S3, E47 - Brit Mansell

What's up, everybody? It's your host, Holman.

I'd like to welcome you back to the Truck Show Podcast.

Man, it's been real busy the last couple of weeks.

Had some family travel. We had school starting up for the girls.

I'm still trying to catch up and find some balance between work, life, recovery, family,

all that stuff. But I think we're getting there.

Just last week, we had a couple of friends from Amsoil who were in town.

They swung by the shed for the very first time and it was great to visit with them and

show off our humble little studio where the magic happens every week.

And man, there's been so much stuff going on.

I think one of the bigger things is I've also been tying up loose ends on the new Jeep.

So last Friday, I swung by Glendale Jeep up in Glendale, California,

where I caught up with my friend Jackson Ellis, the best dealer in SoCal for Stalance's

products. Period. If you're looking to buy one, send me your info,

TruckShow Podcast at gmail.com. And I will be more than happy to hook you up with Jackson.

Had yet another great buying experience with him.

And despite hearing this noise, when I saw the bill, they took great care of me.

So in all seriousness, if you're looking for a Jeep dealer,

go to Glendale and I'll hook you up with Jackson. So I guess it's official.

After five months, I'm back in the Jeep family.

Yes, thank you.

I will sit down. It's not like it's just this whole thing about me feeling normal again

and being able to hit the desert, which I haven't done in five months.

No, no, it has nothing to do with that.

Actually, I'm excited for when I go pick it up because I think I'll hear this noise.

But that's a few weeks out. I finally did get my one-way ticket to Detroit.

So I'll be able to go pick up my Jeep at AV after the conversion work is done at the end

of the month. Super excited for it. And add some new products to this bill that are

different than the old one. There's AV's new high-steer kit. I changed up the wheels,

things like that. Went to all terrains instead of mud terrains just to give me a little bit of a

smoother ride and the AT's will do everything that I want them to do. So anyway, it's definitely

exciting both to get the new Jeep home and to start the new build on it. But this will also

be exciting because it's my first cross-country trip since the accident. So I'm excited to get

some windshield time and clear my mind before the big rush of SEMA time starts. And don't

be like my wife and family. Don't worry about me. I'm going to be fine. I will promise to be

doing regular updates on social and maybe some bonus podcasts from the road to keep you guys

up to speed with where I'm at and how it's going. And by the way, when I was at Glendale,

I might have been looking at some Gladiator Mojaves because my Aria lease is up soon

at the end of next month. And there's some sick as in good, great lease deals on the

Gladiator Mojave right now. And Jackson may have pulled one over for me to just eye.

Unfortunately, that day, he wasn't giving two-for-one Jeep deals. So got the 392 ton and

I said, give me till the end of the year. I may be back for one of these. I definitely need to get

myself back into a midsize pick and truck for my daily. So we'll see how that works out.

And of course, I'm still working on a show around a budget-friendly midsize truck.

But we have so many great guests that all of a sudden got scheduled and booked for the next

few weeks. I might have to push that a bit. There's just a lot going on. It's just, it's

crazy. In this episode, we welcome my good friend, Britt Mansell from American Adventure

Lab on the show. I've been trying to get him on for months. Fortunately, he was in town

for the Nitto Jeep Bash this past weekend at Bulls Chica just a few miles from my house.

And the timing finally worked out. So he came in and it got to check out the pod shed for the first

time. And we actually got to sit down with him in studio. So before we get started with our

friend Britt, we got to thank the companies that make the show possible. The Truck Show podcast

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I hope you guys still sing along with me on the

Truck Show theme song intro there. I know it's not the same without lightning but uh

but I'm gonna try I try anyway. All right well at least I wasn't alone for this episode of the

Truck Show podcast. Let's hear the interview with our friend Britt Manzell from American Adventure Lab.

All right with me today in studio in the pot shed is my good friend

Britt Manzell from American Adventure Lab and I've been trying to get you on the show

for like I don't know the last time was maybe three years ago you're on I'm like hey

you have a lot of stuff going on come back on the podcast yeah I really don't get to plan my day

at all so it's it's basically just you know putting out the the biggest fire and

sometimes those fires are foreseen and a lot of times they're not so well I had a few of

my own fires where we're like hey I'm gonna be out there let's do this oh hey I'm gonna

there's be like four months where I'm not gonna do anything so exactly anyway that's how life

goes before we get started I want to thank you because when I was laid up in uh in your

town right down the street came and visited us but uh you were also super helpful with

getting the Jeep out of the tow yard and storing it until insurance came you helped my dad out with

that and then gave me a chance to give my last respects to it at the shop when I got out of

the hospital so glad to do it you know you you would do it for us yeah for any of us so

least I could do is help out where we can that was awesome that was something that

like one less headache of all the headaches because there are many that that was going through

I got an insurance bill the other day where it's like oh we built for $170,000 and what

insurance didn't cover is $25,000 I'm like what do I have insurance like what they just went uh

just leave that I'm like well I don't have that so anyway that is just yeah thankfully

GoFundMe and all that was great but it's just yeah man it's just so messed up so anyway not

enough about that I'm just happy to be back I get to have my friends on the show

and before we get started everybody gets an intro so let's get into it

welcome to the party department

screw nut filter oil grill tools wheels tires brakes lights gears belts

and your wife warns you not to don't you spend your money and then you'll want to come back

except your wife is actually just outside the studio and she's gonna encourage everybody to

spend money that's right with American so yeah it's part of her job being supportive right that's

right so how's it been since uh since your last on I know that you have grown exponentially I think

you've been in business it was six years yeah we're uh we'll be seven years in November okay and

three buildings uh we were four buildings in four years and we're trying to find

about three times the space that we have now I think that's about what we need and that

was a big building you know when you made that step and then you you bought a bunch of equipment you

got a CNC or laser cutting machines and I remember when you got it it was like the big decision of

like this is a huge outlay huge investment costs and in capital you could do it and hopefully blow

up some more and have more capacity and maybe even take on odd jobs from other people in

Washington Utah who might need those services or you could stay small and kind of max out where

you're at and you said nope I'm gonna go for it and since then it's like yeah it's one of those

weird things where we were talking last week like it's I can probably count on one hand the

decisions that I got to make sort of on my own that weren't necessarily made for me yeah by that

you know just the business and the momentum that it had and and the laser was one of those

you know we were spending about six thousand dollars a month in freight just bringing parts

into the shop you know like that's the margin for a lot of parts sure you know so even

even that one as expensive as those machines were like I didn't really have a choice you know it was

either stop selling things or figure out a way to make them cheaper and it just unfortunately took

spending a bunch of money to make things cheaper yeah right it's weird how that works well and it's

funny because you guys have essentially you jumped into the space you are somebody that doesn't

sleep a lot you're always sort of innovating I'll get funny little text messages with like a

lockdown YouTube file of like hey look this is what I'm working on now then I'm like oh

can you do this yeah yeah hold on oh check this one out right and like I can't remember how many

times we've done stuff like that it's fun because it's like the ideate products and things like that and

and there's been a few things that that you've done for me that you're like I don't know if

that's gonna work as well as you think it is like no I'm on this right and you and we tried it

and your big thing is American manufacturing your family owned company you started this

business from nothing and truly did something in the space that was native and your tagline

is innovation for exploration right and you decided to not just copy what was out there but

iterate in a way that made it your own you went to metal instead of some of the other

materials out there would for example and some of the cabinetry and stuff like that

a lightweight aluminum something that was strong and durable and then you gave people

modularity and the ability to customize on top of that so if you're not a familiar with American

