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A conversation about cars, trucks, tugs and other machines of transport that flows like an ADHD fever dream, hosted by Hoonigan co-founder and 321 Action Action director Brian Scotto. Enjoy, it’s gonna be a bizarre ride.
Assemble - Audio only MP3 160
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[00:00:00] Welcome & Introduction
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[00:00:00] Brian: Today's episode is a great one. Why? Because Hert's here. You know, we talk about everything. We talk about, obviously the old times, nostalgia of Hoonigan, what he's up to now, a little bit of everything in between. And because he is Hert, I give him shit. He gives me shit. We break each other's balls. It's a fantastic episode.
Enjoy.
All right. I, I'm gonna just start, I I, I was, I'm supposed to make notes on all of these episodes and, um, yours is blank. Cool, cool. Because I wasn't really sure if you were gonna show up.
[00:00:49] Hert: That's crazy.
[00:00:50] Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but I also like, you were kind of like last minute 'cause you got at Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah.
Yeah. But I, but I just do have like, one really important question. You miss me?
[00:01:02] Hert: Well, like what? In what way?
[00:01:06] Brian: I love that. That needs
[00:01:08] Hert: a caveat. You're
[00:01:09] Brian: like,
[00:01:10] Hert: in what way are we talking? I just, it's an open question for you to answer. There are things about you, there are things about you. There's a couple things.
Yeah. There's some things about you that I missed. Does your life feel more free without, um, you see? No. No. Because now I have employees and they think I'm you. So
I enjoy this. So I mean, I, you could look at it two ways. Either, you know, you were, uh, uh, you were either one of the best or one of the worst things to ever happen to me.
[00:01:47] Brian: Yeah, I'll take one of the best.
[00:01:49] Sponsors: Vyper Industrial, Toyo Tires, Heat Wave
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[00:01:49] Brian: I got a little secret to share and that's uh, I like talking a lot and for long periods of time, unfortunately a lot of people know my secret, including my friends over at Vyper Industrial who said, you guys need stools that you can sit on for hours.
They made us these really rad stools. It's their robust, but they did 'em custom. It's just 3, 2, 1, action action. The seat. Really nice brown leather. These things are great and you can modify 'em. We're gonna do the adjustable back. We've already added pneumatics. I mean, who doesn't love a stool that's probably built better than your car and has just as many mods?
And if you're sitting home right now listening to this in your garage, probably by yourself, check out your seating arrangement and question to yourself, do you deserve better? 'cause right now there's a holiday deal going on. Go check it out. Vyper industrial.com. That's Vyper with a Y at SEMA. This year I hit up the to Tread Pass, which is the best collection of builds at the show period.
And while I went there initially to see the cars. I was really stoked to see that they'll be releasing a brand new tire that I know is gonna make you track rats happy. It's the Proxes Sport R. A new extreme performance track day tire, and it checks that 200 tread wear box. Those of you who actually race your cars know why that matters.
This super Grippy tire is set to drop next year, coming in over 50 sizes, covering 13 to 21 inch wheels. That's right. Whether you drive a mark one rabbit or a GT three RS, the Sport R will fit the bill. And as you know. I've rock tos forever. I got 'em on all my cars and trucks typically on set. I can't wear sunglasses.
Why? 'cause I'm often looking at a screen and a lot of times it's hard to really see what's going on if my lenses are too dark. But heatwave fix that problem. These new photochromics, they adjust from almost clear to pretty dark tint, depending on the sun, which is great because when I was in Australia filming Gymkhana, it was one really bright, especially in the outbreak.
And there's also a ton of flies out there. These prevented them from getting into my eyes. I don't actually understand how the technology works. They told me it's wizardry. I believe them. You should too. You should also get yourself a pair. And if you have an extra large head, they fit pretty nicely.
[00:03:52] Leaving Hoonigan
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[00:03:52] Brian: Alright, so like to rewind for everyone. So you actually, and this is kind of interesting because you left Hoonigan. Before what is now sort of known as the mass exodus. Mm-hmm. Everyone's sort of, but you in standard Hert fashion, forgot to tell people you left. So you left to go do the TV show with Hot Wheels.
Right. And I, and you know, and in the background and like I knew that all the Nappy Boy stuff was, was there and you had this great opportunity. So you left early. Yeah. But then you didn't tell anyone you didn't like, you, like you recorded a video that you probably sat on for like seven months. I did, I did, by the way, how is, um, UN Pros part two, season finale, part two coming.
Are you almost done with that? Uh, you know, um, actually yeah, me and Rob have been working on it. Are you really? Yeah. Oh, that's kind of awesome. Yeah. Rob and I have working on it. So Inside Joke, they released a seasoned finale of UN Pros in two parts and they never released a second part. This is like 10 years ago now.
[00:04:50] Hert: But yeah, no, I, I, I never really looked at it that way that I, I didn. That I forgot to tell people, you know? Yeah. Because I was just doing, yeah, you're doing your thing. You're like living in Manchester for months and Yeah. And yeah.
[00:05:05] Speaker 3: So,
[00:05:05] Hert: you know, I, everything happened at Hoonigan.
[00:05:09] Brian: Uh, but you were like, it's funny 'cause I, I wanna let you know that people who are sort of inside the Hoonigan group think that it was planned.
Yeah, no. 'cause you announced and then like, then I announced then like Vinny, then Ron, then Zach, and it was like it all fell in order. Yeah. And you like, jumped us all on it. Like you announced. Like they, like, they were like, they, they were like, just as long as you guys don't just wait till after Seima to say you're leaving.
And you were like, the week before Seima I'm out. But, but, and it started the, you were like, I had to be first,
[00:05:41] Hert: I had zero conversation with you. Vin, I know Ron. Anyone at Hoonigan, no conversation whatsoever. I was like, oh. I should probably release this video 'cause, because I'm going to SEMA and it makes sense and I'm doing my own thing and la la la.
So I was like, yeah, drop it. And then I come to find out that everyone had theirs planned and it looked like, uh, we did a group, a group walkout. Like it was a big group
[00:06:02] Brian: chat, but I had quit a year before already, so. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah man.
[00:06:07] How's Life Now, Hert?
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[00:06:07] Brian: How is, uh, how's, how is life now? Uh, it's good man. Um, you seem to be driving a lot.
Like you somehow accomplished the thing that all of us told you wasn't possible at Hoonigan because you're like, I just wanna drive and not do everything else. And like, it seems like from the outside, that's what it looks like that you're actually getting in all of the driving.
[00:06:26] Hert: Yeah, I mean, I, I, I'm definitely driving a lot more than I ever really got the opportunity to.
I mean, it just, the culmination of a lot of things, um, you know. I remember a lot of our early days startup, uh, honing and vibes, going to Formula D events, setting up booths and stuff, and I'm essentially following that model, but at grassroots events. Mm-hmm. So grid lives and things like that. Things that we can also participate in as drivers Yeah, yeah, yeah.
While selling merch and making content and whatever like that. So, so that has given me the opportunity to, uh, kind of stretch my legs a little more and get some seed time. And, and I mean, you know me, I love driving, so, um, I'm definitely not mad at it.
[00:07:09] Brian: It's crazy. 'cause like, I, I was thinking about this the other day.
You remember bash bangers? Yeah. So like that was maybe the second year that you were at Hoonigan or maybe the first year? I
[00:07:20] Hert: think that was the first year.
[00:07:21] Speaker 3: I think we kind of just,
[00:07:22] Brian: and like, 'cause when you talk about grassroots, I feel like was because it was 2013 for sure. That was 2013. Yeah. And that was like us trying to like pay attention to grassroots.
'cause like, so every FD was still really big and like, I felt like, like had a big shadow on everything else in drifting. Mm-hmm. And it was like the bashes were starting to grow and obviously like East Coast Bash was like big and then there was all the other ones. Right. There was all Star and then No Star and, and all of them.
And um, it's funny 'cause like I think about it like, there's so many people that like I met just by going to like one or two of them with you that are like, still very much like beca ended up becoming big people in sort of the space. Mm-hmm. Like Ilya for example. Mm-hmm. And like, like Simba and people like that who like I met or like, um, what's his face?
Uh. Now Nick, like, like, it's like these are all people who like, like now have like a big part to do with like, drifting today. Yeah. But they were all just like these grassroots dude back then.
[00:08:19] Hert: Yeah. Just in their little corner building up their, their area and uh, contributing to the building blocks of, you know, what drifting is.
Um, bash banger is like, form D was super important for us. Mm-hmm. I mean, you know, we had a lot of awesome drivers, uh, between Turk and Forsburg and all these guys doing the, bridging the gap on, on their end of like missile cars and, and fast cars. Um, and like being a part of that and working with those guys and going to East Coast bash with them and just doing fun stuff with them was a huge part of what I was already doing.
So, like, it was cool to, to tap that in, but going to do the bash bangers tour and like. I always love, I mean, I'm, I'm a grassroots baby, you know?
[00:09:01] Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:01] Hert: Um, so any opportunity to, to tell that story and, and prop drifting up on that side up on a pedestal was always exciting to me. Um, it's always interesting, uh, 'cause like, formula D was actually such a big part of my life.
Yeah. You know, um, going to Formula D and filming with my friends who were drivers there and just capturing chaotic content was such a huge part of my story. Getting to Hoonigan and like, starting that new journey. Um, that, yeah, it, it was interesting when it stopped when Hoonigan was like, yeah, we're not doing Form D anymore.
And I, I felt lost, you know, because that was such a big part of my story. But then after the first event and I was like, oh. I could, I, I guess I could do other stuff, you know? Right, right. And then like really started opening doors, uh, mentally and like, you know, pulling gates back and allowing me to do other stuff.
Um, but
[00:09:58] Brian: I think that was a major pivot for us though. I mean, I think we, we, there was this moment where I remember we went to an FD event and I was like, it grossed me out how many people were wearing Hoonigan shirts, which is like a weird thing to say as like the owner of the company, but to be like, shit, like we've hit saturation way too quickly.
Mm. Like half of the people here are wearing Hoonigan. It was nuts. And. And then it was like, maybe we need to like not focus on this as much. Like, we're already here. We could desaturate a little bit and we put some time into other spaces, did some off-road stuff, did some muscle car stuff. But that all was sort of the path to what ended up becoming, I think probably the, the thing that inadvertently was probably the most important thing for most of your guys' careers.
I, I don't know mine, but for you guys, which was daily transmission, right? Because I think Daily Transmission took this shift and went from like, we were behind the scenes. We were helping guys like, like Tuerk and Forsburg, um, become, you know, bigger names or do whatever, and then all of a sudden it was like, no, now you're gonna be the name and like, Vinny's gonna be the name.
And like, that was like a major shift for us that I don't, I definitely don't think that was in my head early on. Like we were making small little pieces of content like. Smoke break and things like that. The original shop, like we always were doing that. Yeah. But we weren't leaning into the characters of like the people who worked there beyond just like, Hey, this is Hert.
Hert has a cool car. Like this is Scotto. Scotto has a cool car. But like, we were not, like, we weren't really big upping ourselves. I
[00:11:28] Hert: remember we were grossed out by vlogging and 20, you know, like blogging was, you know, the idea of it just didn't, we didn't understand it. And, uh, I mean, maybe that's a strong word.
I don't know what it was, but we were just like, yeah, we don't really wanna do that. And then, you know, we started just, you know, I guess just doing fun stuff at the top. Yeah. We just kind of
[00:11:47] Brian: created our own version of it. Yeah. And then it was like hybrid,
[00:11:50] Hert: I think. I think we're looking at it wrong. We don't have to do this person's version or that person's version or that person.
We do our own thing. We just do, you know, there's nothing wrong with documenting your fun and sharing that with the world. And that when, when, I think we all realized that that changed a lot for us. Yeah.
[00:12:04] Brian: So now, and like, 'cause I don't wanna spend, we, I did an episode with Vinny and Ron. We, we spent a lot of time kind of down memory lane.
Um, I don't want this whole podcast to just be like, remember when we were cool back then? 'cause you're still cool. You're doing actually cooler shit now. See that's something that
[00:12:19] Hert: he's always been good at. It's like you're doing stuff, I'm working on a movie. But you're doing, you're bro, you're doing, you are a rapper.
[00:12:27] Brian: You are a rapper. I can go on Spotify and I can listen to you. And I kind of, I think you kind of killed pain on that track. I'm just saying, oh my God.
[00:12:37] Hert: Doing one song doesn't make you a rapper, but you gotta think about it. Right. Uh, you know, first off, uh, shout out to pain. That dude is awesome. I can't really put into words how, uh, I, I would never expect somebody like him to be as down to earth and humble as they are, you know?
And it's, it's been a mind blowing experience to work with somebody like that, but also, uh, genuinely become friends with after I was that person for Halloween in like, yeah, 2009 was so, I mean, like our entire early twenties was T-Pain coated, you know? Um, so, so yeah, shout to him. Um, but I feel like anyone in that situation, um.
Should rise to the occasion when you have someone like that saying, Hey, I have an idea, uh, for a song. Let's do a song. We do a song, you're gonna be on the song. I was like, uh, what? You know? And then like, were you
[00:13:26] Brian: nervous about that?
[00:13:28] Hert: So I have this thing that I've been doing, like I don't let nervousness stop you from doing something.
Right. Okay. Because the way I look at it is I could go in and be nervous and do a bad job, or I can go in and not be nervous and still do a bad job. Mm-hmm. And you know, it's so no point in feeling a certain way. Just go in and do it and have fun. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? So I wasn't nervous, you know, I definitely.
Uh, it was just like, fuck it, I have to do this. You know?
[00:13:56] Brian: So I, I'm gonna draw a parallel and stop me if it's not a, not a parallel that makes sense for you, but I, I feel like in a lot of ways, um, what, what Ken was to me seems to be what T-Pain is for you, right? And I, you know, I only got, you realize, like, through all this, I only met T-Pain once.
I feel like it was almost like, it was weird. Like you didn't wanna introduce your ex-girlfriend to your new girlfriend or like, whatever. Like, but, but we, we got to go as long
[00:14:20] Hert: as you know, you're the girlfriend.
[00:14:21] Brian: Yeah.
I'm a text pain about that. We'll see, we'll see about that. But I, but like, you know, we, you know, we, we went, we had dinner and it, and I, I walked outta that and I texted you and I was like, man, I'm really like, I'm not just proud of you, but I'm also like, I'm stoked for you. Like, like, 'cause I could see the relationship that you guys have.
And it was similar in my relationship with Ken. And the one thing that was really interesting with Ken was. Ken was not, uh, a core car guy to start. Right. So he trusted me. Yeah. There was an element of like, you know, this tell me what to do. Right. Ken knew marketing, Ken knew culture, but he didn't really know the car stuff.
Mm. You know, and it was like, there was certain stuff. I mean, he learned it as the time went on, but he wasn't like you and I where we like lived and breathed it every day. Yeah. Like Ken's feed on Instagram was like snowboarding and furniture and like some race stuff. Like he, he, he wasn't in it the same way that we were.
And because of that, like I was there to help fill in some of those spaces, but at the same time, I, you know, I, I, I, whenever I, I talk about Ken and my relationship with him, one of the things that always comes up is like, dude just made me feel like capable of things I didn't think I was capable of. Yeah.
