Season 2, Episode 13 - A Conversation with Bernhard Leitner of Leitner Designs

 

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Lightning (0s):

This is season two, episode 13 of the world’s biggest, most important truck enthusiast podcast ever in the history of the universe. Holman, what’s up? How you doing?

Holman (11s):

I am doing great ’cause I got this box.

Lightning (15s):

Okay. People

Holman (16s):

Like sending us stuff. It’s, it’s like, it’s like Christmas all the time. So for my birthday, my wife was in Hawaii with her mom, and so I didn’t really get like a family birthday thing. And we still, we’ve both been busy and she travels and I’ve been traveling. So I still haven’t had like my family birthday dinner except her mom came over this past Sunday and made me Mexican fried tacos. So that was, that was strong. Strong. Yeah. But, but I feel like it just, that wasn weird. that wasn, it wasn’t really a milestone birthday, but I didn’t, it just wasn’t special. And I will say that, that Mark Han from O V R took pity on me and came and brought dessert for me and the girls and we had a little dessert fest. So that was pretty good.

Holman (57s):

But every time a box comes, I think it’s a birthday present and it’s not. It’s not, no.

Lightning (1m 2s):

What’s in this beat up cardboard box?

Holman (1m 4s):

This one came from Eagle, Colorado. And I was going like, what is this? So our man Ken Hoeve. Oh,

Lightning (1m 12s):

Check

Holman (1m 13s):

Out the Yeti guys.

Lightning (1m 15s):

Yeah. Wow.

Holman (1m 16s):

Look at that. A couple tumblers.

Lightning (1m 18s):

Ken Hoeve from the previous episode with Flad inflated.

Holman (1m 21s):

Yeah, he said he was, he was promising us some, some Yeti stuff.

Lightning (1m 24s):

Dude, he was not joking about Yeti. And

Holman (1m 27s):

Check this out, A handwritten note. Gentlemen, thank you for having me on the show. I really appreciate it. You guys are awesome at what we do and we’re so grateful to have had the chance to be on your show. Sincerely. Ken,

Lightning (1m 37s):

Well, you screwed up. We’re awesome, but we’re not good at what we do.

Holman (1m 39s):

Handwritten note, dude, a handwritten note. And I like this Rambler, this shorty Rambler. So I’m, I’m gonna take that one over here. Here’s a, this is a nice full 20 ounce Tumblr. You have

Lightning (1m 51s):

That? Oh, you can gimme this one. Okay. You

Holman (1m 53s):

Have that one. I’ll take this one. Got a couple of Yeti shirts, which is cool. All, right? So dude, Ken,

Lightning (1m 58s):

Very nice of you. Thank you. Yeah.

Holman (2m 0s):

Super awesome. We really appreciate when we’re appreciated.

Lightning (2m 3s):

Did he give us xls or double XSS

Holman (2m 5s):

Gave us xls Perfect. Which is

Lightning (2m 6s):

What we ask for. I’m gonna go for the, which color do you want? You want the olive gray? I want the olive one. You want the olive? Yeah.

Holman (2m 11s):

It matches is my Apple Watch Ultra band.

Lightning (2m 13s):

I’ll take the gray and camo All. right? All, right. That’s super cool. Well, so we have that to celebrate. And from what I understand, this right here. Yes. hold on, hold on. This is, this is something, wait, wait. Don’t say it. Okay. This is something against my face. We’ll see how it’ll sound

Holman (2m 28s):

Like. That sounds super gross.

Lightning (2m 32s):

Does it sound like sand paper?

Holman (2m 33s):

It sounds super gross.

Lightning (2m 34s):

Hold on, on my beard here. hold on.

Holman (2m 37s):

Why are you doing that? This

Lightning (2m 38s):

Is the cover of the new O V R that’s got some crazy texture on it.

Holman (2m 41s):

That’s true. So O V R Magazine, second issue. Just hit the newsstands at Barnes and Noble and books a million. And we nearly sold out at a lot of the Barnes and Nobles on our first run, on our first issue. So we’re only

Lightning (2m 53s):

Like four Barnes and

Holman (2m 54s):

Nobles though. Thank you everybody who has supported 400 and something. Barnes and Nobles. Thank you. Everybody who’s supported the launch of O V R Mag, you head to O v r mag.com. Check it out. You can subscribe. I’m working on something that might be a little bit of a special truck show podcast listener benefit if you wanna subscribe. Okay. So working on that, hopefully have a, an announcement here in the next few weeks on

Lightning (3m 20s):

Something. Now hold on a second. I’m opening up the very first page of O V R. Yeah. Outdoor vehicle Recreation. Yeah. With this beautiful cover. Yep. And inside there’s a two page spread for our guest. Oh,

Holman (3m 35s):

The Lightener Designs I. guess we’re having our good friend Bernhard Lightener on the, the episode 13,

Lightning (3m 42s):

The designer and manufacturer of some incredibly well-engineered bed racks. Wow. Kudos.

Holman (3m 49s):

No, it’s, did you

Lightning (3m 50s):

Actually have something to do with this? The

Holman (3m 51s):

Magazine? I’ve got like three stories in that thing. Do you really? Which

Lightning (3m 53s):

Ones? What did you write about in this one? Just look through

Holman (3m 55s):

There.

Lightning (3m 56s):

Well, I’m looking for, it doesn’t have the bylines on the stories.

Holman (3m 59s):

Well, sorry.

Lightning (3m 59s):

Well, okay. I I,

Holman (4m 1s):

This is my way of getting you to flip through the pages.

Lightning (4m 2s):

Can I keep this one? Yes. Okay. Wow, that’s cool. Yeah,

Holman (4m 5s):

We can also advertise in it too, because

Lightning (4m 7s):

We do need to give our, our listeners a, a discount code for subscriptions.

Holman (4m 11s):

I we’re, I’m working on that. And I think Banks Power should have some products in there. Think it would be a, a good fit for the drug market.

Lightning (4m 17s):

Definitely do need Pedal Monster in that for

Holman (4m 20s):

Sure. Pedal Monster for sure. Yeah,

Lightning (4m 22s):

Absolutely. Well, ’cause there’s a Tacoma right on the cover. There’s

Holman (4m 24s):

A, there’s a really, really affordable rate on that right now. Is

Lightning (4m 28s):

It really?

Holman (4m 29s):

They should take advantage of. There is, this

Lightning (4m 31s):

Is a little, maybe little too insider

Holman (4m 33s):

Basement inside All. right. Well then let’s talk about our advertisers. So we gotta thank our friends over at Nissan. So Nissan

Lightning (4m 39s):

Yeah. hold on. You’re talking about Nissan? I am. You see, see this folder I got here? Yep. This manila folder. It Look what is inside. I’m gonna show you. Okay. Page one, page two. hold on. Page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Yeah. Of pages. There’s nine pages of what are these?

Holman (4m 53s):

Frontier spotting.

Lightning (4m 54s):

Frontier spotting names and addresses. You guys are on freaking fire. Yeah. We’ve never done a promotion like this. This is bonkers. I that wasn just kind of a goof idea, but you guys have really responded. But

Holman (5m 5s):

Finding ’em everywhere. Oh

Lightning (5m 5s):

My God. I don’t know if you listened to the last couple episodes, but we want you guys to take a photo out of the window of your truck at a frontier that you

Holman (5m 16s):

Spot. Send it a frontier in the wild

Lightning (5m 18s):

Frontier in the wild you

Holman (5m 19s):

Sent to us. And you can, you could tag us also at hashtag Frontier Spotting. You can put it on our, our social and tag at Structure Show podcast. You

Lightning (5m 25s):

Guys have really, really rallied. It’s incredible. You, you spotted Frontiers, then you went to Truck show podcast@gmail.com and you emailed us those photos and Eye Lightning responded to you with freaking Truck show podcast stickers. I’ve never sent out so much Truck show podcast merchandise ever in the history of man, because is it

Holman (5m 44s):

Really merchandise? No. Yeah,

Lightning (5m 45s):

It’s

Holman (5m 46s):

Stickers

Lightning (5m 46s):

And

Holman (5m 46s):

Stickers. Yeah. Stickers. All. right. I got some exciting news. Speaking of Nissan, they have renewed with us for another year. So we’re starting our, geez, this is our sixth year with Nissan supporting The Truck. Show Podcast. So guys, in honor of that, oh wait, wait, wait.

Lightning (6m 1s):

Gimme gimme some High Five

Holman (6m 2s):

All. right? High five All. right. So in honor of that, I, I hope every one of our listeners goes out and buys a brand new Nissan Frontier. A Nissan Titan or Nissan Titan Xd By, the way the Titans have the industry’s best five year, 100,000 mile warranty. Nissan has been so great to The Truck. Show Podcast. So awesome for our show. I’m just, I’m stoked to be able to say that our partnership is going on for another year. So you’ll be hearing us talk a lot more about Nissan, but we also have some other things that we wanna do. I’m kind of working on, we’re not ready to announce it yet, but I think there’ll be some, some cool stuff.

Lightning (6m 35s):

Embargo. Sure.

Holman (6m 36s):

It’s embargoed. So in the meantime, if you’re looking for a new truck, head on over to Nissan usa.com where you can build in price or head on down to your local Nissan dealership where you too can pick out the right Nissan truck for you.

Lightning (6m 48s):

And you guys have heard us talk about the bank’s Ram Air rear differential cover before it keeps your rear diff five times cooler than any other rear differential cover on the market, including stock. They’re available for Ram 25 hundreds, GM 25 hundreds, Ford F two fifties, three fifties, and coming soon for the Dana 80 rear axle.

Holman (7m 10s):

Wait, what do you mean, Dana? 80? Yes. New new application coming. Yes. Okay. So if I’m interested in Dana 80, where do I go to get on that list? Go

Lightning (7m 18s):

To Banks power.com. Type in your year, make and model. And you will see the Dana 80 right there. You put your email address and be notified when it’s available. How

Holman (7m 25s):

Long am I waiting?

Lightning (7m 27s):

Summertime.

Holman (7m 28s):

That’s not too long. That’s not too long. It’s already April.

Lightning (7m 30s):

It’s coming. All.

Holman (7m 31s):

Right. And I have one more big announcement for you. I, I don’t think I’ve told you this either.

Lightning (7m 36s):

Okay. hold on one second. And that big announcement is truck

Holman (7m 43s):

Famous l l c has another sponsor of the Truck Show podcast.

Lightning (7m 47s):

Oh. really? hold on a second. Can I guess? Sure. Hmm. hold on a second. Who have you been working on?

Holman (7m 54s):

I’ve been working on about 50

Lightning (7m 56s):

Companies then. I know, I know our friend. I’m, I’m just gonna whiff, I’m gonna whiff ’cause I know one of your favorite companies is Bill Bilstein.

Holman (8m 3s):

All, right? It is Bill Bilstein.

Lightning (8m 6s):

Really? So

Holman (8m 7s):

Not Bill Bilstein. It’s Bill Bilstein, like beer Bilstein. So that’s how I can remember it.

Lightning (8m 12s):

And By the way, when your friends say Bill Bilstein correct them

Holman (8m 15s):

Or

Lightning (8m 15s):

Put like smack

Holman (8m 16s):

’em. Yeah. Right in the face. Right in the face. Bill

Lightning (8m 18s):

Bilstein moron.

Holman (8m 19s):

I have this awesome Bill Bilstein shirt that has it phonetically like done like it in a dictionary, which is, they were wearing it at their, in that wasn like the booth shirt last year at I think Overland Expo. Which funny. Oh,

Lightning (8m 29s):

I remember, remember you told me some guy was talking to the Bill Bilstein guy while

Holman (8m 32s):

He was wearing the shirt? No,

Lightning (8m 33s):

But, and the other guys was calling it Bill Bilstein.

Holman (8m 35s):

It’s like, do you not, are

Lightning (8m 36s):

You not reading this?

Holman (8m 37s):

And Steve, who was wearing it, is like six five or something like that. And that wasn a shorter guy who eye level was exactly that. So that wasn, that wasn funny. I used Bill Bilstein. I’m a big fan of Bill Bilstein. I’ve been using ’em forever on my personal rigs. I’ve got them on my Wrangler 3 92. Bill Bilstein is the OG monotube Shock. You can get direct replacement. Stock performance Lifted, loaded, unloaded. They’re a great product. You guys should check ’em out. Bilstein supported the show before, but they’re, they’re back for more.

Lightning (9m 3s):

Bilstein is good enough for Ram to put on the T R X

Holman (9m 8s):

As well as the Nissan for Frontier Pro four x, the Nissan Titan Pro four x, the Nissan Platinum Reserve. You can get them across basically anything. S r T has Bill Stein’s on it. Bill Stein’s known for their OE quality. Every shock is tuned specifically for the application. And with Monotube gas pressurized technology, especially with Reservoir, you’re gonna be able to go Offroad faster and longer without any fade. That’s

2 (9m 31s):

What she said.

Lightning (9m 33s):

We need to have one of their engineers back on the show because that is one of the highest rated episodes that we have ever done.

Holman (9m 40s):

Yep. We’re definitely gonna do that. So remember, when the road runs out, bill Bilstein shocks will keep you going. You gotta go to Offroad dot bill Bilstein dot com if you’re looking for Offroad and truck shocks, or you can go to bill Bilstein us.com, check ’em out, get ’em for your ride. Oh, and By the way a lot of people, I, I’ve had this question a lot where they’re like, oh, but those rides stiff, right? And it’s like, no, I actually put ’em on my uncle’s truck. He’s like, oh, I’m looking for something. My stock shocks on my ram are blown. I don’t, you know, I said, bill Bilstein goes, well don’t, don’t those rides stiff after we put ’em on. He’s like, this is the best riding truck I’ve ever owned.

Lightning (10m 13s):

How are they getting that misconception? I

Holman (10m 15s):

Think just because their performance, you know, they came from the racing world. There’s a lot of desert racing, things like that. But the reality is, is because they’re tuned for every application, it’s a great ride no matter what you’re

Lightning (10m 24s):

Doing. hold on, hold on a second. Bill Stein’s been doing sports cars. They’re, they’re known throughout the world as being high performance shocks for, for sports cars and for Offroad vehicles. Like

Holman (10m 37s):

For everything I know. So short sports racing, Baja racing.

