The roller coaster had begun. In the immediate aftermath of Urban Outlaw’s release, some incredible things started happening. For example, every fall, usually early November, there’s a huge car show in Vegas called SEMA. It’s a big aftermarket auto show, with hot rods and custom cars. It’s fast and furious, it’s muscle cars, sports import tuners, Ken Block, drift cars, every major car manufacturer, every independent guy, every distributor – it’s an unbelievable show. I’d wanted to go there for ever but for a variety of reasons had never made it happen. To be fair, these were not generally Porsche people; if there were over two thousand cars on show in a typical year at SEMA, there might be ten Porsches there, tops.
Tamir’s documentary had only been out for two weeks at this point, everyone online had been buzzing about it and the link for the film had been blogged and reblogged all over the place. However, that autumn’s SEMA was my first indication of the real-world impact of Urban Outlaw. First off, I didn’t actually have a pass to even get into the show. SEMA is an industry show and I don’t actually have a car business, so … no pass. Undeterred, I flew in to Vegas on a 7 a.m. flight out of Burbank, got there at 8 a.m., borrowed this guy’s pass and kinda blagged my way in. I was there early and had to wait for the show to start, but even before the doors had opened people were coming up to me to talk about the film. All sorts of characters were saying how much they loved the film and, like I said, these were not Porsche-centric people. They were just car enthusiasts, bike enthusiasts, hot-rod enthusiasts … a huge variety of people who had seen the film and connected with it.
However, the real crazy part of that first day at SEMA was in the early morning when my phone rang and it was this guy called Robert Angelo. He introduced himself as the producer of Jay Leno’s Garage, one of the most popular car shows in the world, presented by one of the biggest collectors and, obviously, a huge name in the world of entertainment. He said Jay had seen Urban Outlaw, really enjoyed it and would love to have me on his show. I was just gobsmacked, standing there at SEMA, trying to take this all in. Then the kicker was he said, ‘We have availability for filming this Saturday if you are around?’ I didn’t know if Jay had actually seen the film or if this guy was just blowing smoke, but I was like, ‘Sure, I’ll go.’ You know the drill by now – how bad can it be, right? I’d only gone to SEMA for a day and chanced my arm to get a pass, now I’m taking calls about appearing on Jay Leno’s show four days later. I phoned Karen and told her what had happened; she was as shocked as I was, it was just crazy.
That Saturday, Karen and I drove 277 over to Jay Leno’s garage at Burbank. Jay Leno is such a car enthusiast, an icon. He has about 100,000 square feet of the most diverse and incredible car collection, perhaps even better than the Petersen Museum, it is that good. He has collected well over a hundred and fifty cars and motorcycles, some of which he uses as daily drivers and some are the very rarest of pieces that deserve a place in any museum. It’s everything from a 1902 steam car to the latest McLaren to genuine exotics, as well as unexpected cars like Renault 5s, Citroens and oddball stuff. He loves McLaren for the technology, precision, performance and engineering, really loves McLaren. The F1 is one of his all-time favourite cars. I would describe him as a full-on British gearhead – he’s got Morgans, Austin-Healeys, E-Types, Astons, various Jags – he is a real fanatic about British cars. He is also an Italian sports car fan, for example he loves Lamborghini for the drama, so he’s got a Countach and two Miuras. He loves American muscle cars, he’s got numerous Mercedes … the list is endless. It’s not just the vehicles, it’s the posters, the memorabilia, the artefacts. He is a true gear-head, petrol-head, motor-head, car enthusiast, call it what you will. You can sense he appreciates 911s, but he is not really a Porsche guy. When I first went there, he only had two Porsches –a Speedster and a Carrera GT, no 911.
Anyway, we were looking at all these cars while waiting for Jay to show and then suddenly he just turned up, driving himself, no entourage whatsoever. He is just in this denim outfit, no fanfare, and he comes over, shakes my hand, gives Karen a hug and says some really nice things about the film. It was immediately apparent that apart from being a super-knowledgeable car expert, he was also very down to earth and just totally genuine.
