(Hu)man in the Machine

• Let’s talk about your petrol-head origin story? The who/what/where/when/how of Jeff Willis? Did you come from a car family? What made you into a Petrol-head, did it start as a kid? Or did you come into it later in life?
• Your dad wrote a book called “An Auto Biography” by Kent Willis; what was that all about?, and did it or he inspire you to become a petrol head? (As well as a writer?)
• You have a fascination with James Dean, and Porsches? Is that because of the California Car culture? Or something else?
• You spent a lot of time as an automotive photographer – do you still do that?
• Lots of eclectic cars in your portfolio  Fiat 124, VW Bug, Early Porsche 928 – why, what else past or future?
• What is (Hu)man in the Machine about? What inspired you to write the book?
• As an author/writer – are there any books you would recommend for other enthusiasts to check out?
• You also freelance for Garage Style Magazine and Exotic Car Marketplace; what else are you working on? What’s Jeff’s future look like? Is there another book on the way?

and much, much more!

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] BrakeFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors, designers, and everything in between. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder, how did they get that job or become that person?

The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.

Crew Chief Eric: Our guest tonight is a car guy, motorcycle enthusiast, martial artist, photographer, and writer. Jeff Willis was born and raised in Eureka, California. And in his new book, Human in the Machine, he explores the relationship between cars and the people who love them. And he’s here to give us a peek, not only into his life, but the stories he captured in his new book and much, much more.

So with that, let’s welcome Jeff to BreakFix.

Jeff Willis: Well, thank you very much for having me here. I appreciate you having me on and I want to say congratulations on so [00:01:00] many episodes. You have a lot of episodes.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, thank you very much.

Jeff Willis: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Everyone has a superhero origin story. So tell us about how you became a petrolhead.

The who, what, where, and why, what influenced you? Did you come from a car family? Did it start as a kid or did you come at it later in life?

Jeff Willis: It started for me when I was a kid. Seeing the joy in my dad’s eyes and the value that cars and motorcycles brought him, my dad really kind of imparted his enjoyment of cars and motorcycles and the memories that they brought him to me.

Very first car or truck that I can remember that did that was a 1950 GMC truck that he bought as a project and then later on after he worked on that for a while sold that. And he bought a 1951 Chevy and the funny story about that is the guy that he bought it from gave him the explanation as to why all of the glass in the truck had been busted and [00:02:00] broken out.

Apparently the wife of the man found something out about him and somebody else and something or other took a baseball bat to all of the glass except the two most valuable pieces of glass, those corner pieces of glass on the five windows. She left those alone, so, somehow, those survived. Later on, he bought a MG Midget and would pick up my sister and I from the babysitter after he got off work.

And that was really, honestly, riding in a sports car, like a race car for us, because we were little, we got to sit in the little car really close to the ground. And it was just a whole holistic experience being in a tiny, small, quick little convertible. And it just was burned in my brain, and from those early days on, um, I was enthralled with cars.

I always had hot wheels and remote control cars, wanted to race my friends and pretend that our bikes were Harleys. And so it started young.

Crew Chief Eric: When we talk to people on the show and you, they immediately associate [00:03:00] California with car culture. And it’s like, Oh, you must love cars because it’s the epicenter of American car culture, the beach boys and, you know, James Dean and all this kind of stuff.

And then you kind of peel it back and you go, wait, Eureka. Where is that? If you quickly look on the map, it is on the water, but it’s northwest of Sacramento towards Redwoods. That’s not where car culture is. What was that like growing up?

Jeff Willis: That’s funny that you say that because that’s what I heard from most of the people that ever visited me or exchanged students that I knew in school.

The first thing they would say would be, where’s the palm trees? And we would say, we don’t have palm trees. We have Redwood trees. It’s a little different. It’s foggy. It’s cold. It’s. 58 to 60 degrees year round. I love that sort of weather. I’m a fog guy myself. I really love that sort of atmosphere, but it was a shock to most people when they would come to California and see that this wasn’t the California of the TV shows and the movies.

That was something that [00:04:00] never really occurred to me growing up because we still had car clubs. We still had car shows. My uncle was a founding member. He actually was the founding member of the Chaparral’s car club in the 60s here. So one of the very first car clubs in Eureka was started by my uncle.

And so for me, it never really occurred to me that we weren’t part of the California car culture because it really felt like we were until someone from outside of the area would come in and say, this is weird. This isn’t what I thought California would be. So yeah, it never really occurred to me.

Crew Chief Eric: For those of us petrol heads of a certain age, as we like to say, there’s certain posters that were on our walls as a kid.

