How Richard Rawlings Created Fast N' Loud | Joe Rogan

I tell people I might be the smartest guy in the world. I figured out how to drink beer and play with cars and get paid for it Yeah, but it's like it's a fun show. It's like you're not taking yourself too seriously having a good time You know you're buying and selling awesome cars. Well. Yeah for sure It's it was a dream of mine to get it done It took eight years to get it sold, but here we are now did a really yeah I started I started pitching the show in 2004. We didn't start till 2008 or 2012 what were you doing before that? Before television or before gas monkey yeah, I kind of had two stages in life I was a firefighter police officer medic before I was old enough to drink. I mean I'm talking 19 years old carrying a gun Probably one smartest thing for them to let me do and then I let you have a go when you were 19 I had a badge I was a cop I Mean literally I was a police officer and so by the time I was 20. I was also a firefighter and so I did that for a while and then moved into printing and advertising and Then sold that and got into this So was it just like something you just always into cars, and that's what led you to the show you know How would I tell the story diplomatically? Realistically I was watching the shows that were on TV at the time I'm always been a car nut and a motorcycle guy and what have you and I realized one night that my kids are never in the Room watching it and my wife's not in the room watching it. You know and The shows that were on were a little bit too much bravado And and I'm tough guy and you know so I dug it and all my buddies dug it But the wives and stuff and I was like golly they're missing a big chunk of the market here if you could Tone down that part of it a little bit and still have a cool brand and still be a cool guy You know and get the moms and the kids in the room Hopefully it's a lot more successful And so that's that was kind of where the idea came from and I just went out and started it That's interesting so the marketing side of you kicked in Uh-huh so the marketing side of you went I think there's another way to do this yeah I mean, I'm still a tattooed guy with some jewelry But you know I got a pit bull on I got a poodle on a leash not a pit bull on a chain Well the show it doesn't seem compromised. That's what's interesting about it because it seems like a kind of a guy's show I never thought about that way well The way I approached it was just like when I was a kid and my dad had a garage It not a you know not open for public garage But he had a place that we kept his car and the neighbors would come over and they tinker and they drink beer And that's what car guys do so we kind of took that approach of that's what gas monkey does We just drink some beer and play some cars and goof around. It's just like Saturday afternoon, but all week long Did you have any of a background in? Automobile knowledge did you know like how to fix things or did you yeah? I've never really been the full fabricator. You know I understand everything in outworks, but I'm probably more of a business guy So I was able to go out and hire good guys to do the fabricating stuff And we've got a great team But I did have the car knowledge and I and I had you know I had the eyeball for what was good and keeping up with What was going to be happening and things like that and that's kind of my strong suit is saying okay Portions are fixed to be popular So we're gonna get into 356 is or Broncos like the one you drove it is you know or what have you and I'm keep my eye On the market that's interesting so you're but you still do keep your eye on the market I saw that 68 that you have outside the 68 Chevelle yeah 68 68 convertible goddamn. That's a nice car It's a good. It's probably the best one. I've ever seen I mean from an original standpoint. Yeah, it's mint I mean, it's got little scuffs up. It's it's driven. You know, but it's it's in perfect condition It doesn't have any dents or anything wrong with it is literally a little old lady from Pasadena I mean the lady bought it brand new and she passed away a couple years ago, and I bought it from her grandson Wow what a cliche 52,000 original miles and Never been wrecked never old lady from Pasadena is a cliche. I know right it was technically Pomona, but you know save shit Wow yeah that car those I mean I've said this on the show a million times I'm a giant fan of like the time period of 1965 to somewhere around like 71 They fell apart. Yeah, you know like you still get a 71 Challenger 71 Barracuda still pretty sweet for sure But then you get into like 72 73 they had to start putting the big bumpers on there with the shock Then he got the gas crunched and then everything got four cylinders And it was a bad time in the late 70s for sure it was a bad time, but it's a good time now It's a really interesting really interesting time now for muscle cars It's the race is so crazy that they're putting out Street