Adventure Lab go to americanadventurelab.com and basically started as like storage solutions

for SUVs for overlanding but you have since gone way beyond that the amount of products and

even the little things like the paper towel holder yeah so the little it's funny you

mentioned little things because that's actually been pretty key to us surviving in this weird

economy you know like I kind of saw that coming you know for for four or five years we would do a

you know three five thousand orders a day like it was just mind blowing the big money that people

were spending for a while and you know that's stimulus checks you know that's all these other

things that we were kind of worried about and I thought man we need to like really diversify

so we spent probably a year developing a lot of like sub two hundred dollar products

and and that was really key to sort of surviving the people just not wanting to spend big money

you know it's easy come easy go but if it doesn't come easy it doesn't go easy either

right but yeah no that's been great and it's it's really sort of given me

a little bit of inspiration because it's it's one thing to build this really elaborate

drawer system you know that has 50 different options and things like that and that's super

cool but like it's also kind of cool to build a better bounce trap yeah and there's not a

lot of things that you can really touch that are small that haven't been just overdeveloped

and you know like our propane tank mounts are a good example of that and we've I've just really

enjoyed the challenge of building a better propane tank mount which seems like super weird

it's funny because uh you put it out there and it's one of those things that the way it's

designed you didn't know you needed a better one until you saw it and you're like oh

like I look at some of the products so on the high end you know you've got

onboard auxiliary battery electrical systems fully fully baked with with all the mounts the

batteries the controllers all that stuff you have onboard air where you take a air beer similar

compressor got the mounting got the routing got everything you need it's already been figured

out where you can place it inside your your vehicle and you got drawer systems that are

modular and they can stack on top of each other some can slide some open you know all

those different things but then you look at like the simple things on a Wrangler JL when

you open up the tailgate there's a little detent on top of the hump that holds the handled mechanism

on the inside that detent is big enough for a soda can the idea was when they design that you

put your beer can there and you have a cup holder on your tailgate well when the medic came out

with their touch faucet everybody's like well that's the perfect place for it but it didn't

fit right it fell off it fell off because the tailgates aluminum because it's luminous

so the magnet didn't work and it just wasn't right so one of your guys to get a competition

in the shop to kind of figure out hey look I need a product so he made basically a spacer

that has a puck that's smaller on the bottom and larger on the top the puck on the bottom fits

perfectly in that recess where the cup holder is and the puck on the top fits the Dometic

with a you know you have a little piece of metal or steel magnetic disc with the faucet

and then boom it sticks right on there and that was one of those products that

that's where I always use it and I love that thing and then your paper towel holder

how simple you have four section cups and a bracket that sticks to your hatch so

when you open up the rear hatch you have a paper towel holder right there where you're cooking

dinner you did one of the very first if not the first of the tailgate tables that didn't have

any wires or straps or anything to it molly included it was the first it was the first

that's why I thought I just want to make sure I can get those angry emails that

truckshow podcast at yourmail.com and then you've got like even like little molly panel

wings that are on the inside that you don't need anything else to install these but now

you have extra functionality for strapping you know a fire extinguisher a

flashlight or anything like that so you know there's all these your propane canister holders

of your spare tire platform that you can hold max tracks rotopax a starling mini

and then you've got these base plates that can be used and it's kind of like you know we just

talking about the new iphone came out we kind of talked about that for a minute but

when the first iphone came out everybody knew it was cool but you didn't really know how the

apps were going to work or how people were going to use it and now people are starting

their cars with their phone and getting into their houses and all that kind of stuff when you develop

this base plate you probably didn't realize the things that would come with it and now you

have this base plate where you can attach all sorts of things drawers sliders whatever

pack out boxes from Milwaukee and now you have a base plate where those snap in and

those get you I mean it's just the cool thing about the platform is like we're obviously

pretty cad heavy in the shop you know pretty much everything we do runs through

solid works and then through the cncs and things like that to come out pretty much exactly like

we designed it but the cool thing about the platform is is once that's in a vehicle we sort

of know our constraints we know our forward limits back limits things like that and we know

what's on the platform so we can pretty much build anything somebody needs off of that

platform knowing what's in the vehicle already now we we try not to do a bunch of custom

stuff because it's really hard to make money like that but every so often we'll agree to

something that sounds like it just might be a good product idea and we're always very upfront

with the customer you know if you know if this is something that that we end up building

you get the first one for free and and we've done that quite a few times but

it's been cool to be able to just know that that platform's in the vehicle and know that

you can build off of it know that it's really firm you know there's most of the platforms

have an aluminum top plate and steel support bars underneath so it's you know you of all people

know that it's very secure and holding all this cargo well let's talk about my accident where I had

two of the low sliders that were bolted to the base plate that had my batteries for the your

onboard auxiliary house battery system and what did you call that well okay so I don't I can't

remember if I told the story but I told Britt I said okay I don't want to have a drawer system that's

in there all the time because I still have to use it for like softball equipment and I want to have

my fridge in there all the time so I want a sliding system that's split in half so two sliders

but I want them the low profile so if I take everything out it's a flat load floor just

like it would have been brand you know brand new before you put it in and most people

put in your stuff even though it takes five minutes to take all that stuff out you've

made it and designed it in a way that it's easily removable even then I'm like no I just

I want it to work the way I want to work and I said so can we put two low profile slides next to each

other and you're like yeah because that way I got the fridge on the left and on the right where I

tie down my boxes I and the reason I don't have drawers is because back then I was testing

vehicles so I was I had a box that would take with me all the time so the nice thing was

that box would be in my Jeep if I was camping or if I was testing a vehicle go in the other

vehicle so I didn't need a drawer system I just needed a way to securely tie down a box in the back

and my idea was if I had two slides next to each other I could pull one out and I could tie it

down and secure it with it outside the vehicle so I'm not crawling over the back seat and the

fridge and and all that and then I could slide it in and it's locked and it's in its place

and so I coined it the slide by slide and we still talk about I'm pretty sure

even like a couple of days ago I was telling a customer you know like yeah you can do

two flat slides and that's what you got with the flat ones so if you guys can imagine it's

a normal drawer slider laid on its side with a super flat platform on top of it and

and the reason we do the flat ones is so that you can have your refrigerator or your boxes spill

over the edges of where the slides would be. Yeah so there's no like detainer walls on the

side it's just a flat top and they nest perfectly you have incredibly high standards for fitment

and you're down to probably a couple mils or something like that or hopefully not that's

that's where you at I mean it depends on what you're talking about but like our mounting holes are

6.8 millimeters and they hold a six millimeter bolt and you get about 0.25 0.3 mils of powder

coat on that okay yeah it's just right I mean everything just it nests together there's

nothing rubbing the thing I also love is it doesn't rattle like your stuff is is solid

it's lightweight you know we joke about overloading yeah but it's bad if you put in a drawer system

that is more than the cargo that you want to carry right and so this is all lightweight stuff but

when I rolled over I had up my fridge bolted to your slide and the fridge was full of food and

dr. peppers and all that kind of stuff and my understanding is the fridge stayed attached

to the slide hundred percent and the slides aren't even bent nope and I think we can reuse

the slides in the new Jeep yep so super cool I've gone you brought me all the bits and pieces I

haven't I've done inventory but I haven't decided you know I haven't gone through to see which ones

are true and which ones might need to be replaced but we talk about later but I have an idea I think

