Ep. 34: Richard Rawlings – Founder, Gas Monkey Garage & Fast N’ Loud

Richard: I wasn't aiming at trying to make a living. I was aiming at trying to build a brand, worldwide brand, like Orange County Choppers or Jesse James was at the time. I was aiming to build a brand, but do it in a more allowable family unit. Still cool, I still got tattoos, I still do burnouts and stuff, I drink beer.

Tarek: Welcome to the Y'all Street. Today I speak with Richard Rawlings, reality TV star and the owner of Gas Monkey Garage. The machine that smashes. It's 100% legit.

Richard: So Chris, you want a cup of coffee? I just want to be the best. Thank you, brother. Thank you, sir.

Tarek: Richard, would you like a cup of coffee? Absolutely, what do you got there? I got you this V8 coffee mug. It was the only one that was fitting for you, I figured.

Richard: That is really pretty cool. You got it. I just wanted to check it out. Cheers, coffee cheers. Right on. That's pretty massive. And right out of the Y'all Street French press.

Tarek: That's right. Love it. I think this has got to be the nicest venue that we've ever recorded at, and probably the most expensive too, with the cars behind me.

Richard: Well, if you count the cars.

Tarek: It's great. So it's funny how we met, isn't it? Why don't you tell that story?

Richard: Well, a while back, about a few years, I was at Wall Street for some podcast thing that I was doing. I was doing a podcast tour, and one of them was in a building there in Wall Street. And I started noticing all of the ancillary products, the shirts, and hats, and mugs, and stickers, and flags, and everything that say Wall Street. And I come back, and over the course of the next few months, or maybe a year, everybody's talking about how the exchange is coming to Texas, and then they're calling it Y'all Street, and things like that. So I'm a branding guy, and a marketing guy, and I was like, I wonder if anybody owns those trademarks. So nobody did. So I applied for them, and I actually now own all of the trademarks for all your trinkets and trashes, what I call it, your shirts, and your hats, and your coffee mugs, and things like that. But I also expanded it into bars, and restaurants, and stuff. But the reason that we met was because you have yallstreet.com. And then I looked you up, and it's like, they're precious metals. I mean, what does this mean? It doesn't correlate, because in my world, I was only looking at the brand of Y'all Street. And now that I understand what you guys do, it makes sense to me that you have yallstreet.com, and this podcast. But I called to see if I could buy it.

Tarek: Well, it's so funny, because you left me a message that first time, and then we speak on the phone. And I remember getting off the call with you. I think we spoke for about 45 minutes, and you were kind of sharing a little bit about your background. And you're like, I'm an entrepreneur. I have some restaurants, and some different things like that, different projects. And I remember telling my attorney, I'm like, gosh, that was just the nicest guy. Yeah, it looks like, you know, he's doing a lot of things that kind of cross-pollinate with what we're doing. And I didn't think anything of it. And I'm like, I tell a few other people that, you know, Richard Rawlings gave me a call, and they're like, do you Richard Rawlings? I'm like, am I the only guy on the planet that I guess I've never, you know, I never saw any of your shows. I'm not a car guy. So I just wasn't, I wasn't familiar with you. So as I, you know, of course I gooey, and I think, oh my goodness, this guy has to be great for the podcast.

Richard: We got a lot going on for sure.

Tarek: Yeah, yeah. Speaking of, let's talk about that, because you had the show, Fast and Loud, eight years on Discovery Channel, that ended in 2020. You are now bigger and badder than you ever were during that entire period. You have your hands in a variety of different businesses. You are really a master at branding and marketing and licensing. You have projects going in beer and, you know, tequila and a variety of different things. I want to hear everything. What are you into?

Richard: Let me just let that soak in for a minute. I mean, that was a hell of a lot of compliments. Thank you. But no, seriously, I guess, I don't know. Do you go back to the start? I mean, and tell where it came from? You know, I didn't just get discovered by discovery and, oh my gosh, these guys were going to make a show about them and what have you. I shot all my own sizzle reels. I started the shop in 2003. Technically, we didn't incorporate till 2004. And, but it really all goes back to the entrepreneurism bug. I mean, I guess to see the whole thing, I'd take you back a little bit. I'll try to make it short, but when I was young, we had a newspaper out from the time I was seven until I was probably 16 or 17. In Fort Worth, Texas, that meant a morning paper and an evening paper because you didn't have all the devices we have today. So you got your news from a newspaper and from one of the three channels on television. And so from the time of seven, my dad would get me up at around three in the morning, 3.30, and I would get in the backseat of the car and we'd go pick up the newspapers. I'd roll them in a rubber band or even a plastic bag if it was raining. And he would sit in the front seat and chunk them out. And I'm just chunking them over the seat.

Tarek: And your hands were just totally black.

Richard: Yeah, and it didn't even matter if it was raining, sleet, sunshine, snow, the windows were down. It didn't matter how cold or hot or anything. And then I had to go back home around five, 5.30, sleep for an hour and get up, go to school. And then I had to race home from school. I mean, I'm talking seven or eight years old. And then on the weekends, I had to ride my bicycle around with this big blue ticket book and collect the $2 and give them the little coupon and argue with the guys that said, no, we mailed it in. well, you're three months late. I'm eight, 10, 12 years old doing this. And around then I got, my dad, he worked not only the newspaper route, but a regular job at Safeway at the time. He was a produce manager most of my life. And then he always had an even a third job somewhere trying to make ends meet. So we grew up. I hate to use the word grew up poor, grew up into that. Cause we had a nice loving home and food on the table and stuff like that. But we had to work for it. And so I got into cars and motorcycles cause my dad was into cars and motorcycles. He didn't, he always had a toy in the driveway or in the garage. And it wasn't the best one by any means. It was probably pretty junky, but it was, this little one or $2,000 thing that was his. And so I got that bug from my dad. And by the time I was 12 or 13, I'm asking guys when I'm collecting the $2, what's up with the Mustang in the garage? And they're like, what do you know about my Mustang? Hey, what are you doing kid? And I'm like, I drive your street twice a day, man. I know where all the cars are in this neighborhood. And I remember telling the first guy that and a bell kind of went off and it was like, I do know where all the cars are. I got to figure out how to buy these cars and sell them.

Tarek: So at that point, were you already interested in cars?

Richard: Oh yeah.

Tarek: You were already a huge.

