Car Stories with Sung Kang and Emelia HartfordSung and Emelia talk with noted Porsche aficionado but true enthusiast of all cars, Magnus Walker. Magnus shares how his life has woven through fashion, the film location business - and of course, cars - and how his common thread is a relentless pursuit of passion. They also get personal about fathers and dealing with loss.
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Welcome to another episode of Car Stories with Someunky and Amelia Hartford. Today we had Magnus Walker, who is a legend in the car space and.
A real personal inspiration for myself, someone who inspired me to have the courage to jump into the community and not worry about whether people are thinking.
You know, yeah, a spiritual person but also a hard worker and hey, you know, nothing's going to get handed to you. You have to work for what you want in life and give it your all, which I respect.
Yeah, and I think you guys are going to hear a side to Magnus that you never knew. This is a multi dimensional person with many layers and many, many wise things to share, which today I know I'll walk away with a lot of great, great tools in my box.
Now, absolutely, And I hope people listening have that same takeaway.
Yeah, I'm sure they will.
Yeah, I believe it. How do you two know each other?
I met you through Fraser at E Garage when we shot a video called Furious Outlaws where we swapped cars. Yeah, Sung drove two seven seven and I drove the Faguzi for Gauz. You remember I couldn't pronounce it for.
Good blow His engine by the way.
Oh really, yes, we never actually talked about that.
Happen, that that actually did matter drive a Porsche especially actually happened. And he was so like calm about it. I was like, uh, he's gonna get freaking pissed, right, and Magus was so zen. You know, hey, I did blow his engine. Yeah, well, thankfully we finished the shoot and it was.
On the way down the hill and I remember like it went and I just remember pulling into the bottom pull in where we pushed it into the spot for the ending scene and then towed it home. So that was how we met. And I think that was actually twenty I should have looked it up, but I think it was twenty sixteen.
I was thinking about it this morning. I was really, you know, looking forward to seeing you again, and I was like, so, what does Magnus mean to me? And I don't think I think I told you this, but I always tell people this is that Magnus is the reason I'm here sitting here right now with you, Amelia, because Magnus is ted talk. I don't know if you had the privilege of listening to this, but I think it's like nine years old, nine twenty.
Fourteen, it's actually coming up on ten year aniverse years.
It moved me so much, right and yeah, and like it gave me the courage to go, just go and do it. Go go get into the car commutey because I was like, hey man, you're just this actor from the Fast movies. You can't do that. You can't pursue passion. Like, you know, I always had interesting cars, but I'm not a mechanic. I'm not a race car driver. But I'm like, I have this imposter syndrome, things like I don't want to be a poser. But you know, after I listened to Magnus, it was the first person within the car community that actually I could understand and his message resonated. It wasn't about you know, I was a racer and I'm you got to be a racer, you gotta be a go to mechanics school. It's like it came from a place of like, just be passionate about what you're doing, be open minded. These doors open and you never know what opportunities, what kind of people are you going to meet? You know, And it's one of the most important TED talks, I think, at least for me in my life. And then for people in the car community, it's like a must listen.
Well, thank you for sharing that. The ironic thing about the TED talk is I'd never even heard of TED talks when they approached me to do one. Wow and I got approached and they'd seen the Open Outlaw short documentary film that came out late October twenty twelve and early twenty fourteen. They approached me to do a TED talk, and I'm like, what's a TED Talk. I didn't even know what one was. I didn't even watched it. And long story short, you know, I told my story a few times, so I was pretty comfortable telling my story, but it was in an environment where people edited my story. So doing a TED talk, you have eighteen minutes and it's live. So for me, it was out of my comfort zone school at fifteen, with not a lot of education. I did my TED talk at UCLA on a big stage in front of a thousand people, and I had to sit through probably a dozen TED talks before I went up, and I was pretty intimidated because these people were talking about what I thought was important, stuff that I didn't actually understand, and I'm just going up there talking about go with your gout and do what feels right. And so you know, I was pretty nervous, but the Ted Talk taught me how to get to the point quicker and actually how to be a more comfortable in a public environment where you can't say, okay, stop, let me redo that again. It was live, so I sort of benefited from that. And the ironic thing with the Ted Talk is it's the most viewed thing I've done. Got over almost ten million views last time I looked. Oh, I was aware of it, and I would say ninety five percent of the people that have watched it had no idea who and are not car people. But the message, which you so eloquently put transcends the car generation or the car community of just do what you love to do. And I've got more feedback I can email from people that watched the Ted Talk that said it inspired them and motivated them to go do something that they were pretty much intimidated by. And a lot of people had gone down this path of going down a career that they thought they had to do because their parents did it, doctor, lawyer, something like that, but they weren't really happy in that environment and really what they wanted to do was be a skater or a surfer, or carguy or make candles or whatever it was. And somehow there was a spark of motivation through the Ted talk that I did. That It was kind of like, oh, I should follow my passion, follow my gun, and just do what I love to do, and that's always sort of being my thing. And I think you summed it up really well of you know, you sort of don't necessarily have to worry about what other people think a lot of the time and just do what makes you happy, what drives you on, what motivates you. So that was the story behind the Ted talk, So thanks for sharing that.
