Changing The Industry Podcast

Sunny Massera [00:00:00]:
With other people. Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:02]:
And so what, what ended up happening with the partnership?

Sunny Massera [00:00:05]:
I basically just completely stepped out and I kept going myself.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:10]:
Okay.

Sunny Massera [00:00:10]:
For about six months. And I decided I didn't want to do it alone.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:13]:
Did he have any money invested in it or was it just.

Sunny Massera [00:00:15]:
He had maybe 10 grand in it. And I ended up finishing his truck, which was about the same thing. So he walked away without losing anything. And I, I, I was out, you know, 20 grand or something like that. Right. Just in, you know, startup expenses and paying bills and whatnot. Right. Well, introduce yourself, Sonny with Sara Heritage Broncos.

Sunny Massera [00:00:37]:
I build custom cars and trucks in Tigard, Oregon. Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:00:41]:
Well, you've been all over the country. I have. I have been all over the place. Tell us a little bit about your childhood and growing up.

Sunny Massera [00:00:48]:
And I grew up in a very rural part of New Mexico, child, just out in the sticks. I was always interested in machines, you know, started fiddling with bicycles when I was like 5, 6, and moved to motorcycles when I was about 10. Okay. But my dad likes to break things and I like to fix things. So by the time I was, you know, 10, 11, I had 100 dead cars sitting outside. So I just go outside and start tinkering with vehicles. And I think the first one I got running was a Pinto.

Lucas Underwood [00:01:15]:
Oh, wow.

Sunny Massera [00:01:15]:
Took like, you know, five dead Pintos. Make one one running Pinto out of it.

Lucas Underwood [00:01:19]:
That's it.

Sunny Massera [00:01:20]:
And then learn how to drive. And then just started tinkering with cars pretty much when I was, yeah, about 11 or so after I built, after I built a motorcycle, I decided I want to do cars. Right. And kept tinkering with cars until I got a job for a master Porsche technician when I was 17. And I basically been in shops ever since. Okay. In various capacities for sure.

Lucas Underwood [00:01:45]:
Now you've moved around a lot, like all over the country and you've seen a lot of kind of cool stuff.

David Roman [00:01:50]:
What.

Lucas Underwood [00:01:50]:
Tell us a little bit about all the moves you've had.

Sunny Massera [00:01:54]:
So I, my wife's from Albuquerque, I'm from Taos. So I moved to Albuquerque for a little while. We, I did car stuff there, working alignment shop, Subaru shop. Then we had an opportunity to move to Northern California, to Sonoma. And I was working, I was selling cars there. I was buying cars and selling them to people in California because I could get cars really cheap in Denver and I'd shuttle them over to Northern California and sell them. Did that for a little bit. Then my mother in law got cancer, so we moved back to Albuquerque.

Sunny Massera [00:02:26]:
But I worked in various Shops there, mostly hot rods and custom stuff. Moved around a little bit doing that. Worked in an alignment shop for about a year, you know, turning out 8, 10 alignments a day sometimes because there's no rust, you know. Yeah. All the bolts turn right away.

Lucas Underwood [00:02:41]:
Right.

Sunny Massera [00:02:41]:
So that was. That was pretty good. It gave me a lot of experience there. And then, let's see. In 14, I decided to open a hot rod shop. And did pretty good. I had that for. Open for about five years.

Sunny Massera [00:02:53]:
But again, I picked the wrong person to be a partner. And it was a 50 50. But I did 90 of everything and just kind of stood around.

Lucas Underwood [00:03:02]:
Right.

Sunny Massera [00:03:02]:
So I dissolved that. Okay. Had a knee injury, which kept me from going to work, and couldn't find good employees. But, I mean, really, I had no idea how to run a business. I was not a businessman, you know.

Lucas Underwood [00:03:13]:
Right.

Sunny Massera [00:03:13]:
Been turning wrenches my whole life. I didn't. Didn't know what I didn't know, you know?

Lucas Underwood [00:03:18]:
Right. And was this the last shop or was it the last one you owned, or was this another one?

Sunny Massera [00:03:23]:
That was the first one I owned.

Lucas Underwood [00:03:24]:
Okay.

Sunny Massera [00:03:24]:
In Albuquerque. And then I. I closed that down and started working for various friends. Worked out of my garage for a little while just because it's, you know, low overhead. Already owns the garage. And that was. That was a good learning experience. And then I moved to Oregon because my wife got a good job.

Sunny Massera [00:03:43]:
She's a. She's in the wine industry, beverage industry.

Lucas Underwood [00:03:46]:
Okay.

Sunny Massera [00:03:46]:
So she got a job in Portland. So we decided to move up there because that was right before COVID which is great because the economy absolutely crashed in New Mexico.

Lucas Underwood [00:03:55]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:03:56]:
And we've just been slowly building there. I had. I worked in variety of hot rod custom shops in Portland, and some of them I stayed at for a little bit. Some of them I left right away. Various reasons. Either wasn't a good fit. Usually it's because just poor management, Poor ownership on the shop's part.

Lucas Underwood [00:04:19]:
Right.

Sunny Massera [00:04:19]:
A few of them were really good. I wasn't a good fit, you know. Yeah. And I switched to just doing customs and hot rods Because I'm not. I'm too for myself to be too meticulous to do flat rate. I'm like, just, you know, I can't. I can't be fast enough to make enough, you know? Like, there'd be guys around me doing 50, 60 hours a week, and I'd be maybe hitting 30. Because I just, like, in my brain, I have to clean every part, you know, like.

Lucas Underwood [00:04:45]:
Right. Make it nice.

Sunny Massera [00:04:47]:
Yeah. So I switched to Doing customs and hot rods hourly. Because it just made more sense. I know I was going to get paid, you know, they know what they're going to get out of me at the end of the day. Yeah. And then doing quality control for some of these shops, you, know, like we do. We'd finish a build, and they had me go driving around. So I could.

Sunny Massera [00:05:08]:
I just do a lot of driving of really cool custom cars.

Lucas Underwood [00:05:11]:
Oh, that's awesome.

Sunny Massera [00:05:12]:
Once I got a name for myself in portland, People. I'd get calls every day, every week. To go look at, you, know, some hot rod that has a. Whatever problem. And it makes more sense to go to the car. As opposed to bringing a car to me. Yeah. So I do a lot of that.

Sunny Massera [00:05:28]:
And it's just been kind of an upward grind, you know?

Lucas Underwood [00:05:32]:
Right. So tell us a little bit about starting the shop. Because you started your own shop in portland, right? I did.

Sunny Massera [00:05:36]:
So I was running. I was renting space out of this big. This. It was kind of like a community shop where you just rent spaces. And I had. I was, like, the only guy in there For a couple. Couple months. And cars started filtering in.

Sunny Massera [00:05:48]:
I started getting some more customers. I had three builds at the time. It just kept me completely busy. So I was just doing those. I did a full custom 72C K5. That went through barrett jackson, actually. And because I was building that truck, it brought me this other customer who became my partner. And he kind of pushed me into it.

Sunny Massera [00:06:08]:
I knew I wasn't ready. I didn't have the network. I knew I wasn't ready. But he just kept twisting my arm. So I was like, all right, let's do this. And then after about eight months, I realized I was like, this is not for me. I'm not a businessman. And it was a real struggle.

Sunny Massera [00:06:22]:
And I. And again, you, don't know what you don't know until you know, you find out.

David Roman [00:06:26]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:06:26]:
And then about. I closed that in January of 23. And then I found you guys A couple months later,

Lucas Underwood [00:06:36]:
and I found. Right.

Sunny Massera [00:06:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. No regrets. It brought me to where I am now, you know?

Lucas Underwood [00:06:41]:
So you say you figured out that business ownership Wasn't for you. Tell us kind of a little bit about that.

Sunny Massera [00:06:47]:
Okay.

Lucas Underwood [00:06:47]:
Share with us what it is. Because there's a lot of technicians. Who are thinking, like, hey, I want to go start my own shop.

Sunny Massera [00:06:52]:
Sure.

Lucas Underwood [00:06:52]:
And we see a lot of them that do go start their own shop, and then they either have financial troubles and fail, or they come back, and they're like, Dude, I had no clue this is what this was. Yeah, they get really frustrated, really irritated now about 4%, 5% going to thrive and it turns into a great thing and they make it work and they just had a good location and all the things like the stars align, you know.

Sunny Massera [00:07:15]:
Yeah, yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:07:15]:
But there's a couple, a couple deviations there that like, that's not what's happening. They hear about the success stories.

Sunny Massera [00:07:22]:
Sure. Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:07:23]:
They don't hear about the failures. So. And I'm not saying yours was a failure, but like, what were those awarenesses that came to you after the fact?

Sunny Massera [00:07:30]:
Well, after realizing the amount of work that went into it. Not, not just fixing the cars, but, you know, you know, selling the work, doing the paperwork. You know, I had. Was using all data and their shot management software, which for me was fine because it was just. I was one person that simplified things a little bit. But it was more of a slow realization that like I didn't, I didn't go to college. I didn't go to business school of any kind. Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:07:58]:
And I had buddies who were.

David Roman [00:07:59]:
Wouldn't have helped you, by the way.

Sunny Massera [00:08:00]:
No, exactly.

David Roman [00:08:01]:
It doesn't help.

Sunny Massera [00:08:02]:
No, it doesn't help. I mean, it does help. It depends on the individual. You know, I have a friend that did four years, he got a business degree. Now he builds amazing hot rods. But he focused on that when he went to school.