So one of our famous Pit Stop questions here, what was on your wall?

Jeff Willis: Lamborghini. I had a red Countach on my wall, and that was probably the first supercar that really lit my brain up. That and the Ferraris, when we were young, were all that we knew about that were quote unquote supercars. Nowadays, you have 15, 16 different [00:05:00] brands that are considered supercars, which is great, and it’s fun.

Back then, it seemed a little more pure in some sense, where those were it. Those were the upper echelon that everybody loved, that everybody had on their walls. Of course, Porsche was very close. Underneath

Crew Chief Eric: that. So you’re right, because the Porsches at the time, you’re talking about the Kunta, you had the Ferrari tester Rosa, right?

One of the widest cars. Yeah, in production. And then the nine 30 Turbo, which wasn’t quite at that level yet. Porsche hadn’t transcended. And we’re gonna talk about Porsche a little bit more here as we go along ’cause it is a sweet spot for you. But then I remember too, out of nowhere comes Jaguar with the XJ two 20 and sort of breaks the glass ceiling for supercars at that point.

Jeff Willis: The thing about Jaguar, I’m glad you brought them up because that wasn’t something that I immediately thought of when I think of cars that were really influential in the 80s and 90s. However, when I think back to the XJS, that is one of the most beautiful cars that I’ve ever seen. [00:06:00] I kind of like those bastard stepchild sort of.

Models like the 928 Porsche that nobody that’s a purist likes, the XJS that people say it looks like a giant stepped on it or sat on it. I love those cars because they’re weird and they’re strange and cool and sexy and those led to Jaguar. And other similar brands really wanting to make an indelible mark on the automotive culture and community where they weren’t really considered the Ferrari or the Lamborghini or what have you.

So, like you said, when the XJ220 came out, that was mind blowing because everybody was like, where did Jaguar come from with that? That Just blew everybody’s mind. I think that’s a huge piece of the puzzle as well.

Crew Chief Eric: Stepping back into your past, your dad actually wrote a book called an autobiography, a little bit of play on words there by Kent Willis.

You can actually still find that book out there. It’s on Amazon as well. So what was that about? And did he inspire [00:07:00] you to become. a writer as well to kind of deepen your petrol headness, if that’s actually a word.

Jeff Willis: It actually was the opposite. My dad has written a number of books. The first book that he wrote was in the late seventies.

It was on invertebrate biology and it was a college scrapbook for Humboldt State University. Since then, he’s written a lot of other books. One of the most influential that I think that he wrote was about coaching and teaching. He was a coach and a teacher for 42 years, as was my mom. His love of cars, for me, directly translated into something that should be put into book form.

And so I was actually the one that convinced him to write a book about cars and all of the wonderful memories that he had had from when he was hunting deer with his dad in a wagon and Uh, my grandma driving a 63 Nova and him driving an Impala to his prom, all these amazing cars that people drool over now that were a little [00:08:00] more regular back then, he’s got all these wonderful memories that are connected to him.

I said, dad, you have to write some of this stuff down because to me, that’s really the only way that you can create, I guess, what you would consider kind of a time machine. Where you can go back and really kind of experience some of those things that other people experienced and have it written down so that those stories don’t get lost generations to come.

You remember your loved ones, you remember great times that you had. These are all wonderful things that I think through writing are preserved. And I think that’s beautiful.

Crew Chief Eric: As you scroll through your social media posts, you begin to realize very quickly that you’re a Porsche file and you’ve got a thing and you’ve said it more than once publicly too, that you really are fascinated with the James Dean story.

And we had Lee Raskin on here earlier last season, who is a known expert in and Porsche 550s and 356s and things like that. So let’s dive into that a little bit more. I know that’s part of California car culture as well, especially his tragic death and all that. [00:09:00] What really drew you into that world?

Especially that very small snippet of Porsche history. And how did that grow for you?

Jeff Willis: When I was young, I was not a Porsche fan to begin with. I thought the nine 11s were ugly. I thought they looked like squat obese, little turtles that had chubby hips and buggy eyes. And that compared to the Lamborghini that looks like it’s going a thousand miles an hour standing still, it doesn’t equate it wasn’t until later.

When I started to see some of the, like, for instance, the five 14s with the closed wheel base fender skirts, that were the racers that I just thought were incredibly beautiful and the Glockner Porsches in the eighties and nineties, the Kramer K three, even back further in the seventies, the nine seventeens that were just.

Wild and amazing mirrored a little bit of one of my dream cars, the Ford GT forties, that is when I started to kind of really get into the old race car, former race car, kind of car club culture. And a lot of those guys were really into those [00:10:00] old Porsches because. The Porsches were more readily available.

