Stellar Built | Ep. 12

I think when it comes down to my personal flavor of, like, most boxes checked, of what, what the truck should do, per se, for me, for my kind of use, I think an 80 series is the way to go. So I try to, you know, really approach that in a careful way. Like they have to look good. You know, there's, there's form and function. Like one cant be better than the other. So shop behind my house. So compared to that huge, big space, I mean, you can play football in there. Like. So you're thinking I can be here forever. Yeah. Yeah. So again, as we all know, videos never do justice, but this particular just puckered up, man, like. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. This is Overland Weekly, episode number twelve. My name is Davey. I will be your host tonight. John was supposed to be here with me and he got called out to some dad duty. So I'm flying solo on this one. But I do have a guest that we're going to bring on here in just a couple of minutes. And I think you guys are really going to enjoy this. We got a lot of things to touch on. And if you are a Toyota fan, particularly, I think you're going to enjoy this episode. So with that said, it is event season. Cruz Moab just wrapped up. That's all over instagram. There's also events going on all across the country. And this is one of the questions that I get from folks that are maybe kind of new to the scene is how do I get plugged in? How do I find out about different events that are happening? And if you're a Toyota person, particularly the TLCA, that's the Toyota Land Cruiser association, that is the national chapter. Then there's sub chapters, local chapters underneath that get plugged in with those guys. They're putting on all these different chapters and putting on events. Contrary to Land Cruiser being in the name, you do not have to be a Land cruiser owner to be in the club. You only have to own a four wheel drive Toyota. I think the bylaws say a Toyota with a two speed transfer case, I guess two speed or more transfer case. But, and if you are, if you're not a Toyota person, if you are a Nissan person or a Rover person, or maybe even a Montero person, and we're going to talk to one of those in a minute, a lot of these Toyota events will happily welcome you in and let you register for those events. So going on, we've got Toyota Jamboree coming up in Texas, the Oregon Trophy Challenge, the Razorback ramble, then back out west, of course, you've got the rubathon. You've got cruisers on the Rockies. That's the first annual from our friend Lee Sumner, who does cruisers on the rocks over here at Wind Rock. Now he's taking the show out there to do cruisers on the Rockies. Land cruiser destination club for you. 200 series folks is going on. And then the great Smoky Mountain Trail ride, that's the event that my personal club, the STLCA, puts on, is happening at Wind Rock June 13 through 15th. So, speaking of 200 series, a couple of weeks ago, John and I were talking about body lifts. We're talking about with this ifs suspension now that you reach a point that you've got to. You got to start trimming fenders if you want to fit more meat underneath there. And used to, body lifts were more common, and they're not as common as they used to be. And when I say body lift, if you're thinking about the old homemade lifts, 20 years ago, when I was in high school, you had fence post lifts, and you had hockey pucks, and you had. I even bought an old f 251 time that somebody had put four by four wooden blocks under. That did not work too well. But I'm not talking about those, and I'm not talking about the old three inch pieces of plastic that you stuck under your Silverado, and it had that huge, ugly bed gap under there to run 33s on it. My friend Micah, who is tiny, the 200 on Instagram, has been working on a set of body lifts specifically for the 200 series platform that is the beginning of this venture. It will be adding more to the company as it grows. Here, let me show you what he's come up with. So, here's a couple of trucks that are running the prototypes on this. We've got this LX 570 that's just got a three quarter inch lift on it. So, again, we're not talking about a three or four inch body lift. We're talking about very small amounts, just enough to help you maybe cut a little less fender, maybe not cut fender, depending on what you're trying to fit under there and squeeze a little bit more tire underneath there. So he's got these kits. These are really well made. He's put a lot of thought into this precision machined all the components, radiator drops, all of that is included in the kits. Here's one running 37s. This was, I believe, out at Cruz Moab with Jason's truck. And then here is his new instagram. So that's NST spec, which is not so tiny specific. So if you know Micah's truck, it's an LX 570 disguised as a Toyota that's on forties and it's nicknamed tiny. So this, the company is not so tiny spec. But go give him a follow. Like I said, even if you're not at 200 right now, he's got some other products coming that I think are going to be really interesting. And he is opening pre orders on his website, nstspec. com, this coming week. All right, so with that said, housekeeping out of the way, let me welcome to the show our guest tonight. He is the owner and founder of Stellar Built in Sacramento, California. Please welcome to the show, Dmitriy. What's up? How you doing? Thank you for having me. Yes, sir. Thank you for being here, man. So you, you just got back from. From a little trip yourself, huh? Yeah, went up to Moab for a couple days. Yeah, no, we ran some trails, met up with a bunch of people. You know, always good to see familiar faces, you know, talk to vendors, talk to people with cool rigs, you know, meet a bunch of people. So it was just a good gathering. So I wish. I wish that event would grow bigger, you know, for what the event is. I think it's just. It's a good time, you know, especially if you've been there a couple of times. You, you know, got to know how the rhythm of the event, how things are held. I think how things are put together. You know, it's just a. It's a good little holiday vacation almost. So, yeah, I would love to get out there one day. It's. It's a haul from, from Tennessee, but it's on my list, so. Yeah. Yeah, it is quite a ways for you. I mean, for us as well. It was. I think we did it in one shot, but it was, gosh, almost 900 miles. I mean, yeah, so long drive. So for folks that are not familiar with stellar built, they must have been sleeping under a rock, but nonetheless. Let me roll this little two minute clip here that just kind of goes through some of your builds over the last year and then we'll kind of dive into how this whole thing started and where it's going. Man, that's a lot of rigs. Does that, that bring back a few memories? It did. It was quite some time. It trimmed down the memory lane for sure. Well, I want to show you this before we talk about how this thing began. I found this post on mud. This is in August of 2012. And see if you remember writing this. You were just a guy that's considering getting an 80 series, asking different Toyota questions, kind of like most people new to the Land Cruiser platform would be. And this is twelve years ago and here you are now with all these, these builds coming out of your shop. I can tell you're rereading it here. Yeah, yeah, no, this is. I remember this actually. Yeah, I mean, I guess. I guess to reflect on this, it's really. We can kind of go back further than that was. Okay. What kind of started it all for me is just a whole different platform, you know, I'm definitely a land cruiser guy. I love Lankruzer. I, I drive them, I own a bunch of them. I'm a huge fan. I think it's the best vehicle in the world. But all started with something else, which is a Mitsubishi Montero, which is a very popular global platform, questionably popular here in us, so. But yeah, I mean, that's kind of where it started all. And then, you know, I guess quickly realized its downfalls, its downsides, you know, still, I think. I still think it's a great platform, but that kind of led me to Lancasters, you know, particular 80 series, which, you know, out of the lankrs, I would say that's probably my favorite. And that kind of led me to where we are now. So. Yeah, so, so the Montero, I think this is the one. This is the one we found a picture of anyway. Yeah, early ones, that. So that's a, that's a guy. I had a few of them, but this is the Mitsubishi that I kind of built out. So kind of story about this truck, it was kind of handed to me. I used to, I used to be involved in like an export business. I used to ship a lot of vehicles overseas. And Mitsubishi, like I said earlier, is a global platform, very popular all over the world. Pajero Shogun has a bunch of different names, particularly in Central Asia. Very popular vehicle here in us. It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't that much in demand. They were super cheap, still super cheap, like, you know, you can pick them up for a couple of grand. You know, it's a fairly robust platform. I mean, it's got, you know, I would say to people that are not familiar with, it's something between a four runner and a Land cruiser. So definitely burly, like big components, especially the FS system. I think it's really strong on it. So. So