Like his mates and contemporaries Matt rode shortboards and drunk in the cocktail of surrounding surfing influences. However, from an early age he developed an interest in the rich surfing history of the Northern Beaches. Soon he was experimenting with different craft, honing a distinctive style and driving up and down the coast to longboard contests with his dad in their fully restored orange Combi.
All this was long before the renaissance of the log and the mid-length had kicked in or Combis were cool again. It was a bold path for a teenager to take, but Matt was already accustomed to being the outsider as the smallest kid on the football field with the long, Polish name no one could pronounce.
Since then, Matt’s approach to understanding the evolution of surfing and surf-craft has become fully immersive – he picks the brains of shapers and legends, reads voraciously on surfing history, hosts retreats and talking story nights, commentates at longboard events and most importantly, he is highly proficient on an eclectic range of surfcraft. Matt doesn’t just know his surfing history, he connects to the past with every bottom turn, trim-line and take-off.
While Matt has been able to make money from various surf industry streams – contest prize money amongst them – he always figured he needed more than a good cutback to hang his hat on. Not long after leaving school he joined his dad’s car restoration business. Bringing classic vehicles back to life has become as much of an addiction as getting barrelled for the 33-year-old, who once won a drag race driving his ’66Valiant wagon with a loose fin from the morning’s surf rattling around in the back.
In the following interview Matt discusses the forces that have shaped his surfing philosophy, and why restoring cars is the perfect complement to his brinier ambitions.
Longboarding was the path you took through your teens and 20s. How did you get on that trajectory?
I’d be out there on my shortboard as a kid
