22.Customizing Cars - Lighting, Electric, and Owning a Business w/ Tyler Joseph AKA Saint Nordic

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to episode 22 of the Minnoxide Podcast. I'm here with my coho Sean.

Hey guys, how's it going? Wait, which camera do I look into?

No, you can just look into that camera. I mean, you shouldn't be looking at the camera. Nobody wants to see us, realistically. I mean, we'll see. It's gonna get like two views on YouTube.

I barely wanna see you to go into it.

Yeah, and we're right here, bro, so it's like whatever. But yeah, let's introduce our guest, Tyler Joseph, Mr. Saint Nordic, Mr. Customizer of Cars. I'm just kind of free balling here. I mean, how would you describe yourself? Let's just dig right into it.

Myself or the business?

Well, let's start with a little bit, let's start with you. How would you describe yourself? Let's start, what's your place in the car scene, I suppose?

I'm just kind of there when everybody needs me. I mean, a lot of the stuff that we do is obviously customization. We're there, we get a lot of people looking for help too. We started out doing our own thing just like everybody else and kind of figuring it out all along the way. And back then, there wasn't a lot of people that were around to help. But now, I mean, there's still not a lot of people that are around to help, but we're doing our thing. So basically, what I'm trying to get at is, we do a lot of customization. We do our own thing. We just deliver the product. Somebody wants something, we do it. But a lot of what we also get is people reaching out and saying, hey man, I know this isn't your thing. You have nothing to do with it. I'm trying to do this myself. Can you give me pointers? And I'm just like, hey, we all start somewhere and it doesn't bother me. There's some shops out there that are like, nope, we don't want any association with that. You either pay us or you're not worth our time. And I'm just like, I started there. I would like somebody to have helped me if I needed something. And if it's oftentimes these people that are dealing with their cars and these cars are their babies, and they wanna do that on their own and learn something, which is awesome. So if I can help to an extent, I will help them and get them on the right path. And if it seems a little too technical, they're more than happy to bring it in here, but I'm just down to help.

So tell us a little bit about what things you specialize in. I know you for lighting. You're the go-to guy for lighting. I think there's maybe one other person here in Minnesota maybe does it. I can't really think of anybody. And we can get into the topic of why there's one less person if we have to later. But tell us a little bit about some of the services you offer. Because again, you have had some really, really cool lighting projects. I know Cody, Yellow Tint and Media, he's been shooting a lot of stuff for you. Which by the way, those videos look freaking sweet. I'm glad you guys are working together. But yeah, tell us a little bit about what you specifically do, like service offerings, and then we can just go into some stories from there.

So a lot of people know us as lighting, and they're always surprised when they come into the shop and see other things that we do. Or, so lighting, obviously a big one. Custom headlights, custom taillights. The star liners, accent lighting, general upgrades. If you've got s***** headlights, anything like that where you want to upgrade it into something more visible, professional looking. But outside of that, we do a lot of dash camera systems. We do security systems, GPS tracking. Big right now is the MoPAR community getting all their Hellcats and stuff stolen. We have three or four different solutions for those that we offer to make them immobile so that people can't do that. Another thing that's big right now, we've been doing a lot of radar systems.

Like ones that are installed in the car?

Yeah, we do the dash mounted ones, obviously, but then we also do the permanently mounted ones. So they're behind the bumpers, out of sight, can't see anything. Can't even tell the things there, unless you locate the screen, if there is one in that option. We've done jamming systems before, laser defense systems. That's one of the lesser known things that we do. We do a lot of audio systems, whether it's just direct...

A lot of electrical stuff.

Pretty much anything that you... This is how I like to describe it. We do pretty much anything that you can think of, accessory-wise, aside from motor work and suspension.

Okay, it's just not worth your time or you just don't want to mess with it?

Yeah, I would like to leave that for people who like doing it.

Yeah, stick to the stuff that you're good at.

Yeah, I don't ever want to be the shop that tries to do everything and gets in over our head.

Yeah, you specialize.

Exactly, I'm really good at one thing, and they're really good at one thing, so I will let them do it. When we do our custom headlights and stuff like that, we've done the painting in the past, and it's turned out fine, but not to the standards that I've wanted it to be, so now we send our paint out. Or same thing with vinyl wrap, we send that stuff out.

Because you were dabbling with vinyl, didn't you wrap your own car too, yourself?

I did my truck. I did not do my car. Yeah, I sent that one out. But yeah, it's doable, but it's not what I enjoy. So I was just like, I'm out, I'm good with this, I'll do little things, but not really for customers, you know what I mean?

That makes sense, yeah, because you don't want to mess up your offering. The last thing you need is a bad review of something you were experimenting with.

Well, and my thought on that is that vinyl and window tinting and things like that are not profitable unless you do them in volume. So that's why you see all these tint shops. Like we've got Platinum, you've got Lifestyle, you've got Epic Raps.

Auto Trimmers, Creative, all those guys.

Yeah, we could go on. But those guys do a ton of work, and that's why it's profitable. You know, if I'm sitting here, hey man, can you wrap my hood? The time that it would take me to wrap your hood is not cost effective for other things that I could be doing faster, you know what I mean? So going rate, I think, on a hood is between 250 and 350. It could be way off, so nobody judged me for that. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know for sure. It's been a while.

The rates, the prices for wraps have exploded. I've heard as much as like 700.

Yeah, which is good for them, you know, if they're doing a quality job and it depends on the shop. If their job is worth that, then by all means. But I could be doing other things and not wanting to like, not be doing it. So yeah.

Right, stick to what you like, doing what you're really good at. Because like, for example, you could probably knock out like a Starliner really quick nowadays.

Oh yeah, we've gotten a pretty good system done. We throw a couple guys on it. We get to that and we're just flying through them. You know, whereas when it was just me, you know, even two years ago, it would take four days on my own, you know, five days, depending on how big it was, how many stars, the vehicle, stuff like that. But now, I mean, there's some cars we can get done in a day, day and a half, with a full setup. You know, I'm talking like something decently sized, like thousand stars, shooting stars, suede, whatever, you know, in a day and a half is pretty crazy to me. But we do a ton of them, so we're getting good at it.

I'm glad you're breaking into the Tesla market, because I saw that you did that. Was it a Model X, I think?

Yeah, that was a 23 Model X Plaid.

Oh, it was a plaid, too. Wow. I mean, that thing looks freaking sweet. Like, you had the LED or the headlight, like the colored headlights or whatever, going on, I think.

That one did not have the headlights done.

Oh, it was just like interior, mostly, right?

Yeah, so he did accent lighting. He did it on the dash, across the whole face of the dash.

That's right, yeah.

And all the doors, even in the gull wing doors, the ones that flip up. He wanted a thousand stars, which is a lot for many vehicles, let alone one that has a roof the size of like, I don't even know how to explain it. It's smaller than this table.

Yeah, because it's got so much, it's like a glass roof, mostly, right?

Yeah, for a pretty decent part up. I mean, the thing damn near goes to your head.

Yeah, yeah.

And that customer also wanted them inside the doors, so that was tricky.

Interesting.

I don't know how many people know about Teslas or how packed they are, but when you pull those panels off, there's really not room for anything else behind there.

Interesting, okay.

Just the way that they engineer stuff, everything. There's so much technology, so much wiring, so many sensors, different things in there that we had to kind of get creative. We split up something that we usually don't do. We'll do one or two controllers, depending on how the system works out. This one needed one per door, so it was just a lot to kind of make happen, to make sure that one, it looked good, two, there were a sufficient amount of stars for what we were trying to do, and three, to make sure that it didn't mess with the vehicle's system at all. Teslas are finicky, yeah, they're really finicky. They, if you try to hook something up to it, it'll tell you like immediately that there's an error. Like, hey, this module over here is pulling.2 amps more power. That's a problem, and it'll cause some s***.

So yeah, everything on that car is like made standard, and it knows it.

