The Joe Rogan Experience - #678 - Jonathan Ward

Episode Date: August 6, 2015

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

Boom. All right. I love when I see something online where I see someone who takes the idea of fixing something or re-engineering something and just goes so far out there. Something totally irrational. You go, who is this fucking crazy guy? I think the first thing I saw was your Bronco, the Icon Bronco, which is just, you took a car, which is the Ford Bronco, the 60s and early 70s versions, which are, you know, this kind of, it's a cool car. It's a cool old car. and funky looking and you just engineered this thing to this to the nth degree with these these billet door openers and the way you have the step comes out when you i'm like who the fuck is this guy and so then i start going into your your website and the two different companies tlc where you take old land cruisers and re-engineer those and put modern engines and suspensions. And I'm like, wow, I just love that someone like you is out there.

Sweet. Thank you. Yeah, it's because I had no investors that were smarter than me that said, you're a fucktard, don't even do this. Bad business. Well, they were wrong, though. They were wrong, obviously. I mean, your shop is enormous. There's like a beehive.

People are constantly buzzing around there working. You've got 100 different projects going concurrently. You're the Bronco build. What do you say, like a three-year wait list right now? Yeah, we've sold 62 of them so far, and delivery dates, unfortunately, are running like late third quarter 2018, which sucks. It drives me nuts. Is there anything you can do to ramp that up? You would have to just have like four or five of those giant warehouses.

That's part of the problem. So like we're trying to move and find a bigger building. We're just about 50,000 square now, and it's all ass and elbows. Like I think we could hire maybe three or more guys before we're out of space. But more importantly, it's difficult to find those people. to find those people because kind of the idiocy of what I do is going against modern trends and American design and manufacturers. So it's really hard to find people that have the crazy skill set that we require. Well, that's what really impressed me about what you're doing. What impressed me about what you're doing is not just that you're re-engineering things and improving and upgrading, but there's this

ode to craftsmanship. There's this passion in what you're doing where it might not necessarily make sense. Oh, everything we do, if you want to bring up that term practicality, term practicality makes absolutely no sense. But to me, that's kind of why we do it and why I'm so passionate about every project we do, because I've approached it from the obtuse angle of, okay, that's how it's been done in the past. And, you know, stock restorations are great and they fit a niche and they're right for that guy. Personally, I have no patience for archaic mechanical interface, but I love vintage aesthetic. And then resto shops, hot rod shops, traditionally, they buy this piece, that piece, and kind of cobbled together. And that's cool. But I always thought, well, you've got this

convergence of, you know, CAD design, you know, computer aided design resources, and a convergence of reverse engineering and low volume manufacturing capabilities that kind of are creating a perfect storm where the stupid stuff we can dream up and execute and make a relatively viable business model out of wasn't even possible 10 years ago. So I've been lucky enough to find enough people that agree with my craziness and let me not compromise and whore it out but to really hold the line and keep pushing the boundaries and keep geeking out further and further well it seems like over the last year or so i've been hearing about you more and more and more and more and then jay leno's garage featured uh he's featured a few of your

cars yeah we've been on jay's show i think four times now What a fucking trip that place is huh off just I was just there and just yeah on Tuesday. Yes. Oh my god It was just so what I geek boner. I had walking around that place Well and keep your chubby because what's crazy is a lot of people don't realize the depth of that subculture So Jay is wonderful in that he's almost become sort of a spokesman for the niches and odd proclivities in mechanical goodness. But just in LA alone there's tons of dudes with these ridiculous man caves full of wild mechanical beasts and it is so cool. And that's another thing like I never had the intelligence to anticipate.

When I built the first Icon, which was based on the FJ40 Land Cruiser, I just built it because it was keeping me up at night and I had this idea. And after doing a design job for Toyota, I told Mr. Toyota about my stupid idea. And he kind of sort of off the record bowed and said, go for it, fool, but we won't get in your way. So I built it to realize that sort of model I had in my head. Then I went back and added up how much it costs. And I saw, shit, no one's going to go for this. This is stupid. And I talked to some people smarter than me, really big brand people, and they said, no,

keep it pure. Keep it what you want and what you're proud of, and you'll build a market. So I gambled and rolled with them, and now like 30-plus percent of our clients have two or more of our projects where I was having a hard time getting my head around people would be able to justify the expense of one of them. Well, they're so well done. And one of the things that I was really impressed with was just the FJ62 Land Cruiser conversions that you've done. Because for a lot of people that aren't fans of that aesthetic or fans of that, that's just a regular four-door suburban-type SUV vehicle.

Most people would look at that and they would go, there it is on the big screen. They would look at that and go, oh, that's one of those cars. That's part of the appeal, though because it's pure utility there's no fluff there's nothing superfluous and people yearn for that because if you look at modern cars i don't care what it is longevity simplicity durability no one's thinking about those things anymore the priorities are totally different so a lot of guys go, hey, I used to have one of those Land Cruisers. Man, I miss that thing. I go to the dealer.

I look at everything. I can buy whatever I want, and it sucks. Everything's plastic, has no soul, doesn't have that utilitarian root to it. So there's kind of a subculture that will gravitate to wanting to go back to that. And some of them are cool with them stock, but more and more people have been perverted by modern vehicles. And like, could we make the pedal on the right actually do something? And yeah,

really do something. Yeah. Well, your, your Bronco is like this beautiful. So, I mean that, that,

that shape with the icon bumper, it's, it's, it's so sexy to the average person looking at it. It's sexy. But to this, it's like, you kind of have to be a fan of that style of Land Cruiser that four-door with the hatch in the back Land Cruiser

But what you've done is like completely bonkers This is what what this is is an FJ 62 and you call them a 142 right because you take out an FJ 80 And you combine it with the FJ62. So what he does is, he takes this fucking thing, strips it down to nothing. I mean, you could do this way better than me. Polyurea coats it, media blasts

it. You take this thing and make it a combination of modern underpinnings, completely redone as far as weather protection and the moisture protection it's like at a level that nobody ever engineered before and then you took put a modern corvette engine in it 450 horsepower plus i mean this is bananas and you're taking this car that was like how much was were these new i think they were expensive when they were new but

that means what 20 20 grand, probably 25 grand, I think. And he engineers them to the point where they're 160 plus thousand dollar cars. It's total stealth wealth. Yeah. And that's a big part of the appeal I find. Like, guys will take these on surf trips down through Central America and not have to stress out or freak out or worry about, you know, the preconceived notions like, you know, people see you rolling in a nice modern supercar, sports car. And unfortunately, in our culture, there's a lot of guys, oh, look at that rich prick in his Porsche.

Right. You know, it just gets beyond that. So you're either totally invisible or you get kind of warm, fuzzy, thumbs up smiles. And it's just a whole different energy. Well, then i started going into the sub i was wasn't aware that there was a subculture of people that were obsessed with these fj62s it's amazing there's so many different little twitter follower pages that you can go to we could see the images they post or instagram these cars have this crazy legendary following

where people just are obsessed with these old, like, what years are these? These 1989, 1990? Yeah, specifically the ones with the four rectangular headlights, the FJ62, are 88 to 90. And then the preceding models, the FJ60, which looks about the same, those are from 81 to 87. What gave you the motivation to take this particular type of car and engineer it to such an incredible degree? Well, we started with the older ones. The FJ40s, right? Yeah, the 40s. Which are really sexy. Yeah. And you talk about subcults. That subcult's tremendous. It's crazy. But we started with the 40 and then the 45 pickups and wagons, then the FJ55 wagons. So it's just sort of the culture evolved in that

those were so archaic because they were earlier standards, earlier years. Like a choke. Yeah, choke and one barrel carb, three on the tree, drum brakes. No power. Yeah. So I think as these got older and the average conditions of the ones people could find out there became lesser and lesser, the market naturally extended into these models. And people said, well, hey, what about a 60?

What about a 62? We're even doing the FZJ80s doing major restos, the 91 to 97 versions. Because, again, there's a certain attachment that people will have with them that even though the truck is gone or it had shortcomings it still holds a spot in their heart which is kind of a big part of the 98 percent of the battle is already won with icon because the majority of our projects we're starting with something that already gives people warm and fuzzies yeah any of these cars have cult followings and shortcomings which is kind of the perfect formula to let me revision them and create something like a new option for people that appreciate them. Well, I wasn't even a fan of these, but I became a fan from just going over your website and then watching the vehicles.

I watched a couple of the videos, and Jonathan has these videos that he puts on YouTube where he sticks a couple of GoPros in the cars and you personally take them out, which is very appealing too. They suck. No, they don't. At least they're honest. No, they don't suck at all. They're great. They're really effective.

Because, yeah, throw one of those, like the second one down, that one right there. They're not even remotely sucky. What they are is 100% authentic. Like when you're taking these cars out You're you're going over all the different upgrades and different things that you've done to them That's when you really start getting it you go. Oh this guy's fucking crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. He's made a hundred and seventy thousand dollar $20,000 car

Yeah, and and that's been a cuz I don't have the budget, but B because I concur with you that brands like these, if they're not driven out of the vision of a singular lunatic, then they're, they're not worth doing. So I wanted to keep that relationship and, and personal, uh, relationship. So, although I just knock the videos out and edit them real quick but i really want people to understand the level of geekness that we do and well you even leave in when you dropped your gopro in one of them i love that too up here it goes but this this is the passion comes through and i'm i'm a i'm a big fan of contagious passion and i mean there's things that i was never interested in before.

Like, I never gave a fuck about cooking. I loved good food, but I never gave a fuck about cooking until I watched Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. And I'd see the passion that this guy has about chefs and about preparation and just the amount of skill that is involved in creating a perfect meal. And then I started to get, I'm like, Oh, this is an art form is an art form that I never understood. Totally.

This is an art form. What you're doing is an art form. That's the history of the world in a nutshell. Anyone who's ever done a great thing, be it important or not, be he a chef, a sculptor, a seamstress,

a woodcarver, a leader, a political figure, whatever. It was that inner passion that drove it and made it distinct and really matter. So fortunately, I'm feeling like I'm not the only idiot in the last three or four years. It's like there's a renaissance i think consumers are tired of the big box luxury branded kind of bullshit marketing facade and want like we all already have enough crap in the first world right so if you're gonna buy another something like you with your pool cues if you're gonna buy another pool cue there's gonna be a story to that fucker it's gonna mean

something and someone's gonna put their heart and soul in that. So I'm starting to see this sort of craftsman collective renaissance of makers, of people creating stuff out of passion, not out of a spreadsheet and a VC's formula of how well it's going to do on Wall Street, but product first. Because I think we forgot about that as a country. We kind of walked away from that. Slowly seeing that come back. Yeah, it seems recently. Recently that's become like all sorts of things. I watched a video on this company called Brooklyn Cut.

It was another handmade knife. And I was like, this is fascinating. I never give a shit about a guy making knives. And I'm watching this guy make these handmade butcher knives and kitchen knives. I was like, ah. But you could see, like, the sweat and the dirt in his hands. And he's going over the edges and making sure everything's nice. Like, ah.

There's something about that that I'm, as an adult, just starting to recognize this contagious aspect and how important it is. And how when you see people that are passionate about things, no matter what it is, like you said, like making furniture or anything, there's something about it that gets you excited. Totally. You're pulling some of their energy from their creation. Yeah. To me, that's the perfect formula. Because then also, even if you don't become a consumer, the price point doesn't make sense or whatever, just if you respect it and understand where they're coming from and you, in turn, are inspired to do whatever it is that, you know, you've been staying in your cubicle and earning your good salary, but your soul is dead. Yeah. and you start tinkering at night. You get in the garage on the weekends or whatever it is.

I think that's key. Because, you know, our government for decades now has been telling us just go to Target and buy something and we'll all be fine. Right. Which I think is just asinine because the country was built on people trying new ideas and taking risks and standing up for what they believe in. And if we just turn into a nation of consumers, then why should anyone give a shit about our opinion and our nosiness telling them how to run their country?

