In this episode of the WDFA podcast, I sit down with TLC owner and CEO of TLC Automotive, John Rocha. We talk about how he got started in the automotive industry, how he started his company, and what it's like to work with Jay Leno's Garage. We also talk about some of the crazy things he's done with his company over the years, and how he's found a niche in the market with his unique approach to re-engineering cars and trucks. If you don't know who he is, you're not going to want to miss this episode! Thanks for listening and share this episode with a friend or family member who needs a good night's rest and relaxation. I hope you enjoy this episode, and if you do, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your content. I'll be looking over the best ones in the next few weeks. Thanks again for listening, and Happy New Year! -Jon Sorrentino Jon Intro Music: Outtro Music: "Goodbye Outer Space" by Zapsplat Outro: "Space Junk" by Fountains of Caliber outtro: "Sonic the Rapper" by Dervish "Outro Music: Bad Boyz (feat. Jeff Perla) by Suneaters is outtro and "Solo" is out on the road (ft. , & podcast we'll be out on Tuesday, July 15th, 2019 , 2019, 2019, 8/19th, 2020, . We'll be back in Los Angeles, 2019. Jon talks about his plans for a new car podcast, 2020 , 2020, and 2020, 2020? I'm going to be in LA, 2020 (and 2020 2019, & 2020, 2019? , and 2019, 2020 , 2020, & 2020 & 2019, and 2020 and 2020 ? What's coming in 2020, 2018, 2019 , 2018 And 2019, we'll have a new year, 2020 2020, 2021, and so much more? & so on what s coming in the coming out in the future? - 2019 - 2020, I'm looking forward to 2020,2020, 2020! - 2020 2020
00:00:01.000I 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.
00:00:19.000I 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...
00:00:54.000And so then I start going into your...
00:00:56.000Your website and the two different companies, TLC, where you take old Land Cruisers and re-engineer those and put modern engines and suspensions.
00:02:02.000Because 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.
00:02:18.000Well, that's what really impressed me about what you're doing.
00:02:21.000What 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.
00:02:30.000There's this passion in what you're doing where it might not necessarily make sense.
00:02:36.000Oh, everything we do, if you want to bring up that term practicality, makes absolutely no sense.
00:02:44.000But 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 stock restorations are great, and they fit a niche,
00:03:01.000Personally, I have no patience for archaic mechanical interface, but I love vintage aesthetic.
00:03:07.000And then resto shops, hot rod shops traditionally, they buy this piece, that piece, and kind of cobble it together, and that's cool.
00:03:13.000But I always thought, well, you've got this convergence of CAD design, computer-aided design resources, and a convergence of reverse engineering and low-volume manufacturing, and 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.
00:03:38.000So 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.
00:03:53.000Well, 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, he's featured a few of your cars, right?
00:04:02.000Yeah, we've been on Jay's show, I think, four times now.
00:04:05.000What a fucking trip that place is, huh?
00:04:34.000Tons of dudes with these ridiculous man caves full of wild mechanical beasts and it is so cool.
00:04:41.000And that's another thing I never had the intelligence to anticipate.
00:04:45.000When 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.
00:04:58.000He kind of sort of off the record bowed and said, go for it, fool, but we won't get in your way.
00:05:02.000So I built it to realize that sort of model I had in my head.
00:05:07.000Then I went back and added up how much it cost.
00:05:09.000And I thought, shit, no one's going to go for this.
00:05:25.000And 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.
00:05:37.000And one of the things that I was really impressed with was just the FJ62 Land Cruiser conversions that you've done.
00:05:44.000Because 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.
00:05:57.000Most people would look at that, and they would go, there it is on the big screen.
00:06:01.000They would look at that and go, oh, that's one of those cars.
00:06:29.000I go to the dealer, I look at everything, I can buy whatever I want, and it sucks.
00:06:33.000Everything's plastic, has no soul, doesn't have that utilitarian root to it, so there's kind of a subculture that'll gravitate to wanting to go back to that.
00:06:42.000And 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?
00:08:13.000Yeah, and that's a big part of the appeal, I find.
00:08:16.000Like, guys will take these on surf trips down through Central America and not have to stress out or freak out or worry about...
00:08:23.000You 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.
00:09:09.000Yeah, 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 were from 81 to 87. What gave you the motivation to take this particular type of car and engineer it to such an incredible degree?
00:09:57.000So 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?
00:10:11.000We're even doing the FCJ 80s, 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...
00:10:46.000Formula to let me revision them and create something like a new option for people that appreciate it.
00:10:51.000Well, I wasn't even a fan of these, but I became a fan from just going over your website and then watching the vehicles.
