Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Human in the Machine: Jeff Willis on Cars, Culture, and Connection

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Human in the Machine: Jeff Willis on Cars, Culture, and Connection · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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BrakeFix 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, how did
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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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Our guest tonight is a car guy, motorcycle enthusiast, martial
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artist, photographer, and writer.
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Jeff Willis was born and raised in Eureka, California.
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And in his new book, Human in the Machine, he explores the relationship between
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cars and the people who love them.
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And he's here to give us a peek, not only into his life, but the stories he captured
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in his new book and much, much more.
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So with that, let's welcome Jeff to BreakFix.
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Well, thank you very much for having me here.
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I appreciate you having me on and I want to say congratulations
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on so many episodes.
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You have a lot of episodes.
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Well, thank you very much.
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Yeah.
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Everyone has a superhero origin story.
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So tell us about how you became a petrolhead.
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The who, what, where, and why, what influenced you?
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Did you come from a car family?
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Did it start as a kid or did you come at it later in life?
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It started for me when I was a kid.
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Seeing the joy in my dad's eyes and the value that cars and motorcycles brought
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him, my dad really kind of imparted his enjoyment of cars and motorcycles and
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the memories that they brought him to me.
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Very first car or truck that I can remember that did that was a 1950
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GMC truck that he bought as a project and then later on after he worked
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on that for a while sold that.
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And he bought a 1951 Chevy and the funny story about that is the guy that he
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bought it from gave him the explanation as to why all of the glass in the
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truck had been busted and broken out.
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Apparently the wife of the man found something out about him and somebody else
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and something or other took a baseball bat to all of the glass except the two most
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valuable pieces of glass, those corner pieces of glass on the five windows.
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She left those alone, so, somehow, those survived.
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Later on, he bought a MG Midget and would pick up my sister and I from
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the babysitter after he got off work.
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And that was really, honestly, riding in a sports car, like a race car for us,
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because we were little, we got to sit in the little car really close to the ground.
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And it was just a whole holistic experience being in a tiny,
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small, quick little convertible.
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And it just was burned in my brain, and from those early days on,
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um, I was enthralled with cars.
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I always had hot wheels and remote control cars, wanted to race my friends
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and pretend that our bikes were Harleys.
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And so it started young.
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When we talk to people on the show and you, they immediately associate
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California with car culture.
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And it's like, Oh, you must love cars because it's the epicenter of American
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car culture, the beach boys and, you know, James Dean and all this kind of stuff.
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And then you kind of peel it back and you go, wait, Eureka.
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Where is that?
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If you quickly look on the map, it is on the water, but it's northwest
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of Sacramento towards Redwoods.
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That's not where car culture is.
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What was that like growing up?
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That's funny that you say that because that's what I heard from most of the
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people that ever visited me or exchanged students that I knew in school.
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The first thing they would say would be, where's the palm trees?
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And we would say, we don't have palm trees.
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We have Redwood trees.
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It's a little different.
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It's foggy.
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It's cold.
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It's.
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58 to 60 degrees year round.
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I love that sort of weather.
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I'm a fog guy myself.
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I really love that sort of atmosphere, but it was a shock to most people
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when they would come to California and see that this wasn't the California
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of the TV shows and the movies.
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That was something that never really occurred to me growing up
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because we still had car clubs.
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We still had car shows.
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My uncle was a founding member.
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He actually was the founding member of the Chaparral's car club in the 60s here.
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So one of the very first car clubs in Eureka was started by my uncle.
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And so for me, it never really occurred to me that we weren't part of the California
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car culture because it really felt like we were until someone from outside of the
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area would come in and say, this is weird.
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This isn't what I thought California would be.
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So yeah, it never really occurred to me.
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For those of us petrol heads of a certain age, as we like to say, there's certain
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posters that were on our walls as a kid.
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So one of our famous Pit Stop questions here, what was on your wall?
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Lamborghini.
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I had a red Countach on my wall, and that was probably the first
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supercar that really lit my brain up.
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That and the Ferraris, when we were young, were all that we knew about
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that were quote unquote supercars.
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Nowadays, you have 15, 16 different brands that are considered supercars,
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which is great, and it's fun.
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Back then, it seemed a little more pure in some sense, where those were it.
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Those were the upper echelon that everybody loved, that
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everybody had on their walls.
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Of course, Porsche was very close.
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Underneath that.
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So you're right, because the Porsches at the time, you're talking about the Kunta,
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you had the Ferrari tester Rosa, right?
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One of the widest cars.
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Yeah, in production.
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And then the nine 30 Turbo, which wasn't quite at that level yet.
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Porsche hadn't transcended.
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And we're gonna talk about Porsche a little bit more here as we go along
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'cause it is a sweet spot for you.
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But then I remember too, out of nowhere comes Jaguar with the XJ
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two 20 and sort of breaks the glass ceiling for supercars at that point.
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The thing about Jaguar, I'm glad you brought them up because that wasn't
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something that I immediately thought of when I think of cars that were
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really influential in the 80s and 90s.
