101. SEMA Builds, Restomods Restorations w/ Ron Hinshaw

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to the Minnoxide Podcast. I'm your host, Harris, aka Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations. And I'm here with my co-host, Dan, Mr. Gunnar Garage. He doesn't love Fords. See, that's intro take two. Yeah, right. And today, we're at North Speed and Restoration, not to be confused with South, Slow and Destruction. See, I got that time. All I had to do is take a second intro. It's all good. And today, we are here with Ron Hinshaw, the owner of North Speed and Restoration. And honestly, you work on a lot of cool stuff up here from obviously the Ford we have in the background to the Chevy over here, which Dan's back has turned to for.

Which I'm fine with.

Actually, I'm really excited for that because when I cut the highlights, you have a Chevy in the background.

I know.

It's perfect.

But I have a good view, so that's fine with me.

Two.

What's that?

Two Chevys.

See, you get me past like before like 65, and I forget.

And you have no idea what it is.

Yeah, I turned into a pumpkin. So, and I think we'll probably get into a little bit of that. Sure. But why don't you go ahead and introduce what North Speed and Restoration is? What exactly does everything you do? Obviously you have something from a Jeep back here, the Ford, the Chevys. So just kind of give us a little 30 foot, 30,000 foot explanation of what it is you do here.

Sure. Well, we don't discriminate, you know, Ford, Chevy, Dodge, you know, whatever. There's a Fiat around here somewhere too. So we've done a Healey. It doesn't really matter what it is. If it can be restored, we can do it. Most of what we do, a lot of GM and Ford stuff, mostly older than 1970, that's kind of changing as the 80s are kind of coming around. You know, we got we got Fox bodies and Z28s, IROCs, stuff like that too. But what we do is there's a couple of different ways it can be done. You can restore it, not bolt exactly the way it came from the factory, which if the car is special, you know, if it's a special model or a rare, you know, they only made so many of them, that can be valuable. But most of the time, what people want is something that they can use that functions. So we build a lot of cars to turn key that you can drive comfortably, air conditioning, good brakes, tunes, the whole works, you know.

Well, what was the car that you took me for a ride in last year?

That was a 70 Chevelle. So it was a 70 Chevelle. It was on a stock chassis, but it had tubular, everything that you could get, all full Hotchkiss suspension. It had a LS3 with a Magnuson supercharger on it. Yeah, that thing ripped. Full custom interior, you know.

Dude, the interior was awesome in that thing. And I actually keep, we were talking about this earlier today. Who does your interior work?

Kanishk, Dan Kanishk at Kanishk Customs. So just about everything we do, especially the super high-end stuff, all goes to Dan.

Okay, and when you say super high-end stuff, what does that mean?

Well, cause you can put a stock seat cover back on a car, or you can do, this Camaro behind you has laser etched houndstooth in it. There's many things that can be done. They're custom cutting the foam. He's 3D printing stuff. I don't know, the dude does magic. He makes it look good.

I've been following him on Facebook for a while, and the stuff blows my mind that I see that he's doing over there, so yeah.

Yep. And actually, so this Camaro behind you, we had someone else do the interior and it came back, not good. So, and I had talked to Dan about it before that. And so I'm like, hey, back to 50s, come by, take a look at it. I'm like, we should get together on this thing. And we did, and it's a thousand times better than it was. And it's actually what got it to SEMA. The Leather, Douglas Leather Products, Douglas Interior Products was in town. They're based on the West Coast. They were in town and they're like, you know, Dan, you got anything good that we could use in our booth? And he goes, well, he goes, I'm about to do this Camaro. And he flew in, came out to the shop, looked at it. They're like, yeah, if you guys do this thing and we'll take it. So that was actually my first ride to SEMA came from Dan.

And you're going to SEMA again this year, right? Or you're attempting to?

I will be there. We're working on getting something there. I can't say too much about it, but Dan is working on it right now. It's done in getting the interior done right now.

Okay, so it's like kind of in like that final stage then?

Yeah.

So do you guys, so like, for example, when we go to Texas 2K every year, all of our friends are in this like final rush trying to get everything done. Do you find yourself sometimes trying to get a car done for SEMA or is it usually done in advance? You guys have an adequate timeline.

So the whole SEMA, like SEMA build, we got to get this thing done. Usually the way I do a car is I will apply for a position or offer it for someone when I know it's going to be done. There's always, if you have another two weeks, you're going to find two more weeks of stuff to do anyways. We took that Firebird last year and it was kind of a surprise. I had 350 hours into it the month before SEMA. Myself personally, we weren't going to do an interior. Then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, this is going. All right, I called Dan. I'm like, sorry, here, we got to get this done.

That car is awesome. When I shot it, it's got to be a little over a year now, I think. The paint job on it, that's what everybody loves. I mean, it's just freaking sweet.

Yeah, it hits.

So how long have you been going at this then?

I've been doing this just hot rods for almost 10 years.

Okay. And how did you get into it?

So I've always been into hot rods. I was a general mechanic for years. And then you do hot rods on the side, pick up a job here or there in my garage at home. Sometimes that doesn't work out very good. You don't get the super high end. You don't get to build the super high end stuff at home, usually. I started working for another guy, and we had, he had a four bay shop. And we designated one of them as hot rod. So we do general repair in three. And one would have something, we're doing an LS swap or something. I was shopping for something, and I ended up talking to this guy online. And he's like, well, I'm looking for a guy. I got this hot rod shop. I had no idea this place was here. He's like, come by, take a look. And here I am.

And to be doing it for 10 years, and you and I touched on this a little bit before this started, and to not have hung it up and just fix high end days on a daily basis and collect insurance checks, is I think why you guys are a rare breed and why we haven't had one on the show yet. Because I feel like most of those guys, they end up in that, well, now I just have a body shop, and this is what I do.

Sure, yep. And I get those calls, and well, there was a while when all the body shops were busy, and people are like, don't you just want this easy money? No, we don't want it. This, I have a full staff, this is all we want to do. So.

And then, so how big is your staff?

There's six of us.

Oh wow, really?

So you guys are probably just, what does cranking it out look like to you guys, right? Cause like these are long term projects. Some of them, some of them, like you mentioned before we started, some of them are quick projects. What does just cranking it out look like? Like, is it like a car that, I don't even know how to ask the question, cause you guys are too bright.

I do. So I am bringing you right now. I just showed up. I have most of the interior parts, but I just brought you a 69 Mach 1 Mustang, and I want you to put a Coyote in it. I want updated suspension. It's pretty clean, but it needs floor pans cause they all need floor pans, right? So, I just brought that to you. What am I looking at for price and length of project?

So these are the questions I always get to. It depends how motivated the client is, because everybody has a different budget. We don't take a big fat check up front. We take a deposit, then we work through it, and then we take another deposit. We can stop at any time. We can stop in the middle. We can keep going. A lot of times people add things to the project. I don't give estimates. A full build, a full build, you can expect, you know, six digits, and it could be a year. I've done a complete restoration in nine months, and the client was like, if I needed something, he was right on it. Sometimes you call a guy, he doesn't call you back till next week. You know, and then you need to order a part, and you gotta wait for it for two months. You know, if that happens, you're kinda just, it's gotta go sit in the corner and wait for that part to show up, or the funds to show up, or whatever. So, it's really hard to say.

Yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead.

A big build, at least a year, it could be three. How many custom touches, that adds to the budget, and it adds to, you know, the time.

I would say, so I've dabbled in the classic car, stuff a little bit too, and I think probably getting parts is one of your hardest things, right? Because not everybody, not Fox Bodies have an LMR, right? But not all of them, I mean, there's CJ Pony parts and things like that, but not everything you can get. And then the repop stuff is usually not nearly as good.

We've had to get like, sometimes you order a piece of trim and you send it back, you know, so it was like four pieces of trim or four pieces of glass before you get one that's usable. If we can find like OE parts, they always fit better. The quality of the steel is better. But that is, you are kind of, it depends what you're working on. If you're working on a Studebaker, well, you're not going to the Studebaker store to buy Studebaker stuff. So there's definitely stuff that just has to be either handmade, which we can do. And there's stuff that, you know, you can buy, you know, if it's something like this or a square body or something, you can get all that stuff. Is it going to be great? You don't know until you get it. And you might have to try a couple of times to get, there's definitely places where we've got stuff, where we go, yeah, we won't deal with them anymore.

So maybe, would you say that's one of the biggest hangups then, is collecting all the bits and pieces it takes?

It can be, and that's why, and I know we touched on this earlier, but like, you know, what's your waiting period? There's definitely a waiting period. It depends on what the job is. But if we know we're going to build something and we have to order a chassis and an engine and all this stuff, we can do all that stuff before we even get the car, you know, and that'll speed up the process once the car gets here. You know, you order a chassis, it takes nine months, and once the chassis, they call, say, hey, chassis's done, you know, it's getting delivered, then you get the car and then you're ready to go to town. Basically, you got your parts.

So if you're planning to restore something, you want to reach out to someone like you a year in advance because it could be a one, two, three year timetable then.

Absolutely.

What would you say your mix of projects is then? So like varying from complete full build from a shell, you know, to, I guess, what's the other alternative? What would people come to you for?

