Season 2, Episode 94 - Solving the Mysterious Death of Rudolf Diesel with New York Times best selling author Douglas Brunt

 

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Jay “Lightning” Tilles (0s):

I know it’s weird. Holman. It’s super weird. But I am reading a book and I’m almost done with it. I’m 17 chapters into the mysterious case of Rudolph Diesel. And I can’t tell you the last time I read a book cover to cover, I, I shouldn’t be proud of that statement. So, But

Sean P. Holman (16s):

I am I’m saying we’re starting The Truck, Show Podcast Book Club. I,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (19s):

Maybe we should

Sean P. Holman (20s):

I listen, I’ve been,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21s):

This would be the second author we’ve had on

Sean P. Holman (23s):

I, no, we’ve had more than that. Have we? Yes, absolutely. And I wanna get Brett Underwood from Sarah Gordo wrote Ghost Town Living, which I’ve been, I’m almost done. I have like four chapters left of that. I’m getting on a plane tomorrow. I’m bringing that book with me. It’s don. Don’t

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (36s):

Know What’s Wrong with me. I’ve almost purchased that book three times. I purchased it. I never hit the Add to Cart button for some reason why? I feel like

Sean P. Holman (43s):

It’s amazing. It’s a fast read and it’s phenomenal. I’ll

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (46s):

Tell you why, because I keep thinking that you and I are gonna go up there and interview him, and I’ll grab a book up there ’cause I know he stalks him on site. And then get him to sign it and I’ll just do it all at once.

Sean P. Holman (56s):

Buy at Amazon, you read it so you have context for when you’re up there and then have ’em sign it while you’re there. I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 0s):

Like that. That’s a good angle.

Sean P. Holman (1m 2s):

I don know why you wouldn’t do that. Anyway, I, I don’t know. This book is special because this is completely different. We have a New York Times bestselling author who’s a novelist, which is not what you would normally associate with The Truck Show Podcast. Although this is one of those books that you, it’ll catch your eye and the more you look into it, you go, oh, I, I care about that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 23s):

I, I do care about this. And I didn’t know how much I care about until I got into it. People

Sean P. Holman (1m 27s):

Lightning doesn’t even know how to read. And he learned how to read just for this interview. He found this book and it was amazing. He picked up a reading real fast.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 37s):

Well, first I, I read, I got a, my subscription hooked on phonics, and then I bought the mysterious case of Rudolph Diesel by Douglas Bru. So Rudolph Diesel, the father, the career, yeah, the father

Sean P. Holman (1m 48s):

Of Diesel.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 48s):

Of Diesel.

Sean P. Holman (1m 49s):

Well, the interesting thing about him is he had this entire cottage industry of the diesel engine. It explodes during the Industrial Revolution, and there are powers throughout the world, all of the elites from the Industrial Revolution that

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 2s):

Weren’t so happy about it. And

Sean P. Holman (2m 3s):

All of a sudden he disappeared on a boat. And so, quote

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 8s):

Unquote fell over the railing.

Sean P. Holman (2m 10s):

So there were a few, a few different theories on what happened. And Douglas Brunt, who we’re gonna have on the show here shortly, he did an incredible amount of research and put this together as his first nonfiction book. It’s really exciting. It’s an, it’s an incredible read. We, we highly recommend it. So if you’re on the fence, stay tuned ’cause we’re gonna have Douglas on here as soon as we thank Nissan for presenting The Truck Show Podcast. And if you’re looking for a brand new truck you wanna head on down to your local Nissan dealership, you can check out the Titan or of course the Frontier, our favorite midsize truck. And you can get yourself a new hard body, which capital like, or a Pro four x or even an sv. Every Nissan frontier comes equipped with Nissan’s 3.8 liter dual overhead cam V six with 310 horsepower, 281 pound V torque backed by Nissan’s nine speed automatic transmission.

Sean P. Holman (2m 59s):

So if a Nissan pickup truck sounds like something that you’re interested in, if you go to Nissan usa dot com, you can build and price the exact model to your specs. And you can even set up a Nissan at home Test Drive, where they’ll bring The truck to your house. So no excuse not to put Nissan at the top of your shopping list and try one out.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 14s):

And speaking of Rudolph Diesel, his goal was to make engines more efficient because before him it was like steam power, single digit efficiencies. Two, three 5% was considered a wonder he needed like 20, 30, 40, 50% efficiency. If you are looking for more efficiency from your diesel pickup truck, you should be looking at banks power dot com to buy yourself a RAM Air intake. After all your diesel needs fuel and air. And the easier it can draw in that cold, dense air, the more efficient it will become. Find your RAM Air intake at banks power dot com. Just type in your year, make and model. Hey

Sean P. Holman (3m 51s):

Lighting, you know we’re huge fans of amel. In fact, I’ve got a huge case of

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 54s):

It right behind the studio. I know. Why is it still sitting here? I thought you were gonna dump it into the 3 92. Who’s gonna take pictures?

Sean P. Holman (3m 59s):

Oh, gotta take pictures.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 1s):

Okay.

Sean P. Holman (4m 1s):

We love our AMS oil. They make a great product. But did you know that AMS Oil not only specializes in developing synthetic lubricants, but they offer a great warranty? The AMS Oil Limited warranty is built with an extra measure of protection. Some other oil companies out there. And we’re not gonna say who. They only guarantee their products till you reach a specified mileage. Not AMS oil. They don’t place any restriction on their warranty coverage based on total vehicle miles. And that’s one of those things that makes AMS Oil first in synthetics.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 28s):

But the thing is, it’s, you don’t need it though because AMS oil is the best lubricant you can buy for your gas or diesel pickup truck. So like, it’s kinda like Nissan, you know, they have a great warranty five year, a hundred thousand miles on the Titan. But like, you don’t need it. You also don’t need the warranty on amwell signature series. Full synthetic. It seems silly But. I’m glad they have it. Absolutely. So thanks Amwell

Sean P. Holman (4m 50s):

Amwell synthetic lubricants deliver wear protection engine cleanliness and fuel efficiency. Conventional oil simply can’t match. They help your vehicle run better. Find out how AMS oil synthetic lubricants can save you money and time by lasting longer than conventional oils. At ams oil dot com

2 (5m 4s):

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

3 (5m 36s):

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

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 43s):

Alright, are we ready to dial up our TSB and HD line first time we’re using this? I’m a little nervous. I hope it works.

Sean P. Holman (5m 52s):

Yes, this is our brand new state of the art. You know, do you remember growing up and there was like the, everything was space age 2000 or the Ginsu 2000 knife? This is the Ginsu 2000 of 2020s podcasting interview technology. It is.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 8s):

Okay. I, yes, we might be overhyping the fact that we just have a digital line now when we’re not. Oh, instead of just

Sean P. Holman (6m 12s):

The,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 13s):

I got it. Okay. So for the first Doug, for the, can I call you Doug or Douglas?

Doug Brunt (6m 17s):

Doug is great. Thanks

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 18s):

Doug. So for the first like six and a half years, everything was over the phone because we liked, we’re both from like radio, old school radio and alright,

Sean P. Holman (6m 25s):

Everything Lightning’s gonna come up with some horrible story that is not mostly true. The reason we do the phone is ’cause everybody has a phone and we don’t have to ask them to do anything else. You pick up the phone, you call in, there’s no magic behind it. But because of the, the cell service, sometimes the, the quality, quality can be a little bit spotty. So Lightning has, has upgraded us to this digital line. We’re gonna experiment with it, see if it works. And it should have similar quality to you sitting in our fine studio here.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 53s):

At least we’re not using a high profile bestselling novelist to experiment our new tech with. But,

Sean P. Holman (6m 59s):

But we are, because he is, once again, you’re telling lies. This is Doug, this is, you’re our first. So we’ll be perfectly

Doug Brunt (7m 4s):

Honest if this works, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be gorgeous, I’m sure.

5 (7m 9s):

Prepare to dive, prepare to dive. Hi Captain, captain, we’re too deep. Ah, there’s no such thing as too deep. Okay. That was too deep.

Doug Brunt (7m 33s):

Great Intro. Thanks guys. I love that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 36s):

No problem. So, Doug, I purchased your book and here it is. I’m holding it up for Holman to see the mysterious case of Rudolph Diesel. I don’t think we’ve had a novelist on the show before. And I will tell you that I’m not an avid reader. But I am up to chapter 17, and it killed me to not finish this in time for this interview.

Sean P. Holman (7m 58s):

How weird was it for your teenager to read you bedtime stories for a change?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 1s):

So they, they didn’t I read this But I will tell you that my entire family looked at me side eyed and they’re like,

Sean P. Holman (8m 7s):

Dad’s reading what’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 8s):

Wrong with dad’s reading? What is this now? Hold on. At first they thought it must be like a, an auto shop manual that was covered with another, like a, a novel sleeve. Right,

Sean P. Holman (8m 17s):

Right. It it was just like when You used to watch or read a comic book in math class behind your textbook. Exactly.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 23s):

It is so researched and so fascinating and I didn’t know really any of it. You’ve given kind of the synopsis to on other interviews that I’ve seen over the last couple days in doing some research. And you are able to sum up this book in just a few sentences, which I’d like you to do, and then we need to dive deeper into it. But without spoiling it for the listeners, because they need to go put their money down and order it on Amazon for prime delivery tomorrow. Doug, if you can give us just the synopsis of this book.

