Name: Joe Rogan Experience #678 - Jonathan Ward
Uploaded: 2015-08-07T01:49:30.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #678 - Jonathan Ward' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2015-08-07. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #678 - Jonathan Ward' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2015-08-07. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #678 - Jonathan Ward

Boom, all right. I love when I see something online where I see someone who
takes
the idea of fixing something or in re-engineering something to make it just
goes so far out there
Something totally irrational you go. Who is this fucking crazy guy? I saw I
think the first thing I saw was your Bronco
The icon Bronco which is just you took a car which is the Ford Bronco the the
60s and early 70s versions
which are you know this kind of
It's a cool car. It's a cool old car
a lot of people take the tops off of them and they're always kind of rickety
and funky looking and you just
engineered this thing to this to the nth degree with these
these billet door openers and the way you have the step comes out when you
I'm like who the fuck is this guy and so then I start going into your
Your website and the two different companies TLC where you take old land cruisers
and re-engineer those and put modern engines and suspensions
And I'm like what I just love that someone like you is out there sweet. Thank
you
Yeah, it's because I had no investors that were smarter than me that said you're
a fucktard
Don't even do this bad business. Well, they were wrong though. They were wrong
obviously
I mean your shop is enormous. There's like a beehive people are constantly
buzzing around there working
You've got a hundred different projects going concurrently. You're you're the
Bronco build
What do you say like a three-year wait list right now? Yeah, we've sold 62 of
them so far and delivery dates?
Unfortunately are running like late third quarter 2018 which sucks. It drives
me nuts
Is there anything you can do to ramp that up you would have to just have like
four or five of those giant warehouses?
That's part of the problem. So like we're trying to move and find a bigger
building
We're just about 50,000 square now and it's all ass and elbows like I think we
could hire maybe three or more guys before we're out of space
But more importantly, it's difficult
to find those people
Because kind of the idiocy of what I do is going against
Modern trends and American design and manufacturers so it's really hard to find
people that have the the crazy skill set that that we require
Well, that's what really impressed me about what you're doing
What would impress me about what you're doing is not just that you're re-engineering
things and improving and upgrading
But there's this this ode to craftsmanship
There's this this passion in what you're doing where it might not necessarily
make sense
Oh everything we do if you want to if you want to bring up that term practicality
makes absolutely no sense
um
But to me, that's kind of why we do it and why i'm so passionate about every
project we do because
I've approached it from the obtuse angle of okay
That's how it's been done in the past and you know stock restorations are great
and they fit a niche and they're right for that guy
Personally, I have no patience for archaic mechanical interface, but I love
vintage aesthetic
And then resto shops hot rod shops traditionally they buy this piece that piece
and kind of cobble together and that's cool
But I always thought well
You've got this convergence of you know cad design, you know computer-aided
design resources
And a convergence of reverse engineering and low-volume manufacturing
capabilities that kind of are creating a perfect storm where the stupid stuff
we can dream up and execute and make a
relatively viable business model out of wasn't even possible 10 years ago so
I've been lucky enough to find enough people that agree with my craziness and
Let me not compromise and whore it out
But to really hold the line and keep pushing the boundaries and keep geeking
out further and further
Well, it seems like over the last year or so i've been hearing about you more
and more and more and more and more and then jay leno's garage featured
He's featured a few of your cars. Yeah, we've been on jay's show. I think four
times now
What a fucking trip that place is huh off just I was just there
Yeah on tuesday. Yes. Oh my god. It was just so what I a geek boner
I had walking around that place willing to keep your chubby because what's
crazy is a lot of people don't realize the depth of that subculture
So jay is wonderful in that he's almost become
Sort of a spokesman for the niches and odd proclivities and mechanical
Goodness, but just in la alone. There's
Tons of dudes with these ridiculous man caves full of wild mechanical beasts
and it is so cool
And and that's another thing like I never had the intelligence to anticipate
when I built the first icon
Which was based on the fj40 land cruiser?