Then suddenly, boom, we were filming. Jay’s talking about how great the internet is for discovering interesting stuff online and how ‘unlike TV, I can find stuff I actually wanna watch’. He said that he’d stumbled across Urban Outlaw and gives this little summary about me, all while I’m standing off-camera thinking, This is not what I was expecting to do this Saturday! Then he said, ‘Let’s meet him …’ It all felt very strange. Remember, working with Tamir had been the very first time I’d ever been filmed. Appearing on Jay Leno’s Garage was the second. And in between the two there’d been a nine-month gap!
Before you know it, Jay and I are chatting, completely unrehearsed and unscripted. We stood next to 277 and talked about the car and then we went for a drive. We filmed for probably two hours, and later Jay sent his crew down to do a little bit of footage at the warehouse. It was just the most incredible experience.
Of course, Jay drove 277. That was very bizarre. I’m sitting in the passenger seat of my car and Jay Leno is driving us down the freeway. I was just thinking, How did I get here? But as you know by now, I like to go with the flow, so I’m trying not to talk over Jay, because he’s just such a seasoned pro. Everything is just one take, there are no retakes, no chances for mistakes. We cracked a couple of little jokes, and I would say we got on pretty well – it was just cool to be with him.
We headed back to the garage, and he took us around some more of the collection. Then he showed us around his own workshop. He’s got this crew of guys working on various complex restoration projects and maintaining the collection, too. He’s even got his own CNC precision engineering machines and a factory-standard paint booth.
Then it got even better – Jay fucking Leno says, ‘You guys want something to eat?’ So he orders a dozen pizzas and we are all eating this food, chatting away with him and his crew. Then – and here’s the coolest part – he starts cooking up some pasta for everybody. Karen and I are just looking at each other, pinching ourselves. Karen offers to do the dishes, so Jay loves that. At one point, I went to the bathroom and there’s pictures of Jay Leno and Bill Clinton and all these super-famous people on the walls. Nothing’s really off limits with him. I don’t know if he’s like this with everybody, although I think he might be, because I got the impression he’s just that type of guy.
He wasn’t finished yet. Next up he says, ‘You ever been in a steam car, Magnus?’ I mentioned a real English character called Fred Dibnah, this old Yorkshire dude who was a famous northerner and considered a world expert on certain elements of Britain’s industrial heritage, and Jay had met him! Turns out they’d met because Jay had half a dozen Stanley and White steam cars from the early twentieth century.
So, next thing we know, Karen and I are sitting in a century-old steam car, being driven around Burbank Airport by Jay Leno. Now, you don’t just turn the key in a steam car, so he’s got this mechanic getting the thing started. They fill it up with water and then they stoke the boiler and it comes up to temperature about twenty minutes later, then Jay, me and this other guy push it out there. It makes pressure, but then it develops a leak, so they were like, ‘Oh, we can’t take this one,’ so they start again with another priceless steam car he also owns.
Now, not only are these steam cars pretty laborious to get started, they are also not the fastest vehicles out there, so we are doing about 5mph around Burbank Airport. You can imagine the scene: we are stopping at lights in this one-hundred-year-old steam car, the world-famous talk-show host Jay Leno is driving, I’m sitting there with my dreadlocks and tattoos just grinning and Karen’s looking beautiful and also somewhat bemused in the back. We were completely dumbfounded to be honest; people were taking photographs, shouting hello, it was just the most incredible experience. I just kept thinking, How the fuck did we get here?!
Two weeks later, the Jay Leno episode came out and, before you know it, we had over 200,000 views to add to the rapidly escalating online figures for Urban Outlaw. If Tamir opened the door and Top Gear fired that movie off around the internet, then Jay Leno’s Garage opened up my story to the non-Porsche audience on a global scale. At the time of writing, Jay’s fourteen-minute clip has had over 500,000 views. That’s a lot of eyeballs. To finish up with this part of the tale, I ended up doing two other appearances on Jay Leno’s Garage, one with my follow-up build, the STR, which I will talk about later.
The craziness wasn’t just online or on TV shows either. The magazine coverage was insane, and I am talking about all around the world and not just in Porsche magazines either. There was plenty of non-Porsche coverage through people like Jalopnik and Speed Hunters, which really took more of a car culture/lifestyle angle. Those types of blogs appear to have picked up on the customization and personalization vibe, because, as I always say, true car guys have that in common – you may not drive the same car, you each pick your own poison, but ultimately it doesn’t matter what you drive, we all share the same passion. Real car enthusiasts share the same DNA. Part of the appeal to magazines and journalists, I suspect, is that when these media people come to LA, I am close by, it’s an interesting building, there’s an unusual back-story and also some great driving to be had.
