March 6, 2025 • 14 mins
On this week's episode host Phil Tower welcomes Craig Piersma, the Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communications with Gentex. Craig joined us live from the Michigan International Auto Show in Grand Rapids in early February to discuss the importance of the Gentex partnership with the Grand Rapids New Car Dealers Association and supporting the Grand Rapids Auto show.
Zeeland-based Gentex is most notably known for its auto-dimming rearview mirror and has sold hundreds of millions of those units over the years. their technology was also widely used in the car on display at the Michigan International Auto Show, "Infected" built by Wisconsin-based automotive customizers, The Ring Brothers. Ryan Fielding from The Ring Brothers also joins us on this segment.
Online:
Gentex
Ring Brothers
Zeeland-based Gentex is most notably known for its auto-dimming rearview mirror and has sold hundreds of millions of those units over the years. their technology was also widely used in the car on display at the Michigan International Auto Show, "Infected" built by Wisconsin-based automotive customizers, The Ring Brothers. Ryan Fielding from The Ring Brothers also joins us on this segment.
Online:
Gentex
Ring Brothers
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan Weekend is
a weekly programmed designed to win form and enlightened on
a wide range of public policy issues as well as
news and current events. Now here's your host, Phil Tower.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
West Michigan Weekend from Iheartradios on the air on location.
You're hearing background noise because we or the Michigan International
Auto showed Ben decades that this show has been here
at de Vos Place and it is one of my
favorite events that happens year round. Lead sponsor for the
last several years is Gentechs, a real mover and shaker
(00:39):
and one of our most dynamic made in West Michigan
success stories and global success stories. Now is Gentex Corporation.
Craig Piersma, VP of Marketing with Gentex is with us
and he brought along He brought along a ringer this
year and literally it's Ryan Fielding from Ring Brothers and
(01:01):
we'll be talking about infected as you're hearing this conversation
on the radio. You can check out the Ring Brothers
online and of course Genechs at Gentechs dot com. Ring
Brothers dot com is their website and I'm just gonna
warn you if you're kay car guy like me, you
might want to take some medication to slow your heart rate.
Just it could be a thing. Ryan Fielding first of all,
(01:23):
welcome to the program. Thanks for having me, Thank you
for being here. My friend Craig Piers Me, welcome to
the program. You've never been on this program before. I'm
excited to have Gentechs here. How are you doing? First
of all, it's show weekend. You've been working your tailoff.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, I'm doing good.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
You know, it's a lot of late nights, early mornings.
We were here at six am doing interviews. But it's
all about getting people down to the show because there's
some really great stuff to see.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Why is this partnership important for gen Techs Craig.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yeah, we got involved through the Grand Appers New Car
Dealer Association in their fundraising gala, the opening event years ago,
and then we just kind of fell in love with
that event and.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
The show itself.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
For us, it's you know, we do shows all over
the world, you know, Beijing, Shanghai, Munich, you name it.
But this show is special because it's in West Michigan.
It's in our backyard and it's so cool for our
employees to come and see what we do. You know,
if you're on the on the assembly line, you know
one part or piece, and that's kind of what you do.
To come here. You see the finished product, you show
it off to your friends and family, and it also
(02:21):
gives us a chance to get to know West Michigan.
We are always in need of talent, especially right now,
engineering talent.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
Especially software.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
We have a new tech center right downtown that we
opened about a year ago where we got if you
want to live and work in an urban environment. We've
got a manufacturing facility now in the Madison Square area,
so we know we need to start drawing more and
more employees from this area. So it's great to do
this show.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, I'm glad to say that. And you do have
a captive radio audience. You are hiring. Just go to
gen tech dot com.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Yes, why exactly, gentex dot com. I think the back
the drop down tap is that careers or jobs one
or the other, and then you'll find your way into
the open.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Positions even if you're not a car person and he
just love tech and seeing what's happening here and what
Gentex is doing. Seriously, check out the website GenEx dot com.
