May 21, 2025 • 23 mins
Working with the RPM Foundation's Apprenticeship Program, Travis Lavine of Lavine Restorations discusses his goals to preserve knowledge, teach, and provide a foundation to future generations with a passion for automobiles.
https://www.lavinerestorations.com/
Fuel for the Future is presented by State Farm Insurance and Driven by America's Automotive Trust. https://americasautomotivetrust.org
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Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
I think at the endof the day and RPM Apprentice at Levine
Restorations is an individualthat has the passion
when it comes to cars to realizethat they are as much a historian
and an academic around these vehiclesas they are a craftsman or a technician.
We're expanding.
We're putting on 13,000ft² here,and part of that is a research library.
(00:23):
So we do have apprentices that come in.
We have a place that we can studyand things like that.
And I'm excitedto hopefully do what we can.
Our small part in helping educate the nextgeneration and preserve this knowledge.
So I'm excited about a lot.
That's my disposition is to be excitedand have my foot on the gas.
That is TravisLevine of Levine Restorations in Indiana,
(00:44):
which is highly regardedas one of the world's
best in restoring and preservingsignificant automobiles.
Levine restorations has partneredwith the RPM Foundation
with their apprenticeship program,where students who are passionate
about collector car restoration can earnan income while learning the craft,
and at Levine Restorations,they currently have seven apprentices.
(01:07):
The RPM Foundation is a nonprofitdedicated to preserving the arts,
vehicle restoration, and preservationthrough run hands training and mentorship.
This is fuel for the future,presented by State Farm Insurance
and driven by America's Automotive Trust.
I'm Michael May.
So Levine Restorations started in 1974.
(01:30):
It was the yearthat my parents got married, and
they decided that they wanted to restorea triumph.
TR 250 together.
Both my parentsand I, I have to emphasize the equal parts
in their contributions overthe last 50 years of building this place.
And so, yeah, my parents started outrestoring a triumph.
(01:50):
TR 250 and that triumphTR 250 was restored in a little one
stall garage, in their hometown,our hometown of Nappanee.
And basically one of the gentlementhat knew that car,
it was kind of one of thoseis this the triumph TR 250 that sat on
so-and-so corner of, you know,and it was all beat up and whatnot,
(02:13):
and Mom and dad said, yes, it is.
Well, that gentleman introduced them
to a fairly major collectorby the name of S Ray Miller.
And through s Ray Miller,they went on to restore 39 of the 41 cars
in his collection,
all of which, I mean, when his collectionwent up for auction in 2004,
the vast majority of our restorationswere world record setting prices.
(02:34):
And Ray was our first kind of cornerstoneclient.
Yeah.
And from there,
just through hard work and dedication,the company really grew and blossom
blossomed out of these cornfields of,you know, the Midwest and Indiana here.
And it really was just a,
a lot
of hard work on the part of my parentsto grow it to what it is today.
(02:57):
I'm sure it was.And I have to ask you about the triumph.
Why did they start with that?
Did they just see itand buy it and restore it,
or did someone come to themwith the triumph?
I, I if memory serves, it was kind of a
let's try it and see how we do.
My dad's dad worked for Studebaker for 35plus years,
and my mom is brilliant when it comes
(03:19):
to mechanical minded things,but she's also a brilliant businesswoman,
and so they kind of just saw the car
and decided to pick it upand take their hand in restoring it.
And I think it was more of a to restore itand sell it at that point in time.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, they were this wasn't the
I don't really knowwhat their thoughts were
when they first started out,you know, is this going to actually work?
(03:41):
Is it going to be the long term thing,which I think is definitely the case
with anybody
that gets that entrepreneurial itchand decides to do something like this.
So, yeah,that's really where it started out at.
Yeah.
And it's grown into one of the mostrespected companies in the business.
And could you shareI know you might be a humble person,
so this might be hard to do,
but share some of the accolades of thecompany, like some of the concours events.
(04:04):
You you've had carsat and things like that.
Sure.
We have we've competed in a
wide array of, of areas of the industry,everything from Pebble Beach.
We've won Best in Show out of PebbleBeach.
We've got dozens of bestin class, dozens of special awards,
dozens of class awards over the last.
(04:25):
It's in 1987 was the year that we wonBest in Show Out There,
which was my parent'sfirst outing, our first company
try at Pebble Beach and you winbest in Show was a pretty big deal.
But, dozens and dozensand dozens of awards at Pebble Beach.
We won best in show at Amelia Islandmultiple times.
Auburn. Cork, Duesenberg. Best in show.
(04:45):
I think 11 times.
Out of the 50 or 60 yearsthat that's been going on,
we sent cars overseasand been highly successful.
We've had best in class at the lighthouse.
We won special awards there.
We won best special awardsand presented awards
from Prince Michael of Kentin the UK at Hampton Court.
We've done Detroit on a rama.
(05:05):
Great. Eight vehicles. We've had vehicles.
We did hot rods for many years that weremulti-million dollar types of projects.
The the Riddler type projects and whatnot.
So we've had carsthat have debuted at Sema.
Yeah.
We've sent cars all over the world.