00:10:58.000I watched a couple of the videos and Jonathan has these videos that he puts on YouTube where he puts sticks a couple of GoPros in the cars and you personally take them out, which is very appealing too.
00:11:23.000Like, when you're taking these cars out, 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.
00:11:41.000Yeah, and that's been A, because 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 not worth doing.
00:11:55.000So I wanted to keep that relationship and personal relationship.
00:12:02.000Although 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...
00:12:10.000Well, you even leave in when you dropped your GoPro in one of them.
00:12:19.000And I'm a big fan of contagious passion.
00:12:23.000And, I mean, there's things that I was never interested in before.
00:12:26.000Like, I never gave a fuck about cooking.
00:12:28.000I loved good food, but I never gave a fuck about cooking.
00:12:31.000Until I watched Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations.
00:12:34.000And I'd see the passion that this guy has about chefs and about preparation and the, you know, just the amount of skill that is involved in creating a perfect meal.
00:12:51.000That's the history of the world in a nutshell.
00:12:54.000Anyone 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.
00:13:06.000It was that inner passion that drove it and made it distinct and really matter.
00:13:13.000So, fortunately, I'm feeling like I'm not the only idiot in the last three or four years.
00:13:23.000I think consumers are tired of the big box luxury branded kind of bullshit marketing facade and want...
00:13:30.000Like we all already have enough crap in the first world, right?
00:13:33.000So if you're going to buy another something, like you with your pool cues.
00:13:37.000If you're going to buy another pool cue, there's going to be a story to that fucker.
00:13:41.000It's going to mean something and someone's going to put their heart and soul in that.
00:13:45.000So I'm starting to see this sort of...
00:13:50.000Craftsman, 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.
00:14:03.000Because I think we forgot about that as a country.
00:14:24.000I never give a shit about a guy making knives, and I'm watching this guy make these handmade butcher knives and kitchen knives, and I was like, 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 when you see people that are passionate about things No matter what it is like you said like you to make making furniture or anything There's something about it
00:14:54.000that gets you excited like almost 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,
00:15:15.000you've been staying in your cubicle and earning your good salary, but your soul is dead.
00:15:34.000Which I think is just asinine because it was the country was built on...
00:15:38.000People trying new ideas and taking risk 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?
00:15:51.000There'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 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 are business A lot of people always think it's like some sort of a conspiracy theory,
00:16:28.000Explain to me what you explained to me today.
00:16:30.000Basically, I think in the old days you were dealing with...
00:16:33.000Um, products were designed and manufactured for the sake of the product.
00:16:38.000You know, pretty, duh, simple, linear, pure concept.
00:16:42.000Um, 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.
00:16:53.000The priority was the margin, the scalability, the numbers for the shareholders.
00:16:57.000So 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.
00:17:05.000So 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.
00:17:48.000It's global, and America's as guilty as anyone else.
00:17:50.000America's been, that's been the one that people point to, because American cars, especially like in the 80s, were such shit.
00:17:56.000They would just fall apart on a regular basis.
00:17:59.000So, 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.
00:18:08.000But I think on the product level, suddenly automotive brands were looking at creating a 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.
00:18:28.000So 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.
00:18:40.000And then it's off to the landfill, and then what happens?
00:18:44.000You come back and you buy another one.
00:18:46.000Japan'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.
00:20:57.000What people really appreciate is stuff that's durable.
00:21:00.000But your mass consumer is to blame also, because, like, I don't know, I get in a modern car, like a nice fancy car, and people go, God, it's $140,000, this new Porsche, blah, blah, blah.
00:21:14.000But I drive in and go, man, how on earth do they get it to do all this neat shit for only $140,000?
00:21:21.000All 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.
00:21:29.000Now, granted, they'll replace it four or five times because it's a heartless pile of poo that no one cared about.
00:21:35.000Versus 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 for 20 years.
00:21:47.000So 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 re-prioritize what drives design.
00:22:00.000Are 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's slipping and they counter and all this traction control and stability management and all this jazz?
00:22:18.000Yeah, I mean, the traditional answer they'd give you if you asked a, you know, top AG engineer, he'd say, ah, but it's all computer-based, so there's no varying parts.
00:22:27.000Yeah, but there's circuit boards that take a shit and solders that split and code that becomes corrupted and on and on and on.
00:22:34.000That's not a tire that you can change on the side of the road either.
00:22:48.000You know, 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.
00:22:56.000So it gets to that point where, like, there's cars that are classic that you're always going to get parts for.
00:23:01.000Like, you're always going to be able to get parts for, like, a 70 Chevy Nova.
00:23:05.000You know, because people love them, and there's a big market for it.
00:23:45.000I'm surprised I didn't get arrested, though, because we went there officially as, like, a guest of...