Richard: Yeah. I was a car and motorcycle guy my whole life, watching, I grew up watching all the Burt Reynolds movies and Hooper Ace and Smoking Bandit. And all the things that were going on at the time were car stuff. And my dad always went to the car shows with me or the motorcycle shows and I rode a little dirt bike and stuff. So I started buying and selling cars around 12 or 13. And my dad would go pick them up for me and I'd bring them home and clean them and tune them up and sell them. And so that's always been in my blood. Fast forward to later in life, dad was like, I don't ever want you to have to work this hard, Richard. I want you to get a good job, a good paying job where you can work your Monday through Fridays and you can get the gold watch at the end. You have insurance and you have benefits. I was like, yeah, dad, I'll do that. So before I was old enough to buy a beer in a bar, I was a police officer, firefighter and medic in Coppell, Texas. And so I went straight into the police academy at 18 and a half in the fire academy and medical school.

Tarek: You did both simultaneously?

Richard: No.

Tarek: Police and fire.

Richard: Went one, then to the other. And then medic was kind of simultaneous EMT.

Tarek: So let's pause there for a second. What's it like being an 18 and a half year old cop?

Richard: Well, I wasn't a cop cop till about 19 and a half, but yeah, so it was pretty weird because I was also a skinny lanky kid, like 26 inch Wrangler jeans and I'm wearing a gun and it's kind of pulling me down to one side. And it was okay. Back then it was a different world. Our uniform was pressed Wrangler jeans, cowboy boots and a collared shirt that said Coppell fire department on it or whatever. So it was way different than it is now.

Tarek: Did you have respect because of the uniform or do people still look at you like a kid?

Richard: I had a few instances where guys would be like, you're not old enough to wash my car, plenty of other expletives. And I would always diffuse the situation by, look, I'm just doing my job. I ain't trying to be an a-hole or anything like that. And I busted my ass to get this job. I don't wanna screw it up. And they'd usually calm down a little bit.

Tarek: But you got shot on duty.

Richard: Not on duty. I took a bullet in 92. A friend of mine and two friends of mine went out in Dallas from Fort Worth one weekend. I didn't go cause it was raining and I didn't like to go out in the rain. So they went out. One of them got killed in a car jacking. And about three weeks after we buried him, I called my buddy that was with him and I said, dude, you gotta get out of the house. Let me go buy you some beers and this and that. So we went out to Northside in Fort Worth and he got lucky, met a girl. And so I was like, cool, dude. Freaking go have a good time, right? And so I went home by myself and stopped at the burger joint at two in the morning. And I remember ordering and then driving up to the drive-through window. She took my 20 bucks and I remember the window shut, but then I heard it click locked. And that's when I looked in my rear view mirror and I went right down for where I keep my gun. Well, I don't carry my gun when I go out drinking with my buddies. So again, different time. And so I go for where my gun is. It's not there. So I go for the gear shifter and they were already shooting. So I took a bullet through the shoulder and down my arm cause my arm was on the steering wheel. What was the motivation? Probably because of their stupidity, just a normal robbery, get 20 bucks, get 30 bucks. But I was driving a very impressive 65 GT 350 Mustang Shelby. They might've been after the car, but I seriously doubt it. So, you know, it was rougher on my buddy than it was on me. Cause he calls to see if I got home and long story short, my roommate at the time said, no, he got shot. He's in the hospital and he was freaking out. So, but all's well that ends well. Did another five or so years at Coppell. And then one day I was speaking with my captain and he showed me the pay scale. He's like, man, you know, Richard, I've been here 22 years, 25 years, whatever. And if you do this and this, you'll be here on the pay scale. And I was like, that sucks. So, and I was always very entrepreneurial. So even though a lot of firemen do this anyways, you know, I had side hustles. I was still buying and selling cars and messing around anything I could do to make more money.

Tarek: How much were you making buying and selling cars relative to your income as a fireman?

Richard: Oh, I was making more off duty than on duty, but I had benefits. I mean, when I started at Coppell, I think the starting salary was somewhere sub 20,000. I want to say it was like 18 or $19,000 a year. But the motivation at that point was, I don't want to stay here that long. I'm making great money off duty. I think I could expand that or maybe do something else. I don't know what that is. So I told my captain, I was leaving. And he goes, what do you mean? I said, if I don't walk out of here now, I never will. And I'll be in this chair sitting here talking to the kid that looks like me. And I said, I don't want to do that. So that was the first time I've ever seen my dad cry. He literally, when I told him what I'd done and that I'd left, he really broke down. Cause he was super proud. I had a good job. I didn't have to do anything off duty that I didn't want to do or wasn't enjoying. I didn't have three or four jobs. And so my dad really thought I threw my life away. And you were really close to your dad. Yeah, still am, except for he doesn't know it. He's got really, really advanced Alzheimer's. Yeah, it's part of it. It's part of something that a lot of people in America are either living with or are fixing to, cause it's a bad thing. But so what do I do? Then I really threw my life away. I sold everything I owned and I bought a brand new Jeep and I went out West to see the ocean and hang out and clear my head and figure out what I want to do. I thought I'd be gone a couple of weeks. I was gone seven months.

Tarek: And- What did you do during the seven months?

Richard: I have no idea. I got my hair long for the first time ever. I got my ears pierced. I got tattoos. I hung out.

Tarek: This is like late eighties?

Richard: No, this was mid nineties.

Tarek: Mid nineties, okay.

Richard: Yeah, 95, 96s. And just ran through everything. Next thing I know, my 401k's spent. I got no money in the bank. I think one of these tattoos, I had a warrant out in Vegas at one time for a bounce check for $25. I'm not kidding. Literally a warrant. I didn't discover it for like two years later because I bounced a check for 25 bucks for a tattoo. But I panhandled. I would go to the gas station and park my brand new Jeep in the back and go out front and ask for bucks to get gas.

Tarek: Where were you living? Were you living out of your Jeep?

Richard: Yeah, pretty much. Or couch surfing, just whatever. And you gotta remember, it wasn't at the time we had all these devices. We didn't have any of that.

Tarek: It was free. You were out there. Did you know anybody? Did you go out with somebody or you just met people out there and hung out?