The year 2013 was just unbelievable. There were so many magical moments. If you’ve seen the Urban Outlaw film, you will know there’s a moment where I talk about that letter I wrote to Porsche when I was just ten years old. It’s a nighttime driving scene in the 68R in Downtown LA, it’s not particularly fast footage, you see the lights flashing and the skyline driving by, and Tamir asks me what I thought Porsche would make of my outlaw builds thirty-five years after I sent that first letter, and I respond by saying, ‘I would hope they’d be smiling …’ Bear in mind, I’d had no contact with Porsche until the film came out. I’ve always been about old Porsches, never, ever owned a new one. I didn’t go to dealers to buy parts; I just never went into a Porsche dealership at all. So my interaction with anything officially Porsche-related was nonexistent.
Well, a week or two after the film came out, I get a letter from Porsche’s PR department, saying:
Dear Mr Walker
In the last few months, we read numerous stories about your incredible collection. One can feel enthusiasm and real adoration for our brand and especially our 911. Having such a fan like you out there really fills us with pride. With a twinkle in our eye, we also read about the loss of your invitation to Zuffenhausen many years ago.
The best part was that they then invited me to a guided tour of their factory in Stuttgart. I couldn’t believe it.
I’d only ever been to Germany once, running in that athletics competition as a kid. Now I was going back as a guest of Porsche. Unbelievable. I travelled to Stuttgart as their guest, and they treated me like a rock star. They drove me from Frankfurt to Stuttgart, put me up in a hotel and gave me a private behind-the-scenes tour of the Porsche factory and headquarters. I got to spend time with the lovely Dieter Landenberger, who is the curator and historian of the Porsche archives, and I took the opportunity to show him some information on what I believe is the first US-production Turbo ever sold, my ’76 930 Turbo. I was thrilled that he validated my theory using the factory archive. He showed me all the documentation that most people never get to see – the build certificate, everything – it was fascinating. Porsche treated me like royalty.
Another nice Porsche twist came when a guy called Chalmers Niemeyer, who is a very senior marketing manager for Porsche, sent me a Porsche shield with a letter saying, ‘Here’s something for your garage wall.’ Funnily enough, he was actually a friend of Karen’s from Atlanta, and I had met him ten years earlier when he wasn’t at Porsche but was instead working in the fashion industry. Then we lost contact with him, but he’d seen Urban Outlaw and got back in touch. He couldn’t believe that I had gone from this Serious Clothing dude whom he’d met in New York at a fashion trade show years earlier to this guy in a short documentary film with a renowned passion for Porsche. Porsche people again, see. I talk all the time about Porsche being a language – doesn’t matter whether you speak English, German or Japanese, Porsche is the bond that brings everyone together. No matter where you are in the world, you can all relate to the car; you don’t have to speak the same language, you can walk around the car and point at elements and without talking know what you are both saying. In my opinion, it’s also a great equalizer of social standing. I’ve met billionaire Porsche owners who are down to earth and relate to what I’m doing. I would never have met those guys if it wasn’t for the connection with Porsche. It’s my drug, it’s my religion, it’s what brings people together. Like I said, Porsche passion.
Perhaps inevitably, I was then approached about being more involved with Porsche officially. With Tamir being Canadian, the very first Porsche event I did was around a month after the film came out, for Porsche Cars Canada in November 2012 when they debuted the Panamera for the US market at my warehouse, in conjunction with the LA Auto Show. Detlev von Platen, the president of Porsche North America, came by; he’d seen Urban Outlaw and really enjoyed the film. He sat in my ’64 911 with me, signed the certificate of authenticity and I’d like to think I really clicked with this guy. I remember him sending me a Christmas card. I also got a Christmas card from Michael Mauer, the chief designer at Porsche, who very kindly sketched 277 on the front.
