A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of taking part in the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, as a back-up vehicle. I did a few little jobs before the start of the ride, tightening nuts and adjusting a chain, and set off behind what must have been 500 bikes.

Mark Hawwa, who’s also the brains behind Sydney Cafe Racers, had organised the event to a tee, he’d even arranged for the sun to come out of winter hibernation.

Then, as I was tooling down George Street soaking up the sound of 500 cafe racers reverberating off the buildings, a couple of damsels in distress flagged me down, their Thruxton had a nail in front tyre! So, myself and the Bloodbikes sprung into action, and gave the girls a lift back to Deus to have the flat fixed.

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After a lot of hard work – testing, creating different types of stencils, and going back to the drawing board time and time again – here is the first incarnation of my Carbon Copy Series – A series, limited to 150 unique images, of my 1963 Falcon Ute, images painted in carbon by the car itself.

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As with many great advertising ideas, the Johnnie Walker F1 packaging idea didn’t even get out of the agency. But pretty soon after I conceived the idea, I realised that it would be much better as a piece of art.

I began conducting a series of tests, capturing the expelled carbon from the exhaust of my ute on different types of board, paper and canvas.

To cut a long story short, medium density fibreboard proved itself once more.

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I grew up with this picture of Sterling Moss etched into my memory. As a child, it always intrigued me as to how his face had gathered so much muck and grime, then my dad explained to me that it was thanks to the oil and carbon kicked out by the car ahead of him.

The creative mind, or at least my creative mind, is a mysterious archive of images, thoughts and memories, none of which are catalogued for easy to access, yet every now and again this jumble of data comes up trumps.

About two years ago, whilst working on a brief for Johnnie Walker Formula One my creative mind struck gold, or perhaps black gold, as they say in Texas.

Anyway, stay tuned for my launch of my ‘Carbon Copies’ series.

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