We currently have clients in India.
(05:25):
We have Japanese clients.
We have South African clientsthrough just a lot of very, very hard
work and dedication.
We've been very successfulin the industry.
It's a good way to put it, hundredsand hundreds
of awards, thousandsat this point in time.
Probably the main reason
I wanted to talk to you is because you nowhave a number of apprentices
(05:46):
from the RPM Foundationworking as, at Levine Restorations.
Can you tell me a little bit about whatthat actually entails?
Like what is an RPM apprentice?
That's a good question.
I've still I'm still working throughwhat I think an RPM apprentices, but
I I'll say this,I am a product of the Socratic method.
(06:09):
When I was an attorney
and when I went to law school,the Socratic method was a very big thing.
And so much of that is just being prepared
at any moment's notice for any question,anything that might come up.
And that's the approachthat we've taken to our apprentices here.
So when I think of a good wayto define our apprentices as they are
individualsthat don't have a lot of experience,
(06:31):
but they're always eager to learnand willing to jump in
and take all of the lessons that that.
Again, kind of build overtime to be able to tackle
what's the next best or hardest challengethat they're ready to do.
And our apprentices here are,I think, a good way to describe it,
as I call ourpeople kind of lunatic poets.
(06:53):
You have to be a little
crazy to do this,and you have to have passion.
And so our apprenticesreally are very hands on.
They don't sweep floors here.
We. That's not the waywe run this business.
The this is a very academic settingin the way that we operate our shop.
So our apprentices have homework,
they have assignments,they I give lessons, we bring in people
(07:15):
from across the countryto teach courses on things.
So our apprentices really are very
immersed into the car culture, the callcar community, the car research,
the different, you know, systemsand areas of the shop that we we have
and we utilize, be itmachining, body fabrication, paint,
(07:37):
mechanical engineering,
admin stuff, researchand things like that.
They're all really important.
So I it's a it's a really interestingquestion of what is an RPM apprentice.
And I think at the end of the day
in our RPM apprentice at LevineRestorations is an individual
that has the passionand a little bit of a craziness to them
when it comes to cars, to realizethat they are as much a historian
(08:01):
and an academic around these vehiclesas they are
a craftsman or a technicianor anything along those lines.
When was the first apprenticefrom the RPM Foundation?
How long have you been working with this?
So we've been we've been working with RPM.
I've been working with RPMfor oh, seven years.
I would say somewhere in that ballpark,our first apprentice,
(08:22):
Will Baldwin, has been with us nowfor four years,
and he, he actually kind of precededthe formal RPM system that we had.
And he kind of acclimatized into
RPM is this developedand was built out and whatnot.
And then from therewe've just added on apprentices
kind of in little cohortsand have grown to where we are now.
(08:46):
And it's been
for all
intents andpurposes, has been a fantastic process.
We have been,
beyond blessedwith the young people that we have here.
It's been very interesting.
I really didn't know whatthis would look like.
As this grew and NickEllis and I have, have,
you know, talked about this foreverand Diane Fitzgerald before that,
(09:11):
about what this is going to look like.
And it's,it's turned into a really neat growth ING,
evolving curriculum as we go.
So it's been years of working with RPM,but really at the core of it, it's
been several years now since, you know,let's call it three years of having
RPM apprentices in herein that formal way.
Right.
And you have seven of them nowis that right?
(09:31):
Yes, we have seven. Great.
And one of the things I wasn't even awareof until I spoke with you earlier,
but your tell me about your planwith those apprentices.
Are they going to stick around forever,or is this just to train them and have
them go off into the world?
My goal with living restorations,as I said this 11 years ago
and saying someplace you wanted it to bethe Google of something was cool.
(09:55):
So when I first started here in left,I said I wanted to make this the Google
for restoration industry.
I wanted it to be a place that was openand freethinking and creative
and was at the top of the heap,be it pay or experience or whatever else.
So my goal is to retain.
Selfishly,I'll say this as many of these apprentices
as I can, and I ultimately that'sthat's the goal of all of them.
(10:16):
So for me,
as this business grows and expandsand we again, kind of organically
just see what the industry has to offer
and introduce new technologiesand methodologies and things like that.
My goal is to keep all of them hereand promote them up the ranks
until we get to a point where theirmanagers and directors in this company.
(10:37):
And really,that's what my hope is with this place.
I want it to be for these individualsthat have taken the sleep with me.
My job is I always tell them
is you give me 100% and it's my jobto give you 200% back.
My job is to safeguard you as an employeeand I take that charge very seriously.
So I really hope that they all stay here
(10:58):
and we can continue to growand give them incredible opportunities.
And that as time progresses,as this program solidifies more
and we can bring in people for shorterstints and whatnot, at that point in time,
I'd be much more willingto send them out into the ether
and see them,you know, promulgate from there.
But this group, they're justthey're excellent.
And and I want to keep them so now,you mentioned that you were a lawyer
(11:23):
a little earlier.
So tell people some of your background.
So my background is a verycircuitous route to to home,
at zero
intention of being involvedin classic car restoration.
