Sean Barber: New Legend 4x4 & Anything Scout - Epic IH Scouts (@newlegend4x4 / @anythingscout)

On this episode, Chris and Sean discuss how Sean turned an overpriced cell phone and garage full of International Harvester parts into the premier International Harvester light line parts retailer, pioneered the Scout drivability conversion and became the preeminent investment quality Scout builder.  

Since 1993, Anything Scout has been the premier International Harvester light line parts retailer and go to destination for Scout enthusiasts.  In 2003, Sean and his wife, Heather, bought Anything Scout and started building what has become the foremost IH light line parts retailer, drivability conversion specialist and investment quality Scout builder in the world.  

From it's humble beginnings in a California Bay Area garage, Anything Scout relocated to a state of the art facility in Ames, IA in 2006.  That relocation enabled them to expand and eventually become the leading Scout drivability conversion "Retromod" specialist in the world.  It also spawned a new brand, New Legend 4x4, which has become the preeminent bespoke investment quality Scout builder in the world.  Their ethos has never changed, Sean, Heather, their family and team are dedicated to keeping Scouts on the road to enable new generations to have the same great memories exploring life, just as those before us!

Thank you Patrick Kesler (@scoutlegacy) for requesting Sean as a guest and making this episode happen!

Follow, Like and subscribe to the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and your podcast listing platform. Check out our website at classic4x4.com and reach out if we can help you sell your classic, vintage or collector truck or 4x4. Thanks for listening!

Transcript

Chris Picconi (00:02.431)
Welcome to season three of the Classic 4x4 Podcast. As everyone knows or may not know, this season is dedicated to listener requests for guests and topics. So today we actually have our most requested listener, which many of you may already know because you've requested them. We got well over 200 requests for today's guest. And today's guest is Sean Barber from Anything Scout and New Legend 4x4.

What's going on, Sean?

sean barber (00:33.558)
Yeah, man, glad to be here. That's pretty cool.

Chris Picconi (00:36.299)
Dude, I am equally glad for you to be here. We have a ton of common friends who helped to link us up and we finally get to speak with each other. But I have to give credit where credit is due because I did mention as part of having season three being all listener requests that I would give some shout outs to the people that requested the guests or topics and.

In this case, we had like well over 200 listener requests to hear you. So the people want to hear Sean. So I can't name all 200 cause that would be a show in itself. But the person that I can name who is actually the first to request you, which is a mutual friend of ours, which is Pat Kessler. And for those of you that don't know Pat, or actually goes by Patrick Kessler, Pat can be followed on Instagram at Scout Legacy. He has an awesome patina scout.

which is a complete sleeper, which actually I think you did the LS swap on, right?

sean barber (01:33.994)
Yeah, yeah, the drivability conversion.

Chris Picconi (01:37.467)
Yes. And I believe did you, you did a ton of suspension work on that also too, right?

sean barber (01:42.634)
Yeah, we can talk through what I mean by drivability conversion, but we used to use the term LS swap, but then it quickly evolved into addressing everything related to the driving characteristics and interaction of the driver with the vehicle. So it was a whole thing. So yeah, his truck received that full treatment.

Chris Picconi (02:05.443)
Which I actually I think is on the Anything Scout website too, when I was doing a little research today. The picture is, right?

sean barber (02:10.046)
Yeah, I can't remember. I think we might have done a video too on it, one of our Driver series videos. But yeah, cool story. That's one of my favorite stories. He's had the Scout for like 20 years, has already created tons of memories and experiences in it. And then, you know, just kind of giving it a reboot and a new chance at a new life and really exciting. I love that. Yeah.

Chris Picconi (02:31.559)
It's a complete sleeper too. When you look at it, it's just this like patina sunburnt, was it, is sunburst yellow or sunshine yellow? What's the factory color? Yeah, I think it's like sunburst yellow or sunshine yellow. And you look at it and you're like, oh, that's kind of cool. Like maybe like, you know, a shade tree mechanic kind of slapped that thing together. And all of a sudden you pop the hood, you look underneath it, you look inside and you're like, whoa, there's something serious with this. Yeah, it's beautiful.

sean barber (02:38.577)
Yeah, something, yeah, I can't remember. Yeah.

sean barber (02:57.322)
That's right. And most importantly, it's well used. And that's my favorite thing.

Chris Picconi (03:02.703)
Oh, he has it on the trails. He's got his rooftop tent on it. Um, and, and Patrick is just a great guy in general. I'm very fortunate to know Patrick because he happens to live like two beach towns south of me, and we know each other from the classic four wheel drive community here in the Jersey shore. Um, and, uh, we have some mutual friends and Hey, he put us together. So again, the credit goes, uh, to this episode to Patrick Kessler, check out his scout at scout legacy. You can follow him on Instagram and at scout legacy.

But without further ado, let's talk a little bit more about Sean. For all of you out there that aren't familiar with Sean, Sean is one of the founders and runs Anything Scout, which is basically the premier parts reseller distributor of Scout parts. They also do driveability conversions, which we're going to talk about a little bit more, but also is one of the founders of New Legend 4x4.

which I love talking to investment quality builders and anybody that's into scouts, you know New Legend 4x4 is the premier investment quality scout builder out in the world. So if you don't follow them on the social channels, follow anything scout, New Legend 4x4, go check out their websites, check out their work and let's talk a little bit more about it, Sean. So everybody wants to know like,

Who is the person behind the businesses? How do you go from being a guy in the Bay Area that acquires this little parts, scout parts business in the Bay Area to next thing you know, you move it out to Ames, Iowa, you launch New Legend four by four. Where did the passion come from as a young buck, right? And how do you end up to where you are today?

sean barber (04:58.942)
Yeah, so I actually grew up in Connecticut. So a fellow East Coast guy and a man is, I was grateful to have that upbringing in kind of rural Connecticut because it was just a lot of open land and a lot of woods to explore. And so I always, and I had a father who was not like necessarily the best teacher, but he definitely like enabled and allowed us a lot of.

a long leash, you know, to like, so I think as a little guy, and I was always taking apart like appliances and just really good at taking things apart, not so great at putting them together. But then in middle school, I was into like bicycles and like riding mowers. I had the privilege to grow up next to a landfill and.

And my father knew the owner of the landfill and he used to let us like go through this. And back in the day, they had like garbage, wood and construction materials and metal. And so we'd go to the metal section and get bicycles, find like fully ready to run tractors, like lawn mower, riding lawn mowers and like just all this stuff. So we always had stuff like that happening. And then went out for my 15th birthday, my dad.

bought me a 69 C10 pickup, short bed, fleet side, two wheel drive. So that was when I was 15. By the time I was 16, I had like six of them. And I was buying and selling and taking parts. I'd take the 307 out of one, put it in another one, and take a 396 big block and put it in my truck. And I just kind of had this whole little business going, which is funny as I reflect on that now.