I mean, your story will parallel a lot with it. You know, I think you know the generation or the fan base that you inspire, you know, is gravitating towards you because probably very similar things of what Magnus represents for old people like me.
I've heard people tell similar stories. You know, you grew up as a kid. Everything starts at a young age with a toy model, right whatever your car of choice may be, Mine just happen to be Porsche. But I've heard similar stories about people had their poster on the wall followed their passion, you know, built their first car, which might have been handed down from a family member or some emotional connection. It's always an emotional connection I feel to the car, which brings back what I call memorable moments you first drive with your dud, or the first car you learned to drive in, or the first drive with your girlfriend, or whatever it may be. So that's kind of a common bond that I think people can relate to because it's like, oh, yeah, that was me. I had a poster on the wall. So I think that's sort of what attracts people to that Ted talk wance a hear and they go back to it is you know, it's they relate to. It's a relatable story.
Yeah, this is something I always wanted to ask you, and I think probably people in the car community would never guess this right. And you used to be a cross country runner?
Yeah I did.
I mean, that's no joke to be a competitive cross country running gil.
Yeah. I mean for me, I always describe myself as a lone wolf in the sense of cross country running as an individual sport. I was a middle distance run across country runner, and ironically it started at a very young age and it was back to passion. It was something I enjoyed doing, and it was something I was actually good at doing, and it was an activity that didn't you don't need any any You don't need anything, just a pair of running shoes and shorts and you go do it. You don't have to rely on someone else in the sense of a team. So I started running at an early age and I talked about this pivotal point for me that happened when I was eleven years old. This was nineteen seventy eight and I'd been running competitively and doing pretty well and ended up being North England schoolboy champion and it was something I was passionate about and motivated me. And at the time one of my heroes was this athlete called Sebastian Co who actually ran for this club that I ran for, called the hallm Shah Harris. He was probably five six years older and he wrote this, I got a CERTIFICATET, I finished third and norlyput was well done, zep Co And I still have this thing because he was an idol of mine that I looked up to. I'd posted him on the wall and it just goes to show one word of encouragement, well two words, well done. I'm still talking about it forty odd years later. Forty five years later, and Sebastian Coe went on to be an Olympic champion in the eight hundred and fifteen hundred meter discipline and went on to be a world record holder in nineteen eighty nineteen eighty four, the la Olympic Games in nineteen eighty four. So it was a significant thing for me that became what I call a teachable element where a little bit of confidence building doesn't really take a lot of effort. When when people come up to me and say, you know, they've watched my story, watch the film being motivated by me, I always take time to sort of give back because I always revert myself back to Sebastian go signing the certificate, saying well done. So it's one of those teachable elements that came through being a middle distance runner, across country runner and looking back on my life going back forty five years, I realized now which I didn't realize at the time, that that discipline of running twice a day, five days a week, setting goals, being motivated to achieve those goals, having a little bit of success at an early age sort of set me up for later on in life, you know, to actually set a goal, be disciplined, motivated, work towards that, but put the effort in. You know, you don't necessarily need the experience or the talent that sort of helps, but that develops and matures over time. You know, whatever it is you want to do in life, I believe if you put the energy in and put the effort in, and be dedicated and don't give up, a lot of people have great ideas, but they probably don't execute him because they've run it by a friend. Thinking about doing this thing, what do you think? The friend may be negative and say I don't. I think that's a good idea that'll never work type of scenario. So a lot of people don't cross the start line. It's like you, you know what the story you just told? You know, so a lot of people sort of back away from, oh, the fear of failure. So I think for me having that discipline as a young kid and then as a nineteen year old, I worked on a summer camp with inner city underprivileged kids north of Detroit and took a Trailways bus from Detroit to La and arrived in LA. This part of the story is pretty funny because I came with this dream. I grew up watching a lot of American TV, listening to American music. I was influenced by American culture, so arriving in Hollywood it was weirdly anti climatic because the Hollywood I had seen on TV in the eighties. When I arrived at Union Station on a Tuesday morning at four am in the morning, I'm like, we're all the movie stars, We're all the rock stars, you know. Then I arrived to Hollywood and that was a really sort of wake up call on Hollywood Boulevard in the mid eighties. But I clicked with it and resonated with it, and every time I go past that YMCA, it's kind of a grounding thing for me because that was ground based zero when I arrived here, not knowing anyone. And I'm still here whatever it is thirty eight years later, and La is home to me. And I spent nineteen years in Sheffield, England, but all my adult life has been LA. Like I never had a driver's licen in England, never owned a car in England, never had my own apartment, never had a real job. I was just sort of bumming around and so La was the land of opportunity. It was everything I was into at the time. It still is. It's still an inspiring place for me. La. I get inspiration just walking around Hollywood. So ironically, Hannah and I bought a house up the road less than a mile up the road from here, in near the Hollywood Bowl. It's one hundred year old Spanish house that we're restoring. You know, I never lived in Hollywood. I'd lived in Venice and downtown for thirty years, but i'd go to Hollywood. But now living here, I'm walking around all these places that bring back these memories of when I first arrived, and it's kind of an inspiring thing.