They were more accessible. They were more affordable. And so a lot more people could experience the beauty and the fun and the heart pumping nature of those old Porsches than could say a Lamborghini or a Ferrari from some of those eras. Fast forward to when I was writing my book, I met and befriended a really amazing guy named Jack.

His real name is Jacob, but they called him Portia Jack. He was born and raised in Europe and worked for Portia starting when he was 15 years old in the factory. He got to work on 356s. He got to work on some of the race teams in the 60s and 70s. He was friends with James Dean. He was friends with Steve McQueen, a lot of these guys that were really influential.

I got to have a little piece of a lot of the stories that people haven’t heard of before and put them into my book. So that even further accelerated [00:11:00] my love and my curiosity for Porsche’s. And I became kind of a psychotic about finding more information about these cars. I have, I think, if I’m not exaggerating, probably 150 books on Portia alone in my collection.

It hasn’t stopped and I don’t think it ever will because there’s so much information out there about different models and different stories and races, some of them in my book. I can almost guarantee that nobody has heard of before. Like, for instance, when Porsche Jack saved the day in a race, there was a Porsche 917, I believe it was, that broke down.

There were two of them that they had there. One of them broke down. And so everybody on the other teams was kind of celebrating, oh, we don’t have to compete with two Porsches, just one. And everybody thought that that was kind of the end of the day, because if that Porsche broke down, then they were screwed.

So, and he took the engine out, he drove it three hours back to his shop, he worked on it until three o’clock in the morning, drove back to the race, put it back in the car, got it race ready, and in the [00:12:00] morning, both Porsches came out, and everybody kind of freaked out, like, what magic is this? And he said that the announcer said, this is either the car from heaven or the car from hell, because we don’t know.

How that happened, befriending a lot of people that were in that world and seeing a lot more of the provenance and the history of the brand really kind of got me salivating for more. And that still kind of drives me to find more and more information about it to this day.

Crew Chief Eric: What I love about that is it falls right in line with what this show is really about, too.

It’s a capturing that living history, but B. Those lesser known corner case stories where it’s like, if you never met Portia, Jack, he probably told his closest friends 10 times and they’re tired of hearing it a thousand times over, but to the rest of us is new. And it’s exciting. And it’s that little just moment in time, even in racing history, we’re like, that’s why that car came back out on the track.

And you always kind of wondered, but never knew the story behind it. So that’s really cool that you’re [00:13:00] able to talk to folks like that and bring those stories to light. In your time as a petrol head, obviously you’ve evolved, you’ve blossomed like the rest of us, but you spent a lot of time as an automotive photographer.

So how did you get into that? Did you make that a professional thing? Was it, has it been a hobby? How have you been able to expand that?

Jeff Willis: Started in front of the camera. When I was younger, it sounds a little silly, but I was a model for quite a while. Did some runway stuff, did some print stuff. I was around photography and photographers a lot, and my love of cars had already blossomed and become a thing.

Being around so many photographers and kind of picking up a lot of the little tips and tricks they use, led me to think, Hmm, I wonder if I could merge the two and make something out of that. And so I started taking pictures of friends cars. I wasn’t good to begin with. I still am not great. I’m still learning all the time.

In fact, I… Study the model of camera that I have and some of the tips and tricks that you can use to get better. As I started to take more photos, more [00:14:00] opportunities arose for taking photos for car clubs and some of the events that I put on. I created a couple car shows and so I would create the posters and it just kind of started to snowball from there.

And as I’m sure you are well aware, once you purposefully take a step into this world, you can’t step back out. You start to snowball and things happen and people talk and they let other people know that you’re the guy that does this and things just start happening. Like I would never have ever guessed that I would be on this cool of a podcast, let alone having written a book about cars or anything like that, unless I just took that first lead.

Crew Chief Eric: But along the way, you’ve also met all sorts of interesting folks. I’m going to name drop for our audience. People like Christian von Koenigsegg, while you’ve been out photographing events like the Pebble Beach Concourse, so any other like cool memories or things that you can share about those types of events?

Jeff Willis: Oh my gosh, there are so many people that I met and [00:15:00] people that I met through other people. Portia Jack in fact did a lot of stuff with Leno and Seinfeld and all these other guys and so. It just absolutely blows my mind that I have some sort of a connection to some of these guys that I’ve looked up to for my whole life.

I know that you are in close connection with Colleen from Skunkworks. I followed her for years on Instagram. Never in a million years did I think I would be sitting in her office, interviewing her, looking and photographing her Ferrari collection. And yeah, Koenigsegg and Chad McQueen, the list goes on and on.