Lightning (10m 39s):

So I’m not sure why someone racing, someone would assume they ride stiff.

Holman (10m 42s):

I’m telling you right now. They don’t. They don’t ride stiff. So if you’re on the fence, go get your stuff. We’ve had a bunch of listeners who’ve put ’em on their vehicle and they’re like, man, these things are amazing. So again, head over to bill Bilstein us.com and

Lightning (10m 53s):

If you have a small company, medium or large, and you’re having a lot of difficulty with your search engine optimization, which keywords do you use to market, et cetera, reach out to our friends at Full Moon Digital. They will hook a brother up

2 (11m 8s):

The truck show. We’re gonna show you what we know. We’re gonna answer What? The truck truck. Roger 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.

3 (11m 39s):

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

Lightning (11m 45s):

That’s us. Yeah. All. right. So we got a lot of show to get to and not that much time to get to it.

Holman (11m 53s):

So what do you mean we don’t have that much time? I don’t, I don’t know. You mean we don’t have that much time? But our listeners don’t know How much time we have. They don’t? No. Well they just see a four hour show pop up and they go, we need to not do a four hour show. Okay. We need to get right into Mr. Bernhard Lightner. Yeah. Sounds great. Lightning, what do we say? You bet. Sport.

Bernhard (12m 23s):

Hello

Holman (12m 24s):

Bernhard. Lightning and Holman Truck show podcast. What’s up? What’s happening to my friend? Hey, how

Bernhard (12m 28s):

You doing guys?

Holman (12m 29s):

We are outstanding. But before we can talk to you, we have an Intro to play and we need you to guide us. Do you prefer? Yes sir. Do you prefer blues or metal?

Bernhard (12m 38s):

I’m a metal guy all the way.

Holman (12m 40s):

All. right? Here we go. Hold your ears.

7 (12m 44s):

Innovator. Motor truck Show Innovator Motor truck Show Innovator Motor truck Show Innovator. Moreor. Show.

6 (12m 55s):

Show Show truck show.

8 (13m 2s):

Man that hurts my throat.

Holman (13m 7s):

You are the quintessential innovator motivator. We were debating before we had you on whether we should do the Entrepreneur Intro Intro. No, no. You were debating. I was. I said he’s an innovator. Well that but but that’s the problem. He’s both, he’s an Entrepreneur and he’s an innovator. But he’s an innovator first. I, I suppose you’re right. Well, that’s why we went with it. Did you also know he grows hot peppers? No, I didn’t. Yeah, he will burn your mouth with a Carolina Reaper. I love hot peppers except I, I I tap out at the ones that loot don’t have taste. They’re just hot. Yeah. Yeah. So he’s got plenty of those. Yeah. And they’re real, like they’re pretty right. You get these hot peppers. He came to my house to a party and he said brought some peppers. I’m like, these things are amazing.

Holman (13m 46s):

And then like the really hot ones are sort of wardy and ugly looking, but they’re real bright and pretty at the same time. And I Bernhard I think you need to come in studio at some point and then tell Lightning it’s a Serrano, but really have it be a Carolina Reaper. No, I can tell. I can tell. Just, just one tap of the Tum and You know what you’re, you’re you’re done for. Oh, I can’t wait to watch that. How did you get into that Bernhard? How did you get into like peppers?

Bernhard (14m 11s):

Well, I needed a hobby outside of work, which is already kinda hobby. ’cause I love off-roading and I love building stuff. So I just needed something to like turn my brain off. And I love hot food. I always have loved hot food and I’m like, You, know what? This will be a great hobby. Let’s just grow hot peppers and make my own hot sauce. So definitely next time I run into you guys in person, I’ll bring you some hot sauce that you can actually eat and it’s not a hot pepper.

Holman (14m 33s):

Alright, what is the hottest pepper that you’re currently growing right now on the Scoville scale?

Bernhard (14m 38s):

Well, it’s not rated. A lot of the peppers I grow are like ear heirloom type peppers that like people kind of mix and match different peppers. And the pepper I grew, which is the hottest according to people who eat, eat hot peppers. And it’s called a primo t and it’s a mix between a seven pop primo pepper and a pepper called a a fat. And it comes together, it’s called a primo. Tali I mean I grow Carolina Reapers. And it’s hotter than that by All. right? Quite a bit

Holman (15m 7s):

All. right? So here, here, this is just we, we’ll hit a couple things on the Scoville scale, which is how you measure heat. A bell pepper is at zero. A banana pepper. Correct. Like zero to 500. Then if you’re getting into like your poblanos your anaheims, that’s a thousand, you know, 2,500 a really smoking hot jalapeno or a guillo, those those could get as high as 10,000. A Carolina?

Bernhard (15m 30s):

Yeah, about 10,000.

Holman (15m 32s):

A Carolina. Okay Cayenne, 25 to 50,000. A Carolina Reaper, 1.5 million on the Scoville scale.

Bernhard (15m 41s):

They, you know, like I can handle the mouthfeel like it’s bad and it’s painful, but it will turn your stomach inside out. You’ll not, you’ll regret eating it. Not because of the mouth burn goes away and an hour later you’re in, you’re just in the fetal position. There

Holman (15m 57s):

Was,

Bernhard (15m 57s):

They recommended, unless you do it

Holman (15m 59s):

On the remake of Dirty Jobs. So last season Mike came back with dirty jobs. They went to a pepper farm and one of the outtakes was his, one of his camera guys basically like said, yeah, gimme the hot pepper Oh, No Oh my God. Well they, so they go through how they’re making hot sauce and how they grind them up and how your eyes burn and everything and don’t touch anything and the whole thing. And at the end he gives the camera guy, he’s like, I can do it. The dude was doubled over puking and screaming. And that wasn, that wasn funny how they kind of talked through like, your brain doesn’t know how to interpret it, it thinks it’s hot, which is why you think it’s hot, but it’s not hot. It’s spicy. And the whole like, physical stuff that happens to your body when you ingest, you know, pepper oil, which is amazing.

Lightning (16m 44s):

So my, my wife knows that I love hot foods, but not painfully hot, but just really spicy. Like I love, love, love spicy foods. So Bernhard, we, we got a hookup for sure. She makes this casserole for me. This is two last Thursday night. I eat the casserole. It’s spicy. She’s like, it’s gonna burn your butt hole is what she tells me. Well,

Holman (17m 4s):

You know, and

Lightning (17m 4s):

I, and By the way I posted that on

Holman (17m 6s):

The internet, You know what they say, Burn’s going in, burn’s coming out.

Lightning (17m 9s):

So I said, yeah, maybe. Okay. So I got a little rumbling when I woke up that morning around 5:00 AM and I’m like, nah, I, I’m okay.

Holman (17m 16s):

Oh wait, was that the, the poop waking you up? ’cause that’s the worst. That

Lightning (17m 19s):

Is the worst.

Holman (17m 19s):

It’s worse than pee. Like you can go take a leak and go back to bed if you got a poop waking you up, especially a spicy one, dude all over you’re

Lightning (17m 26s):

Day in. So, so here’s started, here’s the problem. I have to race to work because I have an appointment. Sit on the John for a minute. Nothing. And I’m like, uhoh, but I have to go to work. Did

Holman (17m 34s):

You wet a paper towel and just sit on it in the car?

Lightning (17m 37s):

No, but I should have. So I’m, I’m in the T R X and I’m on the 6 0 5 freeway and I’m two thirds of the way there.

Holman (17m 43s):

And you wished you had 1200 horsepower.

Lightning (17m 45s):

And I start sweating and it’s awful. It’s awful. On top of awful. Oh. And I thought I’m gonna ruin these beautiful seats right now. And I, and I’m, I’m sweating balls. I’m just like Oh my God and thank the Lord. The traffic cleared as I crossed the 10 freeway that wasn

Holman (18m 3s):

Like Moses partying in the red seat.

Lightning (18m 4s):

I and I used all 702 horsepower in that mother trucker and I screeched

Holman (18m 9s):

In. So if that wasn Moses partying in the Red Sea, you would’ve walked across the path that he made, pulled down your pants and stuck your butt in the wall of water. Yes. Just to cool it

Lightning (18m 17s):

Off. Yes, I would have. And I I spackled pink’s bathroom. Spackled it.

Holman (18m 23s):

Which one? So I know which one not to go in. There are many there.

Lightning (18m 25s):

I’m not telling you. Oh. Oh that wasn great man. That was the nicest number two

Holman (18m 29s):

I’ve ever, there’s nothing, no, there’s nothing nice about that because Oh yeah,

Lightning (18m 32s):

That wasn going. Oh yeah. I went after, after that was done, I went and had like a donut. ’cause someone brought in donuts that morning. I like you

Holman (18m 38s):

Should’ve had more milk

Lightning (18m 39s):

I didn replenish. Yeah. Sorry about taking you down that road. Bernhard. But, but

Holman (18m 42s):

You’re the one who grows hot peppers. Yeah. You’re the one who grows.

Bernhard (18m 44s):

I’ve been down that road myself. I know what you’re talking about.

Lightning (18m 47s):

I’m sure you have. Tell me, tell me you’re a fan of the hot ones, the YouTube series.

Bernhard (18m 51s):

Oh, absolutely. I I like to watch it all the time. So I I I probably, I’ve purchased every one of their hot sauces, so I I I am a fan. Yes. Oh, I like,

Holman (18m 59s):

I like it All. right. So we’ve got Bernhard Lightener here. He is the founder and c e o of Lightener Designs. And you had a fairly famous dad. His name was Horse Lightener and you have been involved in all sorts of stuff. His company a t k, you worked on bikes and, and raced. You went out. In fact, your dad invented or started AMP research, right?

Bernhard (19m 25s):

Yeah, that’s right. So, you know, my, we immigrated from Austria actually in 1980. And, and my dad’s dream was to start building motorcycles. You know, I mean he raised, he was a professional motorcross racer in Austria and race the international six days. Enduro Enduro. He has four gold medals actually in that. Wow. He moved to the United States. Yeah, he was a real good motocross racer, Enduro racer. And he moved to the United States wanted to build motorcycles. And where else would you go if you wanted to, you know, build a company? He come to the United States obviously. So he moved here and started building bikes. He started a t k motorcycles and did really good in all the, all the races they had back then, especially the desert races like Barstead of Vegas and stuff like that.

Lightning (20m 12s):

What did a t k stand for and how do you just start a motor vehicle company back then? Okay,

Bernhard (20m 19s):

So let’s just start with the easy one is what does a t k stand for? It is, it’s a German ac it’s a German English acronym actually. So he started, he had an invention that took the chain forces. When you accelerate a motorcycle, the swing arm com, you know the swing arm will jack apart. And when you shut the throttle off, the swing arm actually compresses the suspension naturally just from engine braking. And that that can be dangerous. And it also affects the suspension in ways you don’t want it to. So he develop, developed a system called a T k, which is anti tension, kitten stain, which is German for chain system. So it’s a, it takes the tension out of the suspension on a motorcycle.

Lightning (21m 4s):

Did he patent it?

Bernhard (21m 7s):

He did patent that. And that wasn one of his biggest failures. And he admits that it’s a great invention, but nobody knew they had a problem. No. If you talk to anybody today that rides a motorcycle that does not have this device and none of them do, nobody knows that that’s an issue. When you come into a corner hard and you chop the throttle and the rear end starts hopping, that’s what that is. Or when you’re accelerating through, whoops. And the rear end bounces sideways. That’s what that is. It’s the suspension locking out from the horsepower or the, or the braking, the natural engine braking. And so nobody knew they had a problem and my dad couldn’t sell that thing if he wanted to.

Lightning (21m 51s):

Wow.

Bernhard (21m 52s):

So, and he knew it. He knew it that wasn, like he was trying to educate the public on a problem that nobody knew they had. that wasn a great idea and the, and it worked perfectly, but just nobody really ever thought about it. Right.

Lightning (22m 9s):

Or, or or Bernhard. was It the Honda Cowie Suzuki that had their egos were too big to pay the licensing fee on a patent?

Bernhard (22m 20s):

Absolutely. There was a huge amount of that as well. They thought they could get through this with valving or complicated, you know, linkage systems. They like, no, we can solve this problem. But the base problem is that, you know, the suspension is affected massively By, the engine horsepower, more horsepower, the worse. It’s, it’s similar to a truck. You ever get an axle wrap?

Lightning (22m 43s):

Sure, of course. In

Bernhard (22m 44s):

The rear end hog. Yeah, it’s the same thing. It’s very similar to that. So

Lightning (22m 48s):

It works like a, like a track bar on a truck, like on a quarter mile truck. Yeah,

Holman (22m 52s):

No, I would say it’s more like the kicker shock on your T R X.

Lightning (22m 55s):

Oh right.

Holman (22m 56s):

I mean there’s that fifth shock that’s on top of the axle to damp. Any, any wrap that comes from Yeah, that was

Lightning (23m 2s):

A trip By the way we, when I first got my truck, we all crawled under there and we go, wow, there’s a, there’s a shock that goes from the front to the back and it’s up under the bed. Yeah,

Holman (23m 13s):

It’s, it’s, it’s to keep, you know, to damp the rotation of your, of your rear axle. And in fact, that same system was employed on the Ram SRT 10 Viper truck also.

Lightning (23m 23s):

No kidding. So what ended up happening? I didn. Yeah, Bernhard. What happened to the patent? It just ran its 20 years and, and no one used it today or no,

Bernhard (23m 32s):

It, it ran its course. And there is one other thing like, so basically what happened, I think a lot of it I mean this is, you know, conjecture but it, so you can use the engine torque to your advantage if you are a motorcross racer and you’ve ever seat bounced a triple where you sit down and gun it and bounce over that triple, if you had an a t K system on it, you couldn’t do that. You were basically using the engine power to lock out the suspension or make it so stiff that it would bounce over that triple that would not work on a bike with an A T K. Now if you’re desert racing and you’re just mobbing, it worked wonderful in that aspect because you never had a seat bounce.

