Interview– JT Nesbitt

Artist, designer, and engineer JT Nesbitt discusses why the high stakes of motorcycling make it one of the highest forms of art, and how sustainability requires a radical shift of perspective. JT's most recent bike is the Curtiss 1, an LEV that rethinks what forever motoring really means.

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Transcript:

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Andrea Hiott: [00:00:00] Hey JT, so good to see you. Thanks for joining us today. Where are you

JT Nesbitt: right now? I'm, I'm in the Maroney, so I'm about a mile downriver from the French Quarter.

Oh, okay. I'm joining you from my My studio that, uh, I built starting in 2015.

Andrea Hiott: Oh, wow. You

JT Nesbitt: built it yourself? Built it myself. It's a two story steel and glass structure attached to a house that was built in 1929, which makes this the newest house on the block. Most of these houses were built in the 1830s.

Andrea Hiott: Oh, wow. So this podcast is about what moves us. It's about forever motoring. So first question I'd like to ask is, what's a moment in your life, um, that you remember being moved, something that moved you? Can take that wherever you want.

JT Nesbitt: Uh, I mean, [00:01:00] riding a motorcycle that I built at Bonneville in 2004 was a really big deal. I bet, uh, that could be the last, that could be the last memory that I, that I explore as I, as I pass. And that would be a good one.

Andrea Hiott: Can you tell me a little more about that? What, for people who don't know Bonneville, maybe you can just give like a one sentence kind of intro to the Salt Flats, , just the visuals of it, you know, it's such a special place.

JT Nesbitt: Bonneville, Bonneville is, it's, it's a very solitary kind of Experience and, uh, it's very inward and not very outward. Um, if road racing, if road racing is an as is abstract and all over the place, it's kind of like a William de Kooning painting a lot going [00:02:00] on. Bonneville is like color field. It's like a Mark Rothko, and it forces you to to go to go more inward.

And, um, Bonneville is the last bastion of world class. Amateur race. It's a place where where a guy who has a passion and comes up with an idea can work in his garage and and be the best in the world in that particular class. That's one of the reasons why it's so special is that it's it's inclusive, as opposed to exclusive racing.

Andrea Hiott: Great way to describe it. So I guess before you rode your own bike there which is. Quite a dream come true. You'd already watched many a race there or followed it. So,

JT Nesbitt: and I've gone back several times. And [00:03:00] unfortunately, the, uh, the climate change has impacted that area quite a bit. Because you're racing on a natural surface.

You're not racing on a man made surface. So it's really prone to the climate change. And, uh, there have been a few good meets fairly recently, but they're getting fewer and fewer, uh, really, really good means where the salt that you're actually racing on is, uh. It is nice and firm, so the salt is going away, the salt is getting thinner, and it's mushier, and it's, it just, it isn't what it used to be, and yet there's still guys out there setting records.

Yeah, it would be such a sad loss to lose them. It's not like a happy thing. Racing at Bonneville is one of the hardest things I have ever done. I bet. It's like, it's like racing. in the middle of nowhere. It's like racing. [00:04:00] You're setting up a Bedouin camp in the middle of this super hostile environment and expected to do everything that you would normally do, like with a pit and power outlet and.

You know, all the things that road racing has.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, it's a little bit insane, but it's, it has that quality, right? It's almost like a dream, dreamish kind of setting. And how did it feel to actually be riding on that salt flat? I mean, were you just totally present in the moment or were you having these kind of like, Oh my God, I'm actually on my bike on the salt flat.

JT Nesbitt: At that meet, I was not, I was not the, I was not the racer. Right. So I just rode, I just rode the bike back to the pit from, from the end of a race, but that was enough. Still, yeah. It wasn't, I was crew chief. So my job isn't to go out there and race, it's to take care of the machine. And interestingly, my father was there.

Oh, wow. [00:05:00] And it was a time that I, I was able to really connect. with my dad, um, in a, in a very special way, and, and that's partly to do with, you know, father son relationships are really, really weird. When, when I was 14 years old, my father told me that if I ever owned a motorcycle, he would disown me. Oh my.

If you own a motorcycle, that's it, son, you're out. Wow, why

Andrea Hiott: did he say that? Did he sense that you were going that direction or something, or was it?

JT Nesbitt: Uh, I was a young man and I was curious and, uh, one of the guys who worked for him showed up at his office one day on a Kawasaki GPZ 900, otherwise known as a Ninja.

Oh, wow. When [00:06:00] 14-year-old JT saw a ninja on a motorcycle, like, that's it.

Andrea Hiott: Oh, okay. So he saw your reaction to that

JT Nesbitt: and knew, now you got my attention. It's a motorcycle called called a ninja.

Andrea Hiott: Oh, wow. And your dad just said, no way, son. Don't do it. Yeah, I'll, and he really said, he'll disown you. That's strong language.

JT Nesbitt: That's verbatim. Verbatim. And, uh, that, that's when I knew that I was gonna dedicate my life. To spiting my father,

Andrea Hiott: uh,

JT Nesbitt: all of this, all of this is just revenge, you know, when

Andrea Hiott: I was, I don't believe that totally, but it's all connected.

JT Nesbitt: I guess it's definitely connected. And, and at that meet in 2004 at Bonneville, when my father finally saw this.

This motorcycle hauling ass across the salt. He finally turned to me and said, son, I'm proud of you. [00:07:00] Oh,

Andrea Hiott: oh, that's a pain in the chest. Wow. Had he said that much before? No. Oh gosh.

JT Nesbitt: And, and, and that was real. Like, you know, it's real when your father says, son, I'm proud of you. When you, when you've done everything that he told you not to do.

Absolutely. And then you succeed at it, that's, that's how you gain, uh, that's how you gain respect.

Andrea Hiott: That's a life marker kind of moment, isn't it?

JT Nesbitt: Yeah, but what he didn't tell me when I was 14 years old is that if you choose this path, you're going to be fighting for it your whole life. Hmm. Would

Andrea Hiott: that have changed your?

Your drive to do it. Do you think if someone had said, Hey, this is like the hardest thing to do in the world, or would it made you more adamant?

JT Nesbitt: I don't know. But I know for sure that it's been a fight my entire life. This has [00:08:00] not been. Nothing's been handed out.

Andrea Hiott: Absolutely. Well, let's talk about that a bit, because how long have you been doing this now?

Over 30, over 25 years, or?

JT Nesbitt: Well, I've been involved in the motorcycle world since I was in college. I got my first bike in 1991.

No, yeah, that's right. 1991. And, uh, I'm a fine arts major. So, I was just turning in motorcycle projects. And in art school, and I remember I built a, I built a bike, a Moto Guzzi, I was a big Moto Guzzi guy. I love Moto Guzzi. And I built a, I built this crazy custom Moto Guzzi motorcycle on the second floor of the studio building and then rode it up and down the hall.

I had to disassemble it. How did you get away with that? Because my studio was on the second floor, I had to disassemble it and [00:09:00] take it back downstairs to put it back together to ride it. That one almost got me expelled from college. Yeah,

Andrea Hiott: I think it would these days. But how cool that you could take a Moto Guzzi apart and put it back together at that age.

Like, what?

JT Nesbitt: Yeah, that was something else. Oh my God. You know, I gotta say, even though I struggled, uh, I mean, I got straight A's in all my, in all of my art programs. Um, I just had to do twice the work, and, and I gotta say that a fine arts education is the most underrated education that there is. What do you

Andrea Hiott: mean?

What do you, what's underrated about it?

JT Nesbitt: It teaches you how to use, how to use these, your hands. Your hands. and your mind in conjunction. So, a good fine arts education, and I would encourage anybody who's listening, to think about, [00:10:00] uh, college not as a place, not as vocational training necessarily, but a place where you go to learn how to learn, especially if you're going, you have a passion for actually making real things in the real world.

Good fine arts education, uh, is painting from life, figure drawing, color theory, graphic design, stone carving, metal casting, fabrication, welding, ceramics, photography, especially darkroom, woodworking, and most important of all, art history, which is the history of, of human beings. So all of those things, I, I got this intense training in all of these different fields, and to some extent I use them all, all of that stuff I use on a daily basis.

Andrea Hiott: Is that still true that welding and these kind of craft, things I think of as more craft based, to relate it to the hands, like, [00:11:00] I, I think. Maybe I'm just, uh, a little bit naive here, but I thought fine arts, you didn't actually have to get into all this craft based.

JT Nesbitt: Well, it depends on the school, right? It depends on, it depends on the professors and, and good art programs come and go.

They're, they're not really based on a curricula. They're based on the people who are actually doing the work of corralling all these kids and, and showing them how to do this stuff. So I got real lucky, the school that I went to just at the time I was there. Where were you? Always. I was at Louisiana Tech.

Oh,

Andrea Hiott: wow. Yeah, tech schools are good for

JT Nesbitt: this, I think. Well, no, it's, it's, forget that it's a technical school. I'm talking about hardcore. Maybe I'm

Andrea Hiott: thinking in Europe here.

JT Nesbitt: I'm talking hardcore fine arts education. And if the school is good, all the things that I just listed, you'll have to do. Man, uh, they worked us to death.[00:12:00]

It was not, it was not easy, a lot of work. I love

Andrea Hiott: this idea of the connection between critical thinking and using your hands. Cause those two skills, yeah, I mean, as you were saying, that's being able to sort of think critically about things, but also to use your hands to make things. Well,

JT Nesbitt: especially, especially if my professors are looking at this kid who's doing all this crazy motorcycle stuff and going, what, what is this kid doing?