Chris Picconi (06:27.903)
No way, man.

sean barber (06:52.522)
Then when I was 18, I moved to California. And funny story, oh, after the C10, I got this 1970 Buick Skylark for 35 bucks. And through my C10 business, I had acquired this GMC Sprint that had a really hot motor that was like, this car was like legendary around Bridgeport, Connecticut. And so I took that motor out. And when I moved, I had to,

junk the Buick but I took the motor there's a Chevy 350 and actually when I moved to California as an 18 year old I had a suitcase and I shipped my small block Chevy out with me which is really funny and so yeah so and then I met my now wife as a young dude and she had just bought a brand new 1994 Jeep Wrangler a YJ

Chris Picconi (07:35.925)
Ha ha!

sean barber (07:49.01)
and I got the opportunity to just, and in California there's a lot of open land. As you know, in the Northeast, there's not a lot of open land to go four-wheeling. So out West though, is this whole new world of off-road adventure. And so we took her 94 Jeep Wrangler and went to this place called Hollister Hills and just started off-roading and I put a lift on it. I started building that, but I just never loved it. Like I just didn't resonate with the.

the great fuel injection and just the modernity of the platform I just didn't love. And in 1995, we got married in 1994, 1995, my wife's or my brother-in-law bought a 78 Scout and I drove it and it was like love at first drive. The size was just smaller than a Blazer or a Ram.

but bigger than a Jeep, like a CJ or YJ. And so I just loved it. So I went out in 1995 and I bought my first Scout, 79. Can't remember, there was a kind of a one-off color as Maroon Rally and it had a blown engine. I got it for a thousand bucks. Then the good news is I had a small block Chevy sitting in my storage unit. So I started the process of putting that Chevy engine into the IH Scout.

And so yeah, I've never, I didn't come into the scout space as like an IH international harvester brand loyalist. I came in loving the scout. And I really thought aesthetically, it was just the perfect vehicle. And to this day, when I drive a scout to, especially like my favorite thing is like original Patina, completely stock.

Chris Picconi (09:25.256)
Mm-hmm.

sean barber (09:41.942)
That's just kind of what, even though I love and appreciate the trucks we build, there's something about the time machine that is driving an old vintage 4x4 that's original. And I'm just like, yeah, when I drive them, it's like, this is the guy I want to be. I just want to be like that throwback guy.

Chris Picconi (09:56.255)
That's awesome, man.

Chris Picconi (10:02.644)
What's crazy though is in the mid 90s, you bought a Scout II that had a blown engine, you paid $1,000 for it and you overpaid for it back then.

sean barber (10:11.85)
This was like rust free and it was probably, it'd probably be like 15 grand, 20 grand as it sat. But what's also part of the narrative to a lot of scout owners is by 1997, I had four of them. I had a couple 800s and another scout too. And I set off on this journey, because again, I didn't love, my wife and I, we were both working and busy and.

Chris Picconi (10:17.837)
Yeah.

sean barber (10:40.246)
doing okay. And I think we had, I don't know, we had, my wife drove a Jeep Grand Wagoneer in 87. That's when we brought our first son home from the hospital in and we sold that and then we got her a Land Cruiser. So she had this like a decent newer car. And I sat down and I'm like, hey, we need a, I need a car, I need a vehicle. So rather than going out and spending 40 grand at the Chevy dealer and buying a

Chris Picconi (10:54.475)
Super cool.

sean barber (11:10.278)
new Tahoe or suburban, like let's take 35 to 40 grand and put it into my Scout and make it like a legit daily driver. And so that started this process in the late 90s of, and that's how I kind of got into the Scout space and I met this guy Jim who owned anything Scout. And in the late 90s it was doing pretty well but by the, by like, well.

By like 99, it was, some stuff had happened and he lost his lease to his shop. So he was literally in a junkyard with a cell phone shipping used parts. And in the Bay area in East Palo Alto, so it started in Mountain View. And it was, I think, Scouts were.

Chris Picconi (11:51.115)
Mm. In the Bay Area though, right?

sean barber (12:03.618)
There was a pretty robust business in the Bay Area for Scouts, but it was all around making them off-road vehicles, because they were a cheap, tough, capable platform to go do the Rubicon or go do Fordyce or just go up into the Sierras. So they were not too many people were daily driving them or loving them like a multi-use vehicle. They were just like rock, they would turn them into rock crawlers.

So anyway, bought the business, because I saw this potential in my own experience. I'm like, I love these vehicles. I'm a 25 year old dude, and I'm just like in love with this platform. And I noticed that the community, the IH community was a bunch of old timers at the time, like dudes who are probably my age now, who are like in their 40s and 50s.

Kinda grouchy, didn't wanna spend any money. And that proved true when I bought the business. I'm like, I was doing like a ton of repair work and like, I mean, I was doing everything. It was like, my father came down and helped me a couple of days a week. I had like one or two kids, young guys working for me. And we were doing a lot of spring overs, a lot of differential work, gears, lockers, roll cages.

Chris Picconi (13:17.225)
Mm-hmm.

sean barber (13:32.426)
and then tune up stuff. But in taking parts orders, fabricating bumpers, painting vehicles, I kind of was doing it all. Not the greatest, but I was doing my best because you're just learning.

Chris Picconi (13:34.795)
while running the parts business also.

Chris Picconi (13:47.071)
Yeah. So when you bought this business from Jim, right? You basically bought like just a bunch of parts in a junkyard and a cell phone.

sean barber (13:58.53)
Dude, not the small, I didn't know what I was doing from a business perspective at all. So, and what I realized was I paid too much for the business for the junkyard and the used parts and the, and to be fair, the thing I put the greatest amount of value in was the light line dealership. So there was this central parts distributor called Scout Lightline that basically started out when International Harvester shut down its light line.

Chris Picconi (14:04.654)
Uh-huh.

sean barber (14:27.402)
Scout Lightline came in, this guy John Glancy and Rod, I can't remember his last name, Rod, they came together and started Scout Lightline, bought all the inventory from International Harvester, all the rights to the parts, really instrumental in keeping the brand alive, so I appreciate their work. But at the time, it was California's only Lightline dealership. And I thought it was protected, so.

Chris Picconi (14:50.667)
Gotcha.

sean barber (14:56.318)
about within five years there was like five other light line dealers in California, which kind of chapped me a little bit, but it was fine. More of the merrier, I guess. But yeah, so what I realized was I invested all, I took equity out of my house. I mean, fortunately we had, like I scraped together all the money I could to buy this business. And then when I...

Chris Picconi (15:01.151)
Gotcha.

sean barber (15:24.134)
I had my new shop, it was a small shop that I was paying too much rent for in San Jose. I was like, I have no capital to do anything. I just spent all my money buying this business and I got a 30 year old compressor, a broken lift, you know, like all this, like just terrible tools. So it was a rough, the first six years was really, I probably aged, you know, 15 years in a five year period because I was working.

60 to 70 hours a week, just trying to make ends meet in a lean market. But I had this vision, and the vision that kept me going was bringing scouts to a new generation of people. So that was my operating ethos. And what I was discovering was that new generation of people does not necessarily have the skills or interest in fiddling with a carburetor or adjusting points.

And moreover, the infrastructure was changing. When I was growing up, every gas station had a mechanic on duty. And there were these mom and pop gas stations. And you could get your car fixed easily. As those were turning into convenience stores, and they were dropping their garages and mechanics, and cars were getting.

frankly more reliable and lower maintenance with fuel injection, just different things. I just saw that changing. And so I was not an IH loyalist. I was a driver scout loyalist. And so by 2003, we had done our first LS swap. And that was pretty cutting edge back in the day. And we always try to...

Chris Picconi (17:10.187)
Cool.

sean barber (17:20.626)
So in this idea of bringing Scouts to a new generation of people, we always tried to be like looking at what's next. So at first we had no website, but then we had a website with just a static parts list. That was the website. Parts and how much they were. You couldn't order. And then, no.

Chris Picconi (17:37.127)
no e-comm integration. It was poorly just called the 800 number and we'll tell you if we still have it for that price. Ha ha.

sean barber (17:41.198)
Yes, yes. But then we were the first company in the scout space to have an e-comm site. We were the first to do a lot of things. And that was always because we were trying to reach a new generation of people and get scouts in the hands of young people. And yeah, and so it was an exciting time, but by 2006, seven, I was totally burned out. I had four kids by then.

