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The Gearbox Podcast brings on industry professionals to explore the day-to-day operations of owning and operating a shop. From common frustrations to industry-wide shifts, this podcast covers it with fun and insightful conversations.
Swell AI Transcript: Episode 2 - Kyle Hogue - Gearbox Podcast.mp3
00:00 Jimmy Purdy We're rolling, this is it. What are we doing? This is it.
00:03 Kyle Hogue I'm happy to be here. So you gotta start by who you are. We gotta really draw this thing back because I think I have a problem with the inside jokes and knowing who comes in. Right. But no one else who's listening knows any idea what's going on.
00:18 Jimmy Purdy Right. Yeah, you gotta let them know, you know? Yeah, so Kyle Hoag. My name is Kyle Hoag. I grew up in the 805, I grew up in the Tascadero. Grew up in the car scene, grew up in the lowrider scene. Yeah, I mean, mother passed away when I was real young and I had an opportunity to move out to Las Vegas. I was out there for about 16 years
00:43 Kyle Hogue and came back about five years ago, you know? Yeah. Yeah. But it's been a rough ride, to say the least.
00:50 Jimmy Purdy It's been a roller coaster, for sure. Been all over the place. It's been all over the place, yeah.
00:56 Kyle Hogue So this is not your first time on a mic either, right? No. You've had your fair share of interviews. I've had them, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You probably find your face on a couple well-known TV series as well. Yes. Right? Yeah.
01:10 Jimmy Purdy Okay, that's exciting. Yeah, it's pretty cool, you know?
01:13 Kyle Hogue Something to look back at, you know? Yeah, we're gonna dive into all that stuff, too. Dive into it, bro. We're going into it. We gotta dive into the deep end here and really let… Yeah. Because I think it's important, a lot of people getting into the auto industry or maybe they're in it. Fabrication is what everybody wants to do. Everybody wants to build badass cars, right? Yeah. And they have no idea what it is. Or they think they do. They think they do. Yeah. That's a better way to put it. They think that's what they want, but is it… I don't know. There's a sense of pride, right? Yeah. Of course. Yes. And of course there's a lure behind it. I mean, that's why everybody wants to do it. Yeah. But you actually ran a shop. Yes. And that's what you did. Yes. For a while. A long time, yeah. A long time, yeah. Yeah. And then you're bread and butter. I mean, how'd you make money?
02:03 Jimmy Purdy That's the important thing. Getting the work done. You had to come through. What's hard about running a fabrication shop is that there's not like that easy money when you're building custom cars. It's not like changing tires. It's not like maintaining vehicles. It's not like an auto mechanic shop where you get cars in and out. You're changing starters. You're doing whatever. I went to UTI when I was younger and I was like, yeah, I'm going to a car school. This is gonna be awesome. But when I got there, I quickly realized that that is not what I wanted to do. I didn't wanna work in a dealership. I didn't want to do that type of- The turn and burn. I didn't wanna do that. I didn't wanna do that, yeah. One of my teachers told me, he's like, you guys are gonna make 60 grand a year and you're gonna do good. And I straight up told him, I'm like, well, what if I wanna make more than that? And he's like, well, you can become a service manager. He never said anything about being an owner or anything like that. He was just like, talking about being this average guy and I'm like, well, I wanna make more money than that. I wanna build stuff. I don't want a ceiling. I don't want to cap it anywhere. Yeah, so it was-
03:36 Kyle Hogue And that was, I mean, how long ago was that
03:38 Jimmy Purdy when you went through the program? I was 17 when I was able to go to UTI. I was in Vegas and me and my buddy, John Carlo LaDawn, were going to school together and he was like, dude, he's like, I found this way to get our diplomas. He's like, I'm gonna do it. And I'm like, what do you mean you found a way to get your diploma? And we were like 16 when this was going on. So this was back in 2004, 2005-ish. Or I think it was 2004 because we spent 2005 New Year's in Phoenix when we were in school. But he's like, yeah, I found this place, University High School in Florida. We pay him and we take four tests. And he's like, I want to go to college. I want to go to school. And I had never thought about going to college or school or nothing for cars. But it was a good idea. And me and my friends always had cool cars. There's a guy named Ty Leon and Matt Atkins and Chris Ackley. Those were my biggest, those guys right there, those guys were building the coolest shit in school. They had the coolest trucks. Out in Vegas, it's all about the off-road scene, custom cars. But these guys had a welder, had a bender, and had the motivation. And they're still doing stuff to this day that's just incredible. They're out there driving their trucks and building their trucks.
05:08 Kyle Hogue And those guys had a lot to do with the motivation. Yeah, the transition between going to a technical school like that, and that's all they push. They want you to get in the dealership. Because of course, there's some politics behind that. Trying to pull guys out of the UTI and YOTech and get them into the dealership, put the golden handcuffs on it. And then just turn and burn flat rate. So transitioning and making that leap, you either got to get lucky or you got to work really, really hard. And when you say work really, really hard, that's like the next level to try to get a shop where you can actually make a profit building cars. Yes. So how do you make that transition? You just do it.
05:54 Jimmy Purdy You just do it. You can't be scared. There's a lot of people, there's a lot of kids that would see me, when I had my shop, when it was at its prime. And let me say this, I lost it all from my own mistakes. But there was a time when I was doing really well with it and kids would always come up to me and be like, oh man, I wish I could do this. You know what I mean? And I go, you can, you just have to do it. When I opened up my shop, I didn't have one job. I had a huge payment. I had a little welder. I had a craftsman toolbox. I had a used lift that I bought. And that was it. And my father-in-law at the time was like, dude, just do it. You're gonna be fine. You have the drive. And I was putting up cell phone towers for a long time and I told my boss, I'm like, dude, I'm gonna quit. I found the shop. I'm gonna go build hot rods. And then the next thing, six months later, I got freaking four guys working for me and shit's going good. And there's 68 Camaros and GT40s and Cobras and off-road trucks in my shop. And I'm like, wow, this is actually, I'm paying payroll taxes. And there's a lot that comes with it,
07:13 Kyle Hogue but you just have to do it. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a little bit of knowledge that comes in too. So to be able to start from a general auto repair and then just, hey, I'm gonna build this car. I'm gonna fabricate everything with this tiny little welder and this little craftsman box. I mean, that's a little bit, I think there's a little bit of, what would you call it? Just like a basic knowledge that you had that came kind of from maybe nowhere. It's hard to explain exactly. Either you got it, you don't. I guess is what I'm getting at. Exactly. So some guys try to get at it and they just don't realize the level of quality or the level of attention to detail that just has to be instilled within you. I don't know if you can teach that. You can't. I'm sure you had it in that custom shop. You had a lot of guys come and go. And you probably saw that, right? You probably saw some guys coming like, dude, why are you missing this? Why aren't you doing it like this?
08:08 Jimmy Purdy Why like, right? Yeah, there was a couple guys that, oh, I can do this and I can weld and I can do that. And I had this one guy who came in and I had this like $500,000 truck going on and it was like a nice truck. And I had the firewall all tacked in and ready to go. And it needed to be MIG welded up on the bottom. And so I had him do these lines and this guy's supposed to be a really bad ass welder. And I just, you know, you get those guys that say they can do it and then they can't, you know, and then you gotta let them go because you can't pay people at the same time when you're doing that type of work, you can't pay people to learn. You can, but they have to be able
08:53 Kyle Hogue to teach themselves to a point, you know? And there's no book they can go read for that stuff. Exactly. There's no like, I mean, I mean, you know I'm a pretty good welder too. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we learn as we go. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, when you're stepping into a job like that, you better be able to step up and swing, not only swing for the fences, but actually hit the ball.
09:17 Jimmy Purdy Do your homework. I mean. Buy a welder, you know? Yeah, buy a good one.
09:24 Kyle Hogue I guess I don't have a very good welder. Maybe that's what it is. It's all good, man. But it's interesting to be able to go from that aspect and you're running a business, right? Running a shop. I mean, so maybe someone listening right now is thinking about doing that same thing. I wanna do fabrication shop, I like that. I watch all the shows on TV. That's what I wanna do. I wanna build cars, I wanna sell them. But the finance part of it is the most important part because that's what pays rent. Yes. So how do you bid a car like that? How do you even get it in and estimate it? And there's clients that come in and it's like, here's my checkbook, make it happen, right? Yes. But they know you, you've built a few of them for them already or you get your word out, your names out now and everybody knows Calhug. That's where you go to get a car built, I guess. Yeah. Right, so they just give you the check. But how do you get to that point where, not only are they willing to open the checkbook for you, but how do you even start bidding a car like that? I mean, it just sounds like it would just be a two-year project, right? A year to two-year project to build a car. You got a half a million dollars into it. I mean, what's your process from like at that time of collecting the money as you go?