Bernhard (24m 18s):

So there was, people learned how to, they didn’t know what they were doing, but they learned how to use that to their advantage that that that that lockout under hor under load.

Holman (24m 32s):

So your, your dad eventually sells a t k motorcycles and founds amp research and he employed you as I guess head test rider and fabricator. So if you think about AMP research, everybody knows ’em from their power boards, right? Like that’s kind of like the tractable steps or, or the bed extender. Right. But they were doing things like full suspension bicycles, disc brakes for companies like specialized mongoose, rock shocks, bunch of other companies. Yep. And those designs are still used By, the manufacturers today. And this was back in the early nineties. So that I mean that’s a testament to how robust that design was way back then when it came out.

Bernhard (25m 10s):

I mean that design has, you know, stood the test of time that is still the simplest, most effective suspension system that specialized, you know, they, they ended up buying the patty and that and still to this day everyone strives to use that suspension system. It’s the simplest, lightest, and works the best. What’s it called it that wasn an s well my dad, my dad was never a marketing guy. Funny enough he didn’t call it. And then his good friend Jody Weisel, who is the editor of a magazine called Motocross Action, just started calling it the Horse link after his first name. And that stuck and everyone still calls that suspension, the horse link suspension.

Holman (25m 52s):

You can take the horse link and put it into Google and all sorts of stuff comes out. And then there’s obviously been variations isn’t like some of the, the more modern versions like the DW link or some of those based off of your dad’s linkage.

Bernhard (26m 5s):

Yeah, they are. They, they, they work in a very similar principle with more complexity.

Holman (26m 13s):

In 2001 you accepted a job as the head of engineering for innovative innovation sports. what is that? So Bernhard worked on, this is kind of an interesting one because it sort of seems, I dunno, different than the products before custom knee brace hinge designs the electronic knee brace measuring systems. What, what was that? Yeah,

Bernhard (26m 34s):

Funny enough, I have a patent on that actually. Just some, this is so random. So yeah, so I got a good, I got a, you know, I I wanted to do something else. I didn’t wanna work for my dad forever. Right. You know? Yeah. I was 20, I was 21 years old. I was 21 years old at the time. I’d, I’d been a motocross mechanic for a couple of years prior to that. And a friend of mine’s dad owned a company called Innovation Sports and they invented motocross knee bracing. They, that’s who started the whole thing with motocross and action sports making knee braces. The owner blew his knee out skiing and the doctor said there he’ll never ski again. He made a knee brace.

Holman (27m 11s):

He went, oh well yes. I’ll, I’ll show you.

Bernhard (27m 15s):

Yep. And so he started this company, crazy crazy guy, Jim Castillo. And, and he started this company making knee braces and did, was amazingly successful. All the pro motocross racers to this day, I mean if you wear a knee brace in motocross or any action sports, the best one out there to this day is the innovation sports c t i knee brace. It is all carbon fiber. This, he did this in the eighties that wasn all carbon fiber and just form fitted to your leg. And that wasn, that wasn that wasn way ahead of its time. So I, I took a job there and started designing knee braces, which was perfect because he let me go try knee braces race and I’d we’d go to the local track during the week and I’d just go test knee braces.

Bernhard (27m 58s):

So he’d let me ride all the time.

Holman (27m 60s):

He’s like, am I paying you to race? You’re like, Nope, you’re paying me to test knee braces. Yeah,

Bernhard (28m 4s):

You’re you’re paying me to test knee braces.

Holman (28m 6s):

So in oh seven, you finally founded the beginning of what we know today as Lightener Designs and didn didn’t know this, but you developed motorcycle exhaust and race components for two brothers racing. But I was just talking to Lightning and when I saw you a a while back Wait, wait.

Lightning (28m 23s):

Before you get into that Yeah, I know you’re gonna do it. Yep. I owned several two brothers exhaust some of the best engineered exhaust systems that for sure that I’ve ever owned for sure. And I have some friends that are at competing companies that I won’t mention right now. But I I I hope that you were there during those years because the C NNC work, the just Oh my God the detail and I feel, I feel like two brothers never got the, the publicity that they deserved. And I don’t know why that is ’cause I don’t know that much about the company. I think they were based in Santa Ana, California, right? Yeah. They were they

Holman (28m 54s):

F grand

Lightning (28m 55s):

Damn. And the first time I was referred to them and I got one from my, I don wanna say that wasn like my, my R two 50 and I put one on, I go, holy crap, is this an amazing exhaust

Bernhard (29m 5s):

That wasn that wasn a cool company to work for? Yeah. They, that wasn just, there’s only one brother left when, when I was there. I don’t know what happened there. But, but yeah, I got the opportunity to work there and I’d already been designing products forever and I was kind of freelance and they wanted me there full time. So I’m like, All, right. You pay me enough, I’ll, I’ll do it. And I got got a, I got I that wasn a great learning experience for sure. I got, I got to learn a lot about manufacturing and stuff in that Cooi at that company.

Lightning (29m 34s):

Wait, did you read on, did you read between the lines there? I did. He did not have a good time there.

Holman (29m 38s):

Well that’s,

Lightning (29m 38s):

That’s what he said. I learned a lot. But he doesn’t have anything good to

Holman (29m 41s):

Say about that guys. Well he Didn didn’t he? Well he, listen, he moved on and, and grew like we all do.

Bernhard (29m 46s):

We all grow. Yeah. We all

Holman (29m 47s):

Grow, we all evolve. Lightning wants to always pull out the dirt and the, and and, and everything bad in something. I do not. I just, I felt like you couldn’t let him be diplomatic. You had to call him out on it. I gotta call him out. What is wrong? He didn’t have,

Bernhard (30m 0s):

I got nothing bad to say. There you go.

Holman (30m 2s):

See. Perfect.

Bernhard (30m 4s):

But to be honest, I mean, I think the good thing to say about that wasn, that wasn the springboard for me that wasn, the last job I ever had was, was 2013, two brothers racing was the last job I ever had after I, I started my company in 14 and I walked away, you know, and it, it’s, it’s great. I mean it’s just everything worked out well.

Holman (30m 26s):

So I was gonna point out when I was visiting you not too long ago, you saw my phone case and you said, Hey, I des I designed that. And I was like, what? And you’ve done bss. So I, I’ve used rock form, which is R O k F O R M. It’s the kind of phone case. I’ve, I’ve used them probably for 10 years now, maybe more. It’s the kind of case that’s impact resistant. But the, the beauty is on the back, it has a four pronged kind of a, a hub if you will. And you can lock your phone either in the vertical or landscape orientation. And that hub can be attached to a magnet, can be attached to handlebars, can be attached to your visor, can be attached to a suction cup, whatever it is.

Holman (31m 10s):

And it’s a way of securely locking your phone to whatever vehicle that you happen to be in. And for me, I started using ’em when I was riding my Harleys and mules. ’cause I would lock my iPhone to the handlebars or when I was mountain bike riding or today I still use their magnet mount where you put the magnet in that little half turn and I can use it as a magnet mount inside the inside my Jeep. And so I’ve been a, a customer of rock form for many, many, many years. I had no idea that Bernhard was the one who invented that.

Bernhard (31m 40s):

That’s funny. Yeah, no, I I, they hired me to make, they wanted to get out of, they didn’t wanna get out of the motorcycle market, but they wanted to start making cell phone cases, make a new division. And the, and one of the owners decided, Hey, let’s make cell phone cases. And he hired me. He is like, what can you come up with? And I go, well, here’s a problem I got. I throw my phone in in the cup holder and then the phone rings. You gotta remember this is, I don’t know what year this is 2010 now. Right. And they didn’t really have app, they didn’t have Apple car play, they didn’t have any way of answering your phone. Then you’d be fumbling with it and everything already had to be hands free. I’m like, what if you could mount it on the dash without one of these ugly claws?

Holman (32m 19s):

Yeah.

Bernhard (32m 20s):

That ruined your dash, you know, suction cup it somewhere. I’m like, you gotta make something really tiny, very precise that just locks just your phone onto the dash. You can view it and answer your phone calls. That’s how that whole thing started. I’m like, I just need, I just wanted one for myself, to be honest with you. Those

Holman (32m 36s):

Are the best inventions where you just make stuff for yourself. Although I

Lightning (32m 39s):

Did you get Absolutely. Did anyone get a patent on that?

Bernhard (32m 42s):

Yeah. So interesting enough, they did get a patent on it, but I, they weren’t super, like, I’m like at my own company, I patent like everything and defend my patents. They just, they patented it and then just, I don’t think they, they were more going for, they weren’t really going for defending that patent. But yeah, they have a patent on it

Holman (33m 2s):

All. right. So in 2014, that’s when you built the very first lightener active cargo system. So this was sort of the, the beginnings of what’s known today as your Lightning, you know, truck bed rack. So maybe talk about how that came to be, how you made that leap from motorcycles into trucks and, and how the company kinda started from there.

Bernhard (33m 24s):

Yeah, well, you know, it, it, again it’s sim it’s, it’s like, you know, necessity of the mother of all invention, right? So I’ve been, you know, I’ve been fabricating and building stuff and designing stuff for personally use forever. And I started really getting into this off-road camping and, and overlanding or whatever you wanna call it. And rooftop tents were coming out and I’m like, I need to get myself one of these. And then I didn’t know how to mount it to my truck. So I had a Tacoma and I had to figure out a way to mount this to my truck. And so I didn’t have a fab shop or anything, so I went to my buddies and they were all gonna like, oh yeah, we can bend you a tube. And I go, yeah, but I wanna keep my compressor in here and I want to keep my recovery gear here. And they’re like, Well, we can’t really do that.

Bernhard (34m 5s):

And I’m like, well there’s gotta be a better way to do this. Right? And so I just sat down one day thinking like I, I wanna build this Tacoma and to be the badass Tacoma. And so I, I sat down and started drawing it and I’m like, first I started making everything out of bent metal tubes like everybody else would start with, ’cause you can do that, you can buy metal tubes. And then I started drawing it and I’m like, well that doesn’t look good and that’s not manufacturable. And I just got way, you know, that’s how my brain works. I just got way too into it and suddenly I had this whole product and I’m like, I can’t even make this

Holman (34m 42s):

I can, this is not repeatable. This

Bernhard (34m 46s):

Is not, I can’t make this I can’t fabric. That’s

Lightning (34m 48s):

So funny because isn’t that one of the things like when you engineers always mock other engineers, like junior engineers for designing something that can’t actually be,

Holman (34m 58s):

Can be, that can be manufactured. Can be, yeah, exactly. At least a scale.

Lightning (34m 60s):

Right? Right. Right, right. And I like the fact that Bernhard, you went and said, Hey, everything’s made outta d o m right? Drawn over maal tubing. Right? They’re like, everything is round tubing, bumpers. Just that. It’s like, and I said the same thing about like, we all used to watch Monster Garage, right? And Jesse James building all these bikes and every, every single bike American chopper and all these, they’re all just freaking d o m tubing. I thought why isn’t anyone seeing and seeing a, or doing like what Honda does with their swing arms? Why isn’t a bike made out that when all the American guys are just doing bent tubing? I’m like, it looks so 1987, it’s just everything is so dated with that stuff.

Bernhard (35m 41s):

It’s just too hard. It’s just too difficult to make something. It really is. Once you get into the nitty gritty of it and go, oh, I, I wanna make this and that. You’d look at it and only an idiot would do it. And that’s what, that’s me. I’m pretty, I’m just too stupid. And so I just go, no, I’m going to do it this way. It’s the right way to do it. And I just crossed my fingers and, and hoped it would work. Right? I mean I put a bunch of money into tooling and I made all these plastic storage boxes and I didn’t, I wasn’t sure this was ever gonna work, but I just kept going at it. You know, I wasn’t, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure obviously, but I just kept going for it. And I just wanted a product that was just the way I wanted it to work.

Bernhard (36m 24s):

So, and not just metal boxes.

Holman (36m 26s):

So what was cool about your system is it had a, a back bar that would slide and that would allow people to use the entire truck bed. It didn’t take away from having that storage space or the usefulness. ’cause at the time there were a bunch of different things that were out there, but there weren’t any real, unless you were like a Baja team, there wasn’t, like Chase Rack was sort of a thing, but not really for the consumer. You could get like a regular, you know, fiberglass camper shell, but then you couldn’t really access the stuff in the back of your bed. And it wasn’t really lightweight necessarily. Obviously trucks back then didn’t have the same payload that they do now. And then there were things like, what was the soft topper camelback or, or some of those different designs that were the, the Canvas camba.

Holman (37m 10s):

Sure. And so there are a few of those types of things, but there wasn’t anything really like what you came up with. Well how

Lightning (37m 17s):

Do we, how do we describe it? Because unless you go to lightener designs.com and see it for yourself, I’m not sure we can do it justice verbally. I I I don’t know how do you describe it? What’s your elevator pitch? Bernhard for the active cargo system?

Bernhard (37m 31s):

Well, and I didn’t come up with this one. It it, it’s the, this is my marketing department, but it’s the, the toughest, most modular truck rack on the market. So it is a truck bed rack, but it offers storage options that are dry and secure and locking and it doesn’t ruin your truck bed because everything else you put on your truck that’s out there, you can’t put a motorcycle in the back. And that was huge for me. Or if you gotta move your neighbor’s couch or whatever it is, basically you have that bar fixed back there. Yeah. And you just hit your head in trying to get your cooler out of the truck. It’s just, it’s in your way more than it isn’t.

Bernhard (38m 11s):

And, and that’s what tracks were. And so we, I had to make something better.

Holman (38m 14s):

Well, and you came up with something, the, the next generation in, in 19 was the a c s Forge, which was basically your gen two system that had Yep. Forgings in your uprights, which is a very unique look. They’re very high quality, also strong. And they were backwards compatible with some of your accessories that you had. And of course third party mounts. But the beauty of your system is you would hang boxes in some of your accessories from the top, none of that wasn on the floor of the bed, which would allow you full use of the bottom of your bed where a lot of racks bolted down and had to have structure on the side and made your bed narrower and to your point, couldn’t get motorcycles in the back, which is obviously what you’re trying to do. And I just showed Lightning, I’ve got this brand new second issue of outdoor Vehicle Recreation magazine, O V R here.

