Cruise down memory lane with me, Mike Murphy, as I reunite with Jeff Loy, the mastermind behind Drive Nostalgic, on the latest Good Neighbor podcast. Buckle up for a high-speed journey through Jeff's transition from the sunny avenues of Southern California to the pulsing heart of Northern Kentucky's car culture.
Get your engines ready for a heartfelt conversation about the vehicles that become part of our families, each with a name and a narrative as rich as any relative's. Jeff and I share stories of our own named beauties, "Luzi" and "Rosie," revealing the profound connections we form with these steel companions. Moreover, we'll navigate through the digital highways where Jeff steers his community of automobile aficionados—anticipate a sneak peek into the social media avenues, the soon-to-be-revved-up eBay store, and the buzz around Drive Nostalgic's potential apparel line. This episode isn't just for those who appreciate the gleam of chrome and the rumble of an engine—it's for anyone drawn to tales of passion, dedication, and the drive to achieve one's dreams.
Cruise down memory lane with me, Mike Murphy, as I reunite with Jeff Loy, the mastermind behind Drive Nostalgic, on the latest Good Neighbor podcast. Buckle up for a high-speed journey through Jeff's transition from the sunny avenues of Southern California to the pulsing heart of Northern Kentucky's car culture.
Get your engines ready for a heartfelt conversation about the vehicles that become part of our families, each with a name and a narrative as rich as any relative's. Jeff and I share stories of our own named beauties, "Luzi" and "Rosie," revealing the profound connections we form with these steel companions. Moreover, we'll navigate through the digital highways where Jeff steers his community of automobile aficionados—anticipate a sneak peek into the social media avenues, the soon-to-be-revved-up eBay store, and the buzz around Drive Nostalgic's potential apparel line. This episode isn't just for those who appreciate the gleam of chrome and the rumble of an engine—it's for anyone drawn to tales of passion, dedication, and the drive to achieve one's dreams.
Speaker 1:
This is the Good Neighbor podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, mike Murphy. All right, thank you very much, charlie, for the introduction. I am Mike Murphy with the Good Neighbor podcast. My guest today is a friend.
Speaker 1:
I do have lots of friends throughout Northern Kentucky and he's one of my I guess probably one of my dearest and most longtime friends. He's helped me move. He's helped me do a lot of things, but if somebody helps you move, that tells you all you need to know about that level of friendship, because that's the one thing that if somebody helps you move, you know they are your friend. So with me today is Jeff Loy, the president and CEO of Drive Nostalgic, and this is a business that, honestly, I don't know a heck of a lot about. So I'm going to be finding out a lot of this along with you, and I did that on purpose, because I just kind of want to keep that all in wonder as part of this discovery meeting. So, jeff, thanks for meeting me today. And why don't you tell the listeners about Drive Nostalgic, and what is it that you do?
Speaker 2:
Well, mike, first of all, thank you for the introduction. That means a lot, and I too, I mean we've known each other a long time, so I'm just honored that you would have me on here and allow me to present this. But let me tell you a little bit about Nostalgic. So, in a nutshell, I moved here from Southern California in 1991 and grew up around cars my entire life. It's kind of a so-cal thing, and I've always had this dream of having a speed shop. It was more of a retirement type thing, where I wanted to spend the last 15 or 20 years of my life just playing on cars. And the opportunity came up about two years ago. I had met a mechanic that had the same aspirations when it came to cars that I had, and so we started this business and primarily we are a speed shop.
Speaker 2:
We sell parts. We stock a good amount of stuff. We fill nitrous bottles for the race community. We sell a lot of nitrous parts, jets, bottles, bags. We do a lot of small block Chevy and LS parts, small block Ford. We're starting to get into more of the MoPAR stuff. But then the other piece of the puzzle here is that we are also a full service Well, I shouldn't say full service. We are almost a full service auto restoration and repair shop and what that means is that we do everything except for paint and body and transmission work, and even the transmission work. We get into a little bit of it, but we outsource some of that. So what we're doing is we're just bringing old muscle cars back to life and put them on the road. Or people who want a little bit more out of them or want to customize them and get that car to be a little bit more like them and their personality, we take that on. We do cars, we do trucks, we do jeeps. If it's got four wheels, we love to put a wrench on it.
Speaker 1:
So is your passion more tied to making cars faster, or making cars prettier, or making cars like whatever? Like what Talk about your passion?
