Forever Motoring
JT Nesbitt: Moonwalking with Michael
Artist, designer, and engineer JT Nesbitt discusses why the high stakes of motorcycling make it one of the highest forms of art, and how sustainability requires a radical shift of perspective. JT's most recent bike is the Curtiss 1, a light electric vehicle (LEV) that rethinks what forever motoring really means.
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Artist, designer, and engineer JT Nesbitt discusses why the high stakes of motorcycling make it one of the highest forms of art, and how sustainability requires a radical shift of perspective. JT's most recent bike is the Curtiss 1, a light electric vehicle (LEV) that rethinks what forever motoring really means.
Please join our brand new Patreon and support a community that loves its vehicles and its earth.
Sign up for the Ecological Motoring Substack.
the podcast about what moves us and the ways we move. I'm Andrea Hiott, and today I'll be talking with JT Nesbitt, a designer, engineer, and artist. Though he would never call himself an artist, as you'll hear him say in the the podcast, he's certainly a man living in numerous worlds at once, a man who has thought long and hard about what he wants and what it's worth sacrificing. A creator with a motorcycle design language that the motor art connoisseur Paul D'Orleans has called"distinctive and unforgettable" with creations that have been known to bring people to tears when they first lay eyes on them. Today we talk about the dreamscape salt flats of Bonneville and something JT's dad finally said to him there that he'd never said before. We also spar a little over whether ideas have any value and reconsider the job of the hermit. We reimagine what a sustainable future in motoring might really look like. JT brings out what he calls an old chestnut about a samurai sword(though I have to admit, I've never heard this chestnut before) and explains what partying with two of the most famous Michaels in the world, Jackson and Schumacher, one evening after Formula One taught him about Ziggy Stardust. With his newest LEV Light Electric vehicles motorcycles, JT and the Curtiss team are trying to offer a different approach to sustainability, one JT contrasts with that of Elon Musk. We also hear about his ugly brown Shovelhead and his love of post-war German motorcycles. I learn about George Brough. B R O U G H and what Hesketh is, and JT talks about why the high stakes of motorcycle riding also make it one of the highest forms of art. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy the podcast. Thanks for taking this journey with us. Here we go. Hey, J.T.. How is it there? You're in New Orleans, right?
J.T.:Yeah, I'm in the, the really, the last free city in the United States.
Andrea:Oh gosh. Well, where are you exactly? You're in your studio there.
J.T.:I'm in the Marini, so I'm about a mile downriver from the French Quarter. I'm joining you from my studio that, uh I built starting in 2015.
Andrea:You built it yourself?
J.T.:Built it myself. It's a two story steel and glass structure attached to a house that was built in 1929, which makes this the newest house on the block. Most of these houses were built in the 1830s.
Andrea:All right, well, now that we know where you are, let's jump right in. So this is a podcast about what moves us and the ways we move. So the first question I wanna ask you is, what's a moment in your life that you remember being moved? You can take that wherever you want.
J.T.:Uh,, riding a motorcycle that I built at Bonneville in 2004 was a really big deal. That could be the last, that could be the last memory that I, that I explore as I, as I pass. And that would be a good one.
Andrea:Can you tell me a little more about that? What, for people who don't know Bonneville, maybe you can just give like a one sentence kind of intro to the Salt Flats. Just the visuals of it, you know, it's such a special place.
J.T.:Bonneville is, it's a very solitary kind of experience and, uh, it's very inward and not very outward. If road racing is an is, is abstract and all over the place, it's kinda like a William de Kooning painting. There's a lot going on Bonneville is like color field painting. It's like a Mark Rothko and it forces you to, to go, to go more inward, Bonneville is the last bastion of world class amateur racing. It's a place where a guy who has a passion and comes up with an idea can work in his garage. And can be the best in the world in that particular class. That's one of the reasons why it's so special, it's, it's inclusive as opposed to exclusive racing.
Andrea:So I guess before you rode your own bike there, which is quite a dream come true, you'd already watched many a race there or followed it,
J.T.:yeah, and I've gone back several times and unfortunately, the climate change has impacted that area quite a bit because you're racing on a natural surface. You're not racing on a manmade surface. So it's really prone to, to climate change. And, uh, there have been a few good meets fairly recently, but they're getting fewer and fewer, really good meets where the salt that you're actually racing on is, nice and firm. So the salt is going away. The salt is getting thinner and it's mushier and it just, it isn't what it used to be, and yet there's still guys out there setting records. It's not like a happy thing. Racing at Bonneville is one of the hardest things I have ever done. It's like racing in the middle of nowhere. It's like racing. You're setting up a Bedouin camp in the middle of this super hostile environment and expected to do everything that you would normally do, like with a pit and power outlet. You know, all the things that road racing has.
Andrea:Yeah. It's a little bit insane, but it has that quality. Right. It's almost like a dream, dream ish kind of setting. And how did it feel to actually be riding on that salt flat? Were you just totally present in the moment or were you having these kind of like, oh my God, I'm actually on my bike on the salt flat moments?
J.T.:At that meet. I was not, I was not the racer. Right, right. So I just rode, I just rode the bike back to the pit from, from the end of a race. But that was enough
Andrea:still. Yeah.
J.T.:I was Crew Chief, and interestingly, my father was there. And it was a time that I, I was able to really connect with my dad, um, in a very special way. Your father-son. Relationships are really, really weird.
Andrea:Indeed.
J.T.:When, when I was 14 years old, my father told me that if I ever owned a motorcycle, he would disown me. If you own a motorcycle, that's it, son, you're out. I,
Andrea:Wow why did he say that? Did he sense that you were going that direction or something?
J.T.:I was a young man and I was curious. And, uh, one of his, the, the guys who worked for him showed up at his office one day on a Kawasaki GPZ 900, otherwise known as a Ninja. Oh. And when 14 year old JT saw'Ninja' on a motorcycle, like, that's it.
Andrea:Oh, okay. So he saw your reaction to that.
J.T.:Now you got my attention. It's a motorcycle called, called a Ninja.
Andrea:And your dad just said, no way, son. Don't do it. Yeah, I'll, and he really said, he'll disown you. That's strong language.
J.T.:That's verbatim. And uh, that, that's when I knew that I was gonna dedicate my life to spiting my father. All of this, all of this is just revenge, you know, that's,
Andrea:I don't believe that totally. But
J.T.:no, it's,
Andrea:it's all connected, I guess.
J.T.:It's definitely connected. And, and at that meet in 2004 at Bonneville, when my father finally saw this motorcycle hauling ass across the salt, he finally turned to me and said, son, I'm proud of you.
Andrea:Had he said that much before?
J.T.:No.
Andrea:Oh gosh.
J.T.:No, and that was real. Like, you know, it's real when your father says, son, I'm proud of you when you've, you've done everything that he told you not to do Then you succeed at it. That's, that's how you gain, uh, that's how you gain respect.
Andrea:That's a life marker kind of moment, isn't it?
J.T.:Yeah. But what he didn't tell me when I was 14 years old is that if you choose this path, you're gonna be fighting for it your whole life.
Andrea:Mm.
J.T.:So
Andrea:Would that have changed your drive to do it, do you think? If someone had said, Hey, this is like the hardest thing to do in the world, or would it have made you more adamant?
J.T.:I don't know. Good question. But, but I know for sure that it's been a fight my entire life. This has not been, nothing's been handed out.