00:23:51.000The governing family on an arts mission.
00:23:54.000And because we had sort of anticipated less scrutiny at customs, my backpack had literally about 95 pounds worth of vintage car parts.
00:24:06.000I 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 finds of really wild early cars because of that.
00:24:19.000But yeah, I brought soldering guns, soldering wire, bulbs, relays, all sorts of stuff because the ingenuity, the resourcefulness of that country and the spirit of the people is just phenomenal.
00:24:34.000We've talked about it a dozen times on this podcast because I love the fact that they didn't have access to new cars.
00:24:40.000So 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 cars.
00:24:51.000They're just driving them around all over the place.
00:24:53.000The 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.
00:25:07.000I'm the automotive editor for Penthouse in the article that comes out in the next issue, which I don't think anyone fucking reads, but I enjoy writing them.
00:25:23.000They've actually recently passed a federal law there that makes it illegal to export any of these vehicles.
00:25:28.000Because as they loosen the restrictions on inbound vehicles, they anticipated potentially there'd be a reduction in the demand.
00:25:37.000But I don't think it's going to happen from all the people that I talk to from all walks of life there.
00:25:41.000It's become like a cultural icon to them.
00:25:45.000And I think it expresses a lot of the human spirit in Cuba and how they've persevered and managed to make things work with what they have.
00:25:55.000But, 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.
00:26:13.000We rented three of his limos in the fleet.
00:26:16.000We didn't really rent, but it was a friendly arrangement.
00:26:20.000To 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.
00:29:12.000But 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.
00:29:20.000And they're like, mm-mm, he can't win.
00:29:22.000So they held him captive and apparently treated him quite well and didn't release him until after the race.
00:29:27.000But this Friends of Fangio Car Club is founded by one of the local guys who was on his mechanic team that first year.
00:31:01.000I got into it loving it and over the years 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.
00:31:14.000When 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.
00:31:28.000I'm lucky that it did, but I think most epically important, it reinvigorated me as an individual.
00:31:37.000So 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.
00:31:55.000I think around the world people are wanting to return to those values.
00:32:01.000Well, and it's also, there's something about, like, if someone drives, like, say, one of your FJ40s that you re-engineered, they're driving around in a piece of art.
00:33:22.000And it's cool that that can be done too, but there's another level of stuff, there's another level of feeling that you get from functional art.
00:34:05.000We'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.
00:34:17.000But the art is trying to make it look like we did nothing.
00:34:20.000So this guy at Alight, he's like, you think you're going to make it?
00:36:13.000What you're doing is so cool because, like, someone, if they didn't know and they looked at it on the outside, they literally have no idea.
00:36:20.000But then you would look inside and go, wow, that is a really well-preserved interior.
00:37:36.000So that's a 50 Buick Roadmaster convertible.
00:37:41.000Last on the road in 1958, 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.
00:38:31.000Which 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.
00:39:18.000Really engineer those right in a non-native platform.
00:39:21.000So 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.
00:39:31.000So 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.
00:39:52.000It's like, do you know how fucking fast that is?
00:39:54.000It's like, here, take this toned-down version, and then the other one, the red key, gives you 707 horsepower, which is incredibly manageable.
00:41:10.000So you got your low output at a thousand horse, and then a flick of a switch, it goes to the jet fuel tank and to the other computer network, and now it's like 2,000 horsepower.
00:41:22.000Yeah, that guy built an 1,800 horsepower 69 Chevelle.
00:41:48.000So, 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.
00:41:55.000We try and never build what we call cul-de-sac rides, where it's so into a corner of, yeah, well, it's 2,000 horsepower, but it overheats if you stand still.
00:42:08.000Or it's so much power, it's not trackable.
00:42:10.000I'm trying to keep everything we do...
00:42:13.000It's relatively practical, so whatever performance we have, it's in measure with the refinement, the trackability.
00:42:20.000Like the Thriftmaster pickups we're building, people keep asking for more power.
00:42:24.000Well, 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.
00:42:35.000Yeah, it seems like they might have painted themselves into a corner with this American horsepower war.
00:42:40.000Because 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?
00:42:52.000Are you going to have a million horsepower?
00:42:56.000Well, 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.
00:43:06.000So I think, you know, just as emissions laws came in and impacted the first era of the muscle cars, 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.
00:43:23.000So 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 The 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.
00:43:48.000So I think that should be a great opportunity.
00:43:51.000I think Cadillac is showing early signs of embracing it correctly, which is, okay, well, let's get back to craftsmanship.
00:43:58.000So, 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?
00:44:05.000What about all this faux wood and, like, whoa, whoa.
00:44:08.000Gee, why don't we start making more quality materials?
