Passion > Speed > Color

• Which came first, the artist or the petrol-head?
• There’s so many facets to Art and Painting – How did you decide to pair the two together? What was the inspiration? Was it a race/event, a car, a photograph you saw?
• Did you goto school to become a professional artist? If so, what did you study, which styles/masters influenced you?
• There’s a new trend of “photo realistic” paintings popping up all over social media; what are your thoughts on these types of pieces? 
• Special Stories: The Brumos Bahama Mama, Your “Pink Pig” Tribute
• Upcoming pieces, projects or collaborations you can share?
• Where can someone purchase one of your pieces? 

and much, much more!

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] BreakFix 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: The Works Reunion, the Porsche Parade, IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship, Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, Hyundai Motorsports, Arrows McLaren IndyCar, Shell Pennzoil, Recaro Seats, and the Mercedes Benz Club of America?

What do all these things have in common? One person, Kelly Telfer, renowned automobile and motorsports artist. And he’s here to share his road to success story with you.

Kelly Telfer: Welcome to Break Fix, Kelly. Wow, when you say [00:01:00] that introduction, it’s like, who is that guy? I want to meet him.

Crew Chief Eric: Let’s take a trip down memory lane and walk our audience through your superhero origin story.

So how did all this get started?

Kelly Telfer: So in kindergarten, I did a perspective watercolor of a western town. The teacher sent a big red note with big X’s on it to my parents saying that the parents cannot do the artwork for the kids. If they would have seen my parents do the artwork, it would have looked like a kindergartner, but I did this perspective western town drawing, which I still have at age five.

In second grade, I drew my two favorite cars in the world, a Porsche Speedster. And I focused on the left front fender with the aluminum side molding strip with the gold plated Speedster logo. Also my, at the time, favorite car was an E Type Jag. I love the E Type Jags, but Porsche won out. Let’s fast forward a little bit.

When I was 14 years old, my brother, who’s a few years older than I, we formed a racing team in Fremont, California at a dirt oval track. We were started racing [00:02:00] stock VW Bugs, 40 horsepower on dirt oval. You had to be 16 or you had to have permission from your parents. My dad said it was too dangerous. So I merely forged.

Yes, I forged. I drew my own California driver’s license at age 14 that said I was 16. So I could give myself permission to race cars.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s awesome.

Kelly Telfer: We go racing. And I drew a t shirt. If you fast forward 30 years, I had 84 employees. We printed motorsports t shirts 24 7. Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty, Le Mans, Indy 500, Daytona 24 hours were all my clients, amongst many others.

And so in all the disciplines of racing, maybe six out of the top ten were my clients. It was unbelievable to travel the world and draw race cars on t shirts. Laguna Seca Raceway was a client for 16 years. Rick Mears was a client for about 15 years. I’ve [00:03:00] got so many backstories with so many famous drivers from that era.

It’s just unbelievable. I had 12 incredible artists working for me in addition to my art. And every morning we have an art meeting, and I have one guy, Brad Skadden, that worked for me for eight years, and he’s a great designer in his own right, he does helmets and t shirts to this day. But he can imitate me hilariously where I get out the legal yellow pad and I do my quick sketch for each of our projects and hand it off to an artist.

And we start our day. I sold that at age 44. I’m kind of pretty much done. But what am I going to do? I go to Silicon Valley where I had, I lived, I was born and raised in San Jose. I’d never done anything with Silicon Valley. So I went and got a job at Siemens as a temporary PowerPoint artist. 30 an hour, no chance of full time employment.

Two days later, I’m hired at a huge salary, huge bonus package. My title was Psychology of the Web.

Crew Chief Eric: What does that even mean?

Kelly Telfer: Yeah, well, so Siemens is based in [00:04:00] Munich, Germany. They had 464, 000 employees at that point. And I asked them, I said, just like you, what does that mean? What’s Psychology of the Web?

And they go, well, that, Herr Telfer, is your title. You’ll figure it out. So I went from a temporary PowerPoint artist, 10 years later. Global director of e marketing for one of their eight divisions, networks and communications. Nobody knew I was an artist. They knew I was extremely creative with marketing solutions, go to market solutions, sales solutions, and they wanted to make me a VP.

And I said, no, thank you. So they paid me for a year. I had a meeting, a half hour meeting every week just to check in. I remodeled a house. My father calls it the house that Siemens built. And then I said, no, thank you. And so at that point I jumped off the cliff and said, you know what? My whole life I’ve done artwork.

I’m an expert at computer graphics. I’m an expert at all this stuff. I’m going to go old school. I’m going to take a paintbrush and a canvas. And I’m going to go paint. I’m so passionate about art, so passionate [00:05:00] about cars. It’s just a dream come true. To be able to do work with Porsche, with Laguna Seca Raceway, the racetrack I went to when I was four years old for the first time, to be the official artist with both of these, it just blows my mind.

It’s such a dream come true. And I tell people, you can be an overnight success also at age 60, freaking seven.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s so many threads to pull here and I want to go back for a moment because you said something important. The car that inspired you was the Porsche 356 Speedster. You just had your 68th birthday.

That puts you in the 1955 range so you would have been a little too young for the James Dean era. So I’m wondering where did you come across the 356 Speedster or was it just one of those California car culture things where they were more prevalent there than they were back east?

Kelly Telfer: You know, back then, Porsche sold 25 percent of their cars to California.

So like you said, it was a Porsche world here. My father was a Porsche enthusiast. He couldn’t afford one when we were younger. So he had a [00:06:00] 1952 MG TD. My mom had a 1962 Austin Healey 3000. My parents had three children. So I have two siblings and all five of us would get in either one of those cars and go to Laguna Seca Raceway, go to local auto crosses.

I remember seeing Bob Gerritsen autocross before he started road racing and he just blew my mind. I was probably 10 years old in this car. It was in full color. Everything else was in black and white. The way this guy drove it, the way he had engineered, designed it, even at 10 years old. I’m like, there is so much different about that guy and that car.