There's another thing that I was really struck by when I was tooling around your shop, which is insanely impressive, and sitting in your cars is the build quality. Like, you're sitting in everything. Like, this fucking thing is going to last a hundred years Like all of your stuff, and then we have that conversation about planned obsolescence that companies are actually engineering planned

obsolescence into their automobiles which a business a lot of people always think is like some sort of a conspiracy theory like oh That's you know nonsense They're just trying to do the best thing they can with modern electronics and some of that stuff breaks. But that's not really the case. Bullshit. Explain to me what you explained to me today. Basically, I think in the old days you were dealing with products were designed and manufactured for the sake of the product.

Pretty simple, linear, pure concept. Unfortunately, I would blame it on Wall Street more than anything, in that suddenly the product in a product company was no longer the priority. The priority was the margin, the scalability, the numbers for the shareholders. So the second you take your eye off of the product being what drives the company, it's going to go to shit one way or another. So like car companies, I mean, there's stories that a certain Japanese car company whose name I will not mention actually went and studied paid Microsoft and said, oh, wait a minute.

So your consumer buys a laptop. When the battery dies, you're retaining that client. And the vast majority of those clients aren't buying a battery. They're buying a laptop. When the battery dies, you're retaining that client, and the vast majority of those clients aren't buying a battery. They're buying another laptop. Oh, this could business. This is very good. How racist are you, by the way? Very racist.

I love the whole world, baby. But you're not allowed to do it. I don't mean to infer that this is an Asian design or corporate priority. It's global. And America's as guilty as anyone else. America's been, that's been the one that people point to. Because American cars, especially like in the 80s, were such shit. They would just fall apart on a regular basis.

So, you know, we could have a long bitch fest about what unions have done to impact product and viability of American manufacture and all that. It's another story. But I think on the product level, suddenly automotive brands were looking at creating a vehicle that, by nature, the durability of the components within and the complexity of the architecture to facilitate all the perversions that we've come to expect in modern cars automatically set the obsolescence cycle. So it's much better business, although much worse for the future, to make a vehicle whiz, bang, nifty, groovy, designed to survive a life cycle of a lease or warranty cycle. And then it's off to the landfill. And then what happens? Repeat consumer. You come back and you buy another one. Japan's taken it and other nations to an even crazier level to promote the GDP. It's actually hard for you to own your car the older it gets. Your inspections become more routine. They go from yearly to quarterly and on and on and on. Registration

goes up every year. Insurance goes up. This is in Japan? Yeah. It goes yearly to quarterly to what? I think it goes, I believe it's yearly to biannual to quarterly. And then if it's a really old vehicle, it's like monthly. And then they're held to a much higher scrutiny. Like you have one little leak. Oh, then you can't get your reg. You got to dial that in. So it's been great for domestic manufacturing numbers and keeping industry propped up.

But it's kind of bullshit and short-sighted, I think, on a cultural level. Well, it's fascinating because they're known for their durability. Like Toyota cars, especially Hondas, known for their reliability, durability. But like if you owned, let's say, an LX570, which are great trucks, the modern SUV version of the Land Cruiser, they're brilliant. They're strong. Yeah, it'll run forever, probably, and it's super durable. But let's talk about your touchscreen on the dash.

When that bugger breaks, you can't use your climate control and a whole bunch of other things. I already have an LX570, and the touchscreen's dog shit. It really is dog shit. Now, let's flash forward to you love your truck, the warranty has expired, and that screen takes a shit. Well, the problem is everything's engineered into it. Like the climate control is in that. There's no knobs for it.

Now that part is available now, and it's federally mandated that it must be available for a specific window of time. That part today, I'm going to make an educated guess. It's a $9,000 module for you to buy. That stupid touchscreen? Yes, sir. It's shit, though.

It's not good. It's not that responsive. The navigation system. Five years from now, it dies. It's out of warranty. You love the truck. It's nine grand. If it is still available, what do you do?

You likely say, fuck it, it you go get a new one back to their business model yeah it's it's disturbing that that's actually an engineered idea that they want stuff to break that's not what we want what we want is stuff what people really appreciate is stuff that's durable but your mass consumers to blame also because like that's durable but your mass consumers to blame also because like i don't know i get in a modern car like a nice fancy car uh and and people go god it's 140 grand this new porsche blah blah blah but i drive and i go man hell on earth do they get it to do all this neat shit for only 140 grand that's all the way through to people going to box stores and buying a backpack for the kids for school, and they want a $12.95 backpack. Now, granted, they'll replace it four or five times

because it's a heartless pile of poo that no one cared about, versus buying one from, I don't know, Filson or Tanner Goods or one of these upcoming passion-based brands where maybe it's an $80 or $120 bag, but the kid will own it you know for 20 years right so i think that's part of the re-education of the consumer that hopefully in turn will incite and motivate manufacturers large and small to reprioritize what drives design are they mutually exclusive when it comes to options like magnetic ride control and all this crazy shit that they have now these sensors that adjust to the fact that one wheel slipping and

they counter all this traction control and stability management all this jazz isn't that stuff just gonna break i mean yeah i mean the traditional answer they'd give you if you asked a you know top ag engineer he'd say oh but it's all computer-based, so there's no varying parts. Yeah, but there's circuit boards that take a shit and solders that split and code that becomes corrupted and on and on and on. And that's not like a tire that you can change on the side of the road. Exactly. When that shit's out, you're fucked. And the biggest issue is trying to get those parts to support that vehicle when you are the last of the Mohicans who's trying

to keep it on the road and keep it going. Most manufacturers could give a damn, and as soon as they're federally not required to maintain those parts, they want nothing to do with them. So it gets to that point where there's cars that are classic that you're always going to get parts for. You're always going to be able to get parts for a 70're always going to get be able to get parts for like a 70 chevy nova right you know because people love them and there's a big market for it but like a 91 civic it's like oh what is that your dumpster diving yeah and that's yeah you're fucked kind of yeah that's a it's a weird thing that these there's some cars and some vehicles that attain this classic status, and then they'll always be classic. But, like, a 2010 Mercedes, like, nobody wants that. They just don't want it.

I mean, you might want it. It's not a terrible car to drive around in. Pretty soon you can resell them in Cuba for big money. Yeah, pretty soon. It's an emerging market. Yes. But, you know, I think— You just got back from there, didn't you?

Yeah. I saw some of your photos. Yeah. You must have been geeked out at all those cars down there, huh? Stupid. there didn't you i saw some of your photos yeah you must have been geeked out at all those cars down there stupid i'm surprised i didn't get arrested though because we went there officially as like a guest of uh the governing family on an arts mission and uh because we had sort of anticipated less scrutiny at customs i carried my backpack had literally about 95 pounds worth of vintage car parts so i i figured out how

to ingratiate myself with the motoring locals in a hurry which was amazing because i got taken to some crazy hordes and fines of really wild early cars because of that but yeah i brought soldering guns soldering wire bulbs rel, all sorts of stuff. Because the ingenuity, the resourcefulness of that country and the spirit of the people is just phenomenal. We've talked about it a dozen times on this podcast because I love the fact that they didn't have access to new cars. So what they did is they just reconditioned and upgraded and fixed all their old cars to the point where those Yank tanks is what they call them, those 1950s plus Chevys. And they're just driving them around all over the place. The vast majority of the cars on the road are those or recent import Chinese vehicles because the Chinese government kind of got in bed with them and partnered on import automotive distribution companies.

I got in bed with them and partnered on import automotive distribution companies. I just wrote about it for, I'm the automotive editor for Penthouse, and the article that comes out in the next issue, which I don't think anyone fucking reads, but I enjoy writing them. Someone should read a Penthouse. But anyway, it was about that and the change in the culture. But it's interesting, they've actually recently passed a federal law there that makes it illegal to export any of these vehicles because as they loosen the restrictions on inbound vehicles, they anticipated potentially there'd be a reduction in the demand. to from all walks of life there it's become like uh it's a cultural icon to them yeah so and i think it expresses a lot of the human spirit in cuba and how they've persevered and managed to to make things work with what they have but i mean most of them that i drove around in like you know

you'd be in a 57 chevy bel air convertible and it's running a 70s Russian Volga diesel. Really? Oh, it's nuts. Actually, I was in Castro's ex-late 60s limousine. We rented three of his limos in the fleet. Or it didn't really rent, but it was a friendly arrangement. To drive out a couple hours out of Havana to go look at a very rare Aston Martin that I knew about that's the only one in the country that had been abandoned there.

That's a one-of-one early Aston. So we drove these crazy old Russian limousines to go for there, and I ended up on the side of the road twice having to fix them. And then again, we were going out to hear music drunk at like 2 in the morning, and our Russian Lada taxi cab broke down. It was pretty funny. So I have some pretty funny pictures of my cabbie looking at me just completely incredulous. I'm underneath the car with bailing wire, cubing it up.

Cubing it up. So how are they keeping these things running? How do they get access to parts? Are they manufacturing their own parts? Are they manufacturing their own parts? Are they reconfiguring them? Yeah, I mean, they can't get anything. Yeah. I mean, for example, as a tourist, if you forget your toothbrush, you're going to spend three days trying to find a fucking toothbrush.

Really? So where do you think you're going to get a break drum for 48 olds? So do you stay at a hotel when you're there? Yeah, yeah. Some people stay in people's homes they yeah that's that's a big new trend and i'd recommend it same with the uh the home restaurant industry that's growing there they backstory to that is there was a recent limited allowance that allowed private individuals to create small businesses. So people are opening up their homes, they're repurposing these beautiful, derelict old buildings and opening magnificent restaurants in them. And well, magnificent might

be a strong word, because the food kind of sucks. But really, yeah, well, because they can't, again, they can't get anything. So like the food that's imported comes from what the government said they could import from who they could say it imported from. So unless the dude has his own farm and garden and herb resource, which a lot of them do, it greatly limits what ends up on the plate. So they just take people in and they have like two seats at their kitchen. Yeah, I think they're called paladores, I think is the word. at their kitchen yeah I think if they're called paladores I think is the word and some of the best meals and experience and discussions and human interface we had were in those environments and super cool so are they man do they take like a

broken part and reconfigure it do they make a new one are they I mean it's everything from JB Weld chewing gum duct duct tape, and corks, and coat hangers, through to incredibly gifted, resourceful, generally the older generation. And I met one guy in particular in his 80s who's very well known down there. There's a big car club called Friends of Fangio. So Fangio was a great racer back in the 50s who, in fact, won the first big Havana rally. And there's this magnificent poster that's like the holy grail of car geek posters. I still want one.

Can't find it. But anyway, the second year, he went there to compete again. And Castro had him kidnapped because they didn't want him winning because he was an Argentinian. Oh, no. And they're like, he can't win. So they held him captive and apparently treated him quite well and didn't release him until after the race. But this Friends of Fangio Car Club is founded by one of the local guys

who was on his mechanic team that first year. And he knows everybody with anything that has a motor and wheels. And he took me to meet this older gentleman. And this guy will not only make the part, he'll make the tool needed to make the damn part. So they're forging and casting their own stuff. And it's phenomenal. Like, we could learn a lot of lessons in MacGyvering shit back together from them.

Well, that is one thing that we're missing and we're losing. The people, the skilled craftsmen that have the ability to make metal pieces which we used to be a big thing i mean there are people in the hot rod world it's a big thing fabricators are very high in demand because they do so much custom work but it's such a tiny tiny fraction but again i i think if we step back the thing that keeps me from becoming a depressed drunk is the feeling that that's changing. It's becoming more important to the greater general population. People are more inspired and be it in metal, be it in leather, be it in soup, be it in cutlery, whatever the hell it is, there seems to be a growing trend in people giving a shit and returning back to that. And I

think also, more importantly, perhaps, feeling how it changes them as an individual. So like for me, my past life, I had a completely different career. And I wasn't really, I got into it loving it. And over the years, like I really didn't have the control and creative input that I thought I did, despite putting my heart and soul in it, or past a point, despite getting dispassionate about it. And it starts to kill your soul. When I was young and dumb, and we didn't have kids yet, my wife and I spontaneously basically quit our jobs and started our automotive, the first one, TLC. I mean, it could have totally screwed up and not worked.

