Hidden amongst the dull, vacant and nameless look-alike buildings that populate every available inch of the drab desert-like commercial real estate landscape existing in South San Francisco, lies an oasis — a place that belies its surroundings, a place whose exterior provides little indication that something special takes place behind one tall metal roll-up door, a place that soothes and nurtures the psyche of those yearning to draw from the well of automotive creativity and innovation. This place is known only to savvy rodders and automotive enthusiasts as Broke Neck Kustoms — pass it on.

Many travelers have taken this same route before with names like Winfield, Jeffries, Foose, Roth, Barris and Martinez but few have attained the kind of heights the Broke Neck crazies have reached in such a short time. Some say they’ve been blessed by the gods; others think that they are shills for an underground customizing conglomerate that does the work for them, but they say they do the work themselves. The only sure thing is that rolling automotive art continues to creep out from under the door and the windows of 442 Victory Avenue, providing color and vibrancy to the otherwise desolate moonscape just south of San Francisco.

Through the use of middlemen and negotiators, Speedway Motorsports Magazine was granted an exclusive interview with the purveyors of South San Francisco style. It all began as we were being blindfolded and led into a dark room watched over by a snarling animal that defied description. Once there, we gazed with hesitation upon the countenance of three individuals who assured us we were safe as long as we didn’t overstay our welcome. It was then that we began to fire questions about the ‘41 Willys known as “Ground Pounder” owned by Mike Madeiros, the Freddy Krueger motorcycle, the ’32 open roadster, and the movie cars. At that point we were told the end of our visit was fast approaching and there was little time remaining before our hosts needed to occupy themselves with more important matters of the automotive kind. As we were blindfolded again and whisked out the door, we managed to capture a small portion of their wisdom at the oasis before it disappeared into the distance once again.

SMM: We're here for a Q & A session at Broke Neck Kustoms Inc. with Mike McArdle, Jesse Campillo, Tony Morales and Henry to seek the answers to questions about their inspiration, their automotive art and their visions of the future. What led you into the world of custom paint and design, and which customizer or customizers served as your inspiration? Earlier you spoke a little bit about the work of Art Himsl.

MM: I got into it just because of my love of cars and getting a chance to put artwork on cars and bikes and whatnot fascinates me. As for Art Himsl, I was a big fan of his work in the 90's. I'd see his work in places and it was a motivation in many ways. Plus, doing the fine art part of it — the allure of having artwork on two wheels rolling around — intrigued me big time, so I just combined the two.

SMM: Tony, do you have anything to add?

TM: I admired Jesse James and watched "Monster Garage". I really liked watching those shows — to be able to take something as simple as a car and take it to the point where someone looks at it and says, "Wow" — I always wanted to do that. I didn't know how to go about starting to do that but Mike is a family friend and he helped me out. He gave me a chance to work with cars and bikes, and I took off from there.

MM: He’s turned into one of the best.

JC: I've always been into cars since I was little. I liked to make model cars and did what I could to make them different from what the rest of the guys in the neighborhood were doing. I always knew this is what I wanted to do with my life. I'm dedicated to doing it and have been sacrificing a lot to be a part of it. And then I met Mike and we created this place with his art and what he does. As far as people who've inspired me, a couple of locals guys — our friend Derek Ward, who passed away, from What It Is Auto Body & Paint in Pacifica, taught me some of the mechanical auto customizing things that we do to the cars now, and some of the older legends like Gene Winfield and others from Southern California who obviously everyone knows. Right now, Mike and Tony and some of the guys we work with inspire each other to keep improving our skills.

SMM: What are you trying to express through your work?

MM: We're showing our passion for these cars and put out something different that people can look at and actually feel something. In a short period of time, we're starting to get that "feel" from every phase of our involvement in each project that we work together on. It takes Tony's perfect body work and Jesse who does just about everything else. My stuff adds another dimension to the mix and now we know we’re on the right track because our customers say, “WOW”. That’s a great feeling and it inspires us to try even harder.