I was just captured by Porsche, but I got a great story to tell you. I always worked a lot, so I bought and sold my first VW when I was 12. I bought a 56 VW, it was a ragtop, but the sunroof wore out. So the previous owner cut off the roof and welded on a sedan roof. Other than that, the car was perfect. I bought it for 20.

With a dune buggy shortened VW chassis thing, and I fixed up the bug and I sold it for [00:07:00] 120 to a 16 year old single mother. I taught her at 12 how to drive a clutch in this 1956 VW with her baby rolling around in the backseat. No seat belts, no kids seats. It was probably pretty illegal for me to be driving the car, but not illegal for her having her kid like that in that day.

That’s how it was done, and it had the roller gas pedal and all that. So I taught her how to drive it. Sold her the car made a hundred bucks. I was thrilled, but here’s what I did. I would go down and help the newspaper guy fold his newspapers at four in the morning because I can get the classifieds and then I’d go home and circle all the Porsches for sale.

And then I’d try to make my voice deeper and I’d call them pretending I was older. And I call him and say, you know, I’m interested in your Porsche Carrera Speedster for 1, 750. Aqua marine blue with red interior. So when my dad got home from work, I would badger him. Badger him. Dad,

dad,

Kelly Telfer: dad. There’s a [00:08:00] Speedster.

It’s right around the corner. It’s a Carrera Speedster. It’s 1, 750. So I’d badger him. So finally, He’d go test drive some of them. He ended up with some of those. Unfortunately, not that car. So, you know, my brother and I, when we moved up, we started racing. It was called super modified on dirt, but it was more like a sprint car.

So it was actually a sprint car chassis with a little thing welded on to look like a super modified. So we flipped the car, ruined the chassis, a bent sprint car chassis is worth exactly nothing. I sold it for 200 bucks. I told the guy it’s worth nothing, but it was better than what he had. And he’s an hour away in Watsonville, California on the coast.

He goes, Oh, I can’t pick it up. I’m like, hell I’m selling this chassis for 200 bucks. I’ll deliver it. So I deliver the chassis. Him and I are unloading it at his father’s nursery where he grew all kinds of orchids and stuff. And I looked over and saw 56 speedster under two inches of peat moss dust. I just dropped the frame probably almost throughout his back.

I go, who’s speedster? He goes, my dad’s, but he’s never selling it. [00:09:00] I go, no, no, no, no. You don’t understand. That’s my car. Where’s your dad? So I go over and meet Charlie and I go, Hey, Charlie, how are you? My name’s Kelly. And I go, that’s my car. He goes, I’m never selling it. I go, I didn’t ask you if you want to sell it.

I said, that’s my car. And he kind of looks at me and I said, I have visitation rights. Nice to meet you. Here’s my phone number. If you ever think you’re going to sell it and I’ll see you soon. For every three to six months for six years, I stopped by Charlie’s. Charlie, how’s my car? Oh, by the way, I washed it.

I waxed it. We can’t have two inches of peat moss dust on my car. You could have it on yours if you want, but not mine. I had the combination of the gate. He came home once and I’m washing his speedster out there. He’s like, what the hell are you doing? I said, I’m caring for my car. Something obviously you are not doing.

So I was selling t shirts at a sprint car race, huge night for me, you know, when your business is growing fast, it eats cash, I have shitty credit, I’m broke, I’m growing, I’m doing Dale Earnhardt shirts, I’m doing Richard Petty, I’m doing all these guys, and I’m [00:10:00] broke. The guy comes up and he buys a shirt and it’s cash, cash is everywhere, and he goes, my speedster, I go, everyone get back, I shut the doors in my booth.

I drive straight to Watsonville at 1230 at night. I knock on the door, I go, Hey, Charlie shook his hand and I go, sold. He’s like, what the hell is wrong with you? ? I heard your Speedsters for sale. He sells it to me in 1986 for $12,000, it had SC disc brakes, SC transmission, pumped up SC motors, so maybe 110 horsepower.

And it had a 1970s restoration, so you know they didn’t make all the cool panels that fit right and everything. They put flat panels on the floor and under the battery in the front and everything. The brakes were stuck. I didn’t care. He said, look, all I have is 3, 000 in shitty credit. Can you give me 30 days to pay for it?

We wrote up an agreement and he said yes. And I’m like, you know what? I can’t wait 30 days. Someone else could come there. The cars at that point, they were worth like 20, 000 to 25, 000. I’m like, I just can’t lose my dream car. So this [00:11:00] is unbelievable. This is the way I’ve run my whole life. I heard of a guy in Los Gatos, California, near San Jose, a bank president that was into cars.

His first name’s Bill. His last name is Zunkle. So it sounds like Bill’s uncle never met him. So I put on my suit and tie in 1986, I grabbed a bunch of my artwork that I’d done and I went in with the bank manager. I was sitting there waiting about 20 minutes before the bank opened. I walked straight in there and started taking down their boring, ugly artwork and putting my artwork on the wall.

The manager goes, I had no idea we were changing out to motorsports. This is kind of nice. I go, yeah. Yep. Thank you. So when the manager comes in, Bill’s uncle, he goes, What the hell’s this? It’s great, but what is it? She goes, I thought you proved it. He goes, No. Well, this guy just put up the art and he says he has an appointment with you.

And he goes, I don’t have any appointment with him. Made me wait about three hours. Finally, I walk in there. He goes, What do you want? I go, [00:12:00] The art on your walls is collateral. I have shitty credit. I’m 9, 000 short. I need a check today to go pay off this Porsche Speedster. I tell him the story and he writes me a check out of the bank bank account.

I had to pay 226 a month to get this loan based on my artwork on the walls of the bank. And that’s kind of where it all started, I guess.

