Joe Rogan Experience #1443 - Jonathan Ward

Joe Rogan 0:00 ... one. Jonathan, you are the first man ever... Not only the first man I've ever met who made his own leather jacket-

Jonathan Ward 0:05 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:05 ... but absolutely the first man who made his own leather jacket who's ever been on the podcast wearing that jacket.

Jonathan Ward 0:10 Why, thank you so much.

Joe Rogan 0:11 It's a fucking sweet jacket, man.

Jonathan Ward 0:13 I'd show you my G-string, but it's probably-

Joe Rogan 0:15 (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 0:15 ... a little much for this time of day. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:16 Well, how are you functioning... Uh, is it, like, on the side? How are you tying that one?

Jonathan Ward 0:20 Well, I like... I prefer a center rear yank.

Joe Rogan 0:23 Oh.

Jonathan Ward 0:23 So does my wife 'cause it's... She can just put the leash right on it and, you know-

Joe Rogan 0:26 Nice.

Jonathan Ward 0:26 ... two for one. Keeps her, keeps me on the-

Joe Rogan 0:27 When did you get into making leather stuff? Is that a, a recent thing?

Jonathan Ward 0:31 Uh, about three years ago. But, I mean, Joe, my whole life I've just been a rampant fan of craftsmanship.

Joe Rogan 0:38 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 0:38 And I've done various deep dives throughout my life into, like, all sorts of different art forms. In fact, the reason automotive design became my thing and turned into a business was because my hobbies of painting and sculpting and, and finish carpentry, woodwork, and all these different things. If you think about it, transportation is like this incredibly communicable extroverted combination of so many different art forms.

Joe Rogan 1:02 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 1:03 So, I've been also as... In my travels in the last 10 years or so, or, uh, maybe five, I've really been focusing on... Always have been focusing on, like, getting immersed in that local culture. But now I've stepped that up a notch and I'm doing, like, these deep dive travels into different art forms of different cultures, so leather craft. I've been visiting tanneries and studying for masters in the US and in, uh, Morocco and Mexico. I just got back, liks- last week, uh, from Mexico doing it.

Joe Rogan 1:34 Really?

Jonathan Ward 1:35 Yeah, it's super fun. And it's zen because for me now at this point, the scale of the shop is such that I'm actually doing a disservice if I'm out there actually building your car, right? And 'cause that's what I used to do. I'd weld it and shape it when I was on the floor. But at our size, I'm, I'm not. And our fill rates, as you recall, suck. It takes forever for us to finish anything. And there's something about just literally putting on your podcast, going in my spare bedroom at home 'cause my son's off at college, so the second his ass was out of there it was like, "Leather studio."

Joe Rogan 2:10 (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 2:10 And I totally built that sucker out with really good audio and lighting and stuff. So, being able to come from sketch to a finished good within a matter of weeks 100% myself, independent of everything, I needed that. I wa- I really kind of felt I was losing that t- tactile craft connection at work.

Joe Rogan 2:27 Well, what you do is so unusual. And, um, um, i- there's other people that build cars, there's other people that do, do innovative things with automobiles. But, wha- what you're doing is at a level and with a, with an obsessiveness that is, to me, th- deserves to be rewarded. I love it. I love the fact that you make these fucking... I love the fact that you do those derelicts where you leave the patina on the cars, where you take these c- beautiful old cars that have ex- like, they're, they're gorgeous because of the life that they've lived.

Jonathan Ward 3:03 Totally. I love 'em. Right.

Joe Rogan 3:04 And you just redo the inside so that you can drive them really well-

Jonathan Ward 3:08 Yeah, 'cause, you know, you-

Joe Rogan 3:08 ... and they don't smell bad. (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 3:09 ... you, you see it and you're down with the romantic sort of-

Joe Rogan 3:13 Yes.

Jonathan Ward 3:13 ... y- you know, rosy eyes and memory, and then you actually drive a vintage vehicle. For most people in the modern world, after a couple miles, you're like, "Well, that sucks."

Joe Rogan 3:20 I have a very peculiar obsession with cars, but it's not, it's not wide. I, I go from, like, 1965 to 1972, like, with Broncos maybe '72, and then that's it, and then there's modern cars. Like, '90s cars I'm cool with. I like 2000 cars. But all those '70s and '80s cars can all eat shit.

Jonathan Ward 3:44 It's 'cause they suck, Joe.

Joe Rogan 3:45 Yeah, I know.

Jonathan Ward 3:45 I'm right there with you. And, like, people bring me all sorts of requests to do later model cars and in, like, I used to, like, try and get my head around it. In fact, we did a Caprice Classic.

Joe Rogan 3:54 I saw that thing.

Jonathan Ward 3:55 What a shit show, man.

Joe Rogan 3:56 That thing... But what a ridiculously overbuilt car that thing was.

Jonathan Ward 3:59 Oh, it was crazy.

Joe Rogan 3:59 It's crazy.

Jonathan Ward 3:59 Super gnarly. but in, in reality was, at the end of the day, I was rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic-

Joe Rogan 4:04 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 4:04 ... 'cause it was still a '90s piece of shit built poorly by people who didn't give a damn. And, uh-

Joe Rogan 4:09 But that version of it-

Jonathan Ward 4:10 But we had fun.

Joe Rogan 4:11 ... was pretty fucking sporty.

Jonathan Ward 4:12 Yeah, you know, that video got, like, a half a million views in, like, half a day and the client-

Joe Rogan 4:18 (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 4:18 ... just freaked out and he's like, "Dude, the whole point of this car is to be under the radar. Could you please remove the video?"

Joe Rogan 4:23 Oh, really?

Jonathan Ward 4:23 So, yes, we had to take everything down. But for those that didn't see it, it was an ex-Miami Dade narc undercover car. And the, the client came to me with a, like, a pretty direct and simple mandate. He goes, "Basically," like, "I, I trust what you do and your instincts in design. The whole purpose of the car, I want it to say, 'Get the fuck out of my lane.'" That was it. That was my mandate for the build. So, I'm like, "I can do that. That... You know, that's fun. That's a fun challenge."

Joe Rogan 4:52 You guys had that thing for a long time, didn't you?

Jonathan Ward 4:54 Yeah, it was a, it was a long and arduous build, for sure. But, you know, the, the guy's brother passed away in a plane crash and, uh, ever since his passing, his brothers refuse to get on an airplane. But he has, um, a ranch in one state and businesses in other states and he does a lot of interstate high speed travel. So, we set it up as a full-on mobile office plus a bunch of James Bond hidden oddities and shit ton of performance and-

Joe Rogan 5:21 What kind of engine did that thing-

Jonathan Ward 5:21 ... I think people get out of his lane.

Joe Rogan 5:23 What kind of engine did that thing have?

Jonathan Ward 5:24 If I recall, I think that one had an LS9, so dry sump intercooled, very similar to your LSA motor.

Joe Rogan 5:29 (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 5:29 Yeah. But same here, like, the, the, the continuity and the design and the consideration b- you know, by the time you get into the '70s, even I'd argue late '60s, '70s, like, the aesthetic is super sexy, but then you get inside and the execution, the material choice and everything is... just sucks.

Joe Rogan 5:48 Yeah, that's why I like Restomods. Like, uh, I, I, I don't know if you've seen it, my 1965 Corvette that I have out there.

Jonathan Ward 5:55 Yeah, I was just walking-

Joe Rogan 5:55 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 5:55 ... it before I came in.

Joe Rogan 5:56 That's, that's what I like. I like cars that look like an old car on the outside, but that have disc brakes and modern suspension and, you know...

Jonathan Ward 6:04 And it's a slippery slope, right? It's like-

Joe Rogan 6:05 Yes.

Jonathan Ward 6:05 ... where do you stop? But for me, one thing that I'm keen to do with everything that we build, you know, be it the derelicts, or the reformer one-offs, or the production models-More and more, I'm pulling back on my redesign on the cosmetics to make sure I'm not creating something temporary or trendy.

Joe Rogan 6:23 Mm.

Jonathan Ward 6:24 In that I wanna honor the original design language of the era in which a vehicle was built. Now, I may wanna elevate that and geek out on it and do unnecessarily cool shit that the production, you know, car company wouldn't have done. But I'm, I'm trying to be super careful not to do something that, like, in 10 years is, like, you know, some fuchsia graphics '80s hot rod all smoothied out that just represents some-

Joe Rogan 6:47 Like a-

Jonathan Ward 6:47 ... brief moment in time.

Joe Rogan 6:48 ... Gemballa Porsche.

Jonathan Ward 6:50 Yeah. (laughs) Did you see the new one?

Joe Rogan 6:51 Yes.

Jonathan Ward 6:51 It looks like an RC car. And I don't-

Joe Rogan 6:53 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 6:53 I haven't decided in a, in a fucked up bad way or in a fucked up really good way. I'm not sure.

Joe Rogan 6:58 Yeah, it's one of those things where just some people have too much money. You know, you're making a four-wheel drive off-road Porsche. Although, um, uh, Matt Farah from The Smoking Tire-

Jonathan Ward 7:08 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:08 You know Matt.

Jonathan Ward 7:08 Yeah. Good guy.

Joe Rogan 7:08 He has an off-road 1980s Porsche.

Jonathan Ward 7:13 Yeah. Yes.

Joe Rogan 7:13 It's, it's one of those-

Jonathan Ward 7:14 You know the really nasty upholstery in that?

Joe Rogan 7:17 Yes.

Jonathan Ward 7:17 You can blame me for that.

Joe Rogan 7:18 This guy. Really?

Jonathan Ward 7:18 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 7:19 Oh my God. He loves it.

Jonathan Ward 7:21 Yeah. He's like-

Joe Rogan 7:22 He loves it. Where can I get-

Jonathan Ward 7:22 There's some-

Joe Rogan 7:22 ... some really weird stuff.

Jonathan Ward 7:23 I know. I love all the weird sourcing you do. And I'm like, "Well, how weird do you want it?"

Joe Rogan 7:26 It's so disgusting.

Jonathan Ward 7:27 Weird would be. It is.

Joe Rogan 7:28 I don't know why he's into it, but that's-

Jonathan Ward 7:29 It's almost like a Atlanta, you know, MARTA bus.

Joe Rogan 7:33 Yes.

Jonathan Ward 7:33 You know, like a '80s public transit bus.

Joe Rogan 7:35 Right. Yeah. It's, it's foul. But it's a, it's a rally car, you know. I mean, he has the rally car lights in the front and-

Jonathan Ward 7:42 I mean, it looks like a rally car.

Joe Rogan 7:43 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 7:44 But it won't perform like a rally car.

Joe Rogan 7:45 It won't? It's not-

Jonathan Ward 7:46 No.

Joe Rogan 7:46 No?

Jonathan Ward 7:47 I don't think so. I mean, it's like an amphibious car.

Joe Rogan 7:49 I thought he-

Jonathan Ward 7:49 At the end of the day, you have a shitty car and a crappy boat. You gotta pick your poison.

Joe Rogan 7:52 (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 7:53 Like... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 7:53 I thought he m- It, I thought he ac- it actually was, like, a car that you could rally.

Jonathan Ward 7:57 Eh...

Joe Rogan 7:58 No?

Jonathan Ward 7:58 I don't think so. I mean, you know, it's got coilovers and a couple things here and there. But, you know, at the end of the day, it, it, uh, it is what it is, and it wasn't built to do that.

Joe Rogan 8:06 Mm. I thought he had built it that way.

Jonathan Ward 8:09 He did s- He did as many mods as could be done within those confines.

Joe Rogan 8:13 They do drive those fucking things on dirt roads, so it's really weird, those rallies, when you watch them online. It's like, Jesus Christ, first of all, who are these assholes standing next to the road while these people are going sideways around corners?

Jonathan Ward 8:24 Where are the lawyers?

Joe Rogan 8:25 Yeah. (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 8:27 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 8:27 Why are you trusting these people?

Jonathan Ward 8:29 Have you ever seen anything of the old Paris to Peking race?

Joe Rogan 8:32 No, I haven't.

Jonathan Ward 8:32 I'm so fascinated by that. So, uh, I can't remember his name right now. Luigi was the first name. So it started in the turn of the early 1900s, I believe. It was one of the first large international rallies. And the- there's a wonderful biography written by the son of Count Luigi whatever who started it. And it all started as a drunken dinnertime bet. And the, the idea was, you know, "I bet it can't be done." He's like, "Of course it can be done." So the, the thing was, "All right, whoever's gonna go for it, let's go for it. Whoever wins gets a magnum of champagne." And it, like, you know, the race took months and months and months, but phenomenal. Like, it's on my bucket list. That would be such a phenomenal experience to do. And can you imagine doing it in, like, 1917?

