How Casey Putsch Built the Most Efficient Car in the World, and Why the EPA Hates Him for It

Okay, so here's my theory. The death of the U.S. auto industry was a bigger deal than, I think we realized, maybe a harbinger, hopefully not. perhaps a harbinger of what happens to the country going forward. So Detroit dies. And people are like, oh, Detroit's such a mess. My wife is from there, so I've been there a lot.

And, but you never thought like that would happen to the rest of the country. Oh no, we're going similar ways. We are. That's exactly right. I live in the greater Toledo area and that's baby Detroit. Toledo. Exactly. Home of champion spark plugs. Yeah. Yeah. No longer. So I guess the question is if we want to prevent this from spreading with the cancer that it clearly is.

I think it's important to know the cause of it. So why did the auto industry, which was the most important non-defense industry we had, why did it die? I would say largely regulation and the nature of trying to find more profit and where you ship things. It was a lack of pride in having a workforce in the future tomorrow. And those are the two things I would stick with.

Because since, you know, in my opinion, I've been a car guy for a long time. Wait, you mentioned the unions. Everyone blames the unions for the destruction of Detroit. I think that's a secondary symptom. I mean, that's a big thing, but I think culturally it has to do more with where we're going and what happened. The automotive industry right now, if you look at new cars, I don't own a new car. The newest vehicle I own is early 2000s.

Really? The newest. Yeah. And honestly, I've been thinking like that's too new. And you're a professional car guy and you have no use. Yeah, no, I work on all my own stuff from exotics to building race cars, helping students building airplanes to vintage stuff. Like I know automotive history. And honestly, kind of the sweet spot for cars to daily drive are the 1980s and 1990s. What? We've just gotten worse since then.

In what ways? Consumer culture. You know, they try to find new ways to make money and give something to buy a new model year. But cars haven't really gotten any better since the 1990s. They're coming in more like a cell phone. And then you get more and more and more regulation, which just stymies the automotive industry into building just the one thing. That's why all the cars look the same. That's why there's no real innovation. That's why anything interesting ends up being wildly expensive.

And then the two things that are always used as, shall we say, the scapegoat is either the environment, the EPA, or safety. But it's not always about that. And if you're really worried about... Wait, wait, those are scapegoats? Well, that's scapegoats, but reasons to force things in to be a certain way. Because if you speak up and question anything, they'll always say, environment, safety. It seems like that's always the way. But we're always just quagmired in this regulation and direction.

You're blowing my mind. So I get I mean, getting older is a process of realizing how many of the lies you've internalized and believed. And I guess if you had asked me when I woke up this morning, what destroyed Detroit, I would say. I mean, I'm not actually even that against unions, to be honest with you, but I would say, well, everyone says the unions and EPA. and safety. Ralph Nader and the EPA and the UAW. True. But no. True. It's deeper, you're saying.

Well, it is. And, okay, you know, I'm an individual. I build stuff. I think about the nation, individuals, community, my family, my friends. Like, we want a car that gets us there, that we can fix, that we can afford, right? But it's not what we're making. Another thing which I want to mention, two points. The other thing that's happening nowadays We don't really innovate or make anything new anymore that people can afford, really. And I'm finding another, it seems like...

a symptom across culture of just everything now is about money from one pocket to another. It's not about really creating something new or building tomorrow. And I started to see that in the automotive industry with the nature of hybrids to electric. They have a purpose, but they're not a solution for everything. The political push and powers are trying to make it a solution for everything. And I look at this and go, no, no, no, no. This isn't about...

This isn't about what's best for everybody or even the environment or anything. This is money from one pocket to another and a power play. What does that mean, money from one pocket to another? So... It's a deeper discussion that led to when I built what I called the Omega car, which I built that high efficiency diesel car that I thought would be more recyclable, lower environment impact, affordable.

and a good car and a direction to go. And if I may, can I just back up a second kind of what I saw? You know, in my teens and 20s, I'm just a normal car guy. I liked fast cars and... Going on dates with pretty girls. That's pretty much all I cared about. So fast cars and fast women is what you're saying. Well, they say in Kentucky, what is it? They say beautiful horses and fast women. No, I meant beautiful women and fast horses. Nothing like that. But...

No, that was kind of all I cared about. But my grandfather always talked about politics and things going on in the world. And while I didn't really care so much to look into it, things stuck with me. Yes. And I remember... In 2008, when Obama was running, people are all excited. I'm like, okay. And I remember watching all the presidential stuff. That was kind of the first time I really started paying attention to politics when I was a younger guy.

And we're watching the Democratic National Convention and Obama's talking. And I remember thinking, this guy's full of crap. That's just my gut feeling. I didn't know where it came from. I didn't really know that much of politics, but I'm just like, this guy is full of crap. You didn't think he was black Jesus? No, no. I mean... You sound like a racist. I don't care. I don't care. That's the spirit. So...

I just thought he's full of crap. And so I'm listening, get to the point. And he goes, and I'll help Detroit retool. So the energy efficient cars of tomorrow will build here for the sake of the nation and world. I'm like.

Bullshit. You're not gonna. This isn't, you're not doing a Kennedy speech like we're going to the moon before the decade is out. You're not going to do it. I just, it just, it ticked me off and I've remembered it to this day. And of course we have the... Why did you know he was not going to do it? Because Detroit's not going to change. He's not going to change that. Like a politician changes their own oil, let alone know how a car works or the industry or what to do with it.

Fair. Respectfully. Fair, fair. No, with no respect, I would say. And I can think of some military leaders and such saying things that I'll be a little kinder about. We don't want to take advice from, you know. pantsuits in Washington. It's like, what do they know about it? Respectfully, but things like that go across the board. So I'm thinking he's not doing anything. Well, the other thing that interesting happened was the financial crisis, 2008, 2009, right?

Now, I didn't fully understand what was going on. Again, I cared more about going on dates and fast cars than politics and things going on at the time. The family business we had was a small town public golf course in the Midwest. You know, 18 holes, worked our butt off. My father worked seven days a week, six o'clock in the morning, 10 o'clock at night, every day.

I know like being in a small town, everybody makes fun of you. Oh, you're rich. You just sit on a golf course all day. I'm like, no, we're changing oil in like diesel tractors and back lapping mowers and mowing and putting on banquets and doing family business, right? What does it mean to back lap a mower? Oh, sorry. That was, um, so.

If you mow a fairway or a green, it's not a rotary blade that cuts by kind of like whacking the... It's actually, it's a reel which comes through and slices on a blade. Well, they get dull. And so you have to sharpen them and it's dirty and... You beat up your knuckles and that's kind of the work you actually do in the winter with the golf course. By hand like with a file or? Oh, no, you have to run them backwards.

with a dirty compound with like grit on it and you have to adjust it. Oh, you lap it. Yeah, you lap it. Exactly, exactly. Thank you. Sorry to interrupt. No, it's all right. I just kind of bring that up because that was my world at the time. We worked hard and we saw that. But at that time, I started to see how it was affecting people in Little Tiffin, Ohio on a daily basis. Loans, housing loans, business loans.

And I also saw how that affected eventually when the family was thinking of selling the business. And I started to see how that hurt everything, but where I was going with it in relation to the overarching things with the automotive industry. So now we're bailing out.

The automotive industry? Tax dollars? Huge amounts of money? Okay. Huh. Paying attention. And I'd lived in Columbus, Ohio at the time. Head of my little shop working on vintage race cars and things like that. And riding my motorcycle. And after we were bailing out the automotive industries, I kind of remember back and I'm like, so I wonder, is Obama going to try to make everything efficient now? Are they going to do anything?