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However, when I think back to the XJS, that is one of the most
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beautiful cars that I've ever seen.
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I kind of like those bastard stepchild sort of.
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Models like the 928 Porsche that nobody that's a purist likes, the
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XJS that people say it looks like a giant stepped on it or sat on it.
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I love those cars because they're weird and they're strange and cool
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and sexy and those led to Jaguar.
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And other similar brands really wanting to make an indelible mark on the
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automotive culture and community where they weren't really considered the Ferrari
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or the Lamborghini or what have you.
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So, like you said, when the XJ220 came out, that was mind blowing
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because everybody was like, where did Jaguar come from with that?
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That Just blew everybody's mind.
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I think that's a huge piece of the puzzle as well.
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Stepping back into your past, your dad actually wrote a book called
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an autobiography, a little bit of play on words there by Kent Willis.
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You can actually still find that book out there.
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It's on Amazon as well.
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So what was that about?
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And did he inspire you to become.
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a writer as well to kind of deepen your petrol headness,
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if that's actually a word.
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It actually was the opposite.
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My dad has written a number of books.
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The first book that he wrote was in the late seventies.
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It was on invertebrate biology and it was a college scrapbook
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for Humboldt State University.
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Since then, he's written a lot of other books.
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One of the most influential that I think that he wrote was
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about coaching and teaching.
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He was a coach and a teacher for 42 years, as was my mom.
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His love of cars, for me, directly translated into something that
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should be put into book form.
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And so I was actually the one that convinced him to write a book about
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cars and all of the wonderful memories that he had had from when he was hunting
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deer with his dad in a wagon and Uh, my grandma driving a 63 Nova and him
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driving an Impala to his prom, all these amazing cars that people drool over
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now that were a little more regular back then, he's got all these wonderful
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memories that are connected to him.
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I said, dad, you have to write some of this stuff down because to me,
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that's really the only way that you can create, I guess, what you would
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consider kind of a time machine.
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Where you can go back and really kind of experience some of those things
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that other people experienced and have it written down so that those stories
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don't get lost generations to come.
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You remember your loved ones, you remember great times that you had.
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These are all wonderful things that I think through writing are preserved.
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And I think that's beautiful.
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As you scroll through your social media posts, you begin to realize very quickly
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that you're a Porsche file and you've got a thing and you've said it more than
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once publicly too, that you really are fascinated with the James Dean story.
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And we had Lee Raskin on here earlier last season, who is a
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known expert in and Porsche 550s and 356s and things like that.
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So let's dive into that a little bit more.
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I know that's part of California car culture as well, especially
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his tragic death and all that.
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What really drew you into that world?
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Especially that very small snippet of Porsche history.
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And how did that grow for you?
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When I was young, I was not a Porsche fan to begin with.
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I thought the nine 11s were ugly.
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I thought they looked like squat obese, little turtles that had
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chubby hips and buggy eyes.
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And that compared to the Lamborghini that looks like it's going a thousand
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miles an hour standing still, it doesn't equate it wasn't until later.
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When I started to see some of the, like, for instance, the five 14s with the closed
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wheel base fender skirts, that were the racers that I just thought were incredibly
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beautiful and the Glockner Porsches in the eighties and nineties, the Kramer K
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three, even back further in the seventies, the nine seventeens that were just.
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Wild and amazing mirrored a little bit of one of my dream cars, the Ford GT
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forties, that is when I started to kind of really get into the old race car,
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former race car, kind of car club culture.
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And a lot of those guys were really into those old Porsches because.
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The Porsches were more readily available.
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They were more accessible.
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They were more affordable.
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And so a lot more people could experience the beauty and the fun and
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the heart pumping nature of those old Porsches than could say a Lamborghini
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or a Ferrari from some of those eras.
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Fast forward to when I was writing my book, I met and befriended a
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really amazing guy named Jack.
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His real name is Jacob, but they called him Portia Jack.
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He was born and raised in Europe and worked for Portia starting when
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he was 15 years old in the factory.
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He got to work on 356s.
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He got to work on some of the race teams in the 60s and 70s.
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He was friends with James Dean.
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He was friends with Steve McQueen, a lot of these guys
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that were really influential.
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I got to have a little piece of a lot of the stories that people haven't heard
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of before and put them into my book.
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So that even further accelerated my love and my curiosity for Porsche's.
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And I became kind of a psychotic about finding more information about these cars.
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I have, I think, if I'm not exaggerating, probably 150 books
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on Portia alone in my collection.
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It hasn't stopped and I don't think it ever will because there's so much
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information out there about different models and different stories and
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races, some of them in my book.
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I can almost guarantee that nobody has heard of before.
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Like, for instance, when Porsche Jack saved the day in a race,
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there was a Porsche 917, I believe it was, that broke down.
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There were two of them that they had there.
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One of them broke down.
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And so everybody on the other teams was kind of celebrating, oh, we don't have
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to compete with two Porsches, just one.
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And everybody thought that that was kind of the end of the day,
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because if that Porsche broke down, then they were screwed.
