(loud whirring sound)
(loud revving sound)
(bright upbeat music playing)
(bright upbeat music progressing)
(bright upbeat music continuing)
(bright upbeat music progressing)
- I think one of the things that really
has always brought me
happiness
was the capability of trying to bring people together.
So regardless as to what it was,
I always found the most joy
in having people enjoy time with one another.
When I was little, it was about trying to get kids
to come over to play football or soccer together.
As I got older, I think that that, you know, enjoyment
kind of manifested itself into something different
and for me, it ultimately manifested into cars
and people that surrounded themselves with cars.
And so as I got older,
essentially when I was in high school,
you know cars were probably the biggest outlet
that a teenage guy could probably have.
And I've always enjoyed cars as a whole.
When I was young, my grandpa Lloyd
used to have different Corvettes that he'd keep, you know,
on his basement window or he talked to me about how one day,
if I worked really really hard, I could get a C5 Corvette.
And I remember, you know, having a lot of joy
and having a lot of pride in one day being able to do that.
Once I was able to jump into my first car,
I wanted a C5 Corvette super super bad.
And when I first actually jumped into the car scene,
I didn't have anything even near that.
I had 1989 Mercedes-Benz 300 E that was baby blue
with a dark blue leather interior.
And I thought I was the coolest kid in town
with tinted windows but something didn't feel right.
You know, I jumped over from that Mercedes-Benz
onto a 3000 GT and you know it just, it wasn't fun.
And no matter what I tried to do, you know,
even if I was trying to learn by myself,
I never really enjoyed it too much.
I was trying to bring people together,
but the car scene at the time and where I was located
wasn't necessarily the most exciting thing to be a part of.
People were naturally pretty hesitant and resistant
to helping other people or there was always, you know,
a sense of elitism, if that's even a word, to the car scene.
And so as I got older
and with my never ending quest
to try and bring people together,
because it's way more fun to have a group of people
than doing things by yourself,
I wanted to try and change that.
I wanted to do that in something that I thought
I would enjoy a lot.
And that enjoyment came from my grandpa, which was cars.
So as I got older,
I tried to create a place where people could come together
and could share their common passion, which was cars.
And the car club that was established
was called the Wisconsin Car Enthusiast Club
and it wasn't necessarily
the first car club in Wisconsin by any means,
and it probably won't be the last,
but it was definitely the first one of its type
for its area.
And it was the ability for people to come together
and talk and enjoy cars that weren't experts or were experts
and could share what they knew or didn't know
in an open forum
that allowed people to not feel so ridiculed.
When I launched that, that was launched
for just our Eau Claire, Wisconsin car scene
and it was only meant to have
about two, three hundred people.
And short of three months later,
it grew into 4,000, 6,000, 10,000
and now it hosts over a little
under 60,000 different members from across Wisconsin.
All of that happened for no other reason
than because I just wanted people to come together
to enjoy a common passion, which was cars.
But cars were an outlet and cars are an outlet.
And what really kind of brought me joy
was the people that came together to enjoy cars,
it wasn't necessarily cars themselves.
I always kind of laugh because a lot of the videos
that we post now on this very exact series
are people that work here now that came from that car club,
that came from the connections
made through the car shows that we host,
the very car shows that we hosted for no other reason
than because we wanted to bring people together.
It wasn't to make money,
it wasn't to make a big splash in the scene,
it wasn't for cool videos,
it was just to help people introduce each other
to maybe a car or maybe a type of enthusiast
that they'd ultimately become best friends with.
Alex, Jolene, Dakota Stone, Steve Miller,
a lot of the individuals that are now faces here
at Fitment Industries, we know from that group,
we know from that network of people.
And that goes past just jobs.
A lot of the individuals that I know and love to this day,
now are married.
That they had gotten together
because they had met on that car club page.
They had met at a car show that we were able to host.
They had met, you know, helping out or volunteering
at one of our give back things
that we used to do back in the day.
And to tie this all back, you know,
where it comes down to me was,
cars helped facilitate all of that.
The hobby helped facilitate all of that.
(bright upbeat music playing)
(bright upbeat music progressing)
(bright upbeat music continuing)
(mild clattering)
I've always attributed cars to kind of like an outlet.
It's like a painting, right?
There's not a lot of people that can paint in this world
and if you can, I applaud you.
But for the most part, you know,
cars are an outlet of who we are.
They represent us.
They represent maybe the pains that we've gone through
or the things that we wish to become.
We could be humble, shy people,
but our cars are exaggerative, aggressive
and quite frankly just carried away
because that's who we want to be,
that's who we want the world to see us as.
