Season 2, Episode 38 - America’s Most Wanted 4x4 Shop Tour and Test Drive

 

 

The following transcription of The Truck Show Podcast was generated using a speech recognition software, and will contain errors. Please review the timestamp and listen to the corresponding audio for accuracy. 

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Jay “Lightning” Tilles (0s):

Say what you will about California. We have some of the lowest fuel prices in the us. I. Mean. It’s so pleasant to go to a gas station around here and just fill up with Diesel and know that you’re beating out Texas and you got lower fuel prices than Florida. Oh, wait a second.

Sean P. Holman (20s):

So I just handed back a Ram 2,500 Rebel hd, which we will be doing a truck review on in the next episode. and I put about 900 miles on it in the course of a week. Yep. Filled it up before it went back.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (34s):

Yep. Well, here’s what I paid on the way here. Right here. $6 29. Nine oh $6. Way more. 29 cents more at the Arco, the cheapest gas station by work. I

Sean P. Holman (45s):

Was in the desert and I filled it up. Oh,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47s):

You got screwed.

Sean P. Holman (48s):

7 29 a gallon for Diesel. Oh

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (50s):

My Lord.

Sean P. Holman (52s):

So the, the cheap gas station by me that still has like good quality fuel. This is where You know, I think Gas Buddy probably becomes your buddy. I was looking at a premium this afternoon because I was going to go fill up literally two weeks ago. It was about 4 99. That was about five 19. The lowest gas station in my neck of the woods right now is actually 5 48, which means it went down. And then the highest gas station within You know, like a whatever, 10 mile radius of here. 6 81 a gallon in, in the, in the city. by the way, where I live in Huntington Beach is a distribution center for Chevron. And so our gas prices here are typically 20 cents or more lower than other places.

Sean P. Holman (1m 36s):

There’s places in LA right now, like seven 50 a gallon.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 39s):

And I am in Long Beach, California, which is right next to Wilmington. And Wilmington is where they have a huge refineries. Huge refinery. Yeah. It’s one of the, I think it’s the original refinery in Southern California. No, there’s

Sean P. Holman (1m 49s):

Several, several refineries in there. But it is bad. And I have gotten to the point where I haven’t even left my house during the day while I’m working for lunch. I’ve been making grilled cheeses and just did not want to get fuel. Get fuel. No. I know. I don’t wanna spend

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 5s):

Fuel. So. let let me ask you this. Okay. So according to, and by the way,

Sean P. Holman (2m 7s):

I have a week long trip coming up where we’re driving every day in the desert for a week doing a, a trip. And we need to, we definitely need to talk about that, but

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 16s):

It will be less expensive to fly to New York and back than it will be to drive through the desert.

Sean P. Holman (2m 20s):

We are actually scheduling a stop on the other side of the border to Nevada to get at a gas stop. Yeah. On this trip. Because California,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 28s):

Let ask you this really quick. According to aaa, automobile Club of America, the current average price as of today when we’re recording this, a regular gallon of gas

Sean P. Holman (2m 38s):

Costs what? 3 88 Wow Nation. That’s the national average, right? Yeah, yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 43s):

3 88. How did you know that?

Sean P. Holman (2m 44s):

Is that really it? Yes. Yeah. What

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 47s):

Do you look this up?

Sean P. Holman (2m 48s):

No, I I I always keep an eye on the trending gas prices. I find it amazing. California has so much tax on fuel, both Diesel and on gas. Well that’s because that the national average is usually $2 less than us. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 3s):

Much of that goes to our roads because our roads are pristine. Everyone knows when you come to la. So,

Sean P. Holman (3m 8s):

So what you guys don’s don don’t understand is, is some of the, the absolute, I don’t know what the word is, dumbness of California is Jacky, they’re mandating for everybody to move to these EVs, right? Oh, everybody’s gonna be ev blah blah blah, blah, blah. And then they went, oh wait, our revenue’s going down for road use tax, which is taxed through gasoline to keep the roads repaired. And they’re like, oh wait, Hold on. We need more taxes for the people who have gas powered cars. And then the Diesel guys get hosed too. ’cause there’s another tax on top of that. And it’s like the EV people, they get the hit on the registration, but just you wait. I guarantee you, as soon as they swap over and they push that ev down your throat, it’s gonna be more expensive than gas because they gotta recoup that road tax.

Sean P. Holman (3m 51s):

You watch, standby, standby. Everybody’s like, oh, it’s gonna be so cheap. And then wait till they find out on the people that have solar on the roof and are charging their cars free on their own system. They’re gonna be like, oh, Whoa. Well you, you can’t take free power from the sun and they’re gonna have their handout. You standby, it’s coming. You can’t take free power from from the sun. It’s, it’s coming. It’s ridiculous. So how dare

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 12s):

You take wind energy? When

Sean P. Holman (4m 14s):

I, when I bought my 3 92, it was like You know 3 75 a gallon going. Yeah, that kinda sucks because You know back a little while ago we had a different administration. I think I was paying, like, I could probably go back in my phone and because I, I log all my, all my fuel. I bet I was in the high twos at one point, like 2 99 or

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 32s):

It was never that three 15. It hasn’t been in threes. Maybe it

Sean P. Holman (4m 35s):

Was a hundred percent in the threes.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 36s):

Yeah. It hasn’t been in the two since you and I were children.

Sean P. Holman (4m 39s):

No, that’s not true. Really? That’s not true

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 41s):

All. right. While you’re looking for that, let me ask you, what do you think the, the current average mid grade is? National average mid grade. So like

Sean P. Holman (4m 47s):

3 99, 4 32. So this is what I don’t understand. When we were younger, gas always was 10 cents below grades. It was 87. Was this 10 cents more was mid grade, 10 cents more was premium. Always. Now it’s like, well 80 seven’s here and it’s like 30 ish cents to mid grade. It’s like another 60 cents to premium. You’re going, what the hell’s going on here?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 10s):

Well speaking of premium, what is the national average for premium?

Sean P. Holman (5m 14s):

What was the, what was mid grade?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 16s):

4 31 9. Oh

Sean P. Holman (5m 17s):

Yeah, it’s gotta be, I’m gonna say 4 54.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 21s):

4 65 8. So 4 66 a gallon. All. right now I’m gonna hit you with Diesel. What is the national average for Diesel fuel today? Well,

Sean P. Holman (5m 29s):

Diesel’s getting hosed everywhere. ’cause I do a lot of traveling around the country and I’m always shocked. So sometimes during the year, the Diesel, especially summertime when people aren’t using You know fuel oil for You know warmth and things like that. It’s usually less than gasoline. And then wintertime it’s more, I haven’t seen it less than gasoline, I think all summer. And it’s probably national average if it’s 3 88 for regular. Yep. I’m gonna say Diesel is probably

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 55s):

4 25, 4 58. Whew

Sean P. Holman (5m 58s):

Man. $4. and you guys wanna know

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 60s):

8 cents. And again,

Sean P. Holman (6m 1s):

And you guys wanna know why everything is so expensive with inflation and all that. It’s because the transportation costs allow us to use our own natural resources for our own energy and watch the entire economy come back in a month.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 16s):

So I hopped in a 2012 ram on the way here and I, I got like three quarters of a tank, 23.82 gallons. I spent $150 and 8 cents at 6 29 9 a gallon. Well

Sean P. Holman (6m 31s):

If we don’t get some fuel price relief sued, I may have to start looking at something to supplement my, my pricey ride. and you

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 38s):

Like such

Sean P. Holman (6m 39s):

As, well it might be a hmm Nissan Frontier, the 3.8 liter V 6, 310 horse back with a nine speed automatic nice tie in there. You like where I got in there? Yeah. Yep, yep, yep. It gets about double the fuel economy. and you can pick one out today at your local Nissan dealer

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 52s):

And it holds a lot more than your current ride. Like you can put a lot of stuff in that truck.

