April 4, 2024 • 39 mins
Sung and Emelia's interview with Brian Scotto is back for a rebroadcast to coincide with the video version debut on the @CarStoriesPodcast YouTube channel.
Sung and Emelia sit down with Hoonigan co-founder, Brian Scotto. Brian shares how his early dual passions for cars and storytelling were foundational for his future in the car world. They also talk about creative evolution, legacy building, as well the late great Ken Block. And if you live in a nice neighborhood, Sung might be sleeping outside your house...
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
All right, welcome back to another episode of Car Stories.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
With Soun King and Amelia Hartford, and.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Today we get to talk to an old friend of ours,
Brian Scotto, one of the founders of Hunigan, and just
had an illustrious journey in his life from wanting to
be an engineer to being a journalist and eventually founding
one of the most influential car content.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Media houses today. You know, I've known Brian for quite
some time and he's always been such a huge supporter,
but I don't know that I got to hear his
story to the level that we heard it in this conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, and we got to talk about inspiration, inspiration one
leaves on this earth before we.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Go away, Yeah, and also the different eras or chapters
that he feels he's had in his life, and also
what's to come.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
All right, Well, so enjoy this conversation with our old buddy,
Brian Scotto. So, Brian, speaking to driving, Let's start with
the seed that got you into.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Cars, Like, where did that start? Getting my background?
Speaker 5 (01:09):
I grew up in New York City and as you know,
it's like the capital of driving cars. Right, No, absolutely
not like a lot I still have friends who are
in their forties that never got their driver's license because
like the subway is great and like ride bikes, like
you don't really need you don't really need cars. But
my grandfather he was like a rags to riches story.
(01:29):
And when he did make money later on in his
life and like his like sort of like mid fifties,
he just spent it all on cars.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
So he actually passed away when I was eight.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
But when he passed away he had I think like
eighteen or nineteen cars. So for me, like having this
like huge horde of cars is like kind of just normal.
That was sort of like what I grew up around.
And he had like a really weird mix of stuff.
He had everything from like Auburn's and like a bunch
of other like you know, and then pre war cars.
But then he also had he had two core of
(02:00):
bets are actually I guess he had three corvettes. He had
a Dolorean, which like you have to understand, like as
a kid, like.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
You don't remember this time because you're you're a youngster.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
Don't no, no, I know you know what it is,
but you don't remember when Back to the Future was
in theaters.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
As a kid, like that was just the coolest thing,
and that car felt like it was the future.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
It felt like it was the coolest thing. Ever.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
He only had it for a short period of time
because he bought it and was like, this thing's junk.
And that also kind of crushed me because my Grandfa's
like this car is trash, Like I don't want it.
But but I got to like be around all that.
And I think I was like six and I was
in the passenger seat of his fifty seven that we
were like on this two lane road out in the
Hampton's and uh, we were his buddy like went to
(02:44):
go past him because he was like kind of driving
slow with me, and my grandfather like just dropped second
gear and like broke the tires free and like the
car was like all over the place. And he turned
to me and he just said, don't I tell your
mom about that. And it was just this moment that
like after that, I was like I want to do
that like that like that seems like so much fun.
So yeah, that kind of just stuck with me. And
then from there. When I was young, I was really pragmatic,
(03:07):
so like everybody else that was into cars I knew
were like reading hot Rod magazine all that when they
were like thirteen fourteen, and I was like, I can't
afford a car now, so you know, I can't even
drive on the ability to get a license.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
So I got really into like RC cars.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
I was like heavily into that, Like I started my
own RC car club and like I started like making
my own like parts and stuff like that. And then
and then as I got older, I was I was
also really into snowboarding, skateboarding, riding BMX, and cars became
this important thing to like get to the skate park
or get to the mountain to go ride or do
something like that. And at that time in the mid nineties,
(03:43):
like Volkswagens kind of were like sort of at the
forefront of that. I felt like like every they were
doing commercials with K two and Trek and there was
this huge community of people in the snowboard world who
all had like Volkswagens and Audi's. So I ended up
getting into that and then like super fell into it,
started my own car club, and you know, it was
always it was always that like hobby side, so but
like that was it was a weird one for me
because none of my childhood friends were into cars. It's
(04:07):
like all like it just wasn't a thing. Like for
the longest time. Cars was sort of this like secret
hobby for me, right, Like I was writing graffiti and
like doing all this other stuff like riding bikes and
all this stuff with my friends. I like that's what
like a normal New York City life was. But I
also like really really enjoyed car culture, and it was
just it felt hidden for me, Like, you know, going
to the New York Auto Show was like the only
(04:28):
thing that felt like I was like a part of
car culturehen I was a teenager, you know, Otherwise it
didn't really exist, Like I lived in a neighborhood where
people didn't have fancy cars, Like cars were just were
just transportation.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, it sounds like, well, anytime I speak to you,
you know, like you would have been a great like
class president, great at like organizing people together. Yeah, where
does that come from? Is that from the grandfather or
your dad?
Speaker 4 (04:53):
I think it's from my mom, my mom.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
Both my parents are scientists, and my mom has very
much like that leadership kind of administrative personality.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
That's just like how she is.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Yeah, and actually my mom is the reason I started
a car club because I bought this Volkswagen. It was
a four door Mark three slammed like way too low
even back then, and I was like sitting at home
and it was like the summer, and I like I
just was complaining to my mom. I'm like, yeah, just
like a bummer, Like I don't really know anyone who's
into cars. And although a few people I've met, like
(05:25):
they're all Honda guys and like I just didn't like
have akin to them. It was like a different world
from the VW side. My mom said like, well, why
don't you just like start your own car club.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
It was like nineteen.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
I'm like, oh, like how would I do that. She's like,
I don't know, go figure it out, Like just I'm
sure you can figure it out. And I did that
start my own car club, and within a year later,
like we had like thirty members. But what was the
important part was like we started doing events. So we
started doing a monthly cruise. So we did this thing
called the car club was called auto Creek and which
like loosely translates in German too like automotive competition or
(05:59):
something like auto wars whatever.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
When I was nineteen. It sounded great, but we started it.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
It was like this small group of people who were
like basically lived in like New York City and a
little bit of Long Island, and at least we started
and from there we started doing events, and we came
up with this idea which like I look back at
it now as an adult who has like things that
like people could take for me in a lawsuit. And
I realized, like how little wyability like we had on
any of this.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
But we'd started this cruise.
Speaker 5 (06:27):
We found a bunch of windy roads out Long Island,
which realized, like growing up in New York, like it's
a grid, so like there was no fun roads to drive.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
So there was obviously a street race.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Community that like operated a lot in Brooklyn and Queens,
but I wasn't really into that. Like I went and
I enjoyed watching it and it was kind of like
fun to be a part of that until Fast and
Furious came out and ruined the entire city.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
We'll talk about that later, But.
Speaker 5 (06:50):
I was more into like the dynamic element, right like
corners and like driving.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Canyon style roads.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
Well, not that we had that in New York, but
we did have some windy, like you know, forest roads
out Long Island, so I like I went, I found
them all and we started doing this event. We called
it Full Moon Full Throttle, and the idea was the
Friday closest to the full Moon.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
We would meet in a like a rest area.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Off of the Long Island Expressway at midnight and then
we would go drive the roads for like two and
a half hours and then go home. And like, it
started with twenty cars and by the time we did
the last one, we had one hundred and seventy five
cars show up.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (07:25):
And I was like twenty years old trying to organize
this with like walkie talkies and like, and like we
through all of it. We only had we only had
two accidents the whole time, and they were like minor,
like you know, slide off, hit a rim or hit
a telephone pole. No one else ever got hurt, but like,
it was amazing that we did them for I think
we did twenty three or twenty four of them. So
we ran it for two years as a monthly event.
(07:46):
So I went from feeling like there was no community
around that to sort of creating something that became this
hub for all of it, and then we also did
a car show event because at the time, like car
shows were like really really stressful, Like back then it
was like you have to be here rollins at six am,
like you've got to be and you can't leave till
four pm and blah blah blah blah, and and you
got to be standing by your car for these four
(08:07):
hours so when the judges come by, like you can
walk them through the car. And I was like, that
wasn't what I wanted. I just wanted this like cool
hangout experience, and we created it. We did this event
called Dub and Grub, and we made it like people's
choice so that way, like people didn't really get that
stressed about like judging, like just come and hang out
and like it's.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
Pot luck, like bring your own meals.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
And by the time we got to like the third
or fourth one, like people were like cooking pigs and
like bringing full pigs to the event. Like it was
this like amazing experience because you also think of like
how culturally diverse Queens is, which is where we had
the event, So it's like the amount of different types
of food we had there was like awesome. So it
just became this like rad like feast for all these
(08:46):
people in the car community, especially in the volks like
nowity it started to grow bigger than that later on
to do and I think that's when I realized, like,
as much as I enjoyed cars myself, a big part
of it was like the community around cars and like
all of that, and and you know, you fast forward
from there and two of the guys who were in
my car club like fifteen years later stood next to
me at my wedding. So yeah, to me, the car
(09:07):
community part of it was always the big part of it,
and like being able to tie that into like going
driving and doing all of that. So yeah, that was
I don't know, I kind of spot you asked me
one question when my grid got back here we are now,
So yeah, that was like and that was at the time.
