S3, E60 - SEMA 2025, Part 3

Let's head down to the car show, Get to see my time we gotta go, Underneath the Vegas lights,

We are here for the auto sight, Trucks are lifted, heaven high, Burnout smoke drips to the sky,

Homan has but one goal in mind, It's to cover the show in the allotted time,

It's Seema, It's Seema time.

The truck show, We're gonna show you what we know,

We're gonna answer what the truck, Cause truck rides with ****,

The truck show, We have the lifted, We have the lowered,

And everything in between, We'll talk about trucks that run on diesel,

Electricity in our gasoline, The truck show, the truck show,

The truck show, It's the truck show with your host, Homan.

That's right, Homan I'm back, and I'd like to welcome you back as well to the pod shed.

So in this episode, we continue to rock our Seema coverage with part three where we'll

hear from Amsoil, Red Ark, McLeod, Rockford Fosgate, Real Trucks, Deer Smarts, my friends

Jason Mulligan and Marcel Venable where we discuss the TMI Trim Awards, which I was a judge of,

but before we get into it, we have to thank the companies that bring you this podcast.

The truck show podcast is proudly brought to you in partnership with Amsoil,

the maker of the best synthetics and the same ones we use in our rigs.

Amsoil has some new merch just in time for the holidays including new t-shirt designs

from now until December 31st, take advantage of Amsoil's holiday offer,

spend more than $125 on synthetic oil, lubricants, greases, car care products and yes,

even merch and get that Amsoil Blocks UTV set for free. Use the promo code Homan2025 at checkout

on amsoil.com. And while you're out holiday shopping, consider getting your loved ones or

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use the promo code to TSP2025 and get those gifts for your family, friends or yourselves today

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All right, of course I had to stop by the Amsoil booth to see my friends at Amsoil because

they have a bunch of new products that they're debuting here at SEMA and with Garrett

So you're the product planner, developer? Product development engineer. Oh my god. Oh,

you're an engineer. You're like, oh, you can get super nerdy on this stuff, right?

You could if you wanted to. New products we have this year. Now as many as last year, last year

we had 19. This year we have five. I think I have half of those somewhere in my garage

because I've used all of them and I love them. Fantastic. I love that. No, so we'll start

left to right here. Okay. We launched three new car care products in conjunction to the

before we launched last year. So by the way, two things that I really started to interrupt you,

but dude, I'm happy to see you here. I appreciate it. I saw your trials and tribulations.

I'm happy to be seen. Yeah, man. But thank you. It's been a while, but you know,

glad you're still with us. Appreciate it. Thank you. Have a good one, man. I'm still

standing after two days at SEMA. So that's awesome. That's awesome. The ultimate test.

And there's still two more days left. I know. There's still two more days left. Yes.

Yes. So some of my favorite products. I love the interior detailer and then the ceramic spray is

super easy to just kind of do those, you know, updates. Correct. Wash it down. We're great.

I love it. And that's exactly what we wanted with that product was simplicity and performance.

And then as a reminder, the high foam car shampoo is also, I got one of those foam canons.

Did you? Yeah. And it changes because it's not like some of them just foam and then it falls

off right away. Correct. Your foam is like a big, like, I don't know. It's like a foam party rage

thing where it just sticks to everything, right? It does. And I can go around the whole car

and I come around the other side. The foam is still doing its thing. It's not all

dripped on the ground yet. Correct. Yeah. So it keeps that sudsy layer for you.

But no, the four products last year did really good. And we thought, well, let's build upon

this. Let's kind of complete out the portfolio. So the way we did that was

trim and tire protectant. So what we did here with this one was it was always for

the outside of your tire, obviously, to give it that a little bit of like a new tire shine,

but not overly aggressive. We didn't want that greasy, right? We didn't want the grease

because I love that. Yeah. Because we're located and we're a good amount of the

our customers are located is you got dirt roads. Yeah. So if you've got that really greasy

product, you get brown tires, you get brown tires, you get the dirt that clings to it. Well,

even after like for me out in Southern California, I go to the desert and I like to wash my car

when it's in the city mode. Yep. It's clean. It's dialed and then I go off road. But I don't

want to have a bunch of greasy dirt that I rub up against it and I get it in the

interior when I sit in. Correct. I love having a nice clean tire look that doesn't have

that high gloss grease on it. Exactly. That product does that. And that's

exactly where we landed. It dries pretty quickly, doesn't sling. Another thing you

didn't want was the sling to come off. Especially on trucks where it goes all

down the side of your new clean truck as soon as you pull out the driveway.

Correct. Yep. And that's the same thing with the trim too. You know, some some

for instance, like a Jeep will have that matte fender flare. We wanted nothing

grease here, rub up on it and want it to dry. We wanted it to look new,

not overly glossy. So that's our trim and tire protectant. It's got a little bit

of UV inhibitors in there as well to help with those classic that get

heated by the sun, especially Southern California. Yeah, for sure. Next one along

we have the wheel and tire cleaner. So this one we wanted same thing with the

Stryme Xpray. One product, super simple and easy, does a really good job.

This is more of a pH balanced formula. So it's really safe on every type of

wheel. We tested multiple types of wheels. Machine, polish, powder coated,

painted, chrome. Yep, yep. So a lot of those, even after America, like methods,

those type of wheels, we tested on all of those, found them to be safe.

Number one thing is going to be brake dust, especially on the big truck.

A lot of cars have really aggressive brake pads and put out a lot of dust.

Exactly. How does it do for that? It does fantastic. We have it in two

different ways. You can spray it on, let it sit for just a minute,

close it off, or you can scrub it both ways work fantastic.

It does a really good job of foaming up, too. And then if you've noticed, as you spray it on

there, the tire turns brown, pulling that bloom, it's pulling that oxidation off.

And it gives it a really good, clean look. Then we can come behind it with the trim

and tire protectors. Kind of a one-two punch there, if you will, for the wheel and tire cleaner.

So that's a fantastic product. It doesn't smell too harsh either. We wanted a nice scent.

We didn't want that pungent, tough degreaser.

Some of them are green where you spray it and they turn purple or they bring it out.

But sometimes they have a really strong chemical spray around it. You're like,

should I really be breathing this? Exactly. And with this, it's a very pleasant scent,

not overbearing or overpowering that you get with some of those other wheel and tire cleaners.

To round out the portfolio, we ended with a quick detailer. Now, the difference between

this and the ceramic spray, a couple different things. The quick dealer detailer does not

have any ceramic in it, right? It's meant to pick up light dust and dirt, maybe some

bird droppings. And it's really good for in-your-door jams, right? So it's somewhere where you can't

really get a hose. You don't want to get your interior all wet. This is like you got your

car wash yesterday. It was a little bit windy and now it's covered in pollen and dust, right?

Pollen's huge too, especially. So that's a good spot for it. Getting in those door jams as well.

