Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / From Space to Speed - Max Kaiserman & Luna Replicas

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From Space to Speed - Max Kaiserman & Luna Replicas · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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Break Fix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all
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over the autos sphere, 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 Petrolhead 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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Welcome back to another episode of Break Fix Podcast, where we connect
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the past, present, and future of automotive and Motorsport culture.
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In this episode, we're reaching for the stars.
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Literally as we sit down with the owner and director of operations at
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Luna Replicas, a brand that blends the spirit of adventure with the
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precision of history known for their meticulously recreated NASA era, flight
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jackets, watches, and accessories.
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Luna Replicas celebrates the heroes of the space age through authentic wearable art.
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But this isn't just about fashion.
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It's about legacy.
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We're joined by Max Kaiserman to explore how his team channels their passion
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for aerospace and motorsports into every stitch, and how the automotive
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communities have embraced these designs for their shared love of engineering
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excellence and bold storytelling.
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So buckle up for a conversation that's going to be.
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Proud of this world and joining us tonight is returning co-host Don
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Webert from Garage Style Magazine, one of the many personalities
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on the Motoring Podcast Network.
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So welcome back, Don.
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Hola.
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Thank you for having me again, Eric.
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And with that, let's welcome Maxed Break Fix Max.
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Good to meet you gentlemen, Don, Eric, it's so nice.
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To be aboard your spaceship here today.
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It's a pleasure to talk to you about how space history and sort of the golden
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era, the 1960s and seventies of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, as well as Ford,
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Shelby, and several of the other teams.
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You know, there, there's a huge Venn diagram where they intersect, uh, and
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that's where lunar replicas comes in.
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Very cool.
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So were you always into space flight and travel and astronomy, things like that?
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Did that fuel you as a kid or were you more into motorsport
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or was it about equal?
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It's about equal.
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You know, I grew up with Apollo 13 from the earth to the moon, and equally movies
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like Lamont and I, I was actually, I was a big fan of military vehicles, so my grand.
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Father was a tanker in World War ii.
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He was in the seven 41st Tank Battalion, which is one of the units that
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actually drove tanks onto Omaha Beach.
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He was a D-Day veteran.
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I never got to meet him and he didn't talk about it much with his daughters
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who were my mother and my aunt.
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So in searching his history, I learned a lot about these special
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duplex drive tanks, and I said, wow, this is really interesting.
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And the vehicles and the equipment that was required to maintain, uh, an
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armored company, Jeeps, all the way up to, you know, 10 ton wreckers and stuff.
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I got really interested in that and I actually, when I was 16, I went
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out and bought a World War II Jeep.
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It was my first car, it was World War II Jeep, and I threw a manual
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and through military veterans I learned how to work on it.
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And I also, I went to a dorky science camp as a kid, so I, I
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got way involved in engineering and astronomy and even ham radio.
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I had a ham radio license when I was.
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10 years old, but we also had a minibike shop where, you know,
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we would take apart the minibikes and fix them and stuff like that.
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So I rode a motorcycle.
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As a kid, I was always doing something hands-on, and that
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very quickly led to automobiles.
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My first car was the Jeep.
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My second car was a 1955 Chevy Bel Air, which I still have.
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I have, I have both of them.
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And now several more and possibly another in a few weeks, but my wife
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will kill me if she hears that.
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Well, we'll talk about one of the other vehicles in your collection here in a
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little bit, but let's talk about the origin story behind Luna Replicas.
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So let's talk about the who, what, when, and where of the
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company and how you got involved.
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I was involved since the beginning, but a friend of mine, Jonathan Mayer, who is
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actually current Canadian military police officer actually, so shout out to Jonathan
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and the, uh, our friends up north there.
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I say that I get free pancakes and syrup.
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Actually, that's the plug.
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No.
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So he was interested and we were both interested at the same
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time of recreating the look.
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Of the iconic flight jackets and look of those astronauts from the sixties.
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Where I came in was, uh, you know, I had done World War II reenacting.
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I had worked with museums before as an interpreter and knew that, you know,
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you can get an A two flight jacket, you can get a tanker jacket, you can,
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you know, bomber jackets and stuff for available, and that it's this iconic
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design that has never stopped being made.
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Some of the same companies are even still making those jackets, you know, alpha
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Industries or Eastman leather or whatever.
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They've been around forever.
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And uh, we both said, how come we can't do that with Apollo stuff?
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How cool would that be if I could have that NASA blue flight jacket or the
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gold flight jacket, which is later?
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I reached out to collectors that owned them and I found out very
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quickly that getting an original one is tens of thousands of dollars.
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And then I reached out to some of these companies that were
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making reproduction World War II uniforms, and they were doing it.
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You know, stitch Perfect, like museum quality, world War II uniforms that
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had to be these reenactors and museums and movies and things that were
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using them and needed to be perfect.
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They said, why don't we do the same Fidelity with the Apollo program
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with Mercury and Gemini over the course of about a year and a half?
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And for one reason or another, Jonathan had to bow out.
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You know, he had some military service and stuff he had to do, and I took over
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the whole company through the generous donation of, you know, lending from these
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collectors of original pieces and stuff.
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We picked up at auction over about that year or two, and my manufacturing
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partner in California who does World War II stuff, we recreated this brand.
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And it's been incredibly rewarding.
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It's one of the most amazing things I've been involved with.
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And through that, we were involved with original Apollo astronauts.
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One of them was a partner in the company for a little bit until
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fortunately, he passed away during COVID that was Al Warden.
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Through him and his family, his grandson and I basically
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inherited his Corvette that he was given during the Apollo program.
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One, one of only three original custom Corvettes that are
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left from the Apollo program.
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Those are the Astro Vets, right?
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Yeah, the Astro Vet. Yeah.
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We are calling it Astro Vet Endeavor, which was AL'S command module.
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He was the command module pilot on Apollo 15, one of 24 guys to go to the moon.
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His other car was the Corvette, so that's a main project.
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And then through just that same time period in high fidelity costumes and
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uniforms and stuff, we got involved in the movie Ford versus Ferrari.
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Monty Ham was a huge part of that.
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He had done the uniforms for.
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Tony Branda a number of years ago and then had original pieces, and so
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there is this pedigree and line of connection between World War II and
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aviation history through NASA and the Blue Angels and stuff like that.
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And then to.
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Bowler shirt and uniform, which was the original manufacturer of uniforms
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for Shelby, who actually then became the uniform supplier to NASA after
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the previous company ducked out.
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I mean, like I said, this Venn diagram has a massive overlap and
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coincidentally, so do my interests and so do a lot of interests of
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motorsports and NASA enthusiast it.
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It really is In the same vein.
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Let's talk a little bit more about crossing the threshold from space.
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Into Motorsport, especially getting the call from Shelby American.
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What was that like?
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The call came from Fox at the time, it was Lamont 66 was the,
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was the film 20th Century Fox.
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That project had been in production hell for like 10 or 20 years.