Wow, you still have your offed in downtown.
Yeah, the way I talk about that, you're not getting rid of it, are you?
Institution though?
Yeah, this will be the twenty fourth year I've owned that building. I've been downtown in the Arts District since nineteen ninety four. So in two thousand, I bought a twenty six thousand square foot building that was constructed in nineteen oh two. So that was where I ran my clothing company. I lived in the loft. I accidentally fell into the film location business twenty years ago by renting that space out for everything like commercial filming, TV shows, music videos, reality shows and along the way sort of, how's my Porsche collection?
Yeah, my dream is a warehouse similar to what you have a high level goal one day.
Well, you're going to make the dream come true? You know, baby steps and take that leap of.
Face, I said, keep working out it.
Yeah, you got to keep doing that.
Have you always been a very motivated person?
Yeah?
I think so. You know. I described myself as street smart and I left school with two old levels at fifteen, went on the doll But yeah, I think when I arrived in la I had to be motivated because I didn't know anyone and I didn't want to go back home. For me, failure would be returning to Sheffield, the city I came from. Not that it's a bad place, but everything sort of i'd grown up aspiring to be around was literally here in la I have no education, and essentially the clothing, property development and messing around with cars wasn't like I went to school to learn any of that, but I had an interest in it and a passion and La is one of those places where opportunity just sort of comes weirdly. You know. People say, you know, oh, you get lucky. I say, you make your own luck by being put yourself in the right place at the right time. But when someone offers you that opportunity that may be scary to host a podcast, for example, Right, sure do it? How bad can it be? Right?
I was asking myself like, and that's so I went into this rabbit hole of like, why is Magnus magnus? Yeah? I used this phrase like the light behind his eyes, like the headlights are always on high beam where you know, I catch myself the lights start to dim after a while for whatever factors, right, And I catch myself like, hey, hey, it'll be careful. You better go get a jolt, you know, get a jump somewhere. And I use running in my daily life when things are really down and I feel like unmotivated or I feel like, you know, I feel like I'm making myself a victim to life, and like, you know, especially in our business of Hollywood, it's it's a business of no's, Like you're never good enough, right, so it's ninety nine point nine percent no, and you're waiting for that point one thing. And so I started adopting running because.
You like running.
I like it now as I'm older, because before because I was so competitive because I was younger, I was like, I'm gonna run a marathon, and then I lose. I'm not gonna win, right, and all these people are passing men finishing.
Yeah.
And then now I now, I like, I have these four hills that I run daily, like as soon as I wake up up, like I go. I appreciate at age fifty one that first of all, that I'm still able to do it. Yeah, And I get up there and I've learned, you know, gratitude which I never had, right, and the I then the concept of even prayer. Right Like in my travels, I've gotten to meet very spiritual people. And I was in Kyoto, Japan, which is like one of the most spiritual places in Asia and especially Japan. And this car guy Mirasan, who you know is Rocket Bunny. I don't know if you know Rocket Bunny. They make body kids everytime I go to visit him. We never do anything car related. He takes me straight to the temples and he's like, and I feel like I have to take you here. And I'm like to do what It's like, it's a place where I give things that I'm healthy enough to like come here that I get to pursue this beautiful life of like making cars, I get to meet friends like you, I get to have kids, I have a wonderful wife and the full sun. So I just give thanks and this is where I come and I do this every day. And he's like, song, do you have a place back in LA And I go no. He goes, well, maybe you need to find Yeah, So on this run, like I found this place which there's a little bench somebody made, and I just go there and I pray and I go thank you for my wife, my life, thank you for this beautiful dog and the other dog, thank you for this health. And then I go thank you for today I get to do a podcast with a couple of friends, and then I go on my way. Second stage is harder, long, long journey right up this mountain. Third stage is even lonelier and colder. But then the fourth stage is back down the mountain going home. And I'm like, wow, it's not so bad, right, And I use that as like a daily, like you know, kind of discipline to go Hey, keep that keep that light behind your eyes, like positive. And when I found out that you were a you know, distance runner or a mid distance runner, I was like, that's the foundation of how you're able to keep the headlights right in life, right, you know?
