SPECIAL INTEREST
By Stan Thorne
THE SPEED CHAN
BUT I MIGHT HAVE FOUN
It was a great day when I
discovered The Speed Channel.
Finally TV programming dedicated
to the automotive enthusiast. Sure
there were automotive shows out
there, but The Speed Channel
brought numerous automotive
themed programs to one glorious
place. Happy days!
Someone
must
have
noticed SPEED's position in
the marketplace, because a new
channel call Velocity popped
up. It carried the same flavor
of automotive elixir I had been
searching for.
Then something changed.
The Speed Channel became just
SPEED. Okay, shorter, to-thepoint, I think I get that. What I
did not get was some of the new
shows on SPEED, like Wrecked.
Wrecked was about a tow service
company in Chicago. What in
the world is a TV show called
"Wrecked" featuring towing doing
on a "SPEED" network. Aaargh.
suffer from some of the same odd
offering of non-Velocity shows. I
mean, come on, if you are going
to name your network Velocity,
you should have "velocity"
programming. The onslaught of
fix-up-a-car shows is becoming
mind numbing. I mean how
many Phantom Works, West Coast
Customs, Overhaulin' and Desert
King "we might not get this car
done in time" shows can there be?
Fast forward a few years and
SPEED went off the air. Velocity
was (is) still on, but it started to
That's when I found it. It was
there all along. I was just not using
it to its potential - YouTube.
Best Porsche YouTube clip of the year:
URBAN OUTLAW - Rebel Porsche Customizer
A portrait of Magnus Walker,
the rebel Porsche customizer who
turned a hobby into an obsession,
and an obsession into a successful
business. From a workshop in
downtown Los Angeles, Magnus
obsessively harvests fragments
from donor 911s, grafting them
onto vintage frames to create oneoff automobiles with the spirit of
Ferdinand Porsche but an ethos
entirely his own.
~ Film by
Tamir Moscovici
Click on the video to the
right to play the movie.
~ Editor.
14
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZlRFsRG6K0
January / February 2014