Lucas Underwood [00:08:13]:
Challenge that just a touch is that. I think it does help. I think if you get. If you get at least some information, if you get at least some ability to read a p. L. And. And some perspective.

David Roman [00:08:25]:
Have you ever taken business classes?

Lucas Underwood [00:08:26]:
No.

David Roman [00:08:27]:
Okay, well take some business classes and come back and tell me that you were actually gonna help run a business. Because it doesn't. I'm just telling you it doesn't. But you know what? It helps you. Helps you write out spreadsheets. That's what they teach in business.

Lucas Underwood [00:08:41]:
That's awful.

David Roman [00:08:42]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:08:42]:
So that seems like a rip off spreadsheets.

David Roman [00:08:46]:
And then they talk about like marketing at a macro level. They don't teach you how to like develop leads, how to convert the leads. Like, they don't talk about like the nuts and bolts of running a small business. They teach you how to become an employee at a large corporation. Looking at spreadsheets or writing spreadsheets. Like that's it.

Lucas Underwood [00:09:06]:
I can see that. I can see that.

David Roman [00:09:08]:
Now it doesn't mean that you don't take the principles and you can't translate them into a small business.

Sunny Massera [00:09:12]:
Exactly.

David Roman [00:09:12]:
Because you can't Especially if you take the right classes, you can translate some of that in there. But at the end of the day, for anybody that makes it work, they left college, they get into a small business where they start a small business. I guarantee you, you ask them like how much from what you got out of the four years that you got your degree are you using on a

Sunny Massera [00:09:36]:
day to day basis, they're going to

David Roman [00:09:37]:
tell you like 10% maybe.

Sunny Massera [00:09:39]:
Yeah.

David Roman [00:09:40]:
The rest of it I have to learn on my own because it's not what they teach you.

Sunny Massera [00:09:44]:
Trial and error.

Lucas Underwood [00:09:45]:
Yeah.

David Roman [00:09:46]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:09:46]:
Well, I mean for me I realized that I just don't, I don't like to work alone or even like, you know, I've had a couple employees here and there and you know, how long, you know, one in five works out for any kind of period of time. And it's just, it's, it's tough and I realize that it's not something I want to take on necessarily. So I find somebody. I found people that are good at that and they're thriving. And so I try to be a part of that team and bring my

Lucas Underwood [00:10:09]:
skill as opposed to.

Sunny Massera [00:10:10]:
Yeah. And make myself indispensable within the, you know, within the company to where they're. They need me as much as I need them and we could build together. And that's kind of the situation I found now.

Lucas Underwood [00:10:21]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:10:21]:
And I've had, I've had a few jobs that were like that. But it one, one place I quit just because I didn't want to commute an hour and a half every day. Each way. Every day. You know. And that's without traffic, you know. Yeah, traffic. It's two hours each way.

Sunny Massera [00:10:36]:
I'm just like, like that's, you know, that puts me in a. Over 60 hours a week. Yeah. Just being gone just because the travel. So there's that. And I just don't like doing alone, you know.

Lucas Underwood [00:10:49]:
I don't like working alone either. Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:10:51]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:10:51]:
Like I, I lose my productivity if I'm alone. I don't have like, it's other people around me and talking and like engaging.

Sunny Massera [00:10:58]:
That keeps me driving forward and interactions. Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:11:01]:
And so if I'm not like working with somebody, dude, I fade out. Like a hardcore fade out.

Sunny Massera [00:11:07]:
I. I lose motivation. Yeah. Like if I don't have people around me like having. I don't putting some type of expectation on the day or like the what we're doing, it made it really hard for me to stay motivated, you know. And there's nobody there waiting for me to do this.

Lucas Underwood [00:11:22]:
You know, David gets super unmotivated when people are around. He's just like, just leave me alone. I'm going back to my room. Now. I've had to speak two times to two people, so therefore I need at least a 45 minute recharge before I'm able to do anything else. What?

David Roman [00:11:38]:
I need a whole day.

Sunny Massera [00:11:39]:
A whole day. Well, we all operate in different ways. You know, we all have different levels of tolerance we can deal with.

Lucas Underwood [00:11:46]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:11:47]:
And, you know, it's just, it's finding what we're good at. And I, I tend to pick things that I'm not good at, so I can be better at them, even if it's subtle improvement over time. Yeah. That way I'm, you know, I can feel more confident walking into a situation, whether it's a podcast or walking around a convention, you know.

Lucas Underwood [00:12:05]:
You know what this dude says to me yesterday as we're walking out? And I paraphrase, he says, I know why my shop sucks. I'm just curious why yours sucks. I think it's because you're lazy.

Sunny Massera [00:12:16]:
I'm not lazy. I just, I, I find it hard to focus when I don't have like a hard, hard set goal or like, you know, some kind of timeline. But then I, then again, I get, I get frustrated with timelines too. I'm like, you need this today. Like, I can't guarantee that. I can guarantee it'll be right, but I can't guarantee it'll be today, you know? Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:12:34]:
And so you went to a Bronco shop. Right. Tell us a little bit about that transition. And, and maybe I should ask this.

Sunny Massera [00:12:41]:
The, the.

Lucas Underwood [00:12:41]:
Because we tell everybody, don't go get a partner.

Sunny Massera [00:12:43]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:12:43]:
Whatever you do, don't go get a partner.

Sunny Massera [00:12:45]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:12:45]:
If you do get a partner, make sure it is documented very, very early on paper.

Sunny Massera [00:12:49]:
Oh, yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:12:49]:
What's expected. Absolutely. What if things go sideways? What do we do? Right.

Sunny Massera [00:12:54]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:12:54]:
And so what are the, what are the ending. What's the ending story of the shop with the partnership?

Sunny Massera [00:13:01]:
Oh, that wasn't a Bronco shop. This was. That was.

Lucas Underwood [00:13:04]:
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Sunny Massera [00:13:05]:
I'm working at my second Bronco shop now, ironically, but I got hired the second one because I had so much experience from the first one partnership thing I had recently. It. What led to it was I was building a truck for a guy and this guy saw a lot of potential in me and he was running another. He was running another business. And turns out he wasn't running it very well, but he put a very good Facade up. So it looked like he was doing really well.

David Roman [00:13:29]:
What.

Lucas Underwood [00:13:30]:
When you say he wasn't doing it very well and put a facade up, what was wrong with the business he was running?

Sunny Massera [00:13:34]:
I can't really put my finger on it. I just know that, you know, beyond the outward facade of it looking like it was good, he was struggling in

Lucas Underwood [00:13:43]:
different areas financially or.

Sunny Massera [00:13:47]:
Yeah, he had a high turnover, too. Like he couldn't keep employees. And I figured out why. It's just because he put unrealistic expectations into things. And then when they didn't work out exactly the way he wanted, he would, he would just drop people like that, you know, like, we were in business less than six months before he wanted to step out. Even though, like, after three months I was paying the bills, you know, I was covering my ass at that point.

David Roman [00:14:10]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:14:11]:
But it was, I wasn't a cash cow in six months, so he just wanted to step out. And I'm like, that's not how it works. You know, like.

Lucas Underwood [00:14:17]:
Right.

Sunny Massera [00:14:17]:
We need to be in this together for at least a year before we see the direction that we're gonna go. Are we gonna expand? What are we doing? You know, we need to kind of get a workflow here.

Lucas Underwood [00:14:26]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:14:26]:
And he, he had unrealistic expectations. I already knew what was going to happen as far as, like, growth, like, how many vehicles I can work on at one time and like, you know, my productivity. Yeah. And he, it's just, it's where I still haven't quite figured it out, but I, I have learned that, yeah, he, he, he commits a lot. That guy committed a lot, but wouldn't actually, you know, step up when it was time, you know.

Lucas Underwood [00:14:55]:
Right. And so, so tell us about the ending of the shop then. Was it his partnership walking away that made you close? Was that no. 1 for a while or did it.

Sunny Massera [00:15:04]:
It went on for another about six months. And I, I just decided I didn't want to do it alone, you know, and there was, there was a lot of factors to running the business that I just wasn't, I wasn't comfortable with or I didn't have enough knowledge about to do it in a successful way moving forward. And I, and I recognized that I wasn't, I didn't want to do it alone. Okay. And I couldn't find anybody that would fit with me to make it work properly.

Lucas Underwood [00:15:31]:
Right.

Sunny Massera [00:15:31]:
So I just decided, I was like, this is a job. I own a job, and it's too stressful. I can just go work and, and, and be in a well equipped Business and. And learn more skills, get better at my. My, you know, skill set when I'm pushed to another level, as opposed to just struggling in the situation to try to make ends meet.

Lucas Underwood [00:15:53]:
Right.

Sunny Massera [00:15:54]:
And that just. I wasn't comfortable with that. So I happily closed down, sold some equipment, and I, you know, immediately had another job, which was. Actually ended up paying more than I was making by myself because the overhead and everything, you know, I had a low overhead, too.

Lucas Underwood [00:16:11]:
Right. You would not believe how many people, like, they just don't understand that as a business owner, especially starting out.

Sunny Massera [00:16:17]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:16:17]:
You're going to earn less that business than you are working for somebody else.

Sunny Massera [00:16:21]:
Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Lucas Underwood [00:16:22]:
And so that's an investment. I. It's like, you know, there was a post in the group last night, and it was somebody saying, hey, you know, I'm interested in starting a business. I'm gonna go get a loan. And a lot of people jumped in, said, no, no, no, don't do that, because this, that, and the other. And then somebody else said, hey, I started with $17,000, and I don't even know what you guys are talking about. And it's like, yeah, I get it. But that grind, you know what I'm saying? That that is weeks without paychecks.

