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Three!
So I'm taking a moment to celebrate not only these three, but also some of the other places Takona has shown up.
For anyone who's listened to the Morning Drive Podcast, you will have heard the recent episode with Craig Cheetham, for those who haven't listened to it, go do that, here's a link.
Craig got in touch as he writes for Practical Classics Magazine and was interested in doing a feature about Takona and the plucky little Renault 5. How could I say no!
Luden Classics very kindly let us shoot in their workshop, giving us the perfect backdrop for the shoot, the Renault in the midst of all of the proper classics.
Close friend of the brand Matt Hardwick (a brilliant photographer who's work you should definitely check out, you can do so here.) Writes a column piece for Rush Car Magazine, his recent article discusses the importance of mental health within the automotive world in which Takona was mentioned, Craig the editor of Rush when reading the article very kindly offered an opportunity to have an advert in the magazine.
This is the first ever Takona advert in a magazine, like a proper advert!
You can see Matts article and our Ad Here.
Rather unexpectedly and quite fortunately, Craig Cheetham of aforementioned practical classics and morning drive fame, also wrote a separate piece on Takona for Dealer Magazine, a magazine designed specifically for the car dealer network, and so the writing is tailored to suit a different audience and a different style. This article touches upon our discussion surrounding mental health within the workplace and how employers have been seen to tokenise the employee assistance program, using it as a get out of jail free card for poor practice in the workplace.
You can read the full article here.
I was fortunate enough to share the Takona story with Amy Shore and John Marcar for an episode of the Driven chat podcast, people doing a much more professional job at podcasting than I. As it happened the day we recorded over at Caffeine and Machine was also the day they recorder with Richard Porter of Top Gear and The Grand Tour writing fame. Schedules had aligned for him to be there for I Love You Man with Alex Goy, this meant that we had a rather lovely little automotive industry gathering around the bar at C&M, a true "imposter syndrome" moment for me.
You can listen to it Here.
The first multiple page article on Takona! For those subscribed to the Takona mailing list, you will have already heard this news and hopefully have bought a copy yourself, it's a great magazine! For those not in the mailing list, (you should change that really) October of 2021 Takona had a multipage article in issue 4 of Classic Retro Modern magazine which has, due to it's brilliant writing, sold out for back order! Fortunately there are a couple of photos proving it happened!
The guys at Classic Retro Modern were also kind enough to give us 10 copies and two subscriptions as prizes to give away to Takona fans. Top people wouldn't you say?
The guys over at Mini Magazine, specifically Dan Bevis, got in touch to say "we like what you do" and as such they very kindly featured Takona in their things to buy section, a particularly favourite photo of the Ascending hoodie adorned on a Lamborghini Countach was used, now giving me the title of "automotive magazine photographer" by technicality if nothing else!
A huge thank you to Dan and the team at Mini Magazine, it's always great to see media outlets engaging with what Takona stands for, it's a reflection of the kind of people who are part of the magazine when we're invited to be a part.
It's not every day you get an email from Toyota, well one that isn't about an upcoming event launching a new car, but one day I did get such an email. From Toyota's PR team to be specific saying "I work for Toyota/Lexus GB and was wondering if you would be interested in discussing your clothing brand, your links to mental health charities and of course, your Toyota GT86 for the official Toyota blog". How could I say no really?
What followed was a lovely conversation with Jake from Toyota's PR team, discussing all things Takona and mental health. A genuine conversation with a real human being, not a PR stunt aimed to capitalise on the hot topic of Mental Health. This article gives more focus to Mental Health and cars as a source of positive mental health support than it does to Toyota and the GT86, a real display of the reasons why it occurred, and that the guys at Toyota take the subject seriously.
You can read it here.
I've since also been invited by Toyota to attend (and after a last minute dropout compete in) the Toyota Parallel Pomeroy Trophy at Silverstone, where the guys from The Back Roads tm came along and filmed a video of the day.
During the lockdown I wrote a piece on looking after your wellbeing as a car enthusiast, essentially taking some of the NHS recommendations for keeping healthy and translating them to car based activities. As I was putting the draft of this together, I had rather fortunately connected with the one and only Henry Catchpole on twitter, who writes bits for EVO. Being the overly confident kind of guy I am, I straight up asked for help on a written piece, and being the lovely guy he is, he agreed to look at it. Giving some very kind words about the piece and some insightful edits that would help, he then took the kindness to the next level and set it to the guys at EVO. They happened to like it and featured it on their website!
You can read it here.
In an added twist of the car world connecting people, Jake from the Toyota PR team found out about Takona because of this article!
The first podcast to feature Takona, and the first I have ever been on. Looking back I remember how excited I was to travel into London to sit down and record. I was very nervous about talking on record, having never done so before, my passion for Takona carried me through this, and I look back at it fondly. Tim and Harry very kindly sat down with a total amateur to talk about his big ideas, they shared their own stories of difficult times, and demonstrated just how good the car world is.
You can listen to the episode here.
One of the first proper Takona features, Adam Tudor-Lane the man behind Carwitter very kindly wrote a feature and reviewed the early T-shirts, long before I had things figured out to the quality standard they now are. This was a foundation step in building on the branding side of Takona, helping to give insight into how the world of brands works. It was also a great example of the car world helping one another, Adam very kindly talking about a small startup from a bedroom and giving it the same space as proper companies.
You can read the full article, and see just how far the quality of Takona has come Here.
I believe CAR deserves a special mention here. Way back at the start of Takona, whilst I was still figuring out the basics, I emailed CAR magazine to enquire as to how I would get a Takona T-shirt into their things to buy section. Having never really done this before, and having no idea where to start, I figured to approach some of the larger known magazines and start asking questions. This may not necessarily be my approach now I have a little more knowledge, giving an impression of "I don't know what I'm doing, can you tell me" to a larger organisation is less likely to get a response (or a helpful one at least) than approaching a more close knit and smaller team would give. However I got very lucky and Claire from CAR magazine not only offered advise, but also agreed to pop Takona in to the magazine should they have any spaces unfilled!
For someone just starting out this was a hugely impactful event, something offering fire behind the idea of Takona, and reinforcing my belief that the car world is filled with good people.
This one gets a more footnote ranking, as I didn't have any real engagement from TG Philippines, or the UK guys following. Plus there's already a blog post Here.
The full article is here.