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Originally, I think Tom Cruise was attached to it, like it went
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through a bunch of iterations when then it finally landed where it.
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Did.
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Which by the way, I think it's a phenomenal movie if you're
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not a motor sports fan or if you are, it's still exciting.
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The only people that don't like that movie are the ones that know
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the history, like inside and out.
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'cause you're, oh, well they didn't show 65 Lamont properly.
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There's some historical inaccuracies.
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But what they do get right.
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Is the excitement and the can-do attitude of that team.
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You know, Shelby was an old school, hot Rodder.
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Phil Remington was an old school, hot Rodder.
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I mean, these guys were making engines out of, you know, thirties
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old mobiles and stuff really sing.
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And that's what they did with the Cobra.
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I mean, they took a 1950s British car with, as Shelby says, with buggy springs.
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And they made that start winning the, the Daytona coop started winning FIA
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and SCCA races like across the board and it was just body and engine mods with
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the 2 89 Ford Engine independent rear.
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And that like can-do attitude.
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Was something that is exactly the same in the aviation field, early aviation and
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Apollo, and you know, mercury, Gemini.
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Have you ever see a mercury spacecraft up close?
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Friendship seven, freedom seven, any of them, it's like thrown
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together with bailing wire and network cables and stuff like that.
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Like they're really handbuilt.
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It's such the same like STEM science, technology, engineering,
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and math can do attitude.
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And I really was attracted to that.
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And I find that talking with people about it and connecting the two, there's a
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really interesting person that gets into it, and that is the Hot Rodder, that's the
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science teacher, the whatever, the weekend warriors, which a lot of these guys were.
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Were you already making the Shelby apparel and reproductions before?
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For the movie or as a result of being involved with the movie?
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No, it was as a result of being involved in the movie.
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I mean, it came from the movie Monty handled most of it.
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It was really about, Monty had made them for like a club or something a few years
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before, maybe 10 years before, and he had had original pieces from bowlers.
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And bowlers is a neat story too.
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The guy was literally a professional bowler and designed a shirt, which
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we're wearing right now, which you can't see on the podcast.
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They can see it on Patreon though.
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Yeah, they designed a shirt with these gussets so that
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the arms could move freely.
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And this is in the fifties, you know, so athletic wear didn't really exist
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other than a little bit lighter collared shirt and a bow tie or something.
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So the, uh, the shirt design came out of sports and then his son, Rick
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von Henkel, met with the Shelbys and said, you know, this would
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be really neat for your pit crew.
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So how we got to it was the film reached out.
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Because Monty had done it before we spooled up, did it for the film.
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The film was so good, and I got really into it and said, you know,
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why don't we do this for the public?
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For the same reasons that the NASA stuff, you know, why doesn't anybody,
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why is this not available in a gift shop at a museum or something?
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I would love to wear this.
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Plus if you own a 66 Mustang or a Cobra Replica or a GT 40 or something like
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that, I mean, this is the ubiquitous look.
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That jacket or the team shirt of that entire time period.
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So about two years after the film, the film came out in 2019, COVID hit.
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We were looking for stuff to do during and after COVID and 20th Century
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Fox had been purchased by Disney.
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They basically said, you know, if you wanna make Ford versus Ferrari
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merchandise, you're on your own.
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Like, we're not endorsing that.
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So since everything that we were doing was originally licensed by Shelby and Ford
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reached out directly to Shelby and Ford.
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And over the course of about nine months, we convinced them
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to give us a license directly.
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We lobbied and then had several conversations and proposals.
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We reached out to the Von Henkel family, actually the original
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family, and got a, a letter from them that said, you can inherit.
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Our entire history.
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So the name and history we're allowed to say we are the original uniform supplier.
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They handed over some notes and patterns and things like that, so
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it really is, it's a continuation, just like a continuation cobra.
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This is a continuation of the original company that made Shelby gear, just like
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we're continuation of the flight wear company that made NASA gear in the 1960s.
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Not only is it a continuation as you described, but you're also reproducing
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these uniforms on all the other apparel, on the original machinery as well, which
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makes it super unique to anybody else that's out there, just like vintage cars,
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vintage sewing machines and embroidery machines and stuff actually work.
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A lot better and are maintainable than some modern, you know, machines.
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So what we have done is there's certain processes in these shirts and
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jackets that are not done anymore.
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They're too labor intensive, so we have restored original machines
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to bring back the original look as well as the original process.
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On the backs of our team shirts, for instance, it says
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Cobra, and it's in change.
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Stitch embroidery like that is not done by a computer.
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That's done by an operator, basically by hand.
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They're moving the deck of the embroidery machine by hand and four
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or five times around for each letter, and it's done pretty manually.
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You're manually moving this thing.
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Each shirt takes about 45 minutes to embroider, whereas a computer
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controlled one would do it a lot faster.
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So to keep that feeling real, we have restored the original machines to do it.
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Don's been awful quiet.
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'cause I think he's chopping at the bit to hear about one of the
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cars in your collection, which just happens to be the Cobra van that is
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in the Ford versus Ferrari movie.
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So you wanna talk about that a little bit?
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Yes.
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The car collection that went into Ford versus Ferrari was absolutely incredible.
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Just stepping back, the stable of cars that they got for that movie, I think
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they had something like 200 cars.
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I think his name's Billy Stabile or Stabile.
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It's like a longstanding family.
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That did movie cars for the film and they had, you know, the GT forties and the
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Ferrari's and stuff that went around the track, but they also had all the cars
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that were at the Venice, California, you know, the Shelby shop in Venice.
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And then also, you know, if they pass by a parking lot in Dearborn,
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Michigan at the Ford plant or whatever, they had all those cars too.
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Or all the cars in the parking lot at Willow Springs or
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whatever, like, you know.
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All of those were part of the movie car production of that.
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Anyway, the Cobra van for Ford versus Ferrari, the shop in Venice, you
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know, which is actually still there.
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The building is still there.
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It was really cool to try and recreate, you know that whole look driving
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up in a country, squire whatever, and parked right there was the shop
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van Shelby had a several original vans, 1966 E one 60 Econoline van.
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It's actually the super van was the one six.
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The, so Shelby had a, a racing school.
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Peter Brock was the head of the racing school.
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I think it was actually one of the first Shelby employees
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was Shelby American employees.
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And there's a great video that you can find on YouTube of them teaching racing.
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And one of those vans is in the video.
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They would hang a chalkboard on the side of the, it's like a drip
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rail on top, and they would go through every turn, you know.
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After the production was over, the van that was restored for the film went to
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auction and I bid on it and lost It.
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Went to Chicago or something?
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It was, it wound up in Chicago and a few years later, after we had started
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doing bowlers and doing the gear and stuff like that, one of the main goals
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was to get out and do more historical stuff and be at more events and things.
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Locally, I'm, I'm outside of Philadelphia, so we've got Carlisle's an hour
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away or an hour and a half away.
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You've got New Jersey Motor Sports Park at Millville is nearby.
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There's Dover.
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You know, like we're in the center of car culture on the East Coast.
