All language subtitles for Chasing-Perfect-2019

Design for me is desire

to create emotionally
aesthetic, stimulating

perfection.

It's very difficult,

if not impossible
to achieve perfection.

So, you're never
completely satisfied.

That unsatisfied feeling,
although it sounds negative,

is actually what drives
the designer to do it better

the next chance he's got.

I don't know what I could do
that is more

appropriate than design to
sort of satisfy that craving.

Anything that's not perfect,
you gotta...

You gotta make it perfect.

Look at that.

My gosh!

That's really cool.

I love these, miss.!

That's Steve McQueen's.

I'm the most
curious person I know.

It's fascinating for me
just to realize
that I'm still a kid.

Of course,
your body gets older,
but my mind is

probably more curious
than I was...

Even when I was very young.

It just gets more curious
all the time.

I remember when I was
about 10 years old,

I experienced my first awakening

when I first saw my,

first Jaguar E-Type.

I can even tell you the date.

March 19, 1969.

My father and I
were walking hand in hand

and there's this E-Type
just parked there.

It just stopped in my tracks.

I... I had never
seen one before.

Remember staying there
so long that

I actually broke out crying
when my father took...

Pulled me away and said,
"That's long enough.
You've seen it."

It really was a sensual
feeling, I guess,
at that moment.

I couldn't believe that
something could be so perfect.

Just down
to the shape of the car.

You know, love at first sight.

That was the most
important thing.

It's like finding
something that finally
makes sense to you.

I don't know of anybody else
who so consistently has just
made amazing things.

It's nice.

I mean, I love the cars
that he's made.

The McLaren...

So wide,
and just the angles on it,

I think they're super sexy.

Between the Minis,
the Fiat 500s,

the, um, BMW X5s,

when you just drive around

and you're not even
thinking about Frank,

Frank's in front
of you every day.

So, in California...
Many maniacs.

And be nice to Frank
so he could sign the car
just to have a...

"Here. It's... It's my design."

There we are.

Lovely!

So, I've been in the
industry for 30 years now,

and I've gone everywhere,
every way

and every direction.

From working on, say,
your entry level vehicles

up to way over
to the other extremes.

Now that I've, you know,
established myself pretty well

in the industry
and, have a name,

I can choose my own projects

and do what I want to do.

Not my car.

I'm not the biggest admirer
of big, flash cars,

although I have to design
some of them.

I'm perfectly satisfied
with something that

is small and fun to get to.

I mean, there's so many
carbon fiber pieces
for this car that it's...

Probably is worth more
than parts

than it is in reality.

I've designed the wings for it

which eventually will set.

When ready, we'll set up here.

Sort of in that kind of

angle there.

So, this is
gonna be my snorkel
to take air in

through this scoop here

so there's almost
a three-scooper.

Two snorkels on the roof
and one here
that'll take air in

and feed it to the turbos.

What turbos?

I have here everything that
kind of inspires me about

the whole world of design.
I mean, I know I've got

a few cars, but there's a
lot of other things here too.

Um...
Lots of sketches.

Earlier sketches.

Um, notes

of different projects
that I'm working on.

Um...

Inspirations from nature,
wolves.

I have this empathy with them.

They seem to be dealing
with harsh circumstances

and somehow
they come out on top.

Hi.

You know, when you feel like
you've been something
in your prior life,

I would swear that I was a
wolf or some animal like that.

Wolves are always trying to
be at the top of its pack.

A designer has to have that
bite to compete

because the whole thing
about design

is finding a new way to do
something that nobody...

Nobody's thought of before.

That's what moves
the world forward.

Your whole objective
as a designer is to
bring innovation,

not just to design
a pretty picture.

Yeah, when it starts working,
it starts doing this.

It's gonna be cool.

One of the things that
we're trying to achieve
is to try to make a jet

as efficient as possible.

What you learn from water
applies often to
what works near.

That's why we're basically
studying the maritime
creatures.

We're taking
a bit of inspiration from,
the hammerhead shark,

specifically because it has...
Has what we call canards
in the front.

Canards provide lift on a jet.

Working with the rest
of the overall shape,

we're looking at something
manta ray direction

because of the shape of it,
and the fluidity of it,
and how...

How beautiful it looks
when it's going
through water.

Just absolutely, a work of art.

For most people, I think
generally, it's considered
science fiction,

but eventually,
we're not really gonna
need cars anymore.

There'll be other apparatuses
that help us to get around.

So I'm kind of excited

about the future evolution
of transportation.

As a child, I really liked
dynamic, stimulating shapes.

Everything that had
some kind of emotional
movement to it.

Just before I graduated at 17,

I'd met somebody who was
actually riding Motocross,

and he invited me to watch
him race, a couple of races,

and obviously, it's, you know,
it's like a spark.

The Motocross bike,

it's like a mechanical animal,

a fast mechanical animal.

Like a dog tugging at the leash.
You have to almost hold it back.

What I did was ask my father
if I could have a bike to race.

So he said, "Sure, yeah,
get it out of your system
if you need to."

First year of racing,

I won the national championship
in junior class

that eventually ended up
with a professional contract

to turn motorcycle racing
into my life.

My father loved racing.
He loved being with me

and experiencing
the same excitement

that I experienced racing
the bike at its limits.

And, you know,
kids always say,
you know,

"My father's the best
in the world."

My father really
was the best in the world.

He taught me and my brother
before we were like even
10 years old how to drive,

and he would give me the keys
and I would drive

on the Spanish highways,
as a kid.

He wanted to just teach us,

my brother and I both,
everything he could teach us.

Not wait.

I think he just
loved us to death.

Me and my father,
we used to do this
all the time.

We had my bikes and,

we had to get them ready,

and basically, at every race
you take your bike apart

and check it and replace parts

and make sure
everything's perfect,

and then you put it
back together again,

and we used to do this
all the time.

Eventually, I had a mechanic
do all this stuff for me,

and that took away
half the pleasure of
getting ready during the week.

Hair is still there.

That's, yeah, that's my mother
and my father.

And you're in there.

There's Lalo.

This was a lot, lot before.
This was late '70s, um...

This collection here,
it's a treasure,

treasure chest of...
Of iconic motorcycles.

Not only are they beautiful,
but they are aesthetically

and functionally optimized,
I'd say.

Not overly adding surfaces
that you don't need

or volumes of surfaces
that you need.

There's no fat.

What we've got here is,

Motocross bike.
It's a Montesa.

This really brings
back the memories for me.
There are two strokes.

Extremely high revving
little bikes and, um...

I remember whenever I came out
of a corner, I would always
have to feather the clutch.

Always leaning forward to keep
the front wheel down.

You couldn't be weak
and ride a motorcycle,
especially a Motocross bike,

because the only thing
that keeps you in contact

with the motorcycles
is basically your hands.

You're off the pegs.
A lot of times

the bike's moving underneath you

and it's such a physical,
physically demanding sport,

it's a little bit like riding
a wild animal.

All you were paid to do
was to stay in shape
and ride a motorcycle

and go as fast as you can,
jump as far as you can.

You know, go into corners,
and out of corners,
as quickly as you can.

So, that was
a great way to live.

I was within the top ten
of the world,

so I was, considered
one of the better guys.

Um, and I remember when I was
22-and-a-half, almost 23,

my father said, "That's it,
that's your last year.

"This will be
your last year racing."

And I said, "Why?" And he said,
"Well, you're not good enough."
And I thought,

"I'm pretty...
Pretty high up."