I'm lucky that it did. But I think most epically important, it reinvigorated me as an individual. So I'm more proud and passionate and content, which in turn hopefully makes me less of an asshole than the rest of the people that I interface with on this planet. So I think big cultural sense, that's a wonderful thing that I'm seeing, and it's not unique to America. The ripple effect is real. Yeah.

I think around the world people are wanting to return to those values. Well, and it's also there's something about like if someone drives, like say one of your, um, FJ forties that you re-engineer, they, they kind of, they're driving around in a piece of art.

It's not just a car that like those volcanic black ones that you're, you, I mean, that's so, it's so, I mean, icon, but it's so iconic.

Thank you. You know, it really is. It's your thing. Like it is an FJ forty. No, it's art, man. Cause that's my whole. Thank you know it really is it's your thing like No, it's art man. That's my whole approach is like it should be it's it's a functioning sculpture There's art even in the way your doors closed Like I was I shut your door if you know it's like in your showroom like four or five times because it's just so well done It's not there's nothing wonky. It's just clink clink It's just you could feel that and like I think when people drive something that or use that guy's knives

Or you know or you this clock that we have here. It's like you feel Craftsmanship and it impairs you some more important level. Yeah, where it's like if you have like a cool piece of electronic It's cool. You know I love a cool iPhone or a cool laptop, but I don't I love this laptop I write all my jokes on it. I do write all emails and jazz, but I don't feel anything out of it This isn't like some guys creation. It's not a relationship Yeah, some woman didn't carve these keys with her skilled hands, and I feel it when I'm typing No, just just it's kind of manufactured, and it's cool that that can be done, too But there's a there's another level of stuff.

There's another level of feeling that you get from functional art. Yeah, totally. And probably the most sort of obtuse expression of that brand theology is our derelicts, which some people just don't get it. I ran into a guy came running up at a stoplight this morning. I was test driving a 54 DeSoto. Explain what a derelict is because people think you're talking about bums. Kind of. So basically a derelict is where we'll take a car with epic patina,

like just time-worn natural decay, but not a rust bucket. So like a barn find find we'll take that car we'll laser scan it get it into cad chuck the original chassis and mechanical and everything and evolve that into a modern highly capable daily driver but the art is trying to make it look like we did nothing so this guy at a light he's like like, you think you're going to make it? I'm like, yeah, I'm good. He goes, are you going to fix it up? I'm like, nope, I'm done. Well, what color are you going to paint it?

Red? Nope, I'm done. What? I don't get it. But to me, that's kind of part of the fun. Well, what these things. Not everyone does get it. They look like an old car, but you put this DeSoto up on a lift and showed it to me,

and it's got this insane fully independent suspension. That's the icons, but if you find Reformer. Just Google icon derelict, it'll come right up. Yeah, or the derelict, not a Reformer. But these cars look on the outside as if it's just an old car, but then you look down at the wheels like, hey, wait a minute, what's going on here? And then you're kind of like, oh, hold up a second. You have modern Corvette engines in them.

Yeah, they're just bad shit fun. Oh, it's insane. Like, what is this one right here? This is a Power Master wagon. That's what I was driving this morning, yeah. Power Master, what a great name. So that car was inspired by the first Derelict, which is mine, which is a 52 DeSoto wagon. So like in this, it has a one-off chassis we partner with art morrison on most of our chassis engineering we gave it a gold

tooth like a crunk because it had a cavity which is kind of fun but yeah uh like 550 horse srt8 hemi fuel e five-speed automatic independent suspension six piston hydro boosted brakes modern climate control bluetooth audio blah blah blah but all like packaged and hidden so it's totally under the radar totally under the radar to the point where the knob that controls the old school radio actually controls the volume on this bluetooth enabled system that syncs up with your phone. It's fucking incredible. Digital bit one Audison, not digital to analog, but pure digital audio. Gotta love the gold teeth. It's amazing.

What you're doing is so cool. Because if they didn't know and they looked at it on the outside, they literally have no idea. But then you would look inside and go, wow, that is a really well-preserved interior. Wait a minute. What's that? It just looks off. They're like onions. So, like, if you start peeling back, there's a lot of layers to the absurdities in building these.

On that video, everyone gave me a hard time for my hat. It's a derelict hat. It's all fucked up. I thought it was perfect. The hat's perfect. They're assholes. People give you a hard time about everything. You could save babies.

You know what? I've been lucky, though. We have too many babies. The trollers used to just rip me a new one. And over the years, it's gotten better, because I think people have gotten a more thorough understanding of what we're doing. Well, also, trolls are like snake venom. You get a little bit, and it fucks you up.

But over time, you become immune to it. Yeah. And they actually help you. People who are overly critical and assholes, they actually help you in the long run. They really do. Because they make you understand that there's too many people. You can't just pay attention to everyone's opinion. There's just too many fucking people.

Just remind you that we could use a little Darwinian trimming of the herd. There's that, but it's also, it's really on them. What is this fucking thing you've got here? This convertible. Oh my God, the seats. The interior was just nuts. Oh my God, that's beautiful. So that's a

50 Buick Roadmaster convertible. Last on the road in 1958, we, one of our hunters, who's actually a UPS driver, saw that in some dude's backyard and hat-tipped us, and we grabbed it. Back up. Hold on. What is that? UPS drivers are the best hunters for us. Yeah, we pay finder's fees to them all the time because they deliver in packages,

and they see something covered by leaves. Look at that fucking car. God, those seats are incredible That one's now running About a 600 horse LS7 dry sump That car's a blast Now who's got that thing? That's an LA client Remember the Superbird, the 70 Superbird

Reformer we're building, this is the same owner He's taking a Superbird Which is one of the iconic American muscle cars, and putting completely modern underpinnings. You were going to do a Hellcat setup, right? Yeah. Which is, for folks who don't know what we're talking about because we're geeking out here, Hellcat is the Chrysler SRT version, the newest of their badass Challengers.

That's a beast. Yeah, it's what I drove on my comedy special. The 707 horsepower red Challenger. It's fucking incredible. So after talking to the creative team in the SRT division at Mopar, we actually learned that we're not going to go that route. We'd like to,

but you talk about complexity in modern vehicles without being too much of a geek. That runs what's called a CAN bus network. So the electrical network in that car is no longer yeses and nos, Xs and Os. It's constant data stream. So like even the damn dome light could be talking to the brake pedal that's talking to the tranny. So it makes it very difficult to really engineer those right in a non-native platform. So with SRT's support, we're actually going to the company that builds their race engines, and we're going to do our own scratch-built SCAT 6.4 blown.

So that's our performance target. But we originally were just going to buy one and disassemble it and repurpose it, and we got talked out of that. That's crazy. But all that stuff has also enabled them to have two keys Correct Which is hilarious, because one of them that you give to the valet Only gives it 500 horsepower It's like, do you know how fucking fast that is? It's like, here, take this toned down version

And then the other one, the red key, gives you 707 horsepower Which is incredibly manageable It's really weird Yeah, it. It's so all the electronics and all the jazz. Even 10 years ago when they would do a performance model, they'd just shoehorn in the biggest motor they could find. That car to me is a great example of change, good change in Detroit. It is so engineered to be what it is. It's not just throw a motor in it and sell it. No, it's really drivable. It's almost like a GT car more than it is it's not just throw a motor in it and sell it no it's really drivable it's almost like a gt car more than it is a sports car even a muscle car it's like it

feels like a big cadillac when you're riding there but it'll suck it down when you need it oh when you stomp the gas on it's it's the speaking of that epic that duality of the two different keys there's an engine builder out near our shop. This guy builds motors. His trainer motor, his entry-level motor is like a thousand horse. That's the alien import, the alien intake manifold guy? Yeah, the one that looks like a woman with her legs open. Is it Nelson? Nelson, yeah. Tom is an evil genius, but he'll build his cars where they have dual gas tanks.

You've got a toggle switch under the dash. There's dual computer networks, dual tanks, dual injectors. So you've got your low output at 1,000 horse, and then a flick of a switch, it goes to the jet fuel tank into the other computer network, and now it's like 2,000 horsepower. Yeah, that guy built an 1,800-horsepower 69 Chevelle. For my friend, the white one? No, it's like 2,000 horsepower. Yeah, that guy built an 1,800 horsepower 69 Chevelle. For my friend, the white one?

No, it's like a light blue. Oh, he did a white one called Unfuckwithable. And that's even, they machined the badges. It says Unfuckwithable, and it's quite true, other than it's probably going to rip itself in half within five years. Well, it's also, you know, the first corner. On the first corner, a 200 horsepowerhorsepower Porsche is going to beat you. We try and not do.

Right. So although over the years I've been pushing the envelope with more and more and more horsepower, and it's hard to return once you've gone there, we try and never build what we call cul-de-sac rides where it's so into a corner of, yeah, wow, it's 2,000 horsepower, but it overheats if you stand still. It won't idle. The AC won't work. Or it's so much power, it's not trackable. Trying to keep everything we

do relatively practical. So whatever performance we have, it's in measure with the refinement, the trackability. Like the Thriftmaster pickups we're building, people keep asking for more power. like the Thriftmaster pickups we're building, people keep asking for more power. Well, 447 horsepower is what we have found to be the maximum amount of power you can put in it without it just being asinine and never hooking up and just spinning tires. Yeah, it seems like they might have painted themselves into a corner with this American horsepower war because when you get things like the 777 horsepower Challenger, and then you've got the Mustang Shelby that has 662. And what are you going to have five years from now? You're going to have a million horsepower? Where are you going to take it to? It's going to...

Well, kind of like empires, I think if you look at the history of automotive design and trends, there's always a kind of a specific graph of a rise and fall. So I think, you know, just as emissions laws came in and impacted the first era of the muscle cars and starting in 66 with DOT and EPA, I think you're going to see the same thing with these where the corporate numbers will never allow that kind of output vehicle to be predominant because it impacts the ratio. So I don't know the exact numbers, but I would fathom to say that for every three Hellcats they sell, they would have arguably had better business selling 20 six-banger versions.

And the final corporate fleet emissions of it is such that that thing eats up so much of their allotted emissions they're able to produce that it limits them so i think that should be a great opportunity i think cadillac is is showing early signs of embracing it correctly which is okay well let's get back to craftsmanship so yeah we can do this motor and it's super sexy and all that but what about that plastic ridiculous dash that we've turned into what about all this faux wood and like whoa gee why don't we start making more quality materials which i think could be a really interesting opportunity because on the other side of the coin you look at what the

chrysler fiat ownership of ferrari has done to ferrari product you hop in a new ferrari the nav system's the same thing that's in your kid's Jeep Rubicon. Are you kidding me? And the plastic stuff that, oh, well, it has a sexy coating that looks like aluminum, but it's plastic. It's just the same thing that's in a Hyundai or a Kia or anything else. And I think they better be careful to hold the line of that quality and that tactile, that human interface. Or what's the point? It's just a badge car well they've made some real errors in navigation systems and not keeping them up

update and current because if you're going to have all that electronic jazz it better be the good you're going to go there yeah yeah like uh i have a friend who's a maserati and this fucking piece of shit oh my god the navigation thing is just dog shit but it's just pricelor stuff that some pencil pushers said, Hey, I already paid for this. Let's stick it in there. No traffic. Doesn't know where the traffic is.

Can't update. Can't reroute you. Like, come on. My fucking phone does all this. That's why I like Ferrari and Porsche to a certain extent as well. I actually had more respect for them when they were making less money. When the last of the air colds, like a 997 997 yeah there's no nav 993 right yeah no i'm sorry 993 well i can picture some german guy going via not that yeah via a driver's car there's no

cup holder either fuck you you know and like but they had the balls to say hey this is what we are we're not for everyone we don't have a backup camera. It's a sports car. It is minimalist. Deal with it. Dig it. Great. Don't go buy a Miata. We don't care.

