I have to confess I don’t often wear car-themed clothing as I go about my daily business. But when the weekend comes and I find myself at a cars-and-coffee or a RadWood show, I pull out the gearhead T-shirts and logo’d ball cap of choice to fit in. My go-to brand is the stuff from Carpe Viam!. What started out as a book project more than 12 years ago with “The Little Red Racing Car” has evolved into a full-on automotive design brand.
Founded by Dwight Knowlton, a talented commercial artist and creative director, his Carpe Viam! brand now includes several book titles and line of original car-themed apparel. I got to visit Dwight at his studio outside Phoenix a few years ago and saw the passion and creativity that goes into his work firsthand. He’s a genuine car guy with a true love of classic motorsport history, particularly around vintage European sports cars and the era of arrive-and-drive road racing. And it shows in his collection.
He does a cool lineup of “Life’s Too Short to Driving Boring Cars” designs that includes notable British, German, and Italian icons, among others. He’s also gone back to capture the excitement of long-passed enthusiast magazine titles including Speed Age, Sportscar Graphic, Auto Speed and Sport, and others.
My favorite design, and the one I happened to be wearing while typing this out, is the Competition Motors “1st in the West” T-shirt. Inspiration for this collection goes directly from original advertising artwork for the first Porsche dealer west of the Mississippi. Based in Hollywood, it was where the rich and famous first fell in love with Porsche, Ferrari, and other sports cars in these company’s formative years.
More than just a dealer, it was also a speed shop, performance tuner, and racing team led by owner John von Neumann. But it may be most famous as the place where James Dean took delivery of his Porsche 550 Spyder just days before his fatal crash on the way to the races in Salinas, California.
Dwight hand-prints his designs on premium clothing stock at his shop and studio in Arizona. It is a true labor of love, and it’s always a point of pride to wear one his pieces out to an event. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.
See the full lineup at Carpe Viam!