Holman (39m 2s):

It has a, a spread for lightener and it shows your bed rack being used with a, with a motorcycle going in the back of it. And it’s just a really cool kind of high up photo. So a thank you for supporting O V R ’cause I appreciate that greatly. But it’s a, it’s an absolutely awesome ad.

Lightning (39m 19s):

So the thing is, is that you’ve got the four uprights, forgive me if I’m calling them the wrong thing, but they’re the four uprights

Bernhard (39m 25s):

That’s, we call ’em, we call ’em, we call ’em uprights. Go for

Lightning (39m 28s):

It. Okay. So in, in the front corners, the back corners as you, as you’d expect with any rack. And then you have Yep. Then you have the bars that go from driver side to passenger side and there’s one towards the front of the truck and one By the tailgate. And the beauty is, let’s say you’re gonna pull your K T X four 50 in the back. Right. You’ve got your motorcycle like, okay, well wait a minute, how am I gonna put the bike’s too tall? I can’t get it under the up, I can’t get it Un under the crossbar. The up barbar.

Holman (39m 55s):

Yeah. The, yeah, the crossbar, the top of the up The crossbar. The crossbar. Yeah. The top this. So

Lightning (39m 58s):

His crossbars just slide forward. Yep. So you just do

Holman (40m 2s):

Do

Lightning (40m 3s):

Slide it forward on these tracks, tighten it down, up goes the bike tie down’s done five minutes, maybe less.

Holman (40m 10s):

And because it’s forged, it’s super strong and there’s a lot of structure. It’s lightweight, it’s strong, but it it, it has even without, with it being turned into a, think of it as a a three-sided rectangle in that mode, it’s still has enough strength for your accessories and you put his different cargo storage boxes that hang down. He’s got a, a water one that you can pressurize and, and you know, use a hose to spray your stuff down at the end of the day or take a shower. What? Yeah, seriously? Yeah.

Bernhard (40m 40s):

Oh yeah. We make all that stuff.

Lightning (40m 42s):

So You know what, oh, I was gonna make fun of you Homan for burning through fuel on your last, but they don’t make one for, he doesn’t have one for a, a jeep jail. But

Holman (40m 49s):

What did, what does that do with me? Burning

Lightning (40m 50s):

Fuel? Well, because you would’ve had external, I got

Holman (40m 54s):

10 fuel, I got 10 gallons on the

Lightning (40m 55s):

Back. Oh yeah, you do. You need more. Yeah, I

Holman (40m 57s):

Do need more. That’s, that’s Bernhard.

Lightning (40m 58s):

Do you have any idea how bad holman’s fuel economy is in his 3 92 Offroad? Tell ’em how many miles you got on the tank. Well, hold on. Not miles per gallon. How many miles you got? hold on

Holman (41m 7s):

This.

Bernhard (41m 7s):

Oh

Holman (41m 7s):

Geez. This was rock crawling. Very technical, very slow crawley stuff over a very long thing. Listen,

Lightning (41m 15s):

Bernhard is my man, he’s a fellow T Rx owner and By the way I wanna find out what happened to you in the desert when you broke it. Well

Holman (41m 20s):

Also, I was gonna say he may not be a TX owner long,

Lightning (41m 23s):

So, okay, got it. All, right. So maybe he’s turned, I don’t know. Yeah. But, or

Holman (41m 27s):

Maybe he’s just not your man. You,

Lightning (41m 28s):

You think your 11 or 12 miles a gallon is bad. Holman got 70 miles on a tank.

Holman (41m 34s):

Well 70 miles when the light came on. Which equated? Which equated to 4.7 miles per gallon.

Bernhard (41m 42s):

Ooh.

Holman (41m 43s):

Yeah. Yeah.

Bernhard (41m 44s):

Rock crawling. You’re having a good time. Yeah. You know,

Holman (41m 46s):

Listen, it’s miles per gallon my friend. Miles per gallon. Miles per

Lightning (41m 50s):

Gallon. But had you had some kind of a rack system with all of the lightener external fuel tanks, you would’ve been gold.

Holman (41m 58s):

I would’ve had more fuel Yes. To burn. That’s exactly right. That’s all that would’ve been

Lightning (42m 4s):

What we’re gonna get back to the racks. But now whether we’re on the topic, what happened with you and your T R X out in the desert in the middle of nowhere?

Bernhard (42m 10s):

Yeah, so I mean, we, we at lightener, we, so we got a bunch of trucks anyways. We got, we got a T R X, we got a Jeep Gladiator, we got a super duty running 30 sevens with a full Carly pin top system like loaded. And, and we try to go out once a month and just go beat on our trucks because we’re always product testing and we’re testing a new product that we’re gonna be launching this year. And you know, I’m driving, I drive and, and all of us kind of do, but I drive a little extra hard. So we’re, we’re doing this loop out in, out in kind of Johnston Valley area. Actually this was, this was right more out in the Mojave. I know Sean knows that area really well.

Bernhard (42m 51s):

We’re, I’m just booking down this washboard and you know, a lot of people say like, what breaks trucks, what what breaks product? And people will say, oh, jumping it that, that’ll break something. Or, or you know, or g outs or something. But what breaks vehicles is just washboard roads. Like nothing, nothing can prepare a product more than just doing hundreds of miles of washboards. It will shake everything off your truck. Everything. Right. It, it’s just, it’s the worst. Nobody likes to do it. But I mean I rather not do it. But I have a good, I have a good 200 mile loop that ends up out in Laughlin and we just, you know, we punch it in a day, 200 miles, just one point A to point B and then come back the next day.

Bernhard (43m 36s):

So that’s our, that’s our product test run on this one section, which just, that wasn not whooped out. that wasn, just washboards and I’m, I’m kicking it, you know, 60 60, maybe a little faster, probably around 60, 65. The steering, it, it started getting like a death wobble. Like you might get in like a, like a solid axle truck I guess. And the front end started getting loose and I grabbed the steering Wheel and I heard a k and the steering Wheel disconnected from the whole steering system. Like that wasn gone like 60 miles an hour and I had no steering Wheel. I didn’t know what happened. Ouch.

Holman (44m 15s):

So there’s that joke. I didn’t know what happened. There’s that joke that says loosen up behind the Wheel. This was true in, in two ways on this one. Yeah.

Bernhard (44m 24s):

This, that wasn an interesting experience. ’cause you don’t know, you don’t expect it to happen. You don’t, you’re not prepared for it. It, you didn’t know what the failure was. And so I’m just going down the, I’m going 65 and I really didn’t let off the throttle. I’m like, nah, it’s just that wasn floating. I felt like maybe that wasn just floating and it started darting off to the right and I kind of counter corrected and the steering Wheel was just in my hand doing nothing. Oh. And I just laid and that wasn like, that wasn a panic moment and it just, I just laid on the brakes and just blew up. And the thing came to perfectly safe, came to a stop in the middle of the desert and I’m way ahead of my group of guys, you know?

Bernhard (45m 5s):

And I’m like

Holman (45m 5s):

And when you opened the door, did you hear the sound

Bernhard (45m 13s):

App? Dude, I what? I just, the first thing I said at radio, I’m like, I’m like, I think there’s something wrong and like you

Holman (45m 21s):

Better

Bernhard (45m 21s):

Turn around. Where are you

Holman (45m 23s):

Understand? And I

Bernhard (45m 25s):

Was so in the desert out there is so wide open, right. I mean it, you can go 10 miles to the right or 10 miles to the left and it’s just wide open out there. There’s no real trail. And so I see my guys going by and the ra, they were outer radio range.

Holman (45m 43s):

Did you get on the lightener rack in the bed stand on top of it because of what? A secure platform that wasn and shake your steering Wheel in the air to try and get their attention to the steering. Wheel

Bernhard (45m 54s):

You’re joking. That’s exactly what I did.

Holman (45m 59s):

Why can’t you see the red? I’m over here on top of the rack waving a steering Wheel at your dummies.

Bernhard (46m 6s):

I had a radio in my hand on top of the truck trying to get radio reception. One of them saw me, one of the guys heard me on the radio and turned around and then now it’s me and him sitting out there. So we just took all the gasoline and just sat, got as much plastic as we could and just set this huge signal fire.

Holman (46m 26s):

No way. Really?

Bernhard (46m 28s):

Yeah. Real. We had a set of signals fire. And then finally ’cause they, they knew we were missing and they couldn’t find us. They went to a top of the hill, saw the signal fire and drove toward it. That’s what, that’s how everyone got back together.

Holman (46m 41s):

You know, you, you’re, you’re lucky you had gasoline. Otherwise it could have been a three hour tour that turned into something much, much longer. How I’m, I’m,

Lightning (46m 48s):

I’m kind of surprised that the G M R S radio at what, how this is like 15, 20 miles. Like how far does

Holman (46m 54s):

It go to sight? And it depends what other people have. Who knows if it’s G M R Ss was race radio? Well yeah,

Bernhard (46m 58s):

It that wasn it. It’s just Aham Radio. What are we running? We run, we run weather when we’re out there we run weatherman. Yeah. And I think only like a, it’s not a juicy radio that wasn a, the one I was running was a handheld right. With like a really long antenna on it, like a three foot, four foot long antenna that

Holman (47m 14s):

A Radio Shack or a Tandy Tandy, what are you, 90 Right. that wasn waving my candy out the window.

Bernhard (47m 23s):

It definitely made me rethink my choice of radios in that particular vehicle. So

Holman (47m 27s):

Yeah, especially when you can’t communicate with people it seems that’s sort of why you have it

Bernhard (47m 31s):

That yeah. That didn’t work out as planned.

Holman (47m 35s):

So

Lightning (47m 35s):

What’d you do? How did you get it back to camp?

Bernhard (47m 40s):

So it’s

Holman (47m 41s):

Actually still out there. So

Bernhard (47m 41s):

Believe me, that wasn out there for a day, that wasn out there for 24 hours. I’m like, I, I got in our super duty and I went to my friend’s house out in Johnson Valley and grabbed his flatbed trailer and it’s that wasn out there far and it, the worst part was It was all sand. Right? And so that wasn pretty deep. And so we got, we we, we drove out there and it took us, I camped out there think God, we had a rooftop on the rack and we just built a big fire and just, you know, took us an entire day to scope out a g p s route to get out because when on the way out we calculated, we’re pulling close to 18,000 pounds through sand. Oh

Holman (48m 20s):

With the, oh dude,

Bernhard (48m 23s):

The super duty’s gotta weigh 9,500 pounds with all the crap on it. So when did

Holman (48m 27s):

The Lightener hovercraft accessory come out?

Bernhard (48m 31s):

I was about to just call a helicopter if they had one big enough to pick that T R X up. But yeah, so we, we went out there, you know, the next day took us a day to scope a route out to the freeway, which was quite a far away. And then we loaded it up backwards ’cause the thing wouldn’t steer. So tried getting a truck with no steering, Wheel onto a flatbed in the sand dunes. You couldn’t steer it. We kept doing, so we grabbed vice grips. Oh,

Holman (48m 55s):

Steered with the vice grips on the steering shaft

Bernhard (48m 58s):

Steered it with, with vice grips on the steering shaft, and I can get like a of a rotation out of it before it hit the gas pedal. And so I’m like sitting there going click, click, click, click, trying to freak it. that wasn dude, that wasn a I mean it’s fun. Now I still get to laugh about it, but it’s a

Holman (49m 14s):

Great story for a bar.

Bernhard (49m 17s):

It is a great story and I’ll have that forever. But it, when I was out there just sitting there going, looking at my truck with no steering Wheel on it, going, nah, that ain’t fun.

Holman (49m 24s):

What happened? You get it home, you get it to the dealer and.dot, dot,

Bernhard (49m 30s):

Drop it off at the dealer, ask him to take a look at it. And I, I’m not, I didn’t tell ’em I was just driving down the freeway and the steering Wheel let out. I go, I’m going 65 through the desert and the steering Wheel let go over washboards. And that’s the honest truth. And that’s exactly what happened to it. And they’re like, yep, no problem. We’ll take a look at it. I called him every day for 10 days. Finally on the 10th day, a guy called me back and he goes, we’re gonna have to have, you know, f c a come out STIs, Chrysler, whatever you wanna call him. And one of their reps is gonna come out and look at it. Another 10 go, days go by and I call him again and I go, what’s going on? Oh, well we’re, we’re looking into it.

Bernhard (50m 9s):

30 days go by

Lightning (50m 11s):

Oh No,

Bernhard (50m 13s):

What’s going on? And they’re like, we’re gonna get to it. We’re still looking to have the rep from, from F c A come out to take a look at it at day 45. To this day it’s been three and a half months. It’s still sitting there.

Lightning (50m 26s):

Oh, No. ’cause ’cause wait a minute, 30 days is, I never thought it back. 30 days is lemon law. But this is, is that a repeat issue for 30 days? I don’t know. My wife had a, had a Mercedes Lemon LA and they bought it back on the 31st day. You’ve had it there for how long again? Three

Holman (50m 42s):

And a half months.

Bernhard (50m 44s):

Yeah. So it’s 30, 60, a hundred days. I mean, gotta remember this happened. This ha Well I mean this happened Jan, this happened at the end, well, right before Christmas, like two, three days before Christmas two. I

Lightning (50m 59s):

Remember

Holman (50m 59s):

Seeing your post and I thought that wasn a joke. And I went, oh, oh, damn, that’s not a joke. Oh, that sucks. Yeah.

Bernhard (51m 7s):

And you know, it’s like, here’s the deal. Like I am not a brand loyal person. Somebody will take this as like Aussie ramped here. RX is suck and Ford Raptors are so much better and things go bad. It’s engineered, it’s metal. It you, you, things happen that aren’t supposed to, and that’s just, just the way it is. But I mean on my, on my Raptor, I, the bolt came out behind the steering Wheel. But that was the trail fix because I popped the airbag off and put red lock tight and tighten the bolt back down. But I had a bolt back out of my raptor, the steering Wheel, and it came off well, here’s what,

Holman (51m 38s):

Here’s what this tells us, right? Like steering, this is that moment where you just realize that everything is screwed together. And any, you know, to your point, it’s all engineered and manufactured and the desert is rough on vehicles. It’s hard to build a really quality Offroad package. It’s difficult.

