One part politico, two parts mechanic, and three parts rabid diesel enthusiast, Colin Mathews started his career as a freelance writer in Atlanta in 1999, graduated to editorial assistant and then road test coordinator at Motor Trend Magazine, and finally got his start writing and photographing at Super Street Magazine in 2002.

Preferring personal training and an apprenticeship with an auto mechanic in Malibu to the pressures, mergers, and budget cutbacks of the post-9/11 media world, he took a hiatus from writing to focus on sculpting physiques in the gym and wrenching on, rebuilding, and fine-tuning the wheels of some of SoCal's storied citizens. Exposure to the tree-huggers on the left-coast introduced him to the land of veggie-powered Mercedes-Benz diesels, inspiring the purchase of a 1982 Benz 300TD wagon with over 300,000 miles. Nearly every weekend is spent trolling the junkyards of Atlanta for trim pieces and mechanical bits for the clunker-turned-classic that now runs on used cooking grease.

Colin is a cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady school of Journalism & Mass Communication, a former White House intern under the Clinton Administration where he assisted with speechwriting, and perhaps most passionately the kind of guy who dissected lawnmower engines as a kid and took a $500 '63 Volkswagen Beetle from dilapidated to drivable as his first proud ride in high school.