Q&A: Jonny Martinez on Course Correction

Jonny Martinez grew up watching his father work on cars, talk about cars, tell stories about racing. That was the first connection. Not engineering. Just a man and his son and a shared fascination with machines. At fifteen, Martinez got his hands on a DuPont Registry magazine, saw exotic cars laid out on glossy pages, and decided he didn't just want to admire them. He wanted to build one.

Course Correction: One Man's Vision is a real-time documentary. The car isn't done yet. Neither is the story.

Where It Began

"I didn't just want to admire them — I wanted to create my own version," Martinez says. "That's when I started sketching, imagining what my own car could look like, and dreaming about building something that didn't exist yet."

That was the seed. What grew from it took decades to break through.

Bigger Than Engineering

At some point Martinez understood the project had changed shape.

"The moment I realized I could use my talent as an instrument — a platform to build a legacy that inspires people to dream, to give back, and to never quit on themselves no matter how impossible things feel."

Engineering became the backdrop. The real story was faith, family, and the decision to stop running from a dream he had buried for years. "This wasn't just about a car. It was about legacy."

His Father's Fingerprints

The influence is specific, not sentimental. Martinez traces it through the actual design of the cars.

In the early 1980s, his father and he built a model rocket and launched it from their backyard. The exhaust configuration on the Martinus cars uses the same large-pipe layout as the shuttle thrusters. His father helped design fiber-optic communications infrastructure across Texas and the Gulf Coast. The lighting on the cars, inside and out, uses fiber-optic technology. Martinez watched his father appreciate older cars built with character and substance. That preference for analog feel and craftsmanship shows up in every design decision.

"His influence is woven into everything."

Learning to Collaborate

When asked about the hardest skill to teach himself, Martinez doesn't name a tool or a technique.

"Everything. I could always see the car in my mind — how it should look, how it should come together. My mind works like a simulator; I can visualize how something will function before it exists. But I also recognize where I fall short."

The harder lesson was learning to trust other people with parts of the dream. Collaborating, delegating, letting someone else execute a design he could already see perfectly in his head.

What Kept It Moving

"My faith and my wife. I wouldn't be here without either."

Martinez built this without investors and without outside backing. The doors that opened, he says, were not coincidences. "The number of doors that opened for me — without investors, without massive resources — has been purpose in motion. I'm supposed to do this."

When It Became Real

Two moments. The first was purchasing the company campus and proving grounds under the Martinus Automobile name. Owning the land was the first physical proof the dream existed outside his mind. The second was holding the first machined parts made from his own designs.

"Holding something physical that once existed only in my mind was unforgettable."

What Comes Next

The first episode focuses on what shaped Martinez into the person who finally acted. The car is mostly absent. That's the point.

"This will be a multi-episode series. In the next episodes, I want to show the development of our campus, the machining of parts, the assembly of the cars, and the evolution of Martinus Automobile from concept to reality."

He wants both car people and people who have never thought about cars to feel something watching it.

"Whether someone is a car person or not, I want them to feel something when they see this car — even if they don't know why. I want them to be inspired to take their own leap of faith and pursue the dream that's been sitting in their heart."

Documentary

---

Streaming now on Relay.