Right. And I think like when I see you go and try to rap. I'm like, yo, pain got that same, that same confidence drug that he could be like, here you go do this. Like you got this. And like, it seems like you're kind of like stepping into that and owning that.
[00:15:51] Hert: Yeah. No, I mean, there's definitely a lot of parallels.
I cannot deny that, um, the timing and life and the way that it's happening and the way that it's going. And, and one of pain's biggest things is really just like, Hey, hey, I don't know if this is gonna work. Okay, so it doesn't work. Like you do it, it doesn't work. Then what happens? You know? Right. You just, you go onto the next thing.
You're like, don't let a thought like that stop you from trying something that could work as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like as much as it is might not work. It could work and change things, uh, change the entire landscape. So, so there's definitely a lot of that going on. Um, just, you know. Taking unknown steps and the result is the result.
So, yeah.
[00:16:34] Brian: So let me ask you, I'm gonna take notes on this. So how did you figure out how to be sort of in my position at Nappy Boy, but still drive and have fun? Because I was never able to figure that out. The most driving I did was after I gave my notice at Hoonigan, and then I was able to eek out a few track
[00:16:50] Hert: days.
Uh, I mean, I think, I think just coming into it the way that I, I was right. I think I, I mean I, I, I can't tell your story, but I mean, you've always been the, like in the war zone gut of it. Uh, just the wild man. So it's like, yeah, I enjoy the trenches. I, I came in, I, I think, I think. What the, the defining factor is I came in and I, I taught my business partner how to drift cars.
Right. You know, and so that gave me the little, that gave me the key to unlock, you know, unlock the door.
Yeah.
Um, and continue to, to do that. But honestly, I, I, I don't, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I, I think it boils down to just, uh, 'cause like, you know, things like I never asked you. Uh, I never knew what the goal was for Hoonigan, you know?
Yeah. I never, I never asked you what the goal was. I never asked you what you and Kim had in mind for it. I, I just, um, loved the feeling Yeah. And everything. And I was ride or die. Like, just from our experiences before, like my experiences with Drift Alliance and building, uh, a friendship with them and making content with them.
That led into like that night of sema, you know, the night of mm-hmm. You know, the night of sema,
[00:18:07] Brian: uh, you mean the one where we almost got into a fight with that bouncer at the Falken Party? Sorry, Nick.
[00:18:13] Hert: Hey, shout out Falken. Yeah. One of my sponsors. I love you guys. You know, it's funny how that, by the way, this
[00:18:18] Brian: is brought to you by Toyo Tires.
[00:18:22] Hert: Hey,
[00:18:22] Brian: hey. But you know, friends got
[00:18:23] Hert: friends. Yeah. Friends got friends. Um, but just the way that like, you know, our story built and my, you know, obviously can, I mean with Gymkhana and all the stuff he was doing. Yep. Um, just, I had nothing but respect for you guys. So I was like, they say we're going to build this brand.
All right, let's go build this brand, you know? Yeah. Uh, it was just, and it was a pretty just undeniable. You know, thing for me,
[00:18:48] Brian: it, it's funny when you talk about goals, 'cause like I talk, I think a lot about it's, it's hard not to think about like Hoonigan and did we always take the right path? And you know, a lot of people, after everything happened would come up to me and be like, man, like I'm so sorry.
And I'm like, man, we were here for a good time. Not a long time. Yeah. Like it worked. Like it worked when it worked and when it worked, it was great. Yeah. And like, everyone kind of got out unscathed. We're all still friends, which is cool. And like, I think a lot of people did get to a point where it was like, but like, you know, like everyone in the end, like whether it's like soupy, like everybody kind of like, you know, figured it out in the end.
I think like we were all just stressed in a bad situation. Yeah. And then we all, I think came out better from it. But going back to like your question of like. You know what, um, you know, like what was the goal? I, I think the goal was always moving, which was like the fun, but also the scary part, right? Like, the idea that the goalpost constantly shifted.
In the beginning the goal was like, can we make this work, right? Like, is this working? And then once it started working, it was like, okay, can, like how much more can we make this work? And then I think it got to a point where the goal was like, we are becoming a juggernaut. Like, how big can this become? And that was really good, I think, until the goal became, can we sell this?
And like, it was always the goal. Like it was al I mean, when Ken, you know, did the original deal with me, it was like, we're gonna build this company, we're gonna do this, and we're either gonna license it or sell it. Within five years, we, it took us. Whatever, 12 or 13 years to sell it. So it took a lot longer.
But we also grew it into something, I think, way bigger than Ken. And I initially thought Ken saw it very much in the beginning. It was just a clothing company. Mm-hmm. I mean, he saw it as metal militia for cars. Sure. Right. Like how do you create this cool brand and then you have a licensing company deal with it all and like you just do the, the content and the marketing around it all.
But then the content became bigger and bigger and bigger and like, and then all of a sudden, like half of the employees at Hoonigan became these personalities and became a part of it. And then I think it was just like, how big, you know, what can we do? What can, what else can we take on? And that was like really fun for a while.
And then all of a sudden one day it wasn't, I think like one day it just got to a point where like we were growing for the sake of growing. Mm-hmm. Not because it was like the stuff we all wanted to do. Yeah. Um. But it's interesting 'cause I think like you got to be, I I, I, you know, it's interesting you say you didn't feel like you knew what the goal was, but I definitely think you were, you were, you were in the inside circle of like what we were always trying to do.
And I had never been in a company like that before. Like, I, the first time I was doing it was with Hoonigan. I didn't know. And you know, and I think the one thing that, um, a lot of people don't understand about Hoonigan. Which is weird, but it is like, who, like Ken didn't work in the building. Yeah. Like Ken wasn't there.
Like, he was in Utah. He was running his own race program. He was doing his own thing. There was a lot of stuff that like, I was like, man, I don't know how to do this. We're just gonna figure this out. We're just gonna do this on our own. And it wasn't really until YouTube became successful that I think Ken was like, what are you guys doing with a YouTube thing?
Because he was always the one, like Gymkhana and all that stuff was where was where the money was. Yeah. And then all of a sudden YouTube started to crack and then he was like, oh, maybe I, maybe I shoulda have a YouTube channel too, you know? Um, because we were out there just testing it and, and trying it out.
But I I, to turn this kind of back around to you, like, do you feel like. In a way you could kind of take your experience at Hoonigan and let it either be like, I, I don't wanna say cautionary tale 'cause I think there's a, there's a lot of amazing stuff we did at Hoonigan. Mm-hmm. And it's unfortunate that it ended sort of in the way that it did, but it was always going to, it's like your favorite band always breaks up in the end.
Sure. Like, if your favorite band never stops touring, they're probably not your favorite band anymore. Like, there's something about that like magic that I, I always compare us to Jackass. 'cause I think it's like the same thing. Like there's a window of time where like it all works, but you got like a front row seat to all of that and now you're getting to do it again.
Like, is there, like, does that change your perspective on how you do it now? I mean, I think the, so I,
[00:22:53] Hert: there are definitely some lessons
[00:22:55] Brian: that by, I didn't think this was gonna be a business conversation. I actually was like, I wanted to make this a conversation about style. Yeah. But we'll get back to that.
[00:23:01] Hert: My time at Hoonigan was interesting 'cause naturally I, I. On the spot, if someone asks me, name five things that you learned at Hoonigan or that you learned working with Brian Scotto. And honestly, I might not be able to to rip it off the top of my head, but if you come in with a specific question about something and then I find myself rambling and I'm like, oh, that's, that's one of the things that I, I learned, you know, you learned how to
[00:23:27] Brian: hide cars from your wife.
E just be honest, bro. No, I don't, I don't, you know, you be like, she might listen
[00:23:32] Hert: to this dude. I mean, this is, this is kind of wild, a wild take. Uh, now I, it must be my aging or whatever, but I, or just my ability to destroy, but I don't get the same joy from having as many cars as I have right now that
[00:23:46] Brian: I used to.
Yo, Vinny just brought this up. Yeah. Vinny was like, hoarding cars is not as cool as it once was. Yeah. It doesn't feel, we made it cool during COVID and it's not cool anymore. It
[00:23:55] Hert: doesn't feel the same. And now I'm struggling to pick some cars to relinquish,
[00:23:59] Brian: you know? Um, what do you think the right number is?
I am gonna bring us back to the business side. I'd say
[00:24:05] Hert: four.
[00:24:05] Brian: Four?
[00:24:06] Hert: Yeah, I think four is a good number.
[00:24:08] Brian: I, I think like for normal people, three, like what I call the three car solution and like, here's how that works for me. 'cause I know everyone loves the two car, two car is ridiculous. Mm-hmm. You just three car simple.
A pickup truck. Mm-hmm. That's a crew cab. All right. I I I wasn't a pickup truck. That's a crew cab so that you can tow stuff. Yeah, yeah, right. Whatever. But it's a nice enough pickup truck that you could also take it to dinner. Right. So like, it could be your family vehicle, like a Raptor or something like that.
50. No, I definitely,
[00:24:35] Hert: I definitely think we differ there. 'cause I only see those as tools. I don't look at trucks and like think about, I get that. But you can
[00:24:42] Brian: use it if you need to. Like a Raptor's nice enough that your friends getting married and you tour rope for the wedding and the raptor, it's acceptable, it's respected, it's fine.
Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then I think you need a project car that like, it runs, it doesn't run whatever it is. And then you need another, and this is what has changed in my life now, is you need another fun car that kind of always runs. Mm-hmm. So my RS two is that car. Mm-hmm. So like. No matter what, everything else isn't working.
Like when I get in the RS two, it reminds me I still like cars. Yeah. And gives me a reason to keep working on my car. Because there was a period of time where the only thing I was driving was church van. Mm-hmm. And that was like pre 700 horsepower. Yeah. It's got 700 horsepower now if you want some of that and it's slower than the gs, the GS makes 800.
So if you want, you want these problems, bro. I got all wheel drive. You want run on that? You want these problems? You can have them. Yo, we could bring back that. We can make that verse this, bro. It's a whole new show.
[00:25:30] Hert: I'd be willing for all of us, you, me, van Ron, Zach, I'd be willing for all of us to pick a location and meet up
[00:25:37] Brian: and race.
Let's, all right, let's, it's on. Let's, it's on. You want? No, let's do it. I'm dead serious. Is it call out style or you just bring your fastest whatever. Run what you
[00:25:46] Hert: brung. Everyone gets fucking smoked. All right.
[00:25:49] Brian: Yeah, but what are you bringing Ev? Everyone gets smoked. You finally gave me a reason to finish my coup.
Everyone gets mopped. Let's do it. All right, I'm on. Let, let's do it. All right. We'll call everybody else afterwards and get everybody on
[00:25:59] Speaker 3: it. I'll pay for it. We'll put it on Abbey boy. All right. Whatever. We'll get that done. We'll get that done. Alright, so I don't even know where we, I don't even know where parked, but I was saying like
[00:26:07] Brian: I was sitting there driving like a stock van every day and I like stopped liking cars.
Yeah. Because I wasn't driving anything fun. So I feel like you, that's like a good three car. But then I think for people like us, I think probably ten's the right number. 10. I'm at 25. That's like more than 50% reduction. You
[00:26:24] Hert: own 25 vehicles at this moment. Right now. It was
[00:26:27] Brian: sitting on the property right now at the farm?
No, right here. Here. This property, the nine 11, the Ferrari, the rabbit was in the driveway. The disco is in the backyard. The RS two is parked out in the street. The B one fifty's out on the street. Right now because I'm, what the hell, A B one 50. That's the Mexican, uh, Ford truck. Oh, that truck? Yeah. Yeah. And the van is parked in front.
And then my wife's, uh, my wife's LR four. That's just here.
[00:26:59] Hert: How many of these cars run out of 25?
[00:27:01] Brian: If you would've asked me a week ago, I would've said all of them three cars broke last. Out of the 25? Oh, no, no, no. I'm the ones here. The ones, because all these are kind of runners because they're at the house.
[00:27:11] Hert: I know, I, I know you're naturally going to list the good ones first. I've
[00:27:15] Brian: got like five cars that just probably will never run and I'm okay with that. Okay. Because like I'm just kind of holding them. Yeah. Because I know at some point I won't be able to afford 'em. It's kind of like the FD seven was for you.
So
[00:27:24] Hert: I got to the point where, you know, I used to say I have 12 cars now. I just say eight because four of 'em are that, you know, they're just Oh, so you
[00:27:30] Brian: don't, you try not to count them.
[00:27:32] Hert: Yeah, just 'cause like it, you know, I mean they count, but when I talk about 'em, I don't bring 'em up really. You know? Yeah.
Just 'cause it's just like, oh yeah, I have this Arc seven. That's one day gonna be something. And then this other Arc seven, that's one day gonna be something. And then this other RX seven. That's,
[00:27:49] Brian: how's it feel to lie to yourself?
[00:27:54] Hert: It's, they're gonna be, they're gonna be something. All right. You don't under you
[00:27:57] Brian: understand,
[00:27:58] Hert: you definitely of all people understand my,
[00:27:59] Brian: yeah. My list of 25, 10, 10 is aggress. I, I think, I think 10. If like you work in the business, you make content, you need to be able to rotate through things. People get bored of stuff.
Or you could be like Vinny and just, and not hold onto, have commitment issues and not hold onto anything. Right.
[00:28:15] Hert: I mean, that works out great for his business, right? Yeah. Like, I think it's, it's awesome to see, well, he is starting
[00:28:19] Brian: to dealership, so like his whole new business now is buy a car, use it in content, fix it up, do whatever, enjoy it for like three to four months and then sell it.
Yeah. And then move on to the next day. I mean, that's what
[00:28:31] Hert: drivers there was supposed to be, right? Yeah. It, it is again. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's kind of, I thought that was brilliant. Yeah.
[00:28:35] Brian: Him and Ron actually split. Ron's now doing anti lag, which is a, which is like a rally car Oh, cool. Inspired thing. 'cause that was more what he, what he cared about.
Yeah. And Vinny wanted to do more of the dealership thing, so he's doing that with drivers there. Cool, cool. So yeah.
[00:28:48] Hert: Yeah.
[00:28:48] Brian: But,
[00:28:49] Hert: um,
[00:28:49] Brian: okay, so four cars. So, oh, let's just, let's play this game. Name your four cars. So you only have four cars. Four cars. Four cars, four
[00:28:55] Hert: cars. My GS 304 door. Yeah, that's one my favorite of yours.
Four doors built motor, 3.2 liter stroker, 800 horsepower. Low boost. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So like when I see you, I can turn it up. Mm-hmm. AC put my family in it, go wherever. ACS hard. I could drive it across the country. It looks, it looks good as hell. It's a great car.
[00:29:16] Brian: Yep. Yep.
[00:29:17] Hert: And I can drift it. Yep. That's a Swiss army now.
It's an all around car. Swiss army now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I can drag race and smoke all my friends.
[00:29:24] Brian: Um, that's kind of, I guess what the RS two is for me. Obviously it's not, I don't really, it being able or need to drift is not a priority for me. Yeah. But it serves a purpose. If it could use a little bit more power, like for me, I think a 500 to 600 horsepower RX two would be perfect.
And I want the air conditioning to work. 'cause it doesn't right now.