I used to ship all these in this particular one kind of landed on and it stayed like I had the customer back out, whatever. So I kept the struck. So I wasn't necessarily into off road. Like, I wasn't like an off roader guy. You know, I grew up outdoors. Like, I did a lot of that stuff, but not necessarily like, you know, a four x four guy. So that was my force four x four. So I kind of fixed it up and, you know, I quickly realized you can't, you know, especially at that time, you know, was it 2010? Maybe earlier? There wasn't a lot of options. You can't just like jump on the, you know, on, you know, whatever Amazon or whatever site, you know, just jump on bumpers. There wasn't really anything. There was no suspension option. You can, you can kind of source maybe some like old ome stock that may be laying somewhere. There's like a small little Montero niche group, but you kind of have to get creative and build your own part. So that's, that's kind of what led me to everything else because I took this platform, had to make everything for it essentially myself, you know, whether it's fitting other, other parts from other vehicles, you know, like, like in this case, like I had a bumper that had, you know, trim cut and fit off of FJ cruiser, you know, to make work on them. On the Mitsubishi singles for sliders, same for, you know, for everything else. So, yeah, I mean, that's, that's kind of why I started with that and kept, and I still think they're, they're great trucks. You know, I contemplate occasionally buying one just to kind of have this nostalgic, you know, reflection where it all started, so. But yeah, after that, you know, I kind of started dabbling with Land cruisers. You know, I realized, like, okay, Toyota had a solid, the solid axle suspension, and I like that. And that's, that's one thing I kind of realized with the Mitsubishi is just lack of travel in the front, plenty of travel in the rear. Being an ifs in the front, torsion bar. Ifs set up in the front. It just didn't, didn't have a lot of movement. And, you know, I live in northern California. We got the Rubycon, we got Fordyce. We got all these epic world class trails next to us. So that's a terrain that's, I'm around, that's what I'm, that's what I'm surrounded with. So if I want to go have some fun, push the trucks, push it, you know, to next level. I just need a vehicle that can handle it. So Landcruiser was kind of the next. The next chapter. So then I got into an 80. So I got my 1st 80. They know those. Yeah, exactly. So I had, I had a couple before that, but that's one of the ones I built out and really kind of that's where things took off. You know, I really passionate about this platform. You know, just love how it works, love how it handles. I mean, out of the box with a basic lift, you know, that. That thing is like eighties are unstoppable. I think it's the best lanterns are ever built. Yeah, that's. It's hard to argue against it not being the best generation to actually put to use. Right, exactly, exactly. I mean, you know, the hundred series has its thing. 200 series are cool. I have a 200 series myself. It's a great platform. Definitely has a lot of pluses. But I think. I think when it comes down to my personal flavor, like most boxes checked of what, what the truck should do, per say for me, for my kind of use, I think a 80 series is the way to go. So you start building these, these 80 series, you're learning more about Land cruisers. So you had apparently some fabrication experience from the Montero platform because there weren't parts that existed. So you had to make parts if you wanted sliders and bumpers or modify. What was out there? When did it start becoming a job, a commercial venture? Some of those early clips, it looked like you guys were doing a lot of tube work, a lot of rear bumpers. Then we saw a moment. There was a lot of subarus coming through there. So kind of walk us through that. Yeah, for sure. So it really started like from just making my own parts of Mitsubishi. So like we had to get creative. I got my welder. I just started building stuff, you know, and it kind of went from there. You know, I worked on friends trucks. I was in the scene, you know, going out with people, worked on friends of friends trucks. And, you know, I was a point in my life, you know, where I was kind of on a split road here. I was finishing up with a university degree, you know, and I kind of had a choice whether I'm going to be like, you know, office job or I should maybe give this a shot. So. And, you know, this. I kind of chose this direction and I'm glad I did. And that's kind of where it went, you know, from there. So I just started building a bunch of friends trucks. Friends are friends and kind of then. Then it just, you know, this guy called, that guy called and I had a. I had a, I had a fairly decent sized shop behind my house, so I did a lot of work from there. Okay. I had a bunch of tooling and, you know, I felt really comfortable with what I did, you know, especially, again, northern California, it's kind of like a mecca for off road here. Like we. Yes, you know, there's a socal nor Cal reno area. Like there's just a lot of, a lot of wheeling. There's a lot of demand. You know, like I can understand if I had all this talented skillset, but, but not necessarily in a position where there's not a lot of people around me. Like we're here. It's fortunate to be in Sacramento, capital of California, you know, pretty big city, a lot of cities around us. So it's just a good position to be with this, with this kind of craft. So anyway, so just kind of progress from there, learning a lot. Then, you know, I, I think that my biggest leap of faith there would be getting my first commercial space, which is, you know, that's always like the big thing. Like, you know, you don't have any overhead where you don't have to worry about bills, you know, besides your house, like here now you have to worry about other things, so. But I'm glad I did. You know, a buddy of mine, his father had a bunch of shops and in California, it's like a cutthroat environment and you got to. Very difficult to get commercial space. Very difficult. You have to, you have to have approvals, you have to have, you know, referrals and this and that. So thankfully, a buddy of mine, his dad has some space, got into that 2500 square foot shop and just went ham. I mean, I just work nonstop. Like, you know, this is the early days. It would just be constant at the shop, you know, like it's those times that nobody, nobody ever brags about, nobody really talks about. It's a lot of, a lot, a lot of lonely, almost dark moments, you know, where you just have to, where it's just you, you know, and you just push along. But I think what was going for me is just I was really passionate about what I did. I was in the industry that I enjoyed and still enjoy and, you know, that kind of would carry me through, you know, so. And we build a pretty, fairly good clientele from. Just from out of that space. Yeah, I was going to ask. So in those early days, was it, was it pretty much word of mouth as far as getting. I've never, I don't think to this day, like we, I've never really paid for any sort of advertising. It was all word of mouth and social media. I mean Instagram is the only sort of marketing and, and that's more because, you know, that's just a place where you just hang out and post stuff and you know how it is now. Like, it's not necessarily like I didn't use like a, hey, I gotta be posting it to get business. No, that's just where I shared my work and I don't know, people, people share with other people, I guess. You know, I didn't really, I didn't have like a ad anywhere or you know, I, none of that stuff. So it was all word of mouth. I will say this again. The position, like I guess mid two thousands 2012, 2013. I think the industry as a whole overall, like off roading and four x four over landing particularly is a concept that just, that just really blew up. I mean I was fortunate to be in a position where I was able to ride that wave. You know, like it was, it was uh, it was kind of like a novelty. Like, like we're at a point where like the guys that off road it, it's either be like the, you know, people think of like those hillbillies like the go, you know, mud bogging and do all this, you know, like a, I guess like the old school four wheeling. I don't know how else to call it. Yeah, like us guys over here in the south. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, you have a pickup truck with some big tires and you go out. Sure. And, but, but then it turned into a thing where it's like, you know, there's, there's styles and build different kind of way of building trucks and particular overlanding and every, all the accessories that come with that, you know, so there's just, it just bloomed. The industry just blew up. So yeah, the culture really changed around. Culture. Yeah, I mean, and on top of that, like everything, that's everything for the manufacturers like Toyota, you know, Chevy, Ford, everybody's on this, on this hype of building off road, building stuff for off road. So you know, being a Landcruiser guy, I kind of stuck to Toyota's. Now you mentioned subarus. Going back to my early days, like I was into like rally and stuff. So, you know, rally off road, you know, although like rally doesn't necessarily use a lot of off road bumpers, but they use some armor. So I, because of that and particularly because there was no options for Subarus, at least at that time, I built a bunch of them, I built just a ton of bumpers. And, you know, I want to say, like, I was one of the early ones particularly that did like an off road style bumper for like crosstreks. You know, I just, that was a really unique concept. So, you know, building like swing outs for foresters. Like, nobody did that kind of stuff. I've never seen that. So, you know, like, I did a swing out on a cayenne, which is pretty ridiculous at that time. You know, now it's like a thing, like everybody's building cayennes. But know, back then, like, you know, it's funny that Cayenne was actually built was not its purpose. It wasn't for, for off roading. The guy literally just wanted to have a place for spare because he told a car like a race car trailer. And, you know, I'm like, well, why don't I use this, you know, swing out concept that's an off road industry and do that. So that's why, you know, we did that. So, yeah, people would show up. You had a Subaru come in, then you've got the Cayenne come in, then, like we saw an xterra come in the door and they've all got these swing outs that kind of have a lot of similarity to it. And you say, okay, well, I've done it for these two. I'm just going to change it up and do the same thing over here. Yeah. So for me, like, design is an. Esthetics is a pretty big thing. You know, I grew up around art. My degree was in architecture, my early degree. So, like, esthetics and just how things are put together, how things look is pretty important to me. Like, so I try to, you know, really approach that in a careful way. Like it has to look good. You know, there's, there's form and function. Like one can be better than the other. So there has to be like a harmony, equilibrium between the two to, you know, for something to be purposeful and look good. You know, you can make something that looks good but doesn't function very well. You can make something that's functional, very nice, but, you know, looks like crap. So. And the lot of stuff that I seen, like from fabrication that came out was like a lot of function but didn't look very good. You know, unless you get into like race desert, quarter million dollar builds and soak out, like, there wasn't really a lot of stuff here. Like it was very brute, kind of just hardcore, like just, you know, awful, awful welds, awful way of just putting things together. So I so, to me, like, esthetics is a big thing. So that's why I like tube work. You know, I love working with tube. You know, working with my vendor. I like. I love that. So, you know, being able to incorporate into my designs, you know, it was pretty cool. I really enjoyed that a lot. Like, I didn't have, especially at that time, I didn't have, like, a CNC table. I got one later. But, you know, everything was manually built manual, you know, cut manually with cardboard and such. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't as easy to repeat things back then either, right? Yeah. And that's the thing I stellar built. And to this day, like, we don't. We don't. I never got into production. That's just one thing that's kind of. I realized if you're gonna get into that, you have to go all in. Like. Like, all efforts have to go in hands and feet. You know, you can't just dabble, like, make a little batches. Like, if I'm gonna go do it, I'm gonna do it all the way. So. So otherwise, you know, I'm okay with building this one off custom pieces. And that's what we do today. Like, if we. If somebody wants to come in, they have a bumper idea or whatever fabrication concept that you can't buy, you know, like, we'll build it. That usually applies more towards stuff that you physically can't buy. Like, if you. If you got a Tacoma forerunner. Hundreds of options, right? There's no need for me to bake. It'll be a lot more expensive for me to build a custom bumper. But if you want something that's unique, if you got especially, like, rock haul applications where everything's just changed and cut up, that's the way to go. So back in that. That first shop space that you. That you leased, it was 2500 square foot space. Was it still just you, or had you started adding team members? At that point, I think I got to a point where I added somebody on board. It was my first employee. Again, it was. You got to the point where I just couldn't keep up. You know, I begin to just get really overwhelmed. You know, I had a. I had a trouble saying no to people because, you know, I wanted the business. And, you know, your. Your. Your deliverables kind of begins to suffer because it just. Things just take. Took, you know, long. So I'm realizing, okay, rather than having, like, two, three months late time, why don't we just cut this in half? And just. Just because we have more manpower so brought somebody along, which that was another huge leap of faith. Like, I've never, you know, I'm not like a big businessman. Like, I didn't run businesses before. You know, I'm young. Like, this is my first venture. So figuring it out as you go. Yeah, well, yeah, bringing somebody on, I mean, bringing somebody's responsibility, like another responsibility under my wing. Like that was, that was a big one. You know, it's not now. It's not. I handle it much more smoother. But before it was a big thing, so brought somebody on, and then we got another assistant in the shop. So I think out of that space, I want to say we had three guys working out of the 2500 square foot shop. You know, that maybe a fourth one. I don't remember exactly. I think that was just three of us. I mean, we could have had more guys, but at that time, that's what. That's kind of where I was at. And we had three guys and, and we, we quickly, we quickly just ran out of room because we. It was a single bay shop, you know, you, all the equipment and tooling and material, they take a lot of space. And so I'm like, okay, well, we need more space. So we moved. There's a building across from me. I think it was 5400ft, double the size. Big shop. I mean, now I'm thinking with my. Still thinking about my old, you know, shop behind my house. So compared to that huge, big space, I mean, you can play football in there. Like, just. So you're thinking I can be here forever. Yeah. I'm like this. Hey, everyone. Davey here. I'm interrupting the show just for a second. So we've been at this for a little over a year now, and some of you have been following us from day one and we greatly appreciate that. Others, you found it as we've kind of gone along and found our format and continue to put out this content. And I really hope that you're enjoying it. So if you are, this is the part where I ask you to do us a favor. If you're on YouTube, give us a, like, give us a subscribe if you haven't. And what really helps is if you can leave some comments there in the, in the block below. If you're listening to this on a podcast format and you can do a rating or review there, we'd greatly appreciate that as well. All right, back to the show. I'm like, this is it, man. This is the space. So we moved in there and that was, that was definitely, you know, we really picked up some pace. I mean, really, really, like, I made the place nice, you know, put a bunch of lifts. And again, this is just me as grassroots as it gets. Like, I didn't have, like, no, but no investors. There isn't a guy with a bag of cash that, you know, that I can tap into. There's none of that stuff. Like, if I wanted to lift, I have to work hard to add more to save up to buy a lift. You know, there wasn't like creditors, all this stuff like that. There isn't. There's not stuff like, if you want, you have to buy it. So building relationship with vendors, that was a really big thing. Like, I realized early on, like, establishing good connections with people in the industry. So. So, yeah, I mean, and that's where things took off. That's where COVID hit, and things just went crazy. Like, that was just wild. Like, I want. I mean, to this day, like, we were. I think we're operating about five guys now, maybe five or six. You know, I brought in my first shop manager because I literally could not keep up. I had to be answering calls, work in the shop, handle business materials, this, that, like, just. Just couldn't, couldn't do it. So I had. I brought somebody on who's not. Wasn't necessarily a billable hour guy. Like, I, you know, it's not a guy that's working making stuff they can charge directly. Right. This is somebody that's in the shop now and take answering calls. So. So that was nice. That was a nice sense of relief and the COVID hit, and that's when things just got crazy. Like everybody and their mama wanted to go outdoors and camp and just, you know, isolate. So the industry, I mean, as everybody knows, just blew up. You know, we. I think at one point, like three months lead time, if you want to get some. Something done at our shop, you have to wait for three months for a window to get anything done. So, yeah, so there's that going for us. And I think at this time, I kind of really refined to more Toyota's. Like I did. You know, those early days, you saw Subaru, Nissan's all that. Yeah, here now, like, I did some Subaru, but it was like 99%. Toyota's like everything