It's specifically for what it has, not room for anything else. So you gotta kind of be creative while still making sure that it's safe, that it's not gonna ruin anything on the vehicle side, and it's not gonna ruin anything on your side either. So there's a technique to it. It's not, Teslas are not for the faint of heart. Even in all the professional forums and things like that, they're inundated with people asking questions about even just where to find 12 volts in a Tesla.

Right, it's such a new vehicle, and EVs are starting to emerge.

And it's only gonna get worse.

And it's a whole new platform to learn versus the conventional vehicle, car. There's, I'm pretty sure, pretty standard with, if you could do one car, you could do them all.

Yeah, well, that was the case, but now you're getting into electrical vehicles, which I'm sure is gonna be the norm from what it sounds like. But you're going from 12 volts on 95% of the vehicles out there right now to these EVs, which are anywhere from 16 to 24 to 36, depending on where it is. So most of the stuff that's available right now won't work for it. You couldn't even buy, if for some god-awful reason, an EV manufacturer decided to put halogen headlights, which I doubt they'll never do, but it wouldn't work. It would never work, because it's not designed for that kind of voltage. So you gotta really be particular about what the products that you have. And that's one thing that I like about what we're doing is that we're constantly staying up with the new technology that's coming out. How do you do that? That in itself is like a full-time job. We are a part of a lot of different communities online that we do a lot of information research on. A lot of the manufacturers out there, even little known ones, I don't know where they got our number, but I have these companies from China constantly reaching out to me on WhatsApp, and I have no idea how they got my information, but it's all the time. And I'm like, okay, this is Liam. This is Liam. Well, that's kind of cool, you know? But I still don't trust it, because I've never seen it before, but it's something to stick in my head. And yeah, a lot of the forums, a lot of the online communities, how people are doing things, what they're seeing out in the field, you know, these things are consisting of a lot of people that are involved in vehicle manufacturing or general vehicle integration like we are, but in other parts of the world where they see things like, there's a lot of people from Europe, there's a lot of people from like the South Coast, the West Coast, things like that, where they're seeing a lot more of a specific type of vehicle. Like I've got a guy that I'm friends with who works on the Larivians, for instance, or the Lucid Airs. And he has been an excellent resource for-

F*** the Lucid, by the way.

Yeah, I don't know, I couldn't tell you, but just the photos and the information that he was showing me, I was like, this looks like a nightmare.

No, I f***** that car. I love the front, the front quarter looks fine. And I'm gonna say this, on every single podcast the Lucid comes up, I hate the rear end. It is the ugliest f****** rear end ever, because it's got that bubble windshield on the back. It just looks like an afterthought. I just had to bring a little flavor to this. I had to. No, the Rivians are pretty cool, though. I'd love to see some customization with those. Hey, Sean.

Hey, Harris.

Do you need a roofer?

I could use a guy.

Well, I'm glad you agree. I saw you definitely need a roofer. And guess what? I think we know a guy. Do you remember Eric from the podcast like a million episodes ago?

Yeah, of course.

Well, guess what? He is the Twin Cities finest contractor. All right, he'll get you taken care of because this summer, Minnesota being Minnesota, it's going to throw hail at your roof. It's gonna have tornadoes throwing shingles off your roof. You know what? You don't know what's gonna end up up there. And he's gonna get you taken care of because when you Google Solaris Roofing, you're gonna see five big, beautiful yellow stars, and they're gonna be telling you that he does not take a no when it comes to perfection. So you're gonna reach out to him either going through Google or you're gonna go to solariscos.com. And let me tell you something, Sean, are you going to reach out to him?

I'm gonna reach out to him today.

Well, I'm glad you answered that way because buddy, you need a new roof. This guy that you're working with then, so how do you balance ideas with people in the industry then? How's that relationship look?

It really varies, because like I said in the previous conversation that we had a little bit earlier, there are a lot of shops that are willing to help out, and there are a lot of shops that are like, nope, this is ours, we're not sharing any information. And it is what it is. I mean, I can understand both sides. So I was fortunate enough to meet this guy probably three, four years ago. He's very talented at what he does. He goes to Knowledge Fest every year, which is like a huge 12-volt industry thing where they make and manufacture custom parts. I mean, the guy's got crazy amounts of lasers, CNCs, all this stuff, anything that you can think of to design, he can and he does. And so I just, on a whim, I was reached out, I was like, hey man, have you ever worked with this kind of vehicle before? He's like, hell yeah, hold on a minute. You free for a call? 45 minutes later on the phone, and he's like giving me the rundown of everything. Dude sent me probably 50, 60 photos of like how to take things apart where he mounted certain things. I'm like, okay.

What an awesome guy, man. Like you don't see that, especially like, is he the owner of that?

Yes.

That's the other thing is like owners get so bogged down on being in the business and just working on growing everything. So it's like, you know, dealing with someone like you, who's like across the country and it's like, oh, I need help. It's like, I don't have time, you know? So that's really cool that he was able to take some time and really do that for you.

Yeah, I agree. And even with, you know, people that are local, you know, there's always seems like there's some huge competition between the shops, you know, like you've got a ton of different shops in the Metro, I'm so sure that you're aware.

Oh yeah.

And there's like this unspoken competition between everybody where, you know, like, no, f*** that guy, I'm not dealing with him or I'm not.

It depends.

It really does depend, but you know, at least in our industry, it feels that way. But my thought is now and has been for the last five, 10 years is that there's so many cars out there. There's not really, what's the point of, you know, creating tension or hatred or whatever the word is for that.

Yeah. Or animosity or whatever. I mean, most smart business owners, they're able to collaborate. And I like, like, for example, a lot of the Euro shops here, like they'll, you know, work with each other on whatever it's like, it's, it really depends.

And you got to give credit where credits do, you know, like some people do cool s*** and some people do terrible things.

Yeah, you gotta give those people credit too.

Yeah, credit for certain things. But yeah, no, it's just, you gotta, you gotta respect, I mean, there's a lot of hardworking guys out there that do really awesome looking stuff and things that I'm like, man, makes me look like a chump, you know, but then you look at their wiring, I'm like, okay, I'm good. But no, it's, it's a, it's a love hate thing.

Do you do a lot of like fix ups too? I know for a while you were doing some fix ups for an individual we won't name, but for all.

Oh, yeah, I see. Yeah, yeah, we do. We'll have it where customers will not really, they'll not dig what happened at another shop. And they'll be like, hey, it's, it's something could be as simple as this is really messy. Can you fix it?

Right.

Or I don't like the way that this does this. Can you fix this and just clean everything up? Cause it looks like trash. Sure. Sounds good. We do a lot of that. Then there's other things where people that were not in business, but I don't know, it was a whole nonsense where they were building product, pushing stuff out, building stuff for people. And then when there was an issue, they just fall off the map. You'd never hear from them. We've had several customers where they'll call up and say, hey, I have a serious problem. Somebody built my headlights and now the car started on fire. The thing's smoking. There's issues here. Can you help me? Yeah. You know, sometimes we can save it. Sometimes we have to start from scratch. Sometimes you have to get new headlights and go from there.

Which ain't cheap, obviously.

Oh, man. Yeah. There's some of those vehicles that are, you know, a thousand bucks a pop. Oh, yeah. And some of those are used, you know? It's like, man. So you gotta be... My biggest thing is, you know, look for word of mouth, look for reviews, see what people are saying, see what you hear out in the community and stuff like that. Because if a company ever has their reviews turned off, that should be a red flag for you.

Omega red flag, yeah.

And I've seen it, man. I've seen it with some shops and I'm just like, I kind of understand the backstory, so I know why they have it off and it's not for a good reason, but it's still, that should be a red flag for you if you see somebody that has that stuff turned off or they're like no Google presence or anything like that.

So I shouldn't take it to my buddy who knows a guy?

Guy who can do it cheaper?

Yeah, well, it depends on how much you like your car. Or if he does good work, there's some people that don't do what we do professionally that still do a decent job.

Did you ever see that RX-8 that burned down? The widebody one?

Uh-uh.