They didn't understand that. What I probably should have been done is, is dumped into some kind of automotive design program.

Andrea Hiott: Mm hmm. Some kind of fabrication

JT Nesbitt: thing. I gotta tell you, the, the, the, the kids that I've encountered that come out of automotive design, they don't really have much of an education on how to, how to make, how to actually make stuff.

Mm

Andrea Hiott: hmm. Which it feels so good to know how to make things. So,

JT Nesbitt: so that's the, when you talk about technical.[00:13:00]

That's what those design schools do is they teach you how to draw cars that can't be made that and, you know, in the motorcycle world, and there's, you can't hide stuff, right? You can't hide your, your lack of technical knowledge, but yeah,

Andrea Hiott: literally, you can see everything you can see everything did you have to convince your professors?

I mean, did you literally have to kind of talk them into letting you do this? Yeah. motorcycle, uh, work as art? Oh,

JT Nesbitt: no, there was no convincing them. I just had to do twice the work.

Andrea Hiott: What does that mean though? What do you mean you had to do twice? So I would turn

JT Nesbitt: in a motorcycle project at 400 level classes, which is kind of independent study would turn in projects.

And receive a failing grade. So then have to go back and do the sculpture work, the

Andrea Hiott: non Oh, I see. So you were doing both. You weren't I was doing [00:14:00] both. Okay.

JT Nesbitt: I was doing industrial design and fine art at the same time. Yeah, okay. Failing grades for the

Andrea Hiott: industrial design. Okay, I get it. So from the beginning you had this design, art, engineering, technology.

Like, it was all what you were interested in.

JT Nesbitt: Well, uh, I'm hugely interested in painting and color theory, stone carving. Those are the sculpture, fabrication, photography, graphic design, color theory. Those are all the basic building blocks that you need. To, to be in this business. Yeah.

Andrea Hiott: Well, let's, how did to, to get up to some of your creations, 'cause I really wanna talk about them.

Um, how did you end up meeting Matt and getting, when did you see your first Confederate and what were you thinking about and doing at that time? Were you, I guess you were out of art school and like, how did, how did all this kinda come [00:15:00] together?

JT Nesbitt: Well, I, I got this job, kind of a job. I was a, oh, I, the big magazine back in the day, you remember Print Magazine, was this publication called Iron Horse Magazine, and it was published in New York, and the editor was a man named David Snow, who's a largely forgotten figure in, in the world of custom motorcycling.

David Snow really kind of created The whole DIY backyard, hardcore chopper scene like really, yeah, the Jesse, Jesse James was featured in iron horse magazine. His first feature was an iron horse, Billy Lane, uh, Indian Larry, like all those guys, those TV guys, they were all featured at iron horse magazine first before it kind of blew up.

It used to be a real underground scene. And [00:16:00] David Snow was responsible for creating that scene. And I just loved it. And the magazine was so, it was funny. You never read an issue of Iron Horse Magazine without laughing out loud because David Snow has such a, such a keen wit. Mm hmm. Really the last of the warrior poets.

Anyway.

Andrea Hiott: So you were working

JT Nesbitt: with them or what? Well, I reached out to David Snow and said, I'm this kid. I love the motorcycles. Can I write for Iron Horse Magazine? He says, if it's good. I'll publish it. Okay. It was the first person to ever listen to what this young weird kid had to say about motorcycles.

So anyway, that led me to a lot of interesting things, you know, going around and taking pictures of motorcycles and talking to the guys and having these interesting conversations and then 1990s 1995.

I went to this [00:17:00] motorcycle show to cover it for the, for Iron Horse Magazine, Baton Rouge. Oh, cool. And at that show, I saw one of the most amazing motorcycles I have ever seen in my life. It was a confederate and we kind of take it for granted today. But in 1995, there was nothing like that out. It was the very first hardcore bad ass.

Street muscle bike that featured a big honking V Twin engine. It was

Andrea Hiott: all about that V Twin, wasn't it? Or can you describe it a little bit, like when you first

JT Nesbitt: saw it? It was just so far ahead of its time. Subsequently, a lot of guys have done this and tried to put them into production. And they'll always be second best to that original Confederate because it actually had a lot of engineering involved in making these things.

[00:18:00] So, uh. I was blown away by the by the aesthetic and by the engineering and by the overall gestalt of this machine, uh, and I talked to the guy who was there standing around the bike. I'm like, what even is this? This is amazing. Turns out that was Matt Chambers. And he was just as weird then as he is now.

He's like exactly the same. Uh,

Andrea Hiott: yeah, great. That's good to

JT Nesbitt: hear. So, uh,

Andrea Hiott: Did you hit it off

JT Nesbitt: immediately or? Well, later on, I called him and told him I was coming to Daytona. And wanted to do a full test ride for the magazine. And we did that, but I never forgot that, that bike that he had with him, the early, uh, the early bikes that were built in Baton Rouge on Christian street.

Oh, those to me have the most resonance. So there's [00:19:00] real early machines. And a few years back, one popped up, uh, a guy in Lafayette bought one off the West coast and he's a friend of mine. And I said, man, if you ever decided to sell that, he's like, I'm going to get it running. If you ever decide to sell it, call me.

Well, a couple years go by and he called me. Said, well, I just don't have the horsepower to, to finish this project. You want it? Oh, wow. Damn right, I want it. You have one? I have chassis number three. Oh, my. Which, which is the exact motorcycle that I saw. In 1995, when I went to the show at Baton Rouge. You're kidding.

It's one of the, it's possibly the oldest Confederate motorcycle in existence. And,

Andrea Hiott: and. It's like almost fate or something. It had to come back to

JT Nesbitt: you. It's, it's real weird. And through the process of [00:20:00] restoration, cause the bike was missing parts. It had been torn apart. It had, it had been in Katrina. It had been flooded out and then wound up on the West Coast somehow.

And it was missing a bunch of pieces. So I had to remake a bunch of stuff. And, and I still have the brochure and all

Andrea Hiott: from that event back in the 90s.

JT Nesbitt: Yes, and all the technical drawings I've later found a friend of mine has all the blueprints and on blueprints from 1995. Oh, wow. So, I was able to get this bike back together and now I've, I've got it.

I ride it every once in a blue moon, but what exciting what people need to understand about confederate motorcycles is that they're not. They're not fake Harlins. Think of it this way. A confederate motorcycle is like an American rough superior. Where what [00:21:00] George Brough did is he, he bought in the best engines he could find the best components, made his own chassis, and then sold it to celebrities for a lot of money.

That's exactly what a Brough Superior is. And there was a period in time where Brough Superiors Uh, we're just like used motorcycles that nobody really cared about. So eventually people are going to understand that, that these, that those early Confederate motorcycles are real special.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah. I mean, they kind of literally are, they're just creations that are strange and unexpected and still don't even really fit very well into other narratives.

JT Nesbitt: They just, it just needs more time. Mm hmm. So how did you To soak in for people to understand what they are, and really for the next generation to come along and say, wait a minute, these, these are special things.

Andrea Hiott: So I want [00:22:00] to know how you ended up designing with Matt, but first this fake Harley thing, why do you say they're not fake Harleys?

Is that something you hear a lot? People just think it's

JT Nesbitt: like a At the time It was the very first like hardcore performance kind of American. It's not a cruiser. It's more of a long wheelbase. I would say it's a luxury motorcycle, but they're way too aggressive to be called luxury. It might be a luxury product, but it's certainly not a luxury experience.

They are brutally fast. But, but competent, you know, they're, they actually go around a corner. They stop real well, good suspension, good, good motorcycle. Um, but at the time, anyway, at the time, um, you know, in, in about 2000, I guess there was a real big surge of guys putting [00:23:00] together kind of imitation Harlins that happened to use the twin motors.

I didn't know that. I'm talking about like big dog. and Iron Horse and, uh, Titan. I mean, there were all these little companies popping up that were basically going into the catalog and buying parts and putting them together. And it, they looked like Harleys and they emulated the Harley experience. Whereas the Confederate stuff, the original was, was not about buy this instead of a Harley.

So it kind of got lost in, in, in the mix, but I have. full faith and confidence that at some point people are going to wake up to what they really were.

Andrea Hiott: Well, I think you're probably right about that. But so you came in at what number was, it was like only the second or third bike, right, that he was making, Matt?

JT Nesbitt: [00:24:00] Yeah, I was there for the, from very early on, uh, And I pretty much knew at that time that what I wanted to do with my life is build motorcycles in Louisiana. So this is like a 30 year. That's what you've been doing. Thing that, that I have been fixated on. You say

Andrea Hiott: build. This is interesting to me because we just talked about you being kind of a, I mean, you're an artist and we were talking about using your hands and, and building, but also, you know, you're known as the designer of the bike.

I I'm, how do you see this relationship? Is it all one process for you building, designing the

JT Nesbitt: innovation part? Look, I need a lot of help to do it. I'm not a solid works guy and I'm not really much of an illustrator. I'm more of a charcoal and newsprint kind [00:25:00] of guy who conceptualizes stuff and then works with another guy who does solid works and then another guy who does, you know, real nice pretty illustrations.

