The Gearhead Project

Director's (Founder's?) Cut. I want to spend more time doing car stuff with gearheads like us. It's never gonna happen if I can't get my head in the game, take better care of myself, and stop wasting money.

Recorded live in a Phoenix garage after the kid went to bed, this is The Gearhead Project, where gearheads like us talk about stuff like how you can turn your dreams into reality if you’re willing to go all-in and build a body of work around it.

Adam Lansing did just that. In a rare case of social media actually serving up something I genuinely wanted to see (instead of the usual, sponsored clickbait), I came across the story of a high school kid who wanted to build his own EV so bad someone just gave him a car to do it.

Even better, it turned out this story was a few years old. Today, Adam’s running Hawkeye Innovations, where he does custom, built-to-suit EV conversions. I took a spin through his site and blog and next thing you know, here we are!

Recorded live in a Phoenix garage after the kid went to bed, this is The Gearhead Project, where gearheads like us talk about stuff like how our brothers and sisters out there doing cool, automotive stuff for a living find that sweet, sweet work-life harmony.

My guest tonight is Rob Crespo—a complete stranger who looked me up on LinkedIn a few weeks ago. Turned out he heard me on the Auto Off Topic podcast. Cool, huh? Anyway, the minute I saw his profile, I knew I had to invite him to the podcast.

Recorded live in a Phoenix garage on a lunch break this is The Gearhead Project, where gearheads like us talk about stuff like how cars still represent freedom, and how we can use our automotive skills to change the world.

We’re taking back the internet!

A year in the making, the time has finally arrived. We’re opening the private, TGP forum TOMORROW.

Whether you’re tired of the status quo or just missing the good ol’ days when the internet made sense, we think you’re gonna dig this. We’ve been thinking about the forum vs. social media thing from every possible angle we can think of, and we’re pretty sure we’ve got it figured out.

Would you like to know more? You’ve come to the right place.

Todd and I used this—our 50th episode—to tell all.

My guest on this episode is a legit OG DSMer from WAY back in the day—Ted Marquez, aka: TedSpec. Way back in 2013, he brought us a story about familia; about how the machines bring us together and work on us as much as we work on them. In this episode, we talk about all that and even more—like the importance—and power—of the gearhead family, and how we build incredible things together.

TGP PSA: Most overlanders—aren’t.

For every would-be Instagram “influencer” out there desperately trying to hype and spin their way to being the next Expedition Overland (without years of focused craftsmanship), there’s probably 10 actually exploring the world by car. Everything else is just camping and vanity.

In this episode Brian talks to Robert & Gayla Scrivener, a couple legit overlanders he met at Overland Expo West 2019, and whose podcast is as sweet and buttery smooth as their approach to overlanding itself. They call it Been There Doing That.

Kris Marcinak and I got to chatting the other day. What started as a bit of a rant about the state of stage rally in the United States turned into a conversation about how far we’ve come as gearheads.

“We’re gonna die out here.”

Diego Baltazar and Dillon Mortensen were stranded in the middle of nowhere. They were on a secret, side mission for the guy who gave them a dodgy, 30-plus-year old, Soviet-built Lada Niva.

Meet TGP Member #14

You’re about to hear something special. Michael Rodarte has modified his life in big ways. He used to have a “good” job in the financial services industry; a nice, air conditioned office, talking to people on the phone, making decent money.

But he wasn’t happy there.