[00:29:42] Hert: Yeah. That was a non-negotiable. I, uh, there's some local guys, heat, lightning speed shop. They specialized in gss. Oh, nice. And I was just so fed up with the car. I, I found them. And that was my only non-negotiable. Well that's 'cause
[00:29:54] Brian: you're, you're 40 now, right?
Is there a mic issue here? You're 40 now, right? Because, no, because when you're 40 is when you need air conditioning. I'm in my thirties, late, I'm in my thirties. You're in your late, late thirties. I am in my thirties. I think you're in your late, late thirties. 'cause you're There is
[00:30:10] Hert: no four in front of my, so 35
[00:30:12] Brian: is mid thirties.
37 would be mid, late thirties, 38, which is what I think you are, would make you late, late thirties. What's this
[00:30:22] Hert: podcast called?
[00:30:24] Brian: Over 40. I only bring on guests. Who? Over 40? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I thought it was called, it's
[00:30:28] Hert: called very old. I thought it was called pushing 50. No,
[00:30:34] Speaker 5: no. Let's stay on, let's stay. Look,
[00:30:36] Hert: I'm in my thirties anyway. Uh, GS I explained that that car is fantastic, right? Um, my, my GTRR 32, kind of the same vibe as the gs. Yep. It's a coop, but you can still put fam in the back, uh, AC
[00:30:52] Brian: collector car too.
[00:30:53] Hert: I will drive collector car and that, um, I mean, just that boxy era is me, you know, FCS are my favorite car.
The R 32 mm-hmm. Is the same idea with that, right? That's, and that's you like nine 40 fours too, right? I'm be better than nine elevens actually.
[00:31:11] Brian: Well played. Well played. Have you been, have you been holding that one for a few years? No. That, that was nice. That was nice. You inspired it. You, you keep going.
Keep
[00:31:18] Speaker 3: going.
[00:31:18] Brian: Um, so you
[00:31:19] Speaker 3: like boxy cars? So
[00:31:19] Hert: R 32 GTR, same thing. You know. You can have power all wheel drive, super fun handling ac car that you can take anywhere with anyone, right? So those are like the two Swiss armies that are super fun. Um, then the Corolla, it's which one? The, the beams one. Okay. The 11. 11, yeah.
So hatchback leave, uh, 300 horsepower naturally aspirated has grant engineering built beams, 10,000 RPM, all the good sounds, all the good feels, all the good handling. No ac very raw and can grip and drift, right? And I mean, that's a fall. That's a fall street car too, you know. Um, and then, uh, and then the fourth car is like the full race car RX seven four Roter, fully caged sequential.
Uh.
[00:32:13] Brian: Okay. I, I like this list, but there's like zero practicality here because one, there's no truck in the list. And is that because you're just including work trucks? But see,
[00:32:21] Hert: that's, that's what I was saying is like, uh, you and I see trucks differently. I just see 'em as tools. So I don't, I You don't even include, it's not even on my, yeah, it's just the, it's a tool that you use to go to the thing,
[00:32:32] Speaker 3: but
[00:32:32] Hert: Right.
But yeah. So what's, what ra
[00:32:33] Speaker 3: what's Raquel driving right now? Uh, she's got a a She still got the Lexus or
[00:32:37] Hert: No, no. We, we leased a 2024 Telluride while we figure out what Oh
[00:32:42] Speaker 3: hell yeah. What we want. Those
[00:32:43] Hert: are kind nice. Yeah, they are super nice. They, they're super nice. Yeah, they're,
[00:32:45] Brian: whenever I see them drive by, I'm like, Ooh,
[00:32:47] Hert: yeah, Telluride.
Yeah. Looks really good. It's not bad. Um, and the lease was so cheap. Yeah. I was like, why not? Right. Um, okay, so four plus truck. Four plus truck. Four plus truck. Now I might be wrong 'cause like I love having cars.
[00:33:03] Brian: So you're saying there's no FD in your list anymore?
[00:33:07] Hert: I. I could sell that car. You
[00:33:09] Brian: could.
[00:33:10] Hert: I could sell that car.
[00:33:11] Brian: Okay.
[00:33:12] Hert: Yeah, I could sell that car. It's definitely, I've thought about it. I could sell that car,
[00:33:15] Brian: man. If I had a breakdown to four, I think I would do obviously the nine 11, that's like the forever car. Um, my RS two, um, I guess my rabbit, which is weird, but I just love that thing. And do I get four plus one because of the truck thing?
Sure, sure. All right. The van's, the plus one. Yeah. Um,
see? Hmm. I guess the Nova. Alright. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it keeps, that would keep it like, as varied as possible. Like so that's the thing, right? I've got my all wheel drive car I've got, but yeah. But then it's a bummer 'cause I, that keeps me no track cars, but whatever. I
[00:33:54] Hert: feel like four is a sweet list, but I don't know if it's possible.
I don't have four cars. I have more than four cars, you know? Yeah. And I do like the FD sometimes. Yeah. You know, um, I'm not driving in the summer, doesn't have ac not gonna touch it, you know?
[00:34:09] Brian: Yeah. We definitely sound like addicts talking about how we ain't gonna get high tomorrow while we're still high right now, but currently
[00:34:16] Hert: so, so torqued, fully torqued.
Um, I've got the gs, the R 32, the Corolla, the other Corolla, uh, twerk, stallion, fd, um, JZX 100. How you had that 2 46. Remember that time I
[00:34:36] Brian: smoked you in my, uh, 200 and your JZ X. Yeah. Anyway, I just wanted to remind you, I brought it up in the last podcast, so it's
[00:34:42] Hert: automatic and natural aspirated. It's not a don't worry.
We'll, we will meet again. Um, so that's a, I think that's all of them. I have a three 50 ZI don't really talk about, um. You have a three 50 Z. Yeah, I haven't showed it to anyone. Oh, it's not
[00:35:01] Speaker 3: secret car. Yeah, it's just a secret. Cars are nice. Just a pilo, just a beater. Um, you don't have that cresta that anymore?
No, I gave that
[00:35:09] Hert: away. I gave that to the Slayer. Oh, okay. Yeah. 'cause I just was like, I mean, I, I didn't even take money. I paid for that car. I bought it from Ron and I gave it to chair. Say no one would buy it. It was, I lost, I lost no one would buy it. Um, yeah, I don't know man. I, I love having cars. I love experiencing different cars.
Like I, one thing, you know, all my cars, none of them have the same engine.
[00:35:35] Brian: Right. '
[00:35:36] Hert: cause I almost did multis swap a couple cars, but then I was like, then it's just gonna feel, what's the fun of that? Yeah, exactly. So, so I, I love experiencing different things. I mean, I, I think the Vinny route is super cool 'cause he gets to.
Experience it, build it how he wants to, and then flip it and it all just pays for itself, you know? And that's just a brilliant way to go about being a car enthusiast, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, where doesn't work for me, but I get it. Yeah, no, I'm stuck in a hole of breaking the same shit over.
[00:36:02] Brian: Yeah.
Yeah. But it seems like for the first time ever, you've got a bunch of working machines.
[00:36:07] Hert: Yeah. I mean, uh, you know, um, starting this journey with nine people, automotive and tpa, um. You know, we have, you know, we've got a John. Yeah, yeah. You someone who's in the shop all the time making sure everything is good to go.
Um, and they working on
[00:36:21] Brian: your cars not like you, it's not like you're building No, we're not building anyone else projects or else Yeah. We're, we're
[00:36:25] Hert: keeping our ship running, you know, for our events and stuff. And then, you know, when something new comes in for ourselves. Yep. You know, I mean, because
[00:36:32] Brian: that's the part no one understood at Hoonigan was that all the people who worked at Hoonigan when we were there to work on cars, were working on project cars that belonged to the company that were like funding our content.
Yeah. But all our personal cars, we pretty much all worked on, on our own. Yeah. Which is why it was always such a disaster.
[00:36:50] Hert: It definitely added stress, um, to what we were doing. But yeah, so I'm, I'm in a ship now where, you know, I, I. It, it definitely, you definitely find a disconnect when you're completely not touching your stuff, you know?
And I'm gonna start breaking that disconnect, you know? Yeah, yeah. Um, you know, just being more active in the shop and, and just, I don't know. I think being in the shop and being immersed helps everything else. It keeps your mind, um, creatively thinking about what's next or what should we do with this or that and la la blah.
So I think that helped us out a lot of Hoonigan. 'cause we were really active in the shop at Hoonigan. Mm-hmm. Um,
[00:37:25] Brian: I mean, that was like the peak era. Um, I remember, do you remember this when the first time you were working on your, uh, your LSC and, uh, and I came over Santa Fe. Yeah. I came over and I, I don't even think, I don't even think it was a video or I think I was just taking photos.
You dude, we didn't
[00:37:41] Hert: record anything there. No,
[00:37:43] Brian: no. I was just taking photos. It actually
[00:37:44] Hert: blows my mind that we didn't, we have like no video. There's very little from that time. And that was one of the sickest times.
[00:37:52] Brian: Yeah.
[00:37:53] Hert: And we can't even go. I've tried to go on Facebook.
[00:37:55] Brian: And try to find it.
[00:37:56] Hert: Facebook won't load that far back.
Like it just struggles to load anything that far back.
[00:38:01] Brian: Most people don't even realize that time existed. Yeah. No, I have no idea. This is a Pred donut garage. Yeah. So pre Long Beach, downtown. This Instagram downtown LA Instagram. Facebook is gone. Grimy. Yeah. Remember when the VRE jumped over the fence and cut the wiring harness outta Ashley's car and then stole our barbecues and they like wasted them like over a 20 foot fence.
Dude, remember the door wouldn't close. Was his name. Was it
[00:38:24] Hert: Ernie? Was it Ernie? Yeah.
[00:38:25] Brian: Ernie. Yeah. I still got, I, you know, it's funny you mentioned that 'cause I just found photos of Ernie the other day. Do you want, you know, Ernie was the
[00:38:31] Hert: best.
[00:38:31] Julio's Midnight Rescue
---
[00:38:31] Hert: You know what's crazy? Um. Julio, you remember Julio? Of course. I remember Julio, bro.
Julio ended up outside my shop in Long Beach. What? Right before I left I saw Julio and I was like, Julio. And he was like, oh, what's up man? And he was just outside my shop in Long Beach.
[00:38:46] Brian: So quick Julio story. Um, Julio was a vagrant who lived near 6 21. Long Beach office. Right? Donut garage. And he would, if he was, if you just caught him off by himself, he was, he was always like kinda loudly talking to himself or kind of yelling.
He definitely presented as the kind of vagrant, right? Like, or whatever you wanna call him. Unhoused. Whatever person you did not want to be near. Yeah. But if you called him by name, it would like break the spell. Yeah. And he would then become like this super mild manner. Really, really nice guy. Yeah. And uh, it was like two 30 in the morning, one night and there, um, I had just re timed the disco.
I was driving home. 'cause remember I used to always stay at the shop super late. Yeah. Work on stuff. I had just timed the disco, and I'm driving home and I'm leaving the shop and I close the gate and I'm going to make going around the corner underneath the bridge and the rover breaks. And I'm like, God dammit.
It's like two 30 in the morning. Like I have no way to tow it back to the shop. Like I'm by myself and I'm trying to like push this thing back to the shop and all of a sudden outta nowhere, I just hear, get in, get in, get in, get in. And I'm like, what? And it's Julio. He comes running up, he's like, you steer, I push.
And this dude pushed me. I don't wanna say crack head energy. 'cause I don't know if he had, I don't think he was, I think he was just unfortunately had mental health issues. But this man pushed this disco at like 20 miles an hour. That's like, he got us like into, I mean, I was waiting for him to push us up the ramp.
It was like incredible strength, dude. I was like, Julio, you saved me. Like, thank you so much. And he was like, yeah. He's like, I, I saw you break down. I came running out to help you. I'm like. His dude's the best. And like Ernie was the same way. Yeah. No. Remember those dudes were trying to break into the shop?
Yeah. And he stopped him because we, 'cause we used to always remember, you guys used to call me the vagrant whisper. Do you remember that? Because I would talk to all the vagrants. I think
[00:40:37] Speaker 5: you named yourself that. And we just,
[00:40:42] Brian: I thought it was someone else, but whatever. I'll take it. Um, do you remember the other dude, the white dude?
Uh, who? The bike. The bike. He had the bike
[00:40:50] Speaker 5: with the trailer? Yeah. Yeah. And he showed up with the shot. The cops came that time he would get arrested and leave his stuff at our shop. Well, he would
[00:40:56] Brian: get arrested so that he could spend the winter in get, and get a, get three, three hots in a cot in the warm weather.
And then he would get out like later in the year. And he would come and leave his bike? Yeah. And the police would show up and they would like, like, is is Brian Scotto here? And I always thought I'd be in trouble. And then it would just be like, we've got this guy's bike. He said, you can, he can leave it here.
Do you remember? Because that was before we had the bakery. Bakery we would keep, so we put it in there. Remember like we didn't open the door for like six months. We had no air conditioning. We opened the door and it was just the worst funky smell. Oh gosh, ever. So that guy. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. The VAs, yeah, the VAs are the best
[00:41:31] Hert: part.
Yeah. No, I ran into Julio outside my shop and I couldn't believe it. And I was just like, you know, I, I was like, you need anything? I got drinks, whatever. And I gave him some stuff and, but it was just, it was, I don't know. It was,
[00:41:41] Brian: there was another guy who actually I saw, do you remember the dude who used to hang out, um, at the gas station on, he used to hang out at the gas station on Seventh and Magnolia.
Did you ever go there? And he would always wash your windows for you. Mm. But he was really, really, really, really nice. Yeah. Um, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I
[00:42:01] Hert: know exactly
[00:42:02] Brian: what gas station I ran into him. I ran into him like, I don't know, maybe like six months ago at another gas station on another side of Long Beach.
And I saw him and I was like, and I kind of looked at him and he looked at me and he's like, where's the Porsche? And I was like, oh man, it's you. Yeah. I actually went and bought him lunch. Yeah. Because I was just like, it was just chatting him up. I was like, how are you? How you doing? Like, what's going on?
Like, he was always an interesting story for me because he seemed. Like all there. Yeah. And always was like kind of well put together and like seemed clean and I hate to say that, but a lot of the other guys who lived by the river did never seem clean.
[00:42:36] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:42:36] Brian: But like, and I could never tell like, are you just hanging out?
Do you just like being in the gas station? Right. Or like, what's going on? But I was just talking to him. It was, yeah. Anyway,
[00:42:45] Sponsor: FCP Euro
---
[00:42:45] Brian: the story time interruption brought to you by our good friends at FCP Euro. So I have an affliction. I like really unreliable European cars. It almost seems the more unreliable it is, the more I lost after it.
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Then I opened the door and there was this smell smelled like a gym bag and it shouldn't smell like a gym. Bagg. That car actually smells pretty good, real leather. But uh, it smelled horrible and I realized all that rain we got, it definitely flooded. And when I say flooded, it not the normal kind of flooding.
This is like water coming out of the air, vent level flooding, and that also means water going into the fuse panel. Which meant that a few relays might have shorted as well as a bunch of other things that got corroded, hit up. FCP Euro had 'em out to me in a day. This is what's great about them. They enable really bad decisions with European cars.
