Season 2, Episode 116 - Simon Christie, Producer of 4wdTV from Australia talks Offroading

 

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Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1s):

Holman. It’s been quite an eventful week for me. I don’t know about you. Well, I do know about you. You went on one heck of an adventure, which I want to hear about in this episode. I had a couple of videos that went outta control. I don’t know if you saw that on my, my Instagram and my YouTube. I

Sean P. Holman (15s):

I was wondering you, so you did it in that really weird style where you’re like narrating the life story. I it fell flat with this

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23s):

Viewer. I know. Because it

Sean P. Holman (24s):

Wasn’t you, it was like this. Hi, I am a homeowner who almost had my vehicle stolen. Well it. And here’s what I did. It was just a weird, like the affect was odd.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (32s):

I, I, I get that. Why did you do that? Because it was easier for me to produce it that way. Here’s what Holman is referring to. After an attempted theft of one of my vehicles, I went on a mission to figure out how to deter thieves from attempting to break in again and again. Yes, the vehicles all have alarms, glass, brake sensors, kill switches and can bus shunts. Sure, those things will keep the cars from getting stolen, but they won’t keep the glass from being broken again and again by punk thieves that don’t realize I’ve installed all that expensive equipment. So I went on a mission to find a physical and visual deterrent. What you see here are stainless steel ballards that will survive a 25 mile per hour impact with a 5,000 pound vehicle.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 15s):

I figure it’s hard to get going 25 miles per hour when the Ballard is only two feet from your bumper when not a no. These ballards sit flush in the ground and when extended stand, like 42 inch tall stainless steel soldiers. If you’re interested in learning more about protecting your vehicle in your own driveway, hit me in the comments. I’ll set you up with my contractor. There’s a video that I posted to my YouTube channel and I had a whopping like 700 subscribers.

Sean P. Holman (1m 42s):

Okay.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 43s):

So that was like on a Saturday morning

Sean P. Holman (1m 45s):

And it blew up.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 46s):

So I woke up the next morning to about 500,000 views. Nice. I go, well, that was crazy. Well done. So this today it’s at above 1.4 million. Okay. Which is wild. And I thought, that’s crazy. Oh wait, I got a message from a buddy, rich Holdaway at Holdaway can search. He goes, are you gonna answer any of those comments on Instagram? And I go, what? What are, what are you talking about? He goes, you’re real. I go, there’s some views on YouTube that’s kind of new. He goes, he’s like, buddy, your reel on Instagram has 2.1 million views. I go, excuse me. What? So combined 3 million views on that video now, which

Sean P. Holman (2m 24s):

You were monetizing, don’t you?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 26s):

Well, it’s really hard to monetize a 62nd video. I know. Now, if that were like 10 minutes long, sure I could, I might be able to make some money, but that wasn’t the point. I, I just put this up. And what I found was very interesting, Holman as a, i, I haven’t personally had, you’ve had some mild viral videos with Jeep content and stuff like that. I haven’t had one. And this one was not expected at all. Again, it was just me narrating. That’s how happens. So that’s what happens. I want later in the show for you to go through the comments because you’re gonna find them fascinating. There are some people that are supporting me, but about 80%, maybe even higher are those who are telling me to get out of California.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 8s):

Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (3m 8s):

Well, can you blame ’em?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 11s):

I, but it’s not about California. Like there’s just as much theft per capita in Texas. It became incredibly political in the comments at LBC Lightning. Go to my reels, you’ll see it. By the time you’re hearing this, I’ll have more than 2.1 million views. ’cause it’s gonna keep going. I’m looking at the statistics and it’s like hockey stick. It’s still going like I mean, it’s like it was straight. And that would go straight up. And it’s incredible how politicized this has been. They’re like, tell me you live in California without telling me you live in California or you need to move, or, that’s where all the thieves are in California. It’s like, and a bunch of guys are like, I bet you’re a Biden voter. I bet you’re like, I’m like, what are you talking about? I’m talking about my truck.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 50s):

And they’re like the guy who accuses me of being a Biden voter and who cares if I am or what Biden Yeah. But the thing is like, dude, do you see what’s in my driveway? It’s the most gas guzzling middle finger to the liberal community ever. Yeah. You’re like, what do you, do you not

Sean P. Holman (4m 6s):

Even license this place says yummy gas.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 8s):

It’s insane.

Sean P. Holman (4m 8s):

You’re

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 9s):

Welcome. Like what? I’ve tried to answer some of

Sean P. Holman (4m 12s):

These emotionally damaged

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 14s):

No, no, I’m not at all. I’ve actually, so for a living, I do this for banks, right? Right. I answer all these comments. So I’m having fun with this. And luckily no one’s insulting me. Like, you are an a-hole. You’re a moron. All you

Sean P. Holman (4m 25s):

Did was put

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 25s):

Polars on. But the, the comments have been very interesting. It’s got thousands of comments. Like I literally cannot answer them.

Sean P. Holman (4m 32s):

It resonated with people.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 33s):

I’m, I’m not saying it’s bad at all. And

Sean P. Holman (4m 34s):

You’re welcome because you thought Ballards would be stupid and you are.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 37s):

You’re right.

Sean P. Holman (4m 38s):

Right. A viral video. Rich is getting business out of it. I mean it’s wild.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 42s):

It’s just very interesting to see this to, to

Sean P. Holman (4m 44s):

Go phenomenon through this Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 46s):

Phenomenon. And I’m sure like, I do 50 more videos and they’re not gonna do this. I get it. I’m like, I’m a YouTuber now. Come on. I’m not pretending that this is gonna happen again. But it’s just been neat to watch this and watch the algorithms at work. But what I want to express to you, Holman, is how political it got. And it was just, I didn’t expect that at all to like all the California hate.

Sean P. Holman (5m 4s):

Meanwhile, I was unplugged completely from the grid for two and a half days. Right. And came back to 458 emails.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 11s):

You got back and you’re like, I guess lightning’s a start. No, no, no. You didn’t say that.

Sean P. Holman (5m 16s):

No. I went through and I couldn’t stand watching your video ’cause I had that weird voiceover. Yeah. I, no, I almost had my vehicle stroll it in California. So what do do, because I don’t wanna sell my house.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 25s):

I like it. It’s a

Sean P. Holman (5m 25s):

Different thing. I got colored. Yeah. It was weird. I was like, God, that can’t it, it was unwatchable for me. So I I I was not one of your engagements. I I boned out.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 33s):

I That’s fine. I left,

Sean P. Holman (5m 35s):

I left you to the wolves.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 36s):

I don’t, I don’t need you. So I got plenty of millions.

Sean P. Holman (5m 38s):

Meanwhile, I was on a trip. I covered 2200 miles in a week. That’s what,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 42s):

And you were with the a EV guys, right?

Sean P. Holman (5m 44s):

Yeah, we’re with the AV crew and we were in San Rafael as well. And Utah. Were

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 47s):

Utah. Were you installing bollards throughout your trip?

Sean P. Holman (5m 49s):

I was not. Okay. And then we were also in the San Juan Mountains being, have you ever been in a storm that was 85 degrees inhaling with 60 mile an hour of gale force winds blowing against you. Wait,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 0s):

What? Yeah, with 80

Sean P. Holman (6m 2s):

Hail.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 2s):

How’s

Sean P. Holman (6m 3s):

That possible? Was the weirdest thing Thunderhead formed right above this canyon wall. We were camped on the side of, and we had hail and giant raindrops and vicious winds and Lightning So. this is, if you go to my, my Instagram, you see some of the photos of it. I posted a video. This is

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 19s):

The shelf road.

Sean P. Holman (6m 21s):

This was overlooking, this was in the San Rafael swell, not too far from Moab. And I posted a video of me in my tent. I don’t know if you saw that one.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 29s):

Oh no, I didn’t see that one. I saw the, the one with you looking out the hood where you were on a shelf road and a bunch of motorcyclists went the other way.

Sean P. Holman (6m 34s):

Oh, that was in Colorado. Oh, this, this was the video of me in my tent.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 42s):

Oh, that’s hail. Holy macle. Dang. It’s almost coming through your tent.

Sean P. Holman (6m 48s):

Oh, it was coming through my tent. Oh, right through the zipper sitting me in the face. The tent was rocking. Yeah. That’s freaky. What do you think? I averaged fuel economy wise. So 3 92 Wrangler on 30 sevens, 4 56 factory gears with a roof rack that had my max track some water on it and then loaded down, you know, well,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 7s):

You, you wouldn’t be asking if you got like really crappy mileage. Oh, oh no.

Sean P. Holman (7m 10s):

Standby.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 11s):

Okay, okay, okay. Right. All right. Okay, well then now you’re going the other direction. Okay. It’s normally like in the elevens or twelves, right? Something like that, isn’t it? I think daily driving it, you’re probably seven-ish. I

Sean P. Holman (7m 22s):

Did 14.3 was my average on the whole trip.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 25s):

14.3. That’s Wait, that’s better than normal.

Sean P. Holman (7m 27s):

No, it’s not. No, it’ll do 1516 unloaded slick top. Yeah. On the highway if I behave myself. But my, I hit a new record crawling where I was in low range and having to manually shift and do all that 4.7. So I, I took a picture. I, I took a picture of my, of my driver information center. And the thing that I wanted to point out is I have a 21.5 gallon tank. This is with a third of the tank gone. I’ve only gone 20.5 miles and my range is 69 left.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 60s):

Oh no. So it

Sean P. Holman (8m 1s):

Would’ve been, it would’ve been less than a hundred miles on that tank. Oh, that’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 6s):

Awful. And funny and cool. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (8m 8s):

I mean whatever. I was out enjoying it and Sure. So I have the taser, right? I can do four rear Wheel drive. And we were crawling up to, in one of the passes, I think this one might have been, I think, and there’s some switchbacks that we had to get through. And these guys in these can AMS were just up everybody’s butt passing and stuff. And so one of the guys from AV gets on the radio and he’s like, Hey, that guy, watch out. This guy’s passing. And he’s just spraying everybody with rocks. So the guy gets right on my ass. I put the taser and forced rear Wheel drive and I just blasted, mashed it and just shot a roost of rocks all over. Hit ’em in the face all over.

Sean P. Holman (8m 48s):

Christopher AV gets on the radio goes, that’s one way to deal with them. So, so that was a little bit

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 53s):

Fun. Did they not, did they not try to get back of you by going in, going around you?

Sean P. Holman (8m 56s):

What’s he gonna do? He’s on my butt. I’m driving uphill, like sorry guy. Well, at some point did I let him pass after that, after I sprayed him? He didn spray you with rocks? No, no. I think he kind of got the message and, and mellowed out. And so one other thing I wanna talk about is our buddy Josie over at the automotive sent me the brand new No Limits before my trip. What? So I installed it and so I I I’ve got 2000 plus miles on the no Limits. It’s so nice. Not, and I, I know it does a bunch of stuff like, well first of all, the speed limit

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 23s):

People don’t know what you’re talking about.

Sean P. Holman (9m 25s):

That’s what I’m trying to explain. it does a lot of stuff like removes your speed limit. It is a way to interface with a vehicle without leaving a mark on your PC m It doesn’t retune anything plugs in your star connector. The number one thing about it that I loved is it removes four cylinder MDS mode. And

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 40s):

This is in addition to the taser?

Sean P. Holman (9m 42s):

Correct? This is in addition to the taser. Okay. It’s a different device and it, there’s some other stuff we’ll talk about it in, in a upcoming episode we have Joe Z on, but it was so nice driving cross country and not having it going in and out of four cylinder mode all the time. And you don’t get that drone of it dropping into the four cylinder mode. It’s just such, so much better to drive it. And the fuel economy wasn’t really impacted. And I do all of my fuel economy, like I have a app called Fueling and I track everything, you know, looking at my, my logs. These were, these were the numbers that I got. 14.9, 10.6, 10.7, 5.2 on on that one. There’s a little bit of highway after the 4.7 12, 2 13, 6 14 4 on the lifetime of the vehicle.

Sean P. Holman (10m 25s):

So far on my 3 92 according to the app, which is awesome is it’s 13 miles per gallon. That’s not bad. Average over 22,000 miles. What’s the

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 35s):

Name of the app

Sean P. Holman (10m 36s):

Again? This one’s fuel and you can track all your stuff. Fuel, fuel, yep. It’ll track you. Fuel costs total gallons. You just put it in when you fill up. Okay. So my, my previous Jeep, which was my V six, that was supercharged with the stick. What do you think the average miles per gallon was on the V six supercharged for half its life So, this is only half of it with a manual. Well that one was, so, and it was identically set up say same wheels. Yeah. 12 ish tire. 1112. So that Jeep, the original adventure Jeep was 13.3 and this is 13. Hmm. So I’m giving up almost nothing, having a V eight and getting way more joy out of it. Yeah. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 10s):

Way better sound. That’s really

Sean P. Holman (11m 11s):

Oh, oh, it just, yeah, it was a pleasure to drive. But anyway, yeah. So out with the AV guys and they had a couple of GMC Canyon and the Colorado zero two bison out there. Did you have prospectors as well or no? No prospectors on this trip originally were going to, would

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 25s):

That be too big for the trail?

Sean P. Holman (11m 27s):

Not really, no. No, but they had the Chevys and it was really cool to see those things rock crawling and legit trucks on 30 fives. Like it was really awesome to see how well the, the mid-size trucks from GM did on the trail and they hung with the Jeeps and you know, definitely took a little bit more to get over obstacles and stuff like that. But they have to be one of the best setups that you can buy. If you wanna go to my Instagram at Sean P Holman, photos of the trips, some kind of overviews. The Lightning storm that I got photos of. And then I have a couple funny reels that have a few thousand views. One was I’m going up, up, up and the nose is lifting and I chose the wrong line and I kind of backed down a little bit and I go again and you hear the bottom of the jeep just slam into the ground. Oh no. So that’s a good one.

Sean P. Holman (12m 7s):

And then the other one, did

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 7s):

You bend anything? No,

Sean P. Holman (12m 8s):

It’s a jeep, it’s fine. And then the other one was shelf roads. So I cut up a bunch of my dash cam photos of like six or seven different shelf roads, put ’em into one long video. That’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 19s):

The one I saw.

Sean P. Holman (12m 20s):

Yeah. Yeah. And basically asked the question like, do you, what would

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 23s):

You do? Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (12m 24s):

What what would you do? Fill in the blanks. You driving a shelf road is like fill in the blanks. And everybody was like, oh hell no. And then there’s the, yeah. You know, it’s just, it’s funny. So that, that one’s been,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 35s):

It’s sketchy. You guys have seen on Instagram reels or Facebook reels or whatever you’ve seen like the, the super sketchy road on the side of a Tibetan cliff. It’s kind of like that.

Sean P. Holman (12m 43s):

Oh, there I mean. We were literally on the side of roads where there was thousands of feet down. We had gotten up to the, the top pass that we did was was phe and that was at just over 13,000 feet. California passed it over 12,000. We camped it over 10,000 feet. And are

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 0s):

You right on the edge? Like are you on the, like your tire is on? Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (13m 4s):

A couple feet. Okay. Yeah, there might be 18 inches or so at times.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 8s):

So if you had the TRX, would it be, would that be on the edge? ’cause it’s wider or is it, is it sketchy with a truck that

Sean P. Holman (13m 14s):

Wide? No, I, I don’t think so. I mean you’re, you’re still within the confines of the road. Okay. You’re not like, you know, hanging off tires or anything like that. But so imaging was 13,114 feet, which one of the highest passes in in the continental us And you could see

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 29s):

It’s hard to breathe up

Sean P. Holman (13m 29s):

There. It is. It was, we had a little oxygen boot. You know how you see those things? There’s like boost oxygen and they sell ’em in Vegas. You know, there’s like oxygen bars, you’re like, oh, what a bunch of whatever.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 37s):

It’s super useful

Sean P. Holman (13m 37s):

Up there. Know when you’re sleeping at night. And so my heart rate’s usually around like 68 70 resting. It was 90 up there. And my watch was like giving me like, your heart rate’s been really high the last couple days. I’m like, so can you

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 49s):

Even get

Sean P. Holman (13m 49s):

To sleep? No kidding. Yeah, I, I slept fine. But you’d wake up and you’d be like out of breath and rest and you’d take a hit off the boost oxygen thing and you’d be like, all right, go back to sleep. You know, get headaches and stuff. So it took a few days to acclimate. But yeah, it was, it was a great trip. It’s one of my, the San Juan mountains of Colorado is one of the most epic places you could take a vehicle in the United States. It’s just unbelievable. And to have it with a capable crew and capable vehicles was was super rad. Alright, so on this show we kinda have a celebrity that’s not someone from the us

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 19s):

Simon Christie is a face you’d see on four Wheel Drive TV if you lived in Australia. He’s out of Melbourne and I think you guys are going to dig this interview. He’s quite a character, super knowledgeable and you’ll be interested to find out what the Aussies think of the Americans. So it’s great.

