Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Kelly Telfer on Passion, Failure, and the Beauty of Function

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Kelly Telfer on Passion, Failure, and the Beauty of Function · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from
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all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors,
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designers, and everything in between.
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Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder.
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How did they get that job or become that person?
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The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
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The Works Reunion, the Porsche Parade, IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship,
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Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance,
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Hyundai Motorsports, Arrows McLaren IndyCar, Shell Pennzoil, Recaro Seats,
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and the Mercedes Benz Club of America?
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What do all these things have in common?
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One person, Kelly Telfer, renowned automobile and motorsports artist.
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And he's here to share his road to success story with you.
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Welcome to Break Fix, Kelly.
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Wow, when you say that introduction, it's like, who is that guy?
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I want to meet him.
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Let's take a trip down memory lane and walk our audience through
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your superhero origin story.
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So how did all this get started?
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So in kindergarten, I did a perspective watercolor of a western town.
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The teacher sent a big red note with big X's on it to my parents
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saying that the parents cannot do the artwork for the kids.
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If they would have seen my parents do the artwork, it would have looked
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like a kindergartner, but I did this perspective western town drawing,
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which I still have at age five.
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In second grade, I drew my two favorite cars in the world, a Porsche Speedster.
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And I focused on the left front fender with the aluminum side molding strip
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with the gold plated Speedster logo.
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Also my, at the time, favorite car was an E Type Jag.
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I love the E Type Jags, but Porsche won out.
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Let's fast forward a little bit.
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When I was 14 years old, my brother, who's a few years older than I, we
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formed a racing team in Fremont, California at a dirt oval track.
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We were started racing stock VW Bugs, 40 horsepower on dirt oval.
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You had to be 16 or you had to have permission from your parents.
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My dad said it was too dangerous.
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So I merely forged.
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Yes, I forged.
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I drew my own California driver's license at age 14 that said I was 16.
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So I could give myself permission to race cars.
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That's awesome.
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We go racing.
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And I drew a t shirt.
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If you fast forward 30 years, I had 84 employees.
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We printed motorsports t shirts 24 7.
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Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty, Le Mans,
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Indy 500, Daytona 24 hours were all my clients, amongst many others.
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And so in all the disciplines of racing, maybe six out of
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the top ten were my clients.
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It was unbelievable to travel the world and draw race cars on t shirts.
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Laguna Seca Raceway was a client for 16 years.
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Rick Mears was a client for about 15 years.
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I've got so many backstories with so many famous drivers from that era.
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It's just unbelievable.
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I had 12 incredible artists working for me in addition to my art.
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And every morning we have an art meeting, and I have one guy, Brad Skadden, that
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worked for me for eight years, and he's a great designer in his own right, he
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does helmets and t shirts to this day.
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But he can imitate me hilariously where I get out the legal yellow pad and
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I do my quick sketch for each of our projects and hand it off to an artist.
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And we start our day.
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I sold that at age 44.
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I'm kind of pretty much done.
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But what am I going to do?
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I go to Silicon Valley where I had, I lived, I was born and raised in San Jose.
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I'd never done anything with Silicon Valley.
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So I went and got a job at Siemens as a temporary PowerPoint artist.
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30 an hour, no chance of full time employment.
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Two days later, I'm hired at a huge salary, huge bonus package.
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My title was Psychology of the Web.
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What does that even mean?
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Yeah, well, so Siemens is based in Munich, Germany.
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They had 464, 000 employees at that point.
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And I asked them, I said, just like you, what does that mean?
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What's Psychology of the Web?
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And they go, well, that, Herr Telfer, is your title.
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You'll figure it out.
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So I went from a temporary PowerPoint artist, 10 years later.
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Global director of e marketing for one of their eight divisions,
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networks and communications.
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Nobody knew I was an artist.
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They knew I was extremely creative with marketing solutions, go to
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market solutions, sales solutions, and they wanted to make me a VP.
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And I said, no, thank you.
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So they paid me for a year.
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I had a meeting, a half hour meeting every week just to check in.
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I remodeled a house.
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My father calls it the house that Siemens built.
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And then I said, no, thank you.
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And so at that point I jumped off the cliff and said, you know what?
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My whole life I've done artwork.
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I'm an expert at computer graphics.
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I'm an expert at all this stuff.
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I'm going to go old school.
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I'm going to take a paintbrush and a canvas.
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And I'm going to go paint.
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I'm so passionate about art, so passionate about cars.
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It's just a dream come true.
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To be able to do work with Porsche, with Laguna Seca Raceway, the racetrack I
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went to when I was four years old for the first time, to be the official artist
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with both of these, it just blows my mind.
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It's such a dream come true.
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And I tell people, you can be an overnight success also at age 60, freaking seven.
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There's so many threads to pull here and I want to go back for a moment
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because you said something important.
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The car that inspired you was the Porsche 356 Speedster.
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You just had your 68th birthday.
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That puts you in the 1955 range so you would have been a little
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too young for the James Dean era.
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So I'm wondering where did you come across the 356 Speedster or was it just
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one of those California car culture things where they were more prevalent
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there than they were back east?
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You know, back then, Porsche sold 25 percent of their cars to California.
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So like you said, it was a Porsche world here.
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My father was a Porsche enthusiast.
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He couldn't afford one when we were younger.
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So he had a 1952 MG TD.
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My mom had a 1962 Austin Healey 3000.
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My parents had three children.
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So I have two siblings and all five of us would get in either one of
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those cars and go to Laguna Seca Raceway, go to local auto crosses.
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I remember seeing Bob Gerritsen autocross before he started road
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racing and he just blew my mind.
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I was probably 10 years old in this car.
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It was in full color.
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Everything else was in black and white.
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The way this guy drove it, the way he had engineered, designed
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it, even at 10 years old.
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I'm like, there is so much different about that guy and that car.
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I was just captured by Porsche, but I got a great story to tell you.
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I always worked a lot, so I bought and sold my first VW when I was 12.
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I bought a 56 VW, it was a ragtop, but the sunroof wore out.
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So the previous owner cut off the roof and welded on a sedan roof.
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Other than that, the car was perfect.
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I bought it for 20.
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With a dune buggy shortened VW chassis thing, and I fixed up the bug and I sold
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it for 120 to a 16 year old single mother.
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I taught her at 12 how to drive a clutch in this 1956 VW with her
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baby rolling around in the backseat.
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No seat belts, no kids seats.
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It was probably pretty illegal for me to be driving the car, but not illegal for
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her having her kid like that in that day.
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That's how it was done, and it had the roller gas pedal and all that.
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So I taught her how to drive it.
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Sold her the car made a hundred bucks.
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I was thrilled, but here's what I did.
