Arthur Kar Is Turning Car Dealing Into an Art Form

Car connoisseur Arthur Kar came from humble beginnings, but now you can see him rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s top celebrities. Kar started off washing cars and working on Porsche engines at the tender age of 16, and now at 33, he’s one of the world’s most renowned collector of rare vehicles. SSENSE interviews Kar and asks him everything from his passion in automobiles, how he got to where he is, and what’s next. In fact, Kar will be launching an apparel line by the end of the year. Read an excerpt of the interview below and check out the full session here.

Evie Bear: How does a 16-year-old kid get hired at Porsche?
Arthur Kar: I got the job through perseverance. I visited the owner of the garage in Paris six times in a month telling him, “I wanna work for you, I wanna work for you, I wanna work for you,” until I got the job. I was at Porsche for four years, and then at age 20, I stopped because I realized I wanted to own cars. I couldn’t stay working as a mechanic if I wanted to do that, so I left and decided to buy and sell cars, little by little.

You did what you had to do, and it paid off.
Well, I enjoyed being that 16-year-old guy washing the car. I still am that guy. I have just as much respect for the guy that changes the tires, the oil, that washes the car, as the guy who sells or drives the most beautiful car in the world. They’re all the same people because they all have the same passion and essentially, they do the same work.

What was the first expensive car you bought?
A Porsche. A Turbo. A black 996 Turbo. The Porsche was on my list of dream cars, but it was more that the opportunity arose for that to be my first big car. It could have been any classic, cool car that I bought that day. I only knew that my goal was to deal the most beautiful cars in the world, so if the opportunity to buy the Golf GTI that I have today was in front of me instead of the Porsche, I would have bought that one. I kept the Porsche for two months, and then I sold it to buy another one.

What is your style ethos?
Everything simple and fun. It’s the same ethos for my life. As much as I love cars, I don’t spend all my time obsessing over them, otherwise I’d never have known who Michael Jordan is, or The Notorious B.I.G. and Nas! So I don’t take too much time thinking about wearing fashion, but I might jokingly or subconsciously match my mood to my car for the day. I love when my old white Vans go with my old white car and everything feels vintage. It’s also nice to wear the brand new Yeezys when you have brand new tires on your car. My favorite merch is restaurant logo T-shirts. If the food is good, and the restaurant takes their logo and puts it on a T-shirt, chances are the T-shirt is going to be good too. Everywhere I go with my girlfriend or my friends, if the food is worthy, we try to get a T-shirt of the spot.