I see. Um, but you got to have on a, on a team that is responsible for building the motorcycles. You got to have one guy who sees the big picture. Who knows a lot about bearings, who knows a lot about hardware, all the little bits, all the electrical connectors, uh, all the weird little things, the widgets, you've got to have a guy who understands widgets and geometry.

And that's, that's kind of my role. And history. I mean, the history of motorcycles is so incredibly important. Just like I mentioned earlier, if you're going to be so called artists, the word doesn't really mean anything. The one thing you got to know is art history. Why is that so important? Well, if you're, if you're, if you're painting, [00:26:00] uh, if you're painting Campbell's Soup Cans in 2023.

You need to know Andy. You're telling the world's oldest knock knock joke. Yeah. You look like a fool because that, that, that was a joke that was played on the idle rich to fleece them of their cash. So, doing Andy Warhol style so called art, you're missing the point. The point was the joke. So you see this

Andrea Hiott: more as a historical, continuous kind of process that you're part of.

I mean, even this collaboration that you have to have in order to make the bike seems like part of that too. It's, it's um, it's not a joke, I guess is what I'm saying. This is

JT Nesbitt: serious. Oh, I've dedicated my whole life to this. Yeah. This is, this is real. Like the stakes are high for me. [00:27:00] Yes, and they are. This is what I do.

This is, this is why I'm on planet Earth. And knowing why you're here and what your purpose is, is a blessing and a curse. Because when you get to do what you're supposed to be doing, it's, it's blissful. It's the most happy you'll ever be. But when you're not doing it, it's the most miserable you'll ever be.

Andrea Hiott: Mm hmm. And you have no choice but to do it in a way, you know, you have to do it. So yeah, whatever comes you're going to keep going. Have you had some pretty tough moments in that regard over all? I know, I know just the company has too, but what do you think's been sort of the, the hardest part of it all?

JT Nesbitt: Uh, well, it's always been finding the money. Yeah. It's getting the support. That's the hardest part is finding money. Absolutely. And, you know, [00:28:00] being undercapitalized is something that I know really well. I've been rubbing two sticks together to make a motorcycle for the past 30 years. Yeah. So, being fully, like, funded and have all the resources.

Mm hmm. Be a nice, refreshing change of pace. But all this, all this work, all this Work in the trenches, uh, is good preparation for that moment.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah. And you'll definitely do it from the right place and it'll be worth it. And it's a completely different success than a minute ago. I said, it's not a joke. And of course it's not a joke, but I do think a lot of people.

Go into, well, first of all, as you know, most motorcycle companies don't last very long, but there is, there are different reasons for going into these kinds of endeavors or startup starting up something. And it can be money or it can be just, you know, wanting to look [00:29:00] cool or something. And, but when you do it from this place that you described, which is you kind of have to do it, like you've just gotten clear about what you want and now you're going to go for it.

Um, I think eventually the success does come, but it can be a long road, but when it does come. I mean, in a way, there's a lot of success that comes before this big success where you don't have to worry about money, for example.

JT Nesbitt: Well, define success. Say that again? Define success.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, I guess that's, you know, as I'm talking, I'm realizing it because I think it's already a success, isn't it?

To be doing what you know you wanna do and to have that clarity and to get up every day and work towards that in a way that's more important than the monetary success. But

JT Nesbitt: money, profit and money are an outcome. That's not a goal.

Andrea Hiott: And yet it's this hard, the hardest part of it all. You said so. [00:30:00]

JT Nesbitt: Well, I mean, should, shouldn't, shouldn't effort be the be the goal, the the ability to achievement. That's the goal. Mm-Hmm. . And, and, and, and profit is, is the result of, of effort. Uh, ideas have no value, but, but, uh,

Andrea Hiott: That's a big statement. Ideas have no value?

I can't agree with that. What, what do you mean? They don't. They don't have any value. You mean a monetary value or you mean overall value? I

JT Nesbitt: mean overall. Ideas do not have value. What has value is passion, but passion only has value when coupled with work. It's the work that has value.

Andrea Hiott: Sorry, my dog is making a lot of noise here.

I have to apologize for that. Yes, I, I, I don't think you can separate value and work and all these things though, can you? And the idea, from the idea I mean, isn't it part of, I mean, I'm not sure like you, you, [00:31:00] you have this idea, this kind of picture or vision of your life and, and then you act it and you follow through on it.

But that doesn't mean the idea is not important. In fact, it seems almost like the fuel behind it all. I don't

JT Nesbitt: know. I think that we're kind of in a place where a really strange place where, where people want to have, have financial reward based on their ideas. And, and that's kind of like, uh, something that's really, I hear that all the time from young people.

If you ask a young person, what, what do they want to do with their lives? They, they say, well, I want to be rich. I want to have lots of money and lots of employees, but they don't say stuff like, I want to build motorcycles in New Orleans.

Andrea Hiott: Right. [00:32:00] Why do you think that is though? Uh, is it that they don't, I mean, do they even think of that as an option?

Because a lot of times we just kind of grow up and we see, oh, everyone likes this person who's making a lot of money and is famous, so that's probably what I should try to become because I want to be liked. I mean, you're not even consciously thinking that. You're just going with it. It's Well,

JT Nesbitt: the super rich people in our culture right now, it seems like they, they, they make money off of their ideas more than off of their effort.

Can you give me an example of like what you want me to do? What they're doing is they're co opting other people's, they're just thieves. They're just stealing other people's actual work.

Andrea Hiott: Because it's all continuous as we were talking about. No one really has an original idea, mostly

JT Nesbitt: you. Yeah, in other words, I'm going to develop an app for my phone.

Okay. And that app is going to make me rich. But for some reason, that just [00:33:00] doesn't really, that doesn't really resonate with me. I don't know why I don't like that. It doesn't feel right. Mm hmm.

Andrea Hiott: It's definitely weird and strange. It's like a virtual virtual world where instead of creating with the hands as you talked about earlier, it's a virtual building, which I think is just a very different place to be.

I do think you can build things like apps that actually help people and transport them and to talk about motoring actually do move them. in a positive way. For me, it seems more about the intention and um, how much you've thought about it. You thought a lot about what you wanted to do and you put a lot of effort and work into it and

JT Nesbitt: well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring out an old, I'm gonna bring out an old chestnut to kind of wrap this up.

There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who want to take a samurai sword and learn how to cut with that sword [00:34:00] and inflict violence with that sword. And then there are those who want to know the secrets to how those swords are made. I'm the guy who wants to know how they're made.

Andrea Hiott: I like that.

Do you think you're just born that way though? Or, I mean, I feel like I'm trying to get at some Bigger thing which is it's there's something humans want right and it and it's something like meaning or purpose I think and I kind of hear what you're saying is that you feel like a lot of young people have gotten confused and think the meaning and purpose is the money or the Creating something that everyone knows about not necessarily like the act the act of the creation itself

JT Nesbitt: What they're looking for is authenticity Okay

And there's very little of that.

Andrea Hiott: You don't, you definitely don't get it with the price tag. I mean, [00:35:00] not always. I mean, it may be the price tag, but it's not, it's not the money itself that brings authenticity. You might want to pay more for something that's authentic, but that's different than, for example, someone who's really young, just trying to make a lot of money in order to find meaning in their life, right?

The authenticity is kind of lost in that, I guess.

JT Nesbitt: Yeah. Well, uh, man, uh, you know, it's really depressing. The more young people I talk to, the more young people tell me that they don't want a motorcycle.

Andrea Hiott: I don't know if they know what a motorcycle is, though, especially not an LEV.

JT Nesbitt: Their parents tell them that they're not allowed to have a motorcycle.

Like your dad did. And they accept that.

Like, there's no rebellion there. There's no, rebellion has lost its, its, its value. There's value just in being a rebel. But you wouldn't know it, you wouldn't know it talking to your average millennial. [00:36:00]

Andrea Hiott: I think that, that seems like rebellion is more about escape, or getting drunk, or doing drugs, or something like this, maybe?

Rather than pursuing something like Or

JT Nesbitt: being social. Having the, the, the, the addiction of, of being social.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, that's true. There's this, also this element of clicks, and follows, and likes, and this literal kind of physical addiction to technology. That's very different than this experience of riding the motorcycle and the motorcycle sort of being an extension of you in that way.

JT Nesbitt: Yeah, or, or, or being a hermit. It's not a very popular thing these days is like being a recluse, and just doing your work in your own way, and not [00:37:00] shouting out shouting out making a big deal about it. Just, just, just doing it. Yeah, look, just, just leave me alone so I can do what I want to do. That's what, that's what real rebellion means to me.

Andrea Hiott: Well, there's something complicated here. Maybe we can talk about it a little bit, because I'm thinking about Hunter S. Thompson, for example, who, Matt and I had a little talk about him. Uh, in the podcast, but, and this idea of the edge, and edge work, and like, the only people who know the edge are the ones who've gone over it, and, this kind of, um, rebellion, I think can serve a purpose, but I'm not sure that, like, I'm not sure that that's where the meaning is either, you know, maybe it can wake you up, and make you, Try to find meaning in a different way, but are you saying that you think this rebellion itself, like, just in a Hunter S.