I mean, they are like class one enabler. 'cause if I couldn't get those parts as quickly as I do, I don't think any of my cars would run. Maybe some of the old Fords. Anyway. FCP Euro. Thank you very much. And if you have similar habits, maybe you too should try. Uh, fcp euro.com. So anyway, back to the business side of things.
How's all that going? Uh, what, what's it, what's it like to have Oh, right, right. What's it like to have, wow, that was a gnarly tangent. Yeah, we tangent like that. I mean, it's kind of expected with the two of us. Yeah.
[00:44:29] Reflections on the Hoonigan Days
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[00:44:29] Brian: So what is it like to now be in a position where daily you want to text me? I'm sorry. Like, what does that feel like?
You know, because I got to see that moment. We were at Elsie Fest and I got to see you. Being boss man and seeing like you dealing with everybody. And I have not had that level of joy outside of maybe the birth of my son. Yeah. Oh wow. That's, and like a few of my cars started that's up there in a long time where I just got to sit there and I got to watch you have that moment.
And I remember Ken used to, whenever I would, I would be talking to him, I'd be like, ah, I had that long sigh. And he would be like, you know, when I met you, you didn't have that sigh. Yeah. He's like, you developed that sigh. And he enjoyed it because he remembers those days at DC and you know, he was removed from the day-to-day Hoonigan, so he didn't have to deal with the day-to-day bullshit.
And now I get to watch you do it. And I used to look at Ken and be like, what kind of fucking mean asshole are you that you enjoy the demise of my soul? You know, it's like my soul is, it's leaking out of me. You know what's, and now I get to see it happen to you. And I understand, I understand it from Ken.
[00:45:37] Hert: You want to know what's what. What's actually hilarious about this story is I remember. That there would be days where I'm like, fuck man, fuck Brian. Like, why is he this way? Why does he act like this? Why does he do this stuff? And then I spent a weekend with you and Kim, and then I was like, and then I was like, oh,
[00:45:56] Speaker 5: he does it to him and then he does it to me.
[00:45:59] Brian: Shit downstream, my friend. Shit downstream. I
[00:46:01] Hert: remember having that realization. I was like, oh, it's literally just the trickle down. This is, you know, some, some business class will teach me this. I think, you know, it's trickle down economics
[00:46:12] Speaker 4: kid.
[00:46:13] Hert: I remember having that realization and that, and then I, I, I saw everything a little different.
You know, I was like, I handled things a little differently. But, um, I mean, if I had to apply anything from my time at Hoonigan to what I'm doing now, um, I don't know how Ken was when it came to. Uh, just like setting goals and dreaming big and Yeah. Yeah. And like, just wanted to hit a home run every time or whatever, you know.
Um, but I I, I, I liked the natural progression that Hoonigan had
[00:46:48] Speaker 3: mm-hmm.
[00:46:48] Hert: You know, from the Santa Fe days that no one really ever saw.
[00:46:51] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[00:46:52] Hert: You know, and like the, the grunt work we had to do then, and that led to, uh, the donut garage and then the grunt work we had to do there that led to just becoming the YouTube channel and the legacy name that we did.
Because like, I mean, no matter what anyone says, no matter what anyone says or, or how they felt about the brand, like we are stamped.
[00:47:13] Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure.
[00:47:14] Hert: That, that sensor bar logo absolutely stamped. Yep. There's an error
[00:47:18] Brian: for it.
[00:47:18] Hert: And, um, so if, you know, any lesson that I, I try to apply is to like, do the grunt work.
Like grind. Yeah. Yeah. Don't, don't try to jump ahead with. You know, some home run idea. 'cause like, and I'm not against, uh, you know, like
[00:47:37] Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, of course. You know,
[00:47:38] Hert: the jumps and like trying big things and stuff like that. But I also understand like going to these grassroots events and like being a part of the community, which is stuff I'm gonna do anyway.
Um, and just like, just the natural progression and growth Yeah. Of our name and who we are in the space. Yeah. And building that trust with the community and stuff like that. That nothing at Hoonigan works without that.
[00:48:02] Brian: Yeah. Let me, uh, ask you, I'm, I'm gonna say this, not, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a knock at you.
[00:48:08] Fame and Leadership
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[00:48:08] Brian: Um, you were, you went from being like the young kid in drifting who was stoked that, you know, Chris Forsberg had a, ran a Bird Life sticker, uh, a Beard Life sticker on his car, right? And like you were this young guy and now like you are. An elder in the Drift community. You're not the eldest, but you're there.
You know what I'm saying? Like, you're no longer one of the new jacks. Do you think about that much? Because like, look there, there's like the old timers like Tanner Faust and like, you know, even before that Tony Angelo slay with like, oh, Chris Warberg, like some of the OG OGs for American Drifting. Um, but like when I was at LZ Fest, I couldn't help but think like, man, there's so many like new young kids that like, I don't even really think of them as part of drifting, but they are.
But like, I don't think about it because I'm still stuck in an era where like you were part of the new generation of drifting. Yeah. And like now you're old. Yeah. I mean, my, my story ain't,
[00:49:08] Hert: that's crazy. That's nice.
[00:49:10] Brian: Nice slip in there. Nice slip in there. But No, but you're an elder and I, sure, I mean that I, I 100% accept that.
All jokes aside, you are a veteran. I 100% accept that now and it's like, it's a different position for where you are. Well, no, I,
[00:49:20] Hert: I, I do accept that and I do see it. I am aware of it. Right, because like when I started. I was, uh, you know, young shithead Fcx seven slammed Kfs bn V eight, half of grassroots drifting.
Hated V eights. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and I was like, nah, fuck you guys. This is cool. You know? Yeah.
[00:49:37] Brian: You had a cult, you had a Steve Austin's zip tie to your intake, like it was still do. It's still there.
[00:49:42] Hert: Yeah. Um, but, you know, I lived through that and it was fun to be a part of that and like, and you know, try to help, uh, bring grassroots to another level and, and all that stuff.
And like, I'm definitely fully self-aware that one, I'm not that guy anymore. And two, I am an elder. 15 year olds drifting coming up to me. Yeah. I've been watching you since I was eight years old, and I'm just like, oh shit. You know? Yeah. It's like, Hey, that's cool. Don't tell anyone else that. It's like, you know, it's crazy.
Um, but it's like. You know, I went from participating in final bout and like doing everything I can to, to, you know, drift with drifting animal style and go to final bout and try to win. And now I'm very happy just judging it, you know? Right. I'm happy showing up and judging it and seeing cool cars and being a part of the community and like, as I'm judging 150 cars or whatever it is, half the kids are in their early twenties, you know, and it's just like, wow.
They're, I remember this moment, like, I remember the grind to get to this moment, and it's cool to see that still happening and all that jazz. But yeah, I'm, I'm fully aware.
[00:50:53] Brian: So here, here's a, here's a, like, because I wonder, 'cause I think about this a lot because as you kindly point out, like I'm, I'm approaching pushing 50, oh fuck.
Pushing 50. Yeah. So I'm pushing 50. It's the name of the podcast. That's a great name for a podcast. I'm just, I. Anyway. Um, yeah, I'm 45, so fifties around the corner. God, that's scary to even think about. But, um, but like, I still actually have a hard time, um, not thinking about myself as like the, the outsider, uh, underdog in the space.
Like when I started at zero to 60, I was the New Yorker running a car mag in New York. I wasn't part of like the, the automotive elite. And then even like when we started Hoonigan, you know, there was all this others, like we weren't MotorTrend. And, and then all of a sudden one day we were on top and I didn't like it anymore.
Like, I enjoyed punching up, right? Like, I enjoyed being the scrappy ones who were like trying to, like to, to set a name. The ones who were DIY because we had to be. And you know, I mean it went from why I like that punk rock element. Yeah.
[00:51:59] Hert: It went from why are they here to, oh, they're here,
[00:52:02] Brian: right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I like, I enjoy, or why are they not here? You know, I think that's actually went from why are they here to, why aren't they here? Mm-hmm. And then the expectation of us we're like, the first time we went and did Power Tour the first time we went and did, um, you know, Baja, like, you know, all these different things where people are like, why are, what are they doing here?
You know? Um, and then it became, you know, there's still, to this day, I think about this all the time, it's one of the things I'm probably most proud of is that you could talk to guys in desert racing and the only people they know in drifting are people who were a part of Hoonigan, right? Like that was their lens and their vision into drifting.
And they think it's cool because the attachment to like what we showed them, right? They weren't going to watch it on their own. Sure. They don't follow the same accounts we do. They were just at it for that. But I think now it's interesting because I personally have a hard time separating that. Like, I will talk to people and I'm not, you know, people will give me like a certain level of praise of like, oh man, everything, you know, this, that, and the other thing.
And it's like, I still don't think that way. Like I don't look at the body of work that we did. I don't think about it. Like I just am, like, I just like making stuff and we did this thing and it always felt, and you were there, we all, it always felt scrappy. There was like maybe a year or two that didn't feel scrappy where like we were getting really good breakfast and lunch and all that, and that was probably the, not the best time actually.
Yeah, I think the scrappy era was when it was better. Yeah. I I, I think the question is, is like, how does that role feel different for you, right? Like you went from being just Hert of beard life to then like. Hert of Hoonigan and were very much seen as like the sort of this big personality, right? Like no one's gonna deny you were the outside of Ken, you were the biggest personality at Hoonigan, right?
I would say it was you and then probably Vinny. Right? Um, and like, you know, you became so recognizable for that and then you leave that and now you're doing this other thing where like you're kind of a little bit in the background mm-hmm. Of like T-Pain.
[00:53:57] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[00:53:57] Brian: Um, in some ways. And I, and it's funny 'cause I see that and it's like, man, there's so many similarities between like what I was dealing with with Ken and, but then you also have this crew people, you have way more responsibility on all that kind of stuff.
But there's also this element of like, yeah, you've been doing this for 10 plus years. 12, 15 years. Like, unpro was so long ago, man. So long ago. It was a decade ago.
[00:54:19] Hert: A decade. Sometimes I watch it and I'm like, definitely can't make this show again.
[00:54:25] Brian: Oh, that one part. Don't watch that, don't cancel anything.
[00:54:30] Hert: Definitely, definitely can't make that show. Wow.
[00:54:32] Brian: That that one, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, scene that was first episode or second episode or whatever. I don't
[00:54:37] Hert: know, bro. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, no, it's, I mean, dude, so much has changed and that, that like whole thing with. It, it's natural aggression, right?
Like how you say is like, Ken, me, VIN, whatever. Uh, none of us were, we were just having fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, and the community, uh, built us without them we're nothing, without them taking our content and 100% putting us on pedestals and whatever, and we're nothing. And it's always interesting to me, people who were casually looking at Hoonigan, like maybe didn't watch the content but saw the Instagram or whatever and, you know, it's like they don't understand that Hoonigan was in half, half was Ken, the other half was us.
And like, you can ask this half of the community and they'll say, no, Ken, and you'll ask this half of the community and they'll say no to those guys, you know? Yeah. Um, and so it's all just like a natural progression thing. And the same thing with pain. Right. I feel great. Uh. Trying to put him in a position to thrive in the automotive space.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like I'm sure you experienced with Ken, mega rich guy comes in, can buy whatever he want, do whatever he wants. People aren't gonna take him seriously. You know? And so I, I am actually really enjoying telling the story and showing that this dude really loves us and wants to be a part of this and wants to do the grunt work to get to the, to, to be on your level.
Yep. And, and, you know, and earn your respect. Um, so, so that's what you're seeing really, you know, 'cause like, I mean, I've, like you said, we've done this so long Yeah. Um, and have made videos about ourself and blah, blah blah and this and that. And it's like, I just, I want to do this first. Yeah. And then, and then, you know, we.
Can start doing more together.
[00:56:15] Brian: Do you, um, do you en do you sort of enjoy a little bit of the feeling like maybe there isn't much pressure on you anymore because like, I got to live this, these two different lives at tne and I got to live this life with Ken when I went and did the Gymkhana stuff and I was very much guy behind the guy and then I got to live this life of like, in the early days, I, I stayed behind and kind of let you guys ride and then eventually like, and it is really all your fault 'cause I.
I think about it like car ka, the car cocaine intervention episode that you and like Vinny thought up, like you really kind of pushed on that. Like, that I think cracked an audience for me where people were like, oh, I get this guy now. Where like before I think my character was like, he's the boss. Like, what's going on with him?
Like he's kind of an asshole. 'cause I just had like a New York, you know, sense of humor. Oh, you just popped in. People didn't, yeah, I just popped in and just ripped you guys and it was whatever. And then like, I think that kind of brought me out. But then all of a sudden, like it was these two worlds. One was I'm sitting there making content.
I'm thinking about like this character of who I am. Not that, that's not who I am, but like, you know, you, you lean into your, your stereotype and your character elements. Like, although I do own 25 cars and only half run, but, uh, and maybe I just bought into that a little bit more. But it's interesting now 'cause like I, is it weird for you to, and then, and I, I don't mean weird as a negative thing.
But is it weird for you to go to an event and, you know, and, and in some ways kind of like, have T-Pain take front and center? Or is it also kind of nice, like, does it relieve a little bit from you? Because I, I, and I don't know how much you wanna talk about this, but I know that fame has been a very double-edged sword for you.
And you and I used to joke about us that we were coach class famous, which meant that even though we were famous, we still had to fly coach everywhere. Dude,
[00:57:58] Hert: it is, it's like, I, I hate, I hate like when people say you're famous and like, you're a celebrity and this and that. 'cause like, we're not No, we genuinely are not.
Um, do we have fans? Sure, yeah. And do they recognize us? Sure. And you know, it, it, you know, I always tell 'cause people will come up and ask for a picture or, or whatever it is, or just want to talk and they always apologize. And I'm like, Hey, without you, I don't have any of this. Yeah,
[00:58:24] Speaker 4: yeah, yeah.
[00:58:25] Hert: Like, don't apologize.
You know, it's, it's no big deal. But at the same time, there's always a lingering feeling like. I'm at Disney with my family and I'm taking pictures. Mm-hmm. I don't, I don't make enough money. Yeah. No, I, you know, it's like, I get it. I, I'm not, I don't make enough money to be this recognizable, you know what I mean?
It's like, so that, that part was always weird. Um, that part was definitely always weird. But when it comes to events and like T-Pain, it's, it's,
[00:58:51] Brian: he's a different level celebrity. And the closest I can get to that is like spending time with Sung Kang, where like, I am in Manchester when we were out there for, you know, for the episode with you on Hot Wheels.
Um, and I'm like, I'm out in town, like outside of a restaurant and every single person who walks by recognizes me. Yeah. Like, it is, like, he cannot, it's nuts. He cannot exist in the real world. Yeah. Which is, which is a different level of, of crazy. It
[00:59:17] Hert: is actually crazy. And like, I don't feel any. Any pressure or anything.
Right. It's, it's like I know what to expect when I come to events. I know the same amount of people are gonna come and say hi.
[00:59:28] Brian: Like we, you know, in terms of celebrity, we dealt with like Ken Celebrity, which really seemed big to us at a time. Yeah. But like tv, I'll never forget. Sorry to I It's on a whole, I gotta interrupt you.