Joe Rogan 9:17 Jesus Christ.

Jonathan Ward 9:17 They were going through villages that had never seen a round eye, not to mention a motor vehicle. And all the photography and all the old, uh, data put into the, all the, uh, original diaries of the driver and the co-drivers. It's just such an amazing experience.

Joe Rogan 9:31 Explain to people who don't know what we're talking about what this race is.

Jonathan Ward 9:34 So it's a race, um, by land from Paris to Peking, and it goes through Mongolia and all sorts of middle-of-nowhere situations. In fact, I believe it-

Joe Rogan 9:43 Okay. Jamie's got a map of it up here.

Jonathan Ward 9:44 ... got canceled and rerouted several times due to-

Joe Rogan 9:46 God, look at that.

Jonathan Ward 9:47 ... different geopolitical s- uh, dramas. But, uh...

Joe Rogan 9:50 I didn't even know that Paris and Peking were connected like that.

Jonathan Ward 9:53 Right? Who would've thunk it?

Joe Rogan 9:55 I never really thought about it.

Jonathan Ward 9:57 And I think-

Joe Rogan 9:57 Of course.

Jonathan Ward 9:58 It's like a three-month race, so it's a serious commitment. But wouldn't that just be the adventure of a lifetime?

Joe Rogan 10:05 (laughs) A three-month race.

Jonathan Ward 10:05 You know Andrew Paccard, right?

Joe Rogan 10:06 No.

Jonathan Ward 10:07 ACP? Great race car driver, dear friend of mine. You don't know him? I would've thought-

Joe Rogan 10:11 No.

Jonathan Ward 10:11 ... he'd been on this show. Swear to God.

Joe Rogan 10:12 No, no, I don't know who he is.

Jonathan Ward 10:13 So, uh, I've already been, uh, talking to him and a dear friend of mine with a ... You know my buddy with a DC-3 that you see me flying around in (laughs) sometimes?

Joe Rogan 10:22 The DC-3?

Jonathan Ward 10:23 No? DC-3 airplane, 1944?

Joe Rogan 10:25 No.

Jonathan Ward 10:26 Oh. So, uh, stupid, stupid, absurd hidden car collection in Central California. So I've been slowly lobbying him, and, you know, invited Andrew, ACP, to a dinner to start sorta planting that seed. And they don't realize it. I don't think either of them realize it yet.

Joe Rogan 10:42 They're gonna realize now.

Jonathan Ward 10:43 They're part of the team.

Joe Rogan 10:44 What are you doing?

Jonathan Ward 10:45 I wanna do damn Paris-Peking.

Joe Rogan 10:47 No, you don't.

Jonathan Ward 10:47 Hell yes, I do.

Joe Rogan 10:48 Three months?

Jonathan Ward 10:48 Yep.

Joe Rogan 10:49 Oh my God. What's going on with you?

Jonathan Ward 10:51 Party on. Well, I-

Joe Rogan 10:51 Is this one of those crisis-y things? (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 10:52 I didn't say I'm going to do it yet, but I want to do it.

Joe Rogan 10:55 Really? So you're trying to put a-

Jonathan Ward 10:56 Oh, it's a-

Joe Rogan 10:56 ... team together?

Jonathan Ward 10:57 Yeah. As a travel geek and as a car geek and as a culture geek, like, hello, why, why on earth would I not?

Joe Rogan 11:03 So would you use a modern car to do this?

Jonathan Ward 11:05 Nope. You can't. It's, uh-

Joe Rogan 11:06 You can't?

Jonathan Ward 11:07 Yeah. Nope. Very stringent. Very vintage.

Joe Rogan 11:10 Oh, look at that Datsun.

Jonathan Ward 11:10 And then, yeah, like, oh, these photos, just nuts. And that's an incredibly contemporary car for it. Usually you're talking about, like-

Joe Rogan 11:17 356s like those?

Jonathan Ward 11:18 Oh, no, like Rolls open touring cars-

Joe Rogan 11:22 Oh, those fucking things.

Jonathan Ward 11:23 ... and Alvises and, like, super weird early shit open-wheel cars. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 11:27 That's what those people do?

Jonathan Ward 11:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:29 Oh my God.

Jonathan Ward 11:30 That's that photo's, um...

Joe Rogan 11:31 So there's, these are 100-year-old cars?

Jonathan Ward 11:32 Yeah. And that-

Joe Rogan 11:33 They're taking... Oh.

Jonathan Ward 11:33 That car, in fact, in that image, is a replica of the actual original car that started the entire race.

Joe Rogan 11:41 Oh my God.

Jonathan Ward 11:41 Just, just super, super cool experience.

Joe Rogan 11:44 And so-

Jonathan Ward 11:44 Especially after reading that book, like, I'm hooked.

Joe Rogan 11:45 That's how you would wanna do it?

Jonathan Ward 11:47 Well, I don't know if I'd wanna go brass era batshit about it or anything.

Joe Rogan 11:50 Well, what, where would you stop? You wouldn't go 1979 Datsun?

Jonathan Ward 11:54 You know, I think a Volvo Sugga.

Joe Rogan 11:57 What's that?

Jonathan Ward 11:58 A Sugga basically looks like if a '48 Humpback Ford and a Power Wagon had a love child, it would be a Volvo S-U-G-G-A.

Joe Rogan 12:09 I need to see this thing.

Jonathan Ward 12:10 (laughs) They're super trippy. I think one of those all rallied out vintage would be super, super cool. S-U-G-G-A, yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:16 Oh, that's actually a cool-looking car.

Jonathan Ward 12:18 They're super funky.

Joe Rogan 12:19 That's beautiful.

Jonathan Ward 12:20 Right? In, in, like, the ugliest way.

Joe Rogan 12:22 What is that? But is that an aftermarket setup?

Jonathan Ward 12:24 No, that's, that's-

Joe Rogan 12:25 With the wheels and everything?

Jonathan Ward 12:26 ... dead factory other than those are more contemporary tires.

Joe Rogan 12:29 Go, go with that, oh, that last image you had Jamie? With the crazy tires? That thing is fucking cool.

Jonathan Ward 12:34 Oh, yeah, they're super nice.

Joe Rogan 12:35 No, the last image.

Jonathan Ward 12:35 Solid axles.

Joe Rogan 12:36 The one, the one before that. Yeah, but I want the other image. That one right there. Like look at the wheels on that thing.

Jonathan Ward 12:41 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 12:42 The tires and wheels. That's crazy.

Jonathan Ward 12:43 And usually, usually they were command cars, uh, commanding officer cars, so the back area on the interior was generally f- kitted out, quarter sawn, dovetailed, fumed white oak, with like a teletype machine and all their early correspondence gear. There's, there's such a freak of a car.

Joe Rogan 13:01 That is beautiful.

Jonathan Ward 13:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:02 That's such a cool-looking car. I'd love to see that with like modern headlights.

Jonathan Ward 13:06 I'd like to see-

Joe Rogan 13:07 And modern suspension.

Jonathan Ward 13:07 ... that with, uh, yeah, like on '40s-

Joe Rogan 13:11 Yeah. (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 13:11 ... solid axles, Fox Racing coilovers-

Joe Rogan 13:14 Yes.

Jonathan Ward 13:14 ... big power. Hell yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:15 Has anyone done that?

Jonathan Ward 13:17 Uh, no. There was one that made the rounds, I think it was last year I saw it at SEMA, that did more of a sort of conventional contemporary hot rod, street rod build, but they kind of, um, not the way you and I are thinking.

Joe Rogan 13:32 That is so cool-looking. I've never seen that car before.

Jonathan Ward 13:35 They're a super freak. No one really knows about them. They're one of those odd moments in automotive history.

Joe Rogan 13:39 What size are they? Like what, it's, uh, there's no, nothing to con, uh, compare it to there.

Jonathan Ward 13:44 Uh, I mean, it's like a '48 Humpback Tudor four-door.

Joe Rogan 13:47 (laughs) I don't know what that means.

Jonathan Ward 13:48 If, if any of them do you-

Joe Rogan 13:49 Nothing.

Jonathan Ward 13:50 It's, it's sort of, um, not into post-World War II, so it's like a mid-'40s standard four-door sedan-

Joe Rogan 14:00 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 14:00 ... scale, other than its height. They're pretty reasonable.

Joe Rogan 14:03 Uh, they're probably really hard to find, though, right?

Jonathan Ward 14:05 Stupid hard to find. I believe there's eight of them known in North America.

Joe Rogan 14:09 Oh, Jesus.

Jonathan Ward 14:09 But then, and uh, whatever, you bring one over from Europe, they're all done.

Joe Rogan 14:12 That'd be a s- a shame to chew it up. Blah. No?

Jonathan Ward 14:15 I'm over that.

Joe Rogan 14:17 (laughs) Are you?

Jonathan Ward 14:17 I don't feel guilty anymore.

Joe Rogan 14:19 (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 14:19 I'll tell you what, at the end of the day, what's actually getting used and enjoyed and creating more memories?

Joe Rogan 14:24 That's true.

Jonathan Ward 14:24 One of my vehicles that are hacked and ruined, as people like to say occasionally?

Joe Rogan 14:27 Oh, man.

Jonathan Ward 14:27 Or is something sitting in some static collection gathering dust?

Joe Rogan 14:30 Do they say that about the derelicts when you redo the interiors?

Jonathan Ward 14:33 Oh, sure.

Joe Rogan 14:34 Oh.

Jonathan Ward 14:34 Everyone's-

Joe Rogan 14:34 But that's just, uh-

Jonathan Ward 14:35 Everyone likes to talk shit. But I kind of enjoy it.

Joe Rogan 14:37 I th- What I was gonna say about cars, I have this very narrow window. So if I see like a really cool '55 Chevy, it's great, I never wanna own one.

Jonathan Ward 14:45 Really?

Joe Rogan 14:45 I don't, nothing. They don't do it for me.

Jonathan Ward 14:47 What about... How far back can I take you? Like 60-

Joe Rogan 14:49 '65. Like '63 Corvettes.

Jonathan Ward 14:51 So a 60-

Joe Rogan 14:51 It's those, tha- that year, like uh-

Jonathan Ward 14:54 Like a bubble top '63 Pontiac or Chevy?

Joe Rogan 14:57 No.

Jonathan Ward 14:57 Or is that too early?

Joe Rogan 14:58 No. It's like the, the second generation Corvette is as early as I go. And then really I, I look to '67 Mustang, '65, '66.

Jonathan Ward 15:06 What year were you born?

Joe Rogan 15:06 '67.

Jonathan Ward 15:08 Okay, so that's the problem.

Joe Rogan 15:09 But it's not. It's my high school years. During my high school years, in the '80s, that was, those were the cool cars. The cool cars were the '60s muscle cars.

Jonathan Ward 15:15 No, that's what I mean, that's what I mean. We've identified the problem. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 15:18 But it's not even a problem. It's just like, to me, like, like a, the quintessential shape is like a '69 Camaro. There's something about a '69 Camaro, like God damn did they nail it. They just, it's a timeless classic. It'll always, it'll always be.

Jonathan Ward 15:31 It's funny, they've been, they've been crawling under my skin lately. I've been thinking-

Joe Rogan 15:35 '69 Camaros? Yeah?

Jonathan Ward 15:36 Yeah. Like, I think it would be interesting to do one, because if, if you look back on the design history, they were, the design team and executives at GM designed that car basically in reaction to trends in European touring cars and sports cars.

Joe Rogan 15:50 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 15:50 So, there's a lot of Ferrari, direct Ferrari inspiration, like 275s and stuff. So I always thought it'd be interesting to do a elevated, more European perspective version of that gen Camaro. Like devoid of badges, not like all smoothed out like everyone does, but just like elevate the trim, with like that kick-ass egg crate grill and all those details-

Joe Rogan 16:12 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 16:13 ... but like do it more the way a, a small coach builder would have done it in production.

Joe Rogan 16:18 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 16:19 There's something to them, for sure.

Joe Rogan 16:20 Yeah. When Matt was here last, he was showing me, there's a company that takes an older Ferrari, what was it? Which, which model was it? Do you remember, Jamie? They, they took an older Ferrari and puts, uh, a much more modern Ferrari engine in it and completely redoes everything. But makes it so that-

Jonathan Ward 16:38 Was it the-

Joe Rogan 16:39 ... is it a GTO?

