Google's algorithms make sure that anyone who frequents automotive websites will certainly remember seeing an ad for the dream cars on offer from Omaze. With excellent production value and marketing efforts, Omaze stands apart from a small but burgeoning group of raffle-style fundraisers enticing ticket buyers with new cars and cash on the side. Compared to similar raffles by the Porsche Club of America and BMW Car Club of America, at least Omaze ticket buyers know the money they spend hoping for luck ends up going to a good cause.
Even among the non-car obsessed public, celebrity faces on social media including Patrick Dempsey, George Clooney, and Rob Gronkowski advertise everything from personal meet-and-greets to EV-swapped Porsches, customized Teslas, and even bespoke overlanders from the likes of EarthCruiser, all available for anyone to win on Omaze's site. And recently, Omaze took things to the next level by offering a fully built K5-generation Chevrolet Blazer created by the famous Ringbrothers.
After the Blazer went live, I spoke with Mike Ring and his wife, Nancy, hoping to learn a bit more about the truck itself and also get an insider's perspective on the process of working with Omaze.
Mike Ring of Ringbrothers
The Ringbrothers, Mike and Jim, need no introduction, so I started by asking Mike about the shop's experience with Chevy Blazers and how that led to the Omaze giveaway. Of course, the conversation immediately turned to the wildly overhyped Ford Bronco craze.
"So many Broncos were being done at the time, for a while," Mike recalled, "And the Blazer, we've always thought, was a pretty neat vehicle, too."
Mike told me that after a Blazer build sold for big money on Barrett-Jackson, one of their own creations fetched $300,000 even on the auction site Bring a Trailer. Ringbrothers also built a Blazer for the rapper Future, just the kind of celebrity attention that might have drawn Omaze's eye—right as the Ringbrothers shop started receiving more calls, in general about potential Blazer builds.
"I think it put the world on notice for those Blazers, you know," Mike said. "It just seems like someone’s gotta show 'em what's cool sometimes. The phones started ringing and I guess Omaze probably saw a few of those and saw the attention and thought it might be a good way for them to generate and raise money for one of their campaigns."
But it turns out that when Omaze first called, nobody at Ringbrothers even knew about the company and the buzz they've been steadily building over the past few years.
Omaze Reached Out To Ringbrothers To Commission The Blazer
"We hadn’t heard about them until, I think it was, October," Nancy revealed.
After Omaze agreed to the idea of building a Blazer, the Ringbrothers team began an extensive back-and-forth process of nailing down the colors and styling for the truck—something that Mike Ring said came as a bit of a surprise.
"It’s funny cus a lot of people just say, ‘Do what you do, I don’t really care," he said. "And Omaze, you would think would have been that way because they do so much of this, that they wouldn’t have time to make it so personal. But they did, we did multiple spray-outs of colors, interiors, of putting stuff together. We were allowed to build it the way we wanted to as far as drivetrain, to brake systems, to modifications of the vehicle, and they were really left with colors and textures, where we got to put it all together as far as what we knew worked well."
All that previous experience with Blazers allowed the Ringbrothers team to throw everything they'd already refined for the Blazer at this commission for Omaze.
Mechanical Highlights Of An Eight-Month Build
Given the spike in values for even beat-up Broncos, I asked Mike where they sourced the specific Blazer that ended up going to Omaze. But apparently, with a bit of prescient investment, Ringbrothers had already stocked up on bare trucks to build upon.
"I honestly don’t remember which one was which because we bought five or six at the same time, which was probably five years ago," he revealed. "We got them from as far as Arizona and even local, up to seven miles from here."
"What was nice is that we’ve done it a few times and we’ve kind of tweaked each ones that we’ve done. It’s hard to say because we really liked the other ones, I don’t want to discount the other ones, but we’ve learned something on each one. And this one is probably more refined, you just learn things over each one. And we’re really proud of the driveability of this one and the parts we used, the reliability."
Highlights of the mechanicals include a crate LS3 V8 rated at 430 horsepower and mated to a Bowler Tru-Street 350 transmission. That powerplant has been shifted back four inches, which required fabricating a new firewall but allowed for enlarged wheel wells to house custom 18-inch HRE wheels and 33-inch General Tire Grabber X3 rubber. The suspension received QA1 shocks and sway bars, while braking is handled by six-piston calipers all around from Baer. Products built specifically by Ringbrothers on the interior and exterior range from the hood and hinges to the valve covers, gauge bezels, side and tail lights, door handles, window cranks, steering wheel, and more.
Knowing just how much work building a custom car takes, I asked Mike how long ago Omaze reached out to begin the process.
"I believe about eight months," he replied, adding, "Which is a quick build for us, when we’ve done 'em and had a list of what we needed to get and we’re familiar with them. We kind of put all hands on deck because we didn’t want to disappoint and miss the dates that they had for us."
At that point, Nancy jumped in and told me that all-in, this Blazer required a startling 1,866 man-hours of labor to complete.
The Omaze Business Model
"Part of the reason that we went with the Blazer," Nancy then said about those 1,866 man-hours, "Was we could do one pretty quickly. Normally we can’t. If you’re going to come in to get a custom car, it could take six months to a year before we can even start on it. But we were able to work on an arrangement with them and get that car out in six months, which is pretty rare."