Tacoma, foreigner. And that was a conscious decision because, you know, why work on anything else? Why, why, why cast a wide net when you can just focus on what you're doing so. And do it really well, you know, and, you know, just less room for error, less room for mistakes. Efficiency. I mean, there's so much. So much about it. So. And then. And why not be on the team with an automaker that makes the most cars ever? Like, I mean, unlike Mitsubishi, Toyota makes everything. Everybody wants a Toyota. And there's. And within Toyota, you have the foreigner guys, you have the Tacoma guys, you have the Land Cruiser guys, you have the third gen, foreigner guys. There's second. There's our first gen, foreigner guys. They're extremely segmented. Yeah. Everybody's got their own thing going for them, you know, so it's just, it's a. It's a pool of people. That's. That's. That's enough to keep you busy. And at that time, it was enough for us. So I'm like, you know what? Unless it's like a favorite deal, like, we have no need to work on anything else, really. So that changed later. But at that time, we wrote that for a while. And honestly, to this day, like, we're. We're. When we call our shop like a business card, it's. It's like a Toyota logo where we consider ourselves Toyota specialty. Like, that's our bread and butter. Majority of our work is still Toyotas. All of our vehicles are Toyota. So, you know, but now, because we're at a bigger space, we have a big crew. You know, I. Now we're. I would consider do more like general four by four, you know, if you got a dodge, if you got a Ford, if you got a van, like, we'll, you know, when people call will take in those jobs. So I got you. Let me. Is this the. Is this the current shop? So this is the current space. So this is a. I'll tell you a story about this space. So we're. So you mentioned, like, this is it. 5400 square foot. We're done. Where? This is it. That's what I thought. Well, no, we. We're super busy. We need more space. In particular, we ran into an issue when it comes to handling, like, packages and, like, inventory. Like, like before, it was just, okay, this. This guy, kitten, this corner, that guy's stuff was in this corner. Well, there is no corners left over. So, like, we just needed space and racking and the place to store everything. So I started looking more spaces and, like, everything again. Going back to Sacramento, like northern California, everything's cutthroat, stupid expensive. So. And I was really in a comfortable position with the space. I was at, like, you know, I was renting for somebody who I knew where. Now I'm getting into, like, you know, like, you know, realtors and like, you know, dealing with like all these commercial real estate people, like big business, you know, big, big deal kind of stuff, insurances and all this, like, crazy, you know, recommendations and referrals and stuff. So this particular shop was a really initiative from a buddy of mine who's in the commercial real quick, why don't we try to buy Billy Demetri? I'm like, oh, come on. This is, you know, I don't, I don't have the kind of credibility of this kind of money. Like, you know, I don't, I don't. I thought of myself very small, which is that that was my mistake. You know, I doubted myself there. And he's like, no, we got to try. We got to try. And at this time, small business administration, particularly because of COVID they were pumping money into economy. Everybody got a lot of money. So small business administration had a lot of incentives for small business to expand, to invest back into themselves, to, you know, hire people and just keep things moving. So I was, there was a program that I was able to take advantage of to get a loan, get a loan for this building. Like it's there. And I'm thinking back, it's like almost unbelievable. But that's what happened. We got into the shop, which looks nothing, what you see here now. I mean, it was horrid. Like if you look at Google Pictures, gosh, it was, it was a trap house. I mean, it was really bad. We got into this place. I think we had like three or four months overlap with having our old shop and this space where I just, me personally, a couple guys help renovate it as much as we could. Like everything you see up front and the inside, it's all redone. It looks like a brand new building. So now, so this space we were able to purchase and that, that place. So there's, in this picture there's a, you see two warehouses. We have another one on the side. So just the same one just, it's just a little bit further back. So we're in about 18,000ft, which is more than enough space for what we need. We're very liberal with the amount of space that we have. You know, we could put a boeing in there if we want. You know, it's, it's a, it's a lot of room and we're, I'm super fortunate and blessed. You have like, the amount of space that we have because, you know, you go to, you go to shops and still, you know, in Sacramento, like, in general, off road shop is like, you know, everything's. Every corner is packed. Everything is just tight, you know? You know, and I get it. I was there, you know, that's how it is. That everything's expensive. But here, I mean, gosh, it was like a distribution warehouse that we were able to score. And, like, I mean, we have a shop dedicated strictly for general in and out service work, you know, gearing, alignment, tires. We have an entire building dedicated strictly to fabrication. So that's only, like, long term builds, solid axle swaps, big builds, a lot of fab work. Stuff that stays there for, you know, anywhere from, like a. I don't know, a week to a year, you know, so. And then the building that's further back, you see there in this picture, that's our. That building is all dedicated strictly for storage and parking. So we have. Okay, so that if you go inside, we have just racking and all our parts and inventory and all the suspension and everything that we use for our shop. So that's all there. So, like I said, it's a lot of space. Really happy that we got this place, you know? I mean, it makes me happy going in. Like, we don't have to worry. We never, ever have to worry about not having room. That. I'll tell you that. Like, as busy as we get. I mean, I. At certain points, we would have 30 vehicles in there. I mean, like, and it's never an issue. So that's a. I'm glad. I'm glad to, you know, I could be a lot more efficient with my space, you know, but why we got. Congratulations on. On getting that purchased. I mean, you've got to, like you said, COVID was a terrible thing, but it. For a lot of businesses, it did present opportunities through the different government programs and. And just money that was not easily attainable by small businesses before. For sure. For sure. Exactly. And that's exactly what happened. Now, I. It's not something I wasn't given money and forget, like, I didn't have any. I understand. Yeah. It was more like a, you can borrow this money. We're allow you to borrow this money. So, you know, I have a traditional mortgage on the building, commercial loan, like with the bank, all that jazz. But it was backed by the small business Administration, where that wasn't right or before, it wasn't as easy. You can still do that, but it was not as easy. So, yeah, the SBA tells. Tells the bank, hey, if this ghost hits up, we'll come to us for it. So, yeah, now, I will say this. The application for that was the most intense, most brutal application process I've ever had my entire life. Gosh, I've never. I think, like, I would imagine citizenship is nowhere near. It was so intense. I had to create, like, this insane business plan. You know, it was. They really vet people. Like, they don't just hand them out. Like, if you want, they'll give it to you, but they got to make sure you're worthy. And we had pretty good credentials. We had a great track record. Great. Just presence online. Like, you look up our name, like, you look at Yelp, google, whatever reviews. Like, everything's great. So they look at all that stuff. And that worked in our favor. Yeah. You know, I was going to mention that. I mean, you're. It's funny, you say Google and Yelp, you've got a lot of them, and they're both, like, 4. 