And when I was a little younger… I lived in Hollywood working there in a couple different places and I was a personal shopper for some celebrities. Some of the celebrities that I met were actually car people as well. Paris Hilton was a car person. I got to tour her blue Bentley, which was really wild.

Jeremy Piven, Terrell Owens. There’s so many people that I was in direct connection with that I got [00:16:00] to see certain cars and. Learn of their obsessions for certain models and brands and things like that that still to this day really appreciate and can’t hardly believe I was in a movie at one point called The Majestic with Jim Carrey and David Ogden Stiers was one of the supporting actors in it.

And I befriended him on the set. We actually hung out a couple of times, knew that I was a really big car guy. One afternoon he said, Hey, Jeff, come here. I want to show you something. And around the corner, it was that year’s brand new Lincoln. And he tossed me the keys. He said, maybe you want to drive it.

You know, my eyes lit up. I was 18 year old kid freaking out, you know, it was before any sort of voice activated stuff that we have now connected to our phones. And so he said, watch this. Hey, Lincoln, call john smith. And it dialed. And I just was like, what is happening? So many different people. I mean, I could name 100 different people.

But again, it comes back to that love. And like you said, that connection that all of us share [00:17:00] That so many more people than we realize are into this whole scene and this culture and this lifestyle. And all you have to do is ask. It’s the coolest thing. You just have to ask, Hey, can I talk to you? Can I interview you?

Can I pick your brain? And people love to talk about this stuff because they love, you know, the way it makes them feel and the memories. The experiences they get to have

Crew Chief Eric: a little bit of foreshadowing there when we dive a little deeper into your book. But yeah, that is pretty much the premise. There is again, the connections to the cars brought up something really important about Hollywood.

It’s always shocking when you realize how many, let’s say behind the curtain. Car collectors, there are, I mean, you would expect the celebrities, they need to burn their money on something. And you have the ones at the front of mind, like Paul Walker, we all know he’s a car guy name, a collection, Jay Leno, like you said, Tim Allen and so on and lines.

You’re like, they’re noted car collectors, but there’s other folks in that community. That they’ve got their prize possessions, their crown jewels, the cars that they like to flaunt that they bring down to, you know, [00:18:00] whatever cars and coffees going on that weekend, that sort of thing. And to your point, they got some cool stories.

You take an interest in them and say, you’re not in a weird way. Be like, why’d you buy that car? But why this car? Why these customizations like take an interest in them. And to your point, they open up and they want to tell you why they did it that way. And it’s pretty cool. Or you’re going to remind them of, to your point, something that happened when they were a kid.

Is there somebody on your bucket list? Is there somebody that maybe you didn’t get to interview for the book that you still want to talk to?

Jeff Willis: Yes. So I contacted Spike Ferriston. He, first of all, congratulated me on becoming a writer for garage style magazine for my book and stuff like that. But I asked him if I could interview him and he laughed and said, no, and said, congrats anyways.

And he did it in such a funny and fun way. I want to try to knock that door down again and see if I could interview him because he’s another guy that I listened to his podcast quite a bit. He obviously has connections all across the world and great friends with Seinfeld and. I would [00:19:00] love to interview him and or Seinfeld.

I would love to interview Mr. Beast. He’s a guy that I think is kind of a secret car guy. He’s done a lot of really weird YouTube videos where he crushes Ferrari or Lamborghini in a hydraulic press. I would really like to interview him and see if there’s something underneath that kind of. Funny atmosphere that he creates that really kind of makes him tick because there’s other guys that are very similar to him that are very open with loving cars and stuff like that.

He’s a guy that is very humble, which I think is cool. He says he doesn’t need a lot. He doesn’t need a big house. He doesn’t need cars and stuff like that. I don’t really buy it. I think there’s something there that, you know, all of us when we were a kid had some sort of hot wheel or a video game or something that just really lit our minds on fire.

So somebody like that, I would really like to kind of see if I could work my way into the psyche a little bit further than anybody else has.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s funny. At first when you said Mr. Beast, I thought you were [00:20:00] talking about Eric Bana, who is also another known petrol head. And he did a movie called love the beast.

So I highly recommend that to people that want to understand our passion, that opening monologue when he’s driving around and his nine 11 is just. Absolutely amazing. And it really does set the tone for most of us that are passionate about cars. So you’ve done a lot of events, Pebble Beach and so on. And even most recently you’ve written about Velocity and Lufka 8 and things like that.