It's crazy because so I was going to school and
I'm sitting here like bailing on class so I could
(09:29):
like plan these events. And it's funny because at the
time I was like I knew how just like irresponsible
that was, but like I just was, I was enjoying
it so much. But now looking at where I sit today,
I'm like I should skip more classes and learn more
of it because I was learning more doing all that.
And I was also like using things at school to
be able to like design flyers, like I'm going into
(09:52):
like the computer lab and like using the equipment to
like do stuff for my car club. And at no
point while I was doing that that I think that
this was going to be my career. Instead, I saw
it as like this major distraction from what I was
trying to do in school. And put all of that together.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Why engineering, where'd you start there?
Speaker 5 (10:09):
Calculus all of that stuff like was second nature to me,
So I was like, oh, you know math really well,
then you should go and do engineering.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
You know, you take your aptitude tests and you're like, oh, I.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
Should either be an underwater welder or I should be
an engineer. And it was like I hate swimming, so
I was like, I guess I'll be an engineer. And
I liked I wanted to design cars and build stuff,
and that's where I thought my engineering degree would go.
It's still like how my brain works and what I
really enjoy is like making things, and that's even how
I approach content and like creative is like the I
(10:42):
enjoyed the building of things right, Like, that's the thing
I really enjoy and and I think it was very
obvious to me early on in engineering program that like,
I was never going to be one of the best,
I was going to be someone else's number monkey, which
meant I was never going to get to like lead
design and like and be that. Instead, I'd be the
one helping someone else do it. That made me lose
(11:03):
a bit of interest in it. I mean, this ends
up being an entire podcast about my college career.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
But did you get your degree?
Speaker 4 (11:08):
I did not. I'm six credits short. I ended up trading.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
I ended up like third year, three and a half
years in, I take a journalism class, and like I
fell in love.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
I was.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
It was the first time where I wouldn't miss class.
I loved it and it was one of my favorite things.
And I also had a fantastic professor because she actually
because it was my elective, I didn't take it as
seriously as a lot of my other stuff, even though
I enjoyed it. But when it came down to finals,
I was like more thrashing on all these other classes
that one I was barely showing up to and I.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
Needed to study for and this class. I thought, like,
I like, I'm doing well on it, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
And I handed in my final article late and she
gave me a D.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
And I was like, oh, this sucks.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
Like I wanted to do the minor, but like now
I got to go back and take this class again
for it to apply for my minor. I was like, oh,
I guess I'm not going to do it. So I
ended up backing out of the program. And she called
me and said, hey, I saw that you. You know, I
saw that you backed out of the program. And she
basically gave me the story of like, look in journalism,
if you're late, it doesn't print, so it didn't happen, right,
(12:11):
but you're but she kind of gave me that pep
talk of like you have a really good knack for this.
I don't want to see you drop the minor, like
I will retroactively fix this, but you need to go
and you know, maintain a grade of whatever in the
rest of the program and do all of this. So
uh's toughly kind it was, but it was in the end,
it didnematics when I ever got my diploma. But what
mattered was in a world of like I had only
(12:33):
ever been applauded for my scientific side of like thinking.
She was the first person to ever say like, you're
good at storytelling. You understand this, Like this is something
that I think you really should chase after. So then
I started taking film classes and you know, and all
these different media classes and everything shift, and all of
a sudden, I was like really interested to go to
(12:54):
school again, and I really enjoyed it. This has been
a bit of a decided I think this isn't car stories.
It's not like college stories.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
But no, cars are the connective tissue of what brings
us all here.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Yeah, and you're a story Like your trajectory is so
clear to what you do and what you've built today,
from organizing a car crew to entrepreneurship to engineering essentially
building with your hands to ye.
Speaker 5 (13:21):
In a weird way, it all like lined up like
when it was happening. I don't think I was like, yeah,
I'm on this great trajectory, like well it's happening. You're like, oh,
this just didn't this didn't work out, this failed out.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
You know.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
There was certainly a period of time where you know,
I got that talk from my dad which was like,
you know, maybe school is not for you, Like maybe
you should, you know, join the labor union, maybe should
go do that, you know something something, And and you know,
my dad came from from like a blue collar family,
so he was like, maybe that's maybe like what you
need to go do, because like you're not enjoying school
and I wasn't. And then it all just sort of
(13:54):
turned around and I realized that like the things that
made me happy. And my dad used to always refer
to it as like pink collar, which was like I
enjoy the white collar work of creative, but I need
to touch it and be a part of it. And
like even when we're on set filming, like I always
talk to the grips because like I enjoy building erector
sets to mount cameras to think.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I love that pink color. I'm gonna borrow that.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Pink Essentially, what you do today is storytelling from I
mean literally storytelling with content creation, but also building cars.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Every car is a story, Oh.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
Yeah for sure, Yeah sure, And that's like such a
big part for me is the story of cars. Like
we we always talk about this internally attunigans, like cars
need to name because once you name them, then like
they stand out and they have a personality alive.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Do you have a name for Sienna?
Speaker 1 (14:39):
No, I've been you know, after you talked to it.
That's probably. Well, I have two cars that I don't.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Have names because you're really good with naming your vehicles.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yeah, well you know cause I but I can't name
them until they have to. I have to have my
hands on it and I have to spend time with it.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
But at the same time, you don't want to build
the Siena up because you and I have talked about this,
like why don't you have wheels on it?
Speaker 4 (14:59):
Because then it's I don't you like the practicalness of it?
Right now?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
That's what it's low key, like I'm invisible. Yeah I
can if it's all pimped out. I can't park in
front of like your house, just sleepy.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
Like what is with those big little different? How different
his thought process is on cars than mine and yours?
Set Like we're sitting there being like, all right, how
much power can the tank before I put a window
through the block? Right, He's sitting there going can I
sleep in the back in Beverly Hills?
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Well, wake me up exactly?
Speaker 5 (15:34):
But the windows dark enough that they won't see me,
but the cops won't pull me over. Like, what's that threshold?
This is where this is where his brain's at. This
is my favorite side of you. You're like, oh yeah,
Sun Kang, Like, oh yeah, that's my buddy. He like
sleeps in his van, like outside of the people's houses.
You know him from Fast and Furious. Yeah, No, I
(15:55):
know him as the guy who sleeps in a van.
He's that guy.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
I'd love to see the neighbor just walk out and
knock to be like, who's sleeping around here?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
And it's you that crawls out of the of the seattle.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Well, I'm sure that he.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
There's been photos of him on next door where people
are like suspicious, man, he drives around a mini doesn't
meany kids, There's something wrong with this guy.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
It's funny.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Is that either people really love the fact that I
drive a minivan, right and they're like, you d have
a minivan? That's so awesome, or it's complete disappointment.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Right, it's not the yeah, the fact thought it was
going to be. Yeah, they don't.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
They don't. They don't want that. Yeah, show up to
Valet and they're like, I come out and they're like,
oh my god, and they're like, what are you driving
minivan for? And I try to explain to him. I'm like, hey,
man has eighteen couples thirty six miles a gaunt.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Oh, I get it.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
There's certain like I'll go to meetings and I know that,
like as when I show up, people can be like,
what did you drive?
Speaker 4 (17:05):
You're like, if.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
You don't drive something fun, then like then like you
lose that perception thing. So sometimes I'm definitely like sat
in trafficking cards. I don't want to drive to go
to places, and then you get there and you're like, oh,
no one even cared what I drive. Yeah, like I
could have just driven something with air conditioning and a.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Not so stiff clutch, yeah exactly.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Or something I didn't have to stop three times slightly
cool down on the way there.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
So I want to talk about legacy, you know, when
you guys built out hun again, like do you did
you feel like this is going to be your legacy?
Speaker 4 (17:37):
And how do you feel about that now?
Speaker 5 (17:40):
It's interesting, I legacy is like such a weird, weird
thing to think about. I think there's a quote somewhere.
I don't know if everyone's seen it. Or is in
something that Ken was like, I hate the word legacy
because if you're talking about my legacy, it means I'm dead,
which like hit really hard when like you're watching that afterwards.
But I think when you are building something saying, when
(18:00):
you're in it, you're just kind of in it and
you want to build something great. But I think once
it starts to become successful is when the legacy thing
starts to creep in. Like when you're just building it,
you're just trying to make something right, Like, I don't
think when I was building Zero to sixty, I don't
think there was ever a moment in my life where
I was at no point because we were still The
(18:22):
magazine died early, so it was like, you know, it
died because the print industry died.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
So like I don't think we.
Speaker 5 (18:26):
Ever achieved any kind of greatness with it, right, But
I'll be places and people will be like, man, I
love Zero to sixty. And I realized like there was
this small little legacy that we built. It wasn't really intentional.
It was like we were just trying to make something
great and trying to make something different, and we really
loved that magazine and we poured so much into it
as a team, everyone who was involved with it. And
(18:47):
I think when we were doing Hoonigan, I don't think
I started to think about the legacy of like what
Hoonigan was and you know, and then like what it
had done and like what the culture change and shift
around it until probably a couple of years ago. And
I think you actually start to do that as like
the company itself shifts. People leave and you know, and
(19:09):
you realize, like that's like an era that just ended,
you know, And that's I think a hard thing for
people to understand is I think when you watch Unigan
from the outside, you know, you think about it as
like a group of friends, like at the end of
the day, like it's employees, and like people do different
things in life, and sometimes people either you know, want
to go do their own thing, they don't want to
(19:30):
do it anymore.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
You guys both know.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
This, and I think this is something that is hard
for people to understand who don't understand it. Is like
fame affects different people differently, right, and some people enjoy it,
some people like really come to life, some people that
changes their personalities, and other people hate it, right, and
they really don't want to be around it. And I
will tell you in my experience, the people that you
think love it actually hate it because they're kind of
(19:56):
acting the whole time and then they turn it off
and they don't want to be around it it anymore.