8 stars or, you know, dang near five stars. That is almost impossible with any retail business, but especially if you just scroll through automotive shops. So, yeah, I'll tell you that. I'll tell you the secret, or the kind of a note on that is just a little tip, maybe, for the guys listening out there. We're in a business where people want to come to us. We're in a business where it's a positive driven business. If you got a water pump failure, if your head gasket blows, if you're, you know, your belt is slipping, your alternator goes out, there's nothing happy about that. There's nothing positive about that. You're stressed out, can't drive a vehicle to work. You have to take it to a shop. Your. Your vehicle's hijacked for however long. Like, nothing good about that. So, yes, there is a tendency to have bad reviews because people are generally not happy bringing their vehicles to a mechanic. It's like a plumber. Your pipe breaks. There's. I don't know. I don't know. There's no way that's a happy, positive experience. Where in our line of work, people come to us because they want to. They want that it's driven by. By positive force. Like, they. They want to go outdoors, they want to go off road, they want to go spend time with their family, they want to do this, they want to do that. Like, they live an active lifestyle. So nobody's forcing you with a gun to come to us because you have to. Like, it's a positive business. And because of that, you just. You just have to secure. Just make it happen, you know? Do you provide your best customer service? You give it give it all you got, you know? So I think that that's really where the difference is between, like, a mechanic shop and, like, an offer shop. I mean, sure, there might be some bad offer shops with bad reviews, but I feel like the initial, like, just the way you handle business comes off the right foot, if that makes sense, you know? Yeah, absolutely. So you're at the new shop now. You're. You've opened it back up to not just Toyotas. So a lot of the projects that people are familiar with or see on YouTube are your big builds, your solid axle swaps, you know, the crazy stuff. But I notice, I mean, every day, especially if people follow your Instagram and your stories, you know, you're doing upper and lower control arms. You're doing a three inch kit on a tacoma. I mean, you're doing just kind of everyday off road service. Yeah. So what pays the bills at our shop is the day in, day out stuff. So I've got center blue that you see. That's the stuff that's in and out. You know, multiple vehicles to the day. Those are your lifts, your service items, upper control arms, lower control arms, reinforcement, bracketry tabs. All the stuff that goes wrong. All the lift kits. That's majority of our work. You know, we. We. You can only post and talk about, like, a basic three inch lift on a forerunner so long. Like, you can. You can. You can only do that so many times. And, okay, it's a different color, but the same thing. And that's a lot of stuff, is the same work. So, you know, fabrication and custom, you might like that. That stuff is. Definitely attracts more eyeballs and attention. So we. We kind of tend to post more about that. But. But majority of our work, I would still say, is just your day in, day out. You know, you got. You're towing a small trailer. We'll put airbags on your truck. Your suspension is acting wonky. We diagnose it. Your shocks are, you know, are blown out. We repair, rebuild them. Your alignment, like, that's. That's the one thing, like, we have an alignment. State of the art hunter alignment machine. That machine has been the best thing I've done for the business. Like, we're able to. We're able to diagnose so much out of that machine. So many issues. People have, like, drivability issues. So, you know, that's our main line of work. You know, so you may see, it may seem like we. There's, like, all this crazy crawlers and all this stuff. Like. But I'll be honest you. That's not, that's not what really? That's how majority of our work. I would say that's probably 15%, maybe 10% of our work. Interesting. Okay. So how many guys do you have now in the shop? We have. I think we're at twelve. 1112 people right now so. And that's from the house, back of the house. You know we have, we have guys that does. We have a fellow does YouTube. So yeah, yeah that's pretty much our crew. Some, some have gone, some have added to it. You know we've got it since but. 345678. Yeah so we have a couple more other guys, let's see since then. But yeah, I mean we got a. We have a pretty solid crew. Like especially our core. The guys have been lifting for a while. You know. You know it's, it's a. Yeah this is it. I mean there's, it's. There's not much to. I don't know if that's considered big or small but that's, that's our crew. Well I mean it's. It's twelve times larger than it was a few years ago when it was just you. Right? That's true. That's well twelve, few years ago. That few years ago was 2015 so we're pushing on ten years now. So. Yeah. Wow. It's been a minute. You said you've got, you've got front of house, back of the house. I was going to ask you about your media, all the Instagram and your YouTube now specifically because these. They're really sharp man. I mean it's so well produced. Obviously the builds are impressive but, but the YouTube and the video production is impressive as well. So do you have somebody full time dedicated to that? We do, yeah we have a. That's another thing I was mentioning earlier. Like if you're gonna do something you have to do it right. That's kind of with my motto like with YouTube since day one. Dmitriy, why don't you have a YouTube channel? Why don't you have a YouTube channel? I'm like dude I have no time. Like I don't have. I can't do everything on top of that, shoot some content, put out this little sloppy videos. Like I got no time for that. So like you know we got to the point where I was able to kind of bring somebody on who records and edits all day. I mean they do. This fellow does also like some designer but like. But it's majority. It's just really. We just record cuz at any moment's time we are recording maybe three or four videos and at the same time because, you know, if we're doing like a rig check, sure, we'll go out there. We shoot at one vehicle and just one shot kind of deal. But, but like particular projects, our projects take time. You know, especially the custom stuff. You know, you could be on there for a week, a month, two months. So like be able to track all those. All that progress, squeeze it down, compress it. Like there's a lot of, that's a lot of energy, like that needs to go into that. So, so, yes, we have somebody who's, who records and just edits full time on our channel. It's working. I think that's a, think that's a very good investment. Yeah. First. Now as far as social media, like Instagram and Stories and stuff, that's me, that's I, you know, if you, if whatever you see on the, on our social media has been posted right here on my phone right here, which is a lot, man. It's. I looked at that before we started. You, since you've started those accounts, both your Euro Sonic account and the shop account, they're both coming in on 2500 posts. That's a lot of Instagram post. Not to count the stories. That's just actual post. I mean, yeah, it's been on there for a while and I try not to spam. Like, if you look at my, I don't post every day like my stories. I do, but particularly post, like, you know, I should probably be posting more because we just have so much stuff. Like a lot of cool stuff that goes on. But, but, yeah, no, for sure. It does take time. It takes a lot of energy. Like I just, I, when I follow people and I follow like other accounts, like I, there's a certain moment where if it's like, at least for me, I kind of feel like this. Okay, that's too much. Too much sauce. Like, I don't, I've watched too much of their content because it's like always in your face, always like, you know, pushing, push and push and so, you know, I try to, you know, balance out a little bit here, a little bit there. I understand that feeling exactly. Yeah. Sticking with that, that YouTube I want to show because I want to talk about. I want to talk about portals. You guys have done this a couple of times now and let me show this little intro clip here. Portals. What? What are puddles? What? Puddles? What is what? Portals. Portals. Portals. Portals. Portals. Portals. Portals. Portals. Portals. Portals. Portals, bro. Portals. Portals. Dog hell. Yeah. Listen here, Jack. We ain't nothing but a piece of cheese without the corners. So, in other words, you ain't never gonna be a slice. All right, so, yeah, that's the kind of stuff I'm talking about. It's just catchy. All of your videos have. I mean, you guys are having a lot of fun. Not just you, but it really appears that the whole team is having fun. You're making fun of yourselves. You go in these videos, and it just makes it really enjoyable to watch. Yeah. You know, I think. I think because we work in a recreation industry, like, everybody. That's. That's almost like a requirement in my shop. Like, everybody works at our shop is into this. They're naturally into this. Like, we don't have any welders. There are just production welders that just weld good, but they're not in. Everybody comes to our shop. Everybody has rigs. We go out together. Everybody wheels out, whether by themselves, with their family, they go camping. Every single person's got their flavor and style of vehicles. Like, when I. We might not be all, like, Toyota guys, but we're all about it. So, like, I think that's what kind of creates this culture. You know, we enjoy what we do. You know, we work on, you know, building trucks all day. We play with toys all day. So, you know, that's. That's. That's fun. Well, speaking of toys. So this taco you went out and picked up, brand new, right? It had, like 10 miles on it or something. And you. You put these portals on it. Yeah. So this project was together with 74 weld. They're the guys are the brainchild behind engineering on this thing. We, as a Toyota shop, I guess we're more of. As a consultant on just some of the details of the build. I mean, I can go into. But there's. It's just more like an engineering quirks here and there. Like, we were more consulting in on things when it comes to this truck. So we've. So we've done this tacoma, which is great. I think there was the first one ever. We did