I've been noodling and I told you I want to do this one a little bit different and you've been

trying to get me to the dark side of the cargo shelf for about four years now once you go

cargo shelf you never well so now I'll explain we can get back to that so I am a big fan

obviously I didn't know you before I approached you through mutual friend and you and I become

good friends over time and we've gone camping together on events together we talk all the time

and you know I tell my wife I'm like if Brick lived down the street I'd be at his house all the

time we'd be hanging out and we're going on trips or whatever and I've just been an admirer

of what you've been able to build self-made the customer service the quality of the product

and everything just works I love how much thought goes into it like for example you have aluminum

gliders or base plates so on the aluminum base plates how do you make trap doors so you can

get under them so in the case of a seat delete for us a mid-sized pickup truck in the back or in the

case of a Jeep to access the battery well you put these steel tabs with magnets on the aluminum

covers so they just snap in place that's right and that's it no rattles no rattles super

simple I just like those little tiny things like that and then when you first introduced the

was it the red box plate right yeah that's right um yeah that was funny I got it but I was like

how many people are using Milwaukee packouts and now it's an everybody they're one a lot at the

time no and everybody's using them and now you can nest all your Milwaukee stuff and they're now

there's people who have work trucks they're not overlanders and they're like I take Milwaukee

packouts to the job site and they're coming to you because they found this base plate and now

they can secure their Milwaukee packouts in their pickup bed we had a guy buy 10 of them last week

one order wow like how many vehicles you know I guess a fleet guy or something I'm assuming so yeah

so it happens so let's talk about some of your applications so you you're known for Jeep JK JL

of course and then you got into gladiator of course your Toyota guy people realize you love

Land Cruisers yeah I mean yeah I wouldn't necessarily say I'm a Toyota over the hills

we have a Land Cruiser guy I mean there's a soft spot for us with a 60 series yeah so yeah we've

I've had 60s and 62s and uh you know we still have an 80 series now that I love that can't run

peak lane unfortunately so but yeah no I mean I had a lot of Toyota experience um but yeah as

far as Jeep versus Toyota I wouldn't say I'm probably leaning either way although you would

you would say JK's peak Jeep right so two-door JK is my soft spot man that's to go to it is really

you know what I would prefer is like a manual like recon two-door JK so you can get a two-door JK with

35s from the factory now and before my accountant said no you need the right off JL JL sorry uh

before my accountant said you need the right off and go get what you had I was like well

maybe I'll just not spend as much money and I'll get a two-door manual v6 on 35s and like that would

be so sweet and then I'm like oh it's automatic only two-liter only and I was like oh is that XR

yeah yeah I didn't know they did it yeah so you can get a 35 JL two-door now and it it just it's

so stubby and it's just it's perfect like a two-door doesn't need 37s because it's so short oh

no so so ours is we just got a sport you know no lockers nothing and uh and we took

and did all the mountain passes you know black bear and everything awesome about a month ago and

now granted that's not super technical terrain by any means but like coming back down engineer passes

there's some twisty spots on it yeah and like that thing didn't even go into full-wheel drive

it ran the whole trail like every the whole weekend into a little drive and it never got in

this drain and so nice my mother-in-law has a I think it's a 2020 so I don't know when my wife

and I got married she's always we call her grandma red because she has red lipstick right red hair loves

red shoes reds her accent color so she loved the red Jeep she's had every one of her cars is red

and she decided one day I want to get a two-door red Jeep and we all looked at her like really

and so I helped her get one and she got a sport two-door I added the the steps like the plastic

molded rocker steps to it and it's got the power door locks and push button power windows

that's it those are the only options right and she's been talking about like you know it's getting

it's kind of getting harder to get up in the Jeep maybe one of these days I'll get rid of I'm like

all I can think is just drool over that one's on the chopping block your son-in-law would love to

build the trail rig out of that yeah well I mean the thing about the JK is it's a little wider

than the TJ platform yeah uh electric windows it may be the one thing that I'm okay with you

know it's hard to reach the other side of the Jeep so those are cool but it really

doesn't have a whole lot else that's in the way except like some ABS stuff yeah I mean there's a

few like wheel sensor issues that are kind of known on a JK JL is a little more complicated that's why

I kind of like JK's sort of peak right yeah but if you look at a TJ because of the way the

frame rail spacing was that and even a Cherokee unibody the springs are so far inboard that

if you get soft springs the thing just kind of like wallows over itself where the leverage

yeah so the the JL and JK have such wider spacing that the the coils are out toward

the corners or the ends of the axle and they're just a lot more stable in those situations and

they just handle and they're a little bit bigger they're a little bit heavier they just feel like

a more of a complete modern vehicle and they're just I honestly kind of once you get them set up

right either stock or set up correctly they're a pleasure to drive it so and then you got into

Bronco you got into Lexus GX Land Cruiser now you have the new 4Runner yep so you're you're

getting all the bases of the people who like to go out and adventure yeah and for us it's just

like we have unlimited opportunity so there's no and we don't have any shortage of things to

build it's just bandwidth yeah time and people and stuff like that so and we've added some really

key roles in the shop in the past few months and we have some big expectations for a lot more

volume this year awesome I know that was that's kind of you fight that on social a little bit like

there's the ebb and flow of catching up and people like I ordered this thing but even though you put

on the website this has a lead time we're like it's gonna have it's gonna be a while but yeah so

right now we're at like 2300 SKUs that we manage and that's not parent products necessarily

that's you know just individual parts and things like that but I mean the thing is we either

offer this big product line and build them to order or we can not offer them at all

because you're not going to stock 2300 parts in a you know relatively small business yeah so yeah

those are our those are our options you know we build it to order or we don't build it at all

and then you have powder coating on top of that for customization that you allow on certain

products so that's another level of of time and you know just effort so that's powder

coating is most of the gray hairs on my face right now yeah just man like you know it's always

kind of the last process and you know like we we literally have a phrase on the website says

powder coating is a process done by humans because it's just it's a lot of the powder

coating stuff is really hard and so if you mess a part up then it's got to go into the acid

bath and like it's a big deal and we start over yep you had to start all the way over

so now one of the big hits that I've been kind of watching but seems like all the sudden it's

blown up is you're in the gladiator and you start experimenting with some gladiator products

and some bed products and then you got into ranger with ranger raptor and that community has

like really responded to what you guys are doing well that the cool thing about that truck is

so like we're the the trails that I like to do personally are I would consider them like

technical overland trails not I'm not a big hardcore rock crawling kind of guy just like

I like the scenery I like to go out with people and have a good time and find something

historic go to a neat place that most people never see or some scenery that you're you can't get

from the highway and yeah but but I don't necessarily want to just ride around dirt roads yeah you

know like I like some challenges on the trail and stuff like that uh the ranger raptor is is

basically the the link you know the rosetta stone between sort of hardcore trails and going

fast in the desert like it's pretty dang good at everything and and I think that that really

struck a you know struck a nerve in the market with a product that didn't exist

and it's price right too 60 60 grand basis for now for now but you look at like where the TRD

pro is at high 60 68 the AV edition of the Chevy bison's around 68 69 it's a pretty good value

I actually looked at a ranger raptor I pulled back from that idea mostly because of the

aftermarket is still pretty new to it the 33s well the us after the us after market right and so

that that's sort of the key for that truck is like a lot of the vehicles that we get here we get them

first yeah we've got the jl before anybody of course but the ranger raptor's been in australia

for you know three years before we got it and australia has some great innovators for product

down there they do yeah and they're hard on stuff yeah so they get the evolve that pretty quickly

but yeah we got we got that truck and the truck was great when it rolled off the floor and we

made the crap out of it from the day we got I just wish I had 35s that's my only thing like a little

like a one inch one half inch lift in 35s and I know they do it because of the height laws in

australia and australia basically did the took the engineering lead on on ranger raptor especially

in the in the ranger but um to me it's like mid-sized truck on 35s is such a great sweet

spot and the ranger raptor off road it's it's lively it's engaging it's fun it's it's really

dialed like if if you don't have a ground clearance issue it's just terrain it no problem doing any of it

yeah but but there's times you'll hear rubbing on the belly kind of frontiers like that for me where

it's so good in a lot of different ways but it's just a little bit too low that's why