And I see us, we just kind of doubled down on making bigger trucks and muscle cars and things, which I have to tell you. I love big trucks and muscle cars and fast cars. Okay. Like if you can afford the fuel and do what you want, don't, don't get in my way. You can pry my sports cars out of my cold dead hands. Okay. Don't. Yeah. But, you know, it doesn't mean I don't necessarily want something that could be better for the daily driver. I can't think of something that might be more efficient.

And I'm thinking, this is wrong. Something's wrong here. And just in what I was doing and researching various materials and thinking of building cars, and it's kind of what I do. I started to realize there's a myriad of ways that we can mass produce.

Cars, automobiles, that will be less toxic, less environmental impact, cheaper, more efficient than what we're doing. Because in a sense, all of our cars are stamped metal boxes with chairs bolted in them. Yeah. We've been doing that since the mid-1930s. Not much has changed. It's been a long time. And I'll say this also, which I think you might enjoy as a history guy. So SR-71 Blackbird, right? CIA spy plane, Mach 3. They came up with that in the late 1950s.

We had to go to the trouble of getting all the titanium, I think, from Russia at the time, which required a zillion shell companies and orchestration just to get the material to build it. And we built an aircraft effectively in the late 1950s, 1960, that'll do Mach 3 and can map. hundreds of thousands of miles of the Earth's surface, and before GPS existed, be able to plot the stars through broad daylight and through clouds in the late 50s. And we're still making cars like the 1930s now.

I think that's BS. Yeah. So... But to be fair, you've also seen the death of innovation in aviation as well. That's true, too. I mean, the 747 came out in 1969. True. Tell me we've made it, and I was born that year, 55. Yeah. Six years ago. When was the last time we built a plane that cool? 1969. We haven't. And to be fair, there's a lot of things that we still, like the B-52 bomber, it's still around. Buff is eternal, they joke, you know? And...

So there's a lot of great designs from back when that are still perfect designs now and can be upgraded. It doesn't mean that we have to have innovation for innovation state. Some things just work, but sometimes you need new things. But as a younger guy at the time, I was frustrated by all this. And I'm like, you know what? I'm going to build a car. I got a point to prove.

was it can't be electric because nobody knows what the heck a kilowatt hour is back then. We're not accustomed to thinking like that. We think miles per gallon. How fast is it? Zero to 60. You know, things like that. That's kind of the two things that matter most to people. And can you use this? And how much does it cost?

I want to build a car that'll be representative of something that can be mass produced, that let's say it costs about $20,000 or less. I made it diesel, turbo diesel. So I looked around for what I felt was about the most efficient engine, reasonably available, and built the car. Now, I said something like 11 years ago on video so I can prove it. I said it will get over 100 miles a gallon and it will do zero to 60 in under five seconds.

Now, I built the car. I even showed it at a private car event with sports cars and exotic cars and told everybody about my concept. But when I got it all together and done, I realized... What am I going to do with this thing? If the world doesn't know it exists and nobody hears about it, it doesn't exist. You felt like Nikolai Tesla at this point, I'm sure. Perhaps. I don't, maybe. You know, he's an interesting character. Yeah, for sure. Certainly. And I sat on it.

I just put it in my garage for the better part of a decade. But other things going on in life, I was doing my nonprofit Genius Garage, which I really believed in, because we can go into some big problems with the American educational system, especially higher education. I think we're stymieing our youth, the families in the future. And I think it comes from predatory lending and loans you can't default on. And I think the schools are...

Creating this vacuum monster that is not the real world with majors that are not providing jobs and creating an environment for political radicalization. But that's another topic. But the reason I say that is... Everything you just said is obvious, and it's crazy that it still exists. But let me just back up to the vehicle itself, if you don't mind, without getting boring on the subject. Explain how you get 100 miles to the gallon on diesel.

And it goes zero to 16 under five seconds. Like, what is that? How big is the motor? Like, tell us about the car. Let me ask you a question. Yeah. So, I don't know what you drove here, but let's pick your average car or SUV. Yeah, yeah. Put it in neutral.

Pretty hard. Pretty hard, right? Yeah. Like, I know it sounds silly, but when you work on cars, if you spend your day pushing around cars, you start thinking about how efficient they are. Look at a car and a SUV going down the road or a semi. How aerodynamic do you think that is? Not super aerodynamic. I drive a Silverado, not aerodynamic. There's nothing about our cars that are remotely efficient at all.

So how do you get that? You just make the actual car, not so much the drivetrain. You're not looking for a magic bullet. Everybody wants a magic bullet. You make the car more efficient. Like the... Lower coefficient of drag. Somewhat lighter weight where you don't need weight. Just less rolling resistance. You make it actual, efficient, good design. We don't do that with the automotive industry anymore. And the reason I chose diesel is because people would understand that.

Diesel is also a very flexible fuel. We can make biodiesel. You can make diesel effectively out of what's left over from the meatpacking industry, the wine making industry, agriculture, you name it. And this is fascinating, too, because. And I got to get into why I talked about the car. But since that time, I got word back from people kind of more in traditional automotive media and whatnot. No one would talk about it or write about it.

And it kind of pissed me off because back when I was in a concept and I just talked about it a little bit on my YouTube channel, some places would report about it. But why is it when it was just a concept and a YouTuber was trying to do something efficient and like maybe eco-friendly and whatnot, they'd write about it. But then when it actually did what I said it was going to do, they wouldn't.

It actually gets 100 miles to the gallon? Yeah, first time out, I didn't even have all the fairings on it. I haven't even tuned it. It was 104.72 miles to the gallon just driving to the countryside normally with stop signs and turns and such. Just jumping in it without even tuning it more. The first time I took it out, we were just idling and doing hard pulls and everything else. I looked at it and I'm like, we just got like 88 miles to the gallon and we're not even trying.

That's crazy. Well, and the other thing... Considering gas is pretty... It's like three bucks or something. Right here, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's expensive. It's more expensive in Europe. And like, okay, I have some gas guzzlers for sure. I like V12s and stick shifts and straight pipes. So tell me about the engine in this vehicle.

It's largely conventional. It's turbo, which is good for diesel because it allows you some flexibility to cruise more. But if you want to make power, you can crank in the boost and do some things to make it efficient. And I experimented even with some catalytic converters and such that will even be better. So there's nothing crazy about the drivetrain. There's no magic bullet there. What about? The other thing, I got to point this out. That drivetrain, when I started, had 130,000 miles on it.

It's no spring chicken. What was it from? What'd you pull it out of? Volkswagen. Pre-diesel gate. Diesel gate's an interesting thing to talk about too. What's Dieselgate? That was the big scandal that Volkswagen went through with allegedly cheating their emissions tests. Oh, I remember this, yes. That was back in... 2015, I think. Right. That was a big scandal. Which is interesting because in looking back on it now, it seems to tie into more with...

Not regulating a car company so much for the betterment of all, but an attack. It's the way it kind of looks like to me. An attack on Volkswagen. I would say diesel. Because Volkswagen was in, I don't know about now, but certainly was the best and most efficient. The engine I used was from back in like 2000 when they made it. Volkswagen. Yeah, good engine.

And it's manual, more efficient that way. The transmission's manual? Yeah, manual. Less parasitic losses. Really? It's cheaper to produce, gets better miles to the gallon. You know, back in the day, sports cars, if they were manual, would have better zero to 60 times and such. No longer true. Yeah, no longer true. Our automatics have gotten a lot more interesting and whatnot.