It's probably 60-40, 60% full builds. And then it could be, we could do an engine and tranny swap or like a suspension, you know, sometimes guys want like a ride tech A-arm set up and coilovers, you know, they want to go to coilovers and better brakes, which I always recommend before going to the big nasty engine. Most people don't do that.

You tell me that that 60s and 70s technology wasn't there for brakes or?

No, it was not.

I always forget what the guy's name was.

Go fast, stop fast.

Did you ever listen to the episode, the people who did Rogan's kudos by any chance?

Yes, some of it.

Some of it? Yeah, that was a pretty, he always talks about, man, it's such a cool car, but it drives like s***, like.

Well, so it got redone again. So it went, I don't remember who built it the first time, but then the roadster shop did it again, and now he's happy with it.

What's the coolest thing you've worked on? That's a hard question, by the way. Anything come to mind?

I mean, the Camaro behind you is pretty cool. That Firebird was awesome. We built a couple of street rods. The 32 we built, the American Graffiti Coupe, that was fun to do.

That was the yellow?

Yep, it's yellow. It's a movie car. Actually, I think when we talked about, you had never seen the movie.

Still haven't, I probably should. I will after this.

It's a car guy movie, whatever. But when you talk to people, showing that car, there are so many people that have seen the movie that they were just super happy to see it, and that made that one kind of fun.

Well, it's kind of like the equivalent of the current generation seeing the Supra from Fast and Furious, right?

Yes, absolutely.

Like, oh my god, or Dom's Charger.

Or Eleanor from the early 2000s, Gone in 60 Seconds.

Yeah, true. I'm curious, actually. This is kind of taking a little bit of a detour from the main thing. What's your favorite car guy movie? Do you have any? Or a few of them?

I've seen every single one of them. Probably Smokey and the Bandit.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, probably.

That checks out.

Yeah.

Do you get a lot of return customers? You got people, so I'd imagine that you're spending six figures on a build. You probably have a car collection. You get somebody that's coming back to you two or three times with builds, or?

Yeah, some people only build one car. And sometimes the reason they build it, it's sentimental, it got gifted to them or something. Some people only build one car. I definitely have people that, I built them a street rod and then I built them another street rod. They have a car collection. I built them a car and then they want my touches on their other cars. So it's not a complete build, but it's like, oh, we did all these things in this one, so let's add some of these things to this one that's already done. So I do, I definitely get that. Or another thing that you'll end up getting is, their buddy wants to try and put one of them, so you get to do one for their buddy. And there's nothing wrong with that either.

Yeah.

So then tell us a little bit about your car. Or your cars, is it plural? Give me...

Cars.

Okay.

Yeah. So I got a bunch that aren't done, of course.

You're talking to the right guy over here.

That's it. Every car guy's problem.

That's it. My 57 Chevy truck that I've been building forever is slow going. This car, my wife stole from me after we got it done. And then I have an 87 GT that... That's the one I did Crown Rally in twice. It's twin-turboed, did a TKO, 14-inch bare brakes. Fun car. Motor finally gave up after five years of being turboed. And right now, I built a... Or I had a 363 stroker built for it from Ford Strokers with a dart block and twisted wedge heads. And I just had Bowler build me a six-speed with an internal pump. So one of the things I noticed with the TKO is you start to rally it and you're going at Mexico speeds for a day, you can't even grab the shifter. It's hot. So explaining that to Bowler, he's like, well, we can do a billet pump and internal and it's got a spray bar that goes over the gears and we'll see if that does it for it.

Yeah, because when you're talking about rallies, you're talking about eight to 12-hour days of just, like you said, Mexico speeds.

Yeah.

What was the last rally you did?

Polar Run.

Polar Run?

Okay.

So last year, like February?

Yeah, last year in February.

Is there a reason why you went push rod again and not into a coyote or something like that or?

I wanted to keep that one the way it was. Okay. I kind of liked it. I already had all the hot side built. You know what I mean? I just had to buy a motor and put it back in because I could have went, you know, I could have went taller too. I could have went to a 427 or whatever.

Right. Yeah. So all the small block Ford and stuff you already had just bolts right up.

Yeah. Okay. I didn't. It made it easy. And, you know, you're driving whatever and talking to people and they're like, oh, what LS is in that? Like, no. No, not this one. So, no. Well, I do like to keep my Ford's Ford's and my Chevy's Chevy's.

Yeah.

So, we talked about this a little bit beforehand, too, about... which is one of the reasons I built my 2015 GT that I had. I was looking at all kinds of different things. I was looking at a Boss. I was looking at some different stuff when I picked that car up, knowing that I was going to build it. And I started with a GT. First of all, it was only a $25,000 price tag right out the gate instead of something Shelby-ish, which would have been $40,000, $50,000 at that time.

Sure.

Do you, I mean, I'm assuming you will build it, but when somebody brings you in something that's rare and wants you to tear it apart and modernize it, does that hurt a little bit?

It's their car. So we can do whatever you want. But I would be like, are you sure you want to do this one?

Yeah.

You know, and if they want to, for whatever reason, I guess we're doing it.

Yeah.

So I mean, that's a Z28 behind you. I didn't mean to swear.

Yeah, I know. Did you see me gag a little bit? That's fine.

That's a Z28 behind you. And it had the, you know, the DZ 302 engine, which is rare and expensive. And that came out and it's got LS3 in it. You know, that's what he wanted. So it, to me, it doesn't matter really. If it were me, I probably wouldn't do it, you know, but either way, it's going to cost a bunch of money to restore it. So you might as well build what you want. And if, sometimes these cars, people have an attachment to their cars, you know? So they have an attachment and it's that car, and it's because it was their dads or their uncles or their grandmas or their moms or whatever. And they want to do the things to the car, and they want it to be that one. So that's what it is.

Well, as long as they're not putting like a rotary in it or something.

I haven't gotten that route yet.

Yeah, usually that rotary comes out.

We're going to put an EcoBoost and a Mercedes here soon though.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like a like an older like, what are those like whatever number is?

It's a 1950 Mercedes.

Oh, wow. OK.

A 2.3, a 3.5. What do you what do you put in it?

2.3.

2.3.

OK.

That's what I want to do to my turbo coupe. Keep it a 2.3 turbo.

That would be sweet.

Yeah.

So do you have any besides this one? And then also Nick Nelson's car? Is there any other cars that just kind of come to you that were just like super unique or like, man, like something that you're just like so crazy proud of? Like, man, we got to work on that. Before we get too far into the show, I wanted to take a moment to talk about Razorhood. If your daily driver is having issues, a.k.a. your beater you got off Craigslist, Razorhood's telemechanics and AI tools can help you diagnose and solve the issues you may be dealing with for a fraction of the cost. All you have to do is add your car to the Razorhood garage to get started. You can provide the AI tool, also known as GUS, with the specifics of the issues you're having, and it will help you narrow down what the culprit is. It's a great way to bounce ideas off of to figure out what actually might be the problem. You can then select from a variety of solutions to explore the cost and difficulty of doing the repair yourself versus taking it to a shop. If your car doesn't have detailed solutions yet, that's totally fine. Just go ahead and add your car to the garage for free, and that will let the Razorhood team know what to focus on as they continue to develop and grow. If you want to try out GUS or chat with a telemechanic, go to razorhood.com and add your car to the garage to get started. Use code MINNOXIDEFREE for a one month free subscription or MINNOXIDE20 to save 20% on a 30 minute call with a telemechanic. Let's get back to the show. A lot of you guys know Ratified Motorsport for their RS3, TTRS, 1000 horsepower hairdresser car builds, but they are so much more than that. From basic maintenance on an R35 GTR to, you know, cute little Volkswagen GTIs like mine, they're able to do a little bit of everything. Whether it's your basic maintenance or an intake in a tune, or even a full-blown build, be sure to go to ratifiedmotorsport.com to get yourself booked today. And I hope to see you guys at the shop. Does it ever become monotonous?

No, it's definitely not. Like every car has got, you know, some personality and stuff to it. Those two are my favorite so far. I got a couple, you know, some of them, we only did some things to it. I could still love it, but we didn't build the whole car, you know? So they can come and go in different stages.

So are you specking out everything, like helping the customer spec out what they want for a motor and all that stuff? And then do you guys do that in the installation and such?

Sometimes, different people want different things, and sometimes I'm just to guide, you know? So if a guy wants to do a 427, he's kind of set on that. If there's a reason that he shouldn't, you know, or kind of, there's too much power, you know, for some cars without doing other things. So if you don't want to do brakes and a chassis and all kinds of suspension mods, you shouldn't put a 1200 horsepower, you know, twin turbo motor or blower motor in something. You just shouldn't. So you just got to direct people. A lot of people have a pretty good idea what they want. It's pretty rare for someone to come in and just go like, hey, I got this, you know, fairly and build it cool. You know, like they got an idea of what they want first.

And then, so are you guys dropping those in here? Are you installing like the turbo kit, superchargers and all that?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yep.

Do you have anybody in particular that you work with on a tuning side?