It got really famous. I was gonna ask you what your thoughts are on that because it was allegedly an electrical fire. I was just curious. But yes, I'll show you after the show.

Yeah, you'll have to show me. Electrical fires could be... That's the problem with that stuff is that you really don't know if it's something that was done. It's generally not something caused by the manufacturer unless it was a major accident or something like that. But stuff that people add on, you'd be amazed at the amount of vehicles that we see come in where people do it themselves and they don't put fuses on stuff. There's bare wire showing. There's stuff rubbing through. Stuff got too hot, so it's just completely melted, and now it's just hanging out. You know, I had a guy come in last week who did something as simple as installing a power inverter in his truck, and I don't know what he did. He was overloading it for sure. There was no fusing on it. He had zero gauge wire, which is like that. And the thing was melted within millimeters from burning down the entire truck. And it's a semi-truck. It's a huge, you know, $150,000 rig the guy was driving. So, but stuff like that. I mean, you just, you don't think about how serious it is, but something like that, I just, I didn't even want to touch it, but I'm like, I cannot let him leave here like this because he could hit a bump and s*** could go south. So.

I don't get that because whenever I have to do like some very minor electrical work, that's just like cutting it, like the tiniest wires and splicing them. I'm like sitting there, like reconsidering what I'm about to do because I'm like, there's no going back after I do this.

You're thinking about you're about to get electrocuted or something.

Yeah. Well, the battery, like I know turn off the battery, unplug it, all that, but it's still like just that, you know, there's no going back once you make that cut. And then it's like, now it's forever modified.

You're going to be driving down the road one day, two hours into a drive and you'd be like, f***, I wonder if that wire's still good.

You know?

It's always going to live in your mind for rent free.

Yeah, exactly. I don't take electrical work, you know, as the slightest bit of easy, of an easy job.

Yeah.

It's scary.

It's one to stay the f*** away from as a newbie.

That's what most people do. And I don't blame them. I mean, I was there at one point too, where I was just like, I'd go to jump a car and I'd be afraid to connect the terminals because I was like, f***, is this thing going to shock me? Or like, what happens if I touch this terminal? That was, you know, back when I was probably 17, 18, I was, I didn't know.

That was me three months ago.

Yeah, right. Well, yeah, it's a real thing for people that don't understand how all of this stuff works. And it's funny how that works because there's mechanics out there that can do amazing things. You know, they'll do an entire Hellcat swap and do all these different things that are just beyond my scope of even understanding.

Did you see the Magnum that one guy's working on? So he's doing like a Hellcat all wheel drive, Magnum, whatever build. Have you seen this?

I've seen one of them, but the one that I saw had the new generation charger headlights and taillights on it.

They need to make a charger wagon.

That would be sick.

If only they did that for the last call.

Imagine. But did you see the miles and miles of wire on that? Hopefully we're talking about the same project, but this guy's rewiring the entire car from the ground up because the car isn't supposed to exist. It's going to be an all-wheel drive Hellcat Magnum.

Oh yeah, I know who you're talking about now.

I'd be more interested to see how the transmission holds up because that's the reason why, you know.

It's a Durango drivetrain, I think.

That's cool.

Yeah.

That's what I never understood because with how powerful the Mopars are, in like, I forget what year it was. It was like 15 or 16. They stopped offering the V8 in an all-wheel drive package.

Yeah, yeah.

For the chargers.

15.

Yeah, unless it was a police-pursued vehicle.

Correct.

So even then, I know that a lot of departments were having transmission issues with throwing the power and stuff like that. And let's be honest, the 5.7 stock doesn't throw down a whole lot. So for it to be trained. Yeah, well, the eight speeds are where it's at, so that's why it'd be nice to see a reiteration of that. I'm talking about things that I don't understand, so don't judge me, Bryce, if you're listening. But there's a lot of things out there that would be cool, but I just don't understand how to make it work. So it's nice to see, you know, like that Magnum, for instance, how they're doing that stuff. And I just look at those cars, I'm like, need some custom stuff. Here's my phone number.

Drop your name.

Yeah, right, yeah.

So, okay, so how long have you been doing, I guess, what do we even call it? I don't wanna just say lighting work, electrical work, I guess, on cars, customization. How long have you been doing, like customizing cars for?

2010.

2010, okay. And then you just went full-time with it, what, how long ago? Like four years ago, I think?

So I started up doing this on our own, probably in 20. Yeah, right during the pandemic, which is a bold move. Stupid at the time, I didn't even think about it. I'm like, whatever. But yeah, 2020, I wanna say it was March, is when I started doing it on my own. But previous to that, I was working on, I've worked at other shops doing it for, since 2010, doing different types of things. But in that realm of the world, for all intents and purposes, I was doing a lot of squad building, squad cars, fire trucks, ambulances, all that kind of. That's where I got a lot of my technical knowledge from. And I did that for about five, six years. And that was cool. I didn't like doing that portion of it, not because it wasn't fun to do, because there's all that stuff that has to fit into the vehicle. That stuff was cool. But just the lack of standardization, you could see one that looks amazing. And then you have a customer come in that needs something fixed, and it's like, these people, how are you even working on cars right now? You know, like you open it up, and it looks like somebody just threw like 20 pounds of wire in a bucket and said, here you go, you know? So that was, that's still a pretty normal thing, to be honest with you. It's crazy how what they can get away with, with that kind of s***. So I'm surprised that there's not more squad car fires, to be honest with you. But yeah, I started out doing remote starts, hooked up with a guy that had his company doing that kind of stuff, audio, and he kind of guided me into it. My first job, I b********** my way into it. It was like off of Craigslist ad. And they're like, yeah, we require this, this, and this. And I went in for my interview. I'm like, yeah, I know, I'll do all that s***. And they're like, cool, you can start it on Monday. I'm like, sweet. And I was like, oh God. But I'm a quick learner, so I figured it out. But yeah, that's kind of where I got started doing that stuff.

So, word of the wise to the kids, lie on your f****** resume.

That's right. Except for when you're replying to me.

Yeah.

I'll figure it out.

Okay, so then that leads me to my next question. Is it just you and then your partner in the business, or who's all involved with Saint Nordic?

For the main port, yeah, we have people that come in every once in a while if we need, like if we're super swamped, or if we need stuff that's really labor intensive, or that doesn't take a lot of skill, we have people that come in, two of them, that'll come in and do that stuff while we're working on the more technical aspect of it. We also have somebody that designs stuff for us, you know, like on the art and graphics side. Okay. I do all the website stuff, so I don't know if you've ever seen our website at all.

It's been a while. I looked at it like a couple months ago, I thought a few months ago.

Yeah, so I've designed two of them so far. One of them's for more e-commerce, one of them's for more local. Okay. So I do all of that, not because I want to, but because I didn't want to pay the thousands of dollars, and I was like, I could figure this out, and I did, and I think it looks pretty good.

Well, that's a part of being a business owner, too. It's like, man, do I spend, you know, several thousand dollars on this, or do I just figure out to get the basics and get it done?

Yeah, and we were in a time where it was slow enough in the season where I had time to do that. It wasn't, if it was a situation like it is now, or we're six weeks booked out right now. If it was a time where it's like, hey man, I need to do this right now. I don't have time. I'm going to pay somebody to do it. But during that time when it was the slower season, slower months, we still had stuff, but not as much stuff, where I could kind of focus on that. Even still, I mean, I was working all day, then going home and doing that at night. Sometimes till midnight, two o'clock in the morning, working on the website, and then going back the next morning to work, just to perfect it and stuff like that. And I'm always open to criticism, so whenever anybody sees something like, hey, this looks kind of off, or hey, this is spelled wrong, I'll get on it. But overall, I mean, it's been a pretty positive experience with website stuff. So sidetrack.

No, you're killing it, man. This is getting behind the scene. Because one of the things that we try to do with this podcast is people just know you from Saint Nordic, and they don't really know the person. They're just like, oh yeah, this guy does work on my f****** car. Some people might get to know you more deeper, but that's one of the things with this show is like, we want to talk to somebody for more than five minutes. So getting an idea of how you operate or whatever, just kind of getting to know you. Because you do cool s***, and we used to hang out all the time, I was in 2021 or whatever.