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Well, wouldn't it be cool if you could get your uniform from the 65 Shelby team
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issued from the 65 Shelby Cobra van, just like it would've been in the sixties.
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And weird enough it, it's like one of these weird coincidences
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that just, I thought that thought.
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And, uh, the van came back up for sale on Facebook Marketplace.
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The guy that had bought it, I guess he had some financial trouble or something,
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medical bill came up or something.
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It wound up on this like weird vehicle.
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Literally, it was like a weird vehicle Facebook group, and a
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buddy of mine sent it to me.
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He is like, dude, you have to pull the trigger on this.
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This is ridiculous.
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I called him and long story short, a week later the van showed up and
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we, we had a truck to my house.
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It's an original condition.
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Actually.
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It only has 6,000 miles on it.
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It's a real unrestored 66 econ line that was barely used,
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delivered to California originally.
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No rust.
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It was repainted for the movie and then lettered for the film.
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In fact, there's a typo on it.
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The shop is on Princeton Drive, but it says Priceton.
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And the guy that did the lettering on the movie, he's
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like, oh, I can redo that for you.
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He is like, no, no, no, no.
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It's screen use.
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I can't change it now.
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You know?
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Oh, so it says price than drive on it.
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And Yeah, I'm, I've been getting it back on the road.
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I've driven it up to Carlisle before It's having some issues that e Conno lines
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have of, especially with the big engine, they, it's having some heating issues, but
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it should be back on the road very soon.
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And the goal is to be issued your Shelby uniform outside of the Cobra van.
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That is awesome.
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I love that.
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It's fun to drive too.
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It's like driving a bus.
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It's a cab over.
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It's a cab over van.
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Oh yeah.
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The engines between the front seats.
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It's in a doghouse between the front seats.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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Like a Dodge, A 100 and all those types like that.
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Yeah, exactly.
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We had a collection years ago that we photographed up in
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Carmel, Monterey, California.
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Weirdest experience.
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The guy was a diehard hot rodder.
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He was in his eighties running businesses.
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He was Mr. Go-getter.
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He, I loved him.
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He was fantastic.
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He passed away.
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A couple of years ago, unfortunately, I really, really like that man.
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His name was Donna Rosco, so I'm photographing.
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He has garage attached to garage, attached to garage, and every garage is just
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back filled with hot rod memorabilia.
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Cobra memorabilia, more hot rod style 'cause it's diehard hot Rodder.
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The last garage I walked into, I'll never forget 'cause it had two human
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doors and you open 'em and you walk in, well, you open 'em and bam, you
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can't walk in because there's this wall right in front of you and you
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think, what the heck is this thing?
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And I, I tried edging through.
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Once I got through, I was okay.
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I realized I'm looking at that silvery light blue and white.
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I'm like, what the hell is this?
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A huge, huge truck.
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It was the piggy backer, the original Cobra Vehicle hauler
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that hauled the GT three fifties, hauled the cobras, all this stuff.
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Why it was so close to the human door, why it wasn't further in giving
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everybody a little bit of breathing room.
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The Ferrari hauler was on the other side of it.
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The dude had both of them, and they were the original trucks.
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I'm, I'm trying to photograph this thing.
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How do you photograph these two behemoths that are shoulder
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to shoulder in this garage?
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You know, I never thought I'd call any of his garages small.
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Until I saw the Cobra and the Ferrari truck, that was one of those moments where
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you're literally pinching yourself because not only are you in the presence of one,
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but you're in the presence of the other.
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And this is long before Ford versus Ferrari came out.
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So the only people who really appreciated this were those who knew at least some
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of the history between Ford and Ferrari.
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Not at the racing level, but at the corporate level where those two big
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egos clashed and all hell broke loose.
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So there you go.
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Of course.
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Well, if walls could talk, right?
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So Eric and I met at the Ion Museum outside of Philadelphia, and boy,
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you talk about if cars could talk.
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Yeah.
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Collection is just the who's who and, and when's when of every.
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Major race of the 20th century, and it's there.
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I mean, the Fred Simeon collected this incredible pedigree of every
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single one of his pieces, and it's not like a GT 40 or a Bugatti tank.
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It is the Bugatti tank.
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It is the Allen Mann GT 40, like it's every single one is, has a story.
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I wonder when those lights go out there, you know what night at
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the museum looks like at the ion?
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Yeah.
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Dr. S what I liked about his collection too, for the most part.
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He didn't restore anything.
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No.
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It's all preserved.
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Yeah, it was all preserved.
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It was pretty much just as he found it or as it came off the racetrack
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or off the streets, whatever.
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Really, really amazing, uh, what he had put together.
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Fred unfortunately passed away a few years ago, but with Simone's
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help when this opportunity came up with Al Warden's grandson will.
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To get his original Apollo 15, 19 71 Corvette that they were given,
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all the astronauts were allowed a GM car a year for a dollar.
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And it was all through Jim Rothman's dealership in Florida.
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But, and most of the guys got Corvettes and they were off the floor.
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Apollo 12 decided to custom order their Corvettes and they were
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inseparable from their Corvettes.
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They were all best of friends, and they got these gold and black custom Corvettes,
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you know, 4 27 big block Corvettes in 69.
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The backup crew for Apollo 12 was the crew that became the
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primary crew for Apollo 15.
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So Dave Scott, Al Warden and Jim Irwin decided we're gonna get Corvettes when
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our time comes and they're gonna match too, but we don't like the gold and black.
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We're gonna get them in red, white, and blue.
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So they had red, white, and blue with red, white, and blue
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stripes across the entire car.
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In any case, long story short, one of the Apollo 12 Corvettes still exists
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and two of the Apollo 15 cars still exist and the rest of them are gone.
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So half of the three of the six are the only ones that survived and al's
20:05
the white car of the red, white and blue Apollo 15 cars had sat out in a
20:10
junkyard for probably about 20 years.
20:13
The collector that was the Apollo collector, this guy Danny Reed,
20:17
had feelers out all over the world and this one came up around 2017.
20:21
He was the first owner of the Apollo 12 Alan Bean car.
20:24
So that which is now preserved car and it's on the, the National
20:28
Registry of Historic Vehicles.
20:29
He got the Al Al warden car and didn't touch.
20:32
And coincidentally enough, when that went to a museum as on loan,
20:36
somebody rang up the museum and said, Hey, I have the blue one.
20:39
And apparently it was like 10 minutes down the road, so Danny went out and
20:43
bought the blue one, and now he found Dave Scott's car from Apollo 15.
20:47
Fast forward a few years later, Danny's getting a little bit older.
20:50
This s needs some work and it's really be nice if it went back to the family.
20:53
I was very good friends with Al and his grandson, and I
20:56
got the car from Danny Reed.
20:58
Literally had hornet's nests in it.
21:00
It had sat outside.
21:01
It had been driven, it had been modified.
21:04
The engine was original, transmission's original, but things had been
21:08
moved over the years and stuff.