Yeah? I think, So how many miles a day do you run?
I think it's like a five mile cour I used to track everything and then that would get in the way. Yeah, like I go, I didn't do twelve today, right, I didn't do eighteen today. There was a time where I was running like twenty two miles. Wow, I called the forest gumping.
Yep, running. I no longer run. I haven't run in a long time. But I think once you get to some point in life, priorities shift, things change, Things that were important before are not quite as important at some point, you know. And he starts sort of thinking along the lines of what you were talking about, you know, things to keep me grounded but also motivated, keeping the light on, the passion burning bright. You know my thing, you know, it's twenty twenty four eyes, so these New Year's resolution, and you know my thing is to continue doing what I call cool shit with cool people, but collaborate and create more with other people as opposed to being this sort of lone wolf where you know, I'm a one man of army doing stuff on myself because it is hard to say motivated and actually, you know, continue to create things that you're proud of all the time. You know, I think life goes in this circle of highs and lows and you know, peaks and plateaus, and you reach a certain level and then sidestep, maybe take a different turn and see where that road goes.
Are you one hundred percent committed to drag racing?
Whenever I do something, I'm doing giving it one hundred and ten percent. I really don't have ass things that I do. That's why I never went or I haven't gone into a competitive racing series because of I cannot take on responsibility of racing and then book a role and know that I have to let down sponsors or I can't or all lose points because I can't race because then I'm not giving up one hundred and ten percent. I feel like everything I do, I have to give everything.
Yeah, I can relate that completely. Kind of like I used to do a lot of track days from two thousand and two to two thousand and eight, and I went through the program where you turn up with a street car, you do some time trialing, then you go next level, you get club race license. You're doing some wil to wheel. But I'm still doing it in two seven seven streetable track car, not a fully caged dedicated race car, because I like the idea of driving it to the track and back. And so you go down this slippery slope, I think you can probably relate to it right where you just get in it. You get motivated the time, the energy of the dedication, your craft gets better, you become a better driver. I started instructing, but then they became a point where the more competitive it became, you know, these three day events become all consuming prep in the car. You got to travel it five day event. And for me, the more competitive it became, the less fun it became. And I said to myself, I'm kind of done with this because I'm no longer one hundred percent committed to doing this. And I realized, if you're not one hundred percent committed to being on the track, you don't go on the track, because that's when stuff goes wrong. When you're not one hundred percent committed or at least from my point of view, is like there's a shadow of doubt. Second guess, in yourself. I was no longer a competitive I.
Wonder if that notion of that being one hundred percent committed to something. I wonder if you can apply that to anything you want to be successful?
Enough? Oh, I think everything everything in life.
First of all, you've got to believe in yourself and have confidence that you're going to be able to achieve this goal that you've set, whatever it may be running up the hill faster, going around a track faster, or whatever. So I think you need that inner self confidence and focus where you can block out the external negativity and noise that might distract you and derailue first of all. But ultimately, I think whatever it is you're doing, whether you're making candles or surfing or whatever, you've got to be one hundred percent committed to it. Otherwise I don't think you give your role. And I think that's the difference right there.
So you're very selective on what you focus your energy on. Yeah, were you always like that or did you have to learn that?
No?
I mean I wasn't. I wasn't. I was very competitive growing up, but I feel like when I was growing up, I wanted to do and try everything to get experience and everything. And I think once I solidified with the things in my life that I was most passionate about, that's when I had that shift happen of Okay, well this is it, this is what I'm doing. I'm going to give it my all because we get one life on this earth. I don't want to become older and be like, man, I should have tried a little harder.
Yeah, you know, so it's okay to lose passion, right.
Yeah, because I think generally what happens is, you know, you'll find passion elsewhere. Yeah, you know, different opportunity. You know, I think you've got to be committed to what you're doing, and you got to prioritize, like if acting's more over priority, then drag racing is you follow that path until maybe acting is not quite as exciting or nurturing, or you're not getting as much out of it, or or you just feel like you need a break and you need to try something else. Yeah. So you know, for me, I never had a plan. You know, people talk about where do you see yourself in especially at school, where do you see yourself in five years, ten years, twenty years. I never had that plan, you know, and that sort of enabled me to really just go with a flow. And then you get to a certain point, opportunity comes up and you go, yeah, that feels good. It's like when we bought the building downtown, the warehouse, like in two thousand. People thought were crazy at the time for doing that, but it was the best thing we ever did, you know. I was able to house the cars, got into the film location business, ran a clothing company, and then the neighborhood came up around and now the arts district is kind of like the new Culver City, the new Venice.