00:44:11.000Which 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.
00:44:20.000You hop in a new Ferrari, the nav system's the same thing that's in your kid's Jeep Rubicon.
00:45:55.000I 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.
00:46:08.000So the engineering arm is still alive and somewhat well.
00:46:12.000But the cars, I mean, they had, what, seven concepts in the last two years?
00:46:17.000And then production viability of any and all of them is all but gone.
00:46:22.000It just takes such deep pockets to get one of those coach-built versions of those cars, like what Singer's doing.
00:46:30.000But see, guys like Rob and I, I think it's viable that if we...
00:46:35.000Are 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?
00:46:46.000I think we can make viable businesses out of it.
00:46:49.000Now, the second you want to make 50,000, 100,000, 300, half 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,
00:47:09.000It's like, you know, with Ferrari talking about coming out with an SUV because, you know, some pencil pusher, stockholder of power somewhere is like, we need more market share.
00:47:20.000You need to come up with something else.
00:47:23.000Even with Porsche, with the Cayenne and stuff, like, yeah, it's off-core, but I can understand the business numbers.
00:47:28.000It made perfect sense to grab a Touregg and package it up and party on.
00:47:32.000Have you driven one of those Cayenne turbos?
00:47:52.000I 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, 660 horse, PDK, paddle shift.
00:48:56.000So he's got a 400-plus horsepower air-cooled...
00:49:01.000I mean, air-cooled is kind of a stupid way to do it, but...
00:49:04.000The people love that sound that the air-cooled produces, and it has such a mechanical, sort of an engaging feel to it.
00:49:14.000You 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 butchering 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,
00:49:42.000you 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-digit super freak, super trick for that dude, one car.
00:50:45.000They go and they try and make a feasible business model of delivering whatever the hell they can at that perceived market tolerance.
00:50:54.000So 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...
00:51:05.000Cut corners or make sacrifices to meet a perceived market.
00:51:09.000Three, 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.
00:51:23.000In 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.
00:51:39.000We'll take responsibility for tailpipe submissions, but get exemptions from larger impact mass-market vehicle crash test certification, which makes it impossible.
00:51:49.000But, you know, we can only bill 200 a year, 300 a year.
00:51:53.000If 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.
00:52:07.000Like that body for a 69 Camaro, you can buy that entire body brand new.
00:52:11.000You can almost buy that whole car via mail order in Lego together in Boston over the winter.
00:52:19.000And I 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.
00:52:34.000But 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.
00:52:51.000At a more and more feasible price point because we'll all get that scale.
00:52:56.000And like as of today for me when I'm these Broncos, I'm paying triple a day for the old Bronco I need to restore and modify into my final equation.
00:53:07.000I'm paying triple what I paid before I opened my mouth and we came out with them.
00:53:36.000Okay, 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.
00:54:28.000So I was at a business class, extension class.
00:54:31.000I didn't go to college at USC. And we got into a debate over supply and demand.
00:54:35.000Me, another student, and the professor.
00:54:39.000My theory was supply and demand's bullshit, because nowadays, if you control the supply, you can create the demand.
00:54:46.000They 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, so...
00:55:00.000Although 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 shop,
00:55:40.000I'd buy a 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, call the other transporter, pick up the next 12. And then chipmunk them away.
00:56:55.000In 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.
00:57:04.000And that's the vacation where we're lamenting these dudes never paid up.
00:57:08.000But I'm like, but I think there's something there.
00:57:40.000I put like, I don't know, five or six trucks, glass, window, and van.
00:57:44.000I 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.
00:59:00.000But 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.
00:59:06.000And we got a notice that, like, yeah, well, you know, browsers could be tomorrow, could be in a year.
00:59:11.000But literally, like a light switch, my site won't be decipherable.
00:59:17.000So if I'm going to do it, I want to do it right.
00:59:19.000So 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.
00:59:31.000And my programmer, I'm like Mr. America for manufacturing, but my programmer is in Afghanistan.
00:59:37.000So other than my server freaking out and then wanting to block, you're getting hacked from Afghanistan.
00:59:43.000Once we got that cleared up, this dude is a rock star.
01:00:45.000Yeah, there's anywhere it's it's possible and I love I 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 go and listen to people like you talk and Spread their passion go fuck it.
01:01:02.000I'm doing it and then just figured out a way to do it on the weekends and That's nights after work and then put it together and then get a viable business model and I'll tell you what when you and I are We're 80. And we're not producing.
01:01:39.000Like, the fact that this podcast, you probably, when you started, you're like, yeah, whatever, okay, it'll be a side thing and get rolling with it.
01:01:45.000But it's turned in, it's created an entire community.
01:01:52.000So 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.