And my family was important to me. And as we talk about family in real life, I essentially said like, hey, I need to work, not just out of passion, but out of duty to provide for my family. Because my wife was working in the tech field. And by the time our third kid was born, my second daughter, she wanted to be a stay at home mom.

We both did, we wanted that for her. And that was, so I was like committed to doing that. But the irony was, I'm like, I was working to provide for my family, but I didn't really have a family anymore. Cause all I did, all I knew was the shop. I was at the shop 70 hours a week. Yeah. And so I'm like, something's got to give here. And California at the time, and still to this day, is a tough place to do business. There's a lot of regulation, a lot of high tax. There's a lot of opportunity, but we were getting

Chris Picconi (18:52.011)
You're just working. Yeah.

sean barber (19:09.386)
We were servicing the entire country for scouts and people would ship us their scouts to work on them. So I kind of said like, hey, it could be strategic. Because I didn't want to be... this is just me personally. I didn't want to just be a mechanic my whole life. I love working on stuff and fixing things. But I wanted to build awesome new scouts, you know?

sean barber (19:40.15)
So we kind of said like centralizing to the Midwest and I had never even been to the Midwest. I grew up in Connecticut, so I was 18, took a plane, flew across the country to California. So I lived on both coasts and I resonated with coastal people, but I knew nothing about the kind of center of the country. And so, yeah, we had a friend that moved to Iowa and he was like, hey, come visit us. And so we visited and we're like.

Man, we just took this big, my wife and I took this collective deep breath and just said like, man, the pace is so slow here. Like this, we could, we could build a cool shop here and actually get a bigger space than 1100 square feet for three grand a month. And so, so we did it, man. We started putting things in place. And then that move also almost killed me. Cause I drove back and forth from California to Iowa, probably, uh, 15 times.

moving all the stuff and...

Chris Picconi (20:40.907)
So did your friend live in Ames, Iowa? Or, or that would-

sean barber (20:44.062)
Yeah, he had moved from the he moved from the Bay Area to Ames.

Chris Picconi (20:47.919)
Okay, gotcha. So just on a whim, you visited a friend and you're like, you know what, I'm gonna move here and I'm gonna move my entire business from the Bay Area to Ames, Iowa. Yeah, that's awesome. I love that.

sean barber (20:56.434)
Yes, crazy. And it was great, man. And so we were able to buy a building and I've always been a guy that likes to invest in people. And so I found success in hiring young people and then training and mentoring and kind of building them up and equipping them. And so in 2008, by 2010, I'd had about three or four guys, young 18 year old,

good character, hardworking guys who are now leading our team, who are 15 years later, they're the heart and soul of our team. And so, as in the early 2000s, bringing Scouts to a new generation of people, I always had this looming, lingering question in the back of my mind, what's next? And what would be the ultimate expression of our craft? As we were learning like,

how to restore, how to make Scouts better. And what you learn from manufacturers, I know you've restored a few Jeeps, like you learn like, you get to dissect and understand the things that they did wrong. Like for example, Scouts rust pretty bad. And one of the reasons is they didn't use any coatings. Like you could get some ZYBART or ZYBART coatings from the dealerships, but outside of that, they would stack like three layers of metal.

Like in the rocker area, there's three layers of steel sandwiched together with zero coatings in between. And so over the years as salt and moisture gets in there, they just seem rust and you can't easily fix that. So as our... So we had this, like we were doing these restorations for 30, 40 grand and like just losing so much money. And I'm like, man, this got to be a better way to find... To just make these things...

Super good, man. Just make them way better than factory and at the time by the time I in 2013 we did our first YouTube video at the time most businesses were engaging and promoting through forums And I just never liked the forum Platform, I don't know why

Chris Picconi (23:14.203)
in that boat too. It doesn't appeal to me either. I'm not the biggest. I'm not one that's in forums. I will say I will go into Facebook groups here and there purely because I have to tell you the wealth of knowledge you can get out of a Facebook group, but it's more organized than a forum is. But I'm in the same boat. We are definitely in agreeance there.

sean barber (23:16.971)
Yeah, okay.

sean barber (23:22.603)
Yes.

sean barber (23:28.909)
Yes.

sean barber (23:35.65)
But that's like the last three to four years, right? Like Facebook groups have really kinda come to their own. So in 2013, we made our first YouTube video and that changed our whole business. It was able to relate what we do to people's real life experience. And that is they dream about their scout, they get a scout and in their head, it's like the certain experience of them with their hair blown in the wind, like going camping, like doing this stuff. But the reality is you put the key in the ignition, the ignition's probably broken.

Chris Picconi (23:39.132)
Yeah.

sean barber (24:05.646)
but if you get it to turn over, you have to pump it 10 times. And if you don't get the sequence just right, it's flooding out and it's just running like junk. And then it's scary down the highway. Exactly.

Chris Picconi (24:13.099)
And then I over revved the 304 through a rod through the bottom of the block. And then like the torque flex 727 started to like, you know, shimmy a little bit. Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

sean barber (24:23.402)
That's right. That's right. So anyway, then by 2016, and I'm sorry to talk so much, but in 2016, we had a we got a call from a friend named Cam, who owns a company in New Hampshire called Nemo Equipment. And we were dreaming about what's next, like what is the ultimate expression of our craft? Meaning so we've modernized the engine and drivetrain, but the suspension and chassis is still old. And it still rides like a 50 year old design vehicle.

So I had this idea of taking a Jeep JK chassis and retrofitting it onto a Scout and making it look proper and be proper because our vision has always been to build functional, beautiful functional vehicles, not show trucks. I always hated car shows where you just invest your life in this car and you take it to a parking lot and open the hood and sit in the lawn chair next to it and go like...

asked me questions about like, no, I want to go use these trucks were built to you be used. And so that's kind of but anyway, those these forces came together are these ideas and a customer that would that would actually give us the thumbs up and go for it financially, even though we still lost a ton of money on that build. But that launched the new legend model.

At the time it was Anything Scout building a new Legend model. And then it just evolved and we continued to build, try to build a strong brand, which is different than just running a company.

Chris Picconi (26:06.667)
When did you spin off New Legend so it became its own entity? When I look at, you know, anything Scout is the parts and drivability conversion side of the business, correct? But then New Legend is a separate business, which obviously leverages all the amazing resources and platform that anything Scout has. But New Legend really is a, in what I call, and again, this is a Paul Poetrat's...

sean barber (26:16.68)
Yep.

sean barber (26:26.222)
That's right.

Chris Picconi (26:35.223)
quote that I stole from him when I interviewed him. And for those of you that don't know Paul Potratz, he owns Haldberg, very similar story. What you have is he wanted to have a daily driver defender and then ended up founding Haldberg. And Haldberg is like the premier investment quality defender builder. And I look at New Legend as the premier investment quality scout builder out there. So at what point did you make that transition and say,

sean barber (26:49.15)
Yes.

sean barber (27:00.878)
Thank you.

Chris Picconi (27:02.463)
I'm going to have a separate entity, a separate business. It's going to leverage the platform of my existing business that is going to build these impeccable, bespoke investment quality builds.

sean barber (27:06.815)
That's right.

sean barber (27:17.655)
By like 2017, 2018, we had fully made the transition. And I think one thing that's important is competence. And competence comes from caring and skill and reps. Like when I see companies out there, regardless of what platform they're working on, but when they've built one or two.