Yeah, shortly after, you had the gladiator.

Yeah, I had the gladiator over there, man. Yeah, f******, yeah, I got rid of that or whatever. But now I'm in the old GTI. But yeah, no, it was a good, oh, there's the flyover. So at this show, the Memorial Day show here at Cars and Caves has a flyover every year.

What? Oh, cool. We're missing it.

You can go see it, Sean.

No, it's too late.

Oh, is it? No, they're gonna come back. It's a multi-flyover. Yeah, go get your camera, kiddo.

That's all right.

You want the camcorder? He made you miss that, man.

He didn't even know about it.

I love planes. Are you kidding?

I love trains.

He was just talking about that before he came in the room, how much he would love to see a flyover someday. I feel like this beef right now is gonna be forever. So good for you.

Well, it's okay, because the last guy that we had on Tyler Ray, he's a fighter, and he's gonna teach me how to fight. It's like a f******* up.

Yeah, he really wants me in the ring.

So that's why he promoted that anger towards you right now. He's like, I know this dude's gonna love planes. Watch this s***.

He gets them fired up.

Yeah, it's gonna be forever, just animosity on this show. It's like, a** f****** a******, maybe missed the planes.

I would be down for that. I like that. I like animosity.

Not between us, we got a show together.

Whoever, we can invite somebody off the thing and be like, dude, your f****** Lambo sucks. Bring him in here.

No, it's gonna be even better. Like, we'll have guests like you come on, and me and Sean will just be bickering the whole time. You're just gonna be like, ask me a question.

All right, moving on.

There was, sorry, there was a podcast where we were kind of going at each other like that. That was funny.

Yeah, every once in a while, we gotta go at each other once in a while, because there's so many differences, but what do you hate about your job? That's what I need to ask. Like, cars, the people you work with, give me the down and dirty, without getting yourself in trouble.

Yeah, my boss would fire me for sure. Your boss, yeah. No, with any business, there are certain things. There are definitely people in the public that are hard to deal with. We get a lot of dumb calls, which is fine. I'm never rude, even though in my head, I'm like, why did I answer this phone? There are people that just don't understand. Or the one thing that I hate, which people are probably going to give me s*** about, but I cannot stand when people ask us for sponsorships. I feel it's been so much. It's one thing if we've developed a relationship with the customer, and they're like, we've done this, this, and this, and they're like, hey, what do you think about this?

Sure. Or asking for free work, basically.

All the time, man. And I'm like, f***.

They're like, I got 4,000 followers.

It's one thing if it's somebody that we've dealt with and that we've got a good relationship with, that we've done work for, that has shown us, hey, I've invested in you guys because I appreciate what you do. But 90% of the stuff is just random people calling, I've got an O2 Silverado, and it's sick. I'm gonna bring it to SEMA sponsorship. I'm like, no.

Well, the way, I mean, any business, or any smart business owner, at least, is gonna look at it like, okay, how's that make me more money? Like, all of a sudden, I love, yeah.

That's the conversation that I've had to have with people. And I'm like, hey, I don't flat out generally tell people no, but I'll give them the options. I'm like, we have offered sponsorships in the past that have not benefited us, really. So rather than just like saying here, we'll do a bunch of this stuff for free, you pay for the product. Or we'll pay for the product, and you just take care of the labor.

Yeah, like a partial sort of thing.

Exactly, but my thoughts is, is that if we're gonna want to sponsor somebody, we'll reach out, you know, we've done that. We've reached out to people and be like, hey, your car is sick, we want to be a part of it. How can we make this happen, you know? But for the average person, they'll just be like, I want this, what do you think for sponsorships? And I'll say, okay, here's how we do that now. This is how we approach that. We'll sponsor you, but here's the catch. You are going to be paying full price, initially. And for every person that you send us, that specifically says, I saw his car, he sent me here, that's what I want, boom. You get 5% back your total purchase price for every single person. And that's unlimited, there's no cap to that. So you could make, if you're as big of an influencer as you believe you are in your head, you can be making this a full-time job, but we've done it, and people are sweet and psyched. Let's do it. Not a single call. So in the end, we're willing to be giving that back for people who actually want to do what is required for somebody to be a sponsor.

I like that model, that's a really good model, because so many people would do that. They'll be like, all right, give me the sponsorship, or whatever. For example, one of the things I ran by all the people that sponsor this show, I'm like, listen, if you find absolutely zero value in sponsoring this, by the end of our term, plus whatever some grace period, I'll refund you the entire thing. That's how I operate, because if I can't get you a single sale, then your sponsorship of me is f****** worthless.

There's gotta be value to it, exactly like you said. And if there's not, with what you guys offer is a little bit different. That makes sense to say, hey, give us, say if you were to call us up and be like, hey man, that's what we can offer, do you wanna sponsor it? Sure, but for 95% of the people that contact us, they're just looking for free stuff. And it works for a lot of companies out there. I think the online and the e-commerce market has ruined that for people, because you can go on all these websites, like Lighting Trends, and they'll be like, yeah, sign up here, and they'll give you, boom, 15% off. To me, that's like, okay, well, they're overcharging 15% off, and they're just using that as, hey, no, you feel special.

It's a marketing tool.

It is, it is definitely, but that has ruined it for everybody else. You know, so if we have a product that is cheap enough to where we can do that, we're probably not gonna offer it. The products that we have are already as cheap as that we can make it. You know, they're not cheap products, but they're still a spendy, but we wanna see it out in the world just as much as people want it. So that's why we market it at the price that we do. Right. So for people to come up and be like, I don't value you because I want that s*** for free. I'm like, here's the number for somebody else. I'm never rude about it. I always explain it in the way that I did with you about the percentages and things like that. But it just bugs me.

I really like that model, though. All right, if you're as big as you say you are, Bing Gat.

And I don't word it like that, but I'm just like, you know.

That's how I would word it. Yeah, I mean, I'll be nicer about it. But that's true. Okay, let's say, what, an average builder or whatever's like, what, $2,000, $3,000 on a complex cell?

Yeah, let's say that.

Let's just use that for example. It's like, all right, well, give me 10 or 15 people, and then you have your money back.

Yeah, so for every person that you send to us, that's $150 bucks in your pocket.

Yep.

You know, so how many people does that take? That takes 20 people, and you've got your job to pay for.

Yeah.

You can get a lot done with that money. That money can go pretty far. So how hard is it, if you're as big of an influencer where we would want to work with you, how hard is it to send 20 people?

Because it kind of puts the risk and the obligation in their court, right? So yeah, I like that. I'm gonna operate like that from now on.

Well, yeah, you should. But what's crazy about the sponsorships is that if you think about it, you know, like let's say West Coast Customs or any of the big shops that are on TV and things like that, where they sponsor people, what an actual sponsorship is, is they have a huge contract that they lay out and they're like, basically, yes, we'll sponsor you. We'll pay for this, this, this, and this. But here are the things that you're gonna do for us. That car's gotta be available at a moment's notice. We're gonna be able to keep it for two weeks at a time. You're gonna go to this many shows. You're gonna have to go to a minimum of 20 shows per season, stuff like that. Now, if we did that or any actual reputable place did that, there'd be no talking about sponsorship. It's basically, if you did that with your GTI, or yeah, GTI, you wouldn't own your car anymore. They'd own it for you wanting to be a part of it.

Which works if you have a second car. I know, for example, the Mall of America thing that DMNCC does, right? Wasn't your car there last week?

The Fast X?

Yeah. Yeah, your car's in Mall of America, right? Oh yeah, we'll talk about that in a second. Yeah, but that's the thing. They're like, yeah, that car's with us now for two days. So it works if you have a second one, but yeah, no, that's...

Same thing with Minneapolis Mile.

Yeah, yep.

You stick it in there, and it's just there for a while.