21:09
The Sion collection, I approached them about it and I'm a local and I
21:12
had done some volunteering with them.
21:14
They said, yeah, wouldn't it be cool if we didn't exhibit about this?
21:16
It's gonna be the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.
21:19
All of this stuff is kind of, it'd be neat to do an exhibit about
21:22
the connection of, of Apollo and Corvette and race cars and stuff.
21:26
So it went there, unrestored, it just sat there with a display behind it,
21:30
a a projector display of some images and, and video footage and stuff.
21:34
And it was at the end of those nine months there, we did a talk
21:37
on preservation versus restoration.
21:39
Which was Fred Simeon's whole thing.
21:41
He wrote a book with Miles Colliers about preservation versus restoration.
21:46
You know, along with Harry Hurst, who is longtime historian and was a photographer
21:50
at races since the late sixties, Harry put together this panel of me Corvette
21:55
Restoration and Preservation people.
21:58
We had this amazing talk and literally during the talk,
22:01
put it out to the audience.
22:02
We did, you know, phone in votes and stuff, what should we do with the car?
22:05
Should it be preserved or restored to pristine condition?
22:08
And the overwhelming response was, preserve it.
22:11
Don't touch the paint, don't touch the carpet, don't touch the
22:15
cigarette butts in the, in the ash ashtray, 'cause that's history.
22:18
And it was, that was really Al's Carr, and he loved it.
22:21
Said he should never have sold it or given it back, I guess.
22:23
So that's what we did.
22:24
We preserved it.
22:25
The body came off the, the entire chassis was brought back
22:28
to original factory condition.
22:31
I mean, really original, even reproducing the handwriting and
22:35
inspection stamps and stuff.
22:36
This is all done at county Corvette.
22:38
In Westchester, Pennsylvania, who have been incredible along this process.
22:42
Do you know that they took a lot of pictures while they
22:44
were restoring that car?
22:45
Oh, yeah.
22:45
We've photographed and videoed the entire process, which
22:48
is also part of the mission.
22:49
It's kind of teach about this stuff, and actually you can check our YouTube
22:52
channel, which is lunar replicas.
22:54
We also have an Instagram and Facebook and stuff like that.
22:56
We'll be posting stuff there.
22:58
It's called Project Astro Endeavor, which is sort of the homage to Al Warden's
23:03
command module, which was Endeavor.
23:04
It's the English spelling, E-A-V-O-U-R.
23:07
It went back together a few weeks ago and we're actually going to be rolling
23:11
out some videos and where it's gonna be stored for the next year or two before
23:17
it goes on display at a museum someplace.
23:20
That's awesome.
23:20
Al Warden was changed by going to space.
23:23
He was a test pilot, he's a military pilot.
23:26
He became a test pilot instructor.
23:28
The Air Force lent him to England for a little bit to be at a test pilot
23:32
school there 'cause he was so good.
23:34
This guy was Captain America West Point graduate as well.
23:37
You know, going to space for them was another job.
23:39
It was important they learned the job, but it was just, it was another goal to
23:43
step over for these day personalities and, and go-getters and seeing the earth
23:48
from 250,000 miles away, everything that was there, every person you've
23:53
ever known, every living and dead human.
23:56
While the three humans were that far away, absolutely changed him.
24:00
And from the day he landed back on Earth, which actually as of this recording we're
24:06
in the anniversary, that was Apollo 15.
24:09
They landed in August of 1971.
24:12
From that day till the day he died, his mission was to educate people and
24:16
get them into science and engineering and preservation, and all of the things
24:20
that would make the world better.
24:22
I think part of the goal for the car is to continue some of that legacy
24:25
and to get people interested in automotive engineering or aerospace.
24:31
And the car is a really good vehicle for that.
24:33
You know, everybody's into cars, kids love cars, adults love cars.
24:37
It's exhilarating.
24:38
But when you open the hood, there's so much engineering going on.
24:41
There's physics, there's chemical engineering, there's even just
24:44
in carburetors and stuff, the, the amount of engineering that
24:46
goes into this, the science.
24:48
That goes into a car is fascinating.
24:50
And I think that if we can use that as a tool to teach and preserve
24:54
history and talk about Apollo, we've done al a a good service.
24:58
You were kind of just doing the whole, the people and then the
25:00
science involved, the engineering.
25:02
Just wondering if we can bring that together.
25:04
What connections have you discovered?
25:06
Between the space exploration world and the automotive motor sports community?
25:11
Well, Scott Carpenter owned a Cobra right from Shelby, so there's, there's that.
25:15
Okay.
25:16
No, these guys actually raced on the weekends and stuff.
25:18
But as far as automotive and aviation go, I mean the airplane
25:23
and the car were developed.
25:24
Kind of at the same time, you know, the Wright brothers, well they were
25:27
building bicycles and stuff like that, but the horseless carriage and
25:30
the airplane were kind of, and, and also shrinking engines and stuff down
25:35
were, were developed at the same time.
25:36
There's a ton of aerodynamic overlap with air foils.
25:40
There were rocket sleds and with downdraft and stuff on cars, and frankly, the
25:44
precursor to nasa, which was naca, NACA, which existed in the teens, you
25:49
know, pre-World War I. Their goal was to develop a more streamlined and safe
25:55
air foils, which were then used on civilian aircraft and military aircraft.
25:59
Still to this day, a lot of those aviation principles are part of racing.
26:02
Antilock breaks was developed, I believe, for the Concord, for instance.
26:06
Uh, and if not for the Concord, then certainly for some
26:09
military aircraft somewhere.
26:10
Goodyear tires, you know, made all sorts of rubber tires.
26:14
Goodyear and BF Goodrich made tires for the space shuttle program.
26:17
An airplane is a motor vehicle until it takes off.
26:20
Right.
26:20
You know, there's a lot of similarities.
26:23
And then, you know, you have the computer technologies for analysis and then more
26:28
for engine management and stuff like that.
26:30
Like those have translated to aerospace as well.
26:33
So there's a ton of overlap.
26:35
Yeah, I would imagine GPS probably found its roots in aerospace too, wouldn't it?
26:39
Absolutely.
26:40
Yeah.
26:40
I mean, so there's also, there's aerospace as it relates to international travel.
26:45
You, you just, the lecture Max Kaiser man's lecture tonight, the, uh, the,
26:50
uh, you know, accurate timekeeping was designed for crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
26:55
It got even better.
26:57
When we were flying seven oh sevens and seven 40 sevens across in transatlantic
27:02
flight, it was crucial to have accurate timekeeping before there were GPS
27:07
satellites and subsequently accurate timekeeping when you're, you know,
27:10
racing was incredibly important too.
27:12
That's why companies like.
27:13
Rolex and Omega and Seiko and stuff like that were all very involved in race timing
27:19
as much as they were involved in celestial navigation and transatlantic flight.
27:25
The GPS satellite, you know, revolutionized a lot of that.
27:28
I do think there's a lot of leap.
