kind of sketch.
It's like it's very abstract.
It's just a few lines.
Who is the handsome Tim?
Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
A famous artist guy.
Yeah, his ability.
A profile.
He has the ability to draw somebody with such little detail and capture
complete every single aspect of that individual.
There was one person that didn't like it though.
I was the same.
Yeah, it was Bird.
But I mean, look at Bird Hair's drawing.
It was complete.
It was awesome.
It was Bird Hair.
It was your man.
The worst thing he did, though, was get mad about it because then they just showed
it.
It was all over the street.
It was every jig.
He took every jig, every the time clock, everything he taught.
He took laser cuts, scraps and still welded one.
It was a little excessive.
Yeah.
This this is one of those opportunities.
Ellie has got to jump in here.
We need to collect some of the Kellan's drawings.
Yeah.
I guess I think the world needs to see it.
Kellan is a true, not only is it an unbelievable craftsman, a great dude, but
that is a skill set like I've never seen before.
And the best part about it is it's most of it was done on a dry erase board.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's I have it all.
I'm going to require I will probably regret this, but I'm going to request a
Yeah, you're going to regret it.
Maybe I shouldn't do that.
Yeah.
Thinking about requesting a version of me.
I knocked out on it.
Second, I think I think you're all one.
I think you're going to be disappointed because you're looking for it.
You need to like see it in the wild.
I just want to see it.
It's like, hey, it's not fucking terribly offensive.
Yeah.
I mean, Josh Schottenkirk hung his on the lift when he scans things.
His is really.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you just tell us off for a little bit.
But when he, yeah, hey, Kellen, you got some time right now.
We're requesting.
And Phil's coming with it too.
So back to, you know, first day.
What were you most mean?
Short of the lack of training.
What were you most nervous about?
Pretty much just how the rest of the shop was going to take it, you know?
I mean, I worked side by side.
All those guys down there for years and, you know, I had respect with all of them.
But, you know, that respect doesn't always transfer over when you get in that
management role.
Yeah.
And I think that was my biggest hang up.
But I mean, I think everybody quickly showed me that respect.
And it was a complete 180 of what I thought it was going to be.
You know, I mean, even the guys that I thought I was going to have an issue with,
I don't have an issue with.
And I think that's just a lot of it was to do with me being on the floor for so long.
Yeah.
Actually working side by side and helping them out and, you know,
not being a complete asshole the whole entire time.
It's amazing how they act when you just can make sure everybody
can stay working and get them the things they need.
That's the other thing too.
Yeah.
Keeping the guys fed is just that's all they want.
They just want to work.
If they don't have work for a little bit, they're going to be pissed off,
you know, within an hour, you know?
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That that I've always said in Cal, I think I've told you this before, you know,
whether I'm right or wrong, I've always said that respect is taken.
It's not necessarily earned.
And we sort of prove that you guys talk about MPH, Mr. Potato Head.
And nobody really loved Mr. Potato Head.
But here we are talking about how we all respect him.
Yeah.
Because he was he was good at what he did.
He did it efficiently, did it fast.
And, you know, Jimmy, I think you I mean, you certainly earned it, right?
You were from a personality standpoint.
Everybody sort of flocked to you.
You were always a leader in the chassis department.
But when you just do it and do it well, regardless of whether people love you,
or hate you, whatever your personality is, if you're good at what you do
and the best of what you do, people are going to fucking respect it.
Yeah.
And no matter what, and it's yeah, I think that's the way it goes.
Yeah.
What were you most surprised about getting in?
Global shop?
Global shop.
Yeah, the amount of surprise shop, the fucking folders, man.
The folders everywhere that need to be somewhat organized.
And you guys thought I was just like fucking playing with those things.
Yeah, I don't know. I thought it was just, you know, your little side project.
You'll finish up there.
I don't know. I thought this is your opportunity.
I'll say this.
You're just playing with them.
So that's a, I'm telling you, the folders, the folders are
that we're getting to the point where, yeah, it's about to be no more folders.
That'd be great.
It's a new process.
Yeah.
It's a new process.
Something.
And implementation would be, yeah.
But I mean, I that's where I mean, you had some great talks, whatever.
I loved that part of it because you kind of see in the other side, right?
And kind of seeing, yeah, the folders, there's a lot of folders, you know,
but kind of getting those organized and you have zero folders.
You've got a you've got a handful of files.
You have zero folders.
If there's something that's moved more times in this shop, it's those folders.
Oh, God, you had to be moved.
We should put an air tag on them and just see how many files they get.
Once they, it took it took about a year for them to leave Phil's office.
Phil held on to him tight for a little while.
And then once they got a shit ton of files.
So it's like, I think he was trying to increase his file size.
But once they once they moved, they had to, you know, but again,
seeing that kind of from a bigger picture side of things and how,
you know, everything feeds together and it's kind of like a ballet.
And it's it's more than just, you know, you and your chassis
or even you and your chassis department.
You know, there's a lot of moving parts.
Pretty incredible. Yeah.
Seeing behind the scenes and actually see what it takes that I thought,
I was just, Hey, here's a chassis build it.
You know, no, it's a lot more than just a lot more than just here.
Build this chassis.
It's a lot of moving parts behind the scenes that, you know, I'd try to explain
to the guys a little bit that actually care, but they still don't understand
what the hell I do up there.
They think I just sit up there and play Tetris, but it's a little.
I mean, it's a little bit.
Number one, you should have checked Jimmy.
Well, it's a little bit.
It's a little bit like whack-a-mole.
If you had to hit a three at the same time, perfectly every time, like it's
is very, you know, as long as you can do that cadence and make sure everything
feeds from both ends, it's it works, but.
Go ahead.
Finish there. No, I thought you were done.
No, I'm done. I am done.
How much of your experience dealing with it for that long has kind of helped
insight in how to make things better, that maybe you saw things from the other side
that me or Josh didn't see.
And you're like, hey, I'm doing this.
It's taken a lot of extra time.
Or if it was presented in this manner, it'd be so much easier for the fabricator.
I mean, no, there's definitely a lot of that just on the paperwork side of things.
Just making sure all those like, you know, if it's a narrow, that should actually
calls out. It's a narrow, not just somewhere in the sheet that it might might
reflect that it's narrow.
Just kind of nailing down all those little things that, you know, once it gets
down on the floor, that chassis is going to be ready to build, and it's not going
to have 10 million questions tied to that chassis on what it actually is going to be.
Just a lot of communication between sales.
You know, I have been kind of helping out with the quality control department.
A lot of help from him catching a lot of those mistakes of, hey, this was supposed
to be this, it's this, we need to fix this paperwork.
Now I can, you know, get with Steve.
We can update that paperwork and all the paperwork moving forward
that, you know, maybe Josh wouldn't really see on that part because he doesn't have
that chassis building experience of being down on the floor.
That's just a lot of that.
That was big.
He came up in the frustration.
I remember, shit, it was probably 10 years ago before he put in the new ERP system.
And it was, all right, we're going to build this chassis shit.
It's a narrow front end.
Somebody built a wide front end.
We've got 20 sets of Chevelle front and rear rails, but nobody built mids.
Just constantly never having all the right pieces to build something.
Everyone's busy.
We had stuff going on everywhere in the shop, but yeah.
Yeah.
No, it's making sure everything actually funnels down into the correct locations
and get it, get it out the door.
It's a lot of moving, moving parts.
Yeah.
It's, I mean, it's quite the symphony.
Yeah.
You think about how that all comes together.
Kyle, your side, you know, you, you went from, you know, running the laser table
and, you know, in hand in production of chassis fabrication.
And then when we moved facilities, we went through some changes and work around
and had an opera.
We had an opening and we had several people try their hand at what needed to be done.
Yeah.
And we had a conversation and said, I think that Kyle can do this because there
was a, this was the conversation in full honesty, full transparency.
Everything that that shop needed was exactly what you can do and what your
mentality is and the right amount of pressure that needs.
However, also, and again, the other thing, there would need to be a tweak on the
messaging.
And that's on the delivery.
Yeah, not the message.
The message is good.
Let's how are we going to serve that message?
And that's me and you had that, that actual conversation.
And I knew.
Did Josh change after that?
Josh and I crossed a bridge that day, honestly.
Well, before then, before then.
Let's talk through that.
How did that?
No, we can't.
I don't give a shit.
Kyle did not like me.
I think I think absolutely he talked about it.
Just.
Oh, shit.
It's a big table.
Let's throw all the luxury on it.
No, honestly, Josh and I just never seen I die and this is there's no sugar coating
it.
It's just we we beat two different drums and neither of us.
I felt I can't even play the drums.
Me neither.
I did.
I did play the snare.
I can play the drums.
And that's why you're our boss.
But honestly, we just never saw it.
I because I think it was just the a type kind of personalities going head to head.
And and we always had the same goal in mind.
And we always wanted to accomplish success.
We always wanted to knock out things, but just in our own ways.
And yeah, and just we just never never really like cared to at least I can speak for myself
here.
I don't really care to hear what you have to say because I felt like it was the same
way, you know, returning back.
So but after a while, it's once you know, you shake off the shit and get through it
and you just realize that, hey, we're just trying to make this place this shit and it's
coming and really just build this place into what we both think it needs to be.
I mean, I don't think we've had a bad conversation since.
No.
And and just after that conversation and going into it, it was just it's just like the laser
table or the plasma table.
There was a problem at hand that needed to be solved.
There was a, you know, a lack thereof of work that was happening or whatever the case
may have been.
And I am not objective to kind of solve those problems that the shop really needs
to needs to be resolved.
So I, you know, took it upon myself and spoke with Jeremy, spoke with you and thought that,
you know, if there's a problem that needs to be worked out, let's fucking work this out.
You know, let's let's rubber heads together and actually get this stuff done because it's
not RS1.
It's not RS2.
It's the roaster shop.
Right.
Well, yeah, I mean, we work, we work through that, you know, a little bit before even the
RS2 thing came around or whatever.
So we're in a different space.
And I remember we went over to RS2 and I would very specifically wanted to go through like
the four or five major hurdles that we constantly encounter.
Right.
And some of that was organizational and the staging of the chassis and then how the flow
through was.
And then, you know, some of the, just the production that needed to happen, you know,
with, with powder coating and assembly and a couple of the other stages, very briefly
just kind of said, Hey, this is how it works.
This is always an issue.
This is always an issue.
This right here for whatever reason we keep trying, it can't be fixed.
The other day I said, those are the things that need to be fixed.
What we're asking is let's not, let's try not to lose employees.
Right.
Unless they do something fucking stupid.
However, they're, they're pretty talented.
Been around for a while.
Let's get everybody on the same page.
How you do that, it's your show.
And that was, that was the conversation.
Like you, you can do this.
And me and you had the conversation.
Like, dude, I want to say the same shit the same way you do sometimes.
But like, now, if that happens, you're going to have to be assembling all those
chassis.
So that's that, like, there's a way to get through.
And I mean, dude, I could not.
I mean, I remember I've done nothing but sing your praises, you know, since then
tell, you know, tell them all the time, whatever, come back.
It's like running like a sewing machine, right?
And then when the problems, it's never going to eliminate problems, problems happen.
Right.
Of course.
When the problems do happen, we've all kind of worked really well together.
And the kind of the unwritten rule when anybody of, you know, management or any of
us are dealing with somebody is like, we always come to the, come to us, hey, this
is fucked up.
I think we can fix it a couple of these ways.
What are your thoughts?
Like, yeah, got a possible solution or even it's already being handled, just letting
you know, you know, versus the this broke.
Well, how did it break?
It's just broke.
It's bad one.
So much really do something about it.
Yeah.
I don't know.
And you, and you've, you've done the same way.
You're like, Hey, identify a problem.
This is something.
Do you think got an idea thinking about doing it this way?
99.9% of the time, whatever it was like, sounds like a fucking great idea.
Do it.
Right.
There's other times I'm like, yeah.
What about if we tweak it this way?
Because this right here is going to happen.
If we do that, you're like, Oh, yeah.
Okay.
I see that you're right.
What if we do it this way?
I'm like, Oh, yeah.
Okay.
Let's bounce around.
Super.
It's just at the end of the day, another thing that we've always, that we kind of
talked about through our like transition of, you know, working together.
And I get it.
Are we, that's why we kind of work.
Yeah.
Other good.
Yeah.
Good.
That's just for the inside inside.
But, uh, cause we talked about it before, especially on the assembly side.
And we talked about it on the fabrication side too, is the guy that spent his money,
you know, six months ago, five months ago, right to the salesman does not give a
flying fuck about what your attitude is or my attitude is.
Or if you think it should be done this way or you think it should be done this way,
blah, blah.
What we have to do is get him the highest quality product in the least amount of
time and, and make his experience good.
So all of this is like, besides the point that wrote, well, I don't have a roadshow.
You're that logo, that logo, yeah, the trading post lounge is what.
But the, the roadshow shop is what matters, right?
So we can put all of it in as long as we can work that way.
We can leave here at five o'clock.
And if we just don't get along, we just don't get along.
But in this doors, we got to do what needs to be done to take care of those customers.
And that's at that point, shit just works because that's all that matters.
You don't get, you cash credit, right?
You don't cash.
It was my idea.
So I'm going to go and cash this idea.
It doesn't work that way.
Nobody gives a fuck.
Customer doesn't give a fuck.
That's the realest thing I can tell all the guys that are working, you know,
it's just, it's not my chassis.
It's not your chassis.
Right.
You know, you have your staple on it and as well as I have mine, maybe not physically,
but, you know, at the end of the day, this is somebody's car.
This is somebody's passion.
This is someone's dream.
They couldn't afford this 10 years ago, but they can now.
You know, there's so many different stories that go with our chassis and that go out.
And the fact that we can contribute in the best way possible.
And if there's a problem, we can make it even better and learn from it and keep on going.
And that's what's cool about like when you do customer pickups and stuff and
getting to meet these things, like putting that personality behind it, like, oh, well,
that's it.