Yep, it's no longer your car. No, but I think that, yeah, nobody would do that. So like you said, people are looking for freaking handouts, and they're just trying to get some free lighting done or free wraps.

And there's no harm in asking. You don't get fed if you don't ask for it, you know?

That's true as well, yeah.

But, so I'm not immediately like, f*** this guy, I blacklisted, you know? But I'm just like, again, you know?

Well, you just wish that they would put a little more effort into it, right? Because what they're asking of you is hours and hours of work, right? You would expect the same of them. So let's put hours into going to shows, track events, all this. Like, if it's gonna be a sponsorship, I see it as a partnership personally. So I don't know.

And it'd have to be a pretty special car for us to want to be doing that, you know?

You don't want my GTI?

I've already told you, man. You bring it in, we'll make it happen.

We'll see, we'll see what happens. I fall more in love with that car every day, which is the opposite of what should happen. Most people get used to their cars, but it's like, especially after auto-crossing it, I found a lot more limits.

Yeah.

Like, I almost f****** went off track a few times, like, just because like, I don't know, I'm falling in love with it, and I'm doing a wrap in the next two weeks here as well, like a partial for Community Rally. And then we'll see what other customizations I do. I kind of want to get some side skirts and a splitter and all that, but I'm like, ah, but it's a GTI. I don't want to waste more money.

Yeah, well, why not? I mean, it's something that you've put how much time in? You know?

Right, well, yeah, exactly. But at the same time, like, I also have higher aspirations, like, in what I want to invest towards. So it's like, it's tricky, but like, you already got a card that you absolutely love. Like, you would probably never get rid of that 392 unless it was for, like, a health kit or something, right?

Even still, though, I put, same with my truck, that's why I still have that piece of s***. You know, it's just, I put so much time and energy into it that it would be hard, you know? And now that my kids are getting to the age where in a few years, you know, that'd be cool for them to have.

Okay.

So leading, that's another thing, leading back to your other question about how the hardest parts of business, that's one of the big ones, too, is family life. And balancing everything, you know, there was times, you know, for years, where it was just me doing things seven days a week. Didn't matter. You know, somebody wanted their car for a show the next day. I'd be there till four in the morning.

I remember those days.

Yeah, and even if it wasn't that, it was just, I would be excited. They would be so jacked up about the build that they'd make me jacked up about the build. So I'm like, this person's cool as s***. I want to make them happy, you know.

I know how that goes.

I'd be like, you know, same thing with, if you've got a customer that you just really vibe with, who you took photos of, they're super jacked, super grateful, they just really make you feel valued as a photographer, you want to get that stuff pumped out and edited for them as soon as you can, you know.

Yeah.

It's the same type of thing.

That's a really under, yeah, that's a good point. Like when you put, yeah, it's something that people kind of forget, right? Like the energy goes both ways.

Absolutely.

Yeah, that's a really valid point, actually. I didn't even think of that. Because like, for example, I just shot for the shop the other day, some eight classic cars, right? And you know, it took a while to get the ball rolling, like, energy-wise, but the guy was super jacked to have me there. It's like just excited, you know, showing me some photos. Like, it makes you want to get s*** done, you know? But if you have somebody that's just, you know, transactional, like you'll get it done still, and in a timely manner.

Just missing that element of excitement.

Excitement, yeah.

Or drive, motivation, whatever.

Yeah.

But yeah, that's, so I used to do that a lot. Now I've been kind of, you know, I've talked to my elders, my family, my older family, you know, my grandparents and things like that, and other family members that own businesses and just other people that own businesses in general that I know. And they all say the same thing, you know, if you're good at what you do, the work's gonna be there. So why are you killing yourself doing this? And sometimes it's, you know, comes with the business, and a lot of owners, business owners, I'm sure, can attest to the fact that sometimes you just gotta suck it up and do it, you know. But I've tried to get away from that as much as I can, you know, develop actual, you know, strict hours for myself. Yeah, you know, I'm done at this time every day, and I'm going home, you know.

You gotta care for yourself, because if you're burning out, then, then that's worthless for you, your customers, and your business.

Yeah, and that's part of it, but more so it's been more of a motivator, because it's like I've been doing it for so long, and I'm like, whatever, my body's fine, it'll deal with it. But now my kids are getting older and things like that, and I'm like, I wanna be there, you know, like I wanna be there for everything. You got two kids, right? I've got, yeah. And I wanna be present for all that stuff, so I don't wanna miss anything, or like them just assuming, when they see me in the morning, hey, are you going to work? I'm like, f***, you know? So now I don't work any weekends because my weekends are dedicated for the kids. So this weekend is their mom's holiday with them, so I don't have them. But-

Okay, so it worked out for the podcast.

It worked out, yeah. Yeah, exactly. But even something as simple as a car show, that's why you don't see me around at many that are on the weekends is because it's like, I don't wanna take that time away from them, which can, it would definitely bring more opportunity for business with me showing my face and going out and talking to the community and stuff like that during car show season and stuff like that. I'm gonna make it more of an effort to do that. I think I went to one show last year. But to me, my mindset when it comes to that, I'm like, yeah, I could go do that for two, three hours, but I'd rather hang out with my kids. So that's probably one of the hardest parts about it. It's just focusing on what's important and keep making sure that both are getting the time that they deserve.

That's another thing that could be true as well. I think we talked about this at length even, just showing your face, the referrals, just networking at shows. Because these are people who are ultimately gonna buy your products and your services, so it's tricky, but.

And you could do the best work in the world, but if you see them and they think you're an a******, they're not gonna use you.

Oh yeah, there's that too, yeah.

For a lot of situations. There's some exceptions to that, but.

There is. Every once in a while, you're just like, ah, he's an a******, but he does damn good work.

I just won't talk to him. I'll just drop the car off.

Yeah, but it doesn't even have to be a weekend show. There's a lot of shows during the weekdays, but again, it's just tough because you're pretty far up north too, right?

Yeah, I live in Buffalo, but a shop's in Princeton. But yeah, even then, it seems like everything's closer to the south of the cities.

Just an hour drive.

Right, and pretty much no matter what you do.

Yeah, yeah. And that's more of your market because I know more on the north side of cities, like more classic cars and older guys who probably won't do lighting work, I'd imagine.

Yeah, it's just a, it's up there is a good mix. You get a lot of people that want lighting, but seems like a lot of the stuff that comes in is a lot of motorcycle audio, motorcycle lighting, old car wiring, you know, like we just did a C10 for some guy that he had fully restored. He had the thing, I mean, the thing is a beautiful truck. I think it's a, I'm not gonna offend him by saying the wrong year, but it's an older truck. I think it's just like a 76, but he wanted everything to be new again.

What color was it?

Silver.

Silver, okay.

Yeah, crazy top customs to the suspension. So it's nice, it's dropped, it's pretty sweet. And so we did full audio system in that to bring it up to like the 21st century. We also did dip the upholstery in it. So we took out the bench seats that were in there, added bucket seats, consoles, new dash panels, and things like that, upgraded the dash cluster from whatever it had to a nice digital Dakota digital system. So kind of updating it, making it something else that's not a pain to drive. But yeah, it's a lot of older cars up there for sure, but there's still a decent market. We still have people coming from other states. We have people coming from as far north as past Grand Forks from South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin. I mean, people come from all over. So that's a pretty cool testament to think about. You know, must be doing something, right?

Yeah, that's fricking wild, man. Like when you have people, especially like around the country, like starting to recognize your work, like that.

Oh yeah, we've had a couple of those too, where people send us lights from wherever they're at. Specifically recently with like the Challenger tail lights. I don't know if you ever saw that video that we did.

I think maybe remind me again, what was it? Or for the listeners even.

Yeah, so we developed recently a set of tail lights for the 2015 and up Challengers, the tail lights. You know, they've got the little racetracks and stuff like that. At the time, I don't think that I saw a single one on YouTube or Facebook or anything like that. That was done the way that we do them. So we just decided we're gonna buy a junk set. We're gonna see what happens. We're gonna try to do that and then see how it goes. And it worked. We did that s***. And so now we open up the doors and now we have people from all over the country sending us those lights to have them do it. Because as far to my knowledge, we're the only ones that has done them.