the foreigner, which is a little bit more refined. Right now. We're doing our own shop, Tacoma, which we recorded a bunch of stuff on it. We just haven't posted. Still kind of have to finish it, but we. That's gonna be even crazier. Like, the goal for this Tacoma was more like a, let's put on portals and put decent sized tire and leave it relatively stock. Like, that was the goal at 74 weld and see what, what that gets us. How far does that get us? And that's what we did. It's a. It's got lean on a suspension system, but it's all technically set up factory ride height that you would get out of a factory tacoma. So. And it's all like stock looking with the forum that we did. That was for my friend. Our guy Brennan. He does all of our website stuff. So with, with that, we kind of push the limit because now it's like a, you know, it's a private individual. It's. He can do whatever he wants with his truck. So we kind of pushed a little bit as far as sizing and spec on the wheels, the tacoma that we're doing for ourselves, there's no rules. Is that the, is that your, your famous shop truck that's been through a few iterations now? Yes. Yes. I don't even know what's going to be on, but our tacoma is going to be crazy. So we're going to. We're excited. We're having portals on that. I think we're. We're definitely going to push it. It's really looking. We put tracks on it, but I think it's going to. I think it would be kind of cool with what we do next. Yeah, we actually. That's probably been a year ago when you guys put tracks on it. We showed that clip in one of our intros on, on one of the shows out there. You guys playing in the snow with that? Yeah, yeah, that truck is a, that was kind of like, it's winter mode. During the summer, summer we take them off, put tires on it. It gets used up as for truck duties, but like shop truck, we, you know, carry material. Sure. Whatever. We go to wrecking yards, pick up whatever. So, yeah, I mean, it gets used to its full extent. It's not just like a pretty overland machine. You know, it's. We wheel it and we use it every day. We, you know, my guys drive it to work. It's just, it's a, it's a truck that lives at the shop and just gets used for whatever. Awesome. Well, so it'll be. I'm anxious to see it's this new iteration with the portals. But portals in general, where do you think. Technology has obviously come a long way, manufacturing technology. I think one of the big questions is over the next five to ten years, will we see that price point come down on portal systems in general? I think so. I think as more players come into the game, I think it's going to bring stuff down, bring the prices, the cost of entry down. The thing about 74 reals, I truly believe it's the best portals you can buy in the universe because there are built. It's a race component that's built. Built for Koh has been adapted to a civilian use. So it's from the beginning it's built extremely robust, like with the best aerospace engineering. 74 Weld is a company that has contracts with us government building top secret stuff with high quality precision, ISO certified and all that stuff. So portals, that's just like a pet project of the owner of building off road products. So, so you're super high quality approach to doing things and that's what they did with, with portal. So that's particularly why they're so expensive. Now. Now I will say this, you know, as, as you introduce, you know, I guess mass manufacturing as you, as there's maybe more players coming to the game, I hope the price comes down. Maybe the, the way that it's built, it doesn't necessarily have to be this robust. I mean, it's very strong. Like you. You need a mind to like blow these up. So if I think for Toyota and having an ifs, I mean, gosh, even comparing to like that portal unit, the upright compared to like a factory tie rod, we're talking about like ten to one difference in strength. Like, we're there. It's there. So far off. Wow. Away from each other. So if we make them a little bit, I don't mind sacrificing the strength for price. So. Because particularly for Ifs application, because I don't think. I don't think. I don't think it's gonna break. So, you know, if that, that, let's say, cuts the price down in half. Oh, then it's. That's. That's a game changer. Yeah. Yeah. So. And there are other market, other players in the market. You know, there's some companies in Ukraine and that's making the stuff, but I think for, for a comp, for a relatively complicated product like a portal, it needs to be made here in us, you know, for all the support, you know, serviceability and all that. So it has to come here. So plus, I mean, there's nothing cooler than buying us made parts. Absolutely. 100%. All right, well, let's. Let's get into a couple of the builds there. There. You've got multiple builds that we could walk through. But I want to talk about two in particular. I want to talk about what I believe is your, your personal rig. The corporate cruiser. I'm a 200 series guy. So I'm, I'm into this, this corporate cruiser. Let me, let me show this little clip. I think this is just from this last week here. Was this in Moab? Oh yeah. This was on the cane creek. Yeah. So again, as we all know, videos never do justice. But this particular just puckered up, man. Like very uncomfortable this moment here. Like it's a. It was pretty wild. I mean, ran this thing. Yeah. So this is, this is my 200 series. I, you know, I bought thing, built it up since stock. So that's uh, you know, I mentioned earlier I'm an 80 series guy. I, I haven't 80 series. I just don't have any neither. They're like finished right now. So this is my favorite truck. I love this thing. It's, it's literally been. I think I put 20, 000 miles since I bought it. And almost all of those miles are related to over landing and off road. Like there's on the trail, wheeling the trail. It's not a vehicle that I, that I commute in. It's not a vehicle that I, you know, use it for any other purpose, you know, so. And I've seen you put it on the trailer several times too. So it's not racking up highway miles going to the event, so to speak. Yeah, like, okay, so like every year, me and my family, we have a tradition where we take like us a trip during winter break with my kids and all that. So we, a few years in a row now, I've taken 2000 to 25 miles, trips in one, in one take. And we take that truck because it's everybody I'm able to mix in a little bit of wheeling with, you know, just general offer, just travel. So went to Arizona wheel, Sedona. We all do trails around there. So that's the weapon of choice. Now going to moab. Like, I don't, I have no, there's no reason for me to just put all the miles on the tires and you know, God forbid I. Something breaks, like I'd rather much more comfortable put in the truck and trailer, haul it out there and bring it back. So. So the, is this. Did you know how you wanted to build this one from, from day one when you bought it? Yeah. Yeah. So from day one, I knew exactly my goal with this truck was to fit 37s. There's no, not a single person that I knew of that did 37s on a cruiser, particularly because of KDSS. And that comes from our experience at our shop, KDSS is just like a big bulky mount that's in the driver's side that's in the way of, of you turning. So. Right. You had to delete that. And, you know, they're still expensive vehicles not everybody's willing to cut into and just, you know, dive in and cut that part of their truck off. Like, that's huge. It's literally integrating the entire truck. So, you know, me being what I do, we decided to cut that off and, you know, we made our own sway bar mounts in the back and just kind of fit those big thirty seven s. And everything on that truck has been built around those 37. So the way that those bumpers, they may look like descent off the shelf bumpers, they're far from that. Like they're, they're trimmed down on each side three or four inches. They're capped from descent, like, because they're close to us. So we work pretty close together. So, like, there's a lot of stuff that's made in that truck to make. Like if you buy, if you buy the bumpers from descent and you throw it on your 200 series, thinking you're gonna fit 37s, it's not gonna work. No, you're not. Because that's the situation I'm in with, with my thirty five s and I'm looking at my descent front bumper and going, yeah, that's, we're going to take about two inches off. That's the only way. It's just a matter of cutting and capping it off. But it's a little bit more challenging when it's aluminum. Capping aluminum is not as easy, but, yeah, that was the initial goal. So the front end, I wanted to get more width and travel. It's got a tundra OEM spec tundra suspension. So everything in the front is upright. Lower cv's, upper and lower cv's rods. Yeah, everything is tundra. Now, um, the rear, I uh, I like how, I like how Toyota's like, in general, how they flex with the factory multi link in the back. Like I think they get, they travel fairly well. Like they compensate for a lot of lack of travel in the front. So. But to kind of spike it more, I ran outboarded twelve in shock. So it's got king shocks outboarded. So that, I mean, that thing moves, it's got a lot of travel. Big 30 s handle the weight, can handle the speed. You know, that's. If you look at that site, that