It was it's one of those things
you grew up so close to somethingyou don't really understand how it fits
into the whole of the world and lifeand what you can do with it and whatnot.
(11:45):
So when I was in college,I studied math, economics and finance.
I thought I was going to be an actuary,and then
one of my math professors in college said,have you ever thought about law school?
And I know ended up taking the Lsatand ended up
going to Michigan State for law school.
And I worked both for the United StatesEPA, the Michigan Department of Energy,
and then Ernst Young in tax.
(12:06):
So I was kind of up in the airbetween environmental law and tax law,
and I ended up studying tax,
or focusing on tax and work for Ernstand Young in Detroit and in Chicago
and worked in international tax planning,state and local tax planning and things
like that. So large corporate tax work.
And ultimately, during my time practicing,
(12:29):
the gentlemanthat was going to take the shop over
and in the kind of cohortthat was involved in that,
it wasn't the right fit for them.
So that during that time, I had beena couple of years into practice.
It's a very typical time where you lookto kind of either leapfrog into a,
you know, the next big thing or whatnot,and it was just the timing was right.
And ultimately,I made the decision to at the
(12:50):
encouragement of one of my clientsand the discouragement of my parents
were like, I don't know,you've worked so hard to do this.
Make sure you stay with that.
I ultimately decided
to come back inand start the process of taking it over.
So it was,
interestingly enough, it's the best,I believe, academic training
for running a business of this size
(13:12):
and this breadth and depth
that I think you could possibly have,
I was very lucky to grow up around it,so I absorbed a lot of this.
I mean, I worked over heremost of my childhood for sure,
but to really take that and take thatresearch in that very academic
and methodical rubric of restorationand law and meld them together.
(13:34):
So it was a wonderful training tool.
So it's been kind of ajust a tangible version of what I did
before in these cars.
It's just research, research, researchapplied to a physical object
as opposed to a transactionor a business case or whatever.
So it's been really interesting.
Yeah, I bet,
and in terms of interesting too,that's a perfect segue
(13:56):
for my next question, which is doyou have a favorite project or.
Ha, just in the historyof even when you were a kid
just growing up around the businessthat came through Levin Restorations,
anything that jumps outon top of your head, we
we restored Al Capone's lawyer's car.
It was a giftfrom Al Capone to his lawyer.
(14:18):
And it was the brother of Max factor.
Max factor, the makeup guy.
Yeah, yeah, this whole story was crazy.
They he was basically,he kind of fled the US to go to the UK.
And the government said,we will basically forgive you
of your crimes if you can come back hereand kind of manage Al Capone.
So he was in a lot of ways,Al Capone's PR guy.
(14:40):
And this Duesenberg was a gift for him.
Yeah. Which is incredible.
It was a Murphy Roadster.
You know, J.
Duesenberg. Really cool. And I just.
That was fascinating as a kid,but we've had
we've done so many unique
vehicles, the the 1928 Minervathat we won Best in Show with.
I mean, I was three at that point in time,so I didn't really understand
(15:03):
how huge that was until I was much older.
But that car is such a part of our historythat that's been a really it's been
a really important part of of the corein the ethos of Levin restoration.
But I, I mean, as a kid climbing around
in the rumble seat of stuff,I loved Lincoln Zephyrs when I was a kid.
We had a really great client that was theheir to a family that started,
(15:26):
I think it was Wall Drugsor one of the companies
that ended up merginginto Walgreens or something. Right? Right.
So he traveling to a show in Vermont,he won this, the Best Zephyr award,
and they did a little diecast carand he gave it to me.
And I still have it.It's at home somewhere.
So wethere were a lot of really special cars
when I was growing up, but in so many waysit was the people that made them
(15:47):
special, the ownersthat were just wonderful men and women.
And I think that'sone of the coolest parts about these cars
in general is they all have a soul,they all have a story to tell.
And when you get that story out,that soul comes alive.
And it's through the ownersand the restores
and the people in the industrythat and the historians and just all these
individuals, logistics,all of it, to make it come together
(16:10):
and make a car come to life.
In more recent years,the Amelia Earhart cord
that we restored was I mean, that'san incredible piece of history.
We brought a, car out to Pebble last year.
That was a 1934 Packard,12 Dietrich, owned
by four door convertible sedanthat just left for Italy.
And it was ownedby a woman named Louis Arthur Boyd.
(16:32):
And she was effectivelythe first female Arctic explorer.
They called herthe Arctic princess. So the airline
and bringing
her story to life was such athere was a lot of responsibility behind
that to, to kind of educatethis era of what she did and her exploits.
And in many ways, what she didwas more impressive than Amelia Earhart.
(16:53):
I mean, she was incredible.
She was she mapped Greenland,led the expedition to map Greenland,
work for the army in World War Two.
I mean, she had this car custom builtto send to Poland in 1935
as a part of a government appointedcongress that was going on in Poland.
And then she was askedby the American Geographic Society
to stay there and write a bookand stories on life in Poland.
(17:15):
So we have these incredible picturesof her and her chauffeur, first of all,
the two of them just riding around Poland,you know, with dirt roads
and things like that.
