The Joe Rogan Experience - #1443 - Jonathan Ward

Episode Date: March 18, 2020

Jonathan Ward is the owner of ICON and a designer and creator of coach-built premium automobiles.

One. Jonathan, you're the first man ever, not only the first man I've ever met who made his own leather jacket, but absolutely the first man who made his own leather jacket has ever been on the podcast wearing that jacket. Why, thank you so much. It's a fucking sweet jacket, man. I'd show you my G-string, but it's probably a little munch for this time of day. Well, how are you functioning? Is it like on the side?

How are you tying that one up? Well, I prefer a center rear yank. So does my wife because she can just put the leash right on it and, you know, two for one. Keeps me on it. When did you get into making leather stuff? Is that a recent thing? About three years ago. But, I mean, Joe, my whole life I've just been a rampant fan of craftsmanship.

And I've done various deep dives throughout my life into, like, all sorts of different art forms. In fact, the reason automotive design became my thing and turned into a business was because my hobbies of painting and sculpting and finished carpentry, woodwork, and all these different things. If you think about it, transportation is like this incredibly communicable, extroverted combination of so many different art forms. So I've been also in my travels in the last 10 years or so, or maybe five, I've really been focusing on, always have been focusing on like getting immersed in that local culture. But now I've stepped that up a notch and I'm doing like these deep dive travels into different art forms of different cultures. So leather craft, I've been visiting tanneries and studying for masters in the U.S.

and in Morocco and Mexico. I just got back last week from Mexico doing it. Really? Yeah, it's super fun. And it's Zen because for me now at this point, the scale of the shop is such that I'm actually doing a disservice if I'm out there actually building your car, right? And because that's what I used to do. I weld it and shape it and I was on the floor. But at our size, I'm not. And our fill rates, as you recall, suck. It takes forever for us to finish anything.

And there's something about just literally putting on your podcast, going in my spare bedroom at home because my son's off at college. The second his ass was out of there, it was like a leather studio. And it was totally built that sucker out with really good audio and lighting and stuff. So being able to come from sketch to a finished good within a matter of weeks, a hundred percent myself, independent of everything. I needed that. I really kind of felt I was losing that tactile craft connection at work. Well, what you do is so unusual. And there's other people that build cars. There's other people that do innovative things with automobiles. But what you're doing is at a

level and with an obsessiveness that is, to me, deserves to be rewarded. I love it. I love the fact that you make these fucking – I love the fact that you do those derelicts where you leave the patina on the cars, where you take these beautiful old cars that have – like they're gorgeous because of the life that they've lived. Totally. I love them.

And you just redo the insides so that you can drive them really well. Yeah, because, you know. And they don't smell bad. You see it and you're down with the romantic sort of, you know, rosy eyes of memory. And then you actually drive a vintage vehicle. For most people in the modern world, after a couple miles, you're like, well, that sucks. I have a very peculiar obsession with cars, but it's not wide. I go from like 1965 to 1972, like with Broncos, maybe 72, and then that's it.

And then there's modern cars, like 90s cars I'm cool with. I like 2000 cars, but all those 70s and 80s cars can all eat shit. It's because they suck, Joe. I'm right there with you. And people bring me all sorts of requests to do later model cars, and I used to try and get my head around it. In fact, we did a Caprice Classic. I saw that thing.

What a shit show, man. But what a ridiculously overbuilt car that thing was. It was crazy. It was super gnarly. But the reality was, at the end of the day, I was rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic because it was still a 90s piece of shit built poorly by people who didn't give a damn. But that version of it was pretty fucking sporty. Yeah.

You know, that video got like a half a million views in like half a day. And the client just freaked out. And he's like, dude, the whole point of this car is to be under the radar. Could you please remove the video? Oh, really? Yes. We had to take everything down. But for those that didn't see it, it was an ex-Miami-Dade NARC undercover car.

And the client came to me with, like, a pretty direct and simple mandate. He goes, basically, like, I trust what you do and your instincts and design. The whole purpose of the car, I wanted to say, get the fuck out of my lane. That was it. That was my mandate for the build. So I'm like, I can do that. You know, that's fun. That's a fun challenge.

You guys had that thing for a long time. Yeah, it was a long and arduous build for sure. But, you know, the guy's brother passed away in a plane crash. And ever since his passing, his brothers refused to get on an airplane. But he has a ranch in one state and businesses in other states. And he does a lot of interstate high-speed travel. So we set it up as a full-on mobile office plus a bunch of James Bond hidden oddities and shit ton of performance. And I think people get out of his lane.

What kind of engine does that thing have? If I recall, I think that one had an LS9. so dry sump intercooled very similar to your lsa motor yeah but same here like the the continuity and the design and the consideration but you know by the time you get into the 70s even i'd argue late 60s 70s like the aesthetic is super sexy but then you get inside and the execution, the material choice and everything just sucks. Yeah, that's why I like resto mods. Like I don't know if you've seen it, my 1965 Corvette that I have out there. Yeah, I was just walking it before I came in.

That's what I like. I like cars that look like an old car on the outside but that have disc brakes and modern suspension and, you know. And it's a slippery slope, right? It's like, where do you stop? But for me, one thing that I'm keen to do with everything that we build, you know, be it the Derelicts or the Reformer one-offs or the production models, more and more I'm pulling back on my redesign on the cosmetics to make sure I'm not creating something temporary or trendy in that I want to honor the original design language of the era in which a vehicle was built.

Now, I may want to elevate that and geek out on it and do unnecessarily cool shit that the production car company wouldn't have done. But I'm trying to be super careful not to do something that like in 10 years is like some fuchsia graphics, 80s hot rod all smoothied out that just represents a brief moment in time. Like a Gimbala Porsche. Yeah, did you see the new one? It looks like an RC car. And I haven't decided in a fucked up bad way or in a fucked up really good way. I'm not sure.

Yeah, it's one of those things where just some people have too much money. You're making a four-wheel drive off-road Porsche. Although Matt Farah from the Smoking Tire, you know Matt. Yeah, good guy. He has an off-road 1980s Porsche. Yeah, yeah. It's one of those. You know the really nasty upholstery in that?

Yeah. You can blame me for that. Really? Yeah. Oh, my God. He loves it. He loves it. He's like, where can I get some really weird stuff?

I love all the weird sourcing you do. And I'm like, well, how weird do you want it to be? It's so disgusting. It is. I don't know why. He loves it. He's like, where can I get some really weird stuff? I love all the weird sourcing you do. And I'm like, well, how weird do you want it to be? It's so disgusting. It is. I don't know why he's into it. It's almost like an Atlanta, you know, MARTA bus. Yes. Like an 80s public transit bus.

Yeah, it's foul. But it's a rally car, you know? I mean, he has the rally car lights in the front. I mean, it looks like a rally car, but it won't perform like a rally car. It won't? No. No? I don't think so.

I mean, it's like an amphibious car. At the end of the day, you have a shitty car and a crappy boat. You got to pick your poison. I thought it actually was like a car that you could rally. No? I mean, it's got coilovers and a couple things here and there, but at the end of the day, it is what it is and it wasn't built to do that I thought he had built it

That way He did as many mods as could be done Within those confines They do drive those fucking things on dirt roads It's really weird those rallies when you watch them online It's like Jesus Christ first of all Who are these assholes standing next to the road While these people are going sideways around corners

Where are the lawyers Why are you trusting these people? Have you ever seen anything of the old Paris to Peking race? No, I'm so fascinated by that. So I can't remember his name right now. Luigi was the first name. So it started in the turn of the early 1900s, I believe it was one of the first large international rallies. And there's a wonderful biography written by the son of Count Luigi, whatever, who started it. And it all started as a drunken dinnertime bet. And the idea was, you know, I bet it can't be done. He's like, of course it can't be done. So the thing was, all right, whoever's going to go for it, let's go for it. Whoever wins gets a Magnum of Champagne.

And it's like, you know, the race took months and months and months, but phenomenal. Like it's on my bucket list. That would be such a phenomenal experience to do. And can you imagine doing it in like 1917? Jesus Christ. They were going through villages that had never seen a round eye, not to mention a motor vehicle.

And all the photography and all the old data put into the all the original diaries of the driver and the co-drivers it's just such an amazing explain to people who don't know what we're talking about what this race is so it's a race by land from paris to peking and it goes through mongolia and all sorts of middle of nowhere situations in fact i believe a map of it up got canceled and rerouted several times due to different geopolitical dramas. I didn't even know that Paris and Peking were connected like that.

Right? Who would have thunk it? I never really thought about it. And I think it's like a three-month race. So it's a serious commitment. But wouldn't that just be the adventure of a lifetime? You know Andrew Picard, right? No.

ACP, great race car driver, dear friend of mine. You don't know him? I would have thought he'd been on the show. No, no, I don't know who he is. So I've already been talking to him and a dear friend of mine. You know my buddy with a DC-3 that you see me flying around in sometimes? The DC-3. No, DC-3 airplane, 1944.

No. So stupid, stupid, absurd hidden car collection in central California. So I've been slowly lobbying him and invited Andrew ACP to a dinner to start sort of planting that seed. And they don't realize it. I don't think either of them realize it yet. They're going to realize now. They're part of the team.

What are you doing? I want to do damn Paris-Peking. No, you don't. Hell yes, I do. Three months. I don't think either of them realize it yet. They're going to realize now. They're part of the team. What are you doing? I want to do damn Paris-Peking. No, you don't. Hell yes, I do. Three months. Yep. Oh, my God. What's going on with you?

I didn't say I'm going to do it yet, but I want to do it. Really? So you're trying to put a team together? Yeah, as a travel geek and as a car geek and as a culture geek. Like, hello, why on earth would I not? So would you use a modern car to do this you can't it's uh you can't yeah no very stringent very vintage oh yeah like all these photos just nuts and that's an incredibly contemporary car for usually you're talking about like three five

sixes like those oh no like rolls open touring cars oh those, those fucking things. And Alvises in like super weird early shit open wheel cars. That's what those people do? Yeah. Oh, my God. That's that photo. So these are 100-year-old cars. Yeah. And that car, in fact, in that image is a replica of the actual original car that started the entire race.

Oh, my God. Just super, super cool experience. Especially after reading that book. That's how you would want to do it? Well, I don't know if I'd want to go brass era batshit about it. Well, where would you stop? You wouldn't go 1979 Datsun? You know, I think a Volvo Sugar. What's that? A Sugar. It basically looks like if a 48 humpback Ford and a power wagon had a love child, it would be a Volvo SHUGGA. I need to see this thing.

They're super trippy. I think one of those all rallied out vintage would be super, super cool. SUGGA. Oh, that's actually a cool looking car. They're super funky. That's beautiful. Right? In like the ugliest way. What is that? But is that an aftermarket setup? No, that's-'s the wheels and everything

Dead factory other than those are more contemporary tires go go with that that last image that you had Jamie with the crazy tires That thing is fucking cool. Oh, yeah, there's the last image Yeah, but I want the other image that one right there like look at the wheels on that thing Yeah, then usually that. Usually they were command cars, commanding officer cars. So the back area on the interior was generally kitted out, quarter sawn, dovetailed, fumed white oak with like a teletype machine and all their early correspondence gear. And there's such a freak of a car. That is beautiful.

Yeah. That's such a cool looking car. I'd love to see that with like modern headlights. I'd like to see that with, yeah, like on 40s, solid axles, Fox Racing coilovers, big power. Hell yeah. Has anyone done that? No, there was one that made the rounds. I think it was last year I saw it at SEMA that did more of a sort of conventional, contemporary hot rod, street rod build.

But they kind of, not the way you and I are thinking. That is so cool looking. I've never seen that car before. They're a super freak. No one really knows about them. They're one of those odd moments in automotive history. What size are they? There's nothing to compare it to there.

I mean, it's like a 48 humpback Tudor four-door. I don't know if that means anything to you. It's sort of not into post-World War II. So it's like a mid-40s standard four-door sedan scale, other than its height. Pretty reasonable. They're probably really hard to find, though, right? Stupid hard to find. I believe there's eight of them known in North America, but then

whatever, you bring one over from Europe, they're all the same. But then it'd be a shame to chew it up. Nah. I'm over that. I don't feel guilty anymore. I'll tell you what, at the end of the day, what's actually getting used and enjoyed and creating more memories? One of my vehicles that are hacked and ruined, as people like to say occasionally,

or something sitting in some static collection gathering dust? Do they say that about the derelicts when you redo the interiors? Oh, sure. Everyone likes to talk shit. I kind of enjoy it. What I was going to say about cars, I have this very narrow window. So if I see a really cool 55 Chevy, it's great. I never want to own one.

Really? I don't, nothing. What about, how far back can I take you? Like 65, like 63 Corvettes. It's those, that year, like a- Like a bubble top 63 Pontiac or Chevy or is it too early? No, it's like the second generation Corvette is as early as I go. And then really I look to 67 Mustang. What year were you born? 65, 66, 67.

Okay, so that's the problem. But it's not. It's my high school years. During my high school years in the 80s, those were the cool cars. The cool cars were the 60s muscle cars. No, that's what I mean. We've identified the problem. But it's not even a problem.

It's just like to me, like the quintessential shape is like a 69 Camaro. There's something about a 69 Camaro. Like, God damn, did they nail it. It's a timeless classic. It'll always be. It's funny. They've been crawling under my skin lately. I've been thinking.

69 Camaros? Yeah. I think it would be interesting to do one because if you look back on the design history, they were the design team and executives at GM designed that car basically in reaction to trends in European touring cars and sports cars. So there's a lot of Ferrari, direct Ferrari inspiration, like 275s and stuff. So I always thought it'd be interesting to do a elevated, more European perspective version of that gen Camaro, like devoid of badges, not like all smoothied out like everyone does, but just like elevate the trim,

like that kick-ass egg crate grill and all those details, but like do it more the way a small coach builder would have done it than production. There's something to them for sure. Yeah. When Matt was here last, he was showing me there's a company that takes an older Ferrari. What was it?