Lightning (51m 55s):

Well, I think what’s concerning him, I think let’s get to the core of the matter here, is that the Ram dealer, di nor nor STIs, they should have said, we, we tried to build the St. Sturdiest truck, we could build for this exact thing. And he broke it and they should have said, sorry, let’s get it fixed. Let’s replace whatever needs to be fixed. And they’re just dragging their feet. I

Bernhard (52m 18s):

Would’ve paid for the Repair, I would not have if they’d have said, Hey, this is not what this thing was built for. And that wasn, I called them repeatedly and they never got back to me. Oh No, they’re, wait, we’re waiting on this. And then, you know, at some point I’m like, come on, I could’ve fixed it myself. The part on line’s 250 bucks, it’s just the steering box right underneath the steer, the steering Wheel By, the underneath the dash, that’s where it broke because the steering Wheel spins in circles and the outfit shaft doesn’t spin. So I know where it’s broken. I that wasn a $250 part. I, I still don’t know what’s wrong with the truck, but

Lightning (52m 56s):

Well, well, Bernhard, do you think that they’re hanging onto your truck because they think they may have a recall situation? Well,

Holman (53m 3s):

All, anytime something like that happens, there’s, there’s two avenues, right? There’s the nitsa where there’s enough complaints where the government does an investigation and then tells the manufacturer, Hey, you need to do a recall. Or there’s the ones where the manufacturers self-identify and they may go, oh wow, there was a flaw in this part for five trucks on the line and we saw it in five trucks. Or it could be like, we made this this part, our supplier didn’t do the right metallurgy, now we have to replace that. Or it could be this is a one-off, it just wasn’t installed properly or whatever. So in my opinion, they’re keeping it for the data, but for whatever reason, I mean somebody should have come out by now and, and, and done what they needed to do. So it’ll be interesting. They good out. Yeah, it would be interesting to see how that gets resolved.

Holman (53m 42s):

And

Lightning (53m 43s):

They’re idiots because someone at the dealer has to know that Bernhard is kind of an influential figure in the Offroad industry, you know, and overland. So I think that’s dumb

Holman (53m 53s):

Maybe, but you gotta, you you’re dealing with massive corporations. I’ve never, I’ve

Bernhard (53m 57s):

Never, and I still don’t blame it on anybody. And I’ve never posted about it on personally or on our website haven haven’t said anything about it. And it, it, it’s not, you know, I’m not that guy and it, things break. It’s a freaking truck. It, I’ve broken a lot of trucks, I don’t think, and motorcycles. I’ve never had a steering Wheel rip off. Like I’ve never had that happen. So I feel like it should be repaired. But

Holman (54m 18s):

I think you do yourself a disservice though. You’ve broken a lot more than just trucks. You’ve broken motorcycles and I mean. Yeah. If you went down the list of stuff and you’ve broken Yeah. Your body,

Bernhard (54m 28s):

I’ve got more screws in me than I I care to remember at this point.

Holman (54m 33s):

Well, if you had the right size screw and thread pitch, you could have screwed your steering Wheel back on Buddy. Right. Take it right outta your shoulder and put right on the truck.

Bernhard (54m 40s):

I could have sourced my own. Yeah. I could have sourced my own freaking product.

Lightning (54m 44s):

So let’s get back to the products here. And when you were designing the icon of the, the, the marquee system for, for Lightener, which is the active cargo system, right? It’s gonna cost you a boatload of money for the forgings and, and Yep. I wanna know what came first.

Bernhard (54m 60s):

That wasn, that wasn the classic that came first and that was, that was all aluminum. And that was all aluminum. There was aluminum tubing, there was a lot of stampings. We never, we, you know, a lot of companies always advertise. We la Precision Laser cut our stuff. Like we don’t laser cut anything at lightener. Like all our stuff is is stamped and dyes. You know, we tool for everything. And that actually makes a, in my opinion, a much better part than just laser cutting and press breaking.

Lightning (55m 27s):

Everyone does. ’cause it’s way more expensive. Way

Holman (55m 30s):

More expensive. Well, so, so Lightner has a a pretty interesting thing on the website. So if you go to lightener designs.com, he has a, a feature comparison forge versus classic. So you’re looking at 1950 versus 1450 to 1650. So there’s gonna be a price advantage for the classic you’re looking at. And one of the things you guys do that I love is not only do you do a static load limit, but you also do dynamic on-road and Offroad. So you have, we do off-road load limit of 400 pounds dynamic versus two 50 on-road of 800 pounds versus 500 or a static load limit of 1400 pounds versus a thousand. You get the height adjustable riser kit on the Forge, both have a sliding load bar, but the Forge has a five-year warranty versus the classics two year and then both fit all the accessories.

Holman (56m 17s):

You get black 10.9 grade hardware on the, on the forge and then they both have alum aluminum construction. So it’s not that much of a a, a bump up. It’s less than $500 in most cases for you to go from the classic up to the forged. And that forged for that price is, is is a, i I think there’s a lot of value there for what you’re getting For sure. And,

Lightning (56m 39s):

And By the way, when I said expensive, I was talking about his stampings versus Sure. Again, going back to the conversation about the, the, the d o M tubing is that I think it really separates the men from the boys because you look at automotive manufacturing, all, everything is stamped, right? It’s for structural rigidity, it’s for, for mass production, it’s for all the right reasons you stamp stuff. But the average guy who’s got a fab shop cannot afford that. It would be almost business suicide for him to do it. But, but Bernhard obviously he’d like jumped off the deep end and went, he’s like, I’m gonna do it right.

Bernhard (57m 16s):

It’s the right way to do it. It’s the right way to do it. And that’s how I’d like to build things. I don’t, I wanna build them the way I feel that I’ve learned over my years of designing products the right way to make something. I just don’t cut the corner there and I don’t just go get a laser cut part and weld it together and, and call it a a you know, I I I come from an automotive background. I did a lot of projects and back in the day for Toyota and for Ram and for Honda. And they have such stringent controls on how things are manufactured and powdercoated and, and and plated and you know, I learned all that over the years and I just made my product to that standard ’cause I just felt like that was gonna be the best.

Holman (57m 58s):

And, and I know firsthand how particular you are about your designs I mean you really do look at every aspect and you really do make sure that they, they meet your stringent standards, which are, in my opinion, some of the highest in the industry in terms of product development.

Bernhard (58m 14s):

Oh, thank you. I appreciate that I mean. We, we go, we’ll have to go on a test run one day when we load the truck up and we have these big giant weights that we make and that we put 400 pounds on top of that rack and just, it’s kind of silly to think four oh pounds on rack. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but 400 pounds is like me and Lightning.

Lightning (58m 34s):

Yeah, that’s a lot of sadly true. It’s, it’s both Holman and I just holding on for dear life as you is going over the washboard. Please, dear God, Bernhard, stop. Please.

Holman (58m 42s):

I’ll pay you anybody except we’re more dynamic as our, as our, our fat swings around inside of our bodies. Around corners and over. Whoops.

Lightning (58m 51s):

I I had a question Bernhard about on, on the active cargo system, on some of the systems you have angled, what would they call angled bars that come down? Support bars. Support bars that tie into would be the, the, the, the, not the tailgate, but it’s the

Bernhard (59m 8s):

D pillar Okay. Is what it’s called.

Lightning (59m 10s):

And they’re, and they’re strengthening, obviously they keep it from angular motion right across that, that sense.

Holman (59m 16s):

Yeah. You don’t want a parallelogram is what you’re doing. You’re

Lightning (59m 18s):

Right. But then yep, on, so me, ’cause I have the E G R roll track system, I have no place where I can put those crossbars that go angular down for that support. What keeps that system from rocking left and right forwards and backwards when I don’t have those supports.

Bernhard (59m 37s):

So on a tono we do make a Tono application and on a Tono application, those supports are missing. Now what basically happens in that situation, we had to reinforce the rack on the top, which unfortunately prevents the load bar from sliding front to back. So if you took the load bar out and slid it forward on ano application, and since you obviously can’t have those supports ’cause Theano would run into it and never close on ano application. You just, you just, you you have all the features of every other active cargo system we make. But you do not have the sliding load bar.

Lightning (1h 0m 14s):

Can I take off those load bars? So I can still pull a bike in the back?

Bernhard (1h 0m 19s):

It, if you did not have any of our accessories on there, then yeah, most likely that would hold up. But it it, it prevents the rack from folding in on itself. Like toward the center. All you do is

Holman (1h 0m 32s):

You’re talking about bicycles though, yeahs. So all you have have to do is duck your hbar under the load rack and move to the front.

Lightning (1h 0m 38s):

No, do I’m just, I’m not, it’s just not just me. A lot of guys who may have my setup maybe have a tunnel and a dirt. I don’t know. I’m just throwing out there. I’m just curious. But I I I’m also, he’s

Holman (1h 0m 46s):

Lighting is gonna throw you out for the next half hour. Very specific, oddly specific use cases. That

Lightning (1h 0m 51s):

Was It. That was It That’s my only specific use case. What

Holman (1h 0m 53s):

Happens if I’m carrying a box of bananas and,

Lightning (1h 0m 58s):

Sorry, I’m dial I I’m looking at freaking awesome and I wanna buy one. So I’m all,

Holman (1h 1m 3s):

All the listeners are hearing you going Lightning enough about how you use things if that wasn about me.

Lightning (1h 1m 8s):

I know All, right?

Holman (1h 1m 8s):

All right. So let’s talk about some of the applications. So, and any accessories obviously Ram, T R x, Ford Raptor of F one 50, of course Super Duty Ranger, even the Maverick, which the, the rack for the Maverick is actually kinda rad looking. It’s it’s pretty cool. Yeah,

Bernhard (1h 1m 23s):

It’s it’s four feet long. It’s tiny. Well I was gonna

Holman (1h 1m 26s):

Say it’s funny ’cause you see the typical lightener pod on the box on the side of it and most of it’s like there’s one of those boxes and then there’s like a couple shower pods and then there’s a couple rota packs and this is just, just the lightener box on the side. That’s

Bernhard (1h 1m 39s):

It. There’s some limited space, but we felt there’s an application for it. No, we just make a rack for everything. I mean. We just, if if a new truck model comes out, we, we, we immediately put engineering resources at it and build an application for that.

Holman (1h 1m 53s):

Well you’ve got the Chevy Silverado of course Trail Boss Sierra Gladiators, you’ve got the Titan, Titan xd, the Frontier Ram, 1500 power wagons, Tundras obviously Tacomas where you started. So you really are covering just about everything on the market. So if, if our listeners are, are thinking of what is a really high quality rack solution, and the beauty is your stuff is, is has quality powder coat on it, it is made from aluminum. It’s not gonna be like a lot of the other racks out there made of steel that after a year the powder coat bubbles and you get rust lines down your paint and, and the thing just doesn’t feel like quality. The lightener stuff again, five-year warranty on the forged stuff is gonna be, you know, the way to go.

Lightning (1h 2m 36s):

So as the, is the forged stuff, is it powder coated? Is it anodized? Is its coated what, what and how does it hold up in like for our friends on the, on the coast, whether in Florida, New Jersey, California,

Bernhard (1h 2m 49s):

It is all aluminum construction and on the aluminum, so we use a lo the funny enough we use a local powder coder, but that powder coder does powder coating for Ford. It does powder coating for Tesla, it does powder coating for, I know your listeners are familiar with Worn Winches. So when there’s an OE Ford, if there’s an OE winch made for Ford it, they go to that powder coer and it, they are the best. They do automotive grade and it’s not easy. People think you just spray it on, but there’s like four different layers underneath that that are applied prior to the top coat. And that’s one thing we do, we notice a spray over some steel and hook for the best.

Bernhard (1h 3m 30s):

Ours is, ours is guaranteed for sure.

Lightning (1h 3m 33s):

Gotcha. Let’s, let’s talk through some of the accessories. Well, what was the first accessory and then how did it expand? was It just, I need this, I need that. Or were you going to shows and guys like, I need a, a medical bag. I case I need a how did your line of accessories blossom?

Bernhard (1h 3m 51s):

So the first product was the gear pod and that’s, that’s what I think every rack at the time was missing was it’s a rack and it holds a tent or it holds a canoe and well, where do you put all your other stuff that you carry? Where do you carry your wetsuit, where do you carry, where do you carry any other stuff? So the first thing was the Gear pod, a small one that wasn 15 by 15, that wasn like a 15 inch square. Right. And we still sell that and it’s a good seller. But after that, pretty much everything was like a customer would call, I need this, a customer would call, I need this accessory. And we just listened to our customers at that point. They, I want a huge gear pod. I want one that’s half the length because I drive a, a short bed Tacoma and I still want to carry fuel or water, but I, you know, and so we were just listening to our customers and just, they were just giving us most of those ideas, to be honest with you.

Bernhard (1h 4m 43s):

Yeah.

Holman (1h 4m 43s):

I just wanna go back to the, the start of, of Lightener and when your dad was inventing things like bed extenders and Power Steps, you remember who the first OE was to offer that?

Lightning (1h 4m 57s):

Oh wait, Nissan. that

Holman (1h 4m 59s):

Wasn Nissan. So going back full circle, you guys started with, with Nissan as a I, guess that wasn a dealer accessory at first, right.

Bernhard (1h 5m 9s):

And the bed extender Nissan was the first as well when they launched their Frontier way back in the day, the Boxy frontier, I forgot what year that was. They were the first in the United States. Nissan was the first in the United States with a four door pickup truck with a short, tiny bed. They’re not nobody else really had before then. They’re

Holman (1h 5m 30s):

Not afraid to take chances. First Frontiers after they, after the Nissan hard body, ’cause they re the redesigned them would’ve been I think the D 22 or the, and then eventually the D 40, that was 1997 was when the, that that Body style frontier came out.