It is so expensive. I was looking for shop space over there and oh my gosh.
Yeah, it wasn't like that twenty twenty five years ago. But I took a leap of faith, bought this building, restored this building, and everything that I've been talking about since I walked through that door sort of happened through that building. And I have to sort of be grounded in an environment that I feel comfortable in that it's creative. Sometimes, you know, I'll go to car collections and people who've got fancy, great stuff, but I look at where it is and it's in some concrete tilt up and it's just a generic space.
And to me, you know, lack of character.
Yeah that's all. Yeah, the sole character, Betina. You know, it all needs to be housed in this environment that reflects my personality. Like someone's got great, flashy cars that they don't drive in a clinical industrial building. I go, this just doesn't I'm not interested in that. Like when people want to show me cars that I have no miles on it and they're proud of it because you know, they don't drive it, I go, well, it's kind of built to be driven, right, I'm more interested in showing me the car with a million miles on it, because that's got the stories and the memorable moments and the history, and that's just more interesting to me.
Because you left fashion, I mean that was a passion of yours because yeah, yeah, right, And then I mean, how were you able to leave that, like because there was such a big, pretty person.
I mean, I started selling second nd clothing on the boardwalk in Venice in the late eighties. You know, I'd go to yard sales by Levi's for like fifty cents, cut up some shirts, so some patches on it. It was a creative outlet for me, you know, And it was I was coming at it from this rock and roll I guess, pseudo hippie thing. And then late eighties early nineties the rave scene took off and everyone was into sort of flower power and whimsical floppy hats and it was just a whole movement, and that led into developing this clothing company called Serious. Like I said, it was a rock and roll brand that I was passionate about. It was just I didn't my mama taught me how to sew, because at the time, I tried to make my jeans as tired as possible and sew patches on my den and jacket so I could sew. So that was kind of a little skill set that I had, and it was just kind of easy to get into. And I realized back to like the running thing, once I had a little bit of success by making something that people actually appreciated and bought and generated some income, so I was financially stable on my own. It was baby steps, but it was the same connection as the running. I talk about this a little bit sometimes. The three things that I've done in the past forty years with no education. And I mentioned it earlier was the clothing property development cause the common bond thread was I was passionate about so the clothing company. I just liked what we were making. Other people liked it. It got into this rock and roll lifestyle, you know, opened up a lot of opportunities to work with bands, got some magazine coverage, and this all happened sort of, you know, way before the Internet. This was eighties and nineties. You know, there was no thing as Instagram and Facebook and social media, and in a way, it was sort of easier when I look back then, you know, you weren't wasting time checking your phone and do people like this? Not like it? Didn't like I liked it, We sold it, Other people liked it, bands wore it. Move on, just always evolving, not second guessing, not worrying about what other people think. So to answer your question, I closed Serious down in twenty eleven, and probably two three years before. I was now in my early forties, so I wasn't going out as much to clubs. I didn't really have to dress up, and you know, sort of I just lost interest in it. I'd lost passion for it. You know it had become sort of didn't interest me, didn't motivate me, and the last couple of years of doing it was sort of treading water. Sales were dwindling, but all of our friends worked for the company, and we just sort of gave them like six months notice of Hey, we're going to close this thing down. We didn't sell it, you know, we just sort of ended it. We just shipped all our orders and said, Okay, we're done with that chapter of the life. And thankfully the film location business was successful enough that it was paying the mortgage on the building, and I didn't know what was going to come next. But I like to say the clothing company took a lot of time and energy to continually be on top of it because we might be designed and manufacture it. It wasn't like we just bought t shirts and did its green prints. We actually did the whole thing. So it was a full time operation. And when I closed that down, I had a lot of time and didn't know what was coming next. Back to this, I hadn't planned for life after running a clothing company, But what happened within six months was Timer Moscovich's short documentary Urban Outlaw that put me on the map, and then the next sort of ten twelve years from twenty twelve that film came out October fifteenth, twenty twelve. I got invited all around the world to go to events and travel and car related stuff. And the point to my rambling here is if I was still running the clothing company, managing a business with employees, I would never have had the time to take advantage of these opportunities of travel, meet people like Bob Ing and go to Japan, hang out with the Kayas out all this cool stuff. You know, I ended up in need for speed video game and various other things that just became my focus. But I hadn't planned it, but indirectly I'd closed the door of the clothing company that was a sixty hour a week, all consuming gig. And then when people started inviting me places to do things I was passionate about, nothing was holding me back. I had a passport, and you know, you could say to me today, do you want to go somewhere on Friday? I'd be like, sure, I'll go. So sometimes you got to take this leap of faith and not be so hemmed into this is where I need to be at this certain time with this rigid sort of sometimes restrictions on can't do this, can't do that. So that was the ultimate freedom, being able to do whatever you wanted to do, when you wanted to do it, when the opportunity arose in that sort of environment. So closing down serious clothing wasn't a hard decision. It was kind of like when we did it, were like, we should have done this two years before, But in reality, if we've done it two years before, urban outlaw wasn't out.
