Deadmau5 enjoys having fun behind the wheel
Musician irked Ferrari with custom vinyl wrap, now loves his Lamborghini
When he’s not making new songs or performing for audiences wearing a brightly-lit mouse head, Joel Zimmerman enjoys driving performance cars he owns.
Better known as the world-famous DJ/producer Deadmau5, Zimmerman is a collector of some fast and unique automobiles, including a Lamborghini, a BAC Mono, a Tesla, a Bentley, a Range Rover, a Custom Jeep Rubicon and two McLarens.
He’s been spotted on social media driving in an international celebrity rally from New York to Spain, or whipping around the Greater Toronto Area with famous passengers en route to a Tim Hortons for coffee.
Zimmerman had three of his cars on display in February at the 2016 Canadian International Auto Show as part of the Stars & Cars exhibit. Two of them were McLarens — a P1 and a 650s Spider. The other was a Lamborghini Huracan, which had a vinyl wrap resembling the YouTube meme Nyan Cat. The car has a licence plate with the word Purracan, a takeoff of the Ferrari 458 Italia he had wrapped and called a Purrari — and then found himself in trouble for brand infringement by the Italian car manufacturer.
Zimmerman, a 35-year-old native of Niagara Falls, Ont., says he feels fortunate to own and drive these exotic cars that retail for more than $200,000.
“I’ll take my (McLaren) P1 from my home in Campbellville, Ont., and I’ll drive to Milton to go to the Tim Hortons. There I am on the 401 getting off on the James Snow Parkway. How the hell did it come to this? This is awesome, and I’m super grateful to my fans and supporters for helping me do that.”
However, Zimmerman admits that the car collection is somewhat vain.
“Did I really need to buy a supercar or could I have bought something more modest? But hey, man, that’s just the way it turned out.”
Zimmerman’s rise to fame and his penchant for cars is somewhat surreal. He lived in downtown Toronto for about 10 years in his 20s and had no need for a car, let alone a driver’s licence. That all changed when he moved to downtown Los Angeles in 2012 and needed a car because of the urban sprawl and lack of public transportation.
“I bit the bullet and got my licence and bought a Porsche 911Carrera,” he said. “The first time I got behind a car after doing a little bit of driving school it just totally hit me. It was like, ‘Oh, man, this is great.’ I wasn’t going crazy on the streets, but then I wondered what it’s like taking these things on the track.’ ”
He went to a motor speedway just outside of Las Vegas, where he was asked to drive an exotic car for a few laps as part of an advertisement for a video game.
“It was super fun. I started to get into Ferraris and all that stuff,” he said. “I see it with music, too, where people late in life have been doing one thing long enough and then (switch). They’ve always had that ability to pick up an instrument and play it. They just never really got around to it until much later time in their life. You always have that knack for it. It just doesn’t go away. It’s like riding a bike. You see these musicians come out of nowhere and do these really cool things.”
Buying his first exotic
He enlisted the services of a broker who helped him find a Ferrari 458 for a specific price point rather than buy a new one off the lot. Zimmerman, who is an unabashed lover of cats, decided to layer the car with a vinyl wrap — specifically with a design of the Nyan Cat for the 2014 Gumball Rally 3000. It’s an annual celebrity charity event that runs for two weeks on public roads and all the cars have themes. Zimmerman Googled companies that do wraps and found Sekanskin in Mississauga. He asked them to layer the car with the cat theme.
“The Gumball is mostly about fun stuff,” Zimmerman said. “That was what the wrap was all about first of all. We wanted to be Team Nyan Cat, have a goofy-looking car and be Team Comic Relief. It (wasn’t) about saying ‘Look how eccentric I am?’ It was more about seeing people’s reactions.”
He teamed up with filmmaker Tory Belleci, known for his work on MythBusters. Zimmerman met Belleci just a week prior to signing up for the Gumball Rally, which began in Miami and ended in Ibiza, Spain.
“It’s not a race, it’s not a competition, it’s a rock party on wheels,” Zimmerman said. “It’s just a fun, cool, two weeks from whatever it is you do all year. For a lot of guys that’s their annual vacation.”
Some participants had been in the event every year since its inception in 1999. Zimmerman and his partner were in it to have fun and went on to win Spirit of the Gumball, awarded to the team that shows the most spirit.
“Dude, we did the Gumball,” he said. “We drove from Miami to Ibiza. That’s insane, who does that?”
Following the grind of the rally, he had the car sent to Ferrari of Ontario to be serviced, but the company refused his business. Zimmerman was told it was because he changed the Ferrari badge to “Purrari” and the associated floor mats. He had the Ferrari restored to its original look and put it up for sale on Craigslist for $380,000, and indicated that any amount above the asking price would go to the Toronto Humane Society.
The decision to sell on Craigslist caused a lot of online discussion, and even more so when the post was delisted and moved to AutoTrader. A prospective buyer contacted him about purchasing it on the provision he remove the wrap and restore the badges. He sold it for the manufactured suggested retail price minus the two years depreciation and took the money and bought a Huracan. It was kind of an inside joke.
“Everybody knows the love between Lamborghini and Ferrari,” he said. “I thought maybe I’ll do it with Lambo and I’ll reincarnate the Purrari as a Huracan and call it the Purracan.”
Car enthusiasts snapped up photos of his cars at the auto show, one of which was being wrapped all week. He showed up unannounced on the day IndyCar drivers James Hinchcliffe and Conor Daly were there to promote the annual Toronto race, and for Deadmau5 fans it was quite a surprise.
“I like having the cars to be visible and driven, and that’s what the company is like, too,” he said. “McLaren wouldn’t want me to buy a P1to stick it in a glass garage and not touch it and wait for the thing to go up four times in value in 10 years and sell it. They want it on the road. They want people seeing it. They want it at trade shows. They want the exposure.
“I’ll drive (my cars) until the wheels come off and lose a s---load of money but I’ll have fun. I don’t buy them for the investment purposes. I buy them to drive them out and have fun and share that with everyone else.”