Richard: I had one hitchhiker guy, or panhandler or whatever you wanna call him, that came up to me at a gas station somewhere in Arizona and he asked me for a few bucks. And I said, and he was younger. He was maybe four or five years younger than me. And he didn't look too bad. And I was like, I'll tell you what. You got a driver's license? He goes, yep. I said, you drive. I said, I'll buy you meals. We end up wherever. He goes, cool with me. And he rode with me for like probably three weeks. And just whatever we partied, had a good time. I was still spending my savings and stuff. And he taught me how to go and gracefully ask for money and get it. And it was a weird time in my life because I didn't really know what I was gonna do. But at the end of the day, we pull up Sunset Boulevard. Everybody knows the little curve with the big billboard where the old tower records used to be. And this girl pulls up next to us and I'm in the passenger seat. And I look at her and I'm like, hey, what's up? She's like, oh, how you doing? I was like, what are you doing later? She goes, oh, I don't know. I'll get off work late, five or whatever. And I was like, you wanna have a cocktail? She's like, yeah. I'm like, cool. And he already knew. He looked at me and he goes, this is where I get out. And he grabbed his duffel bag and jumped out right there. And I got in the driver's seat and went to a really crappy hotel off of Sunset, took a shower and whatever and took this girl on a date. That was it. And that was short-lived and then it was time to move home or come home. And I called my dad and I said, dad, I need some money. He goes, what do you mean? I said, I'm out. I don't have any money. I said, I gotta get home and whatever. He's like, well, you got there.

Tarek: How's your dad feeling at this point after you'd already left the job and now you're coming back asking for money?

Richard: Yeah, he goes, well, you got there, you'll get back. And I figured it out. We got home about a week later, or we, me. And then I had to figure out what I was gonna do with life because I went to my sister's house, who you met. She's here. And woke up the next morning and I guess the repo man was watching because they took my Jeep. And I'm like, okay, no car, no money, no belongings realistically. My clothing would fit in a backpack. And I guess I've hit the bottom. I gotta figure out where to go now. I gotta get serious.

Tarek: So the seeds of being comfortable with risk and uncertainty are already there long before you're successful.

Richard: Yeah.

Tarek: You're just like, I'm going to jump out into the blue ocean and see where it takes me. And a lot of people are uncomfortable without the security, your dad being one of them, obviously.

Richard: Well, I think that one of it was that we didn't have security. We worked every day to make that happen. And so I was like, well, why not try something? And then I got very comfortable and had the apartment and had income and a 401 and I was bored. I mean, at the end of the day, I was literally just bored. I didn't know, I was idle hands, you know? And so I just tried my hand at waiting tables. I went to the training program and waited tables at Papa Do's and that was definitely not for me. And somehow I stumbled into, I met a girl at a bar and we started dating and she was into, she was a print salesperson for a printing company. And she was like, you should try that. And she was like a VP or something of this company, you know? So I said, okay, I'll try it. And that's when the light bulb went off. I found that I was really good at it. I started to make a business from zero. Next thing you know, I'm top salesperson, moving up in the company, killing it.

Tarek: What exactly were you doing?

Richard: Well, at the time we were print brokering, but we had in-house art department, we had in-house pre-press. We kind of acted, back then you had an agency that did your art, you had a pre-press shop, you had a printing company and then you had your binding company that finished it out and folded it and all that. And we kind of served in this weird middle area and it took the pressure off the customer. So I was calling on Fortune 100s, you know, printing brochures, magazines, direct mailers, packaging.

Tarek: Did you ever have any creative input into the designs?

Richard: A lot, because I was good at it for some reason. I don't know why.

Tarek: That's what I was gonna ask you next. Where did that come from?

Richard: I have no idea. I've just always been, like, I can look at something. It's kind of like with these cars. I can look at the car and go, okay, we gotta push this and squeeze this and go here. So I got to where I had a lot of clients that would be like, what do you think? And I'm like, well, what I do is, and so we did real well in that business and ended up running off to start my own.

Tarek: Do you think that being so young with a single dad who was working all the time and it was you and your sister, you spent a lot of time alone, a lot of time independent as young children, do you think that that created a level of observational awareness that is sort of unique and helped you with kind of your eye for design and branding and what people are attracted to?

Richard: I think so. I think it was also a blend of my dad was very creative. He was a produce manager, but he would always get all these prizes for building this grapefruit display or the way that he did the boxes. And he was also very creative with his writing so he could write these numbered signs real well. We didn't have all the printers that we have now. And then the way that he adjusted his cars and the way that we mowed the yard, and one inch thick strips of edging and you wash them out with a hose. He was very particular like that. You dressed a certain way, you tuck your shirt in, all of those kinds of things. So I think I got a lot of that from my father too.

Tarek: Very neat. So you're now moving up the ranks in this print company. It's around year 2000 timeframe and- It's, no, it happened pretty quick.

Richard: It was probably 96, 97, something like that. Okay. And so the gentleman that owned it was going through nasty divorce and I tried to buy the company from him and he was like, yeah, I don't like her too much. So we're just gonna crash this company. And so I was like, cool, man. Can I take my clients and leave? And he goes, sure. And I went, all right. And so I started it out of my apartment.

Tarek: So that was the genesis of your first company.

Richard: Yes. Yeah, my first true company was, I mean, other than raking leaves and stuff like that, was a company that I ultimately called Lincoln Press. Why did you call it Lincoln Press? Because as I was growing as a broker out of my apartment, I ended up buying a company called Lincoln. Okay. And so just kept it. And so it went on from there, became, I was always ready to take a risk. So I was willing to buy a big piece of equipment or that folder or that shrink or stretcher or whatever I needed to make sure I was doing more of the job in house. And then I was good at finding other sales guys and training them. So we built a sizable little company here in Dallas called Lincoln Press, doing a lot of work for a lot of companies.

Tarek: It's one thing to be a sales guy who's effective or creative, but then to go out and start a business, there's a lot that goes into starting and running a business. You got payroll and employees and legal and accounting. I mean, where did you learn how to account appropriately or buy equipment and depreciate it? Like what was that learning curve like for you?

Richard: I was very, very lucky in that my dad and subsequently his second wife, especially her, I'll give her some credit on that, was my books were right. I had to save, I had to tithe on all the money I was making as a teenager. I kept my checkbook ledger. I filed, I think my first 1040-EZ when I was either 12 or 13 years old and I had to fill it out myself. So numbers were always good for me. Pretty much middle of high school, I was in shop class and I was having some problems with the algebra type stuff. And my shop teacher, Mr. Hill, he told me, he goes, you like money? I said, well, yeah, I like money. He goes, well, that's a math problem. He goes, put a dollar sign in front of it. He goes, if those were pennies and dollars, could you figure it out? And I was like, yeah, I think I could do that. And so that's really pretty much where it came from, but growing through the ranks of the other companies that I'd worked for and printing companies especially, I got to a point where I was running that to a point. And so I understood the books and the accounting and the employees and the taxes and depreciation, like you said, not to the point that I could do it, but to the point that I could understand it enough and find somebody to do it. To be able to make decisions. And find somebody to do it. So I was very lucky that I acquired some good CFO type people that back then, they weren't really CFOs, they were just, I guess, secretary accountants and what have you. But I learned and learned and learned from them and what have you.