I've been using Sheridan. They were in Hugo, now they're out in Baldwin. So I had him tune my Mustang. That's how I met him. He tuned the Fox body. And then, a lot of times, if you get a GM Connect and Cruise package, it's pretty well sorted from the start. But little things need to be done. I guess we're not, we usually aren't going out looking for hero numbers. We're trying to make it live. Live, drive nice, most of these cars aren't seeing a racetrack or anything like that. So some of them do, some of them will. But mostly people want to cruise them. So if it's difficult to drive, it's not going to get driven as much. And to touch on that, sometimes I'll see a car we did two, three years ago. It'll come in and it's got like 1200 miles on it. It's like, drive your car.

You like hearing your clientele driving their cars then?

Yeah. I got a guy that we built a 34 street rod for. He's got like 25,000 miles on it. It's like, I just drive, anywhere I can drive it, I drive it. He goes, if it'll fit in the car, if I'm going shopping, it'll fit in the car. We take it. And I do, I really enjoy hearing that.

And when you say Sheridan, that's not the Mopar shop that was in town, is it?

Is it?

That's the one?

Yep.

Gotcha. Okay.

Gotcha.

Yeah. So I mean, they're a Mopar shop. Larry's a big Ford guy.

Gotcha.

I've been looking for somebody to do some, finding the tuners that still do stuff like this is kind of hard to come by to nowadays.

Yeah. Well, I mean, they're in your neck of the woods.

Yeah, I know. So you said Baldwin, my ears perked up there. Yeah.

I don't know, are those typically stand-alone ECUs then as well, like a Haltech or something?

No. So a GM connector, we do a lot of Holley.

Holley, okay, gotcha.

We do a lot of Holley stuff, or a factory ECM. The GM computers seem to be pretty good with tuning. And then we don't do as many Fords, but the Ford, you can HP tuners and tune them things too.

Do you lean any particular way, Ford or GM, or not really?

Not really.

Okay. And you haven't had much, do you have much import stuff come through here, or not quite yet?

Not a lot. Like I said, we did some stuff on a Fiat, but it's like a 69 Fiat. I had RX7 we were gonna do, and I don't know what happened to that one. Sometimes they find someone else to do it, or it takes too long, or they just give up on the project.

Yeah, a lot of those RX7 guys give up. Well, it's like where the rotary goes, and it's like, do I LS swap it or sell it?

Sure, sure, sure.

Yeah, no, it's cool to see when people keep the stock motor in that. Do you have a lot of people that also keep the stock motors as well? They just wanna not go build it to the gills?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Seems like we always got a corvette in here, at least one. The C3s are actually kinda coming around. We're doing more of those. And you could definitely pull a small block out and go through it, or a big block, whatever. There's a lot of muscle car guys that still just want their 454 or 396. And you can take it out and you can clean it up. And sometimes you add a cam or heads or something like that. Still make good power. They could still run good. And a lot of them, we end up doing like a Holley Sniper or something on those.

Well, some of those things are pretty underrated, too. When you go back in there with some modern management or something, it really livens the car up as well. I remember when we were here last year, you were showing me some fiberglass stuff. I'm pretty sure it was on a vet or something like that. So do you guys do some stuff with that as well?

Do fiberglass work? It can rot just like steel can. It gets damaged and fixed poorly, and you got to cut it out and add new fiberglass, I guess.

Is that easier or harder than welding in metal? Or is it they're both their own pain in the a**?

They're both their own kind of thing. Fiberglass won't hold shape for the way metal does. Metal, you put it where it goes and it's going to stay. Fiberglass can change in the sun. So a lot of times it gets repaired and it's not thick enough. Or you buy... So if we're going to build a street rod, there's the option of a fiberglass body or a steel body. Steel body is going to cost three times as much. You may spend just as much time in labor making the fiberglass body you bought good enough to hold shape. So they both got their thing. You can go cheaper and do the fiberglass, but you're probably going to spend the money in the long run in labor.

So how well-rounded is everybody on your team? Do you have designated guys that work on this particular thing? Or is everybody just kind of well-rounded in everything that you do?

So most guys got combo skills but shine in like a certain area. So we got, I got a metal fab guy that's a really good painter too, but he shines in metal and that's, so he's metal. My painter is a really good painter, but he can do other stuff too. Most guys can weld and do some mechanical. I got a mechanical guy that can weld and do some fab. You know, yeah, most, most guys that get into this, you know, already are very mechanical anyways. And then you find where they fit. And, you know, the mechanical guy will be like, ah, do you want me to do this? Or I'm like, oh, just pass it off to, you know, pass it off to him and let him do it, you know, cause he's gonna, he's gonna get it done faster or better. You end up with a better product if you use people where they shine.

And where do you shine?

I'm a mechanical guy. I've always done mechanical and, and, you know, wiring and I fab too. So mostly, mostly chassis fab. I'm not a, I'm not a metal favorite, like body metal isn't really my thing. But that's what I got them guys for.

Yeah.

Well, that's just constantly, we kind of hear, you know, especially the more shop owners we talk to, they kind of like to figure out like, hey, where are my weaknesses and where are my strengths? And let's substitute where we need to.

Yep. You fill the holes that you have. And, you know, if everybody has a good spot that they're, you know, where they fit, you're well-rounded.

What about growth-wise? Like, are you guys kind of happy like where you're at right now? I mean, you guys seem to be absolutely crushing it right now. What's your kind of wait list? We kind of talked about this beforehand.

Yeah. Depending on what the job is, you know, if it's a small repair or if it's a small repair, maybe get in within a month or two, depending on what it is and parts availability. Full jobs, you know, it probably be a year, but again, it depends on what we're getting into. You know, do we need to get parts ordered right now so that when we're ready to take the car in, we have what we need to build it?

So when you're billing customers, you kind of alluded to this earlier, is it kind of like, for example, we were at Patients Metal Fab, they bill their people out at every 40 hours worth of work. Is that kind of a similar sort of structure?

Monthly.

Monthly? Monthly.

Okay.

Based off of how much work was done sort of deal and then? Okay.

Yep.

Gotcha.

And what kind of budget structure they're on too? Some people, some people, you know, some guys can keep up with that. Some guys want to take more time, and that's fine too. Cause you'll run into a part or something that you don't have or need to whatever. And it might, just cause it's in here doesn't mean it's getting worked on 40 hours a week.

Right.

You know, you got to, you got to shuffle them. And that's, that's kind of part of the game. To keep, keep everything rolling. And, you know, when we can't be doing this, we're doing this.

Storage is huge then.

Yeah. Yep. And I don't, I don't keep anything outside. So, you know, if it's, if there's no budget to work on it, or there's no parts, then, you know, it's just taking up space.

Do you have some that just can't be saved? I mean, does that happen often? Not often?

So, if you noticed when you came in, there's a GTO on the side of the building there. A customer bought that car and brought it to be restored, and it was unsavable. So, there was a LeMans bought and all the GTO badging was put on the LeMans because that car was filled with newspaper and chicken wire and all the fun stuff that they do. Car flip guys can really, they can work magic and they can make it look good, but it won't look good for long.

How often are you fixing other shop stuff? Does that happen?

It happens. It happens. I will say that when, because people get frustrated, whatever. If someone comes in to me and they have something that somebody else built or worked on, and they're not happy, I always tell them, and I've done this even when I was in general repair, you should take it back to them and let them try and make it right. Because that's what I would want if somebody was unhappy with me. Let me make it right. If they won't make it right, then yeah, I'll take it on. You know, I got no problem with that. I want to make sure that everything functions the way that it's supposed to. And it won't leave me until it does.

Yeah.

I suppose even bringing it back, sometimes you just get into a bad restoration shop or bad relationship where either they're going to nickel and dime you as you bring it back, or you just don't trust them at that point.

Yeah, we've heard, like, for example, like when we talked last year, I was talking about one of my friends bringing his Datsun over here because, you know, it could use a little bit more love. And then it was just kind of like one. I was like, Minnesota, nice things. Like, do I want to go back? Do you know? It's just it's weird, right? So that's kind of like where someone like you, that prides yourself on your work, you know, you want people to come back to you and then you can make things right, which I'm guessing nobody's perfect, but I'm guessing it probably doesn't happen too often.

We usually find those shops and those things aren't usually around for a long time, right? Like they do all this stuff, maybe they get some money and then after they piss enough people off, they're gone.

Your reputation is everything in this business. So if you burn too many people, no one will come back to you. You know, you won't stay in business.

And are you pretty big on word of mouth here or where does most of your business come from?

Word of mouth.

Word of mouth. So something like when you go back to the 50s and such.

Yeah, we do like, we'll go to, we'll vend it back to the 50s and good guys shows, you know, bringing the cars out to SEMA, I'm sure has helped. People see that on social media and, you know, that that gets people thinking, you know, a lot of word of mouth.

Would you say does your client base come from all over the place or you mostly local stuff or 50 50? 50 50.

A lot of the small repairs come from local, you know, people will meet someone at a car show or whatever. And they're like, oh, this isn't working. We do that, you know, a lot of times we'll get a call and it's like, would you consider taking on this small job? And, and of course, not everybody can be our client. Some things we just don't, sometimes someone brings something and it's not in our wheelhouse or it's just not a good fit and, you know, we don't have to take it. So, but the smaller jobs, a lot of those, or like cars that we maintain for people, they'll come in, you know, every spring and let us make sure it's all good and ready for their summer car shows and cruising and whatnot. Some of the bigger builds, you know, out of state, you know, no big deal. They're only gonna come look at it or now with pictures and Skype and stuff, you can send anybody anything. They can come look at it every six months or every month. It's up to them.