I'll never some You're gonna talk about the Inn Out one. The Inn Out moment. No, that's hilarious. They walked past Ken to get your autograph. I thought Ken's insides were gonna fall out of him. Please, please stop
[00:59:47] Hert: that. That was crazy. For sure. That was like
[00:59:49] Brian: early shit Car Days. Yeah. Where like, we were first getting some traction,
[00:59:53] Hert: but also Ken without a hat.
He Yeah. You know, he's in, he's hiding.
[00:59:57] Brian: Yeah. Well they asked him for, he pulled out a marker. I gotta, I gotta tell the story. I gotta tell the story. I gotta, this kid was working the. The drive through line. He was the guy asking you at in and out what you wanted. He ran from the line over and came up to us and said, I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry. I just really wanna get an autograph. And Ken pulled out a marker, pulled out a Sharpie, and he said, thanks. And he took the marker from Ken and handed it to her and asked her for an autograph. It was fantastic. It was a fantastic moment. It was a fantastic moment because I, because one, there was a humbling that I think Ken was not expecting at the moment, but it was also.
It was real proof to Ken that the thing we were doing on YouTube mattered. Yeah. And it was the first moment to go. There's views, there's all of this, but like, this is something we were, we didn't understand. This is off the internet. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, you're right. He wasn't wearing his hat, so maybe they didn't write.
So maybe so what was the other moment?
[01:00:55] Hert: Uh, WRC Mexico 2013.
[01:00:59] Brian: Wild pandemonium.
[01:01:00] Hert: PI pandemonium. Like Ken's celebrity there was insane. Yeah. All I remember is, uh, family throwing their kid over the fence. To send to Ken to get an autograph because he wasn't doing autographs. Yeah. So they threw their kid over the railing.
When we say
[01:01:13] Brian: kid, like
[01:01:14] Hert: 4-year-old. Yeah, yeah. No, a child, a toddler, a little baby. Yeah. Uh, they threw the kid over with stuff for Ken to sign and Ken signed it, you know? Yeah. But it was just like that's, well, they
[01:01:24] Brian: used to bring in like the riot police to hold the crowd back. Yeah. Because they would push so hard to get autographs.
Yeah. So that, that
[01:01:31] Hert: was a gnarly, uh, witnessing of celebrity. Yeah. And like obviously T-Pain has been T-Pain for
[01:01:36] Brian: Yeah. For Well, and the closest I've gotten to that is spending time with Sun Kang. Yeah. Where like, no matter where he goes, it's like he is recognized. Yeah. Yeah. Either they know exactly who he is or they have to ask him who he is.
Right. Yeah. They could feel, they could feel it out. They can feel like this guy is somebody and it happens whether we're at. A restaurant in an airport, like, and like, that's just a whole different level of celebrity. Yeah.
[01:01:57] Speaker 3: It, it's cool. Like,
[01:01:59] Brian: like I said about, we're like, we're like famous adjacent, like we're not really famous.
'cause it's weird when people say that to me. I don't think of myself as famous. I'm recognizable. To a group of nerds who are no better than me. Like I, my, my fan base is as important as I am. We like the same shit. I think, I think the best way to put it, their cars run more than mine, dude. That's
[01:02:20] Hert: all. I think the best way to put it is people intentionally know T-Pain Sun can Ken Block?
They accidentally know us. That's amazing. Yeah. They accident. They accidentally Oh, I accidentally saw a video with you in it. Yeah, yeah. You know, and, but it's like, like I was saying about pain Super, we're
[01:02:37] Brian: algorithmically famous, right? Yeah. It's not, we got served because of us. We Yeah. We got, we got served.
He didn't look
[01:02:42] Hert: for me. Yeah, you got served
[01:02:43] Brian: us. Yeah. They're like, we're, you're not really a fan. You're not a fan of us. You are. We
[01:02:48] Hert: sued you with your view. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:02:51] Brian: You're actually a victim. We have a bunch of victims. You have been victimized by the algorithm and because of that, you know, me and her,
[01:03:00] Hert: it's, it's nuts, man.
Um. Because yeah. Those guys are all super famous and that, that, you know, I don't think you were there when we met Pain at the, the Burny yard.
[01:03:11] Brian: I was there when Pain was there, but I was super busy and I was like running past, so I didn't really get a chance to chat with him.
[01:03:16] Hert: So, you know, Danny Neville brings Pain to the Burny yard.
Danny Neville's a, you know, he's a driver, but also a famous DJ in the UAE, um, worldwide actually. But super cool dude. And yeah, we crossed paths when Rob and I went to, to Abu Dhabi. Yep. Yep. With Sultan. Yep. And Sultan introduced us to him and then fast forward, he hits me up, Hey, I'm a Pain, he wants to do some stuff.
Come on by. And uh, when Pain met me, he was excited to meet me. That's a trip. It was crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, is this. You know, like I, I sometimes I start to think I'm fabricating the story, but like, I remember, it's okay, I like it,
[01:03:58] Speaker 3: it works. You know, he was a pause show
[01:04:00] Hert: a little bit together. He was super excited to meet me.
He called his wife, I'm with her, blah, blah, blah. Like this, like mm-hmm. He was excited. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I was like, what, what is this life? What are we doing to where this guy knows who I am? Yeah. And where I was him for Halloween many years ago. Right. So, you know that, by
[01:04:19] Brian: the way, do you wish you looked a little bit less like him?
[01:04:22] Hert: Uh, I don't think I look anything like him, you know, you know, I'm
[01:04:25] Brian: just saying that because I know you get shaped more. Yeah, no.
[01:04:28] Hert: So that, that's where this, this story's gonna lead into. Right. So it's like, um, working with Pain has been amazing and he puts me on a pedestal and like he, his favorite story, it is funny that you said that about Ken, but his favorite story to tell is like.
Her's, the only person that someone's handed me the camera to take a picture for. You know what I mean? And like that's just Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's crazy. So it's like he actually puts me on a higher level than him at automotive events. You know, he's like, in auto space,
[01:04:58] Brian: you're the guy because he feels that you and you do, you have more authenticity than he does in the space.
I mean,
[01:05:03] Hert: he's new, you know, ish. Of course,
[01:05:05] Brian: of course. Saying, and
[01:05:06] Hert: like in the direct space, he's been, he's had cars, like Ken had cars course, you know, and la la la. But
[01:05:10] Brian: we shot him for Rides magazine when I was there. Yeah,
[01:05:13] Hert: yeah. So, so I don't feel any pressure, I don't feel any type of way. I just wish people would pay more attention to, because like I do have, uh, you know, a pretty awesome group of supporters that come and see me at events and stuff like that.
But if they, if pain's people know he's at an event, but don't see him, I'm pain. You know, like I, I, at Grid Life, not too long ago, I did a meet and greet and 30% of the line thought I was pain just telling you what songs they loved. Yeah. No, seriously. Because I don't, you know, when you meet people, it's just a casual conversation.
Oh, I love what you do. Thank you so much. That's awesome. Uh, my dad loves, I'm in love with a stripper.
[01:05:54] Brian: Yeah. Look, look at it this way. At least they confuse you for pain. I get confused for Vinny. Like, it doesn't even make sense. Like, oh, that's, that's a, people will just be like, yo, like, what's up with the whatever?
And I'll be like, wait, you think I'm Vinny? It's like crazy. I get an interchangeable white dudes with beards.
[01:06:12] Hert: Yeah. That's cool. But you're not like, the way that I take it is you're not actually a fan of this person, you know? Yeah. It's, it's the adjacency. Yeah. You don't actually care about Yeah. This person, if you think I'm him or you're vin, like, it's very clear.
Do, do you
[01:06:26] Brian: think the fan word is a weird word for us? I don't like saying fan. I don't like it either. Yeah. I don't like saying fan and it's weird. 'cause like we used to call it like viewers or the audience. I was, it was always a weird thing in Hoonigan. Like I never wanted to say fans and I, or followers.
Like followers sounds even more cultish, although I will admit. I think maybe like a, I think I still think a cult is in my future. Like I feel like I could pull that off.
[01:06:47] Hert: I mean, you did.
[01:06:48] Brian: Yeah. I think a cult is still, I think I could still do that. Pun again
[01:06:51] Hert: is a fucking cult, bro.
[01:06:53] Brian: It was for it certainly. It certainly was.
Hey, I mean, not that like.
[01:06:57] Hert: You, you, you could have talked us through the shittiest points in life. Like you, you
[01:07:04] Speaker 5: did a great job leading,
[01:07:07] Brian: I'll admit now. I was talking to myself through it. Yeah. And you guys were just hearing me talking out loud. We eventually
[01:07:12] Speaker 5: caught on and that's when things started getting weird.
[01:07:15] Brian: You know, you're like, yo, he's not even talking to us. He's actually talking to himself. We should leave. Yeah.
[01:07:23] Hert: Yeah.
That was, you know, there it's, you could for sure have a cult
[01:07:31] Brian: for sure. Good. Thanks man. I appreciate it. I wanna work on it. I'm work on it. I feel like it's, I feel like it's the next chapter. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think that's where I go next. Um, it starts with your
[01:07:38] Hert: Patreon
[01:07:38] Brian: people. Yeah. Yeah. No, the cult The cult.
I don't even know what that cult is, but it'll be interesting. So, oh my God. Um, no man, I'm, I'm, I'm stoked to see what you guys are, are doing and like, kind of putting together it's, um. You know, I, again, it's, it's so interesting to me 'cause I feel like in some ways, like your, your next chapter feels like the chapter I just went through.
And it's cool that you've got someone like Pain who gives you that confidence. There's a quick little like Ken story I wanna tell, which I, when Ken did this to me, I, I realized how important it was. We would walk into meetings and uh, this was early on and we'd walk into a meeting and the meeting would start and like, you know, it'd be like Ford executives.
So you have like the top people at Ford there, you know, it's like early on there's like six or seven people in the room, or Castrol or whoever, you know, whatever, whatever tire company, Pelli. And we would start the meeting and he would like, like interrupt everyone and be like, oh, hold on one second. 'cause everyone would like, would like just.
Glaze. Like they would just like gloss right over me. Like, oh, I'm like his bag boy. Right? Like, who's the guy who's with him? Or I'm the friend, or I'm the agent or whatever. And Ken would just pedestal, like, just completely pedestal me. He would just be like, this dude is everything. Like I listened to him about it.
Like he basically would put me in a place where it's like, like this is the guy, and like you need to like, you need to understand that like what he says goes so on, so on. And later on, like I asked him once, I was like, you know, what's your, what's your strategy there? And he was like, I don't wanna have to deal with these people.
He's like, and they're never going to believe that. Like I don't have a say unless I just tell them that. Like you have the say. He's like, 'cause I don't wanna have to be in the meeting. I don't want them to second guess you. Like you and I can have our own internal conversations and our own internal arguments.
But to the outside world, your say is everything. Like if you tell Ford we're not doing it, they don't need to come talk to me. Like, that's it. Like you have that thing. And at the time, especially like at my age, 'cause I was, I don't know, 31, 32 at the time, like it felt like such a massive power to have that.
And like I think about like, that simple thing that he did was such an, such a setup for me to like, take a confidence of like, all right, this dude's putting me on. Like he's the one who's vouching for me in front of all these people. To kind of go do that. And, you know, I look back at it now, it's like it gave me, it gave me a confidence that allowed me to do things that most.
I, I probably previously I wouldn't have tried to do, 'cause I would've thought I would've failed. But he was just like, you got this. Yeah, you got this. You can figure it out. And I, you know, and I, I know Ken was that way with you too, where it's like, I don't know, figure it out. I mean, I, I still don't think you know how to use a camera, but you got some of the best shots ever in Gymkhana.
I don't know how. And you figured it out. I say that too loud because gonna make people hate me. No, it's because, and I, I love it so much. 'cause I'm not a technical, I'm not a person who loves the tech side of cameras. You, and this sounds like corny filmmaker shit, but like, you understand the emotion of a camera, which a lot of people don't.
A lot of people can sit there and they can talk to you about shutters and they can talk to you about, you know, why you wanna run this with this aspect ratio and this frames per second and why this vignettes and what anamorphic does. And you're like, I don't know any of that. But then I'm just like, cool
[01:10:47] Speaker 3: story.
[01:10:48] Brian: Yeah. And you just get the shot. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like, I mean, and like there's something there that just works. You can't really, you can't really teach that. But, and I always told you that because I knew that you, as we grew up. There were more and more camera guys who knew way more than you, but I was like, you still always have a camera on set because like you understood that in a certain way.
I
[01:11:07] Hert: love filming, I love filming automotive stuff. That would
[01:11:10] Brian: be totally tangent off the original. Yeah. I don't even continue. I don't even remember. Go ahead, just run it.
[01:11:13] Hert: I love filming and I love filming automotive stuff, but I also think, uh, being around the nerds, like, well, Rogie and those guys who absolutely,
[01:11:21] Speaker 3: yeah.
Caught up like
[01:11:22] Hert: lit, eat, sleep, breathe, uh, uh, filmmaking. Yeah. You know, I think just being around them helped me a lot too, was like, I may have not fully understood how the thing worked, but they definitely, you know, gave me an understanding of it. Um, but yeah, I just, I love being in the mud, catching the action.
So I had to run it back one time just for the feels. Yeah. Come on out.
[01:11:43] Brian: Or you could bring me out. I'll come off on one of your sets. So, um. I don't remember what we're talking about. What, what's sort of, what's sort of next for you guys? Like where does, uh, where does everything with, with Nappy Boy go? Like, what are, what are your goals?
Like you said before? Yeah. You know, you never really fully understood what the Hoonigan goals were. Yeah. Which is weird, but for me, 'cause I'm thinking, man, maybe I wasn't that clear about that kind of stuff. Well, I think our goals were like weekly. Yeah. Like
[01:12:07] Hert: we, you know, I knew what our goals were as a brand, but I didn't know what the goal was as the company.
Right. Right. If that makes sense. You know, so it's like, I don't know if I really
[01:12:15] Brian: did either for a lot of it, but
[01:12:16] Hert: for for sure. But like I said, I was just heads down in support, like, whatever, I don't, I don't, whatever Brian wants to do, we're doing. Like, that's just how I operated, you know? Um, it was just, you know, I was, I always, I always, I always tell myself, it's like I was, uh, what's the word that I use?
Um. Blindly loyal. You know, I didn't look, I didn't, I didn't look outside of the scope. I just was like, Brian wants to do this, he says this. Let's do it. You know what I mean? And you know, there's ups and downs to that. There's the
[01:12:47] Brian: Yeah, for sure. For sure. It's also the, it's best, basically the definition of a cult.
So maybe that was already my
[01:12:54] Speaker 5: chapter. Well, I already told you you had a cult. I was talking about Hoonigan. I don't know if you picked up on that, but, uh,
[01:13:00] Brian: so are you saying that the people who worked at Hoonigan were the cult or the, or the, or The viewership fan base was a cult.
[01:13:06] Hert: The people, you were the cult leader.
Nobody, no one creates Hoonigan if it's not you. Like no one gets what you got out of these people if it's not you. I don't know if you understand. I appreciate that. I don't know if you understand that. I don't. But you have the gift of gab. You fucking, you talked your way through so much shit and made us believe no matter what, everything was this and that, and we did it.
[01:13:30] Brian: And you went through, so you went through different generations of it. Like I and I, you know, this is maybe too personal of a conversation for us to have on a podcast, but whatever. We're over an hour in at this point. No one's listening anymore. Um, you know, you went through me trying to figure out how to be a leader in that world.