Which model was it? Do you remember, Jamie? They took an older Ferrari and puts a much more modern Ferrari engine in it and completely redoes everything, but makes it so that- Was it the- Is it a GTO? Was it the Norwood P4 or was it GTO Engineering in LA and the UK? They do a lot of GTO builds, but they stay pretty true to the original form.

But Phil Norwood, who used to actually race for Ferrari, he's – I don't think he's doing them anymore, but he for a while in Texas, I believe, was doing what they called the P4 Norwood. And those are so badass. was doing what they called the P4 Norwood, and those are so badass. So like Monaco, Superleggera, lightweight, and they were using modern, I think at that time they were, what are they taking, like Rectesterosis or something, some modern Ferrari powertrain, but keeping the original race aesthetic. I'm not sure what company's doing it, but what they were doing essentially was making everything that you could remove and put it back to the original stock form, including the engine, including the suspension, including the transmission, including the brakes, but everything was after

market. So they weren't cutting anything. They were sort of replacing stuff, but making this way better, way more high performance version. It might be GTO. And also, I mean, if you look at one of their recreation cars that are scratch built and you know, the value of the original GTOs is so nuts that now like a guy goes, oh, well, yeah, I'll leave that in the collection.

And they'll call GTO and say, build me one that looks just like my car. And I actually want to drive it. And if you sit them side by side, the only difference is the GTO one has better fit and finish and tolerances. Otherwise you can not tell by side, the only difference is the GTO one has better fit and finish intolerances. Otherwise, you cannot tell them apart, hands down. So the new one has better fit and finish? Yeah, hell yeah. Yeah.

There's a company called Revology that does that with Mustangs. Tom. Yeah, Tom Scarpello. Yeah, they make some beautiful cars. They do. But I wonder smogging them in California would probably be a nightmare. Well, yes. So right now, unfortunately, you know, there's that new law that Tom and myself and a lot of other builders in our space have been very active in trying to get passed.

That was for Ultra Low Volume Vehicular Manufacturers Act. So if we made under 350 units a year, we'd be exempt from crash and many expensive regulatory limitations, but we had to be responsible for emissions. So it's turned into a complete shit show. And it's already three years beyond posting. In fact, SEMA just filed suit against the federal government for inaction because they're well outside of their legal timeframe to actually create the damn paperwork to enact the law. And Tom's caught up in the middle of that. So right now he's been putting General Motors LS3s into the Mustangs because it's the only thing that's smog legal because Ford Racing hasn't bothered, doesn't seem to see any importance or value in creating emission certified power trains.

When did he start using LS3s? Once the laws started getting a little sketchy. So, passed a percentage, and when Tom was doing the new bodies and new everything, he's going down that road. Even all the Cobra guys in emissions-regulated states are putting LS3s in them. Wow. Because Ford does,

it's like, I talk to execs at Ford, I'm like, are you guys cool with that? Like, you don't see that's not good for branding? They're such spreadsheet junkies, you don't see that's not good for branding. And they're such spreadsheet junkies. I don't think that they see the value. The struggle's real. That seems like a bastardization. I mean, there's something about combining Ford and like,

it's really gross when they combine Chevy and Mopar. There's something about putting LS engine in like an old Cuda. You're like, what are you doing? I agree, but to a point, I think if we look forward, that's changing. Because as it is today, your Bentleys, your BMWs, everyone's sharing the same pool of suppliers anyway. And a lot of these cars are just badge cars nowadays anyway. So I think there's a wider acceptance as time passes to oddities but i mean look at that 49 electric mercury i did we purposely like dress the quote-unquote engine

bay to look like an old speed equipped v8 and you know vintage thin kind of fenton header look you know the cast to try and keep those old dudes engaged and not to look out and go, oh, no, there's a ruin. You ruin it. You put an electric motor in it. Pull up a video of that, Jamie. It was at 49. Is that what it was?

Yeah, 49. 49 Mercury Electric. It's on the Jonathan Ward YouTube page. You know what sucks? That thing's amazing. Guess where it is right now? In the bottom of the lake? Not that bad.

What? It's stuck in Luxembourg. Why? Well, it's a long story, but we were honored that Goodyear invited us to have it be the feature vehicle on their large booth at the Geneva International Auto Show. So we jumped through hoops. We put it on an airplane. We sent it over there. Show got canceled.

Oh, no. Now all the commercial, because we want it traveling by air, not by boat. Now all the flights are canceled. Now other cargo is getting prioritized. So now we're transporting it to Frankfurt, and it's like stuck in limbo. Oh, no. Yeah. Oh, the coronavirus transport.

Yep. Shoot, yeah. Shit, when are you going to get that back? Fuck if I know, apparently. And that's a client's car? Yeah. And so he said, yeah, go ahead. Fortunately, the client is like one of the best humans we've ever worked with. And he's totally cool about it. But we know we're all nervous. We want the darn car back.

Yeah. Well, it's a one of a kind. There it is. Now, that is one of the things that I love that you do that I don't think anybody else is going to do. I don't think anybody else would take that level of engineering to rebuild something to that spectacular level of detail, but yet keep the fucked up paint. Like, look at that thing. If you saw that rolling down the street, you wouldn't have zero idea what that is. Especially when that thing, because it has no transmission, so it's dual electric motors, just under 500 foot pounds of torque, no shifts. So it moves like a freight train. That thing is so fast.

Have you driven a Tesla? Uh-huh. The S, the P100D? Yeah. It's a preposterous vehicle. Yeah. We put the 80 array in that with American Racing Motors and dual Reinhardt controllers and thermal management network that we engineered a whole bunch of stuff.

And when this guy charges this in, how many miles can he get? 200. That's not bad. No, no, not bad at all. That's the Porsche Taycan, essentially. Yeah, well, supposedly, right? But depending on who you ask. I can't afford to do fancy misleading federal testing,

so I literally just make sure my flatbed is at hand and just drive the piss out of it until it can't go. And then I go, okay, there you go. There's the range. Well, what the EPA or whoever is doing the tests on the Taycan, apparently they sold it way short. And all these automotive journalists that have driven the car are saying, no, we've gotten 270, 280. They've gotten quite a bit more than I think whoever the government rated it 201. So it's quite a bit more than that. I think whoever the government rated it 201. Yeah. So it's quite a bit more than that.

But yeah, that whole derelict program, you know, was like many things in my life started just from a stupid passionate idea. Like I didn't never, never considered a business model of doing it. It was just, okay, I've got two young kids. I've got two labs. I like to do this. I like to do that what

do I want is my next car and I'm like you know what I'm tired of over restoring shit because that's like my OCD I just everything would be perfect perfect and then the first time you know the kids nail it with a skateboard or I ding it with a surfboard or the dog takes a piss in it whatever like I don't want to be that guy anymore so I was like you know what I think I like want to find something that's already fucked up and I'm just going to leave it looking all fucked up. So I don't even, I hate washing cars and I hate putting gas in them. So with the derelicts, all you do is clean the windows and vacuum it at best and party on. And then I just put a massive gas tank. So my old 52 DeSoto station wagon was the first derelict that I built a% myself nights and weekends just because I had this stupid idea in my head and I wanted to realize it.

It wasn't until it was done and it got like the cover of Hot Rod and won all these awards that my dumb ass went, oh, wait a minute. We're onto something. Yeah, we're onto something. This still is, you know, it fits within how we define the Icon brand holistically about revisiting classic transportation design in a modern context. It's just a different way of doing it. So that was your first derelict? Yeah. And what do you even call it?

Derelict until I was done. And then we're like, okay, let's brand them. And we started getting tons of requests. We've built a pretty wild array of them. It's pretty funny that your first one was for you. Yeah. I mean, but it speaks to how weird it is that you're doing that in the first place because most people who, you know, high dollar restoration, you know, air quote, resto mods

or whatever you want to call them, everyone wants them to be beautiful and pristine with, you know, handles that disappear. You know, I mean, everybody wants to shave everything down and and they like end up removing a lot of the original character of the design that they're supposed to be celebrating in the first place so that compounded by patina which

tells a more personal story of like where's this car been how did he get that ding there's like romance and mystery all wrapped into one as far as the history behind all those finishes. How big is the gas tank in this thing? That one's got like a 42-gallon gas tank. I was like, spare tire, gas tank, spare tire.

I'm like, screw it. Three cans of Fix-A-Flat and a big-ass gas tank. I hate stopping for gas. Well, especially with something like that, it must get like four miles to the gallon. That actually is a full emissions-equipped modern SRT8 Hemi 6.1. So it gets six? You know what? I don't understand why, but I've built several Hemi-based builds.

That is the fastest and most fuel efficient of the Hemi build I've ever done. I mean, that thing gets probably 15, 17. Really? Yeah. With that much metal? And I drive it like an ass. I mean, I'm flogging that thing. Granted, I'm on my third transmission.

Oh, really? Yeah. To the first two remote part trannies, which fellow builders avoid them. They suck if you add even like five horsepower beyond the stock motor app. They completely shit themselves. So the third time, I'm like, that's it. I'm done. Pull the bandaid off.

Throw that thing away and put a good old GM four early five E in there. So this, um, thing has how many miles on it now? I got about 38, 39,000 miles on it. So I love the split windshield too. Yeah. Yeah. It's such a fun, fun, fun ride, but you know, you going all the way to the beginning of Icon, even further back to the beginning of the first brand TLC, they all started with personal cars. Like the Icon idea was just another dumb idea that was rattling in my head. It was literally keeping me up at night and it got to the point that I need, and this happens to me often, like when I did my watch and then all the different products that I've designed, generally I'll start with something that gets to the point that I'll lose my remaining sanity if I don't actually create it. So I had the concept for Icon. I could see it clearly in my head.

I had like a full-on 3D detailed model in my head and like my version of jumping over sheeps at night in bed was like sitting there and zooming in on an element and changing that radius and scaling this and trying that. And it literally got to the point, told my wife, I'm like, I gotta build it. I just gotta build it. Well, your company, it's sort of, it's symbiotic with social media in a sense, particularly YouTube, because so many people on YouTube are interested in unique builds and interesting companies that are doing cool things like Revology.

But your company in particular, it's so perfect because you do all those videos and you drive around the cars with this incredible detail. And that's one of the first things that got me very attracted to your company was the fact like I go, look at this motherfucker. He's so balls deep into this shit. You're so into this. And if I'm not, I won't take the job. It's so it's easy to say now, you know It's so contagious though when someone's like really into something particularly design and production and I totally agree And like if you're not totally into it and you're not balls deep into it then pull out and zip up and go home Shut up. Yeah, do something else is if you're not passionate deep into it, then pull out and zip up and go home. Shut up. Do something else.

Yeah, do something else. If you're not passionate about it, you suck at it. Well, particularly in this world, right? In the world that you're in and your most classic models are like your Bronco, your FJs. Those get the most amount of attention, I think, online. I mean, there's a lot of people making Broncos. There's a lot of people making FJs. Now there are. Yeah. Well, you know, you opened up a door.

There's a lot of people that are making the exact Bronco you make. It's so close. It's ridiculous. They're redoing your grill. Yeah. Yeah. It kind of irks me. Some people are like, oh, you should be flattered.

I'm like, no, not really. Like, I'm flattered when I see an industry swell around my first dumb idea. And when, you know, you see the revologies and the singers and all these companies having viable businesses, revisiting classic transportation design that I absolutely love. What I absolutely despise is the sucker fish that just will go, oh, well, they have a two-year waiting list. That doesn't look hard. Let's make a company and let's make our business model that we're just like Icon, but we're quicker and cheaper.

Like that just irks the piss out of me. But what are you going to do? I can't say anything. It's hard because some people just don't have the money, but they want a Bronco. I get it. I see what you're saying, but I get it from their perspective. No, but from a consumer perspective, I understand the appeal of not

having to wait and not having to pay as much. But at best in this industry, you get what you pay for. And frankly, even that is a rare equation. What I'm more pissy about is companies that go, oh, now we can charge more for it. And let's just deliver something that looks as close to that and copy as much of its trade dress and style and kick it out at a fat margin at what's deemed to be the most acceptable price point. But with your wait list, like why do you even fuck with that? Like what do you, why do you pay attention to those people? Maybe I'm insecure and childish or maybe I'm worried that, you know, past a point it's going to erode our business one way or another. You know what I think? No, not your business.

I mean, it's cool. Like scouts, for example, there's like three or four companies now doing scouts their way with their vision. They're realizing their dream. And I like, I'm here to support them, help them, cheer them on. That's great. It's when people come into a market because they just merely see a capital opportunity, but they have no passion or expertise in it. That's where I get pissy. I understand your perspective. My perspective is always a bandwidth perspective. You say of you Say your bandwidth is 100. That's all of your attention that you have.

To even give 10 of that to some knuckleheads that are just copying you. It's true. It takes away. It's all it does. It just takes away from what you're doing, and what you're doing is amazing. I think the last time I thought about it prior to just now pitching to you

has been a good three or four months. I don't give it too much thought. Just every now and then. Every now and then it bubbles up. And then keep moving. Yeah. Prior to just now pitching to you has been a good three or four months. So I don't give it too much thought. Just every now and then. Every now and then it bubbles up. And then keep moving. You were doing a bunch of stuff. I mean, I don't know how much we could talk about this. Can you talk about that little BMW?

No. That doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. Sorry I brought it up. No, I mean, I guess now that we did talk about it. No, I have a couple. All we said is little BMW. I didn't say any models.

I have a couple R&D projects in the works that are, again, those odd projects that were keeping me up at night. And one of them includes doing kind of a very progressive take on, you know, even beyond how we've been known to redesign classics. Taking that up 10 notches with an early classic iconic BMW. And meanwhile, it's killing me. I'm hemorrhaging money in it. I'm almost three quarters of a mil deep into that project. Well, it's been going on for a long time. Yeah, for a long time.