Tarek: But you're still hustling cars in the side during this period too, right?

Richard: Pretty much, yeah. I mean, that's something I've just always done. And print companies should be very clean environments. Almost as clean and sanitary as a doctor's office because you can't have all these particles of air falling into the ink and getting into the print and ruining it. So I had beautiful, well-lit print facility and probably over in the corner was a 52 Chevy or a 68 Mustang or whatever. Or a couple of my motorcycles. And stuff like that, so.

Tarek: Was your printing company also doing merch like t-shirts and that sort of thing? Or just like flies?

Richard: We subbed out some of the stuff for companies, promotional materials. Okay. Pins and mugs and things like that. We subbed out some of that stuff, which almost anybody that sells you that is subbing it out through ASI or whatever. I don't remember what the customer it's called now. But, so there was some knowledge there, for sure. And I was also buying a lot of it. So I would buy it for my customers and sell it to them.

Tarek: Yeah, so this factors in later in the story because you have a huge empire of clothing right now. Yeah. As well. So on the car piece, were you focused more on some of like the collectible cars, the classic cars? Or were you just buying and selling anything that looked like a good value?

Richard: No, I kind of focused in what I knew, which was 1973 and backwards, because that's what I learned from my dad. So Mustangs and Chevelles and Camaros and 32 Fords and Model As and things like that. So I focused on what I knew and I knew that the market was growing. I probably bought and sold more Ford Model As than anybody left on the planet. And we've had a lot.

Tarek: So when did Gas Monkey start?

Richard: So Gas Monkey came about, again, my printing facility. I had this little area where I kept my toys and me and my buddies would sit there after work and drink beer and clean on them, work on them, whatever, hanging out on the weekends. Nowadays, it's very common for a guy to have a man cave or like a offsite garage. It wasn't like that back then. You were either at home or you had somewhere else to be. And so I had this little man cave at my print shop and we would draw ideas on the walls and we would talk shop, we would talk what do we wanna do in life, whatever. And one day, this big wall, I mean, it was 20 feet by 12 feet or something and the word Gas Monkey just stuck out to me. And I was like, maybe I get a shop one day and call it Gas Monkey. And I found that in the back of my brain and around the same time, I was married by then, not to the same lady that I'd worked with, but a new lady. So she was very successful in her own right and my printing company is just blown up. We're doing great. I mean, we're making good money for that. I'm wearing three-piece suits and driving a gold key Cadillac and everything's great, right? And so I'm talking to her one morning and she had a son that was probably six or eight at the time. And I said, hey, I'm watching these shows on Discovery. How come you don't watch them with me? And she goes, too much bravado. They're kicking boxes. They got bandanas down to here. They got pit bulls on chains, flames and fire and crossbow. And she's like, I hate it. And she goes, I dang sure don't want him to see it. And so I was thinking, hmm. So the next weekend I asked her, I said, remember when you told me all this? She goes, yeah. I said, I think that they're missing a point. I think you're right about these shows. I think that there's a family element to it because I grew up with a family element. Mom was cooking burgers or whatever or dad and the guys and the adults are messing around with Harleys and motorcycles and- It was a communal thing. Yeah, and the kids are playing kick the can and everything's fine. I said, they're acting all this tough guy stuff like they're just not quite a hell's angel, but they're this cool. I said, and to me, if you're gonna, their baseline deal is they're on TV because they can represent their brand and they're selling their brand at Walmart and Targets and all this at the time. And I said, I think I could replicate that but added a family element to it and a softer touch to it. And she says, yeah, you've never been on TV before. I said, I know. She goes, yeah, whatever. She goes, that'll never happen. And we have a saying here in Texas and it's called hold my beer and watch this. And so I literally started looking for a buyer and I started refining the idea for Gas Monkey and started thinking about how would I get a show and how would I get on Discovery? Because a lot of people believe that we just got handpicked magically from Discovery. We did not. I started looking for a buyer, I found a buyer. And so he bought my company and it seemed like a giant number but there was a lot of debt involved because of the machines are so expensive. So I came out with some seed money and way less than most people would ever believe but some seed money. And I started Gas Monkey Garage.

Tarek: And- Was that in this location?

Richard: Nope, I didn't have a location. I started Gas Monkey Garage on paper and I designed the logo, the original logo, not the one you see today. And I said, well, I can't, it's kind of like the cart before the horse. I don't have a shop, but I need to be seen. And I don't have mechanics to work on the cars and I'm not, I'm a shade tree guy. You know, I'm not a fabricator or a mechanic per se. And so I'm trying to figure that out. And I stumbled across Aaron. He did some work on one of my cars. He's like 19. And I'm like, hey, I'm gonna go on this adventure. I'm gonna invent this brand and I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna preach it to the world until we get enough street cred. Because back then you didn't have YouTubes, you didn't have all these ways to get popular, Facebook and what have you. You had to either be in the newspaper, magazines or at the shows getting awards in order to push your brand to the masses. And so I looked at it like that. So I went out and I bought a million dollar coach and put it all on credit. I mean, I bought a 26 foot toter home with a fifth wheel trailer double stacker and I labeled it all up with our brand and bought a whole bunch of shirts that I designed, stuck them in there and stuck a car in there that we had built just kind of here and there and went on the road.

Tarek: So there are a lot of people listening to this and- Probably bored by now, I'm not doing all the talking. But everybody has ideas. Everybody will walk into a place and wouldn't it be great if we did this or wouldn't it be great if we did that? And less than one 10th of 1% of people actually make the leap. And what I'm hearing here is not only did you make the leap but you're creating something so completely out of thin air and taking such risk. And like you say, putting it all on debt. You're essentially at the blackjack table going all in. What is, what's going on in your mind at this time?

Richard: Like, how do you get comfortable with that? I wasn't aiming at trying to make a living. I was aiming at trying to build a brand, worldwide brand.

Tarek: Explain that.

