Embarrassing Jobs That Made Us Love Cars

[, Music, ], hey everyone, how you doing that was uh. I was a little too much yeah yeah gon na tone it down. Please hey everyone. No! It'S too little hi hi everyone! My name is Freddie Hernandez, but you may know me as tovarisch, and this is my partner mr. Andrew Howell, you may know me as Andrew Howell. That'S that's right. I guess so. This is a wrench every day and we talk about cars and wrenching and anything having to do with those two things, and sometimes things not having to do with those two things correct right. So uh, hey, you don't said Andrew. You know what I'm your times. I feel like, and not sometimes you don't. You can tell him here, cuz, I'm not all there that that sounds like something a grandpa would say a grandpa. I totally stole that from a grandpa from a long time ago, at an old job that I used to have awesome so uh. Actually, speaking of jobs, we have a question and that question comes to us from mr. Jason Lee on email. So he says prior to working on your first car. I guess this is directed towards me prior to working on your first car and becoming an expert on wrenching everyday. I am NOT an expert if anybody calls me an expert on anything, please check their qualifications, because that is not. That is not a true thing. Don'T if I'm not an authority on anything other than maybe no, not even that, oh, and so I said what kind of jobs did you have so I'll start with you, because I think your job history is a little more varied than mine and I think it's A little more interesting as well yeah. How long do we have like? Where are we starting? Listen, we have all the time in the world except for we don't yeah, I mean, let's, let's keep it to the first 90 minutes. How about that can you can you do a quick, a quick, 90 minutes tight 90 minutes. I mean why we do a little quicker than that most of the jobs. I'Ve had aren't super okay, alright, so insulting! So, let's so, let's, let's hear what started your job career your career jobs. Well, when I was when I was a young boy, my first job was at a restaurant called chick-fil-a. Oh awesome, yep great. So I was, I worked at chick-fil-a, so I did the chick-fil-a things. What what is chick-fil-a things? It'S like that family guide yoga like I could do mu stuff like what smooth stuff I didn't ever go graze over. There register and drive-through, primarily okay, specialties, yep cool. So you cashier sure: okay did you ever have to work with the food where your fry cook or something like that new? No, I was that I was too personable and too good-looking. Okay. Is that what they told you or did? Did you just find that out? After so after chick-fil-a, I worked at a video game store. Okay, it was called EB Games, EB Games yeah, which then became Game, Stop cool all right so and what were you doing? There? Obviously not frying chicken right nope. I was frying videogames frying, the deep-fried videogames. I swear that that that that sounds like a millennial hangout in New York, can we start a band called deep-fried videogames? I think maybe I mean what kind of music would it be? I mean probably similar to Mini Cooper, sidecar Mini Cooper, I think Mini Cooper. Sidecar sounds awesome. Deep, fried video games sounds like a horrible band. You'Re right, it's probably terrible um. It sounds like a 14 year olds cry for help. How about we start with jobs that involve vehicles? Listen man, you make the rules. I I just. I just read the emails, that's my that's my desk time. I make the rules. I won seven million dollars. Okay, then I want to listen to a finger-snapping rec time dandy. So the first automotive related job that I had. Let me think back in France making pizza delivery, I guess kind of pizza delivery. Um. I worked at a vinyl wrap shop in Jacksonville, okay, it was called identity, design, okay, so the vinyl wrapping. What when was this, then? Oh man? This was in 2013 2012-2013, so that was vile. Wrapping is relatively new, yeah yeah, so identity design they really they kind of played a big role in the moving from like doing plumber, and you know garden trucks to doing custom work right. So, for instance, like we did a Lambo murciélago LP, 560, 560. No, that was 646 40 yeah sure numbers we did 40 in 670 and I think this was a 640 yeah. So so the ones the one the 670 is super rare. So it probably wasn't that six 40s were probably the most, so we had a guy ship, his over from Singapore huh, which owning any car in Singapore is insane. So if he has a mercy in Singapore at say, Ansan, but his wealth. He should right over to us and we wrapped it in chrome, okay, cool um did like a CLS, AMG and chrome a couple of the cool cars I hate. I don't hate the people that do this. I hate the mentality and I might say that I hate the people it is wrapping a car in chrome is horrible, do not do not wrap a car in chrome. The reason why is I don't care about the aesthetic? The aesthetic is fine, if you, if you like, to picture it and what I wrecked it's a distraction to other motorists distraction to other motorists like well that guy's styling on me, Wow well shoot I just got dumped on my favorite songs of all time. No, no! The reason why is because, if you live in any place where you'd likely own a Lamborghini like California or Texas or Florida or whatever, there's probably gon na, be some Sun and Sun and chrome introduces a lot of glare to a lot? That'S what I meant by distraction driving yeah, it's really not that bad I've seen okay! Since we live in the land of bath salts. We I've seen some of these. You know they call them. Dunks yo, dude