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Opinion - Der Ölmesser: How Dirty Are Your Hands?
By
Jul 26, 2005, 12:44

A few weeks ago I stumbled across a thread in the Mk3 Forum where the original poster wondered if it is legitimate to have big respect for the owners of cars who have not actually built them themselves. His point was that many of the cars somewhat famous within the ‘pages’ of VWvortex have been built by bodyshops, assembled by tuners and ultimately merely commissioned with a sizeable bank account and versatile checkbook.

Without a doubt, anyone who has the ability to envision a quality car and go