We are who we are. Well, Lotus is kind of doing that. They have a few of their cars. They don't do that anymore? No. I mean, the stories that I've been hearing is Lotus was making so much money off of licensing T-shirts and product and crap that the cars are kind of a pain in their ass so the engineering arm is still alive and somewhat well but the cars i mean they had what seven concepts uh in the last two years and then production viability of any and all of them is

all but gone it just takes such deep pockets to get one of those coach-built versions of those cars, like what Singer's doing. Yeah, Rob's efforts. But see, guys like Rob and I, I think it's viable that if we are the creative sorts who are smart enough to acknowledge that we're dumb enough to not be the numbers sorts but to build our team and add those people to the team, I think we can make

viable businesses out of it. Now, the second you want to make 50,000, 100,000, 300, half a million of them a year, I think that is the bigger struggle because I think there's conflicts at core with the efficiencies that those business models demand in the modern world to be considered competitive etc it's like you know with uh ferrari talking about coming out with an suv because you know some pencil pusher stockholder of power somewhere's like we need more market share you need to come up with something else i mean even with even with Porsche, with the Cayenne and stuff, like, yeah, it's off-core, but I can understand the business numbers. It made perfect sense to grab a Touareg and package it up and party on. Have you driven one of those Cayenne turbos?

They're a fucking spaceship. Yeah. It's a spaceship. It goes zero to 60 in four seconds, and it's a fucking truck, and it handles like it's on rails. It doesn't even make sense. It defies the laws of physics. I agree. Same with the new turbo Panamera.

Oh, yeah. Beast. Oh, my God, that thing's insane. I love that tranny, that PDA. See, I want to take a car like that, package that fucker into an old pre-A split window 356A, and have an all-wheel drive, like like 660 horse PDK paddle shift. But what does that thing weigh?

Those things didn't weigh 2,500 pounds. So that would be insane. The amount of power for 2,500 pounds. That would be so crazy. By the time you stuff all that crap in there, you're going to be back up to 4,000, but it would still be a hell of an e-ticket ride. It would be insane. Is there a

market? Everyone loves those old cars. People love 69 Camaros and those old school cars. Do you think there's a market for someone to come along and do what Singer's doing? Because what Singer is doing is taking it. When you buy a Singer car car it's technically a 964 which is like a 1989 porsche but it's not really it's a carbon fiber body the drivetrain is totally re-engineered he's using a is he cosworth still i think he had a cosworth engine so he's got a 400 plus horsepower uh air-cooled like the pre i mean air-cooled is kind of a stupid way to do it but there's the people love that sound that the air-cooled produces the pre i mean air cool is kind of a stupid way to do it but there's the people love that sound that the air-cooled produces and it has such a mechanical sort of an engaging feel

to it that you know that there's that feel that those engines have that people fall in love with so he's got this kind of like very niche market or niche market if you don't like me rebuttering that word but is there a market for someone doing that with an American car? Like building a 1969 Camaro today, like a re-engineered Camaro? Certainly. So I think traditionally there's two ways it's been done and there's a pending third way it might be able to soon be done. Traditionally, you got a guy who doesn't give a damn, respects quality, finds a pro builder, and there's plenty of geeks like us out there who do exactly what you're talking about.

And they build six digits, super freak, super trick for that dude, one car. And that's it. Build one car. And all the engineering is applied to that one car. Then you have the professional quote unquote shops that see a market. they see that car on barrett jackson and it sells for 250 and they go well shit my friend's got some 69s in the backyard i can put those together make them shine and we get some money you're talking about that guy fast and loud aren't you no i have no personal issues with him no but it's it's just like that's the show people see an op it's it's more the wolves you know people that see an opportunity so then that's like broncos traditionally and and it's not to say anything negative about that community but the the shop owners go okay what is the perceived tolerance of the guy who

might call me and wants a restored bronco and right or wrong that may have been 40 grand 50 grand so then what do they do? They go and they try and make a feasible business model of delivering whatever the hell they can at that perceived market tolerance. So you either have the guy who one-off builds for the occasional funded guy. You have the slightly more commercial versions of shops, which in mass tend to cut corners or make sacrifices to meet a perceived market. Three, you've got the new breed of fools like me and Robert Singer and more and more guys who throw caution to the wind, ignore the established price tolerance, focus on the quality, and then try and build a market from scratch. In the future, there's a House bill that just got presented that has been promoted by our big trade group called SEMA,

which is going to really work to create a new federal classification for ultra-low-volume vehicular manufacturers. We'll take responsibility for tailpipe submissions, but get exemptions from larger impact mass market vehicle crash test certification, which makes it impossible. But, you know, we can only bill 200 a year, 300 a year. If that law passes, I think people are going to be shocked how many geeks in the fringes like us and like us that are not branded yet, that have the engineering prowess and resources to do exactly what you're talking about. Like that body for a 69 Camaro, you can buy that entire body brand new.

You can almost buy that whole car via mail order and Lego it together in Boston over the winter. Like companies like Year One. Yeah. think there's issues there with quality control, licensing deals, making the OEMs enforce quality with the license so that this emerging market doesn't step on its own dick because nothing fits anything. And there's plenty of concerns there. But bigger picture, the capabilities of the shops and the resources and the tooling and all this stuff coming together, if this law comes into play, you're going to see an immediate new subculture in custom vehicles built to a very high level at a more and more feasible price point because we'll all get that scale. And like as of today, for me, when I'm at these Broncos, I'm paying triple a day for the old Bronco

I need to restore and modify into my final equation. I'm paying triple what I paid before I opened my mouth and we came out with them. And it's a shrinking group. So you have kind of fucked yourself in your own market. Oh, yeah. Ruined it. So if I had had the intelligence and finance, I would have chipmunked away 100 of them. Well, you were talking about this before when we were in your lot, when you were talking to me about how you got into business, it's kind of on a bet.

And you chipmunked away a bunch of FJ40s and tried to create a market. Yeah. Explain that. Okay. Basically, I've always been a big fan of getting out of my little box and traveling the world and respecting different cultures and viewpoints, etc. So I've done a lot of traveling. I found how it was incredible how often you'd be in a really remote locale where a vehicle is literally life or death. How

much the people loved the Land Cruisers on a whole different level than what North Americans dig about aren't that cute. It's kind of like it's kind of like a safari vehicle. Like, no, like life or fucking death. This is what gets you out of the bush alive. And people have such a deep affinity for them. So back here in the States, all my cars are over restored. I want something for fun, dogs, surfing, beach, whatever. Bought an old FJ40 like I'd grown to love them on a prior trip. Geeked out and restored it, etc. So I was at a business class, extension class. I didn't go to college at USC.

And we got into a debate over supply and demand. Me, another student, and the professor. My theory was supply and demand is bullshit because nowadays if you control the supply, you can create the demand. They said I was an idiot back and forth, turned into a bet, and I was given, I think it was six months to drive a trackable market up 30 points, and I think it was like a thousand buck bet or whatever. Although I was still active in my prior career, in my spare time and with spare money,

I had already invested in a couple automotive shops just because I was already wrenching and restoring stuff in my garage and helping these guys with their business model but using their resources because I didn't have a lift in my house. So, yeah, I went out and bought every FJ40 worth of rat's ass that I could find. How many did you buy? I do buying trips through, I think about 30 of them. 30 of them in six months. Yeah, but this is like thrifty nickel. No, that was like in two months.

Really? Oh, yeah. I wasn't working. I was going on road trips. Rampaging. I'd buy 12 or so, and then I'd call the transporter and coordinate and send the 18-wheeler to go pick up those 12, and then keep going'd call the transporter and coordinate and send the 18 wheeler to go pick up those 12 and then keep going call the other transporter pick up the next 12 and then chipmunk

them away i didn't geek out at first all i did was fix the problems they had clean them up really well and then bring them back to market and this is in the day of the recycler and the thrifty nickel and all that and it was like you know shooting ducks in a barrel because a culturally people dug them but there wasn't like a cult around them and nobody was restoring them worth a damn they would like throw leftover v8 and a 20 paint job and chrome rims from their brothers el camino or whatever no one was treating them like conventional classics so that was just very simple premise of give them more respect represent them better bring them back to the market i bet you there's a bunch of men and women that dig them who aren't engaging because of the quality level what they see

and then luckily i was right and went back for them to pay me on the bet and no one would pay me they wouldn't pay you? No, the bastards. So what did they say? It was just a joke, dude. Just a joke? You bought 30 fucking cars. It was fun as all hell.

I made out like a bandit. I made out quite well. Well, you win. In fact, those cars, the profit from those cars, let my wife and I piss off and go to South Africa for like three months and have a killer vacation when we were young and single. And that's the vacation where we were young and single. And that's the vacation where we're lamenting these dudes never paid up. But I'm like, but I think there's something there. And honey, you hate your job. I don't really like mine anymore. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. God damn, I love these stories. Our overhead's low. We get home, let's just quit.

Yes. We're like, We're in our 20s. Yes. So we quit. I took like three credit cards, 20 grand, my quiver of trucks, a wing and a prayer. Took over my friend's lease because he wanted to move his classic car shop to Santa Monica. And literally, like, we put a post-it note. It was like 1,200 square feet. I put like, I don't know, five or six trucks, glass window and van.

I put the trucks in the window, put a piece of cardboard on the door, my cell number, and I'd carry around my old Motorola, you know, tan brick cell phone, just go about my life. And people started calling. It just like third truck we sold, we sold to a dude who's like, Hey, have you ever heard of the internet? We're like, yeah, we heard about that. Sounds cool. What year? 96? Oh're like, yeah, we heard about that. Sounds cool. What year? What year is this? 96? Oh, that was barely, right? Yeah, it sounds pretty wild, man.

He's like, yeah, well, I design websites. We're like, cool, what are those? So we actually traded the FJ40 we sold this guy for a website. Wow. It was just, again, serendipity Has been so good to me That just shows you how insane Technology has changed in just a short Amount of time we have one of our sponsors

This company called Squarespace And you can make a website no bullshit In about 10 minutes and it's a badass Website drag and drop if you have a series Of images it's so easy to do Built in online store You gotta trade a fucking car for a Website you know nowadays for drop if you have a series of images it's so easy to do you can build an online store you got to trade a fucking car for a website you know nowadays for like we're redesigning the icon

site it's going to go live in a couple weeks and being the geek that i am like i'm like didn't want to redo it our current site's okay no one's bitching it gets the job done but apparently it's written in some language of some company that got bought by someone who got bought who got shelved by the last guy who bought them and we got a notice that like yeah well you know browsers could be tomorrow could be in a year but literally like a light switch my site won't be decipherable so i'm like fuck so if i'm gonna do it i want to do it right so my art director and i spent like eight months geeking out and researching all the automotive sites, which, you know, got a lot of ideas of what to and what not to do. And my programmer, I'm like Mr. America for manufacturing, but my programmer is in Afghanistan.

So other than my server freaking out and then wanting to block, you're getting hacked from Afghanistan. Once we got that cleared up, this dude is a rock star. From Afghanistan? Yeah, he's got like 20 young employees. He's fresh out of college. All of his employees are college kids. We're paying them way more than they're used to making locally,

but 10% what I was paying the fancy pants agency in New York that did the old site. Wow. And overnight, like I'll give them all the notes and we'll do the layout at like 5 p.m. I come in at work, like there'll be an email that comes in at 5 a. Wow. And overnight, like, I'll give them all the notes and we'll do the layout at like 5 p.m. I come in at

work, like, there'll be an email that comes in at 5 a.m. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Everything's done. Dude, get me this guy's number. He rocks the house. Jesus fucking Christ. I'm down with hanging out with Afghanis. I love that. I love that kind of story. I just love the fact that you just went for it. I love people

go for it. Yeah. Don't sit around and fucking hate your life for the next two decades. And thatghani's just yet again another example of a guy who's like there's no opportunity here life sucks i don't like my job but wait a minute maybe i could do programming for four you know the guy followed his passion and again he's doing a great job and succeeding commercially and personally because he put his heart in what he does. And he does a good job. Yeah. He can be anywhere. It's possible.