Sunny Massera [00:16:48]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:16:49]:
Right. Like, that's what that equates to. Yes, you can do it. You can make it happen, but it is not nearly as comfortable as having 150, $200,000 that you can operate.

Sunny Massera [00:17:00]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's so much I've learned just interacting with the podcast and people in. On the. In the groups and then other. Other sources of media, just learning what I didn't know, you know, now I know a lot more about what I didn't know. And it's like, I'm totally happy and comfortable that I closed the shop because I didn't want to keep on a slow grind. It maybe would have gone somewhere, maybe

Lucas Underwood [00:17:23]:
not, you know, slow the trajectory down.

Sunny Massera [00:17:27]:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I didn't really want to do it in the first place. I already knew, like, I didn't want to do it alone, and I was.

Lucas Underwood [00:17:35]:
You say that you've picked up some things from the podcast and from, you know, the groups and that kind of thing.

Sunny Massera [00:17:40]:
What.

Lucas Underwood [00:17:40]:
What kind of things did you pick up that you look back on now and say, I wish I'd have done that differently.

Sunny Massera [00:17:46]:
Oh, wow, there's a lot of those. I probably wouldn't have opened the shop in the first place. Just, you know, having learned, I would have spent more Time learning about the person that I was going into business with before I made a decision to do that. Right. Just because it could have probably avoided the whole thing. Not that I regret it, because it's learning experience.

Lucas Underwood [00:18:07]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:18:08]:
But it was, you know, I knew I didn't have the network. Like, I. You know, like having three customers that want me to build a expensive car is not nearly enough. You know, I thought I had years worth of work, and I was done with it in eight months. And then I was out there trying to get more builds, and it's just. Yeah, it's. It's. It's.

Sunny Massera [00:18:27]:
It's kind of convoluted, you know.

Lucas Underwood [00:18:29]:
Yeah. Well, so, you know, we're at Apex sema, and you see all these builds.

Sunny Massera [00:18:34]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:18:34]:
You see all these performance builders.

Sunny Massera [00:18:36]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:18:37]:
And I think that it is. I think it can be misleading to those who are here looking at this as technicians.

Sunny Massera [00:18:46]:
Oh, yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:18:47]:
And they think, hey, I want to do that. And then they see it, and then they do it, and they're like, this sucks. Performance is a hard world to be in. Custom work is a hard world to be in. What are you seeing? Because in, like, I did the custom thing for a while.

Sunny Massera [00:19:02]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:19:02]:
I did performance work on diesel trucks.

Sunny Massera [00:19:04]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:19:04]:
And one of the things that I learned about that is the economy turns down. And if the economy turns down, guess what? So does that business in a very dramatic way.

Sunny Massera [00:19:13]:
Yeah. Whereas the first things to turn.

Lucas Underwood [00:19:16]:
Yeah, exactly. Whereas, like, auto repair, it's consistent and it's steady. Yeah. So, you know, I think that. I think it can be so misleading when we see these guys out running these shops. You see them at SEMA with these performance builds.

Sunny Massera [00:19:30]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:19:30]:
Don't crawl underneath them. And look, whatever you do, don't look.

Sunny Massera [00:19:33]:
Oh, yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:19:33]:
Don't get too close.

Sunny Massera [00:19:34]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:19:35]:
Because you're gonna have your heart broken. I'm just telling you, some of this. We were over there, what, yesterday, Some

Sunny Massera [00:19:40]:
of that stuff, some of those Bluetooth wells, you know.

Lucas Underwood [00:19:43]:
Yes, exactly. But, I mean, it does make you question and say, do these guys even understand what a performance business is?

Sunny Massera [00:19:52]:
Yeah. I realized I didn't, you know, to be like. To be at the level of the shop that I'm at now. I mean, you know, the guy I work for now was a He. He owned a. Or he managed car dealerships for 25 years.

Lucas Underwood [00:20:03]:
Okay.

Sunny Massera [00:20:04]:
And he did a lot of research on. In the market to figure out what sells, you know, what's going to be profitable. What. What can he assemble a team to do and make it Quick. Okay. To where it's. It's. You're not spending a year building a truck.

Sunny Massera [00:20:16]:
You're spending six weeks building a truck. Right. Put a formula together and then being able to reach clients, people. Customers that want that vehicle or wanted a certain way. Like, every truck we build is completely the same but completely different. You know, it's just check off a box kind of deal. But he. My boss, understands that.

Sunny Massera [00:20:36]:
Like, he. He has the part of the business that I don't think I would have ever got there just because of, well, where my motivation's at. And having him been in the car sales for so long, like, he understands how to bring in, you know, higher. Higher end customers, I could say. Right. You know, people that want to spend 102, $300,000 on a truck and do it over and over and over again and then make them happy to where they're bringing in their friends. Yeah. So, I mean, it's a layering, you know?

Lucas Underwood [00:21:08]:
Well, and I. I resonate with what you're talking about, because here's the thing, is, think about this for a minute.

Sunny Massera [00:21:14]:
He's.

Lucas Underwood [00:21:15]:
He's working on Broncos, so he has a very consistent clientele.

Sunny Massera [00:21:18]:
Yep.

Lucas Underwood [00:21:19]:
People know to come to him for this product.

Sunny Massera [00:21:22]:
Yep.

Lucas Underwood [00:21:22]:
Right. I think about Zeke. Everybody takes their sprinters to Zeke, because everybody knows that Zeke's the sprinter guy.

Sunny Massera [00:21:28]:
Yep.

Lucas Underwood [00:21:28]:
Right. Well, this guy, you know, he. He's the Bronco guy, and he does really good Bronco work. Yeah. And so everybody knows you have a Bronco. This is one of the places in the country you take the Bronco to.

Sunny Massera [00:21:39]:
Yeah. We get Broncos shipped in from all over the country. Alaska.

Lucas Underwood [00:21:42]:
And then on top of that, you've got him saying, okay, let's build a system, and let's find specialists in each part of the system.

Sunny Massera [00:21:48]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:21:49]:
To handle that so we can be efficient, productive. So it actually makes money doing this.

Sunny Massera [00:21:54]:
Yep.

Lucas Underwood [00:21:54]:
Because, I mean, some of these hot rod shops, dude, I see them keeping cars for years.

Sunny Massera [00:21:59]:
Oh, yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:22:00]:
And it's like, oh, yeah. I'm building $20,000 to do that, bro. That car's been at your shop for five years. Like, you charge him 20,000 bucks.

Sunny Massera [00:22:06]:
That's not a great ratio.

Lucas Underwood [00:22:07]:
Yeah. Right.

Sunny Massera [00:22:08]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:22:09]:
I mean, you see it all the time.

Sunny Massera [00:22:10]:
Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah. I have a. I have a friend spilling a 64 impala for a guy, and I took it to a buddy of mine's paint shop. Well, it's been there two and a half years. Granted, the car had to be back halfed. Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:22:22]:
Still shouldn't take two and a half years. Right. But I'm not in that shop working. I don't know what's happening behind the closed doors. I don't.

Lucas Underwood [00:22:27]:
There's very little in. In hot rods auto repair performance work. This should take two years.

Sunny Massera [00:22:33]:
Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, we can take a. We can build a bronco from frame to. You know, they're painted already, obviously, but, you know, six weeks, it's out the door at most. Yeah. I mean, really, we could have one together in a month with the quality control. And finishing it out usually takes another 40 hours just to make sure it drives right, you know.

Lucas Underwood [00:22:53]:
So tell me what. Give me a little bit of a rundown of what's being done to the broncos. I mean, are we rewiring them front to back, or we.

Sunny Massera [00:22:59]:
Oh, yeah. Well, the new builds are all brand new.

Lucas Underwood [00:23:02]:
Everything.

Sunny Massera [00:23:02]:
I mean, it's brand new body, brand new harnesses. I mean, literally every single part is brand new. Which doesn't mean they're good. It just means it's new. So you have to make everything fit. I'm the service manager. We're taking. I take in older broncos or ones that get restored.

Sunny Massera [00:23:18]:
You know, we'll take a bronco, take the body off, put new drivetrain in it. Some of them get new harnesses, Some of them get new axles. It's kind of individual basis on those ones. But he didn't do that before. Before I started. Because he didn't have a guy that can pull it in, look at it, and figure out exactly what it needs, you know, within reasonable amount of time. I can, you know, make a hit list within, you know, an hour or go drive it, look over the thing, be like, this is what we have to do. And then he can turn around the customer and, you know, sell.

Sunny Massera [00:23:46]:
Sell it, get it approved. Right? Yeah. Some of them we just. We're like, no, we're not going to do that, but it's too rotten, you know, or whatever it is. Yeah, but. But he always. He won't bring a car in from a customer he knows well, can't afford it either. Right.

Sunny Massera [00:23:59]:
Like, it's almost more expensive to restore a truck than it is to just build.

Lucas Underwood [00:24:02]:
Oh, yeah, you know, it absolutely is. And so when you talk about putting new powertrains in trains, going back in

Sunny Massera [00:24:09]:
them, mostly Ford, Ford, crate motors with power packs, like, you know, Gen 3, Gen 4 coyotes. We're doing Godzillas. Brand new Godzillas with three, eight Whipple.

