Rob Dahm and Scotto Talk Everything from 12 Rotors to Fan Cars to the Hoonicorn. VV009

Welcome back everyone. It is another episode of Very Vehicular, actually the episode to kick off season two. What does that mean? Well for you guys, it just means more episodes. We're going to keep going. Today's guest is none other than Rob Dom. If you don't know Rob Dom, he's probably best known for his four-rotor all-wheel drive RX-7 that stole a little bit of engineering from the Hunicorn. In general, Rob is sort of a mad scientist. He's self-taught, built some crazy cars on YouTube. We talk about those cars. We talk about the future of them. He wants to build a fan car. He bought 20-some odd Cosworth Indie engines. He wants to go set records at Laguna Seca. We really nerd out on a lot of the stuff that he's been doing and this is a record-setting episode. Rob came here with the plan to set the longest episode. We did. It's a really good one. I haven't spoken to Rob in years, at least for any length, so it was really good just to have him come here, catch up, talk about a bunch of stuff, a bunch of things I didn't know about him. So anyway, buckle up because Rob is coming in at 100 miles an hour on this one. He's got a lot to say and for once, I think I did the least amount of talking. Enjoy it. Mr. Rob Dom, it has been a while since you and I have talked, so this might be a long one. Yes, I hope so. Yeah, yeah, no. It's funny because I was thinking, what do we talk about? When we first met you, you were obviously the rotary guy. That was what you were known for. But I think the connection that you had early on to what we were doing at Hoonigan with Ken was that you counted the pixels and built your own Hoonicorn suspension. That was what everybody knew you for, but you've done so much other stuff since then. I know you've got all new projects going on right now. There's so much to talk about. Obviously, we could dig into your... I still always find it funny that you were a contestant on The Bachelorette. You are one of few cars to beat the Hoonicorn and Hoonicorn versus the world. With an asterisk. Well, yeah, you lost your hood and all those things, which was just classic Hoonigan era stuff. But I actually want to start in a completely different space because this has been a little bit of a theme on this pod, which is that YouTube has escalated builds to a place that makes this completely unrealistic dream fantasy world. And we all think you're the fault for that. I think I'm in the epitome of it for sure. One thing I love about the Team at Viper is that they're just like us. They can't leave anything stuck. Otherwise, they'd only make red and black stools. Instead, they are constantly releasing limited edition colorways. Two of my favorites they've done. The ghoul, which is glow in the dark, and the voodoo, which is this really rad deep purple and black. And if you like camo, you can get a Viper stool trimmed in official real trade. They've even done really cool collabs with friends of ours like Roadster Shop and the Drift HQ. Maybe one day they'll do a scato edition. Although they keep telling me no one wants a stool that's missing half of its parts and doesn't ever roll. Anyway, check them out at ViperIndustrial.com. That's Viper with a Y. Being a full size human at six foot eight with a head to match, wearing sunglasses or any glasses for that matter has never been flattering for this melon. That is until Heatwave Visual launched extra large sizes. That's right. See these glasses on my head right now? 152 millimeters wide. That's big enough that it even saves me from looking like Oliver Trey. You too can free that oversized head from those shameful two small glasses. Go check out all the extra large styles at HeatwaveVisual.com. All right, we got a big update to the scato fleet. Ashley did it. She finally sold her F100 to Mike Burrows. Regular listeners know that he has been hounding her for this truck for a long time, but a deal was made and that deal includes him helping us finish her Land Rover Discovery. That means it's going to need new tires. Great timing because Toyo has just released the new Open Country RT Pro. This tire is an aggressive hybrid mud terrain and comes as tall as 42 inches. It has a three ply sidewall. It's got massive lugs and unlike the Land Rover, it's durable and reliable. Check out toyotires.com for which Open Country works best for you. Fantasy world and we all think you're the fault for that. I think I'm in the epitome of it for sure. I'm one of them. Yeah, do you feel that way? 100%. I struggle with that completely. Because for me early on, you were one of the first builders who were like not running a shop and in the world of building cars who was building something that was just way outside of my imagination. We built the Hunicorn with a race shop. Von Gittin's race team built that for us. Guys like Ian, these were guys who were working in NASCAR and oval racing and all this stuff. You instead were like, no, I'm just going to do this on my own and figure it out. Not completely on your own, but you had this... I forget. Do you have engineering background? Computer engineering. Okay, yeah, that's not the same. No. No, I went to school for mechanical engineering and then I transferred to computer engineering before I... Then slash computer science before I just made the leap into communications and journalism, but yeah, it's very different. But my dad is a mechanical engineer. Okay, so you grew up. Honorary. Yeah. Yeah. No, I get it. My father's a scientist, so there's just certain things that just get ingrained in you as a kid. Yeah, I mean early on, I want to go back to that. At what point... Because I'm familiar with your content and what you were doing really when you started the Foreroder project. That's what kind of put you out there. All Wheel Drive, Foreroder, FDRX7, it just seemed like something out of a video game build. Yes. And you were making a come to life in what felt like a very DIY place. And you were taking what I actually think is like peak YouTube type where you could spend an entire episode on just making one component work. It was a different time back then. But what were you doing before that? Was that real? I forget, was that your first project? No. So initially, it was something where I didn't even plan on doing YouTube. Long story short, my YouTube channel was actually my way of showing an idea I had as a computer guy. I built this website around YouTube that if I held up a turbocharger at three minutes in, it would have a link to go buy a turbocharger. So it was a business idea I had. I did not know this. I had no idea. I never released it. Because it was just a proof of concept. And we got it working where you could click a link, it would show up. But of course, YouTube's not going to like you having a thing over YouTube. So I made a couple videos. Which is basically what Meta now has on Instagram. Yeah, exactly. Like I'll post something and be wearing a product that's not mine. And someone's like, do you want to list this for sale? I'm like, absolutely not. So if you scroll all the way to my very first video, it's me trying to show off a Power FC that you could buy. And here's the features of it. And so that was really my proof of concept. And then I let YouTube sit for a year or two. And then realized I actually enjoyed sharing my life. Like it became my journal. Like it was like here, I've proved I've lived an interesting life. And that's really where YouTube, that's why, the why behind my channel. So what was the first project car you did on the channel? Oh, what's really funny is I was one of the first Lambo bros. Right. You know, I bought the Diablo finance the crap out of it. Yeah. And the background for that just, I just want to paraphrase on it short and this is you made money in the medical space, right? With your brother, I think was his right. Medical IT. Yeah. And then from there, you treated yourself with a Diablo and a massive and tried to get married on television. Okay, cool. Yeah. That was the 2011 was a whirlwind of change. And it was the first time out to California as well. Okay. And so yeah, then I made that video thinking, okay, this car is going to go viral. Absolutely bombed. And I also bought the three rotor RX seven from New Jersey at the time. And that went viral. And I was like, this doesn't make any sense. And did you grow up as like a car guy was that or were cars something Detroit? Okay. So OEM car stuff, you know, a lot of my customers aside from medical ones, we're all tier one auto suppliers, we built some systems for tentacle shocks. And so yeah, indirectly, but no, my, you know, my family is not I don't come from racers or builders. So then like, I mean, I imagine you're sitting there being like, I got a Lamborghini Diablo, like this is what people are going to love. And didn't move the needle and not at all. And then you post a three rotor RX seven. Yes. But it was, it was kind of like one of these things, the three rotor RX seven was interesting to people. And I thought it was played out. This is 2011. And I thought, okay, there's three rotor RX sevens on online, you can find it if you look hard enough, they're all out there. So I felt at that point, it was already saturated. So I just, the three rotor was my love though. The Diablo was my childhood love. And so what's really funny to me is the announcing that I got the Lamborghini meant nothing until I made a video telling people how I bought it. And it was the first person to be honest and say, I financed the majority of the car, I put the bare minimum down and here's what it takes the bare minimum to buy your dream car and people resonated with that emotion more than the car. I think that's always been one of your strengths was like, you were always very one honest, but you were really good at explaining things and like how it was done in like a very simple way. Yeah. Right. Like you would take rather complex things and just be like, yeah, this is how I did it. And you also wouldn't, I mean, you still, but like you didn't mind spending a lot of time doing that where I think a lot of other creators are like, I don't know if I want to like spend 10 minutes explaining this one thing to the audience, your audience really bought in on that. I think it's also from a business standpoint, my channel's defensible position is that it's not worth it to do what I'm doing other than one person. It's not worth it for my good friend, it's TJ Hunt. It's not worth for him to buy an Indie car because of how much work it takes to get it running. That's not a low bearing fruit, but for me, because that's what I love, I love the passion of understanding it, all the amount of time spent is the payout. That's like the nut I get to crack. And then by the way, there's also an episode about it. For how long did it take to go from that into the four-rotor project? Jim Conn of Seven couldn't have came in a more perfect time because I had the three-rotor in 2011. My brother bought an R35 and he had 250 horsepower less than me. And we were drag racing streetlight to streetlight, 40 mile an hour street, but just every light. And he would walk me every single time. And it was frustrating because I'm like, I just can't get into power. I can't, tires are blowing off. I had drag radials on everything. And Jim Conn of Seven comes out and literally I saw, it was the LA River type of stuff. And I saw all the different tires grabbing. Those guys figured it out. It sat for a second. I was like, that's a dream. That's like, I'm here. That's way up here. There's no path. And so that sat for a second. And then I was like, but rotaries don't have torque. So I'd have to do a four-rotor. And so then I kind of played with the idea of doing a four-rotor just because it's so extreme. And I think it was my birthday. In 2015, it was my birthday. And I kind of did that like, I wasn't drunk, but like that drunken move where you're like, I'm going to go buy this. I'm just going to do it. I got to live. And so I put the money down for a guy in New Zealand to build the first e-shaft for my four-rotor, which is actually in Hertz hands right now. That I never ended up, that was so cursed in all the weirdest ways that I ended up, it's Hertz curse now. Which by the way, I love because Horton himself and all of his cars are cursed. So this may be a double negative. Like this may cancel his general cursing. I mean, we used to have a joke which was hurt, pre-broke it, because anything hurt would drive the next person who would get into it would break it. And it's like, no, you didn't break it. Hurt, pre-broke it. 100%. You know, what's funny is the questions he's asked me while we were building the engine. I was like, it's not just his driving style that breaks things. It's his approach. And you know, he's a really good friend of mine. So I'll say that. He skipped some steps that keep the entertainment going. Well, I think one of the things that I've learned, I love cars from the artistry of the car to begin with. I love how the noise they make. I love the way they're put together. I love the engineering behind them. I love how they look. That's what makes me like cars first. Then I enjoy driving them. I think you have people like Hertz, like Ken Block, where driving is everything. Right? And they like the style, but they don't really care so much about all the other things. As long as it's fun to drive. And this is like, I've learned this with, there were times with Hertz where I would have a car that he just thought was so not cool, right? Like my Audi Avant. And then he would see a dude donuts and he'd like it. Because to him, it does something cool. And for him, I think it's like a very like video game mentality. Like he just wants to go drive it and have fun and walk away from it. Where I think the place where you and I are different is that we could build a car for 10 years and take enjoyment in the 10 year build. And then driving it is cool, but it's not actually the goal. Like the journey, you know, it's like the whole like the destination versus the journey. Like I enjoy the journey of a long build where for Hertz, it just can't get done fast enough. Like he refers to get a car going to paint as paint jail, because it literally feels like the car is in prison because he just wants it back because he wants to go drive it. It's funny you say that because just like the car I drove here, the FC, people are like, man, none of your cars run. All the cars that run are no longer on the like channel interest because I don't care. It's done. And I want to pause for that. We're going to do a walk around on Patreon because he pulled up in what looks like a rather stock FC. And then he told me it makes 700 horsepower. And I was like, all right, this thing deserves a walk around. Like it is one of the craziest sleepers. Like if you had stock wheels on it, it would just look like an original car. This close to bringing them. I have them refinished. And I was like, man, I wanted the better ride of the thicker rubber. But yeah, it would look bone stock. Yeah, it's we'll get into that later. But 700 horsepower in that thing is just nuts. And is that one of your lowest horsepower cars? The lowest other than the Diablo. Yeah, the Diablo is my lowest horsepower vehicle. How old are you? 42. Okay. I asked that because for me, I think there's this like, the Diablo versus the Countach. Right. Right. Like I'm a Countach guy. I'm 46. There's a picture of one in the background. That to me was the first car that I lusted over as a six year old or seven year old or however it was. It was that and then later the F40. Those were cars that like really, really hit for me. Maybe the Testerosa because of Miami Vice, but like the Countach was it. But I've talked, as I talked to guys who were just a few years younger than me, like Humphrey was said it, like the Diablo holds a special place, I think there must be this weird cut off around like 44, 45. You know, it is scholastic book fair. The poster choice got phased out and turned into the purple Diablo poster. I had the Countach one that basically looked like an advertisement for cocaine. It was sick. But I also got it at the scholastic book fair. That's amazing. Yeah. The real quick reason for the Diablo to me was 1991 Guinness Book of World Records, the paperback, oddly enough, not the hardcover because I bought the hardcover as an adult to try and relive the memory. But the paperback version has the fastest production car in the world as the 1991 Lamborghini Diablo and it briefly held that because obviously the F1 or the, yeah, McLaren's F1 and all that and XJ220. So it was like a technicality, but I saw this black and white picture of what I think as a kid, it was just a wedge, you know, a triangle from the side. And I remember reading it's 42 inches tall and I was like, maybe I was 42 inches tall at the time. Right, right. It was like, man, that is such a small car. And then it was a Dumb and Dumber that came out and it was, you know, like the epitome of their foolish spending was this beautiful car. And I was like, I need to live my life in some way to acquire what is quite literally in that movie, the most improbable or unlikely thing to have. You just opened a portal in my brain to a time that I forgot, which was as a kid, reading the Guinness Book of World Records. Like, that was a normal thing to do. I mean, I remember whatever year Guinness Book I had, like 88 or 89. And I remember reading it all, like the lady with the longest fingernails, like the tallest man, the shortest man, the most bearded woman, right? And then just like weird things, like the most amount of this done. And I actually, when you said that, I remember there was all these automotive stats in there, which was super cool. I completely forgot that that was like a thing. What kids today read the Guinness Book of World Records? It's a picture book now. But that genuinely, if I'm gonna say a part of my personality was formed from something specific, it was the Guinness Book of World Records. I wanted to be somebody that held a record. Do you hold a record? No. Why don't you do that? This should be something we should do this together. Well, okay, so that's actually, this year is going to be a record that is very, very, my big boy record. And so this is, I've said it enough publicly, but I haven't formally stated this. So this is my first time I've formally stated it. Okay. Give the background. The fastest car around Laguna Seca is a 2005 record. It's an F1 car. I bought that Indy car and the peak, speed wise, performance wise of an Indy car, really an F1 car, is 1999. That's when drivers retinas started detaching and people started passing out. And again, that record, the superlative aspect of it, my thought was, if I buy this Indy car and then restomod it with modern stuff, no limits, can I have a professional driver? I'll drive it. By the way, I have a driver for you. Who would do it? Okay. JR Hildebrand would do that. And he obviously is driven Indy cars. Yes. This is the kind of thing he would want to do. We need to get JR involved in this. That's perfect. Because the thing is, I have the rest of the crew. So I bought all those Cosworth engines and this is kind of like good money. I know I DM'd you. I was like, you bastard. I was like, I want that too. I don't even know what I would do with it. You bought a haul of how many engines were it? 25 engines and enough parts to support them. What are you doing with them all? Can I buy one? Yes. I would be willing to sell you one because I know. I don't even know what I want it for, but it's just the sound. The sound. Oh, obviously that. But I mean, I don't know what I would do. It doesn't need to do anything else. I would put it in a rally car personally. What's the displacement on them? 2.65 liters. Wow. So you could actually run that in a car. I don't know if you saw that Ferrari powered Subaru that came out last year. Oh, you did? Yeah. And the whole thing on that car was he was trying to get around the loophole of displacement versus what the car came with. So he was able to basically compete with a V8 and be really, really competitive because he found a loophole in the rules. Which is cool. Yeah. It sounded, of course, incredible. Yeah, it sounds sick. But these things. How did it drive, by the way? I mean, tons of torque down low. It was incredible. Was it a 360 engine? I forget what was in it. The red intake manifold, as far as, I mean, it was like bulbous. You had the custom hood and everything. It was, I don't know my Ferraris, well, no, but it was in that 360. Yeah, I thought it was that. It looked like one, but yeah. Anyway, so back to it. Yeah. So, you know, through a variety of weird hijinks, here I am buying all these Cosworth engines just because I want parts for my own. I just want to push my engine until it pukes and not feel uncomfortable doing that. And so with that came X Cosworth, USA employees out of the woodworks. And what is the architecture for that engine? Is it fully Cosworth or is it based on another block? It's full. It's like the same. It is from the top to bottom a Cosworth. So it's not like a Cosworth version of a Ford or something like that. No, this is there. You can see it came right before the F1 Cosworth, the infamous 20,000 RPM one. And you think the engines look so similar to me. So it's the same architecture, just different goals. But the goal is, okay, everybody's saying, hey, just only run at 13,000 RPM instead of 15, it's a 15,000 RPM red line, turned down the boost maybe, and I'm like, I want to experience it in its full tilt. That's why I bought the car. And with what I said, the guys from Cosworth were like, hey, yeah, if you want to run it, do this, this and this, but if you want to run it, they brought out the spreadsheets, they brought out all their paperwork from 97 to 99. And I asked them, I was like, no, no YouTuber bullshit aside, you know, all that aside, could this car break the track record at Laguna with a driver? And the guys at Cosworth off camera were like, you don't have to rest a mod anything, get the car running again. We broke the track record during a testing private session back in 99, get the car together, and it'll be faster than that 2005 F1 car, several seconds faster. And so I was like, okay, I lucked out there that it was a weird goal. But you know, I figured it made sense. It's pinnacle era of performance. And so then the team that's helped me with the air on the four rotor is also coincidentally the crew chief of the team that broke the track record back in 99. And so this is like a meant to be situation getting the getting the crew back together. Yeah, the new guy, I guess. I love it. Seriously, if I mean, we could try calling Jerry Hildebrand right now, I'm pretty sure he'd say yes. What is the chassis that you have? It's a 1997 Lola. Okay. Yeah, very cool. Yeah. So that's, that's the intention. Very, very blatant intention is to break the track record just like to have that car, like sitting in the in the garage. This is what I love about you, Rob, is when I was thinking we should go break a Guinness World Record, there's a bunch of just dumb records that are easy to break. For example, like the fastest a car has ever gone indoors. And you go and you rent out the, you know, the good year blimp hanger in Ohio, there's one in Akron, which is like the largest indoor and you could go set that and like, it's an easy record if you have a very fast car, especially something that can hook up and move quickly, like an all the drive car. No, instead, you're like, we want to set the fastest time at Laguna Sake, which is a pretty like competitive place. So world records, all right, that's like, well, at least you're like very, at least you don't like reach too high for goals in life. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Well, you know, what's funny is I think I've, if there's like a layer of luck or champ, very much a lot of chance, I've lucked out that the things I don't know have been the very edge of attainable. You know, like, like it was Ian Stewart who gave me the front suspension geometry for the unicorn. And that was it. He didn't, he didn't give me a lot, but he gave me enough to feel enabled and like, I have this little secret, this special thing. And then the stuff I had to figure out was stuff a person is capable of doing if they are absolutely out of their mind worried about not being the guy that followed through. And that was really the motivating factor there. Here's a question for you, because I think this is something that, you know, I've struggled with, we struggled with it. And again, I've seen other people struggle with is you have to choose what's more important in the world of content creation. Is building the car more important or is creating the content more important? Oh man. Like how have you managed that? Because I think you tend to be more on the side of making the car right than getting the content right. Right. Like I think there's times where you've done things that I've sat there and I've texted you and been like, why didn't you do it this way? It would have performed better. But your, your head's more on the car side of things. Like the, the putting content out is like a bonus to building the car. So I mean, it's a blessing and a curse in the sense that my audience knows that I'm out there with that. So I think there's, there's an element of, I'll use the 12 rotor as a perfect example. That is the epitome of blessing occurs. I didn't invent that. I'm very fortunate that the guy that did invent it thought I was the right person to. For people who don't follow you, can you just explain the 12 rotor? Because it is, it is so absurd. Yes. It is, it is absurd in all the right and wrong ways. The 12 rotor was a, an invention from Tyson Garvin, who a big boat guy, he's just, he's just like a record breaker guy to begin with. The dude's like mad scientist and built it, potential government contracts, you know, real cool stuff, but the engine ended up getting passed on. And so it's, it's just sat there. It is this massive aluminum hexagon shape thing. And there are 12 Mazda rotors inside of there in like a four rotor, four rotor and four rotor type of shape. And there's no purpose. This is like how Volkswagen would have continued to build the Vankul if they had their chance because they just love stacking things. And by the way, for everyone who doesn't know, Rob has to thank Audi for everything he's done because the Vankul first found itself in an Audi, but continue. And, and it was Audi who cleaned up the Diablo six liter. There's that too. Yeah. The, so the, the 12 rotor though is this thing that doesn't really serve a purpose. I'm not a boat guy. And so it's again, that superlative like, okay, anytime I Google. Was his intention to build an actual operational engine, or was it the equivalent of guys who put like 871 supercharged big blocks to make a margarita mixer? Like, because it almost seems like I can do it just because I can. It's Tyson. I think I would like to say I know him well enough now to say that he's somebody that doesn't like seeing somebody else brag. And so he's the guy that was like, okay, you know what, you think you're making a lot of power with these big blocks in your boat and setting records. I think I can do it better. And so he's done it with diesels. He's done it with all these other big blocks. But this was his like, Hey, I think the rotary makes sense enough to do this. And so there was a lot of thought put into the, the why, but specifically for a boat. Yeah. And of course, have two of them for whatever reason. And so, you know, it just never lived up to that, you know, ability and you know, rotaries are very particular. That's a good word for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my kind is where that's the kindest word I've heard. I feel as an ambassador of the rotary community, they are particular. But, but again, that thing is the amount of money it takes to rebuild that motor is way more than whatever episode, right, income, you know, Patreon sponsor all that it's, it's, it's a negative game. It's still, you know, you get bigger numbers, you get, you know, tons of views, have many views almost every time. And tons of more subscribers, but like, that isn't why I do that. It's like, I feel like it's my responsibility to the car community to do it to myself too. And you enjoy it. Yeah, exactly. I'm not gonna act like that's, but, but it is okay. I have to go in phases because it's going to be a net negative. And just tangent for a quick second here on that, but do you feel like you like, have you been having fun the whole time? I would say that that's a, there's a very layered answer because there's what I find fun. And then there's what the audience finds fun. And those two do interfere. They're not the same. And a good example is taking the three rotor pikes peak. I every time is absolutely like that's the last one I saw you by the way. No, I remember. Yeah. Wait, no, filming a certain, Oh, I forgot. I'm a drifter movie briefly, but I feel like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't drift. Yeah. But so the, I find that fun. That's for me, but that's at some point, that's not going to pay the bills. And then some of that's in the back of my head going, okay, this is actually costing me money to have fun. And I never intended to be a racer or a driver. And you know, that old saying of like, how to become a millionaire as a driver, start those. How to make a million is you start with two. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so I've realized that's expensive, but it is an outlet for proving what I'm doing. I realized something though is the four rotor. And this is something I wanted to talk to you about was the four rotor itself is my magnum opus. For sure. It's not just what I'm known for. It's not just, okay, it's the biggest this versus that car race. It's, it's what I think is this absolute limit and perfect storm of things. And I realized jumping back onto that. Oh my god, that is my like passion. That is what gets me amped up. And I honestly like almost getting goosebumps now thinking of when we strapped it up to the shipping container. Yeah, I remember that. I remember you, you seemed emotional. Yes. Like you actually seemed emotional, not for the camera, because there wasn't even a camera on you. I was standing there near you and you just seemed I think one relieved that it worked. Yes. Didn't explode in front of a live audience. And two, I think you were just like, I finally were here. Right. And for those who don't remember this, Rob was nice enough to do basically like the first all wheel drive burnout in your car at burn yard in front of, you know, 6000 people, which is pretty sick. Yeah, it was, I couldn't get it working the night before. It kept choking. It kept choking. And so I, you know, everything, it was truly a everything. You know, it's good luck though, because if it ran perfect the night before, it would have choked on the day. It's always better when the car doesn't run the night before. Yeah. And so it was, it was neat. You know, obviously for me, it's, you know, I'm doing it in front of you and Ken and, you know, this is, you know, something that I want to show that I took it serious. Yeah. But just the, the seeing the front wheels just in front of me, because I obviously have the car was missing. Ah, you couldn't, you can't take that moment away from me type of thing. And so that is what I think that was one of my happiest moments ever, like in life, you know, awesome. I'll have you as a part of it. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's like that drug hit. So I don't, you know, when you say, is it fun? It's more of like, does it, you know, fuel like, does it like, does it get me, it feel alive? And this final version of the four-rotor that I've been wanting to do, uh, is what makes me feel alive. Right. So it's interesting because I'll admit, I think I was always jealous of your content and journey. One, there was a simplicity in the way your stuff was. Like it was really, it was, I know there's been other people involved, but it was, it was you, you were obviously leading it all. It was, it was sort of your direction, your vision of what you wanted to do. You were taking your time. You were clearly doing something you really wanted to do. And there's this part of me. I mean, when I was at, you know, Hoonigan, I was, you know, behind the scenes on everything that was happening. It didn't matter if it was a Hurt project or Vinny project, a Zack project. I was in the background helping it, right? Whether it was doing something as simple as just edit notes or actually helping with the concept. Like when we did it on professionals, like that was something that I helped them figure out how we're going to put it all together, help them edit it, help them run through all of it. And then, you know, they did their part, right? And, and it was, I enjoyed that. But when I was making my own content on my own cars, it always felt really rushed to me because it felt like it was this, it was this like thing that was selfish, like it was just this thing I wanted to do, but there, and at first I was doing it because we needed content for the channel. And then I started to like find this audience of people who enjoyed my like weird meticulousness of doing dumb things, right? Like cleaning bolts or whatever. And then I found an audience that really enjoyed just the types of cars I liked because I like stuff different. And I think this is a place where you and I are similar, which is a three-rotor, a four-rotor, even just a two-rotor, any rotary is not the best way to make power. There's easier ways to do it. There's more reliable ways to do it. And something can be said about the same type of things I like, like maybe not so much like five-cylinder engines, they're pretty good at making power, but like they're not well supported, right? There's not a huge industry around them, especially here in the United States. And I enjoyed that. Like I enjoy the extra sort of energy that it takes to make a Audi Quattro fast and also handle because it really isn't as easy to do as it might be with a, well definitely an LS or like a BMW platform or something like that. So I think there's one thing is like I always saw that because I always wanted a rotary. Like in my head, I've had a couple, like I don't know if you remember, I had that Opel Manta. My plan was to put a rotary. I thought like that would have been really cool. Like in the back of my head, I've always threatened myself with the idea of like, ooh, like a rotary seems like a total nightmare you would absolutely love. Yeah, very much. Exactly. But I think one, I saw that, but I also, like my dream situation is being able to spend like four years building one car on YouTube. And like you did it. Yeah. Like you did. And how long was the four-rotor build? Fans would argue it's still going. Right, sure. But the coolest part to me is it was 2016 was the unveil of the chassis. It was a proof of concept to me. And people thought I was trying to bring a running, I was the first guy to bring a very blatantly non-running car to SEMA. And I did not think it was a controversy. I just thought it was like, hey, look at here's what we're trying to do. Right. And people lost, I mean, you do that now and nobody cares. Yeah. Yeah. And you're, that's something that the current like saturation is a whole different, I can't get here if I start now. Yeah. But the interesting thing is, okay, 2016 proof of concept, 2019, it ran for the first time. So that those three years were some of the coolest years of my life is that I didn't want to be the guy. I mean, that's like the thing that a lot of people don't realize is that I wanted to have the team. I wanted to have the Ian Stewart, the people that were smarter than me. I don't know shit about suspension. I wanted to have- And you clearly figured it out. Continuing to. Suspension is definitely a- It's a black heart. Yeah. The scary thing is I had Mike Kojim over at the shop last week. He's a big inspiration. When he's going, you know, you're doing something weird. Yeah. Kojima is like his genius level when you talk to him, especially about suspension. Yep. Yeah. He was definitely one of my, obviously, inspirations, but very much a technical advisor. But yeah, so 2019 was the car first ran. And then that 2019 to 2020, early COVID, all that stuff, that was really where the proof of everything started to showcase. And it was neat because one of my greatest motivations throughout all those videos from 2016 to 2020 was like, oh, you won't ever get it running. You won't ever make power. Oh, it runs. Okay, it's not going to last. Okay, it's lasting. It's not going to make power. It's not going to make power. Okay, it won't drive. And it won't launch. And the problem is I kept proving every one of those wrong, and then they all disappeared. Yeah. I loved, I loved more than anything. I loved being doubted. Yeah. That is such easy, free motivation. Yeah. And so, and I think you also, not to cut you off, but I think also you, you had developed this like interesting underdog story, because you didn't have Ian Stewart, you know, an ASD in your court, like they gave you, they gave you, you know, a diagram, but they weren't there building it for you. You're figuring this out on your own. And I think you were one of the early YouTubers that gave people confidence that maybe they could do it themselves. Yes. Right. Like, oh, I could just try this. I could just, you could just do a thing. Like you could just figure it out. Yeah. Right. And I, you know, as I mentioned, 46 been doing this for a long time. I feel like in the early world of when I got into cars, and I know this was different in hot rodding. So this isn't new, but like in the late 90s, early 2000s, like everything was kind of bolt-ons. Like turbo kits were still really scary. Like, there wasn't management on the level it was at. And there wasn't a wealth of knowledge that you could have at your fingertip to learn this. Right. And you literally were reading books. Right. Like, I was a Volkswagen kid, there was like the handbook to VW, like water cooled VW modifications or tuning or whatever it was. Yeah. You know, like that was my Bible. But if it wasn't in there, I didn't know how to do it. So like, there was a few paths. You and a bunch of other creators who really sort of pushed it without having a lot of support, I think opened up this world of like, Hey, you know, you can go do this. But I think you guys also open up a world of like, every car needs a four-rotor in it, which is not the case. Maybe not really the case. I think it's kind of pushed YouTube to this, like what I refer to as like extreme kink world of like, if it doesn't, like if the car doesn't have an engine swap, isn't running the suspension from a different vehicle, doesn't have like a PDM system, like all these things, like it doesn't even matter. Right. Like, people don't care about normal builds anymore. But it was interesting because you back to the underdog thing, when you raced the Hoonicorn, first off, you had guys like myself who were rooting against our own team because we because you had such a good underdog story. Yeah. And I think it really amazed everybody. I mean, I remember our own, you know, texts and mechanics on the race team were really curious. And I think some of them were helping you even work on your car. I think so. Yeah. We're cutting parts off. Yeah. They were like helping you get it like going because they wanted to go out there and see it. And I think that that was something that was really interesting at that time was like, you built this story of, you know, we wanted to see you win even if that meant we had to lose, which was cool. It was super cool. And even Ken was stoked that one run that you made. Yeah. Yeah. That was a situation. We all thought the car was going to explode. But it was still pretty cool. Yeah. That was really neat. It's like, I think of myself as kind of like a super fan of you guys. But it wasn't that I just wanted to worship what you're doing. I just admired that you guys cut this new path. Like the easiest way for me to say it is, I don't know what permits, whatever you had to do to get Gymkhana 7 made had to be a nightmare. Like you're like, I did that. I'm never doing that again. You know, those type of internal moments. But for me as a viewer, you produced art, something that hit me very deeply. And I just wanted to stand next to you guys was like, not a lifelong dream. Like I'm not going to make it over the top. But it was just such a like, Oh my God, I get to be one of them for a day. You know what I mean? Like I'm just a random dude. And what I've done show like not earned respect, but showed that I, you know, I could play at their level for at least one day. Yeah, I think the big difference between us and you those, we had like a team of like 80 people making that happen. And it was like you and a few of your buds making what you did happen, which is again, your underdog story there, which is funny because we always saw ourselves as like the underdogs against Hollywood. And then you're you kind of, you know, if there's always an underdog to an underdog, right? But it's actually, there's a quick little tangent. Gymkhana 7 was generally actually easy to permit realizing that Los Angeles is very like, they're very Hollywood, you know, they know Hollywood, they, they expect it, they shoot car chase scenes all the time. So that actually wasn't difficult. The hardest part of Gymkhana 7 was getting access to above the Hollywood sign. And actually, we were in the LA River filming when the phone call came through and said, you got it, because they had told us no over and over and over again. And just for Ken and I, we just saw this ending where like the Hollywood sign, like the Hollywood sign is this thing. And we didn't even know that there was, there was a road that went up to the Hollywood sign. And the reason is, is because Homeland Security controls that piece of property, because it's one of the only analog antenna and radio systems to speak to the White House. So if satellites went down, it's like one of the few locations that LA has communication out of. So because of that, Homeland Security keeps it like really tied up. And yeah, we were up there and like, I mean, the Homeland Security agents were not cool with us. Like they were like, if you point a camera this way, like, I will shoot you, you're on federal land. And like, oh, okay. And like, I was like waiting for like this smirk, it never came. All right. But, but no, we ended up getting access. We had asked a bunch of people and eventually we made a plea to the mayor's office. And we was like, this is a postcard to the city. How can you not have the Hollywood sign? By the way, you know, you do have to pay a licensing for the Hollywood sign. I think it was like $10,000. Like we had to pay