How old are you?

[SRD art]

Sorry a little long winded but I think it's worth the read. I turned 41 this year, happily married for 15 years with 4 kids ages from 13 to 3. Bought our first home about 6 years ago. Some small debt but not like most people. Daily drivers are older cars and we live on a budget because my business is seasonal- We don't have a lot of nice new things like the latest and greatest 60" TV, Ipods for everyone, etc. We shop at Walmart for $20 jeans instead of $200 at the mall and use coupons and buy from the sale ads at the grocery store. My wife and I do date night every Friday but we quit spending $40-50 a pop like we used to before we had kids. Now we have a fun time trying to keep it under $15 each week. You'd be surprised how much you can do on that little of $. I'm now back in school in a street rod program so that I can put 25+ years working on cars along with my design experience and new fabricating skills to work in a shop for some steady year round income to better prepare for retirement.

With my path in life family needs are first so I've had to become more resourceful in building my cars. I've always wondered what it'd be like to be able to spend $80,000 restoring a muscle car or $150,000 on a show car. Before becoming a designer I worked in a shop restoring muscle cars and one day had a great revelation that really taught me something. I was doing a few things on a client's restored 70 Challenger T/A to get it ready to sell. As I was wrapping it up I took a good look at the car. I compared it to my 11 second street/strip Nova and realized that the Challenger was really just another car built in the 70's and was no different than my car. It could easily sit next to the Challenger at a car show or cruise night and no one would know I only have about $12K in my Nova. The Challenger sold on ebay for $120K the week after we worked on it. My point being that you don't have to spend $100,000 + on a car for it to be cool. A lot of times a car or part has "perceived" value that's just as much as real value. My Nova's goal was to build a 10 footer that goes fast in a straight line. The wagon is a different story. The majority of the $'s going where it will count the most- the suspension, and second to that is appearance. When the dust settles I think I'll have roughly $8000-$10,000 in the whole car start to finish. If I had $200,000 in savings to blow on toys would I? Probably so. But that's what Hot Rodding is all about, building what you can with what you got.



In summary- here's what I've learned over the years of building on a budget that has worked for me...

Be patient and be prepared. Good deals always come to those that wait. If you have a few $ set aside you can take advantage of those good deals when they come along.

Make friends. I have one friend that knows everyone. If I need a part he sends the word out for me and usually finds me decent used parts for super cheap or for trade. I have another friend that runs a rod shop. Met him by doing some project illustrations for him. Now if I need advice or insight on my project he's happy to give his opinion.

Network. Our local Utah Muscle Cars forum/ club is a pretty tight knit group. If someone is selling something on ebay or the classifieds, it always seems to get offered to club members first and/or at a discount over asking price. If anyone ever needs help working on a project there's always several volunteers ready to come over and give a hand. Paying for a couple pizzas is a lot better than $70/hour.

Shop around, be resourceful and do your homework when buying new parts. Example, if you want Flowmasters and you find out that Summit mufflers are really Flowmasters in a summit box for half the price, why not buy the Summit ones? Be wary of cheap Chinese crap that falls apart or didn't work right in the first place. Ask about products on forums or just do a google search, most answers to your questions are already posted. As I said do your homework. Another example- Recently I found a complete plastic dash cap for my 79 Cutlass wagon from a parts distributor for $250+ shipping and thought it was a great deal. Just to make sure, a little searching within about 30 minutes I found 3 other distributors that sold the same product, probably all 4 made in the same factory, and the least expensive was $169+ $30 shipping. Praise the internet.

Shop around part II. There's nothing wrong with buying good used parts or bought but never used parts on ebay, swap meets, junkyards, or asking the guy on the outskirts of town if he'd like to sell a few parts off the car in the weeds on the side of the house. Seriously, is there really any value in flashing an invoice in front of someone to show how much you have in the car unless you're selling it?? Clean brand new parts get dirty and abused just as quickly as used ones. Lots of people fail to plan and throw money at their projects and then decide to go a different direction. I see that all the time on ebay and the local car classifieds.

DIY. Most of my mechanical skills are self taught and friend taught hands on learning. I didn't know paint and body so now I'm in school for it. Many tech schools with auto programs have a paint your own car program or transmission or ...? classes in the evenings for community members. Anything I can't do myself I have networked and made enough friends along the way that I can get professional services for a discount or for trade.

Hire a designer. A small investment in a good project designer / illustrator will give you (or your builder) a visual road map to go off of. Folks like myself and others that do this for a living can help you see the vision of your car BEFORE it's done, and can save you a bunch of money avoiding mistakes or misunderstandings. You'll never end up with the "wrong" wheels or wrong paint colors/scheme etc. Guys like us study cars like some people play video games. A lot of us have had design school training so we can help you avoid an automotive "fasion faux pas" and can throw some ideas past you that you may not have thought of. A project illustration is also a great motivator for when you're so frustrated you want to bag the whole thing or for periods when the $ runs out or you get sidetracked. In the end you get to hang the illustration in the living room because your wife said no when you asked to park the car there.

And most important,
Plan and budget- "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." Every section of my car has a set budget, such as suspension parts, interior, engine, etc. Since I have a set budget I can go to work researching the best bang for my buck in that area. I collect data by copying and pasting in a Word document, along with website addresses and dollar amounts. Along the way as I stumble across new ideas I can go back and adjust everything accordingly. When I've got everything laid out and see that everything is in the budget I buy a whole bunch of parts at one time. My wagon project is just about all mapped out so when school starts up again in about 3 weeks I can get right to work and I'll never waste time standing around wondering what to do next. Everyone should have a good large dry-erase board in the garage or at the shop that's filled with their game plan.

Hope my thoughts add something to the conversation.