Jonathan Ward 16:40 Was it the Norwood P4 or was it GTO Engineering? In LA and the UK they do a lot of GTO builds but they stay pretty true to the original form. But Phil Norwood, who used to actually race for Ferrari, he's... I don't think he's doing them anymore but he, for a while, in Texas I believe, was doing what they called the P4 Norwood and those are so badass.

Joe Rogan 17:04 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 17:04 So like monocoque, superleggera, lightweight, and they were using modern, uh, I think at that time they were, what are they taking like rectesterosis or something? Some modern Ferrari power train. But keeping the like, the original race aesthetic.

Joe Rogan 17:19 I'm not sure what company's doing it, but what they were doing essentially was making everything that you could remove and put it back to the original stock form, including the engine, including the suspension, including the transmission, including the brakes. But everything was after-market, so they weren't cutting anything.

Jonathan Ward 17:37 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 17:37 They were sort of replacing stuff but making this way better, w- way more high-performance version.

Jonathan Ward 17:43 It might be GTO.

Joe Rogan 17:44 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 17:44 And also, I mean, if you look at one of their recreation cars that are scratch built, and you know the value of the original GTOs is so nuts that-

Joe Rogan 17:51 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 17:52 ... now like a guy goes, "Oh, well yeah, I'll leave that in the collection." And they'll call GTO and say, "Build me one that looks just like my car and I actually wanna drive it."

Joe Rogan 18:00 Right.

Jonathan Ward 18:00 And if you sit them side by side, the only difference is the GTO one has better fit and finish and tolerances.

Joe Rogan 18:06 Right.

Jonathan Ward 18:06 Other ways you cannot tell them apart, hands down.

Joe Rogan 18:08 So the new one has better fit and finishes?

Jonathan Ward 18:10 Yeah. Yeah. Oh hell yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:11 Yeah. There's, uh, a company called Revology that does that with Mustangs.

Jonathan Ward 18:16 Mm-hmm. Tom's.

Joe Rogan 18:16 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 18:16 Yeah, Tom Scarpello.

Joe Rogan 18:17 Yeah, they make some beautiful cars.

Jonathan Ward 18:18 They do.

Joe Rogan 18:19 But, uh, I wonder like smogging them in California would probably be a nightmare.

Jonathan Ward 18:25 Well, yes. So right now unfortunately, uh, you know there's that new law that Tom and myself and a lot of other builders in our space have been very active in trying to get passed that was for Ultra Low Volume Vehicular Manufacturers Act. So if we made under 350 units a year, we'd be exempt from crash and many expensive regulatory, uh, limitations, but we had to be responsible for emissions. So-It's turned into a complete shitshow and it's already three years beyond posting. In fact, SEMA just filed suit against the federal government for inaction because they're well outside of their legal timeframe to actually create the damn paperwork to enact the law. And Tom's caught up in the middle of that. So right now, he's been putting General Motors LS3s into the Mustangs because it's the only thing that's smog legal because Ford Racing hasn't bothered, doesn't seem to see any importance or value in-

Joe Rogan 19:18 When did they start doing that?

Jonathan Ward 19:18 ... creating emission-certified, uh, powertrains.

Joe Rogan 19:21 When did they start using LS3s?

Jonathan Ward 19:23 Um, once the laws started getting a little sketchy.

Joe Rogan 19:26 Oh.

Jonathan Ward 19:26 So past a percentage, and when Tom was doing the new bodies and new everything, um, he, he's going down that road. Even all the Cobra guys in emissions-regulated states are putting LS3s in them.

Joe Rogan 19:37 Wow.

Jonathan Ward 19:37 Because Ford does ... It's like ... I talk to execs at Ford, I'm like, "Are you guys cool with that? Like, you don't see-"

Joe Rogan 19:42 That's so weird.

Jonathan Ward 19:42 "... that's not good for branding?"

Joe Rogan 19:44 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 19:44 And they, they're such spreadsheet junkies, I don't think that, uh, they see the value.

Joe Rogan 19:49 The struggle's real.

Jonathan Ward 19:50 Yup.

Joe Rogan 19:51 That seems like a, a, a bastardization. I mean, there's something about combining Ford and ... Like, it's really gross when they combine, uh, Chevy and Mopar. There's something about-

Jonathan Ward 20:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:01 ... putting an LS engine in a, like, uh, an old 'Cuda. You're like, "What are you doing?"

Jonathan Ward 20:06 I agree, but, like, to a point. I think if we look forward, that's changing because-

Joe Rogan 20:10 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 20:10 ... as it is today, you know, your Bentley, your BMW is your key. Like, everyone's sharing the same pool of suppliers anyway.

Joe Rogan 20:17 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 20:17 And a lot of these cars are just badge cars nowadays anyway.

Joe Rogan 20:21 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 20:21 So I think there's a, a, an, a wider acceptance as time passes to oddities. But I mean, look at that 49 Electric Mercury I did.

Joe Rogan 20:30 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 20:32 We im- purposely, like, dressed the, quote unquote, "engine bay" to look like an old speed-equipped V8 and, you know, vintage fin kind of Fenton header look, you know, the cast, to try and keep those old dudes engaged and not to look at it and go, "Oh, no, there's a ru- you ruined it. You put an electric motor in it."

Joe Rogan 20:50 Pull up the video of that, Jamie. It was a 49? Is that what it was?

Jonathan Ward 20:52 Yeah, 49 Mer-

Joe Rogan 20:54 49 Mercury-

Jonathan Ward 20:54 Come on.

Joe Rogan 20:54 ... uh, Electric. It's on the Jonathan Ward YouTube page.

Jonathan Ward 20:59 You know what sucks?

Joe Rogan 20:59 That thing's amazing.

Jonathan Ward 21:00 Guess where it is right now?

Joe Rogan 21:01 In the bottom of the lake?

Jonathan Ward 21:03 Not that bad. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:04 (laughs) What?

Jonathan Ward 21:04 It's stuck in Luxembourg.

Joe Rogan 21:07 Why?

Jonathan Ward 21:07 Well, it's a long story, but we were honored that, uh, Goodyear invited us to have it be the feature vehicle on their large booth at the Geneva International Auto Show. So we jumped through hoops, we put it on an airplane, we sent it over there. Boom, show got canceled.

Joe Rogan 21:22 Oh, no.

Jonathan Ward 21:23 Now all the commercial ... 'Cause we, we want it traveling by air and not by boat. Now all the flights are canceled, now all other cargo's getting prioritized, so now we're transporting it to Frankfurt and it's, like, stuck in limbo.

Joe Rogan 21:34 Oh, no.

Jonathan Ward 21:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:36 Oh, the coronavirus transport issue.

Jonathan Ward 21:38 Yep.

Joe Rogan 21:38 Yeah. Shit, when are you gonna get that back?

Jonathan Ward 21:41 Fuck if I know, apparently.

Joe Rogan 21:41 And that's the client's car?

Jonathan Ward 21:43 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:43 And so he said, "Yeah, go ahead. Borrow it for a week or two."

Jonathan Ward 21:45 Yeah, the cor- ... No, the cl- ne- uh ... Fortunately, the client is, like, one of the best humans we've ever worked with and he's totally cool about it, but, you know, we're all nervous. We want the darn car back.

Joe Rogan 21:54 Yeah, well, it's a one of a kind.

Jonathan Ward 21:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:56 You ... Uh, there it is. Now that is one, one of the things that I love that you do that I don't think anybody else is gonna do. I don't think anybody else would take that level of engineering and, uh, to rebuild something to that spectacular level of detail, but yet keep the fucked up paint.

Jonathan Ward 22:12 Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:13 (laughs) Like, look at that thing.

Jonathan Ward 22:14 And, you know, I never-

Joe Rogan 22:14 If you saw that rolling down the street, you would n- have zero idea what that is.

Jonathan Ward 22:19 Especially when that thing, 'cause it has no transmission, so it's dual electric motors just under 500 foot pounds of torque, no shift, so it's l- it moves like a freight train.

Joe Rogan 22:29 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 22:29 That, that thing is so fast.

Joe Rogan 22:31 Have you driven a Tesla?

Jonathan Ward 22:32 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 22:33 The, the S?

Jonathan Ward 22:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:33 The P100D?

Jonathan Ward 22:34 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:35 Yeah. It's a preposterous vehicle.

Jonathan Ward 22:36 Yeah. We put the 80 array in that with American Racing motors and dual Reinhart controllers and thermal management network that we engineered a whole bunch of stuff.

Joe Rogan 22:44 And when this guy charges us in, uh, how many miles can he get? Uh-

Jonathan Ward 22:48 200.

Joe Rogan 22:49 200. That's not bad.

Jonathan Ward 22:50 No, no, not bad at all.

Joe Rogan 22:50 That's the Por- the Porsche Taycan essentially.

Jonathan Ward 22:53 Yeah. Well, supposedly, right?

Joe Rogan 22:54 Give or take.

Jonathan Ward 22:55 But, but, uh-

Joe Rogan 22:56 Depends on who you ask.

Jonathan Ward 22:56 I- I can't afford to do fancy, misleading federal testing, so I literally just make sure my flatbed is at hand and just drive the piss out of it until it can't go, and then I go, "Okay, there you go. There's the range."

Joe Rogan 23:06 Well, but the EPA or whoever is doing the tests on the Taycan, apparently they sold it way short, and all these automotive, um, journalists that have driven the car are saying, "No, we've gotten, you know, 270, 280." They've gotten quite a bit more than the d- ... I think, uh, whoever th- the government rated it at 201?

Jonathan Ward 23:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 23:26 Yeah, so it's, it's quite a bit more than that, but ...

Jonathan Ward 23:29 But, yeah, that whole derelict program, you know, was, like many things (laughs) in my life, started just from a stupid passionate idea. Like, I didn't never, never consider it a business model of doing it. It was just, "Okay, I've got two young kids, I've got two Labs. I like to do this, I like to do that. What do I want as my next car?" And I'm like, "You know what? I'm tired of over-restoring shit." 'Cause that's, like, my OCD, I just, everything be perfect, perfect. And then the first time, you know, the kids nail it with a skateboard or I ding it with a surfboard or the dog takes a piss in it, whatever, like, I don't wanna be that guy anymore, so I was like, "You know what? I think I, like, wanna find something that's already fucked up and I'm just gonna leave it looking all fucked up so I don't even ..." I h- I hate washing cars and I hate putting gas in them.

Joe Rogan 24:12 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 24:12 So with the derelicts, all you do is clean the windows and vacuum it at best and party on. And then I just put a massive gas tank. So my old '52 DeSoto station wagon was the first derelict that I built 100% myself nights and weekends just because I had this stupid idea in my head and I wanted to realize it. It wasn't until it was done and it got, like, the cover of Hot Rod and won all these awards that my dumb ass went, "Oh, wait a minute. We're onto something."

Joe Rogan 24:38 We're onto something.

Jonathan Ward 24:38 Yeah, we're onto something. This still is ... You know, it fits within how we define the Icon brand holistically about revisiting classic transportation design in a modern context. It's just a different way of doing it.

Joe Rogan 24:51 So that was your first derelict? The 52-

Jonathan Ward 24:52 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:53 The 52 DeSoto?

Jonathan Ward 24:53 They wouldn't even call it derelict till I was done, and then we're like, "Okay, let's brand them." And we started getting tons of requests. We've built some... a pretty wild array of them. And have a bunch in the queue.

Joe Rogan 25:01 It's pretty funny that your first one was for you.

Jonathan Ward 25:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:04 Yeah. I mean, but that, but it speaks to how weird it is that you're doing that in the first place. 'Cause most people who, uh, you know, high dollar restoration, uh, you know, air quote, "restomods" or whatever you want to call them, everyone wants them to be beautiful and pristine with, you know, handles that, that disappear. You know? I mean, ev-everybody-

Jonathan Ward 25:23 Yeah, it's like-

Joe Rogan 25:23 ... wants to shave everything down and...

Jonathan Ward 25:25 And they... And they, like, end up-

Joe Rogan 25:28 There it is.

Jonathan Ward 25:29 ... removing a lot of the original character of the design that they're supposed to be celebrating in the first place. So that, compounded by patina, which tells a more personal story of like, "Where has this car been? How did it get that ding?" There's like romance and mystery all wrapped into one as far as the history behind all those finishes.

Joe Rogan 25:46 How am... What... How big is the gas tank on this thing?

Jonathan Ward 25:48 That one's got like a 42-gallon gas tank.

Joe Rogan 25:50 (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 25:50 I was like, "Spare tire, gas tank, spare tire..." I'm like, "Screw it, three cans of Fix a Flat and a big-ass gas tank. I hate stopping for gas."