Today's features tomorrow's technology and cutting edge stuff, things that
are not even available in automobiles. You've got things that
connect the car with the home with the home link technology,
(03:21):
which is very user friendly stuff that a lot of
people were scared about fifteen years ago.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, we're best known for the automatic dimming mirror uses cameras, sensors,
algorithms to detect glare from the headlamps of the cars
behind you, then darken down to eliminate that, Claire. But
now we're doing things like driver monitoring systems, so cameras
that are going to be behind the glass of the
mirror looking at the driver to know if they're distracted, drowsy,
that they had a sudden illness. We're looking at the cabin,
(03:49):
the entire cabin. Are people ready for airbag deployment? So
can we adjust airbag deployment based on how they're situated.
All this is some of the cool tech that's coming
are dimic technology, you know, that's part of that autodimming mirror,
but now we're expanding it to sunriffs and one of
the coolest things that's at the show is sun visors,
so you know today you drop down your sun visor,
(04:09):
it's just a piece of cardboard blocks your forward view. Yes,
it blocks the sun, but it also prevents you from
seeing traffic and stop place and driving safely. So we're
making that autodimming. The science of electrochromics are dimming with electricity.
You drop that visor down, it immediately starts to darken
to the level necessary to eliminate that sunlight glare, but
yet give you a clear view of the road ahead.
(04:30):
So some of the things that are coming on cars
in the future.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I need that after market. I'm gonna have to ask
Craig about that after this show.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
So you paired up.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
You've always got really cool tech here at the Michigan
International Auto Shows. So you brought some major eye candy
this year. It is a car called Infected and this
is a built car. And if you're a car guy
like I am, you know what I'm talking about. It's
Bright Pink and Ryan Fielding with Ring Brothers and they're
(05:00):
in beautiful Spring Green, Wisconsin. How did you all get
hooked up? How did this partnership come about?
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah, you know, about a decade ago we met Ring
Brothers at there's a show called the SEMA show. Sure,
it's like the you know, I think it's like the
world's biggest aftermarket car show. We've been there for years,
and we noticed a long time ago that these custom
car builders really don't like to put mirrors on that
beautiful windscreen because there's no modern mirror being made today
for the for the you know, factory integration that really
(05:28):
is going to look good on a custom vehicle. Some
of our industrial designers went back, came up with something
really cool carbon fiber, some nice bright work and in lay,
and we brought to the show the next year. These
Ring Brothers loved it. A few others did. We started
putting it on cars. You know, the ethos of the
two companies is really similar. You know, yeah, different sizes,
different goals, but the end of the day, you know,
we love what we do, we love technology, we love
(05:50):
getting out in meeting people. And from there we've you know,
we've helped them launch a couple of vehicles that are
booth gave them space, and they launched some vehicles at
SEMA this year, and then we said, hey, you guys
can need to come to the show with us, and
so that's that's how that all happened.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
So welcome to the show. Ring Brothers and Ryan Fielding.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
Again, happy to be here, Thanks for having us. This
is a wonderful show. We love being in Michigan. It's
our first year at this show and you know, everybody's
been just incredibly gracious and we're just really excited to
meet everybody and you know, make some new friends here
in the industry over in Michigan.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
What does Ring Brothers do?
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Right?
Speaker 5 (06:24):
So we build high end, bespoke custom vehicles for exclusive
clients all over the world. We are real fortunate to
work with some pretty incredible car people who have a
vision for a vehicle that they want taken to a
level that maybe a Mustang or a Javelin or a
(06:44):
Grand National or a Kuda have not been taken to before.
And you know, we will sit down and reimagine those
vehicles and you know that coup that we brought, I
mean that prime example, we have five six hundred hours
in that vehicle and that's over the course of eighteen months.
That's between engineering, between CAD design, between body shop assembly, fabrication.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
You know, there's a lot that goes into all these vehicles.
Speaker 5 (07:10):
There's an amazing team that we work with, and we've
got you know, just under thirty employees at Ring Brothers
over Wisconsin, and everybody in that company has a critical
role in bringing these vehicles to life.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
And we'll put the link in the podcast section for
the Ring Brothers website Gentex dot com as well. But
you can see these cars and what's amazing is they
retain the classic look yet they've got that Genech's high
end technology and other partners you work with. Inside the car.