"Yeah, but, you know,
if you don't win a race,

"nobody's ever gonna remember
who you are and you're...

"Your'e good,
but you're not the best."

How did you feel
when he told you to stop?

I think, looking back,
I realized that he was

actually looking out for me.
Wasn't like he was trying to

take one of
my life's pleasures
away from me

and punish me. It was
rather the opposite, so...

- But at the time, how did you...
- At...

At the time, I was devastated.

It really gets into your
system and it never leaves.

It's basically a virus that
once you get it, it's there
for the rest of your life,

and anything else
after riding a motorcycle
seems boring.

How can anything be
more exciting than that?

And I... I loved it.

I think any weakness
for my father was wrong.

He, was born, pretty
much as a Scandinavian,

but moved early on
in his life to the U.S.

He was in the war, World War II.

After that, got into
the merchant marines.
Eventually,

one of his trips
led him to Malaga,

and that's where my father
met my mother and things
took off from there.

It was kind of interesting

because they were quite
different, my parents.

I can only remember my mother
ever smiling

and being in a good mood
all the time.

She was more interested
in the creative side of life.

And, um, my father was obsessed
with precision, technology.

You know, it's very...

You know, analytical way
of approaching life.

He taught me,
when I was growing up,

that if you're gonna do anything

you have to be
the absolute best.

That was the turning point
in my life

where everything sort of
went from being,

you know, in a safe,
comfortable atmosphere,

racing in different countries
around the world,

but still
coming back home to Malaga
where you have your...

Your friends, your cousins,
your parents.

Suddenly going off to the U.S. and
becoming independent and everything.

Then I applied to this
university in California.

At that time I didn't
really know what car design
was all about.

I just knew I could draw a car

and it seemed
like a pretty cool way to...

To make a living
if you could do that.

It's almost useless
to think of something specific

when you're first
starting to draw,

because you really don't know
what you're gonna come up with.

It's really...
Your hand is...

Is linked with your mind,

but your hand
is doing all the drawing.

So, it's almost like
I'm sitting here

as an observer,
watching what's coming out
on the paper.

Like there's two of us here

in front of this drawing.

One doing the drawing
and the other one sort of

criticizing it or critiquing it

as it appears in front of me.

I remember as a kid,

I just wanted to stay inside
and draw.

My mother being
from southern Spain

and she was the typical
Andalusian woman

where art is what rules
in the family.

The first memory
of my mother would be
the smell of oil paints,

because she would spend
the evenings painting
in the kitchen.

So, the whole artistic side,

I think, comes from my mother.

In the early '60s,
my father actually started
the dealership,

and so, I always started
hanging out in that area

and started falling in love
with the shapes of the cars.

And it becomes a creative thing,

like, "How cool
could I draw a car?"

Typically, I would be
touching the cars.

It's a bit of a strange thing,

but I loved touching surfaces,

I loved, um...

You know,
it's almost like an animal.

You don't have to
communicate by word.

There is a vibration
between you and that animal

and that was what kind of,
turned me on in a certain way.

And slowly my drawings
evolved from being horses

to faster horses

to horsepower.

And I started drawing cars.

And then,
drawing cars of the future.

- You guys know how to sketch?
- No.

What sketch?

And... I mean,
if you wanna use a computer,

just some nice hand-sketching
and stuff, whatever,

and then we can just sit down

and, see if what we learnt
back in the '80s

still applies today.

I wanna solidify
Range Rover in the U.S. market.

So, I thought,
"What better
to do that than a truck?"

- My...
- I can see that

as the new generation
comes along,

thinking,
"Now it's gotta be digital,"

almost you have to convince them

that sometimes manual
is better than digital.

When you have an idea,

the computer's not gonna be
abe to read that emotion

and print out
what your idea is,
whereas your hand,

connected to your brain

and your heart.

You can get that
onto a piece of paper

in a much more expressive way

than a computer's ever gonna
allow you to do it.

How many design programs
have you been in

where somebody does a little,

even a napkin sketch,

and you put that up
and all the sketches
that follow

and all the development
and digital modeling,

and people come back
to that little...

- That first sketch...
- sketch,

-and they go,
"That's the character."
-Yeah.

With the coffee mug imprint
on it right there.

- There's a human touch...
- Yeah.

You know, that you feel
and that thing
you can achieve...

That's... That's what
we spoke about earlier,

it's the romance of design.

At that time,
I was Chief Designer

for the Toyota Studio
in Newport Beach,

and I was asked to come up
to this campus
and teach a class.

And one of those classes,

Frank was in the class.

I remember first day of class,

there were 30 of us
sitting in the classroom,

the teacher walks in.

He says, "Well,
you should all feel
very proud of yourselves

"because you're one of
thousands of students
around the world

"who tried to apply
for these courses,

"and we only
take the top 30."

And, of course,
your chest gets
very inflated

because you think
you know, "Pretty good."

But then, they cut you down
the size when they tell you

that, "We've never had
a classroom more than
10 students finish."

And, of course,
everybody's thinking,
"Not me, not me, not me."

And at the end of the four years
there were only six of us left.

You guys should look sleepy.
You don't look sleepy at all.

- That's right, that's right.

Great.

We used to look like zombies.

Can you give me,
like, an average day and night?

- Do I have to?
- Yeah.

It's painful to think about it.

Um, so I remember...
I would remember getting...

Getting home at 10:30 at night,
11:00 almost,

and the first thing I would do

is just take two heaping
spoonfuls of instant coffee

and put them into my coffee cup.

I would drink that

and then shake for half an hour,

then I would work till 3:00
or 4:00 in the morning

and then again...
And I don't think
I ever seriously got

more than four hours
of sleep a night

in those four years I was there.

And that's the pace you go at.

- That's pretty cool, man.
- Thank you.

- You built that all yourself?
- Yeah.

- The foam?
- This is out of clay.

- That's clay?
- Yes.

Damn!

It's a bit like
going to some kind of

Navy SEALs,

or Green Beret training camp.

A lot of instructors gained
fame here at Art Center

by ripping your 12-hour
renderings off the wall

and stamping on them
or lighting them up.

They just destroyed you
right there in the class,

and many, many students
would end up crying. It's...

It's just sad.

Did anything
ever happen like that to you?

Yeah, I didn't cry.

-Did you ever just
want to give up?
-No.

Never, never, never, never.

No, because, I mean,
like I said,
my father

I went over there, geared with,

you know...

Failure is no option. That was really...
I didn't even have to think about that.

A couple of the guys
were failures,
frustrated failures because

they'll say whatever
they want to say,

but the guys
who were at the top,

who had made it to the top
had done something right.

So, those were always
the guys to listen to.

That's what I did.

And you have to be
super competitive.
You can't just be,

you know, one of another
bunch of guys.
You have to want to...

That group of six of us
that finished, we were...

We all had that killer instinct.

And it has to be absolutely,
you know,

not just the best you can do,
but it has to be the best.

That bite to compete
kicked off very young
in my life.

I remember a lot of kids
that were always going

to the dances on Friday nights
were doing social events.

I was in sports.

I always made a point of using as
much time as I could to get better

in any sport
I was doing, to win.

No matter what people say,
it's not about

participating.
It's about winning.

Otherwise you're just
one of the bunch.

When you're driving
back up here
on the hillside campus,

driving under that big bridge,
you feel that little flutter?

Absolutely.

- Especially when you do it
in something you designed.