Bernhard (1h 5m 47s):

We had an original, they Nissan dropped off an original prototype and that wasn that wasn. So Right. that wasn like you, you know, you know that wasn one of those original prototypes that was just for picture taking. Oh yeah. And that wasn kind of pulled together. It had a Diesel gas cap in it, but that wasn gasoline powered, it said four Wheel Drive, but that wasn two Wheel drive. Right. that wasn just a photo car prior to the actual launch of the vehicle. And I remember an employee drove it and put Diesel in it because it had a Diesel gas cap. Oops. They didn’t know that. wasn hilarious. There was some funny stuff about that, but we had one of the first ones ever at amp. Yeah.

Holman (1h 6m 25s):

And those were built in Smyrna at the Smyrna factory in Tennessee. How did your dad get that deal with Nissan? How did he hook the big fish in the OE market? Because at the time, you know, Nissan was actually really innovative. If you think of all the products that, that Nissan has debuted, they were the first ones that had the towing mirrors that everybody has with the concave and convex glass they had in invent storage. They were the first to do a factory brand bedliner. They had the util track system. So they’re the first with tracks in the bed. They were the first with the bed extender. I mean there is a ton of in innovation that people don’t realize. ’cause everybody uses those products as industry standard now. How, how did your dad hook them as, as his first big OE account?

Bernhard (1h 7m 9s):

You would litter? I’d have to give him a call and ask him. I don’t have that exact answer for you. I’m guessing it probably happened somewhere at SEMA where he would be there every year at sema and I think some of the executives walked up to him and said, this is perfect for a new product we’re launching before it had launched. And, and probably thought that was a good idea. I I just, I just remember spending a lot of time at that assembly plant at Smyrna. Yeah. When it launched. You know, I, they would ship these container loads of bed extenders up to Smyrna and then I’d be on a plane and fly out and help the guys on the assembly line install ’em to make sure they were doing it right.

Holman (1h 7m 47s):

Oh. really? Oh, that’s so cool. That’s rad. Yeah.

Bernhard (1h 7m 49s):

Awesome. A lot of time there at that Sparta plant. It’s huge. If you’ve ever been to it, there’s four that’s off the freeway.

Holman (1h 7m 55s):

Oh, it’s, it’s I mean It’s massive. Massive.

Bernhard (1h 7m 58s):

It’s massive. It’s great. It’s beautiful and it’s clean and it’s just like this most organized assembly line you’ve ever seen.

Holman (1h 8m 4s):

And they built a mix of stuff there. Like really dissimilar products are all built on that Smyrna line, which is amazing when you watch things being built. I, I can’t remember if it’s Pathfinder one minute and you know, a truck another or something. I, I don’t remember what the mix is today, but basically that plant opened back in 1983 and built the, the 1983 and a half Nissan trucks were the first ones built in the US was outta that plant. That,

Lightning (1h 8m 27s):

That time that you spent there, Bernhard, did that shape any of, or give you any ideas about manufacturing that stuck with you and you were able to use years later?

Bernhard (1h 8m 36s):

You know what all did, but you know, every, every, I I don’t forget when it comes to engineering stuff, I don’t forget a lot. There’s, I forget people’s names, but I don’t forget engineering stuff. And yeah, that wasn amazing to watch and that’s how we designed our product now is like, how is this customer gonna properly assemble this without having a million steps to do? How is that customer gonna read those instructions so when he puts it together, he puts the right bolt in the right place. And I watched all that on the assembly line down at Nissan and how organized, they had all their, all their worksheets and I was just staring at it going, wow, okay. That’s why they can have their quality as high as they can because it’s just so organized. And so yeah, we try to do that at our facility.

Bernhard (1h 9m 17s):

We try to mimic that for sure.

Holman (1h 9m 19s):

If you wanna find out more about Lightener Designs or you’re looking for one of the best truck racks in the business, you wanna head over to lightener designs.com. That’s l e i T N E R designs.com. You can find them on, on Facebook at Lightener Designs. You can find them on Instagram at Lightener Designs. You can find ’em on YouTube at, hey, guess what, lightener Designs.

Bernhard (1h 9m 44s):

Absolutely. Where

Holman (1h 9m 44s):

Do we go to buy your hot sauce?

Bernhard (1h 9m 46s):

Well, I’m not selling it yet, but a good friend of ours, Rory actually gave it a good name. So I do, I do have hundreds of bottles in my kitchen. Oh. Hand out for free All. right. But we do have aim for it. It is called Lightener in a bottle.

Lightning (1h 9m 60s):

Oh, that’s great.

Holman (1h 10m 2s):

Oh, that’s, that’s awesome.

Lightning (1h 10m 3s):

That is. Oh damn. I don’t wanna give Rory credit for that.

Holman (1h 10m 6s):

No r Rory, you know, freaking Rory.

Lightning (1h 10m 8s):

No, fricking Rory. Yeah, but as

Bernhard (1h 10m 9s):

Rory, you gotta love him for that. That would be a good

Holman (1h 10m 12s):

Idea. Yeah. I mean we, we, we love him, but he’s still Lightning in

Lightning (1h 10m 15s):

The bottle

Holman (1h 10m 15s):

Is pretty strong that that’s, that’s solid. Yeah. I wanna get Lightener in a bottle and then we need to go down the, to the taco down the street and get whatever their burritos are, just like a two pound burrito but with no salsa in it. We’ll just use the lightener stuff and then go to town. I’m

Lightning (1h 10m 32s):

In Can we steal a couple bottles?

Bernhard (1h 10m 33s):

Yeah, I’ll bring, I’ll bring a bunch of bottles. Any of you guys going to Easter Jeep?

Holman (1h 10m 37s):

Oh, I’ll be there.

Bernhard (1h 10m 38s):

I’ll be there too. I’ll bring some bottles for you guys and I know they’re gonna, I know the, the Jeep Booth should have a bunch of our product in it, so I gotta go wa gotta watch and see that All.

Holman (1h 10m 49s):

Right? Well I’ll, I’ll be in call and

Lightning (1h 10m 50s):

Will you, you gotta bring one back to

Holman (1h 10m 51s):

Me. Alright, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll I’ll text you and figure out where the, the meeting place can be for the bottle swap. Actually just I’m taking bottles. I’m not actually giving you anything in return.

Lightning (1h 11m 0s):

Just, just the high stickers.

Holman (1h 11m 2s):

We’ll give him stickers. Oh

Lightning (1h 11m 3s):

Yeah, we do have stickers. Yeah. Got a couple slacks. It’s

Bernhard (1h 11m 6s):

Been a dream to be on the show so I can pay you in some hot sauce

Lightning (1h 11m 9s):

Right now. We know he is a liar. Yeah, right.

Holman (1h 11m 13s):

Oh dude.

Lightning (1h 11m 14s):

Well congratulations on the success. Yeah. Good to

Holman (1h 11m 17s):

Talk to you my friend. Appreciate it. This

Lightning (1h 11m 19s):

Has, this has been a long time in coming I know that you guys Holman you’ve spoken to him at a couple shows and had him on Well.

Holman (1h 11m 24s):

We, we back way, way, way when we first started this thing at the Four Wheeler Adventure Expo in Costa Mesa. I think we talked to Bernhard for like 10 minutes or something, but, but we, I don’t know. Right. We’ve talked for like four years about having him on for like a legitimate segment and I don’t know why it’s taken four years. Well, and

Lightning (1h 11m 41s):

Aren’t you somewhat local where he’s

Holman (1h 11m 43s):

Corona.

Lightning (1h 11m 43s):

You’re Corona. He should have been in the studio. He’s,

Holman (1h 11m 45s):

Well, that’s why he’s listening to Rory. They’re all part of the Corona mafiaa over there. See

Lightning (1h 11m 48s):

That’s bss. He should have been here in studio.

Holman (1h 11m 51s):

Well, he was last minute. So we have to thank him All. right? He, he bailed us out.

Bernhard (1h 11m 55s):

I had a good time with you guys. Awesome.

Holman (1h 11m 57s):

I appreciate it, brother. We’ll I’ll, I’ll look forward to seeing you in, in, in Moab. And don’t forget my damn hot sauce.

Bernhard (1h 12m 3s):

I won’t, I won’t. I’ll be out there. We,

Lightning (1h 12m 5s):

And if you see an order for a A T A T R X, some, some, a forged rack come through and it says Lightning and

Holman (1h 12m 12s):

It has a discount code of Lightning and you don’t accept that. Yeah. Just, you’ll know where it came from.

Lightning (1h 12m 16s):

Just don’t mark it up past normal retail for me. I appreciate that. It’ll

Bernhard (1h 12m 19s):

Be full, it’ll be full retail if not more.

Lightning (1h 12m 22s):

I knew it. I knew what I knew what I knew it

Holman (1h 12m 23s):

You know what he calls that. That’s the Lightning tax. It’s

Lightning (1h 12m 26s):

A penalty. Yeah. I’m in the penalty box. God dammit.

Holman (1h 12m 28s):

Well, he’s mad at you because your steering wheel’s attached to your truck.

Lightning (1h 12m 32s):

Are you jealous? All, right? Bernhard, you’re the best. Thank you All.

Holman (1h 12m 36s):

Right brother. Talk to you soon.

Bernhard (1h 12m 37s):

Good talking to you guys. Thanks. Bye. See

Holman (1h 12m 39s):

You. See you. Bye.

Lightning (1h 12m 41s):

His racks are amazing and all Holman, but I am way more enthusiastic about getting some hot sauce in my mouth.

Holman (1h 12m 51s):

I got nothing.

10 (1h 12m 53s):

What’s new in trucks? We need to know what’s new in trucks. We

Holman (1h 12m 58s):

Need to know

10 (1h 12m 59s):

What’s new in trucks.

Lightning (1h 13m 1s):

We need to

3 (1h 13m 1s):

Know lifted, lowered and everything in between. What’s happening in the world of trucks?

Holman (1h 13m 8s):

Ah, the studio’s pretty quiet. Yeah,

Lightning (1h 13m 13s):

That was cool. Just like dead silence right after that. Yeah, that was,

Holman (1h 13m 17s):

I think my neighbors heard that one. Nope,

Lightning (1h 13m 19s):

I don’t I think you insulated this place. Well

Holman (1h 13m 21s):

Good I mean it’d be funny if they did. ’cause did I tell you the the latest saga of that

Lightning (1h 13m 26s):

Your neighbors,

Holman (1h 13m 27s):

They sold their house.

Lightning (1h 13m 28s):

Yeah. You announced that.

Holman (1h 13m 30s):

Yeah. For I think that wasn almost a hundred grand more than they asked for it.

Lightning (1h 13m 34s):

Yeah. And it raised the value of yours.

Holman (1h 13m 36s):

I mean we can, we can hope. But the, the whole thing about them, well they gotta rent back clause and they’re gonna be here till August. Oh. Just when I thought we were moving down the line, just thought, turns out not so much. Gotta Yep. All. right. Well how about some other news? Some uplifting news? Yes.

Lightning (1h 14m 2s):

Yes. Go for it.

Holman (1h 14m 3s):

Hey lighting, did you hear what you talking about Willis? Hey, my name’s not Willis.

Lightning (1h 14m 7s):

No, I have not heard What’s up.

Holman (1h 14m 9s):

Did you hear about all of the people that went to Myrtle Beach Truck Week in South Carolina? Well,

Lightning (1h 14m 17s):

No. Why? What happened?

Holman (1h 14m 18s):

Well, apparently this year’s meetup, which happened a few years ago, the Myrtle Beach Police Department cracked down on squatted trucks across town. So yeah, social media had videos of cop cars swarming different meets across Myrtle Beach and TikTok posters and Instagram reels. Users posted and shared clips of trucks cruising the boardwalk with their grills pointed at the sky only later to post updates that they were shut down. So the show was held after a bill, which you may have heard about banning squatted trucks in South Carolina, you know, known as the Carolina squat passed through the state senate on February 15th.

Holman (1h 15m 3s):

Other states nearby, like North Carolina and Virginia have already made the Ahmad illegal citing safety issues. So some of the videos apparently showed people getting handcuffs and well, some said they were headed to jail for quote unquote being too squatted.

11 (1h 15m 20s):

You get nothing, you lose Good day, sir.

Holman (1h 15m 25s):

But apparently the Myrtle Beach Police Department came out and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Listen, the bill has not been signed into law that wasn only signed by one body. So squatted trucks are not yet illegal in South Carolina. So instead they arrested and signed them for other related violations such as reckless driving and loitering and unsafe vehicles. Those are

12 (1h 15m 47s):

Losers, baby. You don’t want nothing to do with those.

Holman (1h 15m 51s):

Yeah. So anyway, if you are headed there, they’re looking for you. If you have too much concrete in your bed or something like that, don’t be a

Lightning (1h 16m 0s):

Squatted truck driver. Seriously.

Holman (1h 16m 2s):

I mean, it’s

Lightning (1h 16m 2s):

Funny. Do you know what’s funny is I think we do have some listeners that drive squad trucks. Hundred percent. But stop it

Holman (1h 16m 7s):

A thousand percent. Stop it. 200%. You

Lightning (1h 16m 9s):

Stop it. You

Holman (1h 16m 10s):

No, it’s funny. You okay? Lightning did hear No,

13 (1h 16m 15s):

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Lightning (1h 16m 18s):

Nope.

Holman (1h 16m 18s):

Kind of interesting. Ford came up with sort of the layout for, you know, the future of electric vehicle sales and a lot of dealer association said, whoa, whoa, whoa. Pump the brakes there. Ford. So apparently Ford is adapted, its ev dealer certification plans and gave some dealers the option to opt out. There will be an option to enroll down the line. But a Ford spokesperson gave the quote, it is important that dealers have the option to do what they believe is best for their business and their customers for the 24 to 26 period. As we continue to scale our EV volumes, our second enrollment period period will open up for 27 to 29. Ford said it’s model e ev certification plans.

Holman (1h 17m 2s):

It said 1,920 dealers signed up to participate, but apparently the number, number of participating dealers dropped by 1.5% to 1,891 making a total of 29 dealers that said, nah, not gonna do it.