Speaker 2:
That's a good question, I think, where the question, the best way for me to answer that is I like to make cars unique, whatever that might be. So my personal preference isn't what my clients are, but my personal preference is I just want something out there that no one else has, and so some of my clients, they want the same. Some of our clients just want hey, they want horsepower and they want fast. Some of them want head turners, some of them want show cars. Some of them they don't even want to drive these things, they want to trailer them to a show and show them off. But my passion, I think, is just having something that's unique and different.
Speaker 1:
So I've known through the years that you have taken cars that you own and you go to car shows, park the car, you lift the hood, you open the doors and you just let people appreciate what you've done. So what do you own yourself right now? Like what? What do you show?
Speaker 2:
well, the list has got kind of long, so I have a good amount. None of them done so in. What I would prefer to is our portfolio. We'll probably I'll start with the oldest and work our way up. So the oldest vehicle that I own is a 1977 G5. That is also the most recent purchase and probably needs the most work, but that will be a frame off restoration. And Then next would be a 1985 Camaro Z28. That is Very, very much what I refer to as a sleeper car, looks very stock but is not stock at all Under the hood.
Speaker 2:
We're actually getting ready to do an LS swap on it, but the car is is just, it's a head turner. It just turned. It's so clean. Then I have an 87 1987 r10 square body Silverado, which, for any of those out there that don't know, it's just it's a truck, it's a regular cab truck that is also LS swapped, that one turns heads everywhere we go just because of the way it sounds it. I've done a little bit of work to it, with Some motor work and exhaust work. That it just it's. It's one of those cars you hear it coming. Then I have a 2008 Dodge Magnum. They didn't make a lot of them and I get a lot of crap for that one, especially from the ladies, because they refer to it as the grocery getter and and.
Speaker 2:
But let me tell you that one is it's a work in progress. Right now it's very stock, but it is a work in progress and within the next couple of months, people will see it on the road and it will not look stock at all. It will. It will definitely be one of the unique cars around here. And then then my, my daily driver is a 2022 Ram 1500. Nothing fancy, just a big horn, but it's lifted with an exhaust and 35s and you know just, it just has that very classy big truck.
Speaker 1:
Look so do you do you work on your own cars? Or do you Like, sub it out to your, your trusted pals.
Speaker 2:
What do you do? It's a little bit of both. It just depends on the time I have. I Prefer to do it myself, but I do get into situations where I come into time crunch. I have other businesses that that I take care of as well, and so sometimes I just don't have the time. So I do. I do let let my guys ranch on the stuff and I think they like, because then they get to queue, check it and drive it. So, and then every once in a while you know my son. He's not in the business yet. We hope he will be soon but he's got a 61 Volkswagen Beetle that we've pretty much completely redone. Everyone will see that on the road. I probably cars and coffee and stuff like that in in the spring and so he'll he'll fart around with me every once in a while I'm playing on it.
Speaker 1:
So his name is Brady. Let's give him a shout out, right?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, brady, brady Loy he is, and when you see him You'll be like, yeah, that guy probably needs to be in a beetle.
Speaker 1:
He, yeah he just has that so Cal look Okay right, okay, yeah, well that, that that's nice.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so.
Speaker 1:
If you had to identify your unicorn? What do you want to own, someday that you have yet to put your hands on? 64 Chevy too, oh I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:
Hmm, okay, yep, uh, my, my dream car is a sixty-four, uh, nova, or what they refer to as a Chevy two, um and uh, there's just something about that car that I've always loved. Uh, the lines on everything about that car and, um, man, they're, they're getting harder and harder to find and, uh, the day comes I find the right deal. Uh, I am, I have it be, uh, uh, a driver, so I can take it out and drive it. But then every once in a while, if I want to fart, fart around the drag strip, I can take it out and see what it'll do.
Speaker 1:
So what color did they make those in back in the day, and what color do you want?
Speaker 2:
Um, I prefer so the most I. I, I don't know the names of the factory colors, but most commonly you'll see black, red, um, they had a, uh, I think it's called Malibu blue color, anyway, but, um, I personally, uh, there, I have two color schemes that I really like. There is what's called a cobalt blue with um, with what I refer to as a baseball glove interior. So if you think about, uh, a deep kind of beige, um, or the classic muscle car, just silver with black interior, um, I think that either one of those would be would be the way to drive the cars, um, you kind of like you gotta have, you gotta be around them, you got, you gotta sit in them, you gotta drive them before you really start to feel like which direction you're gonna go with them. Okay, you know what I mean. Like it's and that's I.