I mean, you can literally rebuild the entire interior, the engine, everything,
(07:46):
but it's still on the outside looks like a sixty
five Mustang.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
You know, it's really important to us on all of
our vehicles that at the end of the day, the
end of the day, like that car. Specifically, every single
part of that vehicle was either modified, made from scratch, manipulated, designed, refined.
Every single part except for the center cap on the
wheel that's a stock sixty five Mustang center cap. Everything
else was made, modified or customized. But when it's all
(08:11):
said and done, it still screams sixty five Mustang.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
That one.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
We widened an inch on each side, so the entire
car is two inches wider, but there was.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Only wait wait, wait, what how did that happen?
Speaker 5 (08:23):
It's a lot of work, but it's all done in metal,
and everything was widen an inch. So what you're doing
that at that point you have to widen the bumper,
widen the grill, widen the headlight buckets, fenders, hook door
quarter panels, rear bumper, tailight panel. Everything gets widened out
just an inch. And no, we look at it. You
don't necessarily immediately see that that car's wider. But what's
really fun? And we did that with this car in
(08:44):
particulars we had a good friend of the shop who
has a sixty five Mustang convertible unmolested original, and we
brought the two down and sat them next to each other,
did a photo shoot, and we did a video on
a pot YouTube video on all the changes. And when
they're next to each other, then you can see where
that that one inch, you know, but that's a that's
(09:04):
a big undertaking to gain that one inch.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
But when you see it all completed, it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I don't need to know how much mister Oracle paid you,
mister Ellison paid you. I'm guessing it's approaching seven figures.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Yeah, you know, when you have five six billion thousand
hours in these vehicles. Yeah, it can, uh you know,
and that's that's what it takes, you know, to to
build these vehicles, every single part being custom.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
You know, there's just a lot of time.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
What really kind of blows people away is we run
a full collision shop alongside of our our custom builds. Right,
so the same guy that's working on infected the next
afternoon might be pulling the dent out of a six
Toyota Sequoia because they backed it in the mailbox or something.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
Right, We're a family business.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
We're in a small town, and we've just been really
fortunate to uh to build a company that is recognized
internationally for for what we do on the custom scene,
and uh, you know, it's it's it's just really important
for us to to keep to those roots and to
be real honest with you, that collision side helps us
in our builds. So when you take apart that new
F one fifty and you look at some of the
(10:09):
tech that's in there, like oh, this window regulator, boy,
that might work really great on something that we have
going on in the future. And we're doing a little
R and D when we're working on all those and
the guys in the body shop are real good about
bringing over something they think we might find interesting in.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
The build shop real quickly. Ken it go the other
way around where Ring Brothers calls Craig at gen Tex
and says, can you have your engineers work on this
for us?
Speaker 5 (10:32):
Does it absolutely that we actually did that with two
vehicles this year that we debuted at SEMA in Vegas
in the Gentex booth. One was an eighty seven Grand
National called Invader and the other was a seventy two
K five Blazer called Tukka. That one has an interesting name.
We can get to that later. So the blazer he wanted,
(10:52):
and he was one of these customers that had had
a deep knowledge of what he wanted and some specific wants,
and one of those was to have a modern Chevy
Blazer side mirror on the vehicle, so full functioning with
the turn indicators you know, built in the mirror and
heated glass in the hole, the whole dining. So that
is not something that we work with regularly, and in
(11:13):
a OE format that's going to have to go through
the ECU and do all sorts of things that we
don't have set up in this Blazer. So that was
a call we made to our friends at Gentex and said, hey,
we have this sake, what can we do here, right,
And they were able to reverse engineer it and basically
build a control module to run this mirror in a
way that it was never designed to run from the beginning.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
And on the Grand National, similarly, we had and both
of those have the full display is it e d
M mirror ec.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
MARR, but that's got the auto dimming mirrors. We have
done the digital rear mirrors for you guys in the
past room well.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
And on the Grand National we did a did a
set of carbon mirrors that they're they're a stock eighty
seven Grand National look, but they're just so much better.
