This podcast contains explicit language.

In 1997, Jay was sitting in a hot tub with some buddies when he had an epiphany.

We were talking about trucks, and you know the whole euphemism, you've got to have some balls to go to do that.

I was like, oh, mine has more balls than yours.

And as soon as I said it, I pictured it for whatever reason.

I guess I was drunk enough.

And it would not go away.

What Jay was picturing was a pair of plastic testicles that could hang from the back hitch of a pickup truck.

My name is Jay Van Zant, and I created Truck Nuts. Jay is not the only person who came up with the

idea for Truck Nuts at around this time, but he is the one who gave them their name, which is

truck nuts with a Z at the end.

Yeah, I kicked around bumper balls and things like that, but I was like, our target

market is not for anyone but, you know, basically funny rednecks, right?

So it's got to say truck.

You know, the nuts sounded great.

And the whole time I didn't want to be ultra gross, right?

This was more about just pure comedy for the laugh of it.

And so that's why I threw the Z in the name as well.

Jay was only 22 at the time and had no experience in manufacturing,

but he was committed to making truck nuts a reality.

I created like a clay model out of child's clay that you would buy at a hobby lobby or whatever

and would sit on the back porch and, you know, shape them, file them down. But I knew. I just had

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