Thompson kind of way where you just go to extremes just to feel alive, um, that there's some meaning in that? [00:38:00] And that's kind of the only way because I, I, Thomas

JT Nesbitt: Thomas Thompson was a writer last time I checked. He

Andrea Hiott: was a writer, but you know, he rode motorcycles a lot as you know, and he, he was with road with Hell's Angels and he wrote about riding motorcycles.

JT Nesbitt: And the greatest thing he ever wrote was an article for cycle world magazine. I believe it came out in 1992 or. It was called Song of the Sausage Creature, and it's one of the greatest pieces of writing about motorcycling I've ever read.

Andrea Hiott: Oh, wow. I gotta look at that. I've never read it. Why is it so great?

JT Nesbitt: It's just, you know, he was a wordsmith and, and he was, and putting all that. But in all of his crazy stuff, he was also a personality, he was a celebrity, and I think he enjoyed being a celebrity. But at the end of the day, the guy was a damn good writer. Yeah. That was his, that was his passion, that was his craft.

And he was, he was good at it. I think all the other [00:39:00] stuff that he did was kind of like, uh, you know, it's kind of like, it's kind of Ziggy Stardust.

Andrea Hiott: What does that mean? I know Ziggy Stardust, but what are you saying? It was just, uh, well,

JT Nesbitt: David Bowie had a personality, a character they invented called Ziggy Stardust.

He was also a good musician, right? So the Ziggy Stardust character at some point, David Bowie put on the show. And then revert it back to just being David Bowie. But

Andrea Hiott: I think there's something deeper here that I'm trying to get at. I think interestingly,

JT Nesbitt: uh, Michael Jackson taught me how to moonwalk.

Andrea Hiott: Are you serious?

Yeah, I'm serious. In person or are you talking about listening to Michael Jackson? Let me tell you the

JT Nesbitt: story. It's pretty good. Okay. So, after Formula One in 2006, I got invited, it was in the Middle East, and I got invited to go. [00:40:00] There was this real intimate party, there were only maybe 30 people there, at this small party after the race.

The guy who won the race, Michael Schumacher, was at this party. Oh wow, gosh. And Michael Jackson showed up. And Michael Jackson asked me, uh, he found out I was from New Orleans. And this was right after Katrina, and he's like, man, can I, can I talk to you about, you know, what's going on in your, in your city, which of course, and we sat down, we talked for a couple of

Andrea Hiott: hours.

Wow. JT, man, that's quite a, that's quite something. Yeah. Well,

JT Nesbitt: here's the thing. Uh, Michael Jackson. Yeah. Yeah. Like, his whole weird persona, like, that was all make up. His weird, scratchy, high voice, that was all put on. So that was Michael Jackson playing a character, just like David Bowie played Ziggy Stardust.

The only difference is that Michael Jackson never could [00:41:00] take that character off and put that character on the shelf.

His voice wasn't high and squeaky. It was about like my voice, not super deep, not high pitch. And he was like just this nice, cool guy. So, you know, I ran through the whole thing about what was happening in New Orleans. And we were sitting there hanging out. And, and the DJ, there was a little dance floor that they had set up.

The DJ played Don't Stop Till You Get Enough by Michael Jackson. And I said, Michael, would you, would you mind giving me a couple of lessons about how to moonwalk? And he's like, of course. So I'm on this dance floor with Michael Jackson. And Michael Schumacher, the greatest Formula One driver of all time, learning how to moonwalk to Don't Stop Till You Get Enough by Michael Jackson with Michael Jackson.

Andrea Hiott: That's crazy. It's almost unbelievable.

JT Nesbitt: Look, this, this motorcycle, this [00:42:00] motorcycle thing, this motorcycle business is so crazy. What it brings to your life. You wouldn't believe, you wouldn't believe the interesting people that float around you when you're selling super high-end motorcycles.

Andrea Hiott: Well, I know a bunch of people liked your first bike was, or was it your second that you made for Confederate Thera?

Was that the second one that you designed?

JT Nesbitt: Yeah, the the G two. The G two Hellcat was, I took the bike. You just redid it all. Right. More or less the the same chassis. I mean, everything changed. But more or less the same powertrain and just kind of refreshed it, shortened it up, made it a little more proportionate, sorted out some of the ergonomic issues of the earlier bikes, and then unfortunately put a big old tire on the back of it because that was kind of the style of time.

Yeah, it's one of my big regrets is kind of [00:43:00] going with fashion instead of engineering and putting that big tire on. I mean it looks It looks pretty cool. I got to say, but

Andrea Hiott: did you not want to do it, but you did it because you thought it's what you should do. Or did you want it at the

JT Nesbitt: time? I just, I, to be honest with you, I just didn't know

Andrea Hiott: enough.

Yeah, you're really young,

JT Nesbitt: really young. I just didn't really know enough. And, and, but, but the bike had some interesting stuff going on. That's the world's first motorcycle. On the first bike that I really did from the ground up has an exhaust to the swing arm, which no one had done before, and no one's done since

Andrea Hiott: you have quite some innovations with the swing arm.

JT Nesbitt: Yeah, the little me that's sitting in my shop right now right behind me. Yeah. For

Andrea Hiott: those who don't know, we were your, your, your zoom video is of you in the shop. So what, what is this Emmy behind you? It looks, [00:44:00] I'm definitely

JT Nesbitt: intrigued by it. So a good friend of mine went to Mecham auction this year and he knew how crazy I was for this little German motorcycle that was made post war and he bought one and brought it over to my shop for me to study and really analyze.

I'm, I'm doing a series of sketches on it. Uh, it's built, built by Norbert Riedel.

Andrea Hiott: It looked like an NSU or something to me at first. Who's

JT Nesbitt: Norbert? NSU. I'm a huge fan of, of NSU as well. That, that was led by, um, uh, Albert Roeder was the head of design for NSU. And I've had an NSU 250 and NSU 250 max was actually the last, uh, motorcycle to win a Grand Prix that was based on a street motorcycle.

Oh, so I'm a huge, there's something about this post war German austerity. That really caused a rebirth of wonderful design. How does that Emmy fit in with that? Well, [00:45:00] when, when Norbert Riedel went to design this motorcycle, the entire chassis is based on one set, one spot, one, one schedule of, of tubing. So the swing arm, the chassis, the front end, it's all built out of the same piece of tube.

Oh, wow. Um, and, and the engine is actually bolted to the swing arm and swings kind of like a scooter almost on the other side of the swing arm. It's kind of hard to describe, but the bottom line is. It's it's minimalism. It's minimalistic in its bill of materials. It's a wonderfully beautiful, successful design as a motorcycle.

It's not very good. But as a but as a piece of industrial design, it's just glorious.

Andrea Hiott: How did those two things go together? Is that often the case [00:46:00] that you tweak the design and you

JT Nesbitt: mess it up? Well, you know, you got to have a little bit of cognitive dissonance when it comes to, when it comes to weird motorcycles.

You can have a motorcycle that's, that's, that's horrible and still love it at the same time. Uh, my daily ride is a 1977. It's an AMF era Harley Davidson shovelhead electric line. A shovelhead,

Andrea Hiott: really?

JT Nesbitt: In brown.

Andrea Hiott: Oh! What? What kind of choice was that?

JT Nesbitt: If you poll 8 out of 10 hardcore motorcycle people and ask them, what's the worst motorcycle ever built?

8 out of 10 are going to say it's an AMF era Harley Davidson. And if you ask them what's the ugliest bike ever made, they'll say, well, it's an AMF era Harley Davidson in brown. I was

Andrea Hiott: about to say, and what color would definitely, yeah.

JT Nesbitt: Yeah. I love it. It's so much fun. [00:47:00]

Andrea Hiott: Well, I want to get to this form function thing.

Cause I think you actually made a success with the Curtis one, right. Where you actually made a bike a bit like that Emmy behind you in terms of the beauty of the design, but that actually also works as a motorcycle. But before we get to the LAVs, we got to talk a little bit about the ICs. And I brought up the Wraith a little bit ago because so many.

Interesting, famous, kind of whatever you want to call crazy personalities liked it. Um, what was that experience like for you? First, maybe for those who don't know new generation, like you could just say a little bit about that bike. And

JT Nesbitt: well, the most of the real wealthy, uh, uh, celebrity type people. And I won't name any names.

I'm naming on Michael Jackson because he's dead. Yeah. Uh, at least that's what they say. Okay,

Andrea Hiott: let's not get[00:48:00]

JT Nesbitt: They were actually drawn to the G2 Hellcat. Oh, okay. Yeah, because the shape forms were real organic and kind of easier to get your mind around. Okay. So all the celebrities of the day, they were all on G2 Hellcats. Oh, so that was the

Andrea Hiott: Hellcat, okay.

JT Nesbitt: The Wraith is a little too out there. It's, uh, one just came up for auction recently.

And it's interesting to see people say how, how, how much they love that bike. And at the time, in 2004, when it really came out, people were horrified. People were angry about that. Um, it wasn't just, I don't like it. It was, you, I hate you for making it. It's too, it's horrible. We hate it. It was

Andrea Hiott: a lot of overload, like the Tchaikovsky or what's the, one of the [00:49:00] big composers who had this kind of crazy dissonant now, now to us, it doesn't sound dissonant at all, but yeah, right.