And I think that like a lot of that happened
to Tune again, is we started to really sort of explode,
Like twenty sixteen to like twenty eighteen was sort of
this like just we just kept getting bigger and bigger
and bigger, and all of a sudden, like you're getting
recognized in airports and it's not even a car events anymore,
Like you know, you're out to dinner and people are
(20:17):
recognizing you.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
And I think.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
For a lot of us that was there was an
element of that and hurt and I used to always
joke about this, which was like we're famous, but we
don't have famous money. So like you're famous, but you're
sitting coach next to somebody who now is talking to
you NonStop and you just like want to watch your
movie and like not deal with that, you know. And
(20:39):
I think when that started to happen, I started to
realize we were never going to be the company we
were anymore, Like when we stopped making Daily Transmission. I
think that was maybe the first time that I started
to think about like I say, I don't know if
I put that word on it, but I realized like
that was an end of an era, like we were
never going to go back and make that again. And
at a certain point, yeah, yeah, that was like the
(21:00):
show everybody loved and everyone enjoyed it. But I think
at a certain point, like the crew just didn't enjoy
making it anymore. And that came through, you know, and
you try to like make it work, but it doesn't.
And then we went and did something else and we
all did the show's comeback Labs, and we loved it.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
It was so much fun to make that right.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
And and you know it's like bands like you love
your you love a band's first album. You just love
that first album and you just want them to go
back and make that first album. But when they were
making that first album, like they didn't have the things
that came with the second album, the third album. They
you know, they did it in a rented studio from
a friend or you know, they they lie cheat steel,
(21:40):
you know, they did whatever hook or crook to be
able to make that album, and you lose a lot
of that energy once you become successful, and then it's
not as easy to get back to that stuff, and
then it starts to become disingenuous. And I think as
I grew something like Cunigan and even with Ken Block,
you start to go back to things where you're like,
we don't enjoy this as a group to make this
(22:00):
as much as we used to. We want to do
something new, and then the audience doesn't always want that new,
so you kind of were like in this weird world
of like you're trying to deliver something that maybe doesn't
serve for you. You know, I love new things, so
like for me, and there's a famous quote I think
on the Amazon Prime thing from Ken where Ken was like,
if it works, we're going to keep doing it. But
(22:21):
Scotta wants to do something different just because he's bored,
and like there was that for me. Like for me,
there was this really exciting era and our audience jokes
about it a lot because it's like they always like, oh,
another new show, because we were just launching like all
new show ideas. Because I just wanted to build and
build and build, and once I realized that like YouTube
deleted the gatekeeper and I could like just make TV
(22:43):
style shows and put them up on YouTube. And I
was able to find enough funding to be able to
support all of that. We went for it. We're all
of them good. Nah, some of them were okay, but
some of them were really fun. We did the show
called Build and Battle, which was fantastic. We did we
did a bunch of adventure stuff that was great. We
did come Back Labs, which I loved. We launched a
whole content series around Ken, which like he fought me
(23:03):
on because he didn't really want to do it. But
there was a lot of stuff that we did that
was like a lot of fun in that era, And
once the error is behind you, you're like you realize
the value of it later on. I think it's very
hard to understand the value of it when you're in it,
And I think if you worry too much about the
value of it when you're in it, then you're like
looking at the wrong reasons to do it. But I
think there is definitely there's definitely this balance of like
(23:27):
serving an audience and making them happy, and there's this
big joke that's like my title is chief creative officer,
but I get called two other things. One is chief
complication officer because I just complicate everything because I enjoy
complications and chaos. And the other one is chief comment
officer because like I read a lot of the comments
from the audience, right, and I know some people don't
(23:48):
like to Do you read your Do you read your comments?
Speaker 4 (23:50):
I do you do?
Speaker 3 (23:50):
I if we're talking YouTube specifically, I'll read the first
couple of days, and then after that I kind of
don't really go back.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
I really only need the first six or seven hours
because like that's where you get a lot of it.
But after that the comments kind of change because now
you're getting outsiders who aren't really your core audience anymore.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
So you do read them. Yeah, I was wondering because
some people.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Don't I try to respond to them.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
I mean, I I have my phases, like sometimes I
just really won't be in the mood to accidentally stumble
across something that it's.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Super negative or get toxic, so then.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I won't put myself in the situation room. But I
enjoy hearing the audience's feedback because it's always going to
be honest.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
Yeah, I mean I think you always have to look
at it like an outlier situation. The super super super
positive stuff just ignore it, like they will just say
everything's coat right. And the super super negative stuff that's
like weirdly toxic. They've got a problem with something else,
just ignore it and like find that stuff.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
In the middle.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
I used to not even read them.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
I think anyone who's female in our space sometimes gets
really fucking creepy shit, but also like some like unnecessarily
fucking toxic.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
Boy.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
Oh yeah, I actually think it, replied to one on
yours one like stuff, the fuck you need to check
yourself real quick.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I never like to play the female card.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
No, I know, I know. But at the same time,
it's like people say things I'm like, you wouldn't say
that to me.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
The criticism that I get because of my gender versus
someone else, like I have to put I always feel
like I have to work twice.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
It's hard to get half the respect, for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
I read a great comment the other day that just
made me laugh. They had some video of me and
they were like, oh, it's it's it's on And then
this guy wrote, it's like man Han is turning into
Chai on fat because my face looked a little fat
and actually.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
Made I spit up my drink and I was like,
this guy is super clever.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Commenters will get a good knock and you're like, oh,
it's pretty fit to sit. Am I getting a little fat?
Maybe I need to exercise a little bit more. Oh god,
it's hilarious.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Well, because I like, obviously, for me, the big joke
is like most my cars don't run. I bought that
farm and someone named it Avascato because it's avocado farm, and.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
I was like, that's pretty good.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
And then it was like Avascotto Farms, and then someone
added ava Scatto Farms in Salvage because I have a
bunch of I was like, this is great. I was like,
I'm just going to steal all your guys names.
Speaker 7 (26:08):
It's fantastic, Avascotto Farms and salvage. It's funny, like at
the end, salvage is great because you're like, what, so, yeah,
I got a bunch of cars parks on the property.
Speaker 5 (26:19):
But anyway, where were we before the Yeah? I know,
I mean, look, obviously I dealt a lot this year
with like the legacy of Kem Block. I mean that
was something that was very much you know, in front
just front of brain. I mean it was front of brain,
probably earlier than it should have been. Like I was
still dealing with and trying to like understand what it happened,
(26:43):
but also thinking about, like how do we message this
right like like we have to do that and I
and then you know when on the first day, like
I couldn't even deal with the situation I had Ron.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
I was like, hey, dude, you need to.
Speaker 5 (26:55):
Like ron Ziras, who's like always been like my second
hand and work directly with Ken for years.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
I was like, I need you to do this because
like I can't deal with this right now.
Speaker 5 (27:04):
And like, I think we had some we had some
fun moments in that cause we were I don't say
fun funds of the wrong word, but we had moments
that made a smile, which was we had this thing
of like if we had to send this to Ken
right now, would he even approve this or like he
just like rip us apart for this, you know, And
that kind of kept kept him alive in a way
for us. But like I think you look at the
legacy side of it, and it became very important to
(27:26):
like a lot of other people around him. Obviously Lucy
and the family, and it's like, well, yeah, how does Ken,
you know, how does Ken get remembered through all of this?
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Right?
Speaker 5 (27:34):
And like the things that like I knew were like
really important to Ken, and like what Ken wanted to see?
Speaker 4 (27:40):
You know what what mattered to Ken? Right?
Speaker 5 (27:42):
And I think you know the thing is like Ken
will always be famous for the Jimcna films, but like
Ken loved being a rally car driver, Like that was
a thing he loved, but he also loved being like
the marketing person and like understanding the audience. Like I
think all of us, you know who knew Ken from
the automotive side, don't realize that, Like he'd already had
(28:03):
twenty years of like being a very successful businessman in
the marketing space, and like that was a big part
of his identity, right, And it's like for me, that's
like what my identity is, right, Like I'm not a
race car driver, like Mike can stitch together a decent
time on a track, but like that's not who I am.
And that's like and like he didn't become that till later.