Joe Rogan 25:57 Well, especially with something like that, it must get like four miles to the gallon.

Jonathan Ward 26:00 That actually is a full emissions-equipped modern, uh, SRT8 Hemi 6.1. And it-

Joe Rogan 26:06 So it gets six? (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 26:07 You know what? It's... I don't understand why, but... And I've built several Hemi-based builds. That is the fastest and most fuel-efficient of the Hemi build I've ever done. I mean, that thing gets probably 15, 17.

Joe Rogan 26:20 Really?

Jonathan Ward 26:20 Yeah. And I don't-

Joe Rogan 26:21 With that much metal?

Jonathan Ward 26:22 And I drive it like an ass. I mean, I'm, I'm flogging that thing. Granted, I'm on my third transmission, but...

Joe Rogan 26:28 Oh, really?

Jonathan Ward 26:28 Yeah. So the first two were Mopar trannys, which... Fellow builders, avoid them. They suck. If you add even like five horsepower beyond the stock motor app, they completely shit themselves. So the third time I'm like, "That's it. I'm done." Pulled the Band-Aid off, throw that thing away, and put a good old GM 4L85E in there.

Joe Rogan 26:47 So this, um, thing has how many miles on it now?

Jonathan Ward 26:51 Uh, I got about 38, 39,000 miles on it so far.

Joe Rogan 26:55 Wow. I love the split windshield too.

Jonathan Ward 26:57 Yeah. Yeah. It's such a fun, fun, fun ride. But, you know, going all the way back to the beginning of ICON, even further back to the beginning of the first brand, TLC, they all started with personal cars.

Joe Rogan 27:08 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 27:09 Like the ICON idea was just another dumb idea that was rattling in my head. It was literally keeping me up at night and it got to the point that I need... And this happens to me often, like with, you know, when I did my watch and then all the different products that I've designed, generally you'll start with something that gets to the point that I'll lose my remaining sanity if I don't actually create it. So I had the concept for ICON. I could see it clearly in my head. I had like a full-on 3D detailed model in my head and like my version of jumping over sheeps at night in bed was like sitting there and zooming in on an element and changing that radius and scaling this and trying that. And it literally got to the point I told my wife, I'm like, "I, I, I gotta build it. I, I just gotta build it."

Joe Rogan 27:53 Well, your, your company, it's sort of... It's symbiotic with social media in a sense, particularly YouTube, because so many people on YouTube are interested in unique builds and interest in companies that are doing cool things like Revology.

Jonathan Ward 28:08 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 28:08 But your company, in particular, it's so perfect because you do all those videos and you drive around the cars with this, s- this incredible detail. And that's one of the first things that got me very attracted to your company, was the fact like, I go, "Look at this motherfucker, he's so balls deep into this shit."

Jonathan Ward 28:25 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:25 "You're so into this."

Jonathan Ward 28:26 Totally. And if I'm not, I won't take the job.

Joe Rogan 28:28 It's so, uh, it's... There's something about it.

Jonathan Ward 28:29 Easy to say now, you know?

Joe Rogan 28:30 It's so contagious though when someone's like really into something, particularly design and, and production and the-

Jonathan Ward 28:37 I totally agree.

Joe Rogan 28:38 ... details and things. Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 28:38 And like if you're not totally into it and you're not balls deep into it, then pull out and zip up and go home. Shut up. Like...

Joe Rogan 28:44 Do something else.

Jonathan Ward 28:45 Yeah, do something else. Is... If you're not passionate about it, you, you suck at it.

Joe Rogan 28:49 Well, particularly in this world, right? In the world that you're in and, you know, like your most classic, um, models are like your Bronco, your FJs, like those, those get the most amount of attention, I think, online. And those... I mean, there's a lot of people making Broncos, there's a lot of people making FJs.

Jonathan Ward 29:07 Now there are.

Joe Rogan 29:08 Now there are. Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 29:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:09 Well, you know, you opened up a door. There's a lot of people that are making the exact Bronco you make. That... It's so close, it's ridiculous. They're redoing your grill.

Jonathan Ward 29:17 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:18 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 29:18 It kind of irks me. I'm s-... Some people are like, "Oh, you should be flattered." I'm like, "No, not really." Like I'm flattered when I see an industry swell around my first dumb idea. And when, you know, you, you see the Revologies and the Singers and all these companies having viable businesses revisiting classic transportation design, that I absolutely love. What I absolutely despise is the sucker fish that just will go, "Oh, well they have a two-year waiting list, that doesn't look hard. Let's make a company and let's make our business model that we're just like ICON, but we're quicker and cheaper." Like that just irks the piss out of me. But what do... You know, what are you gonna do? I can't say anything so I just-

Joe Rogan 29:58 It's hard because some people just-

Jonathan Ward 29:59 Party on.

Joe Rogan 29:59 ... don't have the money, you know, th- but they want a Bronco, you know? I get it. I see what you're saying, but I get it from their perspective. It's like, "Take this down, take this."

Jonathan Ward 30:07 No. But from a consumer perspective, I understand the appeal-

Joe Rogan 30:11 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 30:11 ... of not having to wait and not having to pay as much. But at best, in this industry, you get what you pay for and frankly, even that is a rare equation. What I'm more pissy about is companies that go, "Oh, well now we can charge more for it and let's just deliver something that looks as close to that and copy as much of its trade dress and style, um, and kick it out at a fat margin at what's deemed to be the most acceptable price point." Like...

Joe Rogan 30:38 But with your wait list, like why do you even fuck with that? Like what are you... Why do you pay-

Jonathan Ward 30:43 It's g-

Joe Rogan 30:43 ... attention to those people?

Jonathan Ward 30:43 May- maybe I'm insecure and childish.

Joe Rogan 30:46 (laughing)

Jonathan Ward 30:46 Or maybe I'm worried that, you know, past a point, it- it's going to erode our business one way or another.

Joe Rogan 30:52 Nah.

Jonathan Ward 30:53 ... you don't think?

Joe Rogan 30:54 No, not your business.

Jonathan Ward 30:55 I mean, and it's cool. Like, scouts, for example. There's, like-

Joe Rogan 30:57 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 30:57 ... three or four companies now doing scouts their way, with their vision. They're realizing their dream and I, like, I'm here to support them, help them, cheer them on. That's great. It's when people come into a market because they just merely see a capital opportunity, but they're, have no passion or expertise in it, that's where I get pissy.

Joe Rogan 31:17 I understand your perspective. My perspective is always a bandwidth perspective. You, say if you, your bandwidth is 100, for, for that's all of your attention that you have, to even give 10 of that to some knuckleheads that are just copying you-

Jonathan Ward 31:32 It's true.

Joe Rogan 31:33 ... it takes away-

Jonathan Ward 31:33 It wastes energy. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:34 That's all it, all it does. It just-

Jonathan Ward 31:35 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 31:35 ... takes away from what you're doing, and what you're doing is amazing.

Jonathan Ward 31:38 I think the last time I thought about it prior to just now bitching to you has been a good three or four months. So I don't give-

Joe Rogan 31:43 But is it-

Jonathan Ward 31:43 ... I don't give it too much thought, but-

Joe Rogan 31:45 Just every now and then? A little blip on the radar.

Jonathan Ward 31:47 Every now and again, it bubbles up.

Joe Rogan 31:48 Eh.

Jonathan Ward 31:48 Eh.

Joe Rogan 31:48 And then keep moving.

Jonathan Ward 31:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:50 You were, um, y- you were doing a bunch of s... I mean, I don't know how much we could talk about this. Can you talk about that little BMW? No. That doesn't exist.

Jonathan Ward 31:59 It doesn't exist.

Joe Rogan 32:00 Sorry I brought it up. (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 32:01 No, I mean, I guess now that we did talk about it, no, I- I have a couple-

Joe Rogan 32:05 All we said is little BMW. I didn't say any models.

Jonathan Ward 32:07 We have like a couple R&D projects in the works that are, again, those odd projects that were keeping me up at night. And one of them includes doing kind of a, a very progressive take on, you know, even beyond what, how we've been known to redesign classics. Taking that up 10 notches.

Joe Rogan 32:27 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 32:28 Um, with an early classic iconic BMW. And meanwhile, it's killing me. It's, it's I'm hemorrhaging money on it. I'm, I'm almost three quarters of a mil-

Joe Rogan 32:37 (gasps)

Jonathan Ward 32:37 ... deep into that project. But the other one that we-

Joe Rogan 32:41 Well, it's been going on for a long time.

Jonathan Ward 32:41 Yeah, for a long time.

Joe Rogan 32:42 Uh, like, before you built my Bronco, which took a year to build and I've had for a year and a half.

Jonathan Ward 32:51 Yeah. Hopefully, my wife doesn't listen. Yeah, I think it's been about four years of work on it.

Joe Rogan 32:56 Wow.

Jonathan Ward 32:57 Yeah. But I am, I'm super stoked. Like, when, when it's done-

Joe Rogan 33:02 Oh.

Jonathan Ward 33:02 ... it's something like nobody ever done seen before. Like-

Joe Rogan 33:05 Well, I love the idea behind it. Uh, you know, like, I'm, I'm a fan of those cars. Those, uh, I'm a fan of the original one and I'm a fan of, you know.

Jonathan Ward 33:13 We're doing another one too that's, you know, again, sort of l- looking at how we've done what we do and, like, how else could we do it or how further could we evolve it? Which as you've seen in working with me, like, I'm doing that all the time in all the little things. But, uh, like, holistically, conceptually, how do you do it? So we're doing an early C20 Chevy truck.

Joe Rogan 33:35 Mm.

Jonathan Ward 33:36 And, you know, we were gonna do our usual thing of, you know, engineer a chassis, engineer the axles, and call Brembo, design the brakes, like. And then you've got, like, umpteen purchase orders from umpteen different suppliers and a big pile of costs. And at the end of the day, you could say, I mean, "We don't have hundreds of millions of dollars in development, so we're building, hopefully, a well-functioning, what is in essence a prototype." So this time, for the Chevy truck, I'm like, "Screw it. I'm going to the dealer." So I just went and bought the (laughs) the WT, which people call the white trash edition, the WT series Chevy pickup. So we bought a three-quarter ton four-wheel drive brand new Chevy truck off the dealer floor for, like, 36 grand. Took that apart.

Joe Rogan 34:20 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 34:20 And we're rebodying it with its grandfather's body.

Joe Rogan 34:23 Oh.

Jonathan Ward 34:23 So now, like, ABS, hill hold, many of the perversions of modernity, everything is integrated. And literally, the client could go to a Chevy dealer, although they'd probably cringe, and say, "No, no, no, no, it's not a 70, t- you know, look, look, here's the ID tag. This VIN from this 2019 truck, that's what it is. So just service, that's the service protocol."

Joe Rogan 34:46 And the interior?

Jonathan Ward 34:47 Dead stock C20.

Joe Rogan 34:50 Wow.

Jonathan Ward 34:50 So the gauges, we're working with Classic Instruments to design an IP, an instrument panel, that has the original design aesthetic, but then integrates the little three by three digital screen for all of the, you know, all your prompts and digital things.

Joe Rogan 35:04 What about airbags?

Jonathan Ward 35:06 Can't do that because the body's not designed to absorb energy, thereby it's not compliant with airbags.

Joe Rogan 35:11 Mm.

Jonathan Ward 35:12 But we're keeping the entire, basically the entire truck, minus the airbags and the HVAC system, intact.

Joe Rogan 35:20 So how does someone register that? What is that registered as?

Jonathan Ward 35:22 S- still as the original truck. 'Cause the client brought us the C20. So then it, and the way that handles-

Joe Rogan 35:28 So it's still a C20?

Jonathan Ward 35:28 ... it's up to the client. Say, "Okay, here's your legal entities for both."

Joe Rogan 35:32 Wow.

Jonathan Ward 35:32 "You pick which way you wanna title it and party on." And obviously most people wanna stay the l- traffic of, uh, least resistance-

Joe Rogan 35:39 Yes.

Jonathan Ward 35:39 ... and they stick with an exempt year.

Joe Rogan 35:41 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 35:42 But it, it meets 2019 emissions and everything.

Joe Rogan 35:44 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 35:44 It has cylinder deactivation and all sorts of cool stuff.

Joe Rogan 35:46 Well, that's why I asked you about the airbags 'cause, uh, it wouldn't meet compliance.

Jonathan Ward 35:50 Correct. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:52 Yeah. But that would be sick though.