And you know that's that's something where that partnership really
helps is because we get into some of that tech.
You know, at the end of the day, we're car
guys and we're muscle car guys, and and some of
this new tech is so advanced that we really need
(12:10):
strong partners that have knowledge of how all this stuff
works to be real.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Frank, so sorry, but you know it's always so fun
for our prototype teams we have phenomenal prototype of capabilities.
When we do something for our OEM customer, for the automaker,
we want it to look like it belongs in their car.
And so that when our guys can work on something
unique for Ring Brothers, you know, they just love it.
And so that's what kind of develops.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
That partnership well, and it takes those vehicles to a
new level that's never been imagined before, which is it's
really exciting. And even if you're a peerist, you've got
to recognize there are people who want that in their cars.
And why not when you can marry both worlds. I mean,
that's really incredible. What happens to about a minute left?
What happens to infect it? After the Michigan International Auto Show?
(12:55):
Where does it go?
Speaker 5 (12:56):
So every vehicle that we build is commissioned for a client, right,
so we'll go to the to the owner of that
car is going to live out of days in South Florida, Miami, Okay,
and you know white interior, I mean that streams Miami, right, Okay,
that makes sense, that's where it's going to head.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah, yeah, and that is originally what year kudah.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
To nineteen seventy Plymouth Barracuda.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And what's the engine in it?
Speaker 5 (13:17):
So it's got a Hellcat red eye with eight hundred
and seven or seven hundred and seventeen foot pounds a
tort and that's made it to a Corvette transaxle. So
the transmission is actually in the back of the car
and that gives our weight distribution inside a thirty pounds
corner to corner.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Wow, Craig, anything real quickly about gen Tex you want
to share with our listeners?
Speaker 3 (13:34):
No, I mean we you know, we continue to work
with these guys on some other vehicles that they're doing,
hopefully some we won't share all the details, but hopefully
we'll be unveiling some other things with them in the future.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
So thank you to GENTECHX for being a huge partner
in this show. Presenting partner Ryan. I really hope Ring
Brothers will be back next year. This has been thrilling
and I can ask the other twenty questions I had
for you and then come back perfect. Yeah, we would
love that. Craig Piersma, VP of Marketing with Gentechgentech dot
(14:04):
com and also Ryan fielding with Ring Brothers. You can
check them out online. Please look at this website Ringbrothers
dot com and there's a lot of eye candy on
Genech's website as well. Our guest on this segment, thank
you guys of West Michigan Weekend from iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
You've been listening to iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan
Weekend is a production of Wood Radio and iHeartRadio.
This is iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan Weekend is
a weekly programmed designed to win form and enlightened on
a wide range of public policy issues as well as
news and current events. Now here's your host, Phil Tower.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
West Michigan Weekend from Iheartradios on the air on location.
You're hearing background noise because we or the Michigan International
Auto showed Ben decades that this show has been here
at de Vos Place and it is one of my
favorite events that happens year round. Lead sponsor for the
last several years is Gentechs, a real mover and shaker
(00:39):
and one of our most dynamic made in West Michigan
success stories and global success stories. Now is Gentex Corporation.
Craig Piersma, VP of Marketing with Gentex is with us
and he brought along He brought along a ringer this
year and literally it's Ryan Fielding from Ring Brothers and
(01:01):
we'll be talking about infected as you're hearing this conversation
on the radio. You can check out the Ring Brothers
online and of course Genechs at Gentechs dot com. Ring
Brothers dot com is their website and I'm just gonna
warn you if you're kay car guy like me, you
might want to take some medication to slow your heart rate.
Just it could be a thing. Ryan Fielding first of all,
(01:23):
welcome to the program. Thanks for having me, Thank you
for being here. My friend Craig Piers Me, welcome to
the program. You've never been on this program before. I'm
excited to have Gentechs here. How are you doing? First
of all, it's show weekend. You've been working your tailoff.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, I'm doing good.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
You know, it's a lot of late nights, early mornings.
