In reply to SKJSS (formerly Klayfish) :
Interesting take on the oil changes. I lean the other way with DIY-ing them regardless of cost, as I feel it's more convenient. I figure by the time I drive a car to the shop and have them change the oil it's taken just as much time (if not more) than it takes for me to change it, and now I'm bound to their schedule instead of just doing it when I have time.
In reply to rslifkin :
I always did my own, took pride in doing it well and checking everything while Ivwas under there.
Then I began to work those 80+ hour weeks and my time got to be too valuable.
Remarkably I was well treated and my truck lasted 20 years with almost no repairs. ( and no breakdowns) now at approaching 74 getting up from underneath is a major struggle. So I'll continue that until I can buy my EV truck.
Yes it's just as acceptable.
But you get extra points for building it.
In reply to mr2peak :
You're probably too young to know who Briggs Cunningham was and what he did.
Post WW2 Americans started to bring home MG's from England and started sports car racing here in America.
Impressed by European cars and racing on the continent. Briggs started racing in Europe with American made cars.
Every Year you would see Briggs Cunningham enter a team at LeMans. With cars he made. American cars.
He was given a lot of respect for that.
I used to be firmly in the "Built-not-bought" camp to the point that I even looked down on "checkbook builders" who let others do parts of their builds for them.
That was then. I'm much more philosophical now. There's so much anger and unhappiness in the world, that if something brings you genuine pleasure without hurting others, I support it 1000 percent. Whether you stacked atoms on top of each other till you had a car, or if you cut a big check for someone else's work, it's all good if it brings you joy.
In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :
Well said. Even the best of us need help sometimes.
My experience has been that the car scene is less respecting of people who do not tinker, unless you get to pro level driver. So for someone to have "tinkered" enough to make that claim of "built, not bought," they are, therefore, claiming to be a king of those hills, and the respect that's due them. Accordingly, they are then a real gear head and are capable of passing along worthwhile knowledge about that genre, and have value for the hobby itself.
Buying something that's fast just means you have good taste.
Either way, good for that person to have a cool/fast car, but I think it's just inherent that a crowd of people who like to tinker will respect more someone who has done a lot of tinkering. Therefore no, there's not as much cred for buying something.
EDIT: Anecdotally, consider the $2000 challenge. It's a showcase of having to do it yourself. When working on our $2007 Challenge car I was talking to a millionaire car guy about his collection of Ferraris, Vipers, GTs, etc. I told him about the $2006 challenge results and he was shocked/impressed that people could do so much with so little. Building something implies skill in the car scene-relevant skill sets, ingenuity, creativity. At least in the Great Plains those are important, dunno about other cultures.
Consider that we all have a limited number of hours in our life to spend on hobbies and we have to decide how to allocate them. Building cars is one way to engage in a car-related hobby and is one often held up on a pedestal here, but it is not the only one. Should driving (and racing!) cars not be considered important as well? In fact, one could even make a case that driving a car is more essential to motorsports than building it!
As with any skill, driving/racing a car properly takes time to learn, and the more seat time one puts into it the better at it one will be. I spent about 18 years tinkering with, wrenching on, and modifying my Miata. I had fun, I learned a lot, but in the end I spent a lot less time driving it than I did in the garage. About 5 years ago I decided I wanted to be better at driving and I started trying to crank out seat time. Unfortunately, the car let me down, and I was consistently going home from the track after just 1 or 2 sessions of driving with another dozen hours of wrenching ahead of me to fix it up before I could try again. Ultimately, even though I'd spent a lot of time building the car I was an amateur race car builder, and I just wasn't capable of making something that would really stand up to that kind of use.
Fortunately I had the luxury of having some money available to throw at the problem, so I bought a different car, gutted it, dropped it off at the local race shop, and wrote a not-insignificant check. A few months later I had a professionally prepped race car, one that has a 97% success rate at letting me drive every session that I want to drive (and I mean that literally, I have the data to prove it). As a result I have significantly improved my driving skills, I'm 5-10 seconds faster per lap than I used to be. There is no way I could have done that had I stuck with the idea that I needed to build it all myself.
So I reject the idea that buying a car instead of building it yourself makes you any less of a car guy. It's just not true.
P3PPY said:My experience has been that the car scene is less respecting of people who do not tinker, unless you get to pro level driver. So for someone to have "tinkered" enough to make that claim of "built, not bought," they are, therefore, claiming to be a king of those hills, and the respect that's due them. Accordingly, they are then a real gear head and are capable of passing along worthwhile knowledge about that genre, and have value for the hobby itself.
Buying something that's fast just means you have good taste.
Either way, good for that person to have a cool/fast car, but I think it's just inherent that a crowd of people who like to tinker will respect more someone who has done a lot of tinkering. Therefore no, there's not as much cred for buying something.
EDIT: Anecdotally, consider the $2000 challenge. It's a showcase of having to do it yourself. When working on our $2007 Challenge car I was talking to a millionaire car guy about his collection of Ferraris, Vipers, GTs, etc. I told him about the $2006 challenge results and he was shocked/impressed that people could do so much with so little. Building something implies skill in the car scene-relevant skill sets, ingenuity, creativity. At least in the Great Plains those are important, dunno about other cultures.
Well said, I'm at the stage of my life where just getting on the track is an accomplishment most don't experience at my age.
The only way that can happen is because I wanted to share my skills and have some guys with me while we go racing.
So a modest build using what I know should get us out having fun. Nope won't beat the fast guys. Not on the challenge budget. But it won't be typical or ordinary.
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:Consider that we all have a limited number of hours in our life to spend on hobbies and we have to decide how to allocate them. Building cars is one way to engage in a car-related hobby and is one often held up on a pedestal here, but it is not the only one. Should driving (and racing!) cars not be considered important as well? In fact, one could even make a case that driving a car is more essential to motorsports than building it!
As with any skill, driving/racing a car properly takes time to learn, and the more seat time one puts into it the better at it one will be. I spent about 18 years tinkering with, wrenching on, and modifying my Miata. I had fun, I learned a lot, but in the end I spent a lot less time driving it than I did in the garage. About 5 years ago I decided I wanted to be better at driving and I started trying to crank out seat time. Unfortunately, the car let me down, and I was consistently going home from the track after just 1 or 2 sessions of driving with another dozen hours of wrenching ahead of me to fix it up before I could try again. Ultimately, even though I'd spent a lot of time building the car I was an amateur race car builder, and I just wasn't capable of making something that would really stand up to that kind of use.
Fortunately I had the luxury of having some money available to throw at the problem, so I bought a different car, gutted it, dropped it off at the local race shop, and wrote a not-insignificant check. A few months later I had a professionally prepped race car, one that has a 97% success rate at letting me drive every session that I want to drive (and I mean that literally, I have the data to prove it). As a result I have significantly improved my driving skills, I'm 5-10 seconds faster per lap than I used to be. There is no way I could have done that had I stuck with the idea that I needed to build it all myself.
So I reject the idea that buying a car instead of building it yourself makes you any less of a car guy. It's just not true.
I think it depends on your goal. If your goal is to use a car, that's one thing. If your goal is to own a car that's entirely different.
Use a car means you enjoy the pleasure it offers. Speed, ride, sounds, comfort, stays etc.
Own a car is a commitment you invest yourself in it. Restore it, modify it, enhance it.
If you do those things to hopefully turn a profit, that's not owning. That's using it. If you do those things and decide to keep it. That's ownership.
It's like women. You can date them or you can marry them.
I want to buy a daily driver already built and sorted.
I want to build my racecar so I have intimate knowledge of every part of it.
Both are pretty acceptable to me.
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