And I love, one of the things that's come out of this podcast that's been surprising and amazing is how many people have done the same thing. How many people that have listened to these podcasts and listened to people like you talk and spread their passion and go, fuck it, I'm doing it. And then just figured out a way to do it on the weekends and the weeknights after work, and then put it together and then get a viable business model. I'll tell you what, when you and I are 80 and we're not producing, maybe we can't do anything anymore, and we sit back and we think about our lives,

outside of family and the people in our immediate circle, I think the thing that we're going to carry the longest term true pride about is having, in little ways or big, inspired other people and made a positive impact. And just like that, like the fact that this podcast, you probably when you started like, yeah, whatever, okay, it'll be a side thing and get rolling with it. But it's turned in, it's created an entire community and it's inspired other people

like i've we call them our my kudos emails so just being a goober if i'm on a blog or i'm listening to a podcast and i hear of another craftsman i don't care what he's doing like the dude with petrified wood i was talking about earlier if i find there's somebody out there following their dream they're doing something that I think is killer, I'll figure out, big or small, who they are, where they are, get their email. And I always send out an email. My subject line is always kudos. And it's just, dude, good for you.

Well done, bitchin'. Go for it. Proud of you. That's great. And they're honest, and they have to be, or this wouldn't happen. That's great. And they're honest and they have to be or this wouldn't happen. But it has turned into so many friendships, opportunities, relationships, collaborative projects.

Like it's just it's good, warm, fuzzy, karmic. And for both of you, when the guy receives that email, that is fuel. Yeah. And the reason I started sending them is because I started getting them. And I noticed how it impacted and empowered me to stick to what was important and it's everything. The thing you were telling me about, does that guy have a website, the stools that he makes and the tables

that he makes? I've only seen him on Instagram and there's another one. Tell me what it is again. What is the name on Instagram? I gotta find it. He's using petrified wood, right? This dude takes petrified wood and then through the cracks in the petrified wood, generally like a trunk, he'll embed diodes in the thing

so at night it bleeds light and is organic. There's this other dude who's in... Where is he? He's in Pedigree, I think. The guy takes gourds and he carves them in the most incredible filigree intricate way, turns them into ceiling lights. So they broadcast this most incredible spectrum of shadow and color. And like it's a fucking gourd.

The guy turns it into just like out there. There's the the Sanchez brothers, their family, three generations, okay? These Mexican dudes in New Mexico or Arizona, and I think New Mexico. Now, they have state licenses to pick up firewood. So they're out in the old growth areas in the desert competing with dudes who are looking for firewood, but they're looking for fallen old growth timber or standing dead. These guys take these pieces of wood and they'll pick up turquoise and metals in that same area. They literally take them back to their studio. And I don't know about the older generation, but I've met the youngest.

He'll sit back and stare at that wood and roll a fatty and burn it and get intimate with the shape of the wood. And it can sit there for an hour or five years until one day he's like, Oh yeah, a chair. And he like sees the vision of the shape in it. So they do like bowls and trays and staircases and tables and shit out of this wood tate fletcher's instagram page he put up this

insane table that someone did along those lines it looks like it was carved out of a single block of wood and some guy had this really unique idea for the side of a table, like the front. I see it wouldn't do it. What was the guy's name that made those? The table? I don't remember the gourd or the table. I suck with names, but I'll email it to you. I wish we could pimp them on the show.

And another guy like that, there's a guy on disability in Detroit who is the most gifted welder I've heard. I'm a damn good welder, and this guy's a rock star. So his name's Josh Welton, Brown Dog Welding. He no longer can work because he has these massive surgeries in both arms. Fuck. But just to keep himself alive, like his spirit alive, he started doing artistic efforts with his welds. spirit alive he started doing artistic efforts with his welds so this dude literally takes scrap metal or old shovels hammers them messes with them repurposes them and does these incredible sculptures out of scrap metal wow nothing dogs and cars and whoa that table this is the table

kick-ass yeah it doesn't i don't think he put a source no look at that though it's like it's all one giant block of wood and i think it probably is sectioned off on the left side that we can't see it's hard to tell but on the right side the side that's facing us it's sort of like steps like you know what it looks like he took end cuts of post beams like four bys and sectioned them in to like a butcher block pattern like guys are doing that with walls too where from like uh that's exactly what it looks like right they can take the center hub of the wood that they don't use for the paper pulp and you leave them at dissimilar lengths and you put them at 90 degrees on a wall and you do a whole wall of in-cut tree limbs looks super cool yeah we've been doing more and more uh hardwood

there's a company called urban hardwoods that sells uh tables like that james he would pull that outside up and they essentially they take really cool old hardwood chunks and make them these really unique tables they're not perfectly smooth a lot of them have like you see if you go to the gallery if they have uh you could see some of their some of the stuff that they do but they're they kind of do this on a large a fairly large, and they go all over the world or all over the country rather to find cool chunks of wood. There's also like auto aero art, I think it's called, or aero art. The dudes that take airplane scrap and repurpose it into furniture and stuff is so cool. Yeah.

Well, here you see these guys actually taking the wood itself. They'll have giant cranes carry these logs. Oh, that's brilliant. My buddy, Eric, is a pool cue manufacturer. He's like one of the most sought after in the world. He runs a company called Sugar Tree Cues. It's all completely handmade, all his own. And he's one of those guys that will drive around in his truck.

And if he sees a log like off the site, like he lives in New Mexico, he'll drive like a mile into the desert and figure out a way to chop this fucking ironwood and get it into the back of his truck. And then he'll make these insane pool cues with it with the most detailed figure, total artwork from mother nature. He doesn't inlay them. Just let the natural character. He'll, he'll do points. Like he'll cut pieces together, but he doesn't inlay them just let the natural yeah he'll he'll do points like he'll cut

pieces together but he doesn't like inlay like some people they'll there's different styles of cues some of them they'll inlay like abalone or little pieces of bone or mastodon ivory is one that he uses occasionally for like the joint like 10 000 year old mastodon because apparently that's super prevalent like you can find a lot of that stuff. And it's actually been growing because of the crackdown on elephant ivory that has actually created a strong market spike. I just learned that in Africa last month. But I used to do fine furniture as a hobby.

Really? I used to sculpt, paint Pre-Raphaelite style, do woodworking. I did leatherworking. But these are all hobbies, just different things I'd explore. And I actually gave a couple minutes thought of making a commercial go of my furniture. But it was just like to add up the hours, like not going to happen. Like all quarter sawn white oak, I'd fume it instead of staining it, which is like way old school way of doing it that makes no sense.

Fume, what does that mean? Fuming, you basically create like a desiccant chamber, like a sealed chamber, and you put a desiccant in there that sucks all the oxygen out of the air. So that in turn surface cures the wood. And the longer you leave it in there, depending on the type of wood and the coarseness of the grain, it'll impact and stain the wood so like early stickly gustav stickly furniture arts and crafts era stuff most of that a big part of its durability is not just that it's quarter sawn but that it's fumed ammonia yeah any desiccant ammonia is what's traditionally used what is

what is desiccant what does that mean? I believe it's the process of extracting oxygen and moisture. And that's what ammonia does? Yeah. Wow. Oh, look at that. Yeah, you try and take a breath in your desiccant chamber when you're doing something. So, unfumed, it looks like maybe like a white oak. And it gets down to black at 32 hours.

Yeah, and they're dreaming. It's not that calculable. It depends on the size and the grain. And literally, you put it in there and you make it clear so you can just check on the bugger and let it sit in there and darken up until you find that sweet spot. Then you just take it out and surface wax it or oil it, and you're done. Wow. And if you get a gnarly scratch in it, that's not just on the top of the grain.

It permeates in really nice and deep. not just on the top of the grain. It permeates in really nice and deep. So like that Thriftmaster you saw, that's old Puget Sound sunken logs brought back up, kilned, quartered, sawn and processed and fumed. But then we do a marine mat seal for durability because of that being a truck bed. So I still get a little bit of time to have fun with hardwoods.

We integrate them sometimes. Well, if you decided to do that and put the same passion that you put into Icon, I'm sure it would be just as big a success. It's just one of those things. I hope so. The market's not as big, I guess. Is it?

More people probably buy cars? No, it doesn't even make sense. People buy tables, chairs, couches and shit. It's just hard finding something cool. If you want to put like a cool piece of furniture in your house, good luck. You know, there's some stuff that you can get at retail stores, like Restoration Hardware has some pretty nice stuff, but it doesn't, yeah, you raise your, like someone just farted. Well, that guy has screwed more heritage brands and designers

he'll steal your design lock stock and barrel and take it to market wait till you come after him and go yeah sue me really i'm big oh they did a horrible thing with the guys that originally designed the famous american navy aluminum tall chairs they just stole it went to market had it made in india or whatever but that's actually a very cool story for people that care about these things that is worth looking into. And they no longer will publicly comment on it. But there was a settlement and the owner of what is that Navy chair company? There's Southern Cal Company been around forever. I don't know.

It's like the 40s. But anyway, he said, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're not going to screw me just because you're big and I'm little. And he leveraged everything he had to do and did a big campaign to be made right and protected. So the courts upheld his complaint, shut down Restoration Hardware's effort, made them pay damages. And they protected this guy's design and trademark and brand it shouldn't just be damages when someone plagiarizes like that or steals it don't even get me started trademark infringement copyright violation we go to trade shows and see designs that i penned and

developed and did the cad did everything myself in-house i've seen the exact product lock stock and barrel on a supplier's booth at SEMA for sale, retail. Yeah, there's no way. I even know the guy. I said, dude, what are you doing? When you call me, you got my cell? Like, you can make that so much cheaper than I can. I would have given you my files.

We could have worked something out. And you go, yeah, that's business. So do you sue them? How do you deal with that? No, I lick my wounds and walk away. Fuck. I just learn a lesson and go fucking humans in business but not all just a few cunts okay there is there's a a rickshaw driver in havana

that i realized after i'd given away all my car parts i had a tire patch kit still my backpack and i remember this kid we had we had had a conversation i speak spanish we'd had a conversation early in the trip. I'm like, oh, he'd appreciate that because he had been telling me, like the mafioso that runs the rickshaw rentals, just like in the Greek New York cab deal. If he gets a flat, he's got to bring it back there. And they charge him some ridiculous rate to fix the flat, and it's on him.

So I'm like, oh, this kid will appreciate my kit. So late at night, I find him. I give him the kit. He's stoked, takes me oh this kid will appreciate my kit so late at night i find him i give him the kid he's stoked takes me out we just go for a drive and a talk and he nailed it in broken english he was saying the difference between communism socialism and and western capitalistic driven things it's like you know there's values in them all none of them work independent and perhaps the perfect cultures of the future would be a fusion of socialism in certain respects such as you know education and medicine what have you and but also the free market capitalism he goes but the and he was explaining the failures of each

and he nailed it capitalism has no conscience and to me that that's it that's it if we can figure out a way to still have brands and products and consumerism that has a conscience both to its consumers its shareholders the environment like just to wake up awareness not this me me mine mine mine then that would be cool isn't it the cat the idea of capitalism is sort of independent of the human being? It's like the idea of capitalism, this idea of eternal growth, that's sort of independent of the human being. But the human being practices capitalism. So it's up

to the human being to have conscience. Right. So I think it's maybe I'd prefer to hope that what you just described would be corporatism if that was a word. Like a corporation I can understand having no conscience and then it's up to the individuals to hold them to some level of accountability yeah and i also go please but just money for the sake of money and capitalism as a priority i think if we could put that in check and reset those

priorities i think it would serve everyone well on many different levels. Also, I think that... But what do I know? I'm just some fucking mechanic. No, you know. Don't you dare do that. You're dead on. And I also think that it could be taught, whether it's in just primary education or whether it's being taught in business school, that

when you steal, you're not going to be happy. You're going to know that what you did is illegitimate. You're a fraud. And there's no getting around that. Make that culturally relevant and important. Which goes back to accountability. People do something stupid now.