We were here at six am doing interviews. But it's
all about getting people down to the show because there's
some really great stuff to see.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Why is this partnership important for gen Techs Craig.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yeah, we got involved through the Grand Appers New Car
Dealer Association in their fundraising gala, the opening event years ago,
and then we just kind of fell in love with
that event and.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
The show itself.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
For us, it's you know, we do shows all over
the world, you know, Beijing, Shanghai, Munich, you name it.
But this show is special because it's in West Michigan.
It's in our backyard and it's so cool for our
employees to come and see what we do. You know,
if you're on the on the assembly line, you know
one part or piece, and that's kind of what you do.
To come here. You see the finished product, you show
it off to your friends and family, and it also
(02:21):
gives us a chance to get to know West Michigan.
We are always in need of talent, especially right now,
engineering talent.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
Especially software.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
We have a new tech center right downtown that we
opened about a year ago where we got if you
want to live and work in an urban environment. We've
got a manufacturing facility now in the Madison Square area,
so we know we need to start drawing more and
more employees from this area. So it's great to do
this show.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, I'm glad to say that. And you do have
a captive radio audience. You are hiring. Just go to
gen tech dot com.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Yes, why exactly, gentex dot com. I think the back
the drop down tap is that careers or jobs one
or the other, and then you'll find your way into
the open.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Positions even if you're not a car person and he
just love tech and seeing what's happening here and what
Gentex is doing. Seriously, check out the website GenEx dot com.
Today's features tomorrow's technology and cutting edge stuff, things that
are not even available in automobiles. You've got things that
connect the car with the home with the home link technology,
(03:21):
which is very user friendly stuff that a lot of
people were scared about fifteen years ago.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, we're best known for the automatic dimming mirror uses cameras, sensors,
algorithms to detect glare from the headlamps of the cars
behind you, then darken down to eliminate that, Claire. But
now we're doing things like driver monitoring systems, so cameras
that are going to be behind the glass of the
mirror looking at the driver to know if they're distracted, drowsy,
that they had a sudden illness. We're looking at the cabin,
(03:49):
the entire cabin. Are people ready for airbag deployment? So
can we adjust airbag deployment based on how they're situated.
All this is some of the cool tech that's coming
are dimic technology, you know, that's part of that autodimming mirror,
but now we're expanding it to sunriffs and one of
the coolest things that's at the show is sun visors,
so you know today you drop down your sun visor,
(04:09):
it's just a piece of cardboard blocks your forward view. Yes,
it blocks the sun, but it also prevents you from
seeing traffic and stop place and driving safely. So we're
making that autodimming. The science of electrochromics are dimming with electricity.
You drop that visor down, it immediately starts to darken
to the level necessary to eliminate that sunlight glare, but
yet give you a clear view of the road ahead.
(04:30):
So some of the things that are coming on cars
in the future.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I need that after market. I'm gonna have to ask
Craig about that after this show.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
So you paired up.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
You've always got really cool tech here at the Michigan
International Auto Shows. So you brought some major eye candy
this year. It is a car called Infected and this
is a built car. And if you're a car guy
like I am, you know what I'm talking about. It's
Bright Pink and Ryan Fielding with Ring Brothers and they're
(05:00):
in beautiful Spring Green, Wisconsin. How did you all get
hooked up? How did this partnership come about?
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah, you know, about a decade ago we met Ring
Brothers at there's a show called the SEMA show. Sure,
it's like the you know, I think it's like the
world's biggest aftermarket car show. We've been there for years,
and we noticed a long time ago that these custom
car builders really don't like to put mirrors on that
beautiful windscreen because there's no modern mirror being made today
for the for the you know, factory integration that really
(05:28):
is going to look good on a custom vehicle. Some
of our industrial designers went back, came up with something
really cool carbon fiber, some nice bright work and in lay,
and we brought to the show the next year. These
Ring Brothers loved it. A few others did. We started
putting it on cars. You know, the ethos of the
two companies is really similar. You know, yeah, different sizes,
different goals, but the end of the day, you know,
we love what we do, we love technology, we love
(05:50):
getting out in meeting people. And from there we've you know,
we've helped them launch a couple of vehicles that are
booth gave them space, and they launched some vehicles at
SEMA this year, and then we said, hey, you guys
can need to come to the show with us, and
so that's that's how that all happened.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
So welcome to the show. Ring Brothers and Ryan Fielding.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
Again, happy to be here, Thanks for having us. This
is a wonderful show. We love being in Michigan. It's
our first year at this show and you know, everybody's
been just incredibly gracious and we're just really excited to
meet everybody and you know, make some new friends here
in the industry over in Michigan.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
What does Ring Brothers do?