It's a, you know, honestly, that is, that's Kyle's sweet spot.
You know, Kyle's got that.
It's a people met no enemies.
I mean, that is probably the thing that I hear the most, the feedback, whether it's
us going to dinner and Kyle is best boys with the busboy, the waiter, the guy, the valet guy.
I mean, everybody loves Kyle.
Like because you're you just know how to engage with people, treat people.
And I know when we send somebody to ours to regardless of who that individual is, like,
I think that that person has a positive experience.
Yeah.
With you as the lead man over there.
As long as it's not a cab driver in Vegas, I think they have.
Yeah.
Oh, probably.
I'm pretty.
Yeah, but that's a great tip.
I don't know what you're.
Exactly how the Uber guy's out there.
So no one went to turn it on and turn it off.
Oh, wait, I'll get to front.
I'm like, damn it.
This is going to be a fucking conversation.
I do like, yeah, those are.
And those are.
Yeah.
My man.
The Uber rides.
I had a guy riding the sidewalk in Vegas.
Yeah, but no, you realistic grizzly bear body that turns around and it's like a teddy bear face on it.
Scared.
We do have a lot of positive comments on on the interactions of, you know, with you and Kyle and a lot of I mean with with Denise and with Eva and Maria.
And that's, you know, we've talked about that a bunch of times.
It's like.
You're the last person to interact with that customer.
You're the last person to do things.
We had this meeting the other day, you know, and it's like.
You might think that the way you put those nails in don't mean shit, right?
But when the guy's been waiting that five months, he spent that much money and those doors swing open to get that chassis.
Those three, those four nails on the end of that board right there is the first thing he sees.
Or the way that stickers put on that crate is the first thing he sees.
You might think it's not a big deal as long as it sticks on there.
It could be half ass crooked.
And at the end of the day, half ass crooked, not the end of the world.
But when the customer that paid, you know, what he paid and waited, what he paid, waited, it's a representation of what might be.
Like, we can't even give a shit about putting the sticker on, right?
So those little things and it seems sometimes they seem anal and you're like, man, I can't believe this guy's jumping my ass for dumb shit like this.
But it's the last the last thing that you guys do is the first things that that guy sees, you know, where the box is strapped down, you know, and it's.
There's a lot of shit.
The first things that we do, you know, the guy doesn't, you know, it's most important, like the engineering and some of the other kind of stuff.
Some of the most important stuff, but it's not the first thing the guy sees.
Yeah, absolutely.
First thing he saw when he maybe bought the chassis, you know, online or at a show or something like that.
But when he's getting his like that, that's a lot different to build.
Somebody's want to not build their need.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Aspirational product.
They've been dreaming about for a long time and spent a bunch of time on the Internet looking at it and researching it.
And it's like, you want to have that aha moment when you open it up and the lights come on.
And it's exactly what we should put lights in it.
That'd be cool.
Little mercury switch.
Yeah.
Fireworks.
We kind of had that conversation with Dave trading post lodge for like, you have a restaurant in a vacation town, like on your worst day at work, that's still somebody else's like vacation and the best time of their life.
And they're going to you for a good job.
So you've got to be providing that to them.
And yeah, it's hard to reframe that with everything else going on and keep that at the forefront.
It's all different, but all the same.
Yeah, it really is.
Every every time we got a guy that comes up, whether it's in like some rusted out square body Chevy, that's, you know, that's mine, by the way, not yours.
You know, with a solid axle for an interview.
Which one?
He's just getting off the work.
He was just cutting out logs.
He's just logging up in the hills of Illinois and showing up to pick up his drywall.
She brought one did show.
But or, you know, pulling up in a Denali or whatever the case may be, the client tells from mild to wild.
You get the garage guys, you get the big time builders, you get everybody in between.
And honestly, like the things that we're able to do for every single person in between that spectrum is is just awesome.
And and seeing their satisfaction and their gratitude and just like completing something that they feel like they've never seen in their life before because they haven't.
And then finally revealing it and showing them and to see the look on their face is just that's enough for me.
I mean, that's that's what does it for me.
And I know the sales guys are probably numb to it because they see it all the time.
And that's just the way that the sales market goes.
But absolutely, like having your hands on it and knowing what went into it, knowing the framerals that were built for it.
Knowing the front ends that were TIG welded every single piece and part and thing that was done all the way to this point to their delivery has been
super satisfying and making sure that the last possible piece of the puzzle is just making them leave with a smile on their face because they're going to drive away for 12 hours or wherever it is.
And the last thing they're going to think about is, hey, go build something badass or hey, go handle this thing away.
It should be handled or drive this shit out of this thing or do enjoy the way you're running.
And that's and that's what does it for me.
So yeah, it's like Bill's talking about it.
I mean, you get this is this is an aspirational thing for the person, you know, or it could be their first build or their seventh build, whatever it is.
You know, they're excited to do it.
It's not it's not a need. No point in time.
They're like, it's not damn it.
I got to get another chassis.
You know, you know, that's something they want to do.
So everybody that has a hand in it all the way from, you know, sales,
Brian, the truck driver, engineering, creating on it.
So what you're doing on that chassis is you were like, put it in music stuff like that's a one man, like one person concert.
That's a single performance for a single person.
Right. So if you fuck that up, you can't tell them how many good concerts you did before that guy showed up.
Right.
Because you're not going to be like, oh, because you talked to somebody and mistakes happen.
Right. I get that.
But how you handle them.
But if you do a shitty job on a crate or packaging the parts or doing something like that,
you could have that could have been your first mistake in, you know, six months, whatever.
And you're like, holy shit. Yeah, damn.
All right, I will try not to do it again.
You know, I haven't had any mistakes in a while.
Well, that guy does not give a shit.
His one time for you to perform.
You fucked up.
Right. So that's it's a difficult.
It's a daunting to do when you put it in those terms.
Oh, shit. So it doesn't really matter what I have.
What my body work is, it's every single time somebody's going to see that and be like, oh, shit.
And if you mess it up, you got to make it right.
Yeah, you got to make it right.
Thank God for those t-shirts, man.
I'm just kidding. No, I mean, customers are pretty, you know, compliant when it comes to
people, they know people make mistakes.
They know this stuff's handmade.
And as many times that we haven't messed up, I'm not going to let we have messed up.
There's been times where something wasn't ready.
We didn't have the right part on there.
Something like that has happened.
And, you know, we're all human.
We all make mistakes.
But, you know, making it right and letting them know, being fully transparent,
not trying to cover anything up and actually showing forward like, this is what happened.
Start to finish.
This is how we screwed up.
We will make it right for you.
Anything else we can do for you.
Right.
I mean, that's that's what any business should ride at.
But that's what we'll make sure we do every single time.
Tell them about going to shows and stuff.
You're coming with customers going to shows, you know, I think for all of us sales guys
and you guys included whatever, it's like a recharge rejuvenation,
kind of a realignment of why kind of we're doing this when you actually get the feedback
of some of these people.
Okay.
Let's face it.
There's some times that you just, you know, it's a tough week.
It's a.
Yeah, this is so and there's been many of them lately.
The recent podcast that went out.
With the Custom Shop.
I think that was the one that we talked about the Jackass hand.
Oh, yeah.
Coming at you.
Yeah.
That resonated.
I got a lot.
Did you?
I got a lot of texts of LOL, dude.
I was literally saying the same thing.
Dude, you are in my head like shop owners.
You know, there's people don't realize that this is a very tight knit group.
It's a it's a community.
And yeah, that is it's a struggle, you know, but where you're going with that is
that that is what makes it all worthwhile when you get out and you see
you're at the show, you see the product in action.
You see the customers enjoying the product.
Kyle's been there a lot.
Jimmy's building fucking motorcycles and shit all the time on the side.
He chooses he chooses to fix things and keep working.
Hey, was it he was at SEMA?
Yeah, he did come to see the riding dirt bikes anymore.
Yeah, yeah.
100% he is.
Oh, is it like a fair?
You signed a contract and said you were not doing that anymore.
His daughter's on it now, so he can't screw up.
Yeah, I can't.
I can't fucking up too bad, I think.
Yeah. No more broken arms, maybe.
Oh, damn it.
Damn it.
I can still type, though, and do the computer on broken arm.
Do you like to?
Was the the screws is a better means of fixing the break, though, right?
Like because we've had a lot of broken bones in the Gerber House.
Sure. But when you absolutely fucking snap the bone,
yeah, the healing process is quicker when you screw up.
100% they had to screw back together.
Also, it'd be, you know, they said like a year.
You know, I actually do something with my arm.
Yeah, no, this could weld it was.
Yeah, that is the way to go.
Any is that thing heel deserves?
It's healed. It gives me problems, you know, you know,
whenever it's changes of weather and stuff, I can definitely feel it.
Wake up and it's aching.
Yeah, I can't really throw a baseball anymore,
which I'm not really concerned about.
Is that your right arm? Yeah. Yeah.
Do you throw baseball?
No, never.
Maybe you throw a little baseball.
My nephew.
Spokey fuckers, Kyle.
Rip and fucking bite.
So.
And getting what you got sliced up the forearm.
Yeah.
You guys are weak.
Yeah. Oh, no.
We.
It's back, baby.
They reconnected it.
Yeah, did a good job.
Shout out to the doctor.
Illinois born and joint.
Yeah, there you go.
Straight G.
We've been there a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, to do shit, you win stupid prizes.
Yeah, your your point, you know, you get out to those shows
and you see the product in action.
Yeah, going to going to SEMA this last year, you know,
it's kind of first time going there with a little bit of a
different mindset from, you know, management standpoint
and under kind of stand understanding a little bit more
so the volumes from these builders and who they are and how
they're getting used. I mean, obviously you've been around.
You kind of know it, but this is looking through a different
lens a little bit. Then like I'm a fabricator.
I fabricated some of these now.
It's like, oh, I got some weight to what we're doing or whatever.
How did.
I was going to say, I think the not so much as most recent
time I went to SEMA the first time I went was what 2019,
2018 or something that can't remember.
But I built the first RS4R chassis that we debuted out there.
And just I mean, it was in the hallway.
Didn't seem like it got a whole lot of attention at first,
but I kind of like, you know, eyeballed it, came back around
and there's everybody just flocking over the chassis.
And that really just that made my my, you know, the whole
everything I worked for on that thing that really just
showed it off right there.
That's like all TIG welded first chassis we made of the RS4R.
Now they're all MIG welded, but now that was that was definitely
an incredible experience to see in all that all that hard work
that we put into that thing that all the people appreciated it.
Yeah.
I was a follow all the other shops to say like, hey, I'm building
this chassis.
Yeah, yeah.
And then you see the car later on.
Yeah, no, there's definitely a lot of that.
You know, some of those cool chassis that came along or like the
one you know, you see on the work order some of the chassis name
or the shop names and stuff like that.
So I never heard of that shop.
Looked them up on Instagram and started following them.
Just see where that car kind of went after after it came out of
my hands, where that car kind of went was always cool, cool little thing to watch out for.
What's your view on that, Kyle?
Being out, you've been out there a handful of times and yeah, you work
with a lot of these guys.
What's it like seeing it on the world stage there?
Um, I mean, it's just like everything else.
Just right at the front door at the doors to me, it's just that's just a
bigger broadcast of it.
But I mean, it's, it's just really powerful to be part of the impact.
It's just really cool to see that everything that you do, everything that
you work hard on that you think absolutely nobody sees is actually what everybody
sees and what everybody is actually praising and wants and you created that need.
And so it's just awesome to see that.
And, um, every time you go out and see it, it's, you know, people talk to you.
So like, where'd you get that t-shirt from?
You know, like, uh, built that motherfucker, you know, and we put that thing together.
Oh man, like, uh, it's hearing those people get that excited over.
It's like, fuck dude, I'm excited too.
You know, it's like a dog wagging his tail.
You know, sick.
Yeah, dude's really cool.
Isn't it?
It's pretty sweet.
So it is good.
It's awesome.
You try to answer the questions and you realize how bad of a salesman you can be
when you're at shows and, you know, like Irvin and Phil, I mean, they got the
lingo down, they know all the names, they know this guy and that guy and stuff.
So when you're out there and you.
But it's not how bad, I mean.
Yeah, you say how you're not a salesman.
But you're that's not that's not your job.
But people want to hear from the guy that's responsible for building it.
Yeah, you're telling it like it is.
Yeah, you know that.
Yeah.
Behind the scenes.
Yeah, not to discredit Phil, Smut and Irvin, but Irvin doesn't build chassis.
Yeah, that's a great job.
Phil's never.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, it's good.
Phil, with those good looks, you could probably.
He's probably just looking.
You think you don't want to put that behind the wheel?
I know.
Yeah, I know.
He probably I wonder if you can get a well.
You think anybody with 3D print a welding helmet of.
Of so.
Space with just a little like just the eyes.
You just get a wrap.
Is that you're right?
That's too pretty to cover up.
Yeah.
Well, he can turn.
Make, make well to a take well with the guys.
That's true.
That's ultimately.
Yeah.
Take the salesmanship out.
And that's I think that is the thing with our product is that, yeah, we've got great sales guys.
Their job is to take care of the customer.
Their job is not to sell the product.
Product is designed to sell itself.
Yeah, we've proven it.
It performs.
Just look at it, you know, and that I think that's why people do want to talk to guys like, you know, you
Kyle and Jimmy.
They want to hear it from the source.
That's why I think guys thrive on coming to RS to pick up the chassis to talk to you to hear that
experience to engage with you.
You know, Jimmy, you don't have a lot of interaction with guys here, but you know, that's that's what
people want.
They don't want.
Yeah.
The customers are very intelligent.
Yeah.
Nobody wants to be sold on anything.
They made the right decision on their own.
Right.
They see it in the wrong.
Yeah.
And they actually, you know, want to know what it isn't what the salesman isn't going to say and that
kind of thing.
But yeah, it's just getting wrapped up of like, Hey, am I just saying the right thing or am I not saying
the right thing?
But in reality, it's we're probably making a bigger impact than what we are psychologically
thinking.
