2021 Apocalypse Hellfire 6X6 | Jay Leno's Garage

it's funny to see something this big move this quickly and what kind of guy driving i'm driving apocalypse say hello to my big giant friend welcome to the episode of jay leno's garage rather unusual vehicle this week the apocalypse hellfire six by six say you're married and your wife needs something to take the kids to school to run to the market but she's not popular you need something that's bulletproof maybe you got a couple extra wheels justin this is the thing to do this is uh a heavily modified jeep uh i'm gonna bring the gentleman who built it uh these things are amazing to me this is uh this is what europeans think all americans drive around in you know stuff like this you got your gun you got your you got your six by six and you know the roads here in l.a are so bad this is what you need anyway so let's find out exactly what it's joe gaddis joe come on in joe now you own the jeep dealer but your own apocalypse is your company right yeah apocalypse manufacturing a pockets manufacturer and you've built like about 78 of these so far we've built 78 to date this is number 79 and we've got 16 in the box okay so you start your jeep deal so you start with what is that a a jeep so we start with a cabin of a gladiator cabinet of gladiator and then we modify the whole back end of the frame right and this part here we fabricate from scratch in-house the fenders we make from the house the hood the back end this top and whatnot and we make it into an apocalypse now you have two engines available you have the the hellcat motor correct or what a corvette uh 500 horse yeah we do a 500 horsepower ls3 uh v8 we do we actually do the three liter twin turbo diesel too if you want oh okay and then the the hellcat is definitely the most popular it's the most noisy i would think the diesel would be pretty popular for me i love the diesel yeah it's very reliable and it's a little workhorse but the hellcat's definitely the most popular all right so what what size tire 35 these are 40s these are 40 40 by 15 and a half inches wide wrapped on 22 by 14 inch rims six of them because you need that and you build these in fort lauderdale correct yeah which makes me laugh i don't think a fort lauderdale is a manufacturing center but i mean it seems like driving around in florida do you ever get pulled over cops just think it's too big and try to get you something fractured i mean oh sure yeah yeah just the other day we're in beverly hills and he pulled us over he said well you need like a cdl license or something to drive i'm not sure what you're doing wrong but but i know there's something they know you're doing something wrong they're not sure what it is let me take a couple pictures now do you need a separate truck license for more than four wheels no you don't know as long as we're under the weight the vehicle's relatively light it's just under six thousand pounds oh just six thousand right yeah yeah okay all right and obviously do all custom now can someone get a bare bones without this one has a beautiful sort of you've got all kinds of nice leather and all the if i said i i i want it strictly utilitarian can i get it without all of this just absolutely yes absolutely yeah any color you want you pick out the interior colors and even the the bed back if you like to change that too right now i mentioned it's not this one is not bulletproof is it or isn't it no it's a kevlar coating it's a three-part epoxy right but i wouldn't shoot at it right oh okay well maybe okay for small calibers small yeah 22 you might you might live through above 30 caliber you want to go to the next model exactly it's all-wheel drive so all six wheels engaged absolutely and that's that middle axe we actually hand manufacture that axle right in our place so do you have two drive shafts is that how it works no not at all no transfer case no second drive shaft uh the power comes into this axle right through the front which you know looks very similar to a four nine inch right and then the pinion extends right through the casing out the back a single one to one drive out the back and then there's another yoke and feeds the rear one and you choose also the uh the 500 horse corvette motor oh yeah that's the most popular yeah a lot of noise a lot of fun yeah we can't say people won't see it coming that's for sure right how many speeds now a manual is not available right we can do a mini if like yeah because of the weight in the horsepower you burn through you know clutches relatively quickly really the eight-speed transmission out of a ram 3500 is what powers this thing right now okay and that can take all kinds of space oh yeah much more than a clutch right absolutely yeah yeah okay i i mean it looks beautifully well made i mean it's just it is imposing and i guess that's the reason people buy it oh yeah how many customers actually go off-road do a lot of people just use it at some point in the ownership experience you go off-roading in it right but is it their daily thing no mostly you know protect them from zombies and right yeah yeah that's the world we live in pretty amazing okay and the interior is pretty pretty much stock or a few modifications on the inside you know we have the lighting switch control panel there but the biggest one is that screen there that's an infrared night vision camera you can control and zip it around 360. so it's infrared you can see what's going on at night all right let's open the hood and see how that engine fits in there can you get just paint too or it's all come with this sort of you can yeah it's a matte finish what do you call this i call it kevlar it's like a part epoxy with a kevlar fiber in it real rugged and low maintenance yeah and there she is that's the ls3 okay prepare stock ls3 so that's pretty bulletproof isn't it slightly modified we actually get them from a company called bruiser right and they do the the converted motor for us and it's it's really such a seamless headache free uh drop-in and they have little cams now they get 500 horsepower out of it we're running off the factory pcm there's no you know piggybacks or any converter stuff so it's a very reliable setup so you got 500 horsepower and uh eight speed yeah eight speed automatic yeah yeah okay and of course you do this as well this this piece fits on over the yeah you need a quarter inch steel protection around the windshield right yeah i guess you do limits the vision a little bit but definitely protects you from branches now i imagine that you must do a