27:29
Fogging though, if you look at the history of aviation and motorsport as
27:33
a whole, because if you go pre-World War ii, the 1920s, there were
27:37
already land speed record attempts.
27:39
You know, the auto bonds being created in the thirties and Mercedes is, you
27:43
know, setting its records that the record walk-in and things like that.
27:46
And they're designing principles.
27:48
That would come later to aviation as the jets were being created
27:51
post-World War ii, and then again, we leapfrog post-World War ii.
27:55
Then the cars start to pick up because everybody coming back from the war
27:58
brought their information that they learned from aviation with them.
28:02
And then again, it starts to leapfrog and leapfrog and leapfrog
28:04
throughout the eighties like you're saying with electronics.
28:07
Yeah.
28:07
And obviously we're highlighting this.
28:08
Sixties when we're talking about Shelby, you know, the heyday of
28:11
Lama and their winds with the GT forties and stuff like that.
28:13
But still, I think it's very much intertwined in the greater
28:16
story that we're telling that we're talking about here.
28:18
Yeah, and and also, you know, the sixties you realize was, you know, the jet
28:21
set era, people had disposable income.
28:23
More of the world was now able to afford automobiles, which had, you
28:28
know, because of technologies and advancements in metallurgy even.
28:32
The, was it the 66 Ford Mustang was the first car to build a million a year.
28:37
I think it was 66 or 67 or something like that.
28:39
By the way, Ford that made B 20 fours during World War II
28:43
and was the first commercial airliner with the Ford Tri Motor.
28:47
I mean they, there really is a huge overlap now that
28:50
air travel was affordable.
28:51
And like rental cars became a real thing.
28:54
You know, Hertz became this international rental car company that, you know,
28:59
more people were traveling and taking road trips overseas or somewhere else
29:03
in the United States pulling on the GT three 50 H that they used to have back.
29:07
Right.
29:07
Well there's that too.
29:08
Yeah, there's Could rent a racer for the weekend.
29:10
It's unfortunately though, now you know, Hertz, they brought it back the
29:13
GTH, which is a phenomenal rental car actually, that Shelby did a great job
29:17
with Hertz on those, but they clock you.
29:19
They know if you're taking it on a track.
29:21
Yeah, I think it was something, it was like $15 and 30 cents a mile or something.
29:25
You could rent a Shelby.
29:26
But yeah, aviation.
29:27
There's a bunch of stuff I'm not thinking of right now, but there are
29:30
individuals that even had a foot in both camps that were designing better
29:35
engines for both cars and aviation needs.
29:39
Well, I mean, if you think about it, it makes sense because here
29:41
you've got motor manufacturers, car manufacturers, we need to build airplanes.
29:45
Why would we go anywhere else?
29:46
Those guys right over there.
29:48
They're already building engines.
29:49
Yep.
29:49
We just have to adapt the engine to do something else.
29:52
I mean, look at BMW.
29:53
They're rooted.
29:54
It's World War I I just saw one on display at the National Air and Space Museum.
29:58
There's a BMW engine with the same logo.
30:00
By the way, they haven't changed their logo in 120 years.
30:03
Yeah.
30:04
World War IBMW Engine off of, uh, German aircraft in World War I. I can tell you
30:09
the Porsche engines, the Boxer engines.
30:11
Is very, very similar to a continental engine that goes on a light Cessna.
30:16
That boxer engine design, air cooled, is exactly what's used in general aviation.
30:21
Moreover than that, if you step back 30,000 to a hundred thousand
30:24
feet, it's the same can-do attitude.
30:28
It's the same.
30:29
We're going to miniaturize and lighten and get every ounce out of this explosion.
30:35
Or every piece of lift or downdraft that you can get out of this body
30:40
panel, out of this control surface.
30:42
I mean, it really is apples to apples.
30:44
Aviation and racing the essence of time.
30:47
Let's circle back.
30:48
Gonna say, you know, max, the airplane guy takes this way out.
30:52
And I'm a student pilot, by the way.
30:54
Like I, I've, I really have encompassed this whole thing.
30:56
I, I drive my Porsche boxer to the airfield and hop on a Cessna 1 72.
31:02
But, uh, we were curious.
31:03
If you had any stories about customers who connected really, really deeply with
31:08
your pieces, maybe they even tied into their own personal history, you know,
31:12
they're linked to that logo or that topography, any, anything like that.
31:16
Yeah.
31:17
On a regular basis, I am blown away.
31:20
By the people I meet or work with people send me emails from both the
31:25
Shelby and Ford History and nasa.
31:28
Nasa.
31:29
I mean, I, on one hand I can tell you the number of people that have gone to
31:33
the moon that are wearing our stuff.
31:35
Almost every living Apollo astronaut and some who are not
31:39
living anymore, unfortunately, I spoke to, and our customers are,
31:43
they get a free one by the way.
31:44
So everyone who worked on the Apollo program directly, some of them are
31:48
flight directors and flight controllers that worked, you know, in Mission
31:50
control, Jerry Griffin and Gene Kranz.
31:53
I consider friends of mine who were NASA flight directors.
31:56
As a matter of fact, through that connection with them,
31:58
we designed the current.
32:00
NASA flight director uniform.
32:02
They've never had a uniform before.
32:03
They never had their own flight jacket and they didn't wanna look like astronauts.
32:06
And about a year and a half ago, Jerry Griffin introduced us to the current
32:11
chief flight director at NASA and said, we wanna have our own uniform.
32:14
So in the pedigree of Apollo, we designed the current flight director uniform.
32:19
So yeah, almost all sitting on duty flight directors at NASA are wearing
32:24
something from lunar replicas.
32:25
That's really special to me.
32:27
Yeah.
32:27
That's incredible.
32:28
The other really amazing history that I've gotten into are the families of
32:33
the veterans, Pete Conrad's son, Peter, the Bean family, Al Warden's family.
32:39
Obviously Allison and, and Will, uh, his grandson.
32:42
But I also had the honor of meeting Aaron Shelby.
32:45
Aaron was such a nice guy.
32:46
It's funny people don't realize that Carol Shelby was pretty tall.
32:49
Aaron is about as tall as I am.
32:51
I'm six foot three.
32:51
He's a big dude.
32:52
Carol Shelby was a big guy too, which is funny 'cause Matt
32:55
Damon is not particularly tall.
32:58
So they had, they must have had him up on an apple box or something
33:01
to stand next to Phil Remington.
33:02
But yeah, they, uh, the Shelby family, you know, just in the few interactions
33:06
that I've had with Aaron and Sean A. Little bit, they're really excited
33:11
to be a part of their family history and I'm excited to be a part of that.
33:14
Their attorney, the, uh, group that controls the Shelby name.
33:18
Their office has been incredibly lovely to deal with as well.
33:22
They're really excited to have something that comes from a real
33:24
place of history and heart and not just a signature for a buck on eBay.
33:28
You know, this is really a historic endeavor and you know,
33:32
I started this as a side project.
33:34
This is a total passion project for me and.
33:36
I think that shows through a lot of ways is that this is not kitschy.