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I would go down and help the newspaper guy fold his newspapers at four in
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the morning because I can get the classifieds and then I'd go home and
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circle all the Porsches for sale.
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And then I'd try to make my voice deeper and I'd call them pretending I was older.
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And I call him and say, you know, I'm interested in your Porsche
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Carrera Speedster for 1, 750.
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Aqua marine blue with red interior.
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So when my dad got home from work, I would badger him.
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Badger him.
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Dad, dad, dad.
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There's a Speedster.
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It's right around the corner.
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It's a Carrera Speedster.
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It's 1, 750.
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So I'd badger him.
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So finally, He'd go test drive some of them.
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He ended up with some of those.
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Unfortunately, not that car.
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So, you know, my brother and I, when we moved up, we started racing.
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It was called super modified on dirt, but it was more like a sprint car.
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So it was actually a sprint car chassis with a little thing welded
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on to look like a super modified.
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So we flipped the car, ruined the chassis, a bent sprint car
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chassis is worth exactly nothing.
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I sold it for 200 bucks.
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I told the guy it's worth nothing, but it was better than what he had.
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And he's an hour away in Watsonville, California on the coast.
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He goes, Oh, I can't pick it up.
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I'm like, hell I'm selling this chassis for 200 bucks.
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I'll deliver it.
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So I deliver the chassis.
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Him and I are unloading it at his father's nursery where he grew
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all kinds of orchids and stuff.
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And I looked over and saw 56 speedster under two inches of peat moss dust.
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I just dropped the frame probably almost throughout his back.
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I go, who's speedster?
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He goes, my dad's, but he's never selling it.
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I go, no, no, no, no.
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You don't understand.
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That's my car.
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Where's your dad?
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So I go over and meet Charlie and I go, Hey, Charlie, how are you?
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My name's Kelly.
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And I go, that's my car.
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He goes, I'm never selling it.
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I go, I didn't ask you if you want to sell it.
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I said, that's my car.
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And he kind of looks at me and I said, I have visitation rights.
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Nice to meet you.
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Here's my phone number.
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If you ever think you're going to sell it and I'll see you soon.
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For every three to six months for six years, I stopped by Charlie's.
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Charlie, how's my car?
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Oh, by the way, I washed it.
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I waxed it.
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We can't have two inches of peat moss dust on my car.
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You could have it on yours if you want, but not mine.
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I had the combination of the gate.
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He came home once and I'm washing his speedster out there.
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He's like, what the hell are you doing?
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I said, I'm caring for my car.
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Something obviously you are not doing.
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So I was selling t shirts at a sprint car race, huge night for me, you know, when
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your business is growing fast, it eats cash, I have shitty credit, I'm broke,
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I'm growing, I'm doing Dale Earnhardt shirts, I'm doing Richard Petty, I'm
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doing all these guys, and I'm broke.
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The guy comes up and he buys a shirt and it's cash, cash is everywhere, and
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he goes, my speedster, I go, everyone get back, I shut the doors in my booth.
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I drive straight to Watsonville at 1230 at night.
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I knock on the door, I go, Hey, Charlie shook his hand and I go, sold.
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He's like, what the hell is wrong with you?
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? I heard your Speedsters for sale.
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He sells it to me in 1986 for $12,000, it had SC disc brakes,
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SC transmission, pumped up SC motors, so maybe 110 horsepower.
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And it had a 1970s restoration, so you know they didn't make all the cool
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panels that fit right and everything.
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They put flat panels on the floor and under the battery
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in the front and everything.
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The brakes were stuck.
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I didn't care.
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He said, look, all I have is 3, 000 in shitty credit.
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Can you give me 30 days to pay for it?
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We wrote up an agreement and he said yes.
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And I'm like, you know what?
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I can't wait 30 days.
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Someone else could come there.
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The cars at that point, they were worth like 20, 000 to 25, 000.
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I'm like, I just can't lose my dream car.
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So this is unbelievable.
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This is the way I've run my whole life.
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I heard of a guy in Los Gatos, California, near San Jose, a bank
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president that was into cars.
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His first name's Bill.
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His last name is Zunkle.
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So it sounds like Bill's uncle never met him.
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So I put on my suit and tie in 1986, I grabbed a bunch of my artwork that I'd
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done and I went in with the bank manager.
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I was sitting there waiting about 20 minutes before the bank opened.
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I walked straight in there and started taking down their boring, ugly artwork
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and putting my artwork on the wall.
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The manager goes, I had no idea we were changing out to motorsports.
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This is kind of nice.
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I go, yeah.
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Yep.
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Thank you.
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So when the manager comes in, Bill's uncle, he goes, What the hell's this?
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It's great, but what is it?
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She goes, I thought you proved it.
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He goes, No.
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Well, this guy just put up the art and he says he has an appointment with you.
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And he goes, I don't have any appointment with him.
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Made me wait about three hours.
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Finally, I walk in there.
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He goes, What do you want?
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I go, The art on your walls is collateral.
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I have shitty credit.
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I'm 9, 000 short.
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I need a check today to go pay off this Porsche Speedster.
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I tell him the story and he writes me a check out of the bank bank account.
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I had to pay 226 a month to get this loan based on my artwork
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on the walls of the bank.
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And that's kind of where it all started, I guess.
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So what's fun about your story is that the artistry and being coming of
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Petrelhead sort of went hand in hand.
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They came almost simultaneously.
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And as you talked about your progression through life and where you ended up,
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in that in between time from the boy racer to the adult at Siemens, did
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you go to school to become an artist?
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I never graduated from college whatsoever.
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I attended a local junior college and I attended San Jose State.
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I got a great art story from San Jose State.
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It was a worldwide acclaimed watercolorist.
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artist.
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I didn't have any of the prerequisites, but I wanted to study
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under this guy who's incredible.
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Wasn't motorsports art, but it didn't matter, his technique.
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So I challenged and got accepted into this class.
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We had to go out in downtown San Jose and do three drawings of the
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street, pencil quick drawings.
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So we do three drawings and then he asked each of us to put them all up.
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So we did put our names on the backs.
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I mean, there was seniors and graduates.
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students because this guy was so highly acclaimed.
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And so we go down the list of what do you do?
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And everyone said they're a starving artist.
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And they came to me and I said, I'm a graphic designer.
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I'm not starving.
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I'm kicking ass.
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And the guy goes, get out.
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I go, what do you mean?
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He goes, you're a whore and a prostitute to true artists.
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I said, you know, I'm not going anywhere.
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I paid.
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I'm here.
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You accepted me to class.
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Sorry.
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You can intimidate anyone else on the planet.
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You can't intimidate me.
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So then he proceeded to pick out the three best drawings on the wall.