He didn't start racing until he was thirty six, right,
(28:24):
so he already had this like very successful thing that
he did with eight ball and drawers and dub and
obviously DC shoes, you know, and all that. And he
had all these other people who like in many ways
owe their careers, you know, in many parts to him,
right whether and like Legends, right, Rob Deerdic, Danny Way,
all these people who like Ken was the person who
(28:44):
helped them go chase these really big ideas, right, And
Ken was that for me too. And I think it's
weird because like as we walked away from like all
of this, and we had this memorial for Ken, which
was really amazing. It was really difficult, but it was
really amazing, and like there was just this constant thing
that we're here. It's five hundred people who all knew Ken, right,
Like everyone here had either worked with him, worked for him,
(29:07):
was friends with him, his family, and so like these
are the people who like really knew Ken, right, this
isn't just the people who knew him from Afar. It
was like this one thing that just kept repeating, and
it was like Ken was so good at creating opportunity
for people. He never gave it away for free, Like
you had to work hard for it. It was never
free but he could like spot things in people and
then like basically expect it from you, right, And I
(29:30):
was like, that was what he did. And I think
about like what I want Ken's legacy to be, and
you know, and I don't really think about my own,
but I like, I hope I'm remembered well. But like
I think in Ken's legacy, it's so easy for people
to be like, oh, he was this amazing driver, right,
and like Jim Kanna and like all of that, and
like that's like very superficial.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
And I think that's a very simple one to look at.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
But if you look at it more of like, well,
Ken created this opportunity for so many of us because
like he rewrote the paradigm of like, right, this word
is overused, but like he disrupted automotive motive sport, like
he already disrupted automotive marketing in motorsports one hundred percent.
I remember how people couldn't understand why we did things
the way we did, Like we were working in WRC
(30:14):
and the FIA, and they were like threatening to find
me because I wasn't sending out press releases and I'm like,
why do I have to sound on a press release?
Like we're going to do this on Facebook, that we're
gonna speak directly to our audience. We're going to reach
more people than our email list. They're going to get
to like why does this matter?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
You know?
Speaker 5 (30:28):
And it seemed normal for us, but it was really
like taking a different approach at it. And you know,
so like I think, in a lot of ways, I
hope that right now, you know, it's it's not even
been a year, and I think everyone it just misses
him from like what he gave the community to me.
I hope that in ten years from now, if you
(30:48):
look back and you know, someone does a you know,
a retrospective or a doc on like the importance of Ken.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
I think a lot of it.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
Is that I think he really helped kind of usher
in like a different way of like the automotive world
sort of looking at like entertainment and like the value
of marketing and doing things different and bringing all of
that in and and I think that that, you know,
in a way, like I think he would be happier
with that legacy than just like, oh he was the
guy that did Jim Kana, but like it was more
(31:16):
than Jim ConA. I mean even just the idea to
you know, to create some you know hoonigan and to
to do all of that.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
I mean, we were.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
Very much were kind of at a forefront of when
all that stuff was happening, and then in a way
I think paved a path for so many other people
before the Jim Conna films, BMW or Porschal, Like they
weren't asking for cars to be slid around in commercials
like that like changed the way that people saw cars
as exciting. And like you talk to people in the
Hollywood world and they'll be like, oh, yeah, we changed
(31:46):
the way that we did stunt driving after we saw
the Jim ConA films, right, and like so like that
was this cool inspiration behind it. But it's like it's
not just the films. It's like what did the films
effect that created this longer lasting change.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
I mean, and it sucks to.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
Say this, but like there's this thought of like, man,
you wish you could hear what people say about you
after you're gone, Like if Ken could just see the
amount of appreciation that he has now that like maybe
he didn't.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Realize was there while he was alive.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
And I think like that's like what like real legacy
looks like because it wasn't just the thing he made.
You can make a great film where you can make
a great statue or whatever, but like, but how did
that inspire someone else? Like I think that's the important
legacy because if you just did something that was really
cool but it didn't make someone else do something really
cool out of it, well, then then what is that
(32:35):
that I think is a real legacy versus just being like, oh,
they were the best at this, that's cool, but like,
were they the best at it and inspired someone else
to be better?
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Like that's kind of cool because.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
I'll hear people sometimes like, oh, these guys are like
they're way better than you now, And I'm like, yeah,
but I also know that, like they've told me that,
like we like helped pave the way for them, so
like I hope they're better. Because if you do something
and then the person who comes up behind you doesn't
do it better, like although you you bushwhacked, the next
person has to clear the path, and then the person
after that has to pave it, and the person after
(33:06):
that puts in some railings and then some lights and
you know, eventually have a nice little sidewalk right and
it's like, but everyone has to improve that.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Path, especially if you went down at first, right, And.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
I'm not saying that we were entirely first, but we
were pretty early on a lot of it, and you know,
I think that that's part of that legacy, is like being.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
A part of that community side of it.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
I think you definitely in what you guys have built
over and have inspired so many people, you know, and
that just you know, not just in the car community,
but what you said early on, which I think, you know,
it's stuck with me this whole conversation and it'll take
away is you know, just.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Go figure it out.
Speaker 6 (33:58):
To my mom said, shit, don't be an asshole. Yeah,
what a great lesson. Figuring it out. Caron is such
a great thing from both the content side of this,
even just like how to how to make something work
on a car and you're like, I don't know, I
guess I'll just I mean, the amount of other people's
YouTube stuff I watched to make my own YouTube stuff
is incredible and it's a.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Good tool to have to just learn how to figure
things out. You don't have to be right, but it's
taking the initiative to get out of your comfort zone.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
Oh yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
You were talking about different eras being different things that
you enjoy at the time in your life. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I was gonna ask, what are you enjoying now?
Speaker 5 (34:36):
I don't know if I've thought about today. I definitely
have thought about, like what are some of the peak
moments for me right like just in my career. I'm
in my forties, start to think about things like that.
But like zero sixty magazine was like a really big peak.
It was so much fun and it felt so adventurous,
and we had no idea what we were doing and
we were just faking it till we make it, and
that was super fun. Obviously, the similar thing in early
(34:57):
hunigaan daily Transmission era was great. I think something else
that's really interesting for me now is I'm watching like
a major shift in content in the space, you know,
so like looking more at like what the future of
Hoonigan can be in like a short form space, and
also being like more collaborative with other people right now
(35:20):
is like really where like my interests lie instead of
you know, kind of for a long time. I will
say like Honigan had its collaborative years, but we also
very much had like our sort of like Rock of
Solitude style.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
I've always seen you guys being very collaborative and supportive
of other careers.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
We're definitely supportive, I think. I think if I have any.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
Regrets, is I wish we would have pushed harder, and
not that we still can't, but like I wish we
had like worked harder to like have just done more
like things like let's just do a show with Amelia that,
like you know, like that I think is where I
really wanted to get to more earlier on.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
And we did a bit with some people.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
But I.
Speaker 5 (35:56):
Look at the space now and I think that the
more collaborative of the whole space can be, just the
more powerful we all are as a sort of like
maybe you want to call us influencers, creators, what the
hell it is, But like I think there's a lot
of value in that.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Well maybe that's the next are Yeah, maybe.
Speaker 5 (36:11):
That's the next err And like I said, I think
that that's the part I'm kind of excited about now
is is that stuff.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
And I love like the.
Speaker 5 (36:17):
Energy of like a lot of the young, you know,
like sort of up and coming creators. Like let's just say,
like the sub hundred thousand followers like that because they're
still still new and exciting for them, and you know,
that's there's something really there's a great energy there and.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
Like I don't I don't totally lose that energy.
Speaker 5 (36:35):
And I think this is the thing that frustrates a
lot of people sometimes is like I have a new
idea and I get excited about it, like it's the
first idea I ever had, right, and like that I like,
but I also want everyone else to have that level
of excitement too, And I think sometimes you know, you
you need to shift things up and have and work
with different people on that. And I also think that
(36:55):
other people need to shift their things up and work
with different people. Like like Hurts a perfect example. I
love her. He's like a brother to me. He was
like employee number four and now like he's going and
chasing something new. He's still friends and family with Hunigan.
We'll still make content with him, but like he's chasing
this whole other thing on his own and stuff he's
doing with Tea Pain, and it's like that's rad.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Like people need to go do that.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
They need to kind of like go break up the
model of doing different stuff and you know, and I
that to me is kind of exciting, is to kind
of watch like what happens with sort of that the
extended family. And I think it goes back to what
I said at the beginning of this conversation of like
the Auto Creek side I went to my car club,
there's only twenty five of us in it, but we
would have all these other car clubs that would come
out and do everything with us. And I really would
(37:39):
love to like make sure that we like shift more
back into that and get more on the like, hey, come,
you know, we want you to be a part of this.
We want you to do this, like let's make some
cool stuff together. Because the broadness of that is to
me what makes everything has always been the fun part
of Hunigan. And then the other thing I've just been
enjoying kind of like fully embracing my own weirdness and
(38:02):
the stuff I like and just dealing with that instead of, like,
I know, you know this, instead of making stuff for
the audience, making stuff for myself and then hoping that
an audience shows up, Like I've really leaned back into
like my Volkswagen roots.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
I enjoy it. I know it's not exactly.