Couple new legend trucks are good and they've held up and stand the test of time But our newest trucks after we've I think we've built Maybe we're in the 30s to 40s range like 30 to 40 rigs. I should know that But man you start to get excellent at doing it because you it's like this art But you have to do it the same way over and over to get really at really

Chris Picconi (27:59.743)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Picconi (28:12.671)
Mm-hmm.

sean barber (28:13.994)
repeatable results and reliability. And that's been a big, it's a hard business. And man, we have, I hope you can come out to Iowa sometime and check out the shop, because our guys are the heroes of the story. We have about, I think we have about 20 people on our team and they all care about what they do and they support each other and we learn from each other and they're all committed to

You know, the funny thing is I'm always the bad guy, you know, cause I'm like, we got to get this truck done. Cause if we don't get it done and that's one of the most difficult things about the bespoke high end businesses timelines. Cause you go like you tear into this body. And I, one thing I love about the scouts and about our story is we're committed to real steel, like scouts with a story. Like every scout that we restore has a story. It has a previous life.

Chris Picconi (28:58.539)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Picconi (29:08.575)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Picconi (29:12.382)
Mm-hmm.

sean barber (29:13.95)
I just had a customer come out and we were looking at pictures of his starter truck. And oftentimes, unfortunately, it's like it's passed through five or six different families. And you don't really know the story, but this truck had like this gold miner on the hood, like this hood emblem. And when I showed that to the customer, he was just like, that's amazing, man. He's this big NFL guy. And he's just like, do you have that gold miner? And so like,

as he was looking at his new legend truck, we're like, this is what he knew from pictures that this is what his truck looked like. And this is, this is the story that I know, but being able to hand him that little gold miner emblem, he was just like so stoked. And, and cause I think like, can you, you tell me, I think, and I don't know about the land Rover space, but in the Bronco space.

Chris Picconi (29:48.191)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Picconi (29:56.127)
That's awesome.

sean barber (30:05.254)
I would say most companies don't even restore, they're not restoring Broncos. They're just building them from scratch, right?

Chris Picconi (30:12.827)
You see it a lot in the Bronco space. It depends. I mean, I think it depends in the, I'll tell you in the Jeep space and the CJ space. You pretty much like, and I've done this myself with a CJ-8, started literally with a Vintag and a title and built it from ground up. And what's crazy is you can pretty much buy almost all those parts on outside of the frame, you know, throttle down customs frame and some Dana 44s.

sean barber (30:40.587)
Right.

Chris Picconi (30:40.983)
And obviously, you know, the AMC engine, you know, the Tremec, the Tremec transmission, the Dana 300, you know, transfer case, the bulk of it, you can buy almost all those parts on Amazon. It's wild. It's absolutely wild. But you see it, you see it ground up and it's more accepted in the Jeep space than it is in the Bronco space. Like, you know, in the Bronco space, they

sean barber (30:49.282)
That's, yep.

sean barber (30:56.802)
It's crazy.

sean barber (31:05.428)
Hmm.

Chris Picconi (31:07.863)
It's very similar to the Jeep Space where nobody wants fiberglass tubs, right? You know, and it devalues it. But people want steel tubs, but they're okay with steel repop tubs versus the original steel.

sean barber (31:11.275)
Yes.

sean barber (31:18.87)
Yeah. Yes, did you?

sean barber (31:30.921)
in the investment grade Bronco space that people care about that originality. I mean not originality but like that it is a real restoration.

Chris Picconi (31:37.963)
I do, I do.

Chris Picconi (31:42.547)
do actually. And just from looking and being so close to the market and looking at like I'm a very analytical guy. I am constantly looking at the market, valuing the market, looking at trends. And I have to say, I will say that the numbers that the vehicles and the trucks that do the best numbers are the ones that are the most original, right? That have the most original components, which

Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it's a bad thing. Right? You know, I am on this a lot longer and I'll tell you like, I am going through this right now. I bought an 82 J-10, Jeep J-10 with 63,000 original miles. The thing was bone stock original. When I tell you bone stock original, amazing. But you learn that, you know.

sean barber (32:12.817)
Right. Definitely takes longer.

sean barber (32:22.177)
Okay, excellent.

Chris Picconi (32:34.823)
rubber dry rots, right? Yes, there's not any rust on it. And it lived its entire life down south in, you know, in a dry climate. But, you know, when you go to change the sending unit, and your mechanic drops the, you know, drops the, the gas tank, and he's like, there's a there's actually a crack in this gas tank. And oh, by the way, all your soft lines on the entire fuel system are dry rotted, you know?

sean barber (32:36.349)
That's right. Yeah.

sean barber (32:58.577)
That's right, 100%.

Chris Picconi (33:01.083)
And he's like, okay, so what started as a sending unit is now a new fuel system, right? Everything but hard lines. And then he's like, oh, hey, also notice that while we're talking about dry rot, every single rubber component of your cooling system is also dry rotted. And he's like, oh yeah, and all the seals, your water pump's weeping a little bit, so it's probably gotta be resealed. So at that point, we're gonna pull the water pump off, so might as well just replace it.

sean barber (33:16.135)
That's right.

sean barber (33:23.453)
That's right.

Chris Picconi (33:30.659)
And then I got to take the radiator out anyway. So let's just replace the radiator. So then what starts with a sending unit, replacing a sending unit is like all new soft lines, all new in the fuel system, all new tank. And then it turns into a whole new, all the new soft lines in the cooling system, a new water pump, a new, and then it just like snowball. So yeah, originality is great, but there's, you know.

sean barber (33:37.777)
That's right.

sean barber (33:57.166)
Yeah.

Chris Picconi (33:57.595)
It's old stuff and it's got a, you know, it has a life expectancy, but I will say at the end of the day, the more original a truck is, the more willing a, an edgy, an educated buyer is willing to pay a premium for it. You know, um, you know, even it doesn't trust me, it could be, you know, a, a new legend, you know, investment quality build, right? But you know, if it has the original truck,

You know, the original tub, you know, obviously it's gonna have the original frame, but the original Dana 44s, but have obviously been rebuilt from top to bottom, right? Um, you know, people like the 304s, the 345s, the torque flight, 727s, but people love, and this is actually another wild thing that I've noticed where you do an LS swap in a CJ and, or a 350 swap in a CJ. People are like, nah, I'm not really interested. I want an AMC 401 or, you know,

sean barber (34:54.001)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Picconi (34:54.663)
a 360 or a 304, right? Or, you know, a 258, you know, which, hey, by the way, 258s, which is my favorite engine, we're in early Scouts for a while, yep. So, but like there's other, you know, other models like Broncos, man, you do a Coyote swap in a Bronco, you add hundreds of thousands of value, dollars worth of value, but you do an LS swap in a Scout.

sean barber (35:05.853)
Great engine.

sean barber (35:14.069)
Yeah, I noticed that.

Chris Picconi (35:22.919)
and you throw the value through the roof, right? And you know, and that's what's, you have these unique trends in the market that are unique to all these different makes and models. And I think you have done an amazing job catering to that market and maximizing the value in these bespoke investment quality builds. And I talk a lot about intrinsic value here and inherent value. And that's one of the things is people need to realize that

sean barber (35:42.95)
That's right.

Chris Picconi (35:52.607)
you know, a $25,000 Scout can be overvalued and a $250,000 new Legend Scout can be undervalued, right? And that's, and that is the market forces of inherent value. But you know, before we go any further, I wanna ask the most important question that I ask every single guest on this show. And I think you already answered it, but I just wanna clarify it. What was your first car or truck?

sean barber (36:00.709)
Hmm, yeah that's crazy.