So just go back to like bad ass, man.
It's super bad.
Every answer is bad.
It's crazy.
It's like if they're sick, it's sick.
It's sick.
It's so crazy.
It's super dope.
What is up?
You can swing the lingo together.
That thing's a fucking unit.
An absolute slacker.
I thought we were going to go the entire podcast without you.
It's died off.
It probably got overused for a while.
It did.
Shout out to 2020 because that was the phrase of the year.
I like how anytime like there's a term that my kids who are 15 and 13 know, I could kind
of like say it before it even comes to my mouth.
He's just doing that and giggling in the corner because he knows.
This is the pop culture.
You got to stay.
Bottle.
Yeah, you got to stay with the lingo.
You got to stay ahead of these kids.
That's what I'm saying.
That's the best part.
I try to like guide you through it too.
Like I try my best like you got to stay on board with me here.
These kids are going to overtake us.
But in reality, I mean, shit, what are the last managers meeting when they're like,
yeah, we got like 67
And Kyle just loses it.
I started laughing.
Nobody else had any idea.
We had a moment.
We're that cool.
Got a new bottle.
New bottle bottle drop.
Yep.
We were fortunate enough that some, you know, there are a handful of people that listen
to his podcast every once in a while.
Somebody will send us something, something local, something that means something to them.
And this comes from Austin Fips at Fips built to build some awesome stuff.
Yes.
Yeah.
Obviously, check him out on Instagram.
Full transparency.
This one got sent a while back.
Sometimes that happens.
Yeah.
Maybe a significant time back.
Yeah.
I got put in a place that it probably shouldn't have gotten in one of those places
that gets forgot about.
So it's easy to lose track of bottles.
But it is.
It is.
It was.
For I'll say this for future reference, just send them to me and they'll get on
here immediately because this says, Hey, Josh, this doesn't say, Hey,
because if this was, Hey, Jeremy, you know, like it would be, it would have gotten a
shout out featured.
It would be a shout out.
We plug the overhead cam.
We can do it right now.
You know, Josh can do that.
You're right.
Because you've got the history of that's what I do.
Right.
And everybody knows that planning it in Johnny on the spot.
100%.
Well, I don't have to plan it, which is why it allows me to do things like bring
the bottle of whiskey to the podcast and talk about it.
So the panel, because Josh plans it on handles it, but the pendulum straight
bourbon aged 10 years.
Hey, Josh, this is semi local to us.
In Northeast Oregon.
Hope it's good enough for the experts.
Enjoy.
Austin Phipps, Phipps built.
Thanks, Austin.
It's a 10 year and we're going to dive into this.
It's got to be great.
10 years.
Got a cowboy little buck and Bronco on there, which is pretty bad ass.
Yeah.
Oregon go one of two ways.
There's a element of cool about Oregon because it's mostly Eric Black.
Wyoming.
Wyoming.
Yeah.
Oh, you don't live there anymore.
Does he live in Oregon?
Pretty sure.
Yeah.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
That's that'll be the first.
That's the first.
Josh has been crapping on him for a long time and I've been defending him.
That might be the first time that I've.
That the tables have turned.
No offense, Austin.
Thanks for the bottle, but there's some weird shit that goes on.
Let's see how their bourbon is.
Kyle's a big bourbon guy.
Let's let you hit this first.
All right.
For both of you guys, what is what is if you think back about old days,
a road to shop, what is something that you think back is like the most
monumental change, the biggest change or the thing that you're like, holy crap,
I can't believe we used to do that.
Oh man, you go first.
I gotta think about it.
I gotta think about that one too.
That was a tough one.
It's a hard question.
Um, I'd say just the, uh, I mean, I'm going to go back to the whole
process thing of it, you know, actually implementing, uh, four quarters that can
be tracked and followed throughout the whole process of building a chassis.
You know, we didn't really have that before.
It's kind of word of mouth.
Hey, we're going to build a, you know, 67 Chevelle, figure it out.
Um, here's some, maybe some parts or over there.
Uh, Rails might be somewhere.
We've got to find those.
Um, just the organization and the tracking of everything that really changed the
game of production.
Um, that was something that when I started here, we didn't have at all.
It was just me running around trying to find shit and put into a little
Mike's bin for him to maybe build us.
Yeah.
What's funny is, is through the, you know, talking about process stuff again, the,
uh,
because they're super on board with it at the time.
The process is going to be the work of 2026.
At the beginning, you know, you know, of the, of the major implementation.
And then, you know, there's obviously, I mean, Howard, we're doing new things
all the time every week.
You know, you've got some, like other stuff that kind of comes in.
The buy-in was, uh, not as enthusiastic as your, uh, as your
rave review that you just gave.
Um, great follow-up question for that.
And now it's funny how remembering the not so rave review and enthusiasm that
was input and then the, the,
it's fucking stupid.
The hand, the, the almost, uh, handcuffed or addicted to, uh, said process that was
not.
So it's like, Hey, we cut this out.
I mean, if I guess you could create a work order and run it through the
press, it's like, dude, we got it.
Are you kidding me?
There is some times we can just get some shit done.
Uh, but it's funny that, you know, now it's like, well, if it's not on the
work center and there's no work order, like what?
We can't get something done.
Like, Hey, can you just like order this part?
Well, I'm going to need an order.
We got to put that through the system.
It's a lug nut.
Just fucking order it.
Yeah.
Well, let's just one little lip here.
There's processes that you have put in place that you don't follow.
100%.
Yeah.
That's the power that comes from being the process.
Such as, yeah.
There's one last.
Let me hear.
I just have to make an SPO.
I don't know how to make an SPO.
Oh, I'm not.
I'm, I was I saying, how does I do?
I famous term.
I've explained the fact that I'm not going to do an SPO, nor can I do an SPO.
Right.
And I made the explanation.
I think it finally said in, uh, if a customer is reaching out to one of us to
make something happen, and then we're saying, Hey, make this happen.
We have deemed it necessary to skip the SPO process to make this customer happy.
If it was something that needed an SPO, you would have seen it because it would
have went to a sales guy and then that's what would happen.
So I'm not skirting this.
I mean, I am, but I'm skirting the system.
And I think we all are doing that.
It's all we wanted.
It's all we wanted.
Yeah.
I'm not ready to get it done.
We'll get it done.
It's fine.
We'll get it done.
I'm fully admitting it.
I saw an opportunity and I took it.
You're fully allowed to do that.
How many SPO's have you made?
Glasshouse.
I make a shit ton of PO's, dude.
If something comes in, that is a, that is a P O S P O.
Elemental.
Yeah.
I don't see your name on any of them.
100 percent.
No, that's usually a phone call with me.
That is if I need something done, it's getting done in the fucking cowboy fashion.
That is on the goddamn shop floor.
Jimmy, get the shit done.
Kyle, I fucking need this right now.
Let's make this fucking happen.
And I'm with it till the end.
Because that's how I fucking roll.
Fuck your ass.
I mean, we got some cross members going through the system right now.
Yeah, goddamn right.
You just gotta get sometimes things just have to get done.
The cowboy and the process.
There's two different levels.
That's right.
And sometimes the cowboy outweighs a process.
Sometimes the problem.
And when that is when the cowboy rides away.
George Strait fucking.
He's he's sung it.
And what was your follow up question to him here for?
All right, so both of you, I think, have done a phenomenal job of just fucking
save you ever fucking phenomenal job.
I'll just take it.
Well, you have a phenomenal job of taking the management role and then really
like owning the whole business side of it.
And then when you look back at like you brought up earlier, you're like,
oh, yeah, now like you're off for a day that's growing up my
chassis numbers.
Like I got to have them here.
I guess, how did you make that switch and what was it that almost
enlightened you to kind of see in the bigger picture opposed to just what
you're doing on a daily basis?
I think it's a lot of it's, you know, we have a goal then the month to hit
this number of chassis to get out the door.
I'm going to try to do everything in my power to get that goal.
I mean, I'm down there welding chassis down there, welding the chassis today
because we had a call off.
But, you know, that didn't affect me before.
If I called off, I just called off when I was a chassis guy.
I didn't come to work.
All right, cool.
Now somebody calls off.
Well, now that's a day loss in production.
I got to figure out how to fill that role.
I'm going to either going to backfill that with somebody else working on
that chassis or I'm going to go down there myself and just work on that
chassis because it's got to get done.
Um, it's just, you know, trying to get that end goal together and trying to
actually get that going.
Uh, I think that kind of really changed my, my whole process of it.
You know, you guys gave me, me a new objective than just
building a chassis.
Guys gave me an objective of, Hey, we got to hit this goal and I'm going
to try to do that.
You know, now you know why not just Kyle didn't like me.
We got goals, man.
I try to tiptoe around that with the guys on the floor too about
saying stuff like that, cause like they don't want to fucking hear my goals.
Shit about my goals.
I get it.
You know, so we, we obviously didn't do that great of a job relaying that to
the guys on the floor.
Yeah.
Is there something that could be done better that you came from that role now
into the management role that you could kind of bridge that gap to build the
team to get that mentality and moving forward.
Um, maybe like a sticker chart or something.
It definitely not fucking sticker chart.
Yeah.
We don't need your star chart again.
That's holy shit.
Now we could go back and just do the first three months.
It was amazing.
See, I was terrible at the sticker chart.
Okay.
So it's because your attendance fucking sucks.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
You fucking did.
Let's be honest here.
Let's cut the shit.
We're throwing rocks.
Yeah.
I apparently worked 40 and I didn't fucking hit my sticker chart.
Yeah.
My fucking yeah.
So no, it was no serious question.
Like the, I think Phil's what I am changing what Phil's asking, but appreciate that.
No, I'm expanding upon it.
That transition from you being a chassis builder and then your now your job is to
meet these goals, right?
And those goals aren't just arbitrary stuff, right?
We're, we're keeping up with demand, right?
So as, as sales come in, we need to reduce lead times.
We need to make sure that stuff.
So it's not just an arbitrary number of like, let's build more and see what happens.
Your transition of coming in and seeing the other side of it, right?
And having that order of importance across all, how do you get an individual chassis
builder to kind of see that other side as well and understand that the, his goal,
his individual goal does affect the entire business.
Yeah.
I mean, it's definitely, it's been a struggle.
It still is a struggle trying to get everybody on board with that.
You know, there's some guys down on the floor that can see kind of where I'm coming
from on those things and they'll, you know, be staying late to get that extra
chassis out or whatever it is.
The other guys that, you know, don't see that at all in their piece now at two
o'clock, which is fine, you know, but trying to get them all on board with that same
goal, uh, that one's a little more difficult trying to get them all on board
of the same goal of putting out a solid product.
That one's actually fairly easy to do.
You know, there's a lot of the guys down there that would, they'd put so much
pride into their work and they want to do a good job.
Yeah.
That's, I'd, as a fabricator, I'd rather see that than hitting that.
And number, which, you know, it's something that I'd rather, they're
going to take that little extra time, put that little extra love in that chassis.
Great.
You know, I want to see those.
That's something you can't come through.
Like, yeah.
I can't slow down.
Be better.
I can't come back around and be like, all right, not heard the fuck up.
You know, that's like, well, you can, but you can at the same time, you can't
rush the quality of product that we're putting out.
Um, they may put a few more hours in in a week.
Right.
Right.
Well, there's some of that.
Some of those guys could be working some more than seven hours or something like
that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, we used to run 10 or 11, you know, so there's like a in between maybe
like a 99 and a half from six to five.
So if you guys want to show up a little earlier, that's, yeah, still do really
good quality work.
Just a few more hours.
But no, I mean, it is difficult.
I mean, human nature, like, Hey, I'm doing a great quality product.
I'm working my, you know, 40 to 45, right?
Whatever else anybody else is like, dude, if I take off, I'm taking off.
I've got vacation time.
I'm doing me.
Yeah.
And it is difficult to kind of understand, you know, not saying you shouldn't
take off whatever, but understanding that how, how much your actions of.
I always use the same example.
I know it's, it's old, but you've seen it.
It's, there's always the time, you don't have to rush things.
You don't have to cut corners.
There's always time to be individually more efficient.
Yeah.
And it's Friday at three o'clock where man, you know what, it's probably gonna
take me two hours to finish this one.
It's Friday.
I'm going to start that on Monday.
Right.
Well, that two hours really turns into a day because then you get in it's Monday
morning.
Oh crap.
If you didn't think about this, I'm going to knock this out real quick.
Then I'm going to finish this.
Well, I mean, it's about to be lunchtime.
I'll go ahead and, and, and rig it, you know, and pull it after lunch, you know,
and then get this out.
Stuff like that.
Josh build chassis.
Yeah.
Like,
rigging.
Oh man.
It's the rigging.
They're looking at the rigging and the pulling.
The, uh, the rigging and the pulling, the rigging and the pulling.
Is that how it went?
That's what they all say.
They do say that.
I heard a lot.
Yeah.
But instead of knocking that out and getting started Monday morning with,
you know, fresh, clean, you know, chassis and stuff like that, you do that four
times, you know, that's, that's, that's another chassis without really doing
anything extra.
It's just, it's getting a little more.
It's the same thing in the assembly area too.
It's like, you know, you can finish that now.
If you just put another hour in and just push that, you know, five o'clock bar
time to six or something like that or whatever the case may be.
But, you know, when you start that up Monday morning, you're going to be putting
four hours into that instead of that last one because you're in the zone.
And there's a lot to be said about being in it and finishing it versus just
stopping and starting.
Right.
I mean, it's, it's a tail.
It takes twice as long.
I'm in the morning.
Tails, all this time you're not motivated.
You're thinking that your head's not in the right space when it totally was.
And you were just geared up and going for it on a Friday night.
Geared up.
So.
I say something wrong.
No, just anytime something's geared up, brought up, I just laugh internally.
I was out loud.
That was externally.
You should have heard how loud it was inside.
It's a shot.
Come out a little bit.
Yeah.
That's a shot towards me.