JC: You can go to any car show and see a number of single-color painted deuces or customs and that’s fine but with Mike's art, and we’re trying to do this with every car that we've done, we're literally trying to break necks to give it its own life. We try to match the person who owns the car with the creation itself. If the guy is a subtle person, we're not going to have devils and flames all over it but just a clean paint job. People will remember that car for the flame job or Mike's art and all the little custom things we did here and there. They might not remember who did it but they will remember that car with the flames or the fire on it or the Impala running through smoke that gave it a 3-dimensional life. Maybe not necessarily a theme but just a "feel" ...

TM: ... its own personality...

All: Yes!

SMM: What area in your work do you find the most challenging, the most difficult or the most satisfying?

MM: The biggest challenge is dealing with the clients. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that the work part itself is second nature. Dealing with the customers, their demands and their needs while creating something that's within their vision, coupled with our sense of artistic expression can be tough. We're in the business of pleasing people and that's what we do all the time. The most satisfying thing that I get out of it is just creating something for someone that they're proud of, and they think about the experience they've had here at Broke Neck with all of us and what we did to complete the job. I've literally had clients who have come in to pick up their car and they tear up. They hug us and they say, "Oh my God, you've made what I wanted come true". That to me is the most satisfying thing. Personally,

that matters to me more than the money.

TM: As Mike said, dealing with customers is challenging but doing the body work can get really frustrating at times. Body panels never go back on straight and they hardly ever line up the way they’re supposed to. These older cars, when they were made, they rarely left the factory right — they were slapped together. Before a car leaves the shop, we try to make every part fit as perfectly as we can and little stuff like that can be very labor intensive. The satisfying part is when we finish a car and see the reaction we get from the customers because to these guys, it's not just a car, it's their whole life, something they've been thinking about for years and they've always had this vision of it getting done, and to be able to do that for them, and get it done perfectly, is really cool. We stress "perfectly" around here because we take a lot of pride in our work. We want it to be perfect just as much as they do, if not more so.

JC: The hardest part, as Mike said, is the business side of things. This is a labor of love for us because we’re able to do what we enjoy for a living. At some point you get to a certain level with the customers, the bills, the money, the business, and the love for what you're doing and you find they are really separate things. Sometimes it's hard to juggle everything at once. We just try to run an honest business and please everybody, which you can never do anyway, and we're learning that as well. Some guys already have it in their head that they're not going to be pleased no matter what, but we try 120% to keep everybody happy so that the challenge will be the juggling between loving what you do and being able to work on these custom cars and also be able to run a business. It’s a fine line.

The most satisfying thing is seeing the finished product, obviously. You know all the hours and hard work that went into it, even if no one else sees it. Like anything you do with your hands, anything that's art, you look at it at the end of the day and you feel good about it. I enjoy seeing people’s reactions, but just to see it finished and to know that you've accomplished this with nothing more than your mind, your hands and a couple of tools, is pretty awesome.

SMM: What would you like to do that you haven't already done?

MM: I'd like to paint a semi truck and trailer or a plane — that's where I'd like to do something really crazy. I'd like to have an opportunity to do something like that because I’ve done large 20' x 60' murals before so that's my thing, I want to paint EVERYthing!

JC: I'd like to be a better welder and be better at my craft. I'd like to continually get better at every aspect of what I'm learning and what I do and continue to seek knowledge from the older guys who have it, and keep this shop at a national level to where people will know and see all the hard work we've done which will pay off at some point.

SMM: What is it like to compete with the biggest Bay Area names in customizing?

MM: To us, it's not a competition. I like to learn from others and I like to examine other people's work and see how they're doing it in order to do it right myself. With us, we don't ever look at other painters or other shops as competition, or we try not to. We just try to do our own thing, looking toward the day when we’ll gain respect from those other shops for the work that we put out.

TM: The respect thing is big. We're all in the same game. We're not trying to out-do each other. Well, maybe we're trying a little bit but we're not going to “dog” any other shop or anybody else because we're all in this business together. We're just trying to be different from everybody else and not copy other people. Getting respect from them is cool, and to even be mentioned with all those other people is a big deal to me.

