CarStories

The Auto Club of Southern California is one of the oldest automotive groups in the world, with its inception dating back to the turn of the 20th century. The Auto Club has been instrumental in shaping the highways, byways and surface streets of Southern California through legislative efforts and even signing of roads! Morgan Yates and John McQueen stopped by the podcast to talk about the history of the Auto Club and its long-standing involvement with the Petersen. We hope to have these guys on again to help us dive a little deeper into the strange and wonderful automotive history of Los Angeles!

Forza Motorsport has been one of the world's best-loved and most popular racing simulator games since its introduction in 2005. Now, with the release of the 7th game in the franchise looming, Kyle and James managed to corner Dan Greenawalt, creative director of Turn 10 Studios while he was in town for E3 to talk about what makes Forza different and so special amongst racing games. They do a nerdy deep dive on some of the nuts and bolts of the games including tire physics, modeling, and more. This episode is a serious nerd's paradise and if you're even a little into racing sims, this is well worth a listen.

Bisi Ezerioha is best known as being a turbo obsessed horsepower freak who gets his kicks turning out 1000hp minivans and 850hp water-cooled turbocharged classic Porsches. A lot of people might not know that he is also a trained scientist and engineer and that he has more degrees than Phoenix in summer. Bisi got his start modifying cars soon after he got to the US to attend college. His first US car happened to be a Civic CRX and thus his love affair with Hondas was born. This led him down the slippery slope of modifying import cars through the SoCal import boom of the early-to-mid 2000's.Bisi is an incredibly friendly and intelligent guy and we were thrilled to sit down with him and pick his brain to find out what makes him so unique in the automotive landscape. Strap in, this one is good.

Evan Klein is an automotive photographer and is also a total hand-full. Turn the mic on and he just goes. He is a larger than life personality and he sat down with Kyle recently to talk about daily driving classic European cars, justifying the pain and expense of classics, being in love with cars and what it's like working as a top automotive photographer for print and online. They also talk about Evan's amazing annual Highway Earth car show and his work with Motor Trend, Motor Trend Classic, Octane, and of course the Petersen!

Larry Chen is a man that seems to be everywhere at once. Luckily for us, he tapped the power of his omnipresence to appear at the Petersen in order to sit down and talk to Kyle. Larry is best known as being one of the busiest automotive photographers working today. He is an editor at Speedhunters, a contributor to Hot Rod Magazine, the premier photog for the Formula Drift series and the designated heavy hitter behind the camera for events such as the Gumball 3000 and Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Larry is also a man with an insane work ethic and during his conversation with Kyle, he outlines his rise from being a nerdy California kid with a camera to the giant he his today. Larry and Kyle also get into Larry's fleet of project cars including his super internet-famous Datsun 240z, "Ole Orange Bang," and his daily driver manual-equipped FJ Cruiser. They also touch the nature of print magazines in the US vs Japan and the weird microcosm that is Japanese car culture.This is a rare look at the mind of someone who has made it his life to seek out car culture wherever it lives, whether that's Barbados or Gatebil or Laguna Seca. He's one of our favorite photographers working today and it was an honor to sit down and pick his brain for 45 minutes. This is a fun one!  

Today is Independence Day and what could better symbolize freedom than a motorcycle? That's definitely what Kyle and James thought so this week we're pleased to present our interview with Rick Mitchell. Rick is a fascinating guy, a lifelong Californian and Chapter President of the Pyrate Ryderz Motorcycle Club here in Los Angeles. He sat down with the boys and talked about his love of bikes and how his club got their start. He also goes into great detail about an incredible bike-themed trip to Cuba. This is a great episode, and Rick is one of our favorite kind of guys: totally unique and passionate about his interests. Enjoy!   

This week, Kyle and James sit down with Jim Liaw and Ryan Sage, the two men behind the incredible motorsport series known as Formula Drift. They get into what makes Formula D so appealing to a younger generation of car enthusiasts and why it's one of the last financially accessible high-level forms of racing plus a whole lot more. Jim and Ryan are great guys with a lot of unique insights into the sport that they helped popularize in America. This is a good one, strap in!