Andrea:Absolutely. Well, let's talk about that a bit because how long have you been doing this now?
J.T.:Well, I've been involved in the motorcycle world since I was in college. I got my first bike in 1991. And, uh, I'm, I'm a fine arts major, so I was just turning in motorcycle projects I remember, I built a, a Moto Guzzi I was a big Moto Guzzi guy. And I built a, I built this crazy custom Motor Guzzi motorcycle on the second floor of the studio building and then rode it up and down the hall. Oh God. And had to disassemble.
Andrea:How did you get away with that? Whoa.
J.T.:My studio was on the second floor. I had to disassemble it and take it back downstairs to put it back together to ride it. That one almost got me expelled from college.
Andrea:I think it would these days. But how cool that you could take a Moto Guzzi apart and put it back together at that age?
J.T.:Yeah, that, that was something else. Even though I struggled, uh, I mean I got straight A's in all of my art programs. I just had to do twice the work. And, and I gotta say that a Fine Arts education is the most underrated education that there is.
Andrea:What's underrated about it?
J.T.:It teaches you how to use these, your hands, your hands and your mind in conjunction. So a, a good fine arts education. And I would encourage anybody who's listening to think about, college, not as a pla, not as vocational training necessarily, but a place where you go to learn how to learn, especially if you have a passion for actually making real things in the real world. Good, fine arts, education, uh, is painting from life, figure drawing, color theory, graphic design, stone carving, metal casting, fabrication, welding. Ceramics, photography. Especially darkroom, woodworking. And most important of all art history, which is the history of, of being. So all of those things I I got this intense training in all of these different fields, and all of that stuff I use on a daily basis. So I, I got real lucky. The school that I went to just at the time I was there.
Andrea:Where were you?
J.T.:Oh, I was at Louisiana Tech. I'm talking hardcore fine arts education. And if the school is good, all the things that I just listed, you'll have to do, man. They worked us to death. It was not easy
Andrea:I love this idea though, of the connection between critical thinking and using your hands to make things.
J.T.:Well, my professors are looking at this kid who's doing all this crazy motorcycle stuff and going, what, what is this kid doing? I, they, they didn't understand that what I probably should have been done is, is dumped into some kind of automotive design program.
Andrea:Some kind of fabrication thing.
J.T.:I gotta tell you, the kids that I've encountered that come out of automotive design, they don't really have much of an education on how to, how to make, how to actually make stuff.
Andrea:Which it feels so good to know how to make things.
J.T.:So, when you talk about technical training, right? Mm-hmm. Like a job based on a career path. That's what those design schools do, is they teach you how to draw cars that can't be made. You know, in the motorcycle world you can't hide stuff, right. You can't hide your, your lack of technical knowledge because
Andrea:yeah, literally see can see everything.
J.T.:You can see everything.
Andrea:Did you have to convince your professors? Did you literally have to talk them into letting you do this motorcycle work as art?
J.T.:No.
Andrea:Okay.
J.T.:No, there was no convincing them. I just had to do twice the work.
Andrea:What does that mean though? What do you mean you had to do twice the work?
J.T.:So I would turn in a motorcycle project at 400 level classes, which is kind of independent study. Would turn in projects and receive a failing grade. So then have to go back and do the sculpture work, the
Andrea:Oh, I see. So you were doing both,
J.T.:I was doing both.
Andrea:Okay.
J.T.:I was doing industrial design and fine art at the same, getting failing grades for the for the industrial design.
Andrea:So from the beginning you had this design, art, engineering, technology, like it was all what you were interested in?
J.T.:Well, I'm hugely interested in painting and color theory, stone carving. Sculpture, fabrication, photography, graphic design, color theory, those are all the basic building blocks that you need to be in this business.
Andrea:Well, to get up to some of your creations, cause I really wanna talk about them. Um, how did you end up meeting Matt and what were you thinking about and doing at that time? I guess you were out of art school and how did all this kind of come together?
J.T.:Well, I, I got this job kind of a job. The big magazine back in the day, was this, uh, publication called Iron Horse Magazine. It was published in New York and the editor was a man named David Snow, who's a largely forgotten figure in, in the world of custom motorcycles. David Snow really created the whole DIY backyard hardcore chopper scene. Jesse James was featured in Iron Horse Magazine. His first feature was in Iron Horse, Billy Lane, uh, Indian Larry, like all those guys, those TV guys, they were all featured in Iron Horse Magazine first. Before it kinda blew up. It used to be a real underground scene, and David Snow was responsible for creating that scene, and I just loved it. You never read an issue of Iron Horse Magazine without laughing out loud because David Snow has such a, such a keen wit really, the last of the Warrior poets
Andrea:so you're working with them or what?
J.T.:Well, I reached out to David Snow and said, I'm this kid. I love the motorcycles. Can I write for Iron Horse Magazine? He says, if it's good, I'll publish it. Okay. He was the first person to ever listen to what this young, weird kid had to say about motorcycles. So anyway, that led me to a lot of interesting things, going around and taking pictures of motorcycles and talking to the guys and having these interesting conversations. And I went to this motorcycle show to cover it for the, for Iron Horse Magazine, Baton Rouge. And at that show, I saw one of the most amazing motorcycles I have ever seen in my life. It was a Confederate, and we kind of take it for granted today. But in 1995, there was nothing like that out there. It was the very first hardcore badass street muscle bike that featured a big honking V-Twin engine. It was just so far ahead of its time. So, I was blown away by the, by the aesthetic and by the engineering and by the overall gestalt of this. And I talked to the guy who was there standing around the bike. I'm like, what even is this? This is amazing. Turns out that was Matt Chambers and he was just as weird then as he is now,
Andrea:did you hit it off immediately or?
J.T.:Well, later on I called him and told him I was coming to Daytona and wanted to do a full test ride for the magazine, and we did that. But I never forgot that that bike that he had with him, the early, uh, the early bikes that were built in Baton Rouge on Christian Street, those to me have the most resonance, those real early machines. And a few years back, one popped up, a guy in Lafayette had bought one off the West coast and I, he's a friend of mine and I said, man, if you ever decide to sell that, he's like, oh, I'm gonna get it running. If you ever decide to sell it, call me. Well, a couple years go by and he called me. He said, well, I just don't have the horsepower to finish this project. You want it? Damn right. I want it. I have chassis number three. Which is the exact motorcycle that I saw in 1995 when I went to the show at Baton Rouge.
Andrea:It had to come back to you.
J.T.:Yes. It's, it's real weird. And the process of restoration, cuz the bike was missing parts. It had been torn apart. it had been in Katrina, it had been flooded out and then wound up on the west coast somehow. And it was missing a bunch of pieces, so I had to remake a bunch of stuff. I still have the brochure
Andrea:from that event back in the nineties?
J.T.:Yes. And all the technical drawings. I've later found, a friend of mine has all the blueprints hand done blueprints from 1995. I was able to get this bike back together and now I've, I've got it. I ride it every once in a blue moon. But what people need to understand about Confederate Motorcycles is that they're not fake Harleys. A Confederate motorcycle is like an American Brough Superior. Where what George Brough did is he, he bought in the best engines he could find the best components, made his own chassis and then sold it to celebrities for a lot of money. That's exactly what a Brough Superior is. And there was a period in time where Brough Superiors, uh, were just like used motorcycles that nobody really cared about. So eventually people are gonna understand that, that these, that those early Confederate Motorcycles are real special. It just needs more time. To soak in for people to understand what they are and really for the next generation to come along and say, wait a minute, these are special. I would say it's a luxury motorcycle, but they're way too aggressive to be called luxury. It might be a luxury product, but it's certainly not a luxury experience. They are brutally fast. But competent, they actually go around a corner. They stop real well, good suspension good motorcycles. I have full faith and confidence that at some point people are gonna wake up to what they really were.