Sean P. Holman (14m 40s):

And Australia is one of our biggest markets outside the us I think it’s our third biggest market or something like that. So before we get him on the horn, we gotta think our presenting sponsor. And that is Nissan by the way, Nissan just dropped the info on the 20 20 25 Nissan Frontier Refresh officially. So we’ll hit that in the news section. I think it looks pretty rad. I got a winner. Yes. And yeah, I think, I think people are gonna like the, the updates. So, so 2025 Nissan Frontier coming soon. If you are interested in getting a truck, you probably get a good deal on the 2024 Frontier. Of course we love the Pro four X, we love the zero gravity seats, the Fender audio system, the spray and bedliner util track bed system. I mean there’s just so much to like in that truck, especially the standard 310 horsepower, 3.8 liter V eight backed by the nine speed automatic.

Sean P. Holman (15m 23s):

So if you’re looking for a new truck, head on down to your local Nissan dealership or you can find out all the features and options and specs over at nissan usa dot com.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 32s):

You got another month of summer or so left and you’re still doing some hauling, right? You’re still, you’ve got your fifth Wheel trailer, your boat out to the lake, whatever that means. Your rear diff temps are a little hotter than you’d like. How do you cool those off? You? Head over to Banks Power dot com and you pick yourself up a Ram Air rear differential cover. They will cool down the lube temps significantly longer lasting. Lube means longer lasting gears. Got ’em for American Axle for most of the GM and Ram trucks. Got Sterling and Dana M 2 7 5 for your Ford guys. Head over to Banks Power dot com and check out the Ram Air rear differential cover to keep your rear end. Cool.

Sean P. Holman (16m 11s):

Alright, got some great news for all of you who love AMS oil the same way we do, did you know they now offer an oil change in a box?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (16m 21s):

What? No. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (16m 23s):

What oil change kits ordered through the AMS oil vehicle lookups come with everything you need to complete your oil change. So head over to AMS oil dot com, you can put your information in through the vehicle lookup. And everything you need is in one box. Not only does it ship to your door fast and free, but the kits include your choice of whatever the recommended AMS oil, motor oil is and AMS oil, oil filter, even a pair of nitrile gloves, a fast funnel. And check this out. They even include the AMS oil, oil change decal. So you can put when your next surface is up in the corner of your windshield. The problem with those is when you use the Sharpie over time, the ink like is in the UV and it fades. It fades. AMS oil’s, oil change intervals are so long that you won’t know what it is, but no AMS oil.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 4s):

So they should have given you like a paint pen or something.

Sean P. Holman (17m 7s):

Maybe that’s what they need in there, right? So AMS oil says we’re focused on making the world’s best oil change. And part of that means making it easy to order what you need. When you buy the world’s best oil change, you should also have the best experience for finding what you need to placing the order, installing the products. They’ve got their online tools with fast free delivery, they use oil change kits, everything comes in one box. You can get it all at AMS oil dot com. And when

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 27s):

You’re scratching your head going, I wonder what kind of Tono cover Lightning would buy it would be the EGR Road

Sean P. Holman (17m 32s):

Track system. No, I’ve slept at night soundly without ever thinking that. No, really? No, that’s not true. I was at 10,000 feet and you were not sleeping and we had, your heart was pounding. We had some much pickup trucks with us. And as I was wondering if I was gonna die up on the mountain, I thought, what Tono cover would I get on on these new trucks? Dude, I’m telling you, what would Lightning do?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 50s):

Because I’ve talked about it before. I have been in my truck bed kind of as a gag when it was pouring rain, bucketing rain. It doesn’t do that that often in California. But I got in there and I literally like, ’cause I wanted to see how water tight this was. And you should have slept during your hailstorm under an EGR roll track system.

Sean P. Holman (18m 8s):

It would’ve been drier, is that what you’re saying?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (18m 9s):

Way drier and yeah, Well, it would’ve had an interesting metallic sound. Well it

Sean P. Holman (18m 14s):

Aluminum. My tent was any better. You know, it

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (18m 15s):

Sounded awful. Linear your 10. Anyway, if you’re looking for a manually retractable or electric retractable tono cover, you should head over to EGR USA dot com because they’re constantly releasing new applications. So if you don’t see your truck there today, you might see it there tomorrow. EGR USA dot com

3 (18m 33s):

The truck show. We’re gonna show you what we know. We’re gonna answer what The truck Truck rode with The truck show. We have the lifted We, have the lowered and everything in between. We’ll talk about trucks that run on diesel and the ones that run on gasoline. The truck show, The truck show, The truck show. Whoa Whoa.

4 (19m 4s):

It’s The truck show with your hosts Lightning and Holman.

Sean P. Holman (19m 12s):

Alright,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 12s):

So on

3 (19m 13s):

The, on the bad phone,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 15s):

We’ve got Mr. Simon Christie all the way from Melbourne. How do, how do you say it properly? Holman. You do the astro do

Sean P. Holman (19m 21s):

You think I’m not gonna do it?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 22s):

You’re not gonna bot butcher it?

Sean P. Holman (19m 23s):

Nope.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 24s):

What’s the proper way to pronounce that? Melbourne, Simon, you

Simon Christie (19m 28s):

Got it right spot on. Melbourne.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 30s):

Melbourne. But it’s, there you go. So the second syllables kind of crushed against Melbourne.

Sean P. Holman (19m 34s):

See Simon, you don’t know that. I have a very unnatural fascination with Australians. I love Australians and I love Australia. And so I get excited every time I get a chance to do stuff with, with your people. And,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 46s):

And when he doesn’t have an Australian on the horn, he does a a, a bad well,

Sean P. Holman (19m 50s):

A bad Crocodile Dundee accent. No,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19m 52s):

But it’s, it’s okay. It’s much better than mine. I won’t do it. It would, it’s an embarrassment to me. Yes.

Sean P. Holman (19m 56s):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So what people don’t realize is The Truck, Show Podcast, our number three country of listeners is Australia.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (20m 4s):

That’s impressive. It’s okay.

Sean P. Holman (20m 5s):

I think that’s pretty amazing, right? Simon Christie who is a host, a producer, an adventurer, an outdoorsman. I was looking at all the stuff that you do. So four Wheel Drive TV in Australia, or four wdTV, you have 30 gazillion followers down there and apparently you’re a big deal.

Simon Christie (20m 24s):

Wow. What a welcome guys. Thank you so much. Yeah, look, we started humbly 20 years ago. This is our 20th year of production. We’ve been creating TV shows, traveling all over the world for 20 years now. So four Drive TV has been a huge learning curve for us. A fairly big following on Facebook, 1.8 million followers there. And in excess of 600,000 of those are from the Americas north and south. So we’ve got a big following. We have a lot of fans who just think we’re an American program and a an American company. So it’s, it’s, it’s quite interesting the messages and comments we get, especially when it comes down to how we spell tire. So the tires that go on your car,

Sean P. Holman (21m 2s):

TYRE wow. We,

Simon Christie (21m 3s):

The whole argument is huge. So, we, we had a video we posted on our Facebook page, 82 million views and it was all over arguing about how to spell tire.

Sean P. Holman (21m 15s):

So I was looking at your bio, you and I are connected through LinkedIn and, and we had chatted and I said, You know what? I would love to have the perspective of an Australian journalist on The, Truck, Show Podcast. And we usually have American journalists on talking about the car culture, the news of the day, things that, that are going on. So much is happening in, in Australia right now, whether it is Toyota deciding that the, the diesel V eight is no longer gonna be offered in the 70 series, or if it’s ram trucks and super duties getting imported down there and converted over to right hand drive because you guys have a love for our big full size American trucks. I I I wanna hear all about that from your perspective.

Simon Christie (21m 55s):

Alright, well the first thing to do is a little bit of definition, some defining, we have a, a thing here that’s highly popular. We call it a ute. Yes. Now it’s not, it’s not a traditional Indian group. It’s actually a pickup. What you guys refer to as a pickup or, or even a truck. Our Utes, our pickups are a little bit smaller than yours generally, but the important thing to know, the culture here is so strong around these four by four pickups that the top two selling cars, not just four Wheel drives or trucks. The top two selling cars in Australia are the Toyota Hilux and the Ford Ranger four by four pickups. They’re the top selling vehicles and they fight for the top twice tooth and nail.

Simon Christie (22m 37s):

They’ve been doing that for the last few years. Now Toyota typically comes out on top, but the Ford Ranger has absolutely got them running right on their heels and has taken the top spot for a few months over the last few years. So the culture here is really around outdoor adventure and the crossover between using pickups for work during the week and then using those for recreation on the weekends. So, we have a massive culture, whether it’s four Wheel driving, camping, fishing, hunting, motorbike riding of having that work vehicle during the week that can still have that dual cab facility. So you can put the family in, the kids in the backseat and then can still get out on a bit of adventure for the weekends. So the off-roading motorsport culture here is just, it’s insane.

Simon Christie (23m 21s):

People don’t understand how our market is so big given the small size population that we have in comparison to you guys. But geographically Australia is the same size as America, but we’ve only got 26 million people here. So, we have a huge amount of remote outback areas. No civil war, not a lot of serial murderers. We have a few, but not so many So.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 46s):

This is, he’s just taken pot shots into America 11. Right. And by

Sean P. Holman (23m 50s):

The way, he’s not wrong by

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 51s):

The way, by the way, Simon LA County LA County has 14 million, just, just the greater Los Angeles county

Sean P. Holman (23m 58s):

Where we are.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 59s):

It’s insane.

Sean P. Holman (23m 59s):

Yeah, amazing. Double that

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (24m 1s):

For his whole country. Yeah. Which

Sean P. Holman (24m 2s):

Is why overland and exploration adventure is so huge in Australia. I mean you think of all, you know, obviously I, I’ve got OVR magazine and Overlanding has been something that has taken off maybe in the last 20 years in the us. In fact, I built an a RB equipped forerunner fifth gen four runner when they first came out for Toyota’s booth at the 2010 SEMA show. And it’s funny, all these 400 guys were like, oh, I put a a 10 on my four runner. I’m like, I did that 20 years ago. You’re not first to it, right? Right. But back then it was, you know, I like to joke, we call it car camping. If you ever went in the station wagon with your grandpa down to your favorite fishing hole, you went off road a little ways and and you pulled out your Coleman cool.

Sean P. Holman (24m 43s):

You went overlanding. And at some point overlanding went from being a a, you know, verb. I’m overland to a noun, I’m an overlander. Right. You overlander what? Whatever. And so it’s, it’s funny because people think it’s this exclusive thing, but it’s not. But what’s amazing is South Africa and Australia had such a robust culture for what I would call self-sufficient vehicle based exploration. That all of the initial products that started this craze in the US came from you guys. Light force a RB I’m a huge fan of Red Arc. I use Red Arc in in my stuff. Rhino Rack I mean you just go down the list of all these great Australian, I think

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 22s):

The companies, I think the, though the difference is that Australian men are real men. Like we’re a bunch of puss over here. Yeah. I mean Australians, like they drink real beer, they got real women over there and they do real stuff off road. And we’re just like, everything is light. Like we have, we, we have Whi Wats on the back of our little Tacoma, you know, I don’t know. It’s kind of a parody of itself over here. Now I mean there are real people that do real things, but it’s not like a lot of posers. There’s a lot of posers over here for that’s for sure.

Simon Christie (25m 49s):

Listen guys, I I really wasn’t intending to take any pot shots at you guys with my comments, but now you guys are having a crack at yourselves.

Sean P. Holman (25m 56s):

Yes, we do that.

Simon Christie (25m 57s):

That, that’s good to hear.

Sean P. Holman (25m 58s):

We’re self-deprecating over here. You’ve

Simon Christie (25m 60s):

Also gotta, you’ve also gotta understand, whilst Australia is totally a very safe place to travel, we have got a collection of the worst things in the world that will try and kill you steaks, spiders, jellyfish, crocodiles, sharks. These are real things over here that we’ve gotta deal with. Now, it’s not as bad as people think, but it’s definitely something you’ve gotta consider. If you’re gonna come and set a barefoot into the, the bush, the wilds over here,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 25s):

Well you’ve also got some interesting laws. So here they’re just depending on what state you live on and of course you’re talking

Sean P. Holman (26m 31s):

About their lift laws over

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (26m 32s):

There laws. I’m getting that. So here, you know, we got 50 states and they all have different laws, but I think there’s like bumper height, things like that. But you can get a pretty damn big truck here. You know, you can roll on on 42 inch tires and it’s all legal. It’s not the case down in, in Australia where you guys have to have, you have to have roll bars. You’ve gotta have, there’s certain you can’t go over certain tires that the headlights can’t be over a certain height of the ground. Why, why don’t have Simon explain that for us? I’m gonna ask him like what the, what the laws actually are.

Simon Christie (27m 1s):

It, it’s insane what we deal with here. It it’s absolute, it it it’s just a mental state that we, that we have to deal with. So what happened a few years ago is the, the powers to be the brains trust brought in a law. Are you guys familiar with an automotive term from Australia called Hoon? Yes. So for any of the listeners who, dunno, hoing is all about burnouts, running wild, speeding, breaking the law, running red lights. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s doing stuff that’s a little bit of fun but, but can also be maybe pushing the boundaries of the law a little bit. The powers to be brought in a law that was un affectionately termed hoing laws. And the whole idea was to target lowered vehicles. Vehicles that were, that were lowered possibly for some reason that made them a little bit dangerous on the streets, et cetera.

Simon Christie (27m 47s):

And the people who were using those lowered vehicles for street racing and those types of things. The problem was that the way they worded the laws was it said a change in suspension of X amount. What that carried over to was that it also covered four Wheel drive lifts because a change in suspension of X amount covered not just lowering a vehicle but raising it. So four Wheel drivers came under target and people who were in their sixties and seventies who’d retired, they hooked up a caravan on the back of their vehicle. They had a mild lift and a, and a large set of tires fitted and they were going touring in a gentlemanly fashion around the country, which is hugely popular here. We’re being booked for these hoing laws because their vehicle inadvertently end up being raised a few millimeters higher than the legal limit.

Simon Christie (28m 33s):

So we’ve been facing that for many years here now, trying to work out, trying to get some solidarity, some some equality between the states because the states enforce it in different ways, trying to get some standards met, but also trying to get some engineering around the opportunity of how we can lift vehicles higher than 75 millimeters. So three inches, whether it’s suspension lift a body lift and what you get out of tires, three inches is the maximum lift without a specific engineer certificate. Here you’ve also then got limits on the tire size. So for us to get a 37 inch tire legal on the roads, we have to go through a huge amount of specific testing, engineering expense and sign off.

Simon Christie (29m 13s):

And most engineers actually won’t just do it. So we’ve got a, a friend who’s got a little Suzuki, his engineer has turned around and said the largest tire I’ll engineer on that vehicle. Even though he is upgraded the differentials, he’s upgraded the brakes to basically the strength of what a Hilux has. He’s only allowed to have 31 inch tires on his Suzuki.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (29m 34s):

So

Simon Christie (29m 36s):

E exactly right, exactly right. So it’s very frustrating. It’s very difficult, but it does limit hugely what we do. And, and getting back to what you guys were talking about, that huge culture we’ve got around the utilities, the pickups and towing and going out into the wilds over landing, touring, et cetera. That really brings us to an interesting topic where Australia has a mad fascination with towing. Towing, big heavy caravans, hybrid campers, camper trailers, taking these huge loads off around Australia. And we’re now seeing this mentality get a little bit out of control where people are, they’re, they’re putting a boat on the roof of the vehicle, they’re putting a caravan on the back, they’re trying to fit a side byside, a motorbike and a quad bike somewhere as well.