But manual transmission still makes for more efficient driving. Yeah, because there's less parasitic drag. There's less losses in the drivetrain. Huh. Interesting. Like meaningfully more efficient? Well, especially in that time, in the 2000s, probably... five to seven miles to gallon on the highway oh wow maybe even maybe only like three but it's still a lot when you consider millions of cars over years that's for sure even your car yeah and

It doesn't all have to just be about like, oh, we have to do this for the sake of environment. These are costs that hit people's pockets. Oh, I wasn't thinking about emissions even. Yeah. Well, that's amazing. So, and what about, what about emissions on this vehicle? I'm trying to get to like. In regard to mine or the whole scandal specifically.

It's the basic stuff that diesel would have. I mean, you've got a pretty serious catalytic converter. You've got the exhaust gas regulation and such. Without getting an overly nitty-gritty, diesel does have some things about it that... The EPA likes to go after. But it's kind of strange. And I'm curious to see what happens in the future. So you probably, I'm sure you saw this. The Supreme Court ruled differently on the Chevron deference. Of course.

which I'm really fascinated to see how that changes the nature of the way laws are interpreted. So the question before the court was, Can federal agencies create legislation when the Constitution says no, Congress creates the laws? Right. On how it's interpreted. Right. But for generations, the federal agencies, including EPA, but all of them from the Department of Education to the Department of Defense, have come out with regulations that have the force of law that no one ever voted.

And that no elected official had a hand in. So it's anti-democratic, right? That's the idea. That's probably the reason why so many friends complain about the ATF. I think they're pretty good at making laws. Well, the ATF has all kinds of other problems like shooting innocent people. But yes, no, absolutely. Yeah. But they create regulations that no one voted on and that no elected official administers. So it's like...

As a citizen, I have no recourse, so that's not democracy, that's tyranny. Yeah. So that's the conceptual explanation. Exactly right. And it's not looking for a way around something or a loophole, but what is right? What are we actually doing here? Where are we going? Also, if you want a law, vote on it. And the beauty of the Congress is they have two or six years.

between elections. So they're pretty accountable to voters. And if voters don't like the way they vote, they can turn them out, at least conceivably, right? One hopes. One hopes. But the... Undersecretary of douchebaggery is completely beyond the control of any voter. So, like, that's, again, tyranny, right? Yes. Yeah. And that affects things greatly. It just makes it difficult to innovate or go anywhere. Right.

You know, and the thing of it is, so going back to the car, the car I built. So I mentioned to you, got 104.72 miles to go. And I video recorded the whole thing because I want to know, what does this thing actually do? Because last year was a very important year. It was an election year. One thing that also drove me nuts, so if you look at, so the Biden administration and even Gavin Newsom's pushing it, electric vehicle mandates.

Like large electric vehicle mandates. Not like back to the Clinton era when it was like, I don't know, one to two percent of vehicles sold by certain times need to be electric. No, they're big ones. And I had a huge problem with, you know, Biden's administration doing that because I'm like, this destroys innovation.

You know, and the other thing you go into, and I don't want to beat up on electric because it, you know, it has its purpose in places. I think all kinds of drivetrains and energy do. I don't mean that as just like political BS rhetoric. I mean that genuinely, but it's not a Band-Aid fact. Also, how are we going to charge them? Our grid? Yeah, how? I'll tell you this. I did some math with all of them. Let me tell you this. So the next day, I'm coming right back to this point on the math.

The next day after I did the initial mile per gallon testing on my car, I did zero to 60 times with it. So I put accelerometers and GPS in this car, also my 93 Dodge Viper RT10. C7 Corvette Grand Sport and my neighbor's Tesla Model 3 rear wheel drive with the full charge. My car, the 104 miles a gallon, beat the Dodge Viper by two tenths of a second and exactly matched the Corvette Grand Sport and the Tesla.

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So what was zero to 60 in that? 4.61. And I probably could have done better, but honestly, the tires are over a decade old now because I built the car a while ago and such. But that was real-world driving. And yeah, I gave it. And I got videos of it if you want to look me up. How did you beat the Tesla?

It matched the Tesla, but that was only with the Tesla to full charge. It would consistently get a little slower every time as it would lose juice. Just because the nature, obviously, of an electric vehicle just gives you massive advantage. Yeah. And the Tesla's simple. You just stick your foot down and computers.

that's the best it's going to do my car would actually probably beat it if i gave it some clever traction control and such in it to be honest um but that's not the point the point of it is so i'm like i'm gonna run some numbers Just out of curiosity, what is the...

carbon footprint of burning one gallon of diesel oh interesting okay epa's got numbers for that okay what's the carbon footprint on average the united states electrical generation whether it's nuclear wind coal whatever national average Of the carbon footprint of a kilowatt hour of electricity. Say like you're in a perfect world charging your electric vehicle at home.

And then I just did the basic math on, okay, what's the carbon footprint of my car on diesel getting over 100 miles a gallon versus the electric car charged at home, national average, over 100 miles. My car beat the electric car. It had a lower carbon footprint. And it has a much lower one to manufacture, and it's easier to fix. So that's when I went, okay. I also did some other fun math.

respectfully towards Cole. But hold on, just to be fair, can it be turned off by remote by a politician who doesn't like your politics? Thank you. No, it can't. Oh, it can't? No, it can't. Then I don't feel comfortable with it. Oh, you don't? Well, how are we going to control you? I don't care. You're not. It's going to stay that way. I like your spirit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, thank you for bringing that up. That's very important because.

The other thing about... That's why I drive a 1987. Well done, sir. Yeah. For real. No, I get it. With a gun in it. Yeah, good. Good.

Sorry, I shouldn't say that. I get too excited on this. But it's true. You remember the days at school, like you could have a gun rack because people were... reasonable human beings in a community in california we didn't have a lot of deer hunting right we had surfboards but she could still yeah exactly but now you can still do it i kind of i kind of get uh my independent spirit i'm like i'm gonna put a gun rack in my viper not because i need it just because America. I totally agree.

And that's the other thing about the electric car. So when I look at it, all the governmental control and what it appears to me globally is going on with much of that and the push. And then the other thing that doesn't make any sense.

So the Biden administration doing the big electric vehicle mandates and such and push, but excluding Tesla from their meetings at the White House and summit and all that? Really? So what you're telling me is the thing that you want to do with industry and cars and transportation? is super important, but not as important as the politics with the guy with the biggest electric car company in the world.

I don't like that either. Well, they're just criminals. I mean, we know that now. That was a criminal organization running our country. I know. I think a lot of my grandmother, who was married to my World War II vet,

granddad, of course, she always said, give him a fair trial and hang him in the morning. And that phrase has been ringing in my mind a lot lately. She sounds like my kind of woman. So, but let me, let me just back a little bit. So you create this vehicle in your shop, right? Yeah. Okay. And you think that you could build it for 20 grand? Is that true? Okay, 20 grand. So it gets 104. And mass produced, of course. At scale. Not as a prototype. Obviously. So, but.

It gets 104 miles per gallon. It matches the Tesla off the line. You get to 16 under five seconds. Yeah. So that's like kind of the dream package right there. And it runs on a readily available fuel that you can buy at any. Yeah, and we have the infrastructure for it.

Well, yeah, you can fill up at a gas station. I only put a five gallon tank in it because at 100 miles a gallon, like I'm going to need to get out and, you know, have the call of nature or stop at a gas station before. But if I put a bigger gas tank on, I can drive from New York to L.A. on one tank? yeah of course Okay. Now, I have to point this out because there's lots of smart people watching. They'll get it.

Okay. Things like crash testing, airbags, climate control, all that jazz. Okay, great. It'll add a few hundred pounds more to it. Maybe it'll make the car a little bit better. But the other thing that happens when you actually develop and build something like that, you tune it better. I still can get those numbers and meet all of those same. OK, so can I just ask at that point, it's like if you invent something that is truly useful and that, you know, at 20 grand ish.