Exactly. It's like a bit too much for people to handle. So they have to riot

JT Nesbitt: Stravinsky's

Andrea Hiott: rights of spring exactly. Rights of spring. Yeah. Great. When it

JT Nesbitt: came out, people were like pulling their hair out at the theater. This is terrible. We get us out of here. But like I said, one just came up, a Wraith came up for auction recently, and all the comments were like, Oh my God, this is like the coolest motorcycle I've ever seen.

You know, it was like 20 years ago.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, maybe that's kind of what I've heard because I feel like there's a lot of positive stuff. What's up with that? Why

JT Nesbitt: is it 20 years later people start to get it? You know, that's Yeah. And that's, that's really not good design, technically speaking. Good design, you want to have, you don't want to have a 20 year lag.

You want to have like a three year lag. [00:50:00] So when it comes out, it's challenging.

Andrea Hiott: Mm hmm. But I think this speaks to the, this thing I'm trying to get at too with you, because there's this, like art, for example, often this happens, as we just talked about with the Stravinsky, that something is ahead of its time.

And it's just, people can't handle it because it's just, like, too different from what they're used to. It's, like, exploding, kind of, the, their sensory statistical regularities. That happens often in art, that then, 20 years later, it's, like, the cool thing that everyone takes for granted. Or it's become just commonplace because, like, now everyone knows it or uses it.

So, Motorcycles aren't usually like that, because in the way that you're talking, right? It should, it should work pretty immediately, right? To be a success, but that's kind of this weird thing with you. It's, it's art too, you know? It's not just a

JT Nesbitt: machine. There's a great quote by, uh, by Charles Eames. You know who that is?

Yeah, for designers. Charles and Ray Eames. They're actually a couple. [00:51:00] They both deserve credit. Typically, Ray doesn't get the credit that she deserves.

Andrea Hiott: They did Powers of Ten too, right?

JT Nesbitt: The quote from Charles Eames is, and I'll paraphrase, it is that the label artist isn't something that you would ever place upon yourself.

It's a, it's a term that other people may choose to refer you to as, but you would never, you would never introduce yourself as an artist. Like I would never go up to somebody, Hey, I'm JT. I'm an artist. It's kind of like saying, Hey, uh, I'm JT. I'm a genius, right? Nice to meet you. Cause that

Andrea Hiott: word is just so

JT Nesbitt: dirty.

It's been so, so corrupted and co opted and now everybody's artist and. And it doesn't mean anything,

Andrea Hiott: but it does. It does. But I see what you're saying. It's hard [00:52:00] to call yourself.

JT Nesbitt: I would never call myself an artist.

Andrea Hiott: That's weird how we can't call ourselves these things.

JT Nesbitt: Painters paint, sculptors sculpt, artists promote themselves shamelessly.

And they use that term Is that a

Andrea Hiott: Picasso

JT Nesbitt: quote? That's my quote. They use that term to cover up All of their bad behavior,

Andrea Hiott: not take responsibility for the, the actions. I think that goes a little to this Hunter S Thompson thing too, of, I mean, he was a writer, but it was also, I don't know, there, there's, there's some other, like, I feel like there's a, there's something a lot of people are seeking and all these different professions and, and, and things that is common.

There's also this, um, danger, kind of, of also going to this [00:53:00] place that you're describing now by this word artist, where you're just, I don't know, you're not doing it for the right reasons or you're just a bit lost, trying to escape or please someone or, I don't know.

JT Nesbitt: I'm, I'm a motorcycle guy. That's enough for me.

I'm, I'm totally happy

Andrea Hiott: with that. You don't need to be called an artist or a designer, but people need words like that for you. But it's, it does kind of go across these lines, which maybe that's actually the better definition of a real artist, but of course you can't say that for yourself. But anyway, okay.

So how many ICs did, have you owned or not owned? We'll talk about that later. I know you've owned a lot. How many have you designed? Or helps build or whatever we want to say, been part of since this early days,

JT Nesbitt: I average since, uh, 1991, I've averaged about [00:54:00] three motorcycles, three to four motorcycles a year.

Oh, my gosh. And those aren't just objects that I buy. I mean, those are, those are things that I've, all the motorcycles that I've owned, I've serviced and, and, you know, studied, sometimes modified, unfortunately, sometimes modified badly, which I usually regret. Oh. Uh, and, but, but mainly, um, objects that I've cared and, and being a good caretaker for these objects.

Is hugely important to me.

Andrea Hiott: So, so you I love it that you answered that question that way because I meant more like with confederate or with a company that you've, you know, built, but you see all the bikes that you've ever owned or that have ever come into your life as sort of part of this. Yeah.

JT Nesbitt: [00:55:00] I mean, look, the, the, the, to be a good chef, to be a good chef you, you have to know a lot about food, which means you got to taste all different kinds of.

Food from all over the world and understand how it's prepared. That's what a good chef does. Good chef. Doesn't say I know how to make my grandma's gumbo. The end.

Andrea Hiott: I don't know how to

JT Nesbitt: make my grandmother's gumbo. Um, I make the best gumbo in the world, but I don't call myself a chef.

So knowing everything that there is to know about motorcycles. That you can in a lifetime means you have to buy a bunch of weird bikes and take them apart and put them back together, tune them and modify them and make them better. If you can. I mean, that's the [00:56:00] 1st rule of owning of ownership of being a good caretaker is do no harm.

So that's the rule that I use. With all of this crazy motorcycles that I've owned through the, throughout the year.

Andrea Hiott: Have you learned a lot from messing up and failing sometimes too, though? When you try to modify them or when you just, just in general, trying to design?

JT Nesbitt: Yeah, damn right.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, and that's also a teacher, I

JT Nesbitt: guess.

Yeah, I've taken apart, I've taken apart and put back together literally hundreds of motors.

Andrea Hiott: I love that. I would love to be able to do that or, or a car or something. Well, I'm a,

JT Nesbitt: I'm a mechanic too, so. I've run a shop where I fixed motorcycles for a living.

Andrea Hiott: And that informs your design, I guess, right? I

JT Nesbitt: still do that from time to time.

Well, you know, I've got a couple of eccentric, wonderful friends who don't mind spending money on strange motorcycles. And whenever they do that, [00:57:00] they're going to need service. They're going to need to be. You know, gone through and, and I volunteer, please let me, let me work on that. I've never, I've never taken one of those apart.

I sure would like to see how it works. The Norton Rotary is one of my most successful recommissions. I took a Norton Rotary and got it back to work and again, what a. Awesome motorcycle. What a challenge. How much time did that take? It took me a couple of months to figure it out, to get my mind around how it worked.

It's so different. Is it? Yeah, I got a buddy with a Hesca.

Andrea Hiott: I don't even know what a Hesca is, I'm sorry

JT Nesbitt: to say. It was horrible, yeah. That motorcycle, I felt like I got sexually assaulted. Oh gosh. But I pushed that bike finally out of my shop.

Andrea Hiott: Was it just, is it just, is it like the logic of it or something as you start to kind of, do you kind of figure out the code of it as you start to take it apart?

Yeah, the Hesketh,

JT Nesbitt: the Hesketh is so weird, man. [00:58:00] The engine runs. Backwards so it doesn't run the right way, but it has the camshaft running in a different direction from the direction of the motor.

Andrea Hiott: I already have a

JT Nesbitt: headache figuring out the timing of it. Like, how do you time this thing? Like, am I advancing the timing or am I retarded?

Andrea Hiott: Okay, let's let's let's not talk about that. It hurts me. Okay, but so are these all ICS internal combustion engines. Is that kind of what we're talking about. So, Okay, cool. You've made a big shift, right? To this designing the LEV. What can, can you tell me a little bit about how that came about and how you, I mean, what has your, do you, have you always been open to LEVs?

JT Nesbitt: No, I never have. Okay. You know, if you had asked me five years ago, what do you think about electric motorcycles, I would say, well, I'm not really that interested in them and and it turns as it turns out I was right, [00:59:00] because the electric motorcycles that are out there running around aren't aren't really in my mind designed from the first principles to really be an electric motorcycle.

Andrea Hiott: Can you tell me what you mean by first principles? Are you talking about minimalism and things like this?

JT Nesbitt: Look, let's not get on the bandwagon to talk about how EVs are the greatest thing in the world and are going to save the planet. They come with their own, just like everything else. They come with their own difficulties and, and problems, and it's not like this panacea.

Andrea Hiott: No, electricity is not free. We forget this. Batteries are also consuming resources, but.

JT Nesbitt: Yeah, and, and the electricity in, in many parts of the world comes from, you know, combustion from burning natural gas

Andrea Hiott: and coal. Coal and stuff still, yeah.

JT Nesbitt: So in many [01:00:00] ways, uh, there's, there's, uh, in many ways, Uh, EVs are actually external combustion vehicles.

Andrea Hiott: Oh, I've never heard that before. What do you mean? Because the combustion happens elsewhere and then is

JT Nesbitt: It, it, it still happens, it just doesn't happen internally, it happens externally.

Andrea Hiott: Hmm. Is that always the case though?

JT Nesbitt: No, not always the case. But isn't that an interesting thought experiment? That

Andrea Hiott: is.

Yeah.

JT Nesbitt: You definitely have an internal combustion engine. It's an external combustion vehicle.

Andrea Hiott: Right. I think the argument I've heard when I've tried to broach the subject with other people, mostly in the car world. Yeah. Who wanting to say, yeah, electric is the answer to everything is. Which it is, I mean, it is a good thing is that we need to, we need it all.