Andrea:You came in at--what number was it? It was like the only, the second or third bike right.
J.T.:Yeah. I was there for the from very early on. Uh, I pretty much knew at that time that what I wanted to do with my life is build motorcycles in Louisiana. So this is like a 30 year thing that, that I have been fixated on.
Andrea:You say build, this is interesting to me because you're an artist and we were talking about using your hands and, and building, but also, you're known as the designer of the bike. How do you see this relationship? Is it all one process for you? Building, designing?
J.T.:Well, look, I need a lot of help to do it. I'm not a solid works guy and I'm not really much of an illustrator. I'm more of a charcoal and newsprint kind of guy who conceptualizes stuff and then works with another guy who does solid works, and then another guy who does, you know, real nice, pretty illustrations. On a team that is responsible for building the motorcycles, you gotta have one guy who, who sees the big picture, who knows a lot about bearings, who knows a lot about hardware, all the electrical connectors, all the weird little things, the widgets. You gotta have a guy who understands widgets and geometry. And that's, that's kind of my role and history. the history of motorcycles is so incredibly important. Just like I mentioned earlier, if you're going to be a so-called artist one thing you've gotta know is art history.
Andrea:Why is that so important?
J.T.:Well, if you're, if you're painting Campbell's soup cans in 2023, you're telling the, the world's oldest knock, knock joke. Yeah, right. Because that, that, that, that was a joke that was played on the idle rich to fleece them of their cash. So doing Andy Warhol style, so-called art, you're missing the point. The point was the joke.
Andrea:So you see this more as a historical, continuous kind of process that you're part of. I mean, even this co collaboration that you have to have in order to make the bike seems like part of that too. It's not a joke, I guess is what I'm saying. This is a serious,
J.T.:oh, it's, I've dedicated my whole life to this. Yeah. This is, this is real. Like the stakes are high for me. You said it. This is what I do. This is, this is why I'm on Planet Earth. And knowing why you're here and what your purpose is, is a blessing and a curse. Because when you get to do what you're supposed to be doing, it's, it's blissful. It's the most happy you'll ever be. But when you're not doing it, it's the most miserable you'll ever be.
Andrea:Mm-hmm. And you have no choice but to do it in a way, you know, you have to do it. So
J.T.:yeah
Andrea:whatever comes, you're gonna keep going. Have you had some pretty tough moments in that regard over all? What do you think's been sort of the, the hardest part of it all?
J.T.:Well, it's, it's always been finding the money.
Andrea:Yeah. It's getting the support.
J.T.:That's the hardest part. It's finding the money. Absolutely. And, you know, being, being under capitalized is something that I know really well. I've been rubbing two sticks together to make a motorcycle for the past 30 years. Being fully funded and have all the resources would be a nice, refreshing change of pace. All this work in the trenches, uh, is good preparation for that moment.
Andrea:Yeah. And you'll definitely do it from the right place and it'll be worth it. And it's a completely different success as you know, most motorcycle companies don't last very long. But there are different reasons for going into these kind of endeavors or starting up something. And it can be money but when you do it from this place that you described, which is you kind of have to do it like you've just gotten clear about what you want and now you're gonna go for it. Um, I think eventually the success does come, but it can be a long road. But when it does come, I mean, in, in a way, there's a lot of success that comes before this big success where you don't have to worry about money, for example.
J.T.:Well define success.
Andrea:Say that again?
J.T.:Define success.
Andrea:Yeah, I guess that's, you know, as I'm talking, I'm realizing it because I think it's already a success, isn't it? To be doing what you know you wanna do and to have that clarity and to get up every day and work towards that in a way that's more important than the monetary success.
J.T.:Money, profit and money are an outcome. That's not a goal.
Andrea:And yet it's this hard, the hardest part of it all. You said so.
J.T.:Well, I mean, shouldn't effort be the, be the goal, the ability achievement. That's the goal.
Andrea:Mm-hmm.
J.T.:And profit is, is the result of effort. Ideas have no value, but
Andrea:that's a big statement. Ideas have no value. I can't agree with that. What, what do you mean ideas?
J.T.:They don't have any value.
Andrea:You mean a monetary value or you mean overall value?
J.T.:I mean overall. Ideas do not have value. What has value is passion, but passion only has value when coupled with work. It's the work that has value.
Andrea:I don't think you can separate value and work and all these things though. Can you? And the idea from the idea, like you, you have this idea, this kind of picture, vision of your life and then you act it and you follow through on it. But that doesn't mean the idea's not important. In fact, it seems almost like the fuel behind it all.
J.T.:I, I don't know. I I think that we're kind of in a place, a really strange place where people want to have, have financial reward based on their ideas. I hear that all the time from young people. If you ask a young person what, what do they want to do with their lives. They, they say, well, I want to be rich. I want to have lots of money and lots of employees, they don't say stuff like I wanna build motorcycles in New Orleans.
Andrea:Right. Why do you think that is, though? I mean, do they even think of that as an option? Because a lot of times we just kind of grow up and we see, oh, everyone likes this person who's making a lot of money and is famous. So that's probably what I should try to become, because I wanna be liked. I mean, you're not even consciously thinking you're just going with it.
J.T.:Well, the super rich people in our culture right now, it seems like they make money off of their ideas more than off of their effort,
Andrea:Can you gimme an example of--
J.T.:Well, really what they're doing, what they're doing is they're co-opting other people's, they're just thieves. They're just stealing other people's actual work
Andrea:because it's all continuous as we were talking about. No one really has an original idea.
J.T.:Yeah. In other words, I'm gonna develop an App for my phone. And that App is gonna make me rich, For some reason that just doesn't really, that doesn't really resonate with me. I don't know why I I don't like that it doesn't feel right.
Andrea:It's definitely weird and strange. It's like a virtual,
J.T.:virtual world where
Andrea:Yeah. Instead of creating with the hands, as you talked about earlier, it's a virtual building, which is just a very different place to be. I do think you can build things like Apps that actually help people and transport them and to talk about motoring actually do move them in a positive way. For me, it seems more about the intention and how much you thought about it. You thought a lot about what you wanted to do and you put a lot of effort and work into it
J.T.:well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring out an old chestnut to kind of wrap this.
Andrea:Okay.
J.T.:There are two kinds of people in the world, those who want to take a samurai sword and learn how to cut with that sword and inflict violence with that sword. And then there are those who want to know the secrets to how those swords are made. I'm the guy who wants to know how they're made.
Andrea:Do you think you're just born that way though, or, I feel like I'm trying to get at some bigger thing, which is it's, there's something humans want, right? And it's something like meaning or purpose, I kind of hear what you're saying is that you feel like a lot of young people have gotten confused and think the meaning and purpose is the money or the creating something that everyone knows about. Not necessarily the act of the creation itself.
J.T.:What they're looking for is authenticity.
Andrea:Okay.
J.T.:And there's very little of that.