A new Suburban is like pushing $100,000 right now. Like the cars are out of control. Who can afford that? I couldn't agree more. If you're going to spend that much money on a car, go buy a vintage Ferrari or something, you know? I don't know that I've ever bought a new car in my life, and I don't plan to. But people want to, whatever, leaving that a whole aside. But what you just described is something that like almost by definition wouldn't be successful.

So why can't you find someone to build it at scale? Well, it's 2025 and we live in the... In a wonderful country, but one that has evolved into a lot of industrial complexes. And they don't like change. you know no one wants ai we're getting it anyway well yeah but right we're getting massive change it's power that's that's power and control and money and they can do it and they will which i have to say one thing which i think you may appreciate

AI effectively is a synthetic god that we're creating. Of course. How much of a biblical warning disaster is that? Oh, you don't have to dig too deep to be... We're destroying the entirety of the human experience. I just wanted to say that. And people themselves, right? Yeah, it's the apex of the golden calf. And by the way, I've done, I don't know, how many interviews on the topic of AI around the world. I've been to a lot of different countries.

to learn just for myself more about what's happening there. And the one question that no one can answer is, what's the benefit of this?

like power control for others yeah none of the benefits yeah whatever i don't want to sound like an old guy um but i feel like one when i hear this topic so but anyway just back to the to the point like why specifically so you've been talking about this on your podcast on youtube yeah my youtube channel yeah and which has a lot of viewers and um why has no one called you to say you know i'll friendship a couple hundred million bucks and we'll just

build a facility and... The difficulty with things like this is, so... Okay, first of all, you think, how do you do that? Okay, with what I'm talking about is not something that can be reasonably just scaled from a garage.

Like, what am I going to do? Just build a few little ones here? No, I got it. I would buy one. You got to do something. If you're selling one, I would buy. What's it look like? I'm such a bad interviewer. I haven't even asked the basic question. No, you should. It's pretty cool. Can you describe it? Give me a word picture.

I'm trying to think of anything that quite looks like it. It's slippery. It looks like a cross between an exotic car and a little bit of a Bonneville Salt Flats car. Wow. You didn't mention Cybertruck. Does it have hard lines? No. Really? I'd like it to be efficient. Oh. Rather than just interesting for aesthetics take. No, no, I'm not attacking the Cybertruck. I personally think it's incredibly unattractive. The Cybertruck? Yes.

I just like the meat. And I respect the Cybertruck, by the way. I did a Cybertruck review. Yeah. I think it's a really interesting vehicle. I'm glad it exists. But I'm just saying, aesthetically... Yeah. It's a pretty good look. It's a little different because we're accustomed to seeing what we're seeing. Too many angles for me. Oh, no, I was talking about my car, not the Cybertruck. Okay, sorry, I'm obsessed. No, the Cybertruck, the best meme is...

There's a DeLorean and an F-117 Nighthawk, right? And F-117 is like the military guy and the DeLorean is kind of like the mom. The Nighthawk's like, what do you mean he's my son? He doesn't look anything like me. And they show the Cybertruck and he's like, oh, you know. I'm more like 1935 Packard, you know, just soft lines. I have a 31 Buick Phaeton. Is it pretty? Yes, very. Yeah, of course it is.

So anyway, I keep interrupting you. Tell me what it looks like. What would you compare it to? Something that people might... Well, it's mid-engine. Okay, so the engine's within the wheelbase but behind the cockpit. It's two-seat. It has butterfly doors similar to like a McLaren F1 in that regard. It was efficient. It has something of an open tail because it was very important the way the air flows around it, but also underneath it so that I can make it highly efficient.

So, you know, the bottom of the it's a monocoque structure where it's not like. a tube frame with the body stuck on it the whole car is itself the structure as well So the air, the way it flows over it through the radiator in the back, also to the heating of the motor, and the way that then intersects the trailing edge and the way the air flows around it. It's just all designed to be design efficient. Sounds amazing. And you can even use the structure of the chassis or the structure.

So I can even make the stereo system very small and effective and efficient because naturally, acoustically, it works out well for that too. So it's a lot of fun with design. I just... Every once in a while, you need somebody who looks around at the world and goes, this is wrong. We can do better. I can do better. I'm going to do better. And that's just pretty good. So you built this thing. Can you register it? Yeah.

Just like go to the DMV and register. Yeah. It's registered no different than like an assembled vehicle or kit car. There's a lot of ways that are a modified vehicle. It's just like make car I made. Yeah. Huh. Amazing. Car guy stuff.

What do people say when you drive it around? I keep it relatively under wraps because respectfully, for as much time as it took me to build and what it represents, I consider it kind of valuable to trust out there in the wild with people on their cell phones and stuff. So I kind of go with a low profile, but people are definitely interested and enamored by it. But they're not beating down your door. Correct. And that was the other interesting thing. So nobody reported on it.

Even though, you know, I got a few hundred thousand views on it when I said everything I wanted to say and show it and it did the numbers, right? I would think. If somebody builds a diesel car that represents being affordable and recyclable mass produced, that gets great fuel efficiency and has a low carbon impact and all people would be into that.

Well, one word I got back from an automotive media was telling. They said, we don't report on dirty diesel. And the other was diesel's dead. And I thought about that and I go, hang on. Diesel's like one of the most used fuels there are. Wait, who wrote that? It was said. It wasn't written. It was said to us privately. These are like professional car reviewers? Correct. They won't touch it. They won't write it.

This is obviously a much deeper question, but why do the worst people in the world, the most small-minded, the stupidest, the meanest, um the people with like the most unbalanced unhealthy personal lives why do they all go into journalism do you think that's a better question for you but i have a theory i've been pondering this for like 35 years and i don't understand it there And I see the worst ones is...

kind of like we talk about like the dark triad personality traits which is like you know psychopathy and machiavellianism and narcissism etc you know these kinds um i'm gonna get a lot of trouble for this but i love it i thought about this no i i've been around so in the in the

I love exotic cars. I really do. Okay. Like when I was a kid, my dad showed me the movies Grand Prix with James Gardner and Le Mans with Steve McQueen. Please tell me you've seen at least one of these movies, right? I don't know. Okay. Well, watch Le Mans with Steve McQueen. Just getting a good vibe as Steve McQueen being himself. And just La Molson straight, La Mol, early 70s, Porsche flat 12 against a Ferrari V12, just singing it. And like as a kid, I'm like, I want that. You know what I mean?

So I love exotic cars because for me, something like a V12 Lamborghini is like, yes, I can't be Steve McQueen at Le Mans, but I can drive this. You know what I mean? Yeah. But... Nowadays, they're paddle shifted and anybody that wants to flex can buy them. So if somebody ever said to me, hey, Casey, I need you to find me the most narcissistic sociopath possible. I'm like, no problem. Let's find the most Lamborghini. And the reason I bring that up... And you say they're paddle shit, meaning...

Anybody can drive them. They don't take any more skill or appreciation for the machinery, respectfully. How were they, were you like double clutching them? Like how hard were they to... to operate before when there was standard transmission. Yeah, things like that back when, you know, carbureted. Like anything, you got to treat a muscle car right.

A little bit. You know, something that's carbureted. Or an old Harley-Davidson. You have to know how to operate it. Yeah. I mean, if you get the privilege of driving something like an old Lamborghini or Ferrari from the 70s or earlier. You got to be a little sympathetic. You got to understand the transmission. You got to be able to rev match gears and such. You're not going to be...

doing wild burnouts and such. You've got to understand the carburetors and letting it warm up and appreciate it. And we're in an industrial age where you don't have to do that. But to answer your question relating to journalism, I make that joke about certain things. attract certain personality traits because those personality traits can do well.