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And he roasted all the rest saying, probably that guy, Kelly, did that one.
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Probably Kelly did this one.
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This one looks like a graphic designer.
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And the three best, naturally, of course, it's a fairy tale story.
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Two of the three best were mine.
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He turned all red, ripped him up, actually, threw him on the ground
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and stormed out of the classroom.
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So I didn't really have a great learning experience with that guy.
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It's the only time in any creative class in my life I haven't got an A.
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Plus, plus, plus.
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I think I got a C minus, which I didn't know existed.
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I've never got a C on anything.
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And so that was my introduction to professional art school.
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Let's pause here for a moment and explore a pit stop question.
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We usually ask people on this show, sexiest car of all time, things like that.
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And you already mentioned too, the 356 speedster and the E type Jag.
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And the E type Jag comes up.
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More often than not, when we talk to artists, though, we want to
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explore this in a deeper way, because you have a more critical eye.
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You're looking at the design.
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You're looking at the flow and the body line.
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Some of us just look at the car and go, man, that's gorgeous.
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And it's just a subjective thing.
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So I want your more professional opinion to say what makes.
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The Jag is so sexy.
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What makes the 356 such a beautiful car?
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And maybe other vehicles like a 250 pontoon fender Testarossa or
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something else of the period, where do you go with those designs and
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why do you appreciate them so much?
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Here's the way I think any great design goes.
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Any of the great designers follow their own passion.
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They beat to their own drum.
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You don't see in the Jag E type a copy of a car and you don't see it, you know,
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maybe a little better or something.
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You see a brilliant, almost clean sheet.
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Incredible design.
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The 356 is actually an incredible, and even amazingly so, more practical design.
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The variations it came in, you know, in 1951, Porsche won their class at
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Le Mans in number 46, the one that Gary Emery and his team restored.
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It won first in class in 1100 cc's or less.
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Now, could you imagine racing at Le Mans?
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I'd assume it's got what on a good day 32 horsepower if you're lucky to the
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rear wheels Could you imagine 24 hours sitting in that thing with 32 horsepower?
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And then if you fast forward to some of the really outrageous Carrera
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based porsches all 356 models to me that design was so flexible So
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incredible and also the way they continued the design with the 911.
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It's a succession design.
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Second to none.
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The 911 is the car that's been the longest in production in the world.
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Today's Porsche, you see the 911, albeit they're 43 inches wider now and 4,
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000 pounds more than the original 901 that Bootsy Porsche designed in 1963.
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So you ask me what's great about design.
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It's a combination of function and design.
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When you drive an E type Jag, the torque of the motor, the kind
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of clunkiness of that shifter.
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Enveloped in this gorgeous, ridiculous long body.
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It's an incredible feeling when you hop in a three 56 and the
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door clunks as you close it.
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It's not the clunk of metal hitting metal, like a 62 Cadillac convertible.
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It's the clunk of the rubber that holds the door open in
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case of breeze comes along.
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So it won't shut on your leg.
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It is the coolest feeling in the world on the cars that are original
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and ripe to shut that door.
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So to me, design is really deep in terms of both function, design, and originality,
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and it's based around passion.
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So is there a point at which you think maybe design tapered off?
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Is there an end of an era?
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Is there a particular decade that you don't like as much as others?
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And there's arguments to be made about how food and music have also influenced
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the design of vehicles and how they've perpetuated each other in some ways,
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and you have that doo wop Dolce Vita time of the fifties and sixties and
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then the disco era, and then the eighties with the analog into transition
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of digital and things like that.
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So where do you think the designs just dropped off and they stopped
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being about the passion and more about cheating the wind?
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Let me answer that in a little different way.
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My first car, when I was legal, in other words, 16 years old, I think I probably
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owned at least 30 before then that I bought and sold my first legal car.
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I paid 200 for, I bought it from a friend of the family.
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They were the second owner they'd had it since it was a year old.
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It was 1962 car.
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It was a kind of a off white and a salmon pink bottom.
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It was a 23 window VW bus sunroof deluxe.
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I paid 200 bucks for it.
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What I did is I took out all the extruded aluminum that protected
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went around the back windows.
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Really rare.
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I took all that junk off the original panels.
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I sprayed the inside of the windows with flat black paint.
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I couldn't afford curtains and that sprayed over this really
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nice, beautiful patina and original interior of the headliner and the
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fuzzy stuff around the windows.
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We put a brick on the gas pedal.
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Four or five of us are going skiing in Lake Tahoe.
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We're driving up the mountain, so this thing's floored.
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It's a 40 horse on a good day.
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Brick on the gas pedal, tied two ropes to the steering wheel, which is really flat.
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And I climbed all the way to the back, laid on the rear engine.
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cover behind the back seat and with two ropes I steered and all my friends that
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were going with me we had the sunroof open even though it was snowing and they're
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sitting up on the sunroof there was nobody in the bw bus driving down the road I
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basically totally ruined that thing drove it for four years, sold it for 800 bucks.
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I mean, I made a killing.
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It was ridiculous.
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That VW bus today sells for 200, 000.
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It's not good looking.
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It does not stop.
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It does not go, and it does not steer in any direction you want to steer.
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If you're driving down the freeway in a wind, you have the
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steering wheel halfway turned.
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If you're a rookie VW bus owner, When you go under an overpass, if you don't
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correct the steering wheel because you're steering against the wind, you will veer
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off and hit the side of the freeway.
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My point is, that's the world's worst car.
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Maybe other than a Borgward.
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I apologize if people are Borgward fanatics.
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Or a Trabant.
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I want to get one, the East German car, that little two stroke.
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I gotta have, if anyone's listening, I want one really bad.
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So anyway, that's the worst car in the world, and people love them.
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So what I'm saying is your memory fucks with you because there's no way
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in hell that could be a great car.
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But everybody remembers all the great things they did in
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them, all the fun, all the this.
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You know what they don't remember?
20:14
How many times were you on the side of the road where you just blew the
20:16
number three cylinder, you cooked it, or you put a hole in the case?
20:20
And you're calling the tow truck or your friend and you're towing
20:23
it home again or that stupid hard wire before they went to a stranded
20:28
throttle cable back at the 28 P.
20:30
I.
20:30
C.
20:31
T.
20:31
So like single little junky carburetor that Volkswagen had,
20:34
it would bend and then break.
20:36
So I had to get a link out of my snow chains on the side of the road in the
20:40
dark on a mountain road and put that link in there to have a gas pedal.
20:43
And then, of course, with the weight of the snow chain link, it's held forward.
20:47
So I'm using the key to turn it off and on and driving.
20:50
It's the worst experience on the planet.
20:52
Who wants one of those?
20:53
Everybody.
