The modern automotive landscape is often criticized for being too safe, sterile, and performance-centric, leaving enthusiasts craving genuine adventure. In 2010, the legendary Fenn Treasure sparked a decade-long hunt across the American West, capturing the imaginations of explorers everywhere. While the treasure was ultimately discovered in 2020, the profound human desire to explore, discover, and connect with history remains a void that typical car reviews and standard automotive media struggle to fill.
Enter Valkyr Productions and Alex McCulloch and their innovative show, “Life’s Too Short for Boring Cars.” Directed by Jeremy Heslup and hosted by adventurer Alex McCulloch, the series offers a refreshing alternative by blending rad-era vehicles with personal storytelling and deep historical context. Today, we sit down with Executive Producer/Host Alex McCulloch and Director/Producer Jeremy Heslup to discuss their recent expedition retracing the steps of the Fenn Treasure in a rare Euro-market BMW E34 525iX Touring, and how they are redefining automotive entertainment.
Q: The Fenn Treasure was officially found back in 2020. What inspired you and Jeremy to retrace the steps of a treasure hunt that has already concluded?
Alex McCulloch: As we said in the film, “Two idiots hunting a treasure that has already been found.” I heard about the Fenn Treasure late in the quest. In fact, it may have been after it was already found. During COVID, I was hot-shotting cars with my dog and stumbled upon a Stuff You Should Know podcast about it while driving across New Mexico. I’ve never been a treasure hunter, but I loved the idea of having a mission to explore the Intermountain West. I don’t think I would have actually hunted the treasure if the hunt were still on, but with over two decades of intimate knowledge of the regions it was hidden in, I bet I could have been a great asset to those who were hunting it. When we needed a mission for the BMW 525iX Touring, it seemed like the perfect journey to retrace where people might have gone.
Q: For this specific adventure, you chose a Euro-market BMW E34 525iX Touring. Why was this rare, all-wheel-drive wagon the perfect vehicle for traversing the wild terrain of the American West?
Alex McCulloch: For a Rad-era car enthusiast, it’s all about the driving experience. The E34 525iX Touring showed up at my doorstep a few years before we filmed the episode, and it took me that long to sort it out. When it was done, it needed a mission to put it to the test. The beauty of the E34 525iX Touring was that it sat perfectly in the center of the Venn diagram of that old-school BMW recipe, had a manual transmission, was large enough and comfortable enough to haul our gear, and had all-wheel-drive if we needed it (which certainly helped on several occasions). I had previously owned an E34 M5 Touring, and dozens of other E34s, so I knew what the platform could do. What I didn’t know was how the 525Xi Touring would hold up. Generally, E34s are one of the most reliable BMWs ever made, but the population was getting long in the tooth, and parts can be hard to find–especially for an AWD model. In typical BMW fashion, many parts of the AWD E34 were unique. That added an element of risk to the mission!
Q: “Life’s Too Short for Boring Cars” positions itself as an alternative to traditional, performance-centric automotive shows. How does weaving historical context and personal storytelling into the narrative change the viewer’s experience?
Alex McCulloch: Ultimately, cars are tools for an experience. For an enthusiast, that experience is highly stimulating, but many typical automotive shows just highlight the car and forgo the experience. What better way to truly extract the car’s experience than to use it as a lens to tell a story? That is what we have tried to do with the series. We pride ourselves on being 100% organic, AI-free content.
Q: Valkyr Productions has a rich history of creating high-end, bespoke content for luxury brands like McLaren, Land Rover, and Rolls-Royce. How does that premium production background influence the documentary style of this series?
Jeremy Heslup: Ethos, tricks, efficiency that we’ve learned from higher-budgeted productions automatically trickle down to these films. I always want to deliver the best viewing experience possible and love the challenge of doing it on a budget. What you end up realizing with this approach is that big or small, it’s entirely the story that matters, and that’s what we’ve tried to focus on for LTSFBC.
Q: Blending the lore of the Fenn Treasure with the mechanical realities of a classic 5 Series wagon is a highly unique concept. What were the most significant logistical or production challenges you faced while filming this expedition?
Jeremy Heslup: The distance! It’s quite a long way to go from Alex’s shop in Denver, to Santa Fe, to Yellowstone, and home in such an old car. It ultimately is just the two of us, and we’ve developed this shorthand for the episodes where we both understand what is needed and how to get it. It’s an A camera for segments that are settled, a B camera for spur-of-the-moment bits, and the drone for those wonderful aerials that really set the time and place of these stories.
Q: As an adventurer and a journalist, how do you see the intersection of classic car culture and outdoor exploration evolving for modern audiences in the coming years?
Alex McCulloch: That’s an interesting question. Some areas have always overlapped, like the overlanding community and bespoke rallies like the Colorado Grand; others have evolved with the availability of information and the exuberance of new generations discovering both classic cars and the outdoors. Part of the magic of our series is putting cars in environments they weren’t originally designed for and shunning mass-market conventions (hence a 34-year old station wagon instead of an AWD crossover or SUV). I think there will always be an appetite for that. I also think that the present is a fantastic time to enjoy and explore the outdoors, because they are only becoming more stressed, crowded, and exploited. During the Fenn Treasure episode, we mused at how wonderful it must have been for Forest Fenn to explore Yellowstone as a child in the 1940s and 1950s. I reckon someone in the future will say the same thing about the current world. A friend of mine used to have a faded picture of a mountain lake on his wall, like sometime in the 1970s. In the background was a beautiful snow-capped mountain. That mountain was Mount St Helens, and that lake ceased to exist in 1980 after its eruption. Life is short, and nothing is constant but change…
Jeremy Heslup: What I’d love to see is more time and care put into stories. I think there is a growing divide between “content” and “storytelling” on the internet, and we want to land squarely in the latter. These are episodes that you can put on repeat years later and still enjoy. The more timeless the better. Also, it’s not really a secret they are inspired by the likes of Top Gear/Grand Tour, but Alex and I like to think our series has a bit more of the location as a feature and character. We’re both big outdoors people, and even if you break down, using these cars to get there is an outstanding way to have an adventure. Hopefully, we inspire more to do the same.
This conversation highlights a significant shift in how we consume and appreciate automotive films. By prioritizing rich historical narratives and genuine exploration over simple performance metrics, creators are offering a much deeper, more engaging viewing experience. Retracing the Fenn Treasure in a classic BMW E34 wagon proves that the vehicle’s character and the journey itself are just as vital as the destination.
As audiences continue to seek out more profound and authentic connections with the media they consume, the demand for multifaceted storytelling will only grow. Valkyr Productions and “Life’s Too Short for Boring Cars” stand at the forefront of this movement, masterfully proving that classic vehicles are not just static museum pieces, but active vessels for ongoing adventure, innovation, and discovery.
Watch the video at https://youtu.be/izip7NRcIV0
Watch the series at https://youtu.be/VvBQd2bZSCI?si=nnoU2II4JKOr_pFR
To learn more, visit https://valkyrproductions.com/