#ItsWhiteNoise meet up and semi interview
A contest/poll was held on Instagram in which #ItsWhiteNoise involved their followers in the wheel choice for their new Porsche 991 (911) GT3 RS. They were soon to pick up the GT3 RS and their and Cayman GT4 at the Porsche Factory in Stuttgart. Both of the cars were ordered in Gloss Black and that means that this 911 is unique as it’s the only GT3 RS in that color. A week or so later the winners were announced and our Instagram was among the winners. This is when I first contacted Elizabeth White and found a welcoming and open person. She had me wondering about that theatrical behavior Americans are often accused of though.
Autobahn
I’m straight forward and forthcoming as you might have noticed on this website. I wanted to meet this woman and the cars, so simply asked if she was planning to hit the Green Hell with the new cars. She replied that on the second of August she indeed would “hit it”. We agreed to meet up, but that wasn’t’ as easy as I had hoped.The day had come where we finally drove off to the touristenfahrten in the Green Hell. I got up around 6 and after attempting to wake up, I drove off to pick up Stan. When we crossed the German border and hit the Autobahn we ‘floored’ it and managed to arrive ahead of schedule in Adenau, only to find the Ring abandoned. Sadly this was the first of many times the Ring closed that day due to crashes. We wanted to catch some fly-by’s of the cars, but after waiting for 45 minutes and seeing nothing but tow-truck’s we decided to head to the entrance of the track to look for Elizabeth.
Traffic jam
Earlier I wrote that it wasn’t easy to find them and here’s why. Due to all the crashes, there was a congestion at the roundabout that leads to the touristenfahrt entrance. So the drive that usually takes around 10 minutes ended up being a 45 minute one. And after that it took over 2 hours to find Elizabeth and Andrew due to the masses swarming the Ring and its parking. We found them in the cafe and started a conversation after we moved to a bigger table.
#ItsWhiteNoise
We ended up talking for a short hour in which we discussed ItsWhiteNoise, Elizabeth herself and their cars. What the movement meant wasn’t clear for me, so I asked her to explain it to us. You should see it as the modern digital version of a craftsman guild. It’s a incentive based community that involves 3 groups. The consumer, the craftsmen and the buyer with them each having a unique role in the community. The consumer has the freest of all rolls as it views, shares and earns points in various ways. These points allow you to purchase various items in the online shop. Then you have the buyer and the craftsman, those rolls are self explanatory really.
In the weeks between winning the prize and meeting up I started to read up on Elizabeth White and the ItsWhiteNoise movement. I found several interviews, some written and other on film. Her career started in the Formula 1, then she worked for McLaren setting up the brand in Northern and Southern America. After that I could not find that much more about her, that is until you start using ItsWhiteNoise in Google search. Her cars, the projects, the celebrations she did all start to pop up, so yeah she’s spreading her hashtag at a very fast rate. She smiled proudly when I mentioned that she was being noticed in Europe as well.
You should have seen the look on her face when I asked her about the car collection. I quickly found out that the word has negative ring to it according to Elizabeth. She sees the cars as things you don’t keep hidden away, well at least that what she refuses to do. It’s an intricate part of #ItsWhiteNoise, but also of Elizabeth. I saw a powerful woman with a clear vision that breathes cars and for that reason I suppose it would break her heart not to use cars like their 1955 Gullwing, 356 Speedster or SLS Black Series.
We rounded up the conversation as she had to return to one of the many appointments she had that day and we agreed to meet up after all these appointments to watch them drift on a closed track nearby. As she needed some change, I lent it to her and laughed at the ironic context of it. After this moment our worst nightmare came true due to a massive mobile network black out, we weren’t able to meet up later that day and we were not able to see them drift their new cars. This made the trip bittersweet, but after 10 minutes of driving in excess of 200 kph that bittersweet taste was nowhere to be found. Stan and I sat silently next to each other as we both smiled from ear to ear with our heads re-living a more than special day. And no, I couldn’t find any of that theatrical American behavior.
