Everything is so much easier when someone else does it. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about preparing a meal or fixing the roof on a house. Things also take much less time when you’re not the one doing them. (Right now I can hear my dad saying, “It takes two seconds,” when telling the high-school-age me to mow the lawn.) That’s especially true when someone films their labor in time-lapse fashion.
That’s what Rie-Store, a restoration shop in the south of England, did in fall 2013 when giving a Harley-Davidson WLC a new lease on life. It condensed one month of detailed, grease-and-grime-filled work into a clip that takes fewer than 10 minutes to watch.
In it, you’ll see Rie-Store’s guys completely pick apart the old army bike like ants devouring a grasshopper. They gut the engine and service it, and reinstall the front fork and springs, among a million other things. By the time they’re done, what once was a messy, poorly maintained, and barely running relic has been transformed into a charming two-wheeled throwback machine.
Derek Shiekhi's father raised him on cars. As a boy, Derek accompanied his dad as he bought classics such as post-WWII GM trucks and early Ford Mustang convertibles.
After loving cars for years and getting a bachelor's degree in Business Management, Derek decided to get an associate degree in journalism. His networking put him in contact with the editor of the Austin-American Statesman newspaper, who hired him to write freelance about automotive culture and events in Austin, Texas in 2013. One particular story led to him getting a certificate for learning the foundations of road racing.
While watching TV with his parents one fateful evening, he saw a commercial that changed his life. In it, Jeep touted the Wrangler as the Texas Auto Writers Association's "SUV of Texas." Derek knew he had to join the organization if he was going to advance as an automotive writer. He joined the Texas Auto Writers Association (TAWA) in 2014 and was fortunate to meet several nice people who connected him to the representatives of several automakers and the people who could give him access to press vehicles (the first one he ever got the keys to was a Lexus LX 570). He's now a regular at TAWA's two main events: the Texas Auto Roundup in the spring and the Texas Truck Rodeo in the fall.
Over the past several years, Derek has learned how to drive off-road in various four-wheel-drive SUVs (he even camped out for two nights in a Land Rover), and driven around various tracks in hot hatches, muscle cars, and exotics. Several of his pieces, including his article about the 2015 Ford F-150 being crowned TAWA's 2014 "Truck of Texas" and his review of the Alfa Romeo 4C Spider, have won awards in TAWA's annual Excellence in Craft Competition. Last year, his JK Forum profile of Wagonmaster, a business that restores Jeep Wagoneers, won prizes in TAWA’s signature writing contest and its pickup- and SUV-focused Texas Truck Invitational.