Like before you built my Bronco, which took a year to build and I've had for a year and a half. Yeah, hopefully my wife doesn't listen yet. I think it's been about four years of work on it. Wow. Yeah. But I'm super stoked. Like when it's done, it's something like nobody ever done seen before. Well, I love the idea behind it.

You know, like I'm a fan of those cars. I'm a fan of the original one and I'm a fan of, you know. We're doing another one too that's, you know, again, sort of looking at how we've done what we do and like how else could we do it or how further could we evolve it? Which as you've seen in working with me like i'm doing that all the time and all the little things but like holistically conceptually how do you do it so we're doing a early c20 chevy truck and you know we were going to do our usual thing of you know engineer chassis engineer the axles and call brembo design the brakes like and then you've got umpteen purchase orders from

umpteen different suppliers and a big pile of cost. And at the end of the day, you could say, I mean, we don't have hundreds of millions of dollars in development. So we're building, hopefully, a well-functioning, what is in essence a prototype. So this time for the Chevy truck, I'm like, screw it. I'm going to the dealer. So I just went and bought the WT, which people call the white trash edition, the WT series Chevy pickup. So we bought a three quarter ton four wheel drive, brand new Chevy truck off the dealer floor for like 36 grand, took that apart and we're re-bodying it with its grandfather's body so now like abs he'll hold many of the perversions of modernity everything is integrated and literally the client could go to a chevy

dealer although they probably cringe and say no no no it's not a 70 you know look look here's the id tag this then from this 2019 truck that's is. So just service, that's the service protocol. And the interior? Dead stock C20. Wow. So the gauges, we're working with Classic Instruments to design an IP, an instrument panel that has the original design aesthetic, but then integrates the little 3x3 digital screen for all of the, you know, all your prompts and digital. What about airbags?

Can't do that because the body's not designed to absorb energy. Thereby, it's not compliant with airbags. But we're keeping the entire, basically the entire truck minus the airbags and the HVAC system intact. So how does someone register that? What is that registered as? Still as the original truck because the client brought us the C20. So then the way that handles, it's up to the client.

Say, okay, here's your legal entities for both. You pick which way you want to title it and party on. And obviously most people want to stay the traffic of least resistance and stick with an exempt year. Yeah. But it meets 2019 emissions and everything. Cylinder deactivation and all sorts of cool but that's why i asked you about the airbags because it wouldn't meet correct yeah but that would be sick though yeah it would be neat you know for a while who was it someone told

me i think it was midas was trying to think of ways to stay relevant and they they were like knees deep in investment in retrofit airbag systems. Really? Yeah. Did they ever get it off? No. I mean, it's an absolute engineering shit show because there's so many parameters you can't control. It would just never work.

You were talking about retrofitting things with ABS. Did that ever come? No, and I'm dying to do it. So the only way that it's come to fruition for me is like with your fcj80 by maintaining the original abs system or such as the case with the c20 by keeping the entire modern vehicle active and just re-bodying it but i mean i'm dying for the aftermarket to come up with a standalone abs module that's tunable, I think it's such the missing link. There's so many missing links, as I was bitching to you earlier. The automotive

aftermarket, quite frankly, my dear, is an absolute whole house, in my opinion. There's just so much garbage on the market, and it's like, where's the quality? And the market's there. I think consumers are ready for elevated consideration and execution Well, they're surely there's some companies that are making good aftermarket. So the minority it's Pathetic 10% not even really. Oh, yeah. Good lord But I'm a picky bitch so you are so I wouldn't say that word I might I might You say a lot of words, but you wouldn't say the B word? I would.

I say the bitch word all the time. But about you, calling you a picky bitch. It seems like I would say a picky fellow. All right. Yeah. I'll take either one. Clever bitch. You're a clever bitch.

I would say that maybe. But your whole place, like every time I go there, I feel like Like I like I want to give myself time like if my appointment is at 1230 I'll show up at 12 and just start wandering around so what do you got? What's going on here, man? What are you doing? It's Willy Wonka's Such odd diversity in there right now and you notice in the DNR and the derelict and reformer section The range of projects the diversity of those platforms right now. Did you see the 70 Ford yellow and cream short bed? No, I did not. Oh my God.

I didn't see that. It's so stupid sexy. I did see that blazer that someone's selling. Yeah. That's one of your older projects? Yeah, yeah. Guy never drove it. I remember you were building two of them.

One that was more modern looking. Correct. Kind of more over-engineered or not more over-engineered, but more engineered. And then this one, which is more of a, it really looks like an older Blazor. Yeah, and it had the same mechanical engineering integrated in it, but it was a much different style, more of what I call my old school style, where all my mods, like even the badging on it where it says Icon was CNC'd and stainless in the original typeface that Blazer was written in. So if you don't know, you don't know. And it's like super under the radar, mellow colors. Yeah.

Really good leathers. It's a cool blue too. Yeah, I love that blue. It's a 60s Fiat blue. So the guy just never drove it. No, it drives me crazy. I hate that. I love that you drive my car.

I drive the shit out of it. People take it back and it had like 400 more miles on it than when I drove it. No, it drives me crazy. I hate that. I love that you drive my car. I drive the shit out of it. People take it back and it had like 400 more miles on it than when I delivered it. I'm like, dude, what's going on? And he's like, oh, it was too nice. I was afraid to drive it. I'm like, oh, come on. I drive that Bronco everywhere. Everywhere.

And every time I drive it, people are like, what in the fuck is that? I'm like, yeah, exactly. See ya. Yeah. It's such a mechanical thing when you drive that car It's what I love about it. Like sometimes if I don't drive it for a week or two I kind of forget and then I get in it's like Everything is like you feel everything. It's like there's a thing about modern cars. Like I really do love my Tesla

It's it the way I describe it. It makes other cars seem stupid like they're stupid Like this is how cars should drive like you hit the gas. It's almost telepathic The way I describe it, it makes other cars seem stupid. Like, they're stupid. Like, this is how cars should drive. Like, you hit the gas, it's almost telepathic. It just goes somewhere. It just moves. The gigantic navigation screen, everything about it is amazing. I was supposed to be in Detroit right now for the Bronco launch, which they delayed because of the corona.

But the difference between that and, say, say the broncos you don't feel it like the bronco it's a manual transmission and you literally feel every gear it's there's all these moving parts that you kind of sync up with so there's all this sensation that's going into your brain through your hands visceral yeah it's a reconnection of man and machine and i think there's a place for both yeah right but i think more and more as the world turns to autonomous vehicles, ride share, infrastructure, community development is even starting to go a different direction. I used to be concerned about that in regards to the future of our company. But now I realize that's great because the more that happens, the more there's going to be plenty of people who for the weekend, for the whatever, demand a manual tranny and a visceral man-machine relationship. It feels different. It feels different when you drive them.

There's a sweet spot somewhere. I have a 2005 E46 M3, and I got it online off this dude. It was only 15,000 original miles miles and that seems to me to be the sweet spot because it's not the fastest car in the world and it's got a dynan supercharger on it it doesn't handle the best in the world but man is it a it's like there's something about that car like while you're driving it makes you smile like there's something about the way it steers the way you feel the hydraulic steering, not electric. The new M3 is almost becoming, there's like too many nannies.

It's too technical in a manner that makes the stats improved, but not the connection to the driver feel more dynamic. It's like I've got a 96 993 twin turbo, and that to me is one of the most perfectly engineered vehicles that was designed by a core group of people who had a singular focus on what its purpose was and what it should do, what it should evoke, and what it shouldn't. Do you have the same one that you had before? Yeah, the black one. Did you get in an accident with that thing? Yeah, it was mine. Oh, okay. Yeah, I love that car.

It's a great car. I remember the cover of, was it Motor Trend or Road and Track? It said, sell your soul and buy this car when it came out. Because when it came out, it was like early 90s. When I first came to California, there was no way I was ever going to be able to afford one of those. And I remember looking at that car. I had the poster as a kid. When you see that, when you see a car like that, you start thinking, how much does that cost? How much do I make?

How long do I have to save? What do I have to do? What if I work twice as much? How do I make this happen? Yeah. How is it possible? I had the Vector poster. I had the 993 Turbo.

I had the Countach Periscopo. And I had a 550 Maranello poster. And then for a little while as I approached, I just turned 50 last week. Like my late 40s, I started like having to knock at that list. Like, okay, what am I waiting for? Bought a 550. It sucked. The Maranello should have been left to the rosy eyes of memory.

It's a bucket of shit. I got so annoyed at that car. Can't afford the Vector. Missed my chance to afford a Pedoscopo. But I've been watching Farrah just piss money into his constantly. I had that BMW M car, that wedge one, the original wedge. What the fuck was that called? M1, I believe.

M1. M1 or M1. That's right. Yeah, like the original BMW supercar. I had one of those on my wall. When I first came out to California in the 80s, I remember, and I think it was Newport or Manhattan Beach. There was like ex-BMW dealership looking space, but it was an independent BMW dealership and service center. And they had one in the factory tricolor livery.

And they had it for sale. And I remember begging my mom to pull over in our crappy Dodge Aries rental car and going in and asking. And it was for sale. It was like 11 grand. And the guy was like hoping and begging. I was serious because they couldn't give them away back. Look at that thing. They're so nifty.

God, I love that thing. And the wheels are so good. I had a red one on my wall. I remember thinking, God, only one day. That's it. That's the fucking car, Jamie. Is that the poster you had? Probably. It's hard to remember. But it, only one day. That's it. That's the fucking car, Jamie. Is that the poster you had? Probably.

It's hard to remember, but it looks exactly like that. One of my photographers does a trick, and now I've been using it. So you'll get that mirrored effect if you take an iPhone that's off and put it right under the lens and hold it up and angle it just right. It's super cool. Interesting. That's a beautiful car. And back in the day, like, what was that? That had to be like early 80s, right?

What year was that? Oh, yeah. That was late 70s, I believe. Was it? Yeah, for launch. That makes sense. Because I was in high school. First year of high school was 81.

So that's when I had it on my wall. I can't remember his real name, but on Instagram. 78 to 81. There you go. Mr. Enthusiast. I don't know what that is. He's a designer and a really interesting cat. He has like Lancia Delta.

He had a Stratos for a couple years. He's into all the weird shit. And I think he still owns one. But he rocked one of those before anyone was talking about him and had it forever. Drove the piss out of it. I love those cars. talking about them and like had it forever drove the piss out of it i love those cars i have zero desire to own one now and i have zero desire to own anything old that hasn't been redone yeah i don't like there is mr enthusiast oh there you go that's a beautiful car he's so funny too

because like as you know i'm a big watch geek and he's like the antichrist and the watch culture because he's all about quartz, like vintage quartz. So like for a short time, Patek made quartz watches. And like everyone shuns them, but now like they're immensely collectible. Why does everybody hate quartz? Because they just want everything to be mechanical? To me, that's why I won't touch a quartz watch. But what about Grand Seiko where they combine the two of them?

They use the quartz to sort of accentuate. Well, even Ressence is one of my favorite of the weirdos. Is that your watch? Yeah, not my design. This is Ressence or Ressence is the brand. These are super trippy, but they just came out with a smart watch where when you're on the plane

and you're in a new time zone and you land, it'll reset itself. What? I have a thumb and an index finger that work pretty fucking good. I can set my own watch. How does it do that? It's a mechanical watch.

Yeah, mechanical quartz combination. Oh, wow. But these are super trippy because the entire movement rotates as it tells the time. What? Let me see that. That's crazy. Super trippy brand. Really interesting guys.

And they're oil-filled and all sorts of neat niftiness. And talk about an industry and a shit show even before this sad virus situation. Watches. Luxury watch world. This is crazy. Bleeding. Yeah. Why is that?

Why is the luxury watch world bleeding? I think SmartWatch put a bigger ding on it than they thought it would. Oh, okay. And they negated it originally like oh there's nothing like cameras yeah and exactly the arrogance of we're doing just fine and then like now they say there's so many manufacturing options for low volume watches that the only growth segments and i i read the big lvmh like annual report and the um like what is it 800 to 1600 segment of watches pumping killing it growing like crazy otherwise it's up it's like

20 grand and more independent watch brands are killing it everyone in between is like hemorrhaging really Really? That's interesting. There's this new company I'm bummed because when I went to the Geneva show, I was going to go meet with him, but David Rutten watches that are doing watches that are CNC'd out of a solid chunk of meteorite. And not like some bullshit EDM meteorite dial

on your ladies Daytona. The entire watch case, the crown, and everything is meteorite. Jesus Christ. How many meteorites are there? Like how often can you do that? There's actually a shit ton of meteorites. Really?

Yeah, there's different grades of them and stuff, and it depends on the metallurgic content to if they can be machine and they eat machine tooling left and right. Wow. Look at that thing. How funky, right? How weird looking. That's made out of a meteorite. Yeah.

God damn it. You can see all the fracturing in it. price point's pretty he's doing like a pre-launch and so he hasn't launched yet they just started doing deliveries like a week ago and like i'd saved up my little side monopoly cash from selling off used parts and leather stuff and i was like ready to pull the trigger and i already had a meeting and lunch date set up with those cats. And I'm like, oh. And what happened? Well, my trip got canceled

because the Geneva show got canceled. But anyway, the point of the story is guys like this and Ressence and Lorraine Ferrari and all these different, Moser is another great brand. If they have a very unique aesthetic and philosophy they're killing it right but it's the traditional big luxury bling bling yo look at me yeah those guys are just dying on the vine because i think more and more people aren't buying into what is

considered luxury in a conventional sense. People want more story. Well, that also speaks to the kind of stuff that you do. I mean, people like things that are crafted by artisans. Yeah. I love that. Me too. We're seeing that revival right in the last 10 years. It's just growing and growing and growing.

