The History Of Midnight Potato

In around October 2017, I and Alex were getting increasingly involved in the UK drifting scene. He had just bought himself a Nissan 200SX S14, and I was still driving a front wheel drive VW Polo. We were going out to more and more car meets in his Nissan, meeting more people with cars that were capable of going sideways, and drifting further astray from the style derived world we knew and loved. 

We realised that there were, and would continue to be, a rare few cars in our immediate group that were good looking and had the capability to go sideways. Alex' S14, Mikey's AE86, and a host of MX5's being the rare few we actually liked. 

We initially set out to create a Youtube channel, following our pursuits for cool cars. Like the ones we had seen on the internet. Covering shows and events, focusing only on vehicles that we liked and found interesting.

This idea very quickly came crashing down, with our first video being our friend Tayler (yes that is spelled correctly) collecting a Nissan Primera (Below).

By this time, I had purchased my first rear wheel drive car. A magnificent 1989 Volvo 340. This 40BHP monster gave me my first taste of drifting, looping roundabouts in the wet, sliding around corners and being a general hazard to those around me. 

This is, unfortunately, how most people get into drifting in the UK. With cheap RWD cars being plentiful, and an abundance of wet weather, street drifting was and is the easiest route to get sliding around. 

We very quickly found ourselves filming more and more of that which we did not like. Dodgy BMW's with no exhaust spinning repeatedly around roundabouts, making for an assault on the eyes and ears. And to be honest, quite boring footage. 

We swiftly realised that we had killed our chances of making much of our channel. Using it on occasion since, to document our various events and ridiculous escapades. We do still use the Youtube channel to this day, and it will be used to back up this site with cinematic pieces, interviews and montages.

At this point we decided to expand the brand. We had made ourselves some hoodies to show who we were, and these were received incredibly well. Simply saying Midnight Potato across the front, and the Japanese Kanji equivalent on the back. Simple, neat and stylish, we proceeded to get in contact with some people to get these into production.

In comes Josh Whiddett, who now runs Black Flag Labs. He helped improve the old site, streamline the order process, and even managed the ordering and sending of clothing. He basically did it all, whilst I and Alex goofed around and made awful videos.

Josh wanted the site to expand, and become more mainstream, develop into a business and make a career of purely managing the site. Had I been older and less naive at the time I probably would have agreed. But at that point all I wanted of Midnight Potato was a bit of pocket money, and a lot of fun. 

Mine and Josh' differing opinions lead us to disband the clothing side of Midnight Potato in late 2018, leading to his creation of Black Flag Labs and pursuing his dream of making E-commerce, clothing and parts his full time job. 

Josh and I still talk on a regular basis, he is actually still a massive fan of everything us over here and hopes this latest venture succeeds, as we do BFL. Please click on either of the links above and check out his site! It helps both of us out.

This brings us to the most recent venture. Very much still in existence however taking a back seat to my new media dreams, we have been importing parts and cars from Japan since mid 2019. Trying to offer a cheaper alternative to the larger import companies, we have bought in a fair few sets of wheels and funky parts, however as of yet no cars for persons outside of our group. 

I really do love doing this, weird quirky Japanese parts are a real obsession of mine. I absolutely love seeing the unusual things the Japanese market comes up with, and bringing them home to the UK.

Finally, where we are today. Midnight Potato has fizzled recently, so a reboot was in order. I have long wanted to do something constructive with the brand, and this is the best way I can think to do so.

I am going to make sure to cover as many events this year as possible. Obviously pending COVID-19. The first of which, hopefully will be S-Chassis fest at Driftland. I'm planning on driving, however before then I have to paint and repair my car (again). 

If ever I am working on my car, I will try and cover this as well, to bring as much content and information about the UK drift scene as I possibly can. 

Thank you for reading,

The OG Potato, Tom Sinclair