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Right?
Speaker 5 (06:24):
So we build high end, bespoke custom vehicles for exclusive
clients all over the world. We are real fortunate to
work with some pretty incredible car people who have a
vision for a vehicle that they want taken to a
level that maybe a Mustang or a Javelin or a
(06:44):
Grand National or a Kuda have not been taken to before.
And you know, we will sit down and reimagine those
vehicles and you know that coup that we brought, I
mean that prime example, we have five six hundred hours
in that vehicle and that's over the course of eighteen months.
That's between engineering, between CAD design, between body shop assembly, fabrication.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
You know, there's a lot that goes into all these vehicles.
Speaker 5 (07:10):
There's an amazing team that we work with, and we've
got you know, just under thirty employees at Ring Brothers
over Wisconsin, and everybody in that company has a critical
role in bringing these vehicles to life.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
And we'll put the link in the podcast section for
the Ring Brothers website Gentex dot com as well. But
you can see these cars and what's amazing is they
retain the classic look yet they've got that Genech's high
end technology and other partners you work with. Inside the car.
I mean, you can literally rebuild the entire interior, the engine, everything,
(07:46):
but it's still on the outside looks like a sixty
five Mustang.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
You know, it's really important to us on all of
our vehicles that at the end of the day, the
end of the day, like that car. Specifically, every single
part of that vehicle was either modified, made from scratch, manipulated, designed, refined.
Every single part except for the center cap on the
wheel that's a stock sixty five Mustang center cap. Everything
else was made, modified or customized. But when it's all
(08:11):
said and done, it still screams sixty five Mustang.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
That one.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
We widened an inch on each side, so the entire
car is two inches wider, but there was.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Only wait wait, wait, what how did that happen?
Speaker 5 (08:23):
It's a lot of work, but it's all done in metal,
and everything was widen an inch. So what you're doing
that at that point you have to widen the bumper,
widen the grill, widen the headlight buckets, fenders, hook door
quarter panels, rear bumper, tailight panel. Everything gets widened out
just an inch. And no, we look at it. You
don't necessarily immediately see that that car's wider. But what's
really fun? And we did that with this car in
(08:44):
particulars we had a good friend of the shop who
has a sixty five Mustang convertible unmolested original, and we
brought the two down and sat them next to each other,
did a photo shoot, and we did a video on
a pot YouTube video on all the changes. And when
they're next to each other, then you can see where
that that one inch, you know, but that's a that's
(09:04):
a big undertaking to gain that one inch.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
But when you see it all completed, it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I don't need to know how much mister Oracle paid you,
mister Ellison paid you. I'm guessing it's approaching seven figures.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Yeah, you know, when you have five six billion thousand
hours in these vehicles. Yeah, it can, uh you know,
and that's that's what it takes, you know, to to
build these vehicles, every single part being custom.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
You know, there's just a lot of time.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
What really kind of blows people away is we run
a full collision shop alongside of our our custom builds. Right,
so the same guy that's working on infected the next
afternoon might be pulling the dent out of a six
Toyota Sequoia because they backed it in the mailbox or something.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
Right, We're a family business.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
We're in a small town, and we've just been really
fortunate to uh to build a company that is recognized
internationally for for what we do on the custom scene,
and uh, you know, it's it's it's just really important
for us to to keep to those roots and to
be real honest with you, that collision side helps us
in our builds. So when you take apart that new
F one fifty and you look at some of the
(10:09):
tech that's in there, like oh, this window regulator, boy,
that might work really great on something that we have
going on in the future. And we're doing a little
R and D when we're working on all those and
the guys in the body shop are real good about
bringing over something they think we might find interesting in.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
The build shop real quickly. Ken it go the other
way around where Ring Brothers calls Craig at gen Tex
and says, can you have your engineers work on this
for us?