dogs are legit. Don dogs are pretty cool. I have yet to drive in one eye, I've loved to see how crappy the ride quality absolute has to be in a poorly done donkey S III. I want to see the best donk in the world. I want to see how that thing rides because it has to ride like absolute crap. Okay, oh we're still talking about cars. You know that can't defy the laws of physics. You still have a 30-inch wheel and no rubber at all, like it's just you're riding on a wagon wheel. So all the bumps are just going directly into suspension and suspension Lake Lee doesn't have that much give in it. So you have no sidewall. You have these crazy wheels and you're over stressing components. I love the 30 inch wheels and then they have stock brakes on directs like ten inch and the IV drums in the back. It'S insane yeah yeah, but I've seen a donk. It'S probably a Crown Vic or Grand Marquis or whatever, and it had chrome. It was chromed out wrong. Bling-Bling, chrome, dasheng, bling, blang blang exactly yeah, and it was it was really. It was like. The Sun was out that day and it was, it was blinding. We had a customer of ours that had it was a convertible like an O 3 o 4 convertible v6 Mustang wrapped in chrome, that's the best kind of Mustang. No, it's not yeah that that! What is that? A cologne, v6 4 liter and made like 210 screaming screaming horsepower anyway, so you know what okay, so I have driven a donk okay and it was awful because it was this Mustang really come on really donk bad yeah yeah was really bad. It was terrifying driving. It on 995 up to Jacksonville was I Fahim Utley opposed driving this car, but I was the only one that I should have. I should have just said: no, that was a real liability. Why did I do that? I wasn't getting paid anymore. Pushover, hey DRI, the super sketchy car, whatever I think someone offered to buy me food which I've like okay, listen, free food is for you, yes seriously. The way to my heart is through my arteries yeah, it's that is, that joke like listen, I'm not gay, but so that was terrifying, but anyway, so at identity design. I was there for a while. I was there graphic design, guy mmm-hmm and then I ended up doing like social media photo video and that's kind of how I rolled into what I do know. Okay, it was like that was Genesis, so you did social media at the identity, design vinyl wrap place. Yes, cool a lot of people, don't know that vinyl wrapping - it is relatively recently mentioned, but vinyl wrapping in its infancy. It was like it's pretty bad like if nobody knew how to do things necessarily, so they use a lot of like exacto knives and when people peel stuff back like they were applying a lot of the the same techniques that they would use on vans and nobody Cared about vans because you know you don't really care about the paint job on a work van. So with our clientele in the cars we were working on, we didn't have a choice. We didn't use those methods, mhm and actually the installers that we had worse literally to this day, some of the best in the country - oh yeah, yeah yeah, so so the people that did it right from the beginning. They are real, they're, very good masters yeah. One of my well a guy, I know Matthew Olinsky, he has a shop that actually is one of the best in the country is called phenomenal, vinyl in New York yep, and he actually did my car my Lamborghini, it's weird because he was on the Maxima forums. Okay, it's his weird circle of life thing, so here's on the Maxima forums and then he started this vinyl company called phenomenal vinyl and he just did it started in like in his garage and then he's got a shop and whatever and he ended up doing my Lambo before it was mine, I did it in like a camo rap, actually featured in one of my videos, and it was pretty cool, is basically when he was still up-and-coming but yeah. He was really about his craft and he would go to these vinyl wrapping conventions and learn like the the latest skills, because there's, like always they're, always changing. It'S really really quite interesting. So in the final rep community. Amongst these shops there is a network of shops, called paint is dead yeah, so so yeah paint is dead. Is they also hashtag that on my car, so I made a video about it? I didn't a design created. The paint is dead Network. That is the genesis of pain is dead; okay, yeah, so that to see that that niche corner of the automotive custom - the custom market that was really cool to kind of watch that develop sure that was really neat. They must have made a ton of money. Then yeah we add they they and they still do very well um. They still have. They still do great work. It'S weird how much vinyl wrapping has ramped up as far as price, because I remember that it used to be a real, cheap alternative to paint. It was never super cheap, it was that were super cheap, but it was, it was more affordable. Now it's like a paint job in a vinyl wrap, basically cost the same amount of money. It depends on installers materials use, and so, if you want to get a good one, yeah yeah, so it's not unheard of to have a ten thousand dollar vinyl wrap, oh yeah yeah very easily, and when you get to the chrome stuff, it goes even higher right. So he, but the material alone is very expensive, of course, and but I mean the insulation a lot of stuff. So if but then you have, the added bonus of this car is likely least. So if I have a lamborghini aventador and I want to make it the craziest event or ever, but I don't want to lose my warranty and I don't want to lose my lease and all that stuff, then you can risk yet go, go, do a rap and The cool