Crew Chief Eric: So what’s fun about your story is that the artistry and being coming of Petrelhead sort of went hand in hand. They came almost simultaneously. And as you talked about your progression through life and where you ended up, in that in between time from the boy racer to the adult at Siemens, did you go to school to become an artist?

Kelly Telfer: I never graduated from college whatsoever. I attended a local junior college and I attended San Jose State. I got a great art story from San Jose State. It was a worldwide acclaimed watercolorist. artist. I didn’t have any of the prerequisites, but I wanted to study under this guy who’s incredible. Wasn’t motorsports art, but it didn’t matter, his [00:13:00] technique.

So I challenged and got accepted into this class. We had to go out in downtown San Jose and do three drawings of the street, pencil quick drawings. So we do three drawings and then he asked each of us to put them all up. So we did put our names on the backs. I mean, there was seniors and graduates.

students because this guy was so highly acclaimed. And so we go down the list of what do you do? And everyone said they’re a starving artist. And they came to me and I said, I’m a graphic designer. I’m not starving. I’m kicking ass. And the guy goes, get out. I go, what do you mean? He goes, you’re a whore and a prostitute to true artists.

I said, you know, I’m not going anywhere. I paid. I’m here. You accepted me to class. Sorry. You can intimidate anyone else on the planet. You can’t intimidate me. So then he proceeded to pick out the three best drawings on the wall. And he roasted all the rest saying, probably that guy, Kelly, did that one.

Probably Kelly did this one. This one looks like a graphic designer. And the three best, naturally, of course, it’s a fairy tale story. Two of the three best were mine. He turned all red, ripped him up, actually, [00:14:00] threw him on the ground and stormed out of the classroom. So I didn’t really have a great learning experience with that guy.

It’s the only time in any creative class in my life I haven’t got an A. Plus, plus, plus. I think I got a C minus, which I didn’t know existed. I’ve never got a C on anything. And so that was my introduction to professional art school.

Crew Chief Eric: Let’s pause here for a moment and explore a pit stop question. We usually ask people on this show, sexiest car of all time, things like that.

And you already mentioned too, the 356 speedster and the E type Jag. And the E type Jag comes up. More often than not, when we talk to artists, though, we want to explore this in a deeper way, because you have a more critical eye. You’re looking at the design. You’re looking at the flow and the body line.

Some of us just look at the car and go, man, that’s gorgeous. And it’s just a subjective thing. So I want your more professional opinion to say what makes. The Jag is so sexy. What makes the 356 such a beautiful car? And maybe other vehicles like a 250 pontoon [00:15:00] fender Testarossa or something else of the period, where do you go with those designs and why do you appreciate them so much?

Kelly Telfer: Here’s the way I think any great design goes. Any of the great designers follow their own passion. They beat to their own drum. You don’t see in the Jag E type a copy of a car and you don’t see it, you know, maybe a little better or something. You see a brilliant, almost clean sheet. Incredible design. The 356 is actually an incredible, and even amazingly so, more practical design.

The variations it came in, you know, in 1951, Porsche won their class at Le Mans in number 46, the one that Gary Emery and his team restored. It won first in class in 1100 cc’s or less. Now, could you imagine racing at Le Mans? I’d assume it’s got what on a good day 32 horsepower if you’re lucky to the rear wheels Could you imagine 24 hours sitting in that thing with 32 horsepower?

And then if you fast forward [00:16:00] to some of the really outrageous Carrera based porsches all 356 models to me that design was so flexible So incredible and also the way they continued the design with the 911. It’s a succession design. Second to none. The 911 is the car that’s been the longest in production in the world.

Today’s Porsche, you see the 911, albeit they’re 43 inches wider now and 4, 000 pounds more than the original 901 that Bootsy Porsche designed in 1963. So you ask me what’s great about design. It’s a combination of function and design. When you drive an E type Jag, the torque of the motor, the kind of clunkiness of that shifter.

Enveloped in this gorgeous, ridiculous long body. It’s an incredible feeling when you hop in a three 56 and the door clunks as you close it. It’s not the clunk of metal hitting metal, like a 62 Cadillac convertible. It’s the clunk of the rubber that holds the door open in case of [00:17:00] breeze comes along. So it won’t shut on your leg.

It is the coolest feeling in the world on the cars that are original and ripe to shut that door. So to me, design is really deep in terms of both function, design, and originality, and it’s based around passion.

Crew Chief Eric: So is there a point at which you think maybe design tapered off? Is there an end of an era? Is there a particular decade that you don’t like as much as others?

And there’s arguments to be made about how food and music have also influenced the design of vehicles and how they’ve perpetuated each other in some ways, and you have that doo wop Dolce Vita time of the fifties and sixties and then the disco era, and then the eighties with the analog into transition of digital and things like that.

So where do you think the designs just dropped off and they stopped being about the passion and more about cheating the wind?

Kelly Telfer: Let me answer that in a little different way. My first car, when I was legal, in other words, 16 years old, I think I probably owned at least 30 before then that I bought and sold my first legal car.

I paid 200 for, I bought it from a friend of [00:18:00] the family. They were the second owner they’d had it since it was a year old. It was 1962 car. It was a kind of a off white and a salmon pink bottom. It was a 23 window VW bus sunroof deluxe. I paid 200 bucks for it. What I did is I took out all the extruded aluminum that protected went around the back windows.

Really rare. I took all that junk off the original panels. I sprayed the inside of the windows with flat black paint. I couldn’t afford curtains and that sprayed over this really nice, beautiful patina and original interior of the headliner and the fuzzy stuff around the windows. We put a brick on the gas pedal.

Four or five of us are going skiing in Lake Tahoe. We’re driving up the mountain, so this thing’s floored. It’s a 40 horse on a good day. Brick on the gas pedal, tied two ropes to the steering wheel, which is really flat. And I climbed all the way to the back, laid on the rear engine. cover behind the back seat and with two ropes I steered and all my friends that were going [00:19:00] with me we had the sunroof open even though it was snowing and they’re sitting up on the sunroof there was nobody in the bw bus driving down the road I basically totally ruined that thing drove it for four years, sold it for 800 bucks.