They turn around and sue somebody. It's like, well, you did something stupid. Whatever happened is saying, oh, I fucked up. Just being accountable for it. Look what happens to authors. When you hear about an author or writer plagiarizing and they get caught and then someone takes their work and shows the the original and like look there's 50 different examples of this guy taking full passages from these books and and

Repackaging it as his own that guy's done. Yeah, they're fucking done And that's essentially what these people are doing to doing the same thing when they get called out They kind of they pay the lawsuits and but they're allowed to keep practicing and then if we treated those companies the same way We treat those writers then things would really change if people looked at restoration hardware and went. Oh you did what oh? Yeah, I'm gonna design within within reach yeah it's more expensive but they they work with these companies the problem is that history it's a location there's a big building you go there you know i need a fucking couch catalog and like those aircraft chairs they make those are dope i'm damn tempted i am too but i'm like not once i heard that story, I'm like, I can't do it. What you need to do is hire someone to rip off their design of their aircraft chairs.

There you go. Just beat them at their own game. Yeah. I mean, is that real? I mean, can you do that? I think you can. When you tap, though, on education, I think that's another thing that is so important and misguided. You know, suddenly a blue collar is a bad thing. Well, I mean,

I've got a neighbor who's a plumber. He's doing fine. Don't worry about him. Yeah, you can make a lot of money blue collar. Right. And I think that our school system, not only not supporting that, but not educating kids on the plethora of opportunities in the world for careers and the importance of loving what you do versus expecting people to fit in these silos of doctor or lawyer or worse yet the i'm going to take a two second half-cooked idea and i'm going to sell it and become an internet billionaire which good luck with that but it's like it's like the pele dreams of the brazilian kids like okay but i hope you got another plan. But we're not even teaching kids how to write a check and balance personal finances in school,

not to mention showing them the opportunities the world has and help them identify what they care about. We just kick them off to college where they party for two years and hopefully on their own find something that matters to them or they continue doing whatever they thought they were supposed to be doing and don't discover what they love until it's too late and if they get any inspiration from their teachers or professors you're going to get these little nuggets that they have to nurture like little embers they're not it's not like a constant it's not a cultural education think it's Norway does a kick-ass thing where I think it's 10th grade.

You do an internship. Well, like first they sort of give you the big picture, and then you can pick where you want to do an internship, and then you do it. And then your final year in high school is preparing you for the career future that speaks to you that you've already identified. So when kids go into business right away or off for further continuing education, they care about it and they're already engaged. They're not just getting kind of churned through

this system where they don't even know what the hell they want to do. So someone's just making money charging them for a debt They'll carry through their professional career well It's also hard because the teachers are so unmotivated here it's it's so difficult to get people and pay them like a poverty wage and expect them to be enthusiastic about Presenting limitless possibilities to these kids well. They don't even have limitless possibilities in their own life They're fucked in some shitbag Possibilities to these kids. Well, they don't even have limitless possibilities in their own life They're fucked in some shit bag

$40,000 a year job that has a complete ceiling on it as far as growth potential and as far as the Appreciation that people have for what they're doing and that's something I struggle with I mean I pay over market in my world and none of my people make what I honestly think they should But if you look at the business model of it and all the ridiculous costs of doing business in scale in America, not to mention California, it's like the business that, you know, I see guys go to China or wherever they go to make something feasible. We can bitch about that all we want. But if we look at the entitlements and taxes and all the crap that's developed around it's like i i think these guys should make double what they're making show me the business model

like literally i've been searching for it i just finished reading a great book called spark which is about lincoln which is one of the earliest still one of the predominant welding manufacturers in america and this guy was, you know, doing revolutionary stuff with employee retentions. And like, he was paying out such big bonuses that the bonuses generally were 110% of the salary to all employees at all level. He would basically at the end of the year, look at whatever the taxable profit of the company was and disperse it as bonuses. So you have to pay the tax. And the IRS got pissed and investigated them several times, but it held up. But now they have a proud, educated, healthy workforce, some of which had been there for three generations.

They're a multinational company. They've managed to stay progressive, competitive, and dominant. Having this model of this pay structure in this community that goes against what every economist – I mean, this book is still one of the – it started as a Harvard case study and has become the most common business case study ever in North American universities, from what I understand. Is it duplicated? Has anybody tried to replicate what they're doing? There's been different efforts, but not to the extent that they have.

And, in fact, they've failed with it in other nations because there become cultural conflicts with the viability. But, like, I'm studying that. Like, well, could I do that do that right can we make that work but you know when you're you know california if we're busy we got a one to five year back order on all the different icons if i wanted dudes let's work harder let's come in saturday let's all work saturday everyone came it's not mandatory It's up to you dudes. Okay. Overtime is one thing and that's fair and reasonable, but all your workman's comp and all your insurances and everything rise exponentially based on you doing that. So like, wait a minute,

you're de-incentivizing me to give my guys bonus income, increase our productivity and therefore the productivity of the nation on a bigger impact company, not my little stuff, but it makes, it disincentivize you to create more. It's hilarious. It just adds more costs on top. It's hilarious that they were investigated by the IRS for generosity. Yeah, basically. And it took them years and years, but they won.

Hey, look. That's so gross. You have to fight the fucking government. Like, who are you? Who are you? Yeah. Aren't you guys supposed to be just protecting us from fucking war? What are you doing?

You're investigating generosity? Yeah. Oh. Nothing but fun. It's so bizarre. I hope we didn't bore the car geek contention to your audience. I think you have a wider reach, though. These people, they're loving this.

This is great stuff. This is fuel. Do you get a hard time, to bring it back to the car stuff, like the DeSoto that you showed me today, which is just fabulous. Do you get a hard time from people that want to keep everything numbers matching? Those fuckos. Those people drive me goddamn crazy. They're whatever.

That's their world, and I'm okay with it. I just, if they call me, I'm the first one to go, dude, you're talking to the wrong guy. There's a DeSoto specialist in Kansas that will do it down to the factory imperfections and chalk marks that you love so much. Enjoy it. I mean, the way I see henry ford was kind of a prick but he was a genius and he said a couple clever things my favorite being there's an ass for every seat so i don't expect what i do to make sense to everyone nor do nor that should be a two-way street so there there's a place in that i think

that's a dying market i think that guy's somewhat of a dinosaur in our market. People expect it to evolve. But there's a finite number of those DeSotos. That's the argument against it. Oh, but they can eat me. I mean, it's a station wagon, which traditionally no one's given a shit about. They were worked the hardest, thrown away wet. No one cares.

They have the least amount of parts support. They're the most expensive to restore with the least return if you look at it as an investment. Well, here's a perfect example. I have a 1965 Corvette, and my neighbor has a 1965 Corvette. And my neighbor was driving up the hill in his car while my car was being returned to me from Steve Strope at Pure Vision. Yeah, he's the one who builds my car. He's nuts. I love him.

He's the best. Steve, my car, it's not stock at all. And this guy is bone stock. This guy just really- He looks at you like you're just a moron. He looked at me like I tried to feed Ted Nugent a tofu turkey. It was really the look on his face. He goes, is that stock?

And it comes out with this fucking 35 series rear tires. You ruined it. He looked at me like I was a total, it's not even, nothing stock. The only thing that's stock is the panels. The entire frame. Knowing Steve, those are hardly stock anymore either. No, he actually got it from, I got it from RK Motors in Charlotte and then shipped it to him and he did all the

extra work to it but the underpinnings and everything was already done he's quite the craftsman oh he's a bad motherfucker he's a madman when it comes to that stuff but the point is this guy but those cars are sort of precious those 65 Corvettes are precious there's a finite number of them

and he looked at me like what the fuck did you do I've gotten hate mail. Yeah. I've got a couple cars in the line that we're going to do soon that are really going to piss off the purists. But I've got to tell you, it's part of the fun to me. Like that 63 Ferrari we're going to build. Oh, my God. The Ferrariistas are just going to lose their shit over it.

Whatever. Yeah, Ferrariistas. Eastas are just going to lose their shit over it. Whatever. Yeah, Ferrari Eastas. Dana White, my friend who owns the UFC, one of the president of the UFC. I met Dana. He wanted an FJ for a while, but he didn't like the wait time. He disappeared on me. Yeah, that's Dana.

He wants things yesterday. What do you got? You got anything right now? Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. He has a Testarossa. And he always wanted a Testarossa when he was a kid.

So he got some money, got a Testararossa But he had the interior completely stripped out and he had everything completely redone like modern stereo system Totally new upholstery and people who have found out about it were just appalled I think even changed the wheels. Oh, how dare he but you can't do that where you can do it with other cars It's sort of like even with porsches you know the r group porsches they would take those outlaws have become acceptable like magnus walker's creations buddy i mean yeah i love that guy too he's a character he's been on here um you know what if there's for each his own for rise you don't do that they don't do that with also with rolls royce's even land rovers that I've done I've pissed off the rover guys. It's the best vehicle ever how you've ruined it like well you what you did

Unfortunately was get people's dick hard for something that you don't want to do again Because you I one of the things I asked you about right away. I was like that defender you're like no no no don't do it That's fucking don't don't fuck do it if I cannot speak reason Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't fucking do it. I'll still do it if I cannot speak reason. Pull out the Icon Defender video. Put the Icon Defender 110 video.

Yeah, the 110's cooler than the 90. Oh my God, it's a fucking work of art. It's a beautiful, beautiful car. But they suck. They're beautiful, but whoever sketched it was a rock star. Whoever executed it was an accountant. Everything that could be compromised was compromised. But as you said.

In my opinion. These are essentially, they were just utilitary vehicles. Or utility vehicles. Agriculture vehicles. And they. They did great for what they were. But they don't line up. Right.

But it wasn't a priority. What do you think about like West Coast Defender? You know what he's doing? He's taking these things and kind of rebuilding them from the bottom up. Just a different kind of thing. Totally different thing. He's more respectful of the original. The most established company with that approach is called East Coast Rover ECR. They're held to the highest regard with a tradition.

The West Coast dude, I haven't met him. I've seen him in some media. Good guy. Yeah. But I don't know the depth of their expertise. a tradition the the west coast dude i haven't met him i've seen him very nice guy some media good guy yeah but i don't know the depth of their uh expertise i do know that that car is a disaster because so many people have been importing them and calling it older than it really was and there's crazy stories out there i mean the federal government has seized i think 60 68 of them and they destroy them. They destroy them. Which is fucking crazy.

If it's past like 95, I think. Well, they've been in the right, but then it turned into a clusterfuck because the story I heard was that when they were confirming by VIN number with Land Rover corporate, they were only for privacy concerns concerns giving Land Rover the last six digits of the VIN so Rover's like oh yeah no that's not an 84 that's a that's a 2002 well they repeated the VIN the last six digits got repeated through the decades so a lot of these cars were stolen I'm not stolen seized and in some cases erroneously scrapped when they were legal. So, I don't know.

The ones that I built, I'll only use a U.S. model because I don't want anything to do with that shit show. But I haven't done much importing. We're actually importing a 1946 Simca from France this week. What is a Simca? Well, Simca, I I believe was owned by Ford and they built all sorts of stuff under license. The car that we're going to do is like a funky

two-door woody version of the Fiat Topolino that was licensed to the French market to be made by Simca. So with that thing so old, it'll be easy to import. This video just totally gives me a boner. What you've done is create like the perfect Defender, but you don't want to do it again.

I mean, this thing is amazing. But it still wasn't perfect, which is what bugged me as a designer. But it's fucking beautiful. Look at that thing. It is pretty. But it's got this manly utility look to it. It just makes you want to own it. It makes you want to drive around in it and deal with all of its quirks. I mean, there's shapes that just become so satisfying.

Oh, totally. For whatever reason. They nailed it. The shape on them is just magic. Everything. The bulge that the hood has, the fender flares. I like how you have it in a different color. I like how you repurpose the vents and redesign the side mirrors.

We made the vents actually work because they didn't do anything before. They were just a hole. Yeah. And they were plastic. And you used Twisted's parts too, right, from the UK. They do some good work too. Good quality. But what you did, man, this is amazing.

You fucking need to do this more. You do. I'm sorry. You need to make, this would be as big of a seller as those goddamn Broncos. Yeah, but I can't get the bodies. And the other issue is the way the bodies are built. They're angle iron with aluminum riveted to it. So, like, boat builders have known not to do that since World War I.

