Henrik Fisker

As a car lover, I ask myself, 'What am I going to be buying in the future? Will it be a boring, underpowered, dorky car because the government tells me I shouldn't pollute? Or do I come up with a cool-looking, sexy dream car that is also part of the future?'

If you think about jeans or phones or television, we are used to new brands popping up right and left. But in the car industry, we grew up with Mercedes, BMW, General Motors, and Ford, and nobody can remember during his or her upbringing a new car brand coming to life.

My motivation for starting Fisker was simple: I thought there must be a market for beautiful, exciting, fast, environmentally friendly cars. The car is probably the only product you can still fall in love with and have a relationship with.

I keep saying I am an auto-didact, but I have a lot of outside influences. One I could cite is juggler Francis Brunn, who was the first man to throw ten rings in the air; he was really an amazing juggler who showed onstage the quest for perfection.

What a piece of garbage this smart car is. There's a commercial - the smart car has zero percent interest for six years. Well, good, I got zero percent in six years in buying this smart car. I'll tell you that much. I mean, it's ridiculous. My buddy has a smart car, totaled it. He hit a deer tick.

I don't collect the way other people do. Some people collect rare guitars, like, 'I have a '54 Strat worth $50,000.' And I don't collect the way Nash does. Nash has Duane Allman's guitar and Johnny Cash's guitar. I bought guitars because they sounded good. I played them, they sounded unbelievably good, and I couldn't resist.