Andrea:It's not the money itself that brings authenticity. You might wanna pay more for something that's authentic, but that's different than, for example, someone who's really young, just trying to make a lot of money in order to find meaning in their life. The authenticity's kind of lost in that.
J.T.:Yeah. Well, uh, it's really depressing. The more young people I talk to, the, the more young people tell me that they don't want a motorcycle. Their parents tell them that they're not allowed to have a motorcycle
Andrea:like your dad did.
J.T.:And, and, and they accept that, re there's no rebellion name there. There's no re rebellion has lost its, its value there. There's value just him being a rebel. But you wouldn't know it. You wouldn't know it. Talking to your average millennial
Andrea:Seems like the rebellion is more about escape or getting drunk or doing drugs or something like this.
J.T.:Having the, the, the addiction of, of being social.
Andrea:Yeah, that's true. There's this, also this element of clicks and follows and likes and this literal kind of physical addiction to technology.
J.T.:Yeah. Or, or, or being a hermit. That is not a very popular, that's, that's not a very popular, uh, thing these days. It's like being a recluse and just doing your work in your own way. Not shouting out, shout out and making a big deal about it. Just, just, just doing it. Yeah. Look, just, just leave me alone so I can do what I want to do. That's what, that's what real rebellion means to me.
Andrea:Well, there's something complicated here. I'm thinking about Hunter S. Thompson for example, who, Matt and I had a little talk about him, in the podcast, this idea of the edge and edge work and like the only people who know the Edge are the ones who've gone over it. And this kind of, rebellion
J.T.:Hunter Thompson was a writer last time I checked.
Andrea:He was a writer, but he rode motorcycles a lot, as you know, and he wrote about riding motorcycles.
J.T.:And the greatest thing he ever wrote was an article for Cycle World Magazine. Believe it came out in 1992 or 91. It was called Song, Song of the Sausage Creature. And it's one of the greatest pieces of writing about motorcycling, I've ever read.
Andrea:I gotta look at that. I've never read it. Why is it so great?
J.T.:It's just, you know, he was a wordsmith and, and
Andrea:he was
J.T.:He was also a personality. He was a celebrity. And I think he enjoyed being a celebrity. But at the end of the day, the guy was a damn good writer.
Andrea:Yeah.
J.T.:That was his, that was his passion. That was his craft. And he was, he was good at it. I think all the other stuff that he did was kind of like, uh, you know, it's kind of Ziggy Stardust.
Andrea:What does that mean? I know Ziggy Stardust, but what are you saying? It was just the,
J.T.:Well, David Bowie had a personality, a character that he had invented called Ziggy Stardust. He also happens to be a good musician, right? So the Zaggy Stardust character, at some point, David Bowie put on the shelf and then reverted back to just being David Bowie. Interestingly, uh, Michael Jackson taught me how to moonwalk.
Andrea:What, what kinda, are you serious?
J.T.:Yeah, I'm serious.
Andrea:In person or are you talking about listening to Michael Jackson?
J.T.:So, lemme, lemme tell you the story. It's pretty good.
Andrea:Okay.
J.T.:So, After Formula One in 2006, I got invited. It was in the Middle East, and I got invited to go. There was this real intimate party. There were only maybe 30 people there at this small party. After the, after the race. The guy who won the race, Michael Schumacher, was at this party. Oh, wow. Gosh. And Michael Jackson showed up and Michael Jackson asked me, uh, he found out I was from New Orleans, and this was right after Katrina. And he, he's like, man, can I, can I talk to you about, you know, what's going on in your, in your city? I'm like, of course, man. We sat down, we talked for a couple of hours.
Andrea:That's quite something.
J.T.:Yeah. Well, here's the thing. Uh, Michael Jackson, like his whole weird persona. Mm-hmm. Like that was all makeup. His weird, scratchy, high voice, that was all put on. So that was Michael Jackson. Playing a character, just like David Bowie played Ziggy Startdust. The only difference is that Michael Jackson never could take that character off and put that character on the shelf.. His nose didn't look especially weird. His voice wasn't high and squeaky. It was about like my voice, not super deep, not high pitch. And he was like, just this nice cool guy. So, you know, I just ran through the whole thing about what was happening in New Orleans and we were sitting there hanging out and, and the DJ, there was a little dance floor that they had set up. The DJ played, Don't Stop Till You Get Enough by Michael Jackson. And I said, Michael, would you, would you mind giving me a couple of lessons about how to moonwalk? And he's like, of course. So I'm on this dance floor with Michael Jackson and Michael Schumacher, the greatest Formula One driver of all time. Oh yeah. Learning how to moonwalk to Don't Stop Till You Get Enough by Michael Jackson. With Michael Jackson.
Andrea:That is crazy.
J.T.:Look, this motorcycle thing, this motorcycle business is so crazy. You wouldn't, what it brings to you believe, you wouldn't believe the, the interesting people that float around you when you're selling super high end motorcycles.
Andrea:Well, I know a bunch of people liked your first bike was, or was it your second that you made The Wraith? Was that the second one that you designed?
J.T.:Yeah, the G2, the G2 Hellcat was, I took the bike.
Andrea:You just redid it all right?
J.T.:More or less the, the same chassis. I mean everything changed, but more or less the same powertrain and just kind of refreshed it. Shortened it up, made it a little more proportionate, sorted out some of the ergonomic issues of the earlier bikes. And then unfortunately put a big old tire on the back of it. Cause that was kind of the style at the time. Mm-hmm. I, I, one of my big
Andrea:You regret that?
J.T.:Yeah. It's one of my big regrets is kind of going with fashion instead of engineering and putting that big tire on. I mean, it looks pretty cool, I gotta say. But
Andrea:Did you not wanna do it, but you did it cuz you thought it's what you should do? Or did you want it at the time?
J.T.:To be honest with you, I just didn't know enough.
Andrea:Yeah. You were really young. Just coming in.
J.T.:I was really young, I just didn't really know enough but the bike had some interesting stuff going on. That's the world's first motorcycle. On the first bike that I really did from the ground up has an exhaust to the swing arm, which no one had done before and no one's done since.
Andrea:Yeah. You have quite some innovations with the swing arm.
J.T.:Yeah. The little Emmy that's sitting in my shop right now. Right behind me that, yeah. For
Andrea:those who don't know, your Zoom video is of you in the shop. So, and what, what is this Emmy behind you? It looks, I'm definitely intrigued by it.
J.T.:So a good friend of mine went to Mecum Auction this year, and he knew how crazy I was for this little German motorcycle that was made post-war. Mm-hmm. And he bought one and brought it over to my shop for me to study and really analyze. I'm, I'm doing a series of sketches on it. Uh, it was built built by Norbert Riedel
Andrea:okay. It looked like an NSU or something to me at first. Who was Norbert?
J.T.:Uh, n I'm a huge fan of, of NSU as well, that that was led by, uh, Uh, Albert Roder was the head of design for NSU, and I've had an NSU 250 and NSU 250 Max was actually the last, uh, motorcycle to win a Grand Prix that was based on a street motorcycle. There's something about this post-war German austerity that really caused a rebirth of wonderful design.
Andrea:And how does that Emmy fit in with that?
J.T.:Well, when, when Norbert Riedel went to design this motorcycle, the entire chassis is based on one set, 1 1, 1 schedule of, of tubing. So the swing arm,
Andrea:it's like one line? Yeah.
