I have been drawing cars since I was two and was first paid to design one when I was 17, that being the Jolly Rancher wheel standing ‘31 Chevy fire truck (practically a full-size Hot Wheels). As a kid, I loved my Hot Wheels which were from the last years of Redlines: the Oldie but goodie ‘36 Coupe, Flamed ‘32 roadster, and chrome ‘55 Nomad were some of my most prized possessions, cars I would later replace as an adult collector.

Hot Wheels have had a heavy influence on what I drew and even what I design today. As I became a teen and my artistic skills advanced, I wanted to be like those masters that designed them, they were my heroes. I gobbled up as much of their art (and others) as I could find in old magazines, books, and model kits. Harry Bradly, Tom Daniels, Ira Gilford, Larry Woods, George Trosley, Dave Deal, Ed Roth, Starbird, Cushonberry, Barris, and Winfield… those were my teachers. I dreamed of going to design school in Pasadena Ca, but growing up in Podunk eastern Washington made that dream seem beyond my reach.

I had a day job as a UPS driver for 17 years, but I never gave up on that dream. The local custom car shops and car shows had me doing art for them and around the turn of the century, I began getting my work published in magazines regularly. I did “sketch pad” type pages in several different publications for years and had several artist features showing my work. Many of the cars I’ve designed made it onto magazine covers and have competed in car shows at the highest level, AMBR, and the Ridler. By 2005 I had quit the day job and was committed to art and design full time.

I am pretty sure that my story with Mattel is unique, at least in modern times. By chance, I became friends with Felix Holst, the VP of Hot Wheels design after delivering a vintage motorcycle to him. I was already a well-known artist and designer by then, at least in the custom car world. Felix liked my art and told me to stay in touch with him, which I did, and eventually, he told me he had a job he thought would be perfect for me… but with a catch, he couldn’t tell me what it was and I had to be on location in three days. I was living in Minnesota at the time.

So, after driving 2,000 miles and sleeping in the parking lot, Monday morning 3 days later I was standing in front of the Mattel building in El Segundo. I had $450 in my pocket and no idea what I would be doing, if I would be paid, how long I would be there, or even where I was going to stay… but the dream was within my grasp. After signing some paperwork and a quick tour Felix told me he wanted to test me out designing vehicles for a live-action Hot Wheels movie that was in pre-production, and so it began. We were set up right around the corner from the design center, in a “secret” garage. There were 4 of us working for Hot Wheels and 2 working for the movie studio there.

The ever-changing Movie storyline bounced around between the late ’60s and modern times and in the beginning, I was assigned to develop just early vehicles but soon after proving my skills I was developing designs for all of them. Our secret garage studio was the stuff of every kid’s dreams, we had a 20-foot tall wheel race case, the full-size Deora II and Twin Mill in there, we had the record-setting jump truck and watched various automobile movies like LeMans on a giant screen TV daily. I literally ate lunch sitting in the Twin Mill one day.

Working with my garage co-workers Alton Takeyasu and Frazer Campbell on that movie stuff was some of the most amazing experiences of my life, but it didn’t last long enough. The movie studio funding our movie was also behind the Fast and Furious movies and was at that time finishing one up. When Paul Walker was killed in that terrible car crash the studio pulled all funding for our movie so they could save that one, and the Hot Wheels live-action movie went on the shelf. One of the greatest moments of working on the movie was when I got to meet Ira Gilford and he told me that he liked my refined “movie stunt friendly” Twin Mill design more than his original. I smile even now thinking back on that day.

There was a silver lining to the movie being shelved, I moved from the secret garage into the design center. There I began work on another secret project, Star Wars character cars. It was something all new and apparently, they were having some issues getting the recipe right on how to design them. The very first car I designed for the product is still my favorite, the R2-D2 car. I was told they had sent several proposals to Lucasfilm already that had been rejected, my thoughts were that the designers working on some of them were looking at them from an action figure perspective instead of a car perspective. To me, they needed to be designed as you would a ‘70s show car and when looking at something like R2-D2 through a show car lens it becomes obvious he is something like the beatnik bandit… which from a Hot Wheels perspective then also makes perfect sense. So that is what I designed, through the design process I called it R-deuce D-deuce and it was approved immediately.

Next was Han Solo, there was much debate on what that should look like. To me it had to be based on a 55 Chevy, the fastest hunk ‘O junk in the valley- er, I mean universe. To my designer peers that didn’t make any sense but I knew that it would to Lucas. To me, he has really only made 3 movies: THX, American Graffiti and Star Wars. Harrison Ford is in 2 of those and plays basically the same character in both, a hot rod cowboy show off… and again the concept was approved.

And that is how it went, I got to design about half of the first-release Star Wars cars and I am proud of every single one of them. I also did a Hawkman DC comics car, the El Mirage for basic, and some track trucks. In a short amount of time I created a lot of new designs that made production, I was told I would be getting a permanent position ASAP, it wasn’t meant to be though. It makes me proud to see my designs continue to be re-released year after year and even car designs that were proposed but didn’t get to actually show up as new models.

When the stock market began going down people started getting laid off, and contracts stopped being renewed. When my last contract ended, Felix the VP insisted that I was going to be back in a month, but he ended up leaving as well and I continued to work with him on some other amazing projects. I’ve always wished I had just a little more time there though, there were and are so many more ideas I have, ideas very specific to Hot Wheels that I can’t just roll over or rework into my current work.

Since my time at Hot Wheels, I have gone back to designing full-scale cars. I have a full-time job designing projects and merch for Shine speedshop (Jimmy Shine) in Orange Ca. I also have projects going with shops like IDA automotive, Walden Speed Shop, and Old Anvil Speed Shop in addition to my own line of apparel and prints, and own a traditional hot rod car show circuit called Billetproof.

If there is any point or thought at all that I hope someone takes from my story it is this, don’t ever give up on your dreams. I come from a small town, I didn’t go to school and don’t have any formal training, but I willed my dream into reality anyway… chase your dreams.

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