It's so great. Well, I feel like as the world becomes more digital and people become more disconnected with each other, there's something about, like, when I drive your Bronco, first of all, I really like you, so I love the fact that I'm driving your truck. And then two, I feel like it's

a piece of art. I feel like it's a functional piece of art. Highly functioning sculpture. I smile when I'm in it. It makes me feel different. When I'm in my Tesla I'm like this is a badass motherfucking piece of invention, but I know still in your own head. It's a piece of plastic There's you know, it's plastic and glass and metal and it's beautiful. It's amazing It's spectacular innovate, but it it will never be art. Are you in it? What do you have an ass?

I have that. Yeah the p100d. Yeah. Have you ever sat in the back seat? No. Don't. Why? The noise coming out of that third point shoulder seatbelt retractor is so unacceptable to modern car standards. That's such a geek thing to say. Like, literally, the shit's coming up through the plastic wheel well, and, like, a noise and a cold breeze is hitting your outboard ear. And I'm like, okay.

A breeze? How did this shit happen there's a damn draft that comes up through there and you're hearing road noise through it you're hearing road noise through the seatbelt through the cavity through which the retractor spool sits

and air gets in there? next time you're too stoned to drive you sit in the back seat, let mama drive and report back, you send me a text it's that annoying huh it for for guys like us dare i go out on a limb and say us yes it'll annoy the piss out of you interesting that car good thing you didn't have a call-in number when elon was here i would have chewed his ass about that would you that one thing you know who the fuck is this asshole he already knows who this asshole is years ago I developed a concept that I called the Helios.

I don't know if you ever saw that. So I love like design challenges. I like framing things, right? So I was like, all right, let's do a revisionist history approach to car design. So what if electric cars had remained predominant in the late 1800s, early 1900s? What if we had taken inspiration from aircraft design a couple decades prior to when the industry actually did? And then what if after he did the experimental plane, the H2, I think it was, what if Howard Hughes had sat in down and like he couldn't get that last starlet to

go out with him right before he lost his mind completely? What if he, Buckminster Fuller, and Gordon Bureig sat down and did a napkin sketch after too many martinis? What would that car look like? So that was my stupid pile of questions around which I framed my design. And I designed it to work on the, at the time, a P85 platform. And basically I received a copy of a letter that's titled like peanut butter and chocolate that was written by Elon's core engineering team, begging him to allow them to support me to do the build. And since day one, my launch was, I don't need your money. I'll go to the dealership.

I'll buy the damn car. I need y'all's back and support on the software because they're super shitty about any repurposed or- I'm sure, yeah. Pride Teslas, and Elon never addressed it. It was like, aw. That gentleman right there with the glasses, the larger bobblehead, that's Rich Rebill. It's Rich Benoit.

Great guy. I know Rich. We just did a speaking panel together in Texas recently. That's his major beef with Tesla. He's bought a couple of them and pieced them back together. And they cock-block them.

Yeah, they cock-block them left and right. They won't let them supercharge. But six, about in the last two or three quarters, there have been major gains. Honestly, I think due to Rich and due to the community that rose up around him, that shit's been hacked now.

Really? Oh, yeah. Now people can open source hack the CAN data chain and people are repurposing Tesla components. Like I use Tesla batteries, but I haven't been using their motors or planetaries or anything else. Because again, what do I tell my client when the client needs an update or a part? You go to the dealer, they're like, what's your VIN? And you're screwed. You can't get it.

Come outside. But yeah, like Stealth EV, in fact, has this new setup that they just started marketing where you literally take that IRS apart where the electric motor is built in. There's a little access door. You pull out a little circuit board. You put in another one and voila. Is there a setup like crate engines where, you know, or do you envision a setup where because, you know, you know that the new Hummer is now going to be an electric vehicle, which is really interesting. Yeah.

And there's going to be a bunch of other electric vehicles that are coming out from Volkswagen that are really cheap and a bunch of different companies are jumping in. Do you envision there being some sort of a crate engine option for people that want to- I do. I do. And I think there should be. Now, proof in the pudding to this point is that everyone's focusing on the do-it-yourself market, therefore also on the cheapest possible equation, which leaves a lot of, in my opinion, a lot of safety issues completely unaddressed, and they can get downright nutty. So the other issue is they're all for ease of installation and conversion. Everyone's thinking about doing kits that literally are a spud plate and a short shaft to go where the engine used to be,

put an electric motor to a bell housing adapter to the stock transmission, which is stupid because electric cars going through manual transmissions, there's a lot of scavenging of energy. It's bad enough to go through a ring and pinion. Doing a right angle gear displacement of power, you lose so much efficiency. And the best EVs, in my opinion, are transmissionless or go through planetary set, you know, for gear reduction. Like that, the Merc is the, to my knowledge, the first sort of retrofit EV that, you know, being the goober that I am, like, I was like, okay, we've done a couple of EV builds, but if we're going to keep doing them, like, I want to do them our way. Like I want to, I want more safety. I want more performance. I want more

range. I want dedicated thermal management networks for the batteries, the controllers, the motors and all that. And none of it existed. How long did that build take? Oh God. For, yeah, just a little bit over four years. And that the scale of technology shit's changing so quickly in the EV space that as we were building it, suppliers of key components came out with another generation that's infinitely better than the V1 or V3 I already had.

So even before we could finish that car, we were backing up and updating and updating and updating, which really, if you put sort of a marketeer hat on, I'm so proud of the value retention in my vehicles. And I'm proud of our foundation of taking something that, in essence, a lot of people would think is at the end of its already usable life cycle and upcycling it and breathing new life so it's good to go for decades again. But now with EV, stuff is moving so quickly that am I like making iPhones all of a sudden?

So in two years, it's totally worthless because the tech is outdated. That is the weird thing about tech, right? Is that the exponential growth and improvement, it just makes like no one wants an iPhone one. They're useless. So look at internal combustion engine development cycles. What I put in today is still relevant in a decade. But with electric, it's a whole new space to consider. So AEM is well-known in racing and aftermarket for engine management electronics. They just at PRI and at SEMA made a fair bit of noise about coming out with a full array of EV retrofit conversion systems. So these seem to be the first ones entering the field that are going to offer a comprehensive suite of products and solutions.

But then again, being that it's part of this industry, you know, I go grill the dudes at their trade show booth and they're like, well, it's something we're working on. There's all these press releases and all that. I'm like, sell me some shit. Hello? They can't sell it to you. I think – I trust it will come out. When you see Elon coming out with like that new Roadster is going to have a 600 mile range. That is when things get really interesting.

And Volkswagen claimed with that vehicle that you noted earlier that they were going to make the platform shareable and they were going to make it available to many different manufacturers, large and small. But I've heard stories like that over the years from you name it, from Faraday was claiming the same thing and so much of it's bullshit because now it's like – I don't want to say vaporware, but it's so much of that like VC money. Don't worry. We'll be profitable one day and we're worth a billion multiple of nothing today. So buy in.

And then it's like so many of these EV startups and retrofit companies come to the scene looking for that elusive FedEx fleet contract that everyone thinks is going to be easy to get. And none of them get it. And then they all go belly up. So I just think we're at that point in history where not only is the tech moving forward so quickly and not only that, but the likes of predominantly only due to Tesla. It's proven the viability in the market. Now there's purists and traditionalists and everyone's starting to poke at it. And I see exponential more interest. So I think, you know, for the next five years or so, it's going to be a bit tumultuous, but I definitely think it's the future of hot rodding. I imagine

within five years, I imagine probably half of my client builds will be electric. Wow. That's a big statement. Well, and I'm totally pulling it out of the booty. But that's the vibe that I get. Have you seen there's a 68 Porsche 911 that has a Tesla engine in it? Yeah. Is that the one EV West built?

I don't know who built it i was just scanning through uh scanning through in uh instagram the other day and i saw it a green 68 uh that's that's very interesting when they do stuff like that to old cars but and there's so many guys springing up out of the woodwork yeah like nationwide to various levels of price expectation, range expectation, et cetera. But I think that's a really, it's a lovely community too. I've noticed it's much more open than the conventional automotive community is about sharing information and suppliers and knowledge and helping one another. And there's a really nice camaraderie within that community.

There's like Movement Motors in Austin is doing really nice retrofits. Oh, yeah? EV West has been around forever. They're really the granddaddies on the scene. Movement Motors in Austin? Mm-hmm. Are they the ones that did that Mustang? I think they've done a Stang.

They just finished doing a 2002 BMW. They did an early GTV Alpha. They've done all sorts of different, like, pretty cool, diverse range of platforms. And then, of course, Z Electric down in Orange County that started out doing just the bugs, now the bugs in the buses, and now 911s. And it's like there's such a large and welcoming, kind, cool community of people in that space. Now, when you charge a Tesla, it's easy. You look for the Tesla superchargers. They're all over the place.

You press a button on your screen, and it shows you where they are. It'll navigate you to them. When you try to get one of those, you can't charge a regular car at a Tesla superstation, can you? No, and there's different. So there's the standard. I forget the Anacra, and we could call Rich, the J blah, blah, blah connector. But there's a standard municipal connector, and then there's also the new fast charge network. But it depends on where you live.

But, for example, around here, it's a joke. They're everywhere. So, like, I have an app when I'm driving that 49 Merc, and, you know, I was speaking at Barrett-Jackson and had it there in town for while I was visiting. And then you network the apps and you find it. But we made that one supercharger compatible because the client's going to install one in his house and bunk the system. Otherwise, you try and go to a public Tesla charger. It has to do a handshake and it says, no, you may not charge here. So you can have it supercharger compatible for like, I have one on the wall back there for my car.

So it would work with that. Yes, that's my understanding, but not a public installation. Those have to go through a whole handshake protocol sending data back and forth. Yeah, it's interesting that you decided to do it that way. Well, it's fun. We put one behind the front license plate. So we did one of those old school articulating plates, like remember on the gas floors behind the plate? So that has the one interface connector.

And then the other one, I machine this unnecessarily groovy sort of gas cap under the original fuel door on the Merc. And then that's for the other style charger. So do you, oh, so you could charge it with different ones. The supercharger is one. So depending on, to, so you could charge it with different ones. The supercharger is one. So depending on, to increase the versatility of it, you had a supercharger fast charge compatibility, and then you had the more widely distributed municipal format charger.

And then there's just two different pigtail adapters. You can go either way with it. Do you anticipate upping the range on that thing? Do you think that someday you'll swap the batteries out? Definitely. I think the reality is any EV project I build, I have to, not only do I anticipate, but like I've lost many clients because I'll be super blunt about making, managing their expectations that, look, you're going to spend a lot of money to have me do this and trust I will geek out and do the best of the state of the art that is available to us. But in a year, that might all be garbage. So you have to understand either you're cool with this moment in time and the range and the performance and is what it is, or you're a tech geek like most guys that are engaging in that. And you're going to be hemorrhaging money

then coming back every couple of years for us to upgrade and evolve as the sciences evolve. But you know, we build on a submodular, even like your Bronco is submodularly built. So your powertrain, the electrical network for your powertrain goes to two single Deutsch Tech 26-pin connectors, aerospace connectors. So one day when that powertrain is no longer relevant but your truck still has good platform value, that yank it out and put in the hydrogen or the microcapacitor or whatever the hell's working at the time do you remember the

bloom boxes no really what is it yeah i've been thinking about them lately i remember seeing them on 60 minutes years ago and i think google headquarters was powered by one there were these funky little black boxes that had some chemical process of creating energy. And they were like early on massive news promising tech. And they're super groovy little simple boxes. And they originally did it for like campuses and military, like large installations for multiple complexes and stuff. How did they work? But then they were also making them for automotive, and they had a prototype.

I was so excited. I don't remember. It's been years, but it was some sort of, I think it was an ionic transfer process that went through a series of elements within the shielded box to create the energy, but they were, like, self-sustaining and super groovy it's called a bloom box anything literally it's just a big black box doesn't what's in there and i don't know what happened with them they went belly up or someone there yeah so that 60 minutes so that was powering google at one point yeah those things and what's

inside and i think stan Stanford was getting into it. I don't know. Major mental flashback for me even that I'm remembering it. It's just one of those things that seems so promising that then went bye-bye. Same with like toroidal engines. There was a great engineer up in Lodi that was revisiting toroidals. And he had a Ford Focus that would do like his daughter's old car with a blown-up motor. He had his own toroidal motor that he had developed that could run from the energy in the charged particles in the air.

What? This thing did like 15 miles an hour on a flat test track running on air. Charged particles in the air? Yes. Ionically charged particles in the air. So conceivably, as the technology improved, that 15 miles an hour could be a real speed. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. And then that same guy, I saw him once at a trade show, and I was exhibiting at the show as well. So I was there on set-up day. I was bored out of my gourd. I was already set up in the Ford booth. So I was walking around, day. I was bored out of my gourd. I was already set up in the Ford booth. So I'm just walking around, sort of sniffing around and see this trippy scientist guy in his lab coat and this shitty little booth. It was like, you know, six by 10 foot booth. And, you know,

at a show where people have like 200 by 60 foot booths. And he's got this odd little toroidal thing and then a bigger toroidal thing and literally like a chalkboard. So I'm like, dude, what's going on? So I started talking to him about it. He starts explaining the technology and what he was doing. And like the smaller one at 300 foot pounds of torque, the larger one had 2000. And he was looking to develop it for rail cars, for semis, for cars, like on and on and on. He's like, yeah, the biggest problem is stopping it once it gets going because the toroidal structure meant that the compression cycle from you know 12 to 2 of that first cylinder was such that when the combustion occurred and it propelled the next piston into the next combustion cycle and kept going so getting that power out of the central crank was a challenge

and then how to stop the damn thing was like the bigger challenge. But they'd run on like horse piss, ionic charged particles, diesel, gas. Like they didn't even need spark plugs. So I'm like blown away by this. I go back the next day. Poof, where'd he go? Booth gone, empty, done.