I was kind of excited about this roush version of it coming out whereas you know toys are still

on 33s um but I wheeled like rock crawled a gmc canyon a v on on 35s and it's it's just

like brainless how good it is yeah you just like 35s a good spot for like a medium-sized

truck you know but then it's and it's a pain in the butt to get 35s on a ranger raptor

well you gotta cut things off the frame well and then I look at like there's the pucks and stuff

and I'm I never I'm never a fan of that because all you're doing is adjusting where the truck

sits in ride height so if you add a puck to it and the truck sits in a different place

of this shock stroke you're outside the ride zone and now it's like twisting your torsion bars

as you know as a kid and now there's no droop you only have compression so you go into something

feel good and then it'll top out and you just feel the tires rip the you know yank the frame down

yeah and for me we fight that every day we have a really popular saying at the shop

everything's a trade-off yeah right so for us when we first got the truck it was it was a high

speed toy yeah basically it was a go-kart you know and we rode it everywhere on the trail at

significantly faster than you then you should have gone on the trail but we beat the crap out of

the undercarriage you know like it's every bar under that thing has got a rock crash all over

and so for me like what I did I did go to the spacer route and because I had to get at

least 35s on it so we put a nice set of knit oh tear grappler G3s on it and they're a true 35

and we've got a really big puck in the front and then a small one in the back and it's

I wouldn't say it like really hurt the truck but it's definitely has a noticeable ride difference but

it gets me up off the rocks a pretty good bit and you need that right off yeah unfortunately I mean

the type of wheeling you do you're in southwestern Utah so outside of st. George and the world's

your oyster there and there's a gazillion different ways to go wheeling and exploring and

all that I wanted to talk about on the Jeep Gladiator you kind of have maybe you can

describe it it's you're like half looking camper shell and there's some reasons you did that and

it's been interesting to watch that product evolve because it's it went to a place for a

midsize truck that I didn't think it would go and I've seen it be you know grow and expand and

we all know the Jeep Gladiator suffers from a really shallow bad yeah and that's one of the

issues that's where it all started you know like we couldn't find a refrigerator for me the

name brands that would actually live under the bed rails and that was the problem you know and for us

you know we're in the desert everything's dusty you know and the in the beds of your truck is just

a big vortex that fills up with dirt so we had to get some type of either tonneau cover or

camper shell or something like that well my background being sort of off-road racing and

performance off-road type things I don't I don't really like the high center of gravity from

a rooftop tent so you know the the previous solution either especially now yeah the solution

would have been something like an rsi smart cap with a rooftop tent on top and which is a

amazing setup yeah I love that product they did a really good job with it but for us I wanted

the tent as if we were going to run a rooftop tent I wanted it as low as possible with the

least amount of sort of riser back there to get over the fridge so it came up with this sort

of half-shell idea we call it a load bearing enclosure it's all aluminum and it's about

10 inches above the bed sides something like that we run an internal structure inside for

support so you think like an internal bed rack and that's why I call it load bearing

enclosure so you can actually mount the rooftop tent directly to that structure and we also

have a bed rack that goes on the outside for different look and more support you can also

add lights and things like that's designed for scene lighting to be within a structure and

all that one of the products that I think is sort of really started I think in the Jeep

and Toyota world what is the seat deletes but it seems to be hugely popular now in the

truck world for crew caps because people to bring their dogs or they want their fridge

on the inside with a slide that you can pull it out through the door to access it or 100

different maybe talk about the evolution for you guys of your seat deletes and then

you know maybe talk about the the 60 40 or 70 30 and kind of different options people have for

seat deletes yeah yeah like said seat deletes have been a thing for a long time you know we

didn't we didn't perfect that by any means but for us you know we basically our rear seat

deletes continue the platform from the rear cargo section all the way forward you know one

big solid flat structure and that's been great and the reasons that people do those

just blow my mind like everybody's got a different need and it's really cool to be a part of that but

you know as far as it transitioning from SUVs into trucks that was kind of a learning

experience for me and it's not really not just from SUVs to trucks but it's from Jeep

vehicles to non Jeep vehicles has been a real learning experience as well so is that because

of the amount of options for fasteners and things like that are different is it the space

what was the challenge well I know I'm looking back on it now so we're you know like our ranger

seat deletes out it's it's pretty proven at this point looking back on it it's I think the the

Jeep builder the Jeep owner mentality is different from like a ranger or f-150 owner mentality

so what we've what we've come to believe at this point is that people with Jeeps sometimes I'd say

more times than not the the Jeeps that get built and when I say Jeeps I'm also talking about Gladiators

and you know the platform yeah a lot of times those vehicles are built and they're they're

built out so far that they're very specialized and they're not necessarily a daily driver

because that you know that Jeep is super capable but you know like I said earlier it's

it's also a trade-off you know the more you build that the different it drives and everything like

that but you get people that have rangers and f-150s and and they're they're going back and forth

you know because that vehicle is such a comfortable daily driver and and not real specialized you

know they're kind of generic platforms um we see people that like the number one requirement for

our ranger seat delete was they wanted to put the seat back in I was like I didn't see that

coming interesting okay because we don't we didn't see that in the Jeep world so you probably

I mean yeah because most of the people that I know who've done a Jeep seat delete goes up

in their attic or their barn or whatever you never see it again or they sell it at eBay it says

or maybe when they sell the vehicle they're like oh I got a brand new looking seat that you put back

in there um but there's not really a need for like a a quick replacement or swap out in the Jeep

side but you're finding on the truck side you kind of had to rethink the product to make that

an option for people yeah yeah and that obviously that's not for everybody you know like we do

some commercial stuff and obviously it never seat never goes back in yeah but yeah as far as the like

weekend deal you know our ranger seat delete it probably takes uh 10 to 15 minutes put the seat

back in and people are super fine with that you know that's that's an easy enough process to do

and and then you get to swap back and forth and it was just something that we didn't see in the

in the gladiator world or the wrangle world especially are you seeing you know so you

have the ability for a 70 30 or 60 40 however the seat split um platform so you can basically let's

say you want a three-seater you can take the six year 70 side and and keep the single seat and

have that be a platform or you can go the other way if you want to have the center section in

the armrest and the other seat and then just do the smaller 30 40 single side make that a

platform do you see that you have more customers that are choosing to go split platform

seat or are people like either all in or all out no i mean i'd have to look and tell you

the exact number but i you know just feeling it you know when the sales come in it seems like

we're doing more complete kits than individuals which i would be kind of surprised up you know

if i was just trying to guess yeah i mean i i would think that uh that you would have more

people because of the flexibility of having the extra seat but you could just have people

buying both sides and putting in whatever side they want that's true and figuring i

can add the other one if i need it yeah they're they're pretty easy to swap like pulling

the seat out's the hard part so is that all modular then so if you were to buy basically

the complete kit you could make it a two thirds one third if you wanted to yeah so if you run

the the small seat uh you get an extra bracket you know because basically the small seat bolts

to the big seat yeah in all the vehicles okay so yeah if you want just a small one there's

another bracket that you bolt to so have you seen as you've developed this business and

have you as you've grown and expanded that the modularity of componentry has been

something that's helped you out to either customer retention or keep people coming back

for more because there's that option it's like lego's you started from the beginning with

i want to have a base system that people can build upon yeah absolutely yeah and that's that's

really i think the sweet spot that kind of put us on the map is we didn't force people into a

gigantic stack of drawers yeah you know if you just wanted one you could buy just one

you know and it's it's kind of like a good gateway drug you know the platform

sort of gets you started and then you realize the flexibility makes it really convenient so

but yeah i think so and and to my knowledge i don't and i'm sure there's somebody out there

that had but i had never seen a like a drawer system where you could buy one drawer at a time

you know usually they're in stacks of you know 80 20 extrusions and things like that but

but no we we you know developed a really great drawer sort of module from day one and

it has evolved a little bit and it's mostly evolved because our production

capabilities have gotten better and more accurate but the standard structure is the same as it was

from day one well and think about modularity between my 20 jl which was i think the first