Richard: Like Orange County Choppers or Jesse James was at the time. I was aiming to build a brand but do it in a more allowable family unit. Still cool. I still got tattoos. I still do burnouts and stuff. I drink beer, you know. So I had so much faith and conviction in what I was going after that I could triple their numbers on television or at least double them because the moms would tolerate it and they would tolerate the kids watching. And so now, instead of having a brand that, sure, they sold a bunch of t-shirts but the guys that bought the t-shirts weren't wearing it to the Saturday afternoon baseball game with their kid, they weren't allowed to because that's taboo, you know. So I thought I got to build this brand this way and I got to get TV. So I was like, well, if I go out and raise a ruckus and show them all of our stuff and I got this giant rig and fake it before you make it. I mean, it really was.

Tarek: So when you're hanging out with your buddies, drinking beers and talking about this vision..

Richard: They all thought I was an idiot. I still to this day have old car guy dudes that just saw me at different car shows for years and years and years. And they're like, God dang it, Richard, son, I'm telling you, you would tell me what you're gonna do and now look at you. He goes, I thought you were crazy. You know?

Tarek: You have to be, you have to be a little crazy.

Richard: Yeah, it was an interesting time but I would never let go of the core belief that I could make a brand. The first show that we showed up to was the Cal Palace in San Francisco. And I'd never driven an 18-wheeler. I get in it, we drove straight to San Francisco. You know, and I had boxes and boxes full of shirts, one car and a little wire rack and I'm selling shirts. And when we pulled up outside, all the trucks and trailers were stopped. Everybody else, I mean, even the big guys, they had a pickup truck with a trailer. I pull up with this thing that was a monstrosity and Chip Foose, that was the first time I met him, comes up to me and he goes, who are you guys and where are you from? And I said, dude, I am the next biggest hot rod builder on the planet and I'm the biggest brand that's ever gonna be. And he goes, ah, I said, watch and see. And to this day, he's a very good friend of mine and he ended up helping me out the whole time.

Tarek: And you had no mechanics still at this point?

Richard: I had one, I had Aaron. And so, you know, like I said, today, Chip's still a mentor and an amazing dude and he helped me understand the TV world a little better and actually put me on a show a few times. So that gave us some street cred and then doing all these shows and we put the T-shirts out there and people are coming up and they're buying them. They're like, oh yeah, Gas Monkey, we love you guys. And I'm like, what are you talking about? It's my first show. I drew this on a cocktail napkin last week.

Tarek: You know what's interesting about this story? Do you know Dale Brisby by any chance? He owns Rodeo Time. He's a big influencer in the rodeo space. We do some work with him and I had him on this pod and something that he said really resonated with me. He said that every company needs to first be a media company. And, you know, here we are, we're on the Y'all Street Podcast and we're doing productions and building content, but it's like you intuitively understood that years and years and years before social media and, you know, sort of the new version of user generated content was going to be coming onto the market.

Richard: And so it's just- Intuitive or luck? I think a little of both.

Tarek: And maybe your marketing background helped kind of incite some of that.

Richard: It did. It's how do I sell this to the masses? How do I make everybody like it? You know, and how do I make it palatable? You know, and so that's pretty much it. You know, from there, it was struggle, struggle. I wrote out a timeline, you know, get in some magazines, build some award-winning cars, do some crazy stuff, crazy stuff, cannonball.

Tarek: Yeah, we got to talk about that. Because this is a seminal moment in your history.

Richard: It really was because we're doing good, we're building, but I'm like, I got to get more press. I've got to get out there. I've got to get more press. So I was running things like the Gumball 3000, which is a seven day event across America and the Bull Run. And I was winning those things, but it wasn't getting me the press that I wanted. And so we were running, I believe Bull Run one year and it went from Canada down the East Coast to Key West. And we were talking in the bar one night and of course everybody's having a few beers, they're getting ready for the starting line the next day. And they get to talking, cannonball run will never be broken. Cannonball run can't be broken, you know? And I'm like, I can do it. And I'm thinking, if I can, or if I do, I'm gonna get more press than anything. And so I talked to my co-driver, Dennis. He goes, if you want to try it, let's do it. The story is so long, I could never tell it to you now. But the meat of the story is we drove, instead of going on the run we were on, we drove to New York and set up at the Eight Ball Garage. And we left at eight o'clock at night and drove to Santa Monica, actually to the Rio de Janeiro, which is a little bit further than Santa Monica. But we ended up setting the record for the first time since 1979. This was Mother's Day week in 2007. And we did it in 31 hours and 59 minutes.

Tarek: And the unique thing about this story, because I had listened to this story previously and what jumped out at me was the level of preparation. So it's not like you just hopped in a car and said, hey, we're gonna go drive cross country. You had limo drivers lined up to block traffic for you. You had special devices in the vehicles to change traffic lights if you needed to. Not that we know whether or not you did that.

Richard: We had CB things. We had all of this stuff because we were already running a rally and we were gonna be running from Quebec to Key West. So we had the car hooked up but we thought we were running that rally. And then overnight we decided to run and go for the record. And it was Mother's Day weekend, is that right?

Tarek: So the traffic tended to be a little bit lighter because it was Mother's Day?

Richard: I would guess. The hardest thing is though, and the number's so tight now that if you get a flat tire, if you have a problem or if you get stopped for even a regular ticket, you're done. You're not gonna make that much time up. And so what really helped the most was my wife at the time is a computer programmer. And so I told her what I was doing and that the plan had changed. And she goes, okay, hold on. And she wrote this program real fast with our route and then programmed it into something, I don't know, computer genius. And we would call her and go, we're at mile marker such and such in Illinois or wherever we were. And she'd be like, okay, you're 30 minutes off track or you're 30 minutes ahead of time. And that allowed us to keep into this sweet spot where we didn't go so fast that we had a problem where we got caught and went to jail. And we didn't go so slow thinking we were going fast that we'd never catch up. So we wouldn't have been able to do it without that.

Tarek: And then you get to right to the tail end and you run out of gas and you call ahead. And you have your buddy get you a five gallon.

Richard: Well, what had happened was we sent the truck once we realized that we might make it, I had Aaron and a few other guys jump in the truck and trailer because we wanted the truck across, back across the country so that we could rejoin the rally that we were on. And they happened to be in the area and got us the last five gallon splash that got us in there. If we hadn't have misjudged our gas by that, we might've shaved another 20 minutes off our time.

Tarek: This whole record breaking.

Richard: It blew up.

Tarek: It blew up. It got you on Jay Leno. In fact, I remember when we spoke the first time I asked you, I said, have you ever done a podcast before? You're like, yeah, I've done a few.