So, you know, they also say Washington, D.C. is Hollywood for ugly people. That's for sure. And I think a lot of the traits of Hollywood to Washington, D.C. to journalism are the same. um kind of manipulative sociopath tendencies that you can lie to somebody with a smile perfectly and and find the structured crazy chess game to ruin people's life and power play your way up and

Find power and money. Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, everything you're saying is true, but it's just disappointing to see it in journalism, not because crappy people with weird personal lives go to journalism. And they're cowards, of course. Most people are, unfortunately. But... They have no curiosity. And that's what drives me insane. Thank you. If there's one quality that defines journalism and a journalist, it's the desire to know more.

Right. And they spend their whole lives trying to attack you, call you a racist for wanting to know more. It's insane. So somebody called me. Well, actually, you did call me. You're like, I built this car that gets 104 gallons. I mean, miles to a gallon. I'm not even a car guy, really. But I'm like, well, that's kind of crazy. On a diesel motor, really? Engine? Yes.

And, you know, I tried to be polite and qualify. It was amazing. I was like, really? Is that really true? I guess you get video of it. So I guess it is. So I don't know why if I was a professional car viewer, I'd be like, I'm coming to your house. I want to see what this is. Yeah. And to be fair, in a manner of speaking, I didn't really invent anything.

I just designed something better and thought about the world independently. And like, I'm doing this. It needs to represent what we actually can do and where we can go. And I just, I have to do this. Not all sleep aids are made by pharmaceutical companies. You probably heard about Eight Sleep by now. They developed the country's most innovative products for sleep.

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I mean, yeah, because I design the things in my head. I'll do like a drawing or an engineering drawing or something just to communicate and show somebody else, but I'll run all the simulations and design the entire structure and everything in my head. My wife gets on my case sometimes. We go to date her. She's like, I can see the hamster wheel turning. I'm like, I'm sorry. That's how creativity works.

It germinates in your head. But no, the journalists, I appreciate you saying that because they follow along. They want their power within their bubble. But the thing that's kind of crazy to me when I say they're gutless... You would think they would actually get better views and more clicks if they broke the mold to show something interesting that maybe goes against popular narratives, but they don't.

Oh, they spend their lives dutifully ignoring things. I mean, there are megaliths around the world, including in the United States, huge stone structures. And nobody, including any structural engineer in the United States, has no idea how they were built. in the pre-internal combustion age, in the pre-industrial age. There's literally not even a good guess as to how this was built.

And I, of course, I don't know the answer either, but I mean, that's such an amazing thing. When were the pyramids built? Nobody knows. How were they built? Nobody knows. I can't get that out of my head. And again, I'm not pushing a conspiracy theory. I'm just noting what we don't know. Yeah.

And I don't know why like everyone's like, shut up, shut up. What? No, I'm glad you said that. And there's a lot of other structures that are popping up more nowadays in archaeology. And there's even guys that do like. surface lidar and they're seeing things in fields and such.

And as silly as it is... Can you explain what that is for people who don't know what you're talking about? To be perfectly honest, I don't know it as well. But I think through the satellites and stuff that we can use now, like... nerds and i mean that in a nice way spend the time like looking over it it shows the exact topography of the ground exactly without And suggest what's underneath it. Yeah, so if you start seeing geometric shapes and stuff, might be something.

It might be man-made, or at least made. Yeah, and the other thing is, so maybe not too long ago, 10, 20, 30 years ago, we think, oh, we've discovered everything, we're brilliant, we know everything. It's just the opposite of the truth. It's not true. I know, I know. I really... I don't know if I'll time or what the future will bring, but... I really want to do some videos where...

You go to interesting places in the world to see and find these things. And one thing I'd really like to do is motorcycles around Saudi Arabia. Yeah. Because it is a fascinating kingdom with some really interesting history. I was just there. Oh, yeah. Yes. and i was out in alaula which is the a truly ancient right yes that's the place you want to see it one of them right out from riyadh it's it's quite

But the archaeology there, which is, you know, the Saudis have a lot going on. They're building a whole new society. Yeah. And I don't know that they are, you know, focused on, like most emerging nations are not focused on. archaeology, all of the archaeological sites of significance in the Middle East and the nearest Levant.

were discovered by the Brits and the French. All of them. They'd sat there for thousands of years. The locals were like too busy trying to stay alive. Well, they knew of it. I don't want to say normal to them, but that's their home. But it took people from the outside to be like, wait, what the hell is that? You know, where was...

Whatever. Sodom and Gomorrah, you know. Yes, yes. I mean, how much of that is biblical land, like the land of Midian, you know, which they know. But the point is that process of discovery and of creativity is driven by a common impulse, which is. Yeah. And so when you don't have curiosity... you're never going to discover it or create. But more important, I think,

for the moment we're living in, it's like, why don't you have curiosity? Why is curiosity discouraged? Like that is a very deep, and I don't know the answer, but I find it scary. There's something sinister about that. Don't ask questions. Well, why? Social media is doing it to us. Yeah, but why? What's the...

Well, I mean, I don't even have very interesting, crazy views on anything, but I know just from talking about World War Two, there are people alive who are in World War Two. It's like it just happened 80 years ago. people like denounce you as some Nazi. I couldn't be more against the Nazis, just for the record. But it's like, what was Rudolf Hess doing? In Great Britain, that's like a really interesting question. No, not a lot. They murdered Rudolf Hess in Spandau.

In his 80s, I think it's really clear that he was killed. So he wouldn't say why he flew over. People just won't talk about things. But it's like, but why? Why is that scary to anybody? And the megalith thing and the archaeology thing, why are these scary questions?

Well, what's the answer? I don't understand. I'll say it. So you said relating to your cars about control, right? Yeah. I don't want this because they can't control it. It's the same thing of like saying you can pry this whether it's a sports car or firearm out of my cold dead hands. If people don't ask questions and they're not interested in their own history or culture or the past or any others,

and they can't relate, it's easier to keep them in one place and your thumb on them. I think that's, I mean, look, but I don't begrudge people a lack of interest in anything. I mean, every person makes his own decisions about what he cares about. Yeah. And, you know, his beliefs, his religion, all those things. I'm like very, I guess, liberal in that sense.

I'm worried when people attack me for being curious. Yeah, I'm not into that myself. And all these people on the so-called right, you know, whatever, a lot of which is like totally fake. There's nothing right about it. They're leftists. or they're obeying the same masters.

sort of attacking you for asking oh just asking questions it's like yeah i am just asking questions like that's okay in fact that's like the nature of human existence western civilization that's what martin luther did and the thing that frankly is so dangerous about No, it's perfect. And frankly, that's what I think is so dangerous about AI. Yeah. The journey, the life journey to find the wisdom, to learn, to seek the truth. Will that stop it? And then who's controlling it?

Well, the iPhone has not made us better informed. You know, the Internet has not made us better informed. In fact, it's centralized control over information. In effect, Wikipedia is the first. Search result. And Wikipedia is completely controlled by the U.S. government, by the intel agency's fact. And the results in Wikipedia are shaped subtly, sometimes not so subtly, to...

produce a worldview that is inherently dishonest. It's not true. And if you get your history through Wikipedia, I look at Wikipedia every day. I'm not, you know, there are certain great things about Wikipedia, but...

But big picture, you're going to have no idea what happened in the past if all you do is read Wikipedia. No, how can you? I mean, we can think of so many popular things through history that are just that way where people only know one superficial level. The internet did that to us. Are you kidding me?