because the people who own the Hollywood sign, Oh, just to have it in the shot. Have it in the shot. Okay. But, but to get up there and to get into that location for that finishing thing was probably about three and a half months of work. We got told no 10 times. We kept asking, we kept asking. And then mid-shoot, we were told, yeah, you guys can go film there. And we had to add a day to the shoot to go get it. We had to go raise the money real quickly to figure it out. But I think it was great. It makes like for a fantastic ending. It's some of my favorite photos and shots. We did the, you know, the Michael Bay style helicopter wrap here. Vic Berg went and dp'd the heliwork for that for us. And, you know, it just gave that classic shot. It's one of the most heroic shots. Like Ken standing up there, you know, with the donut derelict jacket on, like looking out like at the ender. And it's some of my favorite shots of the who know, it was such a, that was such an amazing, amazing shoot. It's not my favorite film technically, but the who know, corn elevated that film to like a whole other level. So cool. The intro just, I think, you know, to me, again, this is more as a fan, not a YouTuber. I feel like you contributed something to the car community, to the world that, you know, it's here. It's out of your hands. You've made it and you've done your part. I feel like, you know what I mean? Like that's the gravity of that to me. I appreciate that. Yeah. I appreciate that. That's where I feel like I have that. I have my own little one that I want to contribute as well. And I, it's not that I want to pitch you on it, but I do have like, okay, here's what I want to do with the four rotor, blazing my own path, but also still really paying homage to what you guys have done. And I think that's what you're saying. You want to go make a film with the four rotor? I'm down. Yes. We should do that. And, and I'll go. So, I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. I want to make better. I have been spending the last two months just stacking my shopping cart. All the things I'm going to put in here. A lot of you have been asking, is there going to be more than just podcasts? Yeah, there's going to be more than just podcasts. There's going to be builds. I'm going to do them a little bit differently. It's going to be like a build cast, but we'll get into that later. You'll catch one of the first ones here, which will be my Syncro, built with a ton of stuff from FCP Euro. If you two have an outstanding project just sitting, go to fcpuro.com. Most likely they've got all the parts to get your Euro back on the road. They certainly did for me. Okay, so not so much just your reaction on camera, because I haven't told you what I think I can do to bring one more layer to it. So my thing about the way the Jim Conner videos hit me, the first handful, was defying physics to me. It was like, I didn't know a car could do that. It wasn't just, okay, it's a stunt. It was just a, that doesn't even make, I didn't know a car can change angle. One of the things Travis was trying to, and I always talk about, is the reverse entry in Jim Conner practice, which is the first film, where he slides backwards around the cone, and it just doesn't look possible. Like you had never seen a car do that before. Like even in rally racing, not to that level of precision. I don't know if we've ever been able to capture that same shot again, but we've done a lot of other things. We're just like, like in Detroit with the Hoonicorn, just sliding backwards for 70, 80 feet, wheels going one way, car going the other. It feels like the thing kids do with Hot Wheels, right? So here's my pitch. There's only one thing I think I can bring to the table that you haven't done. Okay. Imagine, and this is the opening shot in my mind. You can see it so clearly is close up shot. You see the car, you see it kind of pulls back. You can see a helmet driver. And as you pull back, the camera turns 90 degrees, and the car is up, stuck against the side of an underpass. Okay. I'm still listening. Okay. And it drops. That's where it takes off from there. Oh, so like you're saying like, so it's pointed down? No, no, no. It's on its side. It's on its side. So, you know, we're looking at the car straight up under, you know, roads here, cars like this, stuck to the side of the underpass by itself. Right. Nothing else. And then the video starts with it coming down off the wall, drifting and beginning. Okay. I am down for that. How do we keep it to the wall? Well, that's, what about this four? This dude brought props like he's Gallagher. Yes. Yes. And we're going to smash it. Actually, we accidentally broke it already, testing it. That is not the real four-rotor chassis, but this is the proposed final chassis for the four-rotor. And there's so many layers to why we needed to do that. And the biggest thing is the current version of the car is so unsafe. It does exactly what I think of Scumbag. I think of the current version of the four-rotor. Yeah. And so what I've been wanting to do is say, okay, rotary's require so much cooling, so much cooling that that car would overheat almost immediately doing like pikes peak. And so I thought, okay, well, I'm going to need tons more radiators. Well, then that means I'm going to need more fans. Well, that means I'm going to need more power draw to pull this air through the fans. What if I have the fan system pull from the ground? Okay. Well, yeah, that's kind of cool. I know why this is cool. So that turned into, okay, well, let's talk to some people. And then they put me in touch with people from the Mercury and all these other companies. I can't name yet. And my wild idea and quite literally the idea of the car being stuck to the side of wall was one of the design cases for it. I have these X F one engineers all excited that this is such a weird unique case that the vacuum system for pulling air through the radiators would then also divert to the ground and pull the car to the ground. Now, this came from the fact that when Ken and I raced and then when I did the this versus that afterwards, aside from dialing in the suspension, I have this much power and I can only use this much on a street launch. And so, you know, no prep, which, you know, drag racing is cool. It's amazing. And it's not my favorite thing is that how can I get more traction on a normal street? And I was like, well, shit, I might as well just do all of this at once. And for the last year and a half, I just kind of set this idea of like, you know, again, just like the actual car itself. What if I divert some of that power that I have access of to pulling a vacuum as needed. And so it is happening. You have a beautiful mind, my friend. So, so, so my idea is that this is my, like I said, is that the four rotor to go one last time instead of anybody saying, oh, well, he's just milking it or whatever. I want to have like a nugget of like this is you can call it the four rotor, you can call it something else, but it is it is my attempt at like, like a hypercar. So you're going to carry pieces of the four rotor into this new. Yeah. So, so the most important piece is that the door frame from the stock car still has the VIN number. And so does the plate, right at the front. So the VINs are going to transfer over, you know, spiritually. Yeah, yeah. You know, that thesia ship idea. So that's all that's going to be left. But because I had to create a new chassis, I was okay, what justifies all that extra effort aside from, you know, polishing my ego of saying, oh cool, I built the car better. I was like, I need to do something special. And one of my favorite memes I saw long ago, and I think it saved me from doing some really stupid stuff. It was a meme of an axe. It was a picture of an axe and the blade was made out of wood. And it said, just because you're unique, doesn't mean you're useful. That's a good one. And I was like, because, you know, that's one of the things about YouTube is like trying to make something unique. Yeah. And this is actually a conversation that's like on my list here of things to talk with you about, but I want to, we'll pause it, but to get into is do you build something because it's never been done before and it needs to be built, or are you build something just to be different? Right. Oh, I could, yeah, we could, right. And like, I think it's a fine line between the two. And I will say I am 100% guilty of both. Right. I think we've done things that you're like, that, hey, that makes a lot of sense. It was a reason that we went and did that. And then there's other things where you just did it to do it. I mean, I always talk about the Honda Indie truck, super amazing product. The Honda team was super fun to work with. It was really cool to see it out there testing, you know, you know, thermal with the Indie teams. It was kind of a ridiculous thing that we did as a stunt. Like it was a stunt, right? Yeah. Like the, the, the build itself was a stunt. The Cole Marrow, another vehicle that was kind of like a stunt. It didn't make sense. But then there's other things that like, I think that, you know, and this is a random one, but the, the, do you remember the Ford Ford? Frightening. We did a, we did like Paul Walker's Ford lightning, but it was like a faux lightning. So we call it the frightening, but that thing came with, we call it Lord frightening, which is, which I like, I love naming things and like Ford lightning Lord frightening was just one of my favorite, but we put like a one J or one and a half, which like just made a lot of sense was cooler, sounded better. Like that was a, that was a good swap made sense. Yeah. Anyway, I want to get back to this, this, the whole future of the four-wheeler. So have you spoken to the guys at, was it McGriff, McMercery? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Make this drilling. Yeah, yeah. So you've been talking to the director of engineering gave me a lot of, you know, as far as he could even suggesting without an NDA, because their product's not out yet. You know, it's not in customer hands. And so he said after the customer hand, once it, once that car is delit starts getting bigger, he goes, I'll tell you everything. Yeah. But until then, because you know, the customer can take the car apart. Yeah. But he was, I've had some conversations with them too. That's why I was wondering. Yeah. So he was kind of doing that like, you know, quite frankly, he was like, like, I was like, what about this? He's like, right. Okay. And that was, you know, for me, that's all I need. Yeah. I just need, I need like kind of blinders. Otherwise I'm researching weird, weird stuff. I mean, watching that thing at Goodwood was, it felt like, it felt like AI. Yeah. It didn't make sense how fast it was moving. And I'm sure you've seen other clips of it passing, you know, GTDRX is on the outside, like it's standing still. I asked him that that shot specifically, I'm like, what if for one of the shots of this potential Jim Conner video, I'm drifting outside of a car that's grounded and I'm drifting faster than he can drive the turn. He goes, with, you know, what you're looking to do, the car won't get unstuck. Right. And so I was like, oh yeah, okay, okay. But I was like, I was like, what if and, you know, so it's nice that these people are helping me. Okay. Yeah. That's a, you know, pass, fail. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely this. And so whatever I'm saying, I guess is, is legitimate enough to them that they're all helping. Yeah. I mean, this is crazy because it's definitely lives in this world of what felt like make it. I don't believe, but if you can create enough pounds of force and suction that is higher than the weight of the car, it should stick. It's like that simple. Yeah. Which is just absolutely wild. I mean, it's the same idea that like a modern day F1 car should be able to go upside down because it creates more down for us in ways. Yeah. Getting it there is always, and I've, I've have sat, I've worked with engineers on trying to do that. I mean, I think this is, I don't think, I don't think anyone ever did it, but I know it's been something we've talked about is like trying to get a car to rotate through a tunnel or something like that. Like everybody's like, how can we do that? Yeah. But an actual suction system makes it so that the car can just sit there. Right. Yeah. And I've been trying to go upside down, which in theory, the system I'm designing could, but I don't want to make that claim. I feel like just. Yeah. You need to go slowly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely absurd. I mean, I think that is similar to building the car the first time. I've gotten enough information that I can, I know I can see the end in sight. And the thing that I want to, I wanted to say is. Can I just pause you for a second? Yeah. Yeah. Do you realize how ridiculous of a statement this is that the end in sight is a four-rotor FDRX7 all-wheel drive that has a vacuum system that can adhere it to a 90 degree wall. No. Like that is not normal, Rob. No. Like that's just not a normal goal for people. But I applaud you. Thank you. Thank you. It's what I think I can do. And like I said, going back to that, the ax is that I think I can produce something of value. And it just really, this is what I wanted to ask you about is, and you've almost answered it, but this is my magnum opus. This car is, it's not what I want to be known for. It's what I want to see brought to life. It is what you're known for. Like at least the previous version of it. Right. Yeah. And so that's what I was going to ask you out of all the things, you're not the behind the scenes guy from Hoonigan, but you're also, I always felt like who strung it all together. Obviously it's a team and all that, but what would you say, A has been your magnum opus that you've created? And B, does that align with what you've wanted to be known for? That's a really interesting question. Yeah. I would say like for me, the, you know, Hoonigan is itself and sort of the cult of Hoonigan, I think is probably the thing I'm most proud of, right? And that is all these different things that come together. So yes, it's the content we created. It's the people that I assembled to become this amazing crew, right? And like realize a lot of those people, so sure the ones who were the biggest names were not hired to be talent, right? Hurt was not hired to be talent. Vinnie was not hired to be talent, right? None of these guys, you know, were hired to be talent. It wasn't until later on that we realized when we brought in people like Supey were like, hey, they have to be on camera, that you start thinking about that. In the early days, it was, no, we were just making this brand, building this thing. And I think the fact that it transcended to this moment where Hoonigan was sort of this defining thing of a culture seemed really cool to me. It was never the expectation. Like we wanted to build a brand that brand was going to have multiple arms. One of them was obviously going to be, you know, apparel and that was really the money making side of it, at least early on. The media business was to support the apparel business, right? Like that was the original, the original math of it. Yeah, I mean, real quickly, we launched Hoonigan at Zoomies, right? So we were the first automotive brand in Zoomies. Now it's crazy because one of the number, like I was talking to someone the other day who works at Zoomies and they said, you know, top selling product now is automotive. But when we went in there, they told us, what are you crazy? Like this is a skate and surf shop. Like we don't sell car stuff. And they told us that the only reason they were even taking the meeting was because they owed it to Ken because of, you know, how much business they had done with DC over the years. And they were about to kick us out of the room and, you know, done with it. And I mentioned something about tattoos. And the guy was like, there is no way in hell. This guy named Jim Bob. It's like, there's no way in hell that this brand is like less than two years old and people are tattooing it to themselves. And I said, go on Instagram. Instagram was like seven months old at this point. I said, just search the hashtag who to get tattoos. And there was like 40 or 50 tattoos there. And he said, all right, let's put it in order because to him, he said this. And now, and later on, he said it wasn't just the tattoos. He said the guys wearing the tattoos were wearing other clothes in our space. And I realized that you were living in our space. You were living amongst skateboarders and BMXers and snowboarders in this space. But you guys were in this car world. And we went, we did that and we did a 40 door test. And then we went to all 600 doors in a month. And all of a sudden we had to promote it. And that's what built the media business. It was like, well, the best way to like, we're not going to go spend advertising money, which is go make our own stuff. And next thing you know, we had a YouTube and then the YouTube channel ended up becoming bigger, not the channel, but the partnerships from that ended up being bigger than the business. Wow, that is cool. We've created from that. So like for me, I think all of those pieces that just kind of came together and and to sit there and say, you know, and I, I have a very complex relationship with Hoonigan as a brand today, because one, I obviously laughed and things changed and things went different ways. But like, I will always love the Hoonigan that we built. Right. Like it was so much fun. It was so cool. And to create something that other people say had like a major impact for them is cool. Right. Like it's just, it's, it's really neat. And so for me, I would say that that's one of them. I think another one, though, for me is like my era in the Jim Conner films, as I got more and more involved, which really started around Jim Conner five. So Jim, like up to Jim Conner five, I was very much a consultant. I was helping, but like I wasn't leading. Jim five is when I came in and I got to lead. So like I have a lot of pride around the Jim five all the way through the last film. I just did with Travis because I got more and more and more in control and more and more involved and it became, and Ken, you know, really gave me room to do that. Ken and also Ben Conrad, who was the early director, like they really just let me be like, you want to be a director? Like go be a director. Right. So I think those are, are those pieces too. For me, it's none of my car builds. I like, I enjoy building cars, but I don't think any of my cars are that cool. My Ku Klux was pretty cool. Maybe my Nova, but like that's not my thing. Like my thing is telling stories and making that so and building brands. So yeah, I think that's it. I the other day, a friend of mine texted me, I hadn't, I hadn't heard from her a really long time and she said she went to a, she went to a birthday party for a young kid. She bought them like a Subaru rally car as a present. And one of the guys there, you know, was like, what do you know about rally racing? And she was like, Oh, you know, she started like explaining her relationship, you know, me and Ken, she knew us. And, and the guy didn't, it didn't click it first cause it's like, I don't think she said last name. She was just like, yeah, my friend, Brian, my friend, Ken, blah, blah, blah. And at some point he said, Oh, what was the company named? And she's like, Oh, it was called Hoonigan. He's like, wait, are you kidding me? And like that's just this thing I love that we built this thing that like in some random space, you know, someone else was like, Oh yeah, I've heard of that. And you know, Palm Freeset on, on this pod that, you know, we got, we transcend it to a point where like just the Hoonigan sticker identified the kind of person you were, you didn't have to know about Jim Conn, you didn't have to know about the YouTube videos, like it became like a real brand and, and like when did that thing. So I don't know. It's a weird one for me cause I don't feel like I'm at the same, I don't feel like I'm done, but I, as I'm older, I very much have this thought, especially like after having a child and you start to realize like your like the most important thing I've ever done in my life is my kid. Like that's, that's like really cool. And like I really love that. And you're willing to give up more. And I've, I've said this and maybe a bit more of it, but like, you know, if I was to be sitting on my deathbed tonight, I don't think I would sit there and go, I wish I did more in the, in the automotive space. Like I know I've done a lot. Yeah. Right. Like I know I've gotten from being a journalist to being a filmmaker to helping create brands to, you know, creating events to all these different things to be involved in builds like the unicorn and all of that. I've gotten to do such amazing stuff. So like if it all had to stop today, I think there's probably other things in my life I would have preferred to do, like work on my own projects and do a little more trackering and, you know, and, and obviously more and more family time and catching up with old friends and things like that. There's a lot of other stuff, but you know, you don't know if you're going to go tomorrow. So like I still want to do other stuff. Like I think for me, I've said this to the point that I think people who listen to the show are probably sick of hearing it. Like my goal, like my, the thing