Right. We can't just have the internal combustion engine and, and it can also help us maybe modify that. And it's different sources of energy, right? That [01:01:00] somehow this is kind of a

JT Nesbitt: positive. Well, that that's, and, but that's all virtue segment. The one thing that they're not talking about is the resources that are consumed in the making of the vehicle.

Uh, if you want to build. If you want to build clean vehicles that are actually clean, whether they're internal combustion or electric or EV, the key is to make them so that they never get thrown away. Okay,

Andrea Hiott: that's a good point. That's definitely not what's happening.

JT Nesbitt: Yeah, which means that that is bad for the environment.

Look, if your EV, which doesn't produce any emissions, is pretty much guaranteed to be in the landfill in 10 years, you have failed in your mission to be sustainable. Mm

Andrea Hiott: hmm. It's a planned obsolescence kind of thing that's been going on for how long now? [01:02:00] Forever, I guess.

JT Nesbitt: You've done harm. Haven't helped anything that hurt the world by making disposable vehicles.

So

Andrea Hiott: why do we do it? Just to make money? Money. Yeah. Do you think people are really thinking about it at the top? And as consumers that there's another choice maybe to make something that will last? Or is that even a choice? I know it is now with the Curtis One, we'll get to that, but has that been a choice?

JT Nesbitt: Yes, of course. My Bentley, I drive a Bentley. Talk about irony. I design electric vehicles for a living, and I drive, not daily of course, but once in a blue moon, I drive a vehicle that has the worst fuel economy of any passenger vehicle made in the modern age. It gets nine miles to the gallon. What, [01:03:00] which

Andrea Hiott: Bentley are we talking about?

I have

JT Nesbitt: an 08, I have an 08 azure, sort of the last of the handmade, truly English handmade cars. Wow. That's that series of Bentley azure and Arnages, 07, 08, and 09 are really the last real Bentley slash Rolls Royce car. Uh huh. Um, but here's the thing. Let's say I drive my Bentley a thousand miles a year, which is about what I'm averaging.

That's a lot. That car will never be thrown away. It will always retain value. It will always be special. It will always have somebody to come along and say, you know what? That one's not going to the scrap yard. Why

Andrea Hiott: is that? Is that because of the way it was built or because of, I mean, is this a kind of luxury in a sense that it was built to last or is it the story of the car or?

JT Nesbitt: Well, it's all of the [01:04:00] above. Quality of construction, quality of materials, the passion of the women that it took to make the thing at 400 at the car retailed in 08 for over 400, 000 and they lost money on every one they made. Oof, but it lasts. That's a great story. Yeah. It's a great

Andrea Hiott: story. It is a great story and it's Still here.

Yeah. So, so do you think that an LEV has more potential of being, um, sustainable in this way, lasting, than an IC? Ours does. Okay, but the ones before didn't. So what's different about the Curtis One, which is an LEV, a light electric vehicle?

JT Nesbitt: It's materials, it's passion, it's quality of construction, it's beauty of design, you've got an individual.[01:05:00]

Small group of people who are working on this project, they all have stories that will be told eventually.

Andrea Hiott: There's some amazing innovations in this, in this bike. I mean, it looks amazing. I just can't, I just love the way it looks. Also, you know, you look at every little part and it's just, you get more excited because it's like every little part is beautiful

JT Nesbitt: and there, there will never be a day when, when one of these motorcycles will be thrown away.

Are they, are they expensive? Radically so, but it's not because we want, we don't want to make inexpensive motorcycles. It just costs what it costs because our team is so small.

Andrea Hiott: It's a small team. Everyone's. Very focused and cares about what they're doing, but you also use pretty expensive materials, right?

I mean, every. It's like, I'm right. Every carbon fiber, titanium. Yeah, there's,

JT Nesbitt: there's [01:06:00] no, I mean, there are a handful, but the vast majority of these parts are all made specifically for this

Andrea Hiott: motorcycle. Can you talk about how like this I've heard you talk before about this idea of minimalism because what's something that's special about this, this bike and I don't know if there are other bikes like this I'd like to know is that most of the parts have more than one function.

Every part has a function except I think there might be one kind of ornamental piece I'm not sure. And then. A lot of those parts are doing different things. So, I mean, this is kind of, this to me is really a new idea that you can have like, what is it like 70 percent of the parts are, are reused in different ways or something.

Can you tell me a little bit about how this came about and what, if I've just got it right, what I just said?

JT Nesbitt: Well, it's, it's about approaching the word minimalism, not as an applique of styling. Minimalism is [01:07:00] about the bill of materials. On the motor side and respect for material. Um, just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should thinking very long and carefully about tool paths and how these parts are actually going to get made and how much waste is going to be made from the making of the individual parts.

It's all something that really fed in the design of the bike. Um, well, when, when you see the motorcycle, you know, something that most people don't really get at first blush is that the front suspension members and the rear suspension members. The front and the rear of the exact same parts. So if you look at the shaft is look if you look at the four blades, it's a girder front end.

You look at the individual blades, and then you look at the rear of the motorcycle. The blades in the rear are exactly the same as the ones in the front. [01:08:00] It's part number one quantity four. Now the problem is because these parts are bilaterally symmetrical, which means that they can be used not just for an app, but but port and starboard.

Is that when you make a design change on a part, those parts particularly, it doesn't happen in, in one place, that change. It doesn't happen in four places. It happens in eight places because the parts are bilaterally symmetric.

Andrea Hiott: And so what does that, what does that giving to the bike or to the. To the what's I mean,

JT Nesbitt: it's never been that look, this has never been done before.

No one's ever, no one's ever designed a motorcycle and said, okay, instead of designing a swing arm and, and, and designing and then buying in some 14, let's make [01:09:00] the swing arm, the front and rear suspension work off the same basic parts. That's entirely new.

Andrea Hiott: Does that make it easier for someone who doesn't.

Does it make it easier to repair and understand?

JT Nesbitt: Well, on, you know, a lot of people would say, Oh, well, it's because it's more scalable. Because you only have to manufacture one part and then that goes all over the bike. And there is some of that. But economy of design also leads to a, a lyricism visual. So there's this repetition of, of shape and form that even though you, you may, you may engage with the object, and subconsciously, you get it, because these forms, have this melody, there's a rhythm to the design.

You may not really get it at first blush, but [01:10:00] once it's explained to you that these shape forms live throughout the motorcycle, not only in positive space, but also in negative space. I think that's the ultimate expression of, of good design.

Andrea Hiott: It's very organic too. And very, all of you often talk about the bike as living and breathing and as an organic process.

And hearing you say this about the parts, it makes me think of like. earlier, um, design and streamlining or even kind of Bauhaus stuff or looking to life for life, animals and bodies and things like this to understand movement. And yeah, it is kind of, that is how life. evolves too, right? Reusing parts, um, in different places.

I mean, reusing patterns, you know, the same kind of patterns recur over and over and over again in different forms of life. That's, so it is really organic now that you explain it like that. I see what you mean.

JT Nesbitt: Um, but, [01:11:00] but on some level, this motorcycle is a love letter to Alexander Calder. Oh, I

Andrea Hiott: love. Oh, yeah.

I love Calder, but tell me I'm not making the connection yet because of the balance or the

JT Nesbitt: older invented kinetic sculpture really is responsible for inventing the movie. And if you study his work, what you'll find is this beautiful repetition of of shape that that moves, and they, the shapes change.

Their relationship to one another, but there's a real intelligence behind it. It's, uh, it's this kind of natural fluid intelligence that he that that that he worked real hard to get. I'm not going to say he was talented because I'm not going to take his word for it. His actual hard work away from him. So if you look at an Alexander Calder [01:12:00] Mobile and understand how those shapes exist in space and how they relate to one another and to the negative space, and then look at this motorcycle, uh, I think a little light bulb is gonna go off over your head.

I

Andrea Hiott: love it that you say that because, and this is just a side note that might not make any sense to anyone, but I have to say it because last year there was an Alexander Calder exhibit here in Berlin where I am, and I went to it, of course, and it sort of struck me there looking at all the mobiles that this was a better form.

to think about scientific evolution or the way that different species kind of change and move about than any other model I've seen in science, which I know that makes probably no sense to anyone, but it's exactly what you were just expressing. I think it's like re this balance and reusing of parts, but this very organic, uh, patterning that happens.

So I love it that that's connected to the motorcycle. I hadn't heard you say that it's a love letter to him before. [01:13:00] Had you thought about that as you were creating it or you just noticed after the fact?

JT Nesbitt: Yes, of course. If you look at, if you look at the Wraith, that's another very cold arrest. I was

Andrea Hiott: wondering, I wanted to ask you if your ICS had similar minimalist ideas.

Tell me how, how you connect those. Cause that it's like connecting a Buffalo to a, I don't know. It's seems very

JT Nesbitt: well, look, they're, they're entirely, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're. They're very similar and entirely different exercises, and it's really not something that I can talk about without showing.

Okay, just try it. What I do, what I do, this is a really weird format. Mm hmm. For me because I'm not a, uh, I'm not a talker. Yeah,

Andrea Hiott: you're doing good though. I mean, you're, I'm a visual guy. Well, people can look at, go look at the Wraith, go Google it right now and then [01:14:00] look at the Curtis one. And I guess you would have to actually be standing there and, and point and show how it's connected.