thing is when the rap is on the car is protecting the pink yes well sort of, hopefully, because if it's a quality, yeah yeah, the quality is because some people have put bad raps on it and then, like the glue. Just tears up destroys the paint yep. I'Ve never actually seen that I haven't either, but apparently Brian Salomon had a problem with is one of his first raps on oh really, first Aventador, oh wow yeah. He said he had a chrome rap. It was a 3m or as a bad batch or something, but he said it started turning black and he had some clearcoat. Oh wow, again, I don't know how much of this is he's a lawyer. You know, if he's playing it up or something just get more. I don't know I I have no idea, but this is just what I've seen so yeah, that's pretty cool about vinyl. So what would you do after that? Vinyl shop? So my next automotive or I guess motorsport related job after identity to design and would have been? Will be run through the gamut here? Yes, it would been a place called Autobahn indoor Speedway up in Jacksonville, it's an indoor go-kart track. I was their media director for just over a year cool yeah. I think I saw. I think you sent me a little snippet of what you did yeah couple couple videos here and there that was, that was some voiceover work and yeah. It sounds like a trailer like a movie trailer in a world, so that was really fun. I started there as just a guy in the pit just pushing carts right, um and then just kind of tried to make myself invaluable and yeah just kind of moved on from there. That was a that was a really cool job that that was a that was fun. It'S it's awesome when you have people just kind of give, you free rein to do like hey. We want to get to this place. Do your thing yeah! You know yeah! That'S! That'S pretty cool that was neat and you know every day after work, just hitting the track in go-karts that you know he's these these electric carts they would go 4550 miles. An hour which indoors is that's fast. Go-Karting is, is insane like. You learn a lot about car control from go-karting because you have, but it's so small and you have to react quickly. Yes, you have to know what's going on and you see real results big-time when, like let's say you scrub off a little bit of speed like you skidmore, you know and you're like crap. You can see that. Oh, that cost me a second here, yeah yeah and when you're just smooth like wow. This makes a lot of sense. The the timing system, the lap timing system they have that they use it all of their locations, is very accurate, very advanced. So it's it's like out to three decimal points, Wow accuracy, so it was really cool to kind of see and like they give you printouts after every race yeah. I have a couple of printouts and when I first started versus you know when I left right, I think when I left we had five or six hundred thousand individual racers Wow and I was like number seventy out of all those woo, so I wasn't the fastest. Obviously, like basically everyone else that worked, there was faster than I was, but still like you can. I mean you could probably put that on a resume. Do you know who you're talking to like I'm talking you're talking to number 70 out of 500 thousand yeah right? I'M sure that I have lost a few places since then it's been a couple years, but it's like Chris from BS / ability. He said you always say like do you have any idea who you're talking to? I am the four hundred and nineteenth biggest automotive youtuber, but Autobahn. That was a lot of fun. That would that really, I feel like I made the most progress as far as honing, my my media, like repertoire of skills, right kind of learning and I'm having a better understanding of branding and that sort of thing yeah. I really learned a lot there, it's great when you can apply it to an actual business and you can see what the results in real time big time and like. I guess my my little claim to fame. There is that I got to direct and make a video with travis Pastrana. Awesome those be neat. We we raced our go-karts through the Jags Stadium in Jacksonville. Oh yeah, really cool! That'S awesome! You ever have one of these experiences and you're, like you know, nobody gets to do this yeah yeah, nobody gets yeah like I would we were. We were hanging out with travis Pastrana and the Nitro Circus crew and, like you know, if you want one through the crazy stuff, and I stopped them like I'm on the clock right now - you're getting paid to do this. It was really neat yeah and then after Autobahn comes Tesla, whoo, yes whoo, so I was there for, I guess close to two years. So when you get hired by Tesla, do you have you know a letter like a handwritten letter from Elon Musk thanks for joining the Tesla family and now here's a secret handshake? No, no no running into Elon is almost impossible, not if you're at South by Southwest. Apparently it's super easy. I guess that was, I feel like we could. We could almost do an entire podcast on that alone, yeah on the whole Tesla thing and actually next week. Actually, this week, it'll be this week, I will have been in the past on a podcast called for geeks sake. A good friend of mine Liz is one of the hosts on that on that show, and we will have been talking about electric vehicles, self-driving cars so I'll, be sure to link to that podcast in the description below cool yeah, no problem. So what does that? Like? Is that it if it's about geeks, then I guess nerd culture is sort of the never games, movies, big-time, yeah, yeah, exactly tech nerds, like spans from like Game of Thrones to D

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