Speaker 5 (38:17):
What everybody in the audience wants, but like it kind
of makes me happy, and then that that helps me
drive the other creative that makes the audience happy. It's
this weird thing. You got to do enough stuff that
like you still kind of enjoy that. So I think
right now, it's an interesting it's an interesting time, And
a big one of that really is like just looking
at like how everything is shifting and social and the
(38:39):
whole space we're in. We can get into a whole
conversation of like I kind of think social media is
ruining the society, but the same time, we all work
in it as a business, like trying to kind of
lever and live in between those. And I think you
do obviously know that, you know, and like mental health
is a big part of like your you know, I
think your storyline and everything in there, and like, you know,
being the piece on social that's the positive part and
(39:00):
not the negative part. And I think it's like super
important for us in the car industry because like we
shouldn't be the negative part. We should be the part
that makes you excited to go build and inspire you
to do stuff and that make you feel bad about
yourself kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
So I'm excited to see what comes in your guys'
next chapter, your next era.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
We could talk forever.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
Yeah no, I know, thanks for thanks for having me
All right, welcome back to another episode of Car Stories.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
With Soun King and Amelia Hartford, and.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Today we get to talk to an old friend of ours,
Brian Scotto, one of the founders of Hunigan, and just
had an illustrious journey in his life from wanting to
be an engineer to being a journalist and eventually founding
one of the most influential car content.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Media houses today. You know, I've known Brian for quite
some time and he's always been such a huge supporter,
but I don't know that I got to hear his
story to the level that we heard it in this conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, and we got to talk about inspiration, inspiration one
leaves on this earth before we.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Go away, Yeah, and also the different eras or chapters
that he feels he's had in his life, and also
what's to come.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
All right, Well, so enjoy this conversation with our old buddy,
Brian Scotto. So, Brian, speaking to driving, Let's start with
the seed that got you into.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Cars, Like, where did that start? Getting my background?
Speaker 5 (01:09):
I grew up in New York City and as you know,
it's like the capital of driving cars. Right, No, absolutely
not like a lot I still have friends who are
in their forties that never got their driver's license because
like the subway is great and like ride bikes, like
you don't really need you don't really need cars. But
my grandfather he was like a rags to riches story.
(01:29):
And when he did make money later on in his
life and like his like sort of like mid fifties,
he just spent it all on cars.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
So he actually passed away when I was eight.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
But when he passed away he had I think like
eighteen or nineteen cars. So for me, like having this
like huge horde of cars is like kind of just normal.
That was sort of like what I grew up around.
And he had like a really weird mix of stuff.
He had everything from like Auburn's and like a bunch
of other like you know, and then pre war cars.
But then he also had he had two core of
(02:00):
bets are actually I guess he had three corvettes. He had
a Dolorean, which like you have to understand, like as
a kid, like.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
You don't remember this time because you're you're a youngster.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
Don't no, no, I know you know what it is,
but you don't remember when Back to the Future was
in theaters.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
As a kid, like that was just the coolest thing,
and that car felt like it was the future.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
It felt like it was the coolest thing. Ever.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
He only had it for a short period of time
because he bought it and was like, this thing's junk.
And that also kind of crushed me because my Grandfa's
like this car is trash, Like I don't want it.
But but I got to like be around all that.
And I think I was like six and I was
in the passenger seat of his fifty seven that we
were like on this two lane road out in the
Hampton's and uh, we were his buddy like went to
(02:44):
go past him because he was like kind of driving
slow with me, and my grandfather like just dropped second
gear and like broke the tires free and like the
car was like all over the place. And he turned
to me and he just said, don't I tell your
mom about that. And it was just this moment that
like after that, I was like I want to do
that like that like that seems like so much fun.
So yeah, that kind of just stuck with me. And
then from there. When I was young, I was really pragmatic,
(03:07):
so like everybody else that was into cars I knew
were like reading hot Rod magazine all that when they
were like thirteen fourteen, and I was like, I can't
afford a car now, so you know, I can't even
drive on the ability to get a license.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
So I got really into like RC cars.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
I was like heavily into that, Like I started my
own RC car club and like I started like making
my own like parts and stuff like that. And then
and then as I got older, I was I was
also really into snowboarding, skateboarding, riding BMX, and cars became
this important thing to like get to the skate park
or get to the mountain to go ride or do
something like that. And at that time in the mid nineties,
(03:43):
like Volkswagens kind of were like sort of at the
forefront of that. I felt like like every they were
doing commercials with K two and Trek and there was
this huge community of people in the snowboard world who
all had like Volkswagens and Audi's. So I ended up
getting into that and then like super fell into it,
started my own car club, and you know, it was
always it was always that like hobby side, so but
like that was it was a weird one for me
because none of my childhood friends were into cars. It's
(04:07):
like all like it just wasn't a thing. Like for
the longest time. Cars was sort of this like secret
hobby for me, right, Like I was writing graffiti and
like doing all this other stuff like riding bikes and
all this stuff with my friends. I like that's what
like a normal New York City life was. But I
also like really really enjoyed car culture, and it was
just it felt hidden for me, Like, you know, going
to the New York Auto Show was like the only
(04:28):
thing that felt like I was like a part of
car culturehen I was a teenager, you know, Otherwise it
didn't really exist, Like I lived in a neighborhood where
people didn't have fancy cars, Like cars were just were
just transportation.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, it sounds like, well, anytime I speak to you,
you know, like you would have been a great like
class president, great at like organizing people together. Yeah, where
does that come from? Is that from the grandfather or
your dad?
Speaker 4 (04:53):
I think it's from my mom, my mom.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
Both my parents are scientists, and my mom has very
much like that leadership kind of administrative personality.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
That's just like how she is.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Yeah, and actually my mom is the reason I started
a car club because I bought this Volkswagen. It was
a four door Mark three slammed like way too low
even back then, and I was like sitting at home
and it was like the summer, and I like I
just was complaining to my mom. I'm like, yeah, just
like a bummer, Like I don't really know anyone who's
into cars. And although a few people I've met, like
(05:25):
they're all Honda guys and like I just didn't like
have akin to them. It was like a different world
from the VW side. My mom said like, well, why
don't you just like start your own car club.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
It was like nineteen.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
I'm like, oh, like how would I do that. She's like,
I don't know, go figure it out, Like just I'm
sure you can figure it out. And I did that
start my own car club, and within a year later,
like we had like thirty members. But what was the
important part was like we started doing events. So we
started doing a monthly cruise. So we did this thing
called the car club was called auto Creek and which
like loosely translates in German too like automotive competition or
(05:59):
something like auto wars whatever.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
When I was nineteen. It sounded great, but we started it.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
It was like this small group of people who were
like basically lived in like New York City and a
little bit of Long Island, and at least we started
and from there we started doing events, and we came
up with this idea which like I look back at
it now as an adult who has like things that
like people could take for me in a lawsuit. And
I realized, like how little wyability like we had on
any of this.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
But we'd started this cruise.
Speaker 5 (06:27):
We found a bunch of windy roads out Long Island,
which realized, like growing up in New York, like it's
a grid, so like there was no fun roads to drive.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
So there was obviously a street race.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Community that like operated a lot in Brooklyn and Queens,
but I wasn't really into that. Like I went and
I enjoyed watching it and it was kind of like
fun to be a part of that until Fast and
Furious came out and ruined the entire city.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
We'll talk about that later, But.
Speaker 5 (06:50):
I was more into like the dynamic element, right like
corners and like driving.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Canyon style roads.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
Well, not that we had that in New York, but
we did have some windy, like you know, forest roads
out Long Island, so I like I went, I found
them all and we started doing this event. We called
it Full Moon Full Throttle, and the idea was the
Friday closest to the full Moon.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
We would meet in a like a rest area.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Off of the Long Island Expressway at midnight and then
we would go drive the roads for like two and
a half hours and then go home. And like, it
started with twenty cars and by the time we did
the last one, we had one hundred and seventy five
cars show up.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (07:25):
And I was like twenty years old trying to organize
this with like walkie talkies and like, and like we
through all of it. We only had we only had
two accidents the whole time, and they were like minor,
like you know, slide off, hit a rim or hit
a telephone pole. No one else ever got hurt, but like,
it was amazing that we did them for I think
we did twenty three or twenty four of them. So
we ran it for two years as a monthly event.
(07:46):
So I went from feeling like there was no community
around that to sort of creating something that became this
hub for all of it, and then we also did
a car show event because at the time, like car
shows were like really really stressful, Like back then it
was like you have to be here rollins at six am,
like you've got to be and you can't leave till
four pm and blah blah blah blah, and and you
got to be standing by your car for these four
(08:07):
hours so when the judges come by, like you can
walk them through the car. And I was like, that
wasn't what I wanted. I just wanted this like cool
hangout experience, and we created it. We did this event
called Dub and Grub, and we made it like people's
choice so that way, like people didn't really get that
stressed about like judging, like just come and hang out
and like it's.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
Pot luck, like bring your own meals.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
And by the time we got to like the third
or fourth one, like people were like cooking pigs and
like bringing full pigs to the event. Like it was
this like amazing experience because you also think of like
how culturally diverse Queens is, which is where we had
the event, So it's like the amount of different types
of food we had there was like awesome. So it
just became this like rad like feast for all these
(08:46):
people in the car community, especially in the volks like
nowity it started to grow bigger than that later on
to do and I think that's when I realized, like,
as much as I enjoyed cars myself, a big part
of it was like the community around cars and like
all of that, and and you know, you fast forward
from there and two of the guys who were in
my car club like fifteen years later stood next to
me at my wedding. So yeah, to me, the car
(09:07):
community part of it was always the big part of it,
and like being able to tie that into like going
driving and doing all of that. So yeah, that was
I don't know, I kind of spot you asked me
one question when my grid got back here we are now,
So yeah, that was like and that was at the time.
It's crazy because so I was going to school and
I'm sitting here like bailing on class so I could
(09:29):
like plan these events. And it's funny because at the
time I was like I knew how just like irresponsible
that was, but like I just was, I was enjoying
it so much. But now looking at where I sit today,
I'm like I should skip more classes and learn more
of it because I was learning more doing all that.