Sean P. Holman (6m 57s):

I Mean, I can take the roof off my current ride.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 59s):

So you What do you do you

Sean P. Holman (7m 0s):

Don’t have a bed. I’ll turn it into a pickup truck, I’ll fold the seeds down and then I’m, it’s got a short bed, blah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 4s):

Blah, blah. It, it doesn’t haul as much or it’s not as efficient. Definitely not as quiet. And by the way, the sound system might not even be as good as what’s in the frontier.

Sean P. Holman (7m 11s):

I Mean, the frontier’s pretty good. If you step up for the Fender premium audio, it’s, it’s pretty nice. Pretty. And that truck is very quiet. So if you’re looking for a new truck, check out Nissan usa.com or you can build in price your Nissan Frontier or a Titan or Titan xd. Both of the Titans come with the industry’s best five year, 100,000 mile warranty and none of those Nissan trucks we’ll let you down.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 31s):

All. right? Holman. If you had to guess, what is the most popular current model Ramir intake that Banks offers? Is it the Ford, is it the Ram or is it the Duramax?

Sean P. Holman (7m 44s):

I am gonna go with Ram.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 48s):

Dang.

Sean P. Holman (7m 49s):

Am I right again?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 50s):

Dang. And So

Sean P. Holman (7m 51s):

I just killing

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 52s):

It today. So I. you know Banks kind of has become the Duramax people. Yeah, but the Ram is like a runaway success.

Sean P. Holman (7m 58s):

Well yeah because everybody’s like, I need more power. Like my friends in the Fords and Duramax

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 2s):

Is, I’m telling you, I’m

Sean P. Holman (8m 3s):

Not saying the Cummins is short on power, but I just spend a weekend one. It’s very nice. But it’s no Duramax or six seven.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 10s):

No, it takes a little while to get into Boost.

Sean P. Holman (8m 13s):

Yeah, there’s a little bit of a need, some lag, some latency there.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 15s):

Yeah. So we’re not talking about Pedal Monster here. We’re talking about the Ram Air intake. So if you guys want the best cold air intake available, prove it on the flow bench, test it in the vehicle, go to Banks power.com to get your Ram Air intake. Not only does it provide more power, it increases fuel economy and it greatly extends the maintenance intervals because the big ass filter has so much surface area. Go to Banks power.com, type in your, your make and model to get your Ram Air intake

Sean P. Holman (8m 44s):

All right before we start the show. I think it’s hilarious that we’re talking about fuel prices because this show is gonna be my trip to guess who.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 53s):

Oh, you went to America’s Most Wanted four By By

Sean P. Holman (8m 55s):

Four. I went to the Land of Milk and Honey for V eight enthusiasts where there’re shoving engines all the way up to a thousand horsepower Hellephant inside Gladiators and Wranglers. I got to drive ’em. We did a shop tour with Jared Petiprin, who’s the owner dude. Freaking awesome. And the best part was tell me wait, wait, wait. Tell I just Hold on. I just, I gotta get this out. They let me drive and they didn’t charge me gas. They tossed me the keys and they said Go take it out. And I’m like, what do I owe you?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 20s):

How much money did you burn in fuel? The answer is all of

Sean P. Holman (9m 23s):

It. All of it.

2 (9m 24s):

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 end. 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 (9m 56s):

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

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 1s):

Alright, Holman, set the stage for me. How did you end up at America’s Most Wanted? Four by four I Mean. Did you, were you asked to go? Were you, you’ve been talking about ’em for months.

Sean P. Holman (10m 11s):

Yeah, I’ve been trying to get out there forever. And so Jared had me come out to do some stuff with him and I said, well let’s do a podcast interview while I’m here. And so we stayed late one night and walked around the shop and he took me all the way from the back door all through all the parts, all the way to the front door where the customers are and walked me through the whole process of building one of their bespoke factory built AMW four by four builds. So there’s two sides. There’s the factory built, they get a Brand new vehicle, they literally tear it apart, body off the frame, every nut, bolt, wire, everything. And then you can You know, buy it directly from them or they have an upfit center where if you already have a vehicle you can bring it to them. I have so much more respect, not that I didn’t before, I thought their products were amazing, but seeing the level of engineering, how much oe they put into it, how they service the vehicles, how they treat their customers.

Sean P. Holman (11m 1s):

’cause I was there for a few days, just an unbelievable experience. and I walked outta there going, damn, these guys are even more legit than I thought. So walked around with Jared and so we’ll do two things. We’ve got the first will be the interview and then I went on a like a 10 or 15 mile drive in a 840 horsepower demon wrangler. And there’ll be some You know takeaways from that that we can pull out audio

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 24s):

Wise. Wait, wait, wait. Is this the, the photo that I saw where it’s sitting on 40 twos?

Sean P. Holman (11m 28s):

That would be 40 twos on twenties. I. Mean. Dude, the thing was just gnarly. You just tip into the throttle and it would just go, you’re like, oh my God. And the thing I’ll say, did

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 37s):

You feel like you own a whisk truck now?

Sean P. Holman (11m 40s):

No. No, not at all. I’m very happy with what I have because I cannot afford the fuel bill on those other ones. But here’s what I’ll tell you. One of the things that impressed me the most is when I drove. So they let me drive several different levels. I drove a Hellephant, which there’s a few of those in the world period. ’cause I think they only made, I dunno, like a hundred engines or something like that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 60s):

Do you go into detail in the interview where you talk about the differences Hellephant and Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (12m 4s):

So we’ll talk about that, but okay. But what I wanted to say is, in the Hellephant, because it’s came here, it makes that the power delivery is not as smooth. The demon with the eight 40 was like unbelievable. It’s like the sweet spot. Not that the Hellephant I mean you could totally drive the Hellephant, but it’s like driving a red eye or

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 18s):

Something like that. Is it more like a light switch where it just, it

Sean P. Holman (12m 20s):

No, it’s just loopier. And so the power deliveries just, it’s just different. and I just felt like the eight 40 demon felt so integrated. The shifts were amazing. There was no weirdness to driving it. It literally felt like it was right off the factory line. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 37s):

Totally streetable.