01:01:59.000Like the dude with the petrified wood I was telling you about earlier.
01:02:01.000If I find there's somebody out there following their dream and 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.
01:02:10.000And I always send out an email and my subject line's always kudos.
01:02:17.000Well done, bitchin', go for it, proud of you, that's great.
01:02:20.000And 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.
01:02:34.000And for both of you, when the guy receives that email, that is fuel.
01:02:38.000Yeah, 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.
01:02:47.000That thing you were telling me about, does that guy have a website, the stools that he makes and the tables that he makes?
01:02:54.000You know, I've only seen him on Instagram, and there's another one I'll send you.
01:03:03.000This 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.
01:03:49.000These Mexican dudes in New Mexico or Arizona, and I think New Mexico.
01:03:53.000Now, they have state Licenses to pick up firewood.
01:04:00.000So 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.
01:04:11.000These guys take these pieces of wood and they'll pick up turquoise and metals in that same area.
01:04:19.000They literally take him back to their studio.
01:04:22.000And I don't know about the older generation, but I've met the youngest.
01:04:25.000He'll sit back and stare at that wood and roll a fatty and burn it.
01:04:29.000And get intimate with the shape of the wood.
01:04:32.000And it can sit there for an hour or five years.
01:05:18.000And another guy like that, there's a guy on disability in Detroit who is the most gifted welder.
01:05:25.000I'm a damn good welder and this guy's a rock star.
01:05:28.000So his name's Josh Welton, Brown Dog Welding.
01:05:31.000He no longer can work because he has massive surgeries in both arms.
01:05:36.000But just to keep himself alive, like his spirit alive, He started doing artistic efforts with his welds.
01:05:44.000So 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.
01:06:22.000It looks like he took end cuts of post beams, like four-by's, And section them in to like a butcher block pattern.
01:06:30.000Guys are doing that with walls too, where from like paper makers, 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,
01:06:46.000and you do a whole wall of in-cut tree limbs.
01:07:13.000See if you go to the gallery, if they have...
01:07:16.000You can see some of the stuff that they do.
01:07:19.000But they kind of do this on a fairly large scale, and they go all over the world or all over the country, rather, to find cool chunks of wood.
01:07:28.000There's also, like, auto aero art, I think it's called, or aero art.
01:07:33.000The dudes that take airplane scrap and repurpose it into...
01:07:58.000All 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,
01:09:30.000Fume means 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.
01:09:37.000So 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.
01:09:46.000So like early Stickley, Gustav Stickley 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.
01:10:24.000Literally, 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.
01:10:32.000Then you just take it out and surface wax it or oil it and you're done.
01:11:21.000Does that make, no, it doesn't even make sense.
01:11:23.000People buy tables, chairs, couches and shit.
01:11:26.000It's just hard finding something cool.
01:11:28.000If you want to put like a cool piece of furniture in your house, Good luck.
01:11:32.000You 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.
01:11:41.000Well, that guy has screwed more heritage brands and designers.
01:11:46.000He'll steal your design lock, stock, and barrel and take it to market.
01:11:50.000Wait till you come after him and go, yeah, sue me.
01:12:35.000Courts upheld his complaint, shut down Restoration Hardware's effort, made them pay damages, and they protected this guy's design and trademark and brand.
01:13:43.000We'd had a conversation early in the trip, and 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,
01:14:02.000So I'm like, oh, this kid will appreciate my kit.
01:14:04.000So late at night, I find him, I give him the kit, he's stoked, takes me out, we just go for a drive and a talk, and he nailed it.
01:14:11.000In broken English, she was saying the difference between communism, socialism, and Western, capitalistic-driven things, it's like, you know, there's values in them all, and none of them work independent, and perhaps the perfect cultures of the future would be a fusion of socialism in certain respects,
01:14:28.000such as, you know, education and medicine, what have you, but also the free market capitalism.
01:14:33.000He goes, but the—and he was explaining the failures of each, and he nailed it.
01:14:44.000If 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 a wake-up awareness, not this me, me, mine, mine,
01:15:25.000Like, a corporation I can understand having no conscience, and then it's up to the individuals to hold them to some level of accountability.
01:15:33.000But 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.
01:15:51.000And 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.
01:16:03.000You're going to know that what you did is illegitimate.
01:16:23.000When you hear about an author or writer plagiarizing, and they get caught, and then someone takes their work and shows the original, and like, look, there's 50 different examples of this guy taking full passages from these books and repackaging it as his own.
01:17:56.000Our 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,
01:18:12.000worse 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.
01:18:25.000We'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.
01:18:38.000We 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.
01:18:53.000And 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.
01:19:00.000It's not like a constant aspect of their education.