'cause I remember like in the beginning, like I would lose my temp. Like I would lose my like cool. I would be yelling and screaming by the end. I wasn't that person anymore. Like, I came out this other end of it and, and became way more calm.
[01:13:59] Hert: Well, it's funny 'cause people like Round would come to me and be like, who's this?
Well, what. Who's this version? When did you guys get this update? '
[01:14:08] Brian: cause I'd be mellow. Yeah. Because he remember zero 60, which was even more like I was in zero to 60. I was a movie character. Like I was throwing shit, yelling, screaming. I once threw a chair to like, almost through the window, like I was full on like a bad movie Yeah.
Of like, you know, a guy who wasn't really like, not, didn't know how to be in charge. Mm-hmm. And then by the end, I kind of calmed down and Ashley calmed me down a bunch. Mm. She definitely shout out to Ashley. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But um, but yeah, that was like, you definitely went through all those, those different phases of it, so Yeah.
All to make you just better at your job now, so, so anyway, answer the goal question. What are, what are you guys goals?
[01:14:43] Hert: Um, I mean. So, I mean, just how you said, you know, you operated, we all operated spazzy 'cause like the goalpost moved a lot, right? Mm-hmm. So, uh, you know, currently, uh, I think main focus now that we've done a nice run of touring is just starting to build up a solid YouTube rapport.
You know, so it's like we've done the event coverage, but now I want to, you know, I wanna make some shows, you know? Mm-hmm. I think there's, I think Pain and I have an undeniable chemistry.
[01:15:12] Speaker 3: Yep.
[01:15:12] Hert: Um, and I think there's a couple different show options we can do. Um, I wanna make him super uncomfortable, you know, he can afford private jets.
I want him to drive a shitty car across country, you know what I mean? Like, bro, I've been looking for limos for him. We have two.
[01:15:27] Brian: Oh, sick. You found them? Yeah,
[01:15:28] Hert: we have two of them. Nice. It sucks.
[01:15:32] Brian: Like I realized down that dinner when we started talking about like weird limos, I was like, oh shit, Pain, and I have more in common than I thought.
Everyone listening to
[01:15:39] Hert: this. I said, I, I texted this to Scotto. I said, you meeting Pain is the worst thing to ever happen to me. This is the worst thing to ever happen to me. Because, 'cause Pain has a lot of wild ideas and, and obviously the money to fuel them. And, uh, I feel like it's funny 'cause, you know, he tells me just money doesn't matter.
Spend the money. Yeah. And I'm, I'm a very, I like to, you know, no, I'm gonna do it, you know? Yeah. I wanna do it this way.
[01:16:06] Brian: Well, Hoonigan, we were very aware of the money 'cause there wasn't as much.
[01:16:09] Hert: Yeah. Right. And, and I don't want to, you know, I'm not just trying to spend money, you know, unless there's a great idea behind it that we need to, you know, build or whatever.
But, um, Scotto is definitely not, not somebody I need over there. Yeah. I don't, I don't need it. But the goal, the goal is currently is like, you know, we're not, we're, the industry is, is not that. Different no matter where you look. Yeah, yeah. Right. You know, we have ourselves as the brand entities. Um, we sell merch, we go to events, we make YouTube videos and things like that.
But I mean, the goal definitely is to one, I think build a really fun event series, you know, where we mm-hmm. We hop around and have some really cool events. Um, and then just build some really cool YouTube shows that revolve around one, our chemistry, but also bringing in Yeah. Old friends, new friends and things like that.
So
[01:17:03] Brian: I How was the event you guys did, uh, up in, uh, the Milwaukee area? You guys did the Wisconsin
[01:17:07] Hert: Yeah. Um, Wisconsin State Fair. So that was basically every year Pain is done, uh, Wisconsin Vest Uhhuh, which is his music festival that he has at the Rave in Milwaukee. Um, and I mean, I think it's four years now and it's sold out all four years.
And we decided, oh, let's open it up with a, an event, you know? So that was our third event that we What is
[01:17:27] Brian: his connection to that? What, what's the background there for him?
[01:17:30] Hert: Um, the, the song,
[01:17:32] Brian: uh, okay, that's, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:17:34] Hert: So, so he had the song and then he started having a festival there, uh, and it went crazy.
They gave him a, an official TPA day, right. They there and everything. And so it is just a relationship that they built. Yeah. Um. And so that's definitely gonna be the home of it all the time, you know? So now we're trying to add a drift event element to it. Yep. Or just an automotive event in general. I'd love for it to be more than just drifting.
Um, 'cause I don't, I don't want us to just be a drifting company, you know? Yeah.
[01:18:04] Brian: Does Pain like, I, I know he likes cars and I know he likes super cars and stuff like that, but does he, is he interested in more things on the motor sports side than drifting? Or does he just really kind of stick to drifting?
[01:18:15] Hert: No, I, he's definitely interested in, in doing more. I think we both are. Um, you know, he's getting drifting down. He's feeling good there. But I think, I think where the fun really starts for us is when we are on the same. Playing same level and a new sport. Mm-hmm. You know? So like when we go to rally school together, right, right.
The competition between us,
[01:18:37] Brian: that's a show. That's a show right there. Yeah.
[01:18:38] Hert: You know, so when we go to rally school together and the competition between us, or we go to Grip school or whatever it is, like we're on the same level. So it's like, uh, a buddy, buddy, you know, competition show, learning how to do all this stuff.
And I think that's really gonna change the landscape for us is when we're. We're not showing what we're already good at. We're, we're, you get to see us grow into either being not really good at something or, you know, finding a new passion. Do you
[01:19:03] White Boys Can Jump?
---
[01:19:03] Brian: remember going to glams me, you and Vinny and like, we were jumping stuff and you were like, I don't know how to jump things.
And you're like, we're like, well, like we grew up riding BMX and even though we had never done that in UTVs Yeah. The concept of jumping something was there. Yeah. And you were like, I'm just gonna do donuts. And then you rolled it down.
[01:19:22] Hert: I think I probably can find the picture, uh, of send it over. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I could probably find the picture of it. Send it over, of it rolled over. I think I have a video of me doing donuts and you were
[01:19:30] Brian: just laughing hysterically in it too, which is great. Yeah.
[01:19:32] Hert: I have a video for sure of me doing donuts with Kikawa in the canam. Mm-hmm. Remember when I flipped that on the intersection?
The day we
[01:19:40] Brian: got it? Do you remember Brad rolled the four seater right after we put the carbon roof on it, bringing it into the shop. Oh,
[01:19:49] Hert: basically off the dock
[01:19:50] Brian: or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, Bradley. That dude. Do you remember Travis Clark, the agent? Yeah. He rolled it on the set. Like, I was like, Hey, can you move that?
Yeah. He got in it and rolled it from a standstill. Yeah. I had never seen that before. And he has like, he like raced Baja. Yeah, yeah.
[01:20:05] Hert: Yeah. Offroad. Scary man. Do you remember me riding with, uh, Jason Ellis?
[01:20:11] Brian: Jason Ellis is a mad man. The cycle. I'm sorry I made you do that. Yeah. That was
[01:20:14] Hert: terrifying. Terrifying.
Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's so, he had so much joy.
[01:20:19] Brian: Yeah, yeah. Scaring you. Yeah. It wasn't driving. He was enjoying making you scared. I've never seen someone, he was hard. He got fully erect on that. I've,
[01:20:27] Hert: I've never seen someone genuinely pull someone's soul out and, you know, and, and being like, yes, this is exactly what I wanted.
You know, that that was a Yeah, yeah, yeah. A gnarly moment. Shout out Jason too. I haven't seen him in a minute, but
[01:20:41] Brian: he's doing all right. He's doing pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I spoke, spoke to him recently.
[01:20:45] Events - the Next Frontier
---
[01:20:45] Brian: So, um, yeah, man, it's, uh, so for you guys, I, I'm interested in the event stuff 'cause I think, you know, I like, that was always the next frontier.
I always wanted to do more events. We obvious did burn yard and stuff.
[01:20:57] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[01:20:58] Brian: But we always, I always wanted to kind of do something more and I feel like, I feel like there's a bunch of great events out and I, I don't want to name anyone 'cause I, I, I think a bunch of people are doing a really good job stuff.
Mm-hmm. But it seems like automotive events have oddly plateaued in an era when I, I don't think car culture has been more peak than it is right now. Mm-hmm. In terms of mainstream Yeah. Like consumption of it. And there doesn't seem to be an event that really services that. I think Grid Life is the closest, but I still think like, there's, there's so much room and I think it takes someone like a T-Pain to bring that to it.
Like, I, I don't think two people, like, I don't think, you know, John and James. Ran randos can just go and go make an event. Yeah. I think like you guys have a unique space where you speak to one side of automotive, like he speaks to a side of pop culture. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That can bring that together. No, and that to me, that's very interesting for you guys.
That that's
[01:21:55] Hert: exactly, you know, it's funny, I feel like we had this conversation internally too. It's like, 'cause you know, I go into meetings for our events and I'm just talking about the drivers, you know, I'm like, I know, you know, I wanna make sure the drivers have a great experience and a lot of this and that, and, and he's on the other end of it, the spectators and the overall entertainment aspect of the event.
Yep. And we just, uh, you know, work on blending those things.
[01:22:16] Brian: Total tangent. But we will, we'll jump over to this. Um, and by the way, we haven't actually gotten to any of the things I wanted to ask you, but it's fun. It's good to catch up. It has been a while. Um, although people, you know, like, does. I asked the boys, I asked Vinny and Ron this question, do people often ask you about everybody else at Hoonigan?
Like, oh, 'cause I think everyone thinks, we still don't talk. Like, everyone feels like, well now that you're not on YouTube anymore, you clearly must not be friends. You must not chat. You must not talk anymore. And like Vinny was like, I talked to her like once every other, like once a week, once every other week via text.
Like you and I text Uhhuh. Like, I
[01:22:49] Hert: don't think, I don't think that people directly ask me like, oh, how's such and such a la la, la? But it's often a. Hey, loved Hoonigan, loved what you guys did, stoked to see you, et cetera, like doing this stuff. Yeah. Do the thing. Yeah. Keeping up with all you guys is awesome.
And I mean, I, I've signed a handful of driver's error stuff.
[01:23:10] Brian: I get tagged in their stuff all the time. I'm like, it's not my company. Cool. Like, I support. Yeah, no, it's
[01:23:15] Hert: cool. I mean, dude, I mean, it's undeniable what VIN is doing. Like that dude is absolutely killing it.
[01:23:19] Brian: Yeah. Uh, which is funny because he was the one in the last year who was like, I don't at, when Hoonigan's over, I'm not gonna be onscreen talent.
I don't want do this. Yeah. I just wanna do, I remember, I just want to do biz development. Yeah. Like, I don't want to do this part. It's useless for my career. And then like, he didn't believe in himself. He's the one churning it every week. Yeah. He
[01:23:39] Hert: essentially didn't believe in himself. And, and some, some things made him see the light and now he's an, he's an actual demon, you know, like he's actually, no, he's done great.
Obviously
[01:23:49] Brian: Jolly Jolly's got a great vision and helps him with all that. So I, I think that that's been, no, I'm stoked to see everybody kind of. Going on and, and doing their, their new things and doing different stuff. It's like cool to see that. Um, I know everybody's been begging for, uh, for like a reunion of all of us.
And maybe that's, maybe this is the drag race thing you've set up, so you just wanna get smoked. Y'all wanna put some money on it? I don't have any money.
[01:24:13] Hert: I still don't have any money.
[01:24:14] Speaker 3: Nothing. Nothing. Well, you trying to get rid of cars so you can put a car on it, bro. That's crazy. We can talk. I would love to take that from you.
The Ferrari. No,
[01:24:23] Hert: that, come on, put up the rw. That's the only card racing pinks
[01:24:29] Brian: for. How about my eight six? For your eight six?
[01:24:31] Hert: Nah,
[01:24:31] Brian: I don't, I don't need that.
[01:24:32] Hert: I don't need that. I don't need that. The only car I'd ever race you for pinks is your Porsche. That's the only one.
[01:24:40] Brian: A Carver car. But like what car would you race me in that It's gotta be, I'd, I'd make it fair.
I'd make it fair at PR seven.
[01:24:46] Hert: How much power does I make?
[01:24:47] Speaker 3: 400?
[01:24:49] Hert: Yeah. I could weigh like
[01:24:50] Speaker 3: 2,600.
[01:24:51] Hert: I could
[01:24:51] Speaker 3: race you in fd
[01:24:52] Hert: i'd, I'd put pinks on that.
[01:24:54] Brian: What's in the FD these days? Just a
[01:24:56] Hert: two rotor, the little two rotor, 1.3 liter. Nothing crazy. We ain't racing for paint.
[01:24:59] Brian: We could race. That's like, I always tell people like, if that car's for sale, check on me.
'cause something bad happened in my life. Like that's a forever car. Yeah. I, I, that's because even though it's worth a ton, I didn't buy it for a ton. So like, it still just feels, what is that worth it? I don't even wanna say out loud like 300. I, I thought two 50 and then I started talking to some people and it's definitely north of three 50.
Yeah. Like, I've actually had people offer me more than that and I delete the dms because like, I just don't want it to be real. Right. Because like, it's dumb for me not to sell it like that is that type of money right now would pay off mortgages, do all that. So like yeah. Hopefully my wife's not listening to this podcast, so, um, but anyway.
Yeah. So, uh. No, I think event, I think an event thing would be, would be super rad to see you guys do. Yeah. As far as
[01:25:48] Hert: goals go, I think that's a big thing for us is definitely having events. It never was really in my spectrum to want to throw events. It, that's a pain thing, but after now doing three events, I see it.
Yeah. And I feel it too. You know, it definitely feel fulfilling putting on something that one you're proud of too, that people go home and tell people, I went to this thing, you didn't go, you're stupid for not going, you know, that type of stuff. So,
[01:26:10] Drifting
---
[01:26:10] Brian: so let me, let me ask you a question on, on Drifting and I, I'm curious 'cause.
I, I will, and I have this conversation all the time. I feel I am an, I feel like an outsider in drifting it. This never was my hobby, but because I was so involved in it from the business side and the content side of Hoonigan and so connected with all of you guys, like I have a very intimate knowledge of it.
Mm-hmm. I know, you know what I'm saying? Like, I know all the nuance and all the whatever, but like, it was never my, it wasn't my passion the way it was for all of you guys, but that didn't make that, that didn't stop me from wanting to improve it, change the way that it was talked about. Yeah. You know, do all these different things, but you and, and will feels different to that Will's like you've been in this for so long that you're basically a part of it.
Like you created pathways for it. Sure. Even if you weren't there as a driver. Yeah. Like you still saw this in a different, you know, in a different way. This is, I, I can't, I have to be careful 'cause I'm on under NDA, but you know about the project I'm working on.
[01:27:05] Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
[01:27:06] Brian: And there's a conversation around a drift course in it, and I brought up the idea of adding a bunch of like elements to it, like how we would in Gymkhana grid.
And I think that there's this conversation of like, well, that's not done in drifting and meaning like, you know, like in a gym Kana grid, we'd have like, you know, a plane el like hung that you would slide underneath or like something you would hit that would like to hit a dunk tank and do all of that. Um, do you think there's a place for that in drifting?