- Yeah. Okay.
- Okay.

Okay, that sacrifice
was all right.

If you just go down the hill,
you're right in the movement

and all that, but up here,
you're kind of...

It's a little bit like,
like a small piece of

hellish heaven.

You're separated
from the real world,

and you... You get to think
weird thoughts up here

and create weird things
and all that.

Maybe that's part of
the reason why...
Why it works.

Can I get behind the sign?
And then...

Where would you stand?

Inside the bushes?

You can't,
the security guard
might not be happy.

No, but what's he gonna do?
He's got to jump out
and come tell me to get out.

So, once you have gotten out,

-you'd have already
captured the image.
-Come on then.

When you're ready.

- Ready?
- Ready.

One, two, three, four.

My parents had a pretty nice
villa in Malaga

that they had built
back in the '60s

and that was gonna be our
family home for, you know,
later on in life.

But when I decided to go
to Art Center,

tuition was pretty high
and living expenses
and all that,

so they ended up
selling the home,

just to help me
with the financial
side of it.

So...

They sacrificed
a heck of a lot
to get me through.

Two years in the Art Center,
General Motors,

Chrysler and Ford

make it sort of a pilgrimage
to Art Center

to look at talent that

they could potentially
lock their teeth into.

So, what happened was,

Ford sent me a proposal
saying that,

"We know who you are.

"If you agree to work for us
after graduation,

"we'll pay for the rest
of your studies,
the next two years."

And I thought, "Well," you know,
"how can I say no to that?"

They offered me a position
with the Ford...

European Ford design studios
in Germany.

That was my first
experience here.

And having worked on

a very special version
of the Ford Escort,

it sort of was a very
good kick off for my career,

but that's about
as far as my father got

into seeing what I was,

doing with my career.

As a designer
of the first major project
that I worked on

was the Ford Escort Cosworth.

Of course,
you come out of college

having grandiose dreams
of doing something pretty...

Pretty amazing,

and the Ford Escort Cosworth
was gonna need spoilers.

My inspiration was basically
the Red Baron's airplane,

the Fokker Dr.I tri-winger
from World War I.

So, what I did was
take the concept they had
of the three wings,

then applied that
to the wings of the Cosworth

and that would give it
a lot of attitude.

The results were fantastic
in the wind tunnel,

but towards the end,
finance at Ford

were able to get rid
of the middle wing.

I had the feeling that my baby

was actually born with
nine fingers instead of ten,

which really hurt me a lot.

Design is a very
emotional process.

You're actually
envisioning it
in your mind,

putting it on paper

transferring that paper
design to a physical model

and then it's been recreated
in full-scale

and at the end of the day,
it's your baby.

You know, you fall in love
with it as you're doing it.

So, when your car came out,

people were pretty happy
about it,

but they didn't know
what they were missing

because they had never seen it.

When I began designing,
you know, aspirations are

I'm gonna be the best
car designer in the world.

And working with Ford,

not to say it in a bad way,

but it's kind of like
a bread and butter company.

I was kind of like,
"I've gotta go upwards."

The BMW range was very exciting

and there was a lot of
potential to move it forward.

So, I went down to Munich
in July of '91.

Um, I...

They looked at my portfolio
and hired me on the spot.

They had just bought
Land Rover, Rover MG.

Using the technology
that we had just bought,

the big boss said,
"In six weeks,

"I wanna see what a BMW
Land Rover could look like."

There's no way you could
build a full-sized prototype

in Germany in six weeks
because you're...

You need to work on the weekends
and the unions don't allow that,

so it had to be done
outside of Germany.

I designed. Boss said,

"Frank, we're gonna
send you down to Italy

"and, you'll be back
in six weeks

"with something that we hope
looks pretty good."

And I said,
"What about the design?
What's it look like?"

"So that's your job to come up
with it on the flight."

"What?" It was...
It was crazy.

There are design houses in Turin

that are dedicated to turning
sketches into real models

and they'll work insane hours
to get it done for you

and they do the concept cars
for the motor shows.

The Sunday when I arrived,
there were these three
older gentlemen,

probably no less
than 70 years old,

smoking their little
Italian cigarettes

and drinking
their little espressos.

First question
to the translator was,

"Are these three guys
gonna be able to work

"eighteen hours a day,

"seven days a week
for six straight weeks?"

He says, "Don't worry,
these are the same three guys
that built the Mira."

Ninety-nine percent
of designers out there

would rate it as
one of their top
most beautiful designs ever.

And these were the three guys
that actually had
built that prototype

back in the late '60s
when they were in their 20s.

We worked flat-out
model building.

We turned a design
into a real car in six weeks.

We presented it
in the courtyard at BMW.

The big boss
did one clockwise round,

one counter clockwise round
and said,

"That's it.
That's going into production."

So, we didn't
have to change anything.

Through those three guys,
we basically turned out

what became the very first
X5 for BMW,

and that became
their design language

for all future SUVs from BMW.

Fastest, probably,
designed car ever

in the history of car design.

How do you feel
about designing a car
without a clay model?

- Without a...
- Without a clay model.

Absolutely zero chance
of getting a nice car,

because on the screen
you're never gonna see a car

as well as you can see it
when you see it in front of you.

And there is one thing
that is so important
about car design

that people
should always remember,

it's a human thing
when you design a car,

it's not a machine thing.

You said, like, you're
supposed to know

what's gonna work in 10 years?

- Yes.
- How do you know...

How do you know, like...

How do you come up
with ideas that...

How do you imagine things
out of thin air?

I mean, how can you like...

How can you... I guess, sort of.
Kind of assume what's...

No, you are the deciding factor.

You're not guessing.
You're saying,

"This is what I want to see
in the future."

So, basically,
all you're getting paid to do

is imagine something
that doesn't exist

that's better than
what we have today.

You know, I think
a lot of people think that

a transportational designer,
a car designer

is a very deep skill, you know.

And in reality,
I think, to do it well,

and Frank does it well,

you have to have
a broad understanding

of a range of things.

A sense of history and context, you know,

a sense of relevant
new technology,

you know, a sense of culture.

And Frank had that
broader view of life.

This is an incredible part
of Malaga for me.

It's so full of life.

So colorful, there's so much
going on all the time,

with all the smells
and all the sounds

and the new things
you see all the time.

Love the octopus.

There's not a lot of
modernity to places like this.

It's kind of old-fashioned.

The building itself is so old.

It's actually back
from the Moorish days.

I think my early upbringing

was really based
in this kind of environment,

where you sort of have that

old-soul feeling to things.

People look at me
at this stage of my life

and say, "That guy.
He's very modern."

I probably appear
to be that way, but it's...

It's pretty much
because of this contrast
that I've...

I've grown up with,
moving from one,

old-school type of world

and then suddenly being thrown

into the Hollywood lifestyle
of California

and the fast pace of working
in the modern world.

- How are ya?
- Jay! Hi, man.

Are you in town
for the new Magnum, P.I.?

Yeah, we'll be doing the series.

You're doing the series now,
going with a different look.

- Yeah, yeah.
- You look great, Jay.

You look very Californian,

- I must say.
- You been working out?

Yeah, that's me. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I'm working out.

Where do you wanna start?
What do you wanna do?

My gosh, this place is like
walking into, heaven.

If you crack this splinter...

you either got a new spoiler
or a Z06 Corvette.

- They're the same thing.
- Nice, yeah.

- Which would you rather have?
- Exactly, exactly.