So what exactly are you doing with the lights? Is there, okay, are you able to explain it, I guess?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So sequential stuff, pattern stuff, you know, turn signals, we do like the startup animations, I'm sure you've seen on certain vehicles.

Like Audis.

Exactly. Do those in the taillights, the headlights. But the taillights are a big one. We have taken out all the factory stuff, put in our stuff, and so now it can do everything that our other lighting can do, except for now it's in the taillights of the challengers and the chargers. So, like the video, I don't know if you saw that video from the Mall of America that I posted.

Maybe.

It was just a quick little 10, 15 second promo of the black charger that I have. But that pretty much highlights, to give you a rough idea of what it is that I'm talking about.

Yeah, I think I saw a video a while back about that potentially. Didn't you do some cool stuff for Randy's Mustang, too?

Yeah, we did Randy's headlights, I believe.

And his tail lights are colored, too, right?

Yeah, headlights, tail lights. I think that he has, I actually don't, it's been a while, but I know we did those two things. I don't remember if we did any other custom lighting or not.

Yeah. Have you ever thought about, and I don't know if you already do this, maybe you do. Have you ever thought about having stuff like off the shelf, like just to ship out?

Yeah.

Like pre-build like 10 sets or whatever?

Yeah, I mean, we've got some stuff that's on the ready, that, you know, like popular things. Like for a while, there was just a ton of challengers. So we've got probably two sets of challenger headlights that are ready to go. We've got a set of RAM headlights ready to go. It just depends on what we can come across, because some of those are really pricey, you know? And if I'm spending $1,500 on a set of housings, that has the potential of sitting on it for a very long time.

Right, inventory's a b****.

And that's just that one product. So it's gonna take a special person to buy a $1,500 set of headlights that have then been modified that add however much more to that, you know? And then that person's also gonna have to be comfortable with installing it, taking off the bumper, taking out their old headlights, putting the new ones in, wiring them all, doing all that stuff by themselves. It's just a very specific person that's gonna wanna do that. So trying to hang on to that. We can move stuff pretty quickly as far as building stuff goes. There's certain headlights I can build in a day. There's certain headlights that take me three, four days. It just depends. But when people come in, order something from us offline, it goes pretty quick. We put a priority on that kind of stuff because how much does it suck when you're ordering something online in the days of Amazon where you're expecting it? We put a little disclaimer on the website, obviously, up to six weeks, but I never try to make it go that far because I'm just as excited as a customer in that position where I'm like, oh, my lights, man. I spent all this money, so I try to do it right by them, even if I've never met them before. They're trusting us, obviously, so it means something to me.

I think you being a younger business owner, too, you have that excitement. I know some guys that get older throughout the years. Some of them keep their excitement. Other ones just get jaded as f***.

F*** those lights.

But I think definitely as you get bigger, right? Because obviously you want to scale this business and grow it, so in the next five, 10, whatever years, as the name grows, you might even potentially be able to support something off the shelf in addition to the custom work. It all depends where you end up being, right?

It would be nice to not have to work on guard anymore.

Well, that's kind of the ultimate goal, too, right? Is eventually get employees that you can trust, which is very difficult nowadays. And to keep them and retain them, and then you scale it, and then you can kind of just be off. Like you go take a vacation to f****** Hawaii, and you know business is getting done.

Exactly.

How did Saint Nordic happen between you and your partner?

We had...

Or explain who Nordic is, I guess.

Troy. Troy. I don't know if you've ever met Troy, but he's a good dude. We worked together in another shop for a while, and I did my own thing, and then he was working there. And it would have been probably in between two years since we last worked together before I started my business. And then we would still talk in the meantime, and I was talking to him about it, and he's like, you know what? That sounds pretty awesome. So then he started doing his own thing. Both identical things, for the most part. I mean, he has his specialties, and I have mine. So there would be little differences in things that we offered, but in the premise of things, it was a lot of the same stuff. So it just got to the point. I mean, we were still talking every day. We were still doing stuff, bouncing stuff off of each other. I'd go out to his place and check out what he was working on. Same thing, he'd come by, help with things, and eventually it got to the point where it's like, why are we competing? Why are we doing these things? Join forces. Exactly, why not just remove it all together and take both of our customer bases and combine them and make it the only place to go? Because there's really not any other place that does specifically what we do. There's a ton of audio shops, there's a ton of upholstery shops, there's a lot of those things, but if you wanted the custom lighting aspect of it, all the stuff that you're seeing from these other shops, for the most part, are just store-bought stuff. They're buying them from the distributors that are like, Race Sport is a big one, that cheap Chinese s*** that people like to push, because it's from their distributor, they can get it for cheap and they can get it local and they can throw it in there and charge you four times what it's worth. But it's junk, so we don't do that. We make all of our own stuff. We make everything that we do. So like all of the, aside from like the vehicle specific, like DRLs and stuff like that that are computer made, obviously. But if, say you came in and you wanted some custom lights, we are cutting it specifically to length for your vehicle, making it right there. And that's why it's a little bit more. But it's also, we've measured it with lumen meters. It's also two to three times brighter than anything else that they sell online. So we push that and we back it up. So if somebody says otherwise, pull up, let's do it. Sounds dumb getting geeked out over lights, but it's true. I mean, I'm not gonna lie about it just to get business.

I like it. That's super awesome. So then what services did he, so you guys kind of did a little bit of the same thing, but how did the conversation happen to, when did you officially merge, I guess? Sorry, took a while to get there, but that's the question.

May, June, May of last year.

And it's been working well so far for you guys?

Yeah, no problems.

Perfect. And then, so are you guys seeing like a nice uptick in business as well now that you're together?

Yeah, it's kind of hit the ground running. And there was obviously slow times with like it had any business. But I mean, since the season started, it's been nonstop. I mean, it's a cool feeling. That's good. There's times in like the winter where remote start season just wasn't as hot as it usually was. You know, we still had some projects for other stuff where people had their winter cars that they wanted stuff done. But it got kind of weird for a while there, but stuff picked up, turned around. So we're just, we're excited to see where it goes from here, you know, with the next season and the coming ones after that, just to see if the momentum stays and whatnot. So, but the more customers we put out, the more people are out there talking about us. Exactly. So I have high hopes for that.

Yeah, I mean, if some sort of arrangement with your customers or whatever, just to make sure they're going out to shows, talking to people. I mean, you also want to be working with people who obviously are known in the community. And you know, all these things, and just building your social media presence, which is always, I mean, there's so many things to juggle as a business owner. Yeah, for sure. Because even with Whiplash, right, I was doing the photography, I was doing the wrapping of the cards, I was doing everything. I was doing fricking everything, you know? It's hard to get to it all and still maintain a social life, a healthy social life, without snapping at people every other week.

And luckily, I've been in the position where I've never done that. I'm pretty good about keeping my cool. I can't think of a single person I've really snapped on. Well, not even just necessarily snap, but being agitated, yeah. I know what you mean, but I'll just distance myself from it. If I'm just not in the mindset, or if I'm getting irritated already by someone, I just leave it and respond another day, because it's just not worth the energy at that point.

Yep, exactly.

And I'm just stewing over it the whole time, I'm like, f*** that guy. But I get back to him, I'm like, yeah, man, what's up? But what do you do? It's business. You gotta be professional, and you gotta be cool, and that's what you gotta do.

Speaking of low energy, Sean's half asleep over here.

Yeah, man, I'm looking at these donuts, and I really want one.

Yeah, you could smack one, just keep away from the mic. You want a donut? You want a donut, tubby? No, f*** you. No, I had a donut yesterday. I actually went out with Nightfall Visuals to grab a lunch, and then I was like, hey, you wanna try this donut shop? Really great donut shop. But we just talked about this in the last podcast. When you eat clean for a while, having something super sweet or super fried, it doesn't sit as well as it used to.