But I guess with the Wraith, for example, are you reusing, uh, stylistic patterns or parts or do

JT Nesbitt: you know, it's, it's, it's all based on, on a hieroglyph that really. It was generated by the engine itself and the nature of the engine being two cylinders off a seven cylinder radial engine. So using the crankshaft, the crankshaft centers, the journals, you know, the crankshaft to, to, uh, exploding that, that circle.

To see where it goes design wise. So the Wraith is nothing but a bunch of concentric circles. And so is, so is the Curtiss One. [01:15:00] Oh, that's fascinating. Every curve on that motorcycle is a section of a perfect circle.

Andrea Hiott: Do you have some sketches that you could put side by side or something of these? In your notebooks from way back?

You still have stuff like that?

JT Nesbitt: Uh, yeah, of course, but again, I mean, come to my studio and I'll bust out the newsprint and charcoal. I definitely will. Maybe put

Andrea Hiott: it on the blog.

JT Nesbitt: I want to talk to you. Just, just, just to be sure that everybody gets this, every curve on The race, and on the Curtis one is a section of a circle.

Andrea Hiott: I don't know what that reminds me of, but it might Oh Gaudi maybe, or something. The, the architect who never had a, who only had curves, never had a sharp

JT Nesbitt: corner. You ever, you ever [01:16:00] been on the, have you been on the Sagrada Familia

Andrea Hiott: in Barcelona. Yeah. Mm hmm. Is that also connected somehow?

JT Nesbitt: Uh, that, that building, that building terrifies me.

Oh,

Andrea Hiott: wow. I've never heard someone say it terrifies them. It's

JT Nesbitt: so, it's so wonderful and so beautiful and so terrifying at the same time. It's,

Andrea Hiott: Maybe you can describe it just a little bit. It's, it's, there's no sharp, there's no corner, there's no edge to this. It's basically, to me, it's like a fairy tale, dreamscape, kind of organic, plant like, I don't know what it is.

JT Nesbitt: It's, it's, it's overwhelming. Mm hmm. And it's, and it's beauty, and sometimes things can be overwhelmingly beautiful. Yeah. We hope there's a great quote. [01:17:00] There's a great quote by a Tory Bugatti. And the quote is, there is nothing that is too beautiful. Nothing that is too expensive.

Andrea Hiott: Sometimes it's so hard though. It makes me think about, I mean, this gets a little sentimental, but it makes me think about when you love someone or when you feel love and how you can't do anything with it, you just have to feel it. And it's almost too much because you can't do anything with it. You can't get rid of it.

You can. Actually show it even I mean there's no way you're just kind of stuck with it right it kind of I've had that feeling to with certain pieces of art or even on a bike motoring or like driving or walking I mean ways that we move where you. Or, or out in nature where you somehow, somehow you just feel, you feel the connection with the world or yourself or whatever, or, or you, or there's [01:18:00] this kind of, maybe like when you see Gaudí and you think, yes, like I've been trying to express that, or that expresses something I need expressed.

It's almost painful. No,

JT Nesbitt: I've, I've, I've been real lucky in my career. And that I've had, I've had two people who, who have looked at a bike that I've made and been in my presence and cry.

Andrea Hiott: That's something. Yeah, I know that feeling. So, and I get it. I mean,

JT Nesbitt: It's the highest compliment

Andrea Hiott: I've ever been paid. Yeah, well, I mean, it's an.

Those are the moments of, to kind of go back to the beginning, this meaning, you know, you don't, you can never really put that in words, but those are moments we live for in a way. You just feel connected.

JT Nesbitt: When I'm standing in the presence of, uh, of El Greco's La Acajuan, which is at the Met, I cry every time.

Every

Andrea Hiott: time. Wow. And you don't even need to, you can't explain that. I mean, it's almost [01:19:00] bigger, I don't know, we're, we're not, we can't see everything that's going on in those moments.

JT Nesbitt: I mean, when you, like, yeah.

Yeah, there's some Velasquez stuff that gets me. Wanda LaPareja at the Met, that gets me choked up pretty good. And Calder, too, I mean. Mm hmm. Um, we've got, we've got some, we've got an El Greco and a Calder here in New Orleans at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Oh. And when I really want to feel something, I'll go visit.

My friends over there at the, uh, at the museum.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, I have pieces like this too, yeah. It's not about me, so I won't go into it, but I know what you mean. But what do you, what do you think is happening in that, in that space? Like, is it even, I mean, should we even not talk about it? But it does have something to do, I think, with getting out of the way in this [01:20:00] minimal sense.

Like something is happening where everything fits and everything flows. And I don't know. It feels like a bit like a puzzle pieces coming together. You can feel like that on a motorcycle to or,

JT Nesbitt: you know, it's about, it's a, it's about beauty. What is what happened to all the beautiful to all the beautiful motorcycle.

Where did they go. But why don't people make, why don't people make beautiful motorcycles? I mean, I think that's what, that's a great question. I don't, I don't have an answer for

Andrea Hiott: you because it became not the priority. The beauty wasn't the priority. The beauty was, I mean, it was about, I think that's why I brought up Thompson, although I'm making a cliche of it, but it was about the, whatever, the having some kind of explosion between your legs that you're riding and having this kind of crazy experience, or it was about, you know, it became about.

Sports or racing or going [01:21:00] fast or the speed or I'm not sure the beauty maybe beauty was thought of as like this form versus function or or whatever. You know, you're the bike isn't about being beautiful. It's almost you shouldn't. That's not that's not the goal. If it happens, it's great, but it's not the goal.

JT Nesbitt: Well, why not? I mean, why not bubblegum at the same

Andrea Hiott: time? Yeah, why not? I guess. That's part of the trick, right? The, or the, the blindness that we kind of forgot about, but it's also what, what does connect this world of art and the machine and technology and in this way, I was trying to explore earlier that, that you do like the objects that matter,

JT Nesbitt: do that.

The speed machines, especially motorcycles are really the highest form of art. And they're the highest form because the stakes are so high.

Andrea Hiott: You mean like, cause your life is literally on the line.

JT Nesbitt: Yeah. So that's why I don't really, I don't do, I don't paint anymore. Uh, I do once in a [01:22:00] while, I'm not really a practicing sculptor, um, because.

It's so subjective that, you know, you could look at a stone carving that I've done and you could think it's the greatest, most beautiful piece of stone carving in the world, or you can think that it's horrible and you don't like it. But at the end of the day, that piece of stone carving is not going to get anybody killed.

So it's an entirely, it's an entirely subjective realm. Motorcycles have, have this added spiciness of objective reality. And if you get it wrong, people get hurt. Yeah, I think that's that's just glorious. That's so much fun.

Andrea Hiott: Why do you think say that's glorious because it makes you so You just can't escape the responsibility really it's like brings you right to the present moment.

I guess you have to yeah

JT Nesbitt: Because the stakes are so high. Mm hmm. [01:23:00] That's high stakes poker versus, you know, a game of checkers

Andrea Hiott: This makes me think of the edge again, which makes me think of, um, uh, this exhibit. I think it was last year at this amazing place in the Los Angeles called the Peterson. Yeah, it's a Peterson, right?

Peterson Museum, Automotive, Automotive Museum. And they put your bike in there. The Curtis one in the exhibit called, was it electric revolutionaries? Um, design at the edge. Do I have that right? So what do you, you ever think about this edge? Cause. What you just described to me about being kind of forced to think about life and death in this way and like this actually matters That feels like a bit like the edge, but also what you've had to describe about the struggle of it That's kind of at the edge, too you're always pushing at at the edge of what people are used to and trying to [01:24:00] kind of Go a little bit further.

Um, but then there's also this edge of like this minimal edge, this like clean, sharp, everything's in its place idea of the edge. So I don't know. What did you, first of all, what, what did you think when you were asked to be part of that exhibit and what was that like? And what do you, what does this mean?

This edge design at the edge to you, if anything,

JT Nesbitt: it's one of the highest honors I've ever received. Um, because the way our motorcycle was displayed, it was elevated kind of above. A lot of other people's work when I say people, I mean, big time factories. Oh yeah.

Andrea Hiott: This is the first time people who don't know this is like the premier museum and it's amazing you should definitely go look at it.

JT Nesbitt: And it's the first, it's the first time in my life where. Where Harley Davidson's might financial might played no [01:25:00] part, right? Because they're on, they're on my turf, which is a museum. So for my entire career, it's always worked out this way. There's some kind of show motorcycle event or whatever. And there's a huge semi truck tractor trailer.

With a live band and free food and test rides and, you know, uh, here we'll sign you up right now. And, you know, a big show that's Harlan. Yeah. And then me in the parking lot, standing behind a pickup truck. With another dude baking in the sun with a bike in the parking lot,

Andrea Hiott: almost like you have a, an artwork there or something like,

JT Nesbitt: yeah, it's just, it's just like,

Andrea Hiott: you know, see the sculpture, come see the Calder mobile

JT Nesbitt: at this show.

The financial might of it. It didn't matter. It was about it was about design [01:26:00] and in that realm, that's where I can compete.

Andrea Hiott: And as I heard it, it was really considered kind of the most beautiful design there by a lot

JT Nesbitt: of people. Well, that's, that's, that's for them. That's for them to decide.

Andrea Hiott: But I'm sure you heard that, right?