Sean P. Holman (30m 17s):

Sounds like a sea display, doesn’t it?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (30m 19s):

Hold On a second. But Simon, that’s been going on in the US for forever and ever. I remember the weekend warrior was a company out of Paris, California, A-P-E-R-R-I-S Paris. They were making like 40 to 45 foot fifth Wheel trailers, triple axle trailers that would go on the back of their, and they were saying that they would weigh like, I dunno, 25,000 pounds. It turned, they got sued into oblivion because they were like over by five or 6,000 pounds and they were breaking differentials, they were breaking all

Sean P. Holman (30m 49s):

Kinds of, well

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (30m 50s):

Imagine mention this is

Sean P. Holman (30m 51s):

Like a travel trailer that had a garage in the back. So it’s like the front half would be your living quarters in the back would be the garage with the ramp and you drive your vehicle. And they were overloading these things. It was like a a a a small semi trailer for us going down the road, which is hilarious.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 3s):

Well I mean the, a normal like feather light or a, a big rig would be 50 foot, right? Something like that. And so these are almost

Sean P. Holman (31m 12s):

Like a semi trailer. Yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 13s):

Yeah. No, no, I agree. But, but like potentially just as much weight is crazy. We’ve been doing that forever.

Sean P. Holman (31m 18s):

I’ve seen picture. Well I I think we’re all about excess even when it comes to overloading way past gross vehicle weight rating here. I’ve got a Wrangler 3 92 all set up for overlanding and it, it weighs almost 7,000 pounds when I’m fully equipped for when I go. But it has a V eight in it, so that’s good.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 36s):

It doesn’t really make up for the,

Sean P. Holman (31m 37s):

The, the axles and the brakes, the les No, I do have the right suspension on it, all that stuff.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 41s):

But so, but Simon, you’ve got companies making these amazing trailers. Like we are now importing some of these trailers and we see them at SEMA off-Road Expo and things like that. Patriot

Sean P. Holman (31m 51s):

Is one of those, they make a fantastic trailer. I personally don’t like towing anything off road because it’s, for me it’s misery. I’d rather have it all on my back. ’cause here in the States, you have to slow down. You have to go, like in California, we can’t go over 55 miles an hour, which is what, just under like 90 kilometers an hour or something like that. When we have a trailer, when we don’t have a trailer, we can be going 75, 80 miles an hour. So trying to get anywhere with the trailer’s miserable. And then out in the Mojave Desert, which is one of the, the most harshest environments in the world, I think it’s in the top seven harshest environments in our backyard, two hours away. There’s all sorts of boulders and washouts and, and different kind of terrains.

Sean P. Holman (32m 31s):

Crazy. I hate towing a trailer up and down through ravines and washes and all that. I just drive, and

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (32m 35s):

Dr forbid you gotta back up

Sean P. Holman (32m 36s):

Now, I’ll tell you I’ve done it with a Patriot and it’s like the X three is a fantastic trailer. The suspension, the way the hitch articulates love everything about it still doesn’t push me over the edge. There’s other manufacturers like Kimberly and some others that we have here in the states. And, and I’m always impressed with the amount of engineering that goes into Australian products. I mean, it’s just, it’s it’s fantastic. You guys have a lot of great problem solvers down there that really, you know, are, are equal to the things we need up, up in the states.

Simon Christie (33m 5s):

Our, our industry here is huge. It’s innovative, it’s absolutely on fire and it has been so for decades, which is one of the reasons why we are one of the countries leading the world in over landing, which you guys mentioned earlier. But that whole point of overloading these vehicles brings us almost full circle. Because the problem is that whilst we’re doing it with fantastic trailers and things, we’ve got down here in Australia, we’ve got much smaller vehicles than what you guys have got. So these little pickups are being grossly overloaded. There’s a huge issue with chassis cracking and them, them bending and snapping in the middle. Oops. And that leads us to a bit of a fascination, a a fairly strong interest we’ve now got with American vehicles GMC, Silverado, Ram, et cetera, who are being sold in good numbers down here in Australia.

Simon Christie (33m 52s):

So people actually want a rig that’s got a decent engine that’s got a much better towing capacity and is far more capable of towing these heavier loads. So for us, while you guys are still overloading them in the us for us stepping up to the American trucks is one of the ways that people are solving the problem of how and what they can tow here.

Sean P. Holman (34m 13s):

You know, Simon, it’s just about our time before you have mission creep and you’re just like us and then you’re gonna need bigger trucks.

Simon Christie (34m 22s):

Well, that, that’s already here. So I myself run an ICO daily. Oh wow. Which is basically a, it’s a, it’s a mini truck. It’s a smallest truck that I make and that is a incredible vehicle. It’s actually street legal on 30 sevens, which is a big deal here in Australia. It’s got triple diff locks. So a center diff lock front and rear diff locks from factory. It’s got a twin stick transfer case with a 100 to one crawl ratio and that with a payload of four and half, five and a half thousand kilos. And the new model is, is over 7,000 kilograms. That is a serious vehicle. So the Isuzu, the Hinos we’re, we’re seeing a whole range of trucks down here, which is now being secondary follow on from after the craze of the American trucks.

Simon Christie (35m 5s):

We’re sort of seeing a parallel now at the moment with people going into actual trucks for towing and overlanding or they’re going into the big towing rigs or they’re still overloading the, the mid-size pickups that we’ve got.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 19s):

What are you seeing as being the most popular imported full size? Is it gm, Ford, Ram? Are you seeing super duties? Are you seeing 25 hundreds? Are you seeing

Sean P. Holman (35m 29s):

And is it gas or diesel?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 30s):

Gas or diesel? And are you seeing dually like dual rear Wheel?

Simon Christie (35m 34s):

Yeah, look, there’s not a lot of duals here. We, we see a few, but it’s definitely not popular. They, they’re used for a few of the, the show builds and demo trucks and things like that. But we’re not seeing them on the road so much. The f trucks are starting to make a bit of a resurgence. They were big here back in the, the seventies, the eighties. They fell away for a while. They’re now back and starting to make a little bit more of a push. Ram would be definitely one of the top ones that’s doing well here. And that’s just been brought in in good numbers and being converted over to, to right hand drive for us. So definitely, I think Ram is one of the more popular ones.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (36m 7s):

How does that work for the conversions that are coming over? Like how do, take me through that just briefly. Does it arrive fully Americanized and you have to rip the dash out and such?

Simon Christie (36m 16s):

There’s two popular ways that it’s happening. So the, the easy and expensive way is that a, a company here in Australia and there are a number of them doing it, will bring in numbers of the vehicles, convert them across and then get them into dealerships. So that’s done locally in Australia. There are a number of companies who are doing it offshore. There’s Auto Group International, which is working outta Sri Lanka. They’ve just sent the Lincolns across. So like a luxury SUV type

Sean P. Holman (36m 44s):

Again, navigator Seven

Simon Christie (36m 45s):

Seven the navigator. That’s the one. The Lincoln navigator. Yes. And also they’ve just converted a stack of the Hummer EVs, which I can’t wait to see. Interesting. And hopefully get a Test Drive off. ’cause those things are like, got some crazy zero to 60. Oh,

Sean P. Holman (37m 2s):

They’re amazing.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (37m 4s):

Lots of freedom.

Sean P. Holman (37m 4s):

I’ve driven in it and it’s, it’s mind blowing. In fact, during development they had to tone down the motors because they were doing roosts of dirt, like out the back, like a, like a racing boat.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (37m 16s):

I thought they were doing Wheel stands. Well

Sean P. Holman (37m 18s):

They, yeah, and then they they were, yeah, Wheel stands front ends were

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (37m 21s):

Looking. Yeah, they were Hoing. Yeah, yeah. Literally.

Sean P. Holman (37m 22s):

Yeah. Straight from the, straight from the manufacturer. Now when you say dealer, there’s no RAM dealers down there, right? So who, what’s the dealer and who do people buy these from?

Simon Christie (37m 31s):

Oh, look, I’m not in the market for a ram, so I’m not familiar with it. But I think the, the same guys at TECO is one of the companies that’s distributing a lot of vehicles. So they’ve got LDB and a range of Chinese cars, but they’re also doing the Rams and a range of products, accessories for ’em as well through Upfitter, which is bringing in some gear from the EGR USA,

Sean P. Holman (37m 49s):

Do you guys have an influx of Chinese vehicles? We do everything we can to, to keep ’em out of here. And it’s, it’s a big point of national pride to, to not have them. But obviously your, your neck of the woods, I can imagine that there’s probably a, a, a fairly good import export business with China.

Simon Christie (38m 7s):

Yeah, look, we’ve got fairly good relationships with China and, and a probably a closer working understanding with the Chinese. You know, you’ve got a whole range of things with the big bad CCP right through to, they’re just normal human beings working in factories, doing normal things like we do. They’re, they’re, you know, struggling to get by. So there’s, there are multiple facets to that and I don’t wanna get into the politics of it all, but just to give you an idea of what’s happening here in Australia, there is a vehicle out on the market at the moment, which is selling like hotcakes. It’s crazy inexpensive. The quality of the build, the performance, the capability, the features of the vehicle are mind blowing for this year alone.

Simon Christie (38m 46s):

They’ve sold, which aren’t big numbers for you guys, but it’s big numbers for Australia. And I, and I’ll wind it back to give you a direct comparison, they’ve sold 2000 of those vehicles already this year. Now that doesn’t sound like a lot of vehicles, but when we flip that over and look at how many Jeep wranglers have been sold for the exact same period that’s 362. Wow. Okay. So 362 wranglers versus this other Chinese vehicle at 2000 units, it’s 30,000 Australian dollars less. And you’re getting a vehicle that is, it’s IFS front, but it’s front and rear diff locks. It’s beautifully appointed, it’s well built and everybody who drives one people love to hate on Chinese vehicles and Chinese made stuff, and I hundred percent understand why, but anybody who sits in this vehicle and then drives it goes Oh.

Simon Christie (39m 38s):

my God. It’s decent. It’s good. Yeah. And we can see why they’re doing so well. What

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (39m 42s):

Is it?

Simon Christie (39m 43s):

It’s a GWM tank 300

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (39m 47s):

GWM as in Mary Tank 300.

Simon Christie (39m 51s):

Tank 300. So in, in China they’ve been out for coming up to four years, they’ve got a tank, 300, a 400, a 500, a 700 and I think an 800. The stuff that is being done with these vehicles in China is just insane. The places they’re taking them, the way they’re abusing them, they’re racing them, they’re doing all sorts of mad stuff. Oh,

Sean P. Holman (40m 12s):

It’s not even ugly. It actually looks pretty cool.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (40m 14s):

You got it up on your computer. They

Simon Christie (40m 16s):

They’re actually, they’re actually not bad. And, and like I said, when you drive it, it’s a, it’s an incredible experience. I’m not trying to be pro one brand or, or one country, but that Tank 300 is actually gonna have a bigger impact on the global overland scene than any other vehicle in the past 10 years.

Sean P. Holman (40m 34s):

It almost looks like it’s a, it’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (40m 36s):

A big Jeep Jeep Li li a Jeep Liberty.

Sean P. Holman (40m 39s):

I was gonna say it’s a four-door, Suzuki chiney, but bigger with a little bit of like a Bronco vibe in the front end. I mean it’s not

Simon Christie (40m 47s):

Hundred percent, hundred

Sean P. Holman (40m 48s):

Percent not bad looking like, you know, I, I think the, the we, you know, we have our forbidden fruit over here in the US and one of those is the Suzuki chimney. Ever since the Samurai left our shores and, and the sidekick after that, the enthusiast Mark has clamored. If Suzuki ever got their stuff together and came back to the US market and they launched with Chimney, it would be a runaway success here. People miss having a true mini vehicle. But this thing is, it’s not I mean, honestly. I could

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (41m 18s):

See that on the four five freeway.

Sean P. Holman (41m 20s):

I could see the, I could see the appeal to it. Yeah,

Simon Christie (41m 22s):

We’ve got one set up here in, we’ve got, well we’ve got a couple set up here in Australia, but we’ve got mates that we were working with, one’s running one with 39 inch tires on it.

Sean P. Holman (41m 31s):

Oh wow.

Simon Christie (41m 32s):

And another guy is running portals, portal axles with 30 sevens,

Sean P. Holman (41m 37s):

The interior’s awesome. And those things, it almost looks like a Mercedes. Yeah,

Simon Christie (41m 41s):

They’re beautiful inside. Thi this is actually, this vehicle has led a huge campaign in China where we’re now seeing thousands and thousands of these vehicles sold in China. So a lot of people get products manufactured for the off-road industry worldwide. This is actually now the first time where there is a real four Wheel drive community in China. So. we are gonna see actually some really big changes in the industry over the next 10 years off the fact that’s China now has its own real well established and hugely popular off-road industry and off-road community.

Sean P. Holman (42m 17s):

I just don’t hate it. We’re looking, we’ve got a, a TV here in the, the podcast studio. And so I’ve got it up on, on the screen there and I’m looking at it and I’m going, that might be the first Chinese vehicle. I, I haven’t had some sort of horrible, visceral reaction to other than that thing’s pretty cool.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 35s):

If you did not know it was Chinese, you would argue with someone and say it’s an American build. They stole European, they

Sean P. Holman (42m 40s):

Stole, it kinda looks European like Italian to me. Does it? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it’s it’s cool though.

Simon Christie (42m 45s):

It’s also very important to know that apart from how the headlights look, it was actually released before Bronco.

Sean P. Holman (42m 53s):

Okay. All right. So the Bronco looks like the tank 300 is what I’m hearing,

Simon Christie (42m 58s):

Correct? Yeah. So yeah, it, it, it really is. And you’re spot on with your, your comments about the Suzuki chimney because it’s four, the people who wanted something small, agile and simple that was affordable to get into. And so it’s somebody who wants something that’s a little bit bigger than the chimney, but doesn’t want to go up and do hardcore wheeling like somebody who’d get into a Jeep. Yeah. But we’re seeing a huge market share being shifted from people who would buy Jeep to get around in the city to people who are buying this vehicle.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (43m 25s):

What’s the price point of this? Do you, do you know,

Simon Christie (43m 28s):

We’re talking 52,000 Australian dollars for a vehicle that’s fully featured. It’s got all the latest safety electronics and front and rear locking differentials

Sean P. Holman (43m 39s):

And I think that’s what like high thirties Americans, something like that.

Simon Christie (43m 43s):

Correct,

Sean P. Holman (43m 44s):

Yeah. I mean that’s, that’s really well equipped. It’s not bad looking. And if it has any sort of decent payload on it, I could definitely see why that’s popular. It’s very cool.

Simon Christie (43m 54s):

And and that’s the problem. It’s, it’s got an absolutely terrible towing and payload. Absolutely shocking. Yeah. Sorry. The pe it’s why the people who were looking at a Suzuki chimney are going, well, this is a little bit bigger. It’s still got the same payload and towing capacity, but at least it’s got, it’s at least it’s a little bit bigger.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (44m 13s):

Is it because they went with such soft suspension?

Simon Christie (44m 16s):

Look, the the suspension is so bad and this’ll terrify you guys early testing by journalists when that vehicle first came to Australia, showed that on a hard form bitumen blacktop road, if you absolutely jammed the brakes on as hard as you could at speed, the rear wheels left the ground for a moment.

Sean P. Holman (44m 38s):

I, I won’t say which vehicle it was, but I do remember testing a certain four by four SUV sometime in the, the late two thousands. What

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (44m 47s):

Was the name

Sean P. Holman (44m 48s):

Of it? I am not gonna say

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (44m 49s):

And what badge was on the notes? I

Sean P. Holman (44m 52s):

Believe that I wrote in my story that it was the first vehicle that I’d ever driven that exhibited wallow in ride harshness all at the same time. And it was one of those things where it was, it wallowed as you went down the road and then you’d hit an expansion joint and you’d feel it through your teeth. And I later talked to an executive at said company who had moved over from somewhere else and he was asking me like, what do you think of our product lineup? And I said, well, yeah, it’s pretty good. I there, but there’s this one. And he looks at me, he goes, yeah, I drove one of those not our best work.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (45m 23s):

And that had what Insignia on the center of the steering Wheel,

Sean P. Holman (45m 25s):

Like I said, it’s, it’s just a story for the, for the ether. I’m just throwing it out in the universe.