01:19:03.000I think it's Norway does a kick-ass thing, where I think it's 10th grade, you do an internship.
01:19:10.000Well, 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.
01:19:19.000High school is preparing you for the career future that speaks to you that you've already identified.
01:19:26.000So when kids go into business right away or off for further continuing education, they care about it and they're already engaged.
01:19:35.000They're not just getting kind of churned through this system where they don't even know what the hell they want to do.
01:19:42.000So someone's just making money charging them for a debt they'll carry through their professional career.
01:19:47.000Well, it's also hard because the teachers are so unmotivated here.
01:19:51.000It'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.
01:20:01.000Well, they don't even have limitless possibilities in their own life.
01:20:03.000They're fucked in some shitbag $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.
01:20:15.000I mean, I pay over market in my world and none of my people make what I honestly think they should.
01:20:21.000But 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 I see guys go to China or wherever they go to make something feasible.
01:20:38.000We 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 think these guys should make double what they're making.
01:20:51.000Like, literally, I've been searching for it.
01:20:53.000I just finished reading a great book called Spark, which is about Lincoln, which is one of the early, still one of the predominant welding manufacturers in America.
01:21:02.000This guy was doing revolutionary stuff with employee retentions.
01:21:08.000He was paying out such big bonuses that the bonuses generally were 110% of the salary to all employees at all level.
01:21:17.000He would basically, at the end of the year, look at whatever the taxable profit of the company was.
01:21:23.000And disperse it as bonuses, so you have to pay the tax.
01:21:26.000And the IRS got pissed and investigated them several times, but it held up.
01:21:30.000But now they have a proud, educated, healthy workforce, some of which had been there for three generations.
01:21:41.000They've managed to stay progressive, competitive, and dominant.
01:21:46.000Having this model of this pay structure and this community that goes against what every economist...
01:21:53.000I mean, this book is still one of the...
01:21:56.000It started as a Harvard case study and has become the most common business case study ever in North American universities, from what I understand.
01:22:43.000Okay, overtime is one thing and that's fair and reasonable.
01:22:47.000But all your workman's comp and all your insurances and everything rise exponentially based on You're doing that.
01:22:54.000So 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.
01:23:05.000Not my little stuff, but it disincentivizes you to create more.
01:25:57.000Knowing Steve, those are hardly stock anymore either.
01:25:59.000No, 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.
01:27:00.000He has a Testarossa, and he always wanted a Testarossa when he was a kid, so he got some money, got a Testarossa, but he had the interior completely stripped out, and he had everything completely redone, like modern stereo system, totally new upholstery,
01:27:15.000and people who have found out about it were just appalled.
01:29:29.000Well, 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, giving Land Rover the last six digits of the VIN. So Rover's like,
01:29:47.000oh yeah, that's not an AT full, that's a 2002. Well, the last six digits got repeated through the decades.
01:29:57.000So a lot of these cars were seized and in some cases erroneously scrapped when they were legal.
01:30:23.000Well, Simca, I believe, was owned by Ford, and they built all sorts of stuff under license.
01:30:28.000The 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.
01:30:39.000But that thing's so old, it'll be easy to import.
01:30:42.000This video just totally gives me a boner.
01:30:44.000What you've done is create the perfect Defender, but you don't want to do it again.
01:32:24.000That you've made a completely new version of it.
01:32:27.000So 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.
01:33:05.000But the way that the FJs traditionally had rust issues, so we crafted it out of 6061 aluminum.
01:33:14.000But the way that body's shaped, we can get away with pretty crude construction techniques.
01:33:20.000With the rover, there's things about it that you couldn't.
01:33:24.000So you could reinterpret it, and then you're probably up a legal creek with Land Rover that you'd have to negotiate and come to terms with.
01:33:32.000The 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 costs.
01:34:13.000This is also something that you've created.
01:34:15.000Yeah, it just never made sense that it didn't.
01:34:17.000Back 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. Oh, that's a two-door.
01:34:30.000A client on the phone is ready to rock and his wife's over her shoulder saying, you can't have it.
01:34:36.000If you can't take the kids with you on the weekend, you ain't getting it.
01:34:39.000So this is when we were a little bit hungrier earlier on with the brand.
01:34:42.000I did a quick and dirty like South Park quality Photoshop render and turned one into a four door and punted it to him.
01:34:49.000And she's like, you can get one of those.
01:35:04.000If this law passes and you can sort of just build your own vehicles, do you anticipate ever just building something completely from scratch?
01:35:12.000I mean, part of me is challenging myself because, like I mentioned earlier, a big part of...
01:35:20.000Why what I do now is appealing to people is that people already have history and story and emotions tied to these vehicles.