Since then, I’ve worked with Porsche on many occasions. Sometimes I appear at events, other times they come to my garage for launches. For example, they once did a dealer event where all their worldwide distributors held a workshop at the loft. Another time, Porsche Classic actually had me involved doing a little motivational talk in the workshop. I’ve also been to the Goodwood Festival, the Revival and the Techno Classica in Essen with them too, among many other events. I also got approached by an agent to be in a Porsche commercial for the new Macan. Essentially, the idea behind the advert was to show that there is a Porsche for every type of person. That said, I’m the only guy in this advert driving a car that’s not actually for sale in the Porsche line-up, because I’m driving 277, so I guess I’m in there as the Porsche rebel. That was such an honour to be asked, especially as they wanted 277 in there. Remember, I have no agent, no PR, no marketing advisers, no nothing. I would have done it for free, but they ended up paying me a shitload of dough for like a day of work. They shipped the car to San Francisco, flew us up there first class and yet I’m only in the video for about five seconds.
I shot two more videos that year with Porsche, one at the factory in Zuffenhausen talking about the fortieth anniversary of the Turbo for Porsche GB. That was filmed with the brilliant Porsche designer Tony Hatter, who is a real nice guy; it was a total honour. I also shot another video with Porsche at the Goodwood Revival. At one point, there was even talk of a 277-liveried 991-911. Not just the livery though, actually a combination of two of my favourite limited-edition, high-performance 911s: a Sport Classic and a GT3. There was even enough interest to generate some verbal orders. That would have been incredible, but it hasn’t happened yet. I’m still hopeful it might eventually work out though, so watch this space! If it does ever happen, that will be the ultimate realization of my dream to design for Porsche, which I had written about as a ten-year-old in that letter after Earls Court. Despite all the crazy things that have happened since that day nearly four decades ago, I’ve never lost sight of where I came from and the dreams I had back then, so getting the chance to work with Porsche always gives me an incredible buzz.
Of course, 2013 was a huge year for Porsche themselves, completely unrelated to anything I was doing. This was because it was the fiftieth anniversary of the 911. The first model rolled off the production line in 1964, but the car itself was launched at the Frankfurt Auto Show in 1963. So fifty years later, the timing of Urban Outlaw was ideal because the whole world was talking about the 911. The stars aligned – like I say, sometimes opportunities present themselves, and when they do you have to seize them because that set of events might not come along again. The 911 is, I believe, the third-oldest still-in-continuous-production sports car in existence. The world’s longest in-production sports car is in fact the Chevy Corvette, which came out in ’53 as a ’54-year model, so that predated the 911 by ten years. In ’64, the Ford Mustang came out. Although I’ve also owned a Mustang as well as my 911s, the two cars in a sense couldn’t be more different. One’s German, one’s American; one’s rear-engined, one’s front-engined; one’s air-cooled, one’s water-cooled. Completely different, but they have both been in production since 1964 and more importantly have similarly fanatical fan bases, with cultures where people either cherish stock vehicles or alternatively heavily customize them.
Anyway, I’m getting distracted. Back to the story. So, all these magazines and websites were running articles on the anniversary of the 911, and my story seemed to appeal to so many of them. I guess it was a twist, something unusual to add. Consequently, lots of the press I gained that year was based around the fiftieth-anniversary celebrations.
I think part of the appeal was also that I’m not an independent dealer, I’m not selling cars; this is just my collection. It’s a diverse collection as well, and the story of how it got to that point was pretty complex. Some of these articles touched on the warehouse, the location filming and the clothing, and went beyond the purely automotive. So my tale was then pitched as a lifestyle story, with a lot of fashion and lifestyle magazines buying into it. On a similar vibe, I am also always really pleased to receive so many emails from girlfriends and wives who’ve seen and enjoyed Urban Outlaw – that is indicative of a lot of non-automotive people who connected to the film because it’s a story about passion, staying motivated and never giving up on your dreams.