Richard: I did a Rogan a couple of times and Leno. Yeah. Yeah, we did Leno on the couch and then I've done Leno at his garage and Rogan a couple of times. And what have you, but that blew us up and really put us on a stage to start aiming. But long story short, which is beginning to be a long story, along that way, we're doing our own sizzle reels. I'm filming my own sizzle reels. I'm going to Hollywood once every six months and banging on Discovery's door and Speed's door and all the other channels, any channel that would listen and giving them the mixtape, so to speak, but it's a sizzle reel and getting told no, no, no, no, no. And a couple of times we got some sort of yeses and then something would happen with whoever I was talking to, they get fired or they lose their job or the economy changed or whatever. So on my timeline, I thought it'd take three years to get television. It took eight.

Tarek: How did you even get connected to these studios? Like, did you have to know somebody or did they have, like, could you go online and put in a request? Like if somebody is listening to this, how does that even work?

Richard: Back then you called. I mean, there was little to no info online. You could get a phone book. You could call. I mean, there was some information online. They had rudimentary websites, but you'd get lost there. So I'd find the right names or whatever and then I'd go bang on the door or sit in the room. Well, he might be available in a couple of hours. I'm like, I'm cool. I'm here.

Tarek: And who was doing your sizzle reels? Was that you? So you were doing the video footage and the editing and sending all that in?

Richard: At first, yes. And then I hired a company, well, actually kind of partnered with a company to help me get it done out of St. Louis. And so we put together, the last sizzle reel was really good. We did a road trip from Dallas to St. Louis, including car culture and food culture and a little bit of everything that is what we do and put it together. And that ultimately was the one that sold to Discover.

Tarek: At this point, is Gas Monkey making money?

Richard: Is it still? No, we're existing. Okay. As a matter of fact, during the eight years that we were trying to get to Discovery, we went broke a couple of times. Really? I mean, you wanna get really humbled, go to your wife, who's very successful and ask her to borrow $1,000 so you can make payroll and you got one employee and you're not paying yourself, you know? So it was pretty rough there a couple of times, but buying and selling cars as fast as I could, building cars as fast as we could, but then we'd had to spend every dollar being back out on the road because if you're not in people's face, again, it wasn't out there in YouTubes and stuff.

Tarek: And during this period, you lived through the great financial crisis, which hit pretty hard. People didn't have a ton of money. They weren't buying a lot of cars during that period. You come out of that and you get the show airs 2012, the first season?

Richard: Believe so, yeah, 2012.

Tarek: Was it immediately successful?

Richard: No, as a matter of fact, right before, maybe even a year, year and a half before I finally sold the show, I had packed everything up into a garage that I was renting more or less storage and I kept some of my toys there and I'd gone to work for my wife at the Times company and I was leading the sales force and all that in that company and had grown it exponentially. In only like 18 months, I quadrupled revenue. So everything was really firing on all cylinders there and I told her, I said, they bought the show. And then she's like, well, you gotta do it. I was like, I can't. We got too much going on here. It's a little too late. I said, I'm not doing it. And she's the one that ultimately talked me into it. She goes, if you don't do it, you're always gonna wonder. And I said, yeah, but they only gave me six episodes. I said, that's a small order. And I said, and I don't know if I can prove my concept in six episodes. I don't know if I can get people to believe in it and want it, you know? And so she goes, you have to do it. So I said, well, you know me, I'm gonna go for broke and life's comfortable right now. We got money in the bank and everybody's happy. Just do it. So I called them up and I said, I want more than six episodes. And they said, that's all you're getting. I said, I need 12. And they were like, six. I was like, golly. I said, well, give me a couple of months, get a shop picked out, get all my stuff together and get going. And they go, no, we're starting next week. And I go, what do you mean? They said, budget's already rolling, we're going. We start next week. And I said, well, we'll make the best of it because this is where we're at. And off we go.

Tarek: It seems like at various stages in your journey, your sales ability has become, you know, hugely important to your success, right? Even from a young age, buying and selling cars and then you get into the print business and you know, you're a top salesman and then you get into your wife's company, you're a top salesman. What makes you so good at sales? And you sold a show, I mean, to Discovery.

Richard: I sold four shows to Discovery and one to Disney Plus.

Tarek: So what's the secret?

Richard: I think I'm just, I'm confident in my idea. I'm confident in the product that I'm selling, you know, whether it's this coffee mug or a show. And I'm comfortable proving that confidence. And I think I got that from a very young age. I mean, think of how many eight or nine, 10 year olds will ride their bicycle to a stranger's house and collect $2 and give them a receipt. And come back home with a bag full of money, you know.

Tarek: So is it fair to say you're not afraid of rejection?

Richard: No, not at all. I've been rejected a lot.

Tarek: And you need that if you're an entrepreneur, for sure.

Richard: You really do. But my belief in the brand was what stood out more. It wasn't about getting a show or being a celebrity. As a matter of fact, being celebrity-ish like I am, it's horrible sometimes. Sometimes it's great. But it was about the brand, the brand, the brand. I wanna be the biggest brand in my marketplace. And we did it. By the time we had filmed three shows and hadn't aired any of them, they ordered 12 more. And by the time they aired the first season, they ordered 20-something. And it just took off from there.

Tarek: Speaking of being celebrity-ish, and especially when it comes to reality TV where it's not just Gas Monkey that's the brand, but you are the brand. Your name is the brand as much as anything. What was that transition like for you? How did that make you feel going out and now being recognized for being on television and people thinking they might know you?

Richard: Yeah, it was interesting. But I think my personality is easy to accept that. And I think that what I learned early on that we didn't really cover was before I decided I was gonna do Gas Monkey, I went and visited the people that were on TV and I was as a customer and I was not treated that well. And that was kind of the other kicker. It was like, buy a shirt and get out. No, you can't see anybody, they're busy. So we're an open book here and people see me all the time. We do tours, I go over to the merch shop and hang out.

Tarek: I walked in the front door, you were sitting right there.

Richard: Yeah, and I realized that that was part of it is you have to be accessible and you have to be friendly. And I've missed flights before because people wanted to get a photo or they wanted to talk about their car or what have you. And I think that that element is probably the second most important thing other than my dedication to the brand was being a man of the people. I mean, those are the people that put steak on the plate, the people that are watching that show. The day you start treating them badly, you don't have a show very much. You're gonna die real quick.

Tarek: I was gonna ask you about the brand Gas Monkey and what you think that represents because you've put Gas Monkey on a lot of different products and we'll get into that in a little bit, but what does Gas Monkey mean to you?