10:32 Jimmy Purdy Usually, you know, at first, I didn't really know what to do. That's fair. I had no- Nobody does. I had no fucking clue on what to do when I first opened up my shop. But obviously it started with small jobs and then I'll tell you about my first big job. My first big job came in, this guy's like, you know what, I want a 57 Chevy or I want a 55 Chevy truck, big window, but I want LS this, I want this, I want this. And I just threw him out there. I said, that's gonna cost you a hundred grand. And he's like, well, you know what, find me a truck, let's do it. So, any advice I could give to somebody trying to do that, you have to, you can't be scared. You have to, you have to really know that that's what you want to do. And you have to know that you can deliver this product. Cause a lot of people do it and they don't deliver and they think they can do it and then they get into it. And then, you know, when somebody gives you a hundred grand, you know, let's just say somebody gives you a hundred grand, that opens up a window too, you know, how responsible are you with somebody else's money? Yeah, that much of it too. That's a lot, you know. So, I don't know. This truck that I'm talking about, this 55 Chevy, turned into this $500,000 build. It took me three years to do. Delivered the guy, you know. But, like the first time I, we were working and like, I would build my customers every month. But for the first year that I was doing this, I mean, I was like scared. I was taking money off because fabricating, you know, there's so much time involved, you know, to do things. And it's like, people don't realize, yeah, you could pay the guy, Joe, down the road to do it in his backyard. But you're not gonna, it's just not gonna really work out like you think it is. Okay. It never does. He's gonna do it for 500 bucks, okay. He's gonna put an LS motor in your truck and you're gonna, you know, you're gonna have a good day. It's not gonna happen like that, okay. You know what I mean? So, I remember the first time I sent my first big bill out and I was sitting there and it was like 35 grand, you know, for this labor job on this, on this, we're still talking about this 55 Chevy truck. Right. He wanted this dashboard in it and he wanted all this stuff. He wanted a 55-biller dashboard in this truck. And I'll tell you right now, to make a 55-biller dashboard fit in a 55 Chevy big window truck is extremely hard. Well, I'm sitting there, you know, trying to send him this bill and I'm like looking at it and I'm like, fuck, I gotta take like 10 grand off. You know, I can't send him this bill, you know. He's gonna tell me I'm fucking crazy. And my wife's like, no, fuck that. Just send it to him, you know. And I like look at my guy, you know, I'm like, dude. And he's like, dude, I worked all these hours. I mean, it's done, you know. And I looked at the truck and I'm like, you know what? He got what he wanted, it's done.
13:53 Kyle Hogue Fuck it, you know, I'm gonna send him the bill. Yeah, it's not like there's a comp. You can't go look at the other truck that had the 15 dash put in. Exactly. Or like, how much did you charge to put the dash in?
14:01 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, you know, you know. And there was more stuff, but I mean, this was a serious build, you know. And we worked on this truck and there was $35,000 with the labor on this truck for one month for three guys. You know, and I sent it to the guy, you know, scared as hell. And I get a phone call from him like 15 minutes later and answer the phone, you know. And he's like, hey Kyle, he's like, truck looks good. He's like, I got a credit card for you. And I'm like, fuck, I don't even have a credit card machine hooked up at this point. So I just write down his credit card number, you know what I mean? And like, that's when I realized I gotta get my shit together. I'm in business for real. You know, I gotta take this more seriously, you know. I was like 23 when this was going on. I'm 35 now. So, or I was like 25, you know, 24, 25. But you just have to shoot, just go for it, dude. You know, you wanna be a lawyer, you know, you gotta go to law school. You gotta do it. You know, you wanna be a doctor, you gotta do it. It's the same way with everything, but. More of the school of hard knocks though. I think the fabrication part of it is more school of hard knocks.
15:10 Kyle Hogue Yeah. I mean, anything in the auto industry is. Everything. And in that field of fabrication, that is definitely the scariest part, I feel like taking what you said and sending that bill over is thinking that he thinks that you're ripping him off. Yes, exactly. Number one. Any time you wanna send a big bill to anybody in the auto industry, you immediately just think that they think you're ripping them off. Yeah. Right? Cause there's so much of that, just like Joe the backyard builder
15:37 Jimmy Purdy that's gonna build your LS swap for 500 bucks, right? That's the guy giving us a bad name, dude. Exactly.
15:43 Kyle Hogue You know? And he's also the one that's gonna send that bill for 20 or 30,000 and then do nothing. Exactly. Right? And then now that client is now shell shocked. Skeptical. Cause they got ripped off by one person. So everywhere they go now, they're just scrutinizing all the good shops. Exactly. All the good people constantly. Yeah. And that's like the biggest rub, right? For our industry. It's like. What? It doesn't matter if it's like general auto repair or fabrication or whatever it is. Right. Right? So getting back into the fabrication side of it, running a custom shop like that. So looking at like parts, you just do a lot of labor, right? So. Yes. So our kind of general auto repair is like, we have a market, we do our GPs on parts, on labor, constantly monitoring everything. When you got guys in the shop and you're measuring like an efficiency, was that something you ever looked at? Or you just do dollar per hour? These guys are the best of the best. Whatever time they have, it's dollar per dollar going on that bill. Or did you look at, hey, you're here for eight hours. What did you do? You needed to do this. I mean, how do you judge that? Or is that something you look at?
16:49 Jimmy Purdy When I ran it, when I ran the shop, each car had its own, each car had its own hourly rate. Okay. Not hourly rate. Let me take that back. So each car. So if my guy's working on this truck, that guy's paying for that truck. He's paying for the work that's getting done on that truck. And that's how I did it. So each vehicle in the shop, like I didn't just pay guys. I had enough work for them to go to each one of their jobs and the customer would be getting paid for those jobs. The tech or the employee? The fabricator, my employer, whatever, yeah. He would just bill the client directly? We would bill the client directly
17:33 Kyle Hogue for their bills every month. I see.
17:36 Jimmy Purdy Did you make money off of their work though? I made money off of the hourly labor. But since there was always so much hourly labor, I never upsold them on parts, period. Okay. So you made no parts sales. I made no part sales at all.
17:50 Kyle Hogue It was strictly fab work. So when they're fab and when they're working, you took their eight hour day and say split it? Or how, I mean, how was, so like a flat rate kind of situation, you pay them for eight hours.
18:02 Jimmy Purdy If they go over that, you give them a bonus incentive. Oh, I paid them their hourly rates. Yeah, like I had one guy working for me. He was really good. He made 35 bucks an hour and he could work, he could work as many hours as he wanted a week. I see. I remember I used to give that, I remember I gave that guy a $3,500 check for one week one time. I was like, damn, dude. You put a lot of hours in there. I have never gotten a check that big, dude. He's like, dude. But the work's there and that's the thing. There's so many people that want custom work done that can't do it themselves. And there's so many shops out there that have, put the bad name out there.
18:46 Kyle Hogue You know what I mean? They claim the fame, they claim they are, but they're not earned.
18:50 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. And I'm not perfect. You know what I mean? I'm not perfect. I made a lot of mistakes on the way, but it is what it is. And I learned from my mistakes for sure.
19:02 Kyle Hogue Yeah. Yeah, just interesting. Running that kind of shop and trying to figure out if you have a really good month and then you have a really poor month. And it's like, how do I adjust accordingly? And being able to monitor for, for me it's easy. Well, not easy, but I can take a job, water pump, three hours. I put a tech on it. Should take them less than three hours, preferably. If it takes them four hours, we're gonna have a conversation. And I can take each job throughout a week, two week, month long period. These are the jobs you're assigned. You were here for eight hours a day, 40 hours a week. Okay. And you put on, you know, on average, 30 hours of time into the shop for the 40 hours you were there. What'd you do with the other 10 hours? Like I can really dial in and know exactly how much work is going in to the shop versus how much time he's there. Right. And I just, I just feel like wrapping my head around that process into a fabrication shop is like.
19:57 Jimmy Purdy It's a fucking nightmare. It's a fucking nightmare, dude.