J.T.:The chassis, the front end. It's all built out of the same piece of tube. Oh, um, and, and the engine is actually bolted to the swing arm and swings kind of like a scooter almost on the other side of the swing arm pivot. It's kind of hard to describe, but. The, the bottom line is, it's, it's minimalism, it's minimalistic in its bill of materials. It's a wonderfully beautiful, successful design. As a motorcycle, it's not very good, but as a, but as a piece of industrial design, it's just glorious.
Andrea:How do those two things go together? Is that o often the case that you tweak the design and you mess up something tech?
J.T.:Well, he, you know, you gotta have a little bit of cognitive dissonance when it comes to, when it comes to weird motorcycles. So you can have a motorcycle that's, that's horrible and still love it at the same time. Uh, my daily ride is a 1977 AMF era Harley Davidson Shovelhead electric line.
Andrea:A Shovelhead really
J.T.:in, in brown.
Andrea:Oh, what if you look, what kinda choice was that?
J.T.:If you pull 8 out of 10 hardcore motorcycle people and ask them what's the worst motorcycle ever built? Eight outta 10 are gonna say it's an a m F era Harley Davidson. Uh, and if you ask'em what's the ugliest bike ever made? They'll say, well, it's an AMF era. Harley Davidson in brown yeah. I love it. It's okay. It's so much fun.
Andrea:Well, I, I wanna get to this form function thing cuz I think you actually made a success with the Curtis One, right? Where you actually made a bike a bit like that Emmy behind you in terms of the beauty of the design. But that actually also works as a motorcycle. But before we get to the LEVs, we gotta talk a little bit about the ICEs and I brought up the Wraith a little bit ago because so many interesting, famous kind of whatever you wanna call crazy. personalities liked it. Um, what was that experience like for you first, maybe for those who don't know new generation, like you could just say a little bit about that bike and,
J.T.:well, most of the real wealthy, uh, celebrity type people, and I won't name any names. I'm, I'm naming them Michael Jackson cuz he's, cuz he is dead. They, they were actually drawn to the G2 Hellcat, the Wraith
Andrea:oh, okay.
J.T.:Yeah, because the, the shape forms were, were real organic and kind of easier to get your mind around. So all the celebrities of the day, they, they were all on G2 Hellcats.
Andrea:Oh. So that was a Hellcat. Okay.
J.T.:The Wraith is a little too out there. One just came up for auction recently. And it's interesting to see people say how much they loved that bike. And at the time in 2004, when it really came out, people were horrified. People were angry. It wasn't just, I don't like it, it was I hate you for making it. It's too, it's horrible. We hate it. They, it was a lot.
Andrea:It's like sensory overload. Like the Tchaikovsky or what's the, one of the big composers who had this kind of crazy dissonant. Now to us, it doesn't sound dissonant,--Stravinksy-- but Yeah. Right. Exactly.
J.T.:Stravinksky,
Andrea:it's like a bit too much for people to handle. So they have to riot.
J.T.:Yeah. Stravinsky's Rights of Spring
Andrea:Stravinsky. Exactly. Rights of Spring. Yeah. Great.
J.T.:But when it came out people were like pulling their hair out at the theater, like, this is terrible. We get us outta here. But like I said, one just came up, A Wraith came up for auction recently and all the comments were like, oh my God, this is like the coolest motorcycle I've ever seen. Yeah, it was like 20 years ago.
Andrea:Maybe That's kinda what I've heard. Cuz I feel like there's a lot of positive stuff
J.T.:why is it 20 years later people start to get it, you know? That's, yeah. That, and that's, that's really not good design, technically speaking, good design. You want to have, you don't wanna have a 20 year lag, you wanna have like a three year lag. So when it comes out, it's challenging.
Andrea:Mm-hmm. Like art for example. Often this happens as we just talked about with the Stravinsky, that something is ahead of its time. People can't handle it because it's just too different from what they're used to. It's like exploding the, their sensory statistical regularities that happens often in art, that then 20 years later, it's like, be the cool thing or it's become just commonplace because like now everyone knows it or uses it. So motorcycles aren't usually like that because in the way that you're talking, right. It should, it should work pretty immediately Right. To be a success. But that's kind of this weird thing with you. It's it's art too, you know, it's not just a machine.
J.T.:The, there's a great quote by, uh, by Charles Eames. For designer Charles, Charles and Ray Eames. They're actually a couple. And they, they both deserve credit. Typically. Ray doesn't get the credit that she deserves. The quote, the quote from Charles Eames is, Uh, and I'll paraphrase it, is that, that the, the label artist isn't something that, that you would ever place upon yourself. It's, it's a, it's a term that other people may choose to refer you to as Hmm. But you would never, you would never introduce yourself as an artist. Like, I would never go up to somebody, oh, ok. Hey, I'm JT I'm an artist. It's kinda like saying, Hey, uh, I'm JT I'm a genius. Nice. Nice to meet you.
Andrea:Because that word is just so loaded
J.T.:and the word is so dirty. It's been so, so corrupted and co-opted and now everybody's an artist. And it doesn't mean anything in,
Andrea:but it does. It does. But I see what you're saying. It's hard to call yourself that, almost.
J.T.:It does. I mean, uh, I would never call myself an artist. Painters, painters, paint sculptors, sculpt artists promote themselves shamelessly, and they use that term and they use quote, and they use, that's my quote. They use that term to cover up all of their bad behavior,
Andrea:not take responsibility for the, the actions.
J.T.:I'm, I'm a motorcycle guy. That's enough for me. I'm, I'm totally happy with that.
Andrea:You don't need to be called an artist or a designer, but people need words like that for you. But it's, it does kind of go across these lines, which maybe that's actually the better definition of a real artist. But anyway. Okay, so how many ICEs did have you owned or How many have you designed or helped build, or whatever we wanna say... been part of?
J.T.:I, since, uh, 1991, I've averaged about three motorcycles, three to four motorcycles a year. And those aren't just objects that I buy. all the motorcycles that I've owned, I've serviced and, and, studied, sometimes modified, unfortunately, sometimes modified badly, which I usually regret. Oh. Uh, and, but, but mainly, um, objects that I've cared for and being a good caretaker for these objects is hugely important to me. So,
Andrea:so you, I love it that you answered that question that way, because I meant more like with a company that you've, you know, built, but you see all the bikes that you've ever owned or that have ever come into your life as part of this uh, yeah.
J.T.:look, the, the, the. To be a good chef, you have to know a lot about food, which means you gotta taste all different kinds of, of food from all over the world and, and understand how it's prepared. That's what a good chef does. A good chef doesn't say, I, I know how to make my grandma's gumbo the end. I do know how to make my grandmother's gumbo. I'm, I make the best gumbo in the world, but I don't call myself a chef. So, knowing everything that there is to know about motorcycles that you can in a lifetime means you have to buy a bunch of weird bikes and take'em apart, and put'em back together and tune'em and modify them. And make'em better if you can. I mean, that's the first rule of owning, of ownership, of being a good caretaker is do no harm. So that, that's the rule that I use with all of this crazy motorcycles that I've owned through the, throughout the years.
Andrea:Have you learned a lot from messing up and failing sometimes too, though, when you try to modify them or when you just, just in general trying to design.
J.T.:Design, yeah. Damn right.
Andrea:Yeah. That's also a teacher, I guess.
