Losing a Car Guy Friend Made Me Think About All of Us

Seems to be the season for it. Whether we are losing absolute superstars like Walter Kornick, Chekhov or Sir Patrick Stewart, Captain Picard. But also today I heard of a death of a very dear friend of mine. Now I'm not going to go too much into that because I don't want to start blubbering on camera. I've already had my little moment. But But, um... This was a guy, his name is Mitch Ferreira, I've done a tribute to him, you can check that out on browncarguy.com, if you know him, please leave your memories and your tributes for him, and if you don't, then you should go and check out what an amazing person this guy was, proper car guy's car guy, that's basically what he was. It was. So that's actually what I want to touch on because as we lose these people we lament a lot I lament and I have done this before and I'm sure other people have Written and spoken before about the fact that we're kind of we're losing the cars that we loved You know, we're losing the sort of vehicles as we transition to I'm sitting right now in a plug-in electric hybrid That's great. You know, as we lose the sort of cars that we were into as we grew up, we sort of lament that. But actually, what we should remember is also that we're not just losing that, but we're losing the community. And one of the great things about the car community, and especially something that I found during my time in Dubai in the Middle East, and of course, before that, in Saudi Arabia, was that how it brought people together and in fact, this I did a, I was having a I've been with this guy since I left Dubai in the end of 2018, beginning of 2019. But six years ago, I did a series of video podcasts where I caught up with a lot of friends and people like that. And he was one of them, and I'm so grateful that I did that because we got to reminisce a lot, but also learn a bit more stuff that probably I didn't even know when I was there about his own background and his own history and how he had come to be the person that he was and where the interest and passion had come from, where his technical ability, his engineering excellence had come from. So we got to learn a lot of that, and that's all covered in there as well. The thing that occurred to me today as I was thinking about him was that it's people like that that make the car community. One of the great things about him, he was one of the icons of the car customization culture in the UAE and an absolute, you know, professor at it, if you like. And he was involved in a lot of things, you know, off-roading, tourism, worked a lot with General Motors, did a lot of stuff with SEMA. I think he continuously went there for something like 17 years. Um... So he's somebody that you could have considered was you know he'd walk around with a bit of bluster in a bit of importance because he was an important guy but actually he was so humble and his humility he's down to earth um aspect of him the the fact that he was so laid back so easy going and key to all of that was that he was always so enthusiastic and friendly and helpful You know, and these are the key things I'll remember about him, you know. And I think that that's the important part of the car culture, because, and he mentions it in the video, it's something that I say as well, and he also mentioned it as well in the video, is that cars are the great unifier. You know, they bring people together. All kinds of people from all kinds of places, like you would never speak to that person otherwise and suddenly you're at a car meet and you're checking out their car, you're looking under the bonnet of their car and they come over and they chat and suddenly like you go, oh, you know, we've got a lot to talk about and I never would have thought about that otherwise. And it's one of the things that we used to do car meets, especially car magazine when I started work there and then later on. I moved to, well, we set up Motoring Middle East, which was something that we then created. And one of the things that we did during that time was we used to do these car meets. And one of the great things about the car meets, we didn't set any, they were not part of it. You didn't have to be part of a club. There was no minimum requirements. There was no stipulation of what sort of car. You know, our simple rule was that if your car is cool to you, then it's cool to us. Bring it and come along. And even if you don't have a car, come along, you know. One of the great things about that was that we had people from all over the place coming. Whether you were a German expat, Western expat, whether you were Filipino, whether you were from the subcontinent, wherever you were from, it didn't matter. You came along, you all had different tastes in cars, you would have a Ferrari parked next to a Hummer. Parked next to a sticker-bombed Honda Civic, parked next to a custom-modified 70s V8 muscle car. I mean, it was incredible, and it was very heartening to see. But it really brought people together. And I think one of the key things about somebody like Mitch was that he was one of the anchors, one of the icons, one of the main points. of car culture you know often when you thought of doing a meet or you wanted to do an event or you wanted to get together with car guys your mind would go to somebody like Mitch because you're like you know you know he'd be great uh you know and he's he's he's got stories he's got knowledge he's got expertise he's also got you know encouragement and humility and and friendliness you know and i think that this is one of the great things about the car culture We need more of this, and interestingly, I mean, I've just been also following the elections or the midterm elections in America, and we've seen that, you know, there's been this incredible push to radicalize people over the last few years, to push them in one extreme or the other extreme, you know, whether you're left or you're right or whatever, you know, and