JC: As Mike said, we don't really look at it as competition. I think that what we're trying to do and what we have to offer is nothing more than trying to establish our own standard and style. We're trying to create something fresh here. With respect to the custom cars, everything's been redone for the guys who like the traditional 50's custom look, or somebody like Roy Brizio who likes the '32 deuces a certain way. We're trying to add a certain personality to whatever the car is and give it its own feel. It feels good to know we're at the top of our game and now we just have to get better. Actually, it's more of a motivating factor to know that we're at that level and that we have to maintain it and keep striving to do more.

SMM: What do you see as future trends in hot rodding or customizing?

MM: The future trend? We want to BE that future trend. That's what we're trying to do. We want to create something truly unique because there's so much stuff that's already been done with cars over the years. I use my graphics, my airbrush work and my imagination to create something that's completely one off, to create something no one else ever has.

TM: Yes, we are trying to be the future but not have it be overdone. I think that sometimes people try too hard to do crazy and radical stuff and it ends up hacking up the car — it takes away from the car — and I think simplicity is the key. Sometimes less is more.

JC: We have a couple future trends in our heads that I'm not going to say here so no one steals our ideas (laughing) but I think, like Mike said, that we want to be the future trend, by not just giving a certain personality and look to these vehicles but also adding the old school style with some of the new school tricks and having a good combination blend where it doesn't look bad, if you know what I mean, where it's still clean and you can look at a car and appreciate the little things that have been tweaked or changed in the smallest manner.

SMM: How has the downturn in the economy affected your business?

MM: The downturn has affected us a little bit but we’re still getting work and I feel in this game, guys are always going to want their bikes done; guys are always going to want their cars done. They have their living money and they have their car money or their bike money, but where they go to spend that money is the important thing. I think that people are going to keep spending with us because there's that comfort level that they get because they know we're going to deliver. When they come to us, they're getting value for every dollar they’ve put out and they know it. We've been fortunate to increase our revenues from the same time last year and we still have a shop full of cars and bikes to work on. We’d like to expand the operation but we can't hire more guys right now. There are four of us and technically we need two or three more guys but with this economy we don’t want to financially overextend ourselves. It would be nice not having to work twice as hard. We could use some of that government bailout money! Who’s the U.S. Senator for our area anyway?

JC: Like Mike said, it hasn't affected us too much. I think that what we do is a unique specialized hand-crafted product that will always have a market. People who have the money to buy these things will always have the money to do it, so I think we'll be just fine.

MM: If it comes down to it, we want to be the last shop standing. We're going to do whatever it takes to keep this open and going no matter what during this difficult period. We’ll survive through the great work we do and we’ll stay hungry for more. I can't see us ever failing.

JC: We can't just say, "I'm almost broke. I'm going to sit on my ass." You've just got to keep working. Everybody's in the same boat, you know what I mean? We've just got to stick together and deal with it.

MM: That's it. Just do our thing and don't throw away money on tattoos and stuff, you know what I mean? <Laughter - obvious slam to Jesse because of his fresh tattoo.>

JC: <Laughing> Hey, it's a write off! It's a car!

SMM: Tell us about Benjamin Bratt and the movie, "La Mission".

JC: We have a couple of mutual friends in the Bay Area low-rider community who Mike did some mural work for. Then the movie thing started getting generated and the buzz on the street was that the production company was looking for a shop to do some custom work and actually film some shop scenes so a couple of good friends of ours, Al, a.k.a. Bulldog, who works here and a couple of other guys got it started.

MM: I did a mural on a car trunk for a guy who belongs to the Bay Bombs Car Club and that's how they saw our work and contacted us.

JC: ... so they got the ball rolling and it all happened in just one day...

MM: There were two other shops that were in consideration but once the production company saw our work, they said, "This is it. We want these guys." So that's how it was. We met Benjamin and then the rest of the crew flew in later. We hit it off with everyone right off the bat. Benjamin and I are the same age, we're both 45, and he's from San Francisco so we related a bit right from the start. We went into negotiations for the cars and it was very involved. All these murals we did for them, they had to look a certain way. There were other artists that I was dealing with and it was quite a chore but it was the most fulfilling thing that we've done. They shot a number of scenes in our shop, the paint booth, etc., and when Benjamin was doing that TV series on A & E, “The Cleaner”, he was wearing one of our Broke Neck shirts! They're all from L.A. and they recognize that we have a whole different soul about us up here and they were digging it, and loving the artwork. Benjamin flew in one night at 11:00 P.M. while I was working on a car for the movie. He stood outside kicking on our door wanting to come in!