lot of overseas sales saudi arabia and the middle east and that type of thing yeah in dubai we sold quite a few of them over there and we just sold four to some place in africa let's take a look at the bed here yes this is a full steel enclosure call this our rolling lock fastback that's kind of like the cyber truck a little bit yeah i was just waiting for you to say that i definitely stole some of the the idea from there i think it's brilliant it's a lot of space so this is all metal in here so right and you do lock it and this space you can put anything you want some people want 40 gallon extra fuel tank in there they want a water reservoir so what were you building before this obviously you're a mechanic you're a car guy uh i mean you were a jeep dealer and then you got this idea or did you become a jeep dealer after you got this idea i mean how did that work so we we were jeep dealer building uh custom trucks and we we got further and further into just more custom more wild and then started swapping out motors and throwing hellcats and anything else in there you even did an electric jeep just natural progression we just started trying different stuff we said what about six wheels you know and we started exploring that asset and then as far as the how they make them six wheel drive we did a mercedes conversion took a g wagon and made it a six-wheel drive mercedes and i didn't like how it was done with the extra transfer case and drive shaft going over this one's very messy and noisy at high speeds and whatnot and we got into making our own axle to get this thing streamlined weight on 79 of them that's pretty amazing yeah yeah thank you how's like if i ordered one how long would it take to get it built so i can have one from order to finish in three weeks really yes and the reason for that is i've always got 10 to 15 of them when the frame is done right the cab is off motors just you know take your pick drop a motor in and from from word go colors motor and leather we're three weeks out and what state's your biggest market is it texas california or california go figure california yeah yeah okay yeah and obviously you just registered as a jeep yeah registered as a gladiator right uh with your insurance you know you add the modifications or not and that's uh a infrared camera up there right is that this yeah when somebody's you see somebody's hiding in the bushes with a howitzer exactly yeah or if you're into hunting you know you can see critters in the yeah sure and you shut it just by pulling this yeah pull it right down lock her up that's pretty good you turn this here yeah okay and then just so i guess you could sleep in that can you could you get if you're inside can you get out from the inside i'm trying i haven't tried cool let's see what else have we got here obviously massive other what are these tires off of where they come from so they're little mud grapplers okay uh they're made for you know like a 3500 size truck okay and obviously we have to replace all the axles throughout this thing and trusses and not to be able to support them we run a 513 gear ratio in this thing 513 513 very aggressive this thing will you know will rip right out of the hole right right with eight speeds you still get a reasonable cruising speed yeah yeah is there a street tire or more street tire that's available absolutely we do it in a 38 uh a 38 inch patagonia that's a lot quieter and more tame and more for the highway all the time okay what else have we got here let's see and this how do you apply it like regular paint is it spray on is it it is a spray on but it comes out of a heated hose where they combine the three elements right and and when it gets to the gun it's mixed right then and there comes out about 220 degrees it hits the car it cools down and it's solid right then and then oh i see okay let's talk about the suspension pretty basic off-road or ultra-sophisticated what do we have here i wouldn't say ultra sophisticated just very redundant and simple right um so we're running falcon shocks uh we've you know two sets of springs in the rear two track bars uh custom control arms to straighten everything out it's got eight inches of travel upward and about 13 inches of travel downwards got a lot of downward travel for full articulation you notice these wheels are super close to each other right closer together drives better right the way we have the the differentials and the the clutch packs inside of them so you can make a u-turn and move the power over to one side and the other but also off-road you want this wheel to be able to go all the way down this will go all the way up you see some six-wheelers out there that uh it's less off-road capable than a regular four-wheeler right and that's not what we're going for this thing needs to caterpillar over absolutely everything i'm amazed at how much how wide open those springs are yeah they have to be i mean it's yes they get a lot of okay the idea is that you know the truck's not actually that tall this thing's only got a three and a half inch lift over factory yeah but you know huge fender well so that it could travel up a lot now can i go to front wheel only or four wheel or is it so all the time you have the rear four driven okay and then you can select over the front one okay bring it in these are always driving you can't always together yeah and you want them that way because your drivability if you don't have all four rear powered it does funny stuff you want all four in the back pushing and you can do that on the fly there's no hub to turn or anything yeah right on the fly right up under 50 miles an hour you can select it in well that's the standard jeep yeah okay any military uh interest in this no not yet no not yet yeah yeah and then you gotta run on was it jpa so then they would probably want the diesel yeah yeah that kind of deal okay so what does uh jeep think of this they tolerate it or they absolutely tolerate it yeah yeah they absolutely tolerate it uh they mention us in their publications mopar magazine and whatnot right so we know they're well aware of us right and we do sell them at some jeep dealerships right obviously it voids everything and anything out of that you know the original vin chassis that we started with right i mean think about it what's left over you've just got the cabin right the bed is manufactured the top's manufactured you've got a different engine transmission drive shafts axles there's nothing left yeah you know okay and then you have your own warranty right we are we give a