No, it has. It has made everything more extreme and pigeonholed everything. But it's a dumber. Like, people don't read books. Well, here's something I noticed. Sorry, now I'm really good. Oh, no, you're right. Well, just from doing automotive YouTube. Yeah. It still works the same as every other YouTube interaction and all that. I...

It's kind of a funny way to put it. So I was a car guy before YouTube, right? I built cars. I did all that sort of thing. A lot of people that become more prominent in the automotive region of YouTube, they weren't as big a car guy. They kind of just rose up as an interesting character. And they're happy to be somewhat famous, make some money, do their thing, get acknowledgement.

And as I grew that, which is funny because the entirety of the reason I went on YouTube was just to try to get some exposure for the nonprofit I was doing.

because i couldn't get any with traditional media i was kind of pissed off yeah um so i ended up there for that reason but kept it going because it's like okay well i have something of a voice this is good uh for the non-profit to give it exposure or just try to have a life and go somewhere you know They call the people that are creating the content the influencers.

Because they're always chasing an algorithm. And the algorithm wants to keep you in one place. It doesn't let you evolve. It doesn't let you do anything. No, no, it's totally right. It's a pseudo-reality. And I see how that affects the culture in young people. I don't like it. No, it's...

The snake in the ant's tail, for sure. I wonder the like, I'm sure this has occurred to you and I'm terrible at business, so don't take my advice. But like, since you have designed something that has inherent utility and obvious mass appeal. And I'm naive enough to think that still matters. Like if you make a great thing, people want it and they'll pay for it, especially if it's cheap. Why not just do like a crowdfunding situation where you're like, all right, you know, I...

Design this vehicle. It's 104 miles to the gallon on diesel fuel, which you can buy anywhere. And that, you know, can match an electric vehicle off the line. Like who wants to. Send in money and let's make this thing. Right. Well, it's how you scale it, right?

So, in my thinking, if you do a crowdfunding type of thing, that's very grassroots, respectfully. Yeah. And I would have to go a different direction with the car where they'd kind of almost be like self-assembled prototype type things, and that's cool. But honestly, the thing I kind of worry about doing that, starting a small scale versus something else, is that I don't want to do something in a sense too good to where they try to...

change the laws and ruin the ability for people to build their own cars. I know that sounds a little kooky, but The other thing is, if you think of like private equity guys and such, typically they want a faster return on such. And the problem is when you're thinking of something that frankly upsets an industry and relates to the automotive industry, how do you integrate it? Can you use the processes to make...

smaller parts that can be profitable in industry do you start smaller like that do you want to do all big scale and create a car company from the ground up because that's no small task monetarily speaking no it's not and there's only so many idealistic rogue billionaires in the world, you know, and that's generally what it takes unless you have a government that wants to make something happen. If you can make a vehicle like this for 20 grand, why not just sell it for 50 grand on the internet?

I'd buy one. You have a point, but you got to scale that to a point that works because there's a big difference between doing something in a small manufacturing to... mass production. There's just got to be a way to get it out there. Well, Elon's first car with Tesla, the Roadster, was a Lotus Elise chassis with a different body and electrified.

And the guys that I knew who had those originally were rich guys. They had Ferraris and Lamborghinis, and that was their cool toy to start with. What's this car called, by the way? The Tesla Road? Your car. The original one. Oh, mine. The Omega car, I called it. The Omega car. Yeah. I'd like an Omega car in Forest Green. Could you do that? Oh, yeah. Actually? Yeah, why not?

I'd buy it in a second. Can you ship them? You can. You can. We'd have to talk if we want to prototype something, though. Maybe we'll make something special. Yeah. Hold your fly rods. Yeah, for real. If you can't use it, what good is it? You know? I'm getting one. So I just want to go back to something you said in the very first moments of this interview.

You don't own any, you're obviously a car guy, you build cars. My happiness is way too wrapped up in the ability to just drive my own car. Yeah, I love it. Whether anybody's around or not, I don't care. Just let me drive my own car. But you like wrenched on them too. Yeah, it's rewarding. I don't necessarily want to do it all the time. No, no, it's awful. My hands have healed up enough I won't bleed on my white shirt today. That's nice. But can I...

Ask like you said that you don't have any vehicle older than early 2000s. Newer. Newer than early 2000s. Rather. Yeah. Newer. I beg your pardon. So what's bad about cars made in the last 25 years? And please be very specific. Oh, I will. The first problem with new cars is you lose money hand over fist to depreciation. And then if you have to take out a loan for it, you're also paying interest on that. And one of the fastest ways I see...

normal people in general lose money is on new cars. Yeah. And they do it because they're afraid they can't work on it or service it. That's exactly right. That's basically the only real reason. Exactly right. But then you get dealerships that just find new ways to not do their warranty work because that's where they make a lot of money. And that's that's a separate thing. So a new car. I mean, that's nice if you can afford it, but...

Rather than buying a new $100,000 truck or SUV, I'd rather buy this nice used one for, I don't know, $15,000 or $20,000 and spend the rest of the money. If you got it, go buy a vintage Ferrari or a muscle car, something cool. At least keep your money and have some fun. But it's more than that. Cars, I would say, in the last 20 to 25 years...

The evolution is not for the sake of the car and the person and so much of the experience. It's more for the sake of the nature of dealing with regulation and keeping a profit margin and building it. And when you do that, you make things that are inherently more prone to failing in the future and less serviceable. And that's not good for ownership in her actual lifespan.

So everything, I mean, I grew up working on a motorcycle with a carburetor and rebuilding the carburetor, adjusting the flow bowl, you know, had a timing light, adjust the points. I mean, all that stuff, just like really super basic. and there are lots of downsides that they break a lot, but you could understand it. My feeling is,

The vehicles that I have had that are newer, I mean, I have no idea how they work. I don't. Fuel injection is still kind of a mystery to me. I'm sorry to say that. It is. It works the same way as a carburetor. It's just metered and more complicated. Well. I guess this trend toward making everything electric. I bought a truck last year. a chevy truck which i've always had and i was at a gas station and all of a sudden on the dashboard it says

Stop we're downloading information from the internet? While you were driving? No, I was stopped. It just specifically wanted you to stay stopped so it can... So it could, I don't know, download software. I sold the car immediately. I brought it back and sold it. They wanted all your data to provide it to insurance companies to wreck your life, I'm sure. Is that true? Okay, insurance companies will be the downfall of cars and drive.

I guarantee it. And the other thing is all the cameras that are out there, everybody's putting cameras on their car. I'm like, okay, you guys. Cameras on their car? Well, I'm sure you've seen it. Like people are buying little cameras to see what happens. If somebody does something stupid on the road, you can use that to protect yourself legally, right? That's why they sell it. It's never occurred to me, but yes.

Okay, what happens when those are mandated in every car everywhere? What happens when you're completely mandated control? Car shuts off at exactly 55 mile an hour speed limit, no matter what. It's just another method of slippery slope of control. And it'll come from insurance companies. And the law enforcement can turn off your car from afar, correct? Yeah, and they do. Well, with certain cars. Yeah, certain cars. So when's the last year you could have a car that can't be controlled?

Oh, that's a good question because I don't mess around with those cars very often or ever. Is it fair to say? Ones that are connected to the internet or a satellite in some way. You know, OnStar kind of came about with your mirror, and I don't really know much about it, but that was kind of the first, I think, mainstream way when we saw cars were being specifically connected to something beyond yourself. So would you say pre-911 cars?