Jonathan Ward 35:54 Yeah, it would be neat.

Joe Rogan 35:54 Oh my goodness.

Jonathan Ward 35:54 You know, for a while, who was it? Someone told me, I think it was Midas, was trying to think of ways to stay relevant. And they had, they were, like, knees deep in investment in retrofit airbag systems.

Joe Rogan 36:06 Really?

Jonathan Ward 36:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:08 Did they ever get it off?

Jonathan Ward 36:09 'Cause it, no. I mean, it's an absolute engineering shit show 'cause there's so many parameters you can't control, it would just never work, but-

Joe Rogan 36:14 You were talking about retrofitting things with ABS. Did that ever come?

Jonathan Ward 36:19 No, and I still, I'm dying to do it. So the only way that it's come to fruition for me is, like, with your FZJ80 by maintaining the original ABS system or such as the case with the C20, by keeping the entire modern vehicle active and just rebodying it. But I mean, I'm dying for the aftermarket to come up with a standalone ABS module that's tunable. I think it, it's such the missing link. I mean, there's so many missing links, as I was bitching to you earlier. The automotive aftermarket, quite frankly my dear, is an absolute whorehouse, in my opinion.

Joe Rogan 36:55 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 36:55 There's just so much garbage on the market and, and it's like, where's the quality?And the market's there. Like I think-

Joe Rogan 37:02 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 37:02 ... consumers are ready for elevated consideration and execution, and product.

Joe Rogan 37:06 But there surely, there's some companies that're making good aftermarket stuff?

Jonathan Ward 37:10 It's, it's so the minority, it's pathetic.

Joe Rogan 37:12 10%?

Jonathan Ward 37:13 Not even.

Joe Rogan 37:14 Really?

Jonathan Ward 37:14 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:15 Good lord.

Jonathan Ward 37:16 Yeah. (slaps table)

Joe Rogan 37:17 Those motherfuckers.

Jonathan Ward 37:17 But I'm a picky bitch, so.

Joe Rogan 37:19 You are.

Jonathan Ward 37:19 So.

Joe Rogan 37:20 I wouldn't say that word. I might, I might, uh, vote to hug you.

Jonathan Ward 37:23 You say a lot of words, but you wouldn't-

Joe Rogan 37:24 (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 37:24 ... say the B word?

Joe Rogan 37:25 I would! I say the bitch word all the time.

Jonathan Ward 37:28 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 37:28 But, uh, about you, calling you a picky bitch. It seems like, it seems like, uh, I would say a picky fellow.

Jonathan Ward 37:34 All right.

Joe Rogan 37:34 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 37:34 I'll take either one.

Joe Rogan 37:36 Clever bitch. You're a clever bitch. I would say that maybe. But your, um, your whole place, like every time I go there, I feel like, uh, like I, I, like I wanna give myself time. Like if my appointment is at, uh, 12:30, I'll show up at 12 and just start wandering around, like, "What do you got? What's going on here, man? What are you doing?"

Jonathan Ward 37:53 It's Willy Wonka's factory.

Joe Rogan 37:54 Yes!

Jonathan Ward 37:54 Such odd diversity in there right now. D'you notice? In the DNR, in the derelict and reformer section. (inhales deeply) The range of projects, the diversity-

Joe Rogan 38:02 Yes.

Jonathan Ward 38:02 ... of those platforms right now. Did you see the '70 Ford yellow and cream short bed?

Joe Rogan 38:08 No, I did not.

Jonathan Ward 38:09 Oh my God.

Joe Rogan 38:09 I didn't see that.

Jonathan Ward 38:10 It's so stupid sexy.

Joe Rogan 38:12 I did see that Blazer that someone's selling.

Jonathan Ward 38:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:15 That's one of your older projects?

Jonathan Ward 38:17 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:17 Yep.

Jonathan Ward 38:17 Guy never drove it.

Joe Rogan 38:19 Though I remember you were building-

Jonathan Ward 38:20 Killing me.

Joe Rogan 38:20 ... two of 'em. One-

Jonathan Ward 38:21 Yep.

Joe Rogan 38:21 ... that was more modern-looking-

Jonathan Ward 38:23 Correct.

Joe Rogan 38:23 ... kind of more over-engineered, or not m- more over-engineered, but more engineered. And then this one, which is more of a, it really looks like an older Blazer.

Jonathan Ward 38:31 Yeah, and it has the same mechanical engineering integrated in it, but it was a, a v- much different style. More of what I call my old school style, where all my mods, like even the badging on it where it says Icon was CNC'd and stainless in the original typeface that Blazer was written in.

Joe Rogan 38:48 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 38:48 So if you don't know, you don't know, and it's like super under the radar, mellow colors-

Joe Rogan 38:54 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 38:54 ... but really good leathers and materials.

Joe Rogan 38:55 It's a cool blue too.

Jonathan Ward 38:56 Yeah, I love that blue.

Joe Rogan 38:57 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 38:57 It's a '60s Fiat blue.

Joe Rogan 38:59 So the guy just never drove it?

Jonathan Ward 39:00 No, it drives me crazy. I hate that. I love that you drive my cars.

Joe Rogan 39:03 I drive the shit out of it. Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 39:04 And these people are like, "I, I take it back." It had like 400 more miles on it than when I delivered it.

Joe Rogan 39:09 Oh.

Jonathan Ward 39:09 I'm like, "Dude, what-"

Joe Rogan 39:10 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 39:10 "... what's going on?" And he's, "Oh, it was too nice. I was afraid to drive it." I'm like, "Oh, come on."

Joe Rogan 39:14 I drive that Bronco everywhere. Everywhere. And e- every time I drive it, people are like, "What in the fuck is that?"

Jonathan Ward 39:20 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 39:20 I'm like, "Yeah, it's a, exactly."

Jonathan Ward 39:22 See ya.

Joe Rogan 39:22 Yeah. It's, uh, it's such a mechanical thing when you drive that car. It's what I love about it. Like sometimes I've, if I don't drive it for a week or two, I kinda forget.

Jonathan Ward 39:31 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 39:31 And then I get in and it's like, vroom! And it's like everything is like...

Jonathan Ward 39:34 Rrrr.

Joe Rogan 39:34 You feel everything. It's like, there's a thing about modern cars, like I really do love my Tesla. It's, it, the way I describe it: it makes other cars seem stupid. Like they're stupid. Like this is how cars should drive. Like you hit the gas, it's almost telepathic. It just goes somewhere.

Jonathan Ward 39:50 Yeah, yeah. Totally.

Joe Rogan 39:50 It just moves. It's, uh, and that gigantic navigation screen. Everything about it is amazing.

Jonathan Ward 39:56 I was supposed to be in Detroit right now for the Bronco launch, which they, they've, uh, delayed-

Joe Rogan 40:00 Yeah, obviously.

Jonathan Ward 40:00 ... because of the corona.

Joe Rogan 40:01 But the difference between that and, say, the Bronco, is you don't feel it. Like the Bronco, it's a manual transmission, and you literally (claps hands) feel every gear. It's, there's all these moving parts that you kind of sync up with, so there's all this sensation that's going into your brain-

Jonathan Ward 40:18 It's-

Joe Rogan 40:18 ... through your hands.

Jonathan Ward 40:19 ... visceral.

Joe Rogan 40:20 Yes!

Jonathan Ward 40:20 It's the reconnection of man and machine.

Joe Rogan 40:22 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 40:22 And I think there's a place for both, right?

Joe Rogan 40:25 Yes.

Jonathan Ward 40:25 But I think more and more as the world turns to autonomous vehicles, ride-share, uh, infrastructure, community development is even starting to go a different direction. I used to be concerned about that in regards to the future of our company, but now I realize like, that's great, like 'cause the more that happens, the more there's gonna be plenty of people who, for the weekend, for the whatever, like demand a manual tranny and a-

Joe Rogan 40:49 Yes.

Jonathan Ward 40:49 ... visceral man-machine relationship.

Joe Rogan 40:51 It feels different. It feels different when you drive 'em. There's a sweet spot somewhere. I have a 2005 E46 M3.

Jonathan Ward 40:58 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:59 And, uh, I got it online off this dude. It was only 15,000 original miles and that seems to me to be the sweet spot. 'Cause it's not the fastest car in the world and it's got a Dinan supercharger on it. It's, it doesn't handle the best in the world, but man is it a t- it's like there's something about that car, like when you're driving it makes you smile. Like there's something about the way it steers, the way you feel, the hydraulic steering, not electric. Everything about it.

Jonathan Ward 41:25 Yeah, like the new, the new M3 is almost becoming t- there's like too many nannies. It's, it's too technical in a manner that makes the stats improve but-

Joe Rogan 41:35 Yes.

Jonathan Ward 41:35 ... not the connection, eh, to the driver feel more dynamic to me.

Joe Rogan 41:39 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 41:39 It's like I've got a '96, uh, 993 twin turbo, and that to me is one of the most perfectly engineered vehicles that was designed by a core group of people who had a singular focus on what its purpose was and what it should do, what it should evoke, and what it shouldn't. And-

Joe Rogan 41:58 Do you have the same one that you had before?

Jonathan Ward 42:00 Yeah, the black one.

Joe Rogan 42:00 Did you get in an accident with that thing?

Jonathan Ward 42:01 Yeah, it was minor though.

Joe Rogan 42:02 Oh, okay.

Jonathan Ward 42:03 Yeah, I s- love that car.

Joe Rogan 42:04 It's a great car. I remember the cover of, uh, was it Motor Trend or Road & Track, it said, "Sell your soul-"

Jonathan Ward 42:09 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:09 "... and buy this car." When it came out-

Jonathan Ward 42:11 Because-

Joe Rogan 42:12 ... 'cause when, when it came out, it was like, you know, early '90s, was, uh, when I first came to California, and there was no way I was ever gonna be able to afford one of those. And I remember looking at the thing like, "Wow."

Jonathan Ward 42:19 I had the poster as a kid.

Joe Rogan 42:21 When you see that, when you see a car like that, you start thinking like, "How much does that cost? How much do I make? How long do I have to save? What do I have to do? What if I worked twice as much?" (laughs) Is that-

Jonathan Ward 42:29 And how do I make this happen?

Joe Rogan 42:30 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 42:30 I remember I had the-

Joe Rogan 42:31 How is it possible?

Jonathan Ward 42:32 I had the Vector poster. I had the 993 turbo. I had the Countach Tele- uh, Periscopo. And, uh, I had a 550 Maranello poster. And then for a little while as I approached, I just turned 50 last week, like f- my late 40s I started like having to knock at that list, like, "Okay-"

Joe Rogan 42:50 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 42:50 "... what am I waiting for?"

Joe Rogan 42:51 Right.

Jonathan Ward 42:52 Bought a, uh, 550.... it sucked. The Maranello should have been left to the rosy eyes of memory. It's a, a bucket of shit.

Joe Rogan 43:00 (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 43:00 I get so annoyed at that car. Can't afford the Vector, missed my chance to afford a Periscopo, but I've been watching Farah just piss money into his constantly.

Joe Rogan 43:09 I had that BMW M car, that wedge-

Jonathan Ward 43:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:12 ... one, the original wedge. What the fuck was that called?

Jonathan Ward 43:14 M1, I believe.

Joe Rogan 43:15 M1.

Jonathan Ward 43:16 M1, M1.

Joe Rogan 43:16 That's right. Yeah, like the original BMW supercar. I had one of those on my wall.

Jonathan Ward 43:21 When I first came out to California in the '80s, I remember, and I think it was in Newport or Manhattan Beach, there was like ex-BMW dealership looking space, but it was an independent BMW dealership and service center. And they had one in the factory tri-color livery, and they had it for sale. And I remember begging my mom to pull over in our crappy Dodge Aries rental car and going in and asking, and it was for sale. It was like 11 grand and the guy-

Joe Rogan 43:48 Wow.

Jonathan Ward 43:48 ... was like hoping-

Joe Rogan 43:50 There it is.

Jonathan Ward 43:50 ... and begging I was serious 'cause they couldn't give them away back then.

Joe Rogan 43:53 Look at that thing.

Jonathan Ward 43:54 They're so nifty.

Joe Rogan 43:55 God, I love that thing.

Jonathan Ward 43:56 And the wheels are so good.

Joe Rogan 43:57 I had a red one on my wall. I remember thinking, "God, only one day. That's it. That's the fucking car, Jamie."

Jonathan Ward 44:05 Is that the poster you had?

Joe Rogan 44:06 Probably. It's hard to remember, but it looks exactly like that.