Jeep that we did something together on and then my 23 392 and then talk about my 25 392 coming up but

through all of those things i started with the mass platform and that's your base plate

and you've even sent me stuff to try out like hey i've got this what it eventually became the

flippin slide was like the prototype for that you're like hey i'm gonna send this to you play with it

use it for a while tell me what you think and i've done the flippin slide i've done the flat

slide with a big fridge of 55 i am on there which barely fits in a jl i mean it is like

it's like millimeters from touching or it even touches if you have the

moped mat on the back of the seat if you don't want your fridge tearing up the carpet on

the back and then it will touch the door and you have to shave like a millimeter off to make room and

stuff like that we touch all sides yeah so so i'll get it i'll get my thought process on that a

minute and then i've experienced through you your different drawers and how they're set up because

we've gone camping or we've gone to events together and you're like hey check out this new

thing you know you might have a drawer that you sized and it can fit a stove in it and you

can just roll it out and boom plug in the uh tank to your propane holder and you're cooking

on the trail in five minutes rather than doing a big kitchen setup or something like that i do

remember you saying that there's no way i would get a hamburger cooked yeah during our trail stop

and i was sitting there drooling because i was having a ham sandwich watching your grilled onions

and your hamburger go on the uh can't beat it i was i was jealous and i haven't that has not left

my mind because it's going back to my thinking on on the new year so there's a lot of

competitors and you have some really good competitors too there's some there's some

brands that are grade a like you guys and then there's some cheap knockoff chinese stuff that has

literally stolen your stuff and rebuilt it and people selling those in the states as their own

which is a total freaking bs and there's i mean you you run the gamut but you have been really

dead fast and standing for this is what we do this is what i believe in and regardless of that

noise we're going to do our own thing what what has been your success with a well i think the

difference between us and and a lot of companies especially some of the ones that you mentioned

is like i do this every weekend you know maybe not you know some giant trip every weekend but

i'm out in the one of our vehicles every weekend and uh to maybe not my wife's favorite point

like i'm always trying to come up with ideas to make the the process better yeah you know

so we're living this stuff that we build and i use it you know all the time and i think you

have to do that to constantly see ways to improve the setups in the process and adapt a new gear that

comes on the market and that type of thing and and and i also i use a bunch of different vehicles

and i think that's helpful because we we definitely pull ideas from one platform to the other and

that type of thing so yeah there's definitely use case differences between them and setups and

things like that well we we also don't have a lot of walls in the company and i mean that

sort of metaphorically and physically you know like i don't have an office i my desk that's

on the production floor and uh me and and james and uh you know trey from sometimes like we're

pretty much doing all the design work and we can all literally whisper to each other at any point

during the day well not when the machine's on but yeah like we don't we don't have these barriers

that some of the other companies do and uh and james much like myself you know we're we're out

and we're doing this all the time so it's not you know we don't clock in and go to a job

and like oh what kind of product cannot develop today like we already know what needs to be

developed before we get to work so yeah i think that's been a big difference how many of your products

came from a need that you discovered in one of your excursions uh i can't imagine one that didn't

okay you know like a maybe the t-shirts i don't know those t-shirts right by the way i the

t-shirt you're wearing right now i've had mine for like five years and now it's all like faded

and like and and i look so i can get another one and you don't have that one anymore at

least yeah they don't they don't care and i love that shirt because it's like the it's

it's one of the stretchy kinds of shirts but it's a thick one not the thin one it's like the perfect

shirt and i went to get another one the the other day i was like same for me yeah that's why

like most of the ones that wear the logos all worn off of them yeah well and it's my wife's

like you should probably like are you gonna keep wearing that shirt and i'm like yeah i'm not ready

to get rid of it yet right so it'll it'll probably i'll never get rid of it it'll eventually

become a rag in the garage or something like that but i'm not at that point the most comfortable

rag ever seriously i know i love that shirt so what's next for american adventure lab and

what trends are you seeing what products are you focused on for the next level of

development trends wow i don't know i mean the the truck market's doing really good

you know there's there's a lot of really compelling options for mid-sized trucks

colorado like you mentioned this isn't really well uh those have taken off i i think that

much like the jl did when it came out it was a little bit more daily driver than the jk and i

think these trucks are even a step further that direction so uh but man some of them are

like really capable off the showroom floor really really capable so i think that's going

to be really nice for a lot of people that you know that don't have the budget or the

desire to have a dedicated trail rig so that was going to be my next question is do you think the

increase in off-road capability from the factory helps your business out what i mean by that is

people aren't rushing to the four by four shop to have suspension wheels and tires because they're

pretty good in lockers all from the factory so that um discretionary income that they would

spend to upgrade their truck to go off-roading they can kind of spend on products that raise

the level of capability in the feature set which is kind of where you come in yeah

yeah and what we see is instead of spending money on suspension they're spending it on

organization yeah you know and like our whole desire as a company is to let people get outside

and enjoy these places and these events uh and be more organized the gear is more secure it's safer

you know it's you don't have to unload every single item to get that thing out of the

you know from the bottom of your box every time and and that's that's been great you know and

i expect that the truck stuff takes off really well we we've got some like bolt-in truck bed floor

rails now that basically allow you to install drawers and slides and things like that without

drilling you know and you know as as these vehicles get more and more expensive people are

less and less likely to drill holes in them yeah uh so we focus a lot on these sort of no drill

installations and things like that and and having those in there and the floor has been great

for flexibility we got a ton of stuff that's coming out for that so are you gonna venture

further into full-size truck territory or kind of hover in uh mid-size yeah yeah so we will

definitely do uh full-size Ford trucks really soon as far as in like the next couple of weeks

really soon like really soon really really soon yeah and so that one's an easy one for us you

know the f-150 is obviously pretty dominant in that world and seeing that it shares a cab with

super duty that makes things a lot easier as well so that's a pretty easy transition

we'll have some really cool stuff at Ford Raptor rally event and have a suit coming up in a few

weeks so some of that stuff will debut there in the back of a really nice Raptor R that's super

cool awesome well speaking of new vehicles i finally did the paperwork and i'm a jeep owner

again so yeah my 392 you saw the paper plate sitting on the desk and they're not on the

jeep because the jeeps in michigan i gotta go fly and and pick it up but that means we have to

start figuring out like what we're gonna do on mine and i've been kind of reimagining it and

probably the biggest question i've had from a lot of people is like what are you gonna do

differently and it's been you know i've i've bounced some things off you i've played on

you know different configurations and drawings of what i want to do i've gone on the website

to see customer photos on what i want to do and i think i'm getting closer so obviously i still want

to do the same uh house battery system electricity you know the actual system so but the we have some

new things coming for that okay is one of them batteries yeah absolutely because i was worried

about that and i was like you can't find those batteries that we were using no on amazon or

anywhere anywhere the battery market is evolving like mad yeah right now uh things are getting smaller