Doug Brunt (8m 56s):

Well, it turns into an amazing mystery like an Agatha Christie mystery at the end. But Rudolph Diesel, like many of your listeners, maybe I eight years ago didn’t know there was a Rudolph Diesel who invented the diesel engine. But in 1913, he’s traveling from Belgium to Great Britain on an overnight passenger ferry across the North Sea, and he disappears on September 29th, 1913, just before World War I. And it’s a sensation around the world. It’s the front page of the New York Times newspapers in Western Europe all the way out to Russia about the disappearance of the great inventor Rudolph Diesel. Because at the, at that time, he was a huge celebrity. It’d be like Elon Musk disappearing today. You know, he is on a flight to Nantucket and he’s gone.

Doug Brunt (9m 37s):

Where’s Elon? It was, it was like that in 1913.

Sean P. Holman (9m 40s):

And well, it’s funny because I think we’re all, you know, if you’re a diesel enthusiast, you have an idea that that Rudolph Diesel is a person or that Nicola Tesla was a person and that these technologies were around a person named after a person who invented them or, or whatever. But I had no idea that there was this mystery surrounding his, I, I guess I read about his accomplishments and his accolades and things he did in life. I failed to ever question how he died. And this is a completely new kind of facet to the Rudolph diesel story that I never even knew existed.

Doug Brunt (10m 15s):

Yeah. So there were two theories, it’s sort of gone down in history as a suicide that he jumped off the ship and drowned. But there were also two theories around murder that he was possibly murdered either by Kaiser Wilhelm ii, the Emperor of Germany, or by John Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil. And the reason Kaiser Wilhelm was a suspect was that by 1913, the diesel engine had emerged as the only way to power a U-boat or submarine gasoline. Kerosene engines wouldn’t work, it had to be diesel. And the engine was still young enough that Rudolph Diesel was still the, the maestro. You really needed his involvement to get a good submarine program going. And the reason he was traveling across the North Sea on that day was to go be the co-founder of a new diesel engine manufacturing company in Great Britain.

Doug Brunt (10m 59s):

That’s mandate was to build submarine diesels for the Royal Navy, who at that time was in a, in a naval arms race with Germany. So Kaiser Wilhelm became a suspect. Rockefeller was a suspect because Rudolph Diesel had advocated flexibility with regard to fuels for the diesel engine, which exists still to this day. And it mainly runs on petrol diesel as, as folks know. But even 15 years ago, Willie Nelson was riding around on his tour bus with, in a van with diesel engines that were running on recycled kitchen grease. So it still can, it can do that. And in 1900 Rudolph Diesel had won the Paris World’s Fair with a diesel engine running nut oil. So he was advocating flexibility with regard to fuels that it doesn’t have to be from petroleum, it can be from coal tar, it can be from vegetable or nut oils as well.

Sean P. Holman (11m 46s):

It’s interesting that when You talk about the, the the suspects, you’re literally naming the who’s who of elites at that time.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 54s):

Can I go back a step? Because this is why the book is particularly fascinating to me. Although I like history, I’m not studied in it. And in order to set the stage for his eventual death, Doug has to tell the world and explain who all these figures are. So he gives backstory. And the backstory is not only fascinating, Doug, it’s so incredibly well researched. I don’t know how long this novel put together, but if I had to guess five, six or more years, there’s so much packed, every single word matters. I think

Sean P. Holman (12m 27s):

Doug should know that this is the most research you’ve put into any of our podcasts in the last six years. And that’s how enthralled he was with this book. In fact, when he booked you for the show, he didn’t even tell me about it. I asked him, I said, what’s the story here? And then we went into this like 45 minute diatribe about Rudolph Diesel, and I’m like, man, talk about flexing that one new topic that you just learned about today.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 50s):

Well, I wasn’t flexible. So Doug, what you don’t know is I work for Gale Banks. don don’t know if you know that name or not. As you get more and more into, like, I know that you were introduced to the diesel thing when You purchased a boat and you repowered it. Is that correct? That’s right.

Doug Brunt (13m 3s):

Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 3s):

Right. So you didn’t really know much about the history of Diesel until that occasion? Well, the guy that I worked for Gale Banks was the really, he was responsible for the diesel pickup aftermarket. So he was the first person to turbocharge a diesel pickup engine. And so I, I work now at Gale Banks Engineering and Banks power, and we do turbo systems and intake systems and exhaust systems, and we’re one of the leaders in the space to the extent where Gale Banks in the eighties and nineties became so popular, people would stand outside our door and wait for him to show up because it said Gale Banks on the curb where he would park. He changed that placard to Rudolph Diesel and the one next to it to his second command was Nicholas Otto.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 48s):

So then those were the two placards in front of the front door there. So I’m

Doug Brunt (13m 52s):

I love that. That’s great. He’s, he’s in the very, you guys are all in the very small percentage of people who knew there was a Rudolph diesel.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 58s):

Yeah. And

Sean P. Holman (13m 59s):

So I think most people just know that there’s a reindeer with red nose. Right.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 2s):

And the, the first tuner, the first inline tuner that Gale Banks released were, I think the Ram 5.9 liter Cummins was called the Auto Mind OTTO. But everybody would misspell it. They thought it would be a UTO. And so you eventually had to change OTTO to a UTO. Anyway, getting back to this, you start with Rudolph Diesel as a young boy and working in and around and worshiping his, his father Theodore. And you follow the family around and their rise and fall and their move from France to Germany to London. And ultimately Rudolph as a 12-year-old, takes an eight day trip back to be schooled by a family friend or a, a family member in Germany because he’s so gifted, the parents can’t stifle him in London and they send him off to be schooled in Germany.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 53s):

And that family and the teachers around him realized how smart he was and they nurtured him. Is that accurate?

Doug Brunt (14m 59s):

That’s right. Yeah. He went to study with uncle who was a mathematician. I mean, they, they, he moved, they were, you know, originally from Germany living in Paris. And then when the Franco Prussian war broke out, all people of German background were booted out of France. So they left France with just the shirts on their back penniless and went to London, which was really in the, the belly of the Industrial Revolution. So they actually moved in the same neighborhood that is the setting for Charles Dickens Oliver Twist, you know, if you, that gives you a sense of sort of the, the poverty and the tenement housing that they were in at that time in 1870. And then they got this lifeline to go send Rudolph to get an education back in Germany with his uncle.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 37s):

They put him through school, he sets all the, the records, basically got the highest grades all throughout his schooling, and of course had the eyes on him. And, and then he eventually goes to work for another inventor who was the first to popularize ice machines. Right, right. And then Holman, I bet you didn’t know that Diesel, he would fix and sell these ice machines and at that time, ice could not be put in drinks because it wasn’t potable. Rudolph Diesel invents the ice cube that you can put in drinks in your Dr. Pepper or my bourbon. That ice cube, that ice cube is thanks to Mr.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (16m 18s):

Rudolph diesel, which I had no idea until I read that in Doug’s book

Sean P. Holman (16m 22s):

Then Did you savor your ice cube just a little bit more than usual? I did, I did.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (16m 27s):

I did.

Sean P. Holman (16m 28s):

I, I’m looking at, at Doug’s book here, the back cover has some of the different reviews.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (16m 35s):

Yeah, they’re reviews by other authors, right?

Sean P. Holman (16m 37s):

Yeah. When, when an author kind of gives their thing. Anyway, Jay Wink from the New York Times says equal parts. Walter Isaacson and Sherlock Holmes right there. I think you would have me. So anybody who knows Walter Isaacson, he’s an amazing biographer. He did Steve Jobs and a bunch of other people really, I mean, massive research and then just the Sherlock Holmes angle and hearing the excitement of Lightning to, I mean, I literally hasn’t been this excited in a long time about reading. I’d like to thank you for bringing that back to him. I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 8s):

Feel like this is going to end up as a film. It has to be. I’m sure you all the rights to a film, Doug, well

Doug Brunt (17m 14s):

I have, someone has a producer la has taken the option for the movie rights. And then, you know, there are few screenwriters have have expressed some interest. The cast of characters in the book is just phenomenal. I know you, you’re far enough along to know most of it. So for example, when the, when the diesel engine, you know, the patent was issued and he had a working commercial bottle of the engine, he licensed the exclusive rights to manufacture and market the engine by national territory in North America. That was taken by Adolphus Bush, the founder of Anheuser-Busch, who used the diesel engine to power refrigeration and pump water in his breweries. And he also had a separate business building submarine diesels for the US Navy. And as you go all around the world, it’s like a who’s who of the major industrialists of the time were involved in the diesel engine.

Doug Brunt (17m 60s):

And it was powering it, it changed the world, it changed how we do distribution, and it still does to this day. A hundred percent of cargo ships around the world to this day are still diesel powered. It powered the railroads. Anything larger than a passenger car is diesel powered, all heavy equipment, farm machinery, it’s all diesel. It’s amazing. It does everything.

Sean P. Holman (18m 19s):

It, it, it’s, it’s amazing testament to, it’s part of the story of the industrial revolution. And, and to your point, even, you know, you look at freight trains today, they’re diesel electric, they may have be hybrids and they may have the electric component, but there they are diesel engines powering those. And you look at, you know, the move into electrified semi trucks and things like that, diesel is still king when it comes to pulling those long distances, thousand miles, you know, major grades at 80,000 pounds. It’s just that, it’s a technology that allows you to do that safely, efficiently, and with a robust infrastructure. I don’t think that we’re gonna be going away from diesel anytime soon. In fact, I was just reading a article this week, so if, if those who are listening are familiar with the, the concept of the super trucks.

Sean P. Holman (19m 9s):

So there’s been a kind of a contest that put out by the government for subsidizing these concept semis. And so the latest round is Super Truck two and Kenworth just released theirs. And they have gotten this diesel hybrid semi-truck to weigh less, haul more and get 13 miles per gallon, which is a, a massive improvement over today’s trucks, which already are a huge improvement over yesterday’s semi-trucks. Fact, Kenworth says that it’s done 136% freight efficiency improvement compared to the just the 2009 T 66 60, which at the time was a very aerodynamic and very efficient semi-truck.