I like the plain,
simple look of this car.

When it came out, everybody
sort of went after it and said,

"It's boring,
or it's not exciting enough."

But I don't like
juvenile wings unscooped.

I mean, everybody's
going for this atomic
insect look now.

- Which is okay, but I...
- Yeah.

- Well, they're trying too hard.
- Yeah, they're trying to be...

I like the purity of this.

I feel very proud that
Jay has his cars collection.

If it's in Jay Leno's car
collection, that means...

It means you've won
the Oscars of car design.

Even more so because
one of the first cars you see

when you walk into this area
where Jay keeps his cars,

is the McLaren P1.

It sounds like a jet
'cause it is a jet.

I want it to be kept this way.

-What engine is that?
Is that an...
-Merlin?

- Merlin engine?
- Yeah.

- So that was in a Spitfire?
- Yeah.

My gosh!

- It can pull a building down.

A couple of buildings.

Gosh, you've got
the biggest collection
of Ruffs.

- That thing.
- Wow.

-He runs nicely.
-This is the Rolls-Royce
of motorcycles.

- She runs good,
- The gauges, look at that.

You... Do you still run?

- You wanna fire it up?
- Heck yeah!

That's gonna kick back.

My gosh!
Where's my Texan
ten-gallon hat?

Yeah, get in.
Get all the way in.

There we are.

A man of your position
should be driving
this kind of automobile.

Wow, that's spacey.

I know it is.

It's awesome.

It's so Jetsons.

- Do you know?
- What?

- What my next gig is?
- What?

More than a gig.
It's my...

It's 2.0. Transportation 2.0.

- I start next month.
- And what's that?

EVTOLs.

- And what's that?
- So, I'm gonna be designing

the first company,

the number one company
at the moment,

- eVTOLs, which is...
- eVTOLs?

Yeah, Electrical, Vertical
Take-Off and Landing.

- Okay.
- Absolutely silent, autonomous.

So, two passengers,
five passengers,

doesn't need any more space
than a helicopter.

Less than a helicopter, sorry.

-It's autonomous
and it's flying?
-Yeah. And...

I don't mind dying if I know
the pilot's going with me.

- There's no pilot.
- I don't have to...

- There's no pilot. It's...
- Bob, I don't know.

Yeah, I was reading my book
and I don't have it.

Jay, it's the 21st century.

I know, I know.

How do you blend the old
and the new together

is what I find fascinating,

and it keeps me
always super curious.

That kind of juxtaposition
of two types of lifestyles

has to reflect
in your way of thinking

and designing.

The chance to really
design an icon is...

Is few and far between.

Because the original Mini

was the car that put England
on wheels.

It was economical
and it was space efficient.

It was cute, it was serious,

and it was classless.

You know,
you got famous people
buying the Mini

and you got
less famous people
buying it,

every... every segment
of the public.

Honestly, every designer
that heard of the project

wanted to get involved

and be the guy
who redesigned the new Mini

because it was
gonna be historical.

Because the original Mini

that had been born in 1959

was the same car for 40 years.

In 1999,
the Mini was gonna die off

because of the legislation
restrictions on it.

That it was not gonna be
safe enough and, you know,

fit for purpose
for the new century,

the new millennium.

The thing they didn't wanna do

is restrict
any of the designers,

creativity in the sense
that it has to look
like a Mini

or anything like that.
So, basically,

your only restriction
or your only guidance

was, "Make it look like
your interpretation

"of a 21st century Mini."

Out of thin air, you suddenly
have to create a design

and you're starting with...

With a clean sheet of paper,
thinking, "How do I do this?"

Sometimes in car designs
you have unique
design language

that you have to create
from scratch.

But pretty much the most, um,

normal thing to do
is take an existing design

and make it better.

It builds another advances.

-So, you've already
got building blocks...
-Right.

- that you're progressing
upwards on.
-Right.

An iconic design like the Mini,

I think it would have been
absolutely, you know,

unholy to change the design

in such a way
that wasn't recognizable

with the original.

Yeah, they have something
that connects back historically

-and touches a place
in your heart.
-Emotionally.

And, yeah, leverage is really
leading edge technology

- as always that nice...
- Yeah. Exactly.

It's that emotional connection
to the past with the technology
of the future.

So, I spent the first week

not designing
the 21st century Mini

but designing the 1969 Mini,

which never existed.
It was basically the same one,
like I said.

But if it had changed in 1969,

what could it have looked like?

So, that was the first week.

The second week
was the '79 version,

the third week
was the '89 version,

and the last week,
the fourth week,

I designed the 1999 Mini.

The Holy Grail of design is
to create a timeless design.

Now, obviously, that would
put us out of business

if we created a timeless design,

because you won't
have to redesign it.

But at the same time,
I think, um,

if you can make
a product design...

A design of a product last

and not just be trendy,

then you've really
hit the nail on the head.

Because that's what happens
in fashion.

For example, something's in
one year and out the next,

and so it's constantly
changing all the time.

Exciting but it doesn't last.

We're almost there.

And in terms of being aspired
by things that are timeless,

what better exploration
than nature?

Because nature's not trendy.

You don't have
anything in nature

that's in one year
and out the next.

So, my favorite tree,

can you see the antlers on it?

Yeah.
Is this your favorite?

Yeah, that one right there.

It's like the only one there.

The whole forest is like that.

And I sit on that log
right there

and that's my thinking sofa

- out in the forest.
- Yeah.

I sit there, think about
the cars going by.

You know, it's not
a disturbance to me

because it's been a big factor
in my whole life as vehicles,

but then, I've got nature
right in front of it

with such an inspirational tree.

And it's the only tree
I've ever hugged in my life.

You can start from scratch,
which is one way of doing it,

or you can take something
that's already beautiful

and make it even more beautiful.

For example,
with the mirrors of the Mini.

How do I design
the most beautiful mirrors,
but do it up to them?

So, what I did
was I spent a week

drawing female breasts, right?

The idea of female breast
for me...

And that's all I did

was seriously draw breasts
for a week.

And a lot of people
don't realize it,

but when they look at
the original Mini
that I designed...

Now they'll probably realize
they're looking at
a female breast.

Then they didn't.
They just felt comfortable
with it and liked it.

It looks familiar
and it's attractive

and, you know, it's natural.

If you were sitting
inside the Mini

and you looked out
over the bonnet,

um, what people don't realize

is they're looking
at the pelvis area

of a woman.

The fenders were
very curvaceous like that.

Those are the thighs.

And as it comes into the middle,

there is a,
what we call, a power dome

which is sort of
the pelvic area.

People looked at it,
felt very comfortable.

It was sensual in a way
but not overtly.

You know, you didn't know it
unless I was telling you
about it.

A designer has to be
a little bit odd,

or seem a little bit odd
to a normal thinking person.

It makes you have an advantage

in terms of thinking
forward easily.

This was built
by a 17-year-old kid
in 1931.

A guy named Bob Shanwell.

He wanted a car
and it was the Depression,

and his father said, you know,

"If you want a car,
you're gonna have
to build one yourself."

If you can combine
a forward-thinking designer

with a forward-thinking
engineer...

It's an Indian engine?

-That's an Indian four-cylinder
motorcycle engine.
-That's interesting.

Then the sparks really fly

and you get impossible
solutions made possible.

Yeah, my gosh!

- Yeah.
- This car doesn't exist.

No, this car does not exist.

What existed was the wheels

- and the chassis.
- Okay.