Were you in regular classes in high school or you were in the geared up class
with him?
Both.
Did they still have geared up for learning?
But no, I don't know what you're talking about.
That was limited production.
That was a niche class.
That was a geared up or geared down.
There was no, there was an element of politically correct.
Yeah.
They're calling it up.
There's an element of exclusivity.
Yeah.
To it.
They did.
It's not a good salesmanship.
Yeah.
Not just anybody could be in that.
That, for example, Kyle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I was kind of like a handy cat parking pass.
Not everybody can have one.
I mean, yeah, it's like real close to it.
Actually, you're like this.
It's probably actually pretty good.
You have to meet a certain criteria.
Take some tests.
You got to score in a certain.
All right.
I'll give you the win.
I'll give you the win.
How in part they pass us out like bingo.
But you talk about being in the zone, though, like, you know,
closing down at the end of the day and stuff.
There's been times, you know, I won't do it with, you know,
two by four, because it's like, because he's just too fucking big.
He's well, he had big boy and he played ball.
He's just he's sporty.
You start running, he'll fucking fall in the space.
Really?
He's just gonna roll until we're until we're ain't rolling no more.
Right.
So I'm just like, hey, it's time.
But other guys, you see, I will can always be like, hey,
he's doing Andy all the time, you know, or if you were in the middle
of how much time you need, right?
If you if you've got 30 minutes, you're in the zone, you need 30
minutes to finish that thing.
Boot get after it right.
Ever.
If you just jigged up and just get started or whatever, like, no,
we're rolling.
Right.
Close enough.
Yeah, we're closing up.
But you try because that, you know, getting in the zone does,
especially in the fabrication side, like once you get
all your things where they need to be at and and shit right.
Yeah, you're in the right headspace.
Yeah.
Um, all right.
Next up, our famous one for Roadster Shop employees.
What is your absolute most favorite thing about working at the
Roadster Shop and what's the one that you think the most challenging
most challenging?
You're right.
That's the best.
Yeah, that's the way of working.
Um, I'd say my favorite thing always has been this thing is just that
end product.
Um, I always kind of strive to put out the better product than the guy next
to me.
Um, there's always kind of my goal, you know, whatever he was doing, I
want to do it a little bit better.
Um, and that kind of stuck with me throughout, you know, my whole time
building parts, front ends, whatever it was.
Um, and just that end product of making sure that customer is going to get
that, that chassis and open it up and be like, Hey, this is something that I
paid good money for.
And it's something that you can actually have respected, you know, um, that's
kind of, that's an easy one for me.
It's, I know it's kind of a cop out too, because that's kind of, you know,
everybody's going to say they want to put an awesome product, but that's
truly something that I always kind of strive for, especially what's your
single worst thing about you?
I just, my work ethic, I just work too hard.
Exactly.
Always getting better.
I was putting out like the best I can.
Do you, you know, we'll move to the next part of that, uh, after this, but
do you try to push that in a management position now?
Um, yeah, I'll definitely down to the, I mean, I try to, yeah, certain
different things that I can do to make the shop run better.
Uh, just organization and stuff like that.
When I kind of got into the role that organization on the shop floor is kind
of all over the place to try to, you know, implement that a little bit and
just kind of work my way on that.
It's like, Hey, I got it.
We got to organize all this stuff to make stuff flow better, better flows.
Going to be faster chassis, faster chassis is going to be more
chastised up the door, blah, blah, blah.
Um, but, uh, yeah, I can definitely say it implement that stuff.
Just in little small parts here and there.
We tried trash talking trash.
Your welds look like shit compared to his 100% me and little Mike did that all
the time.
I do that with two by four a lot too.
I mean, I trash talked two by four and Rick all the time.
I don't trash talking big guys too much because I'm not going to pick up a
big one.
They're going to have a couple of times.
Actually, after they listen to this one, they're like, did you
broke a machine?
Fuck dude.
There's a, there's certain times that works.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sometimes it doesn't work.
It's definitely not.
So what are you trying to say?
Trash talking has definitely helped out, you know, myself become better.
Uh, I know I think it's helped out two by four, become a little better welder
because I always give them shit every time I walk in his bed.
But, uh, no, it's, uh, I think that there's some, there's something behind it.
There's some pride showmanship.
Yeah.
We said that for years, like that's always kind of one of our keys.
It's success is every guy wants to outweigh the next.
And if somebody does something to, you know, this level of the next guy wants
to beat it and that's just the rising tide, you know, raises all ships and
everybody we could just get him to outpark the next guy or out attend the next guy.
Imagine the competition if we got Dave on parking.
Yeah, we have.
We have RSA.
Is that who did that?
I got a fucking ticket, dude.
I didn't see a ticket on the Impala in the handicap spot.
Yeah, we fucked up.
And he's got to move that one too, because it's it kills the ingress,
egress coming in from that direction.
I was just clipping with the trailer and then he'll move it real quick.
It's only got to happen once.
That's not kind of wood.
Surprisingly, that hasn't happened.
Yeah, I shouldn't have said it.
Fucked.
I shouldn't have said it, but we knocked on wood.
The, you know, the steel guy, he comes.
He's got his approach.
He comes head on like, yes.
And then he hooks it like he's more likely higher fucking part.
The guys more likely to flip the car that's closest to the showroom
on the swing truck.
Then he is dragging the trailer across it.
So it's one of Preston's friends now.
It's a big dude.
Yeah, that's everybody's friend.
No, he comes in.
Hey, W. How you doing?
And it's just that's the biggest.
Love him.
That's the biggest human being on the planet.
I tell Preston, you gotta be careful.
Have you seen him?
You really gotta be careful.
He's got him.
I'm not even kidding.
Seven. He's over seven foot.
I don't know. Maybe to you.
But he's not.
Well, I'll be sorry.
So six.
So maybe like six, 10.
What?
What?
Do a normal size person.
What was your favorite thing about working at the workshop?
I don't see where he's at.
Damn.
Sorry, dude.
I can take the shots.
Yeah.
I like the ball.
Both.
Both.
Welcome.
He is a big dude.
But he's a big motherfucker.
I agree. He's a big guy for sure.
I'm pretty sure the new parking lots fucked with him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Put a big hole in it.
No.
What?
What is the most?
Oh, fuck that.
Dude.
What's?
What?
Hold it sideways.
Hold it sideways.
I love it.
What's the most challenging?
Most challenging.
Oh, man, I kind of like my job.
So.
No, say it.
It's fucking sad.
Say it's working with the job.
I'm going to say Josh's timelines, honestly.
I ask the expectations of timelines and trying to get this shit done in that
time is a little wild.
That's in.
Raw answer.
No, that's I accept it.
It's an answer.
I accept it in full transparency, two things.
Just to be honest, I do ask first.
Oh, yeah.
No, you always ask.
You always give me the opportunity to tell me no.
However, most.
Fire, no.
Side step this.
No, I've given you most every opportunity.
If you thought you tell me not going to happen, happen.
I am also just putting you through the hell that I've had to deal with from these two.
Told you.
And so I had to do it.
You got to do it.
No, that's probably I'd say at least in most of the time I'm coming to you.
The instant I know about it and asking you if, hey, can this happen?
This is what they're requesting.
Can this happen?
Right?
We make stuff used to be.
Hey, what's our lead time on said chassis?
And then after a while, it's like, just ask me what needs to happen because the lead
time that you're asking for obviously ain't going to work.
That's why we're having this conversation.
So and so needs a chassis.
You know, they they got a lead time of six weeks, whatever.
OK, great.
Well, that was two weeks ago.
Just now getting up.
Well, fuck.
So in four weeks and his powder coating, so we got to go back in time to make this one happen.
But we made shit happen, right?
The cool part is Miranda then leaves it here for six months.
But that's just it is, you know, you sometimes you can pull it.
You got to pull a rabbit, right?
And all of these good customers know they've got a they got a limited amount
of get out of jail free cards, but they do have a get out of jail free card,
you know, and get a call in a favor, be realistic.
And some of our really, really good customers, they get more to get out of
jail free cards when you are realistic, when they're like, hey, got to order a chassis.
Don't care what the lead time is.
Put it in a production.
I can't start it on anyway.
Whenever it's done, it's done.
Notate that.
But oh, next time you call in for a real favor, you got one in the favor bucket, right?
And it's just it goes both ways.
We've had to do the same thing on our end where you call a great vendor, right?
You got to call up.
Hey, dude. Yeah.
I try to do that.
I I know how the industry works and I know how busy everybody is.
And I try to be pretty forthcoming with that.
Like if I'm if I'm calling Wagner or something to order a motor,
I'll be straight up with them.
Be like, dude, we're honest.
I'll I'll be straight with you.
I don't really need this thing for like six to eight months.
Right. So take your time.
And then at the 14 month mark, I'm like, Casey, I don't care how big you are.
You know, whoop, you're fucking ass.
All right.
So what?
What's that?
Somebody got somebody got a little cowboy tonight.
Somebody got a little cowboy.
That mother.
He all but you got it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, that you just approach it that way.
Because every once in a while I do need a favor.
Hey, Casey, can you not?
It's not any he does.
Dude, the motors here in two weeks, even though I didn't necessarily order it.
It showed up in two weeks.
Well, because you don't want to be that.
Because we do have there's good customers also that every single time.
And like, dude, every single time can't be a fire drill.
Like how is how is every single time?
Oh, my God, I just got to have this thing tomorrow.
Like how every time you order it, let's plan a little bit.
Right.
But just the give and take of like, oh, shit.
OK, yeah, I can work with that.
No big deal.
I'm not no rush.
No big deal.
Yeah.
Or the I'm just happy we expanded the characters on the schedule
so you can now see the David Meyer rear end with the Garfield sway bar.
And yeah, that's like an interesting one.
Job number 652 has to pair with the top number 879
Is that my fault?
No, it's just because it happened the one time.
Now it's going to happen every time there's no it was never qualified
with any correct terminology.
I think David, I think David would like that.
Yeah. David's a great customer.
You know, he's got a.
Oh, no, I thought building the first one, it's building the third.
I know. But it's funny how that worked out
because we can't be a fabricated IRS for it.
We built that C 10 for David and it's a beautiful car.
I mean, one of the first L T five trucks, killer patina truck,
and it just sat right.
You know, it wasn't slammed and that just became the day it was a sort of an off
menu item. So everybody that called to order it, it became the
because it's on the website as David Meyer's truck.
Yeah. And everybody loved it.
Yeah.
So it's scared every time I see his name.
Sure. Yeah, it would be that.
Shit. It is.
It is a great guy, but it is.
It's way too many people know who you are.
What's crazy?
The 65, uh, Cadillac David Meyer stands.
Yeah.
What is that?
David Meyer is single handedly changed.
He's not hurt.
I heard that.
The amount of when you get him with the stance on his pick up the customers
that come through and like the specific, especially when you got like private
label stuff and you get you got a velocity Bronco with a Paul
Atkins Nash and a David Meyer rear end.
It's like, how do you build that?
Like it's well, you've got all these.
You have all these kind of, you know, I had a heavy hitter cars or a heavy hitter
customers that have done something really cool.
And maybe it was their vision.
They're it gets labeled to us.
So that's what people want.
They want, you know, hey, I want that like can dig it stance on the this.
And I want the David Meyer set up on this and the guys on the floor like,
what the fuck am I building?
How many times we saw it with the Bill Steele model?
Like, yeah, how many Bill Steele model is, you know, did we did we build?
Bill Steele.
Yeah. David Meyer.
To Kyle, to you, what's your what's your favorite thing about Road to Shop
and most challenging?
Favorite thing about the road to shop has got to be the progression
and the satisfaction that comes with it.
It's just satisfying as hell, all hell to see everything that you put in
and all the work that you do, not go to waste and actually coming forward
and seeing that the next level was achieved and creating that new goal
is not so scary because you were able to achieve all these different levels
throughout these years of work in here.
So so that's definitely the best part of it.
And that's just growth, you know, is a company term, but it's it's really
just it's satisfying for me to see that.
So that's that's the best part for me.
I mean, I love seeing the customers.
I love seeing, you know, the guys come to work and have the passion for it
and all that stuff.
That's all great things, but the end goal getting accomplished.
That's definitely the greatest thing to work here for sure.
But the worst thing I know it's the most challenging.
We're not going to talk about the worst thing.
All right.
However you want to phrase it, yeah, like the worst challenging thing.
I can't think of one person.
What do I do?
I wasn't even talking about you that time.
Look, fucking lead times, man.
I caught it on the hot rush.
Yeah, you did.
You did.
It's just as one of the.
Take it on the chip.
The one of good leadership.
Because if they didn't bring you up, you would be insignificant.
You wouldn't be making an impact.
But one of the questions that does always come up is, has he ever built one of these before?
But I know we can build it that fast.
I've seen you do it.
So why?
You do it.
That is him on there.
That is his trust and faith in his team.
No, look at it that way rather than like, did you build the kid?
Yeah, yeah, I'm just doing it for the listeners.
Doing it for the gram.
Just for the gram.
No, anything else.
No, I want to say about Josh.
No, fuck him.
No, I'm just kidding.
No, I will in a comp.
I will.
This is a compliment to you guys because I'm that kind of guy.
When those lead times or special case scenarios, right?
If there would be SEMA display that's always thrown in in the worst in opportune time
or, you know, hey, can we this happen?
You guys are all you and your teams.
We've talked about on the hot rod shop side.
You're better under pressure.
You rise to the occasion, you know, sometimes better than just a normal
work week flow, right?
It gets people gelling, you know, in a way.
And again, that's it's it's funny how sometimes those things those work when it's like, hey.
I just got off the phone.
Money's coming in.
This is what they'd like to see happen.
Good.
I'll do we got to push it.
We got to push it.
What?
And you're honestly way nicer about it than I ever was.
Like, I know, but make me make me sweat a little bit.
You're just like, what do you get phone calls from job saying?
I don't know how to phrase this, but can you let a certain someone know this?
I can't tell them this, but I think you can.
You're coded enough.