Simon Christie (45m 31s):

Yeah. That problem has since been fixed with some, a little bit of aftermarket suspension and, and not too much thought, just, just the coil right in the front end was too soft.

Sean P. Holman (45m 39s):

Which we, we love the, the aftermarket here we have sema, which is I think pretty unique in the world. I don’t know that other countries have this huge trade organization that protects our rights to accessorize our vehicles the way SEMA does. And a lot of Australian companies come here and promote it. I I think they see, you know, America as a, as a massive market. And we’ve seen more lately, in fact, a, a company that I was recently introduced to maybe about a year ago, Kakadu, I’ve been using some of their products, which I’ve become really fond of. There’s a lot of neat, neat stuff. And they’ve got this, this stove that is shaped like a bowling ball and it’s, it’s a wood stove for cooking and things like that.

Sean P. Holman (46m 20s):

And all the pictures are of it on a beach, right. And there’s water washing up and there’s this potbelly stove sitting there that you would carry in your vehicle. And I’m like, if I was gonna stay in the same place for a week, that’s what I would take with me. But I’m on the road, you know, on the go and new campsite every night typically. And I’m like, I can’t imagine having a giant stove with a chimney and all that. Where would I put it in my, in my Jeep. So that’s, maybe that’s why I need a trailer. You you,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (46m 46s):

Yeah. Big ass heavy trailer. Exactly.

Sean P. Holman (46m 49s):

You guys have all the toys down there, that’s for sure.

Simon Christie (46m 52s):

We’ve got plenty of toys, but SEMA is a, is a crazy experience. They fly me in every year as a trade consultant and global media judge. So I’m excitedly looking forward to, I think it’s gonna be my ninth CMO this year.

Sean P. Holman (47m 4s):

Awesome. We, we would love to catch up with you if, if our paths cross while we’re there. Well,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 10s):

Why don’t we have ’em come by EGR or something like that. Yeah. Oh I mean hell, they are not showing company. I’m sure

Sean P. Holman (47m 15s):

You’re familiar with EGR. They’re friends of ours and they support the podcast and we’re gonna be doing a show in their booth at sema, so we’d love to have you maybe come by. Yeah. Wow.

Simon Christie (47m 24s):

We’d love to be awesome.

Sean P. Holman (47m 25s):

Definitely.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 26s):

Yeah. I would love to have you. Hey, I wanted to ask about engineering. Obviously America, US is full of wonderful engineers, but it seems that in the off-roading space, we are often talking about Australian engineers. Like you’ve got sports cars and it seems the Germans own the sports car thing. Of course there are other sports cars coming out of other parts of the world, but the engines, it’s just spectacular. But Australia’s right there. Most people aren’t saying like, boy, those American sports cars, yes we know we got the new Corvette coming and things like that. There’s some impressive vehicles, but really it’s, it’s the Germans and the Australians. Why, like what?

Sean P. Holman (48m 2s):

Well, in fact, remember the new Ford Ranger that started over here and is our mid,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 7s):

It’s

Sean P. Holman (48m 7s):

Australian, it was engineered by the Australians for our market, for

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 10s):

The, so I’m just wondering culturally, where does

Sean P. Holman (48m 13s):

Simon engineering come from? Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 14s):

Where does it come from? Is it schooling? Is it like, is it cool

Sean P. Holman (48m 17s):

Necessity? Well,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 18s):

For example, right? You’ve been hearing probably Simon and we’ve talked about a lot on the show, is it trade schools are kind of dying off and auto shop classes are dying off in early middle school, high school. And so working with your hands is a dying art. Most of the young people think they need to go into dot com right into the tech sector, high tech electronics meaning, or I should say software, firmware, mobile app development, things like that. But they’re not going into like, how do I design a car? Boy, it’s my dream to come up with the world’s best carbon brake system, but the Australians are doing that. How and why?

Simon Christie (48m 58s):

Alright, so you’ve raised some, some really good points. The first thing to keep in mind is that, sure, there’s a lot of innovation here. There’s a lot of smart people and a lot of necessity for new products and innovation. But we’re a very small population So. we see a lot of failure in the innovative space. Not because the product’s not good, but because we don’t have the market to support it. So, we are hugely limited in capacity to financially support a lot of the innovation that we have down here. The second point you raised is we’re in the exact same boat. Kids are not gonna trade schools. Kids don’t wanna get their hands dirty, they don’t want to be working with metal, wood, whatever it might be. They’re looking for the easy answer, which is playing on their telephone.

Simon Christie (49m 39s):

So a hundred percent we’re in the same boat. What we see down here in Australia though is we’re isolated. We’re a big country. We’ve got a passion and interest in traveling, touring, and roaming around this big country. And a lot of the innovation comes from frustration with people not being able to get the product or not being able to import it at a price point that works for them. So they just go and design something that’s as good, if not better, or they go and solve their problem with an innovative solution and then they just work modestly to get that manufactured and to make it work. So that’s where it comes from. It just comes from our sheer isolation and our desperation to wanna solve problems.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (50m 21s):

I didn’t think about that. I mean that answers it. When

Sean P. Holman (50m 23s):

You think about it with a small, a small population, but a big landmass, you could think there’s, you have to be able to be, have some sort of self-sufficiency outside of the city, right? Not even talking about like automotive aftermarket or that kind of high level engineering that’s going to manufacturing, but just the very basic things of fixing something on your farm or your ranch or your mine or whatever. You, you probably don’t have a robust industrial base where you’re gonna go out and buy it and it’s gonna be delivered in, you know, a few days or something. I would imagine that it’s, you know, again, necessity is the mother of, of invention. And I would imagine there’s a lot of necessity, especially in the outback I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (50m 58s):

Mean, I wonder if you guys have like your version of McMaster car, you know, in fabrication we have McMaster Carr, two words with a hyphen together. And that is a company that you can order any nut and bolt or any fastener, anything you’d, you would need to fabricate and they will get you anything you want the next day. And so you’ve got fabricators who are just like, I need a, a pulley, three pulleys, but one is mis sized and I need a misalignment here and a this and a that. And like, and they have it. Do you have resources like that there or is that what forces the innovation? Because guys have to make their own.

Simon Christie (51m 35s):

We do not have those amazingly awesome resources. Thanks for rubbing it in. So back when I started getting into off-roading, and I’m talking about far out, close to 40 years ago, I could go down to a shop just on the edge of the, the CBD, the city center of Melbourne. And they had a massive warehouse of nuts and bolts and you could get almost any nut and bolt combination that you wanted. That type of thing is now long gone. We’ve not now gotta go out to a specialist supplier out in the suburbs. And they’ll often have the basics, like the main things that you’ll want, but if it’s something specific, it might need to be ordered in.

Simon Christie (52m 20s):

And you’ve gotta go searching to find those shops and they, they’re not big retail outlets. You’ve gotta go round into the car park and go to the dock and ring the bell at a special door to get somebody to come and serve you. And you’ve gotta probably phone your order through before you get there. That those days for us are, are long gone, unfortunately.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (52m 37s):

I wonder why, why did it, you had it for a minute and it faded away.

Simon Christie (52m 42s):

You know, we are really struggling with local manufacturing. There are no actual domestic cars manufactured in Australia anymore. So with with Ford and, and Holden being the two primary ones with them gone, there are no cars being made here. So it’s,

Sean P. Holman (52m 57s):

And that’s within the last, what, five, 10 years or so? I mean that’s fairly new, right? Absolutely.

Simon Christie (53m 2s):

Yeah. Quite, quite recent. But it, but it’s disappointing and, and they were receiving government handouts and support the whole way through to keep them afloat. But with the vehicles, you know, most of the pickups that we have here and made in Thailand, mm, we, we’ve gotta keep pricing down. E even the Jeeps we get here, our Jeep Wrangler starts at around 83,000 Australian dollars. Wow. Wow. So, so even that’s getting cost prohibitive. The price for Gladiator is up, is up around a hundred thousand. So the prices we pay for vehicles here is, is pretty crazy. So getting, getting stuff here is expensive. But is

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (53m 39s):

The, and the, we, we wonder though, Simon, is the salaries, are they, are they in line or are these vehicles now just for the wealthy? For, for for example, like here, governor Newsom raised the minimum wage for fast food workers up to like 20, whatever it is, 20 something bucks, 20 an hour, right? You make more. But the, the, the vehicle or the, the thing you’re trying to buy also goes up as a result of those higher wages. I I’m wondering if the average person can afford those vehicles or are they for the elite?

Simon Christie (54m 13s):

So we’ve got an interesting situation here in Australia, and again, I don’t wanna get too political, but let’s just say the cost of staff and I’m a business owner, the cost of staff is too high. The cost of running a business in Australia is too high. And the levies and taxes and the impacts, especially on small business applied to us by the government is ridiculously excessive. So there are a whole range of factors that make manufacturing in Australia not impossible, but extremely difficult. And, and they are mainly financial pressures and yeah, wages in Australia are pretty decent. Definitely.

Sean P. Holman (54m 49s):

Sounds like California

Simon Christie (54m 50s):

Paid,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (54m 51s):

You said. Well you said that wages are decent though. Well that’s

Sean P. Holman (54m 54s):

What I’m saying is that that’s manufacturing. California used to be all manufacturing. We built, you know, planes and cars and, and bombers and ships and everything. And almost none of that is here anymore. And the wages have gone up. So if you get a job, you get paid decently. Yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 8s):

But we have SpaceX and Tesla. Oh

Sean P. Holman (55m 10s):

Wait, Not anymore. They’re going

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 12s):

To Texas. I know. That’s why I brought it up. Yep.

Sean P. Holman (55m 14s):

So we’re, we like to shoot ourselves here on own. Wait, wait, what do,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 17s):

Do you guys think of Mr. Elon Musk? I gotta know,

Simon Christie (55m 22s):

Look there, there’s varying opinions and it, and it’s very personal down here. I’m, I’m gonna put it down to, and you may or may not like this, but I’m gonna equate it to Trump. There are people who love him and people who hate him. But in my humble opinion, I believe that the world needs some crazy people who are left of center and who are out there to have a crack at things that other people see as being too difficult and too hard. And who will open doors, make opportunities and solve problems that other people aren’t going to.

Sean P. Holman (55m 53s):

I like that. I think we, in other words, we need some crazy people to break the status quo up. And I’m o I’m okay with

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 58s):

That I mean, I was talking to like Gamble, who used to one of the guys who I work with and he worked at Rocket Dine and they launched rockets. That’s what they did. And and he’s like, if we could launch a couple per year, couple of these rockets with satellites into the year, that was a big deal. A couple meaning like less than five. And here’s SpaceX doing like five a week and on

Sean P. Holman (56m 20s):

On multiple, on multiple coasts,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (56m 21s):

Then on multiples and then landing them on a barge.

Sean P. Holman (56m 24s):

So I grew up

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (56m 25s):

In the middle of the ocean.

Sean P. Holman (56m 26s):

I grew up with a bunch of Boeing and McDonald Douglass engineers in who were part of Delta and the Rockets and all that. And I remember and I worked at Boeing for, for a a spell. You did. And I remember people Yeah. And I remember people saying Elon was crazy ’cause you could never reuse a rocket by landing it on a barge in the ocean. Well, here we are. Right?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (56m 45s):

So

Sean P. Holman (56m 45s):

I I mean I love that the guy does the things that people say like it’s a challenge to him. So I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (56m 50s):

Wanna use that as a segue, Simon, to get into electrification because you know, we’re you, you brought up that you’re getting some Hummer EVs down there and that’s gonna be a big deal. What’s the Tesla scene down there? Are there any cyber trucks are you feel about Rivian? I was

Sean P. Holman (57m 3s):

Gonna say the other thing is with you guys having such an an, an adventure as part of your lifestyle and, and your, your DNA down there, the big hit for us on electric vehicle vehicles outside of California is the infrastructure. But inside California is just range I mean. Rivian Hass done a great job of making a great vehicle, but while it’s off-road capable and has decent range as far out as you want to go, you may not be able to get back. Do you guys have some of the same infrastructure issues down there?

Simon Christie (57m 30s):

Yeah, look, it’s definitely charging for us. We’ve got a a a massive amount of land that’s just uninhabited and putting charging stations out there is is just, it’s not gonna happen. And there’s plenty of memes going around in Australia where there is a remote ev charging station with a massive diesel generator behind it running it.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (57m 48s):

Yes, we have those two,

Sean P. Holman (57m 50s):

We have those memes here in the us It, it happens. Oh,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (57m 52s):

We’ve got the Prius with on the, on the the hitch in the back. It’s a hundred generator. Generat. Yeah, generat. Yeah.

Simon Christie (57m 58s):

The, the big issue with EVs for us is, is not so much the range, it’s not so much the technology like, you know, it, it’s a split for me. I’m, I’m looking at it and the amenable, the, the, the what’s available on command instantly is, is exciting for an automotive enthusiast. Oh, for

Sean P. Holman (58m 13s):

Sure. The

Simon Christie (58m 14s):

Loss of cubic inches and the sound and rumble of a big gasoline V eight is, is something I never wanna lose. I can see both positives of it. I think the real positive and what I’d like to speak about here, especially in Australia, it’s not about the technology, it’s not about the limitations of charging or the limitations of the vehicle itself. Tho all those problems will be solved in time. The problem that we’ve got here is that there is a massive political agenda that they wanna see X amount of electric vehicles in our lives, in our country by a certain date

Sean P. Holman (58m 46s):

Mandate. We

Simon Christie (58m 47s):

Don’t have the infrastructure. We, we don’t have the infrastructure, we don’t have the charging capacity, we don’t have the electrical ability to cope with that many vehicles. And it’s all spirited by these left wing green wannabe tree hugging do gooders.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (59m 3s):

We Whoa Whoa, don’t worry. I wanna hear from him. We’re in

Sean P. Holman (59m 5s):

The same

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (59m 6s):

Boat. I know. Let him finish Hold On a second who

Simon Christie (59m 8s):

Are sipping their lattes in cities and have no understanding of people who are passionate about automotive or actually people who go outside the cities to do things. They are pushing their agenda, they are being heard and they are driving this change, which realistically, when you look at the carbon footprint of what it takes to make an ev car, especially the battery and the lifespan of that battery itself, how regularly or how many years it needs to be replaced, the carbon footprint of a carbon based diesel gasoline vehicle isn’t so bad in comparison. And the follow up to that is the, the ethical aspect of the way that these batteries are manufactured.

Simon Christie (59m 51s):

And it’s really important issue too, because who’s manufacturing or who’s mining most of the ingredients to make these batteries? The Chinese. So it’s, it’s like the ethical dilemma for these Cafe la green thriving, city dwelling people who, who wanna save the environment. And, and let’s really be factual about it. What is the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere? I think it’s 0.04%. And if it gets below a certain level, everything on earth dies. So how much CO2 do you wanna take outta the environment? Because it’s not at a threatening position, global change, warming ice caps, melting ice ages.

Simon Christie (1h 0m 32s):

This is just a natural cycle of the earth. And let’s, let’s get the facts right. If the world was sinking and we’re all gonna be flooded and washed away by these melting ice caps, why would the banks be lending millions and millions and millions of dollars to people who are buying beachside properties? Because the banks know their investment is safe. They’re not gonna lose the beachside properties. It’s just a natural cycle. And this global warming is just an insane push falling on from acid rain, from all the other things we’ve had for, for many, many decades now to frighten and scare Mongo us into paying more taxes or putting more money into the environment or doing things that the government wants to achieve.

Simon Christie (1h 1m 16s):

So my standpoint on this is pretty clear that it’s a, it’s an agenda. It’s unnecessary. Are you sure

Sean P. Holman (1h 1m 22s):

You’re an American Simon

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 1m 24s):

Hold. On a second. Simon Holman is putting lipstick on So. we can kiss you right now.