Sean P. Holman (12m 38s):

Completely streetable. Well they put their on these things, they do a full frame off and do their own suspension. We’ll get into that. The whole chassis completely changed. So driving it was amazing. The brakes felt good. There were no lights on the dash. Power delivery was amazing and the transmission shifts were so fast. It it, you

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 57s):

Stock trance.

Sean P. Holman (12m 58s):

We’ll get into that. Okay. Okay. But, but no, not a stock trance. Okay. So it’s just amazing that you could put all of that into a wrangler and what is coming out the back door of that place is something you could hand your wife. Well you could hand it to my wife because she would, she

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 12s):

Would use it.

Sean P. Holman (13m 13s):

She would use it and we would have lots of tickets and then I would have to baille her out of jail. But most people you could just hand it to a family member and go, go drive it. I Mean. It was just, it was that easy to drive. And, and that’s what I walked away with being the most impressed about was the, the culmination of everything they go through to make these vehicles really is a bespoke high-end vehicle that is comm measure it with the price because these are not entry-level vehicles.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 36s):

Do you go into pricing?

Sean P. Holman (13m 37s):

We can,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 40s):

We can. Can’t now. Would you

Sean P. Holman (13m 41s):

Play the interview already?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 43s):

This is Holman in Holly, Michigan.

Sean P. Holman (13m 46s):

All, right? Lightning. So I am somewhere that you wish you were and I did not invite you once again, sorry, not sorry. I’m standing here with Jared Petiprin, who is the owner and founder of America’s Most Wanted four by four. You guys on the podcast know that he’s been on the show before and you’ll know him as the guy that shoved Hellephant into Wranglers and Gladiators. All I can tell you is I’ve been trying to get out here for a few years now and to be at the facility and see literally box after box of Crate Engine, see demons and Hellcats and even a couple of the a hundred hell, if it’s ever made, I got pictures, I saw ’em, I was there, I touched them.

Sean P. Holman (14m 27s):

Jared, thanks for inviting me out.

4 (14m 29s):

Absolutely. They were happy to have you. Appreciate the opportunity. It’s nice to last time we did this remotely. So it’s, we got that warm and fuzzy feeling when we’re doing it together like this. Now

Sean P. Holman (14m 40s):

I’ve got a question for you. We, we’ve talked about the business before, you’ve been on the podcast before, but the thing I’m really curious about is the process and So I figured while we were out here in Holly, Michigan, beautiful Holly, Michigan, by the way. You would maybe give us a shop tour and everybody’s gone home for the day. We’ve got the whole building to ourselves and I figured maybe we can walk around. You can describe what happens as a customer calls you up says, I want x, y, Z vehicle. They get on the build list and then what happens when their ve it’s time for their vehicle to enter the conversion process.

4 (15m 10s):

Yeah, so there’s a couple different directions somebody can choose to go. They may have already purchased a, a Jeep Wrangler or Jeep Gladiator and, and they want to do that upgrade to quench their thirst. So at that point they have this stock vehicle that maybe they’ve been driving back and forth to work or using on the weekends and or we can source a vehicle for ’em. That’s the direction that it seems the majority of our customers seem to be going now is they literally purchase the vehicle from us. They’re, we can spec it any, any way they can You know, they’d order it right through Jeep the same way they just get delivered to us.

4 (15m 50s):

And then there’s also the dealer network, which is basically dealerships that send us the vehicles that are on their floor plan and we build them for resale. So there is inventory out there. It’s, the stuff sells pretty quick. So it’s, it’s not like you’re gonna go out there and find 50 of ’em for sale right now. I will figure we’ll start with the process with the donor vehicle on site, knowing that the donor vehicle could be for resale or it could belong to somebody or it could be special You know special ordered in for somebody. So what we’ll key on primarily today is the turnkey vehicle program, which

Sean P. Holman (16m 27s):

By the way is freaking awesome. If you guys could see literally when you do a turnkey at America’s Most Wanted, every nut and bolt is removed. The body’s removed from the frame, they’re putting their own bolts that you guys had manufactured with your logo. There’s no zinc bolts that you got at Home Depot anywhere. It’s, it’s an amazingly bespoke package. and you have everything from the 5 0 5 all the way up to the thousand horsepower Hellephant. And basically your packages are AMW 7 0 7 that equates to the 707 horsepower he cap package. And you’ve got, you know, the thousand, was it the eight 40 for the demon? Yes sir. You can go all the way up, all the way from a nons supercharged, normally aspirated Hemi V eight all the way up to the big daddy.

Sean P. Holman (17m 10s):

Although if you do want to go Hellephant, you better have a lot of coin and there’s only a hundred made. There’s not, there really is a finite number of them left in the world. Yeah,

4 (17m 20s):

They are definitely scarce and that’s for sure. So we were, we were able to purchase 19 of ’em and we’re down to the last few of ’em. So we do have something in the works going forward, but right now we have a few of the nostalgic Hellephant crate engines. No serial numbers started six and went up to 1 0 5. We imagine that the first five blocks went for marketing and r and d purposes.

Sean P. Holman (17m 46s):

You mean destructive testing?

4 (17m 47s):

Possibly. Possibly. So we did end up with serial number 6, 7, 8, 9, which was pretty cool. Those

Sean P. Holman (17m 53s):

Were, I saw seven sitting over there and I think I saw 1 0 1.

4 (17m 56s):

1 0 1. Yep. Yep. So a friend of mine has number 100 squirreled away. He, his left strict instructions with his wife that if anything were to happen to him, she’s to contact America’s most one, four by four. So that’s serial number 100. We’ll probably do something special with that at some point, but yeah, we’re gonna, we’re gonna break this down and there’s only one way to eat an Hellephant and that’s one bite at, at a ti at a time. So we’re gonna go through the seven steps. And step one is the vehicle comes in and it literally gets dismantled and, and split into two. It, the takeoff parts are consumed so much real estate that as the vehicle is being taken apart, it’s very important that the parts not being used, which is the majority of them gets packaged at that time.

4 (18m 45s):

So that these are premium, brand new parts and it’s important for us to preserve ’em. And because they will be going to collision shops and service facilities and, and for guys like us that want to put these things back together in 10, 15, 20, 30 years, who knows. So step one vehicle comes in, the donor vehicle comes in and we literally eliminate or remove headlights, hood bumpers, suspension axles, transfer cases, interior carpet, I, Mean, you’re

Sean P. Holman (19m 18s):

Dismantling a completely, perfectly good vehicle so that you could basically start from scratch.

4 (19m 23s):

Yep. Our donor, our average donor vehicle is approximately $65,000. We, we get a lot of questions as to why we start with a Rubicon or a Mojave and that’s the direction we’ve chose. It doesn’t hurt having that VIN number and then they come with the highline flares and if we use the Rubicon model, it comes with the transfer case we prefer to use. And, and, and if we use the Mojave it, it comes with the 3 92 hood and we just do some, some work on that. Add a couple things to it to, to make it work with our, our program. So as the vehicle comes into step one, it comes apart and we have chassis carts and the, the frame will basically be stripped down to nothing and it will go into our fabrication department and the body will go onto a body body cart.