But no, it's you always like, yeah, OK, I think we can handle it or you pull it up
and you're like, I can move this around, blah, blah.
Yeah, we'll do that.
And then like the the expediency, the information transfer, the lack of mistakes.
Like we should just do everyone on that.
Because sometimes I don't agree with you on this point.
Like when it rolls directly through the system, when that happens, it's like, how did you
a spectra Vell like how did you do that?
Like three hours start to finish.
That's the thing.
That's the magic with the Roadster shop that I think can't be beat.
It can't be replicated.
It's like you need it.
Yeah, is when it's when it's war time, we cannot be defeated.
That every soldier rises.
It's just a war and gets after it.
I think Fridays, every Friday, we need to go to every chassis fabricator
and be like, hey, guess what?
Special case.
I need you to finish that chassis by the end of the day.
Well, they just said that we're kind of fucked.
Never.
Never gonna.
Yes, they don't listen to this.
I guarantee you.
They don't like you.
That's going to let them know.
Oh, yeah.
Somebody is going to spread throughout Wildfire.
Did you hear what they said last night?
Talk to talk to Jimmy.
Jimmy did that.
And not me.
No, honestly, in a real answer, the worst part about working here is
is living in the guilt of the fuck ups and realizing that you ruin
someone's day when you did it, you know, and making that mistake.
And, you know, you learn from it and you benefit from it in the long run.
But at the same time, like knowing you could have made a situation better
and you didn't.
And next time you'll do better.
Why didn't you do it this time?
And that guilt is something that sticks with me a little bit too much.
But that's probably the worst part about working here in all transparency
and honesty, not you.
Oh, I appreciate that.
Second over here.
I tell you what, there's a.
There's a.
I like your first answer.
There's one.
There's one mistake that doesn't happen a lot.
But when it does, it's a it's a big one.
And it was that if that one happens again, heads are on.
And this could be rolling.
I know which one you're talking about.
Yeah, I know.
We're not going to talk about it on air.
This is in the this being the logistics department.
Logistics, logistics.
Yeah, I tell you what that.
Mark it down.
Yeah, 100 percent of any time you get the any time you get the.
Just.
Yeah, this is serious.
Josh.
Yeah.
That's the last time everybody.
Even me, I'm like, yeah, I've seen this in external activities
that doesn't have to do with the road.
The and holy shit, are we ready to roll the last time?
The last time, honestly, the only thing that saved me and my employment
and not another meeting with HR was the lunch break.
They were saved by a lunch break delay.
So because in the in the transport, my transportation from me under
me finding out in a quick little brief with Phil and the drive there
was inopportunely timed.
So I landed there as a lunch break.
So I had to I had time to think and cool.
Because if it would have been there, yeah, these are the same things you.
No, I know I 100 percent.
Like, yes, also take the 30 minutes to think about it.
You do.
This so that.
Oh, this makes sense.
So we have to think about it.
But if it happened, if it happens again, we ain't thinking about it anymore.
We're just rolling.
I'm at the bathroom.
OK, we're going to do bathroom break.
Austin Phipps, bring in the heat.
Yeah, this is shockingly really fucking good.
It is and does not represent the state by any means.
Well, yeah, it's represents it well.
I'd say for a state that generally doesn't have a lot going for it.
That's make the fans, but go ahead and make all the.
How do I do it? I know you do.
Try another version.
This was a very good bourbon.
Should we start over?
It's too late now.
Austin, thanks for sending this organ bourbon is phenomenal.
You see how easy it is?
I don't know.
Yeah, but that wouldn't be truthful.
Then you wouldn't know exactly.
You wouldn't know all my thoughts.
There's no questions on where I stand.
Wouldn't you rather know where somebody stands?
I'd rather know.
So I bet the dude in that G wagon standing outside the Trump
probably would rather not know.
I agree. That was.
That and the Callaway Corvette.
Have you not learned?
No, you're standing.
And I don't know.
Absolutely not.
I'm cursed with it.
So we're standing.
We talked about this on the podcast before.
I'm going to court another glass.
He's got a very unique ability.
I do have.
Or I don't know if it's that unique.
It's just in a public place.
So I'm standing outside the Trump Hotel.
Must be nice in Chicago.
Super nice.
Very nice.
And standing sitting right there is a G wagon
right in front of me in the valley line.
And it's just like vibrant metallic blue.
So I'm looking at it and I'm like and why it's standing next to me.
It's super in tune with Carl.
You know, he's always talking back and forth.
G6 C6 or three.
Something like that.
Yeah. So I'm like, hey, that's a nice ass color.
The thing is like five.
That's a great blue.
Like, man, these things are actually pretty cool.
I'm looking in the interior.
I'm like, the interiors are bad ass in these.
But the fucking side pipes are.
Not good.
That's not the word.
Yeah, I see.
Do you OK?
No, no, I'm just letting the
listeners know they want to put them in the right frame.
I'm so was that in a.
Do you want me to appropriately censor things and deliver them that way?
Do you like them better that way that the side pipes were not good?
That would have in this case.
Yes. Right now.
So you guys like that better, right?
So the side pipes were not good on the on the G wagon.
And at the time would have that have worked in your favor to say the side
pipe. Yes. Well, yeah.
It would have worked in my favor to just not say anything.
But you have to.
Yeah, but I was vocal about it.
It's teaching.
And they don't.
You know, it looked like, you know, but you can see it stamped right on their
AMG, like right on the things.
So I'm like, gee, that just ruins the car and why it is.
He likes the things I say.
And he's, you know, he agrees.
You're playing to an audience. Yeah.
Yeah, I've got a great.
I've got a great.
I have a huge fan base, which is honestly the worst combination in a situation.
He leans into it and it just so happens that the owner of the vehicle is
standing directly to my left, like from like where Phil's at.
And he looks like the dude that would be driving that car.
Not super stoked about the comment at all.
Can you emphasize on what he looked like or is that just put it together?
Short of.
Right. Stop there.
Short of the Adidas slides.
The rest of it looked where he came from is in the not here.
War torn. Yeah, not. Yes.
Yes.
Is very comfortable.
They're enthralled in quite the right.
Quite the altercation right now.
I just I'm a bit.
I voice my opinions exactly like they how it enters my head is how it exits my mouth.
I believe it. Yeah.
It's just like this bourbon.
This is phenomenal.
This is that's a great bottle of bourbon.
The best that it is.
The best time.
But you know, the best the best time for those in the know is
there is a that's a moment
right before it starts coming out.
There's the face.
It's a special face.
And it's pure joy.
Yeah, like, oh, yeah.
Hold my hand.
You guys are usually like
wait for all there.
You like stop.
Hold my hand.
Not do not usually.
Loop it out, dude.
Loop it out.
Yeah.
All right, we come to I wonder if the
the
the busting balls and the running off the rails is what people like about some of these roadster shop
additions because we do we get we can we can touch all subjects.
We know we talk about, you know, personal growth in the road to shop in the middle.
But we also get into some.
I do feel bad.
Sometimes we get into some like inside jokes that.
Only like four people would know.
But it's still, I think, kind of funny.
We paint the picture right.
I think so.
I mean, I'll draw it.
Yeah.
That'll be emphasized.
I mean, I mean, Kyle could go there detail all night long.
I mean, we've been.
Yeah.
Around each other for fucking 20 would be.
A great way to send it off into the sunset.
Like if we're maybe for our last podcast, that's the way we do it until all the stories
may bring Finn in and then can also illustrate it pretty good.
Yeah, he's a kid.
Illustrated and we just fuck, man.
You're just working through that with your therapist.
My fucking headspace is really.
Spinner and we decided not to talk about that.
Right. Yeah.
Yeah.
That's on the other side of the wall.
That's on the other side of the wall.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The cage.
There's things you should do, like just to fuck with kids.
There's things you shouldn't do.
Yeah, this is like that really shouldn't do like.
Yeah.
There's those things.
I mean, don't you think I was a good mentor, though?
Like is it look where you're at now?
Yeah. In the early years, like no.
I mean, yeah.
Calm seas never made a good captain is what they say.
Who the fuck said that?
That's a great. It's a great saying.
Yeah. I don't know what do you mean?
Elaborate, please.
You got to go through some shit to be better.
I mean, look, if you were a captain on a boat and all you saw was.
I think you're saying like, look, I'm just here.
I was like, I don't know how you understand that one.
Come on, man.
You want to see how a butcher makes a T-bone?
Stick your head.
Yeah.
This is.
You know, it's it's I know.
This is always an easy one.
So just fish for the compliment.
But compared to your other sister's significant others.
I hear not a.
I wasn't like maybe more impactful, better.
You know, this differentiates whether I put this on my Instagram.
Handler.
Yeah.
That's not exactly.
Yeah. If there's.
When you know that, I mean, you were the best man of my wedding.
So we'll just leave it there.
You know, if there was someone that could give a better speech,
they could.
Yeah, definitely, definitely a win.
Definitely some great insight.
Let's keep going.
I want to make this uncomfortable next family get together.
It can't get it.
It can't get in.
Yeah, it's pretty much fucked.
So it's good.
Yeah.
If we want to elaborate on that, but I've made it as uncomfortable already.
It could get great compliment.
You got yourself there.
Such a bar.
Yeah.
Hey, would you rather eat shit or let's go to Ruth Chris tonight?
Well, I mean, much like this podcast, how I express my feelings, I do the same in my
personal life.
I think everybody knows where I stand.
Wouldn't you say?
Yeah.
In the family.
Yeah, you're pretty.
Yeah, you raw dogged.
Yeah, so I pretty much just keep to myself.
I'll sit there and pet the dog.
It's usually.
But I also don't like the fucking dog either.
Yeah, most of them.
I'm pretty open about that.
Yeah.
I mean, you taught you talk.
You told me my dog was an Ottoman.
Yeah, I've got the standard North Shore.
I taught him in chocolate lab.
I don't know.
The doodles are the new North Shore.
It's a great dog.
It's just it's physical.
It's got to they go that way.
It's got a different look.
It's got it from Penny Mustard.
Yeah.
It looks like.
It'd be a great day.
It looks like an old gymnastics horse.
You know, is that what they call that thing?
It is.
Great.
Your wife is a state gymnast.
A native gymnast.
And so is your daughter.
Now, word winning.
Yeah.
It's a little weird at her age to still do competitive gymnast.
Yeah, you want to do this?
Travel adult.
It's like a gerry.
Is it like beer league version?
It's like softball.
We come to standard questions time.
Standard questions are brought to you by good guys,
rod and custom.
This is a new one.
So good guys.
We got Columbus coming up, but specifically at Columbus.
They've got their 2026 slash 2027
grand prize giveaway.
They're doing a 66 chival
that gap Tim Palozo's gap industries out in Texas is building.
Just like all you guys know what they're doing.
Right. They get they get these builders.
That's like it's a little competition.
Right. And you know what's up there?
They're they're they're playing us all.
Never has there been a product is that they get a better car every year.
And I think Tim Tim's looking for the trophy of most labor hours.
The most labor and the most probably extensive donation.
Yeah, donation and the byproduct of that is, you know, a nice ask car, bad ask.
Car and Tim has pulled out all the stops.
So whoever's getting that thing.
I mean, these things are getting closer and closer to award winning.
Like these cars can win good guys of the year awards.
Yeah, they're getting that close.
Nobody at any time until.
Until all the builders like unionized and band together and say,
all right, look, it's a giveaway car.
Nobody ever does that.
Everyone's like, well, even though it's a giveaway car,
I'm putting my name on it, right?
Jimmy touched on it earlier that you always want to sort of outwork the guy next to you.
And that is what everybody's done with good guys.
Giveaway cars. They have.
So who had it made Speedway Motors when they did the red 32?
Yeah, just came in a crate from China.
Like, there it is.
It's giving away to you.
So it's going to be unveiled Saturday night,
you know, after the awards, July 11th at Good Guys Columbus.
You got to be an active good guys member with a car registered
and on site at any of the remaining events or 2027 events up to the Columbus.
You can be go online.
Good guys dot com beginning July 20th all the way to May 31st,
2027 to enter.
And then they're going to do 18 finalists.
You know, everybody's been around.
Good guys do the key draw and you'll have a 18 finalist at each show
that everybody's brought together at Columbus next year to see who wins it.
So good. Go to good guys dot com.
You can also go to good guys on Instagram or Gap.
Industries on Instagram and check out the process and stuff.
There's crazy motor, a lot of cool shit going into it.
Got that wild billet intake, right? Some good parts.
Yeah, yeah, it's got a.
It's going to be crazy, especially after his SEMA.
Quality of SEMA car that was quite outstanding.
Yeah, see Tim's Tim's.
Bring Tim's got to step it up with this one.
Yeah, Tim, honestly, Tim has stepped it up.
Tim is bringing heat, man.
He's been doing some killer stuff.
This is a interesting we trash talk them into just going all in and.
Yeah, he buys chassis, though.
So I don't really want him to like get this one done and stay in business.
And then it's.
It's valid point. Yeah.
So check that out.
Some of the standard questions we mix these in.
Good guys presented some good standard questions and we've got our own as well.
And we mix these in and out depending on.
We have to guess what it is like.
No, that's you don't you guys don't do anything.
You guys sit there and answer the questions.
That's that's the part this out this works.
Right. This is not a test.
Just trying to analyze.
You just kind of get prepared.
It might be overanalyzing.
They're game fish.
What's wrong with this?
It's.
I'm preparing for war.
First up, first up, we'll go.
Jeremy knows some of these, though, is we're me.
Yeah, I mean, if we go first car, I have no idea, but I'll guess.
You don't know Kyle's first car.
No, I didn't pay much attention in that era.
But if I had a guess, you want me to guess?
You can guess. Yeah, we're going to see.
So don't tell us either one of your first cars.
See, Kyle, think Jeep Grand Cherokee.
You think Jeep Grand Cherokee, but I'm going to say if I had to,
if I had a crystal ball and I could look back.
So full of shit.
You know, exactly.
Don't.