20:01 Kyle Hogue Straight up. Just short of, but do you know what I'm saying? So it seems easy now. When I look, when I think about running a custom fab shop and then I look at that and take that difference from just a general auto repair shop or transmission shop or whatever. And it's like, wow, my process seems pretty easy in comparison. I take my part, I mark it up 60%. I can run my part sales. I can know my GP and my sales is like, okay, I have, you know, I sold X amount in parts and I made this percentage on it. Okay, cool. I'm not making enough, bump up my percentages on the low end cause I sold a lot more $100 in under parts. And it's like, it's so easy to manage the numbers that way. Yeah. But when you're dealing with pure labor and you're dealing with the human element being your number one labor source. Yeah. That is just like. It was tough.
20:50 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, next level. I was, I had no idea what I was doing. I was completely 100% winging it for a long time. And it was, it was tough, but it worked. Well, you made a lot of money, right? I made a lot of money. I made. Like big money, right? I made big money, yeah. You did really well. I made a lot and I lost it all, you know? If I could tell anybody out there, stay the fuck away from drugs, okay? Cause it would just ruin your life. Yeah. I had to start over and, but yeah, I made a ton of money. And the ton of money, when you're that young, what's the word I'm looking for? You could get, you could take advantage of it really fast. And that's another thing, you know? That's just, that's a whole nother part of it that like, you know, that's why a lot of people come and go. Yeah. It's a lot of the reason why there's the one hit wonders,
21:46 Kyle Hogue you know, it's just, it's life is. Well, there's two different kinds of money problems. Not enough and too much. Too much. There's. Yeah. Be happy, be happy in the middle, you know? Be happy. In the middle, you know? Yeah. Managing not enough money is just as hard, if not harder than managing too much money. Yeah. Right? Yeah. For your mind and for everything else. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But we can touch on that if you want to a little bit, stepping into. Anything you want, man. So what was. I ain't got nothing to hide. So not to bring the negative connotation, but what was ultimately the demise, if you want to say? I mean. Meth, methamphetamine. Well, in that process though, as stuff's kind of starting to strip away from you and falling apart. Yeah. What, I mean, is there anything in particular that you look back now and say, of course you can look back and say, yeah, I should have done that, but business wise or, I mean, was there like a certain straw that broke the camel's back in a sense? Or was it just kind of a buildup and finally you're like, you had a realization where you're like, time to step away.
22:56 Jimmy Purdy You know, the, man. I tell people a lot, like, I used to build things, you know, cause it was cool. You know, and I used to, I had this, I had this mindset. Like I came from a Tascadero, you know, California, you know, there's cool shit here. But when you go from a Tascadero to, you know, and I, a lot of people don't know this, but like, you know, my family, my Hogue family is very, you know, they have a very lucrative business, you know. World renowned. World renowned, you know, multi, multi, multi million dollar company a year, you know what I mean? But I didn't come from that. I didn't meet my family on my dad's side until I was much older. I never had any of that money or any of that. I grew up on my mom's side of the family, you know, my dad was a drug addict, you know, and my dad, you know, my dad messed up a lot. I did not meet my dad until the day my mother died. And then I had a stepdad that raised me, you know, I didn't know who this guy was. So fast forward when I'm in Vegas, you know, I was 18 when I got ahold of my dad. So I, people think like, oh, you know, Kyle Hogue, you know, he's, you know, came from all this money, whatever, you know, like that's not, that's not what happened. So my point is, is like, I came from a task at Errol. I came from a poor kid, you know, I did a lot of time in juvenile hall. I was a troublemaker. I moved out to Vegas, you know, and it was like a fresh start, you know what I mean? And I was just like, I got put into this world that was so amazing, but like I took advantage of it completely. I took advantage of people. I took advantage of myself. I took advantage of opportunities, you know, but I was young. I didn't know any better, you know? So like, like for instance, when I, I had this big old boat, you know, I had this really nice big boat, you know what I mean? And I had my wife, I had my kid, I had a full ice chest. I had thousand dollar gas bill, my tanks are full, you know what I mean? I had all this money, but like the thing that I was thinking about is like, oh, who's going to see me on my boat today? You know what I mean? I wasn't thinking about like the whole life part of it. Like it was just, it was just way over my head, you know? I went from a poor kid to living this fast life and I didn't see the demise of it coming at all. It was like a train coming straight at me and I was looking at it dead in the eye
25:47 Kyle Hogue and it was just right over my head. I mean, I think that's the same mentality that started it, right? I mean, you have to have that mentality to dive in to what you did in the first place. So it's like, that's really tough to have the mentality and not be able to rein it in, you know? It's like, how do you separate the two? How do you have that mentality of like going in deep, I don't care what anybody thinks, check out what I can do. And then once that starts happening and you're making it happen, it's like, how do you pull the reins back? It's easy to make.
26:21 Jimmy Purdy How do you hit the brakes, you know? Well, for me, it took losing everything to pull the reins. But I tell everybody, making a million dollars is the easiest part. Keeping that million dollars is the hardest part. It's the hardest part. Like that's like where I'm at in life now. It's like, okay, I'm gonna build something again, but I'm gonna keep it this time. I'm not gonna fuck it up. You know what I mean? I'm not, you know, it was crazy, man. It was meeting people in Vegas and meeting all the different, like, dude, there's a lot of people in Vegas and they fly in by the 747s, they fly out by the 747s. You meet people from all over the world. You meet all aspects of life, you know? But like me, you know, it just, I couldn't say no to drugs, you know? I couldn't say no to the party, you know? I couldn't say no to none of it, you know?
27:17 Kyle Hogue Right, well, what's gonna happen? It's gonna, it's gonna eat you alive. But at the time, you know, at the time, where you were, you get that opportunity, air quotes, an opportunity. What's the worst, you know? What's the worst that's gonna happen? I'm taking over the world, look at me. Exactly. I'm on top.
27:38 Jimmy Purdy Exactly. You can't stop me.
27:39 Kyle Hogue That's so true. Exactly. How's that gonna take me out? Do you know who I am? Exactly. Do you know who I am? I'm Karl Hoag, yeah, yeah. It's that mentality of like, and that's just like, you don't realize what is going to happen, you know? And then getting to that point of like, you're on your boat one day, and the next day you're, it's all gone.
28:03 Jimmy Purdy It's like. I'm on the side of the street, dude, with a needle stuck in my arm, begging for money, you know? Like that's how bad it got, you know? I remember talking to my buddy, Kyle Alexander out in Vegas, you know, after I, or after I, you know, after I was been getting my life back a couple of years ago, and I was telling him my story, you know what I mean? Me and him like grew up together, and he's like, dude, I can't imagine like you being on the side of the road, like begging for money, and like telling people like, I used to be this guy, and I was on TV, and you know, and all these people are looking at you, like who the fuck this guy, you know what I mean? He's just laughing like that, it's so fucking funny, but it's true, you know? And it can happen to anybody if you don't respect yourself and things in life, you know? Like life, like your mortality is huge, you know? And I never took my mortality seriously until after, you know, I did lose all my, everything. I lost everything, you know? And what you brought up is so true, like that could never happen to me. It can, it can happen to you. It can and does. It can and does, and it happens to so many people in this world. So many people don't get through it, you know? Like I'm one of the lucky ones that was able to get through it, but man, it was a rough five years.
29:36 Kyle Hogue It was a rough one. Yeah, I mean, this is fairly recent, I mean, as far as the horizon on the grand scheme of life, you know? And you just bounce back and just keep taking it one day at a time, right? One day. It's one day, really, too. That's all I can do. But I mean, starting out or kind of going back and circling back to like the time of being on top of the world until it all crumbling and kind of walk through that kind of process a little bit of like, so the shop starts falling apart, you start losing techs, you start losing jobs. I mean, how do you… Power's getting shut off. Yeah, I mean, how do you, when do you, in a sense, pull the plug? When do you just like say, you know what? Time for me to get help or do you get forced out?
30:22 Jimmy Purdy So I got a divorce, I got a divorce in 2015, the end of 2015. I think it was finalized the beginning of 2016. By 2017 is when I sold my business. And what got to the point is I was just, I was just so depressed in my addiction, you know? I lost all my employees. I lost, you know, I lost all my business, because I wasn't doing anything, you know? And you can't do it alone. That's another thing I wanna tell everybody out there right now. If you think you can do it alone and you do it, more power to you.
31:10 Kyle Hogue Yeah, you're in the top, like quarter percent.
31:13 Jimmy Purdy You're fucking, whoa, you know what I mean? But my ex-wife, God bless her heart, I had no idea that I needed her, you know? And it sucks to actually, it doesn't suck, but like I look back all the time, you know? And I just, I needed her, you know? And when I, when I didn't have her, when I flushed all that down the toilet and I was walking into that shop every day without my wife and without my kid, and you know, it was dark, dude.