And it's just that was areally special one because I'm, I'm huge.
On women in motoring, watchingmy mother work through what can be
a little bit of a male dominated,in some cases, misogynistic industry.
(17:36):
And with some of the young womenthat we have here,
and you get an opportunityto have something like that.
That was a strong woman figure at thatpoint in time with a very special car.
That one to me is really,really important for sure.
And that's my favorite part about carculture is, is those connections
and finding those historical stories
and learning about them and connecting itto something you can touch sometimes.
(17:59):
Drive. Sure.
That's, really, really importantand so fascinating.
And on the horizon,what do you have anything coming up
that you're exciting about?
It could be a car show, a car coming in.
It could even be more apprentices.
What are you excited about in the future?
I, I am excited about we have sometremendous projects coming up.
(18:20):
We areblessed with some just wonderful owners.
We have a tight 35 Bugatti race carthat we're doing for a client
from South Africa who is this wonderfulyoung collector, awesome guy.
He's a friend that I met in Italywho became a client.
And it's just this kind ofperfect scenario that's a special car
because we're we're building itto go racing.
(18:42):
We have some, we have some
very rare, the, a very rare Bentleythat's in the shop right now.
We have an L 29 cordthat was designed by Brooke Stevens.
That again is from
a historical perspective kind of rewritesthe early part of his life.
And when he started doing clientbased cars,
we have myriad custom bodied cars
(19:03):
coming up over the next few years,which is really great and special.
And it's neat to have those opportunitiesto educate these young apprentices on
why those cars are what they are inthe industry, and all the context clues.
So those are fun projects.
I'm really excited, though,to see where this industry is going to go.
I feel like
(19:24):
I talked to my parents about this a lot.
They've weathered a lot of stormsin this industry,
and everybody's like,oh, young people aren't into these cars.
What's gone right?
Races are now and prices are bubble.
It's always peaks, valleys and a plateau.
And then it steps upand it's it's always been that way.
But there are I truly believethere's a groundswell of young people
(19:46):
in, in the industry and around the worldthat are starting to capitulate,
or I should say,the pendulum will swing back towards
things that are real and trueand have stories and history and roots.
You know, the now, the,the expression, the old money esthetic
and things like that.
Like hipsters brought back vinyl,you know, single handedly.
(20:07):
Great.
And vinyl is amazing because of the feel
and the sound and the touch in the,in the dexterity of it and things.
And I think there's a lot of thatgoing on in the industry there.
Just thesecards are still extremely expensive,
but I have friends is now being a 40 yearold that are partners
at firms that I practice with in Chicagothat are buying classic cars.
(20:27):
I have a friend of mine was two yearsyounger than I am,
or a year younger,who bought a 32 Cadillac unrestored car
with the intention of taking it to Pebbleas a preservation car.
And they're out there.
You go overseas
and the heritage and whatnot in the in,the people just love these cars.
Young people love them.
And I I'm excited to be, I hope,
(20:49):
at the front of a groundswell of this to,
you know, teach peopleand get them to understand
why these stories and these rootsand this history is important
on these cars because it
it's real and it's true
and it's tangibleand it's it's not fake social media.
I feel like an old guy saying that.But you know what I mean?
Like it's just there'sso much noise in life right now
(21:09):
when you have this thing in front of youand you can get in one of these cars
and you realize somebodywent on their first date in this car or
somebody, you know, had a massive businesstransaction, and this was their their,
you know, their win for that or whateverit is, you're part of that heritage.
And that's their time capsule.
And there are very few things in lifelike that.
And that's really special.
(21:30):
And it's it's neat to see more
of that storytelling,things like this happening
that are on a level that younger peoplerelate to and understand.
So I'm really excited about that, and I'mexcited about what we have going on here,
where we are in the background here,you may hear bulldozers and cranes going.
We're expanding.
We're putting on 13,000ft² here.
(21:51):
And part of that is a research library,a formal research
library and education center with,you know, a floating office.
So when we do have apprenticesthat come in,
we have a place that we can studyand things like that,
and we've got a presentation areaand whatnot in it.
And I'm excited to hopefully do whatwe can, our small part
in helping educate the next generationand preserve this knowledge.
(22:12):
So I'm excited about a lot.
That's my disposition is to be excitedand have my foot on the gas.
So I'm I'm bullish on what this industryis going to do
because at the end of the day,these are still historical documents.
There's still pieces of art.
It's just that you can get itand have a very cathartic,
(22:32):
visceral experiencethat shuts the rest of the world out.
And there are so few things like thatthat offer that anymore.
So it's exciting for me. It'svery exciting.
And I think all of that isis quite amazing.
And honestly, you said itbetter than I think anybody else's.
I've heard say it like your wholeyour whole summation of everything.
Thank you so much for doing the show and,and doing what you do with the
(22:57):
apprentices and all of your work and yeah,I'm thrilled that you were on the show.
Thank you so much, Travis. Well,thank you very much.
It's truly an honor to be a part of this.
Thank you for listening.
To feel for the future,
presented by State Farm Insuranceand driven by America's Automotive Trust.