you know so the capacities are like more dense more dense yep absolutely uh so yeah we've got

several batteries that we're actually working with now they're same well significantly more amp

hours than you had before because on a 392 because the exhaust my old jeep my my v6 i had the

compressor and the battery side by side under the tray but because the exhaust uh cuts into

that space you can only choose one or the other on the 392 which caused some other downstream domino

things that have to be figured out yeah yeah and it was even a single like you wanted a compressor

you couldn't even get the big one yeah it's all of the sort of pneumatic valves that control the

output of the muffler that are in the way so uh but yeah so that that space where yours had the

battery uh you had 230 amp hour 230 yeah so i had a 60 amp hour system yeah so oddly enough

they downgraded that battery to be 20 amp hour now what so you can still get it yeah i mean

i think they just measured it wrong when they started conveniently yeah maybe because i

which is interesting because i had the little display yeah and on my uh 20 on my v6 it was always

super accurate and i feel like on 392 it was never accurate and reprogrammed it i double

checked my wiring i doubt and it was it always felt like it wasn't what it said it was yeah

well you know the the battery world's weird it's you know it's very heavily chinese influenced

you know and and a lot of those batteries are c e listed which is not super great but you know

like our thing is we have to adapt the battery to the space so we don't necessarily get to hang

our hat on any one particular brand as much as i wish we could uh so every manufacturer has

different battery case options that they offer and they fill those with different chemicals you

know some are more efficient than others but uh yeah there's there's definitely a lot of there's

several batteries out now uh even some like u l listed stuff that were pretty exciting that

are really dense and really small oh so yeah oh that i'm super excited about some links

all right send me some links because i i want to redo that and then i know i've got the red

the old school of bcdc does it make sense to get the newer upgraded one with the vision on it or

40 or i have the uh the 40 is the bigger one right it's 25 or four out of 40 yeah uh i wouldn't

think so okay no i mean that that's a great product that's gonna last forever i love that

product yeah um i did have the inverter uh which i think survived the accident it's not in a

thousand pieces like some other things are uh and the molly panel that it was mounted on

was only slightly tweaked a little bit only that one only the new molly but i don't know

i can't imagine why yeah right i think i'll put it back in um the only question it was i didn't

realize and this comes back to the battering amp hour situation i didn't realize that it being

on drew so many amps not even having something plugged in much it was enough on a 60 amp hour

where it was like oh i'm not probably not going to make it through the night with my startling

plugged in here i rather have my startling plugged into yeah yeah wouldn't yeah for sure you know

that conversion is expensive very expensive in terms of battery power right because you're going uh

was it uh ac dc ac dc or whatever that happens to be and so that becomes like you lose a lot in

that process and so i was like okay this this is great for running a projector speakers or a blender

or whatever for those short things i'm glad i have it but the jeep has its inverter

i just don't want the engine running because the idea when you and i started talking about it for

the first jeep that has i said i want to have my house battery system separate from the starting

battery because i've had issues before where the starting battery died overnight because of a fridge

cold weather whatever and what you allowed me to do is put everything on the house battery

system that was an accessory so nothing touched the factory electronics which meant that the

dealer's not unhappy about it right i can also run my gmrs radio or my ham or whatever

directly to the battery in the rear and not pick up any engine noise or things like that and so there's

and i have to run wires to the firewall so there's all these convenience feature so

100 i want to go back to that i'd love to figure out like what the battery options are obviously

the the base plates for the mass system and then i've got a 55 i am fridge again survive the accent

just needs a new hinge on the lid and surprisingly runs and everything so that was the only thing

we did your your lid was loose yeah we've literally popped the lid back in it crazy yeah that's well

so i've got that plus i like the idea of the i am because you put ice cubes in your bourbon but

it's very bougie i know and nobody's pulling everything out of the fridge to fill the ice cube

tray up so i'm just like that was a silly fun thing but i'm not doing the trips that i used

to do so i want to get a 45 which you suggested so i'm listening to you i'm putting i'm putting

down my my no no i need to know britt said this yeah so i like to go the other way like i

want the smallest fridge that i can take and uh and that's served my needs pretty well which is

you know counterintuitive from the one most people think you know what's the biggest one i can get

well what are you giving up yeah to take that big fridge well that's weight it's it's electricity

and efficiency it's um less dr peppers is i'm getting you know giving up uh you know the

amount of dr but that's okay but so you can you can chill dr peppers individually that's

true i can just rotate yeah no you're you're right that was just me being selfish so so the

other thing that we we try to do with our brand is really try to educate people

how we go out and do this type of thing because a lot of people are probably new

absolutely yep yep and one thing that we've been doing recently is talking about ways to

prepare for your trips in both terms of education maps you know data plans you know recovery

all that kind of stuff and one of the things that i've done which might seem really obvious

and maybe a lot of people have done that but uh i've started prepacking all of my stuff in the fridge

like in ziploc bags like and i mean everything you and i even talked about cracking all the eggs

and i think we both do that now where instead of having the eggs blow up inside your fridge you

crack them ahead of time if you're doing scrambled eggs put them in a ziploc or a shaker cup for

like a protein shake and that's the only way to do eggs now now i just pour them into the pan

way easier and you never have to worry about eggs exploding in your fridge yeah now the

only thing to keep in mind there is like those eggs are done yeah you're not yeah i'm gonna save those

after these no no no but yet going back to the ziploc bag thing like you can take a considerably

smaller refrigerator if you don't have to account for all the packaging that this food comes in

glass jars or a huge no no or a big big like bacon's one of those things that come in a big

giant package but if you take the bacon out of that fold it over on itself it fits in the

space of a you know soda can yep absolutely you know instead of folding around the sides and

not conforming and taking a corner we cut the bacon in half yeah it goes in half in a ziploc bag

from that point on and you can actually stack a lot of bacon inside a frying pan like uh while we're

on the thing of fridge the other thing that i do kind of my pro tip is i take two of the giant

bottles of water and i put them in my freezer so i have solid ice and i put those in there if i

a need to take up space in the fridge but also while if if i didn't pre-cool the fridge ahead

of time it helps not have as much draw in the fridge with that in there and then by the time it melts

two or three days later it's ice cold water and you have drinkable water that's that's good to go

absolutely yeah and to that point another thing you can do if you don't have a bunch of produce

in the fridge is you can run the fridge a lot colder during the day and then let it warm up

a little bit at night yeah and that works pretty well and then those new cfx 5 fridges with the

variable compressors are really efficient yeah so i'm looking at getting a 45 so

i still think i want to do uh slide by slide so retain the slides i had uh 45 on the left

and box on the right probably and then go back to the tailgate table with the switch

blanks in there because i had contour switches for operating overhead lights and a couple

other things plus i had a usb outlet in there for charging phones and stuff like that that would

all stay the same still want the molly panels on the side because those were incredibly useful for

mounting the sp50 anderson connector for the solar input and so the biggest thing now is okay

shelf or no shelf i think you've convinced me the answer is shelf and i'm thinking okay on the