Speaker 2:
I think that's my neck in this business is I just have vision for vehicles. I can't tell you how many times I'll go to my guys and be like, hey, this is what I want to do with this car, and I'm like, oh, that's not, no, that you, it's not gonna look right. I'm like, guys, just hear me out, let's do this, we do it and all of them are. They could end up coming back and they're just like okay, alright, you were right, that's, that's pretty, that's pretty awesome. So, um, I just think that that's uh, it's more than the actual hands on work. I'm getting better at that.
Speaker 2:
I'll be the first to say that, um, I'm an artist, I'm a guy. Yeah, I, as far as hands on some of the stuff, I'm still learning, but I do have this vision. I can see the car. I'm not an artist at all, so I wish I could draw it, you know, draw it out to what I want it to look like. I never can, so I'm trying to explain it. And you know, let's be real, I'm, I mean, I'm just, uh, I'm just your typical dude from LA, I don't, you know. I mean I try to get the, the vision in someone else's eyes. This isn't the easiest, but, um, that seems like it kind of separates us, I think.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so when you sit in a car, you speak to it, it speaks to you. It's sort of that moment where you're like hello, beautiful. Mm hmm, and then you know what you're supposed to to do with it and you know, take it and how you're love on it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah. And you know, here's the other thing too Um, all the all my cars get names. So, and that's like you know, when you buy it, that's like no, no, I gotta, I gotta get inside this car and play with it a little bit and drive it. Um, so, and not all my cars are named yet, um, you know. So a couple of them are and a couple of them aren't, and, uh, it's just because I, I'm, I haven't felt it yet, because I'm not at that point. It's like, once you get to a certain point in a car, you feel it and you're like oh, okay, this is her name.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so are are they?
Speaker 2:
What names do you have as of right now? They are so, um, they so my eighty-five Z twenty-eight. Her name is Luzi, and Luzi is spelled L? U Z Y, no-transcript. The last three digits of the VIN number on that car are 666. Ooh, so I was going to name it Lucifer, and then I was like, well, I don't know that, I like that and it's a Z28. So I thought, yeah, let's go with a female name. Let's call her Lucy with a Z.
Speaker 1:
That makes sense.
Speaker 2:
See, yeah, so that's Lucy. And then I did have a. I don't have it now, but I had a C5 Corvette that was. Her name was Beyonce and I don't know if we have to keep this PG or not, but she was black and she had a really nice rear end, so that's why, her name was Beyonce and then my truck.
Speaker 2:
I named Rosie and I named her, and this is the RAM, the 22 RAM, and I named her Rosie after Rosie O'Donnell, and the reason being like she's still a female, but she's got the male. You know, she's got that male attitude. And yeah, not everybody likes her, but most people do. Most people like respect her and like okay, I get it. I don't know if I really like you, but I get it.
Speaker 1:
Well, it's good that you put thought into how you name your vehicles. You know, normally I would be asking you like, what do you do for fun? But I mean your work is tied to fun and fun is tied to work. So you've kind of already answered the question just by talking about your passion. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:
It really. I think this is something that I want to do until you know, until I die and listen. There's nothing wrong with the occasional weekend on the boat or playing golf, but this is I mean I really do in the garage. Either in the garage or in the gym is my therapy Okay.
Speaker 1:
So you do like going down to Cumberland, I guess, or like no, Norris, Norris Lake. Oh, you're a Norris guy, okay. Yeah, I keep the boat at Norris, All right. So you do want a boat and you keep it down there, I do Okay.
Speaker 2:
Her name is Aquaholic and she gets a good amount of love through in the summer.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so it's kind of weird that you have a boring name like Jeff, I know right.
Speaker 2:
Well, here's a funny story, and you know my dad. Obviously he wanted to name me Leeroy and the reason behind that was he thought that it would sound really good on a football field over a PA, like tackle made by Leeroy Loy. So he fought really hard. He fought my mom really hard, namely Leeroy, but she won.
Speaker 1:
Well, I mean, you know, I mean I'm a Mike, so I mean I'm pretty generic too, Right? So how can the listeners learn more about nostalgic?