Lightning (1h 17m 18s):

Interesting. I I, I wonder why do you suppose they’re just, they’re not behind EV or they they don’t have the staff

Holman (1h 17m 23s):

Or maybe, maybe, maybe all that. Maybe they’re somewhere, you know, remote where they don’t have ev infrastructure to charge the vehicles. Right. Maybe they don’t have the flooring space to keep EVs if their customers are, you know, not into that sort of thing. You know, I can imagine a lot of people and dealers maybe in rural communities. EV’s not a thing there yet. You know, they’re like, nah, my, that’s not my customer base. I I shouldn’t be forced into this. Hey Lightning, did you hear?

14 (1h 17m 48s):

No, no,

Lightning (1h 17m 52s):

No, I did not.

Holman (1h 17m 53s):

Speaking of EV’s, here’s a another story of your beloved Tesla cyber truck.

Lightning (1h 17m 58s):

Do we, hold on, hold on, hold on. Do we have to do more Ev like this is

Holman (1h 18m 1s):

Literally, you’re the guy who has a hundred dollars on deposit. We have to

Lightning (1h 18m 4s):

Care. Like people are just like, they’re gonna think the were ev homers all of a sudden

Holman (1h 18m 8s):

Tesla cyber truck corners like a champ. Musk says it may top the model Y. So Elon Musk replied to a video showing the cyber truck’s rear Wheel steering apparently a spy video. Somebody saw it on the road and he basically said, yeah, this thing is a few months away from initial production. They’re starting to be seen out there and, and he’s starting to talk about how well it drives and how well it handles.

Lightning (1h 18m 32s):

It’s going to I mean it’s all electronic and I’m sure it’s gonna do a lot of things really well.

Holman (1h 18m 39s):

Hmm. Hey lighting, did you hear?

Lightning (1h 18m 43s):

No. Nope.

Holman (1h 18m 45s):

Finally you have what you’ve always wanted

Lightning (1h 18m 50s):

12 inch penis.

Holman (1h 18m 52s):

I was talking about a black plate with white writing,

Lightning (1h 18m 56s):

But not in California.

Holman (1h 18m 57s):

No, that’s

Lightning (1h 18m 58s):

Where Tennessee or someone, another thing

Holman (1h 18m 59s):

You can’t have

Lightning (1h 19m 2s):

Burn on me.

Holman (1h 19m 3s):

Oh, so good. Yep. Colorado is issuing the license plate that you want.

Lightning (1h 19m 10s):

Well that’s great for them.

Holman (1h 19m 12s):

You’re not, you’re not happy about that.

Lightning (1h 19m 15s):

I’m super stoked for them.

Holman (1h 19m 16s):

Colorado Red

Lightning (1h 19m 16s):

Life. My brother will be excited ’cause he lives in every

Holman (1h 19m 19s):

Classic place from its own history. A red blue and the new Lightning. Personal favorite Black.

Lightning (1h 19m 25s):

Yeah. Yeah. That’s cool.

Holman (1h 19m 27s):

I mean there’s probably more California black plates with white writing than

Lightning (1h 19m 30s):

There. I had a Tesla today who did the, the wrap. You know the vinyl wrap on his plate and went with a black plate and maroon Yeah. Letters.

Holman (1h 19m 42s):

You’re just asking for it. What?

Lightning (1h 19m 44s):

What?

Holman (1h 19m 44s):

At least, at least it wasn’t black letters. I

Lightning (1h 19m 45s):

If I’m a cop, I’m pulling him over just ’cause the guy’s a dick. Yeah.

Holman (1h 19m 49s):

Don’t, he’s flaunting that. Just

Lightning (1h 19m 51s):

Flaunt, come on. Don’t make it harder for the cop to read. If you’re gonna choose a color, make it lime green or something that at least he can read Now you’re just begging. You’re like please pull me over ’cause I’m a douche.

Holman (1h 20m 3s):

Okay. I

Lightning (1h 20m 3s):

Mean what

Holman (1h 20m 4s):

Lighting did you hear?

15 (1h 20m 7s):

How about

Lightning (1h 20m 8s):

No. Nope.

Holman (1h 20m 10s):

Jeep has teased a a few vehicles that I’m gonna get a chance to see next week. Ooh,

Lightning (1h 20m 15s):

You tell, you

Holman (1h 20m 15s):

Tell. And that is the concepts for the Easter Safari. So they teased, well Magneto 3.0

Lightning (1h 20m 24s):

So this is the electric.

Holman (1h 20m 26s):

Yep. All. right. And so it’ll be interesting to see what they’ve done to it because last year they went all out with big axles and big power and made it crazy. I don’t even know what 3.0 is gonna be. That sounds insane. And I’ve driven magneto in both forms. I’ve

Lightning (1h 20m 41s):

Heard that the new Dana 1000 axles are, are gonna come on this one. Yeah. They hold all the horse torques,

Holman (1h 20m 48s):

Right. All. right. So there’s the Wrangler Magneto 3.0. So that could be kind of cool. It looks like one of the drawings was of a Cherokee or Wagoner, a vintage one. So be that. I think they’re also playing with the electric drive train on that By

Lightning (1h 21m 4s):

The way I’m seeing a lot of wagoneers on the road all of a sudden. Like for some reason just all of a sudden Wagoneers. Yeah.

Holman (1h 21m 10s):

Yeah. They’re all over the place

Lightning (1h 21m 11s):

And they are spendy. Mm. Like that is not an inexpensive SS u v.

Holman (1h 21m 16s):

They are definitely, definitely spendy. There’s also appears to be a gladiator with a bunch of Jeep performance parts in another teaser that was dropped. And there is what appeared to be some sort of Wrangler two-door stretched into a pickup truck looking thing. What? So should be pretty fun. Every year Jeep’s design team has fun with the Easter Jeep Safari concepts. And just like in years past, I’m gonna be joining the Jeep brand on a very special ride that’s invite only with the head of Jeep Jim Morrison. And we’re gonna drive the concepts over some pretty gnarly trails.

Lightning (1h 21m 53s):

I have two requests because you’re gonna be with the man Jim Morrison. Alright, first one please. For the love of all that is holy, keep the microphone outta the wind. That’s number one.

Holman (1h 22m 6s):

That doesn’t really work, but

Lightning (1h 22m 8s):

Okay, well then roll the windows out. There

Holman (1h 22m 10s):

Aren’t windows on a topless doorless Jeep?

Lightning (1h 22m 16s):

Number two, please ask Jim how long they’re gonna keep the three liter Diesel in the gladiator.

Holman (1h 22m 24s):

He’s probably not gonna tell me.

Lightning (1h 22m 26s):

Please ask him anyway. I

Holman (1h 22m 27s):

Mean. He might tell me, but then I can’t tell you

Lightning (1h 22m 29s):

Ple then tell me privately so I know I

Holman (1h 22m 32s):

All. right? Let me fill you in at least another year.

Lightning (1h 22m 39s):

Oh, okay.

Holman (1h 22m 42s):

You struggling with this?

Lightning (1h 22m 43s):

I want to know beyond that. Can you tell me beyond that?

Holman (1h 22m 46s):

I cannot tell you more than that.

Lightning (1h 22m 49s):

Please. Hmm.

Holman (1h 22m 50s):

Can’t tell you. Can’t tell you. All I can tell you is I’ve got these really interesting pictures that if

Lightning (1h 22m 56s):

You were, if you worked at a company that made intake systems, what you’re

Holman (1h 23m 2s):

Asking is for me to divulge privileged information that I have spent decades forming relationships and trust so that you can come to market with a product one month before everybody else.

Lightning (1h 23m 14s):

No, there’s a few others on the market and we are, we’re, we’re wrestling with the fact that there’s relative low production numbers. But if they went for a few more years it would, it would make sense.

Holman (1h 23m 25s):

I wouldn’t imagine a few more years is in the tank. Hmm. I would imagine one, maybe two would be my uneducated guess.

Lightning (1h 23m 35s):

Okay.

Holman (1h 23m 36s):

Just me guessing All. right.

Lightning (1h 23m 38s):

Well you’re not making my decision any easier.

Holman (1h 23m 40s):

Well maybe I can make you happy with some listener emails.

2 (1h 23m 47s):

You email? Yeah, I email Do it. We email. That’s right. Everybody email type it up. You email proofread. I email send it. We email, click it. Everybody email.

Lightning (1h 24m 14s):

The music’s running out. Do you gonna hand these things out or what? All right. If you don’t mind, I’ll start this frontier spotting subject line for whoa,

Holman (1h 24m 22s):

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I definitely mind. But I’m gonna let you do it anyway.

Lightning (1h 24m 25s):

Thank you Well’s, the owner of the company. I have to listen to what you say. Don’t I?

Holman (1h 24m 30s):

You know what’s funny is I was having a meeting today. Ooh. With our friend Victor at ID agency. Oh,

Lightning (1h 24m 36s):

Victor’s an awesome dude. Yeah,

Holman (1h 24m 38s):

He, he said something about he wanted you, he wanted me to make you give him a shoulder massage. Wait, what? And I told him that there’s

Lightning (1h 24m 48s):

No way he said that.

Holman (1h 24m 49s):

Yeah, no. And I, and I told him that I could make you do that because you work for me then he

Lightning (1h 24m 53s):

Didn’t say that. It’s not something that I know Victor pretty well. I’ve known him for like 20 years. He wouldn’t say that.

Holman (1h 24m 58s):

You don’t know the context. that wasn funny though. Okay, we all giggled in the room.

Lightning (1h 25m 2s):

Why did, why shoulder

Holman (1h 25m 4s):

Massage I mean that wasn an ongoing conversation and you got injected, injected, inserted. Neither.

Lightning (1h 25m 10s):

I was neither injected nor inserted. No. This is getting weird frontier spotting subject line from Chuck Davis. Hey, I saw this cool frontier today. Send me a sticker and I will display it on my 2014 Silverado. Thank you. And I realize it has an off-center crooked steering Wheel. You bastard.

Holman (1h 25m 27s):

Did he really say you bastard? No,

Lightning (1h 25m 29s):

I added that. Oh, that’s from Chuck Davis. And look at that brand spanking new frontier in his photos. And Chuck, I have already mailed you a sticker. By the time you hear this, it might be in your mailbox.

Holman (1h 25m 39s):

Ooh, listen to you. I’m

Lightning (1h 25m 41s):

Getting cocky.

Holman (1h 25m 43s):

You’re getting something. Alright, I got an email called Frontier Spotting number one from well brand bike nut, bh. I don’t know, that’s his email.

Lightning (1h 25m 51s):

Why? Why number one, like he wasn’t first.

Holman (1h 25m 53s):

So he takes a picture and it’s of a titan and he says Nissan. Yes. Frontier. No damn. So then he sends another email and it says Frontier spotting number two and it’s an older one and it says Nissan. Yes. Frontier. Yes. 2022 plus. No it doesn’t. I suck at this game.

Lightning (1h 26m 13s):

It doesn’t have to be a 22 plus. We never said it had any particular year.

Holman (1h 26m 16s):

The new ones are hard to come by here in rural Michigan. I

Lightning (1h 26m 19s):

Mean. Listen, we wanted you to take a picture of a new one, but it doesn’t have to be.

Holman (1h 26m 22s):

Then he sends another email. Nissan Yes. Frontier. Yes. 2022 plus. Yes. I finally found one pick taken from my 2001 Freightliner. Looks like a FI one 12 hd. It would’ve been easier to spot the most ultimate truck of all time. The Honda Ridge line. And he says if you’re sending out stickers, here’s his address. So anyway, he did, I don’t know his name is, he’s just sending funny emails, which I

Lightning (1h 26m 47s):

Well. we need your name and your address for.

Holman (1h 26m 50s):

I got his, his address is a number three. It’s in the file. Oh it is but I just don’t have his name. Got it.

Lightning (1h 26m 54s):

Okay. Here’s an one Frontier Sighting from David Mussen. And here I am in the middle of nowhere. U S A literally type it into the Google machine thinking there’s only one known frontier in my cozy little town owned by O’Reilly Auto Parts. Then I turn back onto the highway and boom, a brand new Pro four X with paper plates right in front of me. I can’t make this up one of now three frontiers that I know of up here. It’s hard to get away from the big three up here when you have to drive four plus hours to get to a Nissan dealer. But I remember you guys saying that they would bring it up to you for a test drive. I may have to test that. And now I learned that David is up in Montana talking about the the big three.

Lightning (1h 27m 37s):

So it’s great. There’s Frontiers up in Montana.

Holman (1h 27m 40s):

All. right. Got another one here. Frontier through the windshield says high weight and whole ass

Lightning (1h 27m 48s):

High weight and Whole ass

Holman (1h 27m 49s):

Or HT weight. What would that be? Hot weight.

Lightning (1h 27m 52s):

Weight. I I sure. Hot weight better

Holman (1h 27m 55s):

Than hot Whole

Lightning (1h 27m 56s):

Ass. I don’t know. Move on please.

Holman (1h 27m 57s):

All right says to Holman’s Huddle Hutt pod shed. I write you both while I sit on one of my office chairs. The toilet. Let you know I’ve enclosed a picture of one of the new frontiers that I tend to see many times over the course of my day. This was taken in Knoxville as I headed home for the day after running my Max Sleeper, pulling a tanker vac trailer from a run in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Oh yes, I did say Mack truck. Although I’m not the owner since I’m a company driver for now. I do take it home daily and it’s been with me now going on two years. Sadly it’s an automatic and uses gear buttons, but it gets the job done for what I do. I’m about to have my L L C be official and I’ll be running my own business to hopefully one day include my own rig, which will definitely be back to what I’m used to being in an 18 speed or 13 speed at least I do, however, currently own four Rams, A 22 classic Ram 1500 what regular cab?

Holman (1h 28m 42s):

Short box five seven Hemi. Solely because I owned a side-by-side I never used and said F this and traded for this truck. Then I bought my wife at 22 Ram 1500 New Body five seven Hemi, which she loves a 21 Ram 3506 7 H o duly four by four. I ordered spec to be my starting rig for my company and then an old 86 Power Ram 3 18 4 by four regular cab short box. I pulled off a farm in Alabama that used to pull horses for the farmer and his wife. Plan to build a badass rig with it and keep the patina to put our company info on and take the local car shows we hold monthly during the better weather months and pass out swag for the brand. Anyway, this clearly has been a long email and I guess it’s time to wipe so I’ll end.