33:39
It's not your discount aisle, baseball caps and t-shirts.
33:44
I mean, we're really trying to rebirth something that has a lot of history
33:47
and everyone that I've met that's purchased our stuff, especially
33:51
those that have that deep connection.
33:52
Have been amazing, you know, going into all the originality and all the original
33:56
people and this, that, and the other.
33:58
What are the challenges you've had sourcing the original materials,
34:01
replicating the design, meeting, the historical and modern quality standard?
34:05
How has that been a challenge to you?
34:07
Yeah, it's a challenge every day and you know, you have to do things in bulk.
34:11
There's a cash flow where you could normally buy some fabric off of another
34:15
roll and do a short run or whatever.
34:17
I, I have to buy a thousand yards at a time because we're making the
34:20
fabric, the general supply chain things, but also just finding the
34:24
people that can do it at this quality level and in the US is a challenge.
34:29
The sewing and garment industry in the US has almost disappeared, so we've kept a
34:35
few sewing shops alive because of this.
34:38
We haven't quite gotten to the point of having our own sewing shop, but
34:41
we're a main customer of two or three sewing shops in in Los Angeles.
34:46
Some of them are now.
34:47
Because the buildings got sold to make apartment buildings and stuff, they've
34:51
now moved the shop into people's garages, which is interesting because flight
34:55
wear, land manufacturing, and bowlers at certain points in time in the sixties
35:00
we're, we're doing them out of garages and Quonset huts next to the house.
35:05
I would love to do a podcast with the Land Family, which is the guy
35:08
that owned started Flight Wear.
35:10
The story of that guy is fascinating.
35:12
I mean, it really is this, he's just gonna bid on a military contract whether he can
35:16
do it or not, but he always delivered.
35:18
He delivered every time, you know?
35:19
He even eventually started making motorcycle helmets and racing helmets.
35:23
Actually, that's the land racing helmet, was the first polycarbonate helmet, which
35:27
was then purchased by the military and used on helicopters and fighter jets.
35:32
So they supplied the Blue Angels.
35:34
Out of this guy's garage in Wichita, Kansas.
35:37
I think they were bought by Bell Helmet in like 1972.
35:41
Yeah.
35:41
It's amazing how it's gone full circle like that.
35:43
I didn't know anything about that, but you're right, so many, so many,
35:47
so many companies, industries have literally been started in a garage.
35:52
Oh, absolutely.
35:53
And you wouldn't believe what you can do in a garage.
35:55
Well, I would, you know.
35:56
Yeah.
35:57
You go to a store, you go to a Ralph Lauren or a LL
36:00
Bean or something like that.
36:02
Those guys all started in their, in their living room.
36:04
Yeah.
36:04
Well, the Disney Corporation, I mean, people don't realize Walt Disney and
36:07
his brother, it was in that little garage and, and that garage is still
36:11
in existence, believe it or not.
36:12
There's a museum in Orange County, California of garages.
36:16
And that is where the Disney Garage is sitting.
36:19
Hewlett Packard started in the garage up in Northern Company.
36:22
Microsoft.
36:22
Microsoft.
36:23
Yeah.
36:23
Google.
36:24
All of them.
36:24
Everyone.
36:25
Amazon, they were selling books in his living room and he'd ship it at
36:29
his local post office and, and at the same token, you've got the Mercury
36:33
Project where they took intercontinental ballistic missiles and said, I think
36:36
we can put a guy on top of that.
36:38
And then you had guys with balls big enough to say, Hey, you know what?
36:41
I might sit on top of that.
36:42
Let's see what happens.
36:43
What could go wrong?
36:44
The first orbital missions were on Atlas Rockets.
36:46
John Glenn was on Atlas Rocket prior to John Glenn's launch.
36:50
I believe the Atlas self-destruct rate was 50%.
36:53
It would blow up on the pad.
36:55
Wow.
36:56
You know, in the same token, you've got guys that are racing
36:58
engines until they explode.
37:00
Yeah.
37:00
Early NASCAR was a stock car race.
37:02
They had to take production cars and trick 'em out within the confines
37:06
of that chassis and frame and body and the production engines.
37:09
So you got, you know, Strokers and Overboards and stuff like that.
37:13
Like this is hot rod, mercury and Gemini were hot rods.
37:16
Apollo started to be really.
37:17
Purpose built, but they were repurposing Air Force missiles
37:21
until the Saturn one and the Saturn five were, were purpose built.
37:24
In fact, the Saturn one rocket was just six Mercury Redstone rockets
37:28
taped together and put a capsule on top of nice Apollo was a hot rod.
37:32
So Max.
37:33
Kind of switching gears here into our last segment, let's look to the future.
37:37
Let's look to the sky a little bit.
37:38
What kind of research and collaboration goes into designing new products
37:42
at Luna, and are there any upcoming designs or collections, anything
37:46
you're particularly excited about that we should be on the lookout for?
37:48
Yeah, so it's a very complicated process of, oh my God, that's cool.
37:52
Let's make that I am customer number one, you know, and if I think it's cool or I
37:58
want it for myself, you know, as you can see, all this stuff, I'm a very eclectic.
38:02
Interest person.
38:03
I'm into cars and historic diving and stuff and there's a huge connection
38:07
between diving and space suits.
38:09
And you know, I even restored telephones at one point in time.
38:12
I love rotary phones 'cause it's just the most interesting mechanical device.
38:15
So, you know, we don't just do clothing loon, replicas, we do
38:18
flashlights, we do tether hooks.
38:20
It's basically, for me it was Apollo every day.
38:23
How can you incorporate this history into your everyday life?
38:26
It was tested to death to be working on the Apollo program
38:30
as far as, uh, racing goes.
38:31
It was tested to death to withstand 24 hour races or the pit crews
38:35
and gasoline and whatever.
38:36
Why not make that part of your every day and now you have something that's
38:39
meaningful that's part of your every day?
38:41
So we're getting into more cold weather gear, so like more jackets.
38:46
Also being issued a flight jacket is a big deal.
38:49
Same thing.
38:50
If you get the jacket, 'cause you're on the pit crew, you're on the team.
38:52
That's a huge deal.
38:54
So, you know, it's this rite of passage in a lot of ways.
38:57
So finding more of the historic flight jackets and pit crew jackets.
39:02
We're working on that right now.
39:03
We're working on the 1967 Laman jacket, the famous jacket, the Dan Gurney
39:08
and AJ Foyt wore at the end of the 67 Lamont, where Shelby finally won, even
39:13
though they should have won in 66 2.
39:14
That's a whole separate thing.
39:16
We do some connections with the Navy with historic recovery caps and stuff.
39:20
The Navy ships that picked up the Apollo capsules.
39:23
At the end of the mission, we're doing some work with the USS
39:26
Hornet, possibly with the Midway and the Intrepid, which were kind
39:29
of involved in the same time period.
39:31
There's also the U-S-S-E-O Jima and the Okinawa, which also
39:34
picked up Apollo 13 and Apollo 15.