So they rust themselves from the inside out. There's nothing I can do about it. But can't that be done again, like the way you do your FJ40s? So let me explain this to folks. When I got there, you have this FJ40, which is this Toyota Jeep-like vehicle from the 1960s and 70s. And what you've done is, or actually, they went deep into the 80s, right, with that shape?

Early 80s. Early 80s. You've made a completely new version of it. So it is sort of an FJ40, but there's nothing that's really from an FJ40. You've just got the shape that you've completely had remanufacture in a beautiful new aluminum. So we keep some core components so that we can still justify on a legal front that it is a resto mod. We have to keep a couple washers?

No, like pedal bucket, structural portion of the firewall, bib hinge, headlight bezel, pedal bucket, a couple things. It's a joke. That's why we're hoping to get this law passed because we don't need the old car. We could purpose build it. This is so fucking pretty, man. But the way that you know the the fjs traditionally had rust issues so you know we crafted it out of 6061 aluminum um but the way that body's shape we can get away with pretty crude construction techniques with the rover you there's things about it that you couldn't so you could reinterpret, and then you're probably up a legal creek with Land Rover that you'd have to negotiate and come to terms with.

The other issue is even the tooling, as primitive as it might be for the FJ, if I was the only geek using those bodies, I could have never made a business model for the amortization of the development cost of the tools needed to make it so other companies that read the company makes it's called they're in Canada I say they have a fairly significant market of which I am probably a minority to which guys buy them and build their own thing or restore this thing is so incredible which and look into the video this defender 110 with the internal sub all the frame you're into the FJ video, this Defender 110 with the internal sub, all the frame. You're into the FJ video now. Oh, this is FJ? Yeah. Okay.

Is this the FJ44? Yep. Okay, so this is a four-door version. Yeah. Which didn't really exist, right? Nope. This is also something that you've created. Yeah, it just never made sense to us that it didn't.

Back in those days when Toyota did do a four-door wagon version Land Cruiser, the body style had nothing to do with the 40. I always thought the 40 would be cool as a four-door. And actually, there's a 40. I had a client on the phone who's ready to rock and his wife's over her shoulder saying, you can't have it. If you can't take the kids with you on the weekend, you ain't getting it. So this is when we were a little bit hungrier earlier on with the brand. I did a quick and dirty like South Park quality Photoshop render and turned one into a four-door and punted it to them.

And she's like, you can get one of those. So I'm like, all right. So I winged it on what the costs were going to be, lost some money on it, but took that design and made it our next new model. And then now it's our most popular because six passengers. If this law passes and you can sort of just build your own vehicles do you anticipate ever just building something completely

from scratch hell yes yeah i mean part of me is challenging myself because like i mentioned earlier a big part of why what i do now is appealing to people is that people already have history and story and emotions tied to these vehicles but i have other stupid ideas that are like based on theoreticals of like if the industrial revolution hadn't happened when it happened and streamline art madern continued to prosper and develop as a design style where what would that final ultimate vision be i want to build that car but much harder to market it because no one has an affinity it's called the helios um based on the greek god of the wind and it's i would design it to fit on the new tesla platform and it's like if howard hughes drank too many he didn, apparently. But if he got drunk with Buck Minister,

Fuehler, and Gordon Bureig, who are two great designers, what would that napkin sketch of look like? It's like, what would he have taken Cruella de Vil to the country club in? This big, gnarly, aircraft-inspired, burnished aluminum, leather straps, a little bit of steampunk,

a little bit of aerospace, hot rod Tesla audacious thing dying to build it that sounds awesome yeah i'm i'm in i like it i love it these these these designs you know i think a big part of what you're saying is definitely true that people have this connection to these particular shapes that they fell in love with like like the FJ40, like the Bronco. But I think that your company also is developing that on its own. You're developing your own sort of following. Thank you.

And you can spread out. I think you're right. I think long term, that's better. Like right now, if I did a vehicle wholly of our own design, the titling process follows that of like a kit car which is not scalable so if if that law evolves i'm i'm all in i got tons of stupid ideas yeah that's a weird thing right like the the kit car thing that's like they would sell a lot of those like the uh the noble the the noble which i sell what is that it's an english car right and then they you just get the body.

Or you can buy a roller and then you have to hire another dude to put the drivetrain in. Or what's crazier still is the way the laws are currently. And this bill we're trying to get passed is literally just a combination of existing laws saying, look, this is all out there. But right now companies can't do it. So if some dude in his backyard has some spare two by fours and some corrugated sheathing and a V8, he can hack together a death trap, take it down. If it has turn signals, taillights and basic stuff, he's good to go. If a company were to build that same assemblage, it's not legal. So it's just asinine because the companies are going to have the technical resources, the financial

wherewithal, the accountability, et cetera, to create a safer, better, more conscious product. So it makes no sense to me. That's why we're hoping it will make sense to Congress because we know how good they are at efficiently reviewing and passing things that will further our nation's interests. Well, at least on paper, the companies have enough money to do that. There's the leap, right, from the initial investment to putting together an actual car. But it's gotten so much cheaper now. What do you got there? That's the Helios.

Oh, my God. It's gotten so much more cost-effective and viable to bring out highly engineered, no-compromise, high-quality, low-volume products. Is this anywhere online where Jamie can pull this up? This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Send this to Jamie. Just Google Icon Helios, H-E-L-I-O-S, and it'll pop right up. This is sick. You'd sell a million of these fucking things.

I'm trying to build that thing. And we're trying to get Elon's attention. His engineering team drafted a letter and sent it to me. It was so sweet. The title was like peanut butter for chocolate. He was so sweet. The title was like peanut butter for chocolate. Begging Elon to support this, not on a branded level, but give us a mule Tesla and the technological, the engineering support to repurpose the Tesla in this unique platform.

But we never got his attention. Somebody needs to get a hold of him. Please. I'm not saying Twitter bomb him, but Twitter bomb him. I'm just ready for whoever wants to support it. At this point, I'll do it electric, gas, or diesel. I just need to see it fucking built because it just keeps me awake. That's so beautiful.

And again, the suicide doors. That's Howard's original experimental little stunt plane that he built. Holy shit. I like the bottom one, too. I like the original version. So that's a series of panels showing inspiration. So we start with a fuselage of the plane. Then we roll it into road-going form.

Then we start to do the packaging factors and it kept evolving. Wow. God, this is so fucking cool. We're going to do dual panel sunroofs that are on cranks with exposed gear and leather ratchets. So there's like that somewhat steampunk interface of the mechanical. Power windows, same deal. I want like brass gears so you see the gears rotate as the wind blows down. Whoa, I love it.

I love the leather covered dash too, the hand-stitched dash and the rivets. If I had the cash, this thing would already be under construction. Fuck, man. I'd just build it for myself. But you know all these rich dudes. It seems like someone would have already dove into this. Totally. This is a no-lose.

This is gorgeous. But it's expensive. Oh, yeah. I mean, no profit. This thing would still cost me probably $1.3, $1.4 million. Just to design a first one. Not like, yeah, I could make it look good and everything, but like engineered, finite analyzed,

like balls out done would be at least 1.1. Call your Texas friend that wanted to fucking chainsaw that Ferrari in half. But see, he only likes Ferraris because everybody knows what a Ferrari is. So that's the other problem. Some dudes look at this and go, yeah, but it's not the Bentley.

Those people need to eat dick. They really do. All of them. Hey, bro. Why are you being like that, bro? Listen to me, my friend. Money is no option. I just need exclusivity.

I had recently in Encino, I was driving one of our things, and this, like, stereotypical Armenian guy with, you know, the big gold and the loafers and the whole nine. Nice. He leans over. He looks and peeks in the window and goes, The stereotypical Armenian guy with the big gold and the loafers and the whole nine. He leans over. He peeks in the window and goes, props, bro. I thought that was killer. I fucking love Armenians, man.

I love how they just wear it on their sleeve. They're some of my favorite people. They're like, don't fuck with me. I am what I am, and I'm going to protect my own, baby. They're not trying to change at all. Gold chains fucking flying high. Go baby. Yeah, this is a beautiful thing, man.

Creating things like this is beautiful. I love it. It's a dream. I'm stoked. I'm glad you're doing it. I just think it's so important. It's so important that someone out there is creating these bizarre creations. It's even more important someone's buying them.

Yes. I'd still be doing it, but I'd be doing it in my garage at my house and just kind of wanted it well and the fact that you put out like we said earlier you put out all these videos and you put all these these images even if people aren't they don't have the cash to buy them people get inspired by what you're doing it really oh fucking for sure 100% tell me how much is a Defender to re-engineer? Because your video is very extensive. You had to re-engineer. Everything by price.

How much does something like that cost? The Defenders, the D90 and the 110, we've done two so far. Anywhere from $250,000 to low $400,000. That's so crazy. I agree. I cringe when I have to tell somebody that. But these people that you are building these for, they're nuts. They're just crazy fucks.

Yeah, they go, well, yeah, I've tried it this way. I had one built by so-and-so, but they suck. I get what you do. Just do it. So most people who would do it, Matthew Perlman's a great guy. He's a guy who does West Coast Defenders, met him, hung him hung out with them and seen his shop what he's doing is just rebuilding them exactly they are but brand new smarter than me yeah but but what you're you're doing you're reengineering everything is anybody out

there re-engineering everything the suspension the subframe the the way the the floor is sealed and polyurea coated. You're just taking it to a stupid level. Yeah. I guess Singer. Singer. And then Arch Motorcycles. Those guys, I'd say, are on par with rethinking every little nuance and going balls out on it. Have you met those guys down in Long Beach?

No. It's Keanu Reeves and, oh, man, I can't remember his name. He's a sweetheart. Guard. Guard. Guard and Keanu's company. And they're doing a lovely, lovely, lovely job. Now, to a guy like you, Google auto drive cars have to be the devil.

Yes. That's the devil. It is. What's going to happen? Are we going to not be able to drive cars have to be the devil. Yes. That's the devil. It is. What's going to happen? Are we going to not be able to drive our own cars in the future? Is that a possibility? You know, I've been thinking long and hard about that. And it's been something that different people in my subculture have openly been concerned and discussing.

And there's many different takes on it. But I think I'm pretty centered on it. I think actually it's a positive thing in that cars like the Prius and stuff, you know, started the generation where people don't have an emotional relationship with their vehicle. It's a tool. It's literally like an app on your phone that gets you from A to B, or even more dispassionately, screw it, you Uber around and you don't care, you don't have that relationship. So I think culturally, as autonomous vehicles and all that continue to grow and evolve, you are going to see them eventually become predominant. And I think we're going to start to see lobbying and federal support of that direction, because there's a lot

of rational reasons behind it. That being said, I think it will further strengthen the demand for the freaks and the geeks, the outliers, such as my brand, because people are going to yearn for that relationship, that attachment. And I think there's always going to be people, even the guy who's got the autonomous Mercedes that that's his commuter, but on the week is like oh no i mean this thing's got a it's called a manual transmission and there's there's there's pedals by the way and there's three of those pedals and you have to push that one down to get it to do but you know i think there there's that visceral relationship that is always going to be part of mankind and i'm not worried about it if i was trying to start a big car company then i would be worried about american muscle cars are one of the only companies that are sticking to

that manual transmission model i mean some cars like the z28 and like up until this version of the corvette you couldn't get the high-end corvette in anything but a manual like the zr1 but emissions laws are screwing that pooch, because it's so much harder for them to certify a manual car than an automatic, because the automatic, the shift cycles and efficiencies are much easier to track and to regulate and pretense for in the programming and engineering dynamics of the car. So it's an emissions issue. Yeah.

Hmm. More than anything. Also, nowadays, today's automatics are quicker than the car. So it's an emissions issue. Yeah. Hmm. More than anything. Also, nowadays, today's automatics are quicker than the manual. Of course. Well, that's the Porsche deal. I mean, the version of my car, the new version. Well, that's their public answer as to why. But the real answer

is based on emissions. And efficiency as far as gas and fuel consumption? Control over efficiency more than honest efficiency. Because a manual-driven write, you can make it work. I mean, the CVT train is constant velocity. Everyone said how amazing they were going to be for efficiency.