Simon Christie (1h 1m 30s):

Are

Sean P. Holman (1h 1m 30s):

You, are you sure we’re not brothers from another mother?

Simon Christie (1h 1m 33s):

Oh look, realistically, you know, we see, I I’m not surprised that you guys are on the same boat. It’s an agenda that we are facing right around the world. It’s, it’s a whole push that people who are people who go forward driving, people who go hunting, people who live off the land, people who understand life and death and the reality of the meat we eat, for one example, we’re like just in absolute shock and horror of the agenda of these people and what they’re doing to save the planet. It’s, they’re the most anti-environment, culture killing, planet devastating people you could ever meet. And they think 100% their hearts believe they’re saving the planet and they’re not.

Simon Christie (1h 2m 16s):

They’re screwing us all over.

Sean P. Holman (1h 2m 17s):

You are so correct.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 2m 20s):

Industry has always guided the future in not laws, right? You or you, you can’t legislate trends, you can’t legislate the, the people’s will, right? For example, if, if the US decides that it likes something and it becomes, and it’s profitable, it will go that direction. If companies can make money at something, right? They will. And so what I’m saying is eventually the range will get there. If there is money to be made in, in selling electric vehicles, right? Or selling energy or whatever, like it’ll find its way. But to, to keep mandating, legislating things, it’s just gonna piss people off.

Simon Christie (1h 2m 59s):

100%. 100%. And you’re right, the, the technology’s not there yet. And the, the whole agenda behind it is, is false, misguided and unethical in my opinion.

Sean P. Holman (1h 3m 11s):

Yeah, I think you have to look at the full picture. I think too many people are legislating technology without knowing what actually goes into it, right? Like they’re saying you have to do x Well, X hasn’t been invented yet or it’s not possible under today’s, you know, technology to get to X quite yet. So in California, you know, we need more power plants. So they’re trying to put solar in everybody’s houses and there was a, a standard nm 2.0 net metering that paid you like a one for one for what you’d put back in the grid. Well now that they want all these solar panels because they need people to have, you know, cars either want the, to meet the EV mandate, they want you to be able to charge at home and have batteries. Now the new system pays you 25 cents on the dollar for what you give back to the grid because utilities can’t possibly go out of business by all of these, you know, solar panels.

Sean P. Holman (1h 3m 56s):

So it’s, it’s a, it’s a machine that eats itself sometimes and it’s frustrating and you know, again, I, I don’t hate it, but I don’t want somebody to tell me what my needs are. I think I should be able to decide what my needs are.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 4m 10s):

It’s interesting, like, you know, if you have a drug problem, you usually think it’s just you. If you’re an alcoholic, you think no one understands me, it’s just me, right? I have a disease, I have a weird wart on my forehead. It’s just me. No one, no one gets it. But we feel, I feel like this is an American, an exclusively American issue, right? The EV promotion and, and here he is. You guys can’t seem like we can global. Here’s Simon shaking his head right?

Sean P. Holman (1h 4m 37s):

No, you look at all the car manufacturers around the globe and they’re all trying to jump into the same thing. And our, you know, we have finite supplies of certain rare earth minerals and metals and they’re strip mi what about all the environmental damage from the strip mines and things like that because they’re trying to keep up with it. It it’s just, it’s it’s too much too fast

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 4m 55s):

Being a journalist. Simon, what are you feeling? What does your gut tell you about the Toyotas of the world where Mr. Toyota was pacing himself? He’s very rolling this out slowly. They were the first with the Prius to huge success. But also he’s like, I’m not gonna jump in with both feet until he’s moved out of the throne So to speak.

Simon Christie (1h 5m 17s):

We’ve seen a lot of manufacturers pop up out of nowhere and come into the EV space as a new manufacturer. So there’s, there’s definitely a good flood there. We’re seeing a very moderate handover and we’re seeing some manufacturers actually refuse to get involved and refuse to do it. So I think there’s, you’ve, you’ve gotta stay in the market and, and that’s what Toyota’s doing. We, I’d love to see a, a lot more pushback from manufacturers. I’d definitely like to see that personally. But you’ve gotta give the market the direction it’s going and, and, and like you said, there’s, there’s that need, there’s that trend there. There’s that opportunity and electric car around town. It is very hard to beat. Very hard to beat.

Simon Christie (1h 5m 57s):

I dunno enough about the specifics of the long-term plans of Toyota to really comment on it. But I, I’d like to, I’d like to think that they’re gonna stay with the, the gasoline diesel options as long as we possibly can.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 6m 9s):

I figured the Holman that he was just gonna poke fun at us dumb Americans for like pushing

Sean P. Holman (1h 6m 13s):

The No, we’re brothers

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 6m 14s):

And yet we’re here.

Sean P. Holman (1h 6m 15s):

They’re in the

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 6m 16s):

Boat with the identical problems.

Sean P. Holman (1h 6m 18s):

Now have You Heard of the Toyota 1 6 90 ratio before Simon.

Simon Christie (1h 6m 23s):

No.

Sean P. Holman (1h 6m 24s):

So Toyota came up with this thing and it’s actually kind of interesting. So basically they call it the one six ninety rule and it suggests that you can have the materials for what one battery electric vehicle or you could have six plugin hybrids or 90 non plugin hybrids. And their point was, in this world of finite resources, why are we spending all the money making these massive ev and giant battery packs when we could pair ’em with hybrids and we can make those minerals and, and those components and ingredients to make a battery last longer. ’cause you could get one for six or even one for 90 depending on the vehicle you build and you start looking at it in that. And I, I feel like hybrids make a lot more sense as a transition while we figure the rest of this stuff out.

Simon Christie (1h 7m 8s):

You are 100% hitting the nail on the head. So again, going back to one of these Chinese vehicles, we, we spoke earlier about the tank 300. We got to drive a tank 500 not that long ago and that, and that takes the interior and luxury to a whole new level, way above the tank 300. But it was a hybrid and everybody who drove it was blown away by the performance we were getting outta that 176 kilowatt additional electric engine. And the convenience side of it was that it was regenerative. So as you braked it was putting power back into the battery, but also as you drove it on petrol on gasoline, it was charging the battery as well.

Simon Christie (1h 7m 49s):

So for a five day trip, we didn’t have to plug it in and charge it anywhere. Yeah, it had battery capacity the whole time. So it was, it was a perfect balance. It made absolute stalking use of the available power from the electric motor. It was awesome to drive. But you had the reliability, the confidence and the simplicity that it was still a basic petrol motor.

Sean P. Holman (1h 8m 11s):

The, the take 500 kind of looks like a prodo or a Lexus GX for those of us over here. Correct. It’s kinda the, the the vibe of it. A hundred percent. Yeah. So if you’re trying to imagine that when you’re listening to the podcast. Alright, I wanna switch gears and I wanna find out. So Melbourne and Sydney are not too far from each other. Sydney’s on the east coast of Australia. Melbourne’s on the east south kind of corner. If it’s shaped like a boomerang, pun intended, it would be on the, the bottom of the tip of the boomerang on the right, basically if you’re looking at it right. I don’t understand what you’re saying, but, but Perth, which is opposite of Sydney on the west coast, Darwin to the north there are, I’ve only been to, to Sydney. I need to get out to Australia.

Sean P. Holman (1h 8m 51s):

It’s one of my places that I absolutely, I’ve, I’ve missed three trips in my 25 year career as a journalist to go do an outback trip with where wow. Australian company said, Hey, come one of them. My first kid was being born, one of them I was going and my boss decided last minute, he thought it was a better trip for him. And then the other one I was already booked on. So I’ve, I’ve missed You know what You know what I’m hearing Loser. No, no, no. What you’re hearing is Sean needs to go to Wheel in Australia again at some point. Are you trying to talk him into touring you around the country? Because I’m like, unlike you, I don’t ask for free things on every episode. Ah, oh, I see. No, so I’m curious as, as an American who I think most Americans probably most familiar with, Sydney, maybe Melbourne, where is the best?

Sean P. Holman (1h 9m 37s):

Because there’s desert, there’s tropical forest, Australia has it all. Where are the gems that an average American wouldn’t know about that they should travel to a visiting Australia?

Simon Christie (1h 9m 47s):

That’s a, that’s a really interesting question. So Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, we, we class that as the east coast of Australia. Melbourne is 900 kilometers from Sydney and 1800 kilometers from Brisbane, so that’s traveling north. And we are about three and a half thousand kilometers from Perth, traveling from Melbourne to the, to the west. Victoria, I’ll start with Victoria. Victoria has I mean apart from driving into the ocean in any direction from, in any direction where I live in Melbourne, within an hour I can be at a waterfall on a blanket sipping champagne and eating strawberries with my girlfriend.

Simon Christie (1h 10m 33s):

Or I can have my vehicle on its roof within, within an hour, within an hour of the, the, the city center So, we are surrounded by forests and tracks with great public access and, and places where we can go and do some wheeling within three hours, two and a half hours to the east of Melbourne. We’ve got the Victorian high country, which is the Alps of Switzerland. It’s, it’s our big mountain range. And that’s snow every year, not all year round, but snow during the winter months. And that has some amazing terrain, scenery off-Road challenge campsites. It, it’s a beautiful iconic spot of Australia to the west of our state.

Simon Christie (1h 11m 14s):

And again, only three, four hours in the opposite direction away from the high country. We’ve got desert where you can get into to red sandy deserts and experience traveling through the desert. You’ve only gotta go another 4, 5, 6 hours out of Melbourne and you’re in the outback red sands goats, wild animals, camels and sand dunes for forever. Anywhere you go to in Australia, you’re not far. It’s not, it’s not a far drive to get to some really decent hardcore offroading, some beautiful scenery. We’ve got opportunities and access out of most of the capital cities. Perth, you’ve gotta travel a little further. Typically you’ve, you’ve gotta put in for of four hours of driving to get to somewhere where you can go and, and have some nice scenic wheeling, but they’ve got access to beautiful beaches you can drive on.

Simon Christie (1h 12m 3s):

We’ve done trips where out of Melbourne, we’ve done 4,000 kilometers in four days to get to the opposite top left corner of Australia and then shot 20 episodes in 18 days and then done 4,000 kilometers in four days to get home. Wow. So So, we do, we do a lot of traveling and, and doing kilometers and, and doing a thousand kilometers a day for a driver here in Australia is, is no big deal. People do it every day

Sean P. Holman (1h 12m 30s):

And you’re pulling a damn trailer

Simon Christie (1h 12m 33s):

And you’re doing that to towing a trailer with

Sean P. Holman (1h 12m 36s):

A canoe on the roof. Right. Okay. Question for you, ’cause I was looking through some of your, your videos and some of the content you had online, you know, us Americans, and I’ll actually bring this up before we end with you because I’ve got a list I want you, I wanna run by you. But one of the things, you know, our fascination with firearms here in the United States and I saw you with a very, very nice rifle, all tact, tactical out, all that look great. And I’m thinking, hmm, well what are the laws down there? Do they have, well you, you, you can get guns in Australia, but you have to have a permit and you have to show why you need the permit. So it’s not like pervasive like here. So I would imagine a a guy like you, like likes cars, self-sufficiency, eating meat, you probably might like guns too.

Sean P. Holman (1h 13m 21s):

What’s that like being in Australia and and how do you get your fix

Simon Christie (1h 13m 24s):

It? It’s good and it’s bad. We, we have a a a pretty strong firearms industry down here in Australia. We’ve got a number of people manufacturing firearms and there there’s a really strong culture for, for hunting and, and being outdoors that pretty much goes under the blanket and is sort of kept away from the general population. And most people, if you mention at a dinner party that you’re a hunter or you’ve got a gun, you’ll be scoured upon. People will have a crack at you and, and you’ll be judged. So you’ve gotta be careful who you speak to down here, which is really sad. Putting that into perspective though, we’ve, we’ve got a small population. We’ve got over a million licensed firearm owners out of the 26 million people we’ve got here in Australia, and we’ve got about 4 million firearms that are legally owned by civilians.

Simon Christie (1h 14m 13s):

So it’s still a relatively popular pastime and we are starting to see a surge in popularity with the rate of new licenses increasing. Whilst that’s happening though, we’ve got the same woke agenda we are facing with EVs, with our access to the forest with every aspect of life. They’ve just banned specific calibers in Western Australia that they fe are not fit for civilian ownership. So people who’ve had a decent collection have lost half their firearms. They’re limiting the number of firearms that a civilian can own. It’s slightly higher for if you have a farming property, but they’re being limited as well. We are seeing a push for a registry on ammunition.

Simon Christie (1h 14m 54s):

So if you go into purchase ammunition from a gun store, you always have to show your license, your firearms license. But now they’re saying that they’ll have to, they wanna, they wanna put in place a system where the seller, the retailer has to log onto a system and register the ammunition as you purchase it against your firearms

Sean P. Holman (1h 15m 13s):

License. So, we have to do that in California now. It’s horrible. Yeah.

Simon Christie (1h 15m 16s):

So it’s getting, it’s getting pretty tight, but, but the situation we have is that it, it’s pretty easy to get a firearms license, but you do have to have a license. All your firearms have to be legally registered to get a firearms license. You have to have a reason to, to shoot. And, and that is really not a hard thing. It’s pretty much saying, we have places here called National Parks, you’re not allowed to shoot. We have places on the other end called State Forest where it’s legal to take your dog. It’s legal to camp anywhere. It’s legal to have an open fire as long as it’s not a fire ban and it’s legal to shoot. So if you say I’m hunting feral animals in a state forest, that’s all you have to put down on the form. And that’s perfectly acceptable. So it’s easy to get a license. That license will entitle you to what’s called a category A and B license, which covers shotguns, but no pump action shotguns.

Simon Christie (1h 16m 3s):

They’ve been banned here. Oh

Sean P. Holman (1h 16m 5s):

Man, it covers air. That’s what protects my house. Well one of the things I wonder why pump action, like why, why, and you hear somebody else outside your door and you go ch they they leave real quick. Lemme tell you.

Simon Christie (1h 16m 17s):

I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll tell you that the quick story in a minute. It covers shotgun air rifle and cent fire firearms and rim fire rifles. And, but all of those cannot be automatic or semi-automatic. They must be single action use. So you’ve got to either operate a bolt, you’ve gotta operate a pump for the rifle or a lever action, or now we have straight pulls. We even have button operated ones, which are spring loaded. You pull the trigger, press a button, it reloads, and you pull the trigger again.

Sean P. Holman (1h 16m 46s):

Wow. There’s always a way, isn’t there?

Simon Christie (1h 16m 49s):

There’s a way. So we had a, we had a mass shooting down in Tasmania, and this has been covered many times, so I’ll brush over it quickly. The response from the government was that a lot of people have died, we’re gonna ban semi-automatic firearms, immediately there’s gonna be an amnesty and you’ve gotta hand in all your semi-automatics. So I, I lost a number of, you know, very special guns, a lot of people handed in guns. It was a very heartbreaking time for, for shooters.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 17m 13s):

And you didn’t get any money and didn’t do anything. You got no money in return. Right. You just,

Simon Christie (1h 17m 16s):

There, there was some, there was some money in return, but it, it

Sean P. Holman (1h 17m 20s):

Pales the comparison to the loss of value that of your guns. Yeah. Correct,

Simon Christie (1h 17m 23s):

Correct, correct. So it, it hurt shooters and hunters a lot. It really upset a lot of people and, and it made the community feel a lot safer. But it had zero impact on the numbers of shootings and Well,

Sean P. Holman (1h 17m 38s):

Right, because the criminals still have their guns.

Simon Christie (1h 17m 41s):

Correct. And look, I I’ll say outright that most Australian shooters are actually relatively happy with the licensing and the regulations. We we’re gonna do 28 days permit to purchase if we wanna buy a firearm. So you’ve gotta put in a permit and then you’ve gotta wait a month at least 28 days before you get that permit back, which allows you to then go and purchase that firearm. I’m not unhappy with the way that the laws are, but it’s the continual attack and the changes to the laws and the increasing difficulty that we are facing that I’m very much up against. So off the back of that amnesty to hand in all the firearms, the group that got together, the committee that, that decided what the changes to the laws would be. I know word for word what was said and a lady stood up and said, we must ban the pump action shotgun because the visual action and the noise, it makes instills fear into the victims.