People probably said that to you

JT Nesbitt: too. Uh, I, I, I tend not to hear that. I don't, I don't really want to hear that. I want to, I want to stay frosty.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, good. Okay. Never mind. But let's, let's get back. Like, what did it mean to you standing there? I guess your dad didn't get to come to that one or, or did he? No,

JT Nesbitt: no, he's, he's, he's passed on.

Andrea Hiott: I'm sorry to hear that. But I think that's a moment right,

JT Nesbitt: but it was it was a huge honor. And finally I got it was, it was just, it was like being able to compete in on my turn. I mean you hear how I talk, I mean it's all this [01:27:00] kind of highfalutin artsy fartsy. Bullshit.

Andrea Hiott: I don't think I don't think it's bullshit, but it's not Harley stuff.

That's

JT Nesbitt: actually the way I think. So,

Andrea Hiott: yeah, well, I'm, it kind of makes me think of how you were talking about Mike's Matt's first bike and people finally kind of discovering what it all really means. And there's something like that happening to with the way people understand design, even, even when it comes to motorcycles.

And I think this lev Switch is part of that too. There's a, there's a different level of attention and awareness that in general and across different kinds of motoring is coming into play, whether it's why we're motoring or how we're motoring or what it's doing to one another or just like these things we've been talking about actually mattering for the experience and I guess we have to kind of wrap it up now and pretty soon though I could talk to you forever about these things actually, but [01:28:00] I do want to talk about this experience of actually being on the bike on the LAV, the Curtis one in this context and how it's different from being on an I.

C. E. And I think maybe the way to talk about that is this kind of idea of attention and what's changed. Not that one experience needs to be better than the other but it is a little bit like that Harley rally that you described versus being in the museum, isn't it? Or is it?

JT Nesbitt: So when, when I ride, um, I'm in, uh, validation right now.

So my job right now is to ride the motorcycles, get a lot of mileage on them, figure out what, where we can improve. And so I'm, I'm riding this bike around quite a bit here in the city. And I'll be riding down the French court in the French quarter, you know, down to cater street. And, and people are going nuts.

People are yelling at me. What, what is that? Like their hair's on fire. Like, what are, what am I even looking at? Now, [01:29:00] this might have been happening the whole time, but I can never hear it. The bike is utterly silent. Wow, that's, it's a, it's, it's a new, it's

Andrea Hiott: a, it's a, you got me there. I wasn't expecting that.

You mean, yes, they can actually hear because there's not crazy noise and throttle and

JT Nesbitt: people's reaction in real time. Wow. And I could never do that before. Fascinating.

Andrea Hiott: That is fascinating. It's a, there's, yeah. Do you feel like you have a different experience with the everything around you and the bike when you're not worrying about the clutch and, you know, just trying to kind of keep everything.

Look,

JT Nesbitt: it's To say that it's, that it's better than, than having a clutch and having a throttle and having control over the noise and the power, um, to say that it's better, I, I, I can't honestly say [01:30:00] it's better because I love motorcycles in all shapes and forms.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, I'm glad you said that. I don't think it's about being better.

It's just, it's a different kind of experience, isn't it? Yeah,

JT Nesbitt: it's just a, it's a new experience and it's delightful. Yeah, I love it because it's so different, but

Andrea Hiott: different kind of people might enjoy that experience. So

JT Nesbitt: conceptually, here's, here's where most EV companies are coming from. They're saying we're going to, we're going to replace the internal combustion engine car.

That's what Tesla's whole MO is. We're going to make a car that replaces. Other cars. That's not what this is. This is a rethink. This is a is a do over instead of just trying to replace the internal combustion engine motorcycle. It's a [01:31:00] whole new way of of of motoring.

It's not an adaptation. So most internal combustion engine. I mean, excuse me, most electric motorcycle. I could conceivably take that electric power plant out. and put in an internal combustion engine, a little twin cylinder made in Korea engine. So the thought experiment is, if I took one of the other electric motorcycles and put a little vertical twin engine in that chassis, could you make a case for its existence?

How do you answer that? No, that the only advantage that they have is that it is an EV. That's their whole that that's why they're in existence. [01:32:00] They're they're trying to replace. So if a Tesla had, I don't know, an LS motor and somebody took a Tesla and put an LS motor in it. Did you make a case for the existence of that, of that car?

No, it, it, it has to be a new vehicle. Maybe not

Andrea Hiott: from that point, but I, I don't know. I think there's something about shifting to electric, just the shift itself. And as we were talking about earlier, knowing there's, you know, there's a lot of other, other reasons I can make a case for

JT Nesbitt: it. Let me see. I get, I get the shift to move into EV, but at some point

Andrea Hiott: Opening to, opening the space, right?

There's different

JT Nesbitt: ways. But when does the novelty of that wear off?

Andrea Hiott: I don't know because

JT Nesbitt: I'd say, I'd say we're there.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah. If it's not about something larger, if it's just [01:33:00] about, if it's just about that, like, electric, as if you just have to just give up ICEs and go electric only. Yeah, maybe, maybe I would agree with you.

But if it's about opening the space and having a bigger dialogue about the kind of things you were talking about in terms of actual real sustainability, like how can maybe this form? Is easier to create this kind of, uh, object that can last forever in a way, because the Curtis one is made to do that.

Right. And we didn't even talk about the hex, but, you know, all the innovations are towards that.

JT Nesbitt: You can actually see where the battery pack is bolted onto the motor side. Like it is designed to be just to be removed. Right.

Andrea Hiott: And it can be modified as batteries become modified, which is, yeah.

JT Nesbitt: It actually gets better with age.

Andrea Hiott: I mean, that's a whole, that's a, that's, that's a real shift, right? If people in both ICEs [01:34:00] and LAVs and all other kinds of forms of motoring actually tried to create things like that, that could last and that could adapt and that could change and evolve while still remaining consistently the object, that's a different way to think about motoring, but it doesn't have to be just electric.

Well, why aren't they? Because I guess right now we don't think that that's, uh, profitable, right? It's not, it could be. And I think, you know, hopefully it doesn't, we aren't forced to have to do that, that we, we decide to do that, but forced by some environmental thing. But I, I guess it's just, it's just the inertia is towards.

Consumption planned obsolescence where you need, you need the customer to buy something every year or, or whatever. And obviously that model is failing in a lot of ways. So I don't know, how do we make, how does this model become sexy and profitable? I think you have to change what profit means, [01:35:00] right? And maybe the way we've been talking about profit isn't about how much money you make every year.

It's about what you're providing overall to this kind of larger larger process and you need to be rewarded for that and you need to be able to find motivation for that. Those are the kind of problems I see. What

JT Nesbitt: do you think? I think it's, it's the, the pioneers are always the ones that get the arrows in the back.

Andrea Hiott: But they're also the ones everyone remembers often too. But it doesn't have to be that way. I mean, you can maybe, maybe it's time to change that paradigm a bit too where people that are actually pushing at the edge and the bounds. in ways that are real and for reasons that are authentic in the way we discussed that that actually could be rewarded as well.

Not when they're dead and gone, but now.

JT Nesbitt: Well, either way, [01:36:00] I'm around to see it. Well, that's great. But if I'm not, uh, I'll still be here.

Andrea Hiott: So you're pretty much, you're pretty much at peace with like your, you know, what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life. Really?

JT Nesbitt: I don't have any kids, but I got a lot of children.

Yeah. Reproduction

Andrea Hiott: is not only about. Kids, you know, we, we create and share our selves and our lives in all kinds of ways. And it, it matters. So I guess in that way, we're back to this idea of forever motoring, right? So these things will kind of continue and they'll influence others. And that is a way of forever motoring too.

JT Nesbitt: The only path that I can see towards immortality, the only way I can I can figure out how to how to live forever. I can't think of any other way.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, I think I agree [01:37:00] with you but I would say it's not about like one individual living forever as much as it is about realizing you're part of this. ongoing process that doesn't really begin or end, which I think I also feel in those moments when I'm standing in front of a particular artwork or, or whatever, or, or some trees for that matter.

But there is something there, you know, and realizing that and being at peace with your, whatever your part of it is, I guess, but also I think, you know,

JT Nesbitt: your contribution to humanity. Yeah, you've

Andrea Hiott: talked about before this idea of motoring as being also part of like a lineage of respecting this lineage that you're part of, right?

That's part of the forever motoring too, like respect for the people that came before and the ones that come after. Yeah.

JT Nesbitt: Well, uh, Carlo Guzzi. I've never met the man. I'm great friends with him.

Andrea Hiott: I like that. I feel like that about a lot of authors. [01:38:00] Well,

JT Nesbitt: William Henderson, all those wonderful American inline four cylinders that I'm so crazy about.

There's no way I could ever meet him, but I sure do know him.

Andrea Hiott: Mm hmm. You're even part of the same family. If you draw the circle in a certain way,

yeah, I like that.

JT Nesbitt: Well, let's, let's wrap it Let's

Andrea Hiott: leave it on that. Yeah, let's leave it on that. Thanks, JT. It's been really good to talk to you. Hope you have a great, great day there. Alright. You win

JT Nesbitt: that Emmy. I'm sorry for wearing you out with all my

Andrea Hiott: bullshit. You definitely didn't. That was wonderful. I really enjoyed every moment of it.

Yeah, me too. Alright, cool.