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So, and he took the engine out, he drove it three hours back to his shop,
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he worked on it until three o'clock in the morning, drove back to the
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race, put it back in the car, got it race ready, and in the morning, both
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Porsches came out, and everybody kind of freaked out, like, what magic is this?
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And he said that the announcer said, this is either the car from heaven or
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the car from hell, because we don't know.
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How that happened, befriending a lot of people that were in that world and
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seeing a lot more of the provenance and the history of the brand really
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kind of got me salivating for more.
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And that still kind of drives me to find more and more
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information about it to this day.
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What I love about that is it falls right in line with what
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this show is really about, too.
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It's a capturing that living history, but B.
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Those lesser known corner case stories where it's like, if you never met
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Portia, Jack, he probably told his closest friends 10 times and they're
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tired of hearing it a thousand times over, but to the rest of us is new.
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And it's exciting.
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And it's that little just moment in time, even in racing history, we're like, that's
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why that car came back out on the track.
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And you always kind of wondered, but never knew the story behind it.
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So that's really cool that you're able to talk to folks like that
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and bring those stories to light.
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In your time as a petrol head, obviously you've evolved, you've blossomed like
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the rest of us, but you spent a lot of time as an automotive photographer.
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So how did you get into that?
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Did you make that a professional thing?
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Was it, has it been a hobby?
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How have you been able to expand that?
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Started in front of the camera.
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When I was younger, it sounds a little silly, but I was
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a model for quite a while.
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Did some runway stuff, did some print stuff.
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I was around photography and photographers a lot, and my love of cars had
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already blossomed and become a thing.
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Being around so many photographers and kind of picking up a lot of the little
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tips and tricks they use, led me to think, Hmm, I wonder if I could merge
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the two and make something out of that.
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And so I started taking pictures of friends cars.
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I wasn't good to begin with.
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I still am not great.
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I'm still learning all the time.
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In fact, I...
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Study the model of camera that I have and some of the tips and tricks
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that you can use to get better.
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As I started to take more photos, more opportunities arose for
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taking photos for car clubs and some of the events that I put on.
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I created a couple car shows and so I would create the posters and it just
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kind of started to snowball from there.
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And as I'm sure you are well aware, once you purposefully take a step into
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this world, you can't step back out.
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You start to snowball and things happen and people talk and they let other
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people know that you're the guy that does this and things just start happening.
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Like I would never have ever guessed that I would be on this cool of a
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podcast, let alone having written a book about cars or anything like that,
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unless I just took that first lead.
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But along the way, you've also met all sorts of interesting folks.
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I'm going to name drop for our audience.
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People like Christian von Koenigsegg, while you've been out photographing events
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like the Pebble Beach Concourse, so any other like cool memories or things that
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you can share about those types of events?
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Oh my gosh, there are so many people that I met and people
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that I met through other people.
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Portia Jack in fact did a lot of stuff with Leno and Seinfeld
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and all these other guys and so.
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It just absolutely blows my mind that I have some sort of a connection
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to some of these guys that I've looked up to for my whole life.
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I know that you are in close connection with Colleen from Skunkworks.
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I followed her for years on Instagram.
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Never in a million years did I think I would be sitting in her office,
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interviewing her, looking and photographing her Ferrari collection.
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And yeah, Koenigsegg and Chad McQueen, the list goes on and on.
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And when I was a little younger...
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I lived in Hollywood working there in a couple different places and I was a
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personal shopper for some celebrities.
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Some of the celebrities that I met were actually car people as well.
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Paris Hilton was a car person.
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I got to tour her blue Bentley, which was really wild.
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Jeremy Piven, Terrell Owens.
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There's so many people that I was in direct connection with that
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I got to see certain cars and.
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Learn of their obsessions for certain models and brands and things like that
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that still to this day really appreciate and can't hardly believe I was in a
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movie at one point called The Majestic with Jim Carrey and David Ogden Stiers
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was one of the supporting actors in it.
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And I befriended him on the set.
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We actually hung out a couple of times, knew that I was a really big car guy.
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One afternoon he said, Hey, Jeff, come here.
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I want to show you something.
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And around the corner, it was that year's brand new Lincoln.
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And he tossed me the keys.
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He said, maybe you want to drive it.
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You know, my eyes lit up.
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I was 18 year old kid freaking out, you know, it was before any sort
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of voice activated stuff that we have now connected to our phones.
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And so he said, watch this.
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Hey, Lincoln, call john smith.
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And it dialed.
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And I just was like, what is happening?
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So many different people.
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I mean, I could name 100 different people.
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But again, it comes back to that love.
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And like you said, that connection that all of us share That so many more people
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than we realize are into this whole scene and this culture and this lifestyle.
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And all you have to do is ask.
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It's the coolest thing.
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You just have to ask, Hey, can I talk to you?
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Can I interview you?
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Can I pick your brain?
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And people love to talk about this stuff because they love, you know, the way
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it makes them feel and the memories.