James and Kyle were invited to come down to Toyota HQ in Torrance, CA to judge the Toyota Dream Cars art contest along with several Toyota North America executives, Cheech Marin, Dave Kunz and more. They figured that since they were there, they'd sit down with a few Toyota folks and get a bit of a peek behind the curtain. Karen Ideno works in corporate social responsiblity, helping to administer programs like the Dream Cars contest. Susan Sanborn runs the incredible Toyota Museum and has a fantastic story of working her way up through the company to her current position. Both of these ladies were wonderful to talk to and Kyle and James hope they get invited back next year!

We were lucky enough to be invited to judge the Toyota Dream Car kid's art contest with Cheech Marin a few months ago and Mr. Marin was nice enough to sit down with us to record a short (yet sweet) podcast where he talks about his involvement with the Cars franchise, his love of Chicano art, lowriders, and more. This is a fun one and making it was an amazing experience for both Kyle and James.Keep an eye out for the rest of the CarStories Toyota special coming up soon!

Greg Hancock is one of America's greatest racers on two wheels. He is a four-time World Speedway champion, with his most recent championship coming in his mid-forties, almost unheard of in what is normally thought of as a young man's sport. Greg is also a fantastic human being with a ton of passion for racing and his family. James sat down with him at the museum to see what makes him tick.

We had Melanie Hellwig White on the podcast as part of our 2016 SEMA special and we had so much fun that we invited her back! Melanie is one of the titular Hellwig's of Hellwig Products fame and Hellwig has been making super high-quality suspension products for over 70 years in their factory in California. During her last conversation with Kyle and James, Melanie promised to deliver an epic off-roading shovel to Kyle to fuel his nascent dreams of overlanding and she definitely came through strong. This is a fun one, enjoy!

Nadia Fugazza is the editor and producer for Petrolicous. She is an extremely talented lady and she's behind many of your favorite Petrolicious films including the wonderful Derek Bell film that was shot in Sicily with the new 718 Boxster. Nadia grew up in Italy with an Alfa-obsessed father and eventually came to the US to study film at USC here in Los Angeles. She's a wonderful conversationalist and Kyle had a blast chatting with her.

Ralph Hudson is a racer and a builder. He is a member of the 200mph Club at Bonneville and wears his red hat proudly. He's the fastest man on two wheels at El Mirage dry lake. He is also an accomplished road racer and generally an incredible guy to sit and listen to. He's got more racing stories than we have time for in one episode so we hope he'll come back sometime soon. Ralph is also something of a mentor to Stacie B. London, so she came in to help Ralph tell his story. This is a great episode, we hope you like it!

Max Hazan is a LA-based builder of exquisite one-off motorcycles that continue to set the custom motorcycle community ablaze. His recent builds have included a turbocharged Ducati and a gorgeous Art Deco-inspired BSA 500. Max is a unique guy in that he avoids looking at other people's bikes and custom builds all of his fixtures and tooling for each project. Kyle and James were thrilled when he accepted their invitation to come check out the museum and talk about his work.

Alex Ross is the founder of Sharkwerks, a company that is arguably the best tuner of GT-series Porsches in America right now. He is dedicated to taking Porsche's good work and cranking it past 11 without regard for cost or common sense. In that vein, Alex brought the exquisite Sharkwerks Cayman GT4 by the museum for Kyle and James to drool over. Magnus Walker is best known as the Urban Outlaw, a bearded and be-dreadlocked builder of air-cooled hot rod 911s. He has become an ambassador for the brand over the past few years and he's a regular feature at all the best Porsche events all over the world. He brought down his newest ride, a super customized Porsche 964 with all kinds of Magnus' personal styling touches.Together they sat down with Kyle and James to talk about the North/South divide in England, the air and water cooled divide in the Porsche community, and why Sharkwerks doesn't really have a business model. This was a super fun conversation, and we know you guys will love it.