Sean P. Holman (19m 53s):

So even in that space with the leaps and bounds of technology, the diesel engine is still, forgive the pun, pulling strong,

Doug Brunt (19m 59s):

Very, very much. I know a, a lot of companies like Toyota, they’re veering away from electric. You know, a better path is improving, as you say, the efficiency for diesels and also looking at different fuels. The biodiesel fuels can burn more cleanly sometimes, and they’re, they’re finding than, than petro diesel options as well. I just wanna say I love the enthusiast groups that I found. There are two main ones that I’ve discovered in running around on book tour. One of course is Truckin, which has been amazing. The other is around Marine. And I did an event at a sort of a fishing club Marina, you know, it wasn’t, it wasn’t this big clubhouse basically where people roll off the water and have a bunch of kegs in bourbon. And I was, I saw about 15 of these guys just a month ago, which is months after I’d done the event.

Doug Brunt (20m 45s):

And they were saying they, they were in New Jersey and they were saying all up and down the east coast, everyone in every marina is reading this book. They’re all obsessed with diesel because all these guys in the bigger fishing boats are running diesels. And so they’ve just been devouring the book and the backstory and how it evolved and how much it changed ocean going travel,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 4s):

Going back, it’s so important to note that this is in the 18, late 1880s, 1890s and early, early 19 hundreds. And prior to that it was steam and it was about external combustion and there was always an intermediate device. So the boiler, it was all steam, and so you had to heat up the water and then it would then turn the turbine or whatever. They were so inefficient, you’re talking about single digit efficiency, five, six, 7% if it was really, really efficient. And here comes the first diesel when he finally debuted it in front of a crowd and it’s 26% somewhere in there efficient.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (21m 45s):

And it blew everybody away. And he expected it to be even more efficient and it eventually got more efficient. But that put him on the road to success, I think. Right?

Doug Brunt (21m 53s):

That’s right. Yeah. You, you know, as, as one journalist at the time said, he’s quadrupled man’s power over nature because we can now get four times the amount of energy out of a given unit of fuel than we could before. And one of the images I try to evoke in the book is that scene from the movie Titanic with DiCaprio that we all know when the camera goes to add into the belly of the ship and you see these dozens and dozens of men sweating, shoveling coal into this hot fiery orange furnace, that furnace is then boiling, as you say, a big vat of water. It’s simple technology like a pot on a stove. It’s the same thing. You’re just heating water to create steam. They then capture that steam and all these valves and tubes and that force of the steam moves the gears of the engine.

Doug Brunt (22m 35s):

But then that furnace also requires a whole chimney apparatus to have plumes of smog, you know, out into the atmosphere through these chimneys on the deck of the ship. It is crazy and efficient. Those, you know, a ship like the Titanic, they’d have hundreds of people whose job it was just to shovel coal around the ship. And those people need a place to stay. They need food to eat. All of that stuff was, was inefficiency. The diesel engine just, you know, it automatically draws liquid fuel from a tank there. You don’t have hundreds of people, hundreds of people shoveling coal and you don’t have a chimney apparatus. You don’t have a whole vat full of water to boil the, the fuel explodes inside the engine. You know, obviously the, the internal combustion, which is different from, as you say, the external combustion of steam.

Doug Brunt (23m 16s):

So it was a, it was a remarkably better, more efficient way to, to get propulsion on a ship.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 24s):

But just like Holman, the guys at industrial injection and all over the, you know, at UCC ultimate Callout challenge, which is big horsepower contest in Indiana Dug where you’re, the goal now is like above 3000 horsepower for a a diesel pickup truck. Mostly Cummins trucks. The guys will spray the entire crowd with parts like, like the engines will explode. Well, not

Sean P. Holman (23m 47s):

On

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (23m 47s):

Purpose, not on purpose, but famously at that event, engines explode into great balls of flames and pistons go hundreds of feet in the air that happened to Rudolph Diesel when he was first inventing this engine, like the compression would be too high. And he tried it with gasoline before he discovered ’cause diesel fuel was much, much later. He was trying all sorts of other chemicals like even like hydrazine and all these other things to see what would combust. And finally, can you take us through some of that, Doug? Yeah.

Doug Brunt (24m 20s):

The, the moment you’re describing in the diesel lab in Augsburg, Germany, it’s a great moment in the book because you’re right, he, he thinks it’s gonna be like a thousand pounds per square inch. And, and it ultimately, he uses a much more volatile fuel than he later does. And it’s, it’s a multiple of that in terms of the pressure. So it blows these engine parts all over the room. They, they hit the deck, they survive it, the walls are completely pockmarked with shrapnel. But it’s this wonderful moment because he realizes it works because he doesn’t use a spark. The diesel engine, that’s one of the big differences between diesel versus gasoline engines is diesel is not spark ignition, it’s a compression engine. So he thought if I drive this piston in, essentially it’s, it’s the same technology as like a bicycle tire pump.

Doug Brunt (25m 3s):

You have this cylinder, you jam down the plunger and in the case of a bicycle tire pump that, you know, the air goes out into the tire. But in the case of a diesel engine, it’s a closed cylinder. So that air just gets highly compressed and a tiny space and that pressure creates heat. So his idea was I’m going to create ex enormously high pressure, which will generate heat. I will then introduce fuel and that will ignite the fuel. We don’t need a spark. And so that moment of the explosion proved his theory correct. So he, it was sort of this eureka wonderful, I’m like, yes, the compression ignition works the cylinder, the the piston of the cylinder jammed down, introduced fuel, and bam, it ignited.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (25m 41s):

He almost killed himself. But he had made the discovery, the process in, in Holman as a cigar smoker, you’ll appreciate that what set him on this path was a cigar lighter. Is that correct, Doug?

Doug Brunt (25m 52s):

That’s right. Yeah. Tinder lighter, cigar lighter. So same idea, closed cylinder, you jam down the, the plunger and at the bottom of the cylinder in that compressed air is a little ember. And if you, you jam it down, you thrust it down fast and that ember starts to glow.

Sean P. Holman (26m 8s):

I often like to light my cigars of the glow plugs. Not, not, not a lot of people know that. So Doug, I’m kind of curious, one of the things I I, you know, looking through your, your your list of books, they’re all different. You’ve got Trophy Sun, the Means the Ghost of Manhattan, and it seems like they’re not all the same. You’re not, you know, doing the same book over and over again. They’re, they seem very different. I was curious, knowing that you repowered this boat, what was the process? Well, I definitely wanna know what you ended up putting in your boat, but what was the process of you researching this repower that really got you hooked on not only wanting to know more and do the research behind Rudolph Diesel, but wanting to be the guy that wrote the novel about it?

Sean P. Holman (26m 50s):

Because to me, that’s, as, as a writer myself, I’m always fascinated with the, that thought process of where do you jump the shark? Where are you just an enthusiast or, or somebody who’s learning about a topic so that you can understand it and tell your friends Friday night at the bar versus you’re gonna be the guy that tells the story and you are going to put, attach your name to it and make sure it’s as accurate as possible because you want to be the foremost expert in that subject.

Doug Brunt (27m 15s):

Yeah. So as you say, before this book, I wrote three novels that, so these fictional stories, and then when I bought the boat, the, the guy in the boat you was describing diesel to me, I can, I can take a lit match and drop it in a barrel of diesel fuel and nothing will happen. And a hundred percent of boat fires come from gasoline engines. None from diesel. Tell me he threw

Sean P. Holman (27m 34s):

A match into it, just to show you

Doug Brunt (27m 35s):

That, that would’ve been brilliant in the movie version. We’ll do it

Sean P. Holman (27m 37s):

That way. Yeah, perfect.

Doug Brunt (27m 39s):

So I did repower and then I came across this, you know, looking for ideas for another novel came across this list of mysterious disappearances at sea that mentioned Rudolph Diesel. And so when I first started to write it, I thought maybe I will stay with fiction, which is what I’ve done before. I’ll, I’ll write historical fiction because it’s so little written about the man or, you know, the Encyclopedia Britannica entry. It’s gotten longer since my book came out actually, but back then, this is, this is now seven years ago or so, there was very little, even in the encyclopedia, there was very little written about him anywhere. And so I was like, well, I’ve got the scaffolding of a good story here. I can make up the rest and fill in the dialogue. And, but the more I got into it, the more I had a theory of the case not to spoil things for your listeners, But I solved the case, I believe, and, and former British Intel and CIA officers believe I have as well, I realized I’ve gotta do this as nonfiction.

Doug Brunt (28m 29s):

And I got into archives in Germany and in America. There’s a lot of stuff from Old Bush archives. And I started finding enough material that I thought I could actually do a, a real non-fiction book. So it’s, it it’s narrative non-fiction sort of in the style of Eric Larson or David Grant or you know, folks like that. So that was, that was a totally different thing for me. I, I’ve always done a lot of research, even from my novels, even from my fiction trophy son, for example, is about a tennis prodigy who goes pro and I did interviews with James Blake and John Isner and other American great tennis players, but this was a totally different story. You know, it’s got deeply researched note a note section, so everything is fully sourced back to the archival source or, or the other books that I, that I used in doing the research.

Doug Brunt (29m 14s):

So it was a learning process for me, but it was a ton of fun. And the book I’m working on now is another nonfiction book from the same period of time.

Sean P. Holman (29m 22s):

So you quarter statue

Doug Brunt (29m 22s):

Before World War I,

Sean P. Holman (29m 23s):

So did you fall into that based on the research for this book and you went, oh, now I gotta go tell that story too. And and do you see yourself kind of going down a path of getting into more nonfiction now? Is is it, has it lit a fire inside of you in a sense?