And I had the guy's info. I tried to reach out to him. Website gone. Website I'd looked at the night before, done. And I had the guy's info line try to reach out to him. Website gone. Website I'd looked at the night before, gone. Got gobbled up. Five years later, I see him again at another trade show with another kick-ass design. And man, was he a bitter man. He's like, yeah, never again. Because they bought it and they shelved it. I'm never selling anything again. Fuck them. I'm licensing to specific channels of applications, and that's it. His new product. So what do you think happened if you're a conspiracy theorist?

Do you think someone bought him out and just wanted to? I'm a small independent business owner realist in that, hell yes, someone didn't like that, and they shelved that shit. So they bought it and then just shelved it. Yep. So his next product. Who did that? I don't know.

And he was very cagey about it. Then he had another product where you would replace the alternator in your car with a generator, and you had a small battery in the vehicle, right? So this is a retrofit system. The retail model was brilliant because you'd have like a pretty cheesy inexpensive three-axis mill a shit ton of cad files and one product on the shelf so in a lightweight car it was like an electric supercharger so you'd replace your alternator and it had a toothed cog for the pulley and then your crank pulley would add a tooth cog to it and then tooth belt

so the idea was it would assist the internal combustion engine through its compression cycle it would negate the parasitic load of all the fiat all the front engine accessory drive mounted things you know your alternator your small pump or whatever by pushing the engine through the cycle with the captured electrical energy from the deceleration. Whoa. And then in bigger cars, it gave you like pass assist and range increase and did great things for MPG. And then the story I got on that one was BMW put him under a big contract for it to license it and use it. And then the guy disappeared off the face planet again.

Jesus Christ, this guy. Shit happens. Do you remember there was a video that was circulating many years ago about a guy who created a car to run on air? No, excuse me, water. He created a car that runs on water. And then this car that ran on water, I mean, he apparently had a viable engine and it was really working.

And then he had a viable engine and it was really working and uh and then he he he had a heart attack and as he was dying he was saying they killed me they killed me and then he died nobody heard from the water engine again but uh he's from columbus he's from columbus too see that shit happens. And I don't even like the term conspiracy theory because I think that's something created by the machine to negate things that are disruptive and innovative. So we can put them in a little box and call it a conspiracy theory or whatever. Yes. And therefore it never happened.

Well, anyone who doesn't believe in conspiracy theories, I say look at Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah. It's real clear. Meyer said that his invention could do what physicists say is impossible, turn water into hydrogen fuel efficiently enough to drive his dune buggy cross country on 20 gallons straight from the tap. He took a sip of cranberry juice, then he grabbed his neck, bolted out the door, dropped to his knees and vomited violently.

I ran outside and asked him what's wrong. His brother, Stefan Meyer, recalled. He said, they poisoned me. That was his dying declaration. That's fucked up. That's fucked up. I don't know if it's true. He might have been nuts.

Or both. Or both. Or they might have killed him. That's another thing. We like to just call people nuts and write them off. Some of the greatest innovators throughout the history of mankind have been a little off the rocker. Nikola Tesla was in love with a pigeon. Totally. Yeah.

He was in love with a pigeon. I love that story. Yeah. His final days, man, in that hotel. Well, there's also a story that I read that I've tried to substantiate that apparently he was so frustrated by sexual desires and a love affair that he had and the distraction that it presented that he, in quotes distraction that it presented that he in quotes destroyed his sexuality. I do not know what that means. You know what?

I'd like to look into it. I got to say, man, I'm kind of tired of my penis still ruling my brain. You know, at 50, it's like I wouldn't mind to be able to take it off and leave it at home. Well, no, I mean, just like enough already. Like, you know, I get it. Jesus. Well, no, I mean, just like enough already. Enough already. I get it. Yeah. I mean, I like turn it on, turn it off as needed and when appropriate.

Maybe you can engineer something. I don't want to be walking around like. Maybe have a hip switch. It's like something you could just set it aside and become a eunuch for a little bit. Or at least make it useful. Make it like a GoPro mount or something. I don't know. Yeah.

I see what you're saying. make it like a gopro mount or something i don't know yeah i see what you're saying there's uh there's a lot of innovation that does sort of get swept aside that you wonder like there's a documentary who killed the electric car yeah uh steven uh really interesting cat the guy who uh produced and developed yeah lovely guy yeah i don't know who he is but that is another example of you know that was an innovation that was a little bit ahead of its time. And the powers that be were like, fuck you. Yeah. They were not ready for it.

Yeah. And that goes way back. I mean, you know, have you heard of the Selden patent? It's a very interesting piece of American transportation history. transportation history, this prick named Selden was one of the richest people in the country because he was like one of your early patent trolls who like sat back one day and went, you know, we got these horse carriages and then we got these new motor things. And, you know, at some point there could be a horseless carriage. So he like literally did like a chicken scratch bullshit drawing and filed it and got awarded the patent. So Henry Ford and his first two companies, as well as the Dodge brothers,

all the early pioneers in the transportation sector in the U.S. had to pay this prick a massive royalty to even produce the vehicle. And it was Henry, after he went down and under and he was reborn and came back out with Ford Motor Company the second time, that he said, you know what? Fuck him. Fuck that. I'm not paying this shit.

And it was like eight years of court battles to overrule it. And the National Automotive Dealers Association originally didn't want any trouble and everyone was paying. And Henry was the one who had the gall and the balls to say, no, no, we should not pay this prick. And they finally got it kicked out. But they say that hindered innovation and transportation for a good decade. Wow. No, I didn't know about that. And it was only the electric starter, the Magneto starter that Henry Ford integrated into his cars that really made the massive shift away from predominance of electric cars to internal combustion. So when you flash forward and you

look at Mr. Payne's film, Who Killed the Electric Car? And you look at Firestone and who was it? Pacific Oil, but it was an oil company, a tire company. And they created that bus company. And then they did all the lobbying to privatize municipal transport so that then they could slowly buy them all up. And California had an incredibly successful electric trolley system through the West Side. It was brilliant. It was pioneering. They had everyone.

They're the ones that ended up stacked in the desert. There's some of that footage in the film. Yeah. Because they're like, we're not going to sell tires or oil if this shit goes down, so let's tank it. Yeah, they do that. Yeah, they will buy a company that's doing amazing innovation. Yeah, and they just put it on the shelf. Do you remember that early Ford cars, the early Ford cars were made with hemp? All of his fenders and everything were made with hemp.

And there's a video of him taking a hammer and a sledge and banging it off the fenders. And it shows you the insane durability that hemp fibers have. Have you ever seen that? Yeah, but that never made it into production, right? I think that was a wartime shortage R&D effort. Same thing with stainless. Have you ever seen any of the prototype? A couple of them still exist.

Stainless? Yeah, so Ford, I think it was the 37 Tudor. but stainless yeah so ford i think it was the 37 tudor it was a 61 maybe t-bird was the newest and there was a third one um that the entire body is made out of stainless and they're so badass and then gm did one during world war ii during the metal shortage time, entire plexiglass Buick sedan. And it sold in auction recently. And I was so fucking tempted. Yeah. So the entire body is clear.

Like you see through the doors, you see the window regulators, the lock solenoids, everything. It is so badass. And it sold for what didn't seem like an absurd. It was like 180, 200 grand. Wow. So actually, can you Google that image? It didn't seem like an absurd. It was like $180,000, $200,000. Wow. Plexiglass.

So actually, can you Google that image? It's a plexiglass prototype Buick, I think it was. Hopefully we'll find it. Super, super nifty. Wow. I know that, what is the company? Lotus. Lotus developed

a hemp fiber car they did like an anniversary one of their what is it Esteege or whatever the fuck it is there it is

there it is to the left wow one more one more over yeah look at that that's insane

it's like are you kidding me that's crazy that was so me? That's crazy. That was so fucking cool. That's crazy looking. Apparently it cracked and proved not to be viable, so it never made it past shit. But just as like a sculpture to have here in your man cave, the thing is so badass. Yeah, really cool. I like, there's all the, is that safety bracing on the doors?

Structural bracing on the doors? Also for a while, like I wanted to do, there was a Dow Corning and somebody else. There was a big consortium that was doing a bio-derivative molded plastic concepts. So like for your city trash cans and stuff and the durability and the life cycles and everything were epic. And I was thinking for a while, like how badass would it it be invest all the money in the platform of the vehicular engineering, and then make the body literally, by design, almost disposable. So when it's at the end of its life cycle, it literally could turn into mulch and go on the ground and be totally neutral. Or, more interestingly, more liberating for a consumer and a designer. Like, let's say that same platform you had, you could have like a dune buggy style.

Like, okay, I'm going to take it out to the desert and we're going to go elk hunting or whatever the hell you're going to do that weekend, right? And you want like a buggy, truggy style. Or, you know, we're doing construction at the house and we're going to use it for, you know, hauling soil or whatever. You know, we're doing construction at the house and we're going to use it for, you know, hauling soil or whatever. So you could have like modular bodies and different applications used on the same platform, but all bioderivative materials. I think that'd be super cool. Well, I've always wondered why someone didn't, besides Lotus, didn't make another hemp bodied car. Because, you know, Corvette still uses plexiglass or fiberglass for all their cars. But hemp is far superior.

It is. And it's another one of those things. Like, why isn't that moving forward? Who doesn't want that moving forward? Maybe you should do it. Maybe you should make like a 69 Corvette, but make all the panels, redo them in hemp fiber. I hate to say it, but you're going up against the petrochemical industry, and I do not want to be that dude. For you?

Sure. I mean, all the petrochemical interests in plastics. If you're just rebuilding something, do you really think that it would be that dude. For you? Sure. I mean, all the petrochemical interests in plastics. If you're just rebuilding something, do you really think that it would be that big of a deal? Like, they would come after you? If you took all the body panels off, and by the way, it would probably be so much stronger if you watch the video of, see if you

can find that video of Henry Ford banging the hammer off of... I'm reading about it right now. It might not have been what was like... He lied? He didn't lie. The people that were putting out the video lied, I guess, is what this article says. What does it say? The angry historian wrote a big blog about it, dug through

it. That seems to be a prototype as he was saying, and it was probably plastic. It might have been some hemp in there, but it wasn't even 50%. It's a binder maybe. It wasn't even 50% hemp? Well, how does he know that? The digging through all the places that the information came from, from the 40s and all the places that they were talking about making.

The Angry Historian is pretty balls-out serious when he makes a statement. He does his homework. Interesting. I had a friend who had a stalk of hemp, you know, one of those, the base of a hemp tree on his desk. And he's like, pick that up. And I picked it up and it looks like a piece of oak. Like it looks like, and we feel it.

It's really hard, but it's really light. It's the weirdest plant. Like, I don't know if you ever held a piece of hemp, like a hemp stalk. It's like an alien plant. It doesn't seem to make any sense. Yeah. And its properties and its structure is so unique, and there's so many benefits to it, for sure. Yeah, I would think.

I mean, see if you can find that lotus, the hemp lotus. They had it where the front stripe down the center was clear coat, so you could see the actual hemp fiber in the lotus. But no one's ever done anything. I mean, they still make Corvettes out of plastic. I mean, still making them out of fiberglass. I would think that that would be like a real straightforward approach, especially now that hemp is legalized and you can grow it in the United States and most states. I think it's federally legal.

Yeah. For my leather goods, like this jacket is all hemp thread. Really? It's super strong. Oh, yeah. It's better than anything. So that stripe down the middle is all the clear coat natural hemp fiber. So that whole car is made out of hemp.

What the hell is Lotus doing these days? Like they keep coming out with all these concepts and prototypes, but then nothing ever seems to be actually happening or coming out. I don't know. They had that little car. I guess it's that one. Is that the one, the really little one that they had? Yeah, that's the Elise. I drove it one day, and I was like, what do you have, a fucking pair of chipmunks running the engine with one of those hamster wheels?

But then even like last year at the Quail, we were up there showing a car. They debuted a concept that was lovely. It was kick-ass. But from what I heard, what's his name? Bahar. They're making such a disgusting amount of money in licensing, like keychains and bullshit. That like the core, even the engineering, tier one engineering aspect of Lotus and then the production they're like, fuck that, that's complicated. Wait a minute, they make their money off keychains?

Yeah, from what I've been told, that's what's kept Lotus in business over the last 10 years. Lotus keychains? Just merch, just whatever. Watches, mercs, bags, whatever. Shit that anyone wants to put the Lotus name on they're selling licenses left and right.

But they're not selling cars. I don't think they have anything in production right now, do they? That's so weird. And they've shown more concepts than multinational car companies. Well, I know Matt Farah reviewed that rear engine or the mid-engine one that they have and said it was awesome. It's a beautiful car. But you don't see them. You never see them.

And said it was awesome. It's a beautiful car. But you don't see them. You never see them. Yeah, I think they're one of those interesting companies that like kind of like a Malcolm Bricklin situation of like. Who's that? Malcolm Bricklin. So one of the best car books ever.

You know Johnny Lieberman, right? Yes. Johnny's a dear friend. Johnny had recommended. It's called The Worst Car Ever Built. And it's the story of the yugo oh it is it's a fast read it is absolutely hysterical the shenanigans and shit show around that car and behind all of it was malcolm bricklin who's like the pt barnum of the automotive industry the amount of stories and stuff this guy has lived through and caused and gotten away with is insane.

But like the Yugo, the cars were like late and they were going to debut at the L.A. Auto Show. And they realized like, oh, shit, we don't have booth models or anything. What are we going to do? So Malcolm Bricklin in the story goes that he drove around downtown L.A. and just where are the prostitutes? Where are the whores hang out around here? Went over and like hired a bunch of the girls to like, could you put on something a little more tame and like be here at this time for these days

and just like run the show and be their booth models and rep the cars. But like the cars as they came out of the container had disassembled themselves in transit and just on and on and on. The shenanigans are just hysterical, but that book is so fucking funny. I've never heard of that before.