01:35:28.000But I have other stupid ideas that are, like, based on theoreticals of, like, if the Industrial Revolution hadn't happened when it happened and streamlined art modern continued to prosper and develop as a design style...
01:35:42.000What would that final, ultimate vision be?
01:35:44.000I want to build that car, but much harder to market it because no one has an affinity.
01:35:50.000It's called the Helios, based on the Greek god of the wind, and I designed it to fit on the new Tesla platform, and it's like...
01:35:59.000If Howard Hughes drank too many—he didn't drink, apparently—but if he got drunk with Buckminster Fuller and Gordon Burek, who are two great designers, what would that napkin sketch have looked like?
01:36:10.000It's like, what would he have taken Cruella de Vil to the country club in?
01:36:14.000Big, gnarly, aircraft-inspired, burnished aluminum, leather straps, a little bit of steampunk, a little bit of aerospace, hot rod, Tesla, audacious thing.
01:36:33.000These 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 the FJ40, like the Bronco.
01:36:46.000But I think that your company also is developing that on its own.
01:36:50.000You're developing your own sort of following.
01:37:25.000Or you can buy a roller and then you have to hire another dude to put the drivetrain in.
01:37:29.000Or what's crazier still is the way the laws are currently.
01:37:32.000And 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.
01:37:40.000So if some dude in his backyard has some spare 2x4s and some corrugated sheathing and a VA, he can hack together a death trap, take it down.
01:37:50.000If it has turn signals, taillights, and basic stuff, he's good to go.
01:37:54.000If a company were to build that same assemblage, it's not legal.
01:37:59.000So it's just asinine, because the companies are going to have the technical resources, the financial wherewithal, the accountability, etc., to create a safer, better, more conscious product.
01:38:12.000That'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 Well, at least on paper, the companies have enough money to do that.
01:38:22.000There's the leap, right, from the initial investment to putting together an actual car.
01:39:05.000Begging 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.
01:41:13.000I had recently in Encino, I was driving one of our things, and this 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,
01:42:04.000I'd still be doing it, but I'd be doing it in my garage at my house and just kind of One at a time.
01:42:09.000Well, and the fact that you put out, like we said earlier, you put out all these videos, and you put all these images, even if people aren't, they don't have the cash to buy them, people get inspired by what you're doing.
01:44:10.000You know, I've been thinking long and hard about that.
01:44:12.000And it's been something that different people in...
01:44:17.000My subculture have openly been concerned and discussing, and there's many different takes on it.
01:44:23.000But I think I'm pretty centered on it.
01:44:25.000I 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.
01:44:36.000It'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.
01:44:47.000So I think culturally, as autonomous vehicles and all that continue to grow and evolve, you are going to see them eventually become predominant.
01:44:54.000And 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.
01:45:03.000That being said, I think it will further strengthen the demand for the freaks and the geeks, the outliers, such as my brand, because people...
01:45:14.000Are going to yearn for that relationship, that attachment.
01:45:18.000And I think there's always going to be people, even the guy who's got the autonomous Mercedes, that's his commuter, but on the weekends, like, oh, no, I mean, this thing's got a, it's called a manual transmission, and 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,
01:45:34.000you know, I think there's that visceral relationship that is always going to be part of mankind, And I'm not worried about it.
01:45:43.000If I was trying to start a big car company, then I would be worried about it.
01:45:47.000American Muscle Cars are one of the only companies that are sticking to that manual transmission model.
01:45:53.000I mean, some cars like the Z28 and, like, up until this version of the Corvette, you couldn't get the high-end Corvette and anything but a manual, like the ZR1s.
01:46:04.000But emissions laws are screwing that pooch.
01:46:06.000Because 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.
01:46:56.000Yeah, 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.
01:47:04.000But it seemed like a great idea, but at the end of the day, in true world use, they realize, oh...
01:47:37.000It'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, evolve your motor.
01:47:53.000Everyone's so hesitant to do that until it's regulated or competition forces that transition.
01:47:58.000It's just, to me, it's a bummer that a lot of these sports cars, at the very least, are going by Nürburgring times and they want zero to sixty times and not how they make you feel.
01:48:10.000That's what a sports car has always been.
01:48:48.000There's so many distractions and knobs and widgets and gizmos and switches and alarms and babysitters and lawyers on board.
01:48:55.000Versus that 993, yeah, it's rattly, yeah, it can shake your teeth, yes, it can blow your eardrums out when you're drunk Indian, nail it, whatever.
01:49:05.000And 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.
01:49:20.000Which in turn, I think they step on their wee-wee because it doesn't speak to anyone.
01:49:27.000It doesn't have clarity, purpose in its engineering and design.