And then lastly, we added in, it is a clay bar lubricant. So if you want to clay bar your

car, it's a fantastic clay bar lubricant currently. It's got a nice scent to it as well as not super

aggressive. It's a strawberry natural melon, so it's got a good scent to it. So that kind of

rounds out our car care portfolio. And the last two products we have here are both in the ATV-UTV

space. I was very involved in both of these from a testing development standpoint. So

you really just did that so you could go drive your four-wheelers out in the woods.

You got me. You got me. So the CVT fluid. Guilty as charged. Yes. So CVT continues to variable

transmission fluid. Flairis came out with a steel drive transmission. So the 1500 HD.

I sort of got out to Ford Ranger. It is a big ATV and UTV. So we needed to come up with the

fluid specifically for that because it has a little bit different characteristics than a standard

belt CVT. So that one was a fun one. That was thousands of hours on the dyno. I know it's

horrible. You know the punishment that you must have endured doing that. Yes it sucked. It was a

terrible day of riding in Northern Wisconsin. It was terrible. No fun was had. No, no, no. And then

the DCT fluid, the dual clutch transmission fluid, this was for the K&M Maverick R. It

looks almost like a spaceship. Yeah. The big control arms coming out of the hood. That

one out of the seven speed dual clutch transmission. And I'm talking it is raw. It slams in here for sure.

So that fluid especially went through a lot of development on the front end before it even hit

the machine. So our chemical lab was working diligently on that one as well. And that one was

thousands of hours on the dyno as well to get that one dialed in and it performed fantastic.

So both those products are now available and they round out our new product showcase this

year. What's up on the Pistons? The Pistons display. Yes. I see six Pistons here. Yes,

six Pistons. So this is emulating the Sequence 3H test. It's an industry standard test. It's 90

hours. Run at 300 degrees Fahrenheit. So that's a very hot oil temperature. Oil is usually tested

at 212 and it runs in your vehicle about 180 to 212, 220. Yeah, I know some of the more

modern engines are a little bit on the high side for emissions. So a lot of people buy a new

vehicle and they go, oh, my oil temps are 220 and they might be used at 180 and you're like,

no, everything's fine. This is a modern engine using it for emissions. So this test is run at 90 hours

and of course at Amsoil we up the ante. We ran this twice. So 180 hours at 300 degrees Fahrenheit

and even after doubling the length of that test these Pistons were 27 percent better.

They look awesome. The deposit control than the industry standard recommends.

So I love Signature Series. I know and maybe you can kind of clear this up. There's a lot of people

who are out there, for example, 392 Hemi in a Jeep, right? And they'll go, well, it doesn't have the

API on it. But the reality is that you guys use an additive package that's far beyond what's

required for that test. Correct. And so my understanding and maybe you can clear it

up just for people are listening is it exceeds the standard that Chrysler puts for that motor

but you don't have the API stamp because you're outside of the bounds of what that test

requires because you actually have more additive, right? Correct. That's a really good way to put it.

Just because you have a set standard doesn't mean you can't go past that standard and

a lot of companies will formulate to that standard and meet that. It's more of a price

point really. We formulate for performance. So here's the other thing I'll say is I know

there's a lot of, especially in the Chrysler side, there's other vehicles. And by the way,

the European is different than, you know, either it's correct because of the extra zinc

content. So that's different between the American style blend and the European version.

You have some similarities, but Europe is very stringent on that because they're,

you know, they have the DPF on the diesel side, but they also have the gas filters.

So those as well clogged up. So in case anybody's wondering, oh, but I found synthetic in 0, 20,

whatever, signature series. And this one's European. It's like, no, use the one that's

correct for your car because it is actually formulated for your car. Correct. The other

thing I'll say is there's a lot of people like, I don't want to use it because it'll

void the warranty because it doesn't have that API rating. But the truth is that not only is it a

better oil than what is required, but you guys stand behind your oil with your own warranty as well.

We do. Yes. You use our signature series paired with our filter and you are backed by our warranty

with that product. 100%. So I want to clear that up because I've had people ask me about that.

They go, why do you use it? It doesn't avoid your warranty. No, Amazon covers everything

with this. Use their filter. Everything's designed to be beyond what the manufacturer

recommends. You're good to go. You're exactly right. Dude, this is awesome. Can we have you

on the podcast again if you're a product engineer? Absolutely. I've got lots of questions.

Yeah, let's do some more. I kind of want to dig down into some conversations on

like viscosity and there's a little bit like the penistars and some of the Chevy's that

went to a lower viscosity and the old one, which was a nearly identical engine,

might have been five instead of zero weight. What does that mean for the consumer?

Can they bump up? I would love to like dig deeper into some of that. Yes, for sure. We can definitely

talk about that. At the end of the day, it's just the starting number of the viscosity is

it's winter weight that W stands for. And it's just cold weather. I don't want to say performance,

but how it interacts with the cold weather. And when I say cold weather, I mean anything that's

not 212 degrees Fahrenheit. So it could be, you know, Southern Californics get 150 degrees

or 150. That's still not operating temperature. That W is going to matter at that time.

And that's a good point because I think people think winter and they think snow and ice

and 30 degrees or something like that. That's where you can get a little

little loss and loss in the weeds there. Well, let's get back together into a longer form on it

because I would love to dive down into that because I don't, I think we touch on it,

but we've never really like answered those questions for people. Exactly. We can get

into viscosity modifiers. Let's do it. Let's do it. The baseball matters too. So

let's talk about awesome. Appreciate it. Thank you.

All right. I found myself in the red arc booth with cold fetters and there's two products here

that I think truck guys are going to appreciate. One of these, you sent me the early press release

and you're like, Hey, this is what we're doing. And I fell out of my chair because we've talked

about, you know, red arc has been on the show before. We've talked about the power management

systems that red arc makes. I'm a huge fan. I've had them in both my jeeps. But before

you would have to take the BCDC, which is the battery charging and DC solar,

you know, unit that puts power into the vehicle or uses your alternator, solar, whatever,

then you'd have to have a fuse block and you'd have to have it shunt for monitoring. And then

you would have to, I mean, just all these individual components that you would have to do to create

the system, like I would have my house battery system in the Jeep. And as we know, modern

vehicles have can bus, you don't want to be tapping into it. And I don't want to use my,

you know, fridge and then draw down my starting battery. So I've used red arc in the past.

You guys have now taken all of those components and put them into one product. Tell me

about it. Yeah, we're just trying to make things simple for people. Right? So we've got three new

panels that are taking these existing products, putting them all together, wiring them all together

to make consumers lives easier. So all you're doing is taking a panel, you're selecting

which one you want, and then adding a battery and then you plug your fun stuff in there.