4 (20m 15s):

What will happen during the fabrication process, the chassis cart goes in, we strip all the suspension brackets off, we strip the engine cradles off and we, depending on what version of our turnkey that we’re building, sometimes the shock towers are removed, the frames are gusted, the sway bar revisions are added, shock towers are added. We have a a coolant tank revision that goes in for sand dune type stuff or basically long durations of elevated wear and tear. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (20m 50s):

So thermal So I, and I’ve seen your tank. So basically you’re talking about re-engineering the vehicle. Once you’ve removed all of the factory pieces, you’re starting from a, a frame foundation. And for thermal management, obviously big blowers, you got a lot of heat. Jeep hood is, or Engine Bay is pretty small. You have custom tanks with, you know, coolant pumps that run back. And those are I guess, homed inside the frame rails. And that is additional You know, I think a lot of people ask, well how do you keep ’em cool? How can you go play in the sand? You’ve, you’ve taken into account all of that. You, you guys have added quite the cooling system cooling stack to manage all that

4 (21m 27s):

Heat obsession. It’s taken a long time for us to refine this. It’s I Mean. We, we’ve got a fantastic team and we’ve literally continued to sand the edges and there’s no better way to refine your product and evolve your product line other than using it. And our, our pro our turnkey program is really set up to en encompass pretty much every aspect of the automotive enthusiast. I Mean, we were, these are vehicles that you could show up at an exotic car show and be relevant and, and draw a crowd that you could take ’em to the quarter mile drag track. You could take ’em to the sand dunes, the ice cream store, a a, a hot rod show, I,

Sean P. Holman (22m 7s):

Mean, Moab or the Rubicon still, they’re still Jeeps they still work as Jeeps. Yep. And where are we standing now, by the way? This, is this the door where they come in? Yes, this is where it all starts. Yep. Yep.

4 (22m 15s):

This area we’re standing in it, it looks somewhat warehouse like and there’s parts being staged for the process. So this area are, is generally the parts are turned over in 30 to 90 days at the most. And this is where we’re staging our, for our eight lug chassis program. The, our turnkey program is built from the foundation up and, and we want to provide an experience and, and when we say we wanna provide an experience, we want it to be a rewarding and enjoyable experience. And, and what that requires is, is a complete re-engineer of these vehicles. And so these vehicles are getting long arm suspensions, spindled eight lug axles, 60 series front 80 series rear eight piston caliper brakes, 14 and a half inch rotors, one and a half ton steering cylinder assist new drive lines that the interiors are being gutted and sound ding.

4 (23m 11s):

We, we worked with a sound lab, a $2 million sound lab to go through and re-engineer basically how the acoustics come through the floor. And so these vehicles are, are very, you can use yourself, You know, hands free guys hands free, so you don’t do anything crazy. Yeah. So we’re, we’re,

Sean P. Holman (23m 28s):

Unless you stop on the skinny pedal, then you want be using your hands. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

4 (23m 32s):

We’re at a really cool point in our journey because we have this very reliable and enjoyable, very stable You know drive with two fingers at triple digits on on a closed

Sean P. Holman (23m 46s):

Course. On closed course, closed course. Of course. I will tell you today that I had an opportunity to drive one of your thousand packages and it was pouring rain and a couple things that, this is the first time I’ve driven one. And I’ll tell you first thing I noticed is how incredible the highway ride is. Second thing I notice is how stable it is in turns and handling. Third thing I notice is when you stomp on it and you’re in the rain and it’s two Wheel drive and it goes sideways, it’s very easy to correct and go straight again. Yeah.

4 (24m 14s):

You can sit there and talk to, you’re blue in the face, but until you put somebody behind a Wheel, they’re just gonna think you’re, you’re selling some trying to sell something. And, you know, 32 years into my Jeep ownership You know I am more excited and more obsessed with this stuff than ever, you know, and you would think after 32 years of being a Jeep owner that it would start to fade. But these are such incredible machines. These are, it’s still a Jeep and I don’t want to take the credit away from, from Jeep for that by any means. But we’ve spent so much time tuning these suspensions. So the suspensions have been dialed in for the additional sprung weight. The shocks have been valve for the thrust and the sprung weight.

Sean P. Holman (24m 56s):

You have a really fantastic antiqua geometry in the rear because when you hammer it, the, the front barely lifts. And that’s not what I was expecting. I was expecting a soft Jeep suspension where the whole body lifts and sure there’s a little bit, as you You know, the weight transfer’s rearward, but I was amazed at how well the antiqua was in the rear suspension geometry.

4 (25m 14s):

Yeah. So the first thing we realized when we started playing with the gladiators was that the rear suspension was set up the rear of the, the vehicle was almost a mirror to the Ram 1500. Yep. Which is set up for towing. And we, we quickly realized that we needed to correct that geometry back there. And it, and it took some time, it took some finesse and You know, we originally, the first prototype pieces were, we gave ourselves multiple placement to, to get it right. Moving forward on This is a heavily tuned foundation. These aren’t parts that are gonna break and, and somebody’s gonna get injured because a tire and Wheel comes off from a unit bearing or a, or a tire.

4 (25m 56s):

A a a rear axle shaft, a flange style axle shaft fails and you have 160 pound tire. These are vehicles on closed course of course that you could literally set the crews at a hundred and thirty five hundred forty miles an hour. And they are so scary smooth, scary smooth that you cannot tell the speed that you’re traveling in. They are very comfortable. You know we’ve got a gear reduction in the steering box and everything has been, honestly, everything has been over-engineered and I. Very, very, very methodically. Well thought out to the point of obsession. I Mean, honestly.

4 (26m 36s):

So we’ve got 55 people in the building now. It’s very departmentalized. We have a product development department. We, we have tech support for our dealer network. We have approximately 45 certified dealers now. But, but yeah. So the, the beginning process, the vehicle, just like in Toledo at the end, at the end of this, these vehicles were designed to, is Toledo in reverse? Yeah, it is. It is. you know, and we capitalized on that You know, they, they were designed to be split, you know, it’s a pretty modular setup and and we just reversed that. And, and we, so as we go into step two, which I call was called the fabrication department, our turnkey program. It originally started out with, with three options and we do still have the third option.

4 (27m 22s):

I can’t even remember the last time we sold the other option. But it’s really simple. Everything is adjustable. So, and, and it’s so important when you’re building a performance vehicle. You see so many suspension companies that are trying to offer these price point products and I get it. You know they, they take the guesswork out of it, but there’s so much tolerance in the fixturing. So every component is adjustable You know upper and lower control arms, adjustable track bars adjustable. That, that’s the only thing we sell. I won’t even put a suspension. I You know our team will not sell a suspension unless it is 100% fully adjustable.

4 (28m 6s):

And, and then it goes on to $150,000 align laser alignment rack and, and is dialed in to perfection. We take this very, very serious. There’s nothing more insulting than when somebody says, what do you expect? It’s a Jeep, why do you think it should drive? It should drive a, a sports car like on, on, on road and incredibly off road at the dunes. We’re at the track. So, so in, in this department, there’s two things can happen. We have our long travel suspension, which is the coil over, it’s a two and a half inch coil over set up 14 inch travel with two inch air bumps.

