1951-01-31 Stuttgart, Germany / There is no Subtitute / Es gibt keinen Ersatz / Não há Substituto / No hay Sustituto

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Owning a Porsche 911 has always been my childhood dream. With age, people become more pragmatic and less likely to listen to their childhood dreams.

Only 6% of people still manage and are engaged in what inspired them in childhood.

Ferdinand Porsche showed a strong aptitude for mechanical work at a very early age. He attended classes at the Imperial Technical School at night while helping his father in his mechanical shop by day.

Thanks to a referral, he landed a job with the Béla Egger Electrical company in Vienna when he turned 18.

He would sneak into the local university whenever he could after work. Other than attending classes there, Porsche never received any higher engineering education.

Their first design was the Egger-Lohner vehicle (C.2 Phaeton).

First unveiled in Vienna, Austria, on 26th June 1898, Porsche had engraved the code ‘P1’ (standing for Porsche, number One, Ferdinand Porsche‘s first design) onto all the key components.

After the war the company started work on a new design, the Porsche 356, the first car to carry the Porsche brand name.

More than 78,000 Porsche 356’s were manufactured in the following 17 years. On 30th January 1951 Porsche suffered a stroke and died.

When you have an obsession, it is a rare treat to find someone who shares your passion.

Magnus Walker – the British-born rock n’ roll Porschephile known as the Urban Outlaw returns home in the car of his childhood dreams.

His love for all things Porsche is a matter of public record by now, and it started early when he saw a 911 Turbo – complete with Martini livery – at the Earls Court Motor Show in London.

He has more than 50 Porsches in his LA loft – many of which he has designed and modified himself.

His childhood Self – who once wrote to the automaker to ask if he could work for them as a designer – would be pretty stoked about the man he has become.

In 1982, Magnus had dropped out of school without a degree, got involved with the punk rock and heavy metal scenes, and bounced around places and jobs.

Seeing no perspectives for the future in Britain, he decided to follow the American Dream and try his luck in the US. Walker stumbled into the fashion scene by accident.

Having resewn a pair of $10 pants to make them fit, he was approached by Taime Downe of glam metal band Faster Pussycat.

He sold him eight pairs of his customised pants for $25 each and soon after established a stall on Venice Beach, where would sell customised clothing he revamped from cheap clothes he bought at flea markets or second hand stores.

Soon, he was earning $2,000 a weekend. By the early 1990’s, his brand, now dubbed Serious Clothing, was a multi-million-dollar business venture, and was worn by the likes of Madonna, Alice Cooper, and Bruce Willis.

With his fashion business soaring, Walker was finally able to fulfill his childhood dream of buying a Porsche when he bought a 1974 Porsche 911 in 1992.

At a later point, Walker sold some of his over 40 Porsches and now holds a customised collection of 25 cars worth approximately $7.5 million, which are not for sale.

I found myself entirely hooked, right away. The big rear spoiler… that Porsche looked so fast, even though it wasn’t moving.

It was the car in so many of my dreams as a small child, and suddenly my dream had taken form.


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