Done. So pretty simple. Before I would have to get the BCDC and the BCDC would have like

not terminated ends. So then you'd add your, you'd solder your wires together and you run

to where you needed to. You'd run them to, you know, power from the battery from the car,

trigger wire for the alternators. I know you had this smart alternator. Then you would run

your solar out and you'd put your Anderson SB50 on it. And then you would do your fuse block

and then you would wire the money and then if you had an inverter, you'd have to do a little

of this special high gauge, you know, giant wire size for your inverter. And you do all those

things and you'd have these runs of wires going everywhere and you'd pack it in. They would

be like a mission and match. But now in this one unit, this one panel basically has everything

and you guys pretty test it, pre-wire it. And even the SB Anderson SB50, which is a standard

connector that you would connect for like a winch or a solar panel, you can connect directly to it,

ready to go, you can solar panel directly to the RedWorx panel. I'm like so blown away

at the simplicity for the average person. Yeah. I mean, that's what we're trying to do.

You say all of that, you make it sound so complicated and we wonder why people were

intimidated by power management, right? So each panel, we're kind of jumping up in

functionality, right? So we've got the scout, like I just mentioned, the footprint of a sheet

of paper, 11 and a half by eight or whatever. And then we jump up to the Nomad 50, you get

50 amps of charging. Our new BCDC with star battery charge back. We have 10 fuse spots,

a smart battery monitor so you can see how much battery life you have. And then we jump

up to the next version, which gets you access to the TVMS Rogue and the RedVision display

with all the information you could ever want. That, I mean, that's amazing and it's going to

make it so much easier. It's going to be a game changer, I think, for a lot of people who

have considered power management before, but weren't, to your point, intimidated or they

didn't want to pay somebody, you know, because it's a very labor-intensive process.

And to find a good wiring guy is not cheap, right? And so they're going, well, I could just go get one

of those portable battery boxes. I'm happy with it. Yeah, but it's not part of the vehicle.

You got to bring it in and charge it. It's heavy. It takes up space. This is a pretty

flat panel. It's about three inches tall. And if you can mount it in your car, make it part

of your car, you no longer have to carry those portable batteries and remember to

charge it because it's always going to be ready to go. Yeah. And my favorite thing about

dual battery systems compared to a portable battery is your rate of charge when you're

driving down the road. You know, with this 50 amp charger and you've got a 100 amp

hours of battery, you're charged up in two hours from flat to full. And if you think

about it, you know a standard, let's say it's a Dometic fridge that's a new, the

Nuke CFX5, on average, probably 0.8 to 1.2 amps per hour, something like that.

That's a lot of fridge runtime that you have 100 amp batteries. Totally. Right?

You're a couple days and if you can fire up your vehicle or plug in a solar

panel by noon, you're fully charged up, ready to go, and your vehicle hasn't

missed a beat. That's incredible. So great product. I'm super excited about

this. I'm going to send you all sorts of emails from my OVR account and be like,

hey, project. But this is game changing for a lot of people. And then over here for

the rest of your truck guys, there's another product. And this is one that has

been talked about for a while and dabbled in. And then I saw the pressure

in this command and go, wait, I know about this. What's new? And it's

like, it's finally launched. We're here. Yeah. Yeah. We finally launched the

Topro Lynx, a part of the Topro series. Again, in the vein of making things

simpler, this Bluetooth controller is plug and play. So you plug one end into the

seven pin of your truck, you mount the controller up underneath your truck,

and then you plug the trailer into the other end of the seven pin and you're

done. So you can Bluetooth straight to your phone, but a lot of people

still want something physical. You know, there's a safety component to

having a physical control inside of the truck. And so you've got a USB power

remote, the Bluetooth to the back. And so you still have something physical you

can control gain or do a sway stop. Really great controller that has an

off-road mode. And you can hit the sway stop basically while you're driving. If you

feel the trailer coming out, you hit the button and it's going to

pulse the brakes to kind of bring the trailer back in line with the tow

vehicle. You're exactly right. And that'll happen automatically too. This

has got a six-axis stabilization sensor in it. But there's sometimes that

you might sense that before a sensor does, you know, even though it's

six-axis and that's better than most things on the market, and you might want

that manual control as well. Yeah, it's pretty awesome because there's a

lot of trucks out there, especially like the mid-sized class that don't have an

option for a trailer brake controller. And even if you get, you know, a lot of

people are like, I don't want the really expensive, you know, premium

platinum, whatever, Super Duty RAM, Chevy, whatever it is. And the

Luster models, unless you get the tow package, might not even have a

trailer brake controller. So they don't even give you all the

hardware necessary to tow the rating that that truck is rated at, right?

So being able to add something like this, it's Bluetooth, it's out of sight,

it's all foey-style construction, looks great, and then the unit itself has a

mounting plate for four screw holes you find a place to put it. It's

weathertight and it just lives underneath your bumper or something in the back.

Exactly. Yeah, nice and easy. And I mean, there's a case for folks who already

have a factory-installed brake controller that they might want this, the

extra functionality. Yeah. Or a lot of factory-installed

brake controllers won't work with electric over hydraulic brakes, you know,

so what a lot of like bass angling boats are coming on or some like kind of

mid-sized trailers and stuff like that, where you might need a brake

controller on top of your factory-installed brake controller.

Man, look at you guys, Red Ark, just like doing the Lord's work for truck

people. Oh, you think so. I love your products. I've been a user of them for

really long time, you know, we've done install articles, but I've used

them in the worst of conditions and I've never had a Red Ark

failure and they've just made my life easier and being able to do the things I

love, so I appreciate it. Great brand, guys. If you want to find out

more, RedArkElectronics.com, is that the U.S.?

Yeah. And by the way, Red Ark is an Australian company

and Red Ark does a ton of, like their management for battery, they've been

doing a ton for the overlanding market and that's commercial markets in

Australia. They're not a newcomer to the game.

They've been around for a long time and make a really quality product, so.

Yeah. Thanks, Sean. Appreciate you. Thank you.

I am standing here in the McLeod booth with my good friend

Will Mr. Clutch Beatty. How are you, sir? I'm doing well, my friend.

It's good to see you. I'm doing a lot better than I was.

Yes. Obviously, McLeod makes a lot of

transmission stuff. You guys work with companies like Tremac and

you have your line of clutch products and you also have

torque converters, automatic transmitting. You guys just do the gamut.

Drive line company. Yep. And so we'll start here.

This is a table where you are displaying the

JL clutches. I see some new hydraulics sitting on the table.

Yes, sir. Those are new hydraulics for either JKJL, but this one here is for

the JL. Okay. And that was actually one of the

key components to making a new JL clutch board.

We can talk about that in depth later, but it's. So we know that there

have been some issues with the clutches, but there's also a lot of

misinformation out there about that. So, and I know you guys put together

like a media guide of sort of walking through what the

issues are, what you found, and so we'll get you back on the podcast for a

longer form. Okay. But I just kind of wanted to hit, like, what are your new

products at SEMA? What should we be looking for?

Off-road related? Yeah, off-road truck. Well, we got all kinds of, you know,

over there, so all our single-disc line. And you know the adventure series

was something we came up with. Yeah. And that was

directed strictly for the off-road market. And that's what we developed when

we first came on board. So, yeah, we got all kinds of off-road

adventure series products for anything. Your buddy Ryan

Milly was here yesterday. That's Ryan in a while. Yeah.