Events started gathering even more momentum when I presented my next big build, the second STR. This was the car that I had been working on during the filming of Urban Outlaw. I combined my two favourite Porsches – the R and ST icons from the late sixties and early seventies – into my own version, which I call the STR02. As a consequence of the film’s success, there was now an awful lot of attention and anticipation for my next build. I went back on Jay Leno’s Garage for the second time to debut the STR02 in March 2013. At that point, I would say the STR02 was my definitive build. That car went on to be on the cover of Road & Track during the 911’s fiftieth-anniversary celebrations. That was unbelievable, a no-name independent enthusiast making the cover of Road & Track, rather than a classic or stock car by Porsche themselves or some famous tuning house. Inside, among a feature on various high-profile Porsche people, I was listed as ‘The Fanatic’. The STR02 was also on the cover of Total 911 when they very kindly asked me to be the guest editor for an issue … they called the car ‘The New Legend’. Later, for the hundredth edition of Total 911, I was invited to write the intro and the back-page closing piece, while they also did a full feature on the STR02 and then had me pick my top twenty-five Porsches.
In 2013, I also started doing what media types call ‘appearances’. If you recall, a lot of the Dutch guys on the scene had been incredibly supportive, like my buddy Joost Hermès, Erik Kouwenhoven who had done the first article, my photographer friend Maurice, RS Porsche magazine; that whole contingent of European guys had in essence sparked the very first interest in what I was doing. The producers of RS Porsche magazine had an event called ‘Porsche Fest’ and invited me to appear. They picked me up at the airport, we did a Rotterdam tunnel run, which was perhaps one of the first of what came to be christened ‘Outlaw Gatherings’, then met up at a Porsche dealership.
Urban Outlaw hasn’t just led to exciting tie-ups with Porsche. I’ve also ended up working with some other pretty massive global brands including Mobil 1, Pirelli, Volvo, Bentley and Oakley. Remember when I had to sneak into SEMA 2012 on someone else’s pass? Well, eventually I would find myself invited by Mobil 1 to show two cars at their stand in 2014. Mobil 1 only had three cars in their booth and two of them were mine – 277 and the 67S. I drove 277 there, which in itself is unusual for cars on show, which are normally trailered in. But why would you want to put 277 on a trailer when you can go and drive her all the way there? Makes no sense to me. Gotta tell you though, 277 was leaking oil on the Mobil 1 stand, which is kinda ironic, especially when you consider I gave them the tag line ‘Stay lubricated’.
I enjoy those shows. It takes me back to the glory days of doing all the fashion trade fairs with Karen for Serious. I do these autograph signings and really enjoy meeting fans and car people. Right after Urban Outlaw came out, people would come up to me and ask for my autograph and, truth be told, it was kind of awkward at first, because I was just thinking, What do you want my autograph for? But it kind of became more awkward not to do it, because otherwise you have to say, ‘No, sorry I’m not into doing autographs,’ and then you’re seen as this wanker.
I try to spend as much time as I can with people who queue to meet me and say hello. Why would you not? I’m literally the first person there and last person to leave. I treated that SEMA show – and all the subsequent ones I’ve been to – as a chance to give back to all the people that have supported me over these recent years, spending their time watching my videos and all the online support. In the end, the autograph session that day at SEMA went on for three hours. At one point, after two hours, the people at Mobil said, ‘Do you want to stop? We only really expected you to stay for an hour.’ I said, ‘Well, the queue’s not finished and we’ve still got spare posters, so let’s keep going.’ I never want to be that idiot that says, ‘Sorry, man, I’m done, I’m too busy.’
I did that for four days at SEMA. One of the guys at Mobil complimented me on my work ethic, saying, ‘We have brand ambassadors turn up, sign for half an hour then dash off, but you’ve been here for hours every day!’
For me, it’s pretty simple: always remember your roots, where you came from. Imagine my mum seeing me letting fans down who’d queued for hours to meet me? Not good enough. At heart, I am still a hard-grafting, working-class northern boy, so never give up, and wait till the last person’s been sorted.
Like I said, I had experienced a degree of notoriety before on a lesser scale with Serious, and I felt reasonably well equipped to handle the exposure and attention that followed Tamir’s documentary. So those glitzy car shows were just me getting back to grafting with Karen at fashion trade shows, or back further still to the market traders in my family across the Pond in Sheffield, my grandparents, my roots. (Talking of roots, when I appeared at one Porsche event, I got my dreadlocks stuck in the door of their 918 supercar, much to everyone’s amusement!)