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The experiences they get to have a little bit of foreshadowing there when
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we dive a little deeper into your book.
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But yeah, that is pretty much the premise.
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There is again, the connections to the cars brought up something
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really important about Hollywood.
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It's always shocking when you realize how many, let's say behind the curtain.
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Car collectors, there are, I mean, you would expect the celebrities, they
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need to burn their money on something.
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And you have the ones at the front of mind, like Paul Walker, we all know he's a
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car guy name, a collection, Jay Leno, like you said, Tim Allen and so on and lines.
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You're like, they're noted car collectors, but there's other folks in that community.
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That they've got their prize possessions, their crown jewels, the cars that they
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like to flaunt that they bring down to, you know, whatever cars and coffees going
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on that weekend, that sort of thing.
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And to your point, they got some cool stories.
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You take an interest in them and say, you're not in a weird way.
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Be like, why'd you buy that car?
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But why this car?
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Why these customizations like take an interest in them.
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And to your point, they open up and they want to tell you why they did it that way.
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And it's pretty cool.
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Or you're going to remind them of, to your point, something that
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happened when they were a kid.
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Is there somebody on your bucket list?
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Is there somebody that maybe you didn't get to interview for the
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book that you still want to talk to?
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Yes.
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So I contacted Spike Ferriston.
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He, first of all, congratulated me on becoming a writer for garage style
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magazine for my book and stuff like that.
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But I asked him if I could interview him and he laughed and said,
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no, and said, congrats anyways.
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And he did it in such a funny and fun way.
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I want to try to knock that door down again and see if I could interview
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him because he's another guy that I listened to his podcast quite a bit.
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He obviously has connections all across the world and great
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friends with Seinfeld and.
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I would love to interview him and or Seinfeld.
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I would love to interview Mr.
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Beast.
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He's a guy that I think is kind of a secret car guy.
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He's done a lot of really weird YouTube videos where he crushes Ferrari or
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Lamborghini in a hydraulic press.
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I would really like to interview him and see if there's something
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underneath that kind of.
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Funny atmosphere that he creates that really kind of makes him tick
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because there's other guys that are very similar to him that are very open
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with loving cars and stuff like that.
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He's a guy that is very humble, which I think is cool.
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He says he doesn't need a lot.
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He doesn't need a big house.
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He doesn't need cars and stuff like that.
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I don't really buy it.
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I think there's something there that, you know, all of us when we were
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a kid had some sort of hot wheel or a video game or something that
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just really lit our minds on fire.
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So somebody like that, I would really like to kind of see if I could work
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my way into the psyche a little bit further than anybody else has.
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It's funny.
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At first when you said Mr.
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Beast, I thought you were talking about Eric Bana, who is
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also another known petrol head.
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And he did a movie called love the beast.
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So I highly recommend that to people that want to understand our passion,
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that opening monologue when he's driving around and his nine 11 is just.
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Absolutely amazing.
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And it really does set the tone for most of us that are passionate about cars.
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So you've done a lot of events, Pebble Beach and so on.
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And even most recently you've written about Velocity and
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Lufka 8 and things like that.
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So what are some of the best events?
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What are some of your favorites?
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What are some that you're looking forward to even just going to, or
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maybe shooting as a photographer?
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The most exclusive albeit most laid back show that I've ever
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been to was the Pixar car show.
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And that was one that I never thought that I would get into.
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Obviously, this is a theme.
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A lot of things that I never thought would happen are happening.
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But I got to meet a lot of really great car people.
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I got to meet a lot of people that worked at Pixar that were kind of secret car
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people that came out with these fantastic old Porsches and Lamborghinis and old
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Chevy builds and things like that.
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I was dating someone at the time that worked there, and so I kind of hung
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out at the Pixar campus quite a bit.
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When I got invited to the car show, which was one of those things that, as
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a car guy, I had heard about, little rumblings about, but I knew there was no
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way that the public could ever get in.
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So when I got invited, I kind of freaked out a little bit.
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And that was one of the greatest shows I've ever been to.
21:27
And it was so laid back and Chip Foose was there.
21:29
Leno stopped by, you know, a lot of the, like we're talking
21:32
about the staple guys were there.
21:34
It was cool to kind of just be hobnobbing around with these guys and
21:38
kind of just saying, Hey, what's up?
21:39
And, you know, we're all eating a hot dog and looking at a car together.
21:43
And it's these guys that I've watched on TV since I was a kid.
21:47
The other event that is in my mind is the one that you said.
21:51
Eight was the most well curated event I've ever been to in my life.
21:57
It was the coolest setup where there was a really beautiful, wonderful juxtaposition
22:03
of the beauty and art of the cars with the stark, gross industrial background.
22:09
It was all stone, weird brick.
22:11
It was just a perfect mixture of the two.
22:14
Where it really made the beauty of the cars pop and it was great for
22:18
photos and the way they set up all the warehouses with, you know, there
22:22
was a coffee shop in one and there was a group of 917s in the other.