And we put, you know, our clutch in his truck and he, you know, he's

running out of the wild. He's racing Teslas on the dirt.

You gotta represent that video, but yeah, he's racing cars and everything in

the dirt. And so, I mean, we have everything from

mild to wild in the off-road. And even some of the twin-disc stuff here,

we put in a couple of the bigger horsepower off-road

applications. So, going to the Jeep JL, you got the

ProPack clutch kit. And so, that comes complete. So, you get the single-disc

clutch kit, the high-clamp load pressure plate,

the sprung-up dual-performance disc, max mass seal, billet flywheel, hydraulic

bearing, bleeder, and a hardware all in one kit.

Everything. Everything you need. Yeah. There's nothing,

nothing else you need in that kit. What's the clutch cooler I keep

hearing about? Because I feel like, I feel like that's

something that people want to know about. So, a clutch cooler

is one way for us to evacuate that hot air, that stagnant hot air sitting in

the side of the bell house. And the clutch, obviously, it's going to

generate heat. Every time you slip the clutch, you're generating heat.

It's connected to the back of the engine, which obviously,

you know, 200 some degrees, 180 to 200 degrees. Not that that

air flow through there. No, there's not. And one of the things we want to do

is cool that clutch down. Because the number one killer of

clutches, and everything, is heat. Sure.

So, if we can cool that air down, we can cool the clutch down

and prolong clutch life. But it also works well for the hydraulics.

Because hydraulics are usually the first thing to let go with

heat. And that, we can cool that down. And we did some testing

in the sand car market. And we reduced the bell house temperature

50 degrees, which is substantial. That's a lot. That's a lot.

So, that's what that clutch cooler is about. And we're in

development for doing for the jail. Awesome. Yeah, the one of the

things is, you know, if you're off road and you're in

four high, you're slipping clutches and things like that,

you're generating heat just to get over obstacles. And

sometimes if you're in four low, just all day in, four low,

and in and out, and things like that. Now, you guys have the

SilverSport transmission lineup. I've seen a lot of, like,

lowered C10s and F100s and things like that here with your setup.

Yep. And then also, on the FTI and the converter side,

you and I talked about a new torque converter for, like,

more off-road-centric, lower lockup. Yep.

Is that still a thing for the EHP? It's all done for the

jail, you know, for, like, your little handy. Yeah.

Well, you know, it's funny. So, it's one of the things is on my

392, both the old one and the new one. One of the things that I

would realize is if I'm backing into the driveway, I have to

give it a lot of power before the clutch or, excuse me, before

the torque converter locks up and gets me up and like, it's

like, right? So, you can't just, like, idle backwards.

So, a lower lockup would be really nice because it would

be a little less effort and exhaust noise at night backing

and it reduces the temperature. So, when you're slipping that

converter, if that's what's happening, you're generating heat

and then you park it. Yeah. That's the worst thing you can do

because you want to get that, you know, it's one thing to

get a flash heat. Sure. And then at that time, you can

actually burn fluid and we want to get that fluid

stabilized before you shut it down and you're backing up

or loading on a trailer, worst thing people do is load

and they get a flash heat on that fluid and then they

shut it down and just sits there and doesn't recycle it.

So, is that torque converter for another application?

Like, a challenge of torque, but it works well. Yeah.

So, and that's a three-disk. Yours is a two-disk. Okay.

And we step it up to a three-disk. So, for a guy like me

off-roading things like that, where would I see the

difference in doing that type of converter swap?

Well, it depends on your rig setup and the weight of it.

So, you know, stall's going to change and we don't want

too much stall, obviously, off-road. But we would

tailor each and every converter for each and every application.

So, depending on what's needed, because gears, weight of the

vehicle, that all changes. It's all about load.

When a transfer converter is all about the load that it's seen.

So, that's one, you know, we want to make sure that we

center them perfectly. So, depending on your use and what

you're using it for, it's how we'll center them.

So, if we want a little bit less stall, then we put a

little less stall. So, that you're not slipping it,

generating a lot of heat. Some guys, well, they like

to go play in the sand or they need a little bit more

slip. So, they're going to run at the higher off

hand. So, they want to get out of the hole so

they can get in that power band that much faster.

Even in the 392, we need to get in that power band.

Which is a lot of fun in the sand when you have

decent suspension on it. Yeah. A three six guy

needing a 392, you know. It's an unfair

advantage you have over me. Well, listen, the

382 is the only vehicle I've ever bought

knew that wasn't a manual transmission. You know it

pains me a little bit. I know, I know.

And I love it. I love the vehicle, but I miss

shifting my own gears. You know, we have

silver sport transmission. We can put it on a

manual and have things. Never say it can't be

done because it can be done. Well, if you do a

392 manual conversion kit, then call me

because I might be first in line for that.

I have no idea how freaked out the vehicle

would be weird to do something like that.

You're very angry. And the electronics would not

be happy. No, no. Anything else truck-related

in here that I can tell my awesome

wizards about? I know you guys have a

lot of great diesel products that, but you

know, you know, with the advent of the newer

vehicles, obviously more automatic

transmission, but you still have a lot of

great, like, for Cummins and all that stuff

that hasn't, you know, been touted at a

long time. Still great products for the

diesel market. No, no. Yeah, we have all

that stuff and, you know, it's all

good product. You know, I'm a diesel guy,

but this is quite, you know, I'm an

automatic, so not too many manual

vehicles. Mr. Clutch drives an automatic.

The truth comes out. Duramax, you know, if it was a Cummins,

it'd be a different story. Yes, you can't

really make fun of me anymore, can you?

Well, thanks for spending a few minutes

with us at SEMA, but seriously, let's

have you back on the podcast because I

love to dive into the Jeep manual

transmission, because I had that

transmission. We did stuff to it

back in your former life. It's still

going strong. I'd love shifting for

myself, and if there's a solution out

there, or you have some insight for

folks who have that setup, I would love

to talk about it. I'd love to tell you

about it, because there's a lot to be

told, and I think there's a lot of

misinformation out there. All right,

well, let's make it happen. All right, bye.

Okay, so you guys, if you're in the

truck and especially the Jeep World,

you probably know Steersmart.

They're one of those special after

market companies that have maybe a

little secret, because they have a

little OE connection, which means

they make really high-end quality

products that can be durable.

They understand, you know, rubber,

durability, salt spray, all the things

that you have to do to have durability

OE cycle, and they're selling in the

after market. There's a few companies

like that, but not many to the

standard, and I was walking through new

products, and I saw that you guys

have a complete chassis solution that

you're introducing at SEMA this

year for the Gladiators. I'm with

Jay Velthoven at Steersmart, and

I'm in the booth right now, and you

actually have the chassis out, and I

really wanted to walk through, what were

your thoughts behind it? What are you

changing?

Everything is like one cohesive bundle,

or you can part out individual

components if you wanted to.