Doug Brunt (29m 36s):

It has. I really loved it and I’m loving this next one. I, I actually resigned with Simon and Schuster for two more of these nonfiction style books. Oh,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (29m 46s):

Congrats.

Doug Brunt (29m 47s):

Very cool. Thank you. And this next one, I, I haven’t fully disclosed what it’s about, but it, it does have a small amount of overlap with diesel and it is in that same period of decades just leading up to World War I.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (30m 1s):

Interesting. So a couple things. You, you mentioned footnotes. I would say every third page there’s a footnote that is just as interesting in if not more so than the passage that got you to the foot

Sean P. Holman (30m 12s):

Footnote is the, like the printed version of a, what I like to call the wiki web. As you’re reading, you get those hyperlinks, you’re like, oh, I gotta go read about this. And then you spend hours around this topic and adjacent stuff. I do. Does it drive you to wanna do more research on that topic as you’re reading it a

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (30m 26s):

A little bit, but it answers the question that doesn’t fit in the narrative above it. But it’s all these nuggets that you really want to know. It’s fascinating and I was so desperately wanting to dog ear the pages of this But I thought, I’m not gonna def defo the book by do it. So I used a a, a standard bookmark. Well that’s actually

Sean P. Holman (30m 45s):

A, it’s a Polaroid, it

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (30m 46s):

Is a Polaroid of one.

Sean P. Holman (30m 47s):

I don don’t even want to know what’s on that photo.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (30m 49s):

No, it’s actually me and the guys from Donut Media when I was It’s a Polaroid. Yeah, don’t ask me why, but I thought it was particularly interesting that Rudolph Diesel was a person that wanted to change the world for the better because his father fell on such like destitute and ultimately kind of went off the deep end. And when they lost their wife, he lost his wife and became a, what’s the term for it? Or like a mystic, is that right, Doug? Yeah,

Doug Brunt (31m 20s):

Magnet magna like magneto therapy. Like a magnetism.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (31m 25s):

YY yeah. Just, just went, went loon ball. And even so Rudolph Deel thought his father was loony. But anyway, my point is that he wanted to create an engine that would supply power to middle class working people in rural countryside all over the world, change the way energy is delivered. And he had a utopian vision. He loved art, he loved music. The people he surrounded him with himself with were of that ilk. But his engine becomes so popular with the military sector of the world, you know, it, like you said, it ended up in u-boats and powering battleships.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (32m 5s):

And I haven’t got beyond the, the chapter 17 But I would imagine he’s got, he’s growing more and more weary and fearful of what the monster he’s created.

Doug Brunt (32m 16s):

That’s a really interesting part of the book. It’s one of the central tensions of the book. In the 1880s, he had developed this list of intended uses for the diesel engine, which included dentistry and woodworking, you know, rural craftsmen as you say, like his father, because at that time the steam engine engine was the size of a room. And so it wasn’t a practical energy source for these decentralized economies and rural businessmen. So we thought, you know, I’ll, you know, in the end, Tesla’s electric motor really became the power source for that use. And the diesel engine ironically became the power source for war and big industry, which was, which was counter to what Diesel had envisioned. And he was generally a peaceful guy that, you know, he grew up surrounded by wars all over Europe.

Doug Brunt (32m 58s):

So he, he recognized that, you know, there is a peace through strength I guess, but he was generally a pacifist and he certainly didn’t intend for his engine to become an, an implement of war. And that’s, that is one of the ironies. And one of the things I’ve talked about a bit in, in connection with this is this term called technical sweetness. And that term first came into use decades ago. It, it describes the sense of euphoria that an inventor feels when the invention advances and that sense of euphoria can sometimes overwhelm any sense of caution about whether the invention should advance. And so it first came into use the term technical sweetness in connection with Oppenheimer and the bomb.

Doug Brunt (33m 39s):

And we use it a lot today in ai, Chad

7 (33m 42s):

Gbt, ai, Chad, GBT,

Doug Brunt (33m 46s):

We use it today with ai. Exactly, yep. It applies really to diesel as well, because as early as 19 0 2, 19 0 3 and four, the French military, the French Navy was using the diesel engine to power submarines. And at that time, the submarine was a very controversial weapon. You can’t sink a ship and then rescue any cargo or crew. And it’s this stealth weapon. The British admirals thought, this is un gentlemanly, it’s un British, we don’t wanna use submarines. That’s not a fair fight. You know, we use battleships. And so it was a controversial weapon, but diesel was the only way to do it. And while he certainly didn’t set out to do that, that was not on his list of, you know, rural artisan uses of the engine.

Doug Brunt (34m 26s):

He was working closely with the French to help them develop this. He encouraged the Germans to do it and he obviously was co-founding a, a company in Great Britain to do it for the Royal Navy. So you could argue that he also suffered from technical sweetness.

Sean P. Holman (34m 41s):

It’s, it’s almost like he was playing all sides. Did did that come into play where as the, I guess the powers that be changed alliances is, was it bad for him to have his finger in, in the bulls of so many different countries to come up with this new stealth technology for their militaries? Well,

Doug Brunt (34m 59s):

You know, the military, he, he was also very focused on inland use for, you know, the power, the, some of the uses that Bush was using for his breweries. That was a main focus for him. He was focused on the railroads, he was trying to develop a lighter weight diesel for smaller passenger cars. So he, he did a lot more than just the military. But his goal one, one of the stipulations in his licensing agreements with all national territories was that any advances with the engine had to be contributed back to sort of a central knowledge base that would be shared globally so that everyone could benefit from, from sort of these splinter advancements. They would all sort of come back to the, to the mothership and help everybody,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 37s):

Which open sourcing basically. Yeah, open source. But even that had to be super novel at the time, really to say. And patents were so important back then. yeah, I mean they’re now, they’re violated all the time. But, I, it sounded like they weren’t violated as frequently in the turn of the century.

Doug Brunt (35m 53s):

You’re right, it was, it was a controversial thing. People noted that this was, you know, I guess they called it sort of a very liberal, liberal minded approach to the advances in the technology that this would be contributed back and shared. And of course it fell apart. It was, this is, you know, the height of nationalism. And so as soon as it became something that was acknowledged as useful for war, for, for submarines, everyone sort of buttoned up their national borders on advances. And they were not sharing new designs for diesel engines that, that could, you know, work in submarines. And so it, it didn’t really work to have that central repository of knowledge.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (36m 28s):

It is an absolute fascinating story. And of course, you know, in the end he dies. But how and why it’s mystery. And, and how did Doug, so Doug, when You came to the realization that you had solved it, tell me about that moment. Where were you, take me through that moment when You thought I’ve, I’ve solved a, a century old case.

Doug Brunt (36m 51s):

It, it wasn’t so much a single moment because it was early on that I developed a theory of, of what happened. I’m like, I think nothing, these other options don’t make any sense. This kind of makes sense. And then over the course of a couple years, every piece of information I uncovered from archives supported that theory of the case and it just became overwhelming. It’s, you know, it’s a circumstantial case. It’s more than a hundred years old, but even today, if you look at murder cases, the prosecutors, criminal prosecutors will tell you most crimes are solved by circumstantial evidence. You know, it’s very rare to see, to have a case where someone says, I saw the knife go in. And, you know, normally it’s, it’s circumstantial and it’s an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence that that supports the conclusion of the case.

Doug Brunt (37m 38s):

Which again, I don’t wanna spoil for listeners, but it has been vetted by a number of former British intelligence, NCIA officers who, who feel this is exactly what happened. But there, there would be a number of moments. There were, there were dozens of little moments where I’d find some piece of evidence and it would, it, it would just further, you know, be one more thing on the pile proven the case.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (38m 4s):

What has the response been to the book from the people who also had that like, oh, you know, I grew up thinking these things, but you’ve really solidified it for me. Like have you had that a a, a cohesive response from readers?

Doug Brunt (38m 20s):

Y Yeah, I would say nine out of 10 are, are a hundred percent persuaded. One outta 10 is like, I, I still have kind of questions, but that actually is the only thing that makes a lot of sense. And then from people who are in the intelligence community, it’s a hundred percent say this is exactly what happened.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (38m 36s):

No kidding.

Doug Brunt (38m 37s):

And then there are two, interestingly, there are two diesel, you know, people alive today related to diesel. One is related to his daughter, if you follow that thread down. She lives in Germany and she was fascinated to speak with the other was a descendant of Rudolph’s uncle and he lives in France right on the border of Germany. And I actually got in touch with him before I handed in the final version of the book and he’d done a ton of family research and he pointed me to a couple of archives where he’d been with his family kind of tracing back his lineage. And one was in Denmark and they had some great old photos of, of some early diesel engines and the people who worked on it.

Doug Brunt (39m 22s):

And Kaiser Wilhelm toured this early diesel powered cargo ship in 1912. So I got some great stuff that I ended up using in the book.

Sean P. Holman (39m 29s):

So what brand diesels did you go with for your boat? I have to I have to know he

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (39m 34s):

Skirted that the first idea.

Sean P. Holman (39m 36s):

I know I did, I’m not gonna let him get away from this.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (39m 39s):

He didn’t do durmax. He he doesn’t have a scorpion from a Ford. He doesn’t have like, is it a Cummins?

Doug Brunt (39m 45s):

No, no, Yanmars.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (39m 47s):

Yanmar. All

Sean P. Holman (39m 48s):

Right.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (39m 49s):

Okay. We’re not as familiar with Yanmar.