I want to do is I want to be involved in a big Hollywood film that has an amazing chase scene in it. That is of my brain. That's cool. That's where like I would really love to go. Doing obviously it was fun to work on the project with Sun Kang and Drifter, but I, I really would love to go and really kind of like own, not even a car movie. I want to make a chase scene for like an action film. Right. Because that's what made me love that. I would run in one of my favorite movies, like I want to go do that. Like the new heat is being, is in production now. I'd love to be able to, that's my second year director for like a car chase moment in that, like though I love those kinds of films being able to do that. That's, so that's goal. But at the same time, like, man, I don't know, I've been super privileged to get to do like all this super cool stuff and be a part of something that I, you know, will have a lasting, you know, at least a footnote in the history of car culture, right? And whether that's Hoonigan as a brand or the stuff I was able to help Ken do. And, you know, Jim Connell, I'd be able to make that come to life. So yeah, I don't know, man. I never really thought about it like narrowing it down. Is that, is that one thing? Yeah. I mean, what do you think is the one thing I'm most known for? Yeah. I mean, I, I think, I would have word this, it's not that I'm working it carefully. It's that I think Hoonigan required both you and Ken. You know, obviously. Yeah, for sure. But like, it wouldn't have happened without you. And whether it's a perfect storm or whatnot. I just, that's, that's where when I remember watching the videos and going, okay, he's driving. Like, that's the person that's, that's the lead singer. But there's somebody putting it all together. That was my thought. Somebody orchestrated this. And obviously Ken still had a huge part in that. Yeah. But I knew that there was somebody else. And that, that was before you guys had really, I mean, that was. So if we were Motley Crue, he was Vince Neil. I was Nikki Six and Hurt was Tommy Lee. I don't know who was Mick Mars. Okay. But yeah. No, I look, it's, um, yeah, there was one of the really interesting things about the brand was that we lived on really, really far spectrums and Ken allowed that. So there was an audience that only knew Ken. And that's what they were there for, for the Jim Conner films. And then there was an audience that actually didn't like Ken and was there for shit car. And like the fact that we could own both of those was, was interesting. Yeah. And, you know, I think everyone, I think sort of the whole scene has come around. There's obviously a much greater fondness for the memory of Ken. But there was certainly this period of time where like everyone felt like Ken was oversaturated and other Jim Conner and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I think the Drift community was really sick and tired of people calling Ken. The best Drifter in the world, Ken didn't refer to himself as that. He didn't see himself as that, but there was a little bit of a backlash to that. And I, in the year one, um, it was the end of the year and we really were focusing on drifting. We hadn't done much in rally because early on Ken and I said, you know, we could go and do this in our space. And if it's successful, it just proves that we have a Ken block license and company, but if we could go do it somewhere else, it proves that this brand could have a life beyond Ken and that's very important. So we purposely looked at drifting and that community went after it. And at the end of the year, Ken had won an event and we posted something, you know, celebrating the Ken had won. And somebody replied, uh, I don't understand why you guys sponsor that. No talent. Ask clown. And I screen grabbed it and I sent it to Ken and I said, we're winning. Yeah. Because if someone could think that about you and, but still love the brand, it's like we're, we have, we're speaking to a enough of a, you know, a broad enough audience. And then we strategically looked at the space and said, okay, we want to go after offer it. We're going to go talk with people and offer it. Obviously that was BJ Baldwin relationships like that. And then we wanted to get more into muscle cars and it was like, I'm just going to build my own car, which was the napalm, Nova and do more stuff in that space personally, because there wasn't really like a particular person or ambassador. And actually in a weird way that power tour doing all of that is sort of what led us into the YouTube world. Cause then we started to become more aware of like the people like you or mighty car mods or guys who were in the YouTube space, building cars and sort of building celebrity around nothing versus like taking an athlete who was already established, who was winning, who was sponsored and using them as the spokesperson. Cause if you think about the Hoonigan model, we started, and I feel like every podcast devolves into me talking about Hoonigan on some level, but, um, we went from Ken Block was our, was like our hero person and Ryan Turk and Chris Forsberg and, you know, Vaughn Gittin in the early year and, you know, Tony Angel, all these drivers were involved with BJ Baldwin, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, the list goes on, Lea Pruitt. I mean, we had so many drivers involved. And then all of a sudden it became about the guys who worked in the building. Yeah. And it completely shifted. I mean, 2016, 2017, that shift came and now it was, you know, the hurts, the vinnies, the ronds, the Garry's, the dance, you know, the darnals, the, the soupies, like all these guys who were just normal people. They were very normal people who, who we realized that that's what the audience wanted. And that was fun. It was like fun to make that transition and, and to go about it and, uh, and do it a different way. Anyway, I don't even know if I'm answering. No, that 100% because it, because it feels like for me, I'm forced, uh, whether it's myself forcing it or whatnot. I feel like I'm forced to do the opposite is that I want to at least briefly touch the, the scoreboard and be the hero for a moment. Not so much for myself. Me racing Ken, I already won. Like in this, in the sense of like to be there. Just pulling up the line. Yeah, exactly. I get to be recognized by it all. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like that, for me, being at Pikes Peak, I already, I'm one of the Pikes Peak drivers. It doesn't matter what time I run. Yep. Um, but then there's my fans that want to see me win. They have an emotional vested interest and they think that by being first or by being whatever it means that I have won. And I want to win something for them. I want to be that hero, um, that they, they think I am not, not just who I think I am, I don't care about that, but I want them, I want to, I want to win it for, for them type of thing. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where I, like, I, I feel like, okay, the four rotor is a result of all of my learning, all of these years of, okay, everything I've put together, nobody else is going to build a car like that. And I don't mean like the Hoonicorn is in a rotary. It just, there's no reason, uh, not that they can't. Um, but I want to show, I mean, I mean, in the sense of like, it's just business wise, it's not worth it. It's more the approach. And so I just want to, there's a similarity here. Cause like you could argue that business wise, the Jim Conner films, that it makes sense, right? Like the amount of effort and time that went into them, they were a loss leader, you know? Yeah. And it's the same for you. Yep. Yeah. And so that's where I want to, I want to have this thing dance and, and show that one of us, one of the normal guys could be briefly, you know, the Ken type of feel, not replacing him or anything like that. Just that, okay, if you put enough effort into it, you can build the car and you can improve your driving skills and then do the thing. Like, you know, you can live in that moment for, you know, just, just that one time. And that's, that's, I think what, for me, you know, even coming here and hanging out with you is this has culminated in my life for doing that is that I never wanted to be the driver. In fact, I didn't even want to drive my car up Pikes Peak. When I went, the guy, David Donner, I rode with him and he did the Donner's great by the way. Awesome guy. He's such a fantastic shoe. Yeah. And so he, I rode with him for Top Gear and he did the production Porsche. And I was like, Hey, I would be honored if you would drive, help me by driving the four-rotor up Pikes Peak someday. He goes, No, no, basically, fuck that. Yeah. You put that much effort into your own car. You need to be the one driving it up the mountain. And it like, he said it in such a way that made me think that that's exactly how he said it. It was like, Whoa, I like most people would love to drive a car that's not theirs. And he's like, No, that's got to be you. And that's where all the, okay, well, then I think that if I can, if a guy can, like me can randomly become a builder, can I become a driver? Does that concern you that you'll let down the build because you're not a driver? Right. Like you've done more driving than I have on a professional level. So you're more of a driver than I am, but you are not a trained shoe. No. Do you do? Was that like a worry for you that like you would be the failing part of the car? Yeah. Yeah, especially the three-rotor up Pikes Peak. I, what's funny is the audience thinks that my driving is the weakest part of my program. When I, whatever you call it. But what I'm getting to is all the problems I had on race day were all mechanical problems. So one of my thoughts was, you know, that, okay, look at my biggest risk, which is me as a driver. And if I over build the car, I can drive the car 80% and the combination of the two still wins a race or breaks the record, which the first year, first attempt, you know, the fastest RX7, which is, you know, an arbitrary goal, but it still accounts for something to the audience. The audience sees it as, okay, that Rob can drive. Even though I, you know, that's a diminishing returns thing. You know, you can get really good quickly as long as you're competent as a driver. And then it just slightly a little bit faster, you know, and I don't care about that little bit. And it's a world that's one in the tense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where I think the whole concept of the Gymkhana or even drifting appeals to me is that that's more of an art. It's still a lot of technical ability, but it's not one in 10th of seconds. Yeah. And I hate to say it, but it's probably more people would watch it. Yeah. Right. Like at the end of the day, racing is a rather small section of the audience, especially if it's not formula one now or something, you know, so the amount of people who are really paying attention to that versus like they just want to see a spectacle. Yeah. Like, I know if I push it hard enough, the three rotor can break 10 minutes at Pikes Peak at Pikes Peak. But if I do it in the four rotor, it's a sub 10 minute car. That's a sound bit. But if it's a nine minute car, it doesn't make any difference to the audience, to be honest. Right. You know, to us or to, you know, not even me. I wouldn't have even known. Is that fast? You know. Yeah. Yeah. And that's unfortunate about, you know, grip based tarmac driving, but that's where it was like, OK, if I can over build this car and then use it to learn how to, you know, do what you guys did, then, you know, the car can withhold or, you know, handle the abuse of driving it poorly. That was always like my intention. And so that was why the current version of the car is a tank and uses off road suspension type like linkage, because I've never broken anything on it. And you know, had I broken any one part of that car, not the hood, but had had the cars not made the runs, that's a, that's a failure. Right. When the hood fell off, I was so excited because I knew that that episode was in the can. I knew at that moment I didn't have to do anything else. When that hood flew off, I was like, did it. This is going to be a great episode. Like that episode almost felt scripted. Yeah. It really did. It almost felt scripted because like one losing a hood on a Hoonigan episode, because we became notorious with losing hoods, not just hurt, but all of us. Yeah. One that, but also just the way you won, like the back and forward. Yeah. It was, it was just really good. I got to go back and rewatch that. That was a good episode. Yeah. That would, that would seem almost impossible. And it's funny because people, you know, I went on a TV show that hasn't aired and they were like, can you do the thing where you lost the hood on Hoonigan? I'm like, I didn't do the thing. That wasn't a thing I like, I didn't weaken the hood. Can you do the thing? Yeah. This is the problem with television. So this is why I want to get into that space. Yeah. But you know, it's really funny. I ended up blowing the rear glass out of the car, drag racing Asenna. I beat him big time, but it parachuted the back glass out at Las Vegas Speedway and shot 30, 40 feet up in the air. And so I did the thing. You did the thing. It's just my thing. It wasn't planned. Yeah. But yeah. So that, I feel like at this point, I've got enough awareness to know how to become a better driver or to drive the car the way it needs to be done. I won't ever be the guy hitting that curb edge and, you know, executing it perfectly. But I think that that's where my vision for what I could do for a Jim Connell video would be unique, that part of it is the personality of this, you know, like the humor of, you know, one of my favorite things is showing my mess ups. Right. And I think that that could actually be incorporated into the video because God knows what's going to happen. Okay. So if we were going to do a Jim Connell-like video, obviously I don't control that name anymore. So I can't actually say if it's going to be a Jim Connell, but a Jim Connell-esque kind of video. Would you do the driving? I would. That's the thing is that even the idea of me doing some of it and say I can't accomplish something, throwing the keys to somebody else is all within the like the, the, the character of what I do. Right. Okay. You know, but I would, like some of the ideas I've got are that the, you know, the fan system coming out the back, it produces about 50 pounds of thrust, which isn't enough to, it's enough to push the carpet, not enough to like, but. I have it where I can torque vector that. And so imagine with all the tire smoke, having the, the smoke being shot out in different ways, just the theatrics of that type of stuff, much less modulating the fan and whatever that would create. That's all stuff that doesn't require a 10-tenths driver. It's really the car doing the, the wild, you know, part. And so, you know, that type of stuff, I would love to, I'm going to do either way, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah. When do you think this will be done? I'm going to, I just want to pencil it in my account. Right. Yeah. So that's why I brought this is we're getting the final chassis stress tested and approved for all the different things that we want to do it for. How much space does that take up? And I imagine it runs on a battery. So you've got a major battery you need to include now. So you're adding a lot of weight. Surprisingly, the battery system I want to run is about 60 pounds. Oh, that's not bad at all. And the motors are 15, 20 pounds. Yeah. And that creates that much suction. Yeah. Yeah. The, the fan itself is about 12 inch, you know, turbine type thing. Um, and then the, the whole bottom of the car is being designed so that way I can change it, um, as I learned how to do a proper vacuum system. You know, Do you think this will be something that we see more in motorsports? Do you think we'll see like leaving traditional downforce for this? No. I, I think this is boutique, uh, partially because the way to do it properly requires something touching the ground. You know, the, the, the McMurtry, it's not even from them, but you can see it's, it's some sort of ceramic plate that rides so it doesn't damage the ground. And so I'm sure the other guys at Pikes Peak wouldn't want something screwing up the road. So that's already like an uncomfortable piece. Um, and they, they focus more on the suction, not the flow where I'm trying to do both. I'm trying to flow air through the radiators and then also do the suction. So that's my interesting twist on it, uh, from the engineering standpoint. Uh, but I don't think I, what, what I want to try is having it where, okay, the car has a very low flat bottom that might scrape, uh, but pull the air from under there without any scurrying, without any of that sort of stuff. And that will still generate downforce. It won't be enough to hold it upside down, but that might be significant enough to like, hey, I don't have to deal with a consumable bottom of the car. And that would be interesting. I think that that would, that, that's where that's at. But, um, I think it's too, uh, it's too wild west. I don't think it'll be easy to tame, to make it a racing thing. I think, I think it's just a fringe, personal opinion. I mean, I think all, when that car was first announced, I think everyone looked at it as a gimmick and then people looked at the numbers and then people saw it completely upset hero cars. And I think you put a big question out there of like, is this what the future of racing could look like? Um, it's interesting. Yeah. I think it's just, uh, it's, it's extremely, I already know it's going to be extremely uncomfortable to drive. It's just going to be very violent. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and that, that thing producing three Gs of lateral force, you're already, uh, you know, you're going to have to wear like a F 22 flight suit or something. So the, the hot take for me is I actually think the opposite is what the future of motorsports needs. I think it needs less downforce. I think it needs cars that slide and they're slippy again and are hard to drive. Like that's why I love rally racing. Cause I think that's, I think, I think at a certain point people don't really care how fast the car is going. I think that that was this key moment in NASCAR and in Indy where you're talking 200, you know, plus miles an hour and how crazy that is. And then eventually it all looks the same and it doesn't get more exciting. Like the difference between 190 miles an hour and 230 miles an hour is negligible on the camera, but a car sliding sideways into a corner is like very, very, very tangible. Like you're like, yeah, I can see, I can see and feel that. Like I, that's there. And that's exactly why I think I'm one of the villains of that chase for YouTube stuff in the sense of like chasing the superlative, you know, amount of horsepower. It becomes unrelatable first of all. And that's, that's why I like, I get very careful when, okay, the four rotors my dream car, but to build another wild project, that's not, that's not, I don't know where this, that's not the goal. Because what's going to happen is it become unrelatable. It's not my passion. It's just a wild fast car and nobody cares. So I hate that we've gotten away from me racing my brother with 14 pounds of boost on a two rotor, which is like, whatever, 400 horsepower, light to light. And you have that boost at 3000 RPM and man, you know, versus now I pull a car to the garage and it's, you know, 1500 horsepower and it, you know, it just doesn't, it's not as fun. You know what I mean? I think when you, so when you said that, you know, something slipping more, I also think that it's just more fun to build like those like shipbox level, you know, project cars. So we've been teasing this conversation, the whole show. Yeah. Do you think we, yourself included in this and like some of the early YouTubers who were like really pushing to get more and more views, did a disservice to the sort of emerging car community to make everyone think that like every car needs a thousand horsepower, every car needs an engine swap, every car needs like crazy body work and, you know, flares and all of this to be considered cool. Like, do you think that that's happened? Do you, and because I do think, I think it would be very hard for you to go back and do what you did again on YouTube. Like your grandfather did. Yeah. I always say this with the Jim Conner films. You couldn't do a Jim Conner film today. It's not how the way YouTube is built. No. Are they still work because their grandfather did. Yes. You know, it's like, if we were to go do something and it wasn't going to be a Jim Conner, we'd have to find a different home for it because it's just not, single one offs don't work. But I also think the simple journey, like the classic vlog doesn't work as well anymore. Like people don't want to watch you just get a stock FDR7 up and running again. Like I said, I think that there's somebody out there that's better than me at all the things, better at technically, better presenter, better looking. You know what I mean? Would have won the Bachelorette. Would have at least made it one episode. But that poor person, that path for them to building a three or four rotor and all what we'll drive four rotor is gone. It just, it's already been done. Not that I did it good. It's just been done. And that's what the perception is. And then people that are from that era that have stuck through it have to keep upping the ante to stay relevant. Because I personally would love to dial in the three rotor more and more and more and make it just this absolute, you know, top notch, every bolt perfect type of weapon. But the criticism I get is so unaware of what it actually takes to stay in YouTube. Is that a lot of people like, oh dude, you're bouncing around, you're doing like everything 80%. I'm like, the problem is to be able to do what I'm doing, you have to do it 80%. Especially if you're like me, you have to deal with your own personality, unique weirdness. It's not just, oh, corporately, I need to do this, this and this. And here's the strategy, make sure I get this. I have to do what is interesting to me to make the content genuine, because I'm not going to make disingenuous content. And to pay the bills and do what I want to do, I also have to keep doubling down, pass it to the next guy. And that's, I think, like you said, I think that that's creating this weird, partially saturated market and then grandfathering in. And I don't know, I've struggled with that for quite a bit. Yeah, I mean, look, I talked to a bunch of people on how YouTube and just one, like the algorithm that is YouTube, to the audience that is YouTube and like sort of this competition between different creators, but also three, the storytelling, whether it's YouTube, television or whatever, has changed the way that a lot of people build cars. So for example, when I was younger, if you were going to build a car, you, you know, you'd sort all your parts, you'd get everything sorted, and then you'd get the car painted, and then you'd assemble it. Right? Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I forgot that that's how it was done. Right, because like, why would you do it twice? Yeah. Like if you have a lot of money, you can like dry build the car, take it apart and put it back together again. And like, that's how you build race cars. But, and then you realize, but that doesn't work for television or for YouTube, because the color reveal, the finished look is such an important thing that that's like the last episode. You know, like that has to be last, so you have to put that last. So you literally do it different. You do it opposite. You build the whole car and you're like, okay, now let's pull the engine back out of the car. Let's pull all this out because we have to go paint it. And you know, that's just a small example of these things that you do. And, you know, we all know this 10% of the build, which is the final 10% is 90% of the time. Right? Like getting the car to look good for thumbnails and look good for episodes goes pretty smoothly. It's thick. It's figuring out that last 10%. The wiring, the plumbing, the weird issues, the why these things don't speak to each other, you know, all the things that get more and more complicated is builds get more and more complicated. That's the part that one takes the longest amount of time and is least interesting on camera. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? That's something that I fight against. And I pay the price for that is that the audience claims that they want to see more detail on that. And my audience does see more detail on it. But they don't watch it as much as the more interesting, like quick dopamine hits. Well, that's because it's the vocal minority that's telling you you want that. It's the person who doesn't tell you what they want. So one of the things I've thought about, one of the things I've thought about doing, and I've got proof that it'll work for myself, is I've wanted to get to a phase where I've done the thing. And then I make all the reference videos about how to do it. For example, I have a wiring video about motorsports wiring and it's got over a million views. And it's two hours long. And it is one of my favorite videos I ever made. It took forever to produce. It's one of my most produced videos scripted in the sense of like, I'm not just rambling. And start to finish, you see the payoff and you learn how to do it at the highest level that you can, as deep as possible also within two hours. And so I'm proud of that video. And that's one of the things that I want to like give to the world once I've gotten where I want to go is just keep making, here's my ultimate guide to this. Here's my ultimate guide to that. Regardless of views or anything like that, that's something I feel like I want the result of a lot of my work. Every day to me, YouTube feels like it's over. Every day for that, since whatever, 20, I think I started really taking it serious in 2014. It's always like tomorrow's like, oh, well, that was a good run. That was a good run. And I think if you look at my videos and you, Thumbnails, Titles and video series and timing, you notice I've left so much on the table. I don't chase the audience loves. Okay, this week there's this, next week there's that. They've emotional, the people want that like, okay, what's Rob got done in the next week? And I mean, I'm so sporadic. And those are the people who are plugged into your journey. And like they like the story of watching you progress. And I don't even take care of them, because when I bought all those Cosmos, I'm like, shit, I need to sell some of these, but I can't in good faith sell any of them because I don't know what they are. So then I had to tear one apart and that was more of a business thing. To get this in this stuff, my shop is completely full. Or even designing this chassis, it took a month to get to this point, even though I already had the car built, the previous version of the car, it's just the amount of effort that goes into that doesn't pay off from a YouTube standpoint. Showing, watching the screen grabs of me designing something is worth a couple seconds, you know, really. Right, yeah. And so that's the part I'm struggling with right now that ties into what you're asking is, the more nerdy the thing is that I care about or like, what gets me excited is so specific that I see the audience saying, oh, you know, you look at the comments are almost exactly like, oh, you look excited. I don't understand what you're saying, but it sounds cool. And I'm like, okay, that's that's a red flag for me to scale back what I'm doing because just because I think it's exciting doesn't mean it's the best content. And that's really been my guiding force, my driving like deciding factor, not content. What do I have to build to get the title and thumbnail I'm looking for? Yeah, yeah. And I really, I really should do both. Because I think the core audience understands that I'm not doing it for that reason, but I still need to take care of that. I'm telling a story and I'm only telling bits and pieces in a very ADHD way. And I don't think that's fair to the viewers. I was actually going to ask you, do you think you have ADHD? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, that's why we always plug it in. Well, yeah. Well, long ago. Yeah. It's definitely the problem is, like I said, is that when you when you don't have a team, even if you have a handful of people helping out, it's still not really a team. They're just coming coming to go it really showcases your personality weirdness Yeah, sure. He's just embrace it. Yeah, it's just it's just who I am And my strengths and my weaknesses are basically the exact same thing, you know, you edit your own stuff I haven't in the last three four years, but Joel has been like that's the only person I have that's like full-time is my guy editing And really if anything he's just keeping me on task because he'll be like dude, you know, we have a we have an ad I the funny thing is I'll take ads like, you know, a g1 and keeps those brands That's the only way I've released a video is because they need a video, you know, hey, where's where's the I know it's a tough thing I think it's a part of the business that people don't talk about a lot which is like The reason to put content out sometimes is because you owe Something whether you owe it to the audience or you owe it to a partner or whatever because I think if when you have ADHD You need those kind of deadlines that force you to the moment. Hey, what's up? I figure you need a break and during that break I was gonna keep talking to you Are you curious about some of these random parts that I have sitting around my house like these ITBs or this custom cut from Billet GTI steering wheel. Well, this is the kind of stuff that I talk about on my patreon That's right If you want more podcast, but also just the kind of stuff that would never do well here on YouTube go check out patreon That's what it's for For sure to the moment. I'm thankful obviously the financial aspects amazing but I'm thankful that they forced me to release content because I am I've Anybody listening this day has talked to me as a close friend. It was like dude. Just release the video. It's good Like you know, I just I'm like, it's not it's not there. You know, I'm still trying I don't I can't talk about this because I'm not I don't know enough and That was one of the best parts about the building the four-rotor is I didn't know what I didn't know So here's just me discovering these things that I know There are so many people are now friends that are we're like He's building that control arm wrong. He's gonna get himself killed and I don't know any better Right, but that's the entertainment to the majority of people and now I have to be careful not to make the videos Just for that one guy that is watching that's a really good driver at pike speaking goes. Oh, that's wrong What you're doing is wrong. I I want to make the video so everybody sees me as a subject matter expert but that's not entertaining and and that's there's a weird balance I have to do with like Trying to capture that first moment. I learned something without looking stupid But also being you know, honest. Hey, this is really how I thought it would work the first time and I was wrong You know, I think that I should be a really interesting series from you is like what I know now And you go back and look at the stuff you've done and bringing in You know other experts in the space to kind of like review some of that stuff with you. Yeah, yeah, man You should like that was horrible. Why would you do that? You know Kojima the first time I brought him over to the shop He's very honest. Yeah. Yeah, he Instantly fell in love with his personality and he's so dry and whatnot, but but I love it so much We were like buddies like we're PRI drinking buddies But when I was getting ready to remember when I went to come to this versus that actually the first two times I got to this versus that I had massive catastrophic failures First the Diablo got impounded by the police. I forgot about that Was it because you didn't have plates on or something? I was doing I had a theory and I my own I broke my own rules, which is don't do something illegal while doing something illegal Yeah, okay, and so I doubled down and that's I was I was doing about 120 not because I wasn't in a hurry Right that car. I just love yeah, and then my plate was expired It was from Michigan and I had done this thing in Michigan where I could transfer the plate from my Honda Insight to the Diablo And so it came back to the wrong car Even though I had proof of insurance and proof of registration all that but it was just expired The cop knew me from YouTube. He's like it's been in California for too long You're not bringing out of impound until it's got a California registration So that was the first time in the second time I blew both drive shafts getting ready to race ken Yeah, and you know that was that was one of the worst nights of my life But the reason I mentioned that is Kojima came over to help me dial in the suspension that night and as soon as he walks up to the car He looks at the front he looks under the hood Well, there was no hood but he looked under it and he goes Uh Your suspensions and falling rate whoever designed that's an idiot And it was me and I was like Don't don't cry. It's me. I'm the idiot Hi Yeah, it's and I admitted it because you know that wasn't something that Ian had I looked at the unicorn and saw suspension right and I in my mind. I'm like, okay At zero everything should be at 90 degrees because that's Perfectly translatable force whatever right Well as as the car hits a bump that means that it gets softer And it should be getting harder and so he just cut through it right away and I was like, I like this guy And so that you know, you said that'd be it'd be perfect to have people like that Like I just I love the honesty. I love I don't have the ego of being like well. I need to look perfect I think that that's like a real difficult thing though and in creating youtube content was that The audience would call you out if you made mistakes I mean crucify you and I'm like it could be something like that's not your specialty Especially for I mean for myself like I wasn't never telling I was never I'm a builder. This is this is like I'm doing this the same way you're doing it. I'm watching other people's youtube videos to explain to me how to do this Right, like there's a reality in that but at the same time you would get called out for something and He just like it would really bum you out She's like, I like I was just trying to make this video and now this fucking asshole's got like To talk about this or that and we I won't call names. There were definitely certain people who were like, I don't want to build stuff on camera anymore Because like you just get out there chastised by the audience and 90 percent of the time the audience has no idea what they're talking about And then occasionally you do get that one person who's just mad at life because like they know what they know But they're sitting at home watching your video the thing I think I've cultivated Uh, and I think that a lot of youtubers failed to cultivate is it the comments are a two-way thing It's it's a it's a it's their chance to react to your video And there are people smarter than you watching 100 and most youtubers don't recognize that and you can pick up on those guys They're like Engineers are more than likely poor personality people. I understand why they are about the facts They're on the spectrum. Yeah. Yeah, and they should be I want that person You know guarding my life with engineering safety factors of safety and so those people aren't very polished writing comments But they're writing comments and they're smarter than me. And so I always would heart that or pin that the comment that was like No, Rob. Actually, uh, my time here at whatever we did this this and if it was just respectful enough 100 you know, and I'm sure you've also gotten dms from people because a lot of times You'll get people who don't want to call you out in public And they'll be like, hey just so you know you did it this way and this is what's gonna happen from doing that Like, okay, cool. And for I love that kind of stuff in my own content. I would address it I'd be like, hey someone called out that I did this wrong Cool. Yeah, like, uh, you know, I Just like that learning experience. Yeah, and with the uh, Cosworth stuff I've had so many ex-cosworth and current Cosworth employees say, hey, you were close But wrong. This is this this is this and they just saved me so much time and money And I like I just got their knowledge and they're also the best of the best Exactly This isn't just someone who knows how to build engines or even someone who's built engines for a drag race team or Even someone who's designed for Ford. It's Cosworth. Like they're they're the best of the best. Yeah Yeah, it it I am so fortunate that I'm just like that that story of the random guy the underdog aspect is now uh knowledgeable or can speak from experience about these Extreme things that very few people get the opportunity like the people back in 97 that were running the Cosworth's Their job was the fuel filter like the you know what I mean? Like that was that he was the fuel line guy But he didn't know anything about the cylinder liners Right and I get I get the unfair advantage of having the whole car and it's overwhelming But I get all of it and it's all my fault if it doesn't work. It's all their Uh benefit of it does because they built it. But you know, there's that's such a cool unfair advantage situation I'm put into What are you more excited about right now like version whatever this is v3 of the 4 rotor all-wheel drive now to have vacuum Um, yeah, or the indy project like what what's getting you more excited at the moment? Um The the funniest thing on my drive here Kind of answers that to some extent is that I originally bought the indy car to learn Okay, this is the fastest car in the world. How does this work tear apart? Why okay? Why are the bolts only this thick, you know, there's and there's safety factors in that Why did they choose a half inch bolt for you know, and then it cracked me up to think after you guys did the Huna corn and the the truck The the the pigases, you know, who the pigases was the was the next thing and that's essentially an open wheel car Not open wheel the suspension everything is is an indy car. You know, yeah, and Cracked me up to think that okay, uh, you know one of the things that ken had said to me was you know He was making a joke when we when you guys did the unveil and he was he was just saying like, you know, basically You know don't don't copy it or something. He was just making Really really funny I think I remember that kane. It's like oh Like I think I remember I'm being like, oh, oh Rob's he's gonna start taking photos. We bust out the ruler Yeah, so but it cracks me up that that now realizing that okay that car was definitely You know what it's capable of is is nuts. Um, you know that that okay, that's that extreme fringe edge of of motor sports type of thing Uh, and I needed to know that to again to build the four-rotor. So I think the whole kind of answers that is that the indy car is is very much a I need to see it. It's part of the research. Yeah, it's it's it's it exists for me to build this Uh, to the best of my abilities Yeah, you know, it's funny you you bring up the whoopig because I think that was that's a car that I'm just bum never got to really see true anger like Ken had a lot of issues with it never got it there Leah, you know did an exhibition run and she did push a little bit through the corners But I mean she was still really young and still learning a lot and we you know, we had to tune down Um, and now I you know, I the car is kind of a bit mothballed at the moment I don't you know, I just don't know where it's gonna go and but tim and I talk about it all time Like it's just a car. We wish would have seen a like, you know actually got to see What it was intended for right? Yeah, that was actually one of the coolest moments for me Is that uh, but him and his whole team? at bbi were uh at a testing day the same time I was it was just them and me and I think maybe one of the random guy and uh As I'm on the three-rotor going down the front straight at ppr Their whole team they're all recording me And it was like you guys are so much more qualified than me to be doing what I'm doing But they all were excited by what I was doing And that that meant I mean obviously that they're passionate people, but it was just like So cool and again this goes back to the underdogs underdog because like bbi is very much an underdog team because they compete against factory teams Yeah, true right, you know, so for them like they're competing, you know, they've competed against the Bentley factory team Obviously Porsche factory teams like they've competed on that But when they what you are underdog to them because like they've got a full shop They've got a bunch of engineers mills all these kind. I mean you have a lot of that too But like these guys have a lot of you know a lot more experience in that space and running race cars And I think that them being underdogs appreciate your underdogness to them as well so I there's two things I wanted to to talk about one is that I've got a A working name for what I want to be known for Beyond my name kind of like you guys with whoo whoo again Uh that embodies what I am doing and it's a working work in progress because I'm not really good at at the like cool factor of this So it but like I want to do like experimental Like motorsports like like it's the word experimental. You know, you see that like aircraft We're just saying that coincidentally. Yeah But that like stamp of like, okay, this is experimental I feel like that resonates with my audience of like everything I'm doing is Experimental I'm trying something and that's kind of when you're building your own car Unless you're building it, you know stage one whatever from whoever You're experimenting and and I feel like that if I could brand that right That would be like like what I what I could represent. Yeah, you know, and I like that because I think it does fit your Sort of prog, like your process through all of this as I mentioned both my parents are scientists and one of the things we talk about a lot is Science is experimenting which means it doesn't it's not always right And what you know is right until it's not. Yeah, right? Like like that's this thing And I think we saw a lot of that through through covid which was like Hey, we said this and then this isn't right anymore. Well, it's because we have more data And