Yeah, so what we did is we wanted to

start with the complete

comprehensive chassis overhaul

essentially for both JL and JT.

We offer it in a two and a half inch

lift or a three and a half inch

lift package. It's not just a kit, so

it's an entire chassis system, so what

we wanted to do is design specific

vehicle handling dynamics. That was

kind of the overall target is to get

something that handled really well in

the street, still very capable on

trails and off-road, but really

something that somebody could daily

drive every day with limited body

roll that could go on on ramps, doing

a better rate of speed, not feel like

the vehicle wants to tip. Still run a

big tire, so run a 35, 37, 40 inch

tire, and again just firm up the

steering wheel feel, make a base of

maneuvers a lot more acceptable without

having roll over feel on ramps, just

really tighten everything up. Basically

take the gladiator and do a holistic

approach, touching everything needs to

be touched so it all works together

because a lot of times we know in this

industry you buy stuff as you either

have money or as your budget allows,

and so you don't always have a

cohesive solution to what you're

trying to get at. And you guys said

hey we're going to take the guesswork

out of it, we're going to put

everything into this chassis kit

and all the pieces are designed to

work in harmony with each other.

Exactly, so what we did is we started

with front end steering, so we have the

Steersmart steering package up front

that's tie rod drag link, sector shaft

support brace, all the stabilizer and

relocation, we want to relocate that up

a little bit higher, and then we did

front and rear track bars with that.

We also did our tune coils, we have a

couple shock variations, we have our

base kit is a 5100 shock and then

the optional 8100 Bilstein for somebody

who wants something a little more

aggressive, and then we also did tune

sway bars as part of that

package as well. So again full system

engineered to give you one specific

ride and handling package, but then

also these components are available

individually a la carte, so somebody who

just wants to build it as they go,

but have the peace of mind that all

the components are going to fit

perfectly and optimally react

together to give you that specific

vehicle dynamic package as you build

it. So these springs complement those

shocks, complement those sway bars,

everything's proper rate, proper

clearances, again to a minimum of an

OE standard when it comes to

coatings, when it comes to fitment,

even down to the nuts and the bolts

it's to a stilantis, chassis,

Magni coat specification, so it looks

just like the factory bolts, just

really wanted to go really to that

extra distance to make sure it's

really good quality stuff. Are these

awesome if people want to find out more

about this kit, Steersmart.com?

Steersmart.com or we also launched

this under the Romer brand, so

Romer suspension that's R-O-M-R

suspension.com, so we either want to

get you there. Cool, thanks Jay.

Yeah, thanks Sean.

Came over with our friends at Realtruck

and they have a

this booth is always giant and always

has a lot of different vehicles to show

off all the applications, but a lot of

products got released this year. I'm with

Adam Donahue and Adam you want to walk

me through because I don't even know

where to start in the booth.

Absolutely, all right so we've got a

new MX-4 that we're looking at here,

this is a hard-folding cover and what's

doing unique about this product is that

we've got a new paddle latch. Oh it's

a cable, right? Yep, we'll prove that to

a paddle latch makes it a little bit

easier to open. Yeah, this product

actually has lift-to-stick technology

to it, so when you open the cover

one of the main challenges is to get

heavier as you go back towards the cap, right?

So in this one we now have a torsion bar

built into the bottom of the cover

that makes the overall lifting of this

significantly easier and lighter weight.

Yeah, and this is particularly impactful

as you think about longer bed lengths.

Yeah, eight foot with a folding.

Yeah, correct.

So this is going to be the new MX-4

that's going to be launching in Q1 of

2026. Those are like two really small

but huge improvements that make this

this is already one of the better

tonneau covers out there and adding that.

That's something hard to cover.

Yep, very cool.

Awesome, we also have two new truck caps

that we launched here at the show.

This first is going to be a modular

truck cap which means that it assembles

together in different various pieces

versus our fiberglass which come in a

single shell. So you can ship it in a

smaller box and store it easier

and get to the customer in a package

that doesn't kill them on shipping

or need freight forwarding or something.

For us on our fiberglass years

we actually have to ship those on our

dedicated fleet of semi-trucks.

Oh wow.

And you need a semi-truck and

plus you have to have a forklift

in order to carry all the different parts.

Yeah, so this is going to ship on a

pallet but what's also unique about it

is it allows the consumer to configure

the cap in a lot of different ways.

So the panel is actually removed

once it's been installed on the truck cap.

It's built on an interior sub-structure

so there's rack on the inside

and then all the panels bolt to it.

It uses a single 13 millimeter socket

wrench to assemble the whole rack.

It takes about two hours to install

but again allows you the option to

remove those and still use the

underlying rack if you wanted to.

Now people will listen to this to go

oh but that's not that new.

There's other companies that have these

bolt together campers and toppers

but you guys are using a skeleton

that the external pieces bolt to.

Correct.

And you guys can do body color.

Correct.

Which everybody else is either

mad, apologize, raw.

This is body matched to the truck

so it looks like a more of a

traditional one but it has the

benefits of a modular one.

Absolutely.

Very cool.

So this is built in our

Maslin Ohio facility

where we build on our fiberglass caps.

The panels are fiberglass

and these are actually OE spec

color matched to the exact view.

Yeah this is really nice.

You get that modern look and flair

but if you want that color matched

for that kind of premium

you can do it here.

That's how this truck looks.

It'll come in standard black as a

base option for the customer

can upgrade to a painted match.

Awesome.

Very cool.

This will be available starting in

the beginning of the year.

Okay.

Awesome.

The next gap we have is what we call

on the Apex.

So this gap has large windows

and really more of an OE style.

It has more of a like an SUV vibe

on your pickup truck, right?

The battery's dead.

Yeah.

Huge glass windows.

Again that more OE style

really tailoring into the overall

aesthetic and aerodynamic look

of a more modern cap.

It also has the ability to have

what we're calling the individual

latch system

where you open the tailgate

and the rear latch opens up on the back.

Oh so it's a one motion deal

rather than having to lift it

and then do the tailgate.

Exactly.

That's very nice.

More seamless design, more integrated

with the overall vehicle.

It'll come fully carpeted

and also come with LED lights on the interior.

So this is definitely your premium

cap for somebody that wants

the nicest cap out there.

Absolutely.

This will launch in January

and has a retail of about $54.99.

We got a Matchbox Jeep here.

I know you guys have done a lot of

Matchbox tie-ins in the past.

Yeah.

And what's new on this one

and what's special about doing the

the Matchbox build this year?

The Matchbox promotion was a really

great partnership

where we're actually able to build

Matchbox Plus

having the little mini version

of the Matchbox truck.

Yeah.

This one has our Husky liners,

our roof rack products

as well as our bumper and accessories.

So really just a collection

of all real truck products

that really have an amazing

look and feel on this one.

Very cool.

I like it.

The next product we've got

is what we're calling

the Retracks Pro

with removable canister.

Oh, so I've installed a Retracks Pro.

Okay.

Recently did one on a Maverick.

Yep.