Learn more at America'sAutomotive Trust, Dawg.
And you can also learn moreabout the RPM Foundation at RPM, Dot
(23:19):
Foundation and Levine Restorationsat Levine restorations.com.
I think at the endof the day and RPM Apprentice at Levine
Restorations is an individualthat has the passion
when it comes to cars to realizethat they are as much a historian
and an academic around these vehiclesas they are a craftsman or a technician.
We're expanding.
We're putting on 13,000ft² here,and part of that is a research library.
(00:23):
So we do have apprentices that come in.
We have a place that we can studyand things like that.
And I'm excitedto hopefully do what we can.
Our small part in helping educate the nextgeneration and preserve this knowledge.
So I'm excited about a lot.
That's my disposition is to be excitedand have my foot on the gas.
That is TravisLevine of Levine Restorations in Indiana,
(00:44):
which is highly regardedas one of the world's
best in restoring and preservingsignificant automobiles.
Levine restorations has partneredwith the RPM Foundation
with their apprenticeship program,where students who are passionate
about collector car restoration can earnan income while learning the craft,
and at Levine Restorations,they currently have seven apprentices.
(01:07):
The RPM Foundation is a nonprofitdedicated to preserving the arts,
vehicle restoration, and preservationthrough run hands training and mentorship.
This is fuel for the future,presented by State Farm Insurance
and driven by America's Automotive Trust.
I'm Michael May.
So Levine Restorations started in 1974.
(01:30):
It was the yearthat my parents got married, and
they decided that they wanted to restorea triumph.
TR 250 together.
Both my parentsand I, I have to emphasize the equal parts
in their contributions overthe last 50 years of building this place.
And so, yeah, my parents started outrestoring a triumph.
(01:50):
TR 250 and that triumphTR 250 was restored in a little one
stall garage, in their hometown,our hometown of Nappanee.
And basically one of the gentlementhat knew that car,
it was kind of one of thoseis this the triumph TR 250 that sat on
so-and-so corner of, you know,and it was all beat up and whatnot,
(02:13):
and Mom and dad said, yes, it is.
Well, that gentleman introduced them
to a fairly major collectorby the name of S Ray Miller.
And through s Ray Miller,they went on to restore 39 of the 41 cars
in his collection,
all of which, I mean, when his collectionwent up for auction in 2004,
the vast majority of our restorationswere world record setting prices.
(02:34):
And Ray was our first kind of cornerstoneclient.
Yeah.
And from there,
just through hard work and dedication,the company really grew and blossom
blossomed out of these cornfields of,you know, the Midwest and Indiana here.
And it really was just a,
a lot
of hard work on the part of my parentsto grow it to what it is today.
(02:57):
I'm sure it was.And I have to ask you about the triumph.
Why did they start with that?
Did they just see itand buy it and restore it,
or did someone come to themwith the triumph?
I, I if memory serves, it was kind of a
let's try it and see how we do.
My dad's dad worked for Studebaker for 35plus years,
and my mom is brilliant when it comes
(03:19):
to mechanical minded things,but she's also a brilliant businesswoman,
and so they kind of just saw the car
and decided to pick it upand take their hand in restoring it.
And I think it was more of a to restore itand sell it at that point in time.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, they were this wasn't the
I don't really knowwhat their thoughts were
when they first started out,you know, is this going to actually work?
(03:41):
Is it going to be the long term thing,which I think is definitely the case
with anybody
that gets that entrepreneurial itchand decides to do something like this.
So, yeah,that's really where it started out at.
Yeah.
And it's grown into one of the mostrespected companies in the business.
And could you shareI know you might be a humble person,
so this might be hard to do,
but share some of the accolades of thecompany, like some of the concours events.
(04:04):
You you've had carsat and things like that.
Sure.
We have we've competed in a
wide array of, of areas of the industry,everything from Pebble Beach.
We've won Best in Show out of PebbleBeach.
We've got dozens of bestin class, dozens of special awards,
dozens of class awards over the last.
(04:25):
It's in 1987 was the year that we wonBest in Show Out There,
which was my parent'sfirst outing, our first company
try at Pebble Beach and you winbest in Show was a pretty big deal.
But, dozens and dozensand dozens of awards at Pebble Beach.
We won best in show at Amelia Islandmultiple times.
Auburn. Cork, Duesenberg. Best in show.
(04:45):
I think 11 times.
Out of the 50 or 60 yearsthat that's been going on,
we sent cars overseasand been highly successful.
We've had best in class at the lighthouse.
We won special awards there.
We won best special awardsand presented awards
from Prince Michael of Kentin the UK at Hampton Court.
We've done Detroit on a rama.
(05:05):
Great. Eight vehicles. We've had vehicles.
We did hot rods for many years that weremulti-million dollar types of projects.
The the Riddler type projects and whatnot.
So we've had carsthat have debuted at Sema.
Yeah.
We've sent cars all over the world.
We currently have clients in India.
(05:25):
We have Japanese clients.
We have South African clientsthrough just a lot of very, very hard
work and dedication.
We've been very successfulin the industry.