Simon Christie (1h 18m 33s):

Damn

Sean P. Holman (1h 18m 33s):

Right. it does.

Simon Christie (1h 18m 35s):

Therefore the pump action shotgun was banned. That’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 18m 38s):

Insane.

Simon Christie (1h 18m 40s):

That’s literally

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 18m 41s):

Like, I don’t like the look of tennis rackets.

Sean P. Holman (1h 18m 44s):

Ban ’em. I’m scared.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 18m 45s):

That’s nuts.

Simon Christie (1h 18m 46s):

So I own four pump action rifles and they’re perfectly legal, but a pump action shotgun is not allowed. And, and you’ve raised a really good point about the appearance. You, you don’t like the look of tennis rackets. We have laws in some of the states here in Australia that are appearance laws. So if your firearm appears, if it looks to be tactical, looks scary, it’s banned. It’s banned. There’s one state in Australia, Western Australia where it’s pretty much, you can have a nice hunting rifle in timber. If you paint that rifle black, it’s now tactical and illegal

Sean P. Holman (1h 19m 26s):

Becomes scary.

Simon Christie (1h 19m 27s):

That’s how dumb it is. So yeah, I’ve, I live in Victoria. We don’t suffer from the same appearance laws as other states. So you’ve seen me with some fantastic rifles. Those rifles are actually Australian made firearms.

Sean P. Holman (1h 19m 40s):

Couple beauties in there.

Simon Christie (1h 19m 42s):

They’re, they’re legal to own, but they are what we call a straight pull spring assisted bolt action rifle. So I’ve gotta pull the trigger, activate the, the slide, it’ll open the breach, eject the shell, I’ll let it go. A spring jams it shut and I can shoot again. So both of the same as a pump action.

Sean P. Holman (1h 19m 59s):

All right. Simon, I have created a list here and I want you to, we’ll go through, you don’t have to jump, you know, it doesn’t have to be long or anything, but I’ve, I found a few lists and I put one together of things Australians think are weird about America and then the reverse

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 14s):

Wait, wait, where did you get

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 15s):

What? And the reverse of that is ways America has bastardized Australia. And I want your comments. So the first things I’ll say is, are there beer

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 20m 25s):

Related in

Sean P. Holman (1h 20m 26s):

This? Well, Hold On. So first of all, I have to say that the first time I went to Australia, I thought to myself, man, I can’t wait to get there and see what the food is. This is gonna be great. I I love going to another country. I, I get off the plane, I walk out of the gate into the, the mezzanine and I’m confronted by KFC Subway What? Burger King McDonald’s? Yes. And Burger King is hungry Jack’s, okay. But it’s the Burger King logo. So you sit there and you’re going, wait a minute, this is all the same crap that we have at home. We have spread our, our fast food cancer to the rest of the world. So I’d like to apologize to you on behalf of America for doing that.

Sean P. Holman (1h 21m 6s):

And I also have a bone to pick because I’ve been told my whole life that when I flushed the toilet in Australia, the water goes backwards. Not true. It goes straight down. Oh, I have flushed many a toilet in Australia and every time it just goes blah, straight down, there’s no swirl. And I was fully expecting as a kid, I was told all these years, you go to Australia, water goes swirls backwards. I had my phone out, I’m ready for it. No, straight down. So that was definitely a disappointment when I was visiting Australia, I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 21m 31s):

Think. So you were the wrong, the wrong Louvre

Sean P. Holman (1h 21m 34s):

Maybe. Alright, so these are, these are things online that told me that said things Australians find weird about Americans. And so the first thing was lack of public toilets. Have you experienced that when you’ve come here, Simon?

Simon Christie (1h 21m 49s):

Maybe. I’m not sure. Normally when I’m there, I’m in Vegas where there’s, there’s plenty of hotels and casinos and there’s Right, there’s no problem with toilets.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 21m 55s):

Okay, well then pause there on that one because I’m dying to know I have a beef with like all of Los Angeles. If you are a tourist and you’re passing from say, San Diego up through Los Angeles and you’re going north, there are no rest stops. There’s there’s one, there’s one down by Ocean side Oceanside. Yep. All of Los Angeles, which might take you over two hours to get through. ’cause the traffic, there is literally no place to stop on any of the freeways at all. You have to get out, get out

Sean P. Holman (1h 22m 22s):

And find a gas station. You

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 22m 23s):

Gotta find a gas station to Denny’s or you know, some, some,

Sean P. Holman (1h 22m 26s):

So maybe that’s where this originated from.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 22m 27s):

That’s bs. Do you guys have rest stops along the highways?

Simon Christie (1h 22m 31s):

Yeah, we have plenty of rest stops. And also the gas stations, we’ll have food and toilets as well. So you’ve got thats covered. But yeah, there are rest stops along the way where you can stop regularly, you can park, you can stretch your legs, you can go to a toilet, there’ll be bins there for your rubbish, et cetera. And they’re off the highway in safe places.

Sean P. Holman (1h 22m 47s):

We have ours right on the highway in unsafe places. And yes, usually the trash is, hasn’t been emptied in a three or four weeks. Right. Alright. The next thing was, and we talked about a little bit was Australians find weird. Is Americans fascination with guns?

Simon Christie (1h 23m 2s):

Well, hang hang on a sec. Let, let’s, how about the first two? We’re going through this list. Okay. First of all, I think you’ve got a problem with the fascination of the toilet. I’m not gonna be stuck on my camera,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 23m 12s):

My feet.

Sean P. Holman (1h 23m 12s):

That’s true. It’s true. You’re,

Simon Christie (1h 23m 13s):

You’re not wrong to watch to watch the mess. I’m, I’ve just done drop away. The, the second thing is your cancer, your cancer spreading to from America with fast food to Australia. I don’t want you apologizing for that. I want you to apologize for the fact that we don’t have custard milkshake over here.

Sean P. Holman (1h 23m 32s):

Oh, we, oh Freddy’s, we have that at Freddy’s. Oh, so good.

Simon Christie (1h 23m 35s):

That’s yeah, we don’t, we don’t get that here. Oh, that’s,

Sean P. Holman (1h 23m 37s):

I’d love it. That’s, that’s special. Oh, that’s a good one. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 23m 40s):

But that’s not like a thing here though. I mean It is. No,

Sean P. Holman (1h 23m 43s):

It is. It is in different, not in California. Not California, but it is in the Midwest. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 23m 46s):

Yeah, I guess who’s, where do we go?

Sean P. Holman (1h 23m 48s):

You’re being California pomp right

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 23m 49s):

Now? No, no, no. You wanna, we what’s the burger place that you and I fell in love with? Culver’s. Culver’s. They have the custard, right?

Sean P. Holman (1h 23m 54s):

They have, I believe they do. And Freddy’s is the closest one in California that has it. Got it. There’s one in Barstow and then there’s a bunch on the Yeah, we’re

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 24m 0s):

Accused of of being California papas, which is probably true often because we, you know,

Sean P. Holman (1h 24m 5s):

Our point of reference is here, it’s all here. And we have an international audience and they are like, guys, not everybody lives where you live, you a-hole so well, but we just, we do, we we do what we do, we own it and we deal with it. Hey,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 24m 16s):

Can I ask ’em a side question about do they have CCWs there? Concealed weapon permits?

Simon Christie (1h 24m 21s):

You can get it, but it’s a lot harder to get. So it, it’s, it’s very, very difficult and you’ve gotta have very specific reasons or you’ve gotta be employed as a policeman or a security officer. So it, it’s possible, but it’s a lot harder to get. Got it.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 24m 33s):

Alright, Holman.

Sean P. Holman (1h 24m 33s):

All right, next on the list of things Australians find weird about Americans, things

6 (1h 24m 38s):

Australian boy weird about America gun

Sean P. Holman (1h 24m 41s):

Is adult fascination with Disney.

Simon Christie (1h 24m 44s):

What about the gun one? Oh yeah,

Sean P. Holman (1h 24m 45s):

Well the gun one was just American’s fascination with guns. And I’m like, yeah, okay, I own that. What, what do you guys think that’s weird or do you think it’s awesome when you come here and you go to Vegas and shoot a fully automatic machine gun for 50 bucks?

Simon Christie (1h 24m 58s):

It, it’s split So. we really, a lot of the shooters think it’s awesome, but like I said before, I’m really happy with the balance we’ve got. I think it does create difficulty for the average person to get their hands on a firearm and go and do something stupid. So our gun culture, you know, and, and I don’t want this to be seen as criticiz in the us We look up to you guys for so much, but we don’t have a lot of mass shootings. We don’t have any school shootings and we don’t have people shooting at our prime minister.

Sean P. Holman (1h 25m 25s):

Well you also, you also have a really, really epically tough immigration policy, which ours has not happened in the last several. Whatever you wanna say

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 25m 34s):

Though. He also doesn’t share borders.

Sean P. Holman (1h 25m 35s):

Well that’s the other thing. Yeah. You, you have to, you have to swim to get there.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 25m 39s):

No one’s taken a rowboat over to Australia, you know,

Simon Christie (1h 25m 41s):

So the, the thing about the firearms though is actually wanna flip that back onto you guys because Yeah, we, we are under attack and you guys are coming under attack for your firearms laws and firearms ownership. So what we do see though, the difference between Australia and the US is we see a massive amount of ridicule and hate from the US laughing at us saying that we don’t have firearms. That they, they can have semi-automatics, they can have automatics, they can have anything they want basically in, in a lot of states. So it, it’s actually a lot of hate and ridicule aimed at us from the US when I write back to these guys and say, listen mate, have you seen what’s happening in California and the laws and the changes there. Yeah, they’re coming, they’re coming for your guns too. So how about we stay unified and we work together as people who love guns.

Simon Christie (1h 26m 23s):

Whether we’ve got hundred percent a single action rifle or a semi-automatic, we should be working together and standing tall together. Not, you shouldn’t be, you know, riding across the ocean and ridiculing us and laughing at us. Agree. So that, that for me was the difference in the firearms culture. I, I

Sean P. Holman (1h 26m 37s):

Think, I think that’s a great point. And I also think that you’re right, we are, we are under attack. Fortunately we’ve got, we’ve got rights built into our constitution, even though the other side likes to change the language to eliminate those

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 26m 50s):

Are

Sean P. Holman (1h 26m 50s):

Eroding. They are trying to do that. But no, that, that’s a great point and that’s one of the reasons I wanted you to speak on it because I think most people think you can’t have guns there. And I was like, oh, you know, you can, so that, that’s great stuff. What’s next on your list? That would be the, the adult fascination with Disney.

Simon Christie (1h 27m 4s):

Yeah. Right. So you, you’re probably gonna hate me for this, but, but when, when you’re talking about Disneyland, I like to refer to my visits to disappoint me land long, long lines, dry Turkey legs.

Sean P. Holman (1h 27m 18s):

Yeah. Very dry and,

Simon Christie (1h 27m 19s):

And, and rides that aren’t that exciting. So huge commercialization. It it’s, I’d rather be out in the desert shooting cactus with a gun any day.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 27m 28s):

He’s one of us.

Sean P. Holman (1h 27m 28s):

Yeah. Alright, next thing is American’s fascination with hamburgers.

Simon Christie (1h 27m 33s):

Hamburgers are good. We’ve got a huge fascination with burgers here in Australia that is absolutely taking off. There’s a lot of viral videos about a thing called a smash burger.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 27m 40s):

Yes. They

Simon Christie (1h 27m 41s):

Throw the patty down. Yep. They’re

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 27m 42s):

Crushing that caramelize it.

Simon Christie (1h 27m 44s):

We are, we are seeing American and Australian hamburger joints popping up all over the cities like crazy. Love it.

Sean P. Holman (1h 27m 50s):

You guys have an amazing beef industry down there. There’s a lot of good Australian cattle in, in and beef in Australia.

Simon Christie (1h 27m 58s):

We’ve got some big cows, we’ve got some, we’ve got plenty of beef and we, and we love eating meat.

Sean P. Holman (1h 28m 2s):

And last on this list of things Australians find weird about Americans before we go to the other side is our fascination with American football.

Simon Christie (1h 28m 10s):

Yeah. Look, it’s pretty funny. You guys, you know, put on helmets, you put on shoulder pads, you have all this protective gear. Our blokes run out in the field and smash each other with nothing except the groin guard and the mouth guard. What’s, what’s wrong with you guys?

Sean P. Holman (1h 28m 23s):

Well, lots. But I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 28m 24s):

Told you we’re wimps. And then, and then now, now by, by the way’s, and they’re suing because they’re getting concussions and they’re getting brain damage later on.

Sean P. Holman (1h 28m 31s):

Listen, the, the, the Australians are, they’re just built different

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 28m 34s):

I they’re men, I’m

Sean P. Holman (1h 28m 35s):

Telling you. All right, I’m moving over to this other list. And this is things Americans have bastardized about Australia and I, I would, I would like things

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 28m 42s):

Americans have bastardized about Australia.

Sean P. Holman (1h 28m 45s):

Number one would be Outback Steakhouse.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 28m 49s):

Well, that’s embarrassing. That’s freaking embarrassing.

Simon Christie (1h 28m 52s):

We had, yeah, we had Outback Steakhouse in Hong Kong a few months ago and guys, it, it’s nothing like none of the dishes go, that’s, we don’t have this in Australia. We don’t eat it like that in Detroit.

Sean P. Holman (1h 29m 3s):

There’s no blooming onions there, right?

Simon Christie (1h 29m 7s):

No, no, no, no.

Sean P. Holman (1h 29m 8s):

All right. It’s delicious. The next thing is a Foster’s beer,

Simon Christie (1h 29m 13s):

Which

Sean P. Holman (1h 29m 14s):

My understanding is, is basically kangaroo piss to you guys.

Simon Christie (1h 29m 21s):

Oh, fosters has gone a little bit out of favor. Yeah, there’s there’s a lot of other beers that are drunk down here now and, and there’s a fairly, as you guys know, there’s a strong beer drinking culture. But Yeah, fosters has long gone

Sean P. Holman (1h 29m 35s):

Americans trying to reappropriate koalas and dingoes.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 29m 40s):

What do you mean trying to reappropriate?

Sean P. Holman (1h 29m 41s):

What are we doing with ’em? Well, we just, we

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 29m 43s):

We turning into stuffed animals and stuff

Sean P. Holman (1h 29m 45s):

Like that. Yeah. Stuffed animals. We take ’em into our zoos and things like that. And then we, we, you know, I don’t know, we just have this thing with koalas and dingoes, I guess.

Simon Christie (1h 29m 53s):

Look, they make fantastic crossbo targets.

Sean P. Holman (1h 29m 56s):

They

Simon Christie (1h 29m 57s):

I mean the stuffed ones, not the real ones.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 29m 59s):

That’s true.

Simon Christie (1h 30m 3s):

No, no problem at all with that. It’s great that you guys are celebrating some of our native species, although the, the bingos were introduced by the indigenous people. So they’re not really a true native, but they’re, they’re legally classified as a native.

Sean P. Holman (1h 30m 14s):

All right. Crocodile Dundee.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 30m 17s):

Oh, come on. Really?

Sean P. Holman (1h 30m 19s):

You gotta go there. I go

Simon Christie (1h 30m 20s):

There. That’s not a knife.

Sean P. Holman (1h 30m 21s):

That’s not a knife. That’s a knife. Yeah. Great. Okay. I had Vegemite and I can, I, I have to tell you like it’s, the thing about Vegemite is, but we

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 30m 29s):

Don’t have Vegemite here. I mean we, oh, you can get Vegemite. I know you can get it, but like, that’s not a thing. No, but

Sean P. Holman (1h 30m 33s):

What the thing is is everybody hears about Vegemite. They actually don’t know what it is or what it tastes like. And then they go to Australia, they’re like, I’ve heard about Vegemite my whole life. I need some Vegemite. And then you go, Ooh, no we don’t. No, no we don’t. So help us out here.