Sean P. Holman (39m 51s):

I was thinking maybe a Volvo or a, oh, Volvo would would’ve been John Deere or a cat. I,

Doug Brunt (39m 56s):

I think Yanmar Yanmar maybe is more in the marine area. Yeah, there are twin three 70 horsepower yanmars on the back of this boat. Very

Sean P. Holman (40m 3s):

Cool. And this

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (40m 4s):

Was your first boat and and what led you to the, to the repower?

Doug Brunt (40m 8s):

Well, first, first sort of, you know, I grew up on like 18 foot Garveys and whalers and things like that. This is a little bit bigger. So it’s the first,

Sean P. Holman (40m 15s):

Nothing like a 17 foot whaler Montauk with no rail on the front. And every time you hit a wave, it comes over the front. And there there’s no such thing as bow riding on one of those. That’s

Doug Brunt (40m 27s):

Right. That’s what I grew up on. So those

Sean P. Holman (40m 28s):

Things are awesome.

Doug Brunt (40m 29s):

Yeah, those are fun. Our kids will be bombing around on those things, crabbing and things like that in the bay, so Very

Sean P. Holman (40m 35s):

Cool.

Doug Brunt (40m 35s):

Oh, it’s a, it is called a shelter island. It’s a 38 foot shelter island. It’s kind of like a cruising around drink some bourbon kind of a boat.

Sean P. Holman (40m 43s):

Funny you should say that. I have some Kentucky owl and some angel’s Envy finished Rye here in the podcast studio right now. Trying to decide which one I want to go with tonight.

Doug Brunt (40m 53s):

Huh. That sounds, I wish I was there with you. That sounds fantastic.

Sean P. Holman (40m 55s):

You know what, if you ever find yourself in Huntington Beach, California, come on over. We’d love to have you in studio with us.

Doug Brunt (41m 1s):

Deal. So

Sean P. Holman (41m 2s):

A lot of you might not know this, but Doug also, like myself, obviously author, writer, but like us, is also a podcaster. And so he has a podcast called Dedicated, which you discussed cocktails before delving in with some of your favorite authors, which is really cool. It’s,

Doug Brunt (41m 20s):

I love doing it ’cause it gets me outta my little bunker where I’m writing, writing all by myself all day. So yeah, I, I interview great writers. We start each episode with the favorite cocktail of the guest and I just fix the drink there right in the studio. So we’ve had Negronis, Manhattans, martinis, gin and Tonics,

Sean P. Holman (41m 38s):

And I’m an old fashioned kind of guy myself. Yep. Or yep. We’ve had a few old fashion or b

Doug Brunt (41m 42s):

Fashions we’ve had, we’ve had that too. And yeah, just have a drink and talk about the writer’s, you know, lifestyle and work and funny behind the scenes stories with book tours and agents and book

Sean P. Holman (41m 54s):

To file stuff. Well, I know you said you have good writers on, but if you ever want a a poor line writer who writes automotive content, you just, you let me know ’cause at least I can drink.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 3s):

You can drink, yes. That, that is true. What is the name of the podcast and where can we find it? Everywhere? It’s

Doug Brunt (42m 8s):

Called Everywhere. It’s called Dedicated with Doug Brunt. It’s on, we started doing video recently, so you can get it on YouTube and anywhere you get your podcasts.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 17s):

Fantastic. Wow. So this was phenomenal. I’m really excited to finish this book and if you are as interested in it as I was the mysterious case of Rudolph Diesel by Douglas Brunt. It’s available everywhere.

Sean P. Holman (42m 32s):

And how do we get a signed copy, Doug?

Doug Brunt (42m 35s):

There, there are a couple bookstores. One is in Rye, New York and another is in Manhattan. One’s called Arcade Books in Rye or Corner Bookstore in Manhattan. They have signed stock in there and they can handle all shipping and stuff like that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 49s):

What’s No, no love for you guys, your folks in LA Hold on,

Sean P. Holman (42m 52s):

Let let ’em finish.

Doug Brunt (42m 54s):

They can, they can ship to, they can ship to you guys from there, but you guys send me a note afterwards and I’ll send a book out to you.

Sean P. Holman (42m 60s):

No, seriously about the, the podcast. That’s awesome. I was, I was doing a little research on you and I was like, man, what a, what a cool idea. And we’ve been doing this thing for, geez, almost six and a half, almost seven years now. So I think we’re at about 350 episodes.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (43m 17s):

So you’ve got the diesel heads like, like me, like we just love diesel pickup trucks and diesel boats and everything else. But like, have you now be, do people just assume that you’re one of the diesel guys, quote unquote, that you’re like, I’m rolling coal on my ram with a 6.7 liter Cummins? You know,

Doug Brunt (43m 34s):

No, no one’s assumed that, I mean, I get a lot of emails off the website of people who are real diesel enthusiasts. I mean, they really like understand how to get under the hood to fix the diesel, which is not me. I, I can’t do that. But, you know, as a diesel owner now I feel a connection to it. It’s like I feel like everyone who has a diesel feels some pri there’s a reason they have it and they feel pride in it. And so I get a lot of emails from folks who, you know, anyone who owns a diesel really, they may not know the whole Rudolph diesel backstory, but they understand a lot about diesel and why it’s different.

Sean P. Holman (44m 6s):

Well, and I I I love that this doesn’t require you to be an enthusiast, right. It, it actually adds to an enthusiasts, you know, repertoire of the history or understand their truck or their passions, you know, that the root of how it all came to be, I think that’s really neat.

Doug Brunt (44m 22s):

Yeah, the mystery. So you, you’ll get to the mystery as it unfolds here at the, at the very end, but if you enjoy Harlan Cobin, you know, you’ll love this book. It’s got, it’s got that sort of element too. So it’s, it’s part biography, it’s part mystery, it’s part like European

Sean P. Holman (44m 38s):

History. I mean it’s almost like mixed genre. Like I said, when I was looking at some of the other books that you did, I went, wow, this is so much different than what he’s written in the past. And it was really intriguing to me because you do have such a mix of how this book is laid out. It’s almost like you’ve taken this genre but you’ve made it your own and the way you’ve laid it out to the, the reader that kind of sets, you know, your style or your stance in this place. And that’s why I asked you if you were excited about doing more because it seems like you really attacked this one really with a lot of passion. Yeah,

Doug Brunt (45m 7s):

I did. And and I think that’s why the editor who acquired the book believed that I could get it done in a good way because it’s, it’s history told in a novelistic way. You know, it reads like a, like an action thriller, but it’s history, which is to diesel’s credit. I mean it’s just a crazy story.

Sean P. Holman (45m 24s):

It’s awesome. Well we really appreciate your time and in hanging out with us two knuckleheads, we, you know, we believe it or not, I mean people don’t know it, but we can read. So it’s great to have speak for yourself. It’s great to have people who, who we’ve never done like a a from novelist perspective. We’ve had friends who’ve written about history before or maybe a car book or things like this. So this is one of those kind of like fun sort of adjacent stories that the listener isn’t gonna expect. Yeah. But I think they’re gonna dive right in ’cause they’re gonna go, wow, that’s not what they usually do. This is amazing. So hopefully we created some new fans for you and I’m gonna give you a follow on on Instagram and that. But just, we really appreciate your time. This has been great.

Doug Brunt (46m 4s):

I really appreciate it as well. I hope you get good feedback on the episode, but it was great speaking with you guys. Awesome.

Sean P. Holman (46m 9s):

Awesome. Thanks Doug. Thank you

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (46m 10s):

Doug, thank you so much. Really appreciate

Doug Brunt (46m 11s):

It. Thank you. Alright.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (46m 14s):

All right Holman, this is time for a truck review and a couple episodes ago you were out in the 720 horsepower Raptor are and you were romping through the Southern California desert giving us a great review. So thank you for that. I think that was really enjoyable to listen to. And

Sean P. Holman (46m 32s):

Then I teased you, but you did,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (46m 33s):

You teased us afterwards with your favorite F-150, but my impression is it wasn’t a raptor. So what in the world is your favorite F-150?

Sean P. Holman (46m 43s):

Well hit that jingle

8 (46m 45s):

Truck review. Yeah. Roll The truck mud. Ah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (46m 55s):

Ooh. Solid. Yes. Yeah, well

Sean P. Holman (46m 57s):

Done. All alright, so I love the raptor. I love the Raptor R more than I love the regular Raptor, to be honest. And it’s not because the regular raptor is down on horsepower or anything. It just feel like the Raptor r as I told you in our previous show, it just feels like a more complete truck. It just feels more balanced and just a better driver. And there the power is so linear and just there’s a lot to love about that truck. Not that the regular raptor’s bad, obviously great truck, but the Raptor R is sublime in so many ways.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 26s):

So it’s not just the engine, it’s

Sean P. Holman (47m 28s):

Holistic, it’s just, it’s the, just the way The truck feels. It’s the power delivery. It’s, it’s all the goodness. But that’s not

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 35s):

My, all

Sean P. Holman (47m 35s):

The goodness, that’s not my favorite F-150. And some of you may be surprised to hear that. And I will tell you that on the Raptor Drive, we also drove another truck and that was the F-150 tremor, which I think is the best kept secret in the Ford F-150 lineup. And

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 52s):

Now this would not be the first time you’ve said that

Sean P. Holman (47m 55s):

And I don’t feel any different for 2024. I think in fact the tremor is even better and more Raptor like for 2024 than the previous generation. It’s got it’s own unique styling. It’s got a raptor like hood with a power dome and some of the, the Raptor like vents in it. Power

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 13s):

Dome, you mean the bulge in the hood?