22:27
And then I don't know if it was Rolex or Chopard or somebody had a
22:30
place where they were showing off their 200, 000 watches while somebody
22:35
with ripped jeans was smoking a cigarette right next to it outside.
22:39
It was just all these weird mixtures of all these different kind of.
22:42
Styles and cultures and stuff that I've never seen before,
22:45
but I really appreciate it.
22:46
It was so cool.
22:47
So what's funny about that event put together by Pat Long, one
22:50
of the Porsche drivers, Yep.
22:51
Patrick Dempsey, et cetera, right?
22:53
All those guys together.
22:54
They did something similar to that at Petit Le Mans at the
22:58
end of 2021 at Road Atlanta.
23:00
And I was privy to get into that, where they have that kind of style that they
23:03
used to, where the cars are in these crates, but they're not in crates.
23:06
They almost look like model cars.
23:08
So they had some of the Brumos cars, like Hurley Haywood's nine 64 turbo, one of
23:12
the nine 35s and a couple other things.
23:13
So they did a miniature version of that at road Atlanta and here on
23:16
the East coast, that's as close as I've gotten to that type of event
23:20
put on by the same folks, but it was awesome because the setting was.
23:23
In the 12 hours there wrote Atlanta.
23:26
So you're watching the endurance racing going on.
23:28
You've got this whole hospitality thing and the cars and talking to people.
23:31
And so, yeah, it's a really cool vibe.
23:33
And if you're fortunate enough to maybe, I guess, go to Lufka cult nine,
23:37
you're listening to this or one of the future ones, definitely check it out.
23:40
Cause they're doing some really cool stuff.
23:42
Love it.
23:43
Let's peel back another layer of this bloom and onion here.
23:45
And let's talk about your eclectic portfolio of vehicles.
23:49
When you take a quick scan through your social media profile, you'll see things
23:53
like a Fiat 124 Spyder, VW Bug, an early Porsche 928, and a bunch of other things.
23:59
So why, why, why these cars?
24:02
How did you end up with this motley crew?
24:05
So the bug, first of all, was one that I've always wanted.
24:09
My mom had a bug when I was a little kid.
24:12
And it was funny because my dad said that he hated that car because when I was maybe
24:19
one or two years old, my mom would put me in the little car seat in the back.
24:22
And my dad said, as we drove off down the driveway, he would see
24:25
my little head bouncing around and always worry about our safety.
24:28
My mom almost got squished in that bug, horrible pun intended.
24:32
So she got rid of that, but I always wanted a bug.
24:35
That was one of my, if not my earliest memory was of the perforated seats.
24:40
In my mom's bug, the 70 Nova was just something that is one of the greatest,
24:46
sexiest muscle cars of all time.
24:49
I think the Challengers, the Novas, the Camaros, they're all
24:52
kind of in that same league.
24:53
They have that big, huge back end with the meaty tires and
24:57
that muscle bulldog look to them.
24:59
And I just think those are so badass.
25:01
The Porsche, like I mentioned earlier, I have a thing for the
25:05
bastard stepchild model of any brand.
25:08
And so I really am drawn to that car because not a lot of people
25:12
in the Porsche world really show a lot of appreciation to it yet.
25:17
Yours is a four and a half liter, right?
25:19
Yeah, it's a 1980.
25:20
So it's the automatic.
25:22
It would have been cool to have a stick, but I'm okay with that.
25:25
However, When I got mine, I was looking for that particular car, that
25:30
model, and I found one, and it was for sale, and it was on Craigslist.
25:34
I contacted the lady a day too late.
25:37
I thought, uh, it's a little more than I want to spend, but I
25:39
contacted her, she said, oh, I'm so sorry, I sold it yesterday.
25:42
I was broken hearted, so I went and I bought a 87 Vette instead.
25:45
I really love all the 80s cars, the really kind of low profile, making me
25:52
reminisce of my childhood kind of cars.
25:54
So I got the 87 Vette, just love that thing, just burn the tires off that thing.
25:59
A year and a half later, the exact same Porsche 928 came back on Craigslist
26:05
and I called the guy immediately and I said, I got to come over, I'll take it.
26:08
I didn't argue with him about the price.
26:10
It was a little more than the last person had asked, but he was a
26:13
chiropractor in the Bay Area that tried to tinker with it himself and
26:17
didn't really know what he was doing.
26:20
So there were a couple of things that I had to fix and get fixed on it, but
26:23
then it was just a monster machine.
26:27
Since then, it's just been one of the greatest investments I've ever made.
26:31
I, since I bought it in 20, I don't know what it was, 16, maybe it's quadrupled
26:37
in value, which isn't really that important to me and it's not really
26:40
necessarily the monetary value, but everywhere I go, people freak out and
26:44
give me thumbs up, that's a cool car.
26:46
Oh, I remember when I had one of these or my dad had one or whatever.
26:50
That's the other thing that I really love that my dad also really
26:53
loves in his 51 Chevy five window, getting thumbs up and really kind
26:57
of eliciting a response from people.