Lucas Underwood [00:24:22]:
Oh, slay. Holy cow. Yeah, for sure.

Sunny Massera [00:24:28]:
We do a lot of Blueprint engines, too. Okay. Like, if somebody wants a traditional rocket motor, little 306 with a carburetor on it. Because some people want the nostalgia of a carburetor. Right. Okay.

Lucas Underwood [00:24:40]:
Yeah, No, I mean, I'll pass.

Sunny Massera [00:24:44]:
Yeah, me too. Where I'm at. Yeah. I don't want to have to reset my choke twice a year.

Lucas Underwood [00:24:47]:
Forget that, you know? Yeah, exactly. So a little lazy. And like, I. I mean, I like carbureted engines, but fuel injection is just like.

Sunny Massera [00:24:54]:
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to tune it with my laptop. I don't want to turn it with a screwdriver. Yeah, I do a lot of that, too. I learned how to install fuel injection systems on. On older vehicles. Make them work.

Lucas Underwood [00:25:05]:
Right, Right.

Sunny Massera [00:25:06]:
Which is cool because integrating the old technology or new technology into older vehicles really just makes them so much better, you know? Like, I have the 54 Caddy. That won't. It won't stay cool. It overheats constantly. Look in there. And they have two heater cores and it's all hosed backwards. So fix the hosing. Nobody knows how to do that.

Sunny Massera [00:25:24]:
Not nobody. There's. There's of us out there that do that.

Lucas Underwood [00:25:27]:
There's very few that even think about it.

Sunny Massera [00:25:28]:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Lucas Underwood [00:25:29]:
Some of the. I mean, I hate to talk smack, but some of this custom work.

Sunny Massera [00:25:33]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:25:33]:
Awful.

Sunny Massera [00:25:34]:
Oh, it's bad.

Lucas Underwood [00:25:35]:
It's terrible.

Sunny Massera [00:25:36]:
Yeah. Well, I mean, there's plenty of things I won't put my name on.

Lucas Underwood [00:25:40]:
I made it work.

Sunny Massera [00:25:41]:
Right. But I'm like, you know, that's works. Take it.

Lucas Underwood [00:25:45]:
Gum. The band aid over top of the bubble gum. The duct tape holding either side of the band aid down.

Sunny Massera [00:25:51]:
Yeah. I'm not afraid to say no. I'm just like, I'm not going to work on that. Sorry. Is it. Is it worth your time? Is it worth my time for. You know, you're not going to get the outcome you want if you spend whatever it is. You can spend twice as much as you think you're going to and still not be happy.

Sunny Massera [00:26:05]:
So that's what you should do.

Lucas Underwood [00:26:07]:
You should go into performance

David Roman [00:26:10]:
nuts.

Sunny Massera [00:26:11]:
I drive him nuts. Like, yeah, he.

Lucas Underwood [00:26:12]:
He should start a hot rod shop.

Sunny Massera [00:26:14]:
Well, and I mean, the customers that we deal with have a higher expectation, too. Like, a lot of people, like, get their car repaired. Be like, cool. It drives right. It's quiet, nice. You know, people that get customs are like, this isn't exactly perfect. Or the trim's like, whatever. Like, yeah, they're so picky, but they pay for it too.

Sunny Massera [00:26:30]:
Like, you know, they. They definitely have to come out of pocket when it's what they want. Right. So for sure, it's. It's just a. It's. It's a different world.

Lucas Underwood [00:26:40]:
Yeah, I. I think that especially when it comes to that stuff, I've seen a lot of clients get burned over folks that act like they know what they're talking about and continue to indicate, I can't see good.

Sunny Massera [00:26:55]:
Not worried about that part. Don't ice in your laptop.

Lucas Underwood [00:26:59]:
It's his laptop. It's not mine. Who cares? Be fine. But, you know, just like, maybe a month ago, we saw a situation where a good client of mine, good friend of mine, had a couple hot rods and some folks wanted to take it to a car show. And so they loaded it up. They take it to the car show.

Sunny Massera [00:27:17]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:27:17]:
And he kept calling them back because the deal was, is like, hey, you can take these cars. It was another shop said, you can take these cars to the car show. I'm getting ready to sell them.

Sunny Massera [00:27:26]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:27:26]:
So, like, if you want to take them and clean them up, get them detailed.

Sunny Massera [00:27:29]:
Cool.

Lucas Underwood [00:27:30]:
And then for the. For the Taking it to the car show, you detail it, pay for it, we're good. And so they called and said, hey, you want us to tune on this thing a little bit? It's not running just right. And he said, yeah, yeah, I guess, whatever. And so one thing after another, they take it and Supposedly had it tuned

Sunny Massera [00:27:50]:
somewhere down the rabbit hole.

Lucas Underwood [00:27:52]:
Exactly. And it turns into this whole thing. And so one. One's a vet. The vet ends up blown up. Had a 472 in it. Right. And it was.

Lucas Underwood [00:28:03]:
Oh, well, it was that shop. It was this. This person did this. That person did that. No ownership of it whatsoever.

Sunny Massera [00:28:10]:
Oh, no. Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:28:11]:
Like. And then he started asking questions, saying, hey, can you tell me what happened? Can you show me why you think that? Can you show me why you believe that? Oh, it just needs an engine. It just needs an engine. It just needs an engine. And so slowly we deduced that. It was like they decided they were going to joy drive the cars around, right?

Sunny Massera [00:28:27]:
Oh, yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:28:28]:
So they took the cars out. They're riding them around because they're a nice car. They're a slick car. There are so many hot rod builders and so many shops that are not professional enough to handle that responsibility, or

Sunny Massera [00:28:39]:
they don't even have the insurance to cover the car in the first place.

Lucas Underwood [00:28:42]:
Yeah, absolutely. I. I don't know, man. There's a lot of shots, but. So what are you going to Do. You're not going into the hot rod business.

David Roman [00:28:52]:
I don't know how you make money other than systemize it. Like. Like, dude, over here. Well, that's what I said. And just do one. One kind of vehicle. And this is the package.

Sunny Massera [00:29:02]:
Pick a package.

David Roman [00:29:03]:
That's it. Yeah, we just do it over and over and over again. That's the only way to do it. These shops are like, we're gonna customize everything.

Lucas Underwood [00:29:12]:
No, no, it's off.

Sunny Massera [00:29:15]:
Yeah, I have friends that do it, and, you know, they're struggling. They struggle all the time. And I have buddies that just. Just work on Hondas and Toyotas, like Becky, where.

Lucas Underwood [00:29:24]:
Yeah, they.

Sunny Massera [00:29:26]:
They're killing it because they're. They have a system. They do. Within a certain range. We're like, Zeb. He's like, I only work on this and newer. Yeah, it makes sense, right?

Lucas Underwood [00:29:34]:
You know, upset tons of people, but tons of people.

Sunny Massera [00:29:37]:
But it works. Right. So find a formula and only make small variances. Outside of that. I. Again, I have another friend that's been doing it for 20 years, and he's barely making any money. Works constantly. But now he's just getting back to where he's doing classic restoration customs.

Sunny Massera [00:29:53]:
He's putting the cars back to original. That way there's less variance there, the parts are more available. You're not changing a bunch of things. You're just putting it back to the way it should be. And then more people like it because it's an original car. The more you customize something, the less people are interested in it. Because it's outside of their taste. Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:30:11]:
You know, so it's. It's just there's so many variables to it. And I realized that, like, if I was going to be successful at it, I couldn't do it alone. And I want to find somebody who had that variable down. And I had the clients already, too. You know, that's a big part of it.

David Roman [00:30:28]:
Right.

Sunny Massera [00:30:29]:
So, yeah, no, I'm happy with where I'm at. And I've got. Got some young guys under me I can teach. They're. They're. They're sponges. They make little mistakes. I don't, you know, I don't rail on them for it.

Sunny Massera [00:30:39]:
I just get them to explain to me why they made that decision to make that mistake.

Lucas Underwood [00:30:44]:
Right.

Sunny Massera [00:30:44]:
Back it up. Figure out where you went wrong. Change course. Yeah, yeah. And make sure to torque everything.

Lucas Underwood [00:30:53]:
Well, tell me this then. Like, do you feel like. Because we've talked a little bit about this recently, do you feel like that older car, that custom work is more enticing to the young technicians. It's more engaging, it's more enjoyable than getting thrown into the dealership meat grinder. Right.

Sunny Massera [00:31:12]:
I think from my perspective, I think it is.

Lucas Underwood [00:31:14]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:31:14]:
I think because you're like, oh, these are cool cars right off the bat. Whereas if you go to the dealership here, you're on the low end of the totem pole for a while. Whereas at like a, like a independent custom shop, you know, they might get their hands into, you know, something that they've never seen or their dad had one or whatever. But there's, it's, it's really hard. I mean, you go and scratch one of these cars and this is like you gotta repaint the whole car.

Lucas Underwood [00:31:38]:
Right. Kind of dealing about a big deal.

Sunny Massera [00:31:40]:
Oh yeah. 30, $50,000 paint jobs.

Lucas Underwood [00:31:43]:
Yeah, for sure.

Sunny Massera [00:31:45]:
Even then beyond that, way beyond that

Lucas Underwood [00:31:47]:
the client is so upset about.

Sunny Massera [00:31:48]:
Oh yeah, right.

Lucas Underwood [00:31:49]:
Like that, that is a big deal.

Sunny Massera [00:31:51]:
Yeah. You probably won't see them again.