Sean P. Holman (48m 14s):

That’s what it’s called. Power dome. Yep. Okay.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 16s):

But we’re, I’ve got a power dome and it’s, right, keep going. That’s,

Sean P. Holman (48m 21s):

That’s not what you’d find in the dictionary. So what’s interesting about this truck is it gives you a whole lot of off-road capability. You’ve got just a litany of upgrades over the standard F-150, but it’s for somebody who’s not gonna go bombing Baja or need to tear off through the desert or, which is

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 41s):

By the way, most of us,

Sean P. Holman (48m 42s):

Hence my reasoning for this is the, the best buy with F-150. So when You look at the tremor, 33 inch general grabber, A TX tires, which is great on 18 inch wheels, the stance is really, really cool. It’s got some orange accents now. It’s got some of those little raptor styling bits. It even has the same modular front bumper as a raptor with its own unique end caps since the raptor’s wider. But what that means is there’s a slew of accessories, whether it’s a winch or a light bar or all that stuff that you can bolt to forge factory bumpers so you can get metal bumpers on it that are modular, which I think is awesome. That’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (49m 18s):

Kind of cool. And, and regarding the stance, some of the tremors that I’ve seen have, usually it’s, they look taller than the raptors. Is that true or no? They’re not. No, I havent seen ’em side by side.

Sean P. Holman (49m 28s):

They’re not taller. No. Okay. On the suspension, the front upper and lower control arms, the tie rods and the knuckles are all tremor specific. So Ford updates all that stuff. One weird thing that I, I don’t agree with is the dampers, they have mono tubes up front and then they use twin tubes in the rear, which is super weird, huh? I would, right.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (49m 46s):

Do you think just cause cutting

Sean P. Holman (49m 48s):

Probably I’d rip all that out and I would put in mono tubes all four corners, get a nice bi stein direct replacement, then you can get that lift that you want, you know, you can level it out and get a little bit more better, better ride. But they do use a two stage rear leaf spring in the back. The tremor sits about an inch higher than an F-150 with the FX four off-road package. And the track width is about an inch wider. But you have to remember, the FX four has a lot to do with being more of a badge and sticker package, yet adds like skid plates, I think, and, and some different twin tube shocks. But

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (50m 17s):

It, but it’s not really off-road.

Sean P. Holman (50m 18s):

It’s not where, where tremor is. So tremor will give you 9.8 inches of ground clearance, 25.2 degree approach angle, a 20 degree breakover angle and a 26.9 degree departure angle. When you’re looking at it from a drivetrain standpoint, the tremor is available in the EcoBoost.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (50m 38s):

Oh yeah. You gotta have the turbos. Nope.

Sean P. Holman (50m 41s):

And the five liter V eight. What, what? And they don’t offer the hybrid in the tremor. So you, since when

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (50m 48s):

Has

Sean P. Holman (50m 48s):

That, it’s always been the case. It has, yeah. But that’s what I like about the tremors. You can get the V eight with it. And for me, like the V eight is, is the sweet spot in the light. So yes, the V six, it makes 400 horsepower, 500 pound feet of torque. The V eight makes 400 horsepower and only 410 pound feet of Tor. Hmm. Trust me, it’s plenty. But if you don’t need the turbos, you don’t want the headache of turbos, you don’t want forced induction, you don’t live at altitude. You’ll find that that five liter coyote is just a sweet, sweet engine. Both are backed by Ford’s 10 speed automatic. And then of course two speed trash case,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (51m 23s):

Whipple supercharger,

Sean P. Holman (51m 24s):

Which you could also do and which will give you 700 and something horsepower as well. Exactly.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (51m 29s):

Because what I mean, look, in today’s age, there are people that’s like, oh, turbos aren’t reliable. I mean, really? Well

Sean P. Holman (51m 34s):

It’s not that turbo turbos are plenty reliable. No, but there’s been, people are saying that because there have been a lot of quality issues, especially the covid cars stuff that was built through, you know, 20, 21, 22 had a a gazillion problems. Why? If you don’t need to add a turbo to it, if, if it’s not necessary in your lifestyle, you don’t need that much power. I know I said that if you’re not at altitude, you, we don’t want production. No, I like V eights, same thing. I got my 3 92. It’s a big old stupid V eight. Everything I wanted to do.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (52m 2s):

6.4 liters. Yeah. Not a five four. What’s the

Sean P. Holman (52m 5s):

Coyote? No, it’s a five liter.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (52m 6s):

Five liter. Okay.

Sean P. Holman (52m 7s):

But here’s the thing that I like more than anything about the, the tremor. So you get a little bit taller, you get a little bit wider, you get a bit, a little bit bigger tire, you still get a rear locker. You got all the skid plates, you get the modular front bumper, you get a unique rear bumper and you get like raptor style aluminum running boards, all cool, right?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (52m 26s):

Okay. What are we missing? Some interior bits, like tremor above the glove box.

Sean P. Holman (52m 32s):

What? So if you get a tremor, it’s better daily driver. The suspension’s tighter. It’s not as, you know, like, not that the Raptor’s wallow, we but you don’t have to worry about parking it. Well the don’t

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (52m 43s):

Have that. The Raptor have to, has to be softer because it’s gotta go over whoops. You know. Well, and it’s, you’re

Sean P. Holman (52m 48s):

Not

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (52m 48s):

Gonna count.

Sean P. Holman (52m 49s):

It’s wider. You can only get the shorter bed with it. So the tremor to me, let’s put it this way, max, to package with a 3.5 liter Eco-boost, you have twenty four hundred and forty five pounds of payload with a max tow rating of 13,500 pounds. Okay. Contrast that to the V six Raptor at 1,405 pounds of payload. Yeah. And with the Raptor R it’s 1410 and an 8,200 pound max tow rating. The Raptor arm is 8,700. So you’re talking what, 6,000 pounds? More towing. Yeah, that’s a lot. And, and, and over a thousand pounds more payload. Like, it’s just better at the everyday truck stuff. It’s better

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (53m 26s):

All around. It’s gonna ride a lot stiffer. It has to, to carry that.

Sean P. Holman (53m 29s):

No, it, it feel, it feels really good. We drove ’em off road,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (53m 31s):

But compared to the Raptor r it’s gonna be mushy.

Sean P. Holman (53m 33s):

It’s, it’s, it’s fine. No, you, you’re, they drive different. Yes, but you’re not, not one’s not a penalty boxer over the other, as long as you aren’t using all that Wheel travel, it’s completely fine. Nobody’s gonna be like, wow, this ride’s way harder than a Raptor or anything like that. They’re, it’s, it’s stunningly good. And that’s one of the reasons that I like it so much. And it’s got a bunch of technology, like the one pedal drive and trail turn assist that came outta the Bronco, as well as the trail control, which is like the cruise control in low range and the starting price, it’s a little bit more expensive than last year. Last year was 62 8 65. Now it’s 66,790. But for all that equipment, that’s a really good price, especially when You consider some of the mid-size trucks are creeping into the high sixties.

Sean P. Holman (54m 17s):

Oh, for

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (54m 17s):

Sure. For sure. Now, wait, the tremor is a package that includes everything or there options within the tremor

Sean P. Holman (54m 23s):

Package. You, you can get additional options. You can

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (54m 25s):

Yeah. As well. So it could get a little complicated.

Sean P. Holman (54m 28s):

Well it’s just typical Ford. They give you way too many choices and, but there’s different packages you can add. Anyway, my point is that if you need a truck to do truck stuff and you also need to go off road, go look at the tremor. If you don’t need the kind of boy racer ness of the Raptor R or the Raptor, you don’t need the graphics packages. You don’t need all that. Crazy. If you just need a really good truck that out of the box is a really, really decent off roader, consider this the same as maybe a Trail Boss or a Ram 1500, like a rebel.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (55m 1s):

Well compare to a Trail Boss for me.

Sean P. Holman (55m 3s):

So I think they’re, they’re really comparable. I think if you’re a Chevy guy, you’re gonna get the Silverado. I think if you’re a Ford guy, you’re gonna get the Ford. They’re, they line up really nicely on the spec sheet. So for example, with the, the Trail boss, you can get it with the four cylinder, 310 horsepower, 430 pound feet of torque, or the 5.3 liter V 8 3 55, 3 83. But on the trail box, you can also get a work truck so you can get it, I believe a little bit cheaper than like an lt. But from a spec standpoint, they’re, they’re pretty comparable trucks. So, you know, it, it’s, I would say the, the ZR two is more like a Raptor V six competitor and the, you know, Ram Rebel is plays more with Trail Boss and tremor.

Sean P. Holman (55m 50s):

But you know, you can see how the, the capability pricing, there’s not exactly a one-to-one for each of ’em. That kind of overlap a little bit. Z two is like a little higher, a little closer into Raptor range, but not fully. And if you’re a Ford person or just a pickup truck person in general, and you need some off-road capability, you don’t want the width, but you need the towing and payload and you want a V eight, there’s not a lot of options out there. And Tremor for me just hits that really, really sweet spot in Ford’s lineup.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (56m 17s):

I’d like to talk to someone who made the decision to either they, they didn’t want the three five vehicle boost and they went with the V eight or, or vice versa. Like, I’d be curious what your decision making process was like. Was it towing you, you didn’t want turbo lag? Or what was your reason for buying one or the other?

Sean P. Holman (56m 35s):

Man v eight’s so sweet.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (56m 37s):

I know, but you’re, again, it’s, it, the power is a little bit better in the EOB Boosts.