20:54
So now you go back to what's a great era in design.
20:58
People say the fifties, have you ever driven a 57 Chevy?
21:02
I mean, there are POS.
21:04
Now, a good friend of mine, Paul Newman, well, actually, the actor
21:07
was a good acquaintance of mine, but this is Paul Newman, the fabricator.
21:10
Paul Newman and Doug Draeger, they made race cars that were phenomenal.
21:13
Rick Mears raced in those single seat buggies.
21:16
Gary Knoyer raced and won at Pike's Peak in a Newman Draeger car.
21:20
Bruce Canipa finished second in his Porsche 911.
21:23
I think it was turbocharged that's in his showroom today that Neumann Drager built.
21:27
Well, Paul Neumann, he was the first guy to do this.
21:29
He took C4, 19 whatever, Corvette suspension, and he made a
21:34
whole new frame for a 57 Chevy with all Corvette suspension.
21:37
Everything stock bolted on.
21:39
The famous Highway 17 from Santa Cruz to Los Gatos or San Jose in the Bay Area.
21:44
He drove it over that road, not speeding, but at CHP, a highway
21:48
patrol pulled him over and said, your brake lights aren't working.
21:50
He goes, huh?
21:51
No, they're working.
21:52
And they tested him.
21:53
He goes, well, you never hit your brakes all the way over 17.
21:56
Well, no, I don't need to.
21:57
This car handles.
21:59
That's a great car.
22:00
But if you want to think of all the good times and all that stuff.
22:03
I don't know the inverse of that question, especially from an artist's perspective.
22:08
Is there such thing as an ugly car?
22:10
And if so, what is the ugliest car in your opinion?
22:13
Well, you know, I think I'm going to try to buy every single one
22:16
of them because it's going to do a VW bus thing in 30 years.
22:20
But whatever that Pontiac van thing with a window under the rear spoiler, the Aztec.
22:26
Oh my God.
22:27
That's the worst car on the planet.
22:29
First off, American cars were 10, 15, 20 years behind on any kind of chassis,
22:35
motor injection, carburetor, whatever.
22:37
And then you put the world's ugliest.
22:39
body on it.
22:40
There is no excuse for that.
22:41
None.
22:42
Zero.
22:43
Would it surprise you if I told you that the gentleman that designed
22:47
the Aztec is the same gentleman that designed the C7 Corvette?
22:51
You know, it wouldn't surprise me because greatness comes from many failures.
22:55
You know, the only way you can be great at anything is to fail.
22:58
There is this great, great guy from the 50s, Zig Ziglar.
23:03
Zig Ziglar had a great saying.
23:05
He said, people tell their kids, don't lie, don't lie.
23:08
And then the phone rings and someone's asking for him.
23:11
Tell him I'm not home.
23:12
It just cracks me up.
23:14
So you have to be willing to go out there.
23:16
If you think that Picasso only did incredible art that everyone likes.
23:20
There's so much garbage that he produced.
23:23
I'll tell you what, I'd love to own any one of those pieces of garbage now.
23:26
And I'm sure some real hoity toity art guy's gonna tell
23:29
me, well, there is no garbage.
23:30
I'm like, absolutely there's garbage.
23:32
I have some incredibly rare collectible books on Picasso on pieces of art
23:37
no one's ever seen, and that's why.
23:39
They're garbage.
23:40
And you know that's okay.
23:41
The guy was brilliant.
23:42
He moved through it.
23:43
He was passionate.
23:44
He created his own avenue.
23:46
I've done some horrible art.
23:48
Oh my God, it's incredibly bad.
23:50
When I first started doing art, I called it mortgage art.
23:53
Firmly believe that you wanna do artwork by knowledge, not by ignorance.
23:58
So I know a lot of different ways.
24:00
I can do photorealism.
24:01
I can do airbrush, photorealism.
24:03
I can make it look like a photo.
24:04
I can do oil painting.
24:05
I can do what?
24:06
Specialized in acrylics.
24:08
I can do watercolor.
24:09
So by choice, I'm doing what I do.
24:12
I'm selling my art so I can pay my mortgage.
24:15
And I was painting cats and dogs.
24:17
Oh my God.
24:18
And went crazy by accident.
24:20
I paint a friend's cat.
24:22
Now I got 100 people that want cat paintings.
24:24
And I'm like, I don't want to do cat paintings, I want to paint Porsches.
24:28
So I screwed around with pets and then finally one day I said, no more, no more.
24:32
So a really good friend of mine, Peter Sachs, he's been instrumental with a lot
24:36
of really fun things that we've done at the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance,
24:41
stuff we've done with Bill Warner.
24:43
But Peter Sachs has this little scruffy dog they've had for 17 years.
24:47
He did a huge favor to me.
24:49
So I did a painting of the dog and they had a little bow
24:52
in the dog with the brumos.
24:54
59 with the red and blue and they went to a Brumos function and Hurley Haywood
24:58
loved the little dog and Bob Snodgrass was still alive and he loved the dog and
25:03
so I did a painting of the dog and sent it to him and I told Peter it's my last
25:07
goddamn dog painting I'm ever doing.
25:10
So Peter knows a lot of people in the car business, and he'll
25:13
introduce me about this great automotive artist, blah, blah, blah.
25:16
And then he'll take the wife aside, or the husband, whoever's interested
25:19
in the conversation, and say, well, do you have a dog or a cat?
25:22
Kelly's an incredible dog artist.
25:24
Oh my God, he did that at the Haggerty party, the Thursday night
25:28
Haggerty party at Pebble Beach.
25:30
I was gonna strangle him.
25:31
This is awesome, because this goes in line with a lot of other crazy
25:34
stories, some of which you can read on your website, kellytelfer.
25:38
com.
25:38
But there's a couple others that stood out at me, and I
25:40
wanted to explore those as well.
25:42
The Brumos Bahama Mama, the Pink Pig Tribute, and the Telfer Ranch.
25:46
Pick one, pick them all, tell us more about them.
25:48
The coolest thing in the world is being lucky.
25:52
And people tell me I'm really lucky.
25:54
I worked really hard to be lucky to buy that Porsche Speedster and be
25:58
the steward of that car for 10 years.
26:00
That was hard work to be lucky.
26:03
So my friend Peter Sachs calls me I'm in Orlando.
26:06
I'm doing some project with McLaren and I love some of the McLaren cars.
26:10
I did a McLaren Senna painting, and we had Ericsson Senna in the background, and
26:14
there's a lot about McLaren that I love.
26:16
But, my friend called and said, I can get you 20 minutes, and this
26:19
is in the private Brumos collection prior to them opening the museum.
26:23
So I said, McLaren, I'm really sorry, it's Porsche.
