EARNEST PROFILE: JULIAN JACOBS

September 01, 2020

It's amazing where the drive for a particular feeling can take you. It's a story that's all too familiar with us here in the workshop. All you want when growing up is to ride a bike and skate like the big kids.

Eventually you become that big kid you once looked up to and now it seems anything with a motor is more likely to consume your day dreams. It's at this pivotal point in our lives that influence plays one huge role.

Our influence can come in any shape or form - anything from a brief look at the television at 5 years old, when refusing to eat your greens or an old poster on the wall of your old man's shed.

It's this influence that can be the difference between you wanting to ride like Rossi, or spending your nights searching for car parts online. Hell, if you're lucky, you'll be sitting there wanting to do both by now.

Julian is a long time friend of Earnest and his story follows suit. For him this influence saw some good luck at a young age and the passion snowballed to where it sits today...driving.

We'll let you sit down and get Julian to fill in the rest, but as you can tell already, it's the feeling of driving that has lead him to spend his nights tucked away in the workshop building some of the wildest machines you are likely to find at the track.

1. What is work to you?

I usually get home from my day job, relax my back for a bit, then head into the garage. I don't get much done until my phone's plugged into the speakers and the right song comes on. These days, I always have some kind of welding work but when I find time for my car, it always seems to need some kind of repair from the last drift day. I've gotta work on crashing less.

2. How did you find yourself here doing the things you do?

As a kid I was skateboarding, inline skating, riding bikes, snowboarding...non-stop. In high school I injured my knee, right around the time I started driving. I didn't have a license yet but I'd ride around with my older friends and they'd let me drive their cars sometimes. Living in a small town, you could get away with it.

At 15, I got an s13 hatch from a friend and at the time, I didn't know it was a popular drift car. I can't recall the first drifting I saw but Koguchi in his black 180 at Nikko stuck in my head forever. I remember obsessing over it and quickly going from the kid skating everywhere to the kid racing around town.

Fast forward to now, over a decade and several cars later...competition days have come and gone but my heart still remains in drifting.

3. What makes you tick & keeps you doing what you do?

My passion for drifting pretty much fuels everything I do. It's a ton of work, dedication, time and money but when I get out and drive with my friends and team, it's all worth it.

4. Recently, who's work gets you pumped to get back in the shed and grind away?

I get really pumped from other drivers and people I can relate to from around the world. I love seeing great work come from guys who might not have the best tools or the biggest shop, they're just passionate about what they do and it shows in their work.

Ironically, the guys on this Earnest team have had me pumped over the last few years. Nigel and the C's Garage boys have been huge inspiration. I'm honoured to be a part of the team.

5. What other areas do you take inspiration from for your work?

Inspiration is pretty much all from Japanese drifting. Since the beginning, I was always drawn to the super low-riding, shakotan style but It's really the hard drivers that inspire me. I love the cars/driving that come from the Kansai region.

6. What are the three tools you couldn't live without?

I definitely could not live without an angle grinder. I don't have much for saws so the grinder gets used for all my cutting, notching, bevelling...I even use it cut fibreglass.

I recently got a tig welder and could never go back.

The third would probably be the Makita drill and impact combo. That's two more things but they get used constantly.

7. What would we find blaring in the background of the shed on any given night?

I listen to a bit of everything. Most of the time I switch between a few stations on Pandora from Mac Dre to ASAP Rocky, 90's Hip Hop and R&B.. I listen to reggae a lot and sometimes oldies if I'm getting frustrated or stressed out - it brings me back to riding around in my mom's 1950 Buick as a kid. Lately I've been playing Offspring's old "Smash" album.

8. Lastly, what are you working towards in the future?

Drifting has been a huge part of my life for more than half of it. Through this sport, I've made friends all over the world who share this passion and there's nothing I want more than to continue driving. Every time I go out and drive, I wanna push myself to do better and I want the quality of my work to do the same. At the end of the day, I'm not a professional mechanic or fabricator, I just love getting people stoked.

If I can create things that my friends and other drivers can be proud of, I'm happy.