31:55 Kyle Hogue It was dark. What's the point of all this? It was dark.
31:58 Jimmy Purdy All that stuff that I had, that's when I realized none of this shit makes me happy. None of the money makes me happy, because I still had money. I had money, I had a lot of money, but I didn't know how to write a check. I didn't know how to pay bills. I had no idea I was getting, you know, my trash wasn't getting picked up and I was like calling the dump company, you know what I mean? Like, hey, why the fuck is my trash not getting picked up? I was like, well, you fucking gotta pay your bill, dude. And I'm like, oh, fuck. That's a thing, you know what I mean? Like, that's how fucking clueless I was, you know? Because my ex-wife, I'm a builder, you know? I like building things. I'm not a financial guy. I'm not a, you know, I'm not the money guy, you know what I mean?
32:50 Kyle Hogue Like. Well, that's kind of the struggle too, with just about every, I mean, not every, but there's a lot of shops out there that are. Struggle. I mean, they're in that sense, right? I opened the shop because I like to fix cars. I like to build cars. I like to put them together. Yeah. Wait, I gotta pay for what now? I gotta pay who for what? I gotta, I'm not making money? How am I not making money? The guy just paid me 50 grand to do this. Like, what are you talking about? Yeah, yeah. Where's all the money going? Where's all the money going? Where's the money going? It's like, I'll just build another one then. And you get into that perpetual cycle of like, well, if I'm not making enough, I just need to work harder. Yeah. There's not enough money. There's not enough zeros in the bank account, so I'll just keep working harder. Keep working harder. I'll do more jobs. I'll bring more work in. Yeah. And it's like, that doesn't work. That doesn't work. And it doesn't matter what, and it's what part of the industry you're in that never ever works. Not how much you make, it's how much you keep in a sense, right? Some people do it better than others, that's for sure. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of numbers, guys, that have no business working on a car, but they run a great shop. Yeah. You know? Great fabricators, great, people out there have no business owning a shop. Yeah.
34:00 Jimmy Purdy You know? But they build it, but they're just the most amazing, you know, cat's meow shit, you know?
34:05 Kyle Hogue Right, right, right. And it's like, you know, the, what you call it, the golden employee, in a sense. Yeah. It's like the, Yeah. The one everybody's looking for, you know? And then, right. And then that tech or that, whatever you want to call him, he's looking for the shop owner that knows how to run the numbers, because he's the one that makes the most money. So it's like this constant balance of struggling, one trying to find the other. Yeah. But when you're starting into it, or you're new to it, you're just like, I want to work for that guy, because he builds bad ass cars. Yeah. You know, and it's like, that's not the right answer.
34:37 Jimmy Purdy He's got the baddest tools, you know? He's doing the baddest shit, you know what I mean?
34:40 Kyle Hogue But he can't manage a shop to save his life, so. He can't manage, yeah. It's like, well, how come I'm not getting paid anymore? Yeah.
34:46 Jimmy Purdy Where's all the money going, you know? Man, I look back, I look back, and the day I decided to sell my shop, at the time, I didn't realize that it was the best opportunity for me, period. I was financially getting in the hole. I had work, but it wasn't getting done, because, you know, all my guys were just like, yeah, we're not working for you anymore. My trucks are bouncing. You know, I have families, you know? Like, they had families, but I was so just, this can't happen to me state, you know, that it just, I wasn't paying attention to any of it, you know? I was only thinking about myself, you know? I told four people about my shop. I told Danny at Count's Customs. I told Randy at Performance Motorsports in Vegas. I told Tyler and Rick at Rick's Restorations. Told a few people, and one of my employees bought my shop, and I literally gave him the key one day. I hooked my boat up to my truck, and I left. And that's when, and that's just when everything got like really crazy, really crazy. That's when my life started getting real crazy. I had all this money in my pocket, and nowhere to go, you know? And it was, I look back at it now, it was the best thing I could've done, you know? Was to just walk away from it.
36:21 Kyle Hogue Yeah, it seemed like you picked probably the best opportunity or the best time. I mean, it sounds like a fairly educated decision to make. Not like, I mean, in the grand, not in the grand scheme, but in the process of this last, you know, 30, 40 minutes we've been talking, it definitely kind of skews the story a little bit as far as you kind of losing everything, getting torn away, it's like, that still seems like a pretty educated way of exiting. You still had a little, the wits about you to, I'm gonna sell this, because it's still worth money right now. Yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah. Not like you waited for somebody to walk you out in handcuffs or take you out by your shirt, you know?
36:59 Jimmy Purdy I was just like, you know what, I'm gonna go do some drugs, and I'm gonna go figure my life out, and that's exactly what I did. And it took me a while, but you know, a lot of soul searching involved in that. Right.
37:13 Kyle Hogue But I wouldn't change it for the world, you know? Yeah. So walking away from the shop, was that like, I mean, where's your mindset at that point? You're like, okay, I'm telling you to walk away.
37:23 Jimmy Purdy I was lost. I was lost. Okay. Yeah. I was so lost. I had no idea where I was gonna go, what I was gonna do. All I knew is I had some money, and I had a big bag in my pocket, and I had my truck, and I had my boat. Those were like the only things I cared about at that time. But, yeah, I can't even. That's wild. It is. It is. It was the only thing I cared about that I had possession of. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like I cared about my daughter, but I couldn't see her. I cared about my ex-wife, but I thought I hated her at that time. But she was just protecting my daughter, you know? Yeah. And that's just, it's just, all I had was my truck, and my boat, and my cash, you know? And on the road. On the road. I went to Havasu, and four days later, my dad died. And I got that call, and that's when I came back to Paso.
38:25 Kyle Hogue You get back to Paso, we're in Paso Robles. That's where we're at. So now we're here. Yeah.
38:30 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, we're in Paso, everybody. I'm still here.
38:33 Kyle Hogue So now we're here. Yeah. So now that's a transition for you, of course, which is big, I mean, right, in this point of, I guess what we're talking about, because it's not like you changed industries. No. It wasn't the industry that did this to you. It wasn't. No. Right? No. And it's like, even after, I say it like that, which sounds in a negative connotation, but even after all that, you get yourself back in,
39:01 Jimmy Purdy doing the same thing, in a sense. I'll never stop. Right.
39:06 Kyle Hogue I'll never stop. If it's in your blood, you can't get it out. You can't. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So now, here we are, and you're working around the corner. Yeah. How is that, of course you have a lot of your internal stuff going on as far as personal life stuff, but taking the day-to-day of what you had been doing and where you're at now, how has that transitioned between running the shop, seeing these rad cars come out, 100,000, $200,000 builds, to getting a paycheck hourly, and again, not to make it sound like it's a negative thing,
39:46 Jimmy Purdy but obviously it's a big change for you. The stress level is just not there anymore. Right. So is it worth that? To me, it's worth it completely. You know what I mean? Because going back to people think, the money and all this big stuff is gonna make them feel better. And it is cool. It is cool to do those things. And there's a lot of people out there doing it, and they're very successful at it, but it's a stressful life. Some people handle stress and things differently than other people, but now I work for the shop I work for, and it's great. I love it. I'm able to understand where they're coming from as business owners. I'm able to make them money, you know what I mean? And not take advantage of their situation, you know what I mean? Because if they're making money, I'm making money. You know what I mean? And if they're making money, I'm gonna get my paycheck every week. The power is gonna be on. There's gonna be wire in my welders. You know what I mean? I'm gonna have all the grinder blades I need.
40:58 Kyle Hogue I use a lot of those. You know what I'm saying? I use those for my welding.
41:01 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's worked out good. I landed in a really good spot. I got out of prison March 20th, or no, July 28th, or no, July 8th of 2020. So I've been out for almost three years. I think it's been three years. 2023, yeah. But I went up to the shop and I said, hey, you know, I need a fucking job, dude. And they knew who I was. They knew what I knew how to do. They also knew I knew how to fuck up too, you know? But he's like, oh, I'll give you a chance. And it's worked out amazing since. Yeah, that's good. But it's good because I could see where I could help them make money. And I know what to do to, you know, I'm in a mindset now is like, I know what not to do to hurt the business. You know what I mean? Because I know exactly, I constantly go back. I'm constantly thinking about when I ran a business and it helps me be a better employee. You know what I mean? It helps me be a better mechanic, fabricator.