26:59
That's part of the whole fun of driving these cars out in public is inviting
27:04
people into this chaotic fun that they create and all the memories that stir up
27:09
and people really reach out to you and start conversations and you make friends.
27:14
And I have a number of other cars, but.
27:17
Those are the ones that really have a lot of meaning and background to me.
27:21
So, so if you had to buy something brand new today, what's your hot take?
27:25
Brand new, affordable money is no object.
27:28
What would you buy?
27:29
I would either go with Koenigsegg or Pagani.
27:32
I think those are two of the most beautiful car designs of any generation.
27:37
Other than that, I have a real thing for the new Corvettes.
27:40
The performance of them, the look of them, the affordability of them.
27:45
All of that appeals to me.
27:47
But Lamborghini always has my heart.
27:50
Besides Koenigsegg and Pagani, any Lamborghini.
27:53
I really like the new Huracans, but I really love the 2004 Gallardo.
27:59
The original Gallardo.
28:00
I think that's just such a cool, compact little thing.
28:03
And that car, I've driven a number of them.
28:06
That is the closest thing that I have ever experienced to being inside a video game.
28:12
You haven't driven a Nissan GTR then, because it's exactly
28:15
like being in a video game.
28:16
I have not.
28:17
No, a friend of mine had one and he said it was pretty wild, but
28:21
I have never driven one of those.
28:23
You mentioned the Pagani and the Koenigsegg.
28:25
So would those be the sexiest cars of all time?
28:28
Or is there something else?
28:30
Gosh, yes, I would have to say I think the Koenigsegg for me, the
28:35
artistic value of the Pagani and all the little weird details like the
28:40
little leaf shaped side view mirrors.
28:42
The other car that I think is probably one of the most underrated
28:47
sexy cars is the Spyker C8.
28:50
The interior of that thing looks like a 1940s bomber that was
28:55
redone in all chrome or something.
28:57
It just is so cool and all the stitching on the leather.
29:01
Every single thing in that car is very obvious that it was hand
29:05
done and meticulous and gorgeous.
29:08
The Spyker C8 would be a very close sexiest car.
29:12
So the opposite of that, do you have an ugliest car?
29:15
The ugliest car that I can think of would be...
29:18
What I call the carved turd.
29:20
And that would be the Tesla.
29:21
Oh!
29:22
Wow!
29:24
That's the first time somebody's brought up a Tesla.
29:27
It's the ugliest car of all time.
29:28
I just hate Teslas.
29:29
Everything about them.
29:31
The background of them.
29:32
The history of them.
29:32
The look.
29:33
Everything.
29:34
I can't stand about them.
29:35
Well then you will enjoy our Tesla retrospective episode.
29:39
Ha ha ha.
29:39
Ha ha ha.
29:40
So as we move on, let's talk about your book, gotten to know you, but let's
29:44
get to know the you in parentheses, man in the machine, you have it kind
29:49
of an interesting way to do the title, the human or the man in the machine.
29:52
So what is it all about?
29:54
And like you said, your dad inspired you to write other people telling
29:57
you to write, but getting off the blocks and writing a book is a lot
30:01
different than writing an article or a short story or an essay.
30:04
When you sit down to 80, 000 words.
30:07
It's a hell of a job.
30:08
So what got you there?
30:10
Well, yes, all of the above got me there.
30:12
First of all, the title human in the machine.
30:16
I started with man in the machine.
30:19
And I thought since I have been interviewing so many women that have
30:24
really made a big difference in the automotive culture and industry, I
30:28
thought, you know, it should be human in the machine because especially
30:32
nowadays when it's a lot more accepted.
30:35
For women to be such a huge part of this industry.
30:39
I think that should be celebrated.
30:41
I think that's really cool.
30:42
When I interviewed people such as Jesse Combs, before she obviously
30:46
unfortunately passed away, it really opened my eyes to the fact that a lot
30:50
of these women are real true pioneers in the sport, in the industry, and they're
30:55
doing a lot of really cool things.
30:57
That's one of the big reasons why I chose that title.
31:01
The original inspiration did come from my dad writing his book, but the start of it,
31:09
just like you said, was incredibly hard.
31:11
I started this journey in 2016, and really started to put it
31:16
down pen to paper in 2018.
31:18
And so from 2018, all the way through COVID with all the things that, you
31:23
know, went up and down, and I stopped, and there were times when I...
31:26
It's that screw it.
31:27
I don't want to finish it.
31:28
I just want to throw it away and never do it again.
31:30
Through all that up and down, it also was something that I really started to take
31:36
hold of as far as a motivation to finish.
31:39
It was a goal of mine to finish the book, to get it published, to get it out there.
31:43
My ex wife, Michelle, was a huge help.
31:46
In formatting and editing and things like that.
31:49
I definitely have a lot of appreciation for her motivation
31:52
for me to finish as well.
31:53
But it was a tough journey.
31:55
It was a lot of ups and downs in life.
31:57
But what kept me going is these stories that I was.
32:01
Receiving from people I thought to myself.