A small but nevertheless very telling example of how much Urban Outlaw has changed my landscape often happens at these personal appearances. In the past, when Serious was at its height, people used to come up to me at trade shows or when I was out and about and say, ‘Hey, aren’t you the singer Rob Zombie?’ I wish I had a dollar for every time that happened. In fact, when I was feeling mischievous, I sometimes used to say, ‘No, I’m his brother.’ However, from 2013 that stopped and people would come up and say, ‘Hey, aren’t you that Porsche guy?’
Another way I get to meet fans and more Porsche people is when we organize Porsche runs. I’ve been involved in quite a few outlaw runs now. We did a meet at the famous Ace Cafe on London’s North Circular Road, we did one on Boxing Day of 2015, we’ve done one in Switzerland, at the castle where my cousin lived, and in various other countries. I love doing those runs, and I look forward to meeting you on one of them in the future.
There were so many highlights in 2013 it’s almost hard to remember and list them all, but one of the absolute best, not least for what it represented, was when I got the unexpected and tempting opportunity through Gooding & Company auctioneers to put the STR up for sale at the Monterey Historics in Pebble Beach, which was celebrating the 911’s fiftieth. I often talk about things lining up organically, well, you know my set-up now – there is no PR team behind this, these opportunities were just coming in direct to me and I reacted to them on instinct. Gooding reached out to me and gave me a time slot late on the Saturday night at Pebble Beach to auction the STR.
At this point, remember, the whole car world and beyond had seen Leno drive the STR, it’d been on Fifth Gear, on Road & Track’s cover, all these other magazines, all over the internet – this had become a very well-known 911. It was also my defining build to date, the best car I’d created. It was kind of a weird experience in the three or so weeks leading up to the auction, like some mad goldfish bowl. People come from all over the world to this prestigious five-day event, and the auctions are one of the biggest dates in the high-end car-lover’s calendar. Everyone was asking what the car was going to sell for, and it was one of the most talked-about vehicles that was going up for sale. Remember, in some ways I am effectively an unknown builder. So they put no reserve on the car, with an estimate of around $125,000. At that point, a completely ordinary ’72 911T would probably have fetched around $30,000 unrestored, but no more than say $60,000–$70,000 all sorted.
Lot 61, my STR, ended up hammering down for a little over three hundred grand.
It’s hard to know what cars are worth sometimes – in that case, I knew it was worth over $150,000, more likely over $200,000, but I didn’t realize it was worth three hundred plus.
This caused a big stir in the Porsche scene, and indeed across the wider car world. For starters, the car was bought by a wonderful couple called the Ingrams. They have one of the most incredible car collections you will ever see and famously all factory originals of dozens of marques. I believe they have one of the top-three collections in the USA, everything from a Gmünd Coupe to a 918, one of every RS – theirs is a serious assortment of cars. They’d reached out to me relatively soon after Urban Outlaw came out, seen the film, said they were fans, we’d naturally just connected and went on to form a good friendship. They are super-down-to-earth people, super-generous, salt of the earth; they even allowed me to drive their Carrera GT and their RSs. Those guys display cars all over the country, and one time they’d invited Karen and me to an event in Pinehurst, North Carolina. They’d also come out to see us during one of the west-coast car shows, and that’s when I just briefly told them, ‘Hey, I’m going to be selling the STR.’ Long story short, they had to have the car.
If the 68R was the build that put me on the map, I think it’s fair to say that the STR gained me the most worldwide attention. The key point in all of this is that up until the STR, there was not one single customized car in the Ingrams’ collection. Mine was the first. That endorsed my work in a massive way, and I was very proud of that fact. I’m a firm believer that if I had restored that car back to its original stock, it would not have been worth the money it got. Essentially, that car was worth more because it had been hot-rodded.
In the weeks and months after the Gooding auction, there were quite a few articles written about what had happened, and it really made people reconsider their preconceptions about hot-rodded cars. Of course, the money was great, but what was even better was the credibility that it gave my work. That really ruffled the feathers of the industry. The purists questioned it because it was a non-matching-numbers car and obviously heavily modified. I believe Jerry Seinfeld, who is a famous Porsche collector, asked the Ingrams why they’d bought the STR. They explained why and that they were very proud to have the car in their collection. I was super-proud to later be asked to be a part of their own book, Porsche Unexpected: Discoveries in Collecting. The Ingrams are just really lovely, genuine people.