We put a 27-liter Merlin
aircraft engine in it.

- 27 liter?
- You hand spin this,

- that throws sparks
into every cylinder.

Your whole objective
as a designer

is to bring innovation.

The new Mini has a lot
of impossible features on it.

There were engineers saying,
"There's no way we can,

"you know, wrap the glass
around the pillars

"in such a tight way
that you've done it."

Or, "You can't put what we call
a clamshell bonnet on the front.

"It's too much
metal to press
into one shape,

"or a lot of small details."

But pushing those details
is what made
the Mini look modern.

When it came out, a lot of
the press were coming in

and then it was a retro design,
which really hurt me a lot

because there's no way that
the Mini was a retro design.

It's kind of like, you compared
with your forefathers

and grandparents or ancestors.

You're, There's a link.
You can say a visual link,

obviously, you might
have the eyes or,

you know, physical attributes,

but basically,
you're a smarter, faster,
stronger person

than what
your grandparents were.

You're an improved
version of them.

So, that's not like
you're a retro version.

We launched it
in October of 2000

and it became very successful very quickly.

It connected with the original
crowd that owned the Mini.

It also connected
with the younger generation

because it was, um,
customizable and it was cute

and aggressive at the same time.

And then it was basically
also not a chick's car

and not a guy's car. It was
sort of walking a fine line

between being a woman's car
and a guy's car.

If you don't have
good design principles,

you're not gonna make it.

Sorry to put it that way,
but you're not gonna make it.

You might have one hit.
It's like going up the bat,
right?

And you might hit a home run,

but if you don't consistently
hit home runs,
you're not a home run hitter.

So, they're not gonna
put you in fourth,

you know, batting fourth.

You're not gonna
clean up the bases.

- You know what
I'm talking about? Baseball?

Okay.

My brother was a pitcher and
I was a catcher in baseball

when we were growing up
in the Little Leagues.

I remember once really
feeling bad for my brother

because my father was...

I was catching
and my brother was throwing.

And my brother was probably

around 10 or so,
and I was probably about eight.

And he was forcing at sunset
for my brother

to keep throwing,

keep pitching the ball

until he had 10 strikes
in a row.

And my brother could just
not hit the strike zone.

He was just, you know, always
just near it like that.

But he was relentless.

He wouldn't let my brother
or I go home
until we actually...

Until my brother
actually threw 10 strikes.

And, um,

he never managed it,
that was the thing.

Ten strikes, you know,
consistently

in the strike zone
and not even a pro.

Sometimes he even manages that,

but he was physically
driving us to a point,

and I never understand that.

I just thought he was trying
to be mean at that time,

but I realize it was just,
you know,
nothing is good enough,

just keep pushing, pushing.

And he probably never even
expected my brother to hit,

throw 10 strikes in a row.

But it was the mentality
that you don't stop,

you just keep pushing.

My brother was a little bit
different, personality-wise,
from me.

It wasn't his goal in life
to be the best.

I think he couldn't take it.

He couldn't accept the pressure.

So, he kind of, like,
any chance he had to get out

and get away, he would do that.

My father,
he demanded perfection.

So, I could never really
feel relaxed with my father.

I always felt I had to be
better than I was

because he was so precise
about every single detail,

which is good.
It's a bit cold.

If we could say OCD,
then I would absolutely
nail him to that.

The P1, there are a lot
of details that upset me.

For example, what happens here
when you have to actually cut

through the tail light
to make it two pieces,

it's because
you can't really inject
one single piece of plastic

that long in one single piece.

So, you get a slight,
almost slight condition here

where it looks like
one of the LED lights

has been, doesn't work almost.

And people
don't even realize that,

but from
a design point of view,
it almost looks like

one letter isn't connected
to the next letter,

if you're doing cursive writing.

And that looks like a mistake
when I see it.

My dad would probably be happy,

until I started explaining
to him the mistakes in the car

and then he would be unhappy,
which is

the way my father was.

He would notice things
like that,

and ask me, "Why you did it?"
And I would explain it

and maybe he would accept it
or maybe he wouldn't,

but he would see it
as a mistake
and not a success.

The car definitely reflects
the kind of upbringing
that I've had from him

where you're in that
pursuit of perfection.

I mean,
this is a very rare car.
There's,

around 375 of them in the world.

No car I've ever designed,

have they ever
sat here. Yeah.

And here's your car, um...

No... Yeah.

- Would you have...
- Yeah.

'Cause this cost
a lot more money now
than it ever cost before,

when it came out.

So, basically,
these kind of cars,
when they're limited like that,

as soon as they come out
of the dealership, they're
actually going up in value.

And, But not from
investment point of view.

More from
the pride point of view.
I'd love to have one.

That kinda sucks.
Like, your design,
your hard work

and you don't get it actually.

No, you get to drive...
Drive them as prototypes,

but, like, you're right.
This is...

You know, it'd be awesome
to own one of these things,

because
it's your baby, isn't it?
It's yours.

You feel like it's yours.
And, um...

After the Mini
sort of started to take off,

I started getting
a lot of phone calls

from different companies
around the world

asking if I'd be interested
in working for them.

And, no way,
because I was living
in Munich,

I was working
for an incredible brand, BMW,

and running the Mini side
of the design studio.

And the whole future of Mini
was in front of me.

There was only the car
I had designed.

But the whole future
of the brand was in front
of me to develop

and I thought, "Gosh,
it doesn't get more exciting
than this."

One day, I got a call from
some lady that was, um...

The details were very scarce
in the phone call.

She said, "I represent," um...

"a car company,

"and they're looking
for somebody

"to have a very
responsible position

"within their design department,

"and would you be interested?"
I said, "Of course,
but who are you?"

And she's like,
"I can't tell you who we are,

"but we need to have
this meeting."

A few days later,
a ticket came in the mail

to fly to Turin, Italy.

I just thought, "This
isn't anything too hard,"

because Turin is Fiat.

Basically, there I met
the head of design of Fiat,

and I'd been discussing
my philosophies on design
and outlook.

And they say, "Okay, we think
you're the right person
for this job,"

while I was eating my tiramisu.

The job offer's
to be the head of design,

the director of design
of Ferrari and Maserati.

And my tiramisu went...

And I said, "Of course,"
you know,

"I'll think about it
and get back to you
as quickly as I can."

I went back to Munich thinking,
"My gosh!"

It's an Italian Ferrari.

And when it crosses the finish,
it makes the sixth year in a row.

And the Ferrari has won.

Every kid's dream
is to design a Ferrari,

and suddenly,
to be offered this job,

which is like the best job
in the world,

I sort of started
to have my doubts.

And I started to think,
"They don't know
who they're talking to.

"They've got it all wrong.
I mean, if I accept
this position,

"you know, everybody's
gonna be looking at me,

"and if I get it wrong,
how embarrassing
that's gonna be

"and that's the end
of my career,
I've thrown away

"you know,
11, 12 good years of BMW

"just to take a chance, and...

"And fall flat on my face."

And basically,
that affected me
quite a bit.

If I needed any kind of advice,

my father was there for me
to support me 100%
all the way through my life.

Fact is, when I finally
did get going
into the design world,

he passed away
fairly shortly after.

He had a heart issue,

in the aorta valve.

And he could live with it.
It was no problem,

but, you know,
his philosophy on life was,

you know, anything that
is not perfect, you gotta...

You gotta make it perfect.

He asked a doctor,
"If I have this replaced,

"will I be able to work out
more, you know, run?"