32:03
I can't keep these just to myself.
32:06
I have to share these with the world I'm glad I did because there's a lot
32:10
of things in there that like I said I don't think people have heard before
32:13
that they'll appreciate and people and stories that Need to be shared and
32:19
passed from generation to generation.
32:21
So they don't get forgotten.
32:22
Amazon right now, if you go look for the book, you'll see the book
32:25
jacket on there, but there's no preview of the inside of the book.
32:27
So for those folks that are kind of wondering how the book is arranged,
32:31
is it a compilation of short stories or are you telling a larger over?
32:36
Arching story that threads all of these people together.
32:39
It's more of the former.
32:41
It's a bit of a hodgepodge.
32:43
I took a little bit of inspiration from one of my favorite automotive authors of
32:48
all time, who I was really lucky enough to interview for the book, Tom Cotter.
32:52
He tends to organize his books in short story to short story format.
32:58
My book starts out with a little bit of my history, a little
33:01
bit of storytelling and then.
33:04
Transitioning into short story to short story and then towards the end transitions
33:09
into a bit more of a hodgepodge of things that I appreciated about the culture
33:15
and the industry that I really kind of just had rattling around in my brain
33:19
that I wanted to get out and On paper, so there isn't a real strong format
33:25
followed throughout the whole thing.
33:26
It's a bit more of a free flow thought to paper kind of approach.
33:30
Hyper focusing on the person that you interviewed there.
33:34
So you mentioned a few Portia Jack, Jesse Combs, Tom Cotter, Afshin Enia
33:38
from Petrolicious is in the book.
33:40
Are there any other folks that you might want to name drop that would
33:43
get people excited to pick up a copy?
33:45
So Afshin, first of all, was one of the nicest people I've ever met.
33:48
He was so cool and petrilicious, I just have to say, is one of the greatest
33:53
things that I have ever come across.
33:55
He does not any longer run the brand.
33:58
There's no ill thought towards the way it's run now.
34:02
But I think something was lost when he left the brand.
34:06
When he and his wife were running the brand, that was the most perfect
34:09
storytelling platform I've ever seen for any automotive piece of culture.
34:14
It was something that helped me get through COVID and not go crazy.
34:18
It helped me through a breakup and not go crazy.
34:21
It helped me to find other people like me that had similar stories and I reached
34:26
out to a couple of them, got to know some people that I wouldn't know otherwise.
34:30
That was just a wild experience in itself because Petrolicious was
34:34
something that I was very closely connected with for a number of years
34:38
before I got to talk to Afshin.
34:39
I got to talk to people such as Elspeth Beard.
34:43
She was the first female to ride a motorcycle solo around the world.
34:49
And her book, Lone Rider.
34:52
That is one book that I would suggest that people go out and read if they're
34:55
interested in a really cool origin story of how someone starts a journey and really
35:01
finds a value in the motivation of why and how and the people that you meet along
35:06
the way and the experiences that you have.
35:08
Just so many different people that I got to talk to, interview, befriend
35:14
that have been a part of this book.
35:16
It's just been a really wonderful journey and I can't thank these people enough.
35:19
For young aspiring writers out there or maybe some veterans that
35:23
are looking to do their next book, do you have any advice, lessons
35:26
learned, things that you can pass on?
35:28
Don't give up.
35:29
That's the biggest thing.
35:30
I'm not a professional writer.
35:31
I didn't go to school for writing.
35:33
I'm not a professional editor.
35:34
But I'm really proud of this book that I created and the stories
35:38
that have been told in it.
35:39
It wasn't an overnight thing that I just said, Oh, I'm going to do
35:42
this and then boom, it's done.
35:44
It's, it was a long process of gathering information, meeting people, interviewing
35:49
them, putting the information in a format that could be understood, editing it
35:53
to where it looked and sounded a little better, doing formatting so it would
35:57
look good in the book format itself, finding out how to self publish on Amazon.
36:03
I couldn't afford to hire a publisher to publish for me
36:06
and buy all my books up front.
36:08
So I did self publishing on Amazon where it's a pay as
36:11
you go thing and I created it.
36:13
So I, I'm making 1.
36:15
04 per book or something like that.
36:17
So the idea was never to get rich.
36:19
That's the other thing that I would give as advice to someone.
36:22
Don't think about the money, or the prestige, or whatever.
36:25
Think about how your passion is going to be translated, and how people are going to
36:30
receive it, and how they will best receive it, and understand it, and enjoy it.
36:34
Because people are always dying for something that will make them
36:38
feel good, or remember a great memory that they had from when
36:42
they were a kid, or what have you.
36:43
Focus on the passion.
36:44
Don't give up.
36:46
Understand that it's not as big of a bear or a monster as you think it is.
36:51
It's a lot of work, but if you take the steps to get there and you ask
36:55
people to talk to you, they will.
36:57
And if you ask people to interview, they will.
36:59
Most car guys and motorcycle girls and the like really love To interact with
37:05
other people that are like minded.