This up.
I want to say it's black.
It's black.
It's two doors.
No, it's four doors, but the but there's two in the front.
There's also two in the back.
But they're born in the background.
Yeah, it doesn't.
Full.
I remember.
Now, a shev relates.
I'm thinking this is GMC, right?
You see, you're fucking it up.
This wasn't the Yukon GT.
The note.
This was the Chevrolet predecessor to it.
I thought yours was a fucking Yukon GT.
So you're saying you know what I.
You just fucked me.
I'm a bit.
Check and make.
Well played.
No, it was a Chevrolet.
Was it really? Yeah.
Yeah, it was a blazer.
It was the last year.
You and Steve Crandall had the blazer.
I thought it was a blazer because it didn't call it blazer in the year.
Was it a Tahoe?
It was a Tahoe.
Yeah, it was a two door Tahoe.
Oh, 1999.
Last year they made a black with barn doors, doors.
But it was the Tahoe sport with the charcoal fender flares.
Jimmy, was your first vehicle a gift or did you purchase it?
I purchased it myself.
OK.
Uh, were you riding motocross that time?
I was.
I sold my dirt bike to buy the car.
So it's a car.
Fuck.
That's why we ask a couple of questions.
Sold it to buy a car.
It's an irresponsible decision.
Yes.
See sold something.
Yes.
Slightly irresponsible to buy something even more irresponsible.
Yeah.
Have you turned 16 yet?
When I bought the car.
No, like currently today.
And you graduated 2000
When was I supposed to graduate or when I actually?
Yeah, let's get the.
Yeah, just when you actually turned 16.
2013.
2013.
Yeah.
2013.
It's cars into cars.
Wanted to go kind of fast.
I don't remember seeing anything that was a standout
because you got a job here shortly after.
Remember seeing.
I went through a lot of fucking cars.
It was a standout.
It still goes through.
I still go through a lot of cars.
Everything hits different after that first sip of Rockstar
Energy.
Early gigs, late night sessions, power through anything
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Rockstar Energy, live loud.
Hey, you were into that drift shit for a while too.
It's way before drifting was cool though.
Yeah.
I'm going to have to say like a 19.
I mean, can I play?
Yeah, go ahead.
Yeah, fire away.
I'm going to have to say like a 1994 like Cavalier or like.
No, it's not front wheel drive.
No.
It's definitely a real drive.
Am I close?
No, you're way to fuck off.
It's a SN95 Mustang.
That's what my guess is.
It's pretty decent pole or a G body.
There's no.
Well, yeah, he's got it.
20, 20, 20.
I didn't have a G body.
It was my first 20 2010, 2011.
It's a it's an SN95 Mustang.
He had 18.
I don't know the color.
100 cars by the time he was 18 years old.
You're not wrong.
But the first he sold his dirt bike to get a Mustang.
Yeah, five speed.
My guess.
I think you should just say.
I was just saying is it or I'm trying to think of what else.
You're really thinking that.
Yeah, this one's got me prelude.
No, I would.
Yeah, that's.
I'm going to get an oddball rear engine thing.
Like a rear, rear drive.
Sorry.
My two damn.
Yeah.
Right.
No, what was the hero?
Jimmy had a Lambo.
The nicer.
Can't put a finger.
240 sx.
Yeah, I was thinking that one.
It's definitely not.
He couldn't have gone back.
When I had a lot of 240 sx.
But when I first started.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, they're cheaper.
Yeah, they were.
They're dirt cheap.
Oh, yeah.
That's why you're drifting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm just thinking of a market now that's.
240s dirt back in the day.
Yeah.
Now they're fucking.
Now they're 10 grand.
There's a sick purple probe on bring a trailer that's ending.
I saw it.
Is it a GT?
What's it up to now?
I think it was like 4500.
It's it's exactly 2.0.
Except I had the maroon version.
Except the probe.
It's had the same interior.
The same that thing.
I'm it's 35000 miles to it was super low.
Super low.
But the fucking trunks all faded out and shit.
Get out.
It's bad.
I'm bowing out of this one.
Oh, Jody.
You've got there.
You wouldn't see these.
You've got the world on this one.
I'm bowing out.
All right.
Well, OK.
Phil.
I went prelude.
OK.
Like a.
Transam.
T.A.
Yeah.
Butter from a neighbor.
All right.
Wow.
Did not see that.
No, I didn't.
Which up there.
76.
I didn't have a Mustang.
I had a Fox body, though.
You have every car.
I wanted to say I was going to say Fox body.
But it's like a slight cliche.
There's a little cliche Midwest.
We got what fucking three of them in the parking.
Your Fox body was GT or trunk car GT.
Yeah, of course it was.
Great.
You're a Midwest.
Get your truckers out of here.
You guys just don't understand.
Cops had them.
You spent a lot of time in the West.
They were faster.
We get it.
They were faster.
100% faster.
Ask anybody.
Was it the arrow?
It was lighter.
And they had more horsepower.
By taking the roof down?
Cop cars.
Cop cars had more horsepower.
Cop tires.
Cop.
Yeah, exactly.
OK.
So next up.
Most memorable law enforcement interaction story.
Were you?
Were you sighing for me or Jimmy?
I've had a lot.
As I never have a problem asking this from anybody.
But when it's like, shit, these are employees.
And this was last week.
Yes.
This was a week ago.
Jimmy's never had any time off for a law enforcement
interaction.
No, as far as I know.
Well, I mean, there was, yeah.
Nothing too crazy, at least.
We have had the SWAT team here before in years past.
We've had a decent amount of law enforcement interactions
in the parking lot.
I've seen you bring a law enforcement officer
into the parking lot.
No.
Yes.
Think hard.
Josh has?
Yeah.
It was at like 7 30 in the morning.
You took a car home.
It was brief.
I don't remember.
I swear I don't remember.
You were coming.
I was sitting by the laser table.
Look over.
Josh comes rolling in in a channel or sorry, a chival.
The 66 blue chival.
OK.
Did he stall it?
He didn't stall it.
He revved it on the way inside of the parking lot.
It was still dark outside.
And lo and behold, the cop pulls in right behind it.
Really?
I swear to God, he wasn't even there.
It was not memorable.
I've got way more memorable ones than that one.
He said he followed you halfway from your house
to here when he pulled in the parking lot.
He says, you know, I'm just a fan.
So really?
Oh, OK.
Most of Josh's end up not fans.
Yeah, with him on the hood of the car.
Trunk.
Trunk, sir.
Never got put on the hood.
All right.
I've never been on either, so I don't know how it works.
It's usually the hood.
I just go off of cops.
Like what I see in life.
If you get out first and you're making your way that way,
then you usually end up at the trunk.
The first is if you follow directions.
Somebody's got to tip the head.
I usually try to follow directions.
Somebody's got to go first.
I'll go first.
You were running with Officer Friendly, didn't you?
No.
I mean, it's terrible to say.
I have quite a few.
And a lot of them are good ones.
Motorcycle?
No, because there's no interaction.
The one probably was in college, I would say.
We got out of a taxi cab.
It was Halloween.
My good friend was dressed as Fred Flintstone.
And I was dressed as a condom.
And how do you dress as a condom?
They actually sold condom costumes at whatever.
Was this Frank John?
No, no, this is Tyler.
That's what I thought, too.
That's my first, though.
How good would that be?
He just goes out as Frank John, then.
I did get, I mean, all trans parents in my other one.
My other one, I did get busted.
And I was using Frank John's ID because he was a year older.
But that was a different time.
But I'll emphasize the other one.
Frank John, another great chassis builder
here at the Roshan Shop for those that don't know.
But long story short, we got a little tank
to start tipping over some trash cans.
And it was after a night of the bars.
And my friend Mike likes to get a little belligerent.
And lo and behold, cops showed up because someone called him.
And picked us up from a mile away,
threw us in a huge van with a drunk tank with a bar that
comes over and locks you in.
Oh, not like a bar bar.
Yeah, before I get in, the female officer.
Great America ride.
Yeah, pretty much.
This is exactly what it was.
So the female officer.
Everybody gets a picture when they get out.
Yeah, I still haven't gotten that picture.
The female officer put my condom outfit back on me.
So I think it better suits you that you go to jail
in a condom outfit.
So in the backseat of this drunk tank,
I pulled out my Frank John fake ID with handcuffs behind my back,
switched it to my real ID, and then put the fake ID
in the other slot that the police officers wouldn't see
when they catch me at the police station.
So I didn't get caught with a fake ID,
but they did get me for alcohol intoxication.
They were very nice to me.
They gave me a sandwich and an apple and everything.
Odd details to remember.
Where my buddy was strapped.
It was really kind of a Granny Smith.
That's for a baking moment.
Yeah, no.
They strapped my buddy Mike as friends of Flintstone
and one of those crazy people chairs
so they hold your arms and legs into.
And yeah, that was probably one of the most memorable thing.
And long story short, when he left the police station,
he was still belligerent and knocked over their trash cans
again, cop off, came out, grabbed him right back,
and put him right back in the police station.
Double duty.
Held him to court the next day.
But yeah, that was probably one of the more memorable ones
out of a lot of them.
But I don't know about you, Jimmy.
Man, I've had a lot.
I'd have fell into it.
I'd have to say the one that's most memorable,
that I didn't actually get caught.
So that's cool.
We got out of last day high school.
Had a 240SX at the time, actually.
White one.
My buddy bet me I wouldn't do a donut around the light post.
I was like, all right, cool.
I know this.
If he didn't know me any better.
Do you double dare me?
I was like, dude, when it comes to cars,
you can tell me do something.
I can do it.
So go out with some shitties in the parking lot.
Send a carry on into the baseball field.
Started whipping shitties into the baseball field.
They don't like that.
No, no, they do not like that.
That is significantly frowned upon.
And my wife can actually vouch for this,
because she was going out of the building at the time.
She was a cheerleader, so she had practice after work
or after fucking school.
And she was watching the guy in the fucking car do donuts
on the baseball field and getting chased down
by Paul Bart and Slim Shady, which was our two-skered guard.
Paul Bart and Slim Shady.
I think you can see what they kind of look like.
So that made her fall in love with you?
No, she didn't know his name until we actually started dating.
That guy's a badass.
He is totally fucking involved.
That was like a, I want that.
So they did not catch you.
They did not catch me.
And you didn't drive the 240 back to school.
I did not drive.
I just sold that shortly after and got the Mustang,
actually.
Just checking all the boxes.
But law enforcement wise, yeah, that's my most memorable one,
for sure.
My most fun one.
No arrests?
Arrest?
Have I gotten arrested?
Yes, a few times in cars, mostly.
My arrest one.
I'm not going back that much.
Like, we're good.
We're on to the next one.
Oh, I just said it's a stage.
The first one was on Mother's Day.
He wasn't happy about that.
On Mother's Day?
Yeah, happy Mother's Day, Mom.
Yeah, happy Mother's Day.
She had to come pick me up.
My first one was on the day to drive to college.
OK.
Yeah, I didn't make it.
Started that off on the right foot.
Ended it on the exact same foot.
I was talking about that there's many.
Like, my first one, not like my only one.
You guys are fucking hoodlums.
Yeah.
OK.
I'd much rather go to sleep at night
knowing the things that I've done and got caught for,
versus things you didn't get caught for.
You got any colored pencils on you?
No, no, no.
First thing that comes to mind.
That one will never.
No, it's the most horrible thing.
You trying to give me shit that time
or giving a little toot to that lady in the parking lot.
And that's the first.
You're a horrible person.
Oh, am I?
Yeah, that's pretty bad, man.
Why would you do that?
Yeah, you've done some terrible things.
Yeah, you're right.
All right, next up.
Let's see.
We have from good guys.
You've got a you're doing a road trip up the PCH, right?
Pacific Coast Highway.
What is the vehicle you're going to drive?
And what is the CD that is stuck in the CD player?
So it's that one CD, the whole trip.
What car?
What CD?
These guys is probably more like an MP3.
We fucking CD.
No, 2013 CDs.
So the car is something Kyle found
that he's going to buy for his mom,
that he's going to save $25.
No, this was before he got to California driving back.
That's why he's driving up the PCH.
He's got to go pick it up.
Yeah, he's got to go pick up the car.
If I saved you the amount of money
that I've saved my family, you would probably do it too.
Well, you would have $800.
In total, the whole time.
I have lost three years of my life.
It's about the experiences.
2015 is well past CDs.
20, yeah, it's way, I mean.
2013?
Oh, 13.
That's full on iPod at that point.
We had iPhones.
Yeah, it's iPhone.
They're even past iPods.
We still fucked with CDs.
Oh yeah, it took a while for that.
But you graduated when?
Oh no.
Okay.
Still CD.
Tail into CDs.
We fucked with CDs.
This vehicle has a CD player in it, right?
This vehicle has a CD player in it.
And there's a CD stuck in it.
Fuck.
And we're sorry.
So which one is it?
Yeah.
All the music you listen to now
could still be got on a CD.
So, what?
Kyle, I think you're going first on this one.
Oh shit, I knew you were gonna do that.
I'm terrible fucking CDs, dude.
Probably like, it's probably like a Json.
It's got a record player in the trunk
and you want to play an album.
I'm in bands, my bad, I'm music.
Now that's what I call music 13.
It can be a mix.
Hits like the Britney Spears and like hits everything.
No.
What the fuck?
No, I'm saying the now thing.
Like now 13 always had like some shit.
They're bangers.
Yeah, like Avril Vee and fucking.
I like Avril Vee.
Okay, this one's, this is, I'm gonna change this.
Still brought by good guys.
You are.
Kid Rock.
You're leaving Club La Vila.
And you're gonna cruise the strip in Panama City
all night long.
So what's the vehicle and what's the CD?
Now that we're speaking our language.
Exactly.
I had to get it back to.
Definitely ball with the ball.
Throw the ball?
Yeah, by Kid Rock for sure.
Okay, what's the vehicle?
In Panama City or?
Yeah, you can just pick.