And the doctor said, "Yeah."

So he went for it
and it just went bad.

The operation went bad,

and he had four heart attacks
after that operation

and the last one
was too strong, so...

That happened in December 1990.

And it was the worst day
in my life.

I'm sure you can tell that,
the way I talk about him,

he's absolutely
the biggest influence
you can have as a child.

And growing up,
and still, you know,

um, I remember him every day.

It's impossible
not to think about my father.

My father was my best friend.
He was...

You know, it almost felt like he was my
big brother most of the time instead of...

I could talk to him
about anything.

I would feel so, so relieved

after talking to him.

You know, he would take that
huge weight off my shoulders
and I would feel like,

I'm at peace again,
and the world
is a good place to be.

My mother and I took his ashes

and we went right off there
to the point,

and that's where we...
Where I put his ashes at,
into the sea, um,

on the very end
of the pier there.

It just makes you realize that

no matter how good a car works,

or a person is health wise,

we're all geared towards...
death.

I started reasoning slowly,
reasoning myself that

"I'm never gonna get
this chance again in my life."

You know, "Either you take it
and run with it,

"and... Okay.

"If it works, it works.
If it doesn't, you've tried."

And that was my overriding
feeling at the end.

Believe me, it took a while
to get there.

The F430 wasn't really about

designing something
radically different.

At Ferrari, I had
to design a car
that looked like a Ferrari.

It was my choice
of design language.

Of course, it's an excellent
design language,

but Ferrari
was more about adding

the Italian feel to it,

which is all about sensuality.

Of course, the sportiness
is very necessary.

But there's sort of
a fullness to the design.

There aren't a lot of

rotund, sensual-looking
animals that are very fast,

so it's a balance,
it's a tricky balance
to get it right.

After four years
of working with Ferrari,

thinking I was being, you know,

congratulated and...

And, um,

seen as a good designer,

the boss of Ferrari calls me up,

um, then he says, "Okay,
Monday you're going to Fiat."

So, I said, you know,
"Are you not happy
with what I'm doing?

"Why am I going
from heaven to hell?"

And he said, "We have
a new boss at Fiat,
Sergio Marchionne.

"He wants to speak to you
on Monday."

Fiat actually owns
Ferrari and Maserati,

and in 2006,
Fiat was, you know,
at the very bottom.

It was a really bad situation
for the company.

So I sat down with Sergio Marchionne
in his office and he goes, "Look,

"if we don't have a successful
new car on the market
in 10 months,

"we're gonna tank.
We're out of here."

He's talking about Fiat, right?

How do you make
a global success
with a Fiat?

I said, "Well, first of all,

"it takes
five years to develop
a successful new car.

"And if we're gonna
do it in 10 months,

"that means that the guy
who's buying the car

"is basically the test driver, because
we won't have all the testing done.

"Impossible. You can't design

"and bring out a new car
in 10 months

"and be guaranteed
of a success."

He said,
"Well, that's your job."

What do you do?
How do you...

You can't do it.
There's no way you can do it.

But then I got this flash.

Take the only existing Fiat
that was trickling
out of the factory,

which is the Fiat Panda,

and if we just took
the skin off of it,

kind of like taking a person
and just re-dressing them.

If we do that, then we're not
really changing the car,

we're not having
to re-homologate the car
for crash purposes.

That's already been done
with the Fiat Panda.

Luckily, Fiat had the Fiat
500 in their portfolio

from back in the '50s.

If we could take that car
and make it a modern version.

That's what we did.
And it took nothing
to design the car.

So basically, that car
was ready in 10 months,
and it was just amazing,

because, you know,
basically we were just

selling a different version
of the Panda

that looked like
the modern version
of the Fiat 500.

And again, that just took off
like a, you know, a blast.

Boom, 10 months, it was out.

And it went over
all the capitals in Europe.

Suddenly, they had a new
fashion car to be seen in

and it was, you know,
feminine and it was masculine
at the same time.

The older crowd loved it,

the newer, younger generation
loved it.

Huge success for them,

and saved the company.

There's one that's starting
to come in.

So if he turns this way,
he'll see it.

We live in an area where
there's a real abundance
of red kites.

What I like to do
is just come out

and, throw out
some raw chicken legs.

It kind of starts to resemble

a little bit of a dogfight
in the air

with them all starting
to challenge each other
for the food.

And it's one of the more
beautiful sights I've ever
seen in my life.

You can start from scratch,
which is one way of doing it.

Or you can take something
that's already beautiful and
make it even more beautiful.

And where better
to get inspired
than through nature,

which nobody says
that nature is ugly.

It's always...

It's accepted that it is
the most beautiful thing
that we have on Earth.

People consider today, cars,
you know,

and say, wow, how gorgeous
that car is and everything.

For me, the real beauty
is what came before that.

The horses that we were around,

and that's just natural beauty.

If you can take
that kind of emotion,
that kind of beauty

and put it
into something else...

you're gaining something,
you're adding something
to the world

that's very valuable.

2008, McLaren
was expressing concern

that Formula One
could potentially go,

you know, downwards,
and not be as successful.

They would need to guarantee
that the sustainability
of McLaren

in another way, which was,
instead of just racing cars,

they would be doing road cars.

This way, Monte.
Come on.

I got a phone call
and it was from McLaren.

He said, "If you want,
the job is yours,

"design director of McLaren."

"We don't have a design studio,
we don't have a design team.

"We don't have a car.

"And we need, basically,
somebody to come in

"and create that whole
design environment."

Come on, Monte.

Having somebody tell me
to come work at McLaren

with a clean sheet of paper,
starting from scratch...

The engineering expertise
and race car engineers

and the facilities there,

you feel, really,
like you're walking
into the future.

It doesn't get better than that.

If you look at nature,

there's really nothing
ugly in nature.
Everything's beautiful.

But nothing's designed
to look beautiful.

It's just beautiful
because it works.

The thing with McLaren then was,

I could basically create
my own design language.

And that's where this love
that I've always had
of nature came in.

Shortly after starting
with McLaren,

I flew out to the Caribbean
for a short break.

And at the hotel or resort,
I recognized,

a certain fish
that was on the wall
in the reception area.

This, stunning sailfish,

and, um, I asked
the director there

why he'd actually
put it on the wall.

He said, "Well, you know,
these are incredibly
difficult to capture

"because it's faster
than the cheetah."

Pretty amazing,
because it's going through
a much denser medium,

and a cheetah's on four legs

and going through air.

So I was intrigued by that,

such that I had
to have a sailfish.

I went down
to the fishing village

and somebody
had just caught one.

I was able to have it stuffed,

and then had it shipped back

to the UK, to Heathrow.

We ended up having to take
one of the Formula One trucks
to pick it up

because the box
that they put it in

was absolutely massive.

The sailfish cost
a lot of money.

It was in the tens of thousands,

enough to almost get me fired
in my first months at McLaren.

The finance director
from McLaren asked

why I had bought it
with my company credit card.

Obviously, they don't
understand why designers

pay good company money
on things like fish.

We basically found out
that the bumps
on the end of the torso

created the pocket of air

that enabled it
to be so streamlined.

So those bumps,
we put 'em
on the steering mirrors

to quieten the sound
of the air going around
the A-pillar.

That worked very effectively.

We were able to take
the texture of the scales
of the sailfish

and put those into
certain areas of the car

to increase the airflow
and the amount of air

and the speed of the air
into the engine.