For the movie, things had to look a certain way -- they were looking for a certain feel. The murals are symbolic of this movie and my challenge was one of the biggest I’ve ever taken on -- to create what the director's vision was. I will never forget that 'til the day I die. It was just something that I didn't think that I could do but I did, we all did, but as far as the artwork goes, I just tried to reach another level. To get someone else's vision and put it on something, so they’d say "that's it!" I don't know if it gets any better than that.

JC: Benjamin is a super-cool dude. We would consider him and his brother Peter as our friends which is almost surreal because you see the guy on "Miss Congeniality" on Tuesday nights on TNT and we can say, "Hey, I know that guy", and that's never happened in any of our lives. We don't have a bunch of friends who are normally on TV! For me personally, it was really weird because I remember I was just a little kid when I watched the first movie he was in, "Blood in, Blood Out". I used to watch all the old gangster movies like that and I'd be making model cars while watching these movies and then here I am, umpteen years later working on his low-rider for a movie and he's right in front of me — it's a trip. The other part of it is that the movie hasn't come out yet and it was a big sacrifice for the whole shop — financial sacrifice, work sacrifice, family sacrifice — the whole nine yards. I think this all happened for a reason though, we all feel that way, and we look forward to seeing the movie and seeing what will come from it. It was an awesome experience just to be a part of it.

TM: When we finished the car and had to deliver it, it was one of the coolest things that I will never forget because we drove Ben's car, the '64, and Mike's car, and the other car that we built, the '64 Impala, right into the heart of the Mission District. The movie set was there and they were all waiting just for us. I hit the switches, dumped it out and there were three cherry cars...

MM: Everything stopped, and people were saying, "YEAH!" I was just floating. I didn't even feel my feet touch the ground, I swear. Guys were coming up, other actors in the movie, wanting to meet us and it was a surreal kind of thing. In one scene filmed in the garage, a very powerful scene in the movie, Benjamin beats the hell out of a hood with a wrench and we were nervous because we didn't want him to hit anything else. We had prepared an extra hood because we knew it had to be replaced once he got done beating on it. After the scene was completed, we had to change that hood out because they didn’t want anyone else touching the cars. Before we knew it we heard, "Broke Neck guys, get in here" and zip, that hood was changed out and aligned in literally 10 minutes. We said, "We're done", and they said, "WHAT? You're done? Like that?" We impressed some Hollywood folks that day, and you know what? We weren't even trying to. We were just doing what we do best, just being ourselves. The director wanted me right next to him looking through the prompter when they were filming and it was a level of respect that’s hard to describe. It was a total experience that was larger than life for guys like us.

JC: Even if we never do anything more, we got to be a part of something that people will see forever.

MM: I was fortunate to be a double in the film. I'm Benjamin in the booth painting the car. For me in that little scene, I feel as Jesse said that even if we closed the shop doors tomorrow, there's a little piece of what we did and what I did immortalized on film. I was just thinking that long after we're gone, that movie will still be here, showing what we did, what we believed in and what we tried to achieve, and it was very powerful for me ... and I'm about to cry. It's a big deal. We’ve put so much into this. Each day we literally give a piece of ourselves into what we do here. Tony started with me, sweeping my surf shop when he was 12 or 13 years old and now he's become one of the top body guys so I've gotten to see him flourish. And Jesse started working for me at a time when I was going through guys who didn’t show the kind of talent and dedication to their work that he’s demonstrated. Ever since I've gotten Jesse, we've been a team and we've just made this happen and now Hollywood people are recognizing us. It's really cool. I can't describe it. I can't put words to it.

SMM: Tell us about your shop dog, Henry.