Did a the XR

so it had the T-slot rails on it.

Loved it.

And we prepared it with a bed rug

on the inside.

Awesome.

So it basically made this

carpeted truck

that you could open up for taller items.

Perfect.

The person who owns the truck

uses it for shows and displays

and sometimes he has taller boxes

and other times he has small stuff

that needs to be locked in.

So,

Awesome.

I'm very familiar with this cover.

I like this cover a lot

and even on a Maverick

with a four bed.

Yep.

The canister doesn't

take up a lot of space.

So,

tell me about the new version

because this is very intriguing to me.

Awesome.

So the number one complaint

about removable canister projects.

All right, sorry,

a retractable cover.

Is that it,

that canister takes up the bed space.

So,

particularly in short beds,

it eliminates the need

to be able to maximize

carrying capacity of people.

Sure.

What we've done is now

taken that insight

and turned that into a cover

where you have

all the features and benefits

of a removable,

of a retractable cover,

but with the ability

to remove the canister

when the customer needs

it for full bed access.

So the cover opens all the way up.

Oh, I see.

These latches are going to

Oh, that's cool.

on one side.

Pop open on the other.

Canister slides forward slightly

and you're able to lift it out

and remove it completely.

So if you're,

if you're listening to the podcast,

think of the rails that the,

that have the track,

the tracks or the channels

that the slatted portion goes on.

When it gets to the canister,

there's a break in the rail system

that has like an interlocking tab.

And on the T-track

where you wouldn't mount accessories

such as crossbars

or a truck,

tall, the tall bars.

There are handles

and you can pull the entire canister

by while leaving the rest

of the rails behind

so you have full use of the bed.

Absolutely.

That is,

who thought about that?

That person who gets a raise,

is that you?

Not me, I can't take credit.

That's our engineering team.

The other thing is that

the canister is wrapped

in our bedrock material

which protects it from

not only when they remove

the canister

and it's stored in your garage,

it also protects the canister

from when you've got gear inside

or protects the gear

from banging up against it.

When you have that material

and now you can add the dead rugged

totally completely inside of the truck

to get a really nice finish.

The other product we have on this

is in that T-slot

we've got a new low profile rack system

with a quick release mechanism

so you press the button on the inside

you can move the racks

when you don't need them.

And then you have kind of a tie down

on there as well, right?

Because it leaves the little bar pin behind.

So perfect for mounting planks,

kiosks, cargo boxes for skis

and everything is super accessible

because it's not so far up

on the top of your truck.

Very cool.

The last two good products we have

are two new retractable covers

and these are going to be built off of

an acquisition that the company made

called Mountaintop.

So these are going to be built

in our Alabama facility.

We've got the MRC 3000

and the ERC 4000.

Nice oversized handle

spring-loaded locking mechanism.

It's more like a tailgate handle

or door handle size on it.

So there's no,

you know, if you have gloves

or you have your hands can't reach

for the little pin

or the little pop locks

this is perfect because it's more like

a door access.

Exactly.

Large access, easy to use,

flush mount design

so it's super low profile

includes the t-track

so you can add optional accessories

and this has one of the smallest

canisters in the markets

again to maximize that bed space.

Manual version is spring-loaded

for easy access and use

and again quickly locks

against the tailgate.

It makes a nice positive click

when you lock it.

Correct.

We also have an electric version

and the electric version

uses an automated motor

to be able to open the cover

seamlessly with a one-touch button

lighting action to see

what's inside of the truck bed.

This is integrated into the vehicle

using the OEM key fob

so you use your key fob to lock

or unlock the car

which gives you access to the

mechanics that will unlock

and close the cover.

Very cool.

Wow, you guys have been busy

in the last year, huh?

Our engineers have certainly been busy.

I think this is the most new product

we've wanted to show in several years.

Yeah, I mean you guys always have

a tremendous variety of vehicles

and that in every one

of those vehicles in this booth

has something new on it.

It's pretty cool.

Yeah, for your listeners

these will all be available

on realtruck.com

for them to see and explore more.

Sorry, I'm in the first quarter of 2026.

All right, perfect.

Thanks for your time.

Yeah, my pleasure.

Okay, wandering around SEMA

I see one of the favorite audio

brands of all time

Rockford Fossgate

and I'm standing here

with Wayne Connelly

and Wayne, what's your title here?

I'm Vice President

of New Product Development

with Rockford.

How did I wind up

walking the booth and getting

with the Vice President

of New Product Development?

So you're the guy I want to talk to

because you guys have

a ton of speakers laid out here

and a lot of products

got released at this particular SEMA, right?

That is correct.

One of the big things

we did is we released

our whole new line of punch speakers.

We kind of changed

its retail positioning

and its purpose.

The last time we did

the speaker line over

cars were different.

Yeah.

The OEM application

has more speakers now.

It has better speaker placement now.

And all the applications

have become individualized

even amongst the different

manufacturers.

So part of the big challenge

with this is how to make

one speaker fit

into basically

the 100 most common vehicles.

Sure, okay.

And so one of the things

that we did in our

new series is

we took the speakers

and we separated the mounting flanges.

So the speakers now

no longer have

specific tabs on them.

I'll call it universal tabs.

So what you're seeing here

is our kind of first approach

out of universal product

and more into application specific product.

As the vehicle gets more complicated

the consumer needs to solve

that problem.

So looking at this

basically the speakers

floating the tabs around it

and so while the

the speaker itself

might be universal

it's the mounting system

that becomes application specific.

So you can

change the metal bracketry

but still have a range of the

same speakers that can

plug into those

various places.

100%.

The biggest thing too

to notice is

is all the little small

deal tails with it.

So for example

this mounting flange

you can actually flip it upside down

and put the speaker in this way

or you can mount it for the top.

Got it.

And what that does

is that changes the mounting plane.

Yeah, is it flush mount

or is it recessed?

Yeah, and so if

some applications we looked at

it's really close to the grille

and you got to sync the speaker down

and then other applications

you got lots of room

between the grille

but the speaker hit something

in the mount.

So universal

flexible

mounting flanges

from the two and a half

all the way up to the five and a quarter.

So with new vehicles

obviously the manufacturers

have gotten better

with you know

everything in audio

and it's not like a head unit

game anymore.

Most of them

are driving pretty decent amps

but they have

you know real

you know

they're not super performance based

it's all about efficiency

because I know part of it is

you know electrical

architecture efficiency for

you know

helps fuel efficiency

because your alternator is not

absolutely driving things.

So most of them have a

proprietary

or some sort of a

dutch connector

it's no longer the tabs

that we used to do back in the day.

How are you solving that problem

so are there plug and play solutions

as well

to go with these types of speakers?

Yeah, we have some

for the most part

on the vehicle side of things

there's a lot of those little

harnesses available.

We didn't get into the actual

harness

we're still with two spades on them

and part of that is

most of our

applications

we do have a lot of OEM

drop-in application

but still aftermarket

still favors everything.

Still wants the two spades, yeah.