And I was also like using things at school to
be able to like design flyers, like I'm going into
(09:52):
like the computer lab and like using the equipment to
like do stuff for my car club. And at no
point while I was doing that that I think that
this was going to be my career. Instead, I saw
it as like this major distraction from what I was
trying to do in school. And put all of that together.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Why engineering, where'd you start there?
Speaker 5 (10:09):
Calculus all of that stuff like was second nature to me,
So I was like, oh, you know math really well,
then you should go and do engineering.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
You know, you take your aptitude tests and you're like, oh, I.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
Should either be an underwater welder or I should be
an engineer. And it was like I hate swimming, so
I was like, I guess I'll be an engineer. And
I liked I wanted to design cars and build stuff,
and that's where I thought my engineering degree would go.
It's still like how my brain works and what I
really enjoy is like making things, and that's even how
I approach content and like creative is like the I
(10:42):
enjoyed the building of things right, Like, that's the thing
I really enjoy and and I think it was very
obvious to me early on in engineering program that like,
I was never going to be one of the best,
I was going to be someone else's number monkey, which
meant I was never going to get to like lead
design and like and be that. Instead, I'd be the
one helping someone else do it. That made me lose
(11:03):
a bit of interest in it. I mean, this ends
up being an entire podcast about my college career.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
But did you get your degree?
Speaker 4 (11:08):
I did not. I'm six credits short. I ended up trading.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
I ended up like third year, three and a half
years in, I take a journalism class, and like I
fell in love.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
I was.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
It was the first time where I wouldn't miss class.
I loved it and it was one of my favorite things.
And I also had a fantastic professor because she actually
because it was my elective, I didn't take it as
seriously as a lot of my other stuff, even though
I enjoyed it. But when it came down to finals,
I was like more thrashing on all these other classes
that one I was barely showing up to and I.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
Needed to study for and this class. I thought, like,
I like, I'm doing well on it, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
And I handed in my final article late and she
gave me a D.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
And I was like, oh, this sucks.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
Like I wanted to do the minor, but like now
I got to go back and take this class again
for it to apply for my minor. I was like, oh,
I guess I'm not going to do it. So I
ended up backing out of the program. And she called
me and said, hey, I saw that you. You know, I
saw that you backed out of the program. And she
basically gave me the story of like, look in journalism,
if you're late, it doesn't print, so it didn't happen, right,
(12:11):
but you're but she kind of gave me that pep
talk of like you have a really good knack for this.
I don't want to see you drop the minor, like
I will retroactively fix this, but you need to go
and you know, maintain a grade of whatever in the
rest of the program and do all of this. So
uh's toughly kind it was, but it was in the end,
it didnematics when I ever got my diploma. But what
mattered was in a world of like I had only
(12:33):
ever been applauded for my scientific side of like thinking.
She was the first person to ever say like, you're
good at storytelling. You understand this, Like this is something
that I think you really should chase after. So then
I started taking film classes and you know, and all
these different media classes and everything shift, and all of
a sudden, I was like really interested to go to
(12:54):
school again, and I really enjoyed it. This has been
a bit of a decided I think this isn't car stories.
It's not like college stories.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
But no, cars are the connective tissue of what brings
us all here.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Yeah, and you're a story Like your trajectory is so
clear to what you do and what you've built today,
from organizing a car crew to entrepreneurship to engineering essentially
building with your hands to ye.
Speaker 5 (13:21):
In a weird way, it all like lined up like
when it was happening. I don't think I was like, yeah,
I'm on this great trajectory, like well it's happening. You're like, oh,
this just didn't this didn't work out, this failed out.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
You know.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
There was certainly a period of time where you know,
I got that talk from my dad which was like,
you know, maybe school is not for you, Like maybe
you should, you know, join the labor union, maybe should
go do that, you know something something, And and you know,
my dad came from from like a blue collar family,
so he was like, maybe that's maybe like what you
need to go do, because like you're not enjoying school
and I wasn't. And then it all just sort of
(13:54):
turned around and I realized that like the things that
made me happy. And my dad used to always refer
to it as like pink collar, which was like I
enjoy the white collar work of creative, but I need
to touch it and be a part of it. And
like even when we're on set filming, like I always
talk to the grips because like I enjoy building erector
sets to mount cameras to think.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I love that pink color. I'm gonna borrow that.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Pink Essentially, what you do today is storytelling from I
mean literally storytelling with content creation, but also building cars.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Every car is a story, Oh.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
Yeah for sure, Yeah sure, And that's like such a
big part for me is the story of cars. Like
we we always talk about this internally attunigans, like cars
need to name because once you name them, then like
they stand out and they have a personality alive.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Do you have a name for Sienna?
Speaker 1 (14:39):
No, I've been you know, after you talked to it.
That's probably. Well, I have two cars that I don't.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Have names because you're really good with naming your vehicles.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yeah, well you know cause I but I can't name
them until they have to. I have to have my
hands on it and I have to spend time with it.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
But at the same time, you don't want to build
the Siena up because you and I have talked about this,
like why don't you have wheels on it?
Speaker 4 (14:59):
Because then it's I don't you like the practicalness of it?
Right now?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
That's what it's low key, like I'm invisible. Yeah I
can if it's all pimped out. I can't park in
front of like your house, just sleepy.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
Like what is with those big little different? How different
his thought process is on cars than mine and yours?
Set Like we're sitting there being like, all right, how
much power can the tank before I put a window
through the block? Right, He's sitting there going can I
sleep in the back in Beverly Hills?
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Well, wake me up exactly?
Speaker 5 (15:34):
But the windows dark enough that they won't see me,
but the cops won't pull me over. Like, what's that threshold?
This is where this is where his brain's at. This
is my favorite side of you. You're like, oh yeah,
Sun Kang, Like, oh yeah, that's my buddy. He like
sleeps in his van, like outside of the people's houses.
You know him from Fast and Furious. Yeah, No, I
(15:55):
know him as the guy who sleeps in a van.
He's that guy.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
I'd love to see the neighbor just walk out and
knock to be like, who's sleeping around here?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
And it's you that crawls out of the of the seattle.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Well, I'm sure that he.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
There's been photos of him on next door where people
are like suspicious, man, he drives around a mini doesn't
meany kids, There's something wrong with this guy.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
It's funny.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Is that either people really love the fact that I
drive a minivan, right and they're like, you d have
a minivan? That's so awesome, or it's complete disappointment.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Right, it's not the yeah, the fact thought it was
going to be. Yeah, they don't.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
They don't. They don't want that. Yeah, show up to
Valet and they're like, I come out and they're like,
oh my god, and they're like, what are you driving
minivan for? And I try to explain to him. I'm like, hey,
man has eighteen couples thirty six miles a gaunt.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Oh, I get it.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
There's certain like I'll go to meetings and I know that,
like as when I show up, people can be like,
what did you drive?
Speaker 4 (17:05):
You're like, if.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
You don't drive something fun, then like then like you
lose that perception thing. So sometimes I'm definitely like sat
in trafficking cards. I don't want to drive to go
to places, and then you get there and you're like, oh,
no one even cared what I drive. Yeah, like I
could have just driven something with air conditioning and a.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Not so stiff clutch, yeah exactly.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Or something I didn't have to stop three times slightly
cool down on the way there.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
So I want to talk about legacy, you know, when
you guys built out hun again, like do you did
you feel like this is going to be your legacy?
Speaker 4 (17:37):
And how do you feel about that now?
Speaker 5 (17:40):
It's interesting, I legacy is like such a weird, weird
thing to think about. I think there's a quote somewhere.
I don't know if everyone's seen it. Or is in
something that Ken was like, I hate the word legacy
because if you're talking about my legacy, it means I'm dead,
which like hit really hard when like you're watching that afterwards.
But I think when you are building something saying, when
(18:00):
you're in it, you're just kind of in it and
you want to build something great. But I think once
it starts to become successful is when the legacy thing
starts to creep in. Like when you're just building it,
you're just trying to make something right, Like, I don't
think when I was building Zero to sixty, I don't
think there was ever a moment in my life where
I was at no point because we were still The
(18:22):
magazine died early, so it was like, you know, it
died because the print industry died.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
So like I don't think we.
Speaker 5 (18:26):
Ever achieved any kind of greatness with it, right, But
I'll be places and people will be like, man, I
love Zero to sixty. And I realized like there was
this small little legacy that we built. It wasn't really intentional.
It was like we were just trying to make something
great and trying to make something different, and we really
loved that magazine and we poured so much into it
as a team, everyone who was involved with it. And
(18:47):
I think when we were doing Hoonigan, I don't think
I started to think about the legacy of like what
Hoonigan was and you know, and then like what it
had done and like what the culture change and shift
around it until probably a couple of years ago. And
I think you actually start to do that as like
the company itself shifts. People leave and you know, and
(19:09):
you realize, like that's like an era that just ended,
you know, And that's I think a hard thing for
people to understand is I think when you watch Unigan
from the outside, you know, you think about it as
like a group of friends, like at the end of
the day, like it's employees, and like people do different
things in life, and sometimes people either you know, want
to go do their own thing, they don't want to
(19:30):
do it anymore.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
You guys both know.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
This, and I think this is something that is hard
for people to understand who don't understand it. Is like
fame affects different people differently, right, and some people enjoy it,
some people like really come to life, some people that
changes their personalities, and other people hate it, right, and
they really don't want to be around it. And I
will tell you in my experience, the people that you
think love it actually hate it because they're kind of
(19:56):
acting the whole time and then they turn it off
and they don't want to be around it it anymore.