42:18 Kyle Hogue It's good that you took it that direction because there is a lot of the other siders where- They don't care. They don't care. And they know they're worth, you know, they ran a shop. They made $150, $200 an hour. And they go work for somebody making 30 or 40 bucks an hour. And it's like, you guys are making $100 an hour off me. Like, you should like kiss the ground I walk on. Do you know who I am? You know who I am, yeah. Exactly, it's crazy. That mentality is so big. It kills a lot of businesses. Especially in the aftermarket division. And that's where you're at now. You're doing basic-
42:53 Jimmy Purdy Oh, I'm a TIG welder. You know? Oh! You like that a lot. I can weld TIG, you know? Like, yeah, whatever, dude. You know? Like, get to work. Like, you clock in on time, you know? Stay till six, you know what I mean? You get off at six. Stay till six, you know?
43:10 Kyle Hogue Do the work that's being handed to you because there's someone else that's managing that schedule. Grab a broom.
43:16 Jimmy Purdy Grab a broom, you know?
43:19 Kyle Hogue If you ain't got nothing to do, grab a broom. And I'm sure you had jobs that would come in and you knew that that was not a moneymaker. Yeah. Like stepping back in time a little bit. So you knew what came in. You knew what to grab. You was like, that's not gonna make money. And some of it maybe was just your own intuition or your own gut. Like, I don't wanna work on that. But some of it, I'm sure you had your ones where you're like, that's gonna make money. We need to get that job no matter what. And so in most shops, that is like that. The owners are going to take jobs in that they know is profitable. But sometimes the tech's working. They're like, I don't wanna work on that. This doesn't make any sense. It's like, that's not really your call to make. It's not your call to make. Right? And it's like so hard to have that, be able to go from the owner aspect to the employee's aspect and still retain that and understand like, I don't wanna work on that. But if that's what they're telling me to do, that's what needs to do. That's what you need to do. Because that's what makes money, right? And nobody's, I mean.
44:13 Jimmy Purdy And it's never gonna stop. Like a lot of people, like yeah, they get done with the job. They're like, oh yeah, I did a good job. It's like, okay, it's time to start the other one. It's time to start that other one that we got. Next, next, next. Yeah, next. Get it on, get it on.
44:26 Kyle Hogue But. Yeah, that's another big point too, because that is true. We're not done.
44:32 Jimmy Purdy We're never gonna be done.
44:34 Kyle Hogue It's never gonna stop. Yeah, like Friday at five and you finish the job. And then it's like, have yourself a great little weekend. And then a little bit too much to come in on Monday because you took over the world that last week. You're not even. You haven't even started coming to Hill.
44:50 Jimmy Purdy We'll be doing this for the next 40, 50 years, dude. Let's get to work. You know what I mean? And a lot of guys, I feel like they wanna do it because they wanna be this person.
45:04 Kyle Hogue But, you know. Yeah, it's gotta be the wrong reason, right? Yeah. I mean, you can't be. I feel like when you get to that point, you don't even realize that's who you are. No. If you've done it right. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Like you just, people talk about you more than, it should make you uncomfortable, I feel like. Yeah, yeah. Like you shouldn't really want the spotlight in a sense. No. You know, cause that means you're kind of doing it in the wrong way.
45:32 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. Does that make sense? In a sense, yes. I mean, of course everybody likes to be recognized. Everybody likes to be recognized. You know? But a lot of people wanna be recognized without doing the work. And there's so many TV shows out there. There's so many TV shows out there that, you know, and there's a lot of haters out there. You know? Gotta love you haters out there. Just saying.
45:58 Kyle Hogue One love to the haters, dude. Controversy sells. Yeah. I love you guys so much.
46:03 Jimmy Purdy You guys are my number one fans, okay? So. But, you know, like me now, I've been on TV a few times. I've been on the Discovery Channel. I've been on the History Channel. I just happened to be in a spot where I built a car and the car got a lot of attention. And I had no idea. I had no idea what this car was gonna do for me at the time, you know? That's crazy. I built this car for fun. It took me like less than 30 days to build. Me and my buddy were just talking about it on the phone earlier, you know? My buddy Isaac from Vegas, you know? But I built this car and it just blew up. It just blew up. And the next thing you know, you know, a friend of mine, Steve Darnell, you know, he called me up, you know? And next thing you know, I'm on one of his TV shows, you know? And we kinda had like a little falling out. I was young, you know? And I kinda, you know, probably overstepped some boundaries. Not probably, I did. I overstepped some boundaries. But you know, we didn't talk for a while after that, you know, and I took it personal, you know? And that's another thing. Like just don't take anything personal in this business. Yeah. A lot of people get butt hurt about nothing, you know?
47:22 Kyle Hogue We're all pretty emotional as mechanics and technicians.
47:25 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, yeah. Like I'm not that guy anymore, you know? Like I remember last year I went over to Steve's shop. I haven't talked to him in probably six years, but we used to hang out all the time. We used to hang out all the time. And I went over to a shop in Vegas when I was there and I just went in there, dude, and I was like, hey man, I wanna clear the air. I wanna apologize, you know? Like we did a lot of cool shit, you know? I miss the old days, you know? But I just wanna let you know that I apologize for my actions back in the day. So, and that's where I'm at now. Be prepared. Like if you're putting yourself in the spotlight, be prepared to lose friendships, to hurt people's feelings, to get your feelings hurt, you know what I mean? Just all of it. To have the haters after you? Have the haters after you. The trolls.
48:13 Kyle Hogue Yes, yes, yes. All the, you know. You know you haven't been successful until you have at least three haters. Oh my God, yes. Yes, yes. That's how you know you made it though. That's why I come in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, thank you. Exactly.
48:26 Jimmy Purdy Now I know I'm somewhere. Exactly, you know what I mean? It's great, you know? But I, you know, the TV thing is, the TV thing, it was cool. It was really cool. I'm happy for it, I'm thankful for it. But I will never jump into it like I did back in the day, ever again.
48:47 Kyle Hogue Right, yeah, you understand what the ties that come along with it, the strings that come along with it. Yeah, yeah.
48:54 Jimmy Purdy I mean, you're a puppet at that point. I met a lot of good people. I'm friends with a lot of them still. I'm, you know, there's a lot of them that don't like me to this day, you know, that I met along the way that used to like me. But I'm thankful for the friends that I have now, you know, because of it. And those friendships will last me forever, you know? And the non-friendships will last me forever too, you know? But just be careful, be careful what you want, you know?
49:20 Kyle Hogue Yeah, and you got in a kind of a golden age with TV. I mean, now it's not as formidable as it used to be. You know, nobody really.
49:28 Jimmy Purdy There was cameras everywhere in Vegas at that time. It was crazy, you know? That was a hot thing, you know? And, you know, like I said, coming from a task at Arrow, none of that was real. Like, I started building cars, you know, when I was young and people started noticing it, you know? And then one day it dawned on me, like, oh fuck, I'm just gonna open up a shop. You know, and then it just, I'm super thankful for the knowledge that I was able to get in Vegas when I was there. I'm thankful for it all, even the bad knowledge. Even the bad times, the good times, TV, not TV. It's all knowledge. It's all knowledge, it's all knowledge at this point. And, you know, if you ain't learning from your mistakes, you're doing something wrong. Yeah, you should. And if you're not making any mistakes, you're fucking up because you're making mistakes. You're doing it. Yeah, straight up.
50:28 Kyle Hogue If you can't admit that, you're fucking up. Yeah, you're wrong. You're wrong. You're definitely wrong if you can't look back at least once in the last year of the mistake you've made. But that's the only reason, I mean, obviously, the only way you get better. That's why you're here today. Take your mistakes, you learn from them, and now you're better. And some people take the mistakes, they don't learn from them, and they don't get better. Because they either don't know, or they choose not to know. Something. It doesn't matter. It doesn't make a difference, you know? What the problem is, day-to-day operations is constantly trying to improve. Whether you're an employee, an owner, I guess you can't call them owners anymore.
51:09 Jimmy Purdy But whatever. Yeah, I never actually owned my shop, okay? I worked for my shop, okay? My shop owned itself, you know what I mean? Like, for you people out there that don't realize that. Owner-operator. Yeah. Owner-operator. My shop paid me, you know?
51:25 Kyle Hogue And I never got paid, you know? My employees got paid. Yeah, you were definitely in the thick of it as far as working day-to-day. And I think that's another big thing too, is starting any business, but any auto shop, I mean, you're gonna work a lot. A lot. So you're gonna be a tech, or a mechanic, but you're also gonna write the checks, you're gonna write the power bills. Or you're gonna pay somebody big money to do it for you. To do it for you, but if you don't have that money, then. You can't do that.
