The Roadster’s Ritual
September 13, 2026 (These images were shot on my phone)
Gasoline & Caffeine: The twin fuels of machine and body at sunrise
Early this year I fell in love with the history and raw evocative nature of the Porsche 908/03, the winner of the legendary Targa Florio in 1970 with Brian Redman and Jo Siffert at the wheel. In many ways, the mental image of it calls forth the spirit of pure motorsport: the smell of gasoline, an engine screaming as it winds around blind corners, the sense of danger and alertness that adrenaline summons. To quote the Italian futurist Marinetti, “We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.”
From Needle to Asphalt
Being a devotee of motorsports and a sartorial romantic, I felt a need to physicalize this love. Having bloodied my fingers multiple times in my teenage years sewing metal band patches onto jackets, I’d long since built a tactile sense for technique, placement, and visual composition. It was a skill I called on once again when crafting this jacket.
Having sourced the patches from multiple corners of the internet, with some coming all the way from Lithuania, I got to work. Despite my experience sewing with needle and thread, I recognized that making the orange arrows to match the livery of the car would be a near impossibility for me. To make the symmetrical and perfectly straight orange arrow stripes on the left breast, I had to learn to use a sewing machine. I purchased a yard of orange fabric from a craft store, and with loving patience, my grandmother showed me how to set up the machine. I gave it a few trial runs, and after some failed attempts, I was able to make these arrows that would become the visual center of the jacket.
Seeing how much faster a sewing machine was versus my speed with just needle and thimble, I tried my hand at sewing all of the patches with it. I was happy with the result, but nonetheless went over every single patch with a needle to tie down the edges and keep them from floating. It was a Thursday evening in September when I finished sewing the final patch, the Union Jack, and I was excited to inaugurally wear the jacket on a drive.
Chasing the Horizon
I arose well before dawn on Friday, poured some hot water into my thermos, packed my yerba mate (a caffeinated tea-like infusion popular in South America), loaded my Eurodisco Vice playlist, and hit the road. In the dark and cool, I made my way to the winding rural farm roads outside of town and proceeded to, responsibly follow the speed limit, of course. Once the sky began to lighten towards the East, I chased the light and found myself at the beach with minutes to spare before sunrise. The orange and blue on the horizon mirrored on the tones of my jacket.
I followed the age old ritual of preparing the yerba mate, letting the leaves soak the water before the first infusion. With perfect timing, the yerba mate was ready and I took the first sip as the sun pierced the horizon. Outside of my dreams, it is unlikely that I will ever trace the winding paths of the Targa Florio in the legendary Porsche 908/03, but in that moment I felt in the company of Redman and Siffert, feeling triumphant with the golden glow of dawn blanketing both my roadster and myself.