So well, everything happens for a reason, and time is the reason. Not everything happens at once, and.
You've got to be patient and just let things evolve sometimes.
Yeah, and I think it's true to that you need to create space in your life to allow new things to come in.
Yeah, very much.
I've always wanted to ask you this question, especially these days, and if you're uncomfortable with with it, we can actually cut this.
Out, go for it.
Karen was your first wife, right.
Well, actually she was. I was married before she was my second wife. I'd been with Karen for twenty one years.
And that's who you started the business with, and you had a wonderful life with her. She has passed away, right, So my question is a personal question because you know, my father, my stepfather, as of late, he's very unhealthy, right, and I guess, you know, everyone's preparing for him to leave us, right, And I do feel like it's gonna rock me and my sister. And there's a lot of like regrets that I have that I'm trying to like sort out in my personal life with him, you know, because it wasn't always rosy with him. For someone who's gone through this loss of someone that is you know, important to you, Like how do you not let those things dim your light? Magnus because we're talking about all like everything is very inspirational here, like it's and to the listener it could sound like, oh everything was so nice man, right, but the room I have to realize you're a human and it's not always nice right now.
Yeah, I mean, Karen passed away in twenty fifteen, and I met her in nineteen ninety four, so we've been together twenty one years and we built this thing together, the clothing company, and bought the building. And Karen's passing was a real shock. That didn't see it coming. It wasn't expected, it wasn't expected, you know, it was. It was a terrible loss, and you know, I had no time to plan for the inevitable. Like my father passed away in twenty twelve, and I sort of had a turbulent relationship with my father. Because this will be a long answer to your question, but I think there'll be some relevance to it. You talk to Ryon about me being a cross country running a middle distance run, and I talked at some detail about having a certain amount of early success at that and my father was there with me through that. And once I hit the age of like fourteen, in England, you can go to the pub, start drinking. I was going to rock and roll shows. I just stopped running. And it really hurt my dad. But being from England and northern and in this eighties period, he couldn't communicate, you know. And it was like I talked about SEBC riding well done. I didn't talk about my dad patter me on the back and saying well done, because he never did it. Yeah, So you know, I think it's usual for guys to have turbulent relationships with the father, and that was my setup with my father. You know, he'd say cut your and get a real job. Well, I've probably hinted I've had long hair for forty five years, and I've never had a real job. I've never worked for anyone else. So my dad and I buttered heads, and when I came to America as a nineteen year old, the goal was never to go back to England because I didn't want to go back to that environment and that represented failure for me. So when I met Karen in ninety four, you know, and we sort of formed together and grew together, and we were together all the time. When she passed out of the blue. There'd been some issues, but it wasn't looking like someone has a terminal disease. Like my father was diagnosed with cancer in twenty ten and passed away in twenty twelve. But he wasn't active, you know, sort of let life slip him by, kind of the I think that was what part of what motivated me to never give up was I'd seen my father give up at an early age and it didn't look good and he didn't really have any goals. You know, he could have achieved stuff, but he wasn't one hundred percent committed and didn't put the energy in. So when my father passed away. It was sad, but I didn't have this great relationship with him. When Karen passed away, it was it was the end of the world, and I thought my life was over and that part of my life was over. And then eighteen months later, when I turned fifty, I met Hannah and that was the beginning of a second leaf on life, a second opportunity, a second chapter in my story. Turning fifty was kind of a big deal because people say it's just a number, but yeah, health became a thing, mental health and physical health. He can go running and you know, ironically, within six months of Karen passing away, one day, I was on the Sixth Street bridge. They closed it down and I hopped The bridge was dark, they were just about to tear it down, and I hopped over the wall and I hadn't anticipated the rise of the incline. When I dropped on the other side, it was like a ten foot drop, and I felt like, oh, that didn't line well, I shouldn't have done that. Long story short kind of went undiagnosed. I'm walking around traveling. Four months later, I can't walk and excruciating pain. I find out I had stress fracture cracks on both of my tibbers essentially broke both my legs, but I was still walking. But that put me in a wheelchair for two months, and I think in a way it was it was something out of my control that forced me to slow down and stop because I hadn't stopped. Once she passed, I just sort of shifted gears and went in another direction. So I don't really know if there's an answer here other than you find a way to deal with situations and adapt to that environment, whether you plan it or like me being in a wheelchair for two months. It's a tough thing and everyone deals with in a different way, and I don't feel there's any right and wrong way to deal with it.