I mean, you got a fucking rock,
like a jacked ass up, like eight inch lift,
fucking Silverado out there just rolling coal.
But like that's not my personal car,
but like if I was pulling out of Club La Vila,
like that's the car to have.
Okay.
You say La Vila, huh?
La Vila.
It's La Vila.
Even you say it differently?
It's La Vila.
In Kentucky they say it differently.
La Vila.
It's La Vila.
Sounds fancier.
What about like pineapple willies?
That's two words that are only spelled one way.
Pineapple and willies, that's pineapple willies.
It could be Willis.
It's not, it's IES.
It's Willis.
Pineapple Willis.
You get a little water from the pool of Club La Vila
in your mouth and you'll have a pineapple on your willis.
I promise you that.
I was at Club La Vila.
I was at Club La Vila.
La Vila.
In 2001, actually.
I was at Club La Vila in 2001.
I was at Club La Vila.
No.
We had 2012.
I was there probably from 90.
Eight to 2001 or 2002.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah, it was close.
I mean I was in Atlanta so you could say
you're spending the night at a friend's house
and bomb down there and you know.
Yeah.
All right, so question for you.
Not good guys related, sorry good guys,
but what car did you drive down to Panama City?
Probe GT.
No, it was always Corey stuff.
It was 4th Gen.
His red SS.
T-tops out and subs obviously in the back.
Or he had a faded SS stripe.
Yeah.
No.
The white graphic.
This was just all red and the black roof,
black C pillar.
How fucked up were his latches from the girls
sitting on the actual T-tops?
No, no girls sit on the T-tops.
Oh, why not?
No, cause girls don't sit on the T-tops.
Cause they're not that cool then.
No, they just get in the car and no girls.
Or he had a lifted crew cab, 2500 as the OB.
Like the Sierra Classic style.
Everybody's in the back.
Oh yeah.
Had a 40's on it.
That sucked the drive from Atlanta down there
when you're trying to bomb down there.
Cause there's no bombing in a Sierra Classic on 40's.
That's like 17 tanks of gas.
Anyway, Jimmy.
You're cruising.
I still don't fucking know.
You're driving to work.
What vehicle and what are you listening to?
You're leaving dirty Nellie's in the mellotines.
Let's change it right now.
You've got a badass truck.
Your fucking Ford truck's cool as shit.
Yeah.
Easy on the part.
What are you listening to?
You're rolling to the motocross track and that.
What are you listening to?
You're going to Loretta Lens.
What are you listening to to get fucking in the-
Mixed tape style, whatever's MX versus ATV Unleashed style,
man, whatever's fucking song playing on there.
I'm gonna have to go with that.
None of y'all understand that.
I'm so happy about that.
We have the super super super.
They look lost right now.
They're like, what the fuck are you talking about?
All right, what songs are on that?
Just give us something.
Like yellow cars.
Yeah, we got a headstrong.
Is this kind of like the Starboys VHS is back in the day?
The fuck are you talking about?
You don't know what VHS is.
You remember Starboys?
The mysterious generation change here.
Some people remember Starboys.
I don't.
They're out of Ohio.
That was the Street Bike gang that had the all the crazy videos
that of all doing like the rough riders.
No, they had their like helmets recovered in fur.
Starboys. Yeah, it's cool.
Yeah, we had a wide leg LBZ boat across pants.
We had a force.
I don't know about that.
Yeah, yeah.
Sorry, dude, Phil Fox was some motor cross.
I see that he's pulling out some facts over here.
He's low key fucking motor cross.
I mean, not street bikes.
No, not street bikes.
We all know that street bikes.
Now my promise.
Why not?
He's that's not what happened.
Oh, it's never been.
It's actually never been discussed ever.
This is an oil and whiskey first.
I forgot to tell you that was one of those things we can't talk about.
So the fucking LBCs were a fire fucking air of motor cross.
That is a forgotten time.
I could see you as you're a big knack, knack guy.
No, I could never do it.
Superman.
Yeah, Superman.
Yeah, Superman.
Seat grabs.
Really?
Or yeah.
No, no.
You fucking rip it.
I'll feel.
All right, I've seen the
double heel clicker.
Yeah, it's really on the front.
Step through front.
You'll clickers like, yeah, yeah, just over the bars.
It's impressive right there.
That's probably why your knees are all.
Now that was really.
I know exactly why his knees are.
That was in the dunes.
Yeah, I get them.
That was a.
I got a.
Yeah, hey, film this.
I'm going to fucking rip this wheelie because he's wheelie
and all day long, like all the way down the sand drags.
I'm like, you're going to fuck yourself up.
That was famous.
I did a quarter mile long wheelie and then just a
ragdoll.
That's went over backwards.
So no to the street bike story, right?
I had a long story.
It's a short story.
It's about from here to Starbucks.
This is about 100 feet.
I want the record to show me and Jeremy both changed the subject
and he came back to it.
So just for future.
Reference.
Just for future.
Reference.
Everybody knows.
Got up pretty quick.
The.
All right, next question.
The.
All right, another one from good guys.
This is going to be specific.
You guys don't go.
What is your favorite show to go to?
Car show.
Shoot.
You've been to Columbus.
You've been to Triple Crown.
You've been to SEMA.
You've been to SEMA.
You've also been to Columbus.
I've been to SEMA.
You haven't been to Columbus.
I mean, they're all good in their different ways.
And I'm not trying to sugarcoat it, but they, I mean,
SEMA is good for the Vegas thing.
But that's where it's at.
Yeah.
The oysters are great.
They're you going to some of those like.
Kyle's had a few.
Yeah.
Like.
Build a couple.
Wasn't it STK?
We got we got 45 seconds and this is this is gone.
Oh, remember that?
That fucking thing they brought out the seafood tower.
Yeah.
Yeah, those oysters were not good.
Yeah, the oyster actually.
Remember, we were sick.
My pants.
So I remember.
Yeah, you were like.
It's just.
Just fell on my.
I saw the train coming.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I knew there was a return fire.
It's rolling.
It's rolling down the tracks.
It's like a boxing match.
You know what?
Let's just say SEMA.
SEMA's good.
OK.
Fuck you, Phil.
Best piece of advice you've ever received?
One of the great ones.
Because I can't just throw it out.
But just like what Jeremy said, you can't.
You can't earn respect.
You got to take it for sure.
I mean, just don't be scared to fuck it up.
Great.
Great advice.
No.
I mean, you got to try to fuck it up.
You got to try to fix it.
You got to try to do whatever you got to do to make that shit right.
So kind of how it lived.
Majority of my life.
The, yeah, everyone comes up a lot.
I do.
That's the first time I've heard that version of the respect thing.
I haven't heard that before.
And when you really think about it, it makes sense.
Right?
You can, it didn't register for a while.
It seems a little aggressive, but I get it.
It does.
It just like old Wayland said it do, but it don't.
Right?
Yeah.
Because when you think about it, it's a, there's a lot of people around.
Like think about all your bosses over the years.
Like you look back at some guys and you're like, that guy was a fucking asshole,
but you respected the hell out of them.
And why?
Because he took it.
He took, he took it from you.
He took the respect because of what he did and what he instilled in you.
He didn't necessarily like earn it.
Like you, you didn't fall in love with the guy.
You weren't buddies.
He just made you.
He forced you to respect him out of what he did or what he taught you.
You know, that's the way I look at it.
Yeah.
I get it.
I mean, a simple, hard version of that is like Rip Wheeler on like Yellowstone.
Yeah.
Fucking asshole.
But everybody loves his character because of it.
Exactly.
Like it's just the motherfucking fans.
The people that work beneath them, they weren't like, you didn't like slowly earn it.
They're like, no, Rip is such a good dude.
You know that it's not a real dude though.
That's a TV show.
I know, but you can.
He motherfucking got his cutters back though.
Just so we're all on the same page.
I mean, I was Michael Jordan reference.
Nobody loved playing with him, but he commanded the best fill with the wind.
That's why we have fill here.
It's more relatable.
Thank you.
Rip was a good one.
Nonfiction versus fiction.
That's exactly it.
You guys watch the Dutton Ranch, the new one.
Fuck yeah.
It's gotten good.
I've just I just caught up.
No, I did.
I did not give it.
I just caught up because I love that whole ecosystem.
I was like, I'm going to give it a shot, but I had that.
Yeah, you're trying too much trying to squeeze blood out of a turn.
There's not nothing there.
A second version is never the yeah.
And then the first one I was kind of like, oh, OK, I'll watch the second episode.
Then it was like, oh, damn it.
Fuck, they got me hooked.
It's a good one.
I mean, let's be honest.
Rip was the guy even on Yellowstone.
Kevin Costner's character was cool.
Yeah.
Rip definitely carried it.
Yeah.
You know, Kevin, he was good though.
He was good.
He was good.
He was good.
He was good.
There's no question about it.
But it was good when he like passed away because like not that's good.
Like, you know, it was like, all right, like what's going to carry on this last season.
Right.
Let's not forget for you because that this question's coming.
The favorite movie and why from dazed and confused Benny.
Oh, yeah.
That was fucking Rick.
That was Rick.
That was Cole House.
Back in the day and he was cool as shit back then.
There was something different, different kind of cool.
Yeah, different, but there was just something cool about that dude.
And you didn't know why that dude's been cool.
He was just born cool.
He's had three memorable roles and they have been spanned out over what 15 to 20 years apart
from each of them from two fast to furious.
I'll just say that one.
He was, he didn't know that furious.
Too fast to furious.
That's the guy who's like, I'll take my cutter back.
That's Rip.
I don't know that.
I don't know that either.
Are you serious?
Yeah, that's where like most people for real.
Yeah, we might have to go.
That might have to be.
Oh, no, fast.
Two years.
The guy who's the biggest like drug dealer owner, the guy who's like the villain in the
whole movie that like puts the rat on the dude's stomach and puts the torch to it.
Fuck.
That's Rip.
That's Rip.
Right there.
You're right.
100%.
I don't remember that part of the movie.
Yeah.
He's fucking Miami in that one.
That's why it doesn't.
That doesn't.
I kind of don't want to win.
That's not a win.
I don't want to remember that.
That's what we'll put that up there with.
That's for the drawing of Benny.
You know, right there.
That's exactly what I'm talking about.
Are the right.
Most memorable roles are right there in one picture.
Hey, good poll.
Yeah, good poll.
I prefer to remember him as Benny.
Right here.
I'll take my cutter back.
Yeah, but he was the least cool out of all of those.
Yeah.
Who's the coolest?
Eva.
Eva Longoria.
That's not Eva Longoria.
It's not.
It's Minda's, right?
That's what I said.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Right.
And seal.
Yeah, you guys aren't paying attention.
Seal.
What's funny is how.
Yes.
But you also took historically one of the.
Me was a Tyrese was a model, right?
Yeah.
And when then one of the ones you're like, look at that face.
But at the same time, you're like, oh, I can kind of see it.
Definitely hit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Definitely hit.
Pull him up.
His kiss by a rose.
Pull him up is Benny.
I want to see him in all his glory.
Benny was a G.
Yeah.
I'm one of those people that like did not watch Days and Confused until way later knowing
that I had to watch the actual movie.
And boy am I glad I did.
I had probably watched that 5,000 times.
How about dude?
Yeah, dude.
He was super cool.
Fucking look at that.
You've seen his truck.
Bad ass.
He was kind of a prick in the movie.
He was.
Yeah.
That's been like something that would be off putting to you.
Yeah.
He's chasing those kids being a bully and stuff.
Yeah.
Bad ass.
He's short bed.
He did have a cool truck.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I can see you wearing fucking overalls.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Google book.
Go back in time and watch me when I used to wear overalls.
Yeah.
You could have seen that all the time.
I wore overalls in two different genres.
I wore Liberty overalls to work because Jesse James didn't thought it was cool.
But then I also go back in time to Atlanta when it was like hip hop and you used to let
one down.
I did that back in junior high.
That was the era of the cross colors I had.
Oh yeah.
How many times did you wear your jeans backwards to school?
Well I was in Atlanta when Chris Cross was found in Atlanta before the album was even
out.
How many times.
More than a few.
Arthur R. Christian.
And Mack Mainz.
Throw C.10.
At the end of that.
I just want to see the truck.
See if it's what I was.
Got mags on.
I know.
Little bumperettes.
Huh.
That's a classic.
Yeah.
Good truck.
Yep.
Good truck.
Great fucking movie.
All right.
Next up from the pharmacy.
Did we?
What?
You answered the question?
I don't even remember what the question was.
I don't either.
Favorite one on the fucking absolute tangent.
Absolutely.
Favorite car movie.
Yeah, it was best advice.
He answered it.
I answered it right there.
Favorite car movie.
Christine.
My dad always watched it as a kid, and I don't know.
Fell in love with it and always watched it to this day.
Yeah.
I have to watch it at least once a year, for sure.
Nice.
Stephen King, your daughter.
Not yet.
Just three.
So maybe.
So next year.
Next month.
Maybe.
You.
There's a lot of them.
Fast and furious.
No.
No.
No, no.
I mean, you just got to go to some classics,
like fucking Talladega Nights.
Yeah.
It's a pull.
Jard.
Is it?
Nobody's Jard.
Nobody's Jard.
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
Some of the best car phrases are from that movie.
Like 100%.
I agree.
Great pull.
Nobody has dropped Joe Dirt.
No.
Which is shocking.
Two of my all-time favorites in that.
I'm your sister.
And you think this little slant sex is
a little weird in this situation.
Yeah, it turns out she is.
She is your sister.
Oh, what a.
I love how things just spiral work.
I had what I was going to bring up,
and I didn't want to touch it.
Go ahead.
So Charlie and Wyatt, how did they happen?
Well, Phil, it's like this.
When a man loves a woman.
Do you remember the first thing?
So it's still like a bird drops him off.
Do you remember what age when you start figuring it out
and you're laying there and you're like, wait a minute.
Huh?
Jeremy, what?
Tonight?
Ew.
Gross.
Sadly, I had a very young age.