So what are some of the best events? What are some of your favorites? What are some that you’re looking forward to even just going to, or maybe shooting as a photographer?

Jeff Willis: The most exclusive albeit most laid back show that I’ve ever been to was the Pixar car show. And that was one that I never thought that I would get into.

Obviously, this is a theme. A lot of things that I never thought would happen are happening. But I got to meet a lot of really great car people. I got to meet a lot of people that worked at Pixar that were kind of secret car people that came out with these [00:21:00] fantastic old Porsches and Lamborghinis and old Chevy builds and things like that.

I was dating someone at the time that worked there, and so I kind of hung out at the Pixar campus quite a bit. When I got invited to the car show, which was one of those things that, as a car guy, I had heard about, little rumblings about, but I knew there was no way that the public could ever get in. So when I got invited, I kind of freaked out a little bit.

And that was one of the greatest shows I’ve ever been to. And it was so laid back and Chip Foose was there. Leno stopped by, you know, a lot of the, like we’re talking about the staple guys were there. It was cool to kind of just be hobnobbing around with these guys and kind of just saying, Hey, what’s up?

And, you know, we’re all eating a hot dog and looking at a car together. And it’s these guys that I’ve watched on TV since I was a kid. The other event that is in my mind is the one that you said. Eight was the most well curated event I’ve ever been to in my life. It was the coolest setup where there [00:22:00] was a really beautiful, wonderful juxtaposition of the beauty and art of the cars with the stark, gross industrial background.

It was all stone, weird brick. It was just a perfect mixture of the two. Where it really made the beauty of the cars pop and it was great for photos and the way they set up all the warehouses with, you know, there was a coffee shop in one and there was a group of 917s in the other. And then I don’t know if it was Rolex or Chopard or somebody had a place where they were showing off their 200, 000 watches while somebody with ripped jeans was smoking a cigarette right next to it outside.

It was just all these weird mixtures of all these different kind of. Styles and cultures and stuff that I’ve never seen before, but I really appreciate it. It was so cool.

Crew Chief Eric: So what’s funny about that event put together by Pat Long, one of the Porsche drivers, Yep. Patrick Dempsey, et cetera, right? All those guys together.

They did something similar to that at Petit Le Mans at the end of 2021 [00:23:00] at Road Atlanta. And I was privy to get into that, where they have that kind of style that they used to, where the cars are in these crates, but they’re not in crates. They almost look like model cars. So they had some of the Brumos cars, like Hurley Haywood’s nine 64 turbo, one of the nine 35s and a couple other things.

So they did a miniature version of that at road Atlanta and here on the East coast, that’s as close as I’ve gotten to that type of event put on by the same folks, but it was awesome because the setting was. In the 12 hours there wrote Atlanta. So you’re watching the endurance racing going on. You’ve got this whole hospitality thing and the cars and talking to people.

And so, yeah, it’s a really cool vibe. And if you’re fortunate enough to maybe, I guess, go to Lufka cult nine, you’re listening to this or one of the future ones, definitely check it out. Cause they’re doing some really cool stuff. Love it. Let’s peel back another layer of this bloom and onion here. And let’s talk about your eclectic portfolio of vehicles.

When you take a quick scan through your social media profile, you’ll see things like a Fiat 124 Spyder, VW Bug, an early Porsche 928, and a bunch of other things. [00:24:00] So why, why, why these cars? How did you end up with this motley crew? So

Jeff Willis: the bug, first of all, was one that I’ve always wanted. My mom had a bug when I was a little kid.

And it was funny because my dad said that he hated that car because when I was maybe one or two years old, my mom would put me in the little car seat in the back. And my dad said, as we drove off down the driveway, he would see my little head bouncing around and always worry about our safety. My mom almost got squished in that bug, horrible pun intended.

So she got rid of that, but I always wanted a bug. That was one of my, if not my earliest memory was of the perforated seats. In my mom’s bug, the 70 Nova was just something that is one of the greatest, sexiest muscle cars of all time. I think the Challengers, the Novas, the Camaros, they’re all kind of in that same league.

They have that big, huge back end with the meaty tires and that muscle bulldog look to them. And [00:25:00] I just think those are so badass. The Porsche, like I mentioned earlier, I have a thing for the bastard stepchild model of any brand. And so I really am drawn to that car because not a lot of people in the Porsche world really show a lot of appreciation to it yet.

Yours is a four and a half liter, right? Yeah, it’s a 1980. So it’s the automatic. It would have been cool to have a stick, but I’m okay with that. However, When I got mine, I was looking for that particular car, that model, and I found one, and it was for sale, and it was on Craigslist. I contacted the lady a day too late.