39:37
Unfortunately, those ships no longer exist, but the the Hornet,
39:40
which picked up 11 and 12, that is still a museum in San Francisco.
39:44
We're doing some stuff with them.
39:46
The biggest thing coming out right now and the single largest piece that
39:50
we're working on is finishing the Astro Vet and showing everyone the
39:55
Astro Clone because we weren't able to fully restore the Astro Vet. And
40:00
you know, the paint is very fragile.
40:01
It's the original paint that will not be going outside, it
40:04
won't be going to as many events.
40:06
We decided, and Al would've liked us to have something that people could.
40:09
Feel and touch and sit in or even take around the block.
40:12
So we found another one.
40:14
We found a 19 71, 4 54 Corvette and restored it to what the Astro
40:19
VTE would've looked like and driven like the day it rolled off the line.
40:23
Is it gonna be the red one since that's the one that's missing?
40:25
Yeah, we're doing, it's a white one and it's actually, we found a car.
40:28
This is crazy.
40:29
This is, again, one of those, like I'm the luckiest person in the world and
40:32
it's the gift that keeps on giving.
40:33
I found.
40:34
Locally, the exact same configured car built two weeks before the Astro bet was.
40:41
It is four digits off the VIN number of Al's car, and literally it's
40:45
exactly the same configuration.
40:47
All we did was restore it and paint the stripes on it, and it's done.
40:50
So that's gonna be rolled out and that will hopefully be at events and people can
40:54
sit in it and feel it and be part of that.
40:56
As fans of the show know we spent some time in Europe this summer.
41:00
We noted that there was a lot of buzz around Shelby, and this is
41:04
to bring the conversation back to Shelby and talk about the future.
41:07
Shelby just recently celebrated its 60th anniversary established in 1962.
41:11
We're somewhere in between 60 and 65 years now.
41:15
And so again, there's all this buzz, all these.
41:17
You know, new lines of apparel.
41:19
Folks like Jean Pierre at Classic Legend Motors is coming out with a whole new line
41:22
of Shelby's stuff, which looks awesome.
41:24
We got a sneak peek.
41:24
We too got to sit down and chat with Aaron Shelby on some
41:27
of the stuff he's working on.
41:29
And so I'm wondering what's in the works for Luna and Shelby?
41:32
Is there more to do?
41:33
Do you have some other plans?
41:34
Are you gonna venture into some of Perel, Shelby's other projects like, you know.
41:38
Skunk Works, Viper and some of the other stuff that he worked on.
41:41
We're gonna do something on the Chrysler, I think is what the,
41:44
uh, you know, the 1980s Shelby?
41:46
No, no, no.
41:46
My goal is to keep going with 65 66.
41:50
67 through 69.
41:52
What we've discussed doing is more every day apparel, watches, sunglasses, maybe
41:58
even like racing shoes and racing gloves.
42:00
Shelby himself, he was a shock to the system of the gentleman racer.
42:04
He was just a chicken farmer that would then sit there and race with, you know,
42:07
lords and ladies and stuff like that.
42:09
Like he was a really interesting character, but I think he was
42:12
also, he was a gentleman himself.
42:14
It's neat to emulate that time period with stuff that you can use every day.
42:19
You know, the driving gloves that have.
42:20
A mesh back so they're more comfortable to wear.
42:24
I go to events and I wear the big black Stetson hat.
42:26
I would love to do Carol Shelby Stetson in some way.
42:30
I know other people have done it.
42:31
Stetson itself did it at one point in time.
42:33
And then just sort of the Shelby look of Hot Rod plus gentleman racer.
42:39
I think that'd be really neat.
42:40
And I'm not sure what that looks like just yet, but we're getting there.
42:43
The helmet bags and like overnight stuff.
42:45
Stuff that you can stick in your, you know, a racing trunk, was it famously?
42:49
The FIA Valise, you know, had to fit in the Cobra Trunk.
42:52
Maybe we'll do a version of a Shelby Valise.
42:54
With a wrench or what, what was it?
42:56
Uh, he had a hammer and he, he pounded the, the, you know, we'll have a,
42:59
we'll have a special, you know, break here for emergency or something.
43:03
There's a couple of fun things we're thinking about, but the
43:05
big stuff is exact reproduction.
43:07
So do you see yourself looking at some of the other teams that were, at the
43:11
same time, maybe like a Cunningham or camaraderie, are you gonna venture
43:15
into other American motor sports teams?
43:16
And even more than I, I would like to do stuff with Goodyear.
43:19
We've been looking at trying to reach out to them.
43:21
For licensing.
43:22
But Goodyear was a big sponsor of Shelby teams and Shelby himself
43:27
was a Goodyear distributor.
43:28
I mean, he had a Goodyear Tire shop, the Shelby Tire Shop, I think
43:31
it was in the valley someplace.
43:32
Goodyear and Dunlop, and you know, a lot of those less leston and
43:37
stuff, which was, you know, uniform supplier back then out of England.
43:41
Doing stuff with those, which then opens the door.
43:44
And maybe if anyone's listening here from the Porsche shop, bowler shirt
43:48
and uniforms, supplied the uniforms for the Porsche teams in 69 and 70.
43:53
And I would love to do something with Porsche design, if possible.
43:57
That would be really cool.
43:57
I have the patterns for that jacket.
43:59
Oh, there you go.
44:00
Oh, there it is.
44:01
This is a bowler's 500 jacket.
44:03
Yeah, there it is.
44:04
I know some people that would line up around the block.
44:06
For that.
44:06
They could always use some more suppliers.
44:09
You know, I miss the sunglasses from the eighties.
44:11
Those basically Serengeti knockoffs.
44:12
I think Serengeti might have actually made them with the Porsche design.
44:15
Mm-hmm.
44:16
Almost carbon look.
44:17
Those are really cool.
44:18
But anyway, moving on.
44:18
I am a relatively recent Porsche convert.
44:21
I only drive a Porsche at home.
44:23
I mean, my daily driver, I have a cayenne and a boxer, uh, s and I
44:27
may have a nine 11 in a few weeks.
44:30
Ah, that's what you didn't wanna tell your wife about,
44:33
man, the 9, 9 1, it's a great car.
44:35
It's a great daily drive it in the weather, like seriously, they're
44:38
made to drive in the Alps, you know, so snow, rain, everything.
44:43
They're phenomenal cars.
44:44
That's fun.
44:45
You've told us a little bit about your Porsche that's peeking in
44:48
through your back door there.
44:49
What's next for Max?
44:51
We're trying to be more involved with museums, trying
44:54
to do more aviation events.
44:55
I'm finishing my pilot's license.
44:57
I would like to get my racing license.
45:00
Maybe we'll take the boxer out.
45:01
By the way, for affordable track day cars, you cannot beat a
45:06
9 86 or 9 87 boxer or Cayman.
45:09
I mean for five to 10 grand.
45:11
You have this incredible platform that are meant to be work.
45:14
Dawn and stuff, they're really great cars.