Lucas Underwood [00:31:53]:
Yeah. So I mean, in court with them, like. Yeah, you might see them in court.

Sunny Massera [00:31:57]:
Exactly, exactly. You know, that's a nuanced question really. Like, you know, I wish I could just throw young guys in a shop and be like, here, like building a rat rod is good for a young guy because then they can scratch it or they can just put random parts on there and they can figure out how to make it work. Yeah. But you can't really sell rat rods to everybody. A rat rod is specific to the person who wants it, you know, the way they want it.

Lucas Underwood [00:32:20]:
Right.

Sunny Massera [00:32:21]:
So I find that the younger guys that already have like, you know, they inherit a Mustang or a Camaro from their dad and they've already learned how to kind of work on the car, take old stuff, tinker with it. Yeah. Kind of have a little bit, a better understanding of the way the older technology works. But that's, I mean, that's such a small slice of the market that it's, I mean, it's, it's almost irrelevant.

Lucas Underwood [00:32:41]:
Yeah, well, but I mean, like I grew up tinkering with things.

Sunny Massera [00:32:45]:
Sure.

Lucas Underwood [00:32:45]:
That's what converted in my love to automobiles and working on cars and doing the things that we do. Right.

Sunny Massera [00:32:51]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:32:52]:
And so if, if we can, if we can use that as a tool.

Sunny Massera [00:32:57]:
Sure.

Lucas Underwood [00:32:57]:
To get the younger kids engaged and involved. Let them tinker first and build that love for mechanical things.

Sunny Massera [00:33:05]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:33:05]:
I believe that's a pathway to get more technicians into the market.

Sunny Massera [00:33:08]:
Yeah, I agree. I agree. It's not, it's the opportunity. I Mean, most young people don't have the opportunity to go mess around on some old vehicle that it doesn't really matter if they break it right away

Lucas Underwood [00:33:20]:
or not, you know?

Sunny Massera [00:33:21]:
Yeah, yeah, that's, you know, I think part of going to tech school is I think they should put all put kids or young, not kids, but, you know, youngins as it were on like here, rebuild this old lawnmower here. Take this motorcycle apart and put it back together. It's not. Nobody's gonna drive it, nobody's gonna ride it. But they understand some of the mechanical ideas and, and just concepts involved with, you know, simpler machines. I mean, I've worked on things going back to the, you know, 1920s, and they're just the ingenious way they do this stuff in, in an analog way. Like some people can't even understand it now because it's so simple. It's complicated.

Lucas Underwood [00:34:01]:
Yeah. I remember seeing the wood box batteries, you know what I'm talking about?

Sunny Massera [00:34:05]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:34:06]:
It's just so cool. You don't even.

Sunny Massera [00:34:08]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:34:08]:
The, the concept of that now is insane.

Sunny Massera [00:34:11]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:34:11]:
And, and you know, we talk about electric trucks. Talking about electric vehicles now.

Sunny Massera [00:34:16]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:34:16]:
And then, you know, you go to New York city in the 1900s and they had battery powered electric vehicles all those years ago.

Sunny Massera [00:34:24]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:34:24]:
Big wooden boxes built underneath the truck. It couldn't haul but like £2,000 because the batteries weighed so much.

Sunny Massera [00:34:30]:
Right, right.

Lucas Underwood [00:34:31]:
But I mean, it was such cool technology, especially for the time.

Sunny Massera [00:34:36]:
Sure.

Lucas Underwood [00:34:37]:
Right. The fact that somebody thought it up and developed it.

Sunny Massera [00:34:39]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah, man.

Lucas Underwood [00:34:41]:
I, I think that's where for me, it all turns into the positive, like, environment where somebody young could take this and grow and do something with it. Is because if you see that stuff and you are a mechanical mindset human being, you see it, you're like, whoa, I want to know how that works. I'm going to go put my hands on it. I'm going to go start tinkering and sparks the passion. Exactly.

Sunny Massera [00:35:04]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:35:04]:
And then you don't get out your blood. So he's never worked on anything, so

Sunny Massera [00:35:08]:
he doesn't have it in his blood.

Lucas Underwood [00:35:09]:
Right. I mean, did you ever tinker when you were a kid? No. No. Did you have the opportunity to?

David Roman [00:35:16]:
I mean, I probably could have, but it wasn't that interesting to me.

Lucas Underwood [00:35:20]:
What was it? That, that's a great question. What was interesting to you when you were a child?

Sunny Massera [00:35:24]:
Yeah. I'm curious.

David Roman [00:35:25]:
I mean, the performance aspect of it was cool.

Sunny Massera [00:35:29]:
Yeah.

David Roman [00:35:29]:
You wanted your little car to go fast.

Sunny Massera [00:35:32]:
Sure.

David Roman [00:35:33]:
Corner. Well, that Kind of thing.

Sunny Massera [00:35:35]:
Right.

David Roman [00:35:36]:
But that was about it. Driving them driving.

Sunny Massera [00:35:38]:
Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, the cars. A Camry today, a new Camry today will outperform a 70 chevelle SS in every aspect. Braking, acceleration, handling, everything, you know, fuel economy. But it's a Camry. You know, nobody aspires to have a Camry. And you know, instead of a Chanel, I mean, not nobody, but, I don't know, circumstantial.

Lucas Underwood [00:36:00]:
I mean, like, Braxton would love. You could go get him an old, like Chevrolet. You pick up a Nova, whatever you want.

Sunny Massera [00:36:07]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:36:08]:
And he would be miserable driving.

Sunny Massera [00:36:09]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:36:10]:
He would complain the entire time. Oh, yeah, it's hot, it's noisy, it's uncomfortable, it rattles. I don't like the way it feels. He's looking at me outside the window and you go get him. You get him like a new car. And Braxton's like, heck yeah, this is awesome. But like, he's too bougie for something that's like, I mean, even a little bit rough, right?

Sunny Massera [00:36:31]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:36:31]:
Like if it, if it's 2 degrees too warm inside, this kid's complaining about it.

Sunny Massera [00:36:36]:
Right. I've seen that people order a, you know, two hundred thousand dollar custom vehicle and they get in the thing and they're like, it's loud. It's this that. I'm like, that's what you asked for.

Lucas Underwood [00:36:44]:
That's what you ordered.

Sunny Massera [00:36:45]:
You ordered this. I mean, did you, did you even know you wanted it or did you want the idea of it? Right? You know, so really, so my boss is really good about that. Like, here, go test drive this truck before you order one. You know, like, make sure you want this thing for sure. Because we've built trucks and they come back, well, this or that. And you know, it's bouncy. I'm like, what's freaking Bronco? Right?

Lucas Underwood [00:37:05]:
That's what.

Sunny Massera [00:37:05]:
It's got a 4 inch lift, you know, giant tires. Like, you know it make sure you want it first. Most people already understand that.

Lucas Underwood [00:37:13]:
But so the old cucvs, you know what I'm talking about when I say CUCV, they were military trucks and they were like the K15 through K3000 5002. And they turned them in. Like same with Suburban and everything else they turn them into. And they called them cucvs.

Sunny Massera [00:37:30]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:37:31]:
And six twos and six fives, right? Primarily six two.

Sunny Massera [00:37:36]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:37:37]:
But.

Sunny Massera [00:37:37]:
But you pour anything in them though.

Lucas Underwood [00:37:39]:
So I had a buddy that that's all he did.

Sunny Massera [00:37:41]:
Oh yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:37:42]:
Is he just build those and He. He would build one right after another and sell them for $30,000 a pop.

Sunny Massera [00:37:47]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:37:47]:
And, you know, you buy them at auction for 1500 bucks and he'd spend 10,000 bucks on it and turn a decent profit. But the same thing those people would buy and they would say, well, yeah, but it's making this sound. Well, yeah, but it doesn't always start when it's cold. Well, yeah, like, bro, it didn't start when it was cold. When it was new.

Sunny Massera [00:38:04]:
Yeah, right.

Lucas Underwood [00:38:05]:
Like, yeah, it just doesn't work that way.

Sunny Massera [00:38:07]:
Sure.

Lucas Underwood [00:38:08]:
But it also tells you how far we've come with the automobile in the past 40 years.

Sunny Massera [00:38:13]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:38:13]:
Like we've completely forgotten what it was like to drive a 1980 Chevrolet pickup.

Sunny Massera [00:38:17]:
Right. Oh, yeah. People, people, people don't remember.

Lucas Underwood [00:38:22]:
Yeah. In the background I see the reflection behind me.

Sunny Massera [00:38:29]:
Okay. Awesome guy.

Lucas Underwood [00:38:30]:
He is.

Sunny Massera [00:38:32]:
Yeah, it's. I have a buddy in New Mexico that builds just C10s. That's all he does. He buys really clean, like late 50s, early 60s C10s. Blows them completely apart. Puts them all back together.

Lucas Underwood [00:38:43]:
Right.

Sunny Massera [00:38:44]:
Takes him about a month by himself.

Lucas Underwood [00:38:45]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:38:46]:
But he has a formula and they just come out. Killer air ride. And all the new brakes and all the, you know, some are fuel injected, some are not.

Lucas Underwood [00:38:52]:
See, I can't even. I can't even start with that because I would just get into LMC and spend all my money. Right. I'd be broke. I would not have any. Like the fact you can order all those parts. Yeah, that is really cool.