I thought, uh, it’s a little more than I want to spend, but I contacted her, she said, oh, I’m so sorry, I sold it yesterday. I was broken hearted, so I went and I bought a 87 Vette instead. I really love all the 80s cars, the really kind of low profile, making me reminisce of my childhood kind of cars. So I got the 87 Vette, just love that thing, just burn the tires off that thing.

A year and a [00:26:00] half later, the exact same Porsche 928 came back on Craigslist and I called the guy immediately and I said, I got to come over, I’ll take it. I didn’t argue with him about the price. It was a little more than the last person had asked, but he was a chiropractor in the Bay Area that tried to tinker with it himself and didn’t really know what he was doing.

So there were a couple of things that I had to fix and get fixed on it, but then it was just a monster machine. Since then, it’s just been one of the greatest investments I’ve ever made. I, since I bought it in 20, I don’t know what it was, 16, maybe it’s quadrupled in value, which isn’t really that important to me and it’s not really necessarily the monetary value, but everywhere I go, people freak out and give me thumbs up, that’s a cool car.

Oh, I remember when I had one of these or my dad had one or whatever. That’s the other thing that I really love that my dad also really loves in his 51 Chevy five window, getting thumbs up and really kind of eliciting a response from people. That’s [00:27:00] part of the whole fun of driving these cars out in public is inviting people into this chaotic fun that they create and all the memories that stir up and people really reach out to you and start conversations and you make friends.

And I have a number of other cars, but. Those are the ones that really have a lot of meaning and background to me. So,

Crew Chief Eric: so if you had to buy something brand new today, what’s your hot take? Brand new, affordable money is no

Jeff Willis: object. What would you buy? I would either go with Koenigsegg or Pagani. I think those are two of the most beautiful car designs of any generation.

Other than that, I have a real thing for the new Corvettes. The performance of them, the look of them, the affordability of them. All of that appeals to me. But Lamborghini always has my heart. Besides Koenigsegg and Pagani, any Lamborghini. I really like the new Huracans, but I really love the 2004 Gallardo.

The [00:28:00] original Gallardo. I think that’s just such a cool, compact little thing. And that car, I’ve driven a number of them. That is the closest thing that I have ever experienced to being inside a video game. You

Crew Chief Eric: haven’t driven a Nissan GTR then, because it’s exactly like being in a video game. I have not. No,

Jeff Willis: a friend of mine had one and he said it was pretty wild, but I have never driven one of those.

Crew Chief Eric: You mentioned the Pagani and the Koenigsegg. So would those be the sexiest cars of all time? Or is there something else?

Jeff Willis: Gosh, yes, I would have to say I think the Koenigsegg for me, the artistic value of the Pagani and all the little weird details like the little leaf shaped side view mirrors. The other car that I think is probably one of the most underrated sexy cars is the Spyker C8.

The interior of that thing looks like a 1940s bomber that was redone in all chrome or something. It just is so cool and all the [00:29:00] stitching on the leather. Every single thing in that car is very obvious that it was hand done and meticulous and gorgeous. The Spyker C8 would be a very close sexiest car.

Crew Chief Eric: So the opposite of that, do you have an ugliest car?

Jeff Willis: The ugliest car that I can think of would be… What I call the carved turd. And that would be the Tesla.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh! Wow! That’s the first time somebody’s brought up a Tesla. It’s the ugliest car of all time. I

Jeff Willis: just hate Teslas. Everything about them. The background of them. The history of them. The look. Everything. I can’t stand about them.

Crew Chief Eric: Well then you will enjoy our Tesla retrospective episode. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. So as we move on, let’s talk about your book, gotten to know you, but let’s get to know the you in parentheses, man in the machine, you have it kind of an interesting way to do the title, the human or the man in the machine. So what is it all about?

And like you said, your dad inspired you to write other people telling you to write, but getting off the [00:30:00] blocks and writing a book is a lot different than writing an article or a short story or an essay. When you sit down to 80, 000 words. It’s a hell of a job. So what got you there?

Jeff Willis: Well, yes, all of the above got me there.

First of all, the title human in the machine. I started with man in the machine. And I thought since I have been interviewing so many women that have really made a big difference in the automotive culture and industry, I thought, you know, it should be human in the machine because especially nowadays when it’s a lot more accepted.

For women to be such a huge part of this industry. I think that should be celebrated. I think that’s really cool. When I interviewed people such as Jesse Combs, before she obviously unfortunately passed away, it really opened my eyes to the fact that a lot of these women are real true pioneers in the sport, in the industry, and they’re doing a lot of really cool things.