That's interesting. Yeah. I would think that for a guy like you who's building cars the way you're building them, the real challenge would be staff. Yes. I think that would be the real challenge, is finding people that understand what you're doing,

finding fellow artisans that also understand how to build cars, that really get what you're doing. Yep. That and I love the state of California, but they do not want me here. How so? They don't want me in business. They don't want anyone in California making anything except maybe solar-assisted bicycles. thing except maybe solar-assisted bicycles. The business climate in the state of California and the associated HR costs and insurance and workman's comp and liabilities, like, every couple weeks, there's another absurd ruling that we get an update on that, like,

wait, what? It's like, you mean to tell me if I catch a dude smoking crack while on the clock stealing my inventory, I can't fire his ass on the spot. Nope. What? Oh, yeah. Now, if you do, you have to give him a week's pay at the time of letting him go. And you can't make him sign anything that indemnifies nor protects you. You have to put him on probation and offer therapy and resources.

No, you don't. Yeah. Really? You catch someone stealing merchandise and smoking crack. and offer therapy and resources. No, you don't. Yeah. Really? It's such a shit show. You catch someone stealing merchandise and smoking crack. Like literally the most vagrant disrespect of safety, of policy, of company goods. Like it has gotten so bad. And like we just got a letter from the building inspector came by and he's like,

yeah, you know those automotive lifts in your building? We're like, yeah. He goes, yeah, you have 30 days to remove all those. What? Thank you. That was pretty much my response verbatim. He goes, yeah, you're not zoned for automotive. I'm like, you see this plaque on the wall, the congressman, councilman, and the mayor?

You see this picture of me and the mayor when he did the ribbon cutting? Here's the email record showing the mayor's aide personally delivered me all my occupancy permits. He goes, yeah, not my problem. I'm like, what about the last nine years of inspectors coming in all the time and saying, you guys have the cleanest, most professional above board shop, kick ass, well done. Thank you so much for making my life good. He goes, yeah, they're idiots. I'm the new inspector. So the new inspector says you're not licensed i'm not zoned appropriately to be in business where i'm at despite having permits and everything for it did they change the zoning i don't know what the hell happened other than this new guy seems to be a prick and wanting to uh show his value what's his name

i actually don't remember. But I literally at every turn it's killing me. What a piece of shit. I think at this point too the amount of costs related per employee should be going to my employees. Not to insurance companies and all this

bullshit that gets tagged on top. It's like for every dollar you pay someone now there's another 32 cents that should be going to them that's going to sucker fish an industry. What do they want you to do? How do they expect you to work on these cars? Oh, I don't know. Is this something you can fight or are you going to have to actually? Oh, no.

I had to lawyer up and we're fighting it. But, I mean, literally, I honestly think they'd rather have a commercial weed facility in that building kicking out a hell of a lot more tax revenue than us. Really? Yeah. Do you think that's what they're doing? Yes. So you really think they're trying to make it challenging for you to do business so that you quit? Yes. And just about any small business owner I know in the state of California, the challenges we're facing are getting to the point of making us wonder about our own intellect for staying in the state. I don't want to move.

I don't want to go anywhere. I don't want to. I love it here. So what would you do if you lose this? You know, if it gets to the point that we have to, oh, you mean this building situation? Yeah. I'll fight it or move and I'll deal. I've been through this shit for a while.

So you find some place where you are zoned for lifts? Yeah, I just keep partying on. But I know I'm zoned fine where I'm at. I'm just going to have to, you know, instead of running a business, I have to now become a lobbyist and, you know, knock on doors and ring phones and dig through my black book to find people with the clout to get the city to go. So is this guy just flexing?

Like, what is this? I think so. And at first he seemed like he chilled out when we went above him, and then everything was good. And then a week later it bubbled back up again, and we got another notice. So we're in the middle of it right now. You went above his head, and you got approval? Verbal.

Verbal. Yeah. And then— And he said, yeah, I don't know what he's talking about. You're fine. You're good to go. And then you go back again. And now it's a problem.

And he said, what in the fuck? That's crazy. But look, at the end of the day, the reality is also I'm going against what trade schools are telling young kids that are going into the field. What are they telling kids? They're telling kids that here, if you run this scan tool, you'll make $150,000 a year as a lead tech at a BMW dealership. telling these kids while sucking all their money out of them with crazy student loans and stuff is, yeah, that's like the kids in the street in Brazil all wanting to grow up to be Pele. There's not that many Peles. So there's plenty of dudes at that dealership that are making minimum wage or thereabouts or dealing with the politics of flag hours or whatever. But what I'm having a

hard time with is we charge $100 an hour for our labor. I can't just keep charging more and more and more. At the level of what we do with projects that can run thousands of hours per job, the math is – it almost doesn't make sense. Like I honestly have guys that I think should be – I should be paying them $70, $80, $90, $100 grand a year to do what they do because they're artists and they deserve it. The bullshit of running a business in California, all of the exponential costs that are added on top, they even de-incentivize overtime now. If I give a dude overtime, it ups his tax rate and they take even more out of the overtime. Well, whatever happened to like GDP and employment and productivity and like keeping everything rolling, they're de-incentivizing us even to offer our employees more money with more hours. It's tragic. And I've lost several guys now

that have gone to do jobs that they hate. But like Department of Water and Power, I've lost several employees at DWP because they get a pension. They get killer health care. They get 90 grand a year to pick their nose and watch other people work. Ugh. Sucks. What is this? Is this a Democrat thing?

I think it might be the uber green side of Democratic because I think am i think the old whatever the old two-party system's a shit show as it is anyway i i don't think it's about which party so much as i think we've empowered attorneys to such an extent that it it's it's downright sinful because it's hindering industry it's hindering innovation um there's just so many constrictions because everyone has their hand out. No one's self-accountable, but everyone's liable. So then you need a policy for that. I mean, we had an employee once sue us. He jumped in a dumpster to stomp on everything to compress it in the dumpster.

It started moving across the ramped parking lot. And he jumped out of it, clipped his leg on the way down and shattered his arm in four spots. Well, he sued me. And it's like, well, it's not in your job description. Did someone tell you to jump in the dumpster and stomp on it? No. And then we discover the guy had embrittled bones due to chemical agent exposure in the military. But it's my problem? Like what? People, whatever happened to like, be proud of what you do, be respected, be well-paid, everyone's content, everyone's like inspired and engaged. And I just feel like more and more, there's just so much noise and lawyers and policies, all this crap. It's like, well, we're just here to like do something we love and get rewarded and pay people. I mean, I'm stoked that, you know, we support directly

58 families plus all our sublets and everything else. But it's, it's hard to retain people when, when we, we know we can't pay them what they're worth in this business environment. I have a really hard time with the whole crack thing. Catching someone stealing, smoking crack, and you can't fire them. That seems so strange. You have to give them a week's worth of money. Yeah.

On the spot. On the spot. So you have to cut them a check. It's just getting so stupid. That seems, and you have to offer them therapy? I mean, to be clear, I didn't catch a guy doing that. I know what you're saying. It's just a general thing.

But I tell you, man, more and more, a surf shack with my own little garden out back and my little leather studio and sell shit on Instagram, Simplify Life. Me, my wife, and my dogs. I know what you're saying. My own one-bay garage. You can move to Montana.

We've been dealing with cancer. My wife got diagnosed with cancer last year, and we've been in the throes of chemo and dealing with that whole shit show. You want to talk about something that puts everything in a perspective. We really made a stop and sit back and go, okay, all right, that doesn't fucking matter. A lot of the bullshit, a lot of the noise in our modern world does not matter. Doesn't mean a fucking thing. So that kind of reinvigorated but also refreshed my perspective to remind myself is someone's panties are in there not because their icons been in storage for six months. They didn't plug it into the tender and the battery's dead and they want to call and yell at me about it. I'd be like, really? Like, give me your bank info.

I'll send you your money back. Oh, well, no, that's not what I'm... Okay, then why are we interfacing like this? You have a dead battery. You haven't been there for six months. Dude, that's what happens. Pick your battery. Well, that's why the icon has a real easy way

to remove the battery posts. Right. And an integrated tender if you click that box on the fucking configurator. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of silly people out there for sure, but it's just weird when they're empowered by the government. Yeah. You know, when you don't have a common sense approach to knuckleheads. You know, you got a guy smoking crack and stealing things,

you're not supposed to reward that kind of behavior with a week's paycheck. And it's like the, you know, the homeless challenge that we're facing. And, you know, when we try and address that, in my opinion, when that's addressed on a state level, it's going to fucking fail because then you're going to overburden that state. Even if they're innovative and brilliant in their solution, then the whole country tilts to that state and they all come a sliding over. Yeah. And then the one in Venice that is like super nasty, low occupancy level because the homeless are like, wait a minute, there's a curfew and there's drug tests.

Screw you. I want to do whatever I want. I want to smoke what I want to smoke and do it. It's like, no. So, Joe, I'm running for office. Oh, this is my platform i'm announcing right here catalina catalina kind of sucks have you been there it's not the best place okay so how about this move to homeless people to catalina yes i don't want to live there though i didn't

ask him no you go there i'm asking no i'm not asking oh were, I'm not asking. Oh, were you a Republican? I'm nothing. But you go there. You contribute to that social system. We'll give you seed money and development. Free internet for all. Free internet. You actually start producing something of value to society and get your shit together. And come back home. Then we'll send the ferry over and we'll bring you back over.

So it's prison for homeless people. Yeah. What do you think? How are they going to get food? Airdrop? I don't know. Grow your shit. There's enough bison to feed them for a couple of years.

It's not going to work. All right. That idea sucks. I'd also, my other platform would be you cannot evoke the law in your defense in the process of breaking the law. When you hear stories like a friend of mine, NFL player, called a dude breaking into his car. Like he's in the gym and looking out the window and sees like legs hanging out

the passenger window of his BMW. He's like, motherfucker. He runs down there. He literally grabs a dude by the ankles and yanks him out of the car, blows the guy's jaw out, knocks his teeth out, on and on and on. My friend ended up getting sued for that and ended up liable yanks him out of the car, blows the guy's jaw out, knocks his teeth out, on and on and on. My friend ended up getting sued for that and ended up liable and owing this prick a bunch of money. Really?

But he was in the middle of breaking the law and stealing the guy's property. You should not be able to— Is that a California thing? Texas, they don't give a fuck. That was California. You should go to Texas. Yeah, Austin's looking better and better. Austin looks pretty good. I had some buddies with some shops in Austin.

Barbecue, my friends at Le Barbecue have a kick-ass barbecue place. Yeah, it's a great place. In front of my house. If someone's breaking your car, you can just shoot them. Sweet. Sign me up. I mean, I don't think you should shoot them, but you could. You know, I'm not advocating shooting people for breaking into your car.

Well, shoot them in the foot and then run over them. Would you feel better with that? Well, I feel like if you break into a former NFL player's BMW and he catches you, you should get your fucking ass kicked. Yeah, totally. By a big giant man. I mean, that's how you learn to not break into someone's car. But see, that's going back to this lack of accountability. Yes.

Well, that's the problem with Democrats. That's the problem with this country. And then there's a problem with particularly the state. The state is so progressive minded. And I'm a progressive. I'm a very open minded person. But you can't remove responsibility. You can't remove the consequences for actions.

You can't do those things. You can't give people participation trophies. And that's what you're doing. Yeah. And I agree with this. That attitude that people have by thinking they're being open minded and kind and nice. You are just enabling people to keep fucking up their life by not getting a word by showing up. They have no consequences.

And, you know, you can't litter. Right. So how how come you can put a fucking tent filled with shit and just park it under the overpass but if i throw a can of diet coke out my window into that same spot i will i will get a fine and i will get arrested rightly so but why why can this asshole park his fucking tent filled crack there how come you can have cardboard boxes just scattered out all over the place that you sleep on i don't i don't know what to tell that guy and how to change his life once he's got a tent,

once you camp down under the overpass. There's a lot of things that have gone wrong to get you to that position. But what I do know is you shouldn't be allowed to have a fucking tent. You shouldn't be allowed to have these tent villages. Downtown, man. We've spent much time lately in downtown.

Yes, but how about Venice? I went to dinner the other night in Venice, one of the last times I could go to dinner for the next couple months, I think, in a restaurant. But when we went down there, there's a nice house, like a beautiful house in Venice. Across the street, there was 50 tents just filled with shit, broken bike parts and garbage and just things piled up. And you're like, this is the problem with being open-minded.

This is the problem. And this is why people like when Rudy Giuliani cleaned up New York City with this totalitarian approach. Like the people that live in New York City that weren't homeless were like, fuck yeah, finally. Take these homeless people off the street. Do this. Fix that. Make it harder to be a criminal. Make it more difficult.

You know, and the downside of it, a lot of people got arrested that probably shouldn't have. A lot of people got frisked that probably shouldn't have. A lot of people got harassed that probably shouldn't have. But on the plus side, you got to crack a few eggs if you want to make an omelet. And they cleaned up New York City. And they cleaned up the homeless problem that they have there. I think that's like probably our most vexing modern social challenge. Yes.

It's really how far it's gotten. It's a health care challenge. A mental health care challenge. The bottom line is, how did you get to that position? There's many things that have to go wrong. You have federal negligence. There's that. The original problem, when they changed what it constitutes to be mentally incapacitated.

Was that the Carter administration? I believe it was the Reagan administration. The Reagan administration, yeah. Yeah, I mean, they- Give them a bus ticket and send them to LA. Well, that's what they're doing. They send people all over the country. Everybody likes to do that.

They send them to the Palm Springs. Get out of here. Get out. What? The desert? What am I doing? I'm with you though, man. Like the restoration of personal accountability.