Speaker 5 (10:32):
Does it absolutely that we actually did that with two
vehicles this year that we debuted at SEMA in Vegas
in the Gentex booth. One was an eighty seven Grand
National called Invader and the other was a seventy two
K five Blazer called Tukka. That one has an interesting name.
We can get to that later. So the blazer he wanted,
(10:52):
and he was one of these customers that had had
a deep knowledge of what he wanted and some specific wants,
and one of those was to have a modern Chevy
Blazer side mirror on the vehicle, so full functioning with
the turn indicators you know, built in the mirror and
heated glass in the hole, the whole dining. So that
is not something that we work with regularly, and in
(11:13):
a OE format that's going to have to go through
the ECU and do all sorts of things that we
don't have set up in this Blazer. So that was
a call we made to our friends at Gentex and said, hey,
we have this sake, what can we do here, right,
And they were able to reverse engineer it and basically
build a control module to run this mirror in a
way that it was never designed to run from the beginning.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
And on the Grand National, similarly, we had and both
of those have the full display is it e d
M mirror ec.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
MARR, but that's got the auto dimming mirrors. We have
done the digital rear mirrors for you guys in the
past room well.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
And on the Grand National we did a did a
set of carbon mirrors that they're they're a stock eighty
seven Grand National look, but they're just so much better.
And you know that's that's something where that partnership really
helps is because we get into some of that tech.
You know, at the end of the day, we're car
guys and we're muscle car guys, and and some of
this new tech is so advanced that we really need
(12:10):
strong partners that have knowledge of how all this stuff
works to be real.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Frank, so sorry, but you know it's always so fun
for our prototype teams we have phenomenal prototype of capabilities.
When we do something for our OEM customer, for the automaker,
we want it to look like it belongs in their car.
And so that when our guys can work on something
unique for Ring Brothers, you know, they just love it.
And so that's what kind of develops.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
That partnership well, and it takes those vehicles to a
new level that's never been imagined before, which is it's
really exciting. And even if you're a peerist, you've got
to recognize there are people who want that in their cars.
And why not when you can marry both worlds. I mean,
that's really incredible. What happens to about a minute left?
What happens to infect it? After the Michigan International Auto Show?
(12:55):
Where does it go?
Speaker 5 (12:56):
So every vehicle that we build is commissioned for a client, right,
so we'll go to the to the owner of that
car is going to live out of days in South Florida, Miami, Okay,
and you know white interior, I mean that streams Miami, right, Okay,
that makes sense, that's where it's going to head.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah, yeah, and that is originally what year kudah.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
To nineteen seventy Plymouth Barracuda.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And what's the engine in it?
Speaker 5 (13:17):
So it's got a Hellcat red eye with eight hundred
and seven or seven hundred and seventeen foot pounds a
tort and that's made it to a Corvette transaxle. So
the transmission is actually in the back of the car
and that gives our weight distribution inside a thirty pounds
corner to corner.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Wow, Craig, anything real quickly about gen Tex you want
to share with our listeners?
Speaker 3 (13:34):
No, I mean we you know, we continue to work
with these guys on some other vehicles that they're doing,
hopefully some we won't share all the details, but hopefully
we'll be unveiling some other things with them in the future.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
So thank you to GENTECHX for being a huge partner
in this show. Presenting partner Ryan. I really hope Ring
Brothers will be back next year. This has been thrilling
and I can ask the other twenty questions I had
for you and then come back perfect. Yeah, we would
love that. Craig Piersma, VP of Marketing with Gentechgentech dot
(14:04):
com and also Ryan fielding with Ring Brothers. You can
check them out online. Please look at this website Ringbrothers
dot com and there's a lot of eye candy on
Genech's website as well. Our guest on this segment, thank
you guys of West Michigan Weekend from iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
You've been listening to iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan
Weekend is a production of Wood Radio and iHeartRadio.
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