What does that conversation look like when somebody reaches out to you from out of state? Like, I'm sure you have a whole list of questions to make sure they're a good fit. What makes somebody a good fit?

Well, they definitely have to be able to understand what it takes to build a car. They have to have some idea of what they want, and they have to be able to communicate. The first thing I would, if somebody calls, the first thing I do is like, you know, send me some pictures of the car. I want to see what situation it's in. Is it in the Grove? You know, is it lying in the trees? Or is it in the garage? What's the garage look like? I do some research, you know, like if it's got a bunch of stuff piled on it in the corner, like maybe they don't care about it, or, you know, I don't know, I guess I can kind of read people if I don't think it's going to be a good fit. I just, I don't. If it's local, I'll go to their house and I'll look at the car.

Wow, okay. And to be fair, some people like to use their Lincoln Continentals as benches.

I mean, I think a parked project car makes a great shelf. I'm just saying, but I do put blankets down, foam, things like that. I've never wrecked a car by putting things on it. But sometimes you've got bumpers and big light things that need to lay on a Lincoln Continental hood. They just seems like a really good. It's a lot of real estate. It's just be taking up floor space.

It's square. It's not going to slide off.

Yep. You can't hurt the metal.

Yeah, I can't really store anything on my golf.

That car is gone. My dad hated that car, and this was just the two door. It was a Mark 3, and he was like, that takes up the space of two normal cars. It needs to go. So I got rid of that car. Plus, it was, you know, window motors. It was like a whole fun nightmare of.

That's an elaborate window motor.

Yes, it is. I had like an electrical schematic that came with the car, too. And I looked at it.

I'm like, how many pages was it?

Three or four. I'm like, this doesn't need to be this complicated. It's 1969. Like, I don't get what's going on here.

Between that and the roof motors and all that stuff. There's a lot going on there.

I want a 69 four door convertible is what I want, but I want to try and find one fully restored. At one point in time, they weren't that expensive. Now they're getting way too crazy.

I just talked to a guy hauling a Lincoln back from North Dakota last week.

Is it done? Is it ready?

No, he was looking to drop it off like today.

That's a commitment on real estate too then for you.

I was hoping I'd get lucky. I'm like, yeah, send me some pictures.

What are you itching to work on? Is there anything out there that you're just like, I need to work on?

I'm itching to work on my cars.

Yeah, as a shop owner, that will never happen, is what I hear.

It does, but it's in between, you know, so.

You got a halfway decent shop set up at home, or you got to haul stuff back and forth?

Yeah, no, I got a shop at home.

Okay.

I got a shop at home, so it's full of projects.

Yeah, yeah, I got one of those. Yep, yep.

You know, it's a problem when it's in several zip codes, though.

Yeah. Well, Jay was just over at my house the other day, and he's like, you could put another car, like, over there, if that was, he's like, oh, wait, that is a car back there. And I was like, yeah, it is.

So when somebody reaches out to you, like from across the country, did they typically follow up with like, hey, I saw this car, I have this or is just like a purely named thing? Because I feel if somebody saw the Z28, they'll be like, oh, who built it? Then they reach out, hey, I saw the Z28.

Yep. That Z28 got me another 69 Camaro built. Really? Yep. So shortly after we got back from SEMA, I got a call, a guy from out of state. And he's like, you know, I saw the black and orange one, blah, blah, blah, whatever. This is what I want to build. Actually, he wanted to build a Gentoo. And between him and his wife, they fell in love with that and they sold the Gentoo that they had. They had a Gentoo we're going to build. They sold that. And then he goes, if you see a 69 or 67, he didn't want a 68, let me know. He goes otherwise. And he'd call me. It actually was about two or three years of talking to him before we even started on a car. And I talked to him, you know, maybe every six months or he'd see a car, he'd be like, hey, would you be willing to, you know, look at some pictures of this one or whatever. And then we were at a show in Daytona and there was a shell. And I'm like, hmm, this could be the one. I called him, gave him the info, and he calls me back like two weeks later. He goes, I'm having that Camaro ship to you. So and now we got Art Morrison chassis and a Nelson's motor in it and a six speed. It's going to be it's going to be quite the quite the thing. Actually, I'm kind of excited to get that thing into the it's through the metal stage and we're moving on to bodywork and it'll be. It'll be fun to get. I want to drive it, so it'll be fun. And we did and I don't know if you know, what's the difference between 15 inch rotors and 14 inch rotors, but we did 15 inch bare extremes on it too, which will be pretty kind. It should be a good time.

Well, I can tell you the 15 and a half inch rotors on a GT 500 stop really well. So do you find that the weather where we're at, does logistics get more difficult as we get into December, January, February, stuff like that around here, or by moving cars around and...

If you had a Harley, the shop would come and pick it up, right?

Right. I saw plenty of trailers over there.

Same thing. Like that's something that I've done since I got into this, is tow truck drivers suck. Sorry, tow truck drivers. But there's a lot of... I just had a car come in, the guy found the cheapest guy he could have move it, and they scuffed his valence getting it off the trailer. I take very good care of cars when I move them. I know what I'm doing and I trust me, but I don't trust a lot of people to haul cars. So I like to move them if possible myself. In closed trailer, it's winter. It doesn't matter. Let's move some cars. And if you didn't do that, I mean, you could find yourself in where, like I'd love to bring you my car, but we got to wait. It's snowing or it's raining or whatever.

One less excuse to come in.

Sure. Yeah. Yep. Or hurdle anyways. Or their first question is like, who should I have move it? Me? Yeah. I'll do it. Yep.

Do you work on motorcycles at all?

Not much.

You've done a few though?

Yep. We've done a little bit. When we did do insurance work, which we don't anymore, we'd do a fender or a bag or something, but kind of got out of the insurance work.

So do you ever have anybody come spray anything different than a car here? Like for example, I'm looking at these bicycles on the back of your ear. Do you guys ever do anything weird like that for yourselves?

Well, so yes, we do motorcycles. We did a Rup. You ever seen a Rup minibike from the 70s? We did a guy, we did an El Camino for him. Actually, we just finished up his second El Camino, and he has a collection of Rup minibikes. And he's like, he goes, hey, I got a paint coat. I got, actually, I think he even brought his own paint because there was something specific. And we sandblasted the frame, painted it up easily. Said it's the nicest one he's got now. So yeah, that was kind of fun. But every once in a while, it would be a gas pump or behind you is my beer fridge. I painted that, by the way. That's what I get to paint. The guys are teaching me things, which is good because then I understand it better. But I'm not a painter. I'm not going to paint a customer's car. That's what they're for. They're the experts. I let them do it, but they can talk me through a beer fridge.

That's a good way to start, right? That's a good practice one.

Does the name Tom Lemecker ring a bell by any chance? I'm trying to think. He is a GM guy. I can't remember exactly what he has. He also restores fridges. So a big seven up one, and he turns it into a gun safe.

I've seen some videos online of that stuff. No, he doesn't ring a bell.

Okay. I'll send you it after this episode. It was super cool. Like when I was, I did some real estate photography because they were listing their house. And then he's like, yeah, that fridge over there, it's my gun safe. I'm like, dude, I would never, oh, no, it was a soda machine. Sorry.

Sure. Sure.

Yeah. Super cool stuff. I was just curious cause, you know, birds of a feather.

Probably, probably soon to fall off a boat in Superior or something.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you guys work on a lot of trucks too then?

Yep.

Yep.

Real common, like 50s trucks. We've done a couple forwards, couple of Chevys. Pretty common to do them. They take up a lot of space. The square body, we're just finishing up, or well, it's an interior or whatever, down at Dan Canisci's. It's big, lifted, awesome truck. Well, you've obviously seen it, but everybody will probably see it soon.

Yeah, man.

Is there a cutoff on like year where you're like absolutely not? So like if I brought you in a 2004 F250 6.0 truck that's got rotted wheel wells, and I need you to weld in and paint that, you don't do any of that kind of stuff?

We don't. If you wanted to custom paint a brand new something or whatever, then heck yeah. Or like I've had guys bring me like a brand new Denali and we put a drop kit in it or something like that. But as far as general repair and rockers and stuff, we don't do that.

It needs to fit the hot rod.

There's enough of a line of stuff that we want to work on, then we don't need to take that in.

Okay.

If everything goes downhill, yeah, I'll be doing box sides.

Yeah. All right.

So here's a question then. If somebody had, let's say, and nobody comes to mind, a salvage GT500, like a newer one, that's currently five, six different colors underneath from various panels, but it's currently plaster dipped. We're not plaster dipped. It's better than plaster dipped. You can cut it, buff it. It's a whole thing. And it's currently like Mr. Chrome, but they wanted to make that a more permanent thing. Is that something you'd be able to do?

I'd be able to do it.

Okay.

Just curious asking, for nobody in particular.

Let's say that this car, said car, is a golden ticket car, so it's white with painted black stripes, which was a $10,000 option, and the guy wants to put that back to original because it is kind of a rare spec, even though it is a rebuilt title car. Would you be able to do that?