51:57 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. Even if you have the money, you don't wanna pay somebody to do that, but you gotta do it anyway, you know? Cause that's how the ball rolls.
52:04 Kyle Hogue Right. I think the sooner you realize that you need to put good people in those positions, and you start realizing that every position in a shop is a highly paid shop, the better off you are. When you start realizing that, you can't write service and do the job, because those are two separate jobs. Two separate eight hour jobs. Two separate eight hour jobs that should be paid 80 to $100,000 a year. You're not worth $200,000 a year working. I don't care who you are. Right. Like manually work. You can be, if you're smart enough to put those people in the right places and treat them well, then you're worth $200,000 a year. But you writing service, writing tickets, doing the job, collecting the check, that's not worth $200,000 a year. I mean, it just translates right over and even into the aftermarket stuff. You can't build the car and run a business. You know? But it's even harder because you have the QC, the quality control you have to try to conduct when you're fabbing a car, building a car, is like next level. You have to be a part of that process the entire time.
53:12 Jimmy Purdy Mentally too. Yeah. Mentally you have to be there building that car. Yeah. Okay. You're thinking about the next part. When you're thinking about bills and checks and payroll and your wife and your kids and your everything. You know what I mean? Like that's a lot. That's a lot. And a lot of people don't realize that. You know what I mean? Like, I used to go to car shows all the time, you know, my cars and they're like, oh, oh, must be nice. You know? It's like, dude, dude, you know how freaking hard it was to get these cars here? You know what I mean? Like working our asses off on these cars. You know what I mean? Plus, you know, doing the family thing or whatever, that's a lot. Life is a lot. Yeah.
53:54 Kyle Hogue You know? And you take the work home with you, you can't help. And for the most part, I mean, for me on day to day stuff, I can pretty well isolate that. I get a hard diagnosis or a hard assessment come in or something like that. I'm thinking a little bit about, man, it's got fuel, it's got air, it's got spark. Why won't it start, right? Like you sit there and kind of, and you're thinking about a little bit at home. You're thinking about it when you're in bed. Yeah, but then- You're thinking about it when you're in bed. Oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. I can turn it off and like, you know what? I'll figure it out tomorrow. Right. But in the process, and it's not like I've built enough cars to even count on one hand, but I mean, I kind of understand the process of like, once you got that thing stripped down, which is the most fun part, in air quotes again, like that's fun to take a car apart. Yeah. You're thinking about every damn part of that car going back together now, right?
54:42 Jimmy Purdy And I mean, for myself- At least 20 times.
54:46 Kyle Hogue Yeah, and it's like, and it's my own personal stuff. And it's like, I'm not doing it for money. So I'm not terribly anxiety ridden about, making sure I get it all right. I'm just like, I'm doing this for fun. This is for myself, but I'm still thinking about like, research, you know? Yeah. Constantly, what am I gonna do, the front, the back? What do I want this thing to look like? What wheels am I gonna get? Like, what electrical harness am I gonna get? What pain am I gonna paint? It's just like this on and on and on and on, never stop. And I could only imagine having like 10 or 15 cars torn apart like that. And you're the owner, you're the front man. Like, boy, this sounded really fun when I started, didn't it?
55:24 Jimmy Purdy It sounded like a blast, but I'll tell you why. You know what I'm saying? And then you- There's a reason why Richard Rawlings is the front guy. He's the man, okay? He's the guy, but he don't build cars. You know what I'm saying? But there's a reason why he is successful like he is, cause he knows he stays in his lane. Danny, that counts, he stays in his lane. You know what I mean? All these shops that are making it, take note, motherfuckers, okay? Cause they are doing it in a way that other people have a hard time doing. They don't have pride, you know what I'm saying? Like, they're just doing it because they're business people and that's how they know, you know what I mean?
56:09 Kyle Hogue They know- Well, I mean, there's a sense of accomplishment, I'm sure they like, and I'm sure they- There is. I like the fact that they assembled the right people at the right time to build the right car and have a roll out of their shop that they paid rent or paid mortgage on.
56:24 Jimmy Purdy Wow, like I built that, but I didn't put my hands on it. But they ain't over, they ain't putting more air in their head than they need to. Right, right.
56:33 Kyle Hogue You know what I'm saying? But it's like, they have the self, the accomplishment feeling of I put this together and I built the, I put this puzzle together to get this car out of the door. Versus, hey, I spent 20 hours, like a day, building this car and look at me, I built this like, you don't make money that way, right? Like, you can't spend 12, 14, 15 hours a day working, just grinding, getting these cars out, doing everything. But I built this thing from bumper to bumper, every nut and bolt I put in, I tore it out. It's like, how come I'm not famous? How come I'm not? It's like, that's not right. That's not the right way to do it. But you also got to have enough to know, to oversee the guys doing it and know like, hey, you're not doing that right. Yeah. You know? Yeah, yeah.
57:18 Jimmy Purdy Which is, I don't know if that's easier or harder, but. You know, it was a challenge for me, but you know.
57:28 Kyle Hogue But that was your grind. I mean, you were there day to day. Day to day. Just cutting, welding.
57:33 Jimmy Purdy Cutting, grinding, talking to people. And like, that was my like, nemesis. I didn't realize, like I remember the first time I realized. Customer service.
57:46 Kyle Hogue Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's touch on that. The beast that is customer service.
57:52 Jimmy Purdy Let's touch on that for a minute, okay? I remember specifically one time, I used to go to car shows all the time. All the time. Used to have my beer, you know, cruise with my lady, you know. And this was before, you know, everything got to where it was, okay? But I remember one time, you know, part of my life where I enjoyed going to car shows and just hanging out. And nobody coming up to me. You know, the occasional, oh, this is a cool car. You know, whatever. Cool, you know, I'm hanging out with my friends. I'm hanging out with my wife. I'm doing whatever. But I remember one time after I had my shop, all these people like, you know, wanted to talk to me. And wanted to talk to me about their cars and blah, blah, blah. I remember one time I was real asshole to this guy. And I'm like, man, just fucking get out of here, dude. Leave me alone. I don't care about your car, dude. And my wife is like, Kyle, you cannot talk to people like that. And I'm like, what do you mean? You're like, she's like, you're fucking, you're not here having fun anymore. You're at a car show working right now. We have a business to run. And you go apologize to that man right now. I remember my ex-wife told me that. And I was like, oh man, like, she's right, you know? I'm not here at this car show just having fun anymore. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I'm having fun now. But I had to, that was like a real point in my life where I had to like understand that like, people are gonna wanna talk to you. People are gonna want to interact with you. And you gotta like, I don't wanna say make them feel great. You know what I mean? But like, even if you don't wanna listen to what they're saying, you have to listen. You have to listen. If you're gonna be a successful business person or whatever, I feel like you have to listen, especially in the car world because people are weird about their cars. They are, they are.
59:53 Kyle Hogue They're very passionate, emotionally attached.
59:55 Jimmy Purdy Yeah, there's a lot of emotion involved with these cars.
59:58 Kyle Hogue And you know, a lot of guys, just people just wanna talk. And we have our vehicles that, I'm sure you have one. I mean, we all have the one, right? That's like, reminds us of being a kid. The one that your mom took you to school in, whatever it ends up being. 66 Chevy Impala for me. Right, see? Everyone's got that one or two or three. I mean, I grew up with a lot of cars in my family. So it's like, they're all pre-60s. But that's the thing is everyone has that. And when they come to you looking to get it restored, that's that one car, right? And it's hard to remember because you go through so many cars and it's just another car, just another car. And I think you get a little less emotionally attached as it goes. It doesn't become such a big emotional attachment for you. Of course it is. You see one and it still reminds you. It still hits that button for you, right? You see it and you're like, oh, it reminds me. But it's not quite as severe. But you get these cars that people have had their whole life and now they're in their late 40s or 50s and they finally got enough money saved up to actually get this car restored. And now it's like, this is it. This is their holy grail, right? And it's like, they're finally gonna get their dad's car.