I just built it because it was keeping me up at night and I had this idea and
after doing a design job for toyota
I told mr
toyota about my stupid idea and
He kind of sort of off the record bowed and said go for it fool, but we won't
get in your way
So I built it to realize that sort of model I had in my head
Then I went back and added up how much it cost
I saw shit. No one's gonna go for this. This is stupid and I talked to some
people smarter than me really big brand people and they said no
Keep it pure keep it what you want and what you're proud of and you'll build a
market
So I gambled and rolled with them and now
Like 30 plus percent of our clients have two or more of our projects where I
was having a hard time getting my head around
People would be able to justify the expense of one of them
Well, they're so well done and one of the things that I was really impressed
with was just the fj
62 land cruiser conversions that you've done like because that for a lot of
people that aren't fans of that aesthetic or fans of that
That's just a regular
four-door
suburban type
SUV vehicle they just you know most people would look at that and they would go
there
It is on the big screen, but they would look at that and go. Oh, that's you
know
One of those cars, but that's part of the appeal though. Yeah, because it's
pure utility. Mm-hmm. There's no fluff
there's nothing superfluous
And people yearn for that because if you look at modern cars, I don't care what
it is
Longevity simplicity durability
No one's thinking about those things anymore. Their priorities are totally
different
So a lot of guys go hey, I I used to have one of those land cruisers
Man, I missed that thing. I go to the dealer. I look at everything. I can buy
whatever I want and it sucks
Everything's plastic has no soul doesn't have that utilitarian root to it. So
There's kind of a subculture that will gravitate to
Wanting to go back to that and some of them are cool with them stock, but more
and more people have been perverted by
Modern vehicles and like could we make the pedal on the right actually do
something and yeah, really do something
Yeah, well your your bronco is like this beautiful
So I mean that that that shape with the icon bumper
It's it's so sexy to the average person looking at it sexy
But did this it's like you kind of have to be a fan of that style of land cruiser
that four-door with the hatch in the back land cruiser
But what you've done is like completely bonkers
This is what what this is is an fj
62 and you call them a
142 right because you take a an fj 80
And you combine it with the fj 62
So what he does is he takes this fucking thing strips it down to nothing
I mean you could you could do this way better than me
Polyurea coats it media blasts it that you you take this thing and make it a
combination of modern underpinnings
Completely redone as far as like weather protection and the moisture protection
It's like at a level that nobody ever engineered before and then you took put a
modern corvette engine in it
450 horsepower plus I mean this is bananas and you're taking this car that was
like how much was were these new?
I think they they were expensive when they were new but that means what 20
grand probably 25 grand I think and he engineers them to the point where there
are
160 plus thousand dollar cars. It's a total stealth wealth
like yeah, then that's a big part of the appeal
I find like guys will take these on surf trips down through Central America and
not have to stress out or freak out or worry about
You know the preconceived notions like you know people see you rolling in a
nice modern supercar sports car and
Unfortunately in our culture is a lot of guys. Oh look at that rich prick and
his Porsche right, you know
It it just gets beyond that so either totally invisible or you get kind of warm
fuzzy thumbs up smiles
And it's it's just a whole different energy
Well, then I started going into the sub because I was wasn't aware that there
was a subculture of people that were
Obsessed with fj 62s. It's amazing. There's so many different little Twitter
follower pages that you can go to
We could see the images they post or Instagram these cars have this crazy
Legendary following where people just are obsessed with these old like it was
this. What years are these these 1989 90?
Yes
Specifically the ones with the four rectangular headlights the FJ 62 or 88 to
90 and then the preceding models the FJ 60
Which looks about the same those are from 81 to 87
What what gave you the motivation to take this particular type of car and
engineer it to such an incredible degree?
Well, we started with the older ones the FJ 40s, right? Yeah, the 40s which are
really sexy
Yeah, and you're talking about subcults that subcults tremendous. It's crazy
But we started with a 40 and then the 45 pickups and wagons then the FJ 55 wagons
so
It's just sort of the culture evolved in that those were so archaic because
they were earlier standards earlier
Choke yeah choke and one barrel carb three on the tree drum brakes no power
Yeah, so I think as these got older and the average conditions of the ones
people could find out there became lesser and lesser
The market naturally extended into these models and people say well. Hey, well,
what about a 60?
What about a 6 2 we're even doing the FJ 80s doing major restos the
91 to 97 versions mm-hmm because again, there's a certain
Attachment that people will have with them that even though the truck is gone
or it had shortcomings
It still holds a spot in their heart, which is kind of a big part of the 98% of
the battle is already won with icon
Because the majority of our projects we're starting with something that already
gives people warm and fuzzies
Yeah, any of these cars have cult followings and
shortcomings, which is kind of the perfect
Formula to let me revision them and create something like a new option for
people that appreciate it
Well, I wasn't even a fan of these, but I became a fan from just going over
your website and then watching the vehicles
I watched a couple of the videos and
Jonathan has these videos that he puts on YouTube where it puts sticks a couple
of GoPros in the cars and you personally take them out
Which is very videos suck. No, they don't they don't know they don't suck at
all. They're great
They're really effective because yeah, throw one of those like the second one
down that one right there
They're not even remotely sucky. What they are is a hundred percent authentic
Like when you're taking these cars out you're you're going over all the
different upgrades and different things that you've done to them
That's when you really start getting it. You go. Oh
This guy's fucking crazy. Yeah, this guy's crazy. He's made a hundred and
seventy thousand dollar twenty thousand dollar car
Yeah, and and and that's been a cuz I don't have the budget but be because I
concur with you that
Brands like these if they're not driven out of the vision of a singular lunatic
then they're they're not worth doing
So I wanted to keep that relationship and and personal
Relationship so although I just knock the videos out and edit them real quick
But I really want people to understand the level of geekness that we do and
will you even leave in when you dropped your GoPro and one of them?
I love that too up here goes boom boom boom
But this this is 