as you have more data you realize that that doesn't work anymore And it's like if you look at the history of engineering in cars, you could say the same thing There were things that we thought were the right way, especially in aerodynamics I mean look how much Arrow has changed in the past 25 years of what we thought worked to what works now, right? um All of these kind of things are you know Are is like this continual experiment like you keep doing something and it's true Until it's not true because something else proved it to be false, right? Which is just the progression of any of the sciences, whether it's engineering biology or whatever There's there's only a few things that are like like physics is pretty true Like physics like like like an object that motion stays in motion like that doesn't really change But in worlds of engineering and biology because biology is organic and it changes like there's there's all these things And I think that's kind of fun because like you said like you're not going to get it right all the time Yeah, and that that's kind of my thing for transitioning into being Uh, it's not like oh, I'm 42. I'm I'm older. It's I'm I'm more of the crazy uncle role And I want to own that I don't want to like be that guy gets tons of plastic surgery and like tries to hold on to like My 20 years or whatever you mean. I want to embrace the fact that okay. I earned these scars I earned this you know like they like I I stood out all day, you know trying to film an episode of this rosette That's why I've this this freckle right like I want to own that because I want to be the guy that can tell some cool stories in person And they're not just the same canned ones every time And I really want to make sure that that's that's kind of future for my Venture is that you know, I I I help Bring up the next generation because it's coming whether or not I want to you know, I mean like that's the next generation's already here We are the previous generation. I think that that's something that's like become very obvious to me now And I think even the people that we think Are the newer guys in the space aren't even new anymore. That's true, right? That's true. There's people who you're like, oh, you're like, no, they've actually been around for a decade Yeah, you know, there's people who aren't even on youtube who are on tick tock and instagram that have audiences We're not even aware of I mean, that's sort of the most amazing thing. I think I've seen in this space is I will find A content creator in automotive. I've never heard of before and they've got hundreds of thousands of followers I was like, I don't even know who this person is. This is amazing Where when we started doing this, so we all kind of like we all knew of each other and then we all sort of knew each other I mean in those early days, like you look at the daily transmission era of hoonigan Like if you were creating content on the internet, you probably came on that show Like that was we we were the Jay Leno for scumbags, right? Like we if you were out there doing something cool We were going to bring you on and now it's like you couldn't there's just too much. There's just there's just too many especially with the Shift to short form or not us shifting but the people that come up as just short form creators Yeah, it's like hold the space. It's a whole yeah, and it's actually harder. I think to follow Um or to find because there's the one guy that does the asmr talking to the thing And he's just reviewing seats or something like that. You know, I mean like, you know, and it's like, okay He's got a massive following because he's got a shtick You know, there's that that is fascinating to me and I one of my promises to myself is that I would never Say like oh those new trends are stupid because you know, like, uh, you know, if something's goaded it's goaded You know, like that's that's the new that's the new way of saying it and not that I want to be like hello fellow kids But but I want to embrace that that's that's the way that people You know that that's the emotionally and exciting to talk that way. That's that that's it and uh, I don't want to lose sight of those trends um But I I definitely can see like okay You get that point where you've established yourself so far now you almost cannibalize what you Are good at to try and also then be something else that you might you know, like explore a new space and I that's an interesting thing that I've I've personally been struggling with is you know, okay if I make shorter form content I don't make as much money off of that and I also have to think totally differently about how to make that content Uh, but I also don't want to lose sight of okay the world's changing without me anyway. Look, this is a massive I think content creator dilemma, which is do you do what you're already good at and potentially age or trend out right, um, or do you You know hop on the newest trend and then just trend hop the whole time And and I always go back to hot rod magazine as a good example of this like at some point hot rod magazine. I think decided We're gonna age with our audience right like I think there was this time where they were like We're not trying to continually chase a younger audience. We see where our audience is going And we're aging with them a bit YouTube may have shifted that a bit because I think when they came and they did roadkill It brought in a younger audience and it made me but and then I think maybe a few years after that hot rod was like wait We need hot rod to become like the magazine to become younger because we've actually we've we've shifted that audience And I think this you see this a lot in music especially Like you see a lot of music, but obviously I worked in hip hop. I grew up around hip hop It's like If you're nauseous and you put out a new album, which he just did it's like do you sound like nauseous from ilmatic? Or do you try to sound like a nauseous that fits into music today? Yeah, it's like it's a really difficult thing because he has the skill set that he could do both, right? Yeah, but The core audience that wants to hear you is probably the people who want to hear ilmatic, right? Right? There was a Slick Rick song that dropped like I don't know probably like four years ago now It feels new to me But like it was so good when it came out. It was Slick Rick and DJ Premier and like it was so good But it was so good because it reminded me of the Slick Rick I loved in the 90s, right? Like and it came back into that But that means that he's not gonna there aren't a bunch of 12 year old or 14 year old or 24 year olds even talking about it It's much a 40 year old Yeah, so I think it's really important for content creators to sort of like understand like are you going to continue to evolve? A lot of people do it and they do a very good job at it Or are you just going to say hey, this is my audience? Like we we went through a really great period of time together and now we're gonna age together. Yeah, right? Like I I'm doing podcasts like this is full unks back But I also like I really like where I am in the world and it's crazy because for the longest time I was the young gun. I was the youngest guy at the journalist events I was one of the youngest people making content like we were and I woke up one day and I wasn't young anymore And that just happens and I don't think of myself as old my knees remind me every day But in general I think I'm there, but I'm like, no, it's just like this This is the moment to sort of like step back and embrace and help Platform those who are like kind of coming up and doing the thing Um, and then you know, go go do something else the thing I'm Romanticized I've room I've romanticized or I'm romanticized by is the fact that when you're The younger generation you don't have any of the other intertwined I guess bullshit that we're like, you know that okay if I go to make this video Technically so and so did that and he was with this guy and then that person did this and you have all this web of existing Structure that as a new person coming into the scene. I just make what I want to make Yeah, it excites me and I I think like I said I romanticized that idea of like, okay when I came into it I didn't know that you know, there was so and so already doing this or that you don't do it this way or anything I just did what felt right and I think as I get older. I want to continue that I hate the idea of going well I did make a video three years ago that used a similar title and thumbnail So I can't now now i'm really narrowing my own content that I just want to make Yeah, I I mentioned this on almost every podcast a friend foster huntington He said to me, you know, do you want to mean a little too a lot or do you want to mean a lot to a little About three years ago and it changed the entire way. I looked at what I wanted to do in life Right, because I think for a long time I was just we want the lot was what mattered. Yeah, right like a lot of people a big audience I think you've done a good job of meaning a lot to a little and you your little has been very big But you've had a little that has rode with you you name anybody any single I can guarantee you google any top 10 automotive youtuber list. I am never on it And I love that I always love that always number 11 or or maybe that's maybe a very wishful thinking But like I I love never Having peaked or being overexposed or anything like that and uh, I feel like you were on that top list in the In the rx8 era like I mean the rx7 era Yeah, yeah, yeah, like when you were chasing when you were chasing the four-rotor rx7, you know All-wheel-drive goals you were you were you were up there And I'll tell you this because you know, these are these weird things. This is like the real behind the scene stuff You pay attention to your analytics when you when you do a show like we did with daily transmission We had different people on every day. We could see what people brought new subs We could see what people brought different audiences where our demos changed What people brought larger female audiences different, you know regional audiences like you could see all of that right and For us like you definitely brought an audience Because I don't think our Venn diagrams were just crossed over right yeah, right like people who were watching you were there for the Education or the you know like that type of thing and people who are watching us were there for the entertainment Yeah, like it was two different things I got a lot of messages and you would come on our show and we would see a bigger bump than we would if we were to do something With like an adam LZ who probably had a little bit more of a crossover for us Right and there's like and I you know those are always the weird data things I was which I don't think anyone realized because I think from the outside everyone looked like Hoonigan was just like doing whatever the hell they pleased the one ever like I'm a huge data person So I was always looking at oh, how does this do who does you know? How does this work? So we always enjoyed working with you because you brought a different audience to our audience, right? That sort of that sort of crossover, which I I think is interesting But yeah, I get what you're saying like you are like but you've been true to that thing like you just kept doing it You didn't like chase. Yeah You didn't chase like the thumb I haven't chased views. I have never chased views. I've chased not Be but you've also had like really large videos, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What's your biggest if you're my biggest video of funny Isn't isn't a car video at all. It's a gun video. I made really. Yeah. I made a video I was one of the first people to get a suppressor in the state of michigan and I The engineering side of it is what's fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I made a thing about three things video games get wrong about suppressors Oh, good that video went ultra vile. Yeah, ultra like well to start. Yeah calling them silencers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly Exactly. I think I even put it silencer in the in the title. Yeah, the suppressor. Yeah, and so uh, I played to that Because I was like, okay, can same thing with tiktok. Can I play the game? Could I am I capable of recognizing the trend and doing it and even a tiktok? You can see like I did one or two things and then went for the the throat of like a Trend and it had like whatever 20 million views and so okay. I could do that Um, but I don't want to sell out type of thing. I don't want to do it to do that. Yeah, and so then those videos You know came at a time where I still trying to figure out what I wanted to do with youtube the the the gun videos Um, and then obviously that changed considerably. Um, you know the climate. Yeah And uh, yeah, I think now like most of those get sort of it's shadow band shadow band demonetized all of that It was uh, yeah, it was directly on one of the stab although I will admit when shorts came out All I ever saw was videos of like just glocks with switches Which I'd watch every one of them because it's fascinating to me to see a handgun do that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah It that's like the engineering side of it's fascinating. But uh, yeah, so then the the car stuff I I I notice I have these nice runs of like, okay Uh, I even tell the audience the people like people like oh, I do. I haven't seen a video from your videos in the last six I'm like that's because those aren't worth watching if you're not into that Don't watch those because there's a payoff video that is more like core audience core audience payoff video So you like the algorithm because youtube will serve to people what they want and then the rest I think I think it allows me to be Super nerdy And then peak and then super nerdy and then peak and so like I like I said, I I know that I know the audience wants to see more of this condensed To the point right, you know, and so I'll play that game when when it's a video That's important to me that people see it like it's a result of my work You could probably hire someone to go through all of your content and just do like brief cut downs of like explaining rob dom And it's just like it takes all of your stuff and just puts it into like one nice one hour episode to watch I've got uh, I've got Uh 10 terabytes of footage of just the four rotor from start to now Like every video I've ever made about it like the rock and that's crazy because you're not using cinema level cameras Like to me 10 terabytes is like a day with a red but like you're shooting this on gopro Yeah, exactly. iPhone stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so yeah that that Car to me is important to where I can I could go back and show every step of the the journey Uh, partially because it's like a movie like to me story of how that car came to be uh, you know the the the antagonists in my life the people that were supposed to help that were like like Guidance and then they turned around and became like competitors like that type of stuff like oh, it's a perfect story What is the collection right now? What do you have? Uh, so so you got the diablo the diablo four rotor. Yep. You've got obviously the rotor the rotor R7 you drove you drove here today. Yeah the eight the 10th anniversary. Yep. Um, I've got the infamous c5 Rotary vat which I love. Yeah that thing that thing works so well. It's it's almost boring, but uh, that that's a whole conversation by itself Um, and then I have the indy car Um, that's one of the main ones and I have that dragster where the 12 rotors sitting in right now um, and then I have the one rotor miata that uh, I kind of mothballed while I took these big Carzon one rotor miata. Yeah, so I must have missed. Yeah. No, I haven't I haven't done the series yet Okay, and so I start building the engine. It's a full billet. Uh, I can still lift the engine and the turbo over my shoulder It's about eight 90 some pounds. Yeah, um and trying to make maybe 300 to 400 horsepower out of a something I can pick up Um, and really what I'm hiding inside of that project is all my rnd for different, you know various rotary Ideas that I've got now interesting. Yeah, and so the one rotor miata I still have the six rotor e-shaft. It's only one of two or so in the world that Is heat treated in a way that can be turbo charged And so that's that's something I would do like a Off-road truck, you know, like a trophy truck type of thing. Oh, that'd be interesting. Yeah six rotor that I have a short shaft Three rotor that I want to build. What kind of torque would a six rotor make? Well, my my four rotor um at 30 pounds of boost Makes a thousand foot pounds of torque. Oh, wow, okay, and so Easily, I think a six rotor could make four 500 600 foot pounds of torque, you know, is there a difference between Like a equal or like, I mean the odd or even number of rotors for Torque and stuff like that or does it not matter? That doesn't really it's all it doesn't really matter It really scales it really the whole sandwiching concept as it gets bigger. It just gets bigger. Yeah, it multiplies by that many more Um, I there's a there's an issue though that I'm trying to solve and it's so technical I think I can make a really good video about it, but I can't make a video series Is that you take like your five cylinder? There aren't many five That's not an even number where like you take like a turbocharger and it's got at most one or two inlets You know, so even numbers work really well a three rotor and a five cylinder both don't have like a Their their bastard children of that weird pulse. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, and you can't but it also makes them sound great So it's cool about them. So I I've been working on designing something that would have Something more for a three, you know input Well, I'm sure you know the debate that like three rotors are cool within four rotors because they sound crazy I I go back and forth Um, I can say internally in the vehicle the four rotor Uh, I wish you could do it under helmet cam because like anytime that four rotors at full tilt. I wasn't smiling I was Oh, like like it was it was beautifully uncomfortable because it was just like this is not supposed to exist And and I loved that but that was not the three rotor I can thrash on and I love the sound it's screaming And it's within controllable reason, but the four rotor. Yeah is is a very visceral experience Uh, and I realized it really I'm doing these cars because of the sound that I 100 can tell You can make that power out of a big block You can make that power much more reliably But I am doing that because I love the way they sound I just I just did an episode I filmed an episode on venny's channel about the frary 360 and how the frary 360 is Like one of the most affordable sports cars right now that you could buy one between 45 and 80 thousand dollars at the moment Right, yeah, and like name a better bang for the buck in terms of the noise department It's not really super fast. Like we were out ripping the other day and like you'd be like I'm like Okay, and like I was thinking one point. Like I think my rs2 faster than this right like it's like I'm waiting like waiting for it to Kick in you're like, oh no It's an na v8 like it doesn't kick in it just revs out like it doesn't get faster Um, but it sounds absolutely incredible and like I we had this conversation And one of the topics that we talked about was how I care more about the sound Of that engine than like maybe some of the power figures because yeah The sound is a better part of the Visceral experience of driving that car than what an extra 50 horsepower would be. Yeah, yeah I I I will that's one of the things I've been kind of pitching to the people that are helping me with the vacuum system Um, because the motors that I'm using in it are those same ones in Many of the hyper electric cars, right? That's actually where I found it. Um, funny enough ed pink Which is they build, you know ed pink engines They build all the singer and sizinger singer Both of their motors and so the singer C-zinger uses this electric motor and I asked them They handed to me this little pancake thing and that you know that really kicked kicked the whole vacuum Kind of I hate to use the phrase hybrid but concept of the car right in a place But the issue is to me that those Their sound doesn't justify their performance like this. It just doesn't it doesn't know I get it you know, I I don't know if you've driven the hundi five n. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but it has the like it pumps in like fake sound into the cabin and When they first told me about that I was like I cringed I was like, oh like that's like full automotive ick for me like I do not want that, right? and then I drove at laguna seca And I was faster With that on then with it off Because it just made more sense to me like coming into a corner like I knew what gear I was in even though like I'm not technically in a gear I'm in like a torque like vectoring sort of like, you know control sample of where I'm allowed to be in the torque but Having been someone who grew up on hearing a car even like on a simulator if the volume was turned down a simulator I don't know where my braking zones are Like I like the sound like the engine really helps I think that's one of the like the unfortunate parts is that That part again to use the word visceral like you don't get that You don't get that visceral feeling with ev they could be super fast But that part doesn't connect the sound for me is just so important and again this goes back to the jim kana films It doesn't seem that abnormal now, but when we released the jim kana films nobody was doing car videos without music Like everybody's car videos would have music in them. Yeah. Yeah. It was like that was what you did had to and for us The car was the music And like we had this really strong stand on like you do not put music over the sound of a car under a sound of a car and I think it's also again I go back to my like my you know my ambitions for hollywood is like everybody needs to put a score and all this fake sound and A lot of the times like they'll put an engine sounds that aren't even the engine of the car and all of that But it's like the right sounding car captured properly should be all you need to hear So but that also means it needs to be the right sounding car. Yeah. Yeah. Now one of the interesting things I think that For me my journey particularly, but I think everybody is in general is and I blame the hellcat for this I love and hate that that engine platform for a lot of reasons I have a hell. Oh, yeah, I should say I have a hellcat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, dodge gave me one of the last They were supposed to give me one of the huracrate engines and they couldn't get it ready in time And so they gave me the red. I am very thankful Surprised my girlfriend with it like genuine. It's her dream car to have like a 71 challenger And I was like, okay And so I made the whole like girlfriend reveal thing and it's genuine And the car is absolutely insane red eye And it's in paint right now Nice, but yeah, but the the thing is that engine made it Everybody aware that you can just have 700 800 horsepower without earning it you can pay for it And the same thing with ev is like, okay. I I feel like To me this is this is not a controversial thought, but I feel like just say it. Yeah This is the end of an era of like chasing Performance after that. It just does not matter. It does. It's too violent. It's too uncomfortable for a human to experience And that just faster is just you know, you know a superlative feeling and I think that Like you said sliding a car or whatever we have to find the the next chase the next Journey a different way dude. I already found it man slow cars driven fast is way much more fun than fast cars driven So I believe and I think that our cars have now gotten so fast that you can't actually drive them at the limit I I yeah, that's a that's a problem. Is it there's something fun about going down? Like connecting two corners, right? And trying to drive as fast as you can between the two and just about topping out before you go into the corner Then feeling like you still had twice the amount of power like because then it just feels like you're never ringing it out And that's like why my Like the cars I enjoy driving are they match sort of where one my my current skill set is as a driver But to where my Want for danger is as a father in my life So like I'm more interested in building a really fun mark on rabbit that I can go and rip around it But and then driving my You know 1100 horsepower kubuquatra. Yeah, because like that car can get me a lot of trouble and As much as I see these things the minute I'm behind the wheel. I'm full red mist Like I'm gonna use as much as I got this But there's like something really fun about driving a slow car fast Like and just ringing its neck and driving it at the absolute Limit like two-wheeling a car through a curve that only makes 100 horsepower is fun. That's why miyadas are fun, right? It's why those it's why my Front-wheel drive folks so I can golf is fun because you can manhandle it and it's a good time and 40 miles an hour in a corner Feels the equivalent of 90 miles an hour through the same corner my 9 11 That's one of the projects that I've that are not my main project But could end up being a main project of sorts is you know, I've always wanted to align with like any car Manufacturer mozda has never been it. I've never worked with mozda. How is that possible? They've never you know, it's always been conversations with them. No, wait. No, I'm like hold on a second If anyone from mozda is listening to this reach out to this man He has made an entire generation Love your stupid engines that my favorite company stupidly made come on get on board guys But the thing is nobody can buy that doesn't help mozda's bottom line Realistically, I'm not I'm not beneficial that way But that's and you also came a little too late because when I was a journalist mozda had this like more mozzas are raced every weekend Than any other man. Oh, right because miyadas were so big obviously the rx7 was still being raced the rx8 Whatever you say about the platform and the engine that came in it, right? Well, it was the renaissance the renaissance engine It's one of the best handling cars from the yeah, okay. Well, you said best You said renaissance and the best is no no not the renaissance. Yeah, the car handle. I don't like how the car looks I think it's kind of weird I I like have seen people do Like renders of what it would look like if you just made it into a two-door like which kind of looks a little better It's an awkward shaped car. Yeah, it's very much of that weird 2004 error like that the 350z and the outtt We're all revolutionary designs that felt aged like felt old within three years, right on my drive here I'm in the fc which you don't see right A pass an rx8 and I lean like other window like this and the guy just stared at me Was it in my neighborhood? No. No, because there's an old guy in my neighborhood. Is it yellow? It was in town, but I was just like I was like, how dare you oh, that's one of those They don't know it's a rotary still but like the r i've done. I don't know 60 laps or something In in rx8 at Laguna seca. It was really well fucking fantastic car. Yeah, yeah, it's it's fantastic so with all that the the thing I Being that I've not been anything corporate with molesta Has been very freeing. Obviously. I've been able to make a lot of states, you know But I've always wanted to align with a company and so one of the things I've been trying to do For the last couple years is work with ford and I've got the perfect project And their engineers are excited to be part of it. Okay, so I have a 67 Lincoln continental. I've had you know, whatever forever It runs 462 mls the engine that came in it seven whatever 7.6 meter suicide door. Yeah suicide door hard top What color it's technically this ugly ass Beige, but I've wrapped it blue. See so I used to be I've always loved that car. I've loved it forever It's just one of those cars that I just always thought was cool probably just because I had suicide doors Yeah, I always wanted a black one because like that's so cool But since my wife and I have bought this 57 mid-century modern. I actually realized that the right color for the period was the beige That the beige is actually the color it should be like black is super cool No black is super cool and it's like very like, you know It's morphias like it's it's it's it is the cool version of it It's it has that just toughness to it for me I just think sometimes like and that's weird to say because I used to call old man tan But i'm starting to come around to like a big body beige car So like if you don't do this project, I might be willing to buy it Pull the map off fair fair enough, but the you know me it's not about the color And the cool part is is that I've talked with the guys at Ford and you know the mega zilla Well, they have the mega zilla 2.0 that's not for sale yet because they they need to do some more calibrations with it You know for me. I'm like, okay the products they are sell it but you know explain the mega zilla for Okay. Yeah, so the mega zilla is their f250 7.3 liter gas engine And then they made a mega zilla which is like forged internals. I'm now I know I finally took apart my first piston engine So I can talk about it. It happened to be a cosworth, but but I went right for the top But you know all the upgraded parts and it makes more horsepower and torque than the stock engine Well, mega zilla 2.0 is a supercharged version of that. Oh interesting and They said internally, I don't know if I'm supposed to say but we're saying because I wasn't under nda But they internally they made 1400 horsepower with this Wow Like as is type of thing. That's incredible. So I remember when the god zilla first came out and everyone got really excited about that Right, seven three god zilla and all that and then pushed it to the power links. He's a lot of people on youtube are blowing them up Yeah, yeah, so yeah, so ford's definitely created a version but The thing is they don't have a calibration To run that with their 10 speed Transmission and so I want to the agreement is that I put that drive train in there Basically pretending my Lincoln is a truck So I can tow because my Lincoln has a hitch, but I want to set up the suspension I want to set everything up to use the Lincoln to tow my other cars A scholar and a gentleman over here my friend So you want to use a Lincoln? Suicide door continental. Is it a convertible or hard top hard top to tow your race cars to the track? Yeah, yeah, that's that's fantastic In comfort, I mean that car rides better than any other car. I've ever I've ever driven. Is it a runner right now? Yeah Yeah, yeah, it drives as is. If I would have known I would have asked you to bring that but I wouldn't have made it I made it I went to from Michigan So I did Woodward dream cruise and I made it up You know, that's about 40 miles from my house Made it up to Woodward had a blast on the way back blue two tires and just across skating across the highway I didn't hit anybody Saved it. I have new tires on it, but now they're dry-rotted because that was years ago So I don't I don't think I would have uh been as lucky this time. But but the car runs Uh, it it barely but it it runs. I actually had a viral video on it because I said this is why you don't daily drive classic cars And I lost a hubcap and accidentally hit a truck in the oncoming traffic and we caught on a camera I apologized and he was all he thought it was the funniest thing So I was thankful but again not scripted not I didn't plan that but uh, that car is very special to me And I just thought I'm not gonna put a coyote in it. I'm not gonna put a five liter I want to put a big engine into it and then like I said kind of I have more Engines in my shop that say Ford on them because the the cause was a cause worth Ford, right? Right? Um, then I do have rotaries. So I'm like if any brand that I wanted to try to align with and you know See whatever the future is that's that's one of the side quests that I'm uh currently doing in it But I really want a tow But properly proper brakes proper suspension proper everything have so would you build a whole new chassis for it too? So that it's the because like at the end of the day you get as much power as you want But the chassis is what designates your tow capacity a it's really easy that that car can weigh as much as I want it to weigh So I can add tons of shit to it and that's not the the design Criteria the guys from Ford were saying yeah, you could transplant the rear pretty easily Um, but the front the shock towers are you know a truck because I was gonna buy if Ford wasn't getting involved I was gonna buy a crash f250 and do this You do you know the story of the Ford 9 inch? No, not those stories But do you know the four nine inches considered like one of the strongest rear ends and all of that and it was actually built And intended for a Lincoln. I don't remember which model But they needed to create more room in the back of the car for I think where between how the seat and the gas tank sat in the car So they developed a pumpkin that you know You know it works opposite right like the front of it comes off instead of the rear panel and everything and it was developed for Like accommodating space Savings like a no big saving and then the side effect of it was that they built one of the strongest rear ends of all time Which is kind of funny. I don't know just a random fact of like that they did not set out to build An indestructible rear end with the Ford 9 inch It was made to give like more interior space for the Lincoln that is hilarious. Well, then I'll probably have to use it So yeah, so if you see you can put one of those in there if it doesn't already have one. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome But yeah, that's again like I want to make sure it does something but I really really maybe it is the middle age role I really want to just daily drive that Like that car was the most comfortable car like you just can't recreate that no modern car No good suspension setup can recreate the sheer mass Of one of those cars. We had a osmobile delta 98 that we bought for woodward drinkers We bought it. The idea was that we were going to use it for drinkers. By the way if woodward's such a fun time It's such a cool experience, but um 20s whatever six miles of cars is just crazy We bought the car in Ohio. It was a parade car. You may have seen it. It was like all white Yeah, okay, okay And we bought it We thought we would use it for the weekend then sell it and all of us just fell in love with it And like I will tell you nothing was cooler than just cruising around Long Beach and that thing like it's just like top down Oh, there was no top just just open Driving around like I just love that and I miss that like of I think about a lot because I have 26 cars now just kind of crazy Yeah And I have a lot of like I have like a lot of repetition in my collection Like I have a lot of the same type of car right a lot of a lot of Volkswagen's a lot of all-wheel-drive outies like very kind of like similar things a lot of the same kind of trucks and I've decided that I need to cut these down. I need to make it more manageable But I started making a list mean to interrupt you you decided but have you done so I've started to Oh, okay. Okay. You took action. Yeah, so I sold well Ashley sold her Ford f100 to Mike borrows. Okay. Yeah, so he just bought that from us I sold my Audi a1 which was really like a commuter car But of course like my commuter car had to be the only one in the country because it's a Mexican built a1 That was never sold here Which meant that servicing it was a nightmare because I'd have to go to teowan at a by parts So there was that Um, and then I just I sold my Audi 4,000 because I just realized I wasn't gonna do anything with it. I'm proud of you I don't think I could ever do that. I think I'm about to sell my b150 Which is my the one that you probably saw that when you drove in here. It was in the driveway before which is my Mexican spec Ford Basically a Ford suburban and then Yeah, I'm gonna clear those out. Maybe sell one or two of my mark ones And what I've decided is is I want to just like I want to have a bunch of different types of experiences or type cars And like so like I'm not selling the nova because I love having a muscle car I'm not selling the 911 because like to me this is like my favorite type of sports car I might sell the Ferrari because the 911 and the Ferrari are similar in a way right? There's a crossover. I mean, obviously mid-engine rear engine v8 versus, you know, flat six turbo. There's it's not the same, but it's there's a There's a similar feeling in it Which is like it feels really special and I also feel like a douchebag driving it, right? Like it checks those boxes um But the thing that I really feel like I miss is that big body 1960s era Land yacht like there's just nothing feels like that and you could do Eight miles an hour in it and feel as it's just like the coolest experience floats. It's great. You actually don't want to do 80 miles It's great. Yeah, one of my favorite criteria of these type of cars is if you can see a speed bump But you can't feel the speed bump it just absorbed right in oh that is the nicest feeling I feel Uh, it's the only time I feel better than everybody else. It's just driving that type of shipbox I'll say something else though And this is probably something to think about because we were talking about engine noise the whole time I actually don't want to hear the car because when We are we had an old mobile that had like the rocket engine in it and it was just really quiet It was just really like unless you really got on it But if you were just cruising you could barely hear it. Yeah, and I remember thinking this is the only vehicle that I think Could be a good, um, you know Transplant for an EV Like it's the only thing I would put an EV in because I don't need it to make noise Like that's not what it's about Like it would actually be like a really cool conversion is to have like an old whether it's an old Cadillac and old You know suicide door Lincoln, you know an old oldsmobile or whatever like any of the yachts like that's the one thing I'd go Yeah, if you make sense, I don't want burbling because I don't yeah, I don't yeah like exactly Sound like some kid in a BMW. Just like bang pops all the way like I don't need that Yeah, so but I'll tell you I'll tell you what the other the alternative is the muscle car sound and feel Uh, when I've got Erica's car running that lean that happens when you launch and and a supercharger Which I'm not a supercharger guy, but And it picks up on its side. Oh that is such a cool feeling. I mean just revving it like in my nova There's nothing cooler than being at the light and you rev it and you just like the whole like the horizon shifts Yeah, like there's just something super neat about those are the moments that I I hope the next couple generations can enjoy as much as we get to like a we've kind of We've had to exploit some of them capturing the camera But even then then you know the the videos were viewed then and so somebody can have that their own first experience Of these type of things and that's you know, that's for me. Why I do what I do is those moments I think I think it'll happen again. It's just gonna happen on a new platform Yeah, like youtube will be our platform just like there are plenty of people who did what we did before us in the magazine world I was in it at the end of it You know, there'll just be something new and then once it's new they get to just repeat it all over again Yeah, there'll be another guy. He'll be better looking than you He'll have won the bachelorette Um, and he will get his four rotor, you know actually finished finished in like eight episodes. Wow Okay, now I'm waking up. Well, it's because it's short for me. You gotta condense it all True. So, um, yeah, no, I I think I think we'll see that so what else what else uh, what else is new? What else you got going on? Yeah, we jumped right into everything but right what other Because I think we spun off on your mazda project. Was that the rest of your builds? What did you leave some out? I mean I the Everything always comes back to the four rotors. So there's a purpose, right? But um, I'm always trying something else I guess that the one rotor miado is something I'm very excited for But I've got I've got a current bone to pick with the way that cars are built And I love that that this is shifting and so a lot of my projects are shifting to as little fabrication as possible Oh, really? Yeah, uh, why fabricators are uh, uh I could go into a lot of depth to this but fabricators are the most difficult Artists to work with. Yeah. Um, and and as a result You know, it's just a different train of thought. It's a different way of thinking. It's not an engineering mindset um, and as a result hitting deadlines or having the car run when you need it to run Uh, that becomes a very big challenge. And so like on the one rotor for example instead of having paying somebody to you know Bumble through making an intake manifold for it We designed it in CAD and then had it 3 printed out of aluminum And I spent less money and less time and got a way better product because it was actually engineered Not just kind of half-assed. And so Uh, the the the era of 3d printing 3d scanning 3d printing aluminum and steel is here. It's it's reasonable. It's cheaper than you know that you know, so it's it With price of 3d scanner is coming down price of all this the software all that coming down I feel like there's a time where that's really like my audience can watch what i'm doing and then do it themselves as well and they don't have to wait for A person with an attitude to eventually weld a flange that takes 15 minutes because they didn't think it was a big deal Um, and they don't have time for you because you're not their production work. Understandably Running cars is becoming more accessible to everybody right if that was that was my political pitch That's that's what i'm running on. Yeah, I try to I get part of what you say I will say that I definitely buy into I really enjoy the art of fabrication Like I enjoy a really nice dimple dyed panel Right like I enjoy That I enjoy the old-fashioned metal work and that kind of stuff I follow a lot of fabricators who aren't even in the automotive space on instagram because I just enjoy What you can do and how you can make? Um, all of that stuff come alive. I will say That I do hear from your side, which is like sometimes you just have to make it work One of the things we got into this conversation in