Or do you think that that moves too far from what the OG kind of like toga drift was and it becomes too gimmicky, but like, or do you think that there is a world for it?
[01:27:46] Hert: There's no one way of drifting. Right. You got the toge rats, you got the track rats, you got the, uh, the street guys. Mm-hmm. You know, like there's no one.
You've got the full just competition level. Full comp. Yeah. Pro-Am comp guys. Yeah. Like, there's no one version of drifting. It just kind of depends on, on, you know, what you're seeking there. So like a gimmick like that isn't, I don't think is a bad thing on the scope with the scope of the event in mind.
[01:28:14] Brian: Right,
[01:28:15] Hert: right. So what's the scope of the event that allows you to do more? If it's a grassroots core, uh, you know, just a purest style event, that's one thing. But if you're putting on a show for people, um, spectators or Right, you know, viewers, whatever, that, those are elements that can make a mediocre drift event into an amazing drift event to the naked eye.
Yeah. Because like to, I agree. I
[01:28:40] Brian: 100% agree
[01:28:40] Hert: as a driver, and this is what I'm learning, like blending my style and pain style into an event. Like as a driver, I don't fucking care if there's a Semit truck. In the middle of the track that I have to go under. Right. Like it doesn't change the track for me. You know, I'm gonna power through that section and just like I would if it wasn't there.
Yep. You know what I mean? So, well, I think
[01:28:58] Brian: Mad Mike brought that first, right? Yeah. With Drifters. And I thought that that was phenomenal. And I, when that first drifters was awesome, when that first came, I'm like, this is the future of it. Yeah. And then it just didn't really catch on outside of what Mike did.
And I don't know if people were either trying not to copy what he was doing, or just the expense and the cost of adding. That's what its', that's what it's value
[01:29:16] Hert: to it. Well, that, that's 100% what it is. Because like you talking about that element isn't necessarily going to sell more tickets to your event.
You know what I mean? Right. Like after they see it and you do it, it's the, it's the FOMO when people are like, exactly. Oh, that looks crazy. They had
[01:29:32] Brian: pyro, they had,
[01:29:34] Hert: but the initial, the initial might not make or break your event, you know? So it's just people not wanting to, you know, do the spend Drift events are expensive.
[01:29:41] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[01:29:41] Hert: Uh, renting a track and coordinating everything like you're. A lot of times you're lucky you break even. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it's just like being in a position to do that and build it. 'cause you have to slum it out. Yeah. To get to the, you know, grid life didn't start overnight. Grid Life has been around for 15 years.
Their events at Michigan now are a lot bigger than they were. Yeah,
[01:30:01] Brian: yeah, yeah. You
[01:30:01] Hert: know, in the early days, you know, so
[01:30:03] Life After Hoonigan for Scotto
---
[01:30:03] Brian: I, I sat down about, uh, six months ago and I, I took out a piece of paper and I just wrote like a list of things I want to do in my life. Right. And one of the reasons was, was after I left Super plastic, I was in this like, weird situation where like I had to make money instantly.
'cause I had like nothing left in savings after, after buying the farm. And I still had a mortgage on this in the farm. And you know, as you know, the whole Hoonigan thing went south. And most of my money was, what do you mean, what do you mean? And, uh, whatcha talking about? So it was one of those, like, I had to go make money and I had to go do that.
And that meant that I had to like take. And I don't wanna say work I didn't wanna work on, 'cause it was stuff I enjoyed doing, but it wasn't like my passion, right? Sure. It was like consulting work and stuff like that. And, and I, I only try to work with the companies I, I like working with. Um, you know, and, and same thing for this, this podcast, like my rule was like, I only wanna work with partners that like, I actually know these people and I like them because I don't want to promote someone's brand.
I don't know. Sure. We got into, like in Hoonigan in early days, we worked with brands. We knew there was definitely an error where we were just like, slinging stuff and like that sucked. It didn't feel good, right? So, um, you know, I, I wanted to do that, but I was sitting there thinking like, what are the things I wanna do in life?
Right? And like obviously like top of the list is like start a cult, right? Like obviously start cult, maybe another cult number two. Was Yeah. Another cult is the
[01:31:19] Hert: Right,
[01:31:19] Brian: you already started. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Number two was, um, was podcasting. I, I enjoyed this. You've always wanted Go do this, this, you guys, we never did it.
I mean, I did that one quick show. Yeah. Um, I did the One quick show, uh, that was on Spotify Right. That I did with Ron Ball. Um, and it went one season, but like everyone called it Scotts Folly because like, it just, no one else wanted to do it. Mm-hmm. I wanted to do it. I enjoyed it. It was something I liked.
I like podcasts. It's what, it's what I listen. It's what you digest. Yeah. Most. It's what I digest because I don't really have time for the visual side of everything. Yeah. I enjoy the audio. Although video podcasting is, is where everything's moving. Um, and I, I enjoy this. I enjoy the conversation. Like, this is not, this is not performative for me.
Like, I'm enjoying the conversation with you right now. And we probably wouldn't have a chance to have this conversation otherwise. Yeah. Right. So it's, and like, I, I like podcast
[01:32:08] Hert: gives a reason for you. Yeah. Gives, gives the reason. Right. Yeah.
[01:32:11] Brian: Um, but so the podcast, the one, but then the other two things that were on there, one was.
Fix Hollywood. Not like the whole thing, but the automotive side of it, I think, I think car chases and everything in Hollywood are just absolute trash. Um, I think they've really lost the plot of like, what makes cars look good on camera. And that is something I, I want to go do. Obviously I'm working on working my way towards that.
I'll tell you about another thing that's going on after this. Um, but the other one of it is, is, is save motorsport. And I realize it's like both of those are like really, really, really big concepts. And I'm being, I'm being kind of a bit sound awfully cult. Ridiculous. What?
[01:32:51] Hert: Sound awfully, awfully cultish, but No, but, but please elaborate.
I, I'm,
[01:32:55] Motorsports has an Entertainment Problem
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[01:32:55] Brian: I'm purposely being hyperbolic in the way that I say it, but like I, I, I can't help but look at Motors sports and realize that they have, racing has an entertainment problem. Mm-hmm. Right. And I don't, when I say racing, I include drifting, I include everything, any kind of. Of competition level vehicle.
It's like they have an entertainment problem. You know what doesn't have an entertainment problem? Supercross, monster Jam. Like these guys understand entertainment. Like they get that, right? I think F one's figuring it out a little bit more now and they're leaning into the storylines and the soap opera of it all.
Um, but I can't help but look at, at drifting and go, where does drifting go next? Right? Yeah. Where does, where does, you know, where does some of these like forgotten, you know, spaces like Indie and like all these places, like how do they get a new audience when their audience dies? Like how do they bring in that new thing?
And so much of it is like creating a platform where it's entertaining to go there. Right? And, and it's, it's more about like, it really makes an experience feel. Feel different. And I, I, it's something I think a lot about. I, I obviously haven't really kind of put it to action, but whether it's like talking to, you know, Cole and like he's got some stuff coming up.
Maybe I shouldn't talk about that because I'm probably under NDA, but like, but like there's a bunch of stuff like that and I, I think it's interesting 'cause I, when I hear that your guys are gonna do, you know, that type of thing, I'm like, man, you guys have that op opportunity, like maybe you could hire me.
Wouldn't that be a great change? Wouldn't that be a weird flip? You know, I would hire you, you for a day, bro. That'd be so fun. I don't know if I could get that much revenge in, in 24 hours. They're actually one of my favorite albums is Jawbreaker's 24 hour revenge therapy. I now understand what that means.
I got 24 hours to get all of my revenge back out. Oh,
[01:34:43] Speaker 5: you think you're gonna get the revenge? Oh,
[01:34:45] Brian: okay. And the revenge. I thought you were talking about me. Nah bro. Nah, nah, nah, that's crazy word. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard yo, when you're, it's, it's, I was a great employee.
[01:34:56] Speaker 3: Is it time for
[01:34:57] Brian: a commercial break?
There's no way. You were a great friend sometimes. You were a great employee. But you were, you were. You were. That's crazy lot. You were a lot at times. You were a lot. We were a lot. We were all a lot. Yeah. We were a group of a lot. Yeah, we definitely were a lot. We were doing too much at some times. Yeah. So, no, but anyway, I jokes aside, like I think you guys have the pieces it takes to make it happen.
'cause you need someone who has the weight of pain to go do it. And someone like you who has, and I'm gonna wrap this all around, to what my original thing, I wanna make this podcast about an understanding of style to make it cool because I think that that is something that often gets lost. I'm not gonna name other people in the celebrity world, but there's a lot of celebrities who've tried to do big car shows and I just don't think that they land.
Um, except for Rick Ross, like his, like the Rick Ross car show. Have you been for? I haven't been. Did you go? Mm-hmm. What'd you think of it in person? I don't wanna talk about it. Oh really? See, 'cause online for like the Don community online, it looks nice for the DON community and like for that like community has never really had a pinnacle event.
It seems really, really cool.
[01:36:11] Hert: I don't think it's a bad car show. Um. But I don't th like for what he is, it should be more, I think it should be more,
[01:36:20] Brian: they do a very good job than of packaging it. Because to me it felt like hip hop's, good wood festival speed.
[01:36:25] Hert: Yeah, no, it, it has a lot of potential for sure.
It's a massive car show, but I think for what, who he is and how much money he has, yeah, I think it should, it could be a lot different or should be a lot different.
[01:36:36] Brian: Well then it gives you guys, now granted that's not your lane. Yeah. That's not your lane. But I think no matter what though, I think it's really good to look at other, how people do things in other spaces.
Yeah. To say like, how does that translate over? Right, sure. 100%. Like how do you do a version of that for drifting? And I think like, dude, we, and track cars and like just our audience of people,
[01:36:57] Hert: we were on pace. 'cause like, you know, Wisconsin State Fair was a feeler. We got screwed by the original venue and we lost a month and a half of promote to promote this event.
Yep. And we didn't have a, another event locked in until a month and a half, so we couldn't plan what we were doing 'cause we didn't know where we were doing it. Right. So we didn't have a lot of time to really dial in that event, but we were planning an event at the end of October. Um, you know, we, we put a hold on the track, we were figuring out the contract and all this stuff.
And then, uh, the track calls us one day and tells us we can't have our event 'cause they booked one the day before and the day after. Mm-hmm. Even though we had our hold since January. You know, and we're figuring out, actively talking to them about the contract and they're just like, yeah, sorry. Maybe try next year.
That sucks. Yeah. And it's just like, you know, and that one, we were, that was going to be our big nut. Mm. You know what I mean? Can I say, can I say that? Is that Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can, you can say whatever. It's, it's his job to bleep it. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that one was gonna be our big nut and I was really excited to like really dive in and go in on all these things.
We're talking about what, you know, how to level up an motor sports event in general. Mm-hmm. You know, and just like from, uh, you know, having a bit of a car, I'm not like, it's not that I don't care about car shows. I love car shows. I love walking around and looking at what people are doing, but there's also a lot of car shows going around, you know, so I'm not trying It helps
[01:38:24] Brian: create the vibe though.
[01:38:25] Hert: Yeah. Yeah. I'm not trying to have just a standard car show though, you know, I'm trying, we're trying to elevate all the elements of, of a motor sports event and the venue pulled it out from others. So we're still gonna plan, you know, and build what that looks like. But, uh. Having the venue and the purpose, the date definitely gives it,
[01:38:43] Brian: uh, a lot more motive, you know, um, I'm trying to create something like that on the small level.
Um, but I, I've been paying so much attention to like what everyone else is doing. 'cause like nowadays, like cars and coffee is such a big thing that like why go to a car show? Like you, you just go to car, you go see a crazy guards of cars and coffee. So it's like it has to offer you more, it has to be a real experience.
It can't just be walking through a parking lot, you know. So, which unfortunately is what I thought was kind of a little bit what the Rick Ross show was again, for like the Don community, but it's giving them a reason to build really cool stuff.
[01:39:14] Hert: Definitely not speaking down on the show. And there are definitely some radical builds, like guys building gnarly Dons and you know,
[01:39:21] Brian: and the Brown Sugar and Bobby Brown come up.
I
[01:39:23] Hert: love to see, um, I love to see that car culture kind of bridge the gap into just. Uh, automotive media. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Because like Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dons and bubbles and that general culture has always had a hard time breaking the mold and like being seen
[01:39:38] Brian: in a serious, I watched, I watched that whole show on Betos channel on on the gas.
Oh, really? Yeah. That's funny. Which is great. 'cause I watched their stuff and I'm like, that's cool. You guys kind of just like stole the Hoonigan five. Like, it's working for you. Like, I like it. I like it. Like I, I mean, a couple,
[01:39:52] Hert: a couple of people who, I mean like, we were so early in what we were doing. Yeah.
I mean. You know, I, there are a bunch of people that we've brought on our show that have created their own thing that are stuff, you know, because of, and by the way,
[01:40:07] Brian: I said stole, I don't mean it that way. I mean, like, don't think you did. They've, they've vamped it, you know, like they took a version of it made their own.
Yeah. We were
[01:40:14] Hert: doing Burny Yard before Garrett Cletus was doing Cletus in cars. You know what I mean? Do you remember what
[01:40:19] Brian: he said? I
[01:40:20] Hert: 100% remember it. What did he say?
[01:40:22] Brian: What did he say? Say it because I, because
[01:40:26] Hert: uh, you know, maybe this is not verbatim, but he looked us in the eyes and was like, I'm doing this.
[01:40:31] Brian: Yeah. When he, when he was done with, 'cause he came to the event. Yeah. And that was when he had, he brought Leroy out, right? Yeah. When that was like, still new and like, you know. And at the end he was like, I'm gonna do this idea. Yeah. Which was like so honest. He was just like, IM gonna, he looked us in the eyes and said it, I'm gonna
[01:40:44] Hert: take this idea and jump through.
And now he has the biggest burny yard style show imaginable and he does it every month and it's nuts. Yeah. Like he's built a fucking empire
[01:40:53] Brian: that, that meant we missed an opportunity there. And that was, but that's because
[01:40:57] Hert: we were, well, just different goals dude. Like
[01:41:01] Brian: if COVID didn't happen, I wondered though, 'cause we, I was gonna ask you that question on here.
Or seven Burny yards in a row at Irwindale cracking out 5,000 a pop. Yeah. Which like is pretty good for that day. I actually
[01:41:12] Hert: was gonna ask you, what do you think hooing him is if COVID doesn't happen? Because like that was a momentum Hal thing. Hard to tell
[01:41:19] Brian: that, that halted our momentum. We were, we were moving.
Yeah. Like we were booking. But I also think there was an element of like, we were kind of being torn apart too. Like I think that there was so much work at the time. Yeah. That like, it may have burned us out. I mean that's like COVID might have been a Sure. An okay.
[01:41:36] Hert: And that, that carries on the conversation that I was, you know, just right now with thinking about Cletus and, you know, his events and things like that.
It's just like what Cletus is building and what he's doing isn't what Hoonigan was trying to build.
[01:41:50] Speaker 3: No.
[01:41:50] Hert: It, it, there's separate, like if we were a grassroots company and we, and the idea wasn't to sell and our ecosystem was us,
[01:41:57] Brian: yeah.