26:25
Can we reschedule for tomorrow?
26:29
They agreed, I can't believe it.
26:30
So I jumped in the car and drove from Orlando down to Jacksonville.
26:34
My 20 minutes with Donald Leatherwood, I walked by every
26:37
car in this private collection.
26:39
The 20 minutes stretched into five and a half hours.
26:42
Stories are flying, bullshit is flying, we're having a blast.
26:46
Every car I walked by, every single one, like the 917K, the Hurley
26:50
Haywood car, that finished third in Can Am with Hurley driving it.
26:54
I go, Oh, man, look at that.
26:56
I'll give you 25 grand for that one because it's a little newer.
26:59
The 550 Spyder over there.
27:01
I'll give you 30 grand.
27:02
So I'm offering absolutely pennies on the dollar.
27:05
Those cars are worth millions.
27:07
The Sport O Matic 1973 911 that Porsche gifted Peter Gregg.
27:12
I go, it's a Sport O Matic.
27:13
Take a thousand cash.
27:15
So I'm offering them pennies on the dollar on every single car.
27:19
Every single car.
27:20
We get to this 1968 dead stock Bahama yellow 911 and it's gorgeous.
27:25
It's beautiful.
27:26
And I said, I'll buy that.
27:27
And I go, yeah, sure.
27:28
And every laugh.
27:30
And then we kept going.
27:31
That was it.
27:32
Three days later, it's three in the morning.
27:34
I sat bolt upright in bed and I asked my wife, I go, do you think Don was serious?
27:37
She goes, what are you talking about?
27:39
I go about selling that Bahama mama, 68, nine 11.
27:42
She goes, I don't know.
27:42
Call him.
27:43
So I got a hold of him somehow at 7 in the morning, Florida time.
27:46
So what was that around four o'clock in the morning for me that day?
27:49
And he said, no, we have no cars for sale.
27:51
We've never sold a car to a private individual.
27:54
Uh, no, but we would consider selling it to you.
27:57
They gave me a price range.
27:59
I said, so they go, well, we'll take it over to the Porsche dealership.
28:03
They sold Brumos Porsche turned into Jacksonville Porsche and the
28:06
two mechanics that had worked on it for the 37 years they owned it.
28:10
They dropped it off there.
28:11
I said, okay, let me know whatever costs comes back.
28:13
They did fluids, tires, battery, you know, whatever, 10, 000.
28:16
I go, okay.
28:17
Of the range you told me, how much is it?
28:19
And he goes, we'll go on the bottom number and I go, okay.
28:21
And I'll add 10 grand.
28:22
He goes, nah, we'll take care of that.
28:23
I go, okay, I'll wire you the money.
28:25
I'd never sat in it, drove it, looked underneath it, started it, nothing.
28:28
For me, it was a substantial amount of money.
28:31
I happened at the time, one of the properties that my wife and
28:33
I owned was right over a bank.
28:35
So I walked downstairs, wired this substantial sum, took a
28:39
picture of it, texted to him.
28:40
Two minutes later, I go, okay, I wired the money.
28:42
And the guy's like, wait, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, this never happens.
28:46
Billionaires take three weeks to wire money.
28:49
You just did it in two minutes.
28:50
I want you to know I want the car So I bought the car sight unseen.
28:54
It's an incredibly gorgeous beautiful analog 9 11 and on Fridays when I'm
28:58
in the studio I take it out and go sliding I slide my car and Peter Sachs
29:03
and his son Keenan hooked me up for that I'll be forever indebted to him
29:06
doing the goddamn last dog painting as a gift to him wasn't enough And I won
29:11
first place at works reunion in the preservation class in Florida I had
29:15
no idea they interview you and there's like a few thousand people there.
29:19
So they go, tell us about the car.
29:21
I go, I slaved on this thing for the last year.
29:23
I detailed, I did this, I did that.
29:25
And then I laughed.
29:26
I go, no, I really picked it up from Brumos yesterday.
29:30
And it's in my garage.
29:31
I'll take the cover off the car and it's right there behind me while I'm painting.
29:35
I love it.
29:36
It's incredible.
29:36
It's your muse.
29:37
And then we have a 2013 Boxster S.
29:40
with a P.
29:41
D.
29:41
K.
29:41
To me, one of the best cars on the planet.
29:43
It is gorgeous.
29:44
It's too fat, too heavy by a lot of standards.
29:47
But oh my God, it is such a blast.
29:50
It actually has a coffee holder, heated steering wheel, heated
29:53
seats, all this great stuff.
29:54
And then you jump into the 68 9 11.
29:57
I'm twin boys.
29:58
They're now 29 and I have an older daughter to their great kids.
30:01
But the kids were about 11 or 12.
30:03
And this guy next to us Rolling his hand like this, and my son
30:07
goes, dad, what's this mean?
30:08
Roll down the window, , it's analog.
30:11
My 68 9 11.
30:13
My wife goes, does it have air conditioning?
30:15
I go, absolutely.
30:17
Do you want it on full blast or halfway?
30:19
She goes, full blast goes.
30:20
It was hot.
30:21
So I opened the vent window and pointed at her.
30:23
At her.
30:23
It makes it even worse.
30:24
It's like you're in an oven.
30:25
Opening an oven door.
30:27
It's great.
30:27
You can smell a little gas and oil.
30:29
I mean that car's a car.
30:31
As they say, they don't make them like they used to.
30:33
So the pink pig was the movie prop for Porky's.
30:36
I found that because I saw a wheelbarrow on Facebook Marketplace, an old
30:41
rusty wheelbarrow with Chevrolet 350 headers bailing wired on it.
30:45
It's all rusty.
30:46
It was 30 bucks and I bought it.
30:48
It was two hours away.
30:50
But it was so cool.
30:51
So I said, look, I can't get there for a while.
30:53
I'm really busy.
30:54
Guy goes, fine.
30:55
Finally, they go, look, can you come get this?
30:57
So I drive the two hours to pick up the wheelbarrow and there is the movie
31:01
prop from Porky's, this pink pig.
31:04
It's 11 feet long and six feet tall.
31:06
I go, what the hell is that?
31:08
And he says, it's from the actual movie.
31:11
And I go, is it for sale?
31:12
He goes, yeah, he goes 8, 000.
31:13
I go, that's not for sale.
31:15
That's ridiculous.
31:16
I ended up buying it for substantially less.
31:18
My brother built a motorized cart.
31:20
I painted it like the Porsche pink pig, but number 23, for those that don't
31:24
know it, the nine 17 came back from a French firm that did the aerodynamics
31:29
and it was short and fat, one of the stories was it was four inches too wide.