Jonathan Ward 44:09 One of my photographers does a trick, and now I'm- I've been using it. So you'll get that mirrored effect if you take an iPhone that's off and put it right under the lens and hold it up and angle it just right.

Joe Rogan 44:20 Ah.

Jonathan Ward 44:21 (laughs) It's super cool.

Joe Rogan 44:22 Interesting.

Jonathan Ward 44:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:23 That's a beautiful car. And back in the day, like what was that? That had to be like early '80s, right? What year was that?

Jonathan Ward 44:30 Oh, yeah, that was late '70s, I believe.

Joe Rogan 44:32 Was it?

Jonathan Ward 44:32 Yeah, for launch.

Joe Rogan 44:33 That makes sense 'cause I was in high school, uh, first year of high school was '81. So that, that's when I had it on my wall.

Jonathan Ward 44:41 I can't remember his real name, but on Instagram.

Joe Rogan 44:43 8- 1981, there you go.

Jonathan Ward 44:43 Mr. Enthusiast.

Joe Rogan 44:45 I don't know who that is.

Jonathan Ward 44:46 He's a, he's a, he's a designer and a really interesting cat. Um, he has like Lancia Delta, he had a Stratos for a couple years. Like he's into like all the weird shit, and I think he still owns one, but he rocked one of those before anyone was talking about them and like had it forever. Drove the piss out of it.

Joe Rogan 45:03 I love those cars. I have zero desire to own one now, and I have zero desi- desire to own anything old that hasn't been redone.

Jonathan Ward 45:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:11 I don't like... There it is, Mr. Enthusiast.

Jonathan Ward 45:14 Oh, there you go.

Joe Rogan 45:15 That's a beautiful car. Goddamn, that's beautiful.

Jonathan Ward 45:16 He's so funny too 'cause like, as you know, I'm a big watch geek and he's like the antichrist in the watch culture (laughs) because he's all about quartz, like vintage quartz. So like for a short time, Patek made quartz watches.

Joe Rogan 45:30 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 45:30 And like everyone shuns them, but now like they're immensely collectible.

Joe Rogan 45:35 Why, why does everybody hate quartz? 'Cause they just want everything to be mechanical?

Jonathan Ward 45:38 To me, that's why I won't touch a quartz watch.

Joe Rogan 45:41 But what about Grand Seiko where they combine the two of them?

Jonathan Ward 45:44 I want the heart and soul.

Joe Rogan 45:44 They use the, the quartz to sort of accentuate-

Jonathan Ward 45:45 Well, even Ressence, who's one of my favorite of the weirdos of other brands.

Joe Rogan 45:49 Is that your, your watch?

Jonathan Ward 45:50 Yeah, not my design. This is, uh, Ressence or Ressence is the brand. These are super trippy, but like they just came out with a smartwatch where like when you're on the plane and you enter a new time zone and you land, it'll reset itself. I'm like-

Joe Rogan 46:01 What?

Jonathan Ward 46:02 ... I have a thumb and an index finger that work pretty fucking good. I can set my own watch.

Joe Rogan 46:07 How does it do that?

Jonathan Ward 46:08 Oh, it's got a smart-

Joe Rogan 46:09 It's a mechanical watch that does that?

Jonathan Ward 46:10 Yeah, mechanical quartz combination.

Joe Rogan 46:12 Oh, wow.

Jonathan Ward 46:13 But these are super trippy 'cause the entire-

Joe Rogan 46:15 Whoa.

Jonathan Ward 46:16 ... movement rotates as it tells the time.

Joe Rogan 46:18 What? Let me see that.

Jonathan Ward 46:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:19 That's crazy.

Jonathan Ward 46:20 Super, super trippy brand. Really interesting guys. And they're oil filled and all sorts of neat niftiness. Man, talk about an industry in a shit show even before this sad virus situation.

Joe Rogan 46:31 Watches?

Jonathan Ward 46:32 Luxury watch world is bleeding.

Joe Rogan 46:33 This is crazy though.

Jonathan Ward 46:34 Yeah, it's a program.

Joe Rogan 46:35 Is it? Why is that? Why is the luxury watch world bleeding?

Jonathan Ward 46:38 Um, I think, um, smartwatch put a bigger ding on it than they thought it would.

Joe Rogan 46:43 Oh, okay.

Jonathan Ward 46:44 And they negated it in original like, "Oh, that's nothing."

Joe Rogan 46:46 Like-

Jonathan Ward 46:47 That's not a watch. And...

Joe Rogan 46:47 ... cameras-

Jonathan Ward 46:48 Yeah, in... Exactly.

Joe Rogan 46:49 ... and phones. Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 46:50 The arrogance of, "We're doing just fine." And then like now they say there's so many manufacturing options for low volume watches that the only growth segments, and I, I, I read the big LVMH like annual report and the, um, like what is it? 800 to $1,600 segment of watches, pumping, killing it, growing like crazy. Otherwise, it's up, it's like 20 grand and more independent watch brands are killing it.

Joe Rogan 47:21 Ah.

Jonathan Ward 47:21 Everyone in between is like hemorrhaging money.

Joe Rogan 47:24 Really? That's interesting.

Jonathan Ward 47:25 There's this new company I'm bummed 'cause when I went to the Geneva Show, I was gonna go meet with him, but David Rutin Watches that are doing watches that are CNC'd out of a solid chunk of meteorite.

Joe Rogan 47:36 (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 47:37 And like, not like some bullshit EDM meteorite dial-

Joe Rogan 47:40 (sighs)

Jonathan Ward 47:40 ... on your 90s Daytona. The entire watch case, the crown and everything is meteorite.

Joe Rogan 47:46 Jesus Christ. How many meteorites are there? Like how, how, how often can you do that?

Jonathan Ward 47:49 There's actually a shit ton of me- meteorites.

Joe Rogan 47:51 Really?

Jonathan Ward 47:51 Yeah, there's different grades of them and stuff and it depends on the metallurgic content to, if they can be machined and they eat machine tooling-

Joe Rogan 47:58 Here he is.

Jonathan Ward 47:58 ... left and right.

Joe Rogan 47:59 Wow. Look at that thing.

Jonathan Ward 48:00 How funky, right?

Joe Rogan 48:01 How weird looking. That's made out of a meteorite?

Jonathan Ward 48:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:04 God dammit, I need one.

Jonathan Ward 48:05 And you can see all the fracturing in it. And his price point's pretty, uh-

Joe Rogan 48:08 I need one now, son of a bitch.

Jonathan Ward 48:08 He's doing like a pre-launch and, um-

Joe Rogan 48:11 Oh, so he hasn't launched yet?

Jonathan Ward 48:12 They just started doing deliveries-

Joe Rogan 48:14 God, that's beautiful.

Jonathan Ward 48:14 ... like a week ago and like I'd saved up my little side monopoly cash from selling off used parts and leather stuff (laughs) and I was like ready to pull the trigger and I already had a meeting and lunch date set up with those cats and I'm like, "Aw."

Joe Rogan 48:28 And what happened?

Jonathan Ward 48:29 Well, the, uh, my trip got canceled-

Joe Rogan 48:30 Oh.

Jonathan Ward 48:30 ... 'cause the Geneva Show got canceled. But anyway, the point of the story is-

Joe Rogan 48:35 Wow.

Jonathan Ward 48:35 ... guys like this and Ressence and, and, and Laurent Ferrier and all these different... Moser's another great brand, if they have a very unique aesthetic and philosophy...... they're killing it.

Joe Rogan 48:50 Right.

Jonathan Ward 48:50 But it's the traditional big luxury bling-bling, yo, look at me-

Joe Rogan 48:54 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 48:55 ... those guys are just dying on the vine because I think more and more people aren't buying into what is considered luxury in a conventional sense.

Joe Rogan 49:04 Hmm. I-

Jonathan Ward 49:04 People want more story.

Joe Rogan 49:05 Well, (sighs) I mean, th- that also speaks to, like, what... The kinda stuff that you do. I mean, b... People like things that are crafted by artisans.

Jonathan Ward 49:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:16 You know? I mean, that's-

Jonathan Ward 49:16 I love that, man.

Joe Rogan 49:17 Me too.

Jonathan Ward 49:17 And we're seeing that revival right in the last 10 years.

Joe Rogan 49:20 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 49:20 It's just growing and growing and growing and so great.

Joe Rogan 49:21 Well, I feel like as the world becomes more digital and people become more disconnected with each other, there's something about... Like, when I drive your Bronco, first of all, I really like you, so I love the fact that I'm driving your truck. And then two, I feel like it's a piece of art.

Jonathan Ward 49:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:37 I feel like-

Jonathan Ward 49:37 Thank you.

Joe Rogan 49:37 ... it's a functional-

Jonathan Ward 49:39 That's so how I look at it.

Joe Rogan 49:39 ... piece of art.

Jonathan Ward 49:40 Highly functioning sculpture, please.

Joe Rogan 49:41 I smile when I'm in it.

Jonathan Ward 49:43 Show it.

Joe Rogan 49:43 It makes me feel different. When I'm in my Tesla, I'm like, "This is a badass motherfucking piece of invention." But I don't-

Jonathan Ward 49:48 But you're still in your own head.

Joe Rogan 49:49 It's a p- piece of plastic.

Jonathan Ward 49:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:51 It's, there's... You know, it's plastic and glass and metal and it's beautiful. It's amazing, it's spectacular, innovate... But it, it will never be art.

Jonathan Ward 50:00 Are you in a... What do you have, an S?

Joe Rogan 50:01 I have the... Yeah, the P100D.

Jonathan Ward 50:03 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 50:03 Yeah. Fuck-

Jonathan Ward 50:04 You ever sat in the backseat?

Joe Rogan 50:05 No.

Jonathan Ward 50:06 Don't.

Joe Rogan 50:06 Why?

Jonathan Ward 50:07 The noise coming out of that third point shoulder seatbelt retractor is so unacceptable-

Joe Rogan 50:12 (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 50:12 ... for modern car standards.

Joe Rogan 50:13 That's such a geek thing to say.

Jonathan Ward 50:14 Like, literally the shit's coming up through the plastic wheel well and, like, a noise and a cold breeze is hitting your outboard ear and I'm like, "Okay."

Joe Rogan 50:24 A breeze?

Jonathan Ward 50:24 How did this shit happen? It... There's a damn draft that comes up through there and you're hearing road noise through it. It's-

Joe Rogan 50:30 You're hearing road noise-

Jonathan Ward 50:31 Drives me...

Joe Rogan 50:31 ... through the seatbelt?

Jonathan Ward 50:32 Through the cavity-

Joe Rogan 50:34 The hole?

Jonathan Ward 50:34 ... through which the-

Joe Rogan 50:35 Really?

Jonathan Ward 50:36 Yeah, the retractor spool sits.

Joe Rogan 50:37 And air gets in there?

Jonathan Ward 50:39 Next time you're too stoned to drive-

Joe Rogan 50:40 (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 50:41 ... you sit in the backseat, let mama drive-

Joe Rogan 50:43 (groans)

Jonathan Ward 50:43 ... and report back. You send me a text.

Joe Rogan 50:45 Okay. It's that annoying, huh?

Jonathan Ward 50:46 It, it... For, for guys like us, dare I go out on a limb and say us, yes, it'll annoy the piss out of you.

Joe Rogan 50:52 Mm, interesting. That car is so quiet-

Jonathan Ward 50:54 Good thing you didn't have a call-in number when Elon was here. I would've chewed his ass about that.

Joe Rogan 50:58 Would you? That one thing?

Jonathan Ward 50:59 (laughs) You know s-

Joe Rogan 51:00 You're going, "Who the fuck is this asshole?" (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 51:01 Did he a- did he ever... He already knows who this asshole is. Years ago, I developed a concept that I, I called the Helios. I don't know if you ever saw that. So I love, like, design challenges that are, like, framing things, right? So I was like, "All right, let's do a revisionist history approach to car design." So what if electric cars had remained predominant in the late 1800s, early 1900s? What if we had taken inspiration from aircraft design a couple decades prior to when the industry actually did? And then what if after he did the experimental f- plane, the H-2, I think it was, what if Howard Hughes had satten down and, like, he couldn't get that last starlet to, to go out with him, right before he lost his mind completely, what if he, Buckminster Fuller, and Gordon Buehrig sat down and did a napkin sketch after too many martinis? What would that car look like? So that was my stupid pile-

Joe Rogan 52:00 (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 52:00 ... of questions around which I framed my design. And I designed it to work on the, at the time, a P85 platform. And i- it... Basically, I g- I received a copy of a letter that's titled like, Peanut Butter and Chocolate, that was written by Elon's core engineering team begging him to allow them to support me to do the build. And, like, since day one, like, my launch was, "I don't need your money. I'll go to the dealership, I'll buy the damn car. I need y'all's backend support on the software," because they're super shitty about any repurposed or-

Joe Rogan 52:37 I'm sure, yeah.