There have been some really exciting spin-off projects more directly tied into what I do with my car builds, rather than just personal appearances. I was approached by Matt and Brad from fifteen52, which is an independent boutique wheel manufacturer here in LA that happens to supply wheels to professional rally driver Ken Block. In pretty much every Gymkhana video that Ken Block’s ever done, the cars are running on fifteen52 wheels and you are talking about 250 million-plus views. So fifteen52 is an industry-leading boutique wheel house. They approached me about doing a wheel collaboration together, and in all honesty that took a little bit of time because I wasn’t quite ready for it. People had been asking me about how to get hold of some of the signature touches that I put on my cars. Folks were asking me would I be selling things such as louvred deck lids, drilled door handles and integrated turn signals, and I really had no interest in that because I didn’t want to set up that type of business. I didn’t want to water my designs down by mass-producing them. However, the fifteen52 connection really appealed to me.
We started collaborating on designs and, long story short, we launched the first signature 52 Outlaw wheel in June 2014. The design is obviously inspired by the classic Fuchs wheel, but we had to do something different. I mean, everyone’s copied the Fuchs, and I’d built my reputation on doing the opposite of conventional. I’m not into copying other people, so the idea was to not replicate the Fuchs but build something that looked like it might have come out of the factory in that same period, late sixties, early seventies. It was great to actually see the process of how the wheels are made out of a single piece of billet aluminium, fascinating. We made a film documenting the manufacture and design process, and the collaboration has done very well.
Now, everyone loves Momo steering wheels, so imagine how pleased I was to one day get a visit from Henrique Cisneros, the owner of that famous brand. He told me he’d seen the film and was also a Porsche fan. So Henrique comes to visit, I give him the tour, he sees that half of my Porsches are not running stock wheels but are instead running Momo wheels. In Urban Outlaw, I talked about Mario Andretti, Jackie Stewart and the Momo Prototipo wheel. So Henrique sees my passion for the brand and within half an hour we’re talking about a collaborative steering wheel. Momo was due to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary in 2014, so we decided to do a signature steering wheel based on my two favourites, the Jackie Stewart thick grip and the Momo Prototipo. Of course, I wanted to do things a little bit differently, so we combined the two into one and the real key is the distressed leather. I didn’t want a new Momo steering wheel in my own cars, so why would my signature wheel be a shiny new one? I showed Henrique how we’d done these worn-in leather pants and suggested that it wouldn’t be that difficult to hand-distress leather for a steering wheel. I was delighted and very proud to find out that in all their fifty years, Momo had never done a signature wheel with a non-professional race-car driver. So I was in lofty company, alongside racers such as Jackie Stewart, Mario Andretti, Clay Regazzoni, Niki Lauda and numerous other famous racing drivers. How honoured was I? We released the wheel at the Road to Rennsport in September 2015, which was the biggest Porsche event in the world. We invited fifty people, which became a hundred, to take the scenic route from Downtown LA, through Willow Springs, through my favourite road Angeles Crest Highway to Monterey. I drove 277 there, and on arrival at the event it was set up in the Momo tent with a few other cars. I did a really enjoyable meet-and-greet, and I am delighted to say the collaboration, which was limited to just four hundred steering wheels, sold out within a month.
Another fun project was getting my own set of Hot Wheels cars! People generally associate Hot Wheels with hot rods, but not necessarily Porsches. That brand is perhaps the world’s biggest toy-car manufacturer and a global phenomenon, so getting the invite to go see those guys down near LAX designing toy models and witnessing the work that goes into them was unbelievable. I’ve ended up doing five cars for Hot Wheels, and now we are working on some non-Porsche models moving forward. I’ve also got Schuco 1:43 scale model editions available of 277 and Liam’s car, the 68R.