So, little things from nature
that we were able to learn

from something that's existed
for a long, long time

actually seemed very futuristic.

But in effect,
they weren't futuristic.

They were just an effect
of being curious about nature

and taking what
nature has taught us.

So, what you look at
when you're designing
fast cars like McLaren

is what makes an animal fast.

And the major common point
of all that

is what we call shrink-wrapped.

So, you see, on fast animals,

you see almost like
it has very low body fat,

the muscles are coming
through, the tendons.

And the skin is almost minimal.

It's just covering
what you need.

If you look at Ferraris,

Italian cars look Italian
'cause they're sensual.

You know... Mama...
You wash a Ferrari

and you spend four hours
washing the fender

just 'cause it feels
nice and sensual.

And your wife looks at you,
a bit strange, like...

"It's clean!"

But with the McLaren,
it was more about
a car that looked athletic

and like it'd been to the gym
and it had, you know,

watched what it was eating.

So that became the inherent
design language of McLaren,

was shrink-wrapped design.

Not overly adding surfaces
that you don't need

or volumes of surfaces
that you need.

So the McLaren started
achieving this sort of

athletic look.

I just take apart my bike
for fun sometimes.

And the fun of these bikes,
anyways, is looking at the bike

and I kinda don't like
covering things up
if I don't have to.

In this case, for example,
the engine

is part of the actual
rigidity of the frame.

It adds to the rigidity
of the bike.

So you have a minimal,
or minimalistic, almost,
type frame,

and the engine forms
part of that structure

to increase the strength of it.

The true beauty, I think,
is underneath that surface

when you start looking
at these components

and how they all come together.

This is the essential beauty
of the motorcycle.

With the McLaren, from
the design point of view,

when the engineers
come up with where
the engine's gonna be

and where the driver's
gonna sit,

where the wheels are at,

where the suspension is...

If you just took a bedsheet

and just threw it over
what we call the hardpoints,

those are points
you're not gonna
be able to move.

And you let that sheet
just drape itself
across the hardpoints,

that basically becomes
the shape of the car.

We were designing it
to be beautiful.

It just is beautiful

because that's
a beautiful way to design.

It's kinda like an athlete
with a suit on,

with a well-cut suit on it.

Yeah, more than happy.
More than happy.

Simmy, can I, like,
suck my stomach in

and you push your stomach out?

And you go like that?

And I'll go like that,
and we'll look about the same.

- Even out.
- Yeah.

It'll even out.

Did you own this car
before you met Frank?

- Or was it...
- No, no, no. After. After.

I was even influenced,
like, by Frank.

Not necessarily
to get this model,

but just what he'd done

with the design language
with McLaren, you know?

You don't get
to where Simeon's at

without having
an incredible mindset.

That's the other thing
that we had in common.

- I love to train.
- Yeah.

- And bodybuilding, you know,
- And hard work.

- 'Cause it's hard work.
- Hard work, yeah.

And sets to failure.

Because that's what
bodybuilding and gains
are all about,

going to failure

which is what our tenure
is about,
going to failure.

I know a lot of people
are probably

wondering what's
so aesthetical
about bodybuilding,

but that's the opposite
viewpoint that I have.

I've just always been interested

in not-normal human beings.

I love bodybuilding
because it's just,

it's just an optimized way
of tuning your body.

I see this huge correlation

between bodybuilding and design,

because it's the best
of the best.

Basically pushing it,
pushing it, pushing it

till you can't give any more
to what you're doing.

And you can always
give a little bit more.

But if you can come
as close as you can
to that limit,

you're not coming to perfection,

but you're doing, probably,
a better job than the next guy

who's not going
as far as you can.

All those factors help you
to get to

an end result that is
absolutely spectacular.

And generally, for the general
public, unachievable,

but you managed to get there.

When I was growing up,
I was having

to lift weights with my father.

Working out at
that kind of young age,

and keeping yourself

physically at the top
of your game

no matter what age you are,

that was one of the things
I had to do for him.

He was pumping weight gainer
into me every night.

I wasn't gonna be a scrawny kid,

there's no way I could have
been a scrawny kid

the way my father brought me up.

It seems like he was
really kind of preoccupied

with making you a man.

Yeah, it could be.

It could be that he was trying
to get me ready for life early,
I guess.

But, um...

I think he just
loved us to death.

Not literally, but loved us

in such a way that
he wanted us to...

He wanted to teach us,
my brother and I both,

everything he could teach us.

ASAP.

Not wait or not let us
learn it on our own,

but basically just be there
when we were learning things.

You set your own expectations
of where you wanna be in life

and what you wanna achieve,

and my father set these
levels up very high for me.

You have to be...
You have to be the best

at anything you do in life.

And I thought,
if I don't do it, I'm not...

Well, I'm not meeting
his expectations obviously,
for sure, for one,

but almost...
I always had the feeling

I'm never gonna be satisfied
or a happy person.

You know, pushing yourself
is tough,

because it takes it out of you mentally,
it takes it out of you physically,

you have to make
a lot of sacrifices

and that is draining
for a lot of people

and almost too high
of a price to pay.

When we did this project,

we took it into the big
presentation room
at McLaren

and presented it to Ron Dennis.

And I remember, his jaw dropped

because he suddenly

didn't know where the front
of the car was,
or the rear of the car was.

He was aghast.

He just looked at it and said,
"I don't understand
what this car is.

"Where is the front?
Where is the back?

"Is this what you've been
doing for a year?"

But then, yeah, he said,
"I could stop
the project right now

"because I really don't
understand what this car
is all about

"looking like that.
But if you believe in it

"then we'll go with it,"

and, "but if it
doesn't sell, you know,
you're gonna get..."

"axed."

As a designer, you have to be
in the right place mentally

to do your best work, I think.

And I wasn't mentally in...

I was doing the work,
I was being efficient

and still good
at what I was doing,

but it was a struggle
because I had...

It was a really tough time.

In 2016, two days before his...

His birthday, his 59th birthday,

my brother passed away.

He smoked so much that
eventually it caught up
with him.

It started, obviously,
in his lungs, and moved
to elsewhere.

The worst part of it all was
as that was happening,

my mother was seriously ill
with a stroke.

My brother was asking me
not to tell her because
he didn't want her to...

get any worse than she was.

So I made a promise to him
that I would wait

until she eventually was
back in good enough shape

to take the fact of
what was going to...

Obviously was going
to happen, so...

But that took another year.

So I couldn't tell her,
you know,

up to about a year
after he'd passed away.

If you can imagine
your mother asking you why

her other son doesn't
call her anymore,

what do you say?

I didn't deal with it,
that's the thing.

I couldn't deal with it.

I had no way to deal with it.

You know, if you're a director of a
design department for a major company

that has to be doing great work,

you can't find an excuse.
There's no excuse.

Over a long period of time,
that...

that is excusable
for not performing,

so I was able to keep

sort of a facade up,
I think, um,

but it just didn't feel,
internally, it was,

an incredible weight
to carry around.

And in 2017, I thought,

you know,
it's a now or never thing,
I've got her back home

from the care home.

She couldn't walk
or anything like that.

So I wheeled her out
in the wheelchair

all the way down
to the port in Malaga

on a nice Sunday morning.

She asked me,
as she customarily did,

"Have you heard
from Raul lately?"

And I said, "Well,

"I don't think Raul will be
in contact with any of us

"again."

And after that
had sank into her,
she just started crying.

You know...

