Joe Rogan Experience #2041 - Steve Strope

Steve Strope, a custom muscle car builder and 20-year friend of Joe, recounts his improbable path from tinkering on cars in small-town Apalachin, New York to building award-winning hot rods in California. He details starting with nothing, building cars in barns, driveways, and a shared apartment parking garage before owning a shop, and how relentless work earned him magazine covers and a Hot Wheels line. He also opens up about a harrowing eye-health saga, including advanced glaucoma, a detached retina, and seven surgeries that cost him sight in one eye. The conversation roams through mafia history, overfishing, mercury in seafood, rat and owl intelligence, bowhunting, and the philosophy of cars as functional art.

• Steve has advanced glaucoma and a detached retina; after seven surgeries a surgeon cut away a third of the retina to save the eye, not the sight.
  00:11:31
• He sold everything to move to California for a job, only for his new boss to be evicted and Federal Marshals to raid the shop.
  00:55:34
• He built top-10 award-winning cars in a shared underground apartment garage, secretly covering neighbors' cars in plastic at 3am to paint parts.
  01:04:59
• At one point Steve slept in his shop next to the lift and showered at a 24 Hour Fitness because he couldn't afford an apartment.
  01:14:56
• His Nova is one of only five cars in Hot Rod Magazine history to be featured on the cover three times.
  02:14:54
• His 'Hammer' Road Runner was rented for a Fast & Furious film as Vin Diesel's car in the burnout stunt scenes.
  01:24:14
• Baseball legend Reggie Jackson owns Steve's 'Dusta' Duster build.
  01:15:29

• Steve's hometown Apalachin, NY was the site of the 1957 mafia bust that forced the FBI to finally admit organized crime existed.
  00:33:49
• Roughly 90% of all large fish, including tuna, swordfish, marlin and cod, have been removed from the ocean since 1950.
  00:48:16
• You can ingest a full week's allowable amount of mercury in a single serving of tuna.
  00:44:37
• El Caminos are essentially station wagons with the roof and rear-seat floor pan removed and a bed added.
  00:59:46
• Steve built what he says was the world's first paddle-shifted muscle car, using CO2-powered drag-racing solenoids.
  01:19:03
• Owls hunt in complete silence, making them ruthless, efficient assassins; rat poison kills them up the food chain.
  02:06:01
• In New York City the biomass of rats may equal or exceed the biomass of humans.
  02:08:37
• Michael Bisping fought the last 10 fights of his UFC career, winning the middleweight title, while blind in one eye.
  00:16:46

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