24 jeep wranglers that have the power seats gladiators there are companies that make under

seat compressor you can put it under there it fits but it's really tight and i wonder about the heat

output of that and you're probably going to raise your seat and you have to do a seat jack or

something physically won't fit under there and the other problem is that like you're if you've

got these power seats the seats probably moving yeah you know and like when we put it in even

without a mounting bracket at all that compressor was pushed up to the end of the phone yeah the

seat you got wires under there you got stuff that doesn't airbag stuff heated seats things

that you don't want rubbing off road so we talked about this a bit about like all the different

places so with my setup you make a compressor that fits inside the spare tire with my av stuff

it's not compatible with that you make one where it mounts inside which was an option but i found

a company that takes milwaukee pack out boxes pre wired and when we took my compressor out of the

destroyed jeep basically we just cut all the wires off of it and pulled it out so the nice

thing is i get this pack out box i can drop the compressor in there and plug it all in

because it's pretty wired ready to go mounted in there and now i can do your shelf with a milwaukee

pack out plate i put that on there and then i put the starlink mount on top of that and now i have

portable air i'll just run um uh from the battery anderson sb 50 and i'll have my solar one and i'll

have my air compressor one on the molly on the side and then i'll have the starlink mounted to

the top because i won't have a roof rack so i can see the sky now and both the mini and the pack

out can go into other vehicles if i need to super easily yep and then i think on the right hand

side i would go with your dometic water tank holder oh oh oh well the look on your face not a good

oh okay uh so we just got a message from dometic uh today oh that they're discontinuing that go

faucet so here's my thought on it and maybe by the time this comes out we'll know what's happening

yeah it's such a successful product that i feel like they probably got another one coming out at some

point that's what i'm thinking right like there has to be something like that because i think it's

awesome it does yeah there's some things i wish it did better a little more gph or or maybe two

speeds would be nice because there's times where you want just a trickle to get dirt off your

hands and you don't want a puddle of mud under you there's other times you need a little bit

more flow sure i wouldn't mind a physical button yeah button would be nice i definitely rub that

button a lot more than i wish i had to get it to come on but yeah i mean but to that point uh yeah

i mean like portable on board water is pretty cool there's a there's a lot of solutions for it

i think that's the best one still yeah and i'm confident they'll they'll have something coming

out for that so fortunately uh i found my old bag the my triangle bag and it still had everything

in it and that's in it and so i have mine at work so it's survived so anyway that's kind of my

thought process is okay we'll do on board auxiliary house battery we'll do the tailgate table keep the

slides the way they are because those are super functional for me and and how i use it add the

cargo shelf the molly panels and then on the cargo shelf do the pack out on the left and then

do uh some sort of water uh carrier on the on the right hand side so another thing you might

think about there there are a lot of batteries now they're they're called like a slam battery

you know so they'll be kind of elongated in one direction and so like in our in the ranger we have

one from lie time that's 100 amp hours that's about two inches thick uh and it looks like a

you know like one big giant sail it doesn't look like a traditional battery so if you look under

the bottom of that cargo shelf uh it's sort of a concave oh so it creates a little cavity

under there and and we don't we try very hard not to do what we call orphaning space sure

you know once we create this product it makes this space kind of unusable unusable and we work

really hard not to do that that's one of those spaces that we can occupy with batteries so like

we've done uh like broncos and like a lot of our cargo shelves the mass cargo shelves use a similar

type design uh and it's been amazing so we've i'm thinking of one bronco that we've done that

has seven 25 amp hour batteries uh and six of them live under the cargo shelf see that would be

awesome if i could do because if i had i feel what was what was my first jeep 75 amp hour we

dropped to 60 or was it no i think that was a was it 100 and we dropped to 60 i think it was probably

a 50 amp hour at the time because they've gotten a lot better since okay yeah i i i can't remember

i feel like the old one had more than the 392 did but then that may have been just because we

were trying to find the right batteries for it to fit in that space but like i think if i had

100 amp hours i would probably like that would be really good for that odyssey battery in the first

one right yes yeah that's right a pc 110 110 yeah which is like a 48 amp hour okay so that you

only get about 24 amp hours right and i think i still have that odyssey sitting on the floor of

my garage so anyway yeah if i had 100 amp hours that would give me enough with solar input for

two or three days of the sunny spot in the same spot and with me driving every day on an

overlanding type trip i can run the fridge on hot evening overnight no problem and be good to go in

the morning for me 100 amp hours is the sweet spot yeah i think that would be great you know like

you don't ever have to worry about it or at least the way that we use go camping you know because

we're not we're not parked in cloudy weather for more than a night yeah so yeah i just need enough

to get me going to uh like 24 hours without the engine running basically gives me you know

a day or two in a spot and then i'm running and the alternator is charging it back up through the

bcdc the next day yeah and even so like we're a big proponent of red arc solar blankets yeah

we were in a 240 watt solar blanket they make some really nice ones oh it's so nice yeah and they pack

so small yeah it's crazy and and like when that guy's out and it's direct sunlight like it's making

12 amps yeah which is significantly more than all of your accessories running at the same time yeah

so yeah i watched even on my on my monitor before and i could see even with the fridge running full

tilt even with um the radio on something else and then i have solar plugged in and it's like

charging way faster than taking out and by noon i was had fully charged batteries it was like and

that's the thing like i like i've seen us pull you know 10 amps fairly common when everything's

running uh but your fridge is not running all the time no you know so especially the new ones

that have the variable pressures on them yeah i mean realistically you know you're putting half of

that back into the battery at the worst scenarios yeah and that's only if you need it you know like

most time we don't ever pull it out so that's great so my goal is i fly out to michigan i'm

going to drive the jeep back home and then try and get some of the stuff i have acquired that

you know i either replacement or needs to go back in it in it and then i'd like to just

drive out and spend three or four days up there with you and just knock everything out if that

works for you i want to make a wager with you oh man all right yeah so you come to me with

your best plan okay i'm going to bet you that we change case of dr pepper that you leave with

something else all right yeah something better so that that's what we do right and that's

what i would like to think separates us from most of the companies that are installing

products yeah you know like when it when a bill comes into our shop it's it's pretty rare

that we don't make something for that bill yeah that just didn't exist before they came because

everybody's got a different way of doing this well i'm just bringing the spare parts that came out

of the old one back and we're just going to go through you're going to be like red tag or

green tag right like this is going back and this one's not yeah well we can throw stuff away

too all right well that that's my plan i want to come spend a few days with you and then maybe

what we can do is maybe it's like two days install on the night of camping or something like that

and we can you know get some content around um using it and but i'm i'm trying to get a little bit

more efficient with space i'm trying to get a little bit more efficient with weight so there's

some things like i like having the roof rack i like the look of it however there was always a

weight penalty and a aerodynamic penalty you get the penalty from the serious xm antenna

not being pointed in the right direction and then it also allows you to bring more stuff

than you really need so all of a sudden you've got more weight again and so you go in this

vicious circle with it where it's really nice to have when you need it but the rest of the time

it's also there and so i'm i'm gonna back away from that go slick top and like i said that way

allows me to mount the star like mini on the inside and secure and just be more efficient but

like a big part of like packing efficiency and setting this up is going to be you and i

putting our heads together and figuring out like what's the next version of the a l stuff

that's gonna make this work the way it needs to so i have some cool stuff to show you

okay yeah we've worked we have three different slides that we're working with now that aren't

public yet okay so various capabilities various strength ratings a lot of lightweight stuff that's

coming down the pike that's pretty cool so no but we like we're we're not very stagnant with this

stuff we move on it really quickly and you know sort of every time we take on a new vehicle

we try something different and a lot of times that whatever that evolved from that gets put

into the other product lines as well so we you know we try to you know always be developing

something and uh yeah some really cool stuff coming for drawers which seems like you know how could

you make a better drill i know you keep and even the drawers you have to keep iterating so you have

like there's two tabs that you pull together push down and pull the drawer out well you made

just a really simple handle that snaps over the top of those so instead of two hands it's one

hand and then you can put a little label on it right like just little things like that you

go oh yeah that totally makes sense why wouldn't you have done that before it's funny like i didn't

think much about that because like australia has been doing that for a long time they've just

been doing it sort of differently with different products and um the the slides that we use are