Sunny Massera [00:39:05]:
Well, now the thing is, finding trucks that have. Or cars that have all the original parts, a complete vehicle that has all the OE stuff on it. Yeah, it's harder to find. I mean, like, yeah, sure, you can buy all the parts for a C10, but what's the quality? Right? Very good.

Lucas Underwood [00:39:18]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:39:18]:
So the. The more original a vehicle you can find, it's just starting.

Lucas Underwood [00:39:22]:
Body panels.

Sunny Massera [00:39:22]:
Especially body panels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Body work is toxic to me. Like, I smell that.

Lucas Underwood [00:39:35]:
I. I don't know. All m timers used to let them and. And they'd let them and they'd paint them with no respirator, no nothing.

Sunny Massera [00:39:41]:
And. Yeah.

David Roman [00:39:42]:
Yeah, they're all loopy now.

Sunny Massera [00:39:44]:
Yeah.

David Roman [00:39:45]:
You ever talk to them? One of those guys? Yeah, they're nuts.

Sunny Massera [00:39:48]:
I agree with that. Some of them are just somewhere guys. Yeah, right.

Lucas Underwood [00:39:53]:
I think that's what we're all headed for. Except for you.

David Roman [00:39:56]:
I stay away from it.

Lucas Underwood [00:39:56]:
You're gonna be dead way before you get to that point. Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:40:00]:
Try to avoid the toxic stuff. I. I built a 59 Ranchero, pulled it out of a field, and it was all these different colors, so I started sanding it down. I took it down to bare metal. It had lead all over the thing. And as soon as I figured I had lead on it, I was like, I'm gonna stop sanding this. And I used aircraft stripper to get the paint off, Because I could contain it. It wasn't, you know, lead dust in the air.

Lucas Underwood [00:40:21]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:40:21]:
Yeah. They clear coated it. It looked killer, but it had all these weird lead patches everywhere.

Lucas Underwood [00:40:26]:
That's kind of cool.

Sunny Massera [00:40:27]:
Yeah, that was. You know, each one's kind of unique.

David Roman [00:40:30]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:40:31]:
But I don't. I'm more. I'm more of a drivability guy. I like to make it run right, make sure it drives right. You know, I can put it together. But, like, finishing off, making sure there's no leaks or rattles or things like that, that's kind of where I'm at.

Lucas Underwood [00:40:45]:
What do you think the. The next, say, five, ten years of your career looks like?

Sunny Massera [00:40:51]:
On a pretty much steady course, where it's at. I mean, 25, 30 years from now. I mean, almost nobody's going to have muscle cars and hot rods just because the. I think the fuel situation.

Lucas Underwood [00:41:01]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:41:01]:
And the. The progression of technology and safety. I mean, they're going to make it to where, like, you want to be able to get a car from the 70s and older on the highway, because, like, nope, it's not safe enough. It doesn't stop fast enough. It doesn't have airbags, crumple zones.

Lucas Underwood [00:41:15]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:41:16]:
It'll be a big safety issue in the next couple decades moving forward.

David Roman [00:41:19]:
I really hope so.

Sunny Massera [00:41:20]:
I. I really do. Yeah. Because, I mean, take A. Take a 60 impala and run into an 09 impala. Guy in the 09 is going to walk away. The guy in. In the 60s gonna get his legs cut off.

David Roman [00:41:33]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:41:33]:
You know it. And that's just where I see it going. But, you know, and. And then the cost of these custom cars is just going to keep going higher and higher, and less and less people are going to afford them. And I think the industry is going to slow down over time because there's going to be a glut of cars coming as all these, you know, boomers can't drive their cars and start selling them. Like, right now, you can. You can buy a lot of really nice custom cars that are built in the 30s, not built in the 30s, but cars from the 30s and 40s that guys our age don't want them. We want muscle cars, you know, we want stuff from the 60s and early 70s.

Sunny Massera [00:42:06]:
So there's all these older, you know, cars from the 30s, Dick Tracy looking cars that just sit there. You can get them for cheap. You know, you can get a model A. A perfectly good model, a running car right now for 10, $15,000 if you search.

Lucas Underwood [00:42:18]:
They are really popular in our area.

Sunny Massera [00:42:21]:
The.

Lucas Underwood [00:42:21]:
The 30s, the 40s, stuff like that.

Sunny Massera [00:42:24]:
That's demographed, too.

Lucas Underwood [00:42:25]:
Yeah, for sure. 57 Bel Air. Dude, like that.

Sunny Massera [00:42:28]:
Oh, yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:42:28]:
That's the criminal.

Sunny Massera [00:42:29]:
Any day, all day, man.

Lucas Underwood [00:42:31]:
It was a sexy car, you've got to admit. Yeah, they are sexy cars. There's no if, ands or buts about it. Probably one of the sexiest cars ever built, right? I'm just gonna be real with you.

Sunny Massera [00:42:41]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:42:42]:
What would be your favorite? What would you.

Sunny Massera [00:42:45]:
Bel Air. I. I like GT. I like the A bodies, the GTOs, the 68-72 GM cars, any of the Cutlass, Chevelle, GTO. Chevelle, yeah. Said that then. I like the. I like the 44 Deluxe.

Sunny Massera [00:43:01]:
I don't know why. Yeah, the little tail light on those. Yeah. The round curves, you know, dude, that's a.

Lucas Underwood [00:43:06]:
That is a pretty car, too.

Sunny Massera [00:43:07]:
But really, I'm just. I'm kind of jaded. They all kind of look like the same thing. I'm like, it's either crappy or not, you know, I don't know.

Lucas Underwood [00:43:13]:
I mean, I think the grand national was a cool car. We're talking about those the other day.

Sunny Massera [00:43:16]:
Oh, yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:43:16]:
Grand national is actually a pretty slick.

Sunny Massera [00:43:18]:
I like to. I like the G body cars, too. Those are good. They drive well. Like, I've had a few of them. Not Grand Nationals, but Monte Carlos and El Camino's. The G body platform. Yeah, they drive good, you know, you

David Roman [00:43:29]:
don't see that once millennials get a little bit older. They're in their 50s and 60s. They're not gonna start looking for 90s cars.

Sunny Massera [00:43:37]:
Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely.

David Roman [00:43:38]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:43:38]:
So say it's gonna. It's gonna shift, you know, Like, I have a lot of guys, we're in our 40s, and they're looking for, you know, 84 Nissans and stuff.

David Roman [00:43:46]:
And.

Sunny Massera [00:43:47]:
Because that's what they all got.

David Roman [00:43:48]:
Crushed.

Sunny Massera [00:43:48]:
Yeah, they did. Or rusty.

Lucas Underwood [00:43:51]:
Well, yeah, I rusted.

David Roman [00:43:52]:
But a lot of them could have been preserved, but they got crushed with their cash repairs, so now it's gonna wipe them all out.

Sunny Massera [00:43:59]:
I've seen E36s getting crushed, things like that, like twin turbo Nissan cars getting crushed.

David Roman [00:44:05]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:44:06]:
Just because they're like, oh, I can get a, you know, rebate on a new car and they go and get like a Kia Sorento or something. You're like, right, don't ever do that.

Lucas Underwood [00:44:14]:
I don't know, it just doesn't make any sense to me. But I mean, like, they're not car guys.

Sunny Massera [00:44:18]:
Yeah, right.

Lucas Underwood [00:44:19]:
They don't care. It doesn't. That's what I'm saying. Like Braxton, for instance.

Sunny Massera [00:44:22]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:44:22]:
He doesn't care.

Sunny Massera [00:44:23]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:44:23]:
Like, it just looks like another car to him. Does it serve its purpose?

Sunny Massera [00:44:26]:
Yep.

Lucas Underwood [00:44:27]:
You know, do the ends justify the means? I, I don't think he would even think about an old car like that. If he saw it getting crushed, he's like, oh, look, it's a rusty piece of junk. Send it away.

David Roman [00:44:36]:
Yeah, yeah, but I'm talking like, like late 80s Japanese cars, even some of the weird ones, because you could, like, you could pick up a late 80s, early 90s Honda Prelude. Four wheel steering.

Sunny Massera [00:44:55]:
Love those. Yeah, right.

David Roman [00:44:57]:
With four wheel steering, the engine wasn't that great, but man, they would, they would handle really, really nicely for front wheel drive car, four cylinder. They're all gone. Every single one of them. Gone. They all got crushed. The ones that didn't rust out.

Sunny Massera [00:45:12]:
Yeah.

David Roman [00:45:13]:
But even the ones that you could restore, they're gone.

Sunny Massera [00:45:16]:
There's.

David Roman [00:45:16]:
There's no market for them.

Lucas Underwood [00:45:17]:
They're.

David Roman [00:45:17]:
They're been completely wiped out. With the 70s cars, I think at least during the, the Cash for Clunkers, people were like, well, I can't get rid of this. It's a 68 GTO. Like.

Sunny Massera [00:45:27]:
Yeah, but your junk is 75, 94. Yeah.

David Roman [00:45:32]:
The 91 Prelude Si. Gone.

Sunny Massera [00:45:34]:
Had one of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I agree with you. Like anything from what they call it, the malaise area era of 70s cars, like your 77 Cordobas and your, you know, just giant ugly boats. People crushed them all day.

Lucas Underwood [00:45:50]:
Oh, yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:45:51]:
And now there's actually, there's a demand for.

Lucas Underwood [00:45:54]:
Right.

Sunny Massera [00:45:55]:
There was so few of them that people were from, you know, their childhood or whatever. They're looking for whatever it was, you know, they're down at a 76 Monte Carlo. Just a horribly ugly car.