legal cars you could buy from a dealer with 700 plus horsepower and almost every dealer has one now Oh, yeah for sure. I mean I've got a demon myself. It's not craze 108 horsepower It's fucking crazy now the new GT 500 is out. That's gonna have over 700 horsepower You know you have the the Camaro What is it 1le so no what? What is it LT 1 1 le no what the fuck is the name of the like the L1 1 le? Yeah, yeah, that's a 0 1 1 le which is 650 horsepower and then the new Zr1 has 750 horsepower. They're just preposterous. Oh, it's it's uh I Think it could be a little dangerous. You know what everybody out there thinking hey I could drive a 700 horsepower car because it's it's completely different than you know a normal one Well, did you see the video of the guy from one of the head guys at GM? Who took it on track like one of the first days they were released in the car and he spun out on the first turn He slammed into the wall Well, I can't say much. I've wrecked a brand-new Hellcat the other day racing at Woodward. Did you really? Yeah, oh no I went to Woodward dream cruise and they had a little celebrity matchup and I was racing And just lost it and hit the wall took out the whole side of the car Were you on a track or were you on a strip? It was a street track that they had right there on Woodward Avenue. So they put up the blocks and you take off Yikes. Yeah. Yeah, those those Hellcats are beautiful, but they're not they're not that great at cornering That's still a giant car. It's a big car. Yeah Mustang and Camaro gonna do better in the corners for sure Yeah, the Hellcat has so much front. There's so much out in front I mean, it really does remind you more than any of those other cars though of those 1970 cars You know really has that that shape is more I kind of like if you look at a 1969 Camaro and then you look at a 2019 Camaro you like Uh, I don't see it. That's not the same thing. But a Challenger really does look like that old car Well Kim Tim Kineskas killed it I mean that was his whole passion project the whole time he was running Dodge and he just absolutely nailed it Yeah, no, they did they made a great-looking modern muscle car. The other ones are just great-looking cars I mean, they are still muscle cars, but they don't really think you don't really think about the old days when you see them now They've tried but they didn't get it as good as Dodge now you guys make some fucking great builds, too You know you guys have done some really sweet custom builds Like you were telling me outside that the longest you do a build for is 25 days We've got it down to about 25 from 32 ish when we started so when you see a car on the show If it's a single episode, then we built that car in 25 26 days. That's crazy start to finish paint interior everything How do you do it so quick a lot of planning and we've learned over seven years now in 130 of them that? You know, we've just got our process in and the crew that I have at the shop now is Unbelievably phenomenal and there's only six guys doing it. There's six guys that do it 25 days we're done. That's insane But what about like if you're gonna do their custom suspension or you know art more Morrison chassis or something like that It just takes some planning. So literally what we do is we build the car three times. This is what I tell everybody We'll say okay, we're gonna build this 68 chabel And so we decide how we're gonna build it and what kind of parts we're gonna use what kind of suspension wheels motor We we put all that down on paper and then if it works mathematically for the project we want to do then I go find the car then when I find the car we order every single part and we don't start that car until every single thing That was on that list is in house has been checked and we're ready to go So now all we've got is actual fabrication time in human error and we're ready to go Still seems like such a short amount of time and all the builds that I've seen take seven months nine months a year It's just the shops are set up differently It may be one or two guys or maybe they've got kind of you know assembly programs going on or what have you but We get in there like you'll love the way we're building right now. We're building a 77 international Scout and Started with a really nice one orange white stripes plaid interior. I mean the whole ball of wax whack the Chassis out from under it put in a full Chris Austin chassis works chassis with Only two-wheel drive and it's all 2018 Hellcat eight-speed automatic Oh Jesus in it and slammed on the ground, but it's still removable top and what is a great, California truck I guarantee you that oh wow so you made it so you lowered it. Yeah, we're calling it the hell scalp ah Wow that's pretty badass it's gonna be wicked car. Yeah those Hellcat chassis Jonathan Ward the same guy who's doing this is Who did my Bronco the icon they're doing that with? One of the I think it's a super bird One of the one of those iconic mopars from the