Charged Up With John McInnis
Charged Up With John McInnis
Talking bikes, design and cars.
Don’t be fooled by the ‘blue steel’ gaze of John McInnis in the hero image from our Cycle World interview in August 2018: he’s a boisterous San Francisco native who giggles plenty and loves life.
We first cyber met in March 2018 when I interviewed him about the Crapshoot for thevintagent.com while he worked at Alta Motors. A magical day in Los Angeles followed at Shinya Kimura’s workshop a few weeks later as we all gathered and cajoled with titans of the custom motorcycle scene before riding parade-style behind Shinya to the Petersen Museum for the Custom Revolution launch party.
Since then, McInnis joined a few of us to ride through the scorching-hot Mojave Desert to witness Travis Pastrana’s Evil Knievel hijinks in Las Vegas, among other thrilling adventures. We both received pink slips from our respective employers in autumn of that year, but that didn’t deter either of us from grabbing life by the balls and squeezing hard.
Q: I don’t know about yours, John: my butt is still sore from that 400-mile day ride in the Sierra foothills we shared with Brian a few Sundays ago. What have you been doing since then?
Work projects, and it's been great! I was laid off from Specialized Bicycles almost a year ago due to (flippin') COVID, and to put it plainly, was feeling a bit useless. At my last tally, I had applied for 34 jobs last year, and I heard back from two. It was getting hard to not feel sorry for myself, until I made the conscious decision to give freelancing a full time effort.
I had dipped my big toe in a little bit last year , chipping in on some custom car projects for Eric at e. Black Design Co. and told him on January 1, 2021 I was ready to take on more. He obliged.
I've also been contributing to the design effort on a contractual level for the team at Damon Motorcycles and their electric superbike. There are some other ex-Alta people there and the familiar faces have cheered me up.
Q: Tell me about the Trevor project: how you got involved, what work you put into the project, and when I can expect to ride yours.
Yeah, looks like it'd be a fun little bike! I was approached by Sarolea, the Belgian electric superbike makers, about helping out with designing an electric flat rack machine. They likely had just seen the little blue Alta framer on Bike EXIF and reached out to me through a friend, Rob Mitchell, who is their chief prototyper. We've actually never met in person, being that he lives in Belgium and all, but it's funny how well you can get to know each other through daily interactions on the internet.
This all started a week before COVID took hold of the San Francisco Bay Area and I was let go from Specialized a few weeks later, so there were some extra hurdles at the beginning but we got there in the end. What I think is so cool about that whole process is that we were able to communicate ideas from opposite sides of the world, while having never met one another, and that project has probably ended up being the closest to my original vision than I think anything else I've done, personal or professional.
A true testament to both what technology allows us to do in order to get a job done remotely, and also the skill and dedication of the Belgian super squad at Sarolea. I think their client, Trevor, ended up very happy with it, and I can't wait for them to send me one to do some "testing".
I will also say it is rather strange to know that I contributed to something, pulled it out of my head and into reality, and it now exists as a REAL thing, a REAL motorcycle; pity it's 5,500 miles away.
Q: You’ve been working with Eric on several car projects. ‘Splain what you do with him and the cars we’ll see someday with your DNA.
I cannot speak highly enough of Eric and how much he's willing to put up with me. I feel like a total impostor, as I've been out of the custom car scene for over a decade now, but he keeps sending me work so I must be doing something right!
Right now the work I do with him is rather CAD-heavy, and involves some creative problem solving. I think we're both discovering how much of an asset CAD work can be when communicating his design intent to all the car builders he deals with.
We've got some incredibly cool stuff that we just started working on. Stuff truly not seen before in the custom car industry. I can't actually give away too much, but I will say that I have to pinch myself a bit.
Q: Speaking of vehicles, walk me through the bikes and cars/vehicles you’ve owned with a little backstory on each.
Dude, I just counted them out and I've owned 15 cars and 18 motorcycles. We'd be here all day!
Some notable never-sells:
I now own my grandfather's 1964 Ford Country Squire station wagon. It's been in the family since new, spent a couple decades in a barn in Visalia, was rejuvenated by my Uncle John, and has now been passed to me. Not many people can say they have a car with that much family history, so I jumped at the opportunity to add it to the garage. It will never be sold.
I have both my dad's 1967 BMW R27 and my Uncle Colin's 1960 BMW R26. Two Beemer singles! My dad's R27 is an original Dover white paint job too and apparently quite rare. I remember straddling it as a kid pretending the wind was blowing in my face as I yanked on the throttle. That was the first bike I ever got a ride on. They sit as a pair waiting for their respective restorations. Dennis Hodges of DK Designs has agreed to do a resto on the R26 and I think after that it may be one of my prized possessions.
My wife Audrey will never let me sell my 1966 Chevy C10 flatbed because she says it's the car she fell in love with me in. Which is fine, I just wish she'd take over the registration or at least learn how to drive it to give it its monthly start up and move-around. That thing is a bear to drive and is not used for much else other than making sure the real estate values don't go up too much in our neighborhood.
My Alta is going to the grave with me.
Q: Any vehicles you regret selling?
All and none. I sold them for a reason, usually to get something else or as a necessity between jobs, and if they aren't on the list of never-sells (above) they're also a paycheck.
But I think the coolest car I've owned and do wish I got to drive around some more was a 1966 Austin-Healey Sprite. It was in full race trim, but had a license plate. Sparse interior, no synchro mesh, straight cut gears, no roof. At 25 mph it felt and sounded like it was going 60. Audrey hated it. I recently saw it pop back up on Craigslist for $3,500 and considered buying it again, but I'm a different man now with different headaches and decided against it.
Q: I know your garage and driveway are filled with mostly modern and vintage gas-powered vehicles. Would you trade all of them tomorrow for modern EVs?
Last year I purchased the newest car I've ever owned, a 2017 Ford Transit mid roof (Audrey likes to joke that it's the only car I've ever owned that has both a radio and working A/C in the same vehicle, which is actually true.) It's a great bike hauler and just a general smart car to own if you like to do your own work around the house. That thing will haul so much gravel. It's fantastic.
If they offered it in electric, I would have gotten the electric. It's just better. Fight me.
Q: Where and how did you catch the gearhead bug?
I think where most of us get it: dad. He doesn't do it much any more, but he was quite the garage tinkerer when I was growing up. He has also instilled in me my definite "do it your damn self" attitude. Any time something needs to be repaired or replaced, he taught me to treat it as a learning moment; part of adding to understanding the world around.
I get my (refined) taste in oddball cars from him too I think. He owned BMW Isettas, VWs, Volvos. The car he would drop us off at school in was a Dodge Colt Vista wagon. A 7-seater mini car with 4-wheel drive. He taught me how to do everything car related, and I have fond memories of learning curse words in the driveway while "helping" him get old brake shoes off.
Q: What’s your dream project and why?
We had so much fun at Alta. Like, SO much fun. I'm sure at this point people are sick of hearing about it, but honestly I don't care. That was my dream job. I felt effective, utilized, and truly in my element there. I'll be eternally bummed it fell off a cliff.
If I could get back some form of full-time position where I felt that integrated in a program developing a form of transportation that I'm equally excited about, I would be thrilled. Giving your all to something that you're passionate about and to have it succeed — even in the smallest amount — is honestly an unparalleled feeling.