tire profile, I mean, it's hanging, it's. That's a 37 hanging way below the bumper. Like that thing moves, right? Yeah, yeah. And everything comes with that. You know, like, you know, all the lights and, you know, little accessories. I'm always, I'm always messing with the truck. I'm changing something. Like, particularly with swing outs. I think my next mod for that is I have a rack with a tent going back on for the third time. So. People seem to be in a love hate relationship with tents and racks. They're always up and down. Yeah. And that's the thing with mine. I put it on, take it off, put it on, take it off. So I think this last one, I'm going to probably keep it on there just because I never like that spacing the gap between the roof and the tent in the front. Like, it just doesn't. Again, esthetics means a lot to me. Like, I hate that space. So having a rack, I'm working with descent and have a proper setup. So it's gonna be cool. Once we're done, it's gonna be something different. So my latest model, that truck, has been. I've been working guys from air down, gear up, shout out to them. A lot of different drawers, options in the market, and I've tried a bunch of them and they nailed it. Like, that's my jam. I really, you know, I like goose gear. Like all those guys. Good stuff. But what their air down guys are doing, I think it's. It's definitely unique and particular for lankers, you guys, like lankers or Toyota guys. It might be different for like, jeep people or somebody else, somebody. Some of the other others makes, but I don't know about tacomas and all that, but, but for linkers are just the depth, the size, how things open up, how things come together. Love it. So I have those in my truck now. Just the best. So I remember when, when I first saw some, some pictures of this truck online, and the, the first thing I noticed was the snorkel. Right? That's the first time I'd seen one of those monster service snorkels. And I dm'd you and said, where did that come from? And you sent me the link and, you know, I placed the order. And that's when there was all kinds of chaos in the world. And it took six months to get over here. I got it. And then. But I've got an LX, right, I've got a 570. And so the fender is just a little bit different. And I said, well, I can make this work. And then just about that time, they said, surprise. We've got one for the LX now. Okay, here we go again. So, yeah, so I sold that one to a friend and waited and got the. The LX specific one. And it's perfect. Yeah, no, I love it. That's a. That's one thing I think I get the most compliments on. Compliments on this in the snorkel because it's. It's nothing like it. It's, you know, the guys, their approach to building things. This comes from like, building body kits for exotic cars, like. Right. Yes. The. How it looks is everything. I mean, that's what it's all about. So for the limited couple options that they offer for trucks, which is just snorkels, it's, you know, I have to get it. Yeah. I don't know if somebody that works there or owns it had a 200 and that's. That's how they got into it because it's. It's very odd looking at the rest of their product line. But I'm happy they exist. Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. I'm very happy with it. It's quality product and, you know, I color matched mine. Yeah. I'm glad. I think is on there. I think it's much more difficult to get it now. Get that. Get that snorkel now than it was before. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's still. If anybody's listening, it is still doable, but you have to be patient. Yeah. And things have gotten more expensive, so just. Yeah. Be this. Be sitting down when you get the shipping quote on it. We'll put it that way. So. Yeah. All right. Hey, Dmitriy, let's talk about the Moscow mule. Yeah. I mean, my goodness, this thing is just. I started to say stellar, which. Which it is. It's just. This is the perfect rig, in my opinion, just to show off what you guys can really do. Yeah. This thing is ridiculous. I mean, if you hear this thing, we have straight pipes with the magnaflow x pipe in there. Straight. Just no mufflers. It's like the best way to, like, compared to is. It's like a fighter jet. Like, it's just all go like. Just crazy performance. Loud, ridiculous. Not necessarily the most comfortable for long trips, but, you know, you can. I guess if you want. But yeah, no, it's a. This was built with the intended purpose to wheel the trails that we have here in Norcal. So. Yeah, this is. This is where this thing spends majority of its time. Yeah. Give us the. Just the quick 1 minute rundown on the specs for somebody that hadn't seen this thing before? Yeah, for sure. So to make it really simple, everything below the frame is custom. There's nothing that's left over that's been original Toyota. So like the rear, it's got a reverse four link, which is, if you can compare it to traditional four link, it doesn't have a. It's triangulated. It doesn't have a panhard bar. So just only four links holding the rear axle. Front is a three link with a Panhard Dana 60 fronts matching sterling ten and a half rear. We got taco box dual cases. I mean, Airbus front and rear lockers, fortune and coilovers all around winch. You know, it's got a lot. You know, if you walk around the truck, there's a lot of cool little details, you know, that can personally would notice, like just how we put the things together, like, even just with the packaging and all that. So the truck sits relatively low for what it has. So that's another kind of goal of ours. Low profile trusses. You know, it's got our cv's, all the. All the supporting mods. So it's just a cool, cool truck. It's all stock inside. Like, you know, I don't have a cage, I don't have anything crazy. So it's just the stock four runner, you know, I have a switch. Throw in there. That's it. Very cool. All right, so speaking of recognizable trucks, you had a truck from overseas that spent a little time in your shop here over the past year. Let me play this clip for folks that haven't seen it. 30. 30. Here she is, mate. Here she is on american soil. It's kind of bizarre, really. I know, that's kind of wild. You bring it over here and I've. Come to one of the coolest little. Workshops I've ever seen. Some of the rigs inside here have blown my mind. I thought I've seen just about it when it comes to custom vehicles, but that's just absolutely mind boggling. What you guys can actually create is. Darling, short of amazing. But you can not just have them for the tracks. You can actually wheel on the road as well. Dude. So give me the backstory on this. I mean, I'm sure you. You were subscribed to their YouTube just like everybody else in the country. Do you. Do you get a phone call one day, like, hey, mate, I'm coming over there and I want to ship you my truck? How did this transpire? No, I guess it was a lot more just random, you know, they. So we're relationship. We have a relationship with Red Arc, which, which obviously, you know, they're out of Australia. The wheel drive guys are all about it. Red arc. So they. So 24 outside of us or anything else, like 24/7 they decided to do a tour in us, like right wheel, a bunch of trails, do shoot a bunch of content. And they were, we're gonna run a Rubicon. And they knew the guys from radar who know us, and, you know, they. We just kind of connected through that. So they literally just made a pit stop by our shop. They just showed up. Matter of fact, I wasn't even there. I wasn't like a family vacation in Montana with my family. The first time they came by that video, I wasn't there. So they just rolled in and hung out. You know, they asked us if they could use our shop for just install some accessories. I'm like, absolutely no problem. And they did, and that's that. You know, they did their first show, so that was last year. And after that, I think that's it was really after that. Like, we kind of, you know, they're at our shop, so we're talking. I'm talking to Sean. I'm calling him. You know, we're just kind of, you know, just having these random connections and we're started chatting about the second part of the other, just another. Another leg of their tour. Right? Dude, can you, can you, like, hold my truck? You know, I'm looking. We're just finished Utah. I'm looking for a place. I'm like, bro, no problem. Remember, we have a lot of space. Abundance of space. Bring it over. You know, how cool would it be to have this thing at our shop, you know, to geek over. So brought in, brought it to our shop. That led us to more conversations of what we can do to the truck, which we did, and, you know, which led more to more conversations on, like, hey, let's do like a. Let's, you know, let's run some trails here locally in the snow. So which, that kind of opened up a whole window, whole conversation to, like, you know, doing episodes here. So we're super honored. I'm honored, like, to be part of their show. We did two episodes with snow, northern California snow episodes we shot maybe a month ago. Awesome with those guys. And that was just epic, epic time. I mean, I wheeled this in and out of California, like, all sorts of trails, but just wheeling with those guys, you know, it pushed, it pushed everybody's limits, you know, because we, we had to make, put up a good show, good, good quality