Yeah, you're gonna be spending some time in the bathroom for a little bit.

Yeah, for sure. I wasn't taking it that way, but sure.

Well, that's because you're a lying sack of s***. That's how it is, man. I'm just being real with it, folks.

Yeah, you can't b******* a b*******.

You can't b******* a b*******. Yeah, we were just talking about that too. Who was I talking to about that? Especially because you and I are both in this 90-day transformation, right?

Yeah.

And people have heard me talk about it before in a podcast, but like, you know, being honest with yourself is such a huge factor of it.

Being honest with yourself sucks.

It sucks.

It does, dude. And having that personal accountability and like keeping yourself in line, especially when, like, I don't know about you, but I know that when I'm doing it, I don't really talk about it that much.

Right.

So it's just like a huge mental battle in my head. And I'm like, don't f****** do it. Don't do it, you know? But you just gotta kind of keep yourself. It's a huge mental game.

Dude, like, I do like cold plunges, right? Because after my workouts, just because like it's super, it's the biggest dopamine hit you'll get next to drugs. And then like I'm talking to myself, like mentally in the cold plunge tub, right? Like, you know, like 30 seconds, no problem, whatever. Like 30 seconds flies by now, you know, a minute, relatively easy. But then if I want to start getting into those higher, like, you know, one, two, three minute ranges, I'm sitting there like, don't be a f****** b****. You know, you're in f****** Hawaii right now. Shut the f***, like, I'm like talking, the most evil things you can say to a person. That is what I'm telling myself. Whether it's a cold plunge or working out at the gym or whatever, but it's a regular reoccurring topic on this podcast because like the people we have on are typically passionate in trying to better themselves. Whether that's, you know, they'll have their own business or their own careers going on or whatever in the car community. But then usually they're also trying to better themselves like physically in some way as well. Like it's a, I mean, you've noticed it too, right Sean? Like the last three or four guests, we somehow ended up talking about fitness somehow or health.

Okay, well, our second to last guest was the owner of a NutriShop, so.

Yeah, exactly.

They're all about fitness.

Yeah. No. No, but we love having guests like you on the show as well who are genuinely passionate about the things that they do, right? Because there's something, like, the people that listen to this are also interested in that stuff or might be thinking of where to start. So it's just, I don't know. I love talking about s*** like this and just seeing people who love what they do. I mean, I think you love what you do.

Yeah, yeah, it's a good time. I mean, I often will get to work and we'll just be doing our own thing in the corners of the shop, and I'll be like, this is kind of a kick-a** job. You know, like, we don't have people that are constantly up our a**, you know, aside from some customers, but the job itself has a high reward system, you know, because at the end of it, you can actually directly see the result of your hard work. You know, whereas other jobs, you might not be able to do that, you know. Whereas like, for instance, like retail job, if you're working a retail job, you know, like you don't feel fulfilled at the end of the day because you helped a lot of customers and you folded some s***, like cool, you know. But here, you know, we'll spend 10, 15 hours on something and then be able to see it. And then it feels like pimp my ride at the end of the show because the customer is super jacked when they come to see it. It's like, yeah, it's a cool feeling. So being to be able to be a part of that is pretty awesome.

So what's some like the worst jobs that you've taken on? Like, maybe it's like, maybe you hate working on a certain type of car or like the headlights just suck.

Minivans.

Minivans, really?

They're terrible to work on, man.

Why?

Because everything is just like so crammed in there. Like it might sound really stupid, but doing a remote start on a Nissan Quest or a Honda Odyssey is the biggest amount of b*******, to the point where I will not do it anymore. I'm just like, no, I'm good. You can have it. I'm just for the amount that it would, I would charge to want to do that again, isn't fair to anybody. So it's just not, but.

Right, you tell them the best buy is right down the road.

No, I'll still do it, but it's just so.

What makes it so hard?

The wiring harness that you have to tie into for a lot of the connections is by the windshield. And the only way to get to it is to go from the firewall on the bottom, so I'm laying on the floor and extending my arm all the way up. So I'm underneath the dash, my fingers are right here, and here's the windshield, and I'm on the bottom by the feet pedal with my big a** sitting there trying to reach the ship. It's like not working out.

Dislocating your shoulder.

Well, dude, that's just touching them. That's not even using my tools to work with the wiring and make my connections and solder them and protect them and all that stuff. So yeah, it's a fair amount of b*******, but I don't know. I mean, working on running wiring and working on wiring underneath trucks that are dirty as s***.

Oh, yuck.

That sucks. You know, getting dirt and salt in my eyes is pretty cool, but that's Minnesota, so what do you do?

The joys.

There's not really, I'm not really afraid of any specific cars or headlights to work on. You know, like some of them, like Troy was talking about, the Rolls-Royce Ghost is something that you really have to have the right mindset to want to touch.

Yeah.

Because there's so many different things that could go wrong. There's so many different parts. There's no YouTube videos out there on how to pull apart something on a Rolls-Royce Ghost. So you're going in blind, and you have to be very, very careful and smart, because if you're not, I think that headliner alone was like seven grand. So just for that, yeah. And that's probably more than that, now, to be honest with you.

So you guys worked on a ghost?

Oh yeah.

Oh, I did not know that. That's pretty cool.

Yeah, we've got pictures in the shop of it, and we've got videos and stuff on social media, but we did some stuff in that. He had the perforated white suede that he wanted up there. He wanted a ridiculous amount of stars, shooting stars, all sorts of stuff.

Oh, I remember this one now. I think he posted about it.

Yeah, Tint Pro's wrapped it. It's the alligator wrap.

That's right. Wow, yeah, that's something I've always, whenever I see, even wrap shops, working on Lamborghinis or expensive cars, I'm just thinking, don't f*** up.

Yeah, and it's really, at the end of the day, Troy always beats into me when I'm telling him, dude, I don't wanna f*** this up. He's like, dude, it's just a car. And he's right, every single time we psych, we psych each other out about different things. So he'll be like, f*** that, I'm not watching this. And where I'm like, same thing with him, but he's right. So if somebody brings in a Lamborghini, like he just did a hurricane the other day with, doesn't come with like the Bluetooth or CarPlay features. You hack into the electrical systems and you put that s*** in the HUD.

You know how f****** mad I am about that, by the way? Yeah, I'm gonna spend 250K on a car and I can't get f****** Bluetooth. And it's like a 2015 plus. It's like, are you kidding? Like, okay, I wrote in the SVJ on Crown Rally a few years ago. I swear to God, it felt like 2003 in that b****. It's ridiculous, like the GPS system. Oh, I'm dying over here.

That's why I'm mad about the GTRs, dude. Those things are sick looking cars, but the interior looks like s***.

I don't mind them.

Like, the older, okay, maybe not the new ones, but the older ones, the older ones. F***, what was the last one that I was in? It was like a 15. It just looked very 90s to me, you know? I don't know what it was about it, but the newer ones are sick. Same thing with like the newer gen, you know, AJ?

Yes.

Yeah. So his Viper that he's got the, I forget what year it is, but that's the red one. Yeah, that thing, that generation's sick. But the one before that, the outside looks cool, but the inside still looks 90s to me, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

And I just, all that money that puts into the cars and they cannot give a s*** less about the interiors or the functions of it. It's like, what are you guys doing? You know? Granted, I'm not spending millions of dollars in production to try to figure this out, but it's just common sense to me. Like what do my customers require? Probably Bluetooth, you know?

Yeah, because that was like, you said a Huracan?

Yeah.

And it didn't come up with any Bluetooth capability?

It was either Bluetooth or like some sort of connectivity issues, but it was like, it was something completely stupid that it should have came with from the factory.

Right.

But yeah, stuff like that. So we get a lot of those fancier stuff from Shout Out to Platinum.

Oh yeah, your camera died. So no more Tyler.

Shout Out to Platinum for that. They give us a lot of cool stuff that we get to work on too. So stuff like that.