01:49:31.000It doesn't have the balls to say, I'm not for everyone.
01:49:34.000This is what I do and I do it damn well.
01:49:37.000Not only that, it doesn't appeal to automotive enthusiasts.
01:49:39.000It appeals to people that might not be.
01:49:43.000You could say the same thing about sitcoms.
01:49:46.000You could say the same thing about movies.
01:49:47.000When 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.
01:49:54.000Or 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,
01:50:09.000whatever catwalk show, well, let's do dog walk, you know, whatever it is.
01:50:32.000But 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 hangar.
01:50:44.000Bring in a thousand of the general public, car geeks and not.
01:50:51.000Bet you no one would get better than a D+. Because they're all copying each other and all trying to not be too outlandish or too unique or too different.
01:51:01.000All they're doing is making their bling bigger, the grills bigger, the emblem larger.
01:51:06.000And it's like there's a loss of individualism.
01:51:10.000Well, there's only a few that you could recognize based on sort of the iconic grills, like BMWs.
01:52:53.000I 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,
01:53:11.000One of the things that I like about you and what you're doing with your company is you as a person.
01:53:14.000You have this broad variety of interests and respects for cultures and various things.
01:53:20.000And I noticed from following your Instagram that you do a lot of trips.
01:53:23.000You take a lot of trips to these different cultures.
01:53:26.000Are you doing this because this is something you personally enjoy?
01:53:29.000Are you like consciously trying to enrich yourself?
01:53:32.000Yeah, it's always been priority number one.
01:53:34.000I think as Americans we have a bad habit of having blinders on and not understanding.
01:53:39.000There's The shit that we get all our panties in a knot about mean absolutely nothing.
01:53:47.000On the opposite side of the coin, I think progress is a misrepresented benefit to mankind.
01:53:53.000I'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.
01:54:10.000And as a designer, understanding Different cultures, approaches to solutions, complex or simple, or use of color and texture and materials.
01:54:53.000It just changes the way you see the world and how you...
01:54:56.000When you make eye contact with someone, what you're expecting out of that person or what you're open to experiencing from that person.
01:55:04.000I 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.
01:55:22.000I'm on the board of this kick-ass charity called Go Campaign.
01:55:37.000So, 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,
01:55:53.000a children's center, because if you have physical or mental disabilities in many African cultures, it's frightening what happens.
01:56:03.000There's ways to impact the world outside of building silly cars for rich guys.
01:56:10.000But 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.
01:56:28.000I think what we were talking about earlier about teaching inspiration in school and, you know, teaching people how to think and how to follow passion, that it's a lacking component.
01:56:36.000I think you could also say sort of the same thing about traveling and experiencing different cultures.
01:56:50.000It's not as encouraged, you know, it's what it is.
01:56:53.000Well, 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, because this big box, commoditized tourist experience has become this kind of Homologated experience that's one size fit on you.
01:57:17.000It'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 in the people.
01:58:19.000Detroit was depressing when I was there, but one of the things that was kind of cool was that I was seeing a resurgence of all these very small craft businesses.
01:58:27.000Yes, and that'll be the only thing that'll ever save Detroit, in my humble opinion.
01:58:31.000And you get past the topical depression, it's a very inspiring place.
01:58:36.000Yeah, there's opportunity, because the real estate is insanely cheap, and there's young people.
01:58:43.000And young people are young people everywhere.
01:58:45.000They have hopes and passions, and they have the internet, and they look around, they go, what's the fucking building right here, man?
01:59:22.000What started is a watch, then they own Filson, then they've got a bicycle brand, wonderful American, Northwest cultural icon, leather goods, outdoors company.
01:59:40.000They're getting bicycles and leather goods, and they're getting into notebooks and all sorts of stuff.
01:59:47.000But their whole thing is the cultural renaissance of Detroit, supporting Detroit.
01:59:53.000They're opening up facilities in old, worn-out industrial buildings, repurposing them, training local kids to build it.
02:00:02.000Like, their watches, they're assembling their own movements in Detroit and training people because there was no skill set for it.
02:00:08.000So 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.
02:00:19.000Well, it's one of those things, I think, that when you see, like, a lack of opportunity, you see people sort of try to create their own opportunity.
02:00:42.000Well, Detroit has a real problem with them stealing pipes and stuff.
02:00:45.000They're doing that from a lot of buildings.
02:00:47.000But 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.
02:00:57.000And what you're seeing in a lot of these other places where there's not a lot of great jobs.
02:01:02.000So they're creating their own possibilities.
02:01:04.000And 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.
02:01:14.000Listen, 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.
02:01:20.000No, this is important to do, and I really appreciate you taking the time to really come to the shop.
02:01:54.000And 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.