three year warranty on all we marry these things when they roll out your shop must be enormous to have 78 of these lying around yeah we're a decent size so we've got a crew of about 45 mechanics now there's not many people yeah everybody's cooking and you're from georgia i'm thinking new york i don't know why i'm thinking bronx i think you're like a new york guy no i'm from georgia marietta georgia okay well there you go i started working on cars with my dad our first one was a suzuki samurai that was oh yeah turned into an electric car yeah i have a shop too no just the home tinkering oh okay well you must be pretty proud of you this is a pretty big business huh he says it's not quite there yet you know the parents you know you're never gonna but that's good cool all right can we take over the spin absolutely let's do it let's see what she does it's gonna be fun okay so why this is a big truck you know you're thinking can i fit in that space you're just doing that all the time kind of cool this opens up into a full convertible and you got airbags anything else in here never quite sure where anything is but mirrors are good the review is a camera apocalypse seems like an odd name for a vehicle and in fact there's a big uh nuclear holocaust right in the center of the steering wheel there a big explosion going on for the mushroom cloud well you know a lot of cars used to have doomsday names you had the student mayor still to make a dictator that was a real car yeah i'm driving a dick taker a dictator yeah yeah that's what it is it seems to be all quality pieces on this thing falcon suspension pieces and i mean it feels like a factory vehicle it's tight everything seems to work as he says i feel like tony montana pulling up in front of the disco in this thing say hello to my big giant friend now once you're in it there's nothing unusual about it it doesn't feel particularly unwieldy or anything six wheels seem to perform fine i can't help your gas mileage much but i think if you're buying this thing i don't think you worry too much about gas mileage i should show this to my buddy offset he would like this this is this kind of vehicle wouldn't want to parallel park this thing and we're kind of kind of driving i'm driving an apocalypse i'm going to trade in my nuclear holocaust to get a new apocalypse well it certainly handles any better than it has a right to i mean it's it's so funny with power steering and power brake it drives just like any other car we hear those tires on the road hey you can take up some golf courses with this thing you know at first glance a lot of people might mistake this for a cyber truck but you know off-roading is the hottest segment of the uh automotive market right now and this is a good example of why people just go crazy for this stuff i feel like jerry reid driving this thing wanting playing westbound and eastbound it's funny to see something this big move this quickly i mean the handle is okay impressive well you got plenty of stopping power of all those wheels and all those discs you know we actually got to drive this once before about a week ago on our cnbc show which should be on the air and well pretty pretty soon and you'll see what how it goes in the dirt but i gotta say it's quite comfortable it's amazing how car like trucks and jeeps have become i mean this is for all intents and purposes a luxury car it just happens to have six giant wheels and be on 100 feet off the ground but it's comfortable air conditioning no radio everything you need electric communities everything you get a bit of tire noise these big 38 size tires but not terrible joe seems like a pretty straight shooter seems to know his stuff you know a lot of times you get the pr flags that come on they don't really know the vehicle they they just know all the talking points that's right it's a 5.2 liter you know that's everything but he's a builder owner salesman the whole deal he's got 45 people working for him so that's impressive i suppose it's practical i think you can make a case for that with for the spouse you know honey look at all the stuff we can put in the bank go to home depot get lumber go camping take the kids you know i mean it does handle nice it's not all over the road i'm surprised i would just think if you blindfolded me put this in it and put me in it i wouldn't guess that it was six wheels or was that or that it was this big from being either the passenger seat in the driver's seat it's funny the trucks are the biggest selling segment of the market these days whether it's off-road things like this or just regular f-150s 250s trx any of them i mean that's what sells cars don't really sell much anymore i've driven a couple of vehicles like similar to this you know and you hit the brakes you're pitching left and right you're trying to control the steering as well this thing stops right on the dime boom probably wonder why i picked this vehicle this week it's not really my type of vehicle but i like the whole idea behind it i like the idea that a guy who fixed cars with his dad starts his own shop and turns into a business has 45 people and he's turned out 79 of these already and he ships them all over the world saudi arabia because that's kind of the american dream you know for a lot of guys i wasn't good enough to work with cars i wanted to show business but i probably if i was a good engineer a good mechanic that someone would enjoy doing i love the fact that joe has designed this himself and built it himself using all quality stuff and he turns out a premium vehicle i think that's impressive so you know that's what uh the entrepreneurial spirit is all about so joe thanks for coming on the show my friend we appreciate it uh that's the website on the side if you're interested in one you can build whatever you want so thanks everybody we'll see you next week

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 1,076,654

Rating: 4.8810825 out of 5

Keywords: Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, compares cars, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, car gear, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Camaro Z28, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, car collection, cnbc, episode, motorcycle, ford, corvette, tour, dodge, lexus, Jeep, Gladiator, 6X6, Apocalypse, Hellfire, offroad, off-road, overland, South Florida Jeeps, car porn, car enthusiast, gearhead, car guy, truck, trucks, 4WD, 4X4

Id: mei0gFgwzn0

Length: 19min 52sec (1192 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 23 2021