Jonathan Ward 52:38 ... pride Teslas and Elon never addressed it. It was like, "Aw."

Joe Rogan 52:41 That gentleman right there with the glasses, the larger bobble head, that's Rich Rebuild.

Jonathan Ward 52:44 Yeah, I know. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:45 It's Rich Benoit.

Jonathan Ward 52:46 I know Rich.

Joe Rogan 52:46 Great guy.

Jonathan Ward 52:46 We just did a speaking panel together in Texas recently at a TV show.

Joe Rogan 52:49 That's his major beef with Tesla.

Jonathan Ward 52:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:52 He, he's bought a couple of them and pieced them back together again.

Jonathan Ward 52:54 Yeah, they... And they cock-block them.

Joe Rogan 52:55 Yeah, they cock-block them left and right.

Jonathan Ward 52:57 But-

Joe Rogan 52:57 They won't let him supercharge.

Jonathan Ward 52:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:58 Son of bitches.

Jonathan Ward 52:59 But s- six, uh, about... In the last two or three quarters, there've been major gains. Th- thankn- honestly, I think due to Rich and due to the community that rose up around him, that shit's been hacked now.

Joe Rogan 53:13 Really?

Jonathan Ward 53:13 So, yeah. Now people can open source, hack the cam data chain, and people are repurposing Tesla components. Like, I use Tesla batteries, but I haven't been using their motors or planetaries or anything else 'cause again, what do I tell my client when the client needs an update or a part? You go to the dealer-

Joe Rogan 53:30 Right.

Jonathan Ward 53:30 ... they're like, "What's your VIN?" (imitates flat line)

Joe Rogan 53:32 Uh...

Jonathan Ward 53:32 And you're screwed. You can't get it in.

Joe Rogan 53:33 Come outside. (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 53:35 But yeah, like, um-

Joe Rogan 53:36 Let me show you something.

Jonathan Ward 53:37 ... Stealth, Stealth EV, in fact, has this new setup that they just started marketing where you literally take that IRS apart where the electric motor's built in, there's a little access door. You pull out a little circuit board, you put in another one, and voila.

Joe Rogan 53:50 (clicks tongue) Is there a setup-

Jonathan Ward 53:51 It's hacked.

Joe Rogan 53:51 ... like crate engines where, you know... Or do you envision a setup where... Because, you know, you know that, um, the new Hummer is now going to be an electric vehicle, which is really interesting.

Jonathan Ward 54:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:02 And, uh, there's going to be a bunch of other electric vehicles that are coming out from Volkswagen that are really cheap and a b- a bunch of different companies are jumping in. Do you envision there being some sort of a crate engine option for people that want to, like-

Jonathan Ward 54:15 (inhales deeply) I do. I do, and I think there should be. Now, proof in the pudding to this point is that everyone's focusing on the do-it-yourself market, therefore also on the cheapest possible equation, which leaves a lot of-

Joe Rogan 54:27 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 54:27 ... in my opinion, a lot of safety issues completely unaddressed, and they can get downright nutty. So the other issue is they're all, for ease of installation and conversion, everyone's thinking about doing kits that literally are a, a spud plate and a short shaft to go where the engine used to be, put an electric motor to a bellhousing adapter, to the stock transmission.... which is stupid because electric cars going through manual transmissions, there's a lot of scavenging of energy. It's bad enough to go through a ring and pinion. Doing a right angle gear displacement of power, you lose so much efficiency.

Joe Rogan 55:03 Mm.

Jonathan Ward 55:04 And the best EVs, in my opinion, are transmission-less or go through a planetary set, you know, for gear reduction. Like that, the Merc is the, to my knowledge, the first sort of retro fit EV that, you know, I, I, being the goober that I am, like, I was like, "Okay, we've done a couple EV builds, but if we're gonna keep doing them, like, I wanna do them our way." Like, I wanna, I want more safety, I want more performance, I want more range, I want dedicated thermal management networks for the batteries, the controllers, the motors and all that. And none of it existed.

Joe Rogan 55:35 How long did that build take?

Jonathan Ward 55:36 Oh, God. Four, yeah, just a little bit over four years.

Joe Rogan 55:41 Oh.

Jonathan Ward 55:41 And at the scale of technology, shit's changing so quickly in the EV space that as we were building it, suppliers of key components came out with another generation that's infinitely better than the V1 or V3 I already had. So even before we could finish that car, we were backing up and updating and updating and updating, which really, if you put sort of a marketeer hat on, I'm so proud of the value retention in my vehicles, and I'm proud of our foundation of taking something that, in essence, a lot of people would think is at the end of its already usable life cycle and upcycling it and breathing new life so it's good to go for decades again. But now with EV, stuff is moving so quickly that ... Am I, am I, like, making iPhones all of a sudden?

Joe Rogan 56:28 Right.

Jonathan Ward 56:28 So in two years, it's totally worthless-

Joe Rogan 56:30 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 56:30 ... because the tech is outdated?

Joe Rogan 56:32 That is the weird thing about tech, right, is the exponential growth and improvement, it just makes-

Jonathan Ward 56:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:37 Like, no one wants an iPhone 1.0.

Jonathan Ward 56:39 Right.

Joe Rogan 56:40 They're useless.

Jonathan Ward 56:41 So look at, you know, internal combustion engine development cycles. What I put in today is still relevant in a decade.

Joe Rogan 56:47 Mm, yeah.

Jonathan Ward 56:48 But with, with electric, it's a whole new space to consider. So AEM is, like, well known in, in, in racing and aftermarket for engine management electronics. They just, at PRI and at SIMA, made a fair bit of noise about coming out with a full array of EV retro fit conversion systems. So they seem to be the first ones entering the field that are gonna offer a comprehensive suite of products and solutions. But then again, being that it's part of this industry, you know, I go grill the dudes at their trade show booth and they're like, "Uh, well, it's something we're, um, working on." You know, just all these press releases and all that. I'm like-

Joe Rogan 57:30 Vaporware.

Jonathan Ward 57:31 ... "Sell me some shit." "Uh, hello?" So ...

Joe Rogan 57:34 They can't sell it to you.

Jonathan Ward 57:36 I think, I, I, I trust it will come out, but ...

Joe Rogan 57:38 When, when you see Elon coming out with, um, like that new Roadster is gonna have a 600 mile range-

Jonathan Ward 57:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:44 ... that, that is when things get really interesting.

Jonathan Ward 57:46 And Volkswagen claimed with that vehicle that you noted earlier that they were gonna make the platform shareable, and they were gonna make it available to many different manufacturers, large and small.

Joe Rogan 57:56 Mm.

Jonathan Ward 57:56 But I've heard stories like that over the years from you name it, from Faraday was claiming the same thing, and-

Joe Rogan 58:02 Mm.

Jonathan Ward 58:03 So much of it's bullshit 'cause now it's, it's like, I don't wanna say vaporware, but it's, it's so much of that, like, VC money, "Don't worry, we'll be profitable one day and we're-

Joe Rogan 58:14 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 58:14 ... worth a billion multiple of nothing today, so buy in." And then s- it's like so many of these EV startups and retro fit companies come to the scene looking for that elusive, uh, FedEx fleet contract that everyone thinks is gonna be easy to get, and none of them get it, and then they all go belly up.

Joe Rogan 58:31 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 58:32 So I just think we're at that point in history where not only is the tech moving forward so quickly, and not only that, but the likes of, or predominantly only due to Tesla, it's proven the viability in the market. Now there's purists and traditionalists and everyone's starting to poke at it and I see exponential more interest. So I think, you know, for the next five years or so, it's gonna be a bit tumultuous, but I definitely think it's the future of hot rodding. I, I, I imagine within five years, I imagine probably half of my client builds will be electric.

Joe Rogan 59:07 Wow, that's a big, that's a big statement.

Jonathan Ward 59:09 Well, and I'm totally pulling it out of-

Joe Rogan 59:11 Yeah. (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 59:11 ... my booty, but, but that, that's the vibe that I get.

Joe Rogan 59:14 Have you seen, there's a '68 Porsche 911 that has a Tesla engine in it?

Jonathan Ward 59:21 Yeah. Is, is that the one EV West built?

Joe Rogan 59:24 I, I don't know who built it.

Jonathan Ward 59:25 I think Mike-

Joe Rogan 59:26 I, I was just scamming through, uh, scanning through in- uh, Instagram the other day-

Jonathan Ward 59:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:29 ... and I saw it, a green '68.

Jonathan Ward 59:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:33 Uh, that's, that's very interesting-

Jonathan Ward 59:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:35 ... when they do stuff like that to old cars, but ...

Jonathan Ward 59:37 And there's so many guys springing up out of the woodwork.

Joe Rogan 59:39 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 59:39 I mean, like nationwide to various levels of price expectation, range expectation, et cetera, but I think that's a really ... It's, it's a lovely community too. I've noticed it's much more open than the conventional automotive community is about sharing information and suppliers and knowledge and helping one another. And it's, it, there's a really nice camaraderie within that community. There's, like, Movement Motors in Austin's doing really nice retrofits and-

Joe Rogan 1:00:06 Oh, yeah?

Jonathan Ward 1:00:07 EV West has been around forever. They're really the granddaddies on the scene and-

Joe Rogan 1:00:11 Movement Motors-

Jonathan Ward 1:00:12 ... you know, Stealth.

Joe Rogan 1:00:12 ... in Austin?

Jonathan Ward 1:00:13 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:00:13 Did they ... Are they the ones that did that Mustang?

Jonathan Ward 1:00:16 Um, I think they've done a 'Stang. They just finished doing a 2002 BMW. They did a early GTV Alfa. They've done all sorts of different, like, pretty cool diverse range of platforms. And then of course, um ...... um, uh, Z Electric down in Orange County that started out doing just the bugs, now the bugs and the buses, and now 911s. And it's like, there's such a large and welcoming, kind, cool community of people in that space.

Joe Rogan 1:00:43 Now, when you charge a Tesla, it's easy. You know, you look for the Tesla superchargers. They're all over the place. You press a button on your, the screen and it shows you where they are. It'll navigate you to them. When you try to get one of th- You can't charge a regular car at a Tesla superstation, can you?

Jonathan Ward 1:00:59 No. And there's different... So there's the standard... I forget the anachron. We could call Rich. Uh, the J blah, blah, blah connector. But there's a standard municipal connector, and then there's also the new fast charge network. But it depends on where you live. But for example, around here, it's a joke. They're everywhere. So like, I have an app when I'm driving that '49 Merc and, you know, I was, uh, speaking at Barrett-Jackson and had it there in town for while I was visiting. And then you network the apps and you find it. But we, we made that one supercharger-compatible, because the client's gonna install one in his house and bunk the system. Otherwise, you try and go to a public Tesla charger, it has to do a handshake and it says, (laughs) "No." Like-

Joe Rogan 1:01:38 Oh, is that what it is?

Jonathan Ward 1:01:39 ... "You may not charge here."

Joe Rogan 1:01:41 So you can have it supercharger-compatible for like... I have one on the wall back there-

Jonathan Ward 1:01:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:45 ... for my car. So it would work with that?

Jonathan Ward 1:01:47 Yes, that's my understanding.

Joe Rogan 1:01:48 Oh, sweet. Like, uh-

Jonathan Ward 1:01:48 But not a public in-, uh, installation.

Joe Rogan 1:01:51 Ah, okay.

Jonathan Ward 1:01:51 Those have to go through a whole handshake protocol-

Joe Rogan 1:01:54 Ah, I see.

Jonathan Ward 1:01:54 ... sending data back and forth.

Joe Rogan 1:01:55 Yeah. That's interesting that they decided to do it that way, you know?

Jonathan Ward 1:01:58 Well, it was fun. We put one, um, behind the front license plate, so we did one of those old school articulating plates, like remember on the gas fullers-

Joe Rogan 1:02:06 Ah.

Jonathan Ward 1:02:06 ... right on the plate? So that has the one interface connector. And then the other one, I machined this unnecessarily groovy sort of gas cap under the original fuel door on the Merc, and then that's for the other style charger.

Joe Rogan 1:02:21 So do you... Oh, so you could charge it with different ones. So the supercharger-

Jonathan Ward 1:02:25 Correct.