J.T.:Yeah. I've, I've taken apart and put back together literally hundreds of motorcycles.
Andrea:Hmm. I love that. I would love to be able to do that. Well, I'm a,
J.T.:I'm a mechanic too. Mm-hmm. So I've, I've run a, a shop where I've fixed motorcycles for a living.
Andrea:And that informs your design, I guess, right? Obviously.
J.T.:I still, I still do that from time to time. Well, you know, I've got a couple of, of eccentric, wonderful friends who don't mind spending money on strange motorcycles. And whenever they do that, they're gonna need service. And I volunteer. Please let me, let me work on that., I've never taken one of those apart. I sure would like to see how it works. The Norton Rotary is one of my most successful recommissions. I took a Norton Rotary and got it back to working again, what a awesome motorcycle. What a challenge.
Andrea:How much time did that take?
J.T.:That took me a couple of months to figure it out, to get my mind around how it worked. It's so different. Is it? Yeah. I got a a, a buddy with a Hesketh.
Andrea:I don't even know what a Hesketh is. I'm sorry to say
J.T.:It was horrible. When I pushed that bike, finally outta my shop.
Andrea:Just is it just, is it like the logic of it or something? As you start to kind, do you kind of figure out the code of it as you start to take it apart??
J.T.:Yeah. The Hesketh, the Hesketh is so weird, man. The, the engine runs backwards, so it doesn't run, the right way. But it has the camshaft running in a different direction from the direction of the motor. No, figuring out the timing of it. Like, how do you time this thing? Like am I advancing the timing or am I retarding the timing?
Andrea:Okay. But so are these all ICEs Internal Combustion Engines? Is that Yeah. Kind of what we're talking about. You've made a big shift right, to this designing the LEV have you always been open to LEVs?
J.T.:No, I never have. And okay. I, you know, If you had asked me five years ago, what do you think about electric motorcycles? I would say, well, I'm not really that interested in them. And, and it turns, as it turns out, I was right, because the electric motorcycles that are out there running around aren't really in my mind, designed from the first principles to, to really be an electric motorcycle.
Andrea:Can you tell me what you mean by first principles? Are you talking about minimalism and things like this?
J.T.:look, let let's not get on the bandwagon and talk about how EVs are the greatest thing in the world and are gonna save the planet. They, they, they come with their own, just like everything else, they come with their own difficulties and problems. And it's not like this panacea,
Andrea:no electricity's not free. We forget this. It's batteries are also consuming resources. But
J.T.:yeah. And, and the electricity in many parts of the world comes from, combustion from burning natural gas or
Andrea:coal. Mm. Coal and stuff still.
J.T.:So, so in many ways, uh, EVs are actually external combustion vehicles.
Andrea:Oh, I've never heard that before. What do you mean? Because the combustion happens elsewhere.
J.T.:It, it it still happens. It just doesn't happen internally. It happens externally..
Andrea:Is that always the case though?
J.T.:No, not always the case. Yeah. It's, it's very nuanced, but it can be. But, but isn't that an interesting thought experiment? On an internal combustion engine, it's an external combustion vehicle.
Andrea:Right. I think the argument I've heard when I've tried to broach the subject with other people, mostly in the world. Is that we need diverse sources we need it all. Right. We can't just have the internal combustion engine it's different sources of energy, right.
J.T.:but that's all virtue signalling. The one thing that they're not talking about is the resources that are consumed in the making of the vehicle. If you wanna build clean vehicles that are actually clean whether they're internal combustion or electric or EV, the key is to make'em so that they never get thrown away.
Andrea:That's definitely not what's happening.
J.T.:Yeah. Which means that that is by bad for the environment. Look, if your EV, which doesn't produce any emissions, is pretty much guaranteed to be in the landfill in 10 years, you have failed in your mission to to be sustainable. You've done harm, haven't helped anything. You have hurt the world by making disposable vehicles.
Andrea:Do you think people are really thinking about it on at the top? And as consumers that there's another choice maybe to make something that will last, has that been a choice?
J.T.:Yes, of course. My Bentley, I drive a Bentley. Talk about irony. I design electric vehicles for a living and I drive not daily of course, but once in a blue moon, I drive a vehicle that has the worst fuel economy of any passenger vehicle made in the modern age. It gets nine miles to the gallon.
Andrea:What, which bentley are we talking about? This must be a,
J.T.:I have an oh eight. I have an oh eight Azure, sort of the last of the handmade truly English handmade cars. That's that series of Bentley Azure and Arnage 07 and 08 and 09 are really the last real Bentley/Rolls-Royces car. But here's the thing. Let's say I drive my Bentley a thousand miles a year, which is about what I'm averaging. That car will never be thrown away. It will always retain value. It will always be special. It will always have somebody to come along and say, you know what, that one's not going to the scrapyard. Quality, construction, quality of materials. The passion that that it took to make the thing The car retailed in 08 for over$400,000, and they lost money on every one they made. That's a great story.
Andrea:So do you think that an LEV has more potential of being, sustainable in this way?
J.T.:Ours does.
Andrea:Okay. But the ones before didn't. So what's different about the Curtis one, which is an LEV A light electric vehicle?
J.T.:it's materials, it's passion, it's quality of construction, it's beauty of design. You've got an individual small group of people who are working on this project. They all have stories that will be told eventually.
Andrea:There's some amazing innovations in this, in this bike.
J.T.:And there, there will never be a day when, when one of these motorcycles will be thrown away. Are they expensive? Radically So, but it's not because we don't wanna make inexpensive motorcycles. It just costs what it costs because our, our team is so small.
Andrea:You also use pretty expensive materials, right?
J.T.:Damn right, everything.
Andrea:Carbon fiber, titanium.
J.T.:Yeah. The vast majority of these parts are all made specifically for this motorcycle.
Andrea:Can you talk about how, like this, I've heard you talk before about this idea of minimalism because something that's special about this, this bike, and I don't know if there are other bikes like this, I'd like to know, is that most of the parts have more than one function. What is it, like 70% of the parts are reused in different ways Can you tell me a little bit about how this came about and what if I've just got it right, what I just said?
J.T.:Well, it's, it's about approaching the word minimalism, not as an applique of styling. Minimalism is about the, the bill of materials on the motorcycle and, and respect for materials. Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should. Thinking very long and carefully about tool paths and how these parts are actually gonna get made and how much waste is gonna be made from the making of the individual parts, it's all something that really fed in for the design of the bike. When you see the motorcycle something that most people don't really get at first blush is that the front suspension members and the rear suspension members are the exact same parts. If you look at the four blades, it's a girder front end. You look at the individual blades and then you look at the rear of the motorcycle. The blades in the rear are exactly the same as the ones in the front. It's part number one, quantity four. The problem is because these parts are bilaterally symmetrical, which means that they can be used not just for and aft, but, but port and starboard, is that when you make a design change on a part, those parts particularly, it doesn't happen in, in one place, that change. It doesn't happen in four places. It happens in eight places because the parts are bilaterally symmetrical.
Andrea:So what is that giving to the bike or
J.T.:look, this has never been done before. No one's ever, no one's ever designed a motorcycle and said, okay, instead of designing a swing arm, and then buying in some fourteens. Let's make the, the swing arm, the front and rear suspension, work off the same basic parts. That's entirely new.
Andrea:Does that make it easier for someone easier to repair and understand?