31:33
They distracted the inspectors by painting it pink and putting the
31:37
cuts of pork labeled in German.
31:39
So the inspectors were so flustered they didn't notice the
31:42
car was four inches too wide.
31:44
Some people say that's true, some people say it's not.
31:46
So the most avid fan in the world is Mark Porsche, Bootsy's son.
31:50
He gets on that thing with two or three buddies, we're driving it around.
31:54
I moved it one morning and I didn't know I moved it in front
31:58
of the corporate Porsche 7 a.
32:00
m.
32:00
meeting in one of the buildings.
32:02
They all ran out of the meeting and sat on it for pictures and
32:06
totally disrupted corporate Porsche's meeting with my pink pig.
32:09
But then everybody was meeting at Laguna Seca at the pig.
32:12
I had no idea.
32:13
It was near a bridge and they go, let's meet at two o'clock at the pig.
32:16
We'll go get a beer to get lost.
32:18
We'll meet at the pig.
32:19
It became the thing for the weekend.
32:21
It's been the Porsche parade, Porsche works.
32:24
It's been a dealerships for new car openings.
32:26
It's been at Porsche digital, which is marquee.
32:29
It's kind of like a bring a trailer.
32:31
They're great group of guys.
32:33
They had it in their corporate office in Palo Alto.
32:35
So it was at Porsche corporate and I did world tour shirts.
32:39
And the last stop I put on the world tour was Stuttgart, Germany.
32:42
I believe it should go to the museum.
32:44
That's my belief.
32:45
Well, I sold the pink pig at Rensport.
32:48
I can't tell you who, but the guy's last name starts with P and ends
32:52
with E, and it rhymes with Porsche.
32:56
We're shipping it to Zell Am See in Austria, which it's
33:01
really weird coincidence.
33:02
That's where the Porsche family lives.
33:05
That is such the rightful place.
33:07
There's some exciting stories here and the art goes right along with the stories.
33:11
It's tremendous stuff.
33:12
Like you said, for every 10 failures comes a success and it's part of the road that
33:17
an artist takes to reach their zenith.
33:19
And some of the things that you put out are absolutely amazing.
33:23
And so to kind of continue this thread about style and design and what's
33:26
good and what's bad and what's ugly.
33:28
comes a discussion around your chosen medium.
33:31
You mentioned acrylics, but you also do some photo realistic stuff,
33:34
which is gaining more popularity out there on social media and whatnot.
33:37
I have sent more customers to Lynn Heiner, to Sammy, to others
33:43
than probably most other artists.
33:45
I look at it differently.
33:46
I believe that I'm here to help anyone I can and mentor.
33:50
Some artists don't want it.
33:51
They don't need it.
33:51
That's fine.
33:52
If someone goes, you know, I want drippy paint on my painting.
33:56
I go talk to Lynn Heiner.
33:57
She does a palette knife.
33:58
She does this drippy thing.
33:59
It's outrageously cool.
34:01
And they're like, well, no, I wanted you, I want your work.
34:04
I go, you want my work, you buy what I do.
34:06
You want drippy.
34:08
Pallet paint.
34:09
You go to Lynn Heiner, you want beautiful realism in these
34:12
outrageous greens and cool colors.
34:14
You go to Samantha.
34:16
And the more I push people away, the more they wanna come back.
34:19
You know, can you do it like this?
34:21
No, no, I'm never doing a painting for you.
34:23
Get out of my boot.
34:24
And then I walk 'em over to Lynn's boot.
34:26
If people don't like what I do.
34:28
Awesome.
34:29
Some people go, you know, a fourth grader could have done that.
34:31
And I go, thank you for the compliment because you know how many people
34:35
have left creativity behind by the time they're in fourth grade.
34:39
When you choose your subjects, especially Porsches, which have
34:42
some very well known liveries, you know, you mentioned Bob Gerritsen.
34:46
We can talk about the Apple 935.
34:48
You've got Brumos.
34:49
You've got Martini.
34:50
You've got the Rothmans cars.
34:52
What do you pick and why?
34:53
What really draws you in?
34:55
And like, for instance, when we had Samantha Zimmerman on, who's a friend
34:58
of yours, she really likes the Valiant livery, that seafoam green, like Bianchi
35:03
has with the purple and the orange.
35:05
And she's into that.
35:06
She does low and brow stuff.
35:07
And she says that certain liveries draw her in.
35:09
So for you, what is it that pulls you into the canvas and gets
35:13
you excited to start painting?
35:15
Michael Allen Ross is a world renowned photographer and a Porsche
35:20
photographer, and the guy's brilliant, hilarious, and what really pisses me
35:24
off is he can play guitar and sing really well, which I can't do either.
35:28
That's not right.
35:29
You can't be a brilliant photographer and then also a brilliant musician.
35:34
What Michael Allen Ross said is...
35:37
Choose your view, your angle carefully, because there's so
35:42
many standard views of cars.
35:45
And it gets more and more difficult as you go into historical because you've
35:48
got to create your own view, because one thing's been done so many times.
35:51
Really, for me, it's creating a story.
35:54
So, this side of me, this original painting, by the way, on this
35:58
side, is being shipped as part of the Porsche Private Collection.
36:02
At Zell am See in Austria, but I'm telling a story.
36:05
You can see the cars at Gmund, the wood buck.
36:08
And you see the first Porsche made, Porsche recognizes was the mid engine car.
36:13
And then you see it go down historically.
36:15
So I like telling a story.
36:17
Over my other shoulder here, this was to launch the 2024 Cayenne.
36:22
And along with the Paris Dakar, we got Yosemite in the background
36:25
with the waterfalls and all that.
36:27
I'm not even painting the tires on the car.
36:28
I'm just painting the dust and the dirt.
36:30
Even though I can do photorealism, I choose not to.
36:33
My daughter's a professional photographer.
36:34
Have her go take a beautiful picture of your car.
36:37
My opinion, and I'm not dissing people that do photorealism,
36:40
it's popular, it's awesome.
36:41
Everyone asks me when somehow I manage to do a reflection that
36:45
looks to them photorealism.
36:47
They go, how'd you do it?
36:47
I go, it's really easy.
36:49
You buy a can of photorealism paint and you just pour it on and it creates it.
36:54
It's done.
36:54
They're like.
36:57
It reminds me when I was in the T shirt business, all these guys like
37:01
Steve Kinzer, sprint car driver, Brent Kading, Mario Andretti, they're all
37:04
clients and so they go, you know, your shirts, they sold out so well, and
37:08
they're pissed because they're sold out.
37:10
They go, I need more and I need them right away.
37:12
So I created TAPE.
37:13
And on the tape it said shipped yesterday.
37:16
It was a repeated thing.
37:17
Step and repeat.