I don't know if it's a great answer question. And the way I'm interpreting it is like it's not going to be a I'll send a new paint job on the carts. Can they be part of your patina?
Yeah?
And you just got to accept it.
And it's sitting here and trying not to tear up.
It's sad, you know, and it's not going to be easy, but life goes on and you just got to sort of keep moving forward.
Yeah, can I add to that conversation. I know we've talked about in the past. Death is so hard and it breaks my heart to hear everything that you went through. Obviously it's no secret about my life all the shit that I've gone through, But I will say, you don't want to live with any regret, and I think if you're questioning it, it might be worthwhile to at least have the conversation, you know, question.
I do feel like I'm going to where I am currently today. If my dad passed away, I would have tons of regret. But yeah, similar to you, like, you know, he's old school dude, and we just it's like we have so many things to go over. But it's kind of irony of life is that he's passing away because of dementia and he doesn't even remember. So it's kind of like I start laughing. Remember, this is like I don't remember, I don't even know who you are.
You know, I just started laughing for you. Even though he's not going to remember. You got to get it out, I think, yeah, because he's not going to remember it, but you're letting it go whilst he's still here.
And second off that after my dad passed. Someone told me something because they hadn't lost their father as well. He was almost a decade prior, and he said to me not a single day had gone by that he hadn't thought of his dad, And that hit a chord. So I was like, oh shit, because I mean, I'm going to live the rest of my life thinking about the fact that my dad's died at least once every single day. And truth is, yeah, I think at least once a day for my entire life, I've thought of him. And I share that because that's the regret, I think, because if you do find yourself thinking about it, at least in mind sense, that's mine. Everyone everyone's going to go through their own thing. You don't want to have those thoughts of should I have just had the.
Even if he's not relating to it, you're expressing your emotions and letting it out. Whether he receives it or not kind of irrelevant, I think, because you're going to let it go. Yeah, it sounds like he's not going to be able to absorb it through the dementia, but I think you'll feel lighter that you said whatever it is you got to say.
Yeah, I mean it's it's one of those like mountains that I look up and I go, I got to run that.
But you're doing it every day baby steps.
Yeah, and it's the thing that I do feel like at fifty one today, like if I don't resolve this, this is something that will carry with me for the rest of my life.
That's a lot of weight.
You said it yourself. Your run is in four stages. Yeah, first, yeah.
Many times you know the answer, huh, you just gotta you know. The good thing is that, you know, my manager I was like talking to him like last week and he goes, you know, it's interesting because like you're so Asian and I was like, what that's like is that racist thing? And he's like, no, because you hold everything in, like you don't you know, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. He's like, it's it's like I'm not saying complaining. He's like, you gotta actually talk like you just hold everything in. It's like you just try to take care of everything and then we don't know what's what you're going through.
That's kind of a lot the British thing as well. Keep calm, carry on, you know, we don't let it out.
You know, but it's not always healthy.
I guess, no, this is what I'm learning.
Yeah, that's something that I'm realizing. I at least I'm willing to talk about it because then, you know, you know, your point of reference is that he gives me courage. Like, yeah, you're right, you know, it's like it's not something I should avoid.
You know, well if the conversation goes bad, doesn't sound like he might remember it. Sorry, it's funny.
Laugh at I was like, I was like, because I used to carry it like it was like this bag of rocks, like of anger. I was like, and one day I'm gonna sit down with you and I'm just gonna like throw the rocks at you. And then I was like, he ain't remember I'm talking about I just started laughing. I was like, this is you can't make this stuff up, no script, right.
This is not an act. This is like the real emotion coming out. I got one more store. That's gonna time real briefly because Okay, with my dad, I remember the last real time I spent with him. It was probably the last time he came out to l I said, two thousand nine, twenty ten, and we went on this my cap adventure to go check some you know, bonfind porsches that we'd seen on craigslist. You know, it became this all day journey. I remember drove in my Irish Green sixty sixth nine to eleven, and we drove somewhere out to the Inland Empire to look at something and it wasn't quite what it was supposed to be. And then the guy goes, no, my body out near California City. He's got like a bunch of cars in his backyard. So we headed on this other journey. By the time we got back home, we only thought we were going for two hours. It'd been like an eight hour day. We'd driven like three hundred miles. We'd looked at a pile of crap cars that weren't worth five hundred bucks. We didn't buy anything, but we kind of had like this breakthrough moment of I never spent eight hours in a car with my dad when I was driving, when he wasn't shouting at my mom for giving him the wrong directions or whatever it was, and it just sort of became this full circle moment of I guess we both realized at that point, without saying sorry, that we'd sort of resolved whatever issues, resent and anger whatever. You know, It's like, yeah, I never cut my hair, I never got a real job. But we're doing okay here, right, So Vegas, haf One, you.