It's a good way to put it, hundredsand hundreds
of awards, thousandsat this point in time.
Probably the main reason
I wanted to talk to you is because you nowhave a number of apprentices
(05:46):
from the RPM Foundationworking as, at Levine Restorations.
Can you tell me a little bit about whatthat actually entails?
Like what is an RPM apprentice?
That's a good question.
I've still I'm still working throughwhat I think an RPM apprentices, but
I I'll say this,I am a product of the Socratic method.
(06:09):
When I was an attorney
and when I went to law school,the Socratic method was a very big thing.
And so much of that is just being prepared
at any moment's notice for any question,anything that might come up.
And that's the approachthat we've taken to our apprentices here.
So when I think of a good wayto define our apprentices as they are
individualsthat don't have a lot of experience,
(06:31):
but they're always eager to learnand willing to jump in
and take all of the lessons that that.
Again, kind of build overtime to be able to tackle
what's the next best or hardest challengethat they're ready to do.
And our apprentices here are,I think, a good way to describe it,
as I call ourpeople kind of lunatic poets.
(06:53):
You have to be a little
crazy to do this,and you have to have passion.
And so our apprenticesreally are very hands on.
They don't sweep floors here.
We. That's not the waywe run this business.
The this is a very academic settingin the way that we operate our shop.
So our apprentices have homework,
they have assignments,they I give lessons, we bring in people
(07:15):
from across the countryto teach courses on things.
So our apprentices really are very
immersed into the car culture, the callcar community, the car research,
the different, you know, systemsand areas of the shop that we we have
and we utilize, be itmachining, body fabrication, paint,
(07:37):
mechanical engineering,
admin stuff, researchand things like that.
They're all really important.
So I it's a it's a really interestingquestion of what is an RPM apprentice.
And I think at the end of the day
in our RPM apprentice at LevineRestorations is an individual
that has the passionand a little bit of a craziness to them
when it comes to cars, to realizethat they are as much a historian
(08:01):
and an academic around these vehiclesas they are
a craftsman or a technicianor anything along those lines.
When was the first apprenticefrom the RPM Foundation?
How long have you been working with this?
So we've been we've been working with RPM.
I've been working with RPMfor oh, seven years.
I would say somewhere in that ballpark,our first apprentice,
(08:22):
Will Baldwin, has been with us nowfor four years,
and he, he actually kind of precededthe formal RPM system that we had.
And he kind of acclimatized into
RPM is this developedand was built out and whatnot.
And then from therewe've just added on apprentices
kind of in little cohortsand have grown to where we are now.
(08:46):
And it's been
for all
intents andpurposes, has been a fantastic process.
We have been,
beyond blessedwith the young people that we have here.
It's been very interesting.
I really didn't know whatthis would look like.
As this grew and NickEllis and I have, have,
you know, talked about this foreverand Diane Fitzgerald before that,
(09:11):
about what this is going to look like.
And it's,it's turned into a really neat growth ING,
evolving curriculum as we go.
So it's been years of working with RPM,but really at the core of it, it's
been several years now since, you know,let's call it three years of having
RPM apprentices in herein that formal way.
Right.
And you have seven of them nowis that right?
(09:31):
Yes, we have seven. Great.
And one of the things I wasn't even awareof until I spoke with you earlier,
but your tell me about your planwith those apprentices.
Are they going to stick around forever,or is this just to train them and have
them go off into the world?
My goal with living restorations,as I said this 11 years ago
and saying someplace you wanted it to bethe Google of something was cool.
(09:55):
So when I first started here in left,I said I wanted to make this the Google
for restoration industry.
I wanted it to be a place that was openand freethinking and creative
and was at the top of the heap,be it pay or experience or whatever else.
So my goal is to retain.
Selfishly,I'll say this as many of these apprentices
as I can, and I ultimately that'sthat's the goal of all of them.
(10:16):
So for me,
as this business grows and expandsand we again, kind of organically
just see what the industry has to offer
and introduce new technologiesand methodologies and things like that.
My goal is to keep all of them hereand promote them up the ranks
until we get to a point where theirmanagers and directors in this company.
(10:37):
And really,that's what my hope is with this place.
I want it to be for these individualsthat have taken the sleep with me.
My job is I always tell them
is you give me 100% and it's my jobto give you 200% back.
My job is to safeguard you as an employeeand I take that charge very seriously.
So I really hope that they all stay here
(10:58):
and we can continue to growand give them incredible opportunities.
And that as time progresses,as this program solidifies more
and we can bring in people for shorterstints and whatnot, at that point in time,
I'd be much more willingto send them out into the ether
and see them,you know, promulgate from there.
But this group, they're justthey're excellent.
And and I want to keep them so now,you mentioned that you were a lawyer
(11:23):
a little earlier.
So tell people some of your background.
So my background is a verycircuitous route to to home,
at zero
intention of being involvedin classic car restoration.
It was it's one of those things
you grew up so close to somethingyou don't really understand how it fits
into the whole of the world and lifeand what you can do with it and whatnot.
(11:45):
So when I was in college,I studied math, economics and finance.