That’s one of the big reasons why I [00:31:00] chose that title. The original inspiration did come from my dad writing his book, but the start of it, just like you said, was incredibly hard. I started this journey in 2016, and really started to put it down pen to paper in 2018. And so from 2018, all the way through COVID with all the things that, you know, went up and down, and I stopped, and there were times when I…

It’s that screw it. I don’t want to finish it. I just want to throw it away and never do it again. Through all that up and down, it also was something that I really started to take hold of as far as a motivation to finish. It was a goal of mine to finish the book, to get it published, to get it out there.

My ex wife, Michelle, was a huge help. In formatting and editing and things like that. I definitely have a lot of appreciation for her motivation for me to finish as well. But it was a tough journey. It was a lot of ups and downs in life. But what kept me going is these [00:32:00] stories that I was. Receiving from people I thought to myself.

I can’t keep these just to myself. I have to share these with the world I’m glad I did because there’s a lot of things in there that like I said I don’t think people have heard before that they’ll appreciate and people and stories that Need to be shared and passed from generation to generation. So they don’t get forgotten.

Crew Chief Eric: Amazon right now, if you go look for the book, you’ll see the book jacket on there, but there’s no preview of the inside of the book. So for those folks that are kind of wondering how the book is arranged, is it a compilation of short stories or are you telling a larger over? Arching story that threads all of these people together.

Jeff Willis: It’s more of the former. It’s a bit of a hodgepodge. I took a little bit of inspiration from one of my favorite automotive authors of all time, who I was really lucky enough to interview for the book, Tom Cotter. He tends to organize his books in short story to short story format. My book starts out with a little [00:33:00] bit of my history, a little bit of storytelling and then.

Transitioning into short story to short story and then towards the end transitions into a bit more of a hodgepodge of things that I appreciated about the culture and the industry that I really kind of just had rattling around in my brain that I wanted to get out and On paper, so there isn’t a real strong format followed throughout the whole thing.

It’s a bit more of a free flow thought to paper kind of approach.

Crew Chief Eric: Hyper focusing on the person that you interviewed there. So you mentioned a few Portia Jack, Jesse Combs, Tom Cotter, Afshin Enia from Petrolicious is in the book. Are there any other folks that you might want to name drop that would get people excited to pick up a copy?

So Afshin,

Jeff Willis: first of all, was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. He was so cool and petrilicious, I just have to say, is one of the greatest things that I have ever come across. He does not any longer run the brand. There’s no [00:34:00] ill thought towards the way it’s run now. But I think something was lost when he left the brand.

When he and his wife were running the brand, that was the most perfect storytelling platform I’ve ever seen for any automotive piece of culture. It was something that helped me get through COVID and not go crazy. It helped me through a breakup and not go crazy. It helped me to find other people like me that had similar stories and I reached out to a couple of them, got to know some people that I wouldn’t know otherwise.

That was just a wild experience in itself because Petrolicious was something that I was very closely connected with for a number of years before I got to talk to Afshin. I got to talk to people such as Elspeth Beard. She was the first female to ride a motorcycle solo around the world. And her book, Lone Rider.

That is one book that I would suggest that people go out and read if they’re interested in a really cool origin story of how someone starts a [00:35:00] journey and really finds a value in the motivation of why and how and the people that you meet along the way and the experiences that you have. Just so many different people that I got to talk to, interview, befriend that have been a part of this book.

It’s just been a really wonderful journey and I can’t thank these people enough.

Crew Chief Eric: For young aspiring writers out there or maybe some veterans that are looking to do their next book, do you have any advice, lessons learned, things that you can pass on? Don’t give up.

Jeff Willis: That’s the biggest thing. I’m not a professional writer.

I didn’t go to school for writing. I’m not a professional editor. But I’m really proud of this book that I created and the stories that have been told in it. It wasn’t an overnight thing that I just said, Oh, I’m going to do this and then boom, it’s done. It’s, it was a long process of gathering information, meeting people, interviewing them, putting the information in a format that could be understood, editing it to where it looked and sounded a little better, doing formatting so it would look good in the book format [00:36:00] itself, finding out how to self publish on Amazon.

I couldn’t afford to hire a publisher to publish for me and buy all my books up front. So I did self publishing on Amazon where it’s a pay as you go thing and I created it. So I, I’m making 1. 04 per book or something like that. So the idea was never to get rich. That’s the other thing that I would give as advice to someone.

Don’t think about the money, or the prestige, or whatever. Think about how your passion is going to be translated, and how people are going to receive it, and how they will best receive it, and understand it, and enjoy it. Because people are always dying for something that will make them feel good, or remember a great memory that they had from when they were a kid, or what have you.