Richard: Gas Monkey to me is that character, if you will, or that person, that animal, that whatever. Almost like a monkey, the little one that is picking up all the peas and he wants them all but he keeps dropping them or he spills the coffee or whatever and you wanna strangle him but he's also pretty cute and he's pretty fun. And he's didn't, did he really do anything that bad? No, he didn't. And he's also very dedicated and lovable and they take care of their family, they take care of their tribe, if you will. And like I've told a lot of guys that have come through here over the years, you can be mad at Richard or the other mechanic guy or you can be pissed off at the world. You better love that monkey, better respect it because that's the reason we're here. That's the thing. And that's what I've always preached to everyone.

Tarek: So as the show developed and kind of your celebrity increased and all these people from all over the world now recognize you and again, this is all pre-social media because the social media stuff comes much later. Were you then at that time already starting to think about monetization of the brand and multiple areas and multiple disciplines?

Richard: Oh, definitely. It was part of the original business plan that I wrote in 2003. As a matter of fact, the van out front that's in the parking lot was our first retail store when we got the show. I parked it out in front of the shop that I was renting and I had somebody in there selling T-shirts because people would find out where we are and they'd come by. But now I'm on the big screen and now I can start getting going and getting going. So people weren't quite comfortable. They were sort of comfortable with the net but they were more comfortable with in-person. So we were getting tons of people coming to the studio slash shop and buying shirts and hats and then we were selling some on the net. But now I've got the street cred and Walmart and Kmart and Target and all those guys are answering the door. Now they're picking up the phone going, hey, what's up? And I'm like, well, you didn't like me before but you sure like me now. So we got going real strong and then the opportunity for the restaurant came along a little sooner than I thought. I'd only been on air for like a year and there was a building down the street here that came for sale that was a restaurant but it was right on this little lake thing and it was really cool looking. And I was, I guess we'd been on air for a couple of years and I was newly single, pissed off at the world. And I was like, I'm gonna buy that and live there. And a guy that I know said, why don't we buy it and make it a restaurant? Gas Monkey Bar and Grill.

Tarek: And I was like, I think it's a little soon in our plan but sure. Now, having worked at Pappadeaux, did that give you any insider inspiration?

Richard: No, it actually scared me but this gentleman had a brother that ran a restaurant. So I was like, match made in heaven. And so we made it happen and we opened it up and it went gangbusters. But I think what the success of it was, was I showed it on television. I showed it during the course of episodes. My God, I'm taking on this investment. I'm buying a building. I'm turning it into a restaurant. I'm gonna have my grand opening. Everybody's invited. And that caused it to be just a national phenomenon, even international. We had people there every day from all over the world and it was just gangbusters. It was absolutely phenomenally moneymaker, I guess, to say it nicely.

Tarek: So the show ended in 2020 and I think it's fair to say that your brand and your personality has exploded since the end of the show now that you have access to social media.

Richard: Well, yeah, I didn't have access because of my contracts with Discovery. They held me back because they owned me in all media, which when I signed it was radio, television, newspapers, magazines. And then all this other stuff came along and I was able to sort of be represented there but I couldn't do stuff on it. I couldn't make my own shows or do my own clips or anything. So by the time I got away from Discovery, we had done, I don't know, if you counted t-shirts and restaurant sales and the ancillary products that came on, I think we had sold over half a billion dollars in product and it was really good. And the brand was in 100 and something countries translated into 20 something languages. And we were the number one automotive, motorcycle lifestyle show in the world. And the funny part is we still are, Fast and Loud still is. Discovery still makes so much money off of Fast and Loud that it is actively on television all over the world right now, even channel 27 here in Dallas, Fort Worth plays marathons of it. So I think that was really good that the show was that successful. It helped keep the brand alive while I was navigating, okay, now I'm on the internet, now I'm on YouTube. If they would have just cut it out and went away, I don't know what would happen.

Tarek: It would have been pretty rough. It'd have been like starting over. But now, I mean, you have millions of followers following everything that you do.

Richard: I think we're 20 plus million across the platforms.

Tarek: It's incredible. And so what are your shows like today? Are they very similar to the Discovery shows or?

Richard: Yeah, they are, but you can't build a car, you can't buy a car, build the car and fix the, sell the car in an hour like we did on Discovery because that was a continuous rolling thing that was banked months in advance. So now we have, we show what we're doing, we show what the plan is, then I'm always buying and selling kind of on the side. And then we let people take a peek into the backside of the business that we never got to show on Discovery, the problems, the trademark deals, this, that, the accounting, did I make a mistake on this car? We're able to put a little bit more life into it and not quite so buy a car, fix a car, sell a car. So I think that it's a very, I think it's a lot better show. It's a lot more like the show I wanted to make in the first place because you don't just buy a car, fix a car and sell a car, it's always a problem.

Tarek: So your model now with Gas Monkey, are you licensing the brand to partners that are making, let's say the merch or the tequila or you have beer, let's actually walk through all the different ventures you have with the brand.

Richard: What happened around 2017, 18 is internet buying became acceptable. And I saw that early on and I was like, okay, I can sell 100,000 shirts over here and make a dollar a shirt, or I can sell 20,000 shirts on my own site and make 30. So I started canceling licenses and some of them had three-year tails and two-year tails. So it took until about 2021 before all the licenses were gone. And so now the, I own all the licensing and all the IP and I do not license it out to anyone unless it's myself. So like with my restaurants now, sure, that's a company that has to be its own company and Gas Monkey Holdings licenses it, the rights to use the name, the same with the tequila. So we have all of our T-shirts and apparel and all the different trinkets and things that we'd come up with. And then, but everything, each one of those columns licensed from the holding company. In regards to the beer, that's garage beer and I'm just an equity owner in it, I say, along with the Kelsey brothers and a few others. And I think they just took some pretty good private equity money, but I don't get to peek behind the curtain on that. I'm just an equity guy, you know? And, but I think it's gonna be a great deal and we're in all 50 states and growing like crazy. If it does what it's supposed to do, it might try all of the stuff that I've done so far. You know? So let's keep our fingers crossed on that one.

Tarek: So the tequila company, you actually have employees that are, you know, bottling here in the United States?