And I think that like a lot of that happened
to Tune again, is we started to really sort of explode,
Like twenty sixteen to like twenty eighteen was sort of
this like just we just kept getting bigger and bigger
and bigger, and all of a sudden, like you're getting
recognized in airports and it's not even a car events anymore,
Like you know, you're out to dinner and people are
(20:17):
recognizing you.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
And I think.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
For a lot of us that was there was an
element of that and hurt and I used to always
joke about this, which was like we're famous, but we
don't have famous money. So like you're famous, but you're
sitting coach next to somebody who now is talking to
you NonStop and you just like want to watch your
movie and like not deal with that, you know. And
(20:39):
I think when that started to happen, I started to
realize we were never going to be the company we
were anymore, Like when we stopped making Daily Transmission. I
think that was maybe the first time that I started
to think about like I say, I don't know if
I put that word on it, but I realized like
that was an end of an era, like we were
never going to go back and make that again. And
at a certain point, yeah, yeah, that was like the
(21:00):
show everybody loved and everyone enjoyed it. But I think
at a certain point, like the crew just didn't enjoy
making it anymore. And that came through, you know, and
you try to like make it work, but it doesn't.
And then we went and did something else and we
all did the show's comeback Labs, and we loved it.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
It was so much fun to make that right.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
And and you know it's like bands like you love
your you love a band's first album. You just love
that first album and you just want them to go
back and make that first album. But when they were
making that first album, like they didn't have the things
that came with the second album, the third album. They
you know, they did it in a rented studio from
a friend or you know, they they lie cheat steel,
(21:40):
you know, they did whatever hook or crook to be
able to make that album, and you lose a lot
of that energy once you become successful, and then it's
not as easy to get back to that stuff, and
then it starts to become disingenuous. And I think as
I grew something like Cunigan and even with Ken Block,
you start to go back to things where you're like,
we don't enjoy this as a group to make this
(22:00):
as much as we used to. We want to do
something new, and then the audience doesn't always want that new,
so you kind of were like in this weird world
of like you're trying to deliver something that maybe doesn't
serve for you. You know, I love new things, so
like for me, and there's a famous quote I think
on the Amazon Prime thing from Ken where Ken was like,
if it works, we're going to keep doing it. But
(22:21):
Scotta wants to do something different just because he's bored,
and like there was that for me. Like for me,
there was this really exciting era and our audience jokes
about it a lot because it's like they always like, oh,
another new show, because we were just launching like all
new show ideas. Because I just wanted to build and
build and build, and once I realized that like YouTube
deleted the gatekeeper and I could like just make TV
(22:43):
style shows and put them up on YouTube. And I
was able to find enough funding to be able to
support all of that. We went for it. We're all
of them good. Nah, some of them were okay, but
some of them were really fun. We did the show
called Build and Battle, which was fantastic. We did we
did a bunch of adventure stuff that was great. We
did come Back Labs, which I loved. We launched a
whole content series around Ken, which like he fought me
(23:03):
on because he didn't really want to do it. But
there was a lot of stuff that we did that
was like a lot of fun in that era, And
once the error is behind you, you're like you realize
the value of it later on. I think it's very
hard to understand the value of it when you're in it,
And I think if you worry too much about the
value of it when you're in it, then you're like
looking at the wrong reasons to do it. But I
think there is definitely there's definitely this balance of like
(23:27):
serving an audience and making them happy, and there's this
big joke that's like my title is chief creative officer,
but I get called two other things. One is chief
complication officer because I just complicate everything because I enjoy
complications and chaos. And the other one is chief comment
officer because like I read a lot of the comments
from the audience, right, and I know some people don't
(23:48):
like to Do you read your Do you read your comments?
Speaker 4 (23:50):
I do you do?
Speaker 3 (23:50):
I if we're talking YouTube specifically, I'll read the first
couple of days, and then after that I kind of
don't really go back.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
I really only need the first six or seven hours
because like that's where you get a lot of it.
But after that the comments kind of change because now
you're getting outsiders who aren't really your core audience anymore.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
So you do read them. Yeah, I was wondering because
some people.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Don't I try to respond to them.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
I mean, I I have my phases, like sometimes I
just really won't be in the mood to accidentally stumble
across something that it's.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Super negative or get toxic, so then.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I won't put myself in the situation room. But I
enjoy hearing the audience's feedback because it's always going to
be honest.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
Yeah, I mean I think you always have to look
at it like an outlier situation. The super super super
positive stuff just ignore it, like they will just say
everything's coat right. And the super super negative stuff that's
like weirdly toxic. They've got a problem with something else,
just ignore it and like find that stuff.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
In the middle.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
I used to not even read them.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
I think anyone who's female in our space sometimes gets
really fucking creepy shit, but also like some like unnecessarily
fucking toxic.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
Boy.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
Oh yeah, I actually think it, replied to one on
yours one like stuff, the fuck you need to check
yourself real quick.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I never like to play the female card.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
No, I know, I know. But at the same time,
it's like people say things I'm like, you wouldn't say
that to me.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
The criticism that I get because of my gender versus
someone else, like I have to put I always feel
like I have to work twice.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
It's hard to get half the respect, for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
I read a great comment the other day that just
made me laugh. They had some video of me and
they were like, oh, it's it's it's on And then
this guy wrote, it's like man Han is turning into
Chai on fat because my face looked a little fat
and actually.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
Made I spit up my drink and I was like,
this guy is super clever.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Commenters will get a good knock and you're like, oh,
it's pretty fit to sit. Am I getting a little fat?
Maybe I need to exercise a little bit more. Oh god,
it's hilarious.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Well, because I like, obviously, for me, the big joke
is like most my cars don't run. I bought that
farm and someone named it Avascato because it's avocado farm, and.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
I was like, that's pretty good.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
And then it was like Avascotto Farms, and then someone
added ava Scatto Farms in Salvage because I have a
bunch of I was like, this is great. I was like,
I'm just going to steal all your guys names.
Speaker 7 (26:08):
It's fantastic, Avascotto Farms and salvage. It's funny, like at
the end, salvage is great because you're like, what, so, yeah,
I got a bunch of cars parks on the property.
Speaker 5 (26:19):
But anyway, where were we before the Yeah? I know,
I mean, look, obviously I dealt a lot this year
with like the legacy of Kem Block. I mean that
was something that was very much you know, in front
just front of brain. I mean it was front of brain,
probably earlier than it should have been. Like I was
still dealing with and trying to like understand what it happened,
(26:43):
but also thinking about, like how do we message this
right like like we have to do that and I
and then you know when on the first day, like
I couldn't even deal with the situation I had Ron.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
I was like, hey, dude, you need to.
Speaker 5 (26:55):
Like ron Ziras, who's like always been like my second
hand and work directly with Ken for years.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
I was like, I need you to do this because
like I can't deal with this right now.
Speaker 5 (27:04):
And like, I think we had some we had some
fun moments in that cause we were I don't say
fun funds of the wrong word, but we had moments
that made a smile, which was we had this thing
of like if we had to send this to Ken
right now, would he even approve this or like he
just like rip us apart for this, you know, And
that kind of kept kept him alive in a way
for us. But like I think you look at the
legacy side of it, and it became very important to
(27:26):
like a lot of other people around him. Obviously Lucy
and the family, and it's like, well, yeah, how does Ken,
you know, how does Ken get remembered through all of this?
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Right?
Speaker 5 (27:34):
And like the things that like I knew were like
really important to Ken, and like what Ken wanted to see?
Speaker 4 (27:40):
You know what what mattered to Ken? Right?
Speaker 5 (27:42):
And I think you know the thing is like Ken
will always be famous for the Jimcna films, but like
Ken loved being a rally car driver, Like that was
a thing he loved, but he also loved being like
the marketing person and like understanding the audience. Like I
think all of us, you know who knew Ken from
the automotive side, don't realize that, Like he'd already had
(28:03):
twenty years of like being a very successful businessman in
the marketing space, and like that was a big part
of his identity, right, And it's like for me, that's
like what my identity is, right, Like I'm not a
race car driver, like Mike can stitch together a decent
time on a track, but like that's not who I am.
And that's like and like he didn't become that till later.
He didn't start racing until he was thirty six, right,
(28:24):
so he already had this like very successful thing that
he did with eight ball and drawers and dub and
obviously DC shoes, you know, and all that. And he
had all these other people who like in many ways
owe their careers, you know, in many parts to him,
right whether and like Legends, right, Rob Deerdic, Danny Way,
all these people who like Ken was the person who
(28:44):
helped them go chase these really big ideas, right, And
Ken was that for me too. And I think it's
weird because like as we walked away from like all
of this, and we had this memorial for Ken, which
was really amazing. It was really difficult, but it was
really amazing, and like there was just this constant thing
that we're here. It's five hundred people who all knew Ken, right,
Like everyone here had either worked with him, worked for him,
(29:07):
was friends with him, his family, and so like these
are the people who like really knew Ken, right, this
isn't just the people who knew him from Afar. It
was like this one thing that just kept repeating, and
it was like Ken was so good at creating opportunity
for people. He never gave it away for free, Like
you had to work hard for it. It was never
free but he could like spot things in people and
then like basically expect it from you, right, And I
(29:30):
was like, that was what he did. And I think
about like what I want Ken's legacy to be, and
you know, and I don't really think about my own,
but I like, I hope I'm remembered well. But like
I think in Ken's legacy, it's so easy for people
to be like, oh, he was this amazing driver, right,
and like Jim Kanna and like all of that, and
like that's like very superficial.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
And I think that's a very simple one to look at.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
But if you look at it more of like, well,
Ken created this opportunity for so many of us because
like he rewrote the paradigm of like, right, this word
is overused, but like he disrupted automotive motive sport, like
he already disrupted automotive marketing in motorsports one hundred percent.