4 (28m 47s):

That process is, we’re building those, we’re physically doing a frame replacement on those. We’re ordering five to 10 Mopar mdot frames and so that we don’t have somebody’s vehicle for a long duration of time. So we, we build a in advance on the coil over chassis because it’s very, very time consuming. This stuff is all, it’s, this is not bolt-on parts. These are permanent parts. This is something that it has been built. It, it’s not a rework or a re-engineer. It’s not daisy chaining parts and pieces together to try to get the results that you wished that it just had from the beginning. This is getting the results from the beginning and it’s a very long and it’s, it’s tedious and time consuming and it, and, and without an army it just would not be doable.

4 (29m 34s):

This isn’t something going through and fully fabricating the frame and then the coil over frames go out and get sandblasted and powder coated. If it’s a a long arm suspension, You know we, we do all, all our brackets are weld on. We don’t have bolts on. I get it. People want to do things in the driveway, they wanna do things with their family. That’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. We totally support that. But we, we want our stuff to stay in the right spot. We don’t want any torque steer. We want everything permanently mounted. And how we do that is ev everything gets welded by professional welders. Once the, the i we call this the long arm and a, it’s, we reference it as a Quadra coil suspension. So we have a coil over suspension and a Quadra coil suspension.

4 (30m 15s):

Both are long arm, both have the same geometry. Once the fabrication is done on the Quadra coil long arms, that chassis goes into our paint booth and they clean it up and make it pretty with a nice industrial paint that’ll hold up. That’s the fabrication portion. Do you have any question? I know I’m moving kind of. Yeah, no,

Sean P. Holman (30m 34s):

This is perfect. I was actually gonna say earlier today, one of the things I noticed in fabrication, which is something you guys do but probably don’t do all the time, there’s a Gladiator bed in here being bobbed. Yeah.

4 (30m 43s):

We do those all the time. Really?

Sean P. Holman (30m 45s):

Okay. That, that popular, I guess the Gladiator does have a pretty big

4 (30m 48s):

Overhead. Yeah, miss Peyton has probably done 25 of those things now. Okay. So it one and

Sean P. Holman (30m 52s):

By the way, I saw one over on the other side that was done and I saw this one that was freshly put together, but You know she’s cleaning all the cut marks out of it. Everything had been welded and had been shortened, but no pain or body work yet. And when you see one with paint and body work, it’s indistinguishable from stock. You cannot tell that it was ever cut. And bobbed

4 (31m 10s):

And I like to reference it as seamless. And if the donor vehicle arrives, God forbid it arrives with, with linex or a bedliner in it, it throws us a little curve ball. It adds probably 15 to 25 hours worth of work. ’cause we strip it You know. Yeah. But when we’re done with it, you, with with the process, it it, it looks like it rolled off the Toledo assembly line like this. And, and it This is a guy speaking that took one to Easter Jeep Safari in 2022. And then we sold it right before the event. This was our, one of our company Bob Bed, 7 0 7 8 lug gladiators. They put me in one that had the, the standard bed we’ll reference it as and I was, it was, I won’t ever go back Yeah.

4 (31m 59s):

Without a bob bed. Gladiator. Yeah. and I. and I. I absolutely love the gladiators. I’m I’m, I’ve been a diehard Jeep guy for 32 years and, and, and I love the gladiators when they’re done. Right. The suspension’s dialed in, the bed’s shortened. They got 700. I’m, I’m a big fan of the Hellcat and it’s not, it’s just such

Sean P. Holman (32m 18s):

Well that’s what the Gladiator misses. I almost think that even I know, I know that for the Hellcat. But I would think like the, the 5 0 5 package, that’s a fantastic It would be perfect. You put, you put that in a Gladiator I Mean come on.

4 (32m 28s):

That’s Yeah. It’s abs it it is such a, an enjoyable experience with the 3 92.

Sean P. Holman (32m 35s):

That’s like the best daily driver type vehicle. Right. You don’t need the blow. I Mean great. I had a TRX for a year. It’s awesome. But sometimes just a normally aspirated good old push rod V eight with a lot of torque and big size. Yeah. and I can imagine a Gladiator that that is the absolutely great daily driver setup for anybody.

4 (32m 53s):

Absolutely. and I, you know, we integrated a lot of the electronics and technology from the TRX. We in January of 2021, we made this, you know, this was a big push for us, a big investment. and I bought my first TRX and I thought that I could be a TRX guy. Yeah. You know I’ve been a Jeep guy since I was 15. I can tell you that I’m not a TRX guy. Once you have driven, once you have daily driven an AMW eight lug with the suspension dialed in and 700 horsepower one, it will chew a TRX up and spit it out for breakfast. Even in parking lots. Yeah. I Mean getting on the highway off road.

4 (33m 34s):

you know,

Sean P. Holman (33m 34s):

T RX is a big truck. Big. It’s heavy. It’s wide big. Yeah. They’re an amazing truck. and I had a chance to buy a T rx. They’re and I went and got my three 90 Wrangler. ’cause I still love my Wrangler.

4 (33m 42s):

Yeah, no, I, they’re they are an amazing, yeah. So we’re so fortunate Yeah. That we got the T Rx. So there is an absolute place for it. Sometimes you just got five, you know, adults and you just gotta have it You know. But I have actually transitioned back into A TRX probably eight times. Literally eight times. He might say it’s 10. There’s just no comparison. The way the suspension’s set up, the way there’s virtually no body roll the way this with the gear reduction in the steering and the way they handle, I get geeked up thinking about it 32 years into this process.

Sean P. Holman (34m 15s):

I’m, I was blown away. Honestly. The steering effort was fantastic. There wasn’t like your typical dead on center latency from a ram. It felt tight. And the other thing I’ll say is I was really blown away at you must have the pedal ratio and the master cylinder dialed because the brakes were very linear and they weren’t overly grabby and they were very easy to modulate on. I think we had 40 inch tires on the one we were driving today. And those are the things that I think about as a automotive journalist who drives a bunch of stuff. I hate grabby brakes, I hate steering. That isn’t nicely weighted or that wanders dead nuts straight on the highway. Super easy to get into the break safely. It was, I I, I gotta tell you, I was really impressed.

4 (34m 56s):

It’s literally been a long journey at the time has vaporized, but looking back at it, You know where we wanted to be and what it took to get there. and you just have to have so much patience. I Mean, just, it’s not This is a really a divide and conquer situation. And like I said, I’m, I’m at this rewarding point in my career where I’m hiding little emblems and I and I and doing fun sound deadening and thermal flooring and I, I Mean. It’s just such a, it’s, it’s just, it’s I Mean. It’s literally the American dream. We’re so proud of this stuff. We just love to get people behind the Wheel to just check it out and, and see because it’s just talking to you actually experience it and, and, and the experience.