Richard: No, the tequila company is being restarted right now. During my exit from Discovery, I had to shut down a few things because there were some tangled webs in there and some people had little pieces of this and that, you know, normal growth with your partners. And so I was able to gain control of everything. I shut tequila down during that time, but I'll start it up the same way. I use a co-packer, they make my recipe and I sell it. The benefit now is I don't have to go fight for Glaziers or Southern or anybody like that to distribute it and get shelf space because you can mail it. So I already have the fan base and the customer base that are using all our products. So I will sell the tequila starting mid-summer online. It'll just be an online product. And then if a store wants it, again, do I wanna make a couple of dollars a bottle or do I wanna make all the money? I don't see that there's any reason to ever go after the stores anymore. I see things come along, like I also have rubs and spices and sauces in the food area categories. And I get calls all the time. Hey, we want that in the store. And I'm like, why? I'm gonna lose money. I can sell this right here and I'm fine.

Tarek: It's similar to the situation with Discovery, if I may say. You're cutting out the middleman, you're creating content, you're going direct to consumer with your content. Same thing you're doing with your products.

Richard: Correct.

Tarek: Cut out the middleman and go direct to consumer.

Richard: There's no reason really to go to a store anymore. You're gonna lose money. If you get picked up by one of the big retailers or whatever, I mean, Gas Monkey Energy Drink, we did that for quite a few years and we were in all the 7-Elevens. And you'd think, oh my God, we lost hundreds of thousands of dollars going into all the 7-Elevens. We had to make the choice to pull out because there was no way to make money unless you had tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to invest. When do we get to toast a Gas Monkey coffee on this program? I am in the development of the Gas Monkey coffee program. It'll be a subscription model. And we have done the three flavors. I think we're still working on a fourth. And they're gonna be distinctly Gas Monkey, served a distinct way. Not quite like this, but yeah.

Tarek: I'm gonna be the first subscriber.

Richard: You got one already.

Tarek: It's gonna be cool.

Richard: It's gonna be good stuff. And we're gonna do some good. I think I'm gonna let a lot of the proceeds go back to first responders. I'm gonna tie it in that way. And because we're at a point where we can start doing some good. I've got Gas Monkey Foundation and we're having a lot of fun with that. And so between first responders and our veterans and Alzheimer's is pretty much where we sort of focus.

Tarek: As we get to the end of this pod, I think there are just so many lessons in your history for young entrepreneurs, young aspiring business owners. But I'd like you in your own words to distill what your advice is to someone listening to this who's always wanted to leap out on their own, but just hasn't had the moxie to do it or the capital even.

Richard: Well, you're gonna put me on the spot there. You didn't warn me about this question. You take a minute. It's always a hard one. But, you know, cause I do get a lot of guys and gals that come through here, especially in my industry. They're like, man, how do I do it? How do I get started? And you gotta have the guts and the moxie. Like you said, the capital, you can start a business now for nothing. I mean, you got the device in your hand. So if you have a cell phone, you could have a business of some sort when it comes to having to have a physical location and things like this. Always, I always tell them, start as small as you can and stay as small as you can. Even when you get to a point and you have the money in the bank, you're like, I can go get this building. Don't, you know, stay as small as you can and bank, bank, bank the money. Because then one day it'll be like, oh, I can go get this building. It'll be no, I have to go get it because it's such a good deal. So there's a difference between I can go get or I have to because I'm stealing it. Just like my first building here. I did not have the money. It scared me to death. I'm just now new on discovery and it was a lot of debt. But it was such a good deal that I couldn't turn it down. Mathematically, it was like, if I don't do this, I'm an idiot. So figure out how to do it. And you can't go out on your own without taking risks. You cannot. Risk is everything. And you're gonna lose. Like I said, I've been broke several times in my life. I've never had to owe anybody money, but I've spent all mine before.

Tarek: And you mentioned rejection a lot too. I mean, you have to be comfortable with rejection and loss and ups and downs. And it's not to be discouraging only to be aware of the grit and the perseverance it takes to make something successful.

Richard: Well, you don't go out looking for a yes. Go out looking for 10 no's or 50 no's or 100 no's because that's gonna get you closer to a yes. And every no is gonna teach you something to hone your sales pitch and what you're doing and how you're doing it. So if you go out at 8 a.m. in the morning looking for a yes, you're gonna get depressed real fast. If you go out looking for no's, you're gonna find a lot of yeses.

Tarek: Great advice. Where can people find you online and where can they buy all your merch?

Richard: Gasmonkeygarage.com is where we are. It has links to all of our Instagram and Facebooks and Twitters and whatever else there is out there in the social media world. And I hide in plain sight, just Richard @Gasmonkeygarage.

Tarek: Can't let you leave without giving you an ounce of silver with the Y'all Street on it. What?

Richard: This is worth like 100 bucks right now. It is.

Tarek: Yeah, hang on to it. It'll be worth 300 here pretty soon.

Richard: The rate it's going. I firmly believe that. I really do. That is super cool. I have a coin too. So let me get that for you here. This is what we call our beer coin. Oh, I love it. Now, that comes with a free beer anytime, anywhere in the world that you catch me in the wild. It only has three rules. And number one rule is it can't be in a building that I own because obviously I might be there. It cannot be a place that I'm being paid to be like an appearance or something like that. And you can't be an a-hole. You gotta be a nice person about it. You don't run up and go, give me a beer, sucker. You gotta run up and go, hey Richard, look, I got my coin. And I've had people catch me as far away as London with that coin in their pocket. And I have to stop and I have to buy you a beer. That's the way it goes. I am gonna travel everywhere with this in the hopes of running into you in the wild. Well, there you go. But this time you're gonna get one anyways. Oh, I love it. Because you start with coffee, I will finish with cold beer, garage beer, of course. What a great way to start the morning. Yes, sir. Cheers. Cheers, brother. All right.

Tarek: I do have one more question for you actually before we cut on out. You got some pretty fantastic cars behind me. If people wanna buy one of these cars or have a custom car made by your group, what do they do?

Richard: Basically just reach out at info at gasmonkeygarage.com. If we have things that we're gonna sell, there'll be out there available. We do do private showings here because we've got everything from, there's a 300 SL Mercedes sitting there. We've got four or five Ferraris in here right now, Rolls Royces. And then we have all the regular stuff that we play with, Model As. So we're very expanse across what we do. But on the flip side, if you wanna sell me a car, any kind of car in the world, from a mom's commuter van because you wanna get a new one or whatever, you can go to gasmonkeybuys.com, fill out the information and you'll get an instant bid. And we can seal the deal anywhere in the nation and boom, you get a check and the car gets picked up.

Tarek: So cool. I may need to walk out of here with one of these.

Richard: Well, I hope you brought your checkbook or a lot more silver.

Tarek: Cheers, man. Thanks.

Richard: Right on.

Tarek: How do y'all drink this? That's a y'all street right there.

Richard: Yeah