Lucas Underwood [00:46:09]:
Yeah, yeah. Awful.

Sunny Massera [00:46:11]:
But they drove great, I guess. I mean, I don't know.

Lucas Underwood [00:46:15]:
I've driven one. No, no, they don't.

Sunny Massera [00:46:17]:
They make great dirt track cars. Yeah, there you go.

Lucas Underwood [00:46:20]:
I'm down with that.

Sunny Massera [00:46:21]:
I mean, that's about the only good use for them, I think. Yeah, yeah. Do rounding rounds till you get smashed and build another one. You know,

Lucas Underwood [00:46:30]:
I am with you, but I don't know that the next generation of automobiles Was really something that could be restored in the same way that we restore cars now.

Sunny Massera [00:46:41]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:46:41]:
Like the 50s, 60s, and 70s cars were a very different animal or body on frame.

Sunny Massera [00:46:46]:
That was half the parts. I mean, half. Literally half the components involved. I mean, think of how many. How many components are in a. Even a car from the early 2000s, there's. I mean, literally half the parts in a car that's 30 years older. And good luck finding some of those parts, you know, especially some of the weird.

Sunny Massera [00:47:04]:
Like, nobody's looking for parts for a 77 New Yorker, you know, like, they got crushed. Yeah. But, yeah, it's. It. I think it depends on the car, too. Like, some cars have a very strong following. Yeah. A lot of the Toyota wagons from the 80s.

Sunny Massera [00:47:22]:
Yeah. And people love those things. Like, I think. Yeah, the corona wagons and whatnot. Oh, man. People build them into drift cars and put stances on them. I think they're ugliest sin, but. Yeah, that's my opinion.

David Roman [00:47:33]:
They're cool cars, but I like. I just don't see them.

Lucas Underwood [00:47:36]:
Some of the old Volvo, Same thing.

Sunny Massera [00:47:38]:
Oh, yeah.

David Roman [00:47:38]:
Oh, yeah, the old Volvo, sure.

Sunny Massera [00:47:40]:
Yeah. I like me a good turbo wagon, but, like, you know, boxy but good. What was the saying? Right now I'm gonna go get me

Lucas Underwood [00:47:47]:
one of those Chevrolet wagons. The one with the fake wood paneling on the side of it from the 90s. Right. Those are the ones that I remember from my childhood.

Sunny Massera [00:47:55]:
Like a Buick century wagon or something.

Lucas Underwood [00:47:57]:
Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm gonna get.

Sunny Massera [00:47:59]:
Oh, yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:48:00]:
Pick you up in the airport front

Sunny Massera [00:48:01]:
or like a roadmaster wagon. Yeah, Roadmaster. Those are cool. They came with the LT1 in them. Yeah, dude.

Lucas Underwood [00:48:08]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:48:08]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:48:08]:
We've worked on a couple of them.

Sunny Massera [00:48:09]:
Yeah, I have two. Was a piece of pain in the ass.

David Roman [00:48:13]:
They're pain to work on with the omni spark.

Sunny Massera [00:48:16]:
Oh, yeah.

David Roman [00:48:17]:
Distributor on the front.

Sunny Massera [00:48:18]:
Yeah.

David Roman [00:48:18]:
Get out of here.

Sunny Massera [00:48:19]:
I've worked on a couple trans ams that had that. I'm like, why would the distributor in the. In the water pump? Like, doesn't make sense.

David Roman [00:48:26]:
Those were. Those were rough, dude.

Lucas Underwood [00:48:28]:
That was an awful engine. Of all the engines they ever made, that was probably the worst one to work on.

Sunny Massera [00:48:33]:
I've come across quite a few of the hot rods that were built in the 90s that have those in them. And these. These guys don't know how to work on. You know, there's no Spark. I'm like, well, your Omni Spark is probably full of water. You know, they spray a bunch of WD40 down the tube and it starts, you know, and it'll be fine. It'll be fine. Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:48:51]:
Or, or they put parts on it that don't work, it won't accelerate. I look at it some Chinese TPS and I'm like, did you even.

David Roman [00:48:57]:
Yeah, that's, did you even like, that's the issue is that, I mean you could, you could still diagnose them. Like that's what, that's what I learned on is those, those kind of vehicles. But yeah, you could diagnose them, but then finding good parts for them.

Sunny Massera [00:49:10]:
Oh yeah.

David Roman [00:49:10]:
Is really difficult because everybody's trying to sell you like the cheapest Chinese piece of crap.

Sunny Massera [00:49:15]:
Oh yeah, man.

David Roman [00:49:16]:
I don't know that this will work if I install it.

Sunny Massera [00:49:18]:
Yeah, exactly. Well, and a lot of electrical components, you can find some type of, you know, information to test it, you know, make sure it's, it operates within range

Lucas Underwood [00:49:27]:
or like, I mean, I mean that's in forums now. It's not like it's not even at service information.

Sunny Massera [00:49:32]:
Oh yeah, no, you have to like dig for that information. Yeah, sure. I figured out through, you know, all these LS motors with the knock sensors down in the engine. You gotta like. I test them before I even install it because I got tired of installing them and throwing a knock code immediately. It's just like, why would I not test it before I stick it in? And then you get, you get brand name parts, AC Delco or whatever, that don't work. You go through six, you gotta do

David Roman [00:49:56]:
GM long number and you gotta put the harness in it.

Sunny Massera [00:49:59]:
Yep.

David Roman [00:49:59]:
Like if you don't do that.

Sunny Massera [00:50:00]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:50:01]:
And forget it.

Sunny Massera [00:50:02]:
Yeah.

David Roman [00:50:02]:
They'll just come right back.

Lucas Underwood [00:50:05]:
Do you experience the same struggles with part quality? Oh yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:50:09]:
I don't expect it to be right, right out of the box. I expect it to fail. And hopefully it does it. Like we had a spat of Ford transmissions that were being rebuilt somewhere and half the solenoids in these things we had, we'd plug them into the power packs or the, you know, aftermarket shift controllers and you can hear the solenoids freaking out immediately. As soon as you hook up the battery, they're just click, click, click, click, click. And it's a combination of the controller and the solenoid. Not saying the same thing. You know, one's either way out of range or the other one is trying to activate it.

Sunny Massera [00:50:41]:
But the, it's not throwing the right voltage at the right time or it's just like, combination of things. But yeah, I don't expect electrical parts to work until they do. Like, yeah, say buy three of them and make sure you get one right in.

Lucas Underwood [00:50:54]:
In the hot rod world or the aftermarket world, I feel like we have a much bigger problem with them saying, no, it works. This is a you problem. This is something you're doing. I feel like there's a whole lot more. Like if you call one of these vendors and ask for a warranty, I typically think that they're pushing it back on the. Because. And I guess because there's so many DIY ERs that don't understand and don't know how to test it. Well, that's the go to response.

Sunny Massera [00:51:19]:
There's a. That that's true. Usually when I call. I call a vendor or manufacturer about a quality part, you know, or a, say, a bad part, whatever. But because. Because I work in a. In a big shop and I have lots of experience. I know exactly what I'm talking about when I talk to them.

Sunny Massera [00:51:34]:
We can actually have a dialogue. And I'll get parts replaced pretty quick because they're like, okay, you're not just some guy in your garage. For sure.

Lucas Underwood [00:51:40]:
For sure.

Sunny Massera [00:51:40]:
You actually know what you're doing. But I can see how the pushback would happen immediately. Like, oh, yeah, you did it wrong. You installed it on your car. You don't know what you're doing. Yeah, no.

Lucas Underwood [00:51:49]:
I mean, I'll take scope captures and send them.

Sunny Massera [00:51:51]:
Sure.

Lucas Underwood [00:51:51]:
They'll say, well, I don't know what any of this means.

Sunny Massera [00:51:53]:
Yeah, yeah, I. I just asked for somebody else.

Lucas Underwood [00:51:56]:
Yeah. I don't know. Many of these places don't have anybody

Sunny Massera [00:52:01]:
that does know, you know, like, I. I have to talk to Holly a lot because I have problems with their parts. And it's not the guy I'm talking to. It's a manufacturing issue. Like, we were buying not to throw Holly under the bus, but we had a problem with. So we buy the. The new timing covers for the 7 3. So we can relocate all the.

Sunny Massera [00:52:21]:
The pulleys. Right. Well, they're not drilling the accessory holes in the. Like, it has the boss, but there's no hole with like, I'm not going to drill and tap the thing. It's supposed to come like that. Yeah. So like, three, four, five later, I get one that's done correctly. Like, really? Okay, these are $800.

Sunny Massera [00:52:36]:
And they should have. It should be right out of the box. You should check them. Yeah.

David Roman [00:52:40]:
Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:52:41]:
Where's the quality control on that? Yeah, I. I've. Yeah, I could go on about that.

Lucas Underwood [00:52:46]:
That fuel system.

Sunny Massera [00:52:48]:
We. The.

Lucas Underwood [00:52:49]:
The. What is it they call their new fuel injection system?

Sunny Massera [00:52:52]:
Sniper Sniper 2.

Lucas Underwood [00:52:53]:
Yeah, yeah, dude, we. Yeah, well, we put one in a Chevelle.

Sunny Massera [00:52:58]:
Yeah, right.

Lucas Underwood [00:52:59]:
We don't do any old work. It was for a close friend of mine. I was like, let's just do it. Take care of him. We must went through 15, 16 parts. The controller, really, the little. Like, we. We had the Bluetooth option so he could control with his phone.