Chris Picconi (36:21.544)
And was it Dead Sea 10?

sean barber (36:23.097)
Yeah, I mean, I did, we just had, again, like, my mom and dad were great and they allowed us to have junk cars around. So yeah, that C10, but the funny thing about that story is I never drove that C10. I had it like big block turbo 400, I had it all built and I just couldn't afford a driveshaft because I didn't know how to make one in my garage. And so, and then I would sit out there as a 15 year old just in.

Chris Picconi (36:44.973)
Mm-hmm.

sean barber (36:51.545)
like start the engine or rev the crap out of it. And I think I threw a rod in the motor, sitting in the driveway in neutral. But yeah, so I think, it's hard, I had so, by the time I was 17, dude, I had like 40 cars. Seriously.

Chris Picconi (37:11.975)
Well, so what was the first one that you got that you like drove when you got your driver's license, you drove it to school.

sean barber (37:17.569)
I think it was a Pontiac, like a 1984 Pontiac Sunbird, four cylinder, 2.5 liter, four cylinder with a four speed. And it was rear wheel drive, so I could just do the best burnouts. And then I got handed down when I was 17, my father had my grandmother's 69 K5 Blazer, really beautiful truck. My dad made the worst mistake in his life, giving it to my brother, my older brother.

Chris Picconi (37:40.651)
Bro.

sean barber (37:48.293)
By the time I got it, it was on these 35 gumbo mudders with primered black and it was hugger orange. It was like, it was a beautiful original truck and we just destroyed it. And then before I moved, we sold it for like, blew the transmission and sold it for 500 bucks. And what a, what a...

Chris Picconi (38:07.508)
Only if you knew. I actually just bought a square body recently. I just bought, and actually I have not mentioned this on the show yet. So the first classic truck I ever bought and restored was an 81 CJ7, right? And I had that for almost 15 years. And it's the one that I said I would never sell, and I just sold it actually like two months ago.

sean barber (38:10.014)
Oh yeah, I love those.

sean barber (38:24.349)
Mm-hmm.

sean barber (38:28.541)
Wow, that's a good run.

sean barber (38:33.87)
Wow.

Chris Picconi (38:34.139)
I just sold it two months ago to make room. I just wasn't using it anymore. I put it up for auction with the ForB guys and had a great successful auction. But, and ironically through a friend of a friend, a guy in the town I live in had heard that I was, I was auctioning it off. And he had approached me a couple of times to say, oh, if you ever sell, if you're ever gonna sell it, like, you know, let me know, let me know. You know how everybody says that. So when you...

You know, I take that always with a grain of salt, because then you're like, hey, I'm going to sell it. And everybody's like, oh, hey, yo, well, the timing's not right for me. Like, whatever. So, you know, I didn't really mention it to him. I just, you know, had, through a friend of a friend, he had found out that I was auctioning it off. And the good news is, though I don't own that truck anymore, it's still in my town. He had a guy in town, ended up winning the auction. And I see him and his family driving it around all the time, making their own memories. So I don't regret selling it.

sean barber (39:02.189)
Right, right. Yes.

Chris Picconi (39:32.623)
I don't regret selling it, but because I see them driving around, it didn't go to a rando in the middle of nowhere. You know, it went to somebody that I could see enjoys it. But my next day, I was going to buy a scout. I've been ultimately looking for a scout for probably over six years now. I follow the market closely. I look at every transaction out there and I have learned and it took me a long time to learn this. But

sean barber (39:39.577)
Right, yeah that's cool. I love that.

Chris Picconi (40:01.367)
I am not capable of restoring my own scout. I need somebody with, like you said, with the expertise, right, like yourself, our common friend, Dan Hayes at Binder Boneyard, right? Like somebody that knows what they're doing. And that's one thing where I will say, I'm usually one that will never buy, I will always build. In this case, when I do pull the trigger on a scout, it's gonna be one that's built.

sean barber (40:08.593)
That's right.

Chris Picconi (40:29.659)
and built by the right person, because that is such a unique world. There are so many little intricacies and understanding. And like you said, like 90% of them are just rotted to, you know, to here and back and some stuff can be fixed, some stuff can't. Like there's only so much you can do and buying a $20,000 scout in the end turns into $150,000 scout. You know, real, yeah, the hard way.

sean barber (40:54.457)
Right. The hard way and the not fun way. You know, cause you're just.

Chris Picconi (40:59.011)
over several, several years.

sean barber (41:01.169)
That's right. And the worst thing that I see happens is people go down that path and still have a truck that's worth 20 grand after they put 80 into it because it just wasn't the right recipe. It wasn't the right quality. That's something that I think is we've worked really hard to be consistent and steady. Like we say we've been we've we just celebrated since so 2001 I fiercely took over.

Chris Picconi (41:13.195)
all the time.

sean barber (41:29.213)
So that's what 22 years in business. And we're gonna be around for another 20, at least as long as I'm alive. But that's important. That's part of that value is like, you're buying a truck with a warranty, you're buying a truck with a team behind it. And when there's that consistency in our drivability conversions through same ethos in the new Legend brand.

It's like we want to make them serviceable. So like if you notice like some high end builders like will kind of like boyd Coddington street rot out the engine bay where you can't see any of the AC lines, you can't see any wiring, it's all just sheet metal. And it's like, that's the most unserviceable thing. I always look when I see the trucks like that, I'm like that truck wasn't meant to drive. And that's cool. Some people like that just like collector quality or they're gonna take them to a car show and open the hood.

Chris Picconi (42:12.456)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Picconi (42:20.337)
Yeah.

sean barber (42:27.805)
But our trucks, if you're out in Moab with one of our new legend scouts, we wanna make it so that a local mechanic, if something goes wrong or something breaks, it can be serviced by a competent mechanic kind of anywhere in the country. That changes how you build things and informs the decisions that you make on how you do things. Repeatability, all that kind of stuff.

Chris Picconi (42:52.719)
It comes down to the knowledge, the historical knowledge. I mean, like you said, from the first one you built to the 50th one you built, you've evolved. And that alone is having a scout built correctly and competently takes experience that the average person just doesn't have, right? And...

sean barber (43:12.793)
Yeah, speaking of that, on our drivability conversions, I think we've done over 230 LS-based drivability conversions. Which some of the purists, I'll speak to this, some of the purists get mad at that and say like, we used to get messages like, hate mail in the late 2014-15 range. Like, you're single-handedly destroying Scouts, like, because they're not, because the argument is if it's got a non-IH motor, it's not a Scout anymore.

Chris Picconi (43:41.886)
Mm-hmm.

sean barber (43:42.725)
because they put Jeep motors in them and they put Nissan motors in them from the factory. So I guess those aren't Scouts either.

Chris Picconi (43:47.055)
Yeah. Yeah, of course. And a little known fact, the 345 is IH branded was, I believe, built by AMC.

sean barber (43:58.685)
I don't know. I always thought it was built by IH because it's in the SV category. Same 304, 345, 392, 266, kind of all the same architecture, subtle differences. And the 196, the mighty

Chris Picconi (44:05.407)
Gotcha.

Chris Picconi (44:11.327)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Picconi (44:17.052)
Yeah, the four cylinder.

sean barber (44:26.829)
a specific brand, the GM base, like we get so many requests, like we put a Hemi in it, we do a Coyote and it's like, no, that's right.

Chris Picconi (44:36.403)
You know what you know, man. You, yep, you know, it's, you just know what you know. And that's, you have that experience and you can do it blindfolded with your hands, you know, tied behind your back because you have the experience and the expertise to do it. But when you drop these LS's in, like, there are things that are, you know, you're dropping a modern powertrain, right? That has an OBD into a truck that, you know, OBDs didn't even exist when they were, for the nine years that Scouts were manufactured, like.

sean barber (44:56.861)
That's right.