made by folter they're a really really good slide they're lifetime rating anyway so we did that

and then i got a call from folter you're like hey uh we'd like to buy a bunch of your slide

handles really why he said well we've been trying to figure out this design for a couple of years

and you did it i thought well man that's really cool so now they're actually i don't think i can

say this publicly but they're molding the hole that we need into that handle from the factory so

you don't have to take the extra step now of creating the holes already there so that'll be

really cool that is really i don't i don't think that's in their production line yet but we'll

be very soon so lots of cool things all right well american adventure lab is one of my favorite

aftermarket companies uh love working with brit had the opportunity to do it for quite a while now

and i've never been disappointed with the product and thank you for coming out to the pot shed i mean

school you're here for an event and you're like hey i'm in town i'm like hey let's do a podcast

so i'm glad we were able to get this together and it's always always good to see you if

you guys want to follow american adventure lab uh it's american adventure lab on facebook

it's at american adventure lab on instagram and at adventure lab on youtube if you want to watch

some of their videos and see how the product works how it comes together there's a lot of

great content on there and of course you always go to the website and you can get a lot like don't

go to the website right now don't look at it on your phone while you're driving or if you're

like listening to this podcast at your desk at work because you will get sucked into american

adventure lab dot com for hours and you don't realize like how much stuff and you're like oh

i want to do the drawers oh there's the math oh there's tall drawers there's short drawers there's

wide drawers there's slides there's all these oh here's the accessories all of a sudden you're

down a rabbit hole it's like me when i get a really good long cigar that i know it's gonna take two

hours i'm gonna find two hours or nobody's gonna bother me do do that on the website well that's

awesome yep we would love that all right well we'll talk soon and as soon as i get this thing

back we'll figure out a date but i'm gonna come out to you guys and we'll make the 392

great again sounds good we can do it thanks again for all your help getting me through

last few months and appreciate your friendship and we'll talk soon okay thanks all right so how

awesome is brit from american adventure lab i love having him on it's been too long and

listen even if you don't have an application that you can use as cargo storage solutions or

you know one of his other solutions there's something he has that you can use like the

paper towel holder on your wife's suv for like soccer games and softball and things like that

that is not an overlanding product that is an everyday product and we use it all the time so

anyway americanventurelab.com thanks to brit for coming on so what do you say we head on over to the

answering machine and see who left the message on the five star hotline

hey old woman

uh lars do it column um

just listening to have you heard here and uh you're talking about where trucks

all uh pick up some stuff or build um it's oshawa Ontario

just bigger than i'd tell ya i'm not from Ontario but yeah

kind of it's amusing when uh people pronounce

town names wrong or whatever last names too for that matter

anyway keep up the great work

and i knew when i said it i got it wrong and i just i just rolled with in case i got it right

and thank you lars for pointing that out and in case you're wondering lars wasn't the only person

to uh to point that out because we have a lot of canadian listeners i love you all

so sean uh writes to me oshawa oshawa and then just to make sure i got it right he did a

little voice recording for me and sent it via my instagram oshawa

okay so it's oshawa oshawa

i'm saving that as a drop for i'm gonna use it at some point you guys

but thank you for letting me know that i was wrong

it's so hard when you are trying to put together a show and you're like

i don't know what this word is and you just try it again and you try and you go

i just have to i gotta send it so anyway i appreciate you guys uh keeping me honest

because it is uh always nice when you let me know i messed up and i'm humble enough to accept that

and uh i'm not even sad i'm more amused than anything seriously all right well why don't

we head on over to the pod shed insiders because we haven't checked in in a bit and see

what's going on in there join the pod shed insiders why not

we're having fun with all that's being said hooting and hollering in the online shed

we're having fun talking trucks and other totally

rad and random stuff no matter where you are hang out in holman's backyard

join the pod shed insiders why not

oh one of my favorite intros so i don't always say who joined the pod shed insiders

week after week i maybe i did in the beginning but maren joined so she's in there now so if

you guys want to hear more about maren on the show or more from her or even better if you

want to give her an assignment of what you want her to learn and report on i will do a maren

segment but you guys have to use the pod shed insiders tag her in it and then give her her

assignment and whatever you guys decide to do i'm sure she would love to do it so a few funny posts

in there rich humphries writes who else is getting a little frustrated with all these ai making

trucks which is like every news story right now is some ai rendering of a truck that's stupid

shane jackson uh posted some great dr pepper content which i always love inside the pod

shed insiders scotty ace posted the article from motor trend that we sort of walked through in the

last have you heard and our buddy dav graham who does a bunch of our social also posted some

questions about vibrations on his truck which actually had a lot of people uh chiming in on

and one last thing a few of you chimed in and said you took advantage of the canine

filters discount it's still live right now just till the end of the month so make sure if you

want to get a canine intake a cabin air filter a engine filter an oil filter go to

truck show podcast dot com go to feature products and then you can find out what that discount

code is it's only valid till the end of the month so you want to take advantage of that right now

while you can well i think that's going to do it for this episode of the truck show podcast but

if you get lonely for truck content between episodes no problem just head on over to

social give us a follow at truck show podcast or at shonpy holman the truck show the truck

show the truck show and we love your feedback we love when you're part of the show and we love

to be told that we maybe got something wrong or mispronounce the name of your city or something

like that it's a valid reason to either call the five star hotline 657 205 6105 or send me an

email truck show podcast at gmail.com but you can also just send it to uh ask a question or

give some input it doesn't always have to be home and messed up that's it i mean you

let's be honest it probably will be that uh don't forget join the facebook group the

pod shed insiders it's a great place to hang out with other podcast listeners and marins on there

so give her an assignment make sure uh she has a reason to come back on the show i know some

of you have emailed me or messaged me on social saying oh we'd love to have marin come back

well i'm sure she'd love to come back but she needs an assignment so send her some marching

orders i guess also don't forget to send in your events know your notes and of course we have to

thank the sponsors that make the truck show podcast possible it would not be free it would not be

i don't know maybe it wouldn't even be happening without such great companies like amsoil if you

love your vehicles like we do if you want the best in synthetics you want oil change kits car

care products and you want something that you can buy easily online amsoil is the company

you want to deal with they make the best stuff amsoil dot com and if you want a great knife to

compliment your amazing truck then the fantastic line of kershaw knives is where you want to go

they've got everything from edc knives all the way up to more bespoke made in the usa knives

they have a great lineup all available at kershaw.kaiusa.com and don't forget to use our discount

code and get yourself a deal and if you love adventure and four-wheeling like i do you

want to head on over to ovrmag.com for some of the best adventure content out there

also if you want the magazine well we make a print magazine and a digital version of that

you get the digital version for free for a year or you get a discount on the print magazine six

times a year big fat thick heavy magazine that shows up to your doorstep the way it used to be

so please support us at ovrmag.com anyway thanks for joining me on this episode of the truck

show podcast i really appreciate everybody who listens and i'm looking forward to doing it again

the truck show podcast is a production of truck famous llc this podcast was created by

shawn holman and jay tillis hosted by shawn holman and uses production elements by dj omar con and

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you

all right canada this is my punishment for getting pronunciation of your town wrong

and it's basically just a little self-deprecating holman for you

yeah

me one more time

yeah

i can't even say right now

S3, E47 - Brit Mansell

Jeep Gladiator

Ford F-150 Lightning

Jeep Wrangler

Toyota Land Cruiser

Jeep Recon

Jeep Cherokee

Ford Bronco

Toyota 4Runner

Lexus Gx

Ford Ranger

F-150 Raptor

Gmc Canyon

Ford F150

Ford Excursion

About this episode

Original notes