4 (35m 36s):

It, it’s incredible. It’s, it really truly

Sean P. Holman (35m 38s):

Is. It’s visceral in the sense that it’s a driver’s vehicle. So many cars today are on autopilot. They’re so easy to drive with their eyes closed. This one is easy to drive. It still demands your attention and you still get a lot of feedback. You still know what the chassis’s doing, what the vehicle’s doing. Absolutely.

4 (35m 51s):

So, but yeah. So this is the fabrication portion. We’re gonna move on to step three.

Sean P. Holman (35m 57s):

So All, right. So we’re now walking down the building is basically splitting two sides and we’re on the one side of it and we’re leaving the fab bay.

4 (36m 4s):

The building’s a little bit longer than a a football field. To give you a gauge before we get down to step three, we’re gonna just stop in powertrain division. Yep. So this is kind of the, ironically the heartbeat of

Sean P. Holman (36m 15s):

Company. I see a five seven. Yeah, I see a, it is 3 92. Yes. And then the two Hellephant here in the middle, which you can tell because of the black supercharger shroud and then also the, the green, I guess high temp belts on there and the a TI damper pull.

4 (36m 34s):

Yeah. Yeah. This has been a very, it’s it’s an orchestra. I Mean. So these, we, we sell, we,

Sean P. Holman (36m 40s):

The front accessory drive, by the way is amazing. Like how, who figured out how to I Mean. It looks like snakes. It’s,

4 (36m 46s):

I can tell you who I I can tell you whoever packaged that, that supercharger it’s insane pull belt system is is a genius Yeah. To basically what They did. And we gotta give them credit because this just didn’t happen. 10 You know 10 years ago you just didn’t see stuff like this. But somebody methodically figured out a way to keep all the accessories and pulleys in the exact same location. So these, this is such a modular program. I often ref reference it as it’s my Mr. Potato head. I’ll build it. How I like it is a very, very, very modular program. And one would think, when you look at it with the supercharger, you would think, oh my god, that has to have a different alternator, that has to have a different AC compressor that has to have a different idle or pull AC that has to,

Sean P. Holman (37m 33s):

And here right next to it is a 3 92 and you can literally unbolt pieces off of this accessory drive and put it right on the front of the Hellephant.

4 (37m 41s):

Absolutely. What they, what They did was so creative. I I Mean it just the first time I got my hands on when I, I was just so impressed. But ba basically what They did is they clearance the timing cover and they clearance the, they shortened up the oil pan and they literally made clearance to put this pulley system in behind the OEM accessory drive. This accessory drive. We originally got this accessory drive in, in 2011 was the first year this, this mapping of this accessory drive came out. Up until then we, the wk ones, the accessory drive was about five eighths of an inch tighter to the block. And they’d made the clearance behind all the factory pulleys and, and a components accessories.

4 (38m 24s):

And I’d love to meet the guy or girl or girl or girl or girl that came up with that because you just don’t see that. Yeah. You just don’t, there’s such a disconnect on stuff.

Sean P. Holman (38m 35s):

Somebody really wanted to make this happen. Yes,

4 (38m 37s):

They sure did. And and I tell you, it’s, you can be really close-minded very easily when you’re looking at this stuff. But we gotta remember, this is our, we’re very passion driven and enthusiasts, but there’s people working at the OEMs. They’re, it’s just a job for them. They’re trying to provide for their family and, and live a good life, but it’s just part numbers and parts to them. Yeah, sure. Whereas we’re obsessed with this stuff, but the person that ran this program and, and, and created the clearance, it’s about two inches of clearance that they had to come up with for the pulley system and I Mean, they just really hit a grand slam. and I, I I referenced it as an engineering marvel. So, so powertrain division. So we are fortunate to own a another subsidiary to America’s Most One four by four.

4 (39m 25s):

We own a a Mopar distribution company and, and we’re blessed and thankful to be the largest consumer of the, of powertrain in the Crate engine program. So we, we consume more Hemi crate engines than anyone in the world. So what happens here is we’re we’re, we’re building approximately seven to 10 powertrains a week. and I like to reference, I just kinda coined the reference package versus kit just to kind of define things because You know you can really get caught up in tomato Tomato. Sure. But to me, or America’s Most Wanted four by four a package is, is a business model that I reference as A to Z. Yeah. Full accountability, warranty, customer service.

4 (40m 9s):

That’s a package to me. If you’re purchasing something and you have to add something to it. This isn’t in the dictionary, but we just wanted to define it here. Yeah. So we would reference that as a, as more of a kit.

Sean P. Holman (40m 21s):

So I’m looking at, you’ve got basically the ability to have three engines that you’re building side by side and you say build engine. And everybody was going, well wait a minute, isn’t he consuming crate engines yet here we have what looks like a normally aspirated 3 92 orange block. And right next to it looks like it must be a demon because it’s a red block and red valve cover. Yes sir. And they’re pulled apart. Yes. So tell me what’s going on. You can buy this perfectly good crate engine and just like the Jeep Yeah. You pull it apart

4 (40m 47s):

All. right. I exactly I know it. It’s, it’s quite the business model. So You know and This is a, we get these phone calls all the time. I can buy a Hellcat engine on eBay and that’s only 15 grand. Why is your conversion so much? That’s one part number of 500 and it’s just literally one part of 500. And there is a lot of assembly and labor that goes into this. But the big thing at the end of the day is, this is our Picasso, don’t get me wrong, but unfortunately the F framework, the canvas was already created and we have to paint within the lines and, and when I say that, it literally takes, and we have parts from the ram truck, from the challenger, the charger, the Grand Cherokee, the Jeep commander.

4 (41m 32s):

Right. So we have to basically put this modular Mr. Potato head has to fit in. It’s into the vehicle and the axle has to clear the oil pan. So the car engines, we build our powertrains with non MDS engines and non MDS engines are more robust engine and, and the non MDS engines are, are in manual transmission vehicles. MDS engines work off pressures line pressure in the automatic transmissions, and you’ll hear it in a parking lot or, or even if you own one, you’ll, you can hear it cylinder deactivation. It almost sounds like the engine has a, a tick or a You know like

Sean P. Holman (42m 12s):

So MDS multidi displacement system and basically disconnects half the engine from creating power so that it becomes a air pump on one side and a four cylinder on the other to save You know on fuel economy or increase fuel economy. It’s one of the many tricks they’ve used over the years. But those who have performance engines who are stuck with MDS with a stick, you can hear the tonal change whether it’s a 3 92 or many other ram truck or any of the cars. Even the performance versions with automatics, when it goes into four cylinder mode, there’s a different harmonic resonance in the chassis and in the exhaust that’s not necessarily always pleasing to the ear.

4 (42m 50s):

Absolutely. I agree 100%. The other thing is, is this very debatably, these are, we are building aerodynamically challenged heavy vehicles. What aerodynamically challenged and,

Sean P. Holman (43m 4s):

And breaking news.