Yep.

Okay.

Stripes.

Sorry, we're...

We have these couples' arguments.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I feel the tension.

Yeah.

I'm very torn, because the fact that it's Mystic Chrome right now gets a lot of attention, and a white Shelby with black stripes is woohoo, who cares?

Sure.

It's just the purest in me still bleeds through every now and again, that I like to keep cars somehow, how they came a lot of times, especially ones that are in, that car would be like one, it's less than like 1200 of them made.

Sure, sure.

So although I'm modifying an engine and doing all kinds of s*** to it, so it probably doesn't really make any difference at this point.

Are you a purest?

No. Yes and no. I got a 70 GTO judge that I will be not in bolt. I won't cut it up, but it holds value in that. When I sell that and buy a LeMans and make it look like that, and chassis and motor and all that, yes, absolutely. But if I can help it, I won't cut up something that's special.

What about when it comes to customers? Usually it's like your car sort of deal.

It's their car. I'll do it. Sometimes it's like, really, really? But in the end of it, it's theirs.

What's the most complex paint job you guys have done here? Anything come to mind or not really?

We just finished up a 33 Ford Victoria. And we did the bottom half of the car is like pearl white, and the top half is blue. And then it's got like blue pearl in clear over all of it, and like ribbon flames. It's kind of an old school flame style, which it was meant to have. It was, you know, two different tri-coats. And then I had a pin striper come in, Ken Madden came in.

Yeah, I know Ken.

You know Ken. He came in and pin striped and drop shadowed the flames. I think we just won best special paint at GSTA with that this winter.

And what's that?

The GSTA show. Go for state timing. It's at the Coliseum in, at the state fairgrounds. It's a small show, usually a hundred cars. Mostly you can only go to it once. So it's usually builders around here. It'll be like whatever, whatever you're trying to finish up, you know, for this summer or whatever. I think I took, I took that and Nick's Firebird to that.

Who's your favorite builder?

Who's my favorite builder? Oh, there's so many good ones. And actually the last like three, four years, I've met a lot of them. Man, a lot of guys were doing really cool stuff.

You can do a few.

Everything that comes out of the road shop looks pretty awesome. The Ring brothers are really putting out nice stuff. You know, big name guys, they got a lot of technology behind their stuff too, you know. So they're really pushing the envelope, making sure everything's right.

What does technology look like in your space?

Low.

Not like you personally, but like, what would step your game up? Like what kind of technology are you talking about?

Definitely get, you know, C&C stuff. Okay. Whether it be, you know, like scanning and printing and and then as far as just being able to cut stuff, you know, plasma laser, any kind of CNC, you know, machining, a little less hand work. Yeah, without without, you know, I mean, I mean, we can definitely farm stuff out and that happens. But as of right now, you know, we don't have that technology in house. We don't have the space for it.

3D printer or anything like that. Do you guys have anything like that or?

Nope, I just let Kanishk do it.

Yeah, all right.

Which it's good to know someone, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Have you done much patina work?

Just my desk.

Your desk? Oh, that's right. Yeah.

I saw that in there. That looks pretty sweet.

Yep. That was my try at patina. You know, as far as just putting clear over something that has some, not much, but I wouldn't shy away from it.

Okay.

You know, crusty rust, you know, we're not going to mess with that, but without like fixing it. But as far as patina, the only thing I've done to actually try and mimic it anyways is my desk and the awning over my shop door at home.

Dude, that would be such a cool t-shirt. Like if you had like a patina truck or whatever, like on the back of a shirt says, all rust, no crust or something like that. It'd be kind of cool. I'm in shirt thinking mode right now.

You just gave it away.

Yeah.

We'll cut it. It's okay.

Okay.

So now I need to get a patina truck and that will be my entire merch line. It's okay. I'll be a billionaire.

Sure.

What do you daily drive?

2015 Denali.

Denali? Okay.

Yeah. Dermax.

Gotcha.

I find myself. So I try and drive like a Fox body or something, especially my turbo one when it's in one piece. But I find myself needing to pull a trailer daily.

Yeah.

Then you gotta have a spot to put your coffee cup. And, you know.

Dude, LMR sells cup holder console.

Those things are junk.

It's fine.

Yeah.

If not, the e-brake handle still works. It didn't change the location of the e-brake handle.

Okay.

I mean, I'm not putting a chocolate shake in there, but.

Yeah, yeah. So you do that when you wedge it between the bolster and the e-brake handle?

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

Yep. That is the move.

Yeah.

So then you do everything yourself on the twin-turbo car, then? Or should I say turbo or twins?

Twins.

Twins. Okay.

Yep.

What size twins do you have in there?

I don't know what they are.

Probably did it however long ago.

Yeah, they're they're like 66, 76. I don't I don't remember. I got a small turbo collection at home and I don't remember which ones are rich.

What's it make in power wise?

Any idea? It was, so it was because it's not anymore. And I was kind of telling him about this. So we dynoed it beforehand and it made 263 to the wheels. And then we twin turboed it and it made 500 to the wheels. And then we blew it up. And then we did it again and we tuned it back to like 445. And it ran like, it lived like that from like 2018 until I think I took it apart last summer.

Okay.

What's it tuned on or what do you use it on?

It's on a, it's on a Megasquirt right now. And that's, that's what we started with and I have a Terminator going in it.

Okay.

It's, I'm, I'm switching over to Holley stuff.

Oh, okay. Okay.

Got it.

Is that the, that's not the new one. That's like the outgoing generation or no?

Well, I bought it two years ago and haven't done nothing with it yet.

So yeah, what's the new one? It's called like the rebel something. Can't remember. Dave's shop started doing it with the, yeah. I'm confused.

The Megasquirt though was the like go-to for it was easy.

It was easy. And Holley wasn't there yet. Yeah. You know, it Holley wasn't there yet back then. And it was like, it was plug and play. Like I just unplugged the AAL9 or whatever it was. It plugged the thing in and it had tuner suite. And, you know, I could get it running good enough to get it to someone with tuning skills, you know? And it did, it did pretty good except for the last rally was not good.

But I'm assuming you're not light on it either when you're out driving around.

No, no, no, no, no, that's it's it's plassey dipped and it gets changed to it gets too much attention then we just change the color. Yeah, what did I do? Oh, I did the heater core and I pulled the heater core out or the whole box out and it broke the cable, the communication cable off of the Megasquirt. So before the last Crown Rally I did, we put it back together and I couldn't communicate, couldn't communicate, but I also changed the distributor. So I actually ran the rally like at zero degrees timing. So 10 degrees retarded. And that's, sorry if I can't talk like that.

No, you're gonna... It's a part of the podcast. People know at this point.

Yeah, right, yeah.

Yeah, they should know what that means at this point.

So I ended up leaving it in Cedar Rapids. It melted a bunch of stuff and whatever.

Do you spray to dip in here then?

I did it in the booth once. Okay. And it was just, it clogs the filters up. So I usually just do it at home.

So you're still spraying with like an actual gun though? You're not rattle canning it?

Yeah, I got the whatever the plasti-dip gun, you know. So I sprayed it through a regular gun the first time I did it, and it looked like a tennis ball. So then I just bought the air gun and did it with that.

Yeah, dip isn't easy. I've done wheels once, and I was like, yeah, I mean, I look good. Nobody knew it was dip, but it takes a little bit of love.

Yeah, I did. Well, the first time we did it, I did black and I did it right before the first crown we did, and then did like black with their orange kits or whatever. And then I did it like a pearl orange, and that actually looked really good. I liked that one a lot.

Are you using dipyourcar.com? Is that where you're getting your stuff? Yeah.

Okay.

That's basically where all the product came. That's on my car right now.

Yeah.

So that guy is based out of Minnesota too, isn't he?

So the founder was based out of Minnesota, and then, but the company is in Florida now, and I don't know if they sold it or if that's just where distribution comes from.

That'd be a horrible place to distribute from.

From Florida.

Yeah, it'd be interesting if they moved down there.

Doesn't get here quite as fast as you'd want it to.

Yeah, I remember I used to work in the freight industry. It's like, yeah, the back hauls out of Florida, it was just like, you could basically get out of there for free because truckers just wanted to get out of there.

My brother lives just south of Orlando and he's a truck driver. And a lot of times it's easy for him to get something from home and get to like Georgia or wherever there's a hub, and then the good loads, that's where he's got to go to get the good stuff. But driving home, he's usually empty from wherever the last stop is to home is you're on your own.

Yeah, when I used to work for the brokerage, that's where I made my biggest commission was Florida. Just getting out of there, like Florida to California. I was like, oh, we're killing it. I don't know, I just came to mind. I totally off topic. Was there any point you didn't see this being your living? You thought about doing something else, maybe like sewing or something, making sweaters?

Well, when I actually came here, I was looking for something because I wasn't, I didn't know this was possible. Everybody will tell you that this isn't possible. And everybody from a very young age told me this wasn't possible. You can't feed a family on that. You can't, you know, whatever. So I was doing general repair and I was kind of getting tired of it. So I did, I did kind of look at, you know, whatever, but it didn't work. I'm here.

Were you doing something before you got into automotive stuff or is that you went right into general repair?