And when you're changing out

the amplifier

a lot of time

they're running new speaker wire

using the existing

but we did do some things

to help out with the wiring

so like

you'll notice the crossovers

and the mid-range driver

you got a mid-range driver

we put the mounting tabs

this one's actually a little

give it a six and a half

we actually co-molded the tabs

into all the larger sizes

the smaller sizes just because

the universal mounting

there it is right there

so a couple things to look at

first of all

we've co-molded the terminals

into the plastic

so they don't have a little tab

like a bag

yeah

you know up and down

all the big speakers

everything's molded in

it's very very secure

the cross or the

tweeter and the crossover though

are all using now two pin

molex connectors

okay before

it used to just be universal

connections

and when the guys plugged them in

they may not have like

the right crimp connectors

when you buy a set-up on speakers

you get extra terminals

so even if you are again

to the OEM application

you can replace the ends

with the ends that we give you

on the larger speakers as well too

we include a motor cover

that's removable

once again

if you need that little bit

of extra depth

you can get it by removing the motor cover

all installation

all application

between P1

which is a coaxial

with the tweeter in the center

P2 is a convertible system

meaning you can mount the tweeter

remotely

or the tweeter can replace the phase plug

then P3 gets into the three-way systems

there's a solution for every vehicle

no matter what make

no matter what model

most of these will drop right in

awesome and they still have the

that legendary Rockford Fosgate hit on them

oh yes

yeah there's a focus on mid-base

the top end is smoothed out

on these a little bit from previous

and then

we did a lot of little just

intricate install things

even the crossover on the three-way systems

normally this is a

a bigger

the biggest crossover

because you have a mid a tweeter

in a full range

and so

the application has now changed

once again

it used to be always like

the tweeter in the door

and the mid range below it

and they take this big crossover

and mount it in the door

but in today's newer vehicles

like a Chevy for instance

they have a two and a half in the dash

and then the mid-range in the door

so

one of the things that we did help with

installation

if you've tried to run wires through a

door jam now

it's no longer a nice big rubber boot

that's open

it's got a hundred connector

or hundred pin connector crossing it

so

the crossover is kind of modular

you can break it apart

oh that's cool

so now

the wires coming in

or you can

yeah

so now you don't have to one wire

in and out of the door

you can

tackle the mid-range in the dash with

the mid-range in the tweeter crossover

and then you can put the woofer crossover

in the door

so

everything is fitment

installation focused on the new lineup

awesome

cool what else we got

yeah so over here we have

it's like a

old slam

I guess it would be

it's an ice cream truck

yeah it is a

old school ice cream truck

from

it's beautiful all-air bus

downtown LA

yeah Mr. Cartoon did all the graphics

and so

there is

countless hours

in the in the paint

so flake on it looks like a bass boat

I mean it's got

amazing like

the airbrush scenery is like

downtown LA meets

you know your favorite

cartoon characters

and some sort of a

I don't know what kind of ice cream

scene this is

but you got clowns with ice cream

you got the

little rider with the ice cream bar

and this is awesome

I mean you could

probably walk around this all day long

and just keep picking up details from the paint

absolutely it definitely has a west coast

LA theme to it

Mr. Cartoon is from there

and just like his tattoos

I mean the detailing in this is

second to none

it's beautiful

I don't know the total hours of paint

but I can tell you

it's

it's months not

not days

yeah right

right no

yeah we retro this with

all the new punch speaker system

so we have

all the new punch speakers

inside of there

the

subwoofers are also from the punch

series P3

it's really good at attracting attention

yeah I bet

TV on the inside

facing out through the ice cream service window

yep

even the small details of replacing the

old school

horns that you

used to know

just for that the kids know

the ice cream is coming

and they they dropped

Rockford speakers in there as well too

so

wow

lot of

canvas roof on it

it's so cool

yep drop top true LA west coast

styling for sure so

yeah great little

attention grabber right at the front of the booth

if you want to actually listen to something

we have

Chevy truck over here

yeah so crew cab c10

this is a 67 to 72 that's been

stretched basically

yep

and it looks like

lots of small little details

I don't know what engine that is

yeah they

Chevy big something

yep

they even small details like the tailgate

they have on like a little

in the mirrors

yeah

like the smite 10 degree hook on the tailgate

just makes it look faster from when you're in the back

so this is a beautiful paint job

awesome awesome build

this build has all of our new punch speakers in it

it has p2 components in the front and rear

and then a p1 five and a quarter coax on the dash

it's got our t1 or power series shallow woofers in the center console

two 750 watt

amplifiers to drive the base

and then four four underwad amplifiers driving all the mid-range

and center channel inside of it

that's awesome

really really really uh slick

yeah this thing's beautiful the flush glass and everything

no wind wings

surprise you haven't blown it out yet

you know

yeah it's a lot of lot of details in this

even like the the faux paneling in the bed

is uh all had a ton of time into it

you have raised bed floor with the wood look

yeah this this truck is uh absolutely stunning

yeah um in terms of other i'll call it categories

this year we are releasing an aftermarket system for the

pro xp or sorry for the xp and the xps razor so kind of the

entry leveler or a gateway razor we'll call it

one of the things we've done with it that's kind of different is

when we first started with side by sides

we were honestly grabbing a lot of marine product

especially with the bars it's very similar

so we had a lot of weight cans in our kits

but the problem with the weight cans is they

they interfere with the rear tire

you got a rear spare tire

adding in and out of the cooler can be challenging

so we've kind of shied away or pulled away from

the universal weight can enclosures and moved over

towards a more application or vehicle specific

it looks like a roto molded housing

they're very cool i mean it obviously matches the lines

of the vehicle fits in the space really well

and it works with all the clearance accessories

so whether you have a like a back windshield

or any of those things now it's all compatible

with the weight cans before there was really no

compatibility with all the oem systems and upgrades

so that's super cool really good

Harley Davidson we just released a new kit at Sturgis

for the 24 plus models we have a cut in bag lid kit

that's been updated kind of a different style

now going to Harley i think i'm not wrong

i think that your logo is the only non-harley logo

on some of the vehicles and your sound system

that comes from the factory absolutely motors on that thing

yeah there's road gliders there's a lot of hole

crazy hell back anymore on the motorcycle

everything down to 10-inch subwoofers that are easily

removable in the bags but no it's it is a partnership

you see we got a couple of the race bikes here

one of the really cool things when cvost is sweet

yeah when kyle went on the race bike on the podium

we actually had a system installed

so it was a cool experience

do you think we were the champions when he was up on

there was a couple good saw i think it was the M&M was the one that i heard

but it's awesome but it's good so yeah so even on the race bike here

that's the actual one the one the championship

we got some music even on that so love it

we're right on yeah

that's uh mostly everything that's new from us this year

we're going to continue on kind of expanding our system categories

their offerings rockers typically i would say one of the leaders of breaking into

new spaces where we do a really good job of following our customers

their lifestyle and where they listen to music and as you can see from the booth

all these different categories we've extended out to

it's really been over the last call 10 years yeah i mean you just look at the diversity of