content, push our limits, our trucks. And you watch their shows. I mean, it's, it's just, it's redline. I mean, it's. It's all the juicy, all the meat. So, you know, we. I think we could capture a lot of that stuff. So our first show was with our shop, the Tacoma tracks, and our second one we had. We had the lane cruiser. So. Nice. Okay. And obviously, each show has its own quirk. You know, we went here, we went there, and it's not about our vehicles at all. It's still about, you know, 24/7 their program. But we were kind of like the hosts of, you know, being in northern California, the hosts of these guys, we in here. So, so that's our relationship, them, but. And you guys actually ended up doing a little bit of modifications on the dirty 30. Not so. The 30 30 essentially is a custom body and canopy that's sitting on top of an 80 series chassis, so. Which, again, mean being an 80 guy. Like, I love everything about him. There's a bunch of stuff, a bunch of room for improvement. So, which we did. We fixed. We fix his rear sway bar, added a sway bar in the front because it's a, it's a. It's a top heavy truck. He's got fridges and all this overland gear. So, yeah, so we kind of worked together and made it happen while it was. It was chilling in our shop. So. Awesome. All right, well, before I let you go, I've got two things here we're going to run through our rapid fire questions, but one of our viewers said, don't bring him on unless you talk to him about the hundred series solid axle swap, because you have teased a potential kit of some type for these swaps. Now, earlier you said, I'm not getting in the production business, but is this a possibility? You know, I've had so much inquiries on that, and we're at a point where I guess if we drum up enough attention, we, you know, we can maybe do, like, a run of the kit. But being like a custom project, there's more to the piece of the puzzle. So, like, it's not like a complete kit. Like a, like you would buy from trail gear. Like, you have to figure out your steering. Are you gonna run your steering? High steer, low steer hydraulic, all those components. So, you know, which, which, you know, I'm not going to provide it in the kit. So it would be just basically all the bracketry and stuff. But the only downside to the kit, to the project that we did not necessarily downside, but you know, if I were to build it a mine, I would do a different. Is it really needs a wider axle. And when it comes to wider axle, you would. All the brackets would be different. So we kind of use, like, a budget friendly approach. So radius arms mounted to the factory at 80 axle, and it works. The truck drives incredibly well. And honestly, for those guys that want to keep it, like, oem ish, like, oem plus that, that works. But I would, if this was done, like, if this budget allowed, I guess we would. I would have much rather run a wider axle, different mounts, not a radius arm mount, but like a three link mount. And. And because of that, I'm kind of contemplating that, and I'm not sure. I don't want to invest too much time on something I don't necessarily believe in all the way. I don't know if that makes sense. So, like, we provided the work, we provided the service for the client's budget, and, you know, we, like, we're happy with the results. But sure, my personal approach, like, it would be a little bit different. So unless we pick up our. Unless I get another hundred series, like, of my own and. And do something with that, I probably won't do anything. Um, but that could be always changed. You know, we have trucks come through our shop all the time, handed to us, sold to us, moved. Hey, I got this. That uncle's project, my, my mother in law, whatever. Like, if we get a hunter series and that we can play with, I'll gladly do something with it. So. All right, so if you. If you're listening to this and. And you're in California and you've got 100 series that Dmitriy could potentially get his hands on, there's a lot of people that might appreciate that. Yeah. And, you know, that truck benefits so much from a solid axle. Like, that's. I, with all the respect to lankers, that's probably my least favorite one, is because of the torsion bars. The torsion bars, yeah, it's just such a vanilla suspension. You know, we try so hard to, like, modify it to, like, a, you know, to an extent. Cv's are binding. They click, they break. Your boots are always ripping apart. You got to tub your wheel well. Like, it requires so much to make an extreme wheeler, you know? So where with, like, a solid axle would have been different. So. Sure. Yeah. All right, rapid fire, and I'll let you go here. So you're going to hit the trail for the day. It's just. Just you kind of backroads cruising easy trail day what is on your music playlist for the day? What's your go to playlist? My trail music is outlaw country, or I listen to kind of like an island reggae music. It's a. It's okay. Those are kind of different from each other. Yeah. You know, I listen. I personally, my music tastes all over the place. I like. I listen to a lot of EDM music. You know, I listen to a lot of hip hop music. I grew up in the Bay area, so when I'm out wheeling, I like outlaw. You know, it's kind of. It's. It's. It's pure, it's simple. It's country, you know, America, all those things. So and so. That's one thing and another one that'll be like a kind of island reggae music because it's a very. Just mellow vibes that some of the stuff. You understand what they're saying. So it's a good jam to you have in the background, you know? Sure. Favorite camp meal. Camp meal. Shoot, man, I love to cook on the trail. That's my jam. So I have this. My favorite meal would be the. I make this kind of a particular soup when I go camp. I call the ruby on soup because I make it always on the rubicon. So people that been with me know what I'm talking about. So that's my favorite meal. It's basically a reiteration of, like, a super Toscana Italian. So creamy. There's a lot of sausage, potatoes. Very hearty. Fills you up, especially if it's cold. You know, have a couple of bowls of those and go to bed. It's perfect. But your soup is served, served warm. I'm assuming, contrary to our guest, kai, from a tinkerer design, that likes to have his soup straight, straight out of the can at room temperature. That's just goo. I bring it all. I bring the. I like. I love to cook in the trail. So, you know, I bring my pot, all the potatoes, all the ingredients, and I cook storm. Cool. All right, important question here. Dewalt or Milwaukee? Oh, Milwaukee, if you're a mechanic. Milwaukee. Milwaukee guy. We don't have. We. Yeah. DeWalt is, if you're working with wood, sure, do your thing. But. Oh, my gosh. Oh, I'm glad John's not here, because he'd be gloating. He's the Milwaukee guy. I'm the guy of our group. Okay. You've wheeled a lot of places, like you said. I mean, you're kind of in the. A real sweet spot for a lot of trails where you live there, but is there a kind of a bucket list trail or maybe location that you haven't wheeled yet that you'd like to check off? Yeah, for sure. It's a Colorado. Never been to Colorado. I've driven through it, but I never wheeled it, so. Okay, well, everything Colorado related, that's my jam. That's probably my next. Gotcha. My next adventure will be there, so I do everything I can while I'm there. All right, and then last. This has been a hot topic lately. Uh, the new Land cruiser LC 250 GX 550, or a six gen forerunner. Pick one. See, that's a hard one. So I would say Landcruiser simply because of the name and lame looks. I like. I like that more. The only downside is the motor. I wish I would much rather take the GX 550 engine. And no hybrid, no electronic assist, none of jazz. Not reason why. I'm not saying that choosing the GX is because it's all wheel drive. I gotta have selectable two wheel drive, four wheel drive, like the all wheel drive. I'm not a big fan, so it works. We. We build them. We like them. I have a GX, like. But if. When it comes down to it, I rather have it. Something with more simple. You choose two wheel, whatever. Like, that's. That's my jam, so. So to answer your question, I'll lancaster foreigner. I don't know. It doesn't excite me. It's. It's. It's cool. But, you know, I don't know. I just. Linkers is my jam. Well, I mean, with. With all this pricing getting revealed, I mean, they're all going to be about the same price, it seems like. It's crazy. I mean, Toyota's just said, hey, take your. Take your pick. There's just so much overlap there. Well, now, I will say this. The Land Cruiser that we get is not actual Land Cruiser. Well, that's true. We're not talking about a proper 300 series here. Yeah, it's a Prado thing, so, you know, but still, I'll give them that. I'm like, okay, they tried. It's a Land cruiser. It's a US Lancaster, right? Yeah. All right, Dmitriy, this has been fun. I hope you've enjoyed it. Appreciate you. Thank you for having me, man. It was giving us the. The Stiller built story. So, folks, if you're not following them on Instagram or YouTube, I would encourage you to go do so. It's really, really enjoyable content, man, especially the YouTube. The gentleman you've got running the YouTube. Tell him congratulations because he's just been killing it lately. Yeah, absolutely. All right, guys, see you next time. Thank you.