I thought I was going to be an actuary,and then
one of my math professors in college said,have you ever thought about law school?
And I know ended up taking the Lsatand ended up
going to Michigan State for law school.
And I worked both for the United StatesEPA, the Michigan Department of Energy,
and then Ernst Young in tax.
(12:06):
So I was kind of up in the airbetween environmental law and tax law,
and I ended up studying tax,
or focusing on tax and work for Ernstand Young in Detroit and in Chicago
and worked in international tax planning,state and local tax planning and things
like that. So large corporate tax work.
And ultimately, during my time practicing,
(12:29):
the gentlemanthat was going to take the shop over
and in the kind of cohortthat was involved in that,
it wasn't the right fit for them.
So that during that time, I had beena couple of years into practice.
It's a very typical time where you lookto kind of either leapfrog into a,
you know, the next big thing or whatnot,and it was just the timing was right.
And ultimately,I made the decision to at the
(12:50):
encouragement of one of my clientsand the discouragement of my parents
were like, I don't know,you've worked so hard to do this.
Make sure you stay with that.
I ultimately decided
to come back inand start the process of taking it over.
So it was,
interestingly enough, it's the best,I believe, academic training
for running a business of this size
(13:12):
and this breadth and depth
that I think you could possibly have,
I was very lucky to grow up around it,so I absorbed a lot of this.
I mean, I worked over heremost of my childhood for sure,
but to really take that and take thatresearch in that very academic
and methodical rubric of restorationand law and meld them together.
(13:34):
So it was a wonderful training tool.
So it's been kind of ajust a tangible version of what I did
before in these cars.
It's just research, research, researchapplied to a physical object
as opposed to a transactionor a business case or whatever.
So it's been really interesting.
Yeah, I bet,
and in terms of interesting too,that's a perfect segue
(13:56):
for my next question, which is doyou have a favorite project or.
Ha, just in the historyof even when you were a kid
just growing up around the businessthat came through Levin Restorations,
anything that jumps outon top of your head, we
we restored Al Capone's lawyer's car.
It was a giftfrom Al Capone to his lawyer.
(14:18):
And it was the brother of Max factor.
Max factor, the makeup guy.
Yeah, yeah, this whole story was crazy.
They he was basically,he kind of fled the US to go to the UK.
And the government said,we will basically forgive you
of your crimes if you can come back hereand kind of manage Al Capone.
So he was in a lot of ways,Al Capone's PR guy.
(14:40):
And this Duesenberg was a gift for him.
Yeah. Which is incredible.
It was a Murphy Roadster.
You know, J.
Duesenberg. Really cool. And I just.
That was fascinating as a kid,but we've had
we've done so many unique
vehicles, the the 1928 Minervathat we won Best in Show with.
I mean, I was three at that point in time,so I didn't really understand
(15:03):
how huge that was until I was much older.
But that car is such a part of our historythat that's been a really it's been
a really important part of of the corein the ethos of Levin restoration.
But I, I mean, as a kid climbing around
in the rumble seat of stuff,I loved Lincoln Zephyrs when I was a kid.
We had a really great client that was theheir to a family that started,
(15:26):
I think it was Wall Drugsor one of the companies
that ended up merginginto Walgreens or something. Right? Right.
So he traveling to a show in Vermont,he won this, the Best Zephyr award,
and they did a little diecast carand he gave it to me.
And I still have it.It's at home somewhere.
So wethere were a lot of really special cars
when I was growing up, but in so many waysit was the people that made them
(15:47):
special, the ownersthat were just wonderful men and women.
And I think that'sone of the coolest parts about these cars
in general is they all have a soul,they all have a story to tell.
And when you get that story out,that soul comes alive.
And it's through the ownersand the restores
and the people in the industrythat and the historians and just all these
individuals, logistics,all of it, to make it come together
(16:10):
and make a car come to life.
In more recent years,the Amelia Earhart cord
that we restored was I mean, that'san incredible piece of history.
We brought a, car out to Pebble last year.
That was a 1934 Packard,12 Dietrich, owned
by four door convertible sedanthat just left for Italy.
And it was ownedby a woman named Louis Arthur Boyd.
(16:32):
And she was effectivelythe first female Arctic explorer.
They called herthe Arctic princess. So the airline
and bringing
her story to life was such athere was a lot of responsibility behind
that to, to kind of educatethis era of what she did and her exploits.
And in many ways, what she didwas more impressive than Amelia Earhart.
(16:53):
I mean, she was incredible.
She was she mapped Greenland,led the expedition to map Greenland,
work for the army in World War Two.
I mean, she had this car custom builtto send to Poland in 1935
as a part of a government appointedcongress that was going on in Poland.
And then she was askedby the American Geographic Society
to stay there and write a bookand stories on life in Poland.
(17:15):
So we have these incredible picturesof her and her chauffeur, first of all,
the two of them just riding around Poland,you know, with dirt roads
and things like that.
And it's just that was areally special one because I'm, I'm huge.
On women in motoring, watchingmy mother work through what can be
a little bit of a male dominated,in some cases, misogynistic industry.