Chris Picconi (45:05.843)
What are you doing for like, you know, what's the process? Like, so let's talk about the drivability side of it, right? So the drivability side, you're doing the powertrain swap and you know, the electronic components of the vehicle and the suspension, correct?

sean barber (45:09.573)
Yep. Yeah, so.

sean barber (45:21.957)
Yes, in any shop, this should be a yellow flag, so to all your listeners out there, if you talk to a shop or an individual about dropping an LS into your vintage 4x4 or a Coyote and that's all they're doing, they're not rewiring it, they're not addressing. So anyway, that's a problem, because you have this 50-year-old platform with 50-year-old infrastructure, now you're gonna put a modern high horsepower.

engine into it and it just can be a dangerous situation. And so yeah, our drivability conversion is LS modern transmission, which is another silly thing to use a 727 and put an LS in front of it. You know what I mean? A T-19 four speed with an LS could be kind of cool. That's one of my favorite manual transmissions. But

Chris Picconi (46:07.undefined)
Yeah, of course. Yeah.

sean barber (46:16.541)
So we'd like to keep that integrated technology. So engine, transmission, transverse exhaust, cooling, all the big dogs like the electrical system, everything is redone, headlights to taillights, rebuild axles, new drive shafts, new suspension. But where it gets into the difference like the Anything Scout difference is, again, it's a driveability. So what is part of the driveability? Well, the crank windows, like rebuilding the doors so that the door latches work correctly.

the doors, the windows roll up and down properly, the vent windows work, we rebuild the heater cables. So like the heater, so the heat and air conditioning actually works. New ignition switch, wiper switch, heater control switch. So anything that the driver is interacting with, is what we discovered is when we were doing, you know, a $17,000 LS swap, we would, air quotes.

Chris Picconi (46:53.806)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Picconi (47:10.516)
Yeah.

sean barber (47:11.377)
the customer would, that's a lot of money for some people and they would get it home and go like, my windows still don't roll up and down. My doors don't close correctly. My seat doesn't work on the slides. My gauges don't work. Like it's like, what's the point? And so now, I mean, now our driveability conversion is upwards of 50 grand, but it's, and all I will say from Dan to IH Parts America, all the quality,

Chris Picconi (47:22.047)
Gotcha.

Chris Picconi (47:26.068)
Mm-hmm.

sean barber (47:39.845)
builders in the scout space approach it. I mean, maybe not quite to that drivability conversion extent, but they're not just slapping. Because we get all the time, man, like where they're like, 50 grand, I called my local mechanic and he said, nine grand, he'll do everything. Exactly.

Chris Picconi (47:41.843)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Picconi (47:57.631)
good luck, go do it. And then call me when you get it back and you're willing to pay the 50 grand. And I see that happen all the time, man. People do, you know, what is that saying? It's stepping over dollars to pick up pennies, you know, pound foolish, penny shy, pound foolish, whatever, and I'll be honest, I've learned the hard way and been guilty of it myself, right? And every time I try to make, I almost make that.

sean barber (48:14.061)
Yeah, yeah.

sean barber (48:23.024)
Mm.

Chris Picconi (48:27.803)
decision, I stop myself and step back and say, Whoa, that's not, you know, you do it right. You do it right the first time. And again, back to intrinsic value.

sean barber (48:34.437)
But, and that's the majority, that's right. And that's the majority of the population does it that way. Same with paint jobs. And you take a rusty scout to a paint, a local body shop and go like paint my scout. And they're like 10 grand. Well, dude, we put, we put about 700 hours into every body restoration. It's like, it's like, it's like someone asked me how much to paint my scout. And I'm like,

Chris Picconi (48:58.163)
Yeah, doesn't surprise me.

sean barber (49:03.441)
probably 70 or 80. And I know that sounds crazy, but we're blowing that body apart. Like, and we have jigs and we're reassembling the body with coatings, better designed. Like for example, we redesigned like the Cab Mountain Wedge because just the way it was designed, it collected dirt and moisture and it inherently just rotted out. So, and we have guys that have done, you know,

Chris Picconi (49:16.395)
panels.

sean barber (49:34.073)
restored 30 bodies like this is it's and it's not fun work It's valuable. It's it's brings value and it's and you can be proud of what our guys are proud of what they do But it's hard work

Chris Picconi (49:39.687)
No, no.

Chris Picconi (49:47.259)
And finding somebody, and I've talked about this in the podcast before, finding somebody to do high quality, classic vehicle body work and restoration is hard enough in itself. You can go to 10 body shops and say, hey, I want you to refinish the body, do the metal work and paint it. And all 10 of them will tell you no. Oh, sorry, we don't do that business anymore. We only do collision business because then, you know.

sean barber (50:11.025)
Right. Yeah? Mm-hmm.

Chris Picconi (50:16.195)
Unfortunately, the insurance industry has destroyed the body business because the only way for a body shop to survive is literally through collision work. Collision work today, the old school metal workers and painters, those guys are dying off. That's a dying art because now you get in a little fender bender and you need to have your hood and your...

sean barber (50:32.893)
That's right.

Chris Picconi (50:44.711)
your driver fender and the HID headlight unit replaced, all they do is literally take those parts off, put your VIN number into an ordering system and brand new color coded painted parts get delivered the next day. And you just have disassemblers and assemblers. There's really no body work anymore. It's like, no, you don't have anybody.

sean barber (50:55.652)
Mmm.

sean barber (51:06.833)
That's right.

Chris Picconi (51:10.491)
there is no craft. There's no, there's no art to it anymore. They're not taking that hood off and, and pounding it out and straightening it out. They're not taking that fender and straightening it out. They're literally just throwing it in the metal pile, right? To get recycled and taking new stuff that amazingly how efficient our world is, is already pre-painted, right? It's already, all these body panels that are pre-painted and just, and just putting them back together. And that's where the industry has changed where they're

sean barber (51:29.105)
That's right, yeah.

Chris Picconi (51:37.967)
again is an immense amount of value. Unfortunately, I have an amazing body shop that will do classic work on the side from their collision work. But when you do find that guy that is good, has a good shop with the right people, it's not cheap, right? When people come to me and say, yes, it's not quick either. People come to me and they're like, hey, like, hey, can you refer to me to my, to your body guy? And I'm like, I can refer you, but he's not gonna, he has literally 10 clients he does this type of work for and I'm one of them.

sean barber (51:45.958)
Yes.

sean barber (51:53.883)
and it's not quick. Ha ha ha.

sean barber (52:06.777)
Yes. Yeah.

Chris Picconi (52:08.059)
And they're like, what? And I was like, even if he was willing to do, do you understand the cost that it would take? And they'd be like, I don't know. Like, I don't know. There's just like a rocker panel that needs to be like cut out. I'm like, yeah, but there's this, that, that. Like you have 10 grand worth of just metalwork before they even start refinishing the body. Like that is $30,000 worth of bodywork that needs to get done by the time it's all said and done. People are like, no way. Yeah way, man.

sean barber (52:34.841)
Yeah, and that's why you bring up a good point on we are all about people doing work themselves. And so on anything, Scout or another unique distinctive about our businesses, we've worked a lot really hard and spent a lot of our income and profit on creating content to educate people from like, even like our driver series videos, as much as they're promoting what we do, we try to make them educational so that you

Chris Picconi (52:41.535)
Mm-hmm.

sean barber (53:04.933)
the customer can go can ask the right questions to that local shop or be suspicious when it's like that doesn't look I've seen under the hood of Patrick Kessler's truck. What you're doing doesn't look like that. Why are you cutting corners? Why are you doing this? Like one little thing, for example, and we learned this just through experiences like when you see like the air intake on a fuel injected vehicle like Coyote or LS.

and they put the air intake like right over the side of the motor, like right above the exhaust, not realizing that as that, that's right, which then the engine detunes itself. And we learned that on the dyno, like that we were losing 25 to 30 horsepower due to heights. So then we redid what we do and we put it into the inner fender. But those are like subtle little things.