37:18
So my custom tape said ship yesterday.
37:20
People call me up.
37:21
How did you ship yesterday when I didn't order it until today?
37:26
Well, let's dive into the photorealism just a little bit
37:28
more because Again, to your point, it's become really, really popular.
37:33
And somebody asked me one time, because hung artwork, professionally done, usually
37:38
a one of one, maybe a few limited copies.
37:41
It's not cheap.
37:42
And somebody goes, if I want something that looks like a photograph,
37:45
why wouldn't I just get a poster?
37:46
If you're having that conversation with somebody that's sort of on the
37:49
edge of spending the money and buying a piece of art, how would you convince
37:52
them to say, No, you need an acrylic.
37:54
You need an oil.
37:55
You need a photorealistic done by a professional up on your wall.
37:59
I built this rat rod Volkswagen with a 32 Ford front axle,
38:04
painted all the suspension red, 2.
38:06
2 liter VW motor with 48 Webers.
38:09
It never really ran right.
38:11
It did not matter.
38:12
It was the worst handling car on the planet.
38:13
If you're going to hit a manhole cover, or thick paint on the road, you better start
38:17
thinking where you're gonna slide, which way, because the car's out of control.
38:21
My point is, I'd go to a car show next to a three or four hundred
38:24
thousand dollar, either a Porsche or a street rod, and it says, unless
38:27
you're naked, don't touch my car.
38:29
Me, I open the doors, I ask kids with ice cream, with chocolate all over,
38:34
and I go, could you draw on my hood?
38:36
And they're drawn with ice cream, and their parents run over, terrified,
38:40
and I'm like, Get your kid off my car.
38:42
What do they do?
38:42
I don't know.
38:43
Just kidding.
38:43
I invited him to paint on my car and sit in my car and honk the horn.
38:47
Samantha just did a thing about etiquette at an art show.
38:50
Samantha Zimmerman is one of the most talented artists, a very dear friend.
38:54
Her work is incredible, impeccable.
38:56
I always tease her.
38:57
She needs to get a little looser, have a little more fun.
39:00
I saw one of her pieces that I thought was a new piece at Rendsport
39:04
and it was an old piece and I Wow.
39:06
Do more like that.
39:08
She just did a Facebook post saying Don't touch the art.
39:11
Have some consideration for the art.
39:13
I'm a freaking opposite.
39:15
You come in my booth.
39:16
I'm like, here's the original here.
39:17
Let me show you the texture.
39:19
Why?
39:19
And how I got that.
39:20
And I got kids, people, adults touching the art.
39:23
People walk by and they don't recognize me as the artist.
39:25
And they're like, don't touch that art.
39:27
I know it's mine.
39:27
They can touch it all they want to me.
39:29
It's tactile.
39:30
It's cool.
39:31
Which is cool.
39:32
That's what's great about art.
39:33
Different thoughts, different opinions.
39:35
Realistic art's one thing.
39:37
Computer art, like we all did in Photoshop in the 80s.
39:40
I was the first guy to do a computer rendering for Chevrolet
39:43
that they used on some national advertising and in national ads.
39:46
It was in Photoshop.
39:47
It was really cool back then because it was Photoshop 2.
39:51
5.
39:51
Who knows where we are now?
39:52
Probably version 30.
39:54
So when you did a blur tool on an 80 megabyte file, I could read
39:58
a whole chapter on the book on Photoshop to blur the damn thing.
40:02
I've got a huge ViewSonic monitor, you know, these big old huge
40:06
things you can barely carry.
40:07
And then if you didn't like it, you hit control Z and undo, the
40:10
undo would take another 20 minutes.
40:12
So I've done photorealism on computers, I've painted photorealism,
40:16
and I also have done AI artwork.
40:18
And the real burning question is, where's AI?
40:21
Artificial intelligence?
40:23
End up in this world.
40:24
So there are some people that pass off AI, not as AI, but as artists rendered work.
40:29
I did a couple of AI pieces for the Laguna Seca IndyCar event.
40:33
I did three of them and I'm really good at it.
40:35
So I did three, but I did a little different marketing on the back.
40:39
I labeled it and said, look, this is AI.
40:41
I hand drew, I scanned it.
40:43
I did this and that, but I also.
40:45
Threw it at the AI world and then erased the stuff they screwed up.
40:49
So the real question is, what is art?
40:51
There's so many different levels.
40:53
It's kind of arrogant for me to sit here and say, you know, because I use
40:56
a paintbrush and I paint on a canvas.
40:59
That's art.
41:00
Andy Warhol peed on copper plates, and the reaction of his urine in the
41:05
chemicals on the copper created art.
41:08
I'll tell you what, that sounds like a lot more fun to me, walk
41:10
around peeing to create art.
41:12
So, if you can pee to create art, and Andy sold that for millions...
41:16
Who am I to say that anyone can't do whatever the hell they want?
41:20
That's very true.
41:20
And I mean, you had those near schizophrenic episodes with
41:23
Jackson Pollock in a closed room throwing paint at walls, right?
41:27
So everybody's got their style.
41:30
He's a freaking genius.
41:32
They say, oh my god, are you kidding me?
41:35
I think it's smaller minded of people to say, this type of art's better
41:40
than that, you shouldn't do that.
41:42
I think it should call it what it is.
41:44
You know, I don't believe really in lying anywhere, anytime, so you don't
41:47
lie, you just say, yeah, I told AI what to create for me, I'm the Wizard
41:50
of Oz, I'm the little man behind the curtain, and sell the hell out of it.
41:54
Go buy a Carrera Speedster.
41:56
If you're out there and you want to be an artist, or you want to be a
41:58
race car driver, or anything, jump into it with everything you have.
42:02
Make it happen.
42:03
Don't take advantage of people.
42:04
Don't take the shortcuts.
42:06
You put in way more work than you think.
42:08
It's perseverance.
42:10
So that's how it works.
42:11
So what else do you have going on?
42:13
What else is coming for 2024?
42:15
What other secret projects do you want to tell us about?
42:18
I'm doing a big thing on a cruise.
42:20
You want to talk about what's upcoming?
42:21
Trefinit C is PCA Porsche club, along with princess cruise lines.
42:26
I've never been on a cruise, but I'm the official artist for the cruise.
42:30
Oh my God.
42:31
So I'm doing paintings, original things, pop ups.
42:34
If I can't sell drunk Porsche owners that I have.
42:38
Seven days in a row to hammer them.
42:41
I'm in the wrong damn business.
42:43
I should be selling pots and pans door to door.
42:46
We're going to crush it and have a blast.
42:49
I'm doing a thing with the National Automobile Museum in Reno.
42:52
That's kind of the former Harrah's.