Lucas Underwood [00:53:14]:
And they're like, they. Those don't ever work, and they take down the whole system. So we need to send you the controllers. Like, well, they wanted this. Like, yeah, sorry, it doesn't work.

Sunny Massera [00:53:23]:
Thanks.

Lucas Underwood [00:53:23]:
Yeah, this is great. Why do you even sell it? Why do you have it as an option? But, I mean, like, dude, we went through probably almost six weeks of replace a part troubleshoot, replace a part troubleshoot, replace a part troubleshoot.

Sunny Massera [00:53:35]:
Really?

Lucas Underwood [00:53:35]:
And we're not just talking about one problem. Yeah, we're talking about. We started with one problem, we rectified that problem, and then we ran into another problem. We rectified that problem, we ran into another problem, we rectified that problem, and by the time it was said and done, I was like, I'm never installing another one of these. And it wasn't an ability thing. Right. It was one bad part after another. And they acknowledged that.

Sunny Massera [00:53:57]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:53:58]:
We even said like, hey, are we like, are we screwing something up here? Like, they're like, no.

Sunny Massera [00:54:04]:
No voltage, the whole nine yards.

Lucas Underwood [00:54:06]:
And they're like, no. It's pretty common.

Sunny Massera [00:54:08]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:54:09]:
That makes me feel good.

Sunny Massera [00:54:10]:
Yeah. No, it's. It is like, I've had them. I've installed them in the leaky injector. Right away, turn the key on, it's dumping fuel, right? Get. Take the injector out, tap it a couple times, put it back in. It stops doing like. You're like, well, it needs a new injector.

Sunny Massera [00:54:24]:
But, you know, at least I know what it was. Things like that. Yeah, it's. Yeah. Like I said, I don't expect parts to work until they do. I expect them to be bad out of the box, which is just sad. I never had that thought process five years ago. I would have never, like, assumed every sensor was not good until it is, you know? Yeah, exactly.

Sunny Massera [00:54:42]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:54:43]:
Completely different world. Yeah, completely different world.

Sunny Massera [00:54:45]:
Most of those snipers you have to tune with a laptop, you're gonna have the software and, like, actually Know what you're looking at to get in there? And I had one that had put on a Jeep. It was a small block Chevy.

Lucas Underwood [00:54:54]:
Right.

Sunny Massera [00:54:54]:
And it had slightly lower compression in one cylinder, so it would cause an irregular pulse pattern past the oxygen sensor, make it surge.

Lucas Underwood [00:55:03]:
Right.

Sunny Massera [00:55:03]:
It took took me like a week messing with this thing to figure out. Like, I knew that I had like 90 psi in this one cylinder. The rest are 120. But I didn't know that that subtle of a difference would cause havoc on the system. Yeah. And finally I was like, okay, well, it surges at idle. It's the engine's fault. Not.

Sunny Massera [00:55:20]:
Not the sniper's fault. But we went through so much stuff to try to figure that out. We end up putting the oxygen sensor on the other side. Yeah. And it ran fine.

Lucas Underwood [00:55:29]:
Well, but I mean, just think about that for a second, though, right?

Sunny Massera [00:55:31]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:55:31]:
I mean, how do they prepare for that? Like, whereas with a new automobile. Automobile. They take all of those things into account.

Sunny Massera [00:55:40]:
Sure.

Lucas Underwood [00:55:40]:
And they start tuning them out to solve all of those issues. So it creates an amazing customer experience.

Sunny Massera [00:55:45]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:55:46]:
They put a ton of work into it to make it do what it does.

Sunny Massera [00:55:49]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:55:49]:
Right.

Sunny Massera [00:55:49]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:55:50]:
And. And so with that, every. There's so many variables, Right. Like, how many different configurations does that system work on? And so, come on now.

Sunny Massera [00:55:59]:
Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:56:00]:
You expect them to be able to. To work their way through all that? It's impossible.

Sunny Massera [00:56:03]:
No, it's. It's. It's. It's. It's kind of. It's a generic thing, too. Like. Unless.

Sunny Massera [00:56:07]:
Unless you actually know how to tune or.

Lucas Underwood [00:56:10]:
Or the.

Sunny Massera [00:56:10]:
Understand the fundamentals of that engine or the variations in. In engines, and it's really hard to get to a satisfactory point. I mean, I've had a lot of people install not just Snipers, but Edelbrocks and Phytechs or whatever, and they're like, oh, it's fine. I'm like, you. You're lucky then, because nine out of 10 of them, I find they take some serious fiddling with. To get to run. Right. Yeah.

Sunny Massera [00:56:32]:
Yeah. And then you're like, well, I can't charge customers 30 hours of tuning when it's the sniper's fault or their engine's weird or whatever, you know?

Lucas Underwood [00:56:40]:
I mean, I don't know. Like, they wanted a custom car.

Sunny Massera [00:56:45]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:56:45]:
They wanted custom features.

Sunny Massera [00:56:47]:
You get a custom invoice.

Lucas Underwood [00:56:49]:
Exactly. Well, I mean, you're about to have to. Right? Yeah. Like, is it even optional?

Sunny Massera [00:56:55]:
I don't know.

Lucas Underwood [00:56:56]:
I mean, I see all these performance shops and what are they doing?

Sunny Massera [00:56:59]:
I don't know for a minute.

Lucas Underwood [00:57:01]:
They're.

Sunny Massera [00:57:01]:
They're stuff.

Lucas Underwood [00:57:04]:
They're not making money.

Sunny Massera [00:57:05]:
No, no. Right.

Lucas Underwood [00:57:06]:
That's why they all go out of business. And everybody wants to work on custom cars because it's.

Sunny Massera [00:57:10]:
Or they're charging half a million for a car. I mean, I see it all the time. I mean, I've like, did you. Some of these cars over here at Seymour just. I mean, on. Ungodly amount of money goes into these man hours.

Lucas Underwood [00:57:22]:
And that's what I'm saying. But don't look underneath.

Sunny Massera [00:57:24]:
And then there's only like three guys in the whole country that will buy that car.

Lucas Underwood [00:57:27]:
Right?

Sunny Massera [00:57:27]:
Yeah. You know, I mean, even then, the quality.

Lucas Underwood [00:57:31]:
The quality is bad on those cars. Not all of them.

Sunny Massera [00:57:33]:
Not all of them.

Lucas Underwood [00:57:34]:
But there are some really questionable.

Sunny Massera [00:57:37]:
That's the buyer beware situation right there.

Lucas Underwood [00:57:39]:
Like, Remember the.

Sunny Massera [00:57:40]:
If you don't know what you're looking at, don't buy it. You know?

Lucas Underwood [00:57:42]:
Did you see the deal with Brad Escam that owned Fast Fuel systems? Did you see the deal with that Ford truck?

Sunny Massera [00:57:47]:
No.

Lucas Underwood [00:57:48]:
So he buys this Ford truck. He sends this Ford truck to one of these big diesel shops that's got this huge name known all over the country. Had a TV show, all this stuff.

Sunny Massera [00:57:57]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

David Roman [00:57:58]:
Dude.

Lucas Underwood [00:57:58]:
They kept the truck for like two years. The truck came back and, like, it was undriveable.

Sunny Massera [00:58:03]:
It couldn't be driven out of Utah. Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:58:06]:
Yeah. And like, it was in unbelievable condition. No way it could have been driven. No way it was going to run. No way it was going to be reliable.

Sunny Massera [00:58:14]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:58:14]:
And eventually just went and bought another truck.

Sunny Massera [00:58:16]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:58:17]:
But he created this whole campaign to talk smack about them because that's just how Brad is. Right. But, like, you go look this up and. And he was right. I mean, the. The panel gaps.

Sunny Massera [00:58:26]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:58:26]:
Were insane. Mechanical repairs were insane. Absolute terrible quality. Like, everything about it was bad. The interior looked terrible.

Sunny Massera [00:58:37]:
Yeah.

Lucas Underwood [00:58:37]:
It just makes you say, like, how long are we going to do this? Right. Like, how are we gonna.

Sunny Massera [00:58:42]:
I've had customers bring me vehicles at that. That other shops have built, and I just kind of go over it and I'm like, I can't. Can't do it. Sorry. Yeah. Well, not once I. Once I touch it. I'm married to the thing and it's.

Sunny Massera [00:58:53]:
Everything's my fault after that point, and that's it. Like, I'm just not going to start going down the road that I. Like, I didn't make all the potholes in that road. I'm not doing it.

Lucas Underwood [00:59:00]:
You know, at this point, everything's already our fault anyway because we're shop owners, so I don't know what to tell you. Like, that's just life at this point, so.

Sunny Massera [00:59:10]:
Yeah, that's funny.

Lucas Underwood [00:59:11]:
Anything you want to share with any technicians or anybody? Any feedback?

Sunny Massera [00:59:15]:
Oh, yes and no. I mean, I'm. This whole thing's overwhelming, you know? Yeah, seems it's great. But, you know, pick. Pick what you're going to do for all the young guys out there. Just find something you like to do and get really good at it. Make yourself indispensable.

Lucas Underwood [00:59:31]:
Amen, buddy. Amen.

Sunny Massera [00:59:34]:
If they absolutely need you in the shop, then you'll always be wanted somewhere.

Lucas Underwood [00:59:38]:
Amen, brother.

Sunny Massera [00:59:39]:
Thank you for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. Absolute pleasure.