Simon Christie (1h 30m 48s):

Alright. Vegemite is definitely an acquired taste. We grow up with it. So, we used to it, it, it’s, it’s an absolutely foul substance. But, but it, it’s also delicious. I have a habit of spreading real salted butter and a thick slab layering a Vegemite on toast. And I, I love it. For most, it’s too strong, but if you do Vegemite the right way, it, it’s quite nice. So do it with butter and a very light, a very light brisk brushing of Vegemite. It’s quite nice. And

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 31m 20s):

What does it mean of it’s

Simon Christie (1h 31m 21s):

25? I did know, I dunno off the top of my head now, but it’s some, it’s some extract out of something that’s a byproduct of something else. I’d say

Sean P. Holman (1h 31m 29s):

It’s like a brewer’s yeast and then it’s got like additives to it or something

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 31m 33s):

Like that. Isn’t it funny how we expect poor Simon to be the expert on all things speak for all Australians?

Simon Christie (1h 31m 38s):

Well, I, I can tell you, I can tell you as somebody who goes to gym, that Vegemite is 25% protein. So it’s actually a good source of protein if you eat enough of it. Okay,

Sean P. Holman (1h 31m 46s):

Noted. Alright. The other thing that I found out, this maybe doesn’t quite fit in the list, you guys having a, a fascination with egg salad sandwiches down there, because I think whether I was in the airport or on a airplane, it was like everything I, everywhere I went they tried to hand me an egg salad sandwich or an egg sandwich was like, I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 32m 5s):

You sure? That’s just not a bad look of the

Sean P. Holman (1h 32m 6s):

Draw. It might be, I don’t know. I need to find out more.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 32m 9s):

Is that, is that true or is that bogus?

Simon Christie (1h 32m 10s):

Look, I don’t know. We have a fascination with them, but they are very available.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 32m 15s):

Oh hang.

Sean P. Holman (1h 32m 17s):

That was very diplomatic.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 32m 19s):

Alright, well should we end on egg salad sandwiches?

Sean P. Holman (1h 32m 22s):

I geez, we’ve only taken up four or five hours of his workday. I know know, he has to go back. He has three TV shows, right? I mean he’s gotta, you know, a

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 32m 29s):

Frizzy, he’s got bonafide celebrity on the horn here, Simon. Where can people follow along your antics? Gimme both personals Or if you, if you’re willing to share those, your Instagram, Facebook, and then four Wheel Drive tv. Where do we find you online?

Simon Christie (1h 32m 43s):

So if you Google four wdTV, you’re gonna find all of my platforms and, and myself. And then Simon Christie. Either Simon Christie on its own or Simon Christie. Four Wheel Drive, four Wheel Drive tv. You, you’ll get me personally, but Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, you’ll get us on all the normal platforms.

Sean P. Holman (1h 33m 1s):

Awesome. I’m, I’m serious. I would love to hook up with you, maybe even have a beer in, in Vegas if there’s time and if you’d be willing, we’d love to have you come back on sometime.

Simon Christie (1h 33m 10s):

Yeah, we’d love it guys. Absolutely. Awesome. We’ve had an absolute ball. Thank you so much.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 33m 13s):

It’s been quite a pleasure. Thank you.

Sean P. Holman (1h 33m 15s):

The pleasure has definitely been ours.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 33m 17s):

Problem guys. It’s been ours. Yeah. Yeah. It’s our pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for putting up with us. Yeah, A couple of jackasses.

Simon Christie (1h 33m 23s):

No problem. Like, like-minded automotive enthusiasts. Keep up the good work guys. Love it.

Sean P. Holman (1h 33m 27s):

We’ll talk to you soon. Thanks Simon. Thank you.

Simon Christie (1h 33m 30s):

Thank you everybody. Thank you.

Sean P. Holman (1h 33m 31s):

All right, bye.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 33m 33s):

Alright, Holman, it’s news time

8 (1h 33m 40s):

Live from The Truck Show Podcast news desk. It’s Sean Holman with Breaking up

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 33m 46s):

To the Minutes Truck News. Thank

Sean P. Holman (1h 33m 49s):

You. Lighting Whatcha doing?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 33m 51s):

I just cracked me up

Sean P. Holman (1h 33m 53s):

Dude. There’s so much stuff going on. We’ve have obviously haven’t done that much news lately ’cause Well we’ve been on the road and we’ve pre-recorded a couple shows. So do you want me to start with have You? Heard?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 34m 6s):

I suppose so. Sure. Oh, you need have I heard?

9 (1h 34m 10s):

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 34m 13s):

No, no, no, no I haven’t. So

Sean P. Holman (1h 34m 15s):

Pretty exciting. The Nissan Frontier gets a little bit of a freshening for 2025, A new front end that kind of is more reminiscent of the old hard body with the three slats in the leading edge. And then there’s this cool new color called Afterburn orange, which is like, it’s, it’s it’s retina searing along with the fresh and front end and the new color. The intelligent around view monitor with enhanced off-road view camera now works at higher speeds. I believe it’s up to 12 miles an hour now. I think before it would shut off at two or five. So you’d have this round view and then you’d go a little bit faster on the trail and it would disappear. So much more usable. Now check this out. The long Wheel based configuration, which was only available in one model, is available across the line.

Sean P. Holman (1h 34m 55s):

So you can now get the six foot bed, whether it’s a SL or SV or even a Pro four X, which is something they haven’t offered in a while. So that’s pretty cool. And the maximum tow rating’s been up to 7,150 pounds. So it’s about 500 pounds more across the lineup. And then on the inside we talked about it on from the spy photos, but it’s a new 12.3 inch touchscreen and they add wireless Android auto as well. And then comfort enhancements include new standard telescopic steering, Wheel two-way power lumber for the driver’s seat on SV grades and higher. And dude, they’ve got this new Wheel and tire package on the Pro four X that I love.

Sean P. Holman (1h 35m 37s):

The wheels are super cool. You know how the Maverick Lobo kinda had the turbines, you know that style where it’s kinda like a dish and then the outer edge has

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 35m 45s):

It, it looked like the rot deforms that were on my mini Cooper.

Sean P. Holman (1h 35m 47s):

So these kind of have that RoboForm look to them where, imagine if there’s like that dish in the middle except the fins are angled and then there’s spokes that were cut into it. It’s, it’s hard to describe.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 35m 58s):

I can’t picture,

Sean P. Holman (1h 35m 59s):

I’m gonna throw it up on the pod shed screen here. All right,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 36m 2s):

So these were called arrow discs I think back in the day, right. Audi was used. Something similar. Lemme take a look here. Oh wow. No, I’ve never seen anything like that. What world? They’re cool right in the world. Yeah. Holy,

Sean P. Holman (1h 36m 14s):

I I dig ’em. This is one of, in, in my opinion, this might be one of the nicest or more freshest if you will, freshly fresh as you like to say. Yeah. A factory Wheel tire package.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 36m 23s):

So if you had an arrow disc, which is a big flat surface with no openings and then you cut some pie shapes into it, but then you took the center and you twisted it and then those shapes and

Sean P. Holman (1h 36m 35s):

Then you had vents around the edges. Yeah. There’s no way to describe it. I think they look fricking hot.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 36m 39s):

Wow.

Sean P. Holman (1h 36m 40s):

It’s a cool looking Wheel.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 36m 41s):

This is a combination of a road Wheel, something you’d see on like a sports car. But the way they’ve cut it, it looks off roadie. That’s super

Sean P. Holman (1h 36m 49s):

Interesting. You know, the frontier has never been known for having a giant Wheel and tire package. I think there’s 32 inch tires, something like that. But for some reason it makes the, the Wheel and tire package look bigger. And then here’s the, the photo of the fresh and front end looking a little bit tougher now. And

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 37m 3s):

That’s the new orange. That crazy orange

Sean P. Holman (1h 37m 5s):

Color. Yeah. Yep. Huh. So, and then the interior also is, it looks great. I think they did a good job of integrating the, the, the new screen and it looks, definitely looks upscale and there’s a new applique on the tag

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 37m 18s):

Guitar. I like the frontier Dead center. Yeah. That’s, that’s really cool. Right, right below the monitor. Oh, I like those inlays. Are those new? I don’t recall those in the, the door panels. The orange in?

Sean P. Holman (1h 37m 28s):

No, no, no. The handles no. Depended on the model. But yeah, the Pro four X has had that before and it depended if you had leather or cloth before, so.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 37m 34s):

Okay. Gotcha.

Sean P. Holman (1h 37m 35s):

So anyway, super excited. And then they also have on the seats Oh,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 37m 38s):

That there’s

Sean P. Holman (1h 37m 38s):

A cools cool seat pattern where the color kind of shows behind Theh. It’s a very,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 37m 42s):

Very small perforation. Yeah. Where the colors coming through from the backside.

Sean P. Holman (1h 37m 46s):

So anyway, I think they did a great job on it and can’t wait to get behind the Wheel. Oh,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 37m 50s):

Are we gonna get one?

Sean P. Holman (1h 37m 52s):

Well, I don’t know that we’re gonna get one, but we’ll get one to drive. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 37m 56s):

Alright, cool.

Sean P. Holman (1h 37m 57s):

Hey, Lighting have You Heard?

10 (1h 37m 59s):

Yes.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 38m 0s):

Well

Sean P. Holman (1h 38m 1s):

Then why are we doing this again? No,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 38m 2s):

I don’t know. I had, yes, by accident,

Sean P. Holman (1h 38m 5s):

Speaking of 2025 enhancements, the Toyota Tundra TRD rally is a new decal package, but I think people are gonna dig it. So it’s gonna be called the TRD Rally Trim, and it’s based on the TRD off-Road, but it gets a bunch of cool decals like that, the three yellow, orange, red Toyota hashes that every Land Cruiser guy has. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 38m 25s):

Yeah. I see a lot of guys, like all the aftermarket sites sell their own version of that. Yeah. They’ve ripped off that little hash. So

Sean P. Holman (1h 38m 31s):

Toy Toyota said, hold my beer and we’re gonna do it too from the factory. Okay. For the 2025.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 38m 36s):

People love it. Yeah. It’s kind of nostalgic, right?

Sean P. Holman (1h 38m 38s):

Totally. So there it is up on the screen. It’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 38m 41s):

Like their version of like the BMW triple Yeah slash slash slash before

Sean P. Holman (1h 38m 46s):

The end it gets back to, you know, racing stadium racing with Ivan and things like that. Right. Damn,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 38m 50s):

That’s cool.

Sean P. Holman (1h 38m 51s):

It’s cool, right? Yeah, she’s a little splash of color.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 38m 53s):

I really, really like that.

Sean P. Holman (1h 38m 54s):

You know, it’s a, it’s a sticker and bag badge overlay.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 38m 58s):

Oh. But I like this. It’s on the, it’s on just above the rocker on the door panel

Sean P. Holman (1h 39m 2s):

And on the Wheel Center house

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 39m 3s):

And it’s on the Wheel Center ca. Oh, that is really good on them. Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (1h 39m 6s):

I think they did a good job. Just kind of a fun thing to, now what

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 39m 9s):

Would be really, really cool Holman is if on the center caps, if it was like a Bentley where it did, where it spun, where

Sean P. Holman (1h 39m 15s):

It didn’t spin you in didn.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 39m 16s):

Yeah. Where it didn’t spin. That’s

Sean P. Holman (1h 39m 17s):

The rolls that do that

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 39m 18s):

Rolls and the Bentleys. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (1h 39m 19s):

So, Hey Lighting, did you hear I mean? Now? Now. So apparently EPA hit a Nebraska Ford dealer with a $40,000 fine for deleting diesel trucks

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 39m 31s):

At a

Sean P. Holman (1h 39m 32s):

Dealership. At a, at a dealership. Yeah. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 39m 35s):

Do they not know It’s 2024.

Sean P. Holman (1h 39m 36s):

They violated the Clean Air Act by installing diesel deletes on up to 20 pickup trucks. So Moody Motor Company out of Neo Barra, I guess it is in Nebraska, they got sentenced for one charge of accessory after the fact to a Clean Air Act violation. This was announced by the US attorney following the dealership’s trial on July 31st. So apparently this particular Ford dealership has been in operation for nearly 70 years.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 40m 2s):

Some, a-hole tech decided whatever, that he was gonna do it on the side or Well, or

Sean P. Holman (1h 40m 6s):

There’s that first opened in 1955. And anyway, they basically ordered and installing third party parts to, to do it. They didn’t make the parts. And yeah. So again, they’re going after, there

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 40m 19s):

Are some dealers, and I have no idea if this is one of ’em, there are some dealers that are kind of f the man, like The truck shouldn’t have this EGR crap on him and Def and all this other stuff. And they shouldn’t be this way from the factory. And I, well I have heard there’s hearsay that there are some dealers that definitely don’t like it, especially up in Canada. ’cause the laws are a little looser

Sean P. Holman (1h 40m 37s):

Up there. Well, Canada’s not the United States. I understand that, but Yeah. Cleaner act there. Yeah. Yeah. So apparently authorities found out about Moody Motors. They audited the Dallas company called Diesel Performance of Texas. And there were records that indicated the supplier sold parts of the Nebraska Ford dealership. And Moody reportedly purchased these kits 14 times from 2019 to 2022. And Tech installed the, the hardware in up to 20 trucks. They say one of the trucks belonged to a relative of an employee who later explained that the delete was done because quote unquote The truck was a trade-in that needed a lot of work done to it to including having sensors out. And this was easier than replacing the sensors. Yeah. So I think there’s a lot of people who can That’s an appreciate I’ve heard a lot.

Sean P. Holman (1h 41m 18s):

Yeah. Yeah. But people who don’t have money, I’m saying it doesn’t happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. So Lighting have You Heard.

11 (1h 41m 24s):

No.

Sean P. Holman (1h 41m 30s):

In another story of the lawyers Always Win, GM basically settled a class action suit because their 2011 to 2016 Chevy and GMC diesel trucks can’t run on US diesel. And this is all going back to the Bosch fuel pump. So those are all of the LM ls. Yeah. So apparently there’s a class action suit and it said regarding the, the specific years of duramax engines and that they have faulty fuel pumps. The lawsuit claimed that the Duramax diesel engines used in Chevrolet GMC vehicles from 2011 to 16 used Bosch fuel pumps that aren’t designed for American diesel fuel, which is something that we’ve talked about before.

Sean P. Holman (1h 42m 10s):

Yes. That the Bosch fuel pumps are engineered for European diesel, which obviously has more lubricity and is thicker. And when they bring ’em over here, the thinner American diesel causes air pockets and other issues inside the pumps. And there’s metal and metal contact. And then that damages the pump and then destroys the engine. This is where it kind of sucks. So that doesn’t suck enough. No, no, no. It sucks More so in 2019, GM told the drive that it didn’t believe the lawsuit had merit. Now they’re paying a settlement, but they’re only paying the 11 plaintiffs $5,000 each while the law firms representing them get to split $15 million Whoa. Wait, wait, what? Hold On a second.

Sean P. Holman (1h 42m 50s):

This is wrong. Check this out. That does No, not compute

12 (1h 42m 55s):

Does not compute does not compute.

Sean P. Holman (1h 42m 58s):

Well check this out. It it’s also lame. ’cause GMs reimbursing custards who’ve had to pay for fuel, fuel pump related repairs out of pocket. So all current owners of affected durmax vehicles will get future warranty coverage. You know, if they have a Bosch CP four I mean that’s good. Okay. But the exterior, the extended warranty will run up to 12 months from the final approval date of the class action lawsuit or 2000 miles from the vehicle’s original purchase date. But it still requires owners to foot half the bill for the repairs.

12 (1h 43m 26s):

Does not compute. Does not compute.

Sean P. Holman (1h 43m 29s):

And there’s one other caveat. The settlement only helps customers who bought trucks in California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Why? Apparently that’s worth the stigma. What a crazy settlement that that came out like. It’s just the, the negotiations that happen between behind closed doors, bonkers. Just, you sit there and you just shake your head and and meanwhile the lawyers are smiling. Yeah. They’re just like, yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 43m 54s):

Whatever. We’re getting paid. We’re on the clock.

Sean P. Holman (1h 43m 55s):

Yep. Hmm. Keep deliberating. We’ll keep charging you. Hey Lighting, did you hear?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 44m 0s):

What? Are you deaf and stupid? I said, no, no.