JC: First and foremost, thank you Patrick Tomas from La Gunda's Tires located down the street. He gave me Henry. I had another bulldog, Fonzi, when I first started working with Mike and everybody knew him. I used to take him around to shows, but he died. When I first met Patrick, who came from the Ukraine, he had these dogs and gave me Henry because he knew I wanted another one. I love him. He comes here every day. Henry is like a reincarnated Fonzi and he's like a little man. It's weird!

MM: We all loved Fonzi so much and everywhere we went, photographers were taking pictures of him. We still have pieces in here with pictures of Fonzi on them. Do you see that newspaper? Jesse used to roll him around in a wagon at the car shows with outfits on, even a purple pimp suit at Halloween!

JC: Yeah, he had a little purple jacket with leopard trim.

MM: What I've realized is that Henry is a part of Broke Neck just as much as we are. Our clients or people who just come in to visit, they see Henry and he lightens them up right off the bat. He's part of the shop and he's part of us.

JC: For me and for Tony, we can be stressed out with whatever's going on in the shop, like you scratched something or something else happened. Then you look at Henry and you can't do anything but smile so he helps with stress.

MM: He comes into my room and pees on my garbage can and my motorcycle stands and you gotta love him for it ... because if you don't, you're gonna kill him!

SMM: How did you get the name Broke Neck Kustoms?

MM: We got the name because both Jesse and I broke our necks. When we first opened up this shop, Jesse and I were trying to figure out a new name because what we were doing was McArtle Air Art — it had my name on it — but when Jesse got into the business with me, I wanted to lose that identity of just me because it wasn't about me. A lot of guys that do what I do, most of them want their name front and center, but Jesse and I, we're such a good team together that I wanted to lose that. I wanted it to be something that we were all involved with and not just about me. Jesse and I were going over what we were going to name the shop. We went over names again and again, and Jesse comes into the shop one day and says, "Broke Neck Kustoms". It was just like an epiphany. Jesse and I both agreed -- it's different, it's catchy, and I gotta give him credit because he thought of it and it was right in front of us the whole time. When people see the "Broke Neck Kustoms", it's the first question they ask. They'll come up to us and go, "How did you guys get that name?", and when we tell them there's a story behind the name of the shop, people are really fascinated. They'll ask, "How did you break your neck?" I was driving a truck. I was a delivery guy and I fell through some dry-rotted stairs and I landed on my back, fractured vertebrae in my neck and blew a disk out. Jesse dove into a lake head-first and hit the bottom with his head which wasn't too bright!

JC: I would like to say, though, that I usually come up with the good ideas, including the name of the shop!! When Michael and I had the other little place, we knew we were going to get bigger so we came up with a name. Obviously, there are not too many guys that you'll meet who have broken their neck and are still walking around. I know for me when I crushed my 3rd and 4th vertebrae, it was a miracle because the doctors said I wasn't supposed to be walking and all of a sudden I was better. When I met Mike, it just kind of made sense that we were working together, that there was a bigger picture. For me, I look at that name as a blessing that we are able to get up and out of bed every day, come here and be able to do work and we're not paralyzed. And, the name is cool for numerous reasons, for one because it doesn't really make sense — "broke neck"— what is that? But the other part of it is with the work we're trying to do is that we are trying to break necks. When you see what we do drive by, you're breaking your neck by turning really hard to look! So hopefully that's what people initially think. Or, if you don't pay your bill, we'll break your neck! But as Mike said, the story behind the meaning is actually pretty deep.

MM: It means a lot to Jesse and me. For me, with my injury, the right side of my vertebrae was pushing on my spinal cord — the whole right side of my body didn't work. I couldn't lift my right arm. My whole right side was a mass of involuntary muscle movements contracting everywhere because of the injury to my spinal cord. I was literally two millimeters from being a quadriplegic from that fall. And because I'm not a little guy, I hit hard. I'll never forget the sound of that "pop" in my neck when it happened. I still have some numbness in my hand and that's the only thing that I've suffered but look at what we get to do. We're very fortunate. Both of us could be in wheelchairs. So just from that standpoint, I believe there was a bigger plan for us. We feel we're on a road to some sort of destiny. It sounds cliché but that’s how we feel.