Sweet. Well, we should probably start wrapping up here and thinking about our final question. But before we start that, I'm gonna turn this camera real quick.

Oh God.

What is the, like, kind of, what kind of card do you want to work on in the future? Like, what's kind of really piqued your interest? You know, like, maybe it's the Dodge Viper, or maybe it's, yeah, getting a Lamborghini, a Ventador, and working on those kind of headlights.

I would really like to build a set of headlights and taillights on a high-profile car like that. Like, a Lamborghini would be cool. Like, something not too old to where it's still relevant. You know, just the way that they design their lights is so sick. And I understand 100% that what we do is not everybody's cup of tea. And most of those car owners, most of those car owners couldn't give a s*** last time. Like, no, that's whack, I'm never doing that. But it'd be cool, you know, it'd be not only cool to do it, it'd be a cool experience, and it would be really awesome for promotional value. You know, so. Yeah. Even if we had to work something out.

Yeah, that would be a sponsor car.

Right.

Where you'd have the contract.

Depending on the person, because if that person just parks in his garage forever and you never see the thing, you know, it's like a myth. Like, does it exist?

Will these be at least photos off Google? Like, you'd have the contract, you'd say, you gotta show off at these events. We're legally allowed to come take the keys from you.

Yeah, no, and even something as simple as just doing like little minor things. Like, I think that one of the coolest modifications that we do is the headliners that you see all the time, because you can use that always, you know, and it changes the whole mood of the car, you know, as well as I do when you're cruising at night, listening to music, vibing, whatever. It just adds so much to that.

Yeah, vibing on the back roads is somebody you shouldn't be talking to. Yeah, I know it all too well.

I would actually, I've been wanting that for my Durango for a while. It's just like one of the sickest, like, It really is. interior mods that you can do. Like, it used to be like, And it's not tacky either. It used to be like, you could only get it in a Rolls Royce, and like, that was like the pinnacle of like interiors.

Oh dude, I'm gonna brag a little bit, cause this is no b*******. So that Rolls we did, he's got a friend with another Rolls who had that package. His didn't come with the lighting and the stars, but his buddies did. And so we did it, we pushed it out, whatever. He calls us like two weeks later, and he's like, bro, I'm hanging out with my buddy, and he's got this s***. He's got the stars, and I'm looking at him side by side, and I'm like sitting here like, f***, where's this going? And he's like, his s*** is whack. And I'm like, yes, f*** Rolls Royce, right? No, just kidding, don't sue me. But yeah, man, they put the amount of stars that they do, and the twinkling and stuff like that is very simple and comparatively to like one of ours. So that was a cool thing.

So your customer felt like, yeah, I got better stars than Rolls Royce from the stock.

Absolutely, and I was like, all right, let's do another one, you know? But that was cool.

That's a freaking win, dude. That is awesome.

Yeah, and that was no b*******. So I don't feel bad bragging about that, but.

No, you should brag about it. You've done some good work over the years. I mean, you have a good reputation. I don't feel nervous sending people to you. I recently got burned on a referral, so I feel horrible about it, and I will until the day I die. But it's like, which I won't touch on here, but it's like, I've never felt bad about telling people, like, go to you, even though I don't get many people coming to me for the things you offer. But hopefully this podcast changes that. We'll see what happens.

Yeah, well, I appreciate whatever, even if it's.

I know Durango that wants it.

Even if you never sent me anything, I would still appreciate you for what you do. And just having somebody out there positive that can say, like, I've seen this dude's work firsthand. It's good s***.

Exactly.

Try it out.

We're all in this together. It's such a small community here. And that's why, again, a few weeks ago, I was pushing you on some social media stuff. It's like, man, you got some good s***. Put it out there. Yeah, so I get passionate, especially about people who bust their a** and do our business owners, because it is f****** hard. I did it for a while with Whiplash and with Venom Rally. So it's like, even though I'm doing different things nowadays, I just love pushing people and helping them push their craft.

Yeah, well, I really appreciate it. And I appreciate you reaching out and saying, hey, man, we want you on the show. And I'm like, me? What are we gonna talk about? What are we gonna talk about? Let's f****** do it. You're like, what are you doing on Saturday? I'm like, hanging out with you. Yeah, yeah.

Well, man, let's put a ribbon on this thing. Sean, should we ask the usual question?

Yeah, so if you've listened to the show before, we're gonna ask you the same question that we asked everybody. What's gonna be your daily car? What's gonna be your track car? And what's gonna be your show car? And the sky is the limit.

That's a terrible question to ask me, man. My daily car, I would love to have, if they weren't such piles of s*** lately, I would love to have like a nice A8.

Get closer, by the way.

I would love to have like a nice A8, but like an Audi A8 as a daily. I think that would be nice. Or like an S550 or something classy like that. Something nice, but I don't...

Did you say a Mustang's classy?

No, not the S550.

You would never hear those words come out of my mouth, Randy.

Dude, those S550s are great. It was one of the best dailies my dad had for a while.

That's what I'm saying. They're just elegant, you know? They look cool. There was a time in my life where I could say the same thing about a Chrysler 300, but those days are gone. But I like that just comfort and stuff.

It's a big, powerful cloud. They're quick, too.

They're just, they float, man. So that would be a dailie. A long time I would like to have had a Viper, but after sitting in them, I'm like, this is not for me. They're so small.

They're a little tight. I've been in multiple.

They're very tight. I'm just not built that way. So I couldn't do it. But AJ let me sit in his Lambo last weekend. So that was cool. Again, one of the smaller cars.

Was it the yellow one? Or which one did you sit in?

The green, the one that he had, the Fast X Premier. I think it was green.

Sorry, the Galliardo?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, sorry. Yeah, I hurt Viper for some reason. I'm an idiot.

Yeah, so he let me sit in that thing. And that was cool too, but it was just such, I don't know, I like having a lot of visibility. So it's hard to say what the track car would be, but something cool like that. I've always wanted to go with, like you'd seen the movie. F***, what was it? Aaron Paul with the one that he just did a couple years ago. Need for Speed. That one. I always thought that would be cool as s*** to drive one of those things and have one of those things with the doors that go up.

Yeah, yeah.

But that's out of my tax bracket, so probably not, but it'd be sick.

It's out of the tax bracket of all three of us combined.

Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly. So, yeah.

So that would be your track car. So what about your show car? Would it be one of your own vehicles that are all pimped out with all your lights, everything, Starliner?

Probably not.

No?

I mean, maybe certain aspects of it, but I don't know. I've been onto the car scene game for so long, but I can just appreciate so many different vehicles that it's hard to choose one. But, yeah, it's gonna have to be a Viper still.

Viper for a show car?

Yeah, not for a track car, because it's uncomfortable, but they're just such sick cars.

Like an ACR Extreme?

I've always wanted one ever since I was like, a wee lad. Exactly.

Same here.

They're sick. So yeah, I'm gonna go with that. Let's go with that.

Okay, I like it. I like it. Well, sweet. Well, yeah, let's wrap this bad boy up. Where can people find you?

www.santnordic.com, or if you just search up on Facebook or Instagram, TikTok, whatever, Saint Nordic Custom Auto Works. Otherwise, phone number, you can call, you can text, whatever, 763-260-1491.

Our first phone number on the show. I like it.

It's dumb not to, man. How many people are gonna be wasting their time trying to remember what are they called again?

Yeah, everyone go ahead, text them. Doesn't even have to be about Saint Nordic stuff. You can just say hey.

Tell me how much you like my voice.

Yeah.

You do have a decent voice. I'll give you that. I like that. You can find Sean at 1MNMOPAR.

There you go.

Yeah, and then you know me, I hope. So yeah, we'll see you next time. Thanks for coming on, Tyler. It was a blast having you on. We'll have you again in the future. Maybe we can even have you and Troy together maybe. We'll see whatever exciting adventures you guys are on. I'm excited to watch your journey over the next few years. So thanks for hopping on, man.

Absolutely.

Everybody else, thanks for watching, and see you next time.

Peace out.