I went right into automotive stuff.

Where does your love for cars come from?

I don't know. It's just always been there. Yeah. Young, young age always just, you know, look at that one, look at that one. No, no family connection to it or motor sports at all. And, and that's for some reason always been, always been my drive, you know, it was some sort of motor sports or all, you know, BMX bikes were a thing. And at that, growing up in Minnesota, the winter months, like you pull your bike inside and you tear it down and do some stuff to it, you know. So it went from that to turn 16, you got to have a car. Well, you can't afford a good one. You just make it, make it what you want or constantly working on stuff, you know, so.

I built a go-kart out of a lawnmower before I had my license. So yeah, reach around there, undo the governor on the little briggs and Stratton, and there's a little turbo boost for you.

Absolutely.

Do you ever shop on customer's behalf? Like, for example, we had John on JFB on episode 83. Like he, I think he actually has like a dealership of like old Broncos, or whatever, or something like that. Something weird, like where he has several of them, like ready to be gutted, to be turned into your dreams.

Sure.

Do you do anything like that, or do you kind of let people come to you with their craziness?

Most of the time, they bring them to me. Well, like the, for instance, like Camaro, you know, I mean, I found that for him. Cause I knew he wanted one and he was serious. He was looking. So, you know, most of the time, I'll let them actually purchase the car. I got a few that are, you know, semi-serious and they're looking for something. I'll just, you know, I know someone's looking for it. I'm going to send them the link to it or whatever, and try and get them to move forward on that.

Do you ever buy cars for your shop to sell and basically flip?

Nope.

Okay.

Nope. So when we talk about cars that someone else built that need things, most of the time it's a flip car. You know, there's people that, I mean, that's all that they do, or even businesses where, you know, they have an inventory of all these classic cars and they're restored and the amount of things that need to be fixed on them is expensive, you know?

No, but sometimes shops build cars to like take the Bear Jackson or something. I, you know, as cringe as he may be, the Richard Rawlings comes to mind, you know, they build cars and they sell them or whatever. Now everybody's giving away a car if you buy a t-shirt. So I don't know. Right.

No, it's never really, it's not really our thing. The GTO might get, that'll probably get sold, but it's, I'm taking my time on it.

Yeah.

I feel like, I feel like if you, if you're building a car to sell it, you know, and there's an option of doing the expensive thing or the cheap thing, you're probably going to do the cheap thing. And really by the time you sell it, all you're getting paid for is your labor anyways. So you might as well build some, build something somebody wants for them.

Do you ever have customers have you find buyers for them for cars that you've done or anything like that?

I definitely have people that are looking to get out of their car and you know, so it would be like, well, I guess we'll take that one to back to 50s and show it. And if somebody asks, people ask all the time, like, is this for sale? Is this for sale? But are they tire kickers or are they serious? If someone's really serious, I'll make the connection.

When we were up at Brainerd that one time, that guy went by with like an OBS Ford or whatever. That was an OBS, right? Yeah. And like pulls up to the same restaurant as us. And before the guy's even out of the car, Dan's already knocking at his window.

I tried to buy it.

He tried to buy it right then and there. Like it was the perfect spec, like the color that his daughter wants.

Yeah, it was that teal color.

Yeah, it was just so funny. The guy's like, I think it had temp tags on it.

Yeah, he had just restored it himself, right? So he was like, I'm sure he wasn't thinking, man, I was kind of hoping I spent all that time fixing, I kind of want to drive it around a little bit. So maybe I had caught him the next year, maybe I would have been ready to sell it.

But just give him your number and say, if you ever change your mind.

I've done that a few times. Actually, this turbo coupe, I just picked up that that deal I made six months ago. The guy was like, no, it's in Arizona. I live up here. I'm going to ship it up here. He was a truck driver. And so I kind of forgot about the car. All of a sudden, I got a message saying, hey man, you still want the T-bird? I'm like, absolutely, absolutely. Let's do it. So kind of came to came around. So yeah, I've been in the classic car stuff though, with my dad and I've got a good friend of mine that does a lot of it. Sometimes you got to play the long game. There's, there's cars that I know that he knows that have been there for years. And every once in a while, he'll swing by knock on the door every few months ago. Hey, you ready yet?

Persistence pays off. Yeah, I chased down my 57 Chevy truck. Yeah, I was, I was working at a shop in Big Lake. And a dude stopped in and he's like, he's like, hey, I got a couple of class cars I'm trying to sell. He's like a Thunderbird, you know, a couple of like early 60s Thunderbirds. And he's like, and I got a 72 C10. And I'm like, I'll follow you home. You know, like I was looking for a truck to build. Yeah. So I go and look at it. And this, okay, so we talked about Beyond Saving. This truck was Beyond Saving. It was rotten. There wasn't nothing left of it, whatever. And he's like, you know, so what do you think? You want to buy this? I'm like, no, I'm like, honestly, I was looking for something a little older. I wanted something that I could drive it back to 50s. You know, and he's like, oh, well, I got this 57 Chevy truck in the barn. Okay. Like, let's go take a look. And we look and it's like, okay, let's start talking. We may kind of comes up with a price. I'm like, all right, I'll call you tomorrow. You know, like I had left work. I wasn't prepared to like make a purchase or anything. Whatever. And I called him the next day and we hatched out a price and he goes, okay, you know, come out this weekend. You could pick it up. Crickets. And I think I called him twice a week for the first month and once a week for another month after that. And and then one day I showed up like like your buddy Richard Rawlings with cash and a trailer and he said no. And then he called me like a week later, he goes, all right, he goes, you really want this thing? I'm like, I do. And off I went. So sometimes sometimes it pays off to keep to keep trying.

Yeah, where's it at now?

In my shop and pieces, it was to be done in 2020. And I was building and it had a boost spot at SEMA. And, you know, they canceled the show and it kind of took the wind out of the sails. And then it came down to, you know, I was still working on it, but we started looking at taking over here, you know, and that kind of took precedence over that build. And the Mustang got in the way. Bought the Mustang to drive while I built the truck. And then I turboed the Mustang, did the full suspension and brakes on that, and the truck's still there. But it's, I did a bunch of custom work to the chassis. It's on Corvette suspension with hydraulic coilovers and a pro-charged LS motor. It's gonna be, it's gonna be a good time.

A hoot and a half.

A hoot and a half.

What's the timeline on that look like? Hopefully in the next decade?

At least, at least next month.

Okay.

Did COVID catapult the business too?

It didn't catapult it, but it didn't, it didn't really, it didn't kill it, you know? I mean, we kept working the whole time. So it didn't, I don't think it did anything bad for us. Being a small shot, we had less guys then. So we just, I locked the front door, that's it.

Yeah.

So.

What's it like to get a car into SEMA?

It's a lot of work. You know, there's all kinds of things to think about as far as transport, you know, you gotta get it there. It's gotta be there at a certain time. Then instead of going to the show for a couple of days, you're there for all of them. You gotta keep it clean. You gotta keep people off of the dang thing. Do you mean as far as what's it take to get it in there or...?

We can start with that.

Okay. Well, the best way to get it in is through a vendor, you know, with Blue Space. Then you know it's going usually sooner than if you go through any of the other channels, whatever, which is what I've done is there's other things like SEMA Groups, the Hot Rod Industry Alliance is who I went with last year and they pick a certain amount of cars a year. I think they get to do like 14 or something. And the best thing about that one is we were outside with the car, but then on Tuesday we moved the car into the banquet and then they had their banquet on Wednesday night around seven cars. So, but you need to be there and do that and take care of the car and all that stuff too. So, it turns some of the fun into work, but we got a lot of media out of it.

So is it pretty easy to get in or not really?

No, it's not easy.

Okay, gotcha.

It's, you need to, a lot of networking, a lot of, a lot of vending companies, they already got builders that they're working with. And, so when they take their car one year, that's like, you got my car next year, they already have deals in place. So you either gotta build something really good or well, you should build something really good. That's, that's the best way.

There's a common thing about some SEMA builds aren't always top-notch, but I would imagine when you're building something like this, it gets pretty easy to...

It kind of, kind of touch on that. Like, so you should build a car to build it, and if it's ready, then commit to SEMA, not commit to SEMA and start building the car.

Yeah.

That's not the YouTube way.

Or any show on the Speed Network.

Or any show on Motor Trend.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

For sure. Like, oh yeah, we got this many days. We try not to put huge deadlines on things. I mean, obviously we want to get it done in a timely manner. And if you didn't have some sort of deadline, the build would just go on and on and on, because there's always a little bit more you could do or something, but definitely it's a lot of work to find a place to get it in. And some vendors don't have, depending on what their display is, they might not even have a car in their booth. So the best thing you can do is talk to your people you buy your stuff from, because if you're not their customer, there's a good chance they're not going to pick, some random guy who used their wiring kit on their car, or the guy who buys 50 wiring kits a year, or 10 or five or whatever, and does top quality builds, that's the guy they're going to pick.

What's a product that's pretty reoccurring in some of the builds that you do?