SMM: The San Francisco Rod, Custom and Motorcycle Show holds a special meaning for you guys. Why?

JC: The San Francisco Rod, Custom and Motorcycle Show is always a big thing for our shop because that’s where we first got our start. We knew we were on the right road when the people from DuPont and others were looking at our stuff and said it was good. The DuPont Hot Hues Paint sponsorship gave us an opportunity to do what we're doing now from that initial show. This year was our 4th year in the main arena and as far as we're concerned, once you're in the arena, that's where you want to be and you want to maintain that. The work we have on-going is top-notch.

MM: As Jesse said, the San Francisco show was where we started getting noticed. We began on the outskirts of the show. They stuck us in the North Hall of the Cow Palace where Jesse and I had to do our comedy act to get people to stop and see us! We had set up a frame from a car that Jesse air-bagged and to get people to notice us, Jesse would "lift" that car which made a lot of noise and that drew a lot of attention to us. That’s how it all started. The paint companies — I'll never forget when we got our first sponsorship and we had an offer from a big company that would actually pay us money just to use their products. Then we got a second deal that we brokered for big money. I was tearing up because it had been so much hard work, and great to have a company like that notice us. All of a sudden the next year they put us in the main arena. This year we were one of the official sponsors of the show. I did the artwork for the trophies and our logo was front and center at the Cow Palace. We worked our way up and earned it the hard way with the respect we received from clients and people who believed in what we are doing, and we did it the old-school way. We're not some bunch of rich kids who were given money to start up a customizing shop. We earn a meager living but we’re doing this for the passion of it, hoping that someday we can provide for our families really well. Our families believe in us and that's what keeps us going. Guys like Rick Perry and George Hague of the San Francisco show — those two have played a big part in helping us to go where we want to go because the bottom line is we're good people and we know that and that's why we all get along; we're like a family here. These guys are like my kids. It's a great thing.

SMM: What can we expect from Broke Neck Kustoms in the future?

MM: What I think you can expect is to see top notch work on some of the top cars. That's our goal and we're building the clientele right now. We're kind of the best kept secret in the Bay Area now but we feel that with our involvement in the movie “La Mission” we have a chance of becoming a mainstream name but that's not what drives us. What drives us is just doing the sickest stuff around. We just want to create some work that blows people's minds.

TM: I see us becoming a one-stop shop in the future. I see the growth of what we worked for years ago and now we're painting cars and $100,000 hot rods. I hope we can keep achieving more and continue growing to become that one-stop shop, the name that people recognize. Now when people think custom cars, they think they have to go down to L.A. to get it done. But, they don't have to. We want to keep it up here in Northern California in the Bay Area.

JC: I think you can expect some new trends coming from us because we have the ability to build a whole car in here, adding life to every aspect of the projects we work on. We’re hoping to get to the point where we can just work and not have to worry about the little stuff that's involved with running a shop. You can expect to see a lot more of us. We're going to stay in your face, not just here but everywhere. Look for us in the mid-west, too — all over.

MM: Jesse and I already believe in our guys, but Jesse and I believe in each other and I think that's what's going to propel us into the main stream. People recognize the passion that we put into what we do and I think that factor alone transcends into something even bigger than just the cars because people know that we're going to create something new. We feel that potential customers will seek us out from wherever to have us do work for them in the future.

JC: Build it ... and they will come!

SMM: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

JC: President Bush is gone so that's good news!

MM: Yes! The former administration was not helping out small business guys like us. Bush totally turned his back on us, imposing taxes to the point where he and others made it hard for guys like us to even operate. Now with Obama, we feel it’s like the Clinton era where they believed in small businesses so we have hope that the new president recognizes that we are the backbone of this country. It’s tough seeing so many small businesses disappearing. These concerns sneak into our psyche a little bit when we drive down the street and see vacant buildings. We have to rise above that and find the strength to say, no, this isn't happening to us. It would be very easy to just give in but we're not. We have a lot of fight in us and I think that with Obama we have someone who can possibly give us the breaks that will help us continue.

Broke Neck Kustoms Inc.
442 Victory
South San Francisco, California 94080
(650) 872-9500
www.brokeneckkustoms.com