Focus on the passion. Don’t give up. Understand that it’s not as big of a bear or a monster as you think it is. It’s a lot of work, but if you take the steps to get there and you ask people to talk to you, they will. And if you ask people to interview, they will. [00:37:00] Most car guys and motorcycle girls and the like really love To interact with other people that are like minded.

And so you don’t get a lot of no’s when you ask to talk to people about this stuff that everybody loves. So that’s the other thing, just kind of being bold and not being afraid.

Crew Chief Eric: We’ve interviewed quite a few authors on the show in the past, and we always like to ask them, what are some of your recommended reads?

You mentioned one Lone Rider by Esbeth Beard, but are there any others on your list that our listeners should check out? I have

Jeff Willis: a whole stack of them here. The biggest thing that I can say is, think about what really drives you, what you’re passionate about, and then just find stuff about it. There’s gonna be pamphlets and magazines and books and shows and DVDs.

Just go out and search for it. One of my favorite things to do is to go to the local bookstore, to the thrift store, to yard sales, and find little gems that aren’t readily available for the entire public to find. And you [00:38:00] find out little cool pieces of information about the thing that you love that not everybody knows.

And that’s kind of fun to find those little treasures. I would just suggest, first of all, finding the thing that makes you tick. And then doing research on where to find literature about it. Yes, I would recommend Elspeth Beard’s book. There’s a number of Portia books that I would recommend as well.

Because I’m really into that scene now, that culture. My dad’s book, I’ll give him a little plug.

Crew Chief Eric: As you mentioned earlier, you also freelance for Garage Style Magazine and Exotic Car Marketplace. We’ve had both Don Wieberg and William Ross on the show previously, many times actually. That kind of begs the question, what else are you working on?

What’s Jeff Willis’s future look like? Is there another book on the horizon? There is. So my next

Jeff Willis: venture as far as book writing is going to be something similar, but in Europe. I really want to delve into the car culture [00:39:00] there because it’s different over here in the states. We have a lot of stuff like muscle cars, low riders.

There’s a lot of really kind of niche stuff in this California U. S. car culture. Over there, there’s a lot more X Racer type provenance to some of the stories. It’s a really different world over there that I want to explore and see what I can find out about. That, and there is one other really cool thing I’ll plug.

I’m creating a brand. It’s called Ooh Scary Monster. It’s going to be a company that helps young builders, young racers, young riders find sponsorships. Because I know that’s one of the things when I’ve talked to people that are younger or when I’ve thought about things that I’ve tried to do in the past, sometimes you don’t know where to start and all you need is just a little bit of help to kind of get you going and really light that fire and you see.

I always like to say, wouldn’t it have been crazy if somebody like Hurley Haywood that you mentioned earlier, Senna or somebody like that, or, you know, one of [00:40:00] the racers now, what if you sponsored one of those guys when they were young and doing cart racing or what have you? How crazy would that be of being part of that story?

A lot that I want to do with that, something that I really want to get started in the near future.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Jeff, with that, any other shoutouts, promotions, or anything else you’d like to share that we haven’t covered thus far?

Jeff Willis: First of all, I just want to thank you for having me on the show. This has been an honor and a privilege.

I would like to thank my parents and my sister and my ex wife Michelle, my friends Daniel and Bobby. Everybody else that was a part of the book that I interviewed or talked to, or even mentioned that I was writing a book and they gave me, you know, a pat on the back or encouraging words. I just want to say thank you for all that.

And I hope that people enjoy my book and look out for Ooh, Scary Monster in the future.

Crew Chief Eric: The Human and the Machine is a book about cars, motorcycles, and the people who love them. In it, you’ll hear from well known automotive personalities, authors, stunt drivers, and regular [00:41:00] Joes. To learn more, be sure to follow Jeff on Instagram at darksidesmiley, where he posts photos and thoughts on his continuing automotive journey, as well as a link to his new book on Amazon.

And with that, Jeff, I can’t thank you enough for everything you’re doing. I think this is absolutely fabulous. Congratulations on your new book. And like you said, don’t stop. Keep up the good work. Keep telling and retelling all these stories out there and bringing some of these really cool ideas to the forefront again.

Best of luck. And thank you for everything. Thank you so much for having me.

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about GTM, be sure to check us out on www. gtmotorsports. org. You can also find us on Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call or text us at 202 630 1770, or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.

org. We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, Crew [00:42:00] Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix. And we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization. And our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies, and GTM swag.

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