I mean, I made a killing. It was ridiculous. That VW bus today sells for 200, 000. It’s not good looking. It does not stop. It does not go, and it does not steer in any direction you want to steer. If you’re driving down the freeway in a wind, you have the steering wheel halfway turned. If you’re a rookie VW bus owner, When you go under an overpass, if you don’t correct the steering wheel because you’re steering against the wind, you will veer off and hit the side of the freeway.

My point is, that’s the world’s worst car. Maybe other than a Borgward. I apologize if people are Borgward fanatics. Or a Trabant. I want to get one, the East German car, that little two stroke. I gotta have, if anyone’s listening, I want one really bad. So [00:20:00] anyway, that’s the worst car in the world, and people love them.

So what I’m saying is your memory fucks with you because there’s no way in hell that could be a great car. But everybody remembers all the great things they did in them, all the fun, all the this. You know what they don’t remember? How many times were you on the side of the road where you just blew the number three cylinder, you cooked it, or you put a hole in the case?

And you’re calling the tow truck or your friend and you’re towing it home again or that stupid hard wire before they went to a stranded throttle cable back at the 28 P. I. C. T. So like single little junky carburetor that Volkswagen had, it would bend and then break. So I had to get a link out of my snow chains on the side of the road in the dark on a mountain road and put that link in there to have a gas pedal.

And then, of course, with the weight of the snow chain link, it’s held forward. So I’m using the key to turn it off and on and driving. It’s the worst experience on the planet. Who wants one of those? Everybody. So now you go back to what’s a great era in design. People say the fifties, have [00:21:00] you ever driven a 57 Chevy?

I mean, there are POS. Now, a good friend of mine, Paul Newman, well, actually, the actor was a good acquaintance of mine, but this is Paul Newman, the fabricator. Paul Newman and Doug Draeger, they made race cars that were phenomenal. Rick Mears raced in those single seat buggies. Gary Knoyer raced and won at Pike’s Peak in a Newman Draeger car.

Bruce Canipa finished second in his Porsche 911. I think it was turbocharged that’s in his showroom today that Neumann Drager built. Well, Paul Neumann, he was the first guy to do this. He took C4, 19 whatever, Corvette suspension, and he made a whole new frame for a 57 Chevy with all Corvette suspension.

Everything stock bolted on. The famous Highway 17 from Santa Cruz to Los Gatos or San Jose in the Bay Area. He drove it over that road, not speeding, but at CHP, a highway patrol pulled him over and said, your brake lights aren’t working. He goes, huh? No, they’re working. And they tested him. He goes, well, you never hit your brakes all the way over 17.

Well, no, I don’t need to. This car handles. That’s a great [00:22:00] car. But if you want to think of all the good times and all that stuff. I don’t know

Crew Chief Eric: the inverse of that question, especially from an artist’s perspective. Is there such thing as an ugly car? And if so, what is the ugliest car in your opinion?

Kelly Telfer: Well, you know, I think I’m going to try to buy every single one of them because it’s going to do a VW bus thing in 30 years.

But whatever that Pontiac van thing with a window under the rear spoiler,

Crew Chief Eric: the Aztec.

Kelly Telfer: Oh my God. That’s the worst car on the planet. First off, American cars were 10, 15, 20 years behind on any kind of chassis, motor injection, carburetor, whatever. And then you put the world’s ugliest. body on it. There is no excuse for that.

None. Zero.

Crew Chief Eric: Would it surprise you if I told you that the gentleman that designed the Aztec is the same gentleman that designed the C7 Corvette?

Kelly Telfer: You know, it wouldn’t surprise me because greatness comes from many failures. You know, the only way you can be great at anything is to fail. There is this [00:23:00] great, great guy from the 50s, Zig Ziglar.

Zig Ziglar had a great saying. He said, people tell their kids, don’t lie, don’t lie. And then the phone rings and someone’s asking for him. Tell him I’m not home. It just cracks me up. So you have to be willing to go out there. If you think that Picasso only did incredible art that everyone likes. There’s so much garbage that he produced.

I’ll tell you what, I’d love to own any one of those pieces of garbage now. And I’m sure some real hoity toity art guy’s gonna tell me, well, there is no garbage. I’m like, absolutely there’s garbage. I have some incredibly rare collectible books on Picasso on pieces of art no one’s ever seen, and that’s why.

They’re garbage. And you know that’s okay. The guy was brilliant. He moved through it. He was passionate. He created his own avenue. I’ve done some horrible art. Oh my God, it’s incredibly bad. When I first started doing art, I called it mortgage art. Firmly believe that you wanna do artwork by knowledge, not by ignorance.

So I know a lot of different [00:24:00] ways. I can do photorealism. I can do airbrush, photorealism. I can make it look like a photo. I can do oil painting. I can do what? Specialized in acrylics. I can do watercolor. So by choice, I’m doing what I do. I’m selling my art so I can pay my mortgage. And I was painting cats and dogs.

Oh my God. And went crazy by accident. I paint a friend’s cat. Now I got 100 people that want cat paintings. And I’m like, I don’t want to do cat paintings, I want to paint Porsches. So I screwed around with pets and then finally one day I said, no more, no more. So a really good friend of mine, Peter Sachs, he’s been instrumental with a lot of really fun things that we’ve done at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, stuff we’ve done with Bill Warner.

But Peter Sachs has this little scruffy dog they’ve had for 17 years. He did a huge favor to me. So I did a painting of the dog and they had a little bow in the dog with the brumos. 59 with the red and blue and they went to a Brumos function and Hurley Haywood loved the little dog and [00:25:00] Bob Snodgrass was still alive and he loved the dog and so I did a painting of the dog and sent it to him and I told Peter it’s my last goddamn dog painting I’m ever doing.