Sean P. Holman (1h 44m 3s):

According to GM authority sources, tell them that GM is planning to launch the next generation Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra 15 hundreds during the 2026 or 2027 model year. Mm. So not too far away. For those of you who are trying to decide, do I buy my pickup now or next year or the year after Well, it sounds like the new ones are on the way.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 44m 24s):

Have we heard anything about the Rams? Because there was some scuttlebutt that the Rams, the hds are gonna be a all new powertrain for 25. Any news there?

Sean P. Holman (1h 44m 34s):

Well, we know they’re on the way because we’ve seen the spy photos, but I have not heard what’s going on from an engine standpoint. Okay. But since, since the mothership of Stellantis is actively trying to destroy all things American and things we love,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 44m 48s):

They’re gonna put a small,

Sean P. Holman (1h 44m 49s):

It’s probably gonna

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 44m 50s):

Four cylinder,

Sean P. Holman (1h 44m 51s):

A rotary engine or something

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 44m 52s):

In there,

Sean P. Holman (1h 44m 52s):

Rotary and just ruin

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 44m 53s):

Someone called rob dom and get em to help the stellantis. It just

Sean P. Holman (1h 44m 57s):

Hold

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 44m 57s):

A RX seven engine or whatever it is. No, for a Ram truck. It

Sean P. Holman (1h 45m 1s):

Makes me sad. It stupid.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 45m 4s):

Can you imagine if Mazda and Ram got together

Sean P. Holman (1h 45m 6s):

And they’re like, Hey, look at this. Hey Lighting, did you hear? No,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 45m 10s):

No. The

Sean P. Holman (1h 45m 11s):

Ram 1500 classic is finally dying. Oh, finally. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 45m 15s):

It’s been 35 years.

Sean P. Holman (1h 45m 16s):

I know with the demise of the Hemi V eight, this budget truck, which was the last generation DS truck is going Bye-Bye

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 45m 25s):

I mean. Seriously. It came out like 92, didn’t it? No,

Sean P. Holman (1h 45m 27s):

That truck came out in 2009, I believe. Oh, okay. So that’s still a pretty long run. Yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 45m 33s):

It’s tired. I mean it doesn’t look. No,

Sean P. Holman (1h 45m 34s):

It’s it’s a looking truck. Yeah, no, the styling looks good and the interior held out well. And you know, I honestly, I’ve driven those trucks a lot and they’re not bad. Hey, Lighting have You Heard? No.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 45m 46s):

No.

Sean P. Holman (1h 45m 46s):

Have you ever heard of the General Motors future liner?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 45m 49s):

Yes. Wow. Wait, the Future liner’s a big bust that looks super awesome and yep. It’s like, it’s like a was built a time capsule, like 1950 something.

Sean P. Holman (1h 45m 56s):

No, 1939 It 39. It was built for the World’s Fair. They’re only 12 of ’em built. There’s actually a,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 46m 1s):

I saw one, you and I saw one at SEMA a couple years ago. Well,

Sean P. Holman (1h 46m 4s):

There’s actually a movie or something about trying the guy who’ve tried to find all of ’em or documentary and there’s a bunch of websites because over time they’ve been sold off. They’ve, some of ’em have been scrapped, some are gone. There’s only a few left. Anyway, apparently one of the ones that was built up and then restored is, is up for sale. So apparently this is the one that belonged to the Springfield, Massachusetts bats, Peter Pan bus lines in the nineties, and then it’s on sale on Facebook of all things. And so I know we have friends like Scott Birdsall who have a problem with Facebook marketplace. They go on there and buy things. Should we maybe just send this to him?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 46m 43s):

You should click on it so I can see what they want for it, because I’m gonna guess it’s around 300 grand.

Sean P. Holman (1h 46m 47s):

Oh, and by the way, as of this writing is sold.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 46m 51s):

Oh, as of right. And the price is Oh. my God, I was way off $998,000 sold.

Sean P. Holman (1h 47m 1s):

Oh, it doesn’t say what it’s sold for, but it’s sold. Now that we, that we click on it.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 47m 5s):

I mean it says sold nine 90.

Sean P. Holman (1h 47m 7s):

Oh, this is number seven, by the way. So all the, all of them were Whoa. Not all of them are accounted for. And all of them were numbered. And So, this is number seven. So apparent a million

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 47m 17s):

Dollars.

Sean P. Holman (1h 47m 17s):

Dude, I can see that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 47m 19s):

I guess.

Sean P. Holman (1h 47m 19s):

So a handful of custom I mean the thing. These things were awesome. Google future liner and, and read about the history because it’s, it’s stunning. According to Peter Pan, it was for sale, but only through word of mouth. And then apparently now they want to move it along. And they did. So here’s what’s interesting is the original drive train was replaced with a diesel engine. So now it, it drives more modern, I guess you could say the single central seat for the driver is still there, which is was one of the awesome things about the future liner. I guess it was in, you know, fairly good shape. But back in 2021, Peter Pan said, anyone who wants to buy it would also have to remove the Rusty Hulk of the other future liner that was rotting behind the business.

Sean P. Holman (1h 48m 4s):

And so they had one, but it was used for parts and to build other future liners and things like that. So it’s got a long history. It’s very interesting and sounds like it’s onto a, a new owner. So go Google Future liner. Do yourself a favor. All right. Hey Lighting, did you hear

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 48m 20s):

Maybe, maybe

Sean P. Holman (1h 48m 22s):

Kind of an interesting story to come out of our friends from a TFL truck. It’s talking about how your new 2024 Ford Ranger needs bed reinforcement if you’re gonna add a rack or camper on top. So apparently Ford is requiring customers of the 2024 Ford Ranger. Ones that are not the Ranger Raptor, by the way, to install a available, what they call a load box reinforcement kit for non Raptor models. It’s $169. Basically allows you to carry a weight of over 88 pounds on top of the bed rails. And so they reinforce the bed. So if you have a camper or brackets, I would recommend you look into that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 48m 60s):

Wow. How flimsy were the bed rails? I, well that’s, they couldn’t even hold 88 pounds prior to the, to the reinforcement.

Sean P. Holman (1h 49m 6s):

I, I don’t know. Wow. But if you’ve got a ranger of Raptor and you plan on using the bed, it would behoove you to go get that particular upgrade. I feel

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 49m 15s):

Like they use Coors light cans or something to like make the bedsides. That’s nuts.

Sean P. Holman (1h 49m 20s):

Don’t know. Hey, Lighting have You Heard.

13 (1h 49m 23s):

No. Go,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 49m 26s):

Go. Mm no. Mm, no, no.

Sean P. Holman (1h 49m 28s):

So according to a report from IC cars, Toyota products are rated as some of the most likely to reach over a quarter million miles. The tundra and Sequoia are four times more likely to achieve this milestone compared to the industry average. But there’s also a few Chevy trucks and SUVs, suburban Silverado 1500 in Tahoe rank seventh, 10th, and 12th. And it’s worth noting that it only applies to light duty vehicles, but it says that with moderate vehicles becoming more durable, there are 30 models that offer between a 12 and 36% chance of reaching a quarter million miles. Which is pretty interesting. So specifically regarding pickup trucks, the Chevy Silverado 2,500 HD was rated third overall with a 29.9% chance of lasting 250,000 miles, which was 1.5 times longer than other trucks for comparison, the 1500 was rated again 12 in the pickup category.

Sean P. Holman (1h 50m 25s):

So,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 50m 26s):

And it doesn’t talk about engine. Correct? They’re diesel versus gas.

Sean P. Holman (1h 50m 28s):

It doesn’t say drivetrain or just got it. Just the model. I always worry about the tech or the Lighting. ’cause like those headlights are like $2,400 if they go out. And I always wonder,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 50m 40s):

Or the emission systems,

Sean P. Holman (1h 50m 41s):

All of it I mean, it just, to me it’s surprising to see modern vehicles lasting that long. ’cause it feels like there’s so much stuff in them that’s kind of throwaway. It’s not like the vehicles of the eighties and nineties, which it seems like those things could, could potentially last forever.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 50m 54s):

You know what it’s kinda like, like you look going to a machine shop and the guy’s got like the old lathe from the 1930s and it’s gonna last forever.

Sean P. Holman (1h 51m 2s):

When you look at it, go to Warren, they make winches and they have a whole floor of Old World War II broaching machines and

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 51m 7s):

Years. Right. I mean like all that. They still use those, they’re so heavy and so dense and like they, they’re just not, they don’t wear out. They were so stout, so well made back then. They’re just, they, nothing was disposable.

Sean P. Holman (1h 51m 17s):

Alright. And on a, a final note of news, just because I I I think this will make you smile. I I hope it does. Wait, by,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 51m 24s):

By the way, said no, no, I’ve not

Sean P. Holman (1h 51m 26s):

Heard. Okay. Pay Lightning. You haven’t heard about this. So I’m told somebody took a C six Corvette and turned into a quote unquote Trail Boss. It’s for sale in Illinois and it looks rad. It’s, that is super cool. 33 inch tires. Yeah. And it’s freaking awesome. Super

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 51m 43s):

Fast. Matt here outta Southern California, he’s a, a former engineer, a really amazing channel. If you’re into engineering, go to go to see Super Fast Matt on YouTube. But he is taking a, a Dodge Viper and turning it into a long travel off-road vehicle. It’s

Sean P. Holman (1h 51m 60s):

Crazy. Yeah. There’s there’s a few off-Road vipers that have been made. I’ve seen maybe I saw one of the stories that had to do with him. This Corvettes Rad though, because it’s has Trail Boss stickers on the rear fender. it has 33 inch to open country at tires. It’s got a winch, a light bar, an aftermarket hitch. it

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 52m 18s):

Does not look like it’ll turn lock to lock though. Look at how tight, who cares that fit? Yeah, that’s,

Sean P. Holman (1h 52m 22s):

There’s pictures of it in the sand dunes and going over off road. it has a 430 horsepower, 6.2 liter ls, three in it, 424 pound feet torque. And it is sent through the six speed manual transmission. If I had just throwaway money right now, I would fly to Illinois at this moment and I would go buy that as of the writing of this, this piece, it was a starting price of $23,000. Yeah. And I would just go buy it because that thing, it looks rad. And and it is rad. It, it just looks like it would just put a smile on your face. It’s, it’s unbelievable. So, and, and of course this is another thing on Facebook marketplace, so I will, of course it is. Although I don’t wanna send this to birds all ’cause he again, because he’ll buy, it’ll buy it.

Sean P. Holman (1h 53m 2s):

Yeah, he will. If

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 53m 4s):

You guys come across a news story that you think is worthy of putting on The Truck Show Podcast, please do send us an email and a link to the Story Truck Show podcast at gmail dot com.

3 (1h 53m 15s):

The truck show, The truck show, The truck show.

Sean P. Holman (1h 53m 20s):

And don’t forget to follow us on social at Truck Show podcast at LBC Lighting at Sean P Holman. You can see all of our reels and adventures and fun things. You can help Lightning remain viral on his Ballard video, all that stuff. And I know some of you have sent us emails, Google podcasts went away and Google Music doesn’t support podcasts. We moved everything over to YouTube. So we are in the process of transferring all of our podcasts natively to YouTube. But you’ll also see that there are videos that are basically just the podcast audio feed as a YouTube video. So if you’re on YouTube, you can, you know, listen, watch, I know Lightning links those from our website as well.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 54m 3s):

Yeah. And head over to the events page on truck show podcast dot com. I added some more events. I it’s like a sea of C 10 events. I don’t know why the C 10 people, that community just bonkers. They have a lot of stuff. They’re always out on Sundays, all across the country. Couple new Jeep events. So anyway, go to truck show podcast dot com and click on the events tab.

Sean P. Holman (1h 54m 23s):

And one

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 54m 23s):

Thing, ah, I just gotta kill that music. It’s killing me for a second. All right. One thing I, I wanna thank you guys. I got a very sweet note from Chris, the owner of Habanero Cordless Heating Tools. You guys crushed it. You you bought so many of his cordless soldering irons. He was like, it was a heartfelt thank you. He’s like, this is really, really what this brand needed. Thank you so much. And thank you guys for taking advantage of that discount code Holman. It’s like, I don’t wanna tell you the number on the air, but it’s a lot,

Sean P. Holman (1h 54m 59s):

A lot of these things that reminds me, I haven’t bought mine yet because I was planning on doing that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 55m 2s):

I, I know that I wanna read this from, from Ray. Hello Lightning and Holman. Listen to season two, episode one 12 last Friday night immediately ordered the Habanero Diablo kit that you guys recommended to replace my beloved, but worn out Weller propane butane powered. So I saw that whopping discount. So I bought two of them. One for me and one for my electrical genius brother. Amazingly, I received a text Saturday mid-morning saying the Diablo kits were packed and will ship Monday. And the person sending the text said to feel free to ask them any questions. Absolutely amazing customer service. Can’t wait to try out my habanero Diablo soldering arts. So anyway, that’s a, a wonderful note from Ray. And so thank you guys for stepping up. We don’t make any commission or anything like that off this.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 55m 43s):

We just, it’s really cool when you guys support. So thank you

Sean P. Holman (1h 55m 47s):

And support us by continuing to listen to the show, share it with your friends, share it on socials and also by leaving us a five star review. You can go to Spotify, you can go to Facebook, you can go to Apple. We haven’t had any good reviews in a while on Apple Podcast. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 56m 2s):

I mean step it up guys.

Sean P. Holman (1h 56m 3s):

Come on. We wanna read some funny stuff. And a

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 56m 4s):

Lot of you have been brother up. A lot of you guys are transferring your listening habits from Apple over to Spotify. If that’s you and you’re like me, you listen to Spotify a lot, please leave us a five star review on Spotify. ’cause the platform is just getting bigger and we want to get out there. Alright,

Sean P. Holman (1h 56m 20s):

Thank you Nissan for being the presenting sponsor of The Truck. Show Podcast. And if you’re looking for a new mid-size truck, head on down to your local Nissan dealership and get yourself a Nissan Frontier. Or wait a couple months because the 25 are on the way. No, no,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 56m 34s):

No, no, no, no, no. You’re gonna get a deal now. Oh,

Sean P. Holman (1h 56m 36s):

Get a deal now. But we need

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 56m 37s):

To show Nissan from sales. Now

Sean P. Holman (1h 56m 38s):

20 fives are pretty good. Yeah, they are. All right. Nissan usa dot com. That

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 56m 42s):

Orange is pretty cool. I’m not gonna lie. And the summer heat is still going. And that means your gears are cooking in your rear end. If you want a longer lasting rear differential, that means you need to keep the lubrication temps down. You do that by heading over to Banks Power dot com and picking up a patented Ram Air rear differential cover. It cools five times better than stock and all of the competitors longer lasting lube means longer lasting gears. Head over to Banks Power dot com to get yours

Sean P. Holman (1h 57m 10s):

And. when you get your diff cover, the first fill is Ansel’s directly from banks. So comes to the pouch, easy to do, great stuff. And also if you’ve got maintenance such as an oil change, you definitely wanna check out AMS oil’s, brand new oil change kits. You can order that through the AMS oil vehicle lookup. And it comes with everything you need for an oil change in one box. That includes whatever your recommended AMS oil, motor oil is. Your AMS oil oil filter of paric gloves, AMS oil fast funnel, and even in AMS oil, oil change. Interval decals will reminds you when your next service is due. All that and more at AMS oil dot com. The first in synthetics. And

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 57m 43s):

If you like Holman and you find yourself in a hailstorm, even though it’s 80 degrees out and you’re on top of a mountain and you’re like, I need to get out of this horrible hail. If only you had an EGR roll track, automatic Tono cover,

Sean P. Holman (1h 57m 56s):

Does it go over the cab also? It

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 57m 58s):

Doesn’t. But you could crawl in the bed and be safe. Head over to EGR USA dot com to pick up an EG r roll track for your mid-size truck or your full-size truck. The Truck Show Podcast is a production of truck famous LLC. This podcast was created by Sean Holman and Jay Tillis with production elements by DJ Omar Khan. If you like what you’ve heard, please open your Apple Podcast or Spotify app and give us a five star rating. And if you’re a fan, there’s no better way to show your support than by patronizing our sponsors.

14 (1h 58m 30s):

No, no. Does not compute. Does not compute. it does not.