Like to me, my word is everything to me. And I'll lose my ass to honor my word. If I told you I'm going to do something to whatever extent I have to go, I'm going to do it because my generation, whatever, my people, there's a lack of accountability there all the way through to if your kid even shows up to school, he gets a fucking award. Like, no, we need to celebrate the leaders, the people that really are pushing and going and let them reap the benefits and gains of that. our government should be protecting their energy their efforts their investments their intellectual property but i just feel like it's almost like everyone should everyone should get something and it's like no that's not how it really works like never how it works yeah it's never been how it works and it can't be how it works it's the whole reason why it's difficult to get out of bed because there's a reward for accomplishing that it's difficult to show up at bed because there's a reward for accomplishing that. It's difficult to show up at work, but there's a reward for accomplishing that. It's difficult to exercise. Do you think we could segment aspects of our culture, our society, meaning, do you think it would ever be viable? And I'm so politically ignorant, so maybe you're just going to laugh me out of the

room. Could you socialize legal defense, education,. Like, do you think that would be viable as a hybrid where it's a democracy? It's a capitalist driven system, but you take the money, therefore the corruption that takes us like the business of medicine versus the art of medicine are completely different things. You know, now give you a pill so you can live and then we'll give you another pill to deal with the ramifications of the side effects of the pill we gave you versus the cure got fucking shelved, you know, because there wasn't a rev model behind it. Yeah. Do you think we could ever – would that ever work? I think education and healthcare for sure can be socialized. The question is would you get the same education, the same healthcare if it wasn't socialized? I think as long as you had private options, you would. And then the problem is, well, how much funds go towards these public

education solutions versus the private options that have the access. Yeah. That's the, that's always going to be the issue. And that's because when people want, look, if someone is excelling at something, whatever that is, whether it's teaching or whether it's, you know, being an orthopedic surgeon, they want to be rewarded for their efforts. Plus, they probably acquired a massive amount of debt, right? If you're an orthopedic surgeon, you've gone through medical school, there's a strong chance that you're deeply in debt by the time you start cutting people. And that's a strong chance that you're deeply in debt by the time you start cutting people. And that's a real problem. It's a real problem because that also incentivizes them to perform surgeries that are unnecessary. And you hear about that all the time.

I mean, there's a lot of doctors that just want to start cutting people. And they don't have proactive solutions like, listen, this might take a long time, but let's try to rehabilitate this first, particularly with, like, back issues. Oh, it's all gone. Yeah. I remember when I first started having my health issues, you know, I'm epileptic. And when I first started looking into that, and they were throwing darts at the wall for a decade. Like, I don't know.

It could be this. It could be that. Endocrinologist, cardiologist, all these different specialists. And literally, the cardiologist sits me down and is like, okay, so here's what life of the pacemaker is like, we're going to do this. I'm like, well, back the fuck up. Like, show me the math. Like I'm, I'm far from a doctor, but I'm kind of an engineering guy. So like, show me the math. Like this is a result of that, which causes that as indicated by this, therefore we're going to do this. Couldn't. It's like, well, we just figure, you know, it's probably a safe measure. And I'm like like so you haven't even seen anything that clearly defines that that's even the issue and you're

no fuck you i'm out of here like well he's dealing with 15 people a day yeah he's probably exhausted well he's got a big note and a big loan and and also a little desensitized they get desensitized to people struggle and you know did did you, you and I talked about this, but did you look into ketogenic diets? Did you ever look into the idea of ketogenic diets and how it benefits epilepsy? I did just to the extent of doing some Google research promptly after our discussion. And I also was looking into medical marijuana approaches to it. But again, the beautiful state of California is such that I lose my license

if I don't take the chemicals that Big Pharma promote because they do biannual blood tests. So even if- They test you for those chemicals? Oh, they do blood tests to make sure you're on the shit. But that's, well, is that just assuming there's no way to cure epilepsy? Correct.

That seems insane. Yes, it does, especially with all the proof in the CBD solutions, right? And it's been medically verified, but the state won't acknowledge it. So if you choose to go that route, not only obviously your insurance company won't pay for it, but you lose your license and everything else related to its regulation. But what if you go through all that and you have no issues? Like what if you can prove that your epilepsy is in remission? Then that can work, but it takes a year or longer to be able to prove that. Jesus Christ.

So you have to take medication. Unfortunately, I haven't had a seizure in years, so I'm stoked. Yeah, I have a friend. But I hate taking anything. His son has issues, his epilepsy, and he got him on CBD and it stopped dead in his tracks. Young boy, too. He was like three years old. Yeah, stopped dead in his tracks.

Yeah, CBD is an issue or a solution for some people, some people with epilepsy. Ketogenic diets are another one. They actually started using those on certain team members that were using rebreathers. So certain SEALs and team members that were using these rebreathers, some of them would have seizures for some reason. You know, rebreathers are, it's not a scuba gear. It's a different sort of setup. And one of the ways they found to mitigate that was putting them on ketogenic diets.

There's something about your body burning fat as opposed to carbohydrates that lends itself to stopping these sort of seizures. They don't completely understand why or whether or not it works on everybody. A lot of research, too, in the cancer field in regards to diet impacts. It's pretty phenomenal data out there. Yeah, it is.

Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that I'm hoping out of this coronavirus scare is that people start taking their health more seriously. You know, and your immune system and just if something hits you and you're in a compromised state, you're so much worse off than if you're in a healthy state. I mean, it literally is like having insurance on your body, being able to defend itself from an outside attack because that's what a virus is. Stop. Listen to it. Honor it. Chill. Stop your role. Get better. Keep your defense up. Keep your strength up.

I mean, that is literally the benefit of a healthy diet and exercise is your body functions better and it can ward off attacks. And that's what people have to think about when the flu comes around or anything comes around. That's an attack. It's an attack by a viral entity. attacked by a viral entity. And if you have weak defense, if you have a poor immune system, if your body is already compromised because of tobacco use and drugs and all these various things that can wreck your system and you don't exercise and you're going to get around to it, but you never do. And you eat like shit. Well, guess what, man? You have no fucking tools. You have no, no weapons to defend yourself against this entity. I'm worried about Jamie right now.

Like I'm not letting her fill her car up with gas, go to the bank, anywhere. Like me and my younger son, Quinn, who's still at home, like let us handle everything. Because your immune system is severely challenged right now. Just finished chemo, like lockdown. But you need to go to work and bill people because we've got to meet payroll. But other than that,, let's stay low. Let's keep our heads down. It's such a trying time. I'm just really hoping that it's a wake-up call for some people, that they really understand how important it is.

There's so many intelligent people that I know that treat exercise and diet and just your own physical well-being as if it's a frivolous pursuit pursuit of Shallow-minded people that that want to you know the the ego Tistical vain people that want to have nice bodies and it's for fools You know that the intelligent person concentrates on the mind the intel, but I think that's a really it, that is in itself, it's an unintelligent way to approach it. It's not holistic. You should treat your mind as if it's a part of your body. Right. But again, it's more of that polarization that unfortunately we are seeing in the last 10 years that's just growing exponentially. So that's one thing I hope out of this is that us amongst ourselves as Americans and as a larger family of people who only have one globe to live on. To realize we all are dealing to different extents with the same challenges, the same potentials, the same liabilities and get people back tribally like together. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

And I think that sometimes it takes a real outside challenge to bring us together. Or a scare. Yeah, a scare. I think this is a scare. I mean, it's a challenge. And it's such a reminder because I've always felt this. It's all so fragile, right? Like even our Western reality, like, okay, just from a small business owner, right?

Like I think it's probably fair to say that nationwide any business that's under, say, whatever, 20 million a year, are kind of hand-to-mouth, give or take a couple months. Yes. Right? Then you look at our distribution systems, our infrastructure, all of it. It's all so fragile. So any arrogance because of convenience or wealth or resources or connections that we all have, it's pretty quick that none of that shit matters.

Yeah. And like, it's all so fragile. But I hope again that there's a positive spin to that where people can understand and acknowledge that and therefore learn and connect and have greater consideration for our neighbors, ourselves, our own bodies, our mind, our spirit, but like get people more connected and like face out of their fucking phones.

Yeah. I'm really interesting, really interested to see what happens, uh, coming out of San Francisco. Cause they're the first ones to impose a real lockdown. Like you're not even supposed to go to work. Like, I don't know how they can say that. I don't know how they can do that. And I don't know what's going to come out of that.

You know, but again, they're still dealing with medieval diseases on the street because people are shitting everywhere. I mean, so you're really concerned with health care. Portland should have been first. Well, I mean, you're really concerned with people's health. And you've got people literally diarrhea-ing on people's cars all over Haight-Ashbury. I mean, it's fucking nuts. San Francisco is, there's apps where you can see the human waste scattered out throughout the city. So you can, people, when they see human shit, they enter it into the app. And it's spectacularly disgusting

when you look at the map of San Francisco and human shit. It's all over the place. And they don't do a goddamn thing about it. And, you know, they seem to think that these people need help and these people need. But it's like if those people were murdering people or assaulting people, if all homeless people assaulted people, would they treat it the same way? Well, you know, they would say, well, these people are breaking the law. Now we're going to arrest them. Well, they're breaking the law. They should be breaking the law if they're camping out and throwing garbage everywhere, too. I'm not saying you should arrest all of them, but you need to do something.

You can't just look at it like it's not a gigantic public health crisis. That's such a vexing, vexing issue, man. The diversity of situations and stories that lead people to be into that situation is so complicated. It is. And you're going to see more of it if you force people to be out of work for three weeks. Like the OPC is a big charity in LA that's working on that, that my children's charities had some sort of Kevin Bacon moments of interrelationship. And I look at all the efforts of charities like theirs and how they address it.

And it's like, fuck, that's a tough one. Like I don't even understand how you'd even approach that. It's gotten so far gone. I mean it should have been nipped in the bud. They should have figured out a way to stop it as it was happening and put a considerable amount of resources towards that but all these other problems seem to be more on the forefront and more on people's mind when they were when it comes to elections and so they just sort of let it happen i think like you said back with reagan that they're not being a forcible state, multiple state lawsuits against the federal government because of the load put on the state systems by that federal change and the limit of health care for mental issues.

That was really kind of the root of it. Right. I mean, I grew up in New York City in the 70s and it was a fucking zoo. But that now even pales to what you're seeing. Like I went to visit a supplier three weeks ago in downtown L.A. And like just trying to drive down his street to get in his parking lot, it was like a circus, man. And like they've not only taken over the curb and the street, they're walking down the middle of the street with an attitude like I shouldn't be driving on the street. And like half the businesses on the block literally gave up and closed down. And they can't even like my friend wanted to move his company.

And the realtor's like, you're fucking dreaming. Like they're going to sell this building right now. Like look at this neighborhood. And there's nothing they're doing. Yeah. I don't know. You know, it just keeps getting worse. When I was filming Fear Factor down there in the early 2000s, it bad i mean i was like does everyone know about skid row like this is crazy

you drive down skid row and you'd go what in the fuck is this is a zombie movie and it is tenfold worse now there's 70 000 homeless people in los angeles i mean that that's an enormous amount of people that's you know the way i describe it is it's basically almost the size of Boulder, Colorado, but homeless. The entire city of Boulder, homeless. That's what it's like. It's crazy how many people there are. And that's just documented.

They don't really know how many there are. I mean, it's an enormous number. It's just a rough estimate. That's like all these COVID estimates. Wait a minute. Two minutes ago, you were saying no one can get the test. So how are we supposed to trust any fucking thing you're telling us? Yeah, no one has any idea.

And also the fact that so many people are asymptomatic, so they're wandering around with it. And the real issue is the immune compromised folks. And then I'm worried as a business owner, because at some point, am I disrespecting my employees, my culture, by like should i be closing or am i breathing into it's like i'm torn between this is social media gone wrong too much hype and too much bullshit versus speaking to friends a friend who's a scientist in the viral field and what she's telling me and friends who are doctors and a friend is a doctor in Milan and the shit show he's dealing with. It's like, okay, no, it's not just like, but it's, it's, it's very interesting trying to, I think all of us in all of our lives right now, picking our paths, picking our priorities, how do we address this? But then as a business owner, again, in California, there's

liabilities to how you address or don't address it. Yeah. It's very interesting. Do you think you'd move to Texas? No. No? Couldn't do it? Frankly, if it got that bad, I'd rather sell the company to someone who thinks they're smarter than me and they can do it and scale it and go there. I just stay in my happy space. And just make leather jackets. Yeah.

Just make shit, travel the world, spend time with craftsmen, spend time with my family. When you're, I mean, you've, you know, made this very, very successful business and very, I hesitate to use the word iconic, but it is. Do you have goals outside of what you've already done or do you just do what you enjoy doing i do what i enjoy doing having said that i i need to listen to the capitalist pig on my right shoulder versus the creative geek on my left shoulder in that i i we've been quite successful as a company i'm honored how many people know the brand. But I haven't amassed some great personal wealth. If shit blows up tomorrow, I'm looking for a job.

So I need to figure out how to cash in, so to speak, on the equity the brand has created in ways that don't step on the brand's wee wee. So like I'm dying to get into all different aspects of industrial design. I'd love to do that on my own or through collaborations, but I think my, my goal would be to diversify my product line to keep revisiting classic design in a modern context, but in many different ways, in many different product segments.

