“Dream as if you live forever. Live as if you die tomorrow.” The commitment to spiritual immortality is tattooed like a collar on the body of Marcus Walz. In English, because the saying is a quote from James Dean, the rebel actor who died prematurely and who got serious about this life motto.
Marcus Walz is a customizer, one who remodels and sells motorcycles. “Walz Hardcore Cycles” is the name of his company and almost everyone who is interested in motorcycles knows his name. Marcus is an internationally recognized doer and businessman. Awards and trophies pile up in his workshops and his order book is full.
The world of Marcus Walz
His book has now been published by Huber Verlag: “Marcus Walz – Hardcore for Life”. On 200 pages, Marcus Walz shows the jewels of his work, his bikes, his cars, his friends, his women and in many photos himself again and again. The book was also written for laypeople, there is no endless litany of spark plugs awaiting you – Assuming a certain amount of enthusiasm, Walz’s opus can be leafed through and read with pleasure.
Marcus now has workshops in Hungary, Switzerland, Spain, Holland and the USA. The global screwdriver remains loyal to his home base “Hockenheim” to this day. “Because of the name,” he admits. “Hockenheim is a household name in racing, that helped me in the early years and brought a lot of professionals into the showroom during the races”. So also “Formula One” driver Kimi Räikkönen, who came to the workshop a few years ago shortly before the start of the “Grand Prix of Germany” to have his bike designed. Mracus can afford a certain contempt for his customers. He spits out sayings like “I hate all the rich shit”.
One of the top screwdrivers in the world
Marcus’s life story reads like a fairy tale. Coming from the simplest of backgrounds, he had nothing but resourcefulness, ability and charm. And his mother’s love, who, a bitter blow of fate for the then 32-year-old, died ten years ago much too young. Marcus had her image tattooed twice on his muscular torso. One of them is adorned with the saying: “In Eternal Love”.
How does that fit together: Tough men with muscles and tattoos and the unbreakable love for his mother as well as the tendency to confess as on one of his large tattoos: “I believe in Jesus”?
His mother gave him self-confidence so that he could grow beyond himself and the tight circumstances in life. and Marcus thanked her in his book in numerous expressions of love and honor. Love, loyalty – the dedication in the opening credits is to his deceased bitch “Tonka” – and good work. Diligence, precision, a bit of luck, real friends and the ability to cope with setbacks. These are roughly the inner values of Walz’s hardcore universe. Outside you can see a shell made of cool bikes, metal, chrome, leather and the intimacy of oil-smeared workshops. The men wear jeans, leather and tattoos, the girls tight leather trousers. This world appears wild and a bit fetish-like. For those who live and work in it, this is deliberate normality and for outsiders it is part of the fascination.
Pitbull on his own behalf
Marcus stands legs apart and successful in the middle of this world. He is an ambassador in his own right, posing is in his blood like rebuilding his racing creatures. From a trained industrial mechanic, he screwed himself up to world fame, he is one of the greats of this guild today, developed from a good boy from Heidelberg to a global player in the field of custom bikes.
As a teenager, he dismantled everything from bicycles to mopeds, motorcycles and later cars and then screwed them back together again. Marcus and his iconic conversions were notorious among friends and foes in the Heidelberg area in the 1970s.
No show, Walz is real
Since 1992 he has been self-employed under the company name “Hardcore Cycles”. The ultimate breakthrough came with an invention called drag style: a lowered frame with a high-horsepower machine with which you can not only cruise but also ride in a sporty way. This invention, coupled with his clean and elegant technical work, made him the star of the customization scene almost overnight. Brad Bitt and Keanu Reeves are among his fans and customers today and Marcus is allowed to treat the multi-million dollar Hollywood heroes like mere mortals. There is no promibonus, you also have to wait up to a year for the 100,000 euro machines.
Incidentally, Marcus Walz painted his first Harley Davidson “Pan Shovel” in exactly the same Porsche color as the Spyder 550, in which James Dean drove his head and neck. The research odyssey took the meticulous tinkerer from the Porsche Museum to the workshop in Los Angeles where the cult actor had bought his Porsche. Using the chassis number of the original papers, Marcus Walz determined the exact color. Since then, all the silver bikes that ever leave the factory gates of his company have been painted in exactly this color. Hardcore for ever. #
Source From: Stern
I am a 24-year-old writer and journalist who has been working in the news industry for the past two years. I write primarily about market news, so if you’re looking for insights into what’s going on in the stock market or economic indicators, you’ve come to the right place. I also dabble in writing articles on lifestyle trends and pop culture news.