There's another group of us
that prefer a more conservative, calm look
because that's who we want us to be expressed as.
And I think the coolest thing is,
about cars specifically is,
if you can pair that passion with a way to grow a community
or to grow a group of people
and you can use the cars as an outlet to meet those people,
the opportunities are endless.
They truly, truly are.
Everything that I, you know attribute,
what I get to do every single day
is because of that mentality.
And it's about learning who people are and new faces
and introducing yourself
and having awkward conversations at car shows
and learning and trying to add people
on Instagram or Facebook to learn,
you know, just what makes them tick.
That's the coolest thing about this whole thing.
When I look back at my life,
there's a lot of individuals that sometimes say,
you know, how do you do it?
How did it come from, you know, a Facebook group
to now what I'm able to do today?
And the answer is, you know, it's not necessarily me.
It was just me being able to bring other people together
and help them make their ideas
that they had in their head actually come to life.
I always kind of giggle.
It can be something where people say, you know,
they're just cars, they're just pieces of metal.
And there are other people that say, no, it's way more.
It's an escape.
It's a pass from the real world into something
that allows me to be distracted
and to not look at the real world
because I honestly don't enjoy it that much.
And to me I say, cars are both.
Cars can only be a piece of metal
if you can't tie the person that built that car to it.
And the community that comes around
the person that built that car,
if you can't meet that person and understand that person
and shake hands with that person or have a beer, you know,
you're missing out on so much of the car culture.
You're missing out on so much more than just the culture,
you're missing out on what the opportunities
of being a car enthusiast can provide you.
They provided me everything that I now hold dear in my life.
Everything that I get to to experience today
is because of that thought.
And if there's one thing that I hope everyone else
can do as well as to see past just it being a car
and see the person behind that car and learning who they are
and understanding why they do things differently
and then you know, doing that again.
And rinse and repeat over and over
until maybe you have 60,000 people in a car group.
Maybe you have your own car detailing business.
Maybe you have your own YouTube channel.
Maybe now you have your own cleaning care products.
Maybe then you'll find the opportunity
to go do what you truly love,
to do what you're truly passionate about.
But never forget that, you know,
without the people behind those cars
and understanding who they are,
they sometimes can only be just cars.
(loud clattering)
(Richer Than Errybody by Gucci Mane playing)
♪ He's traumatized, he done seen too many dead bodies ♪
♪ I ain't love 'em, 'cause these bitches fuckin' errybody ♪
♪ I drop my top, I do the dance, I'm stuntin' on errybody ♪
♪ Drive the McLaren, I'm bendin' corners ♪
♪ I ride through the 6 with that burner on me ♪
♪ I'ma get that lil' bitch as if I want her ♪
♪ I'ma nut in that hoe like a sperm donor ♪
♪ Sellin' drugs, got the feds on us ♪
♪ Brand new XD with a beam on it ♪
♪ I'm lacin' my blunt with that lean on it ♪
♪ Sippin' dirty, it's clean then I don't want it ♪
♪ My pocket filled with them dead bodies ♪
♪ Young boy think he richer than errybody ♪
♪ Nigga play with my shit, I'ma red dot him ♪
♪ That nigga start snitchin', the feds got him ♪
♪ Got a 8 of the Act in a baby bottle ♪
♪ Got a hunnid round clip on a wooden chopper ♪
♪ He got him a brick and he started whylin' ♪
♪ He say he cook better than errybody ♪
♪ I'ma stay with a stick 'cause I know they watchin' ♪
♪ I'm droppin' a bag on errybody ♪
♪ Got a bitch from the A with a wide body ♪
♪ I think that she fuckin' on errybody ♪
♪ To the day that I die, I'ma take narcotics ♪
♪ Bitch I'm catchin' a sale on a Palm Pilot ♪
♪ I need diamonds all over my fuckin' body ♪
♪ They keep fuckin' with me, I'ma see about it ♪
♪ Certified, he cook way better than errybody ♪
♪ He's traumatized he done seen too many dead bodies ♪
♪ I ain't love 'em, 'cause these bitches fuckin' errybody ♪
♪ I drop my top, I do the dance, I'm stuntin' on errybody ♪
♪ Certified, he cook way better than errybody ♪
♪ He's traumatized he done seen too many dead bodies ♪
♪ I ain't love 'em, 'cause these bitches fuckin' errybody ♪
♪ I drop my top, my fucking body ♪
♪ They keep fuckin' with me, I'ma see about it ♪
(music progressing)