I've always... doesn't sit right with me. I'm always very disturbed and unsettled by that. I've spoken previously about racism and the impact it had on me and and now of course we have Islamophobia and interestingly there's a guy you know Abdul Saeed in America who was so fiercely attacked because of the fact that he's a Muslim. And congratulations to the guy, he's just become the first Muslim senator in America. And there's a bunch of other people also that you wouldn't have expected have now risen to prominence in the political scene over there. And the reality is that actually the more you bring people in, and what is heartening about this is despite all of the propaganda that was done against him, you know, he still legitimately, legitimately, you know, got that position. And the wonderful thing is, the important thing is, the point I guess I'm trying to make here, is that we need now more than ever. To be coming together, to be coming together as a human species, you know, to be cooperating, to be talking to each other, to be learning from each other, to be working together, you know, to have that spirit of, you know, cooperation and togetherness and, you know, the desire to help each other and go forward together. And I think this is the most important thing. And I always found that in car culture, you know, I have to say car culture in the UAE, you know, here as well, but If I'm being absolutely honest, I have sometimes struggled over here. There is a certain, what shall we say? There's a certain looking down at one's nose. There's a certain arrogance, you know. I've got to be honest. I mean, of course, there was some of that, obviously, in the Middle East as well. Some people are like that, right? In all people, this is the thing you've got to remember, right? You can't wipe out an entire community based on the actions of one or two individuals. And I'm not doing that even here as well. But I'm just saying that sometimes that does happen. You meet people and you go, okay. But by and large, in the car community... You know, you get people coming together, sharing, helping, advising, giving contacts, giving guidance, somebody's an expert or somebody knows an expert, and they say, oh, well, you need to get this done, check this guy out, or you know what, I can help you with this, or a lot of that happens. And they could be people from completely different ends of the spectrum, but they'll come together. And I think that that was one of the key things for me in the Middle East as well, was I found that a lot, you know, whether they were locals or whether there were other people, people When it was cars, Create car content. Brown Car Guy has written the only comprehensive guide that tells you exactly how. Get it now from Amazon or Kindle Unlimited. And I used to do this thing where I didn't used to inquire too much about who they were, where they were from, what they did. I've never reported it. Okay, okay, okay. That's a photo shoot, you dope. I won't be. That's fine. Don't worry. Don't worry. Talking now, but the thing is, is like, you know, that was one of the key things is that you took away from there is that everybody came together. You didn't want to bias your opinion of somebody by thinking about their race, their religion, their cultural heritage or their background. You just looked at them as a car guy, and you found that you had a lot in common. And once you had that starting point, once you had that point from which you started where you knew you had a lot in common, because you had this commonality of interest, cars. Then everything else kind of falls into place, you know, everything else doesn't really matter. You know, it doesn't matter to me, you know, who you are, where you're from, what religion you follow, what god you follow, or don't, or whatever, because you're a car person and suddenly you've got a lot to talk about. This is Brown Car Guy's exciting new thriller. New York Times bestselling author Rick Hoskin said of it, it's a spy story through a different lens. Get it now at Amazon or Kindle Unlimited. This video is a weird one. It's more me sort of being in a sort of contemplative mood today, thinking about people that we've lost, but also in a little bit of a celebratory mood as well, thinking about the fact that maybe Maybe some of the prejudice and the bigotedness has been rejected in some parts of the world to some extent. And I hope that that trend continues and I hope that we can all come together. And I know that it's kind of weird, you know, with cars because of the political spectrum. I think particularly here, not so much in other parts of the world, certainly not in the Middle East I ever found. But certainly here, in the political spectrum, it feels like a lot of the car culture has to be right wing. I don't know why that is, honestly. I know that there's an environmental aspect, but you know what? You can be somebody that cares deeply about, has deep awareness of social ethics and the environmental concerns, but still be a car guy. You're looking at one. I have all of those emotions. I love V8s, but I also want there to be social equality and justice for everybody, and I want us to look after the world that we live in. For our sakes more than the planet sakes, let's be honest, but that is the case. But anyway, the point is that we can coexist, we can have differences, we can have disagreements, but we can learn to get on together. And by doing so, we can make the world a better place to find for want of a better cliche, let's be honest. And certainly as a car community, I'm sure that we can we can come together and do that as well. Anyway, those are my thoughts on this on this day. Let me know what you think. Look forward to hearing your comments. Please support independent content creators. You can support Brown Car Guy at these links. And make sure you hit like, leave a comment, share this video and don't forget to subscribe. It all helps, it really does. So please do it!