Were there, Thank you.
I was there.
Thank you.
What's your take on Vegas? Seemed like pretty good to me?
I thought it was great. I really had a great time. I found obviously different from other races that I've been to, because it felt like wherever you bought your tickets you were kind of gridlocked. You couldn't walk the track or go explore. But I had a great time. I thought it was fun. I thought they put up a great event.
It was well organized, I'll say that. Yeah, yeah, I mean we were there. You know, I think everyone sort of thought it was going to be a shit show and it wasn't.
Well. Everyone was like premptively like talking shit, prepared for it to be.
But you know, they made a couple of mistakes, but that was first time out.
Yeah, and you got to you gotta fail somehow to learn, right.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I mean I thought the event was great. It looked spectacular, and I say it was a win win all around Vegas.
That's way you can't believe anything you read on there.
Yeah, that's what I said, See all these terrible things. I'm like, wait, I'm here right now. It's not like that exactly.
That's all because it was only negative like feedback. And then when I talked to you and talk to you and anybody went through, it was great. Vegas is curreat it's the hospitality town.
It was really really cool.
Huh.
What are you guys looking forward to this year when it comes to car related stuff? You got a King of Hammers and events like that there.
Now, I'll be going to Tokyotoslan.
Okay.
Have you been to Auto Salon?
No, I've never been. I've been to Tokyo, but no, I'd love to go there. Hannah and I are off to a retromobile in Paris, cowing up. We've gone there before. We're going to go to Amelia Island. Have you ever gone there? The concoct Yeah. Yeah. So ironically this is I've been invited back to be a judge, which is kind of ironic. It's a third time, and I'm the guy that's always sort of saying, you know, I'm anti car show. It's my pet peeve of people with white gloves and Q tips, judging your car and telling you what's right and wrong about it. But two years ago I got invited to be a judge there and it was great because I met Peter Brock, He's a legend, John Oates legend, ended up becoming friends with John O's. He came down the ware house.
He's a big Porscha guy.
Yeah, it's super cool, down the earth, talented guy. So that that was a great example of something that I'd sort of turned my nose up a little bit. I guess it's all about evolving and brought like collaborating with other people and you never know, you know what opportunities. You know, that door opens, Like meeting John Oates and Peter brook was a great opportunity. And yeah, that's what brings pure motor heads, geareds, whatever you want to call them, call people together. Is the joy of this, this this thing, right, you know this, you know it's an appliance, right, But it's more than that. You know, it takes you on this journey. It's more than something that communitates you on a journey. For me to be it opens up the world to sharing stories like we're doing here.
It's hard to articulate to people that don't like cars. Why the connections work right? It's like dog people. It's like if you have dogs, like instantly like oh okay dog, and then it's like, hey, what do you do?
Hey?
You know it's that connective tissue.
Causing dougs go together. Yeah, yeah, does he run with you?
He runs on Fridays with me, but he doesn't like Thursdays.
No.
It's like I'm worried. I'm worried that he's as he gets older, he's going to have some albums. So I don't want to do this. So on Friday he wants to come, but you know, I take him for as soon as I run, either before after I take him on a long walk. But on Fridays he gets to actually run with me, and he loves it. I do want it this year. And someone told me give me advice. Don't tell people like your plans, right, but this is a goal that I have.
Sounds to me like you're telling people you want to do it. Huh. Sounds to me like telling people you want to do it.
I am going to do.
What are you going to do?
Ultra ultra which is like sixty and then there's one hundred and there's two fifty.
It's a long long way.
I'd like to do that.
I'll be there cheering you on.
You know you won't because it's like it.
That's a lot of finish line, that's a lot of steps hours.
Yeah, I want to challenge like I want to fight, like.
Fight through, go to break through the wall? Is that what they call it? The wall? And when is that the eighteen mile marker?
Yes, that's right.
I think it's the wolf. But anyway, get out and run.
Yeah, but thank you magnus.
This was Yeah, really appreciate you.
Beautiful coming by, coming on, coming in, Appreciate the opportunity.
Yeah, thanks for having me on.
Thank you, thanks for coming on.