37:07
And so you don't get a lot of no's when you ask to talk to people about
37:12
this stuff that everybody loves.
37:13
So that's the other thing, just kind of being bold and not being afraid.
37:17
We've interviewed quite a few authors on the show in the past, and we
37:21
always like to ask them, what are some of your recommended reads?
37:25
You mentioned one Lone Rider by Esbeth Beard, but are there any others on your
37:29
list that our listeners should check out?
37:31
I have a whole stack of them here.
37:33
The biggest thing that I can say is, think about what really drives
37:36
you, what you're passionate about, and then just find stuff about it.
37:40
There's gonna be pamphlets and magazines and books and shows and DVDs.
37:46
Just go out and search for it.
37:47
One of my favorite things to do is to go to the local bookstore, to
37:50
the thrift store, to yard sales, and find little gems that aren't readily
37:56
available for the entire public to find.
37:59
And you find out little cool pieces of information about the thing that
38:02
you love that not everybody knows.
38:04
And that's kind of fun to find those little treasures.
38:06
I would just suggest, first of all, finding the thing that makes you tick.
38:10
And then doing research on where to find literature about it.
38:15
Yes, I would recommend Elspeth Beard's book.
38:18
There's a number of Portia books that I would recommend as well.
38:23
Because I'm really into that scene now, that culture.
38:26
My dad's book, I'll give him a little plug.
38:29
As you mentioned earlier, you also freelance for Garage Style
38:32
Magazine and Exotic Car Marketplace.
38:35
We've had both Don Wieberg and William Ross on the show
38:38
previously, many times actually.
38:40
That kind of begs the question, what else are you working on?
38:43
What's Jeff Willis's future look like?
38:45
Is there another book on the horizon?
38:47
There is.
38:48
So my next venture as far as book writing is going to be
38:53
something similar, but in Europe.
38:56
I really want to delve into the car culture there because it's
39:00
different over here in the states.
39:03
We have a lot of stuff like muscle cars, low riders.
39:06
There's a lot of really kind of niche stuff in this California U.
39:10
S.
39:10
car culture.
39:11
Over there, there's a lot more X Racer type provenance to some of the stories.
39:16
It's a really different world over there that I want to explore and
39:20
see what I can find out about.
39:22
That, and there is one other really cool thing I'll plug.
39:25
I'm creating a brand.
39:27
It's called Ooh Scary Monster.
39:29
It's going to be a company that helps young builders, young racers,
39:35
young riders find sponsorships.
39:37
Because I know that's one of the things when I've talked to people that are
39:40
younger or when I've thought about things that I've tried to do in the
39:44
past, sometimes you don't know where to start and all you need is just a little
39:47
bit of help to kind of get you going and really light that fire and you see.
39:51
I always like to say, wouldn't it have been crazy if somebody like Hurley Haywood
39:56
that you mentioned earlier, Senna or somebody like that, or, you know, one
39:59
of the racers now, what if you sponsored one of those guys when they were young
40:03
and doing cart racing or what have you?
40:06
How crazy would that be of being part of that story?
40:08
A lot that I want to do with that, something that I really want to
40:11
get started in the near future.
40:13
Well, Jeff, with that, any other shoutouts, promotions, or anything
40:17
else you'd like to share that we haven't covered thus far?
40:19
First of all, I just want to thank you for having me on the show.
40:22
This has been an honor and a privilege.
40:24
I would like to thank my parents and my sister and my ex wife Michelle,
40:29
my friends Daniel and Bobby.
40:31
Everybody else that was a part of the book that I interviewed or talked to,
40:35
or even mentioned that I was writing a book and they gave me, you know, a
40:38
pat on the back or encouraging words.
40:40
I just want to say thank you for all that.
40:42
And I hope that people enjoy my book and look out for Ooh,
40:47
Scary Monster in the future.
40:48
The Human and the Machine is a book about cars, motorcycles,
40:52
and the people who love them.
40:53
In it, you'll hear from well known automotive personalities, authors,
40:58
stunt drivers, and regular Joes.
41:00
To learn more, be sure to follow Jeff on Instagram at darksidesmiley, where
41:05
he posts photos and thoughts on his continuing automotive journey, as well
41:09
as a link to his new book on Amazon.
41:11
And with that, Jeff, I can't thank you enough for everything you're doing.
41:14
I think this is absolutely fabulous.
41:15
Congratulations on your new book.
41:17
And like you said, don't stop.
41:19
Keep up the good work.
41:20
Keep telling and retelling all these stories out there and
41:23
bringing some of these really cool ideas to the forefront again.
41:26
Best of luck.
41:26
And thank you for everything.
41:28
Thank you so much for having me.
41:34
If you like what you've heard and want to learn more about GTM,
41:36
be sure to check us out on www.
41:38
gtmotorsports.
41:40
org.
41:41
You can also find us on Motorsports.
41:44
Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call
41:49
or text us at 202 630 1770, or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.
41:56
org.
41:56
We'd love to hear from you.
41:58
Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here.
42:01
We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix.
42:04
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42:09
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