MAGNUS WALKER
This Sheffield refugee, Porsche customiser, collector and former fashion magnate is relishing a typical day in his adoptive city of LA
I’M IN THE middle of doing an Instagram post to give away a Porsche 912 chassis, which is becoming one of those ‘no good deed goes unpunished’ sort of tasks. It’s a chassis for free, but I’m getting all these emails asking ‘What else comes with the car?’
I’m usually on the move, but right now I’m at home in LA. I’ve only been back a few days and today we have a small film shoot at the warehouse, which I am nothing to do with but the film location business is the day job.
When it comes to customisation, the car determines what gets worked on and what doesn’t. I customise some of my Porsches but not all. I have a 1964 911 and I’m not stupid enough to customise that, nor the really rare early Turbos in my collection.
My goal is to have one of everything Porsche has ever built – as long as there’s a Porsche badge, it doesn’t matter whether the engine’s in the front, the middle or the rear. For me it’s all about variety and the smiles per mile.
I’ve always loved Porsche. I think most kids growing up in the 1970s had one of three posters: a Porsche Turbo, a Lamborghini Countach or a 512 Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer. I had the poster of the 930 Turbo and that is the car that started my love affair with Porsche.
But as a kid growing up in a working-class family in Sheffield we didn’t have Porsches in the family. We didn’t even know anyone who had one, but we did watch a lot of motorsport and there was something about the shape of the Porsches that gripped me.
I get up around 7am and walk to work past the local coffee shop, Earth Café, where I grab a black Americano. I drink it in a little park where I check emails and figure out what I’m going to do that day. Sometimes it’s just a combination of stuff at the warehouse, like today, but people are always dropping by. If there’s something going on in LA, such as Autoweek, there’s a lot of journalists from all over the world in town, so a lot of people call in to check out the cars and maybe do a little interview. My story is still evolving so there’s always people documenting it, whether it’s the cars or the bigger story about me having a dream and coming to America as a 19-year-old to pursue a passion.
I describe myself as ‘street smart’ because I left school at 15 with two ‘O’ Levels. There was no mission or five-year plan. The common thread between the clothing business, the Porsches and the property is that they all have their own unique style and essentially that’s just a reflection of my personal interest and taste. I’m always doing things for myself and not worrying about what other people think because at the end of the day I’m not actually trying to sell anybody anything.
I’ve never really had a proper job – I’ve had long hair for over 35 years – so it’s hard to say what an average day is but today I’m going to have lunch at about 12.30 at a vegetarian restaurant next-door. I’m not vegetarian, but I’ll probably have a pizza or a salad as I’m not a foodie type. I try to make it take the smallest amount of time: I’m all about utilising time.
At the end of the day I like to go to a bar called Resident and watch the sun go down. This is all walkable. When I’m in LA, for the most part my life revolves around a one-mile radius. I’ve lived here for 25 years and don’t waste time commuting, so 80% of my driving is pure pleasure. One of my favourite drives is the Angeles Crest Highway, 16 miles north-east of my downtown LA warehouse. It’s more than 60 miles long and reaches an elevation of over 7000 feet. You can see ocean, mountain and desert all in one trip.
But no two drives are the same. I talk about life being a journey and it’s all about variety. I don’t really have a regular schedule so I adapt to the schedule I’m in: I’m like a travelling gypsy or a lone wolf.
‘AS A WORKING CLASS FAMILY IN SHEFFIELD WE DIDN’T HAVE PORSCHES; WE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW ANYONE WHO HAD ONE’
This interview was conducted before the UK and the US went into lockdown.