late 60s early 70s They're doing a full Hellcat chassis and the whole deal with that. Oh really that yeah, yeah What what company was the first one to really get stupid with these cars I guess it was kind of Corvette with the ZR1 with horsepower figures Yeah, for sure Corvette stepped out there with the ZR1 and started cranking it up Everybody was counting in production yet. You had the resurgence of Shelby. Yeah there. It is. There's Jonathan Ward's wow Look at that thing. That's good looking That is like literally like trying to have a block like a city block on wheels They take around a corner look how long that thing is Yeah, that's gonna be a fresh car. Yeah for sure badass. He does some awesome shit over there, too He's doing some well. He's doing one that I don't think you can talk about I think he's keeping under wraps, but he's got a bunch of cool shit. Yeah for sure he's you've ever been there I have not but right down the street. I know Go visit afterwards we might I don't think I'm gonna make my flight. When's your flight? I don't know Got a couple of them on hold Notice I said that say I got a couple on hold because I don't think I'm making enough money for a plane yet Gonna talk to disco on that. Well it like a private plane. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I don't I mean We're all scrambling for something Yeah, that's the ultimate scramble the private jet money, but that that is just so much fucking money That's that's it is a little ridiculous. Yeah, but I'd like to have a tricked out one gas monkey on it We go monkey on the tail Yeah, we were the kegging it somewhere. Oh, yeah for sure Now when you do these shows and you bargain people down and then they watch the show do people ever get pissed? I've had a few and In the first first few years they were just excited you know that we were gonna be doing something with the car and there's always an element of Cinnamon to it, you know, it was their dad's or right was their moms or grandmas or whatever and they want to see it Go to a good home. So you got several different kind of people They don't want you to not do anything or if you're gonna fix it up We want to see it, you know all kinds of things like that but nowadays it's it's a little more harder for me to get a decent deal because No, the success of the show and I show up and they're like, oh you're that guy on TV. No, I didn't say ten thousand I said 13, you know Yeah, yeah Well, I would imagine when people see what you sell them for after you fix them up then they get a little upset Yeah They can but I mean they don't understand the amount of work and time and money that we've put into it Most of the cars that we're building on the show now We're putting at least a hundred grand in and sometimes as much as 300 really, you know, I mean we're building everything We're building now This is when the new season comes out in June people gonna be amazed cuz you know, we're building this kind of stuff Wow, and it's wicked cool. Are you doing that in 25 days? Yeah, fuck man Just put together a good plan and execute it Well, it must be like a thing now because the show that people want to get a gas monkey-built car they do but How would I say this diplomatically if it weren't for employees vendors and customers business would be great We we don't do a lot for the the customer Until we've built it for ourselves and then we sell it to them But as far as coming in off the street We just like building what we want to build honing our skills and then we find a buyer every once in a while I'll have God come in and go look I can this is what I want, but I can I won't call you I won't come in there with a new steering wheel, you know It's like it gets that's why a lot of times cars do take seven months or a year All right, cuz the the guy that's having it's built is in there every other weekend going. Oh, no Maybe we move this over here and paint it purple Yeah, I get it yeah, no, it does seem like it would be way better just build it how you like it and then sell it Well, yeah, I mean, it's still a business decision I'm trying to hold it to where I think it's gonna do the most you know the most money at the end of the day and stay true with what's going on as far as That particular car and what's going on in the marketplace and technology and what have you And we do get a lot of calls where people come in and they go. Okay, I want that exact same thing You know and so we'll build another one. Well, sometimes you you do buy cars and just sell them without doing anything to it, right? Yeah, that's what we call our B stories, you know, we'll buy something bring it in maybe just put some wheels on it or whatever but usually it's just clean it up get it run and sell somebody else the dream because Not everybody can afford a fully built car right and or they want to do it themselves So we get them a good project. Yeah, I don't think people realize how much money is involved in a fully built car ridiculous Yeah