Holman (1h 29m 22s):

It might be too much information.

Lightning (1h 29m 22s):

Yeah, T m i.

Holman (1h 29m 24s):

So I’ll end what I started for the sticker grab into what’s now A T S P review by saying I love the content. Heard all the episodes and wish you all the best for the new endeavors. Finnegans. Yeah buddy. And most certainly five stars.

Lightning (1h 29m 36s):

Yeah buddy.

16 (1h 29m 37s):

Bye. Star review five stars.

Holman (1h 29m 41s):

And that is a respectfully for a miles shoe, min shoe from Pikeville, Tennessee. He also wants A X X L if possible in a large for sun. But we know or

Lightning (1h 29m 53s):

No

Holman (1h 29m 54s):

Track record of doing.

Lightning (1h 29m 55s):

No, but I have already sent him stickers. So there’s stickers on the way there buddy. Awesome. Hey fellas, here’s the frontier spotted from the cab of my Freightliner Classic Excel. I’ll send my address if you actually send stickers l o l, you can also send a large t-shirt. Not happening. Hey, you guys wanna talk? Fuel economy. My big league gets four to five miles per gallon pulling 140,000 pounds.

Holman (1h 30m 22s):

Hey, mine gets that pulling. None.

Lightning (1h 30m 25s):

None. That’s from Lars. Lars God You know what, what’s there buddy?

Holman (1h 30m 29s):

Lars, do it. Yeah.

Lightning (1h 30m 30s):

I have not sent one to Saskatchewan yet. He’s

Holman (1h 30m 33s):

In that Canada. Yeah. So

Lightning (1h 30m 34s):

I am going to put this in my folder over here. All, right? Okay, you’re up

Holman (1h 30m 40s):

All. right? Got one here that says, got a lot to cover here from our friend Seth Anderson, who’s a regular writer. He says, Hey J hey jab, boobly and fruit pants. Why? Why? Why do I get to be fruit pan? Oh, it must be the banana. first of all, I laughed out

Lightning (1h 30m 56s):

Because out, remember I called you, I called

Holman (1h 30m 58s):

You Pan. I know, I’m trying to correct the record. Oh No, first of all, I laughed out loud and Holman said he wanted the right Twix because he didn’t like anything on the left. At the end of the last show. I was wondering how many people might pick up on that and then giggle. Well,

Lightning (1h 31m 10s):

Hopefully more than one. So here’s what pisses me off. Oh boy. About 60% of you listen to the very end of the show. 40%. You don’t, I leave a fricking

Holman (1h 31m 21s):

Nugget. You bone out at some point I leave.

Lightning (1h 31m 23s):

There’s, there’s an Easter egg. Not every episode, but damn near all of them. And Well, we

Holman (1h 31m 29s):

Call it an Easter egg. But there’s always a nugget.

Lightning (1h 31m 31s):

There’s a nugget. And it’s not the kind of nugget for the last two. No All, right?

Holman (1h 31m 34s):

Let me keep reading here. Yeah. Second Holman sleeping arrangement while camping sounds spectacular, but you left out a very important component. The pillow on what do you rest your balding yet hairy head when your body is on a bed of clouds. Also with your snoring, getting a sleep study for sleep apnea would probably be a good idea. How, how does he know its No, that’s, that’s ridiculous. Anyway, the pillow. I bring two pillows from home because I have to have my head propped up to be comfortable. And so I’ve got two older pillows that are just my camping pillows. So those go with me. There’s nothing special about ’em. But I like having a big old regular bed pillow to lay my, yeah, balding head hair hat on.

Lightning (1h 32m 14s):

I, I bring pillows as well when I camp.

Holman (1h 32m 16s):

Also, he is taking ance with me on my, my comment about Chicago pizza, it says third Chicago does suck for lots of reasons. Taxes and cost of living be near the top, as I’m sure you SoCal natives can relate to. But pizza is not one of them. There’s plenty of good pizza. And the locals rarely eat deep dish. Native Chicagoans mostly eat thin crust with the difference being it’s cut into squares instead of traditional slices, which is a Midwest thing. Now I would argue that that’s Detroit pizza.

Lightning (1h 32m 48s):

I, I don’t, I, I tap out. I don’t

Holman (1h 32m 50s):

Know. So I don’t, I don’t see that as Chicago pizza. I see that as Detroit pizza and I see the tomato cake as Chicago pizza. But whatever it says, the unusual cut is based on the history of the thin crust, which started as a salty bar snack to encourage people to stay longer and drink more. Here’s an article backing me up and there are plenty more if you look for them. Okay. All. right. That’s interesting. I appreciate what our listeners can divulge a nugget of knowledge that can make us sound smarter at our next, you know, armchair sit says. Lastly, here is a picture of a new Nissan frontier in the wild weather of Chicago in March. Hashtag frontier spotting. Thanks for all your work guys. Love the podcast. Been listening since like the second month after seeing an ad for And Truck Trend. R I p went through the back catalog at the time and haven’t missed an episode since. In fact, I’ve been listening since you were actually sending out t-shirts to people that mailed you and I wear it regularly.

Holman (1h 33m 35s):

Hashtag everything matters. Hashtag og. Yeah buddy. And that’s from Seth Anderson. Thanks

17 (1h 33m 40s):

For watching. And remember everything matters

Lightning (1h 33m 44s):

All, right? Yeah. I was driving down the San Louis Abispo and spotted these two last Jan Frontier still being used for work,

Holman (1h 33m 53s):

Talking

Lightning (1h 33m 54s):

Like that. I know they aren’t new, but hope it counts. Thanks Peter from Morgan Hill, California.

Holman (1h 33m 60s):

What? That’s

Lightning (1h 34m 1s):

Why would you, it’s making it sound different. I don’t know. Do

Holman (1h 34m 3s):

You think they might find that offensive? What? Lightning and Holman. I hope it’s not to late. To submit my hashtag frontier spotting picture. Attached is a picture of a super sweet Nissan Frontier Pro four X in green. I snagged this picture from a 2018 Ram 2,500 Cummins. The G is silent before you give me a hard time about my toe mirrors being flipped out. I must mention that I am actually towing my 30 foot weakened warrior toy. Holler out to glam. When I took this picture, By the way I just checked out. The Truck Show Podcast website thought that a reader’s ride section may be pretty cool just like they used to do in the old print magazines. Actually like that idea,

Lightning (1h 34m 37s):

Although we’re not gonna do it ’cause we have no bandwidth to actually produce that section.

Holman (1h 34m 41s):

Put pictures up or do what? What we should do is just suck down a social feed. Nope. You just have it on there. No, that’s a module you can get on the website.

Lightning (1h 34m 48s):

That’s, I’m not doing it.

Holman (1h 34m 49s):

I have attached a few pictures of my project truck, which is a 72 G M C K 2,500. I’ve already swapped in a built six liter lss, now a 4 0 8 stroker and built four L a d e tranny. I am building this truck myself with the help of family and friends along the way. We’re doing everything even down to the pain ourselves. I hope to get to keep it as my six year old daughter’s already calling dibs on the truck and he sends some pictures and that thing is way cool, he says. Anyways, great show. Look forward to listening to it every week. And five stars. Five

16 (1h 35m 17s):

Star review, five stars.

Holman (1h 35m 20s):

That’s from Albert Allen of Norco, California. So he’s practically neighbors with our friend Bernhard.

Lightning (1h 35m 25s):

Nice frontier spotting from Rich Humphreys. What happened to the printer? Why is this in one point type? Do you have a magnifying glass? I’m gonna Oh my God. Would you

Holman (1h 35m 35s):

Like me to

Lightning (1h 35m 35s):

Read this? I’m gonna try it. Here we go. Oh boy. I know these don’t count as they are at the dealer, but look how beautiful they are. From the dash of my 17 Ram 1500. Doesn’t matter. The make trucks just look good in the snow. If you decide this is worthy of a T S B sticker, here’s my address. And he lives in Ontario, Canada. Thanks for the great content. Every single week my coworkers laugh at me while I sing the jingles. That is from Rich Humphreys. Rich, thank you very much for sending the photo. Alright,

Holman (1h 36m 7s):

Got one last one here. And this is from Philip faus says, Hey guys, A little update on the Toyota I wrote about. It’s currently back to stock, but throwing around the idea of dumping it without cutting any inner body panels. It had four inch spindles and a three inch FABTECH lift. Loving the podcast, but I think the shed should be named the Truck Shack or Truck Show Shack Five Stars. And here’s my address for stickers. L o l And that’s PJ faus from Hammock California. And he sends us all sorts of pictures of, oh, his

Lightning (1h 36m 33s):

Oh, my God. How many pages do you have you Toyota? 20

Holman (1h 36m 35s):

Pages.

Lightning (1h 36m 35s):

And he’s gonna drop it, isn’t he?

Holman (1h 36m 37s):

But none of a frontier. So sorry. Get nothing. You get nothing. Good

Lightning (1h 36m 42s):

Day, sir. Write us back. Gimme your address. I’ll send you speakers. I

Holman (1h 36m 45s):

Don’t, he his, his address is right here. Oh,

Lightning (1h 36m 46s):

It is. I just

Holman (1h 36m 47s):

Don’t think that he, he played the rules right. But he is a, a good listener. So he

Lightning (1h 36m 53s):

I, I’ll send you some TSP stickers truck show podcast@gmail.com. If you’ve got a frontier spotting at Frontier Sighting, send

Holman (1h 37m 2s):

It to us. Take a photo from your

Lightning (1h 37m 4s):

Truck of the Frontier Truck show podcast@gmail.com. The

Holman (1h 37m 7s):

Truck show. The truck show. The truck show. Whoa. And we wanna hear from you. Truck Show podcast@gmail.com. 6 5 7 2 0 5 61 0 5 is the five star hotline on our socials at LBC Lighting at Sean p Holman at Truck Show Podcast. You can email me Holman at truck show podcast.com. Email lighting, wait, wait. Did you almost forget who you were at@truckshowpodcast.com? There’s so many ways, but we basically only read The Truck Show Podcast at gmail. So that’s

Lightning (1h 37m 34s):

Not true use. I read mine. Are you not reading the Holman at truck show podcast.com?

Holman (1h 37m 37s):

No. I use that for business and I use Truck Show podcast for other stuff.

Lightning (1h 37m 40s):

I’ve had a dozen, you guys, at least a dozen of you have email Lightning at trunk show podcast.com. Mostly talking smack about Holman, which is funny.

Holman (1h 37m 49s):

Alright, you wanna get into it? Kidding All, right? Kidding. If you wanna talk smack, send us smack talking about Lightning to Holman at show podcast kidding.com. I’m kidding. It didn’t happen. It didn’t happen. Yeah, you just opened it. You just asked for it. You just want Pandora’s box to be slap you right in the face was just

Lightning (1h 38m 2s):

Kidding. And people love

Holman (1h 38m 4s):

You and people are going to send me emails now to Holman The Truck Show Podcast dot com, which is funny, All, right? We have to take our friends over at Nissan who are gonna be with us for another year. So thank you Nissan for supporting The Truck. Show Podcast. We really appreciate everything that you’ve done to keep this show going. And we want you, if you’re in the market for a pickup truck, head on to your local Nissan dealer or go to Nissan usa.com where we can build in price a new frontier, a Titan, a Titan xd. Of course, the Titans have the industry’s best five year, 100,000 mile warranty. And there’s no better company that has supported The, Truck, Show Podcast than our friends over at Nissan,

Lightning (1h 38m 41s):

Except for maybe Banks coming in second. Mr. Gale Banks, we wanna thank you for your patented Ram or rear differential cover. Keep our rear ends. Cool To find yours. Go to

Holman (1h 38m 51s):

Make you mean after lightener hot pepper sauce.

Lightning (1h 38m 53s):

I We’re gonna need it big time. Do

Holman (1h 38m 55s):

You think you could make a pair of billet underwear that has like the cooling fins on the back for post Bernhard?

Lightning (1h 39m 2s):

For

Holman (1h 39m 3s):

A lightener in a bottle?

Lightning (1h 39m 3s):

Yeah. For your anus.

Holman (1h 39m 6s):

It’s always about the butt with you right in the middle of a sponsor. Read. Well done, Lightning. Carry on.

Lightning (1h 39m 14s):

Go to Banks power.com and get your Ram Air rear differential cover for your ram, your GM truck, your Ford,

Holman (1h 39m 23s):

And soon to be your Dana 80.

Lightning (1h 39m 24s):

Soon to be your Dana Ed. And this is where Holman. Thanks. Our newest partner on The Truck. Show Podcast,

Holman (1h 39m 30s):

Our newest returning partner on The Truck Show Podcast. Oh yeah. Bill Bilstein shocks. Happy to have ’em. I’ve got ’em on my vehicle. I use them. I believe in them. It’s a great product. Whether you’ve got a stock vehicle that just has blown out shocks, you need ’em replaced, or you want a performance shock, or you’ve got a lifted vehicle and you need a better shock. Bill Bilstein is the original innovator of mono tube shocks. Those guys have been providing performance suspension for a very long time. And whether you’ve got towing needs, off-roading needs, or just something for your daily driver, bill Bilstein has you covered. Head over to bill Bilstein us.com and choose the shock that’s right for you. And if

Lightning (1h 40m 2s):

You need help navigating the crazy world of search engine optimization or you just wanna place a Facebook ad, reach out to our friends at Full Moon Digital. You’ll find ’em at full moon digital.com.

Holman (1h 40m 14s):

Alright, well, glad to see that we got through episode 13. I I, I hope that we can clean it up a bit for the next one at least this one’s in the can.

Lightning (1h 40m 24s):

Speaking of, can I gotta go take a big old The Truck. Show Podcast is a production of truck famous L L c. 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. Some vehicles may have been harmed during the making of this podcast. Hello Truck Show

18 (1h 40m 53s):

Podcast listeners. This is Alice. The voice of reason. It has come to my attention that Lightning and Holman did not survive the future tragically, they were turned into gelatinous GU during the time jump. Oh, wait a moment. I’m just getting some news from the president of Podcasting. Oh. No. Lightning and Holman survived. And we’ll be back next week for another all new episode. Well, that just sucks.