Speaker 2:
Well, it's awesome. So we're on all the major social media, and so Facebook, instagram, yeah, instagram, um, we're we're getting ready to start a TikTok, uh, for some shorts and stuff like that. Um, we're also on LinkedIn. We have a business page on LinkedIn. We're on the web, uh, at wwwdrivenostologiccom, um, and we're getting ready to add some more stuff to that. We uh we actually have an online store, um, where we're gonna be, uh. So the beauty of what we do is we come across a lot of parts, like a lot of our clients are doing upgrades, so when they do that, they have stock parts that are coming off these cars that aren't easy to find, and a lot of people go to eBay, you know. So we we're getting ready to start an eBay store and then we will have a link on our website to where you can search parts. Um, we do have some apparel and we're getting into some cool stuff with apparel. Um, that's be more probably towards Q3, q4 this year, um, so you know, hats, shirts, hoodies, um, stuff like that, but um, merch.
Speaker 1:
Merch, is this right? Yeah, yeah, okay. Well, I mean, dude, you got your hands and a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:
I mean, I know I know and, uh, you know, and here's the. Here's the best thing. If people want to see what, what we're all about, um, one of the best, best ways to do it. It's only once a year. We do it once a year. We have an annual cruising um here at the shop and the cool thing is it's an open house to some of the other businesses that I have as well. Um, so we'll have a lot of vendors out. We'll have customers come out, um, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:
Last year was a good show. We had about 150 cars throughout the day, um, we had about 500 people, foot traffic. Wow, there's food, there's music, all that good stuff. Um, this year we just set a date. It's May 11th, so it's the Saturday after Derby. Last year we competed with the Derby. We did it the same weekend, um, and still had a good turnout. So, um, yeah, so it's May 11th Usually starts about 10, 9, 10 o'clock in the morning. We'll go until um the last car leaves Um, and then sometimes those guys stick around. We get a little stupid and we might do some burnout contests or something like that. You know, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Like, like, like boys are prone to do once in a while.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so you say here at the shop. Um, yes, say again, where is the shop?
Speaker 2:
So we are in. Uh, so the address is 7964 Kentucky Drive. Um. We are off Industrial Road and if you're familiar with um lingo manufacturing and Willis Music, on Industrial Road, there is a street that divides those two buildings, that's Kentucky Drive, and you follow it back, especially for the open house. We'll have signs, but your GPS should get you there. We're back, uh, we kind of back up to Baywack and Lingo.
Speaker 1:
Okay. So earlier when I said drive nostalgic, is the business nostalgic and drive nostalgic is. You know the, the, um, the URL, um, I know people can reach out to you at jeff, at drive nostalgic dot com.
Speaker 2:
Oh, yeah, yeah, so they can, or, um, you can also info email info at drive nostalgic dot com, the name of the company. If you want to google, it is nostalgic garage.
Speaker 1:
All right, nostalgic garage.
Speaker 2:
Yep.
Speaker 1:
Very good, and it's 8593722589 correct. That is correct, all right, perfect.
Speaker 2:
And that number, just so you know, is 247. So if they call after hours, um, it does come to my cell phone.
Speaker 1:
Okay, I'll call you at 2 30 this morning and we'll see.
Speaker 2:
I was waiting for the call when they announced that Harbaugh was leaving.
Speaker 1:
I mean I. I wish Jim all the best, you know, I mean me too. He's earned the right to go and, and um you know.
Speaker 2:
So anything left on his resume is a Super Bowl. He's got to win a Super Bowl.
Speaker 1:
Get that Lombardi trophy and I I really believe he'll do it. I think so too, all right. Well, you and I will take in a Michigan game or a UCLA game or UCLA versus Michigan someday. It's gonna happen. Now that the worlds have collided, I know it's gonna happen, all right, brother. Well, I appreciate you spending time with us today and I'm glad people got to know about you and what you've got going on there.
Speaker 2:
You've got your hands on the things.
Speaker 1:
Well, we'll have another podcast to talk about everything else, but okay, today, you know, nostalgic garage is is where it's at, so cool man.
Speaker 2:
I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:
All right. Well, I'm glad that we got to talk and um, until next time. Um, everybody, be good to your neighbor and go visit Jeff Loy at Nostalgia Garage. Thank you, bye, bye. Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Union to nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show.
Speaker 2:
go to GNPUnioncom. That's GNPUnioncom, or call us at 859-651-8330.