vehicles you've got the motorcycle goes you've got the side by sides

got the slam c10 fully custom you got the ice cream van i mean you're you can just say

see the diversity and then all your tables with the product if people want to find out

more about rocker fozgate where's the best place to go rocker fozgate.com

also the youtube channel we are really good at posting open box videos as well as installation

videos also all the kits pretty much for all these are all plug and play

they're designed for the guy at home in your driveway with a few hand tools

we like those guys shoes i love those guys where i come from i was that guy yeah yeah so

awesome we'll appreciate your time appreciate it thank you very much

hey it's jason and marcel what's up guys how's it going hey how you doing all right so i

this is like the 27th time i've seen you guys but mostly because we were all together

judging for tmi again this year for the trim awards yeah and i just wanted to touch base and

talk to you guys and it would be weird if i was like oh and then we do this so now that i have you

guys here right let's talk about the ones we like the winners and some of the trends that we're

seeing in the interior space well i think the first trend that we're really seeing we're

seeing a lot more 3d printed parts for sure you know to me i think that uh with technology

we're seeing a lot more cleaner builds but also a lot more faster builds well and then so i would

say that clean yes but you're losing a little bit of like that organic touch like some of them feel

cold and they like the hand-done interior because of the shapes and and everything they feel like

inviting some of the news are a little bit sterile even though they're badass and they

look good in the technology they just feel like a little bit sterile like you took a step back

from not from quality not from innovation but just from wanting to sit inside of it

well i did notice that there are a lot of those that are feel very sterile and new maybe

don't match yeah that fact that it's a 55 you know car when you big square screens and yeah

but i did notice on even several the ones where you look in it and you would think it was a really

high-end interior from the 60s you look at like the door panels they 3d printed those but they

did it well aesthetic for the aesthetic matches all of the classic look of it so it's like it's

just using a new technology but it still takes a design eye and all that to make it look good

i'll say as a former trimmer myself that you're right is that it kind of looks like it's taken

away a lot of the soul yeah because then it's like computerized almost right right but at the same time

too i think it's also opened up things that the regular trimmer couldn't have done before

oh a hundred percent you know like you look at the way that entering like you know a trim line or

some piece of stainless or something like that that a guy before would have to be a master

craftsman to do now he's maybe given a drawing to somebody that will 3d print apart

and they can 3d print in metal too which is like a game changer for redoing like i think we you know

this is the trimmer words are about the interior and it was tmi's vision to you know everybody comes

to see him and gets pictures of the outside but to bring people into the interiors and kind of celebrate

that and i know that's what we're talking about but on the outside because there's the relationship

of the exterior to the interior you're seeing old trim pieces being replaced that are no

longer available with these 3d printed ones and then tied into the interior which is pretty cool

yeah one and back to the kind of the tmi trim award part of it um there was a couple cars in

there or a couple trucks as well that definitely use some of the tmi's you know seats as a basing

starting point but then kind of did a lot of custom stuff around yeah or customize them so

it's kind of like you can use different tools you can use off the shelf you know uh you know

or out of the box you know yeah seats yeah but then you can add your own twist to

your own style and and and put that foundational piece the other thing i'll say is

i was amazed at how much effort people put in the interior we saw it some incredible

beautiful tiers and there'll be a detail or two that's lost or that they didn't finish or

like something that just takes away from this incredible vision that got put in

but they're missing a excursion or a grommet or you can see the floor through the pedals or

whatever the case is and you're kind of like man it's so good but or it's like everything's

integrated but then there's a a screen for the tuner just like stuck to the dash

yeah you know and that's also i think comes down to the builder and their experience level

also to how that person pays attention to detail or even how the vehicle was originally

manufactured because some of those things might be avoidable but some of them might be something

that with some ingenuity that people can fix on their own yeah what i will say to you and

let's go back to that the the tmi portion of it where we saw some of these vehicles that

featured a tmi seat or a tmi product and then someone else built on it yeah i think that's

a wonderful thing because most of your average let's say like garage builders yeah they can't

manufacture a seat or they can't sew up the seat or but they might do they might be able to do a door

panel themselves though but look at like the stock seats where you might have a rotted out seat base

or tracks and now you get all that new foundation with tmi and then you can build on top of it and

cover it the way you want or tmi has such a wide selection of colors and patterns you can

really get close to probably what your vision is without you know adding too much of the seat

if anything yeah well and tmi will you can use your material and bring it to them yeah or you can

also get extra of their material to use on other parts like a subwoofer box you know something like

that so you're you're you're basically be able to do whatever kind of custom vision you have

and use whatever tool i will say that this is what our fourth year doing this yeah this is the

fourth year this is probably the tightest you know i think we agree the mode yeah we had some

good disagreements on several things 50 something vehicles that we had to par down to 20 and then we

had to go from there for the individual awards yeah exactly the other thing too is you know

what we chose this year as the trim award winner is probably a little bit unexpected

because it was a scout right but and we fought it was like oh yeah that'll be the best truck

interior but when we saw it in person it was so flawless we i mean we went after hours and

walked around these vehicles nobody around and you know the team of what six or seven of us

picked out flaws and and bounced things off at each other and we literally stood around the

same for 15 minutes and nobody had anything negative to say yeah and that's our job is to

be nitpicking i hate being it because people put their heart and soul into these things but

if it's going to be the best of the best it has to be good and that's the thing you can't

if it's going to be the best interior of sima it has to have all the elements and it can't have

a flaw honestly because that was basically a thing yeah once we started looking around it like okay

can anyone pick out something that's either a flaw or they don't like in this and none of us

could say anything on that and that was a really hard thing because guys it was a scout

it was a scout right yeah so i mean i know people listening right now are thinking like

you gave it to a scout but when you see the scout it makes a hundred percent

yeah it was over in the roadster shop chassis booth and it was flawless and the the vehicle

itself was beautiful and uh i just it was cool and i stand behind it but i wanted to hit you guys

up because i was fun to talk through the stuff with you guys as judges but share with the audience

here like what our thought process was it was really fun doing that this year it was really

fun doing all the years but yeah it was great to have you again back with us in doing that

and we look forward to doing it again next year right jason milligan marcel venable

auto revolution where can they find you guys for your content uh just check us out instagram

auto revolution auto revolution online dot com auto revolution on youtube got different podcasts as

well yeah you know car guy confessions influence and impact and if you have an 88 to 98 Chevy truck

check out obsplash.com there you go we we've all been magazine guys together or industry guys for

like 25 years so it's fun when you can still work with your friends and people that you've

been doing stuff with i mean we the things we did again they aren't different than we used to

but we're still doing it together and i appreciate it so uh happy semen good to see you guys

that's fantastic thanks john thank you

well that's a wrap for part three of our sema coverage but we've got some more coming your way

soon thank you amzo krisha nides and ovr for making this show possible

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S3, E60 - SEMA 2025, Part 3

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