Sean P. Holman (56m 42s):

Yeah, But I, when you’re towing the Eco Boosts is on the boost. True. Right. And you gotta watch it for egt. You just don’t have to worry about any of that stuff for the V eight. That’s true. Yeah. It’s just with the 10 speed, it’s, it just feels like the perfect pickup truck. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (56m 54s):

Truck show podcast at gmail dot com. Let us know how you would make or have made that decision between the Eco boosts or the naturally aspirated five liter Coyote Holman. So two thumbs up for the tremor F-150. And you actually would prefer it over the Raptor is what I hear.

Sean P. Holman (57m 14s):

I think if I had a no, if I, if if I had one vehicle that had to do it all, I’d go, you know, that tremor F-150 is a really great choice in the Ford lineup. If I wanted to go show off to my friends and go Huck things and be like the, the baddest, you

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (57m 28s):

Know, then it’s Raptor. Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (57m 29s):

It’s Raptor. Yeah, of course you know it, it’s, that’s just the way it is. But for an all around great Truck Raptor’s really expensive and there’s a lot of compromise with that in terms of truck capability that most buyers probably don’t want. And I think they would be better served with a tremor. So Tremor is my favorite F-150 and Fords lineup. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (57m 47s):

If you weren’t thinking about it, maybe it’s time to go look at one. All right. It’s time for some email Boys and girls

2 (57m 52s):

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

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (58m 12s):

Alright. You’ve got a mean old stack of email over there. But you’re gonna have to hand one to your man Lightning because I got nothing over here.

Sean P. Holman (58m 20s):

Hold on, I’m listening to do the music here.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (58m 23s):

All right, I got one here from RB frequent email or two truck show podcast at gmail dot com. Subject line says and people bitch about Ram’s rotary transmission selector.

Sean P. Holman (58m 32s):

I don’t, I actually like it. I think it works fine. I’d rather much rather have it. No, I’d much rather have that than that stupid ass GM SUV one that’s push button on

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (58m 42s):

Leg. Oh no question about that. Those are horrible. That’s awful. That is Dogme. No, for sure. I will take Rotary over that. He says, I guess they don’t realize that something as Manly as a Mack truck now has a push button transmission selector and he is got a photograph of a reverse neutral drive plus minus manual whatever all push button on a Mack truck. That is lame sauce. Lame sauce.

Sean P. Holman (59m 6s):

Alright, I got this one here from Greg Madden just says, show Holman continuing to love the show even with that other whiny guy on there at the T rx. Hey you,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (59m 19s):

I mean thank you for listening. Appreciate

Sean P. Holman (59m 20s):

It. Then in parentheses he says don’t tell him him right away, but I’m joking. He’s cool too.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (59m 23s):

Oh, thank you very

Sean P. Holman (59m 23s):

Much. I think it’s awesome that you took a chance on your own after your exit for MotorTrend. It seems like you’ve gotten things going in the right direction with everything you’re doing and that’s awesome. I look forward to listening to the new podcast twice a week. Oh, thank you. He’s probably, hopefully been doing that for a little while. Some of the content doesn’t apply, but it’s great to learn new things. Y’all seem to throw humor in there too. So I always just keep listening. The second meter does go up if the guy with the TRX talks too much, but all suffer through it. Dude, it’s almost like he was sitting in studio with us two minutes ago. You

10 (59m 50s):

Can hear it sucking.

Sean P. Holman (59m 52s):

I mean, and by it he means Lightning. Oh wait, no, he puts the parentheses joking, sitting here eating dinner and watching a YouTube video on the trail recon channel. Not sure if you know Brad, but it seems like you would. He has a great channel. I think he might be a good guy to have on the show sometime to talk about what he does and his Jeeps Keep mounting your parameters. Yeah buddy. And that’s from Greg Madden Rock, mounter Parameters, South Carolina. Yeah buddy. So yeah, if you are watching Brad’s channel, you probably have seen a cameo of me on there more than once. So I do know Brad great guy. Been on a bunch of times. He is with Sean from the story till now going to the, I think the Arctic circle right now.

Sean P. Holman (1h 0m 33s):

So it might be awesome to have, I’ll give him a shout when he gets back from his trip. ’cause I think it’d be cool to have Brad on the show. He’s just honestly one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. And yeah, if you guys want to have some of those influencer guys like, like a Marco or a Brad or a Sean or you know, from Story till now or

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 0m 50s):

Who’s a, who’s a Marco?

Sean P. Holman (1h 0m 51s):

Marco Hernandez. He’s Overland X. Oh, okay. Oh, oh yeah, he’s, he’s been on our show on, yes,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 0m 59s):

Yes. He has

Sean P. Holman (1h 0m 59s):

Recordings and stuff like that. But yeah, we, we can do that. I know know all those guys pretty well. So happy to oblige. So Truck show podcast at gmail dot com if you guys have suggestions or would like to see some of those guys on the show.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 1m 11s):

Alright, this one’s from Jesse Magna. Jesse says, Hey truck buddies, this is Jesse. Just wanna let you know that I appreciate your podcast. My son Daniel and I listen to your show every single week. Awesome, thank you very much. Appreciate that. And hey, what’s up son? I was hoping you would consider a few episodes on your show to talk about lowered trucks. I’m a fan of all trucks, but especially love the lowered ones. I’m sure there are plenty of listeners who would enjoy some content about Slam trucks, maybe some more episodes related to car audio to go with it. Keep up with the great work and thank you for giving us the bonus episodes every Thursday. I know you guys put in a lot of hard work to make the show happen and we are all grateful for it. And so I’m sure you loved the one with Tim Gilbert and his slammed Ford F two 50 Super Duty.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 1m 55s):

We should do more. I’m a huge fan of bagged trucks or even static but bagged. Oh,

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

Hello Holman. This is from Shane Segal new bison says Hey, what about Lightning? Nope,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 2m 6s):

That sucks.

Sean P. Holman (1h 2m 7s):

Nope, just me. Alright, actually this came to my own email so, oh

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 2m 10s):

Well then that makes sense. Okay, no problem Shane, I’ll forgive you.

Sean P. Holman (1h 2m 14s):

It says, I’ve been thinking about trading in my 20 19 0 2 to upgrade to the new 20 24 0 2 bison. The new truck has a lot of the things I wish mine had that I hadn’t spent the money on. 30 fives all the skid plates, steel bumpers from the factory. I just wish it had the turbo V six engine like the Ranger Raptor has in it. Is there any chance Chevy puts a bigger engine in the bison in the future to compete with the output of the Ranger? I’m certain the answer is definitely no because the California EV engine is wiping out the engine wars. The always used to have But I wanted to make sure before I got the new truck now just see bigger engine in a year or two. So I wanted to ask for some advice from your expert knowledge and absolutely no chance of that happening. The engine that’s in it, the 2.74 cylinder, which is the base model engine in the Silverado is the engine.

Sean P. Holman (1h 2m 55s):

Also, I’m planning a trip out to Moab the first weekend of June. Ooh. Which is coming up. I was wondering if you had any luck finding campsites along the trail or if they’re usually taken when You come through? I was hoping just to run trails all day long for three straight days and just stop and camp at some point along the way each day. Are there specific spots that you like to camp? Are there typically any available in the area? And I would say yes. The kind of two areas that are near wheeling that you would wanna check out for camp is o over out by Chicken Corners. If you take the road Cane Creek Road out back there, there’s a whole bunch of camping. And even in June I would say that you have a pretty decent chance of finding something, especially if it’s midweek. The other camping area that usually has spots is on the south side of town, off Highway 1 91, near the sand dunes, behind the rocks, there’s a bunch of campsites out there.

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

And yeah, there’s also, Moab is way bigger than used to be. Lots of hotel rooms. If you needed to find a spot for the night, especially if you couldn’t find a camp spot, good luck out there. We would love to hear about your trip. And, sorry you got through this, this email a little bit late. It’s prob probably there as he’s listening to this podcast right now.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 4m 5s):

Wade Goldsmith writes Winnie Interesting. Oh, then I looked down further in the email and it’s a license plate on a motor home. The brand of the motor home is a Winnebago and the license plate is W-N-B-G-O-M-N Winnebago Man. And you know how much I love meet some Winnebago man.

11 (1h 4m 28s):

The Winnebago concept and engineering departments have developed a multifunctional bathroom privacy. I don’t even, what the fuck I’m reading. I wonder what the, the real dialogue is. What the, is this thing all of the windshield, for sake. Oh right. What the, did I say that didn’t sound for did it. And here under the hood, we’ve stored something that’ll really come in handy if it doesn’t fall out and break my leg.

Sean P. Holman (1h 4m 56s):

All right. If you have not seen the documentary Winnebago Man, do yourself a favor and stream that sucker right now. ’cause it’s, it’s awesome.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 5m 2s):

So there’s, and if you just go to YouTube, you’ll find the definitive Winnebago man. That’s all the clips. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (1h 5m 8s):

You don’t wanna watch that surface. But don’t watch the clips. Go watch the, the movie

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 5m 11s):

Is, you want the documentary

Sean P. Holman (1h 5m 12s):

The Documentary’s heartwarming takes you in a bunch of different places that you didn’t think you were gonna go. It’s great stuff. Love Winnebago man. See that film? Yeah. Alright, Sammy Mack writes our Off-Road mode’s a gimmick. He says, Hey fellas, I feel like I must be losing touch with what people want these days from new off-Road vehicles. Help me find some sanity. I started to perceive an overabundance of off-road modes when the Ford Bronco debuted with like eight different goat modes. The latest F-150 in Ranger Raptor confirmed that wasn’t by accident. Now the all new Toyota Lane Cruise and Four Runner are here. They also continue the theme of offering a wider array of driver selectable terrain modes that will configure the vehicle to any number of predefined parameters or parameters not to be left out. I now see the cyber truck is getting a software update that unlocks a whole new set of off-road modes and the vehicle settings to fiddle with, along with an official off-road guy that explains the new capabilities attached if you haven’t seen it yet.