I'm sorry
you had to go through that.

No, it's okay.

Good boy.

How old was Monte
when you got him?

He was as small
as you're allowed
to get a dog.

We couldn't wait to see him,

so three weeks,
I already saw him,

and he still had a lot of
pink around his nose.

A lot of areas aren't dark
on the face at that time.

So he was pretty, you know...

Probably didn't recognize
anything except his own mother

and siblings, I guess,

but he's turned
into quite a dog.

I think dogs are
pretty much the best gift,

you know, from the guy upstairs.

Dogs don't move out on you

and they love you
no matter what.

Come here. Come on.

You get back in spades
what you give to him.

And it's just pure love.

Good boy.

Unconditional love.

When you reach
that period of your life

where you think
you're not gonna reach

a further extreme than
what you've already done,

I was starting to rethink,

"Am I going to continue
doing this for the rest
of my life?"

I was too intense, I think,
during the earlier
part of my life,

because I wasn't attached
in a long-term relationship
with anybody.

I just used to put
too much emphasis
on work.

And it's almost like trying
to lift more weight
than you can actually lift.

It starts crashing down
on top of you.

And if there's nobody there
to lift the weight off of you,

then you're kind of stuck.

My wife, Linda,

she's been able to help me
balance life and work.

People often say,
"My wife is my best friend."

She's a bit more than that.

As we've developed
our lives together

and gone through
a lot of situations
that make a relationship,

we've grown closer and closer.

We've become sort of like
a couple of molecules

that join together and become
something even stronger.

Things likeRiverbreeze,
my boat here,

it's a way to chill out
on the weekends.

It's hard to find
a better way
to enjoy a day

in the English countryside
than on the rivers.

When I moved to England,
I moved about

half a mile away
from Peter Freebody's,

which is the company
that's been around

for 300 years on this location.

And they've been
building wooden boats

since way back then.

So we used to come down
to the workshop here

and watch them
build boats, old-style.

And at some point,
decided I gotta have
my own boat.

And I have to have it bespoke.

The only real elevation
that this boat has

is the propulsion system
which is all-electric.

It's about as silent
as it can be.

The fact that you don't
really disturb nature
while you're in this boat

but you're a part of it
makes the whole design

really sing, I think.

It's probably
the closest thing
I've ever come to,

to thinking about being perfect.

Because simply,
I had no desire to innovate.

I was not trying to think
how can I modify it, or...

And so, in that sense,
I'm kind of happy.

When I'm on the boat,
I don't feel like
I have to change anything.

When you're starting out
in design, you wanna do
the cool stuff.

The stuff that, you know,
you almost brag about.

But when you've done it
and you've gotten
through that,

you see, what is the actual
practical value of your work.

And I've got to the point now
where I'm seeing...

I still got some time left

to do some real design.

For most people
I think, generally,

it's considered science fiction.

The thing is, at some point,
designers have to

turn science fiction
into reality.

The future's now.

What we're looking at here
is the very first prototype

in terms of what is
actually lifted off.

It's an evTOL jet, which means

Electrical, Vertical
Take-Off and Landing.

So what it will be
is a way to transport

around four, five people.

Different types of trips
that you would typically use

either a train, or a taxi,

or maybe even
a short plane flight.

The advantage here is that
you're requiring a lot less

take-off and landing space,

roughly 12 square meters.

That means
pretty much anywhere.
It can adapt itself

from rooftops, high-rises,

parking lots, skyscrapers,
things like that,

that would have a pad
fitted out and such, that
you could land, take off.

The whole concept is
as silent as possible flight,

so it's not disturbing
people on the ground.

And it's operating between
300 meters and 3,000 meters.

That means you don't
have to worry about
pressurizing the cabin.

Most likely, at the beginning
you'll have a controller

or somebody who's on board
to make sure that
everything is running well.

Eventually, we'll go
fully autonomous.

The process of designing
something like this,

is, in terms of efficiency,

the very same thing
as when you design
a high-performance car.

But if you look at what
a hypercar is meant to do,

what a jet like this
is meant to do,

they're completely
different objectives.

Hypercars are pretty much
luxury items

that you really
don't need in your life.

But the purpose of this
is global.

I do see that at some point
in your life,

you should start doing things

that have a better use
for more people.

These really tend to make sense

when we get
volumes of them flying.

As many as we can get,
transporting or
connecting cities.

There's a lot of
engineering minds and IQ

going into how to
make this thing work.

My job is more about

making the actual
experience of flying
in one of these things

absolutely mindblowing.

There's always gonna be
a fear factor

of the first time
you try anything,

the first time
something comes in

that's bringing in
new technology,

and especially when
we're talking about heights

and speed and things like that.

The beginning of aviation
was a very scary period.

But today, everybody
takes it for granted.

You don't really
think twice about it.

And if I can
create that feeling
for the passengers,

then, mission accomplished.

So right now,
if you look at it,
it looks super aggressive.

- Right? Almost like it has
teeth or something like that.
Wow, wow.

Well, it's part of
the motor technology.

I can't get into
too much depth about it.

But I can say that basically
the cones are a requirement,

for thrust and things,

but if we can basically
clean it up in such a way

that it stays just as efficient,

then that would be
a much better look,
I would say.

It's kind of...
What kind of public
are you reaching out for?

You know, sports cars
tend to have

an aggressive nature to them

because they're all about
high performance.

When you're talking
about mass people's
transport vehicles,

we don't want these vehicles,
obviously, to look like

military objects that are
out to, you know,

harm people.

You're gonna want something
that's sort of more appealing.

You know, you can look
at the difference between
some types of aircraft,

fighter planes.

Obviously, these are designed
for a single purpose.

Or you can start
to look at a little bit more,

things that are
a bit more cuddly.

These shapes here
appeal a bit more

in terms of wanting
to get closer to it

and interact with it.

All the people out there,
they don't believe
it's coming.

It's still too new for them,

and it'd be
somebody else's lifetime

that experiences
this vehicle, but...

I see it coming.
I know it's coming

a lot sooner than
the general public expected.

Cars have been around
for 100 years or more.

This is just kicking off,

and it's something that
has never been done before.

It really does get my blood
flowing pretty fast

when I think about
what it could be,

and the chance
and the opportunity

to be able to turn that
into reality.

Designing aircraft like this,

it's almost like you're able
to swim in deep waters,

but this is more like
where the Atlantic Ocean
and the Indian Ocean meet.

You get this kind of current
where everything is just
in turmoil

and really rough.

It's kinda like saying,
"Okay, I can swim,

"but can I swim
in these waters?"

My father,
he demanded perfection.

He taught me,
anything that's not perfect,
you gotta make it perfect.

It's a good thing
to strive for perfection.

Problem is,
perfection does not exist.

It's a winningless game.

So, what is perfect?

The only thing
I can describe it is,

it is the challenge
to make something

as unchangeable as possible.

If you look at anything,
it's never really perfect,

because there's the process
of evolution,

the constant drive to become
more effective
and more efficient.

Perfection just doesn't exist.

It's a nice word,
it's a nice thing to aim for.

But I need
that kind of challenge

to be happy, I think.

It's that trip that we're on
to get to that level.

It's frustrating because
you just can't get there.

And there's always...
I mean, I've always said it,

don't fall in love
with your design,

because you'll realize
at some point that it's...

You would have done
something differently
anyways again,

if you had a second chance.

That kind of challenge
to try to be able to make
something perfect

is never gonna end.