a previous episode. Um, Mike burrows, who you know Victoria Bruno. I'm not sure if you know her but she's uh, Ferrari mechanic and they were talking about sort of the quality of builds on ferrari's and You know, I think that we live in this world where now everything should look cnc cut out a billet Like everything has this like wild design and pattern to it But I worked in racing and a lot of racing like real racing on the fia level a lot of it There's elements of it that are agricultural Yeah, because you designed something it didn't work and now you just have to make it work right now The shifter on my indy car. I just made that myself Uh is essentially two long poles of steel welded together and then capped on the end. It's a long broomstick Yeah, and that's the best way to do it And I think now we've because of the introduction of cad and and also just how fast this can all happen Um, we are seeing everything looks to have this amazing fit and finish in the world of motorsports But if you go through a race car from the 90s, oh, yeah, yeah Like booger welds like just whatever works and again agricultural I think is the best way to explain it like it looks like the kind of thing you'd see on a tractor. Um And it's because it worked. Yeah. Yeah, my my grape isn't I love fabric. I love fabrication Um, I think a lot of people confuse this is My hot take is I think a lot of people confuse themselves thinking that they're fabricators when they are just welders Right. Got it. The problem is you're lacking the engineering piece. Exactly. That's the biggest part is that they're the you know It takes a certain type of person to want to become a welder or fabricator But there's a reason back in michigan that there were plumbers and pipe fitters and then welders The pipe fitters are solving the engineering of it, you know, and then welding welding is welding Obviously, there's there's a lot to welding but I'm not downplaying that but once you know That's a very repetitive process And so I think that a lot of people would just rest on that and say well, I know how to weld I know how to build a car and and I don't like that mentality at all I support that. Yeah, so engineering over cool fabrication. Yeah is your push. Yeah, and and uh You know hitting deadlines obviously matters And even though what we're doing is very organic and fun I I can't have organic fun if the car doesn't run at all right and so I I don't know. I have a problem that you know, if I put out a You know look for resumes and whatnot I attract a lot of the wrong people I attract a lot of the right people but I get a lot of noise because people want to be youtubers Yeah And so like I have a hard time finding the ones that are doing it because they are just they just want to be A better version of me and that's the person I want to hire But I have a hard time finding that and so Uh, yeah, fabrication has been a thorn in my side Because it's just like I do not do not like being held hostage. I do not like being told that. Oh, this isn't possible Or this is whatever when it clearly isn't it's not me being irrational. It's just Artists have you know have emotions. I get it, you know, and I respect that but I I can't I I don't have time. Yeah, I want I have a vision for what I want to make And uh, I think what a lot of people have confused is they thought that I wanted to be the cnc guy I wanted to be the tuner. Right. I just couldn't Wait A couple more years for the the person that was supposed to do it to do it I can't wait. It's funny you mentioned that because so for me And you mentioned this before you're like, I know you see yourself as the behind the scenes guy But like obviously you were on camera too. Yeah um I got on camera because it was easier than telling someone else what to do. Yes. Yes Like I needed a narrative through thread in our content and a lot of times I would play that Right, like hurt would deliver the jokes, right? Like Zach would bring the energy Um, and a lot of times like I was the one who had to be like, okay, here's what we're doing Yes, so that I could carry the narrative and like that Me that made that I ended up becoming a part of the content wasn't the goal So like I understand because I think it was the same point. It's like sometimes it's just easier to yourself Then get other people to do it but It also becomes a weird place you put yourself in because now you're like, oh, I'm just doing one more thing I didn't want to do. Yep. Yeah, and then you're like, wait now and like now I've got a podcast That's the ADHD shining through. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that that certainly is. Um I want to change subjects real quick because we are we're getting up there in time and I want to change subjects real quick I know you've been doing the show at Top Gear. I'll admit I never seen an episode You know how you too bizarre or content creators would always have time for other people's stuff But I do know the concept of it and I know that it means that you're not doing stuff with your own cars How how's that been like has that been an interesting thing for you to like go One have to ride in other people's contraptions, which is always kind of sketchy and sketchy But you know being more of the host because to me I've always felt that you are the um, how do I best say this you are the um You were the begrudgingly like like you like you didn't want to be a personality But a personality got you to where you wanted to be. Yes, which I feel similar in that But like that like my brother was supposed to be the comedian type Right and you ended up becoming it like like like because it served your need But now you are 100% like the host on this show. Yeah, that gave me the uh, that imposter syndrome big time Because I I'm not and that that's actually one of the reasons I did focus on being able to drive more is that they have me driving people's cars And if I'm not a capable driver, I can't I can't speak intelligently much less My vocabulary is very limited. That's crazy. Oh, that's neat. Oh, this is really really cool. That's like the right, right, you know, I I stood next to Jason camisa And just listened to him talk and I was like he's just pulling like the thesaurus out just talking He's wasting all these good words on just random like chit chat wasting all these good words It's perfect. My grandma would say using dime words where nickels would do. Oh, yeah. Yeah Where I'm like struggling to say something, you know With bigger words, right? And so I'm like, I don't think I'm that that host and I'm also, you know, my my my British level of Adjectives also is just not there. It's not absolutely mental. Nothing's absolutely mental to me. Yeah. Yeah, but so I was really fast And to say that absolutely deadpan, right, right. Yes. Can't But I was honored that they thought of me as the subject matter expert on this that said Uh Most of the cars suck and I mean that with love because What every time I drive somebody else's car all I think of is That's what I need to fix in my car. You know what I mean? Like yeah in your own car It's acceptable But if I was like, hey the the fc is a perfect example My dream is that I could say hey, Brian just go experience it drive it without saying but don't touch this Don't do that. You know, like that's right all the caveats Driving someone else's car. Exactly. So that's my dream of being a builder And so I walk away from those episodes going, okay, I need to fix that power delivery like that sucked To like there was a car that had an on-off switch for his supercharger Like the bypass was open closed. It was on or off. He couldn't get it working otherwise And so it wasn't like it turned it on and off like in mad max, which wasn't real But I always thought would be cool. Yeah, this was uh bypass closed or completely open And I spun the car out when we were doing some tracking shots because it was it was like 3000 rpm and 30 3001 rpm it would and it would spin the car out. And so I was okay. That that matters. Yeah, it was fun it was memorable but uh the the the shattered illusion of doing like car reviews Brought me back to why I'm building my own cars to begin with the the issue is um They're tuner cars and they're gonna break and top gear did not understand that that's the content 100 and so we we had an episode Uh early on uh, it was my good friend Anderson who owns fuel tech and he has the had the fastest c8 What he also has is like an rs2 Severo, which is basically like a Volkswagen pickup that was only sold in south america And I know this because I would say nine million people tagged me in that post. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's how you find out about He built some really really cool. So anyway, yeah, you got to go. So but because I was in the passenger seat I weighed down the car a little bit more and it ended up pulling the whole wheel Like uh, what do you call it like a fender liner? Yeah out and Everybody's cameras turned off and I'm like guys that is the content right like that's where it's american tuned. You're tuning. You're not finished tuned. It's not american done tuned and so uh, I was like that's because they're like, oh man, we don't know if we'll be able to complete the shoot I'm like that is the shoot and so it was a little bit of a learning curve Interesting their team to understand that and then we had another episode Uh, where of course everybody's always doing that last little bit more. You know how it is I'm just gonna even I was uh At fault the night before the shoot. I'm just gonna Add a little bit more. Of course. Yeah, you know last week and so everybody's cars break and uh, we had one where he snapped his rear diff You know halfway through the shoot and then Thankfully, I asked top gear like can we film? Us installing axles and stuff like that because that's like interesting He's trying to make the car better while we're here and we filmed that he snaps the rear diff And then we ended up doing a burnout with the front wheel drive and it was just a cool like yeah, this is that's Tuning, you know, and so that was a learning curve. I think for their team I think that that's just that major gap between television And you know youtuber internet content and which is television is is a script Even if it's not scripted and it's called unscripted content There's still a plan right like the showrunner has in their head this idea that we're gonna go here and we're gonna make this And then when it doesn't work then they have to fake it all to make it like that's what ends up happening I worked on plenty of discovery shows. That's how it works We're on youtube. I think it's more of the well, let's just embrace it Like let's embrace that this didn't work like let's just own that this didn't work I was just at uh, I was just at cletus's I was there filming this cool project with lea block and While I was there adamlz shows up. He's got his big block bmw I've already seen this thing rip because it was it was at english town for drifter. It's a machine And he let cletus drive it and cletus blew the engine. Okay. I saw the and like the the you know the Thumbnail is you know, I blew cli you know adam's 70 000 big block And it's like that's embracing the moment and actually probably will do better Absolutely him saying this is one of the coolest drift cars I've ever driven and that was something that you remember early youtube car youtube It was basically you did car reviews. That was like the big it like there wasn't like the drive and all the yeah The word vlog wasn't even a thing. Yeah, um, and so I remember there was a moment where I wanted to like show off a car that I reviewed and He's a friend of mine, but my god is he A bastard of like being faster than you is schmee. Yeah He will always I know 100 of time he will beat me to the punch of releasing any sort of content If we both have the same opportunity He will always 10 times out of 10 beat me to releasing it and so I remember back then I was like I can't compete with that So why not make content? He can't have access to that's that's really when my my channel took a shift When I realized that I'll never beat him at that game and I can always fall back on doing Car reviews, which is kind of funny that now I do car reviews with top gear But that was always like a okay if I run out of content I can review other You know kind of play the social game. Yeah, instead of making it about mine funny stories I was sort of unfamiliar with him like I knew the name never watched any of the content kind of lives more in like the Supercar world. It's just that wasn't my space and I was at the Nurburgring He was at the Nurburgring We were both there for tourist days and we were both in the background of each other's content Didn't know each other and like got tagged in each other's content That's we're like, wait, she's what do you do with him? And they're like wait scato and vinnier in the background like what there's like we just It was a weird Venn diagram of just not knowing that's hilarious. Yeah But yeah, like you said he like because there was a time where I had access to some really cool exotic stuff Because I had the Diablo and I was like it's awesome But I just I won't I won't make as good of content as him and I won't beat him to it So I was like that I need to come up with something different that that was actually the reason I started getting into building more Yeah Yeah, I mean I We had this conversation on a few episodes ago It really became a conversation of like, you know, the original purist car versus like modifying and like what drives you either direction and for me, I I think making something uniquely yours is like such a big part of the fun even if it's not To your level where you're sticking a four-rotor and an all-wheel drive system and something that wasn't supposed to have it Even just being like these wheels This even if it's all bolt-on stuff this steering wheel these seats like this stands like that's mine now It looks like mine You know, it's a really big part of the car culture thing that I think we forget about these days Is like right and it sounds cliche to say it but it's like creating something that is unique and it has your identity to it Versus just being a car that you could lose in a parking lot of similar cars Yeah, which is funny because uh, my actual daily driver is either my Honda Insight Which is bone stock or the I you know, I did the whole youtuber thing and bought the first crash c8 corvette Got it completely restored. Haven't modified it one bit. I had a c8 I got one of the first c8s. It was part of like the You know the content influencer product like mobile one gave me one of theirs Um, it was that like weird like slate white one. Oh, okay. Yeah, it was stock. I Hi, we had it on this versus that. I was like my daily driver. I loved it. It was really good It was just a great car and then long story short when the company was sold um Even though it was given to me personally it ended up as inventory for the company and Like at the last minute I was like trying to argue this and the lawyers were like just let it go Like it's a much bigger deal. Like just let it go And so the car ended up becoming Hoonigan's and then we decided to modify it and vinny and ron slammed it And it was the worst car ever. Oh my god. Like just like it looked cool. Yeah. Yeah, but like I was like It was actually just really good as is and I see it really good I I looked at that car because I bought it, you know in pieces And I was like I can't make this in good faith better because as soon as one check engine light goes on It's gonna be a Christmas tree And I don't want that for this car's too nice. Amelia said that she was like the can bus stuff was just crazy It was like anything you change just shut everything. Yeah, and you know the the nerd in me is like, okay I could fake some of that and and you know some of my friends work at gm and you know from back home But I was like now I'm just trying to make it a thing and I'm chasing something instead of okay You know, I've really wanted to put a four-rotor into it Because many years ago the one of the very first four rotor vehicles was a corvette And zora the guy one of the guys early He was excited to see a rotary in a corvette. And so I was like, oh, that'd be a full circle thing I'm telling you this is where and this is how we're gonna end this podcast The original wanker engine was designed for the outy 100, right? Did you know that? No, I just have nsu But I don't know. Yeah. Yeah for nsu. So they had the well, okay the original wankers were nsu's But then for the outy 100 they had designed to put a wanker in it They apparently put it in the car and was actually unhappy with its performance because it wasn't fast enough And the at the time this was when outy was under Mercedes Benz's sort of ownership So Mercedes was like put an inline six in it. We have inline sixes the inline six didn't fit So they said cut one of the cut one of the cylinders off and that's what started the i5 revolution for the There's a there's a so there was never a wanker. There would have never been an i5 because the wanker's failure Or like I should say disappointing what a many families. Yeah It's disappointing performance in the 100 is what gave way for the original i5 Which then you know, I would say became sort of one of the more famous engines for outy Obviously, they made great v8s and v10s, but yeah that i5 in both rally and currently with the rs3 is you know, it's pretty special So but I've always wanted to go back And do the opposite the what if and be like what if the wanker is actually what moved forward and go stick a Three rotor or something. Yeah, and like a outy 4 000 quattro or something. So we should do that one. Yeah, that would be kind of It's like a five because I I enjoy Taking really loose threads in history and tying them back together, which is why I loved your vet story Yeah, it's like that makes sense. Yeah, there was there was a reason and there was always though Could there be a rotor? I mean I have covers of car and driver from 70s and 80s that were like a wanker powered corvette Yeah, you know, yeah So cool. Well sir, um, we have I think we have crossed the three hour mark Even we've had a couple interruptions with some planes flying over but I think we've crossed the three hour mark today So I think this actually makes this potentially the longest you now hold a world record I wanted to give you this world record. You hold the very vehicular world record. This is currently the longest episode I don't know if anyone will break that we will see and when the problem is is you and I could probably go on for like Three hours. There's two or three more things on my index card. I still have to get to but we've got other things to do today You have any last stuff? You know any last things you want to share? Uh without going for another hour, um, you don't want to start it. I'm trying I'm trying to Self-control. We'll just do a part two. Yeah, okay. Perfect. We I have this other show that I think you'll be very good on Um, I would do the show called firing order which is basically a listicle show Where everybody comes on with like what are your three favorite engines of all time? And then we have to make a list together and fight through it to get like a finished list So you should definitely come back on that. I think that'll be a lot of fun Um, everybody if you are still listening, I thank you for Just listening to the two of us blabber for three hours. I think this might be the quietest I've ever been on a podcast that but it's just enjoying listening to you talk. It's been a pleasure It's been too many years. We should hang out more often. Um, I look forward to making some kind of action film with your four-rotor and uh Really, we should call jerry hildebrand because I think he's the man to to drive that car That'd be because he's he's got his own project going on I can't talk about it because I think it's it's under friend da but uh, but we should get into that So anyway, thank you very much. Thank you to all the partners and uh, this is uh, yeah first episode of season two Which literally means nothing to you guys because episodes come out every wednesday 7am. So enjoy. Thanks again and uh onto the next one Hi Goodbye Well, there it is for all you long episode lovers This is the longest one we've done yet figured a great way To kick off season two with just a nice chunky media episode Of absolute nerdism about building cars with rob dom. I hope you guys all enjoyed this And uh, again, thanks to all of the partners who've stayed on to continue to make the show So, uh, thanks guys Viper industrial makes the best damn shop stools ever go buy them. Okay. Now that we've got that out of the way I want to take a moment to really thank viper They were the first to hop on and support very vehicular when I hit him up the immediate response was yes We want the biggest package you've got. That's why they're the title sponsor Look, they make a really great product and I felt that way before this partnership But they also do a really good job of supporting all of us in the car community. Think about it. They work with adam LZ chris fordsburg grand anderson travis pastrana from sports car And those are just the ones I can remember right now. So viper Thank you again for supporting very vehicular for its first ever season And as I was saying before go buy a damn stool at viper industrial.com. 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