01:01:08 Jimmy Purdy Is this gonna be the guy to do it? Yeah. You know what I mean? At this car show, I'm gonna go talk to this guy. You don't realize that this guy's been thinking
01:01:15 Kyle Hogue about it for weeks or months or years. But he also doesn't realize you just had 15 other conversations. Exactly. And it's so hard because there's no right way to handle it. And it's the same. And it's funny, we were just talking about this in the Facebook group. We were talking about clients calling you after hours. Yeah. You're water pumped and now there's a coolant leak. But you gave it back to them on Friday at five and it's like, everything's good. Now Saturday morning they get out, there's a coolant leak. And they're calling you. And it's like, do you answer that call? You know? You have to. I mean. You have to. Right? But it's like, so it's like the same thing as being at a car show. It's like, you gotta talk to them. You gotta talk to them. You gotta be nice about it. Yeah. And it's like, it almost needs like a little self reflection on yourself to be like, hey, you know what? I'm here because these people are, you know, they're talking to me because they're giving me their pride and joy. But you kind of forget that after a while because it's such a day in and day out job. And you gotta stop and realize like, wow, this is like, pretty cool that this guy wants me out of everybody else to work on this emotional piece of history. Yeah. Right? For them. But you lose that quickly. Yeah. You know? And it's the same thing with just general auto repair. It's like, this is their livelihood. This is what they use day in and day out, take their kids to school, they go to church on Sundays or whatever they're doing with it. And it's like, they're taking that piece of their life and handing it to you to take care of. Yeah. So yeah, you do have a responsibility. And it's really hard to, after day to day grind, years and years and years, to like take yourself back a little bit to day one of you opening the shop and that first customer coming in like, oh my God, thank you so much for letting me do this. And you're so excited and jazzed. You're like, wow, I can't believe this guy's gonna let me work on their car. Like that's jazz.
01:03:03 Jimmy Purdy I can't believe this guy just gave me all that money.
01:03:05 Kyle Hogue I can't believe he just gave me $100,000 to build this car. That's crazy. Like that's so cool. Good. And then it's like, translate that five years later. And it's like, dude, what do you want me to do for you? Yeah. I don't want to hear about it, man. You got money or not? You got money or not? Yeah. It's like, it just happened so quick. Even though five years is not a long, it's not quick, but it's also not a long time. But in this field, it's just such a grind day in and day out and it beats you up mentally and physically and emotionally
01:03:33 Jimmy Purdy that you lose it so fast. You gotta want it, you know? And you gotta realize, like, you know this, your radio show, there's people that hear you on your radio show, but don't want anything to do with you as a shop. Yeah. But they want to say hi to you and shake your hand because you're on the radio show. You know what I mean? You gotta be nice about that. You know what I mean?
01:03:57 Kyle Hogue It's a… And I mean, I appreciate it too. I mean, I try to be well aware of where I'm going and who's going to be there. And I'm like, okay, this is, here we go, like game face on, you know? Yeah. But also…
01:04:09 Jimmy Purdy See, with me though, when I was younger and going through all that stuff and opening, I didn't see any of it like that. Right. I didn't think about any of that at all. So, and that's happened to me a lot in my life and in so many different areas of my life. And I'm glad I've been able to figure it out at a certain point. And I won't get into my personal life, but like, I didn't see anything like that. Like when I was on Danny's show, like 250 million people saw that show, you know, at me at my shop. Not, Danny even told me, he's like, dude, 250,000 people are going to watch this, you know, when it airs and blah, blah, blah. And they still air it. That was like 10 years ago. They still air it. People still call me, dude, I just saw you on TV. But like, I had no idea, didn't even think about people showing up to my shop. Looking for you. Just, I want a hug and I want a picture with you, dude. Right. You know what I mean? And I'm a guy who walked up to my shop and he's like, dude, yeah, I saw you on TV. I just, you know, I wanted to go, you know, can I get a picture with you? And I'm like, fuck, all right. You know, like it was like, it was, that was the first moment that I thought about that, you know? Yeah. And I had to like do this for this guy,
01:05:41 Kyle Hogue even though I felt uncomfortable doing it, you know? You're like, what for? Yeah. You want me to build you something?
01:05:47 Jimmy Purdy Do you need something? It was very uncomfortable for me, that moment when that guy came up to my shop. You know, I wish I could tell the guy, I'm sorry, like today, you know what I mean? And give him an actual hug. Yeah. Give him an actual hug and take a picture with him. Like again, you know what I mean? Because his experience just wasn't what he wanted, you know? It wasn't what he wanted, you know? And that comes with the territory. If you're doing big things, you know what I mean? You gotta understand, you gotta understand.
01:06:26 Kyle Hogue Yeah, I think a lot of look and watch these shows and they're like, I wanna be that guy. And it never really happens, you know? And it's typically the ones, like you said with the car, when you built the car, you had no intentions of it being what it turned into being. And that's usually how it goes. If you build a car with the thought of this thing's gonna be the next whatever, it usually doesn't happen. Exactly. Right? It always happens like that, no matter what it is. It's like this is gonna be the next thing or this is gonna be whatever and it ends up not. But it's all the stuff that you don't think twice about and boom, there it happens. You're like, what the, that really? That's what everyone's jazzed about? Yeah.
01:07:04 Jimmy Purdy I got stuff that's way better than that. It's like going to the swap meet with all kinds of parts and you sell the dumbest part you have, you know what I mean? It's like, all this and I sold that, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's a good point too.
01:07:15 Kyle Hogue That's a good way to look at it too. Really?
01:07:18 Jimmy Purdy That's what everybody wanted? From all these parts to that, the guy wanted that bracket. He's jazzed about that bracket. Wow, right on. I've had that for 20 years, you know? Sweet. I almost threw it away on your hair, you know? Yeah, like fuck it. Yeah.
01:07:29 Kyle Hogue Oh my God. It's crazy how that stuff kind of pans out that way. And it usually does too.
01:07:33 Jimmy Purdy It just blows me away every time. Just do it because you love it. That's the best advice I can give anybody. Do it because you wanna do it. Don't do it for anybody else. Do it for you. Be kind to other people, you know what I mean? And do your best.
01:07:46 Kyle Hogue Do your best at what you do, you know? And I think you have to kind of step back and reassess your own situation as the years go on, right? Yeah. Because you never know where you're gonna be or what's gonna happen. And in your situation, maybe taking a step back and be like, wow, I'm gonna be this famous guy. Maybe the life would have gone in a different direction. But it's really hard in that process of this is not why I'm doing it. I did it because I just wanted to build cars. But you realize, well, that's not what the industry's trying to get you to do. That's not where life's taking you right now. Exactly. And the more you fight it, the worse it gets. But if it's not ultimately what you wanted either, then it's time to just get out of it anyway. Not out of the industry, but out of what the direction is taking you. Right, exactly. Maybe this isn't exactly what I wanted. Maybe I just wanna build cars for somebody or whatever the path ends up being. Maybe I don't wanna be a shop owner. Maybe I just wanna be a tech.
01:08:41 Jimmy Purdy Maybe I just. I'm back to the part where before I opened up my shop, I built cars for myself. I built cars for myself and it just was fun. It was fun. I could go, I could do whatever I want. Nobody was telling me how to build it. And it was just great. And I remember I used to, I had a shop at my house and people would always ask me, oh, would you do this for me? And I would always tell them no. I only do my own stuff. And then I remember in 2000, I think it was like 2008 or 2009, the recession hit and I was fighting for hours at work. That never happened. And I told this guy one day, it was like a $50,000 job that he wanted me to do for him. He's like, dude, I got 50 grand and blah, blah, blah. I probably would have made like 25 grand. It would have only taken me a month. You know what I mean? But I told him no. I'm like, no, I don't do that. I don't build shit for people. And the guy left and it hit me in the head. I'm like, whoa, wait a minute. That's just one guy. That's one guy. And I get people like this all the time. But I'm back to the point in my life, let's fast forward. What's that? Almost 15 years ago. I'm back to the point in my life where I just wanna work for somebody. I wanna do good. I wanna take care of my family, but I also wanna build cars. But I don't wanna build cars for anybody else. I wanna build cars for me. And if you wanna buy my car, great. That's where I'm at. So that's a safe place to be. It's a safe place to be. Now day to day kind of work for you now. Just basic wrenching, right? Basic wrenching, I do a lot of fabricating. I bring a lot to the shop, I think, since I've been there. They didn't really do what we do now. We're doing the occasional LS swap now. We're doing a lot more custom suspension. We're custom, just anything custom that involves tubing or sheet metal or anything. We're doing that now. They didn't used to do that before, but I still put on camper shells. I still put on hitches. I still get the jobs that I don't want to do, but I gotta do them. It's what's on my… Part of the deal.