So Peter knows a lot of people in the car business, and he’ll introduce me about this great automotive artist, blah, blah, blah. And then he’ll take the wife aside, or the husband, whoever’s interested in the conversation, and say, well, do you have a dog or a cat? Kelly’s an incredible dog artist. Oh my God, he did that at the Haggerty party, the Thursday night Haggerty party at Pebble Beach.

I was gonna strangle him.

Crew Chief Eric: This is awesome, because this goes in line with a lot of other crazy stories, some of which you can read on your website, kellytelfer. com. But there’s a couple others that stood out at me, and I wanted to explore those as well. The Brumos Bahama Mama, the Pink Pig Tribute, and the Telfer Ranch.

Pick one, pick them all, tell us more about them.

Kelly Telfer: The coolest thing in the world is being lucky. And people tell me I’m really lucky. I worked really hard to be lucky to buy that Porsche Speedster and be the steward of that car [00:26:00] for 10 years. That was hard work to be lucky. So my friend Peter Sachs calls me I’m in Orlando.

I’m doing some project with McLaren and I love some of the McLaren cars. I did a McLaren Senna painting, and we had Ericsson Senna in the background, and there’s a lot about McLaren that I love. But, my friend called and said, I can get you 20 minutes, and this is in the private Brumos collection prior to them opening the museum.

So I said, McLaren, I’m really sorry, it’s Porsche. Can we reschedule for tomorrow? They agreed, I can’t believe it. So I jumped in the car and drove from Orlando down to Jacksonville. My 20 minutes with Donald Leatherwood, I walked by every car in this private collection. The 20 minutes stretched into five and a half hours.

Stories are flying, bullshit is flying, we’re having a blast. Every car I walked by, every single one, like the 917K, the Hurley Haywood car, that finished third in Can Am with Hurley driving it. I go, Oh, man, look at that. I’ll give you 25 grand for that one because it’s a little newer. The 550 [00:27:00] Spyder over there.

I’ll give you 30 grand. So I’m offering absolutely pennies on the dollar. Those cars are worth millions. The Sport O Matic 1973 911 that Porsche gifted Peter Gregg. I go, it’s a Sport O Matic. Take a thousand cash. So I’m offering them pennies on the dollar on every single car. Every single car. We get to this 1968 dead stock Bahama yellow 911 and it’s gorgeous.

It’s beautiful. And I said, I’ll buy that. And I go, yeah, sure. And every laugh. And then we kept going. That was it. Three days later, it’s three in the morning. I sat bolt upright in bed and I asked my wife, I go, do you think Don was serious? She goes, what are you talking about? I go about selling that Bahama mama, 68, nine 11.

She goes, I don’t know. Call him. So I got a hold of him somehow at 7 in the morning, Florida time. So what was that around four o’clock in the morning for me that day? And he said, no, we have no cars for sale. We’ve never sold a car to a private individual. Uh, no, but we would consider selling it to you.

They gave me a price range. I said, [00:28:00] so they go, well, we’ll take it over to the Porsche dealership. They sold Brumos Porsche turned into Jacksonville Porsche and the two mechanics that had worked on it for the 37 years they owned it. They dropped it off there. I said, okay, let me know whatever costs comes back.

They did fluids, tires, battery, you know, whatever, 10, 000. I go, okay. Of the range you told me, how much is it? And he goes, we’ll go on the bottom number and I go, okay. And I’ll add 10 grand. He goes, nah, we’ll take care of that. I go, okay, I’ll wire you the money. I’d never sat in it, drove it, looked underneath it, started it, nothing.

For me, it was a substantial amount of money. I happened at the time, one of the properties that my wife and I owned was right over a bank. So I walked downstairs, wired this substantial sum, took a picture of it, texted to him. Two minutes later, I go, okay, I wired the money. And the guy’s like, wait, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, this never happens.

Billionaires take three weeks to wire money. You just did it in two minutes. I want you to know I want the car So I bought the car sight unseen. It’s an incredibly gorgeous beautiful analog 9 11 and on Fridays when I’m in the studio I take [00:29:00] it out and go sliding I slide my car and Peter Sachs and his son Keenan hooked me up for that I’ll be forever indebted to him doing the goddamn last dog painting as a gift to him wasn’t enough And I won first place at works reunion in the preservation class in Florida I had no idea they interview you and there’s like a few thousand people there.

So they go, tell us about the car. I go, I slaved on this thing for the last year. I detailed, I did this, I did that. And then I laughed. I go, no, I really picked it up from Brumos yesterday. And it’s in my garage. I’ll take the cover off the car and it’s right there behind me while I’m painting. I love it.

It’s incredible.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s your muse.

Kelly Telfer: And then we have a 2013 Boxster S. with a P. D. K. To me, one of the best cars on the planet. It is gorgeous. It’s too fat, too heavy by a lot of standards. But oh my God, it is such a blast. It actually has a coffee holder, heated steering wheel, heated seats, all this great stuff.

And then you jump into the 68 9 11. I’m twin boys. They’re now 29 and I have an older [00:30:00] daughter to their great kids. But the kids were about 11 or 12. And this guy next to us Rolling his hand like this, and my son goes, dad, what’s this mean? Roll down the window, , it’s analog. My 68 9 11. My wife goes, does it have air conditioning?

I go, absolutely. Do you want it on full blast or halfway? She goes, full blast goes. It was hot. So I opened the vent window and pointed at her. At her. It makes it even worse. It’s like you’re in an oven. Opening an oven door. It’s great. You can smell a little gas and oil. I mean that car’s a car.

Crew Chief Eric: As they say, they don’t make them like they used to.

