Experience of a lifetime

One of the highlights of my career was in 2004 while I worked for a company called 4th Dimension Innovation.

Pepsi Company needed paint work done for two limited edition 2004 Suzuki Hayabusa sports motorbikes which were driven by Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé during the filming of a Pepsi commercial.

I was asked to come up with the design and to do the paintwork for the motorbikes in a martial-art-inspired theme.

It was around the time when the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had just been released and I loosely based my design on that.

I only had one day to come up with something, so I remember working through the night.

There was a whole team of us working on the project from painters to mechanics, and each bike took roughly one week to do the layout and to apply the painted designs. The bikes were said to be worth about £25,000 per bike at the time.

I got to meet Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez, however, didn’t really get to talk the ladies. I just stood next to them and caught Beyoncé as she tripped on the cobbles.

We were asked to take 9 bikes over to Madrid for the premiere. We rode in an arrowhead configuration in front of all the limousines right to the red carpet.

The feeling of riding the most powerful bike in front of such well-known personalities was pretty amazing.

To be honest, I think David Beckham would have loved to ride with us on his replica Jennifer Lopez Hayabusa, but his agent wouldn’t allow it as he was still playing football at the time!