This week’s episode of The MuscleCar Place Podcast is out and features an interview with Bret Voelkel from Ride Tech!
- Click HERE to listen directly in the show posting at TheMuscleCarPlace.com
- Click HERE to subscribe to the show in iTunes
As a car guy from birth, I love speaking with people about cars that they’ve built, known, or cared about. Now, as an adult and business owner, I love nothing more than speaking with people who have turned their passions into a business, especially if it revolves around American muscle cars. Bret Voelkel is the perfect success story to feature! He’s the man behind Ride Tech (Air Ride) and started the company like a lot of guys do by solving a problem for himself first, and then getting noticed for it. He originally came up with the idea to put air suspension on hot rods simply because he wanted a way to have his car slammed to the ground while parked at shows, but also with the ability to pick itself up off the ground to be driven away (without dragging headers, drive shafts, small animals, etc.).
He built his first air suspension system after looking at the air bladders on semi trucks, and people started asking how he did it. He was asked by others to do the same for them, and the rest is history. It’s the American dream, right? After 15 years Ride Tech now has multi levels of high performance suspension options for almost every muscle car there is, and has also ventured into other things that can help a car handle – like a bolt in roll cage and coil over shocks!
Bret keeps the company focus on performance and is a big sponsor and participant in the Optima Invitational series. He’ll be at the big event on Nov. 6 after the SEMA show as well. After all, is there a better way to test performance parts than to race them?
Enjoy the interview and if superstar racer Brian Finch ever sees this, Bret says his car may not be as fast as his is but his mouth can outrun Finch any day of the week!