4 (43m 5s):

Yes. So what we have found is we can build an AMW eight lug 5 0 5 Wrangler or an AMW eight lug 5 0 5 Gladiator, which is using the non MDS 3 92 power train with the eight speed eight HP 75 8 speed transmission, which is, we use the, the variant that comes into Ram 2,500 with 40 inch tires, 6,000 pounced call it in, in, depending on the top and what you Sure. A spare tire, tire carrier, whatever it may be. So they, we, we see them fall within the 5,800 to 6,200 on the high side, unless somebody’s waiting it for You know over landing or something.

4 (43m 50s):

Sure, sure. So these are very, very heavy vehicles. Spindled one 10 axles, You know the big brakes and with 40 inch tires and a non MDS engine. And we’re, we, we were raising ’em You know we in the rear, we do a two inch lift spring on most of ’em. And up front we do approximately a three inch lift spring. And then we’re getting lift out of the, the Spindled 1680 series axles that we have built 40 inch tires. So you’re getting, they are taller. All our turnkey vehicles do have electric dropdown regard steps. But we have reports of people getting 17, 18 miles to the gallon with these, these 6,100 pound vehicles. and I was always very apprehensive to share data like that because I would never want someone to think our we’re blowing smoke.

4 (44m 35s):

Yeah. You know our business model isn’t blowing smoke. We build performance oriented vehicles that are, that are the reduced to ridiculous model I Mean a daily driver, you know, track, you know, we’ve tried to encompass everything that an automotive enthusiast would do with these. So we wouldn’t want to be blowing smoke over one or two miles per gallon At the end of the day, you, it You know we should all be concerned about how we spend our money. But if, if you’re really concerned about 14 to 16 miles to gallons, probably not a good daily driver for you

Sean P. Holman (45m 6s):

As a driver of a 3 92. I can attest to that. Yeah. To love the vehicle more than you love your checkbook. Yeah.

4 (45m 12s):

We hang three engines at a time. They, they do the accessory drive conversion. They do the exhaust manifold conversion. They do a rear steel sump oil pan. And the reason I, I’m an old school Four Wheeler I Mean, we, I can’t tell you how many times we were as young men out in the, in the middle of nowhere in JB welding. Yep. A a a tin rear sump oil

Sean P. Holman (45m 36s):

Pan. So when the, I’ll I’ll throw this out there for people who are listening. When the 3 92 first came out, it had the aluminum oil sump on it and the new ones since about what 22 and a half or so have the cast or the pressed steel sump. And a lot of people were upset because they thought the cast aluminum one looks so much cooler. Yeah. And they, oh, they’re being cheap. Well, really it’s a durability play. Absolutely. You can hit that on a rock and still get home. If you hit the aluminum pan on a rock, you’re done. I’ve

4 (46m 0s):

Literally seen somebody drop a brand new aluminum pan 18, maybe we’ll call it 24 inches onto concrete and it shatter. Ugh. So, so think about that. So we, we really do go back in time on a lot of things and, and, and I, including the steering You know we eliminate the electric steering and we go to a belt-driven pump system because it works fantastic. You know with the gear reduction in the steering box and, and then running a cylinder assist versus a steering stabilizer. These vehicles are so rigid and, and so I Mean, they’re not too touchy by any means.

4 (46m 42s):

But you, when you touch the Wheel, the vehicle moves. There is no, it isn’t like a 1995 Dodge Ram 3,500 I Mean. These vehicles are very precision and very, very, very well thought out by a, a man who’s literally been so obsessed that he tortures himself daily. So, so we get engines, upfitted, the on the engine stands so that they fit within the frame rails and, and fit with in the firewall and, and have the right AC compressors. There’s a couple different variants of AC compressors. The further and further into the evolution of the automobile manufacturing processes, you see the manufacturers trying to package, they’re trying to lean on their tier one suppliers to package more sensors and more accountability into each component.

4 (47m 31s):

Less things for them to manage parts. So there’s a couple different variants of, of compressors. There’s some, a couple different variants of alternators. We always put the biggest alternators that are production based because we like that You know the production parts are designed for a hundred thousand plus mile of vehicles. You know they don’t want be warrantying that stuff, but there’s some intelligent alternators on that are Lin Lin buss controlled and, and heat sensitivity in, in fact. So air intake or the underhood temps, you know, these things are so intelligent now that You know, they’ll back it down if, if it’s got plenty of power and, and it’s not hurting for, or the alternator goes into a free spin idle to pull resistance from the, from the pulley system.

4 (48m 19s):

So from there, the crate engine, the, the dress, I’ll reference it as a dressed crate engine, goes over into these what we call powertrain sleds. Again, This is a, an in-house term. I don’t know what other people would reference.

Sean P. Holman (48m 33s):

Basically a custom cart with motor mounts on it. Yeah. That you can sink the complete trans, the, I’ll say the, the mer Trans and engine together on a Stand with wheels and take it to the next station. Yeah.

4 (48m 44s):

One of the problems I early into this, the evolution of of being a Jeep builder and powertrain, a distributor, I realized is, is when you’re shipping out powertrains, it, it, it gets a little risky out there depending on You know if the truck drivers having a bad day with his girlfriend or if the roads are bad or So I was like, well you know what, these power trains stay in the vehicles. A vehicle gets in an accident and it flips upside down it, these power trains don’t pop out. Can you imagine if, if someone got in an accident or powertrain popped out and I guess it was probably in the middle of 2018, I said, I want to ship these powertrains just like they are in, in a chassis so that I can guarantee that they, when they get to our certified dealers, that they’re the way we ship them out.

4 (49m 31s):

And there’s always been a quite a bit of money on these crates and these powertrain sleds. So these are basically powertrain sleds that are on wheels. Ultimately they’ll end up in something almost identical, which is a, a crate. And these This is a more of a hybrid setup where once the engine is in there, we have a tray or a basically a slide. So our, our teammates can a primitive assembly process where the transmission goes onto a tray, a shelf essentially and slides in and you can get everything lined up and you’re not muscling and fighting an engine block and a bell housing essentially. So these A to Z engine conversion packages, not yet.

4 (50m 15s):

Engine conversion packages are almost set up literally to run in the crate. The harnesses are on ’em You know the O2 sensors are in the manifolds, the I Mean. Every single thing that we can control. The variable is so that when we’re doing tech support and we’ve got the, I truly believe we have the world’s greatest tech support. We have three to four guys working to keep our dealer network supported and service and maintain and update vehicles remotely. We wanna have a fight and chance in knowing what we’re working with. So it’s important that the harnesses aren’t handbuilt, they’re built, our harnesses are built by the same supply, literally our same supplier since 2014.

4 (50m 58s):

And we actually found this supplier, they were a Jeep supplier. They used to build the Grand Cherokee harnesses. So our har our powertrain harnesses are basically mirrored off of Grand Cherokees and the Hellcats are basically mirrored off hellcats. So if we’re out in the field, or you’re in Italy, or Germany or wherever, you may have to some incredible machine, the wiring is traceable. So we’ve put so much time and thought into this to make this stuff.