Joe Rogan 1:02:25 ... is one.

Jonathan Ward 1:02:25 So depending on... To, to increase the versatility of it-

Joe Rogan 1:02:28 Ah.

Jonathan Ward 1:02:28 ... you had a supercharger fast charge compatibility, and then you had the more widely distributed municipal format charger. And then there's just two different pigtail adapters, so you can go either way with it.

Joe Rogan 1:02:38 Do you anticipate upping the range on that thing? Do you think that someday you'll-

Jonathan Ward 1:02:42 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:02:42 ... swap the batteries out and-

Jonathan Ward 1:02:43 Definitely.

Joe Rogan 1:02:44 ... you know?

Jonathan Ward 1:02:44 I think the reality is, any EV project I build, I have to m- Not only do I anticipate, but like, I've lost many clients because I'll be super blunt about making, managing their expectations that-

Joe Rogan 1:02:57 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 1:02:57 ... "Look, you're gonna spend a lot of money to have me do this. And trust I will geek out and do the best of the state of the art that is available to us. But in a year, that might all be garbage."

Joe Rogan 1:03:07 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 1:03:08 So you have to understand, either you're cool with this moment in time and the range and the performance and it is what it is, or you're a tech geek, like most guys that are engaging in that, and you're gonna be hemorrhaging money then, coming back every couple years for us to upgrade and evolve as the sciences evolve. But, you know, we build on the submodular, even like your Bronco's submodularly built. So your power train, the electrical network for your power train goes to a two single Deutsch tech 26-pin connectors, aerospace connectors. So one day when that power train is no longer relevant, but your truck still has good platform value, unplug that, yank it out, and put in the hydrogen or the microcapacitor or whatever the hell's working at the time. Do you remember the BloomBoxes?

Joe Rogan 1:03:51 No.

Jonathan Ward 1:03:52 Really?

Joe Rogan 1:03:52 What is it?

Jonathan Ward 1:03:53 You know, it's... I've been thinking about them lately. I remember seeing them on 60 Minutes years ago, and I think Google headquarters was powered by one.

Joe Rogan 1:04:00 What is it?

Jonathan Ward 1:04:00 They were these funky little black boxes that had some chemical process of creating energy, and they were like early on massive news promising tech. And they were super groovy little simple boxes. And they originally did it for like campuses and military, like large, um, large, uh, installations for, you know, multiple complexes and stuff.

Joe Rogan 1:04:25 How'd they work?

Jonathan Ward 1:04:25 But then they were also making them for automotive, and they had a prototype. I was so excited. I, uh, I don't remember. It's been years. But it was some sort of... I think it was a ionic transfer process that went through a series of elements within the shielded box to create the energy, but they were like self-sustaining and super groovy. It's called a BloomBox.

Joe Rogan 1:04:49 Anything?

Guest (secondary / off-mic researcher) 1:04:49 Yeah, literally it's just a big black box. It doesn't do anything.

Joe Rogan 1:04:53 What's in there?

Jonathan Ward 1:04:54 And I don't know what happened with them. They went belly up or someone stopped selling 'em.

Joe Rogan 1:04:58 There it is.

Jonathan Ward 1:04:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:59 So that- Uh, 60 Minutes. So that was powering Google at one point in time?

Jonathan Ward 1:05:02 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:03 Those things? And what's inside?

Jonathan Ward 1:05:04 And I think Stanford was getting into it. I don't know. Major mental flashback for me, even that I'm remembering it. It's just one of those things that seemed so promising that then went bye-bye. Same with like toroidal engines. There was a great engineer up in Lodi that was revisiting toroidals. And he had a, he had a Ford Focus that would do his... It's like his daughter's old car with a blown up motor. He had his own toroidal motor that he had developed that could run from the energy in the charged particles in the air.

Joe Rogan 1:05:36 What?

Jonathan Ward 1:05:36 This thing did like 15 miles an hour on a flat test track running on air.

Joe Rogan 1:05:43 Charged particles in the air?

Jonathan Ward 1:05:44 Yes, ionically charged particles in the air.

Joe Rogan 1:05:46 So conceivably, as the technology improved, that 15 miles an hour could be a, a real speed?

Jonathan Ward 1:05:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:53 Wow.

Jonathan Ward 1:05:53 Yeah. And then that same guy, I saw him once at a trade show, and I was exhibiting at the show as well. So I was there on setup day. I was bored out of my gourd. We were... I was already set up in the Ford booth. So I'm just walking around, sort of sniffing around, I see this trippy scientist guy in his lab coat in this shitty little booth that was like, you know, six by ten foot booth in... You know, at a show where people have like 200 by 60 foot booths.

Joe Rogan 1:06:18 Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Ward 1:06:18 And he's got this odd little toroidal thing and then a bigger toroidal thing and literally like a chalkboard. So I'm like, "Dude, what's going on?" So I started talking to him about it. He starts explaining the technology and what he was doing, and like the smaller one had 300 foot pounds of torque. The larger one had 2000. And he was looking to develop it for rail cars, for semis, for...... cars, like, and on and on and on. He's like, "Yeah, the biggest problem is stopping it once it gets going."

Joe Rogan 1:06:45 (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 1:06:45 Because the toroidal structure meant that the compression cycle from, you know, 12 to two of that first cylinder was such that when the combustion occurred and it propelled the next piston into the next combustion cycle and kept going. So getting that power out of the central crank was a challenge, and then how to stop the damn thing was, like, the bigger challenge. But they'd run on, like, horse piss-

Joe Rogan 1:07:09 (laughs) .

Jonathan Ward 1:07:09 ... uh, ionic charged particles, uh, diesel gas. Like, they didn't even need spark plugs. So I'm, like, blown away by this. I go back the next day. Poof. Where'd he go? Booth's gone, empty, done. And I have the guy's info and I try to reach out to him. Website, gone. The website I had looked at the night before, gone. Got gobbled up. Five years later, I see him again at another trade show with another kickass design. And man, was he a bitter man. He's like, "Yeah, never again." Goes, "They bought it and they shelved it. I'm never selling anything again. Fuck 'em. I'm licensing to specific channels of applications and that's it." His new product-

Joe Rogan 1:07:50 So what do you think happened, if you're a conspiracy theorist? Do you think someone bought him out and just wanted to-

Jonathan Ward 1:07:54 Oh, I'm a, I'm a small independent business owner real-

Joe Rogan 1:07:57 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 1:07:58 ... realist in that, hell yeah, someone didn't like that and they shelved that shit.

Joe Rogan 1:08:02 So they bought it and then just shelved it?

Jonathan Ward 1:08:03 Yep.

Joe Rogan 1:08:04 Wow.

Jonathan Ward 1:08:04 So his next product-

Joe Rogan 1:08:06 Who bought it? Who did that?

Jonathan Ward 1:08:07 Um, I don't know and he was very cagey about it. Um, then he had another product where you would replace the alternator in your car with a generator, and you had a small battery in the vehicle, right? So this is a retrofit system. The retail model was brilliant 'cause you'd have, like, a pretty cheesy and expensive three-axis mill, a shit ton of CAD files, and one product on the shelf. So in a lightweight car, it was like an electric supercharger. So you'd replace your alternator and it had a toothed cog, uh, for the pulley, and then your crank pulley would add a toothed cog to it and then toothed belt. So the idea was it would assist the internal combustion engine through its compression cycle. It would negate the parasitic load of all the fiat, all the front engine accessory drive mounted things, you know, your alternator, smog pump or whatever, by pushing the engine through the cycle with the captured electrical energy from the deceleration.

Joe Rogan 1:09:05 Whoa.

Jonathan Ward 1:09:06 And then in bigger cars, it gave you, like, pass assists and range, uh, increase and, and it did great things for MPG. And then the story I got on that one was BMW put him under a big contract for it to license it and use it, and then the guy disappeared off the face of the planet again.

Joe Rogan 1:09:22 Jesus Christ, this guy.

Jonathan Ward 1:09:25 Shit happens.

Joe Rogan 1:09:25 Do you remember, there was a video that was, uh, circulating many years ago about a guy who created a car to run on air.

Jonathan Ward 1:09:33 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:09:33 Uh, no, excuse me, water. He cre- created a car that runs on water. And then this car that ran on water, I mean, he apparently had a viable engine and it was really working. And, uh, and then he, he, he had a heart attack, and as he was dying, he was saying, "They killed me. They killed me." And then he died. (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 1:09:54 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:09:55 And then nobody-

Jonathan Ward 1:09:55 And I even, I never the point-

Joe Rogan 1:09:56 ... heard from the, nobody heard from the w- the water engine again. But, uh-

Guest (secondary / off-mic researcher) 1:10:00 He's from Columbus.

Joe Rogan 1:10:01 ... he's from Columbus too?

Guest (secondary / off-mic researcher) 1:10:02 From city, yeah, south, southeast.

Jonathan Ward 1:10:03 See, that shit happens. And I don't even like the term conspiracy theory because I think that's something created by the machine to negate things that are disruptive and innovative so we can put them in a little box and call it a, a conspiracy theory or whatever-

Joe Rogan 1:10:17 Yes.

Jonathan Ward 1:10:17 ... and, uh, therefore it never happened.

Joe Rogan 1:10:19 Well, anyone who doesn't believe in conspiracy theories, I say look at Jeffrey Epstein.

Jonathan Ward 1:10:23 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:10:24 It's real clear.

Jonathan Ward 1:10:25 So-

Joe Rogan 1:10:25 Uh, Meyer said that his invention could do what physicists say is impossible, turn water into hydrogen fuel efficiently enough to drive his dune buggy cross-country on 20 gallons straight from the tap.

Jonathan Ward 1:10:36 Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:10:36 He took a sip of cranberry juice, then he grabbed his neck, bolted out the door, dropped to his knees, and vomited violently. "I ran outside and asked him, 'What's wrong?'" His brother, Stephan Meyer, uh, recalled he said. "They poisoned me." That was his dying declaration.

Jonathan Ward 1:10:50 That's fucked up.

Joe Rogan 1:10:51 That's fucked up. I don't know if it's true.

Jonathan Ward 1:10:54 He might have been nuts. Um, or both.

Joe Rogan 1:10:56 Or both. Or they might've killed him.

Jonathan Ward 1:10:57 I mean, that's, you know, that's another thing, like-

Joe Rogan 1:10:59 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 1:10:59 ... we like to just call people nuts and write them off.

Joe Rogan 1:11:01 Yeah, well, they're so odd.

Jonathan Ward 1:11:01 But some of the greatest innovators-

Joe Rogan 1:11:03 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 1:11:03 ... uh, you know, throughout the history of mankind have been a little off their rocker and that's part of it-

Joe Rogan 1:11:07 Nicola Tesla was in love with a pigeon.

Jonathan Ward 1:11:09 Totally. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:09 He was in love with a pigeon.

Jonathan Ward 1:11:10 I love that story.

Joe Rogan 1:11:11 Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 1:11:11 His final days, man, in that hotel.

Joe Rogan 1:11:13 Well, there's also a story that I read that I'm trying, I've tried to substantiate th- that apparently he was, uh, he was so frustrated by sexual desires and, uh, a, a love affair that he had, and the distraction that it presented, that he, in quotes, "Destroyed his sexuality." I do not know what that means.

Jonathan Ward 1:11:29 You know what-

Joe Rogan 1:11:30 Whether he castrated himself.

Jonathan Ward 1:11:30 ... I'd like to look into it 'cause I, I gotta say, man, I'm kind of tired of my penis still ruling my brain.

Joe Rogan 1:11:35 (laughs)

Jonathan Ward 1:11:35 You know, at 50 it's like I, I wouldn't mind to be able to take it off-

Joe Rogan 1:11:39 You wanna look into it?

Jonathan Ward 1:11:39 ... and leave it at home.

Joe Rogan 1:11:40 Jesus.

Jonathan Ward 1:11:41 Well, no, I mean, just, like, enough already. Like-

Joe Rogan 1:11:44 Enough already.

Jonathan Ward 1:11:44 ... eh, you know.

Joe Rogan 1:11:45 I get it. Yeah.

Jonathan Ward 1:11:46 I mean, I, like, turn it on, turn it off as needed and when appropriate.

Joe Rogan 1:11:49 Maybe you can engineer something.

Jonathan Ward 1:11:50 But like, I don't want to be walking around like...

Joe Rogan 1:11:52 Maybe have a hip switch.

Jonathan Ward 1:11:54 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:11:54 Just, like, something you can just (clicks tongue) like, set it aside...

Jonathan Ward 1:11:57 (laughs)