So

Kelly Telfer: the pink pig was the movie prop for Porky’s. I found that because I saw a wheelbarrow on Facebook Marketplace, an old rusty wheelbarrow with Chevrolet 350 headers bailing wired on it. It’s all rusty. It was 30 bucks and I bought it. It was two hours away. But it was so cool. So I said, look, I can’t get there for a while.

I’m really busy. Guy goes, fine. Finally, they go, look, can you come get this? So I drive the two hours to pick up the wheelbarrow [00:31:00] and there is the movie prop from Porky’s, this pink pig. It’s 11 feet long and six feet tall. I go, what the hell is that? And he says, it’s from the actual movie. And I go, is it for sale?

He goes, yeah, he goes 8, 000. I go, that’s not for sale. That’s ridiculous. I ended up buying it for substantially less. My brother built a motorized cart. I painted it like the Porsche pink pig, but number 23, for those that don’t know it, the nine 17 came back from a French firm that did the aerodynamics and it was short and fat, one of the stories was it was four inches too wide.

They distracted the inspectors by painting it pink and putting the cuts of pork labeled in German. So the inspectors were so flustered they didn’t notice the car was four inches too wide. Some people say that’s true, some people say it’s not. So the most avid fan in the world is Mark Porsche, Bootsy’s son.

He gets on that thing with two or three buddies, we’re driving it around. I moved it one morning and I didn’t know I moved it in front of the corporate Porsche [00:32:00] 7 a. m. meeting in one of the buildings. They all ran out of the meeting and sat on it for pictures and totally disrupted corporate Porsche’s meeting with my pink pig.

But then everybody was meeting at Laguna Seca at the pig. I had no idea. It was near a bridge and they go, let’s meet at two o’clock at the pig. We’ll go get a beer to get lost. We’ll meet at the pig. It became the thing for the weekend. It’s been the Porsche parade, Porsche works. It’s been a dealerships for new car openings.

It’s been at Porsche digital, which is marquee. It’s kind of like a bring a trailer. They’re great group of guys. They had it in their corporate office in Palo Alto. So it was at Porsche corporate and I did world tour shirts. And the last stop I put on the world tour was Stuttgart, Germany. I believe it should go to the museum.

That’s my belief. Well, I sold the pink pig at Rensport. I can’t tell you who, but the guy’s last name starts with P and ends with E, and it rhymes with Porsche. We’re shipping it to Zell Am See in [00:33:00] Austria, which it’s really weird coincidence. That’s where the Porsche family lives. That is such the rightful place.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s some exciting stories here and the art goes right along with the stories. It’s tremendous stuff. Like you said, for every 10 failures comes a success and it’s part of the road that an artist takes to reach their zenith. And some of the things that you put out are absolutely amazing. And so to kind of continue this thread about style and design and what’s good and what’s bad and what’s ugly.

comes a discussion around your chosen medium. You mentioned acrylics, but you also do some photo realistic stuff, which is gaining more popularity out there on social media and whatnot.

Kelly Telfer: I have sent more customers to Lynn Heiner, to Sammy, to others than probably most other artists. I look at it differently.

I believe that I’m here to help anyone I can and mentor. Some artists don’t want it. They don’t need it. That’s fine. If someone goes, you know, I want drippy paint on my painting. I go talk to Lynn Heiner. She does a palette knife. She does this drippy thing. [00:34:00] It’s outrageously cool. And they’re like, well, no, I wanted you, I want your work.

I go, you want my work, you buy what I do. You want drippy. Pallet paint. You go to Lynn Heiner, you want beautiful realism in these outrageous greens and cool colors. You go to Samantha. And the more I push people away, the more they wanna come back. You know, can you do it like this? No, no, I’m never doing a painting for you.

Get out of my boot. And then I walk ’em over to Lynn’s boot. If people don’t like what I do. Awesome. Some people go, you know, a fourth grader could have done that. And I go, thank you for the compliment because you know how many people have left creativity behind by the time they’re in fourth grade.

Crew Chief Eric: When you choose your subjects, especially Porsches, which have some very well known liveries, you know, you mentioned Bob Gerritsen.

We can talk about the Apple 935. You’ve got Brumos. You’ve got Martini. You’ve got the Rothmans cars. What do you pick and why? What really draws you in? And like, for instance, when we had Samantha Zimmerman on, who’s a friend of yours, she really likes the [00:35:00] Valiant livery, that seafoam green, like Bianchi has with the purple and the orange.

And she’s into that. She does low and brow stuff. And she says that certain liveries draw her in. So for you, what is it that pulls you into the canvas and gets you excited to start painting?

Kelly Telfer: Michael Allen Ross is a world renowned photographer and a Porsche photographer, and the guy’s brilliant, hilarious, and what really pisses me off is he can play guitar and sing really well, which I can’t do either.

That’s not right. You can’t be a brilliant photographer and then also a brilliant musician. What Michael Allen Ross said is… Choose your view, your angle carefully, because there’s so many standard views of cars. And it gets more and more difficult as you go into historical because you’ve got to create your own view, because one thing’s been done so many times.

Really, for me, it’s creating a story. So, this side of me, this original painting, by the way, on this side, is being shipped [00:36:00] as part of the Porsche Private Collection. At Zell am See in Austria, but I’m telling a story. You can see the cars at Gmund, the wood buck. And you see the first Porsche made, Porsche recognizes was the mid engine car.

And then you see it go down historically. So I like telling a story. Over my other shoulder here, this was to launch the 2024 Cayenne. And along with the Paris Dakar, we got Yosemite in the background with the waterfalls and all that. I’m not even painting the tires on the car. I’m just painting the dust and the dirt.

Even though I can do photorealism, I choose not to. My daughter’s a professional photographer. Have her go take a beautiful picture of your car. My opinion, and I’m not dissing people that do photorealism, it’s popular, it’s awesome. Everyone asks me when somehow I manage to do a reflection that looks to them photorealism.

They go, how’d you do it? I go, it’s really easy. You buy a can of photorealism paint and you just pour it on and it creates it. It’s done. They’re like. It reminds me when I was in the T shirt [00:37:00] business, all these guys like Steve Kinzer, sprint car driver, Brent Kading, Mario Andretti, they’re all clients and so they go, you know, your shirts, they sold out so well, and they’re pissed because they’re sold out.

They go, I need more and I need them right away. So I created TAPE. And on the tape it said shipped yesterday. It was a repeated thing. Step and repeat. So my custom tape said ship yesterday. People call me up. How did you ship yesterday when I didn’t order it until today?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, let’s dive into the photorealism just a little bit more because Again, to your point, it’s become really, really popular.

And somebody asked me one time, because hung artwork, professionally done, usually a one of one, maybe a few limited copies. It’s not cheap. And somebody goes, if I want something that looks like a photograph, why wouldn’t I just get a poster? If you’re having that conversation with somebody that’s sort of on the edge of spending the money and buying a piece of art, how would you convince them to say, No, you need an acrylic.

You need an oil. You need a photorealistic done by a professional up on your wall.

Kelly Telfer: [00:38:00] I built this rat rod Volkswagen with a 32 Ford front axle, painted all the suspension red, 2. 2 liter VW motor with 48 Webers. It never really ran right. It did not matter. It was the worst handling car on the planet. If you’re going to hit a manhole cover, or thick paint on the road, you better start thinking where you’re gonna slide, which way, because the car’s out of control.

My point is, I’d go to a car show next to a three or four hundred thousand dollar, either a Porsche or a street rod, and it says, unless you’re naked, don’t touch my car. Me, I open the doors, I ask kids with ice cream, with chocolate all over, and I go, could you draw on my hood? And they’re drawn with ice cream, and their parents run over, terrified, and I’m like, Get your kid off my car.

What do they do? I don’t know. Just kidding. I invited him to paint on my car and sit in my car and honk the horn. Samantha just did a thing about etiquette at an art show. Samantha Zimmerman is one of the most talented artists, a very dear friend. Her work is incredible, impeccable. I always tease her. She needs to get a little looser, have a [00:39:00] little more fun.

I saw one of her pieces that I thought was a new piece at Rendsport and it was an old piece and I Wow. Do more like that. She just did a Facebook post saying Don’t touch the art. Have some consideration for the art. I’m a freaking opposite. You come in my booth. I’m like, here’s the original here. Let me show you the texture.

Why? And how I got that. And I got kids, people, adults touching the art. People walk by and they don’t recognize me as the artist. And they’re like, don’t touch that art. I know it’s mine. They can touch it all they want to me. It’s tactile. It’s cool. Which is cool. That’s what’s great about art. Different thoughts, different opinions.

Realistic art’s one thing. Computer art, like we all did in Photoshop in the 80s. I was the first guy to do a computer rendering for Chevrolet that they used on some national advertising and in national ads. It was in Photoshop. It was really cool back then because it was Photoshop 2. 5. Who knows where we are now?

Probably version 30. So when you did a blur tool on an 80 megabyte file, I could read a whole chapter on the book [00:40:00] on Photoshop to blur the damn thing. I’ve got a huge ViewSonic monitor, you know, these big old huge things you can barely carry. And then if you didn’t like it, you hit control Z and undo, the undo would take another 20 minutes.

So I’ve done photorealism on computers, I’ve painted photorealism, and I also have done AI artwork. And the real burning question is, where’s AI? Artificial intelligence? End up in this world. So there are some people that pass off AI, not as AI, but as artists rendered work. I did a couple of AI pieces for the Laguna Seca IndyCar event.

I did three of them and I’m really good at it. So I did three, but I did a little different marketing on the back. I labeled it and said, look, this is AI. I hand drew, I scanned it. I did this and that, but I also. Threw it at the AI world and then erased the stuff they screwed up. So the real question is, what is art?

There’s so many different levels. It’s kind of arrogant for me to sit here and say, you know, because I use a paintbrush and I paint on a canvas. That’s [00:41:00] art. Andy Warhol peed on copper plates, and the reaction of his urine in the chemicals on the copper created art. I’ll tell you what, that sounds like a lot more fun to me, walk around peeing to create art.

So, if you can pee to create art, and Andy sold that for millions… Who am I to say that anyone can’t do whatever the hell they want?

Crew Chief Eric: That’s very true. And I mean, you had those near schizophrenic episodes with Jackson Pollock in a closed room throwing paint at walls, right? So everybody’s got their style.

Kelly Telfer: He’s a freaking genius. They say, oh my god, are you kidding me? I think it’s smaller minded of people to say, this type of art’s better than that, you shouldn’t do that. I think it should call it what it is. You know, I don’t believe really in lying anywhere, anytime, so you don’t lie, you just say, yeah, I told AI what to create for me, I’m the Wizard of Oz, I’m the little man behind the curtain, and sell the hell out of it.

Go buy a Carrera Speedster. If you’re out there and you want to be an artist, or you want to be a race car driver, or [00:42:00] anything, jump into it with everything you have. Make it happen. Don’t take advantage of people. Don’t take the shortcuts. You put in way more work than you think. It’s perseverance. So that’s how it works.

Crew Chief Eric: So what else do you have going on? What else is coming for 2024? What other secret projects do you want to tell us about?

Kelly Telfer: I’m doing a big thing on a cruise. You want to talk about what’s upcoming? Trefinit C is PCA Porsche club, along with princess cruise lines. I’ve never been on a cruise, but I’m the official artist for the cruise.

Oh my God. So I’m doing paintings, original things, pop ups. If I can’t sell drunk Porsche owners that I have. Seven days in a row to hammer them. I’m in the wrong damn business. I should be selling pots and pans door to door. We’re going to crush it and have a blast. I’m doing a thing with the National Automobile Museum in Reno.

That’s kind of the former Harrah’s. Phil that runs that thing came into my booth at Ironstone, which is a really cool concourse, [00:43:00] exactly 14. 2 minutes from my house via Porsche, about 20 minutes via my truck. So this guy came in my booth and he’s really revamping incredibly that museum so supposedly they’re going to announce me as the new official artist supposedly they’re going to do an exhibit on me there’s no supposedly i’m doing all this and i’m doing art for the walls and art for this and that so i’m thrilled to be doing another museum and then i went to this thing and did a paint party class it’s called castle air museum in a little san joaquin valley town in california called at water They have 89 airplanes.

They’re spectacular. So I am now going to be their official artist that duplicates nose art from the World War II airplanes. I’m going to duplicate, I think it’s a Raptor F 22. There’s only four that are not in the military, and I’m going to reduplicate the way the tail was painted. They had to strip it all off because the paint on the plane was top secret.

They said it has a radar image of a sparrow bird, this jet fighter. And so I get to paint on these [00:44:00] planes. So that has nothing to do with cars, but everything to do with how cool is that? By now, you know me a little better. I got to see where they’re rebuilding all the airplanes and doing all this. I’m like, that’s a gun turret from a B 17 bomber.

Can I have that? You have to have one of those, right?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, of course.

Kelly Telfer: I would actually buy a VW bus and put that on it. I would put that gun turret on it. I might be looking for a VW bus. They gave me this wooden propeller. It’s 12 feet long. It’s hanging out of my truck. I sent it off to some propeller expert.

There’s a chance it’s from a Zeppelin. How many people have a Zeppelin propeller? Is that cool?

Crew Chief Eric: Very.

Kelly Telfer: I don’t know. Not much is going on. What about you?

Crew Chief Eric: Just another Friday . So for our audience who’s been along for this ride and wants to know more about getting some of your art

Kelly Telfer: at the Peterson Museum in la, I’m their top selling artist.

I have been for five years and I’m proud of that. You know, I’m a nice guy and I help other artists. I’m competitive as hell. I want to kick everyone’s ass, but call [00:45:00] Samantha Zimmerman. Go call Lynn Heiner. You know, you don’t want my art. Go to some real artists. Not this. Look at this stuff behind me.

Crew Chief Eric: Do you do commissions that aren’t cats and dogs?

Like how do you go about getting Kelly Telfer art?

Kelly Telfer: I do have a website. I do commissions. I’m obviously like this one here. We do the Porsche dealership, their new car introductions. Sometimes I paint live. Last year, I auctioned off three paintings with a lot of help. Bill Warner that founded Amelia Island, Peter Sacks, Mario Andretti, Bootsy Porsche’s son, Mark Porsche.

I sold three paintings. The total of those Street paintings and some other stuff. I sold over 300, 000 last year to charity. And to me, if you’re earning it, you better be given it back. I don’t just say it. I do it. However, Eric, I’m going to bill him for the brushes. I think 90 bucks or so, you know. Fair is fair.

So I challenge all you artists out there that are successful, start giving back to those that aren’t as lucky or fortunate or [00:46:00] haven’t fell into it or worked as hard as we all have. Get back, help people out. I do free paint classes, sometimes for disadvantaged people, for people that haven’t had this experience or whatever, sometimes for very wealthy people.

I say it’s from age 4 to 94 years old. If somebody is doing a charity auction, and they need some art prints, you call me and I’ll pass you off to my business manager because she actually ships and delivers all the stuff I promise. If I promise it, good luck. Call Michaela. I will donate art to your event.

If it’s a bona fide charity event, I will donate art every time.

Crew Chief Eric: We’ve reached that part of the episode where I like to ask any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like to share that we haven’t covered thus far.

Kelly Telfer: I am so fortunate to work in this industry with so many incredible people. Porsche Club of America, Vu, Ron Gordon, Tom Pervasi, his wife, Sandy, everybody there has been so incredible to me.

It has been such a dream [00:47:00] come true working with Seca Raceway. I cannot tell you how much it means to me as a four year old kid to go to that racetrack. A few short 50 years later, I’m the official artist for the racetrack, and I’m able to give back and help and support them in addition to a dream come true.

So, you know, what’s the most important thing to me? Giving back. There’s two things that count, passion and compassion. Reach into your heart and give out to others, especially this upcoming season where it’s so difficult for so many people. I’m lucky I’m able to do this. I only work at it part time though, Eric.

I only work 18 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Crew Chief Eric: The other part, you’re sleeping. Yeah.

Kelly Telfer: I tried to, but it doesn’t work. I started this morning at one o’clock and in California right now, 1 a. m. And it’s 6 13 PM and I’m going to go out and still work on the painting I’m doing for the cruise.

Crew Chief Eric: Passion, speed, and color.

That’s the founding principles behind Kelly Telfer’s art. To learn more about how you can acquire a piece of [00:48:00] Kelly’s work, look no further than www. kellytelfer. com or follow him on social media at Telfer Design Inc on Facebook and on Instagram or at Kelly Telfer on LinkedIn. With that Kelly, I can’t thank you enough for coming on break fix.

And I have to say you are just like your art larger than life. So many stories you could spend countless hours just staring at one of your paintings. And I feel you coming through every piece and if our audience didn’t get it from this episode, they definitely will. So thank you and continue doing what you’re doing and spreading the vehicle and motor sports enthusiasm to the world.

Kelly Telfer: I can’t thank you enough, Eric. I appreciate all the work and effort you do to support this incredible industry. However, I’m going to invite you to California and come out on a Friday and let’s go sliding in that old 68

Crew Chief Eric: 911. That sounds like a plan.

Kelly Telfer: Thank you.

Crew Chief Eric: We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of Brake Fix [00:49:00] Podcast, brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports. If you’d like to be a guest on the show or get involved, be sure to follow us on all social media platforms at GrandTouringMotorsports. And if you’d like to learn more about the content of this episode, be sure to check out the follow on article at GTMotorsports.

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