Almost every car gets a new wiring kit. American Auto Wire is the one I like the most. It's the most complete. I find that a lot of car fires start with wiring, so I don't like to use old wiring, especially when we're doing, you know, all these new products and things. These cars weren't designed to run these type of electrical things, you know. So they got like 10 circuits in a car, and the aftermarket kits or the classic updates would have, you know, 20 circuits, you know, and breakers for power windows and heats and things like that, you know. So just about every car gets completely rewired. Vintage air is almost a given as well. People like their comfort. I like comfort. Definitely, you know, some sort of break upgrade with a good name to it, Will Ward or Bear. Seem to be kind of at the top of the game for that. This stuff's got to work. And the, you know, just slapping like 80s Cadillac calipers on the rear brakes and go on four wheel disc, they just, they don't function the way that they... You can make them work. But for the price, a little bit more, you could just safer, better, you know.

So your form and function then, you're not just here to make things look pretty, you want it to work.

It needs to work.

It needs to work.

It needs to work. Yep. Yep. The days of show cars being pushed in off the trailer and not running, and they also need to not overheat, you know, there's, cars are meant to be driven and we can't cut corners on things like that. If you don't have the budget to do the whole thing, then probably shouldn't do it.

Is there any fixer-upper that comes to mind, like something was just done so poorly and you just had to redo it, or typically you haven't had any nightmare fixes like that? Like I mean from like a previous like rebuild.

Sure, sure. I mean like I've had one, I'm not going to get super specific because I'm not going to. Good call. But where a client had a car and he backed into something, it's like, okay, we'll fix it, you know? And the farther we went, it's like, oh, okay, so it's got a dent. Sanded down, start to repair it, and it's like, we're not hitting metal here. You know, and you got a half inch of Bondo on it. And we find out the quarter's not on correctly. You know, like, oh, well, we got to cut this off, and we got to put a new quarter on it. And the farther you dig, the farther it goes. Next thing you know, you're painting a whole car. We've done a couple like that.

Do you see a lot of Bondo then?

Yep.

That's the old, when you're going to look at a car, right? You got to start knocking on it a little bit. That's a good way to tell.

And knock on it, you know, the old magnet trick. But you can see, I trained. I don't think anybody should buy a classic car without, if they don't have the knowledge, they should try and find someone to bring it to. Like if somebody called me, and I've done this a couple of times, where they say, hey, I'm looking at this car, it's in your neighborhood. Actually, the one guy called from Arizona, he was gonna have the car shipped. And the owner, he just had the owner bring it here, and I looked it over for him. You know, I don't think that's a bad idea. Even when I was doing general repair, I'd look at a car for someone for nothing, if they were looking at buying it. Let's lift it up, let's see what's going on. You can tell if some things are being hidden. You know, it's pretty easy to pick that stuff out. So, that's the more common thing, is someone buys a car and they're all excited about it, and you don't really want to hurt their feelings, but it's like this, there's some issues here, you know?

Well, especially like we, I can't remember which auction it was, but one of our friends, for example, is doing a lot of fixing up on a car that somebody got from one of the auctions. What are some of the things that a trained eye would look for in that case?

You got to get underneath it and look at the, you know, the bottom of the rockers and inside the, open the trunk, look at the trunk from the inside. And if they cut a quarter and a half or something, you probably see a seam or a weld, or back in the day, they would lap weld it, where they wouldn't even cut it to fit. They would just lay it on the outside and weld it, and then just, you know, it's gonna take more filler to fill that, and that's where you end up with thick stuff.

I would say, probably even just doing some online research, every little car has its own little spots where they have bad spots, or they tend to rust or anything like that. You probably could find some information, be like, hey, check the shock towers. The rockers rot right here all the time. Just things like that too would probably not be bad.

Yeah, if you're looking at a fox body, the first thing you do is open the hood and look at the inside of the shock towers.

Yep, absolutely.

You know, it's pretty easy. And that's good advice. It's like, do a little research on the car. If they're known to rot in certain places, look at those places. Yep. Yep, don't look for zebras.

Or just buy them from Arizona or somewhere down there.

Sure.

Then you're gonna probably be doing paint, but you're not doing rust repair usually.

Yep, it's still there.

Yeah, I'm sure. Well, I know I've seen some weird stuff too, getting stuff like from the coast, where they can rust from the top down. You know, you get close to saltwater, and then they rust in some crazy places that I'm not used to seeing, like I do here.

Inner structures shouldn't be rusted out, but if someone was to take car apart like you're building it and it sat as a shell outside in the sea air, it's all that salt in the air is gonna get inside of things.

So is there anywhere you avoid cars from typically?

Yeah, Minnesota.

Right on with the answer.

Yep, the Rust Belt.

Yeah, no, but you can find good ones here that if they were, the deal is with the classic cars, at one point it was just a car. One point it was just a truck. A 1957 truck in 1960 was just a truck. The truck, my 57 that I talk about, I had to chase down the title to a previous owner because I didn't get the title when I bought it. And that guy got it from his father-in-law. And his father-in-law was in town and wanted to see it. So he came over to the shop and he was telling me about pulling fence posts with it in the 60s, using it like a truck. It was a farm truck. And they didn't do too bad on it for what, for all the things and stories he was telling me. But at one point it was just a truck and a 57 Chevy car was just a car in 1958, you know? So depending on, and people used to drive Camaros all winter, you know, depending on when someone decided that it was a hot rod and started preserving it, depends on how good it's going to look, you know, 40, 50 years later.

Well, even that can be a problem too. Let's say you decided, oh, I'm going to get to this. I'm going to park it. I've seen cars rot more sitting on a concrete floor than even sitting in the weeds because they're not getting any air movement and concrete tends to sweat. I've gone, oh, it's been inside for 20 years. That still can be pretty nasty.

It's all, excuse me. It's all about how it was preserved, you know? So it doesn't, location isn't everything. Everybody says, you know, look in Idaho and stuff like that. It's supposed to be real super clean cars out there, but could have that situation there too. Don't be looking for flood cars.

Yeah, avoid Florida and like southern Texas is what I hear often.

Yup, yup.

Especially when you get those hurricane cars and then, you know, someone says a rebuilt title. It's like, uh-oh.

One of the things, when I'm shopping for a rebuilt title car, cause I do that often, I tell people, like, I ask for the VIN first thing. If you Google the VIN, the auction pictures will show up. You can see how bad the damage was, or you get the car still looks brand new, probably a flood car.

Right, right.

I would probably avoid it.

Yup.

So I looked at a flood expedition when I was going to get one, was looking at upgrading my wife's truck, and I looked underneath, there was still mud and sand up on the frame rails.

Oh, sure.

I'm like, holy crap, guys, take a little bit of, just hit it with a pressure washer or something. My God.

Even the last street truck that I bought, I looked at five or six, and the round tubes that go in between the frames, if they're filled with salt and stuff and road sand, it's like, no, no, you just gotta keep looking until you find a clean one. You're better off spending more money on a rust-free car than repairing a rusty car.

I would agree. That's why I hate rust. I live in the wrong area for it.

Sure.

What makes a build more and more expensive? What do people spend the most money on?

I mean, you can spend 50 grand on a drivetrain package. It really depends on what your taste is. There's budget ways to do it, and there's expensive ways to do it. If you want a big-name builder engine in your car, it's going to cost you more. Custom things can cost more. One of the things that I've seen a lot of is changing your mind. If you do things in the wrong order, it can cost you more money having to do things twice. And if you change your mind halfway through a build that you want to do, say, like you want to change your mind on an engine, now all of a sudden you need to modify the firewall, but it's already been painted. Now you're dipping back into paintwork or metalwork or whatever or something you've already done. I did a car where it had rust in the window trim area, which is really common. So all that got repaired as well as the dash. And then the client wanted a custom dash. And I took a sawzall to the custom dash, or the metal dash we just welded in and replaced it with something else. So, I mean, that's doing things more than once costs more money.

And that kind of goes back to what you said earlier, like you want to go over goals from the get go. And it probably changes still all the time. What about like when things go off-market? Do you ever run into that? Like, for example, when AEM was bought up, that kind of hurt some people's builds. You ever run into that sort of deal?

Mostly just with warranty stuff.

OK.

You know, like I just had a I bought a product and it failed. And I called and they're like, oh, yeah, we just. We're now this company. We just bought it and we won't warranty it. It's like, oh, that was like six months ago. Yeah, you know, and actually I ended up sweet talking to fixing it, but. That it does pose a problem. I don't run into it a lot, but. Holly's pretty much buying everything.

Yeah.

Is there any like myths or just things that people have blatantly wrong when they come to you, whether it's a customer or just even on Facebook?

I try not to answer comments on Facebook. Yeah, I don't. I don't know if anything really stands out that where it's a super well, besides, you know, in 30 minutes or a week or seven days, you can build a car because it's not doable.

They do it on TV.

I know they do it on TV all the time. That's not the case.

When's your TV show come?

What's that?

When are you going to do a TV show?

I'm not going to do a TV show.

You had a production diet that goes into that. It gets ridiculous.

I've heard many, many horror stories about it.

Yeah.

It'll affect the quality of your builds and it'll take over your shop.

So probably takes longer to build everything too, I assume.

Yeah.

Oh, wait, we didn't get that.

The one guy was just telling me like, yeah, can you push that into the trailer for a fourth time?

Oh, jeez.

We didn't get the shot.

