Skateboard maker’s vehicles of creativity
Darren Powell steps out from his live/work space in the Fruitvale district in Oakland, climbs into his VW Bus, and turns up his stereo before heading down Foothill Boulevard on an errand. The attention he gets from those he passes are a sign of appreciation for his classically styled vehicle.
But this is no ordinary Bus. It’s only 6 feet long, and Powell isn’t inside it; rather, he is standing in a hole cut in the roof of the motorized skateboard he custombuilt to resemble a classic car he always wanted to own.
He calls his creation the Free DoubleYou Bus, a play on his company’s name, Freejac Nation, which specializes in handcrafted custom skateboards resembling existing vehicles. Some are standard, footpowered fancy skateboards. Others, like the Bus, are electricpowered luxury boards that sell for a premium, much like their lifesize counterparts. He has boards inspired by Bentley, Porsche, MercedesBenz and Hummer, as well as a board based on a futuristic concept car. There’s even a makeshift jet wrapped to look like the one from the 2004 movie “Soul Plane.”
“The one I like riding the most is probably the VW Bus,” he says. “I always wanted a Bus, an oldschool one. I wanted to get me one before they hit a hundred grand!” He adds laughing.
For Powell, making a scalemodel version that he could ride made more sense than shelling out the tens of thousands of dollars it would take to get the real thing, which might fetch as much as $150,000.
In Oakland’s hood, necessity might be the mother of invention, but its daddy is repurposing. From sampling music and beats to
reshaping a basic bike into a Scraper Bike, Oakland has a way of reinventing everything from music to art to transportation.
“I just ride all over the ‘O’,” Powell says. “Oakland has shown me a lot of love. I get so much support from the people here.”
His company name, Freejac Nation, comes from the 1992 futuristic movie “Freejack,” about a wealthy man (played by Anthony Hopkins) who wants to repurpose the body of a race car driver (Emilio Estevez) and upload his consciousness into it when the racer dies in a crash.
“Freejacking is taking an idea to the next level,” Powell says. “I just wanted to create a designer style of skateboard where you could just look cool riding it.”
That’s where his skills as a designer and his love of fabrication came into play. He is a building designer by trade and can spend three months working on his creations. Each board starts out as batterypowered kids’ toys, which he strips down to their bare components and then rebuilds with custom modifications including stronger frames, bigger batteries, motors and amplified stereo systems.
Powell is working on a candyapplered Hummer sport utility vehicle board in his workshop, which doubles as a video studio, and expects to be done in a few weeks. Soon he hopes to get the attention of more artists and rappers to have his boards featured in their videos. He would like to turn his creative passion into a thriving business where he can create custom boards to suit individual tastes.
“I really want to create custom boards for different people and challenge my creativity,” he says. “All that time and detail is worth it, you know.” Carlos Avila Gonzalez is a San Francisco Chronicle photographer. Watch a video at www.sfchronicle. com/theregulars. The Regulars is a photo and video column that offers a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people in the Bay Area, caught in routine activities of modern urban life.