And you know how they work? What is CVT train? Yeah, it's an automatic. But it's like, if you picture a cone form, it spins out. So the ratio is constantly changing as you go through your speed cycles. But it seemed like a great idea, but at the end of the day, in true world use, they realized, oh, yeah, no. It, like, was incredibly inefficient. Just to spool the fucker, you were deficit of 10% in your fuel economy. So I think it'll hopefully shift back.

And, like, how many more gears can they shove in our automatic to try and meet emissions as well? Yeah, they're going through eight now. And they're doing seven with manuals now, too, which is weird. Pain in the ass. Yeah, it's an awkward pattern. But, again, it's a business case, right? It's a hell of a lot easier to shove a couple more gears to keep that motor in a tighter, more controlled, more predictable RPM band than it is to evolve and keep engineering internal combustion.

Make it better. Yeah. Evolve your motor. Everyone's so hesitant to do that until it's regulated or competition forces that transition. It's just, to me, it's a bummer that a lot of these sports cars, at the very least, are going by Nurburgring times. And they want zero to 60 times and not how they make you feel. Yeah. But that's what a sports car has always been.

Most of the time you're driving, you're not counting laps when you're on Little Tujunga. You're not looking for lap times. You're looking for pure enjoyment. And if you're shifting the gears, you're going to get more enjoyment because you're going to be more connected to the experience totally but and more than that too like drove a 97 993 twin turbo to a friend's house to drive his new 50th anniversary 911 sexy car bitch and colors beautiful tactile surfaces cool tweet you drive it it doesn't feel like a porsche to me there's so many distractions and knobs and widgets and gizmos and switches and alarms and babysitters and lawyers on board versus that 993 yeah it's rattly yeah it can shake your

teeth yes it can blow your eardrums out when you drunk indian nail, whatever. It is what it is. It had purity of purpose. And I think many brands, but most notably automotive brands have fallen prey to focus groups where they try and create a product that appeals to this mythical large demographic of everyone's going to love it, which in turn, I think they step on their wee wee because it doesn't speak to anyone it doesn't have clarity purpose in its engineering and design it doesn't have the balls to say i'm not for everyone this is what i do and i do it damn well not only that it doesn't appeal to automotive enthusiasts it appeals to people that might not be the You could say the same thing about sitcoms. You could say the same thing about movies.

When someone creates something odd and unique, it's very difficult for other people to agree to it if they give it to a focus group. Right. Or hard for the poor bastard producer or writer to actually sell it because everyone wants to dumb it down to the largest common denominator, the formula they were able to sell to the ads you know the advertisers last season or what that company's doing uh whatever catwalk show well let's do a dog walk yeah you know whatever it is and yeah well isn't that the case what or one of the best examples for why a business like yours works is it's you and your wife. I mean, it's you. Yeah. It's you. And I think that's singular vision. Those consumers are ganging up to demand that.

Thank goodness. But, I mean, you take, I've always said, you take, like, every modern four-door sedan car, paint all of them black, take all the fucking emblems off, put them on a big empty airplane hanger, bring in a thousand of the general public car geeks and not ask them to name all these cars well who makes them which brand they are bet you no one would get better than a d plus because they're all copying each other

and all trying to not be too outlandish or too unique or too different all they're doing is making their bling bigger the gr grills bigger, the emblem larger. And it's like there's a loss of individualism. Well, there's only a few that you could recognize based on sort of the iconic grills like BMWs. They have those two like Jeeps. You can kind of recognize those. But, boy, there's a Hyundai that looks just like a fucking Mercedes now. I mean, I've seen it many times.

I thought it was a Mercedes and it's a Hyundai. And Fords that look like Aston Martins and on and on and on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of that going on right now. There's a lot of like, boy, if this was the music business, you might get fucking sued. You're stealing notes, right? Totally. Is there anything that excites you about modern automobiles that they're creating now?

Is there anything that you find that is a positive? Yeah, a lot of the mechanical engineering is mind-blowing. Electromagnetic suspension system I'm finding quite interesting and hoping to start dabbling in. Yeah, constantly. What about? I just think a lot of it's superfluous and promoting self-obsolescence, so I'm always cautious. But, I mean, I'm not immune to it. So I'll lease a crazy new car once in a while, but I'll do a one-year, two-year leash, and I'll put it in its place.

It's so complex, it's asinine, it's going to fall apart. But right now, it's really fun. But usually, within six months, I'm bored because it has no soul. And then I lose my ass and move on. Hop back in my DeSoto. fun you know but usually like within six months i'm bored because it has no soul right and then i lose my ass and move on well hot back in my desoto what i yeah well there's a total difference in the what that you're aware you're doing it whereas like uh the lexus i love my the big lexus truck because it's quiet oh yeah it floats over everything and it's just bone quiet. It's just, ooh, smooth. But you're not experiencing it the way you experience, say, like one of your FJs or something like that.

And they both have their place, though. So, I mean, I've got a lot of clients who maybe daily they're going to hop in that LX for the boring commute. But then when they really want to engage with themselves, the vehicle, the family, the hobby, the locale, then they're going to hop in the Icon and they're going to be, it's more of an experience. One of the things that I like about you and what you're doing with your company is you as a person, you have this broad variety of interests and respects for cultures and various things. And I noticed from following your Instagram that you do a lot of trips and you take a lot of trips to these different cultures you are you doing this because this is something you personally enjoy are you like consciously trying to enrich yourself like yeah it's always been priority number one I think as as Americans we have a bad habit of having blinders on and not understanding there's the shit that we get all our panties in and nod about mean absolutely nothing.

On the opposite side of the coin, I think progress is a misrepresented benefit to mankind. I've been to some remote cultures where I think those people are a hell of a lot more balanced and centered and family-focused and healthy than we are in our progress. So I like to I love traveling, it's super important to me. And as a designer, understanding different cultures approaches to solutions complex or simple, or use of color and texture and materials, it just enriches what I do to no end. But I think it's really a much bigger picture life thing. Like it's gotten more expensive now. I have two teenage sons, but like we'll travel less, but we'll still make sure to do those trips

and bring the kids at least half the time. So, you know, they have that perspective. Yeah, the enrichment is sort of, it's not like calculable. You can't like put it on a scale. Like, Hey, we should go to Africa cause it's worth this.

Right. No, it just changes the way you see the world and how you, when you make eye contact with someone, what you're expecting out of that person or what you're open to experiencing from that person. I think travelers open themselves up to such a crazy greater level to be able to embrace and experience and you just never know

what's going to happen and what one trip or handshake or eye contact will turn into. I'm on the board of this kick-ass charity called Go Campaign. You should come one year. We do a really fun cars and casino night at the shop. When do you do it? Joel McHale is our host this year. We do it the first week in May. He's a sweet, love him too.

One of my favorite humans. So, you know, we were in Africa a couple weeks ago. And yeah, we were doing the safari camping glamping thing, but we were in Tanzania because we're starting a big fundraise this year with GO to create a new center, a children's center, because if you have physical or mental disabilities in many African cultures, it's frightening what happens. So there's ways to impact the world outside of building silly cars

for rich guys, but both experiences, you know, doing something for a children's center in Tanzania, those relationships, those experiences all help me gain a different and better, hopefully more valuable perspective on everything down to how I'm going to build a car or what material we're going to use. I think what we were talking about earlier about teaching inspiration in school and teaching people how to think and how to follow passion, that it's a lacking component. I think you could also say sort of the same thing about traveling and experiencing different cultures.

Exchange programs. Yeah. It's a as appreciated or as, what's the word? It's not as encouraged. You know, it's what it is. Well, and sadly enough, too, unfortunately, nowadays, a lot of your global travels, you might as well be at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica or Paris or Barcelona or wherever. street promenade in Santa Monica or Paris or Barcelona or wherever because this big box commoditized tourist experience has become this kind of homologated experience that's one size fit all and it's the gap or whatever it's the same box stores and I think more and more it's like

Disneyland travel unless you really work hard at it to find the culture and the people. So that's kind of scary. Yeah, you got to really go looking for it. I found Olive Garden, the Sao Paulo airport. So there you go. Sao Paulo, Brazil, Olive Garden. But do you see like what Detroit's doing in the airport? No, what are they doing?

It's a great example of this hopeful, this renaissance i speak of and hope of they kicked out all the generic typical airport concessionaire food chilis brands all that crap right then they invited in local restaurateurs local chefs local craft beer makers gave them all killer deals. Said, come enrich our airport. Communicate Detroit. Why people should be in Detroit. The passion, the craft of Detroit. Be a part of that. Which is just killer. So my friend's restaurant just got put in there.

And he's super stoked. It's a win-win. Detroit was depressing when I was there. But one of the things that was kind of cool was that I was seeing like a resurgence of all these very small sort of craft businesses And that'll be the only thing that'll ever save Detroit in my humble opinion and he is you get past the topical depression It's a very inspiring place. Yeah, there's there's there's opportunity because the real estate is Insanely cheap and there's you know, there's young people and young people are young people everywhere They they have hopes and passions and they they have the internet and they look around you know, there's young people. And young people are young people everywhere.

They have hopes and passions and they have the internet and they look around. They go, what's a fucking building right here, man? Let's just do this. And boom. Yeah. Look what Shinola has done. I don't know. What's Shinola done?

Shinola is this cool brand that does watches and bags and bicycles. I thought it was like shit or Shinola. Well, that's the term. That's where they got the name from. I thought it was shoe polish. It was back pre-World War II. and that's where they got the name from. You don't know shit from Shinola. Yeah. Their parallel being more product with purpose and story.

So like, oh, you bought that? You don't know shit from Shinola. This is Shinola. Oh. So it's a watch. What started as a watch, then they own Filson. Then they've got a bicycle brand, wonderful American Northwest cultural icon, leather goods, outdoors company. So, yeah, they do bags and watches and bicycles and leather goods.

And they're getting into notebooks and all sorts of stuff but their whole thing is the cultural renaissance of detroit supporting detroit they're opening up facilities in old worn out industrial buildings repurposing them training local kids to build it like their watches they're assembling their own movements in detroit and training people because there was no skill set for it so it's those efforts times a billion at companies large and small that are the future of our country and i think most poignantly with detroit near term well it's one of those things i think that when you you see like a lack of opportunity,

you see people sort of try to create their own opportunity. You see ingenuity come into play. By either stealing the copper out of your building. Sao Paulo style, steal your car, redistribute wealth, problem solved. Or, yeah, like stopping and thinking and engaging. Can't find a job, make a job. Yeah. Well, Detroit has a real problem with them stealing pipes and stuff. They're doing that from a job. Yeah. Well, Detroit has a real problem with them stealing pipes and stuff. Yeah.

They're doing that from a lot of buildings. Train wreck. But I just do love the fact that when you find a dip, like we were talking about with Cuba, where they don't have any cars. So let's just figure out a way to make these fucking cars work forever. Yeah, make them work. And what you're seeing in a lot of these other places where there's not a lot of great jobs. So they're creating their own possibilities and creating their own opportunities. And now it's happened for so long that it's become a source of pride for their culture,

which then makes it that much more important. Exactly, exactly, exactly. Listen, man, you've got a busy company to run, and I really, really appreciate your time, and I'm sure you have a lot of stuff you have to get done. No, this is important to do, and I really appreciate you taking the time to really come to the shop and kind of really understand our lunacy.

It's awesomely impressive. Awesomely impressive and inspirational. Anybody who's interested, Icon4x4.com, Icon4x4 on Twitter, right? And then TLC, which is your Toyota Land Cruiser Restoration Company. What is that, TLC? Yeah, just TLC4x4.com.

Okay. And then the inside scoop on our Facebook is just my name because it's totally not corporate and unprofessional, but a hell of a lot more fun. All right. And Icon Customs is your Twitter handle. I'm sorry. It's not Icon4x All right. And Icon Customs is your Twitter handle. I'm sorry. It's not Icon4x4. It's Icon Customs. Icon4x4.com

is the website. Thank you, man. Really appreciate it. It was a lot of fun. Cheers. Jonathan Ward, ladies and gentlemen.