Chris Picconi (53:39.155)
Mm-hmm.

You're heating up the air. Yeah.

sean barber (54:02.385)
that we're trying to educate people. So we just want to see people enjoying their scouts and we believe the scout is like, this sounds dumb, but like, it literally is like a dream machine. It's like, it's a portal to adventure. Like when you're driving, you could be having the worst day in the world and you hop in your old scout or your old CJ or your old FJ or your old Bronco and like, and the day just gets better. Well, it might get worse if it breaks down.

Chris Picconi (54:32.579)
Which is always, every time you turn the key, is always a variable, man. Like I always tell people, it's not if, it's just when. And unfortunately the when happens at like the absolute worst time, right? You know, you have the best night out like having dinner with your wife and like you're just like, this night is going great. Like everything is firing on all cylinders and I get in that, you know, that early eighties, you know, CJ and I turn and you hear nothing. And you're like.

sean barber (54:32.666)
So

sean barber (54:42.714)
Right.

sean barber (54:46.582)
Yeah.

sean barber (54:58.414)
Yeah.

Chris Picconi (54:59.415)
this is gonna end in like a tow truck ride home and an uber, you know, but that's the fun of it, man. That's just, it goes with the territory.

sean barber (55:02.238)
Yep.

sean barber (55:09.017)
It is fun until it's like the fifth time that happens. You're like, I can't do this anymore.

Chris Picconi (55:11.927)
Yeah, you know, and your wife says, she's like, you know what, I'm not driving these trucks with you anymore. Like it's, it's not, which is actually, I just bought a 1990, all original 1990 K five blazer. So yeah, this thing is immaculate. It is unmolested. It is all original. The previous owner who is a very prominent collector, who I bought it from, did a full power train rebuild on it, but kept it all original. Everything works.

sean barber (55:17.735)
That's right.

sean barber (55:25.53)
Excellent.

Chris Picconi (55:40.371)
down to the light blue floor interior, but it's automatic. It has air conditioning. And I will tell you, that's the one car when I say, hey, I'm gonna go to the garage. I'm gonna pull, we're gonna go out tonight. That's the one where one car where my wife says, yeah, that's cool, no problem. Every other car out the J-10, a CJ, whatever it is, a Defender, she's like, no, please, can we take the regular car? Can we take the, that's the one car where she's like, okay, no problem. We took it out to an Avery Brothers show last night, you know, up at BNC Bank Arts.

sean barber (55:42.785)
I love that.

sean barber (55:56.685)
Yeah. Like, nah.

Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

sean barber (56:08.381)
That's awesome. They can be.

Chris Picconi (56:10.355)
but let's switch gears up here a little bit because you just ran in a Scout Terra, a custom built Scout Terra, the Nora Mexican 100 race, which, I'm sorry, Mexican 1000 race. So first off, where did this little figment of your imagination that turned into an idea, that turned into reality, that turned into you running a thousand miles in a custom built Scout Terra?

sean barber (56:23.57)
Mexican 1000.

sean barber (56:40.717)
Yeah, back to that dream machine. I've been, for probably like 10 or 15 years, the gym guy that I bought anything Scout from, he happened to own one of four, roughly four factory sponsored, factory backed Baja race trucks. So I'd always seen that truck around and I love history and I just love, I love like,

Chris Picconi (56:41.187)
How did that all happen? Yeah.

sean barber (57:10.485)
understanding what did it feel that's why I love original trucks because like when you're driving a bone stock that j-10 some dude 35 years ago was driving that same truck like what was he thinking? What was he going through? That's what I love putting my I love feeling that feeling and so man, i've always just like what those early baja guys are just They're just the dudes man. They uh

They were just going out to this unknown, no GPS, no internet. Like they would just get this hand drawn map and go like go race down the peninsula in Baja. And to me that's just, yes. Yes. Oh, of course not. Imprimitive suspension and just throw a ton of shocks on it. And so I wanted to feel that. I wanted to experience that. And so I built, I'm restoring that scout in a...

Chris Picconi (57:46.907)
in these crude, like, carbureted engines with no air conditioning, in the heat, like, yeah, I mean... Yeah!

sean barber (58:06.573)
And we have to do another episode because Scout Motors, who's launching the new Scouts, like they are relaunching the brand, they partnered with me and they're one of my key sponsors to make that Baja dream happen. And we together are bringing Scouts back to Baja. The last time a factory, well, the last time a real factory backed truck raced in Baja was 1982. This guy named Sherman Balsh and that's the truck that I own.

So I'm restoring that truck, but that restoration's a big deal because it was literally like a roll cage and some crates of parts. It was very abused and very neglected. So I just wanted to build a period correct Terra, a race truck, and I had this four cylinder Scout Terra that me and my son were like, we were sitting for like 10 years, we got it running and we're like, what should we do with this Scout? And we were sitting having coffee and I'm just like, you want to race Baja?

Like this, like next year, this was in 2022. And he's like, heck yeah, let's do it. And then I went public. And then once you say, state something publicly, if you're gonna be a man of integrity, you gotta do it. And so, yeah, I started building it and I didn't really know how to, I knew how to build trucks in our team. So we just built this period, correct vintage race truck with a four cylinder.

Chris Picconi (59:17.579)
You gotta do it. Yep.

sean barber (59:33.165)
And we came in second place in our class, and we finished 33 hours, 1,300 miles. And I drove the whole time, which I was, I'm 49. And I was like, will I be able to drive 12 hours a day for five days straight in a four cylinder? Which, yeah, yeah. And it really changed my life. And it was one of the top.

Chris Picconi (59:50.091)
That's insane. In a four cylinder. With the 196 or?

Chris Picconi (59:58.826)
Wild.

sean barber (01:00:01.073)
three experiences of my life and it was so cool. Like I was just watching some helicopter footage of the race truck and I'm like, I can't believe this is legal. Like it's just go as fast as you can, which is not super fast in a four cylinder Scouterra. But we get up into the mid sixties, which over rough terrain is pretty impressive for an old Scout and man, so impressed with the Scout. So we have, we're running again. And Dan Hayes, he's gonna

Chris Picconi (01:00:15.995)
Yeah

sean barber (01:00:31.013)
help you on the crew next race. But we're, yeah, for sure.

Chris Picconi (01:00:34.143)
He's the guy to have on the crew, man. I'll tell you, Dan, like I'll give, Dan's gonna listen to this because it's you and I, who, you know, he's a common friend of both of ours, right? So he's gonna listen to this. So we gotta give a little shout out to Dan Hayes at BinderBroner. And I will tell you, in getting to know Dan, and I will call him a friend now, I have to tell you, when it comes to the scout space, there is nobody out there who has the technical acumen.

and the mechanical knowledge of a scout. I've never met anybody that has that level of technical acumen and mechanical know-how and knowledge with a scout. So to have him on your team is like, it is absolutely amazing. Trust me, there are some people that come close, right? But he is second to none. And he's always so super helpful with me. So that is the guy to have on your team when you're running the Mexican.

sean barber (01:01:14.093)
Yeah, yeah, it's great.

sean barber (01:01:26.009)
Yes.