Sean P. Holman (51m 27s):

You’re not just selling conversion up front, you’re selling for the long haul. Absolutely. Maintenance down the line. And being able to keep these vehicles alive without You know, with or without the dealer network. Absolutely. The end user can figure out kind of what you guys have done. Yeah,

4 (51m 40s):

Absolutely. And I, Mean and, and, and our powertrain conversions. We, we’ve taken as many factory OEM parts and, and used them again from various models, all, all Hemi based. But the reason for that is, is it’s just so serviceable. This stuff is, you can take it to any late model service repair garage or collision facility or Chrysler dealer. We have a, we have a, a, a handful of Chrysler dealers that actually even do the installs for us. But this stuff is very, very, very maintainable and, and repairable need be. And so that, and that’s the whole, we want the stuff to be usable. We want it to be, it’s basically the way we would’ve liked the vehicle to be built, but with the quality of a billion dollar corporation.

4 (52m 27s):

Sure. and you, and piggybacking on all the intelligence and, and, and triple digit hundreds year plus of knowledge that, that they have. So on the powertrain side, I real, and this isn’t to sound cocky or arrogant, there real, there isn’t really anybody that can hold a candle to our tech support, our warranty, our distribution, the inventory. We’ve got approximately $7 million in inventory. We’ve got 55 people in this building. And one of the things I’m most very, very, very most proud of is we have our original eight guys. So we’re our retention rate at America’s Most Wanted four by four is in the 90 percentile. Do some poking around, see how many businesses during Covid we’re able to retain 90% of their teammates.

4 (53m 11s):

This is what drives my soul and what, what drives this company. So this stuff has been very, very well thought out by very intelligent people that have been beating on four by fours since they’ve been able to reach the pedals. You know. Love it. So, but if we ever would’ve really sat down and scratched out to business case, I don’t know if this would’ve ever happened. It was more of a we’re, you know, we’re, we’re these wrenching kind of guys that wanna build the most amazing stuff in the world to kind of prove ourselves and prove You know. And we were particular, and that was kind of what we were after. We knew there was something there. Don’t get me wrong, You know I’ve been playing with Hemi Hemi engines since literally 2004, the year after they came out in the 2003 RAM trucks with the 20 inch wheels.

4 (53m 57s):

So we, we have, we dove heavy in this and there wasn’t components to back this up. and I won’t go into too many details, but thankfully, thankfully we’re in the Detroit area and we had a lot of people looking out for us. So You know people. Well, yeah. We may, may or may not have checked out some pre-production vehicles and got part numbers off of parts to help us with transmissions and PCMs and things. Sure. But up until the Ram the 2019 Ram DT launched, we were literally Frankensteining PCMs together. We were taking 3.6 liter JL PCMs and adding, essentially tying in the additional drivers to, to run the, the extra two cylinders.

4 (54m 42s):

So, but thankfully right behind the jail was the 2019 Ram dt. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, God. Because that really I Mean, I still got the picture in, in April of two, in 2018. I, I, I found 13 of these, this truck wasn’t even a available and I, I was able to buy 13 of the Ram and DT PCMs and I got pictures on my way back from Warren, from the PDC just grinning ear to ear with these, you know, unobtainable parks. Yeah, right. You know. ’cause they were building their service. And from

Sean P. Holman (55m 19s):

PCMs to Hellephant, you got ’em All, right?

4 (55m 21s):

Yeah. So, but wow. What a journey it’s been. And, and another thing too, and people, I it’s, I hear this all the time and I, honestly, it’s a little heart wrenching to hear it. I, my background is foundation building. I didn’t have all these six, seven, 8,000 horse power. I had a 3 0 4 a c That’s, that was my high school deal. That was my first 1978 Levi’s edition. 3 0 4 3 speed

Sean P. Holman (55m 49s):

Levi’s. You had the seats.

4 (55m 50s):

Yeah. C CJ seven had had the CJ seven in, in case you wanted to have a gal sit on your lap. No, I’m just kidding. So tilt column. That’s right. But fortunate that I ended up with a V eight vehicle for my first, because you wouldn’t really know the therapy. It’s so therapeutic. It’s it, unless you’ve driven one or you just don’t really know, you could be this person that’s all worried about the environment and, and, and things that you can’t really control because you’ve never experienced it. You’ve never had your soul cleansed or you could be happy. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. s it So I’m trying to be nice. So we get these incredible power trains developed and we, I picked three premier Jeep shops in America.

4 (56m 38s):

These were all American based. And we did end up with one in, in Germany at, at not far down the line, but we picked these three companies to launch this product. I knew that if we launched the product under the America’s Most Wanted four by four brand that we wouldn’t be able to continue honing and sanding the edges. and I You know, a lot of people were like, well, why would you let someone else take credit for your work? But these are partners of ours. These are people that we’re still have amazing relationships with. And one is, is is Ruby Trucks? Ruby Trucks in North Carolina? Yeah. Amazing, amazing people over there. I can’t say enough about them. They actually were chipping in on r and d the through that whole year.

4 (57m 21s):

They, the owner would call me and say, Jared, how you doing You know, how’s it going? Do you, you, you, are you financially okay to keep this RT going? I Mean, we shut our shop down. Yeah. We were building four Jeeps. We were smart. We leased ’em. The payments were four or 500 bucks a piece on em. But we were full-time, skilled labor cranking away and, and, and developing this product. So we, we get these powertrains done and I assumed why we were shut down developing what I truly believe You know this vehicle communication stuff is advanced I Mean. And it’s only getting You know more and more tricky. But I assumed that the other people in the industry that managed specific things, I won’t go into too much detail, would be honing in refining these other components required to, to, to build what we would consider an incredible turnkey vehicle.

4 (58m 18s):

And I remember we got these things together and it was so funny because they had launched this with the aluminum, these vehicles, with the aluminum steering box and, and I, I, these guys were so proud and happy to give me this first vehicle to drive home So I Drive this 2018, 3 92 J all home, and I come back in the next day. And I’m like, this thing drives like shit. And they’re looking at me all across. I’m like, you got, we gotta fix it. So make it like a JK So I. Make it like a jk.

Sean P. Holman (58m 49s):

So, so for people to know, the, the JK and every previous Jeep had a cast iron box for wage savings and fuel economy. The early JLS until about 2020 had an aluminum box. The problem that they figured out later on is all these steering complaints that came in from JL was because the box would heat up thermally and then all the tolerances would change. and you get, you’d start out in the morning when everything was cold and tight and you’d be like, yes, deer’s fine. You go down the freeway for a while or on a hot day and your Jeep would be all over the road. And so eventually They did A TSB and moved everything over to cast iron, which fixed a huge amount of the problems that were happening with that box. So the aluminum box was a huge

4 (59m 24s):

Issue. Yeah. Yeah. And and for those of you that, that wish, if you could think back to the jk, you, you diehard JK owners, you, and if you ever had to change a steering box on a JK You, know that there was that one pesky bolt that you had to pull the coil spring for. Yes. So, and we complained about it for the whole duration of that vehicle. And So I, I come and I’m You know, you would think I would be appreciative of what this amazing powerful first Hemi JL Wrangler You know. That was a it was, it was big. And we had, I can’t tell you how much time and money we had.