01:11:16 Kyle Hogue It's part of the deal. Part of the deal. But, go ahead. I bring that up because I think the whole building car thing is such a huge umbrella term to use. You're still in the kind of process of building cars in a sense, but the whole different thing here is taking a car and stripping it down to nothing and building it up and building it up to a certain standard is totally different than putting a lift kit on, doing fabrication work, doing an LS swap. It's different. It's way different. It's not the same thing. You LS swap Monte Carlo, you didn't build a car. You did not build a car. Right. Exactly. Don't get it twisted, right?
01:12:03 Jimmy Purdy Don't get it twisted. Stay in your lane. Stay in your damn lane. I'll tell everybody out there right now, stay in your lane. If you had the machine shop guy do all the machine work on your engine, and you assembled it, you did not build that motor. Nope. You assembled an engine. So, stay in your lane, please.
01:12:26 Kyle Hogue And it just goes with a grain of salt, and just to say, stay humble. Stay humble. Just stay humble. Yeah, it takes a lot. And you watch the TV shows, and you watch these guys put these cars together, and you're like, I can do that. They did that in a week. It's a lot of work. It's so much incredible amount of hard work, and education, and just so much. And yeah, like you said, a disc brake conversion, an LS swap, these kinds of things are not building cars. Yes. Right? Exactly. Performance upgrades. Yes. I don't even know how you categorize it. I don't even know what you really call it. Categorize it. I don't even know what it's like. That is just like the quick and easy, those are the week long jobs.
01:13:05 Jimmy Purdy Exactly. Yeah, you put a dress on that car, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, yeah. You took your lady out, you know what I mean? It's in high heels now. You put some high heels on there. There you go.
01:13:15 Kyle Hogue Exactly. Good job, Egan. Maybe you had to cut one a little bit, so you made the high heels a little shorter or longer. Exactly. Whatever you want to call it, it's not the same. Airbag, all that stuff is not the same as building a car. Exactly. And so, I think a lot of guys get into it too, way over their head. I appreciate the head strongness of getting in there and you gotta open a business, get in there. Yeah. Jump in. Don't be dipping your toe in. Jump in head first. You gotta jump in head first. But it translates really kind of loosely to building a car because you gotta kind of do the same thing, but you also gotta know what you're getting yourself into. Direction you're going. Yeah, what you, it is just unbelievably time consuming, money consuming, all consuming.
01:13:56 Jimmy Purdy Yes. The last two cars I've built, okay, so I've been out of prison since 20, July of 20. I've built two cars for myself. I built a 54 Lincoln and I built a 1930 Model A. So really, I didn't build the Lincoln.
01:14:16 Kyle Hogue I just modified it. But the Rat Rod. Heavy modifications.
01:14:21 Jimmy Purdy Heavy modifications, yes, yes. But I also, I knew the direction that I wanted to go with these cars before I started. I didn't just pull them apart not knowing what I was gonna do. So that's a lot of what people I see do a lot. They make the mistake. It's like, oh, they wanna just rip it apart. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Wait a second. Oh, I wanna paint it. Well, how much money do you got? You know what I mean? Why don't you just clean it? Why don't you just clean it? Okay, like I met this lady in Santa Margarita, California. I was picking up this car for a friend of mine. We were taking it back. And she's like, I got one of these cars just like this. And she's like, I wanna get it painted, but I've had it for 20 years. And the guys, they wanna charge me $20,000 to paint it. And I'm just like, well, why do you wanna paint it? Well, I don't know. Isn't that what you do? No. Why don't you just drive it? Enjoy it, have a good time with it. You know what I mean? Know what you wanna do. Paint's expensive. Paint's expensive, people. If you don't think painting your car is not expensive, you have, you need to check yourself. Okay? Got another thing coming. You got another thing coming. Yeah, yeah. So I just, I like knowing where I'm going in a direction. I like staying in my lane nowadays. Before I didn't stay in my lane, I wanted to do this. I wanted to do that. I found where my, I found where my lane is as far as the automotive industry. It's suspension and sheet metal and fabricating. I like doing that stuff. That's what I'm going to focus my rest of my life on to get better. I'm not gonna try and be a painter. I'm not gonna try and be a transmission guy. I'm not gonna try and be an engine builder. That's a lot. I'm gonna focus on what I'm good at, what I've gotten better at and what I enjoy doing. And that's the fabricating part of it.
01:16:34 Kyle Hogue That's the hard thing to do. I think that's the hardest thing for, I mean, for everybody in this industry. Everything looks so cool. And I think the big lure about being in this industry is being able to show up every day and having something a little different on your docket. And I think that's the big lure. I think that's all our mindsets, all of us, whether we're, I mean, whatever. Anybody in the industry that loves being able to walk in and not do the same damn thing over and over. Over and over again. The same oil change or the same brake job. And a lot of techs are leaving the dealerships because of that. They don't want to do the same thing over and over. Exactly. And so that's the big lure about getting into fabrication. Man, that's gonna be like, I get to weld and cut and do all kinds of stuff all the time. And it's like, well, you can just like, find something a little different in the shop to do. Learn how to build a transmission. Right. You're probably not gonna like it, but maybe you will. Maybe learn about engines a little bit. And I mean, for me, moving in more and more every day into more of a shop owner aspect, I'm learning that I need to stay in my lane as like an owner. And really dedicate myself to keeping the guys busy, keeping them happy, and not put so much on my own plate as far as building the transmission. So I've done the same thing. I've cut back and trying to redirect my own path. And it's like trying to take a ship. It's like the Titanic. Do you like swerve to avoid the iceberg? Or do you like start course correcting ever so slightly that before you know it, you're going a different way. And it's like, I don't know what the best way to go is. Some guys like to rock the boat in a sense and crank that wheel. And now we're headed this way, guys. Some other guys like to change the sails. And all of a sudden, before you know it, you're heading west when you're heading north. So it's very difficult to find your lane and to keep course that way. So it's good to hear that you've found that path. You're staying on that. Staying motivated on it is the biggest part of the way. That's the hardest thing to do. Like, what do I do? Like you said, everybody wants to paint a car. Everyone gets into the building of cars, the building in quotes of cars. I'm gonna get a paint booth. I'm gonna put a paint booth in my shop. Like, whoa. Yeah.
01:18:37 Jimmy Purdy Dude.
01:18:38 Kyle Hogue I'll pray for you. Just go use the guy down the street. Just go pay the guy who knows how to do it. Pay the guy who knows what he's doing. Pay the guy. Pay him. Move on with your life. Do what you do and then have that car divided up. I just-
01:18:53 Jimmy Purdy Or be prepared. Be prepared to work your ass off for the rest of your life and try and learn new things. Like I'm not saying don't learn new things, but like I am saying, stay in your lane. Yeah.
01:19:05 Kyle Hogue Stay in your lane. We all can be Richard Rawlings. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, more power to you if you can make it. Yep. I think the biggest demotivator in the industry or the biggest thing that like crushes a lot of egos is that you've been at 10 years and you haven't made it. So now you wanna give up and you wanna- Failure.
01:19:23 Jimmy Purdy You got to fail to- You have to fail, I believe. You're gonna fail. You will fail. You're gonna fail. Yeah. Yep. Yep. One way or another, but- If you ain't scared, you ain't going fast enough. Can't block. You know what I mean? It's real.
01:19:38 Kyle Hogue Right. Yep. But it's important, like you said, stay in your lane because that's gonna keep you on track, keep you motivated. You're gonna get really, really good at that one thing. Yeah. And you're gonna start noticing these things like, wow, like it's getting easier for me. I'm doing more and better things. Yep. You start spreading yourself so thin, trying to do all these different things. And it's like, it's not working out for me. I'm not, I've been doing this 10 years and I'm like, I'm not getting any better. What's going on? You know?
01:20:02 Jimmy Purdy Yeah. So. Yeah. Yep. I love cars. I love the industry. I love the competition. I love the competitiveness, but most of all, I love the haters. And you love welding. I love welding. Welding is great. And you love my welding. Yeah.
01:20:21 Kyle Hogue Oh, well this has been good. This has been a really good one.
01:20:28 Jimmy Purdy So I appreciate you coming out. I appreciate you having me here, man. This was fun. Yeah, this was really good.
01:20:34 Kyle Hogue This was good. Hopefully somebody out there can take at least one little small nugget from everything that's been said
01:20:39 Jimmy Purdy in the last hour or so and use it for themselves. Exactly. And if you're out there, I'm not an asshole anymore. Like I used to be okay. So just come up and say hi. You know what I mean? I'd love to talk to you about cars.
01:20:53 Kyle Hogue I'll talk to you about them all day. All day now. All day. Like whatever. Yeah. That's cool.
01:20:59 Jimmy Purdy We'll right on, man. All right, brother.