Given the timeframe, everyone at Ringbrothers still felt surprised at how involved Omaze stayed throughout the build, especially considering the number of projects the custom shops constantly churns out. But the biggest pleasant surprise came earlier on in the process, when Omaze didn't ask Ringbrothers to build the truck either gratis or heavily discounted in the spirit of giving.
"A lot of times, people think you’ve gotta build this thing for free," Mike explained, "Or they think builders are well-to-do, because their builds are expensive. But we, as builders, can’t afford what we build, so a lot of the times, we get people that want us to build things for free or for really reasonable, for a charity or whatever. At first, it took a little while to take them serious, as far as what they wanted and that it wasn’t just a handout. But once we got through that, they were amazing. They gave us a budget range where we needed to be and we agreed to it and we stuck to it and we gave them what we said we would per that amount."
Feeling Lucky (With Proceeds Going To Charity)
Unsure whether they'd share the full figure, I asked what kind of number Omaze had in mind when they approached Ringbrothers—to my surprise, Mike and Nancy shared the budget of $295,000 readily. Given the extent of the build, the timeframe, and the man-hours required, plus the numbers that fully custom Blazers seem to fetch at auction these days, I expressed some amazement that a Ringbrothers product doesn't run higher. But auctions, as anyone who bids on Bring a Trailer or its many imitators should well know, don't always accurately reflect the market (and therein lies some of the fun and excruciating excitement). I then asked how much the duo thought this truck might sell for outside of an auction or a giveaway.
"The black one that sold for three [hundred thousand], this is a much better Blazer," Mike said, "But it takes two bidders, one isn’t going to get you the number. I know the guy from WeatherTech was bidding on that one pretty hard and I think there was a guy from Belgium on it. It does take two, so that’s a tough question."
"If we were to build another one," Nancy assured me, "It’s going to be over three hundred [thousand]."
Those kinds of startling six-figure sums help Omaze's raffles sound pretty enticing for fans of Blazers, Ringbrothers, and all the fun cars that seem to pop up regularly, given that the finished products definitely sit far outside the range of most enthusiast budgets. Plus, as Omaze constantly points out, the money goes to charity—in this case, Team Rubicon and the Veterans Coalition for Vaccination—and given that Omaze doesn't ask builders to work for free, the funds raised also support the custom car industry.
The extras that come with the cars also make up a major portion of Omaze's model—critical details like a stack of cash to pay for any potential tax liabilities incurred by receiving such a valuable prize. And Mike Ring appreciates that inclusion, since it widens the net for ticket buyers outside the 1%.
"They want somebody that’s just an average guy that could win it," he said. "They give him enough money for insurance, taxes, fuel, for a while, so they can enjoy this vehicle without it being a burden, like 'Oh, I gotta sell it because I can’t even afford to take possession of it.' It’s a really unique thing that I’ve never heard of."
What's Next At Ringbrothers
But when I added onto that sentiment how much people might appreciate that the ticket sales also go to charity, Nancy Ring stepped in to clarify once again.
"Actually, Omaze is not a charity," she explained. "Omaze is a for-profit organization and then they work with an agency that then the money flows through to the charity. So they are a for-profit company that works for a charity."
But she does believe the whole effort combines to make the Omaze giveaways special—especially the backend support the company offers to winners.
"They pay for the prize," Nancy contineud, "And they also then put a lot of marketing behind each campaign. And that’s what’s really unique. There’s no one on the market that does anything like what they’re doing. And they’re worldwide, they’re in all 50 states plus they’re international. So they have a pretty strong arm of accountants and lawyers because they’ve had to navigate all the different state, federal, and international laws for taxes, for gifting, and in the prize, all the taxes are taken care of."
The Ring family knows all about those international hoops to jump through because they've got clients all over the world, including in London, Belgium, and New Zealand—just a few countries that came up in conversation as we discussed the projects they're currently working on after completing the Blazer for Omaze.
"We got a shop full," Mike said. "We’ve got a '69 Camaro—like you don’t hear that enough—a '69 Mustang, a '64.5 Mustang convertible, a really crazy K5 Blazer, '72, like insane compared to any of the ones we’ve done."
"Everything is one-off, and when I say everything I mean every detail. The chassis, it starts there, to the motor, every part of it is one-off, I mean down to the door hinges, the door handles, the door skins, the flares, the dash, the gauges, to the flooring, to the T-tops. I mean, the bumpers are machined, the grilles are machined, everything is one-off."
"And it’s huge," Nancy interjected. "We found out we’re going to have trouble transporting it. It’s 88 inches wide and the inside of the truck, most trailers, are only 83."
"We’re supposed to get it to SEMA," Mike laughed, "But, obviously, we haven’t figured that one out yet."
Other projects on the list include a 1,000-horsepower Hellephant swap into a previous Ringbrothers 1969 Dodge Charger build (which will require a new hood to fit), a 1987 Buick Grand National, a '48 Chevy pickup, and a '70 Cuda basketcase. Given all the aggressive builds Ringbrothers works on—among which the new Omaze giveaway Blazer sits on the classy, understated end of the spectrum—I had to ask Mike Ring what he daily drives. Turns out, he's got a late-model Dodge pickup and also just got his hands on a new toy.
"At home, for play, I bought that new Jeep with the 392 in the Wrangler," he laughed. "So that’s pretty fun. I like horsepower and that one runs pretty good... for a Jeep!"
Sources: omaze.com, ringbrothers.com, pca.org, bmwcca.org, and bringatrailer.com.