They're a lot safer in terms of that. The other thing, too, in the early 2000s, a system called hand bus system came out. Hand bus. It was to make wiring more efficient. You theoretically have less wires, but everything is tied together through almost like a spinal cord of the computer, and it has to speak to each other. And that was something else that was kind of a beginning of the end and being serviceable in the future and not creating cars with a lot of glitches.

It does feel like everything is, you're going to have like fly-by-wire cars with, you know. We already do. The other thing is a couple of small points that are also happening. The right to repair your own private property is under attack that's for farmers. What does that mean?

Well, I think there was a big thing going on with John Deere tractors where farmers couldn't service their vehicles. They have to take them to the dealership and have to plug in with the computer that only the dealership has through the company. And forgive me if I got this wrong. I think it was John Deere.

But that's something that's happening everywhere. Because if manufacturers or dealerships want more money, well, they want you to service with them. If they make it so you can only service with them no matter what, well, then they're going to... in an authoritarian way, force you to let them make the money, which is frankly another method of control. And when you start adding all those things up, you just keep taking away all the power for the people.

before eventually you get to a point where, will you even be able to own your own car anymore? And will you driving it be a liability to where if we have self-driving cars, it just takes you there at the most efficient time that whatever the it wants you to, wants you to. So that's like an attack on human autonomy. Yeah, it's where that's going. So I had a Harley Davidson, you know, since I was in college in 1971, which, you know, I could kind of understand.

Great bike. But I bought a new Harley last year and they delivered it, you know. big fun bike fast you know like six speeds which is actually comfortable crazy to me and that just the transmission is like great I mean my bike You downshift, you got to pop the throttle. No return spring in the throttle. You got to pop that to get it down. And so the shifting in this thing was just like beyond belief. But when they delivered it to my barn, I said, let's talk about how to change the oil.

Obviously. And they go, you know, no, no, no. We don't. We actually recommend bringing it to the dealership. And I was like, yeah, but it's chain oil in a motorcycle is like not hard. And they're like, well, you know, there are gaskets and gaskets. Why would you have to replace a gasket to change the oil?

Anyway, I brought it back to the dealership. Didn't want it. Oh, really? You're like, and now I'm done with you guys. I did. They were great. I don't mean to attack them in any way. They were awesome people. Most motorcycle people are great people, and they definitely were. But I didn't want a motorcycle.

I mean, like, pop the jugs off, okay. I mean, maybe, like, you might have a little... like copper o-ring or aluminum ring or something on the drain plug but like of course you always is this one of those crazy modern manufacturing thing where you have to disassemble half the engine and they're like whoa whoa whoa whoa I was like, I'm not rebuilding the lower end. I just want to change the oil. And they're like, you know, most of our customers bring that back to the dealership.

I don't know. I didn't like that at all. And I felt like there was a scam involved, which is the one you described, right? Yeah, it just triggers something kind of in the back. It's like something's wrong here. Yeah. Well, and I don't say those things in a like kooky conspiracy, conspiratorial type of way, but it's literally where we're going. And, you know, when I see things like that and I mentioned about it'll be insurance companies that ruin it for everybody, because the other thing is.

What happens when they start making it where you can't drive your older cars anymore? Do you ever feel like you can't trust the things you hear or read? Like every news source is hollow, distorted, or clearly just propaganda lying to you? Well, you're not imagining it. If the last few years have proven anything, it's that... Legacy Media exists.

to distort the truth and to control you, to gatekeep information from the public instead of letting you know what's actually going on. They don't want you to know. But there is, however, a publication that fights this that is not propaganda, one that we read every month and have for many years. It's called Imprimus.

It's from Hillsdale College in Michigan. And Primus is a free speech digest that features some of the best minds in the country addressing the questions that actually matter, the ones that are not addressed in The Washington Post or NBC News. The best part of it, it is free. No cost whatsoever. No strings attached. They just send it to you. Hillsdale will send Imprimus right to your house.

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so i always felt that cash for clunkers do you remember that program yes that was that was a little early before i started paying attention that was so the federal government basically paid clunkers like perfectly fine cars built before a certain date, you could redeem them for cash. And then they just, they melted them.

And I felt like there was something pretty sinister about that. But maybe I'm just like one of those paranoid wackos who don't think Randy Weaver deserved to be killed. I don't know. Maybe I'm just on the fringe. If an industry, no, if an industry is no longer about innovation and it's so big that. It can't fail and it's pushed to go a certain way. Well, then the best way to ensure that it succeeds is force you to buy something new, even if it's not in your own best interest.

But it does, you know, you raise the question, which is how do you service vehicles made before 9-11? And that is why people don't want them. And I must say. Made before. The ones made before are easier to service than the ones made after. Well, no, I mean, it's like if you buy an older vehicle.

and i drive an older vehicle so i know it's like you can't just i mean you have to know someone who can fix it yeah of course to an extent yeah but are we entering a world where there won't be any mechanics who can Who know what a carburetor is, for example. I don't know about that so much. It's specialized, but they're simple. You can look at it and know the basic principles that are going on. It's the newer stuff that's crazy. For instance, my father-in-law...

Recently got my mother-in-law this nice new SUV. I think it's a BMW. I think it's a hybrid SUV. She likes it. And my father and I look at it and go by and we're like, there's a lot of servos and things whirring and buzzing. And I don't want to say it, but I guess I'm saying it now. It's kind of like, when is this thing going to break? And how much is that going to cost?

No, you're not going to reasonably fix that. And then when that thing is older, that all these highly specialized little mechanisms and circuit boards and servos or whatever go bad. Who's making that? And is it worth making it anymore? Or is it just another giant, complicated, toxic, wasteful thing that we go on in this vicious consumer cycle?

No, they just crush it. Well, some older cars you can still fix. It's a goofy story maybe, but I bought a, for $8,000, I bought a 1996 Rolls-Royce off Facebook Marketplace, kind of as a joke. I'm like, I don't know. This might be kind of cool. I love the car. And I ended up fixing it up for almost nothing. And I got a car that in 1996. Did it run? Yeah. It's a great car.

Taking over family trips and all in it. I didn't have to do that much. And a Rolls-Royce? Yeah. It was like $170,000, $80,000 in the 90s. But where I'm going with it is... That's the way you roll. Hey, look, I may not be wealthy, but I can live well if you've got a toolbox and some know-how and you think for yourself. But where I was going with it is, that car is fixable.

The way it's constructed— What kind of engine does it have? It's got a V8. It's all aluminum, naturally aspirated V8. The transmission's General Motors-based, so when I needed stuff to fix it, I just got it locally. It was no big deal. And sure, there's some things that are old Rolls-Royce on it, but— It's built differently. It's built to where you can actually repair the part, not just be a parts changing type of mechanic like modern thing.

And people get into technology for technology's sake nowadays. But it's the philosophy of design that goes behind it. We're locked in this. consumer, industrialized, only new is better, more complicated, more expensive, more regulated, when the mentality and the know-how, should we say, of the first half of the 20th century, we built things that could actually be repaired.

We build things that can be serviceable, that can last to an extent. So why are we not still using good design and engineering mindsets and technology direction? with modernity in a way that's actually useful for people and communities and a nation and rather than just an industry. I'm most struck by, I mean, because we've de-industrialized, is part of it.

So that makes sense to me. You know, why can't we build this or that thing? Why haven't we been to the moon, you know, in 50 years? Assuming we went in the first place. I kind of get that because there are fewer competent engineers. Everyone's a marketing major. Okay, that makes sense. What I don't understand is the decline in design. And not just in automotive, but across the society, the civilization, actually. We're making things uglier, aren't we? Why is that?