So like I am right now, and part of the trip to Mexico and to Morocco, those trips were, and the last three years of practice and building prototype wallets and sort of side hustle on Instagram and stuff is really getting granular with it because I do want to start a

leather goods brand um as a dude make a jacket like that I'll buy it yeah that jacket looks sweet yeah wallets and belts and jackets you make them for chimps dude I literally like this this jacket is like hand cut hand stitched hand not a single machine used like shit show commercially inviolable, but I'm working with Horween leathers in Chicago and a friend's brand called black bear. And we're like studying different patterns and prototyping. So I think I'm pretty soon I'm going to launch like a limited run kick-ass

jacket. That's like layers of story down to why that leather and who made it and how and on and on and on i'm in yeah tell me when i'm in start exploring well i was like ready to go and now i'm thinking i'm an idiot to start a new brand right now so i might chill for a bit yeah who knows what the fuck is going to happen to this economy and like i said i'm really interested to see what happens out of san francisco because they i think they've imposed a three-week mandatory lockdown I think it's three weeks that is a long time to go without income a long long time especially the burn rate of a company in my size yeah yeah yeah that's what people don't understand I mean I mean when someone looks at something that you create like uh an icon bronco and you know they

look at the expense of that thing and how, boy, it must be nice. That's crazy. This guy must be making money hand over foot. I could build that for 30 grand. Yeah. I mean, I went to visit the car when you were making it. The level of detail is off the charts,

from the polyurea coating of every fucking component under the undercarriage of the car to the media blasting this and they're replacing all the bolts and all the wiring all of this you don't you don't really understand what it's like to see a handmade car built from the ground up unless you watch it yeah being built from the ground up asinine stupidest business the amount of money that goes to that costs to build one of those things is fucking crazy. You know, when people think of a car, oh, but you can get an F-150 for $39,000. Which I look at and go, how is that possible?

Like, that's amazing you guys can do it. I mean, pick it apart all we want, but that's amazing. It is amazing. Robots. I mean, efficiency of the production, modern production lines. Look, if it all blows up tomorrow, I've had multiple lives and multiple careers that have all been amazing experiences. I wouldn't change a single aspect of my life thus far other than my wife's cancer battle. Like, it's just been an amazing ride. And if this shit all blows up tomorrow and this is as far as it goes, I'm honestly, I'm stoked.

It's been amazing. Perfect world, I'll keep pushing limits. I'll keep trying new platforms. I'll keep pushing tech. And as long as I'm able to not have a real job, I am just super stoked. Yeah. Well, that's the goal. The goal is to get through life without a real job. Right. Totally. No, like literally we, we ran it it about this if anyone wants to listen to our first podcast when we first met and just we geeked out for hours and hours but like the whole educational system alone like should be focused on helping our youth understand what they're passionate about if someone finds their passion and can make it their life they're a

happier individual and they're going to break new ground and be of great value versus trying to fit everyone into these bullshit social silos, most of which are broken and overflowing now. Like the Watson computer is better than general counsel at a huge percentage difference. AI can outdo these lawyers in coming out of school and six digits of debt and they can't get jobs. Yeah. That model doesn't even work anymore. So let's get back to like honoring tinkers and craftsmen and free thinkers and innovators. Yeah.

Encouraging people to think outside the box. Totally. Encouraging people to be creative. And I think there's also an issue in teaching people at scale. You know, I just I don't I think people need individual attention. They need some sort of a mentor figure that can tell them hey i did what you're doing i went through what you've gone through just understanding that individual kid and understanding is does he learn best by seeing does he learn best by doing does he learn like even understanding that

interface yeah yeah it's um it's a mess, you know? And, uh, the only thing that gives me hope is now because the internet, there's so many other resources for kids. There's so many YouTube videos they can watch and so many articles they can read. And there's so many, just there's documentaries. There's all these different stories of someone like them that also followed a dream. And you when i was a kid there was none of that shit it's true like i didn't even know you could being an industrial designer was a career path sure i was well beyond having the opportunity to have properly trained in it well there was no such thing as being a podcaster you know i mean it didn't exist but now it exists and there's 900,000

podcasts literally really oh it's so crazy they think, literally. Really? Oh, it's so crazy. They think one, there's some crazy number, like it's one out of every 400 people in America has a podcast. And it's mostly your fault, Joe. Is that a real number? What is the number? There's 330 million people. Yeah, that's the number, right?

And there's a million podcasts. Close to it. That's one in 350. It's in the neighborhood. It's in the neighborhood of one out of every 400 people even you right you had no idea i have no idea you had no i know but i mean you didn't know the magic carpet ride you were getting on no you did this as a passion play right you wanted to have interesting conversations and meet diverse people and you kind of needed a gig right you wanted to this sort of was a I don't want to say a hobby

but it grew very organically for you 100% organic you had no clue was gonna turn into this empire of craziness right no it costed money for most of the time it was just for fun yeah it was a hundred percent just for fun and an opportunity to get together with my friends one of the things that I've figured out early on that's beautiful I love the honesty of that. Yeah. It is. Yeah. I mean, but one of the things I figured out early on is I spend the most time with my friends when we sit down and do podcasts. Because then there's no phones involved. It's just three hours of just talking to each other.

Whereas, you know, if we go to a restaurant, we'll talk for a little bit. But we only do it once every now and then. And they're on the road and I'm on the road. And so getting together was like a communal thing. And then it became a clubhouse thing. And then we started doing it at the Ice House. So it was at a comedy club. So we'd do it coincide with shows. And that was a lot of fun. And then slowly but surely, the numbers started growing. And as the numbers started growing, then I started getting guests. And then as I started getting guests, I started understanding what I'm actually doing and getting better at talking to people. And then realizing that what you're doing is you're like linking up with one

person, the less distractions, the better, the less bullshit, the better. It's just you and a person talking. And then I got better at that. And then I started thinking about what I'm doing wrong, what I'm doing. And then I realized like oh, this is a skill just like everything else is a skill. Being annoying to listen to is a failure to do the job right. It's not just that that's who you are. That's not what it is. It's just you are who you are because of a lack of attention. Man, I've done tons of interviews and tons of podcasts and tons of media over my various

careers and stuff. And I honestly, like, you know, our conversations and my last experience here and again, talking with you today, man, I love it. Like, there's such great conversations. And I honestly, like, we were direct in eye contact. It's been personal. It's about whatever the hell we come up with that we end up just naturally flowing into. And that's so, it's so rare. It's what's rare for people to

listen to too. And for me, it's, um, it's very educational and it's also the beautiful thing about it is that the only people I'm talking to is people I want to talk to. So there's no one that's telling me who to talk to. So, you know, when I reach out to you and I said, hey, man, you want to do another one? Yeah, fuck it, let's do it. I'm like, all right, exciting. So it's only people I'm interested in talking to. So that makes it so much better for the listeners as well because you're getting genuine enthusiasm. It's just like me when clients call and want me to build something that sounds like it would

suck and I'm not interested. Yes, exactly. So bless us, right? While we have the power to say no and to control what we do, what we say yes to and what we say no to, as long as the market allows both of us to do that, we'll stay in our little happy place. For sure. What I hope out of this coronavirus thing is, other than people stay healthy, of course, is that people do revisit what they do with their lives as well and recognize the fact that all this shit can go away. And even if you're a good boy and you show up at work every day for some fucking job that sucks and you feel like you're putting your time and you're doing the right thing, they can take that shit away from you.

Ain't none of us getting out of here alive exactly and you can jump off that fucking ship and i bet you can make it to the shore i bet you can but you you have to do the due diligence you got to do the work and you have to understand like this is not going to be easy this is nothing that's worth doing is easy but i think once someone understands the importance of being impassioned about what they do, even like what relationships they're in, how they spend their time, what they schedule their day about. Once you really own that to a deep extent, like the risk, it's not even debatable to leave the shit job, leave the unhealthy relationship, take better care of yourself, your body, or whatever. But once you make that first acceptance and understanding,

the rest of it's a breeze. It'll be such a happier world if people have that connection. It will. I'm with you. I hope that grows from this. One of the unintended positive side effects of podcasts is that they get to listen to people that have done that, people like you and other people that I've had on that are living their life the way that they chose to. And they

realize like this is, and then you get to hear the story like, oh, this isn't like they weren't handed this. They didn't get a Willy Wonka golden ticket. They had a passion and then they followed through. I had 10 grand, two pieces of shit cars and four credit cards when I started the company and I walked away from a lucrative career. Yeah. That's walked away. There's a million stories like that, you know, and those are the fun ones. Those are the fun stories. I'm just happy there's people out there that are living that example, you know, and I really do hope that some people, I mean, it's not for everybody, but some people out there that are hearing this, um, that are in in this situation like, fuck, like I did all the right things and my job is still gone now.

And my pension, my 401k tank, blah, blah, blah. The real problem is people with families. People with families and people with mortgages and they can't jump. They have leases. They have, you know, rent to pay. I still argue, man, nights and weekends, stay up a little later. Yes, nights and weekends. Nights and weekends.

Even if it just gives you the creative, creative juice, get that juju flowing and then you can dabble in, is there a rev model? Is this a viable business or where can it go? But man, nights and weekends, staying like motivated and excited and thinking and stretching and trying versus just, you know, plugging in and watching the same shit being forced on our throat by media. Like there's so much that can be done even just at that level. The effort to push that car and then jumpstart it as it gets rolling. It's really hard to push that car, but if you can get it going enough and jump in and push to clutch it and throw

it into first and then it's, then it's moving, but it's that initial effort. It's so fucking hard. But once you do it, like this podcast is easy to do now. It's easy to show up and do it. It's easy, but to do it from scratch, if someone had to start it tomorrow, if you think it's going to be easy, it's not. I look back actually, just today I was going through an image catalog as this update in the site. And I don't remember what it was. It was some image I was editing for the site and I was going, fuck, this is complicated. Like looking back, it seemed somewhat easy. Like there's so many aspects and so much complexity in this business that looking back at it, like, well, the fuck

did I pull that off? You know what I mean? But like, it grew merely out of the passion. And when there wasn't by focus groups or, you know, analysis or anything, it was, I just fucking jumped in and started doing it, made it work. And you keep grinding. That's the thing. The grind is amazing because it does really achieve results. You just keep doing it. You keep doing it. You keep working. Keep showing up. Keep pouring your passion into it.

And then you look back two years, three years, five years, and you go, holy shit. Look at the distance. Look at all the projects. Look at all the stuff that's been done. And I went through your, before we did this, I went through your YouTube channel. And I started looking at some of the newer projects some of the older projects i'm like look at the fucking amount of work that's come out of your shop it's really crazy yeah it's pretty nuts it's amazing 330 some vehicles out of icon and then a couple thousand out of the first brand out of tl and what is that like a week at a gm not even

right how many days is that that's like a fart. And what is that, like a week at a GM? Not even, right? How many days is that of making cars? That's like a fart. That's like a half day. Probably, right? Yeah. It's cool, though. I mean, it's a very unique field, the field of people making cars.

You know, I would hate to see the regulations and all the bullshit get down to you. I love the fact that you're a 15-minute drive away. I can go fact that you're a 15 minute drive away. I can go check out the shop. We'll beat them. It just sucks that I have to convince them that I'm a valued member of

California's crazy economy and society. And especially the city that should be so pumped that you're there. I mean, I just don't get it. It used to be mayor Villa Rigos have found me the damn building personally. Like, like they were, they were great, but I don't know. I, I think, I just don't get it. since California and the Trump administration have gotten pretty deep in this argument over does California have the right to create its own air quality control mandates or not, that it's sucking so much money out of the California system that they're having to scramble to come up with new rev models. So like a lot of the aftermarket automotive,

like for off-road use only marketed parts, they're now pursuing the distributor, the manufacturer, the retailer, the fucking web host, the consumer, and like penalizing everyone up and down the chain to create this rev model to keep it going. It's a real bummer, man. It's a real bummer. I mean, I understand the desire to keep air quality high, but I don't understand that you're using all these cars that are, you know, you're using these emission compliant engines. I mean, these LS engines that you're using, these crate engines. Yeah, I'm putting cats and systems into cars that never had them.

into cars that never had any. Yeah. All the vehicles that we create actually emit less being driven like an idiot than the stock one did sitting in a parking lot not even being driven. If just by fact of the charcoal canister and the non-vended fuel system. Really? Just that alone. Just that alone. So just sitting around the amid shit?

And the NOx and CO2. Yeah? Oh, yeah, because the tanks, it was vaporizing. Fuel vaporized out and all those particulates go flying. Well, it's no different than a modern car was vaporizing. Fuel vaporized out, and all those particulates go flying. Well, it's no different than a modern car was my point. I mean, if you buy a modern F-150 or you buy one of your cars with a crate engine, it's the same. It's the same as far as the amount that it releases into the atmosphere. Yeah, and we're exempt.

You know, all the platformers are the vast majority of them that we work with. Pre-75, right? Yeah, pre-75. But I'm just doing it because you'd be a dumbass not to. It's the right thing to do. Yeah, and it's not like the 90s where you're putting in EGR and smog pumps and five miles of vacuum tubes and shit that's not going to be reliable. I mean, now it's all about wideband O2s, pre-cat, post-cat O2s, boom, boom, and a clean program. It's better.

It's a better experience. What about hydrogen? Has anybody come up with a viable method of, I mean, I know that there's people that have done some hydrogen systems in cars. Have you ever fucked with that? No. And I've been curious about it. From what I understood, the distribution of hydrogen was the big deal breaker in that the hydrogen that is readily distributed, if I recall correctly, was a lower grade that would not work in the systems required for hydrogen-powered automobiles.

So it was a complete infrastructure shit show to get it to the point of viable. Same with like Capstone that was doing those micro turbines out in Chatsworth, Canoga Park. I don't know what that is. Seemed quite viable. What was it? Micro turbines. So turbo chargers, but they were micro?

It's a full turbine. So think industrial commercial application turbines, power sources, but for road-going vessels. Oh, so that was the actual engine for the vehicle? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But apparently they burn pretty dirty. Oh, okay. I don't know what I'm talking about, but that's what I was told when I was starting to dive

into it. I remember there was an article- I just want a bloom box. Yeah, whatever the fuck they are. Whatever the fuck it was. I don't give a shit. That sounded cool. Anything else?

Should we wrap this up? Sure. No, I love being here, and I really appreciate your time and your intellect and your diversity. Thank you, my friend. Thanks, man. I appreciate what you do. I really do. I mean, I'm happy there's Jonathan Wards out there.

Keep on trucking. All right. Bye, everybody. Stay safe. Stay healthy. Bye. Bye. That was awesome. healthy bye