Sean P. Holman (1h 5m 59s):

So what, say you are, you are off-road modes just a gimmick? Or do they actually provide better, more consistent capability in comparison to just being able to manually lock diffs, disconnect sway bars like low range feet traction control. Make it make sense? All right, Sam, I got, I got you on this. He is a good question. I, I got you on this. But first master

12 (1h 6m 17s):

Monitor, key engine

Sean P. Holman (1h 6m 19s):

Parameter. He just slid that in there. You notice, so here’s the deal. Manufacturers win the, like Ford for example, when the Raptor came out originally it had Baja mode along with a couple other modes. And on certain vehicles that are electronically controlled, they said, Hey, we can make it so your track control is less in the sand, so you can really roast the, the tires or throw roosts of sand and things like that. But we don’t necessarily want you to be able to do that, you know, in this other terrain like rocks, we don’t want the throttle sensitivity to be so much we want to dead in it so that you’re not slamming into rocks and, and things like that. So once they introduced the gateway drug on like the raptor, well then they went, well wow, we already have this technology that we’ve developed.

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

Let’s put it in the Bronco sport, let’s put it in the Bronco, let’s expand upon it. And over time, since say the Raptor came out or some of the, the, you know, more capable Jeeps like the Rubicons you’ve gotten more and more people have gotten themselves into trouble because they’re off-road novices. And so what those different modes allow you to do is to your point, have predefined settings for terrain so that somebody of the lower common denominator and off-road driving skillset can go, Ooh, I’m in sand, I’m gonna be able to adjust the track control appropriately. Ooh, I’m in rocks, I’m gonna be able to make it so my sway bar disconnects and my rear locker comes on. The good companies either don’t have a lot of that, or you can have them configurable to your own off-road setting.

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

Personally, I like driving the vehicle. I don’t like when the nannies are are on or, or you know, changed. For me. That being said, there is like in the 3 92, I still have to use off-road mode to unlock the power potential in the 3 92 because they basically take out the nannies and stuff. I don’t want there, while don don’t think you necessarily need them. So the way the vehicles are today with electronic throttle bodies, electronic throttle control, electronic trash control,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 8m 17s):

Suspension,

Sean P. Holman (1h 8m 18s):

All of it modes are a way to unlock potential capability within there. I had a friend who just bought a a for example, a Toyota four runner and she said, what is all this stuff? And this is the, the current generation, right? And it still has trail control and bunch of stuff. And she’s like, can you be honest? Do I need this? Well she’s been driving the desert for 25 years and I’m like, no, you don’t need this. She texted me later, she goes, Hey, thanks for letting me know. I didn’t need any of that stuff.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 8m 46s):

Well, well wait a minute. But she might though to unlock certain features that she had before. Well

Sean P. Holman (1h 8m 49s):

My point is, the first generation of these systems, like on the Toyota, yeah, you don’t need to be in a mode to be able to lock the locker, for example. But in the newer stuff, the second or third generation, like a Bronco Sport or a Bronco or, or a Raptor or a TRX,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 9m 4s):

There’s only so many modes, although there’s

Sean P. Holman (1h 9m 6s):

Way more stuff that it can do versus an old platform like a four runner.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 9m 10s):

I was gonna ask you though, like in the t Rx for example, I can go into a custom mode, right? And I set every everything up myself. But do all vehicles like yours have a custom mode in your 3 92? No. So you, you are forced to go into a certain mode to,

Sean P. Holman (1h 9m 23s):

Well I’m not forced, but if I want, if I want the vehicle to respond the way I want it to, I have to turn certain things off. So I’m still pushing buttons. All the modes do is they predefine what those buttons that have been pushed are. So it’s the knob takes you there. Now, not all of the canned modes are exactly what I want them to be. So that’s just the problem of the modern vehicles, right? There’s, to me, turn off as much stuff as you can and let me worry about the vehicle. But that’s not possible in everything.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 9m 49s):

But also some people shouldn’t have everything turned off as you said. Well,

Sean P. Holman (1h 9m 53s):

Absolutely. Like some people, if you’re driving fast and you have it in Baja or Angel mode or whatever, where you have everything pulled off, a lot of these modern vehicles from the factory, you have really great suspension, a lot of power you can hurt yourself. So you don’t wanna have everything dialed back. ’cause you don’t wanna have a rollover or lose control of the vehicle off road or something like that. So yeah, you just, I I guess at the end of the day, know your limits. And I think for the entry level driver, those modes are really nice for a seasoned driver. They can be helpful depending on the platform. But for more advanced drivers, no thank you.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 10m 22s):

All right. Truck show podcast at gmail dot com. Or you can find Holman at Holman at truck show podcast dot com. Or this guy with a squeaky voice, Lightning at truck show podcast dot com.

2 (1h 10m 34s):

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

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 39s):

Whoa.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 10m 39s):

Although I will say my voice is a little less squeaky because I’m so fricking sick during the show.

Sean P. Holman (1h 10m 44s):

So I am glad that you remembered your name in that last part. Alright, if you wanna leave a message on the five star hotline, 6 5 7 2 0 5 61 0 5, we want to hear from you. And also you can call us on social at Truck Show podcast at Sean P Holman at LBC Lightning. See what we’re up to when we’re not stuck in the Disgustingly Ger podcast studio as we are tonight. And if you would please be so kind. Ask to send us some Know your notes. We haven’t done that in a while. And we still need a, a few more submissions to make a, a short episode out of that. Head over to truck show podcast dot com where you can see featured products and deals going up there. What events are happening in your neck of the woods? And leave us a review.

Sean P. Holman (1h 11m 24s):

Five stars, please.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 11m 26s):

Oh my gosh. It’s been a minute since we’ve read five star reviews.

Sean P. Holman (1h 11m 29s):

That’s why. Well, you need more of ’em. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 11m 31s):

You go to Apple podcast app, you can find it at the bottom of the podcast. Click five stars and leave a funny review for us or on Spotify. We can do that too.

Sean P. Holman (1h 11m 39s):

And if you are wondering what’s coming up on our event calendar page, June 7th through night, the 13th annual Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival at the Coopers Lake Campground. And this is one of those amazing events. This is in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, and it’s, it’s been a huge event for years. And it’s, it’s something that if you’re in that neck of the woods, you wanna go to. Also June 8th and ninth, you’ve got the Atlantic City truck meet. And from June 21st to That’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 12m 7s):

A big show by the way. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (1h 12m 8s):

June 23rd, you’ve got Scrape in the Coast with, Ooh.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 12m 11s):

Have you ever been to Scrape in the coast?

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

I have not. But I heard It’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 12m 13s):

I have heard It is a really fun time. It’s no, what’s the big one? The the one you used to go back in the, the where you pushed

Sean P. Holman (1h 12m 19s):

Show

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 12m 19s):

Fest. Show Fest. Is that the one where you pushed the the refrigerator over the balcony?

Sean P. Holman (1h 12m 24s):

I did not do that. No. That was that heatwave. And that was a Pepsi machine that went into the swimming pool and that’s when we got outta there. Gotcha.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 12m 30s):

Allegedly.

Sean P. Holman (1h 12m 31s):

No, no, it happened. I had nothing to do with it. It happened. I had nothing allegedly about that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 12m 35s):

So scrape on the coast. So

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

Scrape the coast in Biloxi, Mississippi, June 21st through 22nd, you got C 10 Nationals in Utah at the Utah State Fair Park in Salt Lake City. And then from June 28th to June 30th, got the Overland Expo, PNW for Pacific Northwest. That’s at the Deschutes County Expo Center in Redmond, Oregon coming up this month, Deschutes. So yeah, lots of stuff happening this month. If you’ve got an event, please submit it Truck show podcast at gmail dot com and we will get that up on our evid page for you.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 13m 7s):

And a huge thank you to Nissan for allowing us to bring great guests like Douglas Brent to you. The Truck, Show Podcast listeners, really, really appreciate Nissan supporting us for all these years. Over six years of content.

Sean P. Holman (1h 13m 19s):

You mean six years of being the presenting sponsor of The Truck. Show Podcast. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 13m 23s):

That’s pretty impressive. I gotta say, it speaks volumes about us in Nissan. We’ve also

Sean P. Holman (1h 13m 27s):

Had a pretty good run with the folks over at Banks Power.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 13m 30s):

That’s right. If you’re looking to squeeze the most efficiency possible out of your diesel pickup truck engine, head over to banks power dot com. Type in your year, make and model and find the, and find the Ram Air intake for your

Sean P. Holman (1h 13m 42s):

Truck. And whether you’ve got a brand new truck or an old one that you love a lot, you wanna head over to am oil dot com. Give it the best kind of love. And that’s high quality, premium synthetic lubricants, whether it’s oil or transmission fluid gear, lube, even window cleaner, whatever it is, AMS oil has the synthetics for you. They’ll make your truck run better, smoother, more efficiently. And guess what? AMS oil’s been around a long time. So you could trust them with that other love in your life that isn’t your wife. Oh

13 (1h 14m 11s):

No, he didn’t.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1h 14m 14s):

The Truck Show Podcast is a production of truck famous LLC. This podcast was created by Sean Holman and Jay Tillis with production elements by DJ Omar Khan. If you like what you’ve heard, please open your Apple Podcast or Spotify app and give us a five star rating. And if you’re a fan, there’s no better way to show your support than by patronizing our sponsors.

11 (1h 14m 36s):

Oh, I guess my mind is going again. My body is dismembered from my mind completely, which is pretty average with me. But I. Can’t think something is wrong with me. I was going bananas. My mind is just ready to go co. Completely.