[01:41:57] Hert: I think we definitely could have, um, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, done something like that, but that just wasn't our goal.
[01:42:02] Brian: I dunno, in the end you realize like, that wasn't, that wasn't the move. But this is gonna, I don't know this episode. I, I don't know. Are we on track on this episode? Are we all over the place? Hey, we're good. My ride's gonna be here in five minutes. Sweet. Did
[01:42:16] Hert: you call that before?
[01:42:18] Brian: No.
[01:42:18] Hert: No, no. So no, it's
[01:42:20] Brian: like, did you like plan and escape?
Oh, no. Because like if, so you have matured and grown in a way that I am most proud that you have actually planned an extraction. I don't want to, you planned an extraction to get out this podcast. Podcast. Don't want to. You're going
[01:42:34] Hert: too far because, you know, I keep you until midnight. Don't want, I don't wanna burst your bubble, but it is all Raquel.
I don't, I don't Oh, she did. There it all, she got you playing? Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. That's fair. That's fair. I appreciate you. She also knows me.
[01:42:45] Brian: I appreciate you giving me that, but yeah, she's like, they'll you just sitting there talking for hours. Okay. I, I want hit you with a couple last things. 'cause this was brought up.
[01:42:53] Firing Order - Ranking the Top Hoonigan Builds
---
[01:42:53] Brian: So, um, you and I just chatted the whole time, but there's this other concept I have for another podcast I wanna do called Firing Order, and it's basically creating lists of different things. I tested it in the first episode with Vinny and Ron. And the question we had, I wanted to keep it something simple so we could get through it pretty quickly.
But the question was, was, what was the. Um, top three cars we ever built at Hoonigan. So I I I have the, I have the, the final answer from them. So I can either ask you for your top three. And these are the company cars. So it's not personal cars and not cat. Not cat cars. Yeah, that's 'cause then it's easy then it's basically just Huna Corn, Huna truck.
Huna Pig is probably the top three. Okay. But Okay. Um, but no, so it's the cars we built. So like, you know, the, the rolls, the Camaro knuckle busters E 36 shark car, like whatever Right. Top three cars. What's your list? They have to be in order. Like, eh, you could give them to me in Yeah, you could give them to me.
However, um, I'm curious how close you are to what we debated about to, to land on.
[01:44:04] Hert: Mm-hmm. Okay. Um, the Don shit car. See, what do we have? You said shark heart?
[01:44:14] Brian: The Indy Shark, heart scumbag, rolls Royce Warthog, uh, lightning 6 32 Camaro. Um, the indie car thing. The ridge line with the indie car. Yeah. Rear on it.
Um, Cole Marro. I mean, there's a bunch of like lower level things like the Yeah. C eight build or whatever. Those are kind of nothing but like of the ma more major builds. Okay. So you got shit car, shit car Donk.
[01:44:41] Hert: It'd have to be, it would have to be between
[01:44:44] Brian: Narrow it down. Narrow it down. It'd have
[01:44:46] Hert: to be between the Indy car and the 6 32.
[01:44:49] Brian: Okay.
[01:44:50] Hert: I think, I'm not sure which one. Probably lean towards the 6 32 because we had more access to it.
[01:44:58] Brian: Right?
[01:44:59] Hert: Yeah.
[01:44:59] Brian: The thing that
[01:44:59] Hert: sucked out the Indy car was we weren't allowed to drive it. Yeah. We had no access to it, but that was a gnarly build. Um, fuck Warhawk too, though. But again, we didn't really, I mean, that was for somebody else, essentially.
Right? '
[01:45:14] Brian: cause we didn't keep it. Yeah. We just gave it to, that was for Microsoft work. Yeah. So Microsoft, uh, halo.
[01:45:19] Speaker 3: That was a cool build though.
[01:45:20] Hert: But I guess, I guess I'll, I guess I'll, I hate to pick two VA cars, you know, like the That's all right. You know. But the 6 32 Camaro was really cool.
[01:45:34] Brian: We, I, I actually realized something when we were doing this before.
I didn't bring it up, but Hoonigan never did a Japanese car build. Yeah. Because all the personal builds, other than mine, everyone was building Japanese cars, so we didn't need to like, we had to offset it.
[01:45:49] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[01:45:49] Brian: With a lot of the American cars. 'cause internally we weren't really building American cars. Yeah.
Like you, Vinny, Ron, Dan, like you guys were all building Japanese cars. Yeah.
[01:45:59] Hert: Yeah. So, yeah. Don shit car, uh, Camaro. Okay. I, it's hard not pick shark card too. That's, you know, that's fine. So he like, if fuck, if we're going lower, like shark cart should be on there, you know what I mean? Like, strictly lower. But
[01:46:18] Brian: you gotta, you gotta pick all the things, the quality of it, the lore of it, the fun of it.
All right. You know what I, I, all right,
[01:46:27] Hert: then I'll, I'm gonna go 1, 2, 3. Shit. Car one donk, two, shark car three.
[01:46:34] Brian: Okay. So here's the list that we, we came up with rolls number one, uh, donk number two. Shit. Car number three. So two of the three, you're on rolls, wasn't on your list. You drove the living shit outta that thing in Atlantic City, and you explode the transmission on that thing.
[01:46:53] Hert: The transmission broke every time it was driven. Yeah. Every time
[01:46:56] Speaker 3: it
[01:46:56] Speaker 5: was a cool
[01:46:56] Hert: car.
[01:46:57] Brian: It just, it was a, it just, it, well, it came pre broke.
[01:47:01] Hert: It's not that it came pre broke. I think at the era of that car. It didn't, it, it, I don't think it meant that much to the brand. I see what you're saying. Yeah. I don't think, I don't think that meant more than the cars that I've listed to the brand.
So, so
[01:47:14] Brian: I'll give you their individual list. 'cause we each, how we did it was everyone did their three. Mm-hmm. And then we went through it. So Ron was, Don Rolls Indie. Right. Okay. Vin was 6 3, 6 32 Camaro roll's. Shit car. Mine was dunk. Shark cart scumbag. Mm. Because even though I think that shit car was more important to the brand as an identity shark car served a longer span was actually way more fun to drive the amount of people who learned how to slide a car around.
Like, I think the, the first car, like I had done figure eights in was Shark Cart. Yeah. Like, like that was one of those vehicles that like, everybody had fun driving it and it went from being a car we hated, which was the 200 Miata and actually made it kind of cool. Yeah. So, and it also lived every single mechanic who ever worked at Hoonigan worked on it.
So Darnell started the build, Dan took it from there, and then soupy like every, like it lived the life where like we, and we never ruined it. We've ruined shit. Car off-road. Shit. Car. Maui. I know Maui. You were against it from day one. Yeah. Don't I know
[01:48:19] Hert: you were. Don't I know you were. Don't I should have put an asterisk on shit car that
[01:48:22] Brian: No, no shit.
Car was, yeah. 4th of July. Shit car. Yeah, that was like ultimate peak shit car. Yeah. Yeah. That was all right. Yeah, so I mean the li I guess. All right, so Don and Shit car are definitely uh, are definitely up on the list. I just think like shark car, shark car wasn't like good looking but it was certainly fun.
Shark shit.
[01:48:39] Hert: Car shit, car is obviously lore. I mean I feel like that car mm-hmm. Started a brand, like really started a brand with that car oddly, you know? Yeah. It did a lot for us.
[01:48:49] Brian: If you looked at Hoonigan and you just talked about the story of shit car and indie truck, I think like. You could just talk about where we started, where we ended up, and like maybe some of the mistakes made.
Because if you think about it, shit, car was a attainable $500 bill that we made look stylish with very little money and um, and everyone got to drive it. Yeah. Like everyone drove it. If you came to the building, you got to drive it. Including the Domino's delivery guy. Yeah. Wow. And the memories and the indie car, no one got to drive.
No, except for a professional race car driver. Yeah. Like that, that, if that doesn't say everything about where we started and where we ended.
[01:49:31] Hert: Yeah. I mean things like the Indy car and uh, uh, the Rolls Royce I think reflect. Where I was mm-hmm. At Hoonigan and, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And where I just was like, that had nothing to do with us.
Yeah. Yeah. Snoopy had his gang and those boys did the thing and like, we weren't really a part of it. Yeah. It
[01:49:48] Brian: was crazy that they let us do it, but it definitely didn't have like the initial soul Yeah. Of like what we were doing.
[01:49:53] Hert: Yeah. You know, to me
[01:49:54] Brian: Don was, I, I will be the first to say it was this emo it was like the emotional support project during the pandemic.
I like, it was the one time a week we all got to get together. Yeah. Like go deal with all this
[01:50:06] Hert: shit. And you know, the Don I think is cool, you know, obviously it's a don big blower out. The, the hood sounded crazy. Uh, you know the custom those BB or rotor Yeah. BBS reps. Yeah. But, um, but the whole idea of the dunk, I don't, no one on the main stage of automotive YouTube was building dogs.
Yeah. So it's like, not only was it cool, but like, you know, break breaking that mold and educating people and, and watching you kind of lead a build and really be a part of the build too. You
[01:50:36] Brian: and I both learned to weld on that project
[01:50:37] Hert: too, which is cool. Yeah. We got welders. Shout out Mil or no, it's your podcast.
I don't know if you,
[01:50:41] Brian: you can shout out Miller. I still, I don't have a welding partner, but I still have Miller Equipment, so it's, yeah. So shout out Miller. Yeah, we
[01:50:47] Hert: got, we got welders. We learned Weld a little
[01:50:49] Brian: bit. You still got, you still got a partnership with them?
[01:50:50] Hert: No, no.
[01:50:51] Brian: Oh,
[01:50:51] Hert: all yeah. No, that was just a friendly, yeah, yeah, it was a friendly, uh, thing.
But, but that project, you know, that was a really good time. I thought we got to do some cool shit. It eventually got taken outta our hands, but like we, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We gotta do some stuff. And then obviously shark car for the Lord, just how you said, um, yeah, it went through all the paces, which is kind of, and I mean like the Kikawa story with the thing mm-hmm.
And stuff like that. Um, you gotta get Kikawa on here. If you have Kikawa on here. Can I be a cosst?
[01:51:15] Brian: Yeah, you can come back for that. Yeah. Yeah. Next time you come back we'll do that. Yeah. Plan Kikawa would be good. Yeah. I would love to be
[01:51:19] Hert: on a
[01:51:19] Brian: podcast. Real caca. That'd be hilarious. But, but yeah, that, but the only thing is, is it has to be a video podcast.
'cause he won't reply. He will just look at you because he won't talk, he'll talk. He just, he'll just give you that look and be like, he'll talk if I kiss him on the cheek.
[01:51:32] Speaker 3: He
[01:51:32] Brian: does
[01:51:33] Hert: love that.
[01:51:33] Brian: Yeah, he does love that.
[01:51:34] Hert: Mm-hmm. Yep. It's a good little good little good kiss, you know.
[01:51:38] Brian: All right, dude, I really appreciate you coming in.
Um, honestly, I wish we had more time. I know, but you have to catch a flight and I ain't trying to catch the wrath of Raquel for you not getting home, so, um, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I mean, thanks for coming by catching up, I mean, at a certain point I feel like we were just. Just talking. It's like not you got podcast.
We'll run it back. I'm sure. I'm sure you what I'd love to have you come back on is an episode of Firing Order and one of the ones I wanna do is the Greatest Wheels of all time. So like, obviously it's bbbs R's, who are you talking to? And then after that,
[01:52:08] Hert: wait, what do those look like again?
[01:52:10] Brian: They don't look like thrust thrust masters or whatever.
Thrust. No thrust. What was it? Uh, torque thrust. They don't look like torque thrust, kf thrust masters. This guy's horny. I'm, I'm down so unimportant that I don't even
[01:52:24] Hert: remember it. I think I'll, that's crazy. Uh, you, you know. No,
[01:52:27] Brian: when you're back, well, let's plan a day. 'cause I think we'll get everybody in here.
We can do a couple of the, the, because 'cause I need your, um, I need your like, just absolutely blatant, um, biases in, in a fight on wheels. Okay. Yeah. 'cause I think that'll be a good We'll do, yeah. We'll do the best wheels of all time. Yeah. So thank you sir. Appreciate it all. Good to see you, man. And uh, big thanks to our partners.
Uh. Obviously Vyper chairs, which I've been sitting on for the past, uh, two hours. Pretty me. Do you have any Vyper chairs? Yeah, I do. Dude, they're great, right? I love Vyper guys, man. Yeah, they're, they like the team is really good and the quality of their stuff is great. Yeah. And uh, yeah, and they came on to support this, which is awesome.
Uh, heat wave glasses. Uh, actually I'll be honest, I mostly wear their safety glasses 'cause I never really was a sunglass guy. Mm. But I like actually having safety glasses that don't look corny, which is like kind of nice because I'm on camera. I mean, you're always cutting stuff. Yeah. Thery the builder is always, see that's a side a lot of people don't know.
Yeah. The old bry, the builder days are just making stuff outta us, whatever. If he's not
[01:53:28] Hert: cutting, he's not
[01:53:29] Brian: happy. And obviously FCP Euro and, uh, my longtime friends at Toyo Tires. Thanks again. And, uh, yeah, check out the Patreon, all that good stuff. And thanks again dude. Good to see you.
[01:53:52] Speaker 6: The mailbox is the mailbox. The mailbox
[01:54:00] Speaker 7: cannot accept any messages at this time.
[01:54:07] Brian: So you probably know these guys best for their killer shop stools. I'm sitting on one right now, but Vyper Industrial also makes an amazing shop cart. You're thinking right now, how amazing of a shop cart do I need? You need one this amazing. It holds over 1200 pounds. I've seen people rebuild engines on them.
It has fantastic wheels, just like their stools. They're massive eight inch casters. It's got this smart modular system. They make holders for everything from hammers to polishers. You can set it up for a bunch of different things from detailing to wrenching or running your podcast, which is exactly what we're gonna do with it here on very vehicular.
Anyway, I've said it before. I love these guys. They run a great company made here in the USA, so go support them. After all, they do support us. By now, you should have picked up on a theme. All the partners that we're working with here at Very Vehicular are partners that I've worked with before, and quite frankly, not only do I like their product, but I like the people who work there, heatwave especially being one of them.
Look, first off, I don't wear sunglasses all the time, but these guys make an amazing sunglasses. What I do wear a lot of more. Safety glasses and they make cool looking safety glasses that don't make you look lame. And also something that's really important to me is that their founder, he's one of us, he is a bonafide car dork.
He's out racing. He builds really cool fun cars and they also support our scene. They sponsor a bunch of great drivers from Darren Parsons to Travis Pastrana, Blake Wilke, the whole group. We'll give 'em a look. 'cause not only are they supporting the scene, they're supporting the show and they make it happen.
Alright, here's a little secret. The first project car of my professional career dates all the way back to 2004 and it still doesn't run. But that has nothing to do with the tires that are on it. You see, Toyo Tires was the first sponsor I ever had in anything I did all the way back to zero to 60.
They're on all of my cars. Uh, I use their tires for everything and I love them. They're great. So whether you need a tire for your track car, your daily, or your off-road truck, Toyo's got you covered. They have for me for, oh my God, 20 plus years.