With his fierce drive and fervor to win the title of absolute best in the industry, Celeb Auto Specialist Alex Vega proves time and again that his only competitor is himself. Vega, owner of Miami-based The Auto Firm, innovated a haute one stop shop for VIP clients including Akon, Marc Anthony, Floyd Mayweather and Teyana Taylor, where he customizes the hottest, most upscale cars. But Vega takes the word “revamp” to a new level.
The rides he customizes are extraordinary and, even more, unique to the car guru’s singular, creative spirit. He recalls working on his most outrageous project for New York Mets star Yoenis Cespedes, “He asked me to get him a Lamborghini. I think he paid over $300 something thousand for it, brand new, and then he told me to paint the whole car satin black with details.” Initially, Vega thought this was an unprecedented task on it’s own. “[But then,] he told me he wanted fire to come out of the exhaust—for it to spit fire,” Vega says. “I thought that was crazy, but I made it happen. And, let me tell you, it was a big hit.”
This particular outlook on Cespedes’ project is representative of Vega’s work mantra. He makes the impossible become a reality and the reality, a creative masterpiece. Regardless of the 300 plus texts and endless slew of calls he receives from clients each day, Vega accomplishes everything meticulously and as precise as his latest paint finish.
With their highly prolific and detailed work of servicing a mind-boggling 50 projects at one time, Vega and his Auto Firm team have proven their excellence to be remarkable enough for television. Recently premiering this summer, Velocity’s The Auto Firm invites viewers to live vicariously through Vega’s fast-track work life. Each week, they take a peek into the high-end car customizations of his A-list clients.
Unlike his cars, Vega never shows signs of exhaust. He’s meticulous, yet spontaneous, and he thrives on unpredictability—something that fuels his creative fire. Here, we take the wheel for a bit to glance inside a day in the life of the celebrity car guru.
7 a.m.:
I’m always in a good mood. My routine is—I go, I take a shower, get dressed, stop at Dunkin’ Donuts, get my coffee. I usually don’t listen to music on the way here. It’s my only, I would say, my only 10 minutes that I have of freedom.
8:30-8:45 a.m.:
I get [to work]. First thing I do is I scan the entire place. Even though, I left here late the day before. I’ll walk around and scan, and make sure everything is where it was. OCD, they might call it. I usually get here before everybody. Then everybody starts coming in. [I] get them to move all the cars out. And then I go out there and make sure everybody knows what they’re doing for the day.
10 a.m.:
This is when it really starts here. My phone is ringing off the hook. So, it’s managing the phone ringing, people asking about when their cars are going to be done, people asking for pictures. I try to filter the calls and the text messages because of the volume of calls and text messages I probably get. In one day, I can get over 200 calls and text messages—over 300 text messages. So it’s really hard to manage it. I just try to filter it as best as possible. A lot of people want pictures of progress…which is funny because a lot of the athletes, they want to see everything that you’re doing. And I don’t like to send progress pictures because people don’t understand my vision. I see a car one way when it comes in and I see it one way when it goes out. So, I’d rather show them the picture when it’s done and it can get frustrating sometimes because people are very much like, ‘I want to see what it looks like, I want to see what this looks like,’ and then they don’t get the full reaction of ‘I left the car like this and now it’s like this.’ So that’s a big battle I have every day. And if I were to take pictures of progress everyday, I would waste half my day doing that.
2 p.m.:
If I feel I’m hungry, I either just tell my son, ‘oh go get this.’ I’m very fast. I don’t go out to a restaurant and sit down. I can’t have lunch like that. I can’t. It’s impossible for me. And I probably eat in 10 minutes, so it’s on the run, always. The other day, for example…I had three other clients and then there’s times where I want people to delegate people to handle everybody that’s coming in—like I did—I told my son go take care of her, get her keys. But, even though that’s happening, I have people doing it in my head. No matter what I’m doing here, I know what’s going on outside. I have 64 cameras in front of me, so somebody can be sitting in front of me and I’m always looking up. And still my head is in everything that’s going on outside regardless of who I’m sitting with or what I’m doing or what I’m talking about, I know I have all these things going on.
[When someone comes in with a car], I give people ideas. In my head, I already have an idea…I have on a daily basis 10 Range Rovers I’m working on because I do a lot of Range Rovers for the dealer. And then you can call me and say, ‘I just bought a Range Rover, what would you do to it?’ First thing I tell everybody is bring it to me. I might have the same color Range Rover you have out here, but it’s something that when I look at that one, I can’t really tell, I’ve got to feel what you feel.
7-7:30 p.m.:
I get the guys to start bringing in some cars because we have a lot of cars outside. Then, even in that, I have to be out there making sure when they’re bringing them in, they’re not parking them too close to each other, etc.
8:30 p.m.:
If I have any paperwork pending or calls that I haven’t made, I make them at that time. Customers think it’s crazy that they’ll call me at 12 and I call them back at 8:30—I’m like ‘I’m sorry it’s late, but at least I called you before I left.’ Sometimes it’s just so much at once. I try to focus on today. Today, I know I have to finish this car, this car, this car or I have to get this accomplished. And I try to make sure everything in that day gets completed and done.
10:30 p.m.:
My life is so unpredictable that—put it this way—I don’t have a schedule. I don’t have one thing that I do. If I lay down, when I finally get my body to lay down, I like to watch news. I’m not really a huge TV person, and I’ll fall asleep in two seconds. Every minute that you waste sleeping or entertaining yourself with something that’s not really going to make any difference in my life is wasted time to me. My son lives right next to me, my older son, now I have a granddaughter. So I have my younger one and we’re very close so when I’m there—even though we’re [at work] all day—when I’m there, it’s my time with them. I’m very spontaneous. I don’t like to—even vacation, trips, anything like that—plan anything. I can literally be working right now on the computer and I’ll see a picture of New York and say, ‘I’ve never been to that place in New York. I want to go there.’ Boom, [I] book a ticket for this weekend—I’m going to New York. Crazy shit like that. That’s how I have to live my life, and I do it. It’s work for me, and it’s just the way I am.