I remember how people couldn't understand why we did things
the way we did, Like we were working in WRC
(30:14):
and the FIA, and they were like threatening to find
me because I wasn't sending out press releases and I'm like,
why do I have to sound on a press release?
Like we're going to do this on Facebook, that we're
gonna speak directly to our audience. We're going to reach
more people than our email list. They're going to get
to like why does this matter?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
You know?
Speaker 5 (30:28):
And it seemed normal for us, but it was really
like taking a different approach at it. And you know,
so like I think, in a lot of ways, I
hope that right now, you know, it's it's not even
been a year, and I think everyone it just misses
him from like what he gave the community to me.
I hope that in ten years from now, if you
(30:48):
look back and you know, someone does a you know,
a retrospective or a doc on like the importance of Ken.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
I think a lot of it.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
Is that I think he really helped kind of usher
in like a different way of like the automotive world
sort of looking at like entertainment and like the value
of marketing and doing things different and bringing all of
that in and and I think that that, you know,
in a way, like I think he would be happier
with that legacy than just like, oh he was the
guy that did Jim Kana, but like it was more
(31:16):
than Jim ConA. I mean even just the idea to
you know, to create some you know hoonigan and to
to do all of that.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
I mean, we were.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
Very much were kind of at a forefront of when
all that stuff was happening, and then in a way
I think paved a path for so many other people
before the Jim Conna films, BMW or Porschal, Like they
weren't asking for cars to be slid around in commercials
like that like changed the way that people saw cars
as exciting. And like you talk to people in the
Hollywood world and they'll be like, oh, yeah, we changed
(31:46):
the way that we did stunt driving after we saw
the Jim ConA films, right, and like so like that
was this cool inspiration behind it. But it's like it's
not just the films. It's like what did the films
effect that created this longer lasting change.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
I mean, and it sucks to.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
Say this, but like there's this thought of like, man,
you wish you could hear what people say about you
after you're gone, Like if Ken could just see the
amount of appreciation that he has now that like maybe
he didn't.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Realize was there while he was alive.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
And I think like that's like what like real legacy
looks like because it wasn't just the thing he made.
You can make a great film where you can make
a great statue or whatever, but like, but how did
that inspire someone else? Like I think that's the important
legacy because if you just did something that was really
cool but it didn't make someone else do something really
cool out of it, well, then then what is that
(32:35):
that I think is a real legacy versus just being like, oh,
they were the best at this, that's cool, but like,
were they the best at it and inspired someone else
to be better?
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Like that's kind of cool because.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
I'll hear people sometimes like, oh, these guys are like
they're way better than you now, And I'm like, yeah,
but I also know that, like they've told me that,
like we like helped pave the way for them, so
like I hope they're better. Because if you do something
and then the person who comes up behind you doesn't
do it better, like although you you bushwhacked, the next
person has to clear the path, and then the person
after that has to pave it, and the person after
(33:06):
that puts in some railings and then some lights and
you know, eventually have a nice little sidewalk right and
it's like, but everyone has to improve that.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Path, especially if you went down at first, right, And.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
I'm not saying that we were entirely first, but we
were pretty early on a lot of it, and you know,
I think that that's part of that legacy, is like being.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
A part of that community side of it.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
I think you definitely in what you guys have built
over and have inspired so many people, you know, and
that just you know, not just in the car community,
but what you said early on, which I think, you know,
it's stuck with me this whole conversation and it'll take
away is you know, just.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Go figure it out.
Speaker 6 (33:58):
To my mom said, shit, don't be an asshole. Yeah,
what a great lesson. Figuring it out. Caron is such
a great thing from both the content side of this,
even just like how to how to make something work
on a car and you're like, I don't know, I
guess I'll just I mean, the amount of other people's
YouTube stuff I watched to make my own YouTube stuff
is incredible and it's a.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Good tool to have to just learn how to figure
things out. You don't have to be right, but it's
taking the initiative to get out of your comfort zone.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
Oh yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
You were talking about different eras being different things that
you enjoy at the time in your life. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I was gonna ask, what are you enjoying now?
Speaker 5 (34:36):
I don't know if I've thought about today. I definitely
have thought about, like what are some of the peak
moments for me right like just in my career. I'm
in my forties, start to think about things like that.
But like zero sixty magazine was like a really big peak.
It was so much fun and it felt so adventurous,
and we had no idea what we were doing and
we were just faking it till we make it, and
that was super fun. Obviously, the similar thing in early
(34:57):
hunigaan daily Transmission era was great. I think something else
that's really interesting for me now is I'm watching like
a major shift in content in the space, you know,
so like looking more at like what the future of
Hoonigan can be in like a short form space, and
also being like more collaborative with other people right now
(35:20):
is like really where like my interests lie instead of
you know, kind of for a long time. I will
say like Honigan had its collaborative years, but we also
very much had like our sort of like Rock of
Solitude style.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
I've always seen you guys being very collaborative and supportive
of other careers.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
We're definitely supportive, I think. I think if I have any.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
Regrets, is I wish we would have pushed harder, and
not that we still can't, but like I wish we
had like worked harder to like have just done more
like things like let's just do a show with Amelia that,
like you know, like that I think is where I
really wanted to get to more earlier on.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
And we did a bit with some people.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
But I.
Speaker 5 (35:56):
Look at the space now and I think that the
more collaborative of the whole space can be, just the
more powerful we all are as a sort of like
maybe you want to call us influencers, creators, what the
hell it is, But like I think there's a lot
of value in that.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Well maybe that's the next are Yeah, maybe.
Speaker 5 (36:11):
That's the next err And like I said, I think
that that's the part I'm kind of excited about now
is is that stuff.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
And I love like the.
Speaker 5 (36:17):
Energy of like a lot of the young, you know,
like sort of up and coming creators. Like let's just say,
like the sub hundred thousand followers like that because they're
still still new and exciting for them, and you know,
that's there's something really there's a great energy there and.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
Like I don't I don't totally lose that energy.
Speaker 5 (36:35):
And I think this is the thing that frustrates a
lot of people sometimes is like I have a new
idea and I get excited about it, like it's the
first idea I ever had, right, and like that I like,
but I also want everyone else to have that level
of excitement too, And I think sometimes you know, you
you need to shift things up and have and work
with different people on that. And I also think that
(36:55):
other people need to shift their things up and work
with different people. Like like Hurts a perfect example. I
love her. He's like a brother to me. He was
like employee number four and now like he's going and
chasing something new. He's still friends and family with Hunigan.
We'll still make content with him, but like he's chasing
this whole other thing on his own and stuff he's
doing with Tea Pain, and it's like that's rad.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Like people need to go do that.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
They need to kind of like go break up the
model of doing different stuff and you know, and I
that to me is kind of exciting, is to kind
of watch like what happens with sort of that the
extended family. And I think it goes back to what
I said at the beginning of this conversation of like
the Auto Creek side I went to my car club,
there's only twenty five of us in it, but we
would have all these other car clubs that would come
out and do everything with us. And I really would
(37:39):
love to like make sure that we like shift more
back into that and get more on the like, hey, come,
you know, we want you to be a part of this.
We want you to do this, like let's make some
cool stuff together. Because the broadness of that is to
me what makes everything has always been the fun part
of Hunigan. And then the other thing I've just been
enjoying kind of like fully embracing my own weirdness and
(38:02):
the stuff I like and just dealing with that instead of, like,
I know, you know this, instead of making stuff for
the audience, making stuff for myself and then hoping that
an audience shows up, Like I've really leaned back into
like my Volkswagen roots.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
I enjoy it. I know it's not exactly.
Speaker 5 (38:17):
What everybody in the audience wants, but like it kind
of makes me happy, and then that that helps me
drive the other creative that makes the audience happy. It's
this weird thing. You got to do enough stuff that
like you still kind of enjoy that. So I think
right now, it's an interesting it's an interesting time, And
a big one of that really is like just looking
at like how everything is shifting and social and the
(38:39):
whole space we're in. We can get into a whole
conversation of like I kind of think social media is
ruining the society, but the same time, we all work
in it as a business, like trying to kind of
lever and live in between those. And I think you
do obviously know that, you know, and like mental health
is a big part of like your you know, I
think your storyline and everything in there, and like, you know,
being the piece on social that's the positive part and
(39:00):
not the negative part. And I think it's like super
important for us in the car industry because like we
shouldn't be the negative part. We should be the part
that makes you excited to go build and inspire you
to do stuff and that make you feel bad about
yourself kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
So I'm excited to see what comes in your guys'
next chapter, your next era.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
We could talk forever.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
Yeah no, I know, thanks for thanks for having me
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