Yes to Dame Dash, No to Waymos: Meet the BBS Boys
From building custom rides for hip-hop royalty to rejecting self-driving cars, the Harlem car club breaks down the golden era of automotive design.
What separated the culture of the ’80s and ’90s from today? According to Reginald Frierson: An increased willingness to dance. “When I was younger, people danced,” Frierson exclaims. “Our era danced!” Frierson is the founder of the BBS Boys, an all-in-one social club, rental service and restoration project based around classic cars. A chance encounter with DJ Thoro, Frierson’s future co-founder, during a weekend drive to New York City sparked the partnership that would eventually become BBS Boys.
After exchanging numbers the two began planning rideouts with friends, documenting the convoys and then uploading videos to Instagram. In an unsurprising turn of events, there was an appetite for exotic vehicles from the ’80s and ’90s in mint condition, equipped with BBS wheels—a lightweight, cross-spoke design made by a German performance manufacturer.
As the page grew, so did membership and commercial opportunities. Leveraging their connections in the entertainment industry and DJ Thoro’s decades of experience in the music business, including collaborations with Wu-Tang Clan and Nas, the pair began renting out vehicles for film productions, music videos and ad campaigns.
For Frierson and Thoro, setting foot inside a car from their collections is similar to stepping into a time machine. It’s a form of lived nostalgia, removed from the curated, screen-mediated versions of the past that dominate our feeds. Speaking to the duo is an exercise in ethical old-headism. Instead of scolding younger generations or lamenting the age of mass information, Frierson and Thoro wax poetic about the ’80s and ’90s by speaking to what actually made this period distinct: individuality.
Caught in the middle of the EV transition, Frierson and Thoro remain bullish on their preference for the internal combustion engine. “I don’t want my car self-driving,” Frierson says. “I don’t trust Waymos.”
Below, a conversation with the founders on the golden decades of culture, nostalgia marketing and why a car is so much more than a means of transportation.