That's a cultural issue. I was in another city, I won't name it, but a nice kind of tertiary city. But a growing city with a lot of nice people in it, affluent. And I was driving through, this was last week, and I was driving through an affluent neighborhood. with one of my children who's a design person, and I said, that house is black. This is new built. It was a brand new house. Normally that would have meant in Europe you got the black pill egg, don't come here.

Yeah. Back in the day, right? Like if you're in Amsterdam. A black house? Like what? Amsterdam. And then I saw another. And then I saw like three more. I said to my daughter. Like do these people hate themselves? What is this? And I felt that way, but like, what? Why would you ever paint a house black? Or why would you build? Like, what the hell is going on with design? What's your theory? Actually, I went.

uh in college i went to ohio state uh third generation there and originally i was going in for automotive design or product design um i really should have gone into engineering that's my forte but Where I'm going with this is, it's housed within fine art. I generally dislike modern art, okay? You think? I think that if you don't have the technical skill to do something actually beautiful, then I don't care about your hoo-hoo abstract ideas, right? But where I'm going with this is...

So-called art and design and product design has been influenced over the 20th century, going back to like the Frankfurt School in Europe, which frankly was a lot of. communist mindset that infiltrated the art world. And it's made... Well, sure. It's anti-Western civilization, anti-Christian. It's anti-beauty. It's the simplest thing. In fact, I gave you this small detail. I...

Ended up hating my experience there. I ended up quitting after like a year and a half and designing my own major just to get the hell out of school because I was kind of pissed off actually because there was one specifically I remember in this one class we get to design something for the whole semester, right? And we're going to design a bathroom scape. I'm like, okay. I thought about it. I'm like, this sucks.

With the way they're teaching us to have an aesthetic, do the simplest thing possible, which is somewhat communistic in a way you know uh It seems almost solely it. That's the imperative? Make it as simple as possible? The simplest, most boring thing possible. I'm like, what is the point? Let's just have a white room with one Wassily chair in the back of it. We'll just sit there and hate our lives. Like anything beautiful, anything classic.

They shied away from design. Literally pushed away. What about natural? Natural beauty? That's not their thing. It does seem like there's a very intense, like almost visceral hatred of nature coming off design people. Strangely, yes. In regard to the story I have to tell you, so the bathroom scale, I thought to myself,

this is going to take a semester. It doesn't even have to function. And if they just want to make the simplest thing possible, okay, here, here's a round piece of glass with an LCD display on it that tells you to go eat a salad. Like, well, I don't want to do this. And so I met with the academic advisor and I said, I will meet all of your academic requirements for this class, but please let me design something at my level right now. Let me design a car. And they said no.

They would not let me design anything. Just because there's too much initiative and too much creativity? They wouldn't let me do it. Did you pay for this experience? Yeah, sadly. And that's a problem with the American educational system. You know, libraries are free. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of nice people out there that can help you learn.

So I stayed around in that program for another semester. I didn't do anything the whole semester. The night before the exam and presentation, I just Ferris Bueller'd a bunch of stuff together and ran around. I don't know, got a B plus. And I just designed cars and things on my own.

But how insane is that, that in college, when you're actually paying to be there, and it's supposed to be design and product design, that they won't actually let students... do what they're capable of doing or push a boundary or go anywhere they literally keep a thumb on you like that i quit the program after that

And I stopped caring. Fortunately, when I was in high school, and hopefully people have teachers that actually care, that matter. I had art teachers that made the world of difference for me and a lot of other people. That was huge. And people write things off now in, you know, pre-college, things like shop, home ec, vocational art. engineering drawing. Those are some of the most important things you can possibly have.

But we got rid of all of those things to push college prep. Way more than, I don't know, third wave feminist literature. I don't know. Rethink what you just said and ask yourself, do I really mean? Do I mean? What I said.

I don't know that architectural draftsmanship is more important than, say, The Color Purple by Alice Walker. You mean the things that actually make you contributing, functioning, individual members of society? That elevate beauty and truth over like... garbage by some low IQ unhappy chick yeah they go into an academic vacuum that's not the real world that's fueled by loans you can't default on whether there's going to be a job for you or not

You know, I would say beneath your car design exterior lies a fairly incisive and bitter critique of the society. I think and look around. I don't like liars. I don't like being lied to. And that goes culturally, too. I don't either. I completely agree. So how I just I just have to be clear on this. How if. There are other eccentric people out there who would like one of these vehicles that you've designed. Would you be willing to make them to order?

Yeah, I could do that. You have to think about the structure of who wants to do what. You know, early adopters are usually people that can afford something. It's going to cost more than 20 grand when you're building something. But certainly that can be done. I could make lower production numbers and you could build something.

And a bit of a movement, too, from the ground up. Will it be cool to build it with a gas tank sufficient to get coast-to-coast? It's very doable. And the other thing is, I like to do amateur race driving and vintage racing. I like to make cars that are fast. And for me, it's kind of fun, the idea to make things that get over 100 miles a gallon that beat Dodge Vipers and Corvettes and Teslas.

You know, that's what we did back with muscle cars. So how do people find you if you made it this far in the interview? I'm shockingly easy to find. You are. Perhaps a little scary. So maybe find a nice method rather than I just look out the window one day and go, ugh. So you're not giving your home address? Not at this moment. But are you open to kind of custom build? Of course I'm open to doing things. I mean, you know.

I have a nice enough life. I have a wife. I have a cute daughter, a nice neighborhood and neighbors and toys to play with. But there's more to life than that. Can you find men to work for you? Of course. I've been mentoring college students for the last decade plus. I can call up half of them. So I guess it gets to a larger question. I mean, the trades are not dead, correct? No, they're not dead, and they're vastly important right now. More people should be going into them. I know.

You wouldn't have all the student debt. But in your life, if you all of a sudden got an order for 15 of these vehicles, could you find the people necessary? Yeah, I could put that together. Wow. Okay. Well, even if there's something that I don't know, I'm going to find it. Yes. Like you make it happen. But one man can't do everything by themselves.

You know, if you're building something and nobody wants it, well, that's a problem. You need to build something somebody wants. And if it requires a team of people coming together, whether that's with talents or resources or finances to do it, then you find a way. Do you think if you started doing this, the government would jump on you? It depends on how you do it. It is a game.

And to be honest, when I look at the car and what I've done with that or with the educational nonprofit or anything else in life, I look at how do I have the biggest positive impact I possibly can? You know, and right now, the biggest impact with regard to the car is talking about. so people do know what's possible so hopefully maybe they kind of wake up for a second from the cell phone, look around and think. That's a vastly important thing to do. So I think it has tremendous value there.

But, you know, I want to build something. You know, I'm an America first kind of guy. Like, why in the heck are we not building these things here? Yeah. Why? We should. You know, I'll give you an example. I've been around the sun, I don't know, 43 times in my life, right? When I was younger and we were working the little town golf course, that's a family business. And a lot of the guys that golf at our golf course.

old World War II vets, that sort of thing, right? Yeah, it's Toledo. Yeah. Yeah, well, and that was even Tiffin. But the point I'm making is, or if I'm like riding a motorcycle around Toledo or something, I'm like, nothing's changed. Nothing's changed in the last 50 years. There's people out here. They want to work. They want a job. They want a community. But what's going on out there in the world that doesn't allow people to have that anymore?

And that's what frankly ticks me off. And usually I get ticked off and then I think and plan and do something. Well, there's an instinctive hatred coming from our leaders for those kind of people. I know. It's pretty obvious. I know. Casey, I really appreciate you taking all this time. Amazing. Thank you. And I'm going to order a vehicle from you. I appreciate it. It'd be fun. Thank you. News, things that actually matter, telling the truth always.

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