Chris Picconi (01:01:33.675)
1,000 and there's a mechanical issue that needs to get figured out in the middle of the desert.

sean barber (01:01:38.849)
And he just embodies the spirit of it and he'll partner with our crew and it'll be a great thing. So yeah, we're doing some fancy stuff. I'm working with a company called JMS Engine Builders. Well, there's a company in Nebraska that's building the Sherman Bolshe 392, which is 12 and a half to one compression. Big hydraulic cam for an IH motor. The rumor is that motor...

The 392 Sherman ball truck dynoed out at 350 at the rear wheels. The race tarot with the four cylinder was stock was probably like 65, 70 horsepower at the rear wheels. So but they think we can build a horsepower per cubic inch. So I'm getting like this Hogan racing manifolds building a custom billet aluminum two barrel intake for the 196. Like we're just we're having fun. Like the old racers.

Chris Picconi (01:02:12.052)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Picconi (01:02:20.175)
It's like a tractor.

sean barber (01:02:36.849)
getting creative, you know, digging deep into the wells of like possibility. It's really cool.

Chris Picconi (01:02:43.679)
You know, you mentioned something earlier when we talked about the driveability conversions for that, anything Scout does with the, with the L S is like one thing, like, and I look at a lot of Scouts. I've, I've probably looked at hundreds of Scouts and said no to all of them. Right. Um, but like the wiring is a unique issue where a lot of times it's hacked up. There's, you know, stuff isn't working. What are you, are you custom building harnesses? Are you using, uh, you know, custom

Are you doing them in house or using like a company like PSI conversions that builds, you know, custom wiring harnesses for LSs? Like what are you doing to cross that? Cause there's no painless like out of the box harness like there is for CJs, you know? Oh, okay.

sean barber (01:03:26.733)
There actually is. So we partnered with American Auto Wire. We met them at SEMA like three years ago and we helped really do as close to a plug and play harness as you can get for a scout with a really good detailed instruction booklet. So that's possible. But there's a couple like Quick Wire. There's a couple of aftermarket harness companies. The key I think is yes, new componentry and consistency like we.

route the wires the same every single time. So if Patrick Kessler calls me and goes, hey, my truck's not starting, my guys can go, oh, go check this fuse. And it's like, sure enough, that fuse is good. Or this wire, like when you do everything the same over and over and over, it's a little boring for our techs, but you get predictable, consistent results. And it's hard, man. Think about the recalls. Like I heard

Chris Picconi (01:04:04.491)
Mm-hmm. That's it.

sean barber (01:04:22.821)
just on the radio or the podcast that Hyundai or Kia just is recalling like 90,000 vehicles and they're building like in the hundreds of thousands if not millions of vehicles. So a small shop like ours that's building 30 trucks a year, which is a heck of a lot more than two or three a year, but you start to get good and there's always little issues. So we try to put...

Chris Picconi (01:04:28.715)
had another recall.

Chris Picconi (01:04:47.167)
course, yeah.

sean barber (01:04:52.741)
500 miles on every truck that goes out the door Which you wouldn't think that that's hard But when you have four trucks a month, you know three to four trucks a month being built and delivered test drive putting 500 miles on all those trucks all the time, so like our guys like They're just it's awesome. So we get to drive awesome Scouts around but it's like a

Chris Picconi (01:05:12.611)
Yeah, but at the end of the day, it's like, okay, who's taking this one home? Who's taking this one home? Are you guys going on a trip this weekend? Great, we need another 300 miles on this. You know, it almost gets tedious though it's a ton of fun, but you gotta work these things out because that's the only way you know what's going on and if there's an issue is they have to be worked out. And, you know.

sean barber (01:05:17.77)
Exactly, that's how it is, man.

sean barber (01:05:23.102)
Exactly.

sean barber (01:05:26.958)
Yes, that's right.

sean barber (01:05:34.721)
And like if you've seen any of our new legend trip videos, every year we take Patrick's going on, we're doing a Southeast trip in October in South Carolina. We're doing the South Carolina Adventure Route, SCAR. And we like to, that's so important to us because it gets our customers, it just helps curate an experience for them so that they can do it on their own next time. But we talk about navigation, how to use the four wheel drive, how to...

Chris Picconi (01:05:43.434)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Picconi (01:05:48.671)
Super cool.

sean barber (01:06:04.069)
do everything in the scout and actually go camping. Oftentimes it's a new experience for them. But for us, it's like the ultimate durability test. We get to take these bespoke high-end vehicles out on the dirt and out on the rocks. And we're doing it so that they're not, we're not gonna like take them through something that's gonna destroy the vehicle. But they have the front and rear lockers. I mean, they're capable, competent vehicles.

And so that's a big thing for us is getting them out on a thousand mile road trip.

Chris Picconi (01:06:37.995)
using them and these things are purpose built and that's what they are there. I'm the same boat as you, I'm not like a car show guy. Like that's not my thing, I don't go like, you know, pull them up and it's funny, Patrick Kessler, back to Pat, Patrick Kessler and I, actually the only car show that him and I will do is our friend Mike, who owns Evolution Auto Spa. That's the only one, just cause we're friends with him and we're willing to do it, that's the only one I'll do in a year, right? Cause a friend asks us to, you know?

sean barber (01:06:59.961)
Yeah. And meetups are great. You know, like it's fun to get, do meetups in cars and coffee. Like I'm into it, but I just don't love, I don't love when our trucks sit in people's collections. My ultimate dream is that people just get to use them and create memories.

Chris Picconi (01:07:08.307)
Yeah.

Chris Picconi (01:07:19.251)
I want to go out, lock the hubs, drive on Island Beach Day Park out for 10 miles, you know, fish, surf fish all night long with a bonfire going with a couple of buddies. That's epic. Like that's my idea. Not sitting in a lawn chair next to it with people asking me questions. Hey, what year is it? Right? Like...

sean barber (01:07:21.474)
Yes.

sean barber (01:07:29.233)
That's epic, man. That's epic.

sean barber (01:07:37.109)
And to that point, it's more epic. Like if you just had a 2019 Gladiator or whatever, it's just, it's way more epic in the J-10, dude. Way more epic.

Chris Picconi (01:07:44.561)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Picconi (01:07:49.319)
I just say, if you look on my Instagram, you could see, I just had my J 10 out on Island Beach State Park, driving it out of the sand the other day. So, I mean, I got to tell you Sean, this has been a ton of fun catching up. I mean, we've never crossed paths before. We have a ton of common friends, but I'm glad that you were able and you had the time to join us today on the Classic 4x4 Podcast. And I know I can guarantee you all of our listeners, especially the 200 plus listeners that requested to hear you.

sean barber (01:07:53.64)
Aw man.

sean barber (01:07:57.073)
It's great.

Chris Picconi (01:08:17.875)
are gonna enjoy this episode too. And we only got through about half of what you and I wanted to talk about. So I think in future seasons, there might be a Sean Barber, Anything Scout, New Legend, part two, because there's a whole bunch more for us to unpack here.

sean barber (01:08:23.996)
Yeah.

sean barber (01:08:35.769)
Yeah, we got to talk new scouts. We got to talk more technical stuff. But yeah, really cool, man. I appreciate your persistence in reaching out to me. And it's a pleasure and a privilege to be on your show. You did a good job.

Chris Picconi (01:08:40.543)
Yeah, dude.

Chris Picconi (01:08:46.555)
Oh, I will stalk you like an ex-girlfriend to get you on this show. So, all right, man. Hey, it was an absolute pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much for your time, your participation, and I hope to talk to you soon and cross paths with you soon, man. All right, thanks, brother.

sean barber (01:09:02.021)
Alright Chris, thanks man.