42:54
Phil that runs that thing came into my booth at Ironstone, which is a
42:58
really cool concourse, exactly 14.
43:00
2 minutes from my house via Porsche, about 20 minutes via my truck.
43:05
So this guy came in my booth and he's really revamping incredibly that museum
43:10
so supposedly they're going to announce me as the new official artist supposedly
43:15
they're going to do an exhibit on me there's no supposedly i'm doing all this
43:18
and i'm doing art for the walls and art for this and that so i'm thrilled to be
43:22
doing another museum and then i went to this thing and did a paint party class
43:26
it's called castle air museum in a little san joaquin valley town in california
43:31
called at water They have 89 airplanes.
43:34
They're spectacular.
43:35
So I am now going to be their official artist that duplicates nose art
43:40
from the World War II airplanes.
43:42
I'm going to duplicate, I think it's a Raptor F 22.
43:46
There's only four that are not in the military, and I'm going to reduplicate
43:49
the way the tail was painted.
43:51
They had to strip it all off because the paint on the plane was top secret.
43:54
They said it has a radar image of a sparrow bird, this jet fighter.
43:58
And so I get to paint on these planes.
44:00
So that has nothing to do with cars, but everything to do with how cool is that?
44:04
By now, you know me a little better.
44:05
I got to see where they're rebuilding all the airplanes and doing all this.
44:08
I'm like, that's a gun turret from a B 17 bomber.
44:12
Can I have that?
44:13
You have to have one of those, right?
44:15
Yeah, of course.
44:16
I would actually buy a VW bus and put that on it.
44:19
I would put that gun turret on it.
44:21
I might be looking for a VW bus.
44:23
They gave me this wooden propeller.
44:25
It's 12 feet long.
44:26
It's hanging out of my truck.
44:28
I sent it off to some propeller expert.
44:30
There's a chance it's from a Zeppelin.
44:32
How many people have a Zeppelin propeller?
44:35
Is that cool?
44:36
Very.
44:37
I don't know.
44:37
Not much is going on.
44:38
What about you?
44:39
Just another Friday . So for our audience who's been along for this ride
44:45
and wants to know more about getting some of your art at the Peterson Museum
44:49
in la, I'm their top selling artist.
44:51
I have been for five years and I'm proud of that.
44:53
You know, I'm a nice guy and I help other artists.
44:55
I'm competitive as hell.
44:57
I want to kick everyone's ass, but call Samantha Zimmerman.
45:01
Go call Lynn Heiner.
45:02
You know, you don't want my art.
45:04
Go to some real artists.
45:05
Not this.
45:06
Look at this stuff behind me.
45:07
Do you do commissions that aren't cats and dogs?
45:10
Like how do you go about getting Kelly Telfer art?
45:13
I do have a website.
45:14
I do commissions.
45:15
I'm obviously like this one here.
45:17
We do the Porsche dealership, their new car introductions.
45:20
Sometimes I paint live.
45:22
Last year, I auctioned off three paintings with a lot of help.
45:25
Bill Warner that founded Amelia Island, Peter Sacks, Mario Andretti,
45:30
Bootsy Porsche's son, Mark Porsche.
45:32
I sold three paintings.
45:34
The total of those Street paintings and some other stuff.
45:37
I sold over 300, 000 last year to charity.
45:40
And to me, if you're earning it, you better be given it back.
45:44
I don't just say it.
45:46
I do it.
45:46
However, Eric, I'm going to bill him for the brushes.
45:49
I think 90 bucks or so, you know.
45:51
Fair is fair.
45:52
So I challenge all you artists out there that are successful, start giving
45:56
back to those that aren't as lucky or fortunate or haven't fell into
46:01
it or worked as hard as we all have.
46:02
Get back, help people out.
46:04
I do free paint classes, sometimes for disadvantaged people, for people that
46:09
haven't had this experience or whatever, sometimes for very wealthy people.
46:13
I say it's from age 4 to 94 years old.
46:17
If somebody is doing a charity auction, and they need some art prints, you call
46:21
me and I'll pass you off to my business manager because she actually ships
46:25
and delivers all the stuff I promise.
46:28
If I promise it, good luck.
46:30
Call Michaela.
46:31
I will donate art to your event.
46:33
If it's a bona fide charity event, I will donate art every time.
46:37
We've reached that part of the episode where I like to ask any shout outs,
46:41
promotions, or anything else you'd like to share that we haven't covered thus far.
46:45
I am so fortunate to work in this industry with so many incredible people.
46:49
Porsche Club of America, Vu, Ron Gordon, Tom Pervasi, his wife, Sandy, everybody
46:55
there has been so incredible to me.
46:58
It has been such a dream come true working with Seca Raceway.
47:03
I cannot tell you how much it means to me as a four year old
47:06
kid to go to that racetrack.
47:08
A few short 50 years later, I'm the official artist for the racetrack, and
47:13
I'm able to give back and help and support them in addition to a dream come true.
47:18
So, you know, what's the most important thing to me?
47:20
Giving back.
47:21
There's two things that count, passion and compassion.
47:24
Reach into your heart and give out to others, especially this
47:27
upcoming season where it's so difficult for so many people.
47:30
I'm lucky I'm able to do this.
47:32
I only work at it part time though, Eric.
47:34
I only work 18 hours a day, 7 days a week.
47:38
The other part, you're sleeping.
47:39
Yeah.
47:39
I tried to, but it doesn't work.
47:41
I started this morning at one o'clock and in California right now, 1 a.
47:45
m.
47:45
And it's 6 13 PM and I'm going to go out and still work on the
47:49
painting I'm doing for the cruise.
47:51
Passion, speed, and color.
47:54
That's the founding principles behind Kelly Telfer's art.
47:57
To learn more about how you can acquire a piece of Kelly's
48:00
work, look no further than www.
48:03
kellytelfer.
48:04
com or follow him on social media at Telfer Design Inc on Facebook and on
48:08
Instagram or at Kelly Telfer on LinkedIn.
48:12
With that Kelly, I can't thank you enough for coming on break fix.
48:15
And I have to say you are just like your art larger than life.
48:19
So many stories you could spend countless hours just staring
48:23
at one of your paintings.
48:24
And I feel you coming through every piece and if our audience didn't get it
48:29
from this episode, they definitely will.
48:31
So thank you and continue doing what you're doing and spreading the vehicle
48:35
and motor sports enthusiasm to the world.
48:37
I can't thank you enough, Eric.
48:39
I appreciate all the work and effort you do to support this incredible industry.
48:43
However, I'm going to invite you to California and come out on a Friday and
48:46
let's go sliding in that old 68 911.
48:49
That sounds like a plan.
48:50
Thank you.
48:56
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