In 2015, I was approached about being in the new Need for Speed reboot of the all-conquering video game. Well, truth be told, I’m not actually a video-game guy, but they very kindly asked me to be one of five so-called ‘speed icons’ featured in this new edition. They suggested that my spirited street driving was very much in keeping with the idea of their game. This is not a professional racing game to see who can go around the Nürburgring the fastest; it’s more of a street-racing game. I asked them who the other four icons were and they said, ‘Ken Block, the car modifier Nakai-san, the Risky Devil drift crew and Morohoshi-san.’ I’m like, Fuck! Being associated with these guys is great, plus they are expecting to sell a few million video games, so, sure, why wouldn’t I be in it?
We filmed my segments in London and ended up getting 277 in the game itself, where you can build your own interpretation of my most famous car and race against me on screen. Although the game is set in a fake world, a lot of the visual inspiration and scenery is pulled from within a mile of where I’m sat writing this chapter. For me, it was an honour to be in Need for Speed, and it has certainly introduced me to an audience that probably never knew about me before.
You might think at this point that I’ve done an awful lot of collaborations in the aftermath of Urban Outlaw. Actually, I’ve been super-selective about who I work with. For example, I must have been approached by three or four watch companies wanting to do a new watch, but I’m a vintage watch guy, TAG Heuer, Omega and stuff like that. A funny side anecdote to all this is that after Urban Outlaw came out, I heard that there was a whole thread on some vintage watch forum in England about, ‘What watch is Magnus Walker wearing in Urban Outlaw?’ I’m like, How do they even see my fucking watch? Turns out there’s one shot where you very briefly see the watch on my wrist as I’m turning the steering wheel. For the record, it’s an Omega Speedmaster circa 1972! I have been approached to do sunglasses, but I don’t wear them at all, so why would I endorse a range of sunglasses? If I don’t believe in a product or feel a connection, I will just politely turn the offer down, because that’s not my vibe.
So many new doors opened after Urban Outlaw, including the opportunity to do my own TV show. Truth be told, initially it was Karen’s idea. We’ve all seen these car shows and some of them are real good but a lot of them are kinda crappy. The poorer ones are all the same – you know, buy this car today, sell it tomorrow, these guys chasing deals and flipping cars. I had no interest in that. I had kind of become comfortable in front of the camera since Urban Outlaw, so I was cool with the idea as long as we could find a format that was interesting. So the idea was conceived to have a show based on the concept of a great American road trip. I’ve talked about my adventure on that Trailways bus from New York to Detroit, then Detroit to LA in 1986, but I have never actually driven across the country. I’ve done a lot of driving but never a US tour. So when this idea was put to me, I was like, ‘Fuck, let’s just go!’ Essentially that was the idea: let’s go, take a camera with us and do a great American road trip. We figured that along the way we were going to meet car-culture people, chat to them, hear their stories and drive their cars. Everyone’s got their favourite car and everyone’s got their favourite road. So the plan was for a travel show/car show/talk show, where I was just hanging out with like-minded people, enjoying the open road and chewing the fat.
There were a lot of pitches, a lot of approaches by production companies. These TV shows take a long time to come together; it is a very complex process. The production companies had probably seen the format of various shows like Fast N’ Loud working pretty well, so a lot of the conversations started off with them wanting to film a car build, but I’d politely say, ‘Let me stop you right there …’ On more than one occasion, we’d meet a team and I’d say, ‘Have you seen Urban Outlaw?’ and they’d reply ‘No’! Not really anywhere to go after that, is there?
Eventually, after countless meetings and dead ends, we ended up getting a deal with the History channel to shoot a pilot. Their team loved Urban Outlaw because it is so stylish and cinematic – that resonated with them. Filming the show was a lot of hard work, but we had some great guests. We ended up shooting the ex-American footballer and pro-wrestler Bill Goldberg, who has a muscle-car collection – a cool guy. We shot Shooter Jennings, a country and western rock ’n’ roller. His story is great because his dad, Waylon Jennings, wrote the fucking theme song to Dukes of Hazzard, so that’s me on board right there (sadly his segment didn’t get included in the pilot). Then we had rally race driver Alex Roy and a three-wheel Morgan, we had Rod Emory, the legendary Porsche 356 outlaw build icon, and also actor and racing car driver Chad McQueen.
We shot this pilot over a month before Christmas 2015. It was really well received, so at the time of writing it will be really interesting to see what happens next in the world of TV. If these shows take off, it can be a very serious business, so let’s see … how bad can it be, right?