My room was right next to my parents' room.
He wants to put it back.
I remember.
Yeah.
We taught Kyle all sorts of things.
Yeah, no.
I was fucked.
I mean, you think it was ill-made life.
No, no.
Figuratively.
Different words.
Figuratively.
Figuratively.
Yeah, no, not like, not in touch.
Right.
But close.
Yeah.
Like the things that you don't want to show.
All right, so next question.
Yeah, yes.
We just keep teasing it.
All right.
I've seen them.
Next up.
Next up.
We have a, you're going to have a build done, right?
Car build.
Yeah, unlimited budget.
What is it and who's building it?
Oh, man.
I have to go with my childhood dreams
and have a little pre-runner buggy.
Cool.
Like VW bug style body.
Nah, who's building it?
I'd probably go with Mason Motorsports.
The work they do out there is fucking phenomenal.
Yeah, those are cool.
They've been following me for a long time.
Yeah.
That's a great one.
That's a nice pull, dude.
I like that.
Kyle.
I was going to do a shout out to the Roadster Shop,
but now that one put me in a fucking whirlwind there.
I mean.
No, that's the answer we're really looking for.
My bad.
My bad.
Are we really going to fuck?
Who's leading the charge on the Carolina squad right now?
Jimmy, we got some papers for you to sign
before you head on out today.
Yeah, shit.
I do fucks with some pre-runners,
but probably a ripper fucking two door Tahoe built by us.
Really?
Yeah.
What would you do to it?
Probably.
Would you make it better than Kazimikes?
Oh, 100%.
Yeah, have you seen the one Matt Saxon's having built?
That's pretty fucking sick.
Is it?
Is it pretty sick?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's cool.
I mean, everybody made fun of me for the two door Tahoe
back when, but that shit is hot now.
So it is in your face.
But probably like an RS4R style chassis on a two door Tahoe.
You go four by four.
Four by four with some travel and another wheelbase.
Yeah, I think I'll flip over.
Yeah, no, you can handle it if you know how to handle it.
The total flip over.
You'll flip it over.
Don't worry about that.
Careful, glass houses.
Well, speaking about Kazimikes, I said something.
Come back on you.
Lay it down and flipping it over is different.
Both on their side.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Go ahead.
But if.
Sounds like you probably are.
No, I think I'm right.
All right, so go to Kazimike, right?
Did he not enter everyone's life like a tornado
in a trailer park?
100%.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It is worse than COVID.
He's like a human Tasmanian devil.
I mean, I just saw him last week and love the guy to death.
But I was like, you know, I like.
Well, I've only known Mike for like a year, maybe.
And it's a combination.
I've known him for 20 years.
Here's what I'll say.
Like a tornado, there's usually warnings.
And you know the fuck is coming.
I'd say it's more like an ant infestation
because you don't know where the fuck it came from.
How did you get what is this?
And why is this here?
Well, on my counter, right in front of me.
How do I get rid of?
So is everything I try is not working.
So it's like AIDS.
Well, how did how did I get it?
And it's never going away.
OK, that's one way to look at it.
As far as one way to look at it.
That's a little extreme.
I love Mikey.
You just had a little visit with Mikey.
I did. I did. Yeah.
Yeah, it was good.
Yeah, it was it was quick, but a lot at the same time.
This is the best way to visit.
Yeah, it's just like quick and quick and heavy, you know.
But even an hour seems like a week.
That's why it seems like you've been knowing him for 20 years.
I don't know this show season.
I think I might take a little sabbatical
and just disappear from this year's show season
because I like he's debuting the Tahoe.
You think you think he'll sell people about it?
I think so. You think it'll be a big thing?
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
I don't know if I'm I don't know if I'm ready for it.
What? I would for the debate debut on the Tahoe. Yeah.
It's it's going to be a lot.
I would assume it's going to be probably triple crown.
I don't know if he'll be at Columbus.
Just think about how much better
it would have been if it had our chassis under it
instead of that. It does.
Instead of that team version,
is he still not really an actual chassis customer?
Yeah. No, he bought it.
Amazing. He bought it.
Amazing what you can get done overseas.
Right. Yeah, it looks just like it.
Yeah, it's going to be quite.
It's going to be a lot quite.
I think you'll be pretty humble about it and be nice.
I think so. Yeah.
Kind of fly under the radar.
Oh, that old thing.
He got t-shirts made.
What? Of the of his truck?
Yep. Of course he did.
He's also was in the in the picture with
with Troy at Rick Ross's.
We won. But we we didn't win shit.
You're you're a picture.
Why are you even there?
He told me how he hung out with Mike
picture with the chicken.
Okay. That was 100 percent.
Mikey's redemption on absolutely belly flopping
that his seam had.
Oh, he's he's had some fails.
That right there.
When he was on the stage.
Oh, just I've never seen.
He wanted to come up on stage.
Never so bad.
Anybody.
And what did you do with this build?
Honestly, never seen anybody just.
It was a joke.
I thought it was like a medical condition.
It was that it was a prop.
They're just playing off.
It was a prop.
You know, yeah, he.
That was not his.
That was one of those ones of he was so excited.
Like I'm going up there.
I'm coming up there.
And then as soon as he got up there and turned around,
you could see the life just from his body.
There's a lot of color in it.
Do you think we give him?
What did I do?
Do we give him the opportunity for redemption this year at the party?
No. Yes.
Or is that you get a chance and you fail like that?
No. No. No.
No. No. No. No.
He had just one shot.
When you got out there for the for the 10000 dollars
and you do a half court shot and you miss fucking horribly.
They don't bring you back.
Oh, dude, you look fucking stupid.
You want to do it again?
No.
You get you get one shot, one opportunity.
Right. Yeah.
Sees every moment.
Yeah.
Better lose yourself.
Those are those are really good ones.
I like I like all this.
Yeah.
I will. I want to say, though, to you guys.
I think I speak for all of us.
I know I speak for me.
Because you're speaking.
I'm speaking.
You guys have done an absolutely phenomenal job
at your new roles.
You've always done a phenomenal job.
We had very high expectations already
and you've exceeded those expectations.
So I love coming to work and working with you guys
every single day, trying to build the next
cool shit and and growing this
fucking monster as
challenging as that is sometimes.
Like Jeremy said before, like the secret sauce is
like we almost have to have the insurmountable
you know, task.
You got to have the challenge.
You got to have the thing to do it.
And you guys have continued to rise to the occasion.
So it's been it's been fun to have this podcast
and maybe people get to know a little bit more
about what's behind the scenes at the Roach Shop
and why it is what it is and how it's made.
Also, that's a little piggyback off that a little bit.
I think we've always said a lot of all of our success
from comes from building the cars and everything
you learn from that.
I think we drastically overlook the amount of success
we get from guys that like you have started from.
I don't see the bottom at the entry level
and have worked your way through the whole thing
and know every step along the way.
And it's just such a load off of us to be able to say
like you guys can take the reins and make a lot of this
stuff happen and you know how to do it better than we do.
You've got the right mentality, the right mindset and goal.
So awesome being able to have you guys on the team
to continue to carry the torch. Yeah.
Yeah, there's only a handful of people that have done it all.
Yeah. And you guys are part of the select few. Yeah.
And you can start saying no, if you don't like the lead times,
dude, this is a safe place.
I don't want you to feel. I don't want to say yes for now.
I don't want to feel you pushed or pushed into
thing and doing things that you're not comfortable with.
All right, so just say no.
It's been a. No.
I got it.
I was going to say baseball, like if we say we need it in four weeks
and you keep getting it done in two stretch
after like three weeks and five days.
Maybe it'll be all right.
It's been a it's been a roller this whole time.
I mean, everything we've done
until now or at least everything I've done
until now has been has been very awesome.
Very vague things to say, but
yeah, just keep on rolling with the success and keep on
doing what we do and never say no to a customer
and ripping it the way that we do is a and pretty damn cool.
That's what it's all about. Yeah.
And it's only the beginning.
There's some things in the works
that Roadster shop is about to propel itself
to the next fucking level.
You're pretty soon. Just fucking launch.
That is it.
Get that. And what the team we've got with you guys at the helm.
We've got an absolute fucking bad ass army and I keep an eye out
and things are.
I'm kind of pumped.
You know, what's happened?
Something happens. You know what's happening?
And yeah, we had behind the scenes.
It's not.
I'm a.
It's a challenge.
Challenge accepted.
It's a lot of stress and we are pushing like hell, but I didn't even know anything.
When the public sees it, it's going to look awesome.
We got some cool shit coming.
Kick ass, fellas.
Thanks to our sponsors.
Make sure you go to good guys.com.
Register for the giveaway.
Go to Columbus to see it.
And.
Also, go to HP tuners.com.
All your tuning things.
They probably got some shit that you're into to get some.
They got to do side by side by sides and power sports.
Are they tuning on four strokes or anything yet?
I haven't seen HP.
Delved too much into that, but I mean, you can get on the HP tuners.com and check it out out.
I know for yourself.
They got all kinds of things for the things that you're into.
A little fast cars and all that kind of shit.
Yeah.
Oh, for God, you got the Camaro number one.
They're doing it all.
You get ready to Camaro finally.
Yeah, I got rid of the Camaro.
But the HP tuners modules in the RSV.
Nice.
V2.
So.
Oh, it's time.
You got to get you the V4, man.
That thing is ready.
I got a V4.
Oh, no, the RSV.
The V2.
Sorry, the V2.
Version two of the RSV.
How you think?
Do you tell him to put a good paint job on it?
I told him.
One of the shines.
Oh, that's.
This is Mikey's call to action.
Yeah.
This is all right.
So this is one of those situations that as a hot rod builder,
when you get that big fish that comes in and you're like,
it's like a giveaway car.
Yes.
And you're like, this is going to be the thing that is going to pave the path
and is going to set my career on fire.
So you weren't you're saying is if the truck needs it, go ahead and do it.
Yes.
This is.
And this is it.
Yeah, there's no.
You got to put it in.
No budget, no budget on this thing.
So Mikey, this is we are publicly stating it.
All everybody here, we are going to scrutinize the ever living.
Oh, yeah.
Fuck, I'm pulling the weather strips out.
If it's not rubbed out behind the weather strips, I don't.
I'll publicly shame you.
I'll disagree with you on that.
Nobody gives a fuck.
You're wrong.
Nobody.
You're in the minority about what it looks like.
Paint it right in there inside the door.
And you got to sand it and rub it out too.
The jams have to be smooth, dude.
It's a 2000 and fucking 14.
14 truck, Josh.
Fine.
But we're trying to make you kill that at the weather strip.
We're trying to make him go the extra mile.
Yeah, let's let him focus on the exterior of making this thing
flat as fuck.
I want you swiping the doors to the feathers.
He's not.
The front doors.
It just doesn't get dirty.
Look, dude, it's like it's one of those deals when you do a budget build
and you bring it to a show, nobody knows it's a budget deal.
So Mikey and last one,
Mike, he's in Pat's auto is going to be judged
by the world on the world stage on how good this truck looks.
What you're saying is you can do whatever you want to do,
but just know everybody's looking.
Yeah, dude, like charge him.
If you if you agreed to
4500 dollars, go ahead and charge him 4500 dollars.
We're not going to talk about that.
Right. Moving forward.
We're just going to talk about what you'll see the quality of work.
You'll see the paint job.
Right.
And people can formulate their opinion based on the quality of the work.
Like they think we'll do as far as they know,
they're looking at they are looking for perfection.
And it is if it is anything less than you think we should do a video walk
through for the podcast when I will I plan.
Look, I'm going to say it right.
I plan on doing a whole YouTube video overview on the car.
Strictly on the finish.
I'm scared for no.
This will be with this it turned off, right?
Because with the exhaust running, it's going to be a little difficult to hear.
So I mean, do what you want.
I mean, you could have asked if you want to from a business standpoint.
Yeah, knock it out.
Knock it out.
Everyone, you direct us at Pat because Mike, he's not going to be there.
Yeah, Mike, he's golfing.
Oh, remember, he shows up on Thursday about 10 Thursday's golf day.
Oh, you're right. Yeah.
He's in Wednesday.
You're getting ready for golf day.
Friday's beer with the guys, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
I definitely know where he does that.
Saturday, some of his deer hunting.
So that's yeah, you're definitely not putting in the OT.
You don't have I could see my he is the type that goes out to deer hunt.
And you know, see those videos with the deer attacks?
You know, you just fucking kick the crap out of it.
Can't you see that video that's like, like, grainy from a trail cam?
It's got him up in up in Iraq.
Put up your nukes.
I got fucking the nukes.
Oh, and on that, we're that's it.
We'll see you next week.
About this episode
Roadster Shop’s chassis production leadership gets the spotlight with Kyle Blannis and Jimmy Emily. The conversation traces both men’s paths from the bottom of the shop—sweeping floors, learning TIG welding, and building frame rails—to managing RS2 and RS1 chassis fabrication and assembly. A key theme is pride in the “small stuff” at the end of the process, since the last touches (stickers, crate details, door fitment) are the first things customers see after months of waiting. The episode mixes shop-floor stories, mentorship, and the mindset shift from worker to manager.
Original notes
This week on *Oil & Whiskey*, we’re joined by Roadster Shop’s Kyle Blanas and Jimmy Emiley for the next installment of our behind-the-scenes RS department episodes.Kyle and Jimmy have both spent over a decade at Roadster Shop, starting at the bottom and working their way through chassis production, frame rails, TIG welding, CNC/plasma/laser work, assembly, crating, and eventually into leadership roles overseeing RS1 and RS2.In this episode, we get into the evolution of Roadster Shop chassis production, how the team has grown, what changed when the shop moved from plasma cutting to laser cutting, the balance between process and “cowboy,” and what it takes to keep chassis moving out the door without losing sight of quality.We also talk about customer pickups, the importance of the final details, shop stories from the early days, moving from the floor into management, and why the last thing the chassis team touches is often the first thing the customer sees.
Oil and Whiskey with Roadster Shop
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