Yeah.

We got to get another angle.

No, thanks.

What's, I want to circle back, because I had a question we were talking about wiring. What's the oldest thing you've worked on, vehicle wise? I was thinking like six volt and stuff like that, as you get way old.

And I've done a bunch of conversions from six to 12, like 35 Dodge brothers, those were all six volt, and we converted a couple of those. We just had a 35 Plymouth. I'm thinking, I did some Model T stuff. But most of the Model T stuff is like buckets, like there's nothing stock left in them. I did some stuff on a 27 that had some wire, mostly we end up taking the wiring out and putting new stuff in there. It's like if we want things to function, that's the best way.

Is there any different level of caution that comes with that sort of stuff, or pretty much the same deal?

As far as the old stuff?

Yeah.

Well, so it depends what kind of build you're doing. If you are doing a restoration, then it definitely, there's different things that, things that you can't get. Or like, it's got a clock in the dash, and you have to find a clock guy to repair the clock in the dash because they want the clock to work. You know, I'm not taking apart a clock. You find the clock guy to take apart the clock. They're getting a little more rare to find.

We might have to talk, do you know a clock guy? Because I've got some stuff I need fixed.

I got a number for a clock guy.

All right, perfect.

Yep.

It's weird to say a clock guy, but I have some stuff that, like home stuff that came from my grandma's that I would like fixed. It's not necessarily car stuff, but a clock guy is a clock guy. I assume.

I think he's in Elk River.

Is he?

Yeah. One of my guys is he came from a Restoration shop where they did all like early 1900s, like 1910, older, and even earlier than that. And one of the things he said, he got a little burnt out on every screw needs to match the exact. I mean, some of these cars get right down to the this has to be exactly the way that it was. And if you can't get it, then you have to find a way to recreate it, recreate it basically. So we haven't done any of them here, and I'm kind of glad. I like the custom side. I like the Restoration stuff, too, but I definitely like the custom side a little bit more where you got some freedom.

Besides the clock guy, is there any other weird things that start happening the older you get? Not like you, but like cars.

The older I get, well.

Well, you know, this cracks a little differently today.

Yeah.

Just don't spring back quite as fast as it used to. You definitely...

Any wooden wheels?

No wooden wheels, wooden cars.

Oh, really?

So GM cars earlier than 1936 and earlier, maybe it was 37. The bodies were built by Fisher. Fisher was a coach building company. And still you open a door and it says body by Fisher. And there's a little picture of a carriage. Well, those cars were wood framed and metal skinned. So a lot of times you'll get a call. It got to be like, hey, I got a 36 Chevy. I want to build it. And the first thing you have to do is pull all the rotten wood out and rebuild the metal structure inside. Because if you don't have a solid structure to start with, you're not building a car. You know, if you were going to do a true restoration on one of those, then you should be building that out of wood, which I don't have any interest in doing. We've done a couple here where we've replaced all the all the wood with metal and, you know, to make them functional.

Huh, that's pretty cool.

Yes, didn't Citroen do that too? They had like wooden framed cars, I think.

I think so.

Yeah.

Where does your knowledge end, by the way? Because like, you know, obviously, like I said earlier for me, like 65 or older, that's just mystery to me. Like, do you go all the way back to horses? Or like, how familiar, like, are you, like, when it comes to those cars?

I'm just, like, he just brought up Fisher at a buggy company.

A donkey stole my phone once. Oh, yeah?

Cause like, you seem to have to know a lot in your profession, obviously.

So a guy told me even before I was into this, he goes, you won't be an expert on something till you restore it. And so every time, every time we take, and there's definitely guys that'll take that to a different level, where there's shops that just do Mustangs, and there's shops that just do Camaros. Every time you go into a car and rebuild one, you just learn more and more about that specific model. So there's definitely places where it ends.

Do you keep like a spreadsheet or something? So when you get into something new, probably hours of research go into it to start with. And then do you have to like, okay, I need to write this down and put it in somewhere.

I just seem to retain that knowledge of what worked and what didn't. But definitely, excuse me, a second one is gonna be easier to build than a first one. Most people wouldn't have knowledge of a 68 Ford Torino, but I've done one. And then the second one that I did, I already knew some things about this and that, or what was available.

I drove a 68 Torino GT2 Prom my sophomore year. We had a 22429 in it and I drove it. It was a good time. Four speed. Missed that car.

Is there any cars that got away from you? Like whether it's a customer car or personally?

Oh yeah, I got a couple that I do again.

Okay.

Or that I will do again, or they'll. I had a 79 Trans Am that left, and I'm looking for one. Especially after I did Nix, then some of them feelings came back. It's like wanting to have Trans Am feelings or whatever, but every time I do one of them, I kind of re kind of lights that a little bit. I definitely do that one a little different. I learned a lot in that car. And then I had a 79 Suburban that I would probably wouldn't do a Suburban again, but I would definitely do a Blazer.

Those are cool. They're up there now too.

Yeah. Yeah.

All of them. And a 79 Bronco. I need to do one of those. Do you guys really want the list? It doesn't, I fall in love with a different car every day. Yeah.

So what's your Facebook marketplace look like? Are you looking on there often?

Trying not to.

Oh, I'm sure it's like an addiction. Like you'd probably like be like, all right, I'm buying this every Saturday sort of deal.

Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes things follow me home. Sometimes I just get a call, you know, like, Hey, I think you like these or the Mustang thing. Like that's how that happened. I bought, I bought the one off my buddy. And then, and then I get a call like, Hey, you're a Mustang guy, right? I'm like, well, no, not really. I mean, I have one. Well, this guy's going to get rid of this one. Do you want it? Yep. That's how I got the notch. And then this one, you know, the guy called here because he heard I was a Mustang guy and he had wrecked it or whatever. And now it's mine. Kind of my wife stole it.

Yeah.

I stole it back.

She's got good taste.

She does. She's got really good taste.

So we've kind of cracked past that hour and a half part. So we're absolutely cooking. But in that case, did you want to pop the usual three, Dan? And then we could do the Minnesota goodbye.

Sure. So at the end of every podcast, we like to ask our guests to pick three cars. You have an unlimited budget. Obviously you do some cool stuff here. So I'm interested to see how this goes. But we need you to pick three cars, a daily driver, a show car, and a track car.

Okay. Track car, Ford GT.

Okay.

Daily driver has...

Wait, which generation? Yeah.

Oh, 2006-ish.

Okay.

What color?

I don't know what gen that is.

I don't know if you count all of the early, early stuff, but I call them gen one and gen two. You've got the EcoBoost ones and then...

And I've thought about it enough to... I mean, I guess I got an unlimited budget, so I can do whatever I want and change whatever I want. But if I had to do it myself, I'd probably buy a super performance one and build it the rest of the way myself. So, daily driver has to be a truck because I need it. But I have an unlimited budget, so it's gonna be a trophy truck because I want to daily drive a trophy truck bad. That would be a good time. And then the show car probably be my 57 Chevy truck. And it will be expensive. It is expensive.

What's gonna be expensive about it?

Everything. Everything?

Like if you had to dial in the build, like if you had to spec out the sheet, like unlimited budget, what would be everything on it?

You know, big brakes, chassis, you know, every $20,000 increment adding up to a lot. You know, a lot of carbon fiber and...

What does an interior like this cost a guy? Like we're talking like this is pretty full tilt, right? In the car here behind me.

That's pretty full tilt.

Yeah.

It's depending on materials.

Yep, ballparking. Everybody understands this isn't a written agreement.

Yeah. This is not a written agreement. And I do not do interiors, but you could be looking anywhere from $20,000 to... I just heard of $120,000 interior.

Holy cow.

And the guy that you're talking about?

No, not from Kanishk, but there's a guy down in Florida, Avant Garde, they 3D print everything, the entire interior, you know, panels, everything.

Is that the wheel company Avant Garde too?

No.

Not the same one? Okay.

No. So I mean, sky's the limit on everything right now.

Well, then on that note, where can people find you?

People can find me, my website is norspeedrestoration.com. We're on Facebook, we're on Instagram. Think we still have a TikTok. It's all either at North Speed or at North Speed and Restoration. People can call us with a telephone.

Everybody doesn't have them very much anymore, huh?

It does.

Well, maybe old car guys, yeah.

It does. It does. I prefer it. I can get a better read off of someone by speaking with them than I can through an email or whatever.

It's an easier conversation.

That's a must for any long distance car I buy, like if I am going somewhere. We start chatting through Marketplace and then I go, here's my number. I need to talk to you, because I can usually tell if you're a douchey guy right out the gate too.

If I want to jump in, we've bought two 59 Impalas for my wife. One was in two more 59 Impalas for my wife. One was in Niagara Falls and the other one was in Nashville. And it's like before I jump in and do a 15-hour rip in the truck, we're going to have a conversation. So I can get a better read on a client or anybody in general by speaking to them.

Dan?

You can find us at Gunna Garage. We're trying. We're horrible at it, but two ends.

There we go. Gotcha. Gotta specify. And then as for me, you guys made it this far into the show, so you know where you're at. Ron, thank you very much. I'm so glad we finally made this happen. And Dan was here, so that makes it even better. Dan, thanks for existing, and we'll see y'all next time.