Paul’s journey spans car audio, home theater systems, e-commerce, and high-end audio installations during the housing boom. He transitioned to off-road work after joining a Raptor community in 2010, turning hobby expertise into business ventures.
Paul started by rebuilding Raptor shocks when demand exceeded Fox’s turnaround time. Developed an exchange system, expanded to a shop in Loomis, and created shock guards, alignment kits, IWE silicone lines, and his signature cabin air filter kit. He recently opened a new company in Reno focused on cabin air filters and ongoing truck development.
Paul’s authorship includes publishing Overwhelmed: Time to Reset, part of the Neural Reset series on neuroplasticity and mindset retraining. He created Doom Scroller’s Handbook based on corporate culture shock and Authored comprehensive Raptor generation guides and Dirt Logs—off-road journals for documenting trail adventures.
What’s next – listen in and find out!
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:13.690] – Big Rich Klein
On today’s episode of Conversations with Big Rich, I have a gentleman who is an off-road enthusiast, a Raptor enthusiast, a business owner, does off-road recoveries, and is an author. My guest is Paul Dilley. Paul, good to have you on here.
[00:01:33.110] – Paul Dilley
Thanks, Rich. Appreciate it.
[00:01:34.890] – Big Rich Klein
So let’s, uh, we’re going to get into all the books and all the other stuff, but let’s start at the very beginning. Where were you born and raised?
[00:01:43.130] – Paul Dilley
Uh, born in Sacramento, California. Okay. Uh, raised, uh, raised in Auburn area and Northern California. Moved around quite a bit.
[00:01:54.790] – Big Rich Klein
Where did you primarily go to, to school? What communities?
[00:01:59.180] – Paul Dilley
Uh, yeah, mainly in the Auburn area. Auburn, okay.
[00:02:02.710] – Big Rich Klein
Yeah. What was it like for you growing up in Auburn? I know what it’s like in Placerville, just over, you know, on the other side of the, the river.
[00:02:11.230] – Paul Dilley
But sure, well, uh, well, back when I was in school, Auburn was, uh, very similar to Placerville. Uh, it still has a Pretty small town feel. Knew most everybody, most everybody knew me, which wasn’t great for being a kid and getting in trouble. But thank God cell phones didn’t exist, huh? Right.
[00:02:37.200] – Big Rich Klein
No record of our deeds, you might say. Thankfully. How— what kind of— what kind of student were you?
[00:02:46.340] – Paul Dilley
Not a great student. Well, let’s say I graduated high school and leave it at that.
[00:02:55.080] – Big Rich Klein
Okay. And you were saying something about the small town feel? Yeah, I really like the small town feel.
[00:03:03.950] – Paul Dilley
I like the small town community. That’s one of the things when I moved up here to Reno is that it’s still very much a small town, even though it’s growing.
[00:03:14.620] – Big Rich Klein
Quickly. Right. Right. Yeah. Auburn now is crazy. It’s almost built all the way out. Almost all the way out to Grass Valley is how it feels.
[00:03:28.890] – Paul Dilley
Yeah. Yeah. It is definitely not your small town anymore.
[00:03:33.330] – Big Rich Klein
And if it wasn’t for the American River, I think it would have spread, spread south too. Agreed. So You were talking about the student, um, not being so, so good. You got graduated. Did you have— and got, get, got graduated. How’s that? Let’s tell you, I was an English major. So there you go, you were able to graduate. Um, did you take shop classes? Were they still available?
[00:04:02.370] – Paul Dilley
Uh, yes, I did take shop classes. I wish I would have taken some other classes like welding, uh, auto shop. I spent most of my time in woodshop and photography. Okay, photography, huh? Yeah, that’s interesting. Not something I do much of these days except taking pictures of my truck out in the middle of nowhere, right? READ MORE