(17:36):
And with some of the young womenthat we have here,
and you get an opportunityto have something like that.
That was a strong woman figure at thatpoint in time with a very special car.
That one to me is really,really important for sure.
And that's my favorite part about carculture is, is those connections
and finding those historical stories
and learning about them and connecting itto something you can touch sometimes.
(17:59):
Drive. Sure.
That's, really, really importantand so fascinating.
And on the horizon,what do you have anything coming up
that you're exciting about?
It could be a car show, a car coming in.
It could even be more apprentices.
What are you excited about in the future?
I, I am excited about we have sometremendous projects coming up.
(18:20):
We areblessed with some just wonderful owners.
We have a tight 35 Bugatti race carthat we're doing for a client
from South Africa who is this wonderfulyoung collector, awesome guy.
He's a friend that I met in Italywho became a client.
And it's just this kind ofperfect scenario that's a special car
because we're we're building itto go racing.
(18:42):
We have some, we have some
very rare, the, a very rare Bentleythat's in the shop right now.
We have an L 29 cordthat was designed by Brooke Stevens.
That again is from
a historical perspective kind of rewritesthe early part of his life.
And when he started doing clientbased cars,
we have myriad custom bodied cars
(19:03):
coming up over the next few years,which is really great and special.
And it's neat to have those opportunitiesto educate these young apprentices on
why those cars are what they are inthe industry, and all the context clues.
So those are fun projects.
I'm really excited, though,to see where this industry is going to go.
I feel like
(19:24):
I talked to my parents about this a lot.
They've weathered a lot of stormsin this industry,
and everybody's like,oh, young people aren't into these cars.
What's gone right?
Races are now and prices are bubble.
It's always peaks, valleys and a plateau.
And then it steps upand it's it's always been that way.
But there are I truly believethere's a groundswell of young people
(19:46):
in, in the industry and around the worldthat are starting to capitulate,
or I should say,the pendulum will swing back towards
things that are real and trueand have stories and history and roots.
You know, the now, the,the expression, the old money esthetic
and things like that.
Like hipsters brought back vinyl,you know, single handedly.
(20:07):
Great.
And vinyl is amazing because of the feel
and the sound and the touch in the,in the dexterity of it and things.
And I think there's a lot of thatgoing on in the industry there.
Just thesecards are still extremely expensive,
but I have friends is now being a 40 yearold that are partners
at firms that I practice with in Chicagothat are buying classic cars.
(20:27):
I have a friend of mine was two yearsyounger than I am,
or a year younger,who bought a 32 Cadillac unrestored car
with the intention of taking it to Pebbleas a preservation car.
And they're out there.
You go overseas
and the heritage and whatnot in the in,the people just love these cars.
Young people love them.
And I I'm excited to be, I hope,
(20:49):
at the front of a groundswell of this to,
you know, teach peopleand get them to understand
why these stories and these rootsand this history is important
on these cars because it
it's real and it's true
and it's tangibleand it's it's not fake social media.
I feel like an old guy saying that.But you know what I mean?
Like it's just there'sso much noise in life right now
(21:09):
when you have this thing in front of youand you can get in one of these cars
and you realize somebodywent on their first date in this car or
somebody, you know, had a massive businesstransaction, and this was their their,
you know, their win for that or whateverit is, you're part of that heritage.
And that's their time capsule.
And there are very few things in lifelike that.
And that's really special.
(21:30):
And it's it's neat to see more
of that storytelling,things like this happening
that are on a level that younger peoplerelate to and understand.
So I'm really excited about that, and I'mexcited about what we have going on here,
where we are in the background here,you may hear bulldozers and cranes going.
We're expanding.
We're putting on 13,000ft² here.
(21:51):
And part of that is a research library,a formal research
library and education center with,you know, a floating office.
So when we do have apprenticesthat come in,
we have a place that we can studyand things like that,
and we've got a presentation areaand whatnot in it.
And I'm excited to hopefully do whatwe can, our small part
in helping educate the next generationand preserve this knowledge.
(22:12):
So I'm excited about a lot.
That's my disposition is to be excitedand have my foot on the gas.
So I'm I'm bullish on what this industryis going to do
because at the end of the day,these are still historical documents.
There's still pieces of art.
It's just that you can get itand have a very cathartic,
(22:32):
visceral experiencethat shuts the rest of the world out.
And there are so few things like thatthat offer that anymore.
So it's exciting for me. It'svery exciting.
And I think all of that isis quite amazing.
And honestly, you said itbetter than I think anybody else's.
I've heard say it like your wholeyour whole summation of everything.
Thank you so much for doing the show and,and doing what you do with the
(22:57):
apprentices and all of your work and yeah,I'm thrilled that you were on the show.
Thank you so much, Travis. Well,thank you very much.
It's truly an honor to be a part of this.
Thank you for listening.
To feel for the future,
presented by State Farm Insuranceand driven by America's Automotive Trust.
Learn more at America'sAutomotive Trust, Dawg.
And you can also learn moreabout the RPM Foundation at RPM, Dot
(23:19):
Foundation and Levine Restorationsat Levine restorations.com.
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