45:15
I have a 9 81 s, so it's a little more expensive than a 9 86, but just being more
45:20
involved and being part of the community so that we can serve the community better.
45:25
And whether that's with historic stuff that people wanna see.
45:29
Again, you know, we learn the best from our past.
45:31
Or if it's new stuff, you know, maybe, maybe Lunar replicas becomes a company
45:36
that is front lining new types of.
45:38
Technologies, cooling shirts that help modern race car drivers.
45:42
Using some of the, the NASA technologies actually and bringing them back to
45:46
racing or even just, you know, hobby racing, SCCA and stuff like that
45:50
where you can have a cooling garment or you know, a material science.
45:54
That that works a little bit better.
45:56
Uh, flame, you know, retardants and stuff like that would be, you know, maybe
46:00
something we look into in the future.
46:01
I don't know what the legalities of that stuff is.
46:04
You know, I'm just spit balling and if nothing else, I'll, I'll show
46:06
you one thing we're working on now.
46:08
This is an original crew bumper sticker from Apollo 15.
46:12
You would get these if you were a team member of Apollo 15.
46:14
This let you on the NASA facility.
46:16
What's really neat about this is, you know, they use the wheels from the rover.
46:20
Apollo 15 was the first mission to go to the moon with a rover.
46:24
And over the next five years we are going back to the moon.
46:27
The Artemis program is going back to the moon.
46:30
Next year they'll be launching, they'll do a crude, Artemis two is going
46:34
to go around the moon and not land.
46:35
And then Artemis three is gonna land and we might see another rover on the moon.
46:40
There will be a new car.
46:41
A new rover on the moon and that'll just be really neat to see that
46:44
within my lifetime, you know, our lifetimes, another car on the moon.
46:48
Well, max, we've reached that part of the episode where I like to invite our guests
46:52
to share any shout outs, promotions, thank yous, or anything else you'd like
46:55
to mention that we haven't covered this.
46:57
Far, I've got a mountain of stuff we could talk about.
46:59
We're all the same geek.
47:00
You know, I think it's, uh, that's what makes it amazing.
47:03
You go to these events and you talk to people forever, and you
47:05
meet some really neat people.
47:07
One of the partners of Luna Replicas say, partner.
47:10
It's like we're the same geek.
47:11
You know, there's a couple of other little companies around that do.
47:14
Same fidelity reproductions of something and one of the guys
47:18
that does the same fidelity, not a little company, but global effects.
47:21
So Chris Gilman, a global effect.
47:23
They've made every spacesuit for every movie.
47:25
They even made real spacesuits for a little while from like, you
47:29
know, the eighties through today.
47:30
Chris has become a really good friend.
47:32
Uh, he specializes in machining.
47:34
Exact reproduction fittings and things like that for spacesuits.
47:38
And then the whole space suit, like he'll make it for literally every,
47:40
if you've ever seen a movie that has a spacesuit in it, whether science
47:43
fiction or real, it went through global effects 90% of the time.
47:47
He grew up on SCCA tracks.
47:50
His parents either owned a track or they, they were very heavily involved.
47:54
He grew up with Carol Shelby coming over for dinner.
47:56
Wow.
47:57
Same thing his father did, you know, machining, they had a machine shop
48:01
and they were making racing parts.
48:02
And then his mom ran the front of house for these racetracks to the
48:06
point where he even told me at one point that his mother invented the
48:10
paper wrist bracelet for track days.
48:12
Oh wow.
48:13
He's an Abarth guy though, so I'm, I, I joke with him.
48:16
I've got a boxer and he's got something tiny and he's bigger than me and I don't
48:20
know how he fits in that damn thing.
48:21
And then he invented, have you ever seen the uh, the Darwin fish.
48:25
That's on the back of people's cars stuff.
48:27
Yeah.
48:27
He invented the Darwin Fish, you know, back in like 91 or something.
48:30
They were working on a movie and he said he had been drawing them on this,
48:33
uh, film set as a joke and someone said, man, you should really make that.
48:36
So he is one of the inventors of the Darwin Fish.
48:38
Very cool.
48:39
The artist that you had out at Simone doing that
48:42
pointillism, Samantha Zimmerman.
48:44
Yeah, I, I talked with her for an hour.
48:45
I mean, that was absolutely incredible, the people we meet doing this stuff.
48:48
So, another thing that I'm really proud of is Cool Cars for
48:52
Kids, which is a nonprofit with.
48:54
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
48:56
We do a fundraiser every year for kids with rare genetic disorders.
49:00
Um, we connect into the automotive world with these doctors that
49:04
are doing breakthrough stuff that absolutely makes a difference, and
49:08
it's stuff that you've never heard of.
49:09
It's really one of one cases.
49:11
But in the several years it's been around, we've raised money to help have
49:15
comfortable places for families to go.
49:17
Some research and you know, attracting doctors and biologists and stuff like
49:22
that to come and research these genetic differences that some kids are born with.
49:27
So.
49:27
Cool Cars for Kids.
49:29
The next fundraiser should be next year, and it should be really neat.
49:31
It's a, we actually, the Concourse to Elegance.
49:34
The Philadelphia Concourse is the fundraiser for, you know, so
49:37
does a real concourse that is a fundraiser for cool cars for kids.
49:41
So my me, my message to everybody is check out luna replicas.com
49:45
bowler shirt and uniform.
49:47
Uh, we're actually doing some stuff with World War II now with the aviation
49:50
crowd in World War II with watches and sunglasses and some other, you
49:53
know, leather jackets and stuff.
49:55
Really the goal is for you to put our stuff on and then have your own adventure.
49:59
Go out and do it.
50:00
This is a goal for anybody listening.
50:03
Anybody out there.
50:04
Make it part of your everyday life.
50:05
Learn from history and then do it yourself.
50:08
Make it better.
50:08
Leave something better for your kids and for ourselves.
50:11
Specializing in vintage era spacing and racing gear that make history come
50:17
alive from their authentic vintage space and motorsports collection, there's
50:21
something for everyone over at www.
50:25
Lunar replicas.com.
50:27
If today's episode sparked your curiosity, be sure to check out Lunar replicas
50:31
online and follow their journey on social media at Lunar replicas on Instagram
50:36
and at lunar replicas LC on Facebook as they continue to honor the pioneers
50:42
of aerospace and Motorsport history.
50:44
And with that, max, I can't thank you enough for coming on Break Fix
50:47
and sharing your story with us.
50:49
You said during the episode that this started as a passion project and
50:52
it's obviously become more than that.
50:54
It's a true passion and it shows when you talk about lunar replicas
50:57
and you talk about everything you're working on, we appreciate everything
51:00
you're doing for both communities, the world of aviation and of motorsports,
51:04
and we really can't wait to see what you guys come up with next.
51:06
So thank you so much.
51:07
It's been such a pleasure to meet you guys.
51:09
Eric and Don, thanks for coming aboard.
51:11
Thanks for having me aboard.
51:16
We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of Break Fix Podcasts, brought
51:21
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