J.T.:Well a lot of people would say, oh, it's because it's more scalable because you only have to manufacture one part and then that goes all over the bike. And there is some of that. But economy of design also leads to a, a lyricism visually. So there's this repetition of, of shape and form that even though you may engage with the object and subconsciously get it because these forms have this melody, there's a rhythm to, to the design. You may not really get it at first blush, but once it's explained to you that these shaped forms live throughout the motorcycle, not only in in positive space, but also in negative space. I think that's the ultimate expression of, of good design.
Andrea:It's very organic too. All of you often talk about the bike as living and breathing and as an organic process. And hearing you say this about the parts, it makes me think of earlier, design and streamlining or even Bauhaus stuff or looking to life animals and bodies and things like this to understand movement that is how life evolves too, right? Reusing parts, in different places. Reusing patterns, the same kind of patterns recur over and over again in different forms of life. So, it is really organic now that you explain it like that. I see what you mean.
J.T.:On some level, this motorcycle is a love letter to Alexander Calder. Calder invented, uh, kinetic sculpture, he really is responsible for inventing the mobile. And if you study his work, what you'll find is this beautiful repetition of shape that, that moves. The shapes change their relationship to one another, but there's a real intelligence behind it. it's this kind of natural fluid intelligence that he worked real hard to get. I'm not gonna say he was talented because I'm not gonna take his actual hard work away from him. If you look at an Alexander Calder mobile and understand how those shapes exist in space and how they relate to one another and to the negative space, and then look at this motorcycle, uh, I think a little light bulb is gonna go off over your head.
Andrea:I love it that you say that because. This is just a side note that might not make any sense to anyone. But I have to say it because last year there was an Alexander Calder exhibit here in Berlin where I am, and I went to it of course, and it sort of struck me there looking at all the mobiles, that this was a better form to think about scientific evolution or the way that different species change and move about than any other model I've seen in science, This balance and reusing of parts, but this very organic, patterning that happens. I love it that that's connected to the motorcycle. I hadn't heard you say that it's a love letter to him before. Had you thought about that as you were creating it or you just noticed after the fact?
J.T.:Yes, of course. If you look at the Wraith, that's another very Calder-esque design. They're very similar and entirely different exercises, and it's really not something that I can talk about without showing.
Andrea:People can go look at the Wraith, go Google it right now, and then look at the Curtiss 1. W ith the Wraith, are you reusing, stylistic patterns or parts, or
J.T.:It's, it's, it's all based on, on a hieroglyph that really was generated by the engine itself and the nature of the engine being two cylinders off of a seven cylinder radial engine. So using the crankshaft, the crankshaft centers, the journals, and the, you know, the, the crankshaft to, to, to, uh, exploding that, that circle to see where it goes to designwise. So the, the wrath is nothing but a bunch of concentric circles. And so is the Curtiss 1. that's fascinating. Every curve on that motorcycle is a section of, of a perfect circle. just to be sure that everybody gets this, every curve on the Wraith and on the Curtiss 1 is a section of a circle.
Andrea:I don't know what that reminds me of, but it remind, oh, Gaudi maybe or something. The architect who only had curves, never had a sharp corner
J.T.:You ever been in the, have you been in the, uh, La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona?
Andrea:Yeah. Mm-hmm. Is that also connected somehow?
J.T.:That building, that building terrifies me.
Andrea:I've never heard someone say it terrifies them. Tell me why.
J.T.:It's so, it's so wonderful and so beautiful and so terrifying at the same time. It's,
Andrea:maybe you can describe it just a little bit. It's, it's, there's no sharp, there's no corner, there's no edge to this. To me, it's like a fairytale dreamscape kind of organic plantlike, I don't know what it is, but
J.T.:it's, it's, it's overwhelming. And its beauty. And sometimes things can be overwhelmingly beautiful.
Andrea:Yeah. We hope.
J.T.:There's a great quote. There's a great quote by Ettori Bugatti. And the quote is, there is nothing that is too beautiful. Nothing that is too expensive.
Andrea:This gets a little sentimental, but it makes me think about when you love someone or when you feel love and how you can't do anything with it. You just have to feel it, and it's almost too much because you can't do anything with it. You can't get rid of it. You can't actually show it you're just kind of stuck with it. I've had that feeling too with certain pieces of art or even on a bike or uh, driving or walking. I mean, ways that we move or out in nature where you somehow you feel the connection with the world or yourself or whatever, maybe like when you see Gaudi you think Yes. Like I've been trying to express that, or that expresses something I need expressed. It's almost painful
J.T.:I've I've been real lucky in my career in that I've had two people who, who have looked at a bike that I've made and been in my presence and cried.
Andrea:That's something, yeah. I know that feeling.
J.T.:It's highest compliment I've ever been paid.
Andrea:Those are the moments of, to kind of go back to the beginning, this meaning, those are moments we live for, in a way. You just feel connected.
J.T.:When I'm standing in the presence of El Greco's Laocoön which is at the Met, I cry every time.
Andrea:Every time. You don't even need to, you can't explain that. We can't see everything that's going on in those moments.
J.T.:Uh, yeah, there's some Velasquez stuff that, that gets me. Juan de Pareja at the Met, that, that gets me choked up pretty good. And Calder too. I mean. We've got, we've got an El Greco and a Calder here in New Orleans at the New Orleans Museum of Art. When I really want to feel something, I'll go visit my friends over there at the museum.
Andrea:I have pieces like this too. What do you think is happening in that, in that space? Should we even not talk about it, but it does have something to do, I think with. Getting out of the way in this minimal sense, it feels like a bit like a puzzle piece is coming together. You can feel like that on a motorcycle too,
J.T.:Well, it's about, it's a, it's about beauty. What is, well, what happened to all the beautiful, to all the beautiful motorcycles? Where did they go? Why don't people make beautiful motorcycles anymore?
Andrea:The beauty wasn't the priority., it became about sports or racing or going fast or the speed or maybe beauty was thought of as like this form versus function the bike isn't about being beautiful. If it happens, it's great, but it's not the goal.
J.T.:Well, why, why not? I mean, uh, why not learn to walk and chew bubble gum at the same time?
Andrea:Yeah. Why not? I, I guess that's part of the blindness we kind of forgot about. But it's also what, what does connect this world of art and the machine and technology and in this way I was trying to explore earlier
J.T.:well speed machines, especially motorcycles, are really the highest form of art and they're the highest form because the stakes are so high.
Andrea:You mean cuz your life is literally on the line.
J.T.:Yeah. That's why I don't really, I don't paint anymore. I'm not really a practicing sculptor. Because it's so subjective you could look at a stone carving that I've done and you could think it's the greatest, most beautiful piece of stone carving in the world. Or you could think that it's horrible and you don't like it, but at the end of the day, that piece of stone carvings not gonna get anybody killed. So it's an entirely subjective realm. Motorcycles have this added spiciness of objective reality. And if you get it wrong, people get hurt. I think that's, that's just glorious.
Andrea:Why do you think say that's glorious? Cuz it makes you so, you just can't escape the responsibility you have to be awake.
J.T.:Yeah. Cause the, because the stakes are so high. Mm-hmm. That's high stakes poker versus, you know, a a game of checkers.
Andrea:This makes me think of the edge again, which makes me think of, this exhibit, last year at this amazing place in Los Angeles called the Peterson. Peterson Museum. Automotive Museum. And they put your bike in there. The Curtis 1 in the exhibit called Design at the Edge. You ever think about this edge because what you just described to me about being forced to think about life and death in this way and like this actually matters. That feels a bit like the edge, but also what you've had to describe about the struggle of it. You're always pushing at the edge of what people are used to and trying to go a little bit further. But then there's also this edge of this minimal edge, this like clean, sharp, everything's in its place, idea of the edge. So first of all, like what did you think when you were asked to be part of that exhibit and what was that like and what did, what does this mean, this edge Design at the Edge to you?
J.T.:It, it's one of the highest honors I've ever received. Um, because the way our motorcycle was displayed, it was elevated kind of above a lot of other people's work. When I say people, I mean big time factories mainly. It's the first time in my life where Harley Davidson's might, financial might played no part. Right. Because they're on, they're on my turf, which is a museum. So for my entire career, it's always worked out this way: there's some kind of show, motorcycle event or whatever, and there's a, a huge semi-truck tractor trailer with a live band and free food and test rides and here, we'll sign you up right now. That's Harley. Yeah, that's Harley. And then me in the parking lot standing behind a pickup truck with another dude baking in the sun with a bike in a parking lot.
Andrea:Come see the sculpture, come see the Calder Mobile.
J.T.:So at this show, the financial might it, it didn't matter, it was about design. And in that realm, that's where I can compete.
Andrea:what did it mean to you standing there? I guess your dad didn't get to come to that one, or, or did he? No,
J.T.:no. He's, he's, he's passed on.
Andrea:I'm sorry to hear that, but that's a moment.
J.T.:But it was a, it was a huge honor. Finally I got, it was like being able to compete in on my terms. I mean, you hear how I talk, I mean, it's all of this kind of highfalutin, artsy, fartsy bullshit.
Andrea:I don't think it's bullshit, but it's not Harley stuff, but that's
J.T.:actually the way I think so.
Andrea:There's a, there's a different level of attention and awareness that in general and across different kinds of motoring is coming into play. Whether it's why we're motoring or how we're motoring or these things we've been talking about actually mattering for the experience. And we have to kind of wrap it up pretty soon but I do wanna talk about this experience of actually being on the bike, on the LEV, the Curtis 1 in this context and how it's different from being on an ICE. Maybe the way to talk about that is this idea of attention and what's changed, not that one experience needs to be better than the other, but it is a little bit like that Harley rally that you described versus being in the museum, isn't it? Or is it?
J.T.:So when, when I ride, I'm, I'm in, uh, validation right now. So my job right now is to ride the motorcycles, get a lot of mileage on'em, figure out what, where we can improve. So I'm, I'm riding this bike around quite a bit here in the city, and I'll be riding down the French quarter, in the French Quarter, you know, down Decatur Street. And, and people are going nuts. People are yelling at me, what, what is that? Like, their hair's on fire. Like, wow, what are, what am I even looking at? Mm-hmm. Now, this might have been happening the whole time, but I, I could never hear it. The bike is utterly silent. It's a new, it's
Andrea:a, it's a, he got me there. I wasn't expecting that. You mean? Yes. They can actually hear, because there's not crazy noise and throttle and it's, you
J.T.:can hear people's reaction mm-hmm. In real time. And I could never do that before. Fascinating.
Andrea:That is fascinating. there's, yeah. Do you feel like you have a different experience with the, everything around you and the bike when you're not worrying about the clutch and, you know, just trying to kind of keep everything? Look, I,
J.T.:it's to say that it's, that it's better than, than having a clutch and having a throttle and having control over the noise and the power, um, to say that it's better, I, I can't honestly say it's better because I love motorcycles in all shapes and forms.
Andrea:I don't think it's about being better. It's just, it's a different kind of experience, isn't it?
J.T.:Yeah. It's just a, it's a new experience and it's delightful. I, I love it because it's so different. Conceptually, here's, here's where most EV companies are coming from. They're saying, we're gonna replace the internal combustion engine car. That's what Tesla's whole MO is. We're gonna make a car that replaces other cars. That's not what this is. This is a rethink. This is this is a do over, instead of just trying to replace the internal combustion engine motorcycle, it's a whole new way of, of motoring. It's not an adaptation. I get, I get the shift to move into EV, but, but at some point,
Andrea:Opening the space, right? There's different
J.T.:ways, but when does the novelty of that wear off? I'd say we're there.
Andrea:Maybe if it's not about something larger. But if it's about opening the space and having a bigger dialogue about the kind of things you were talking about in terms of actual real sustainability, maybe this form is easier to create this kind of, object that can last forever because the Curtis 1 is made to do that.
J.T.:You can actually see where the battery pack is bolted onto the motorcycle. It is designed to, to be removed. Right.
Andrea:And it can be modified as batteries become modified
J.T.:it, it actually gets better with age.
Andrea:That's, that's a real shift, right? If people in both ICEs and LEVs and all other forms of motoring actually tried to create things that could last and that could adapt and that could change and evolve while still remaining consistently the object. That's a different way to think about motoring,
J.T.:well, why aren't they?
Andrea:Because right now we don't think that's, profitable, right? It could be. But I, I guess it's just the inertia is towards, consumption, planned obsolescence where you need the customer to buy something every year And obviously that model is failing in a lot of ways. So, how does this model become sexy and profitable? I think you have to change what profit means, right? And maybe profit isn't about how much money you make every year. It's about what you're providing overall to this kind of larger process. And you need to be rewarded for that, and you need to be able to find motivation for that. Those are the kind of problems I see. What do you think?
J.T.:I, I think it's, it's the, the pioneers are always the ones that get the arrows in the back,
Andrea:They're also the ones everyone remembers. But it doesn't have to be that way. M aybe it's time to change that paradigm a bit too, where people that are actually pushing at the edge and the bounds in ways that are real and for reasons that are authentic actually could be rewarded as well. Not when they're dead and gone. But now.
J.T.:Well, either way, if I'm around to see it. Well that's great, but if I'm not, I'll still be here. I don't have any kids, but I got a lot of children.
Andrea:Yeah. Reproduction is not only about kids, we create and share our selves and our lives in all kinds of ways. It matters. In that way, we're back to this idea of forever motoring, these things will continue and they'll influence others. And that is a way of forever motoring too
J.T.:It's the, the only path that I can see towards, immortality. It's the only way I can figure out how to, how to live forever. I can't think of any other way.
Andrea:It's not about one individual living forever as much as it is about realizing you're part of this ongoing process that doesn't really begin or end. There is something there, being at peace with your
J.T.:Your, your contribution to humanity.
Andrea:You've talked about before this idea of motoring as being also part of like a lineage of respecting this lineage that you're part of. Right. Respect for the people that came before and the ones that come after and
J.T.:yeah, well, uh, Carlo Guzzi I've never met the man. I'm great friends with him. William Henderson, all, all those wonderful American inline four cylinders that I'm so crazy about. So there was no way I could ever meet him, but I sure do know him.
Andrea:You're even part of the same family if you draw the circle in a certain way.
J.T.:Let's, let's wrap it up with that.
Andrea:Let's leave it on that. Yeah, let's leave it on that. Thanks, JT. It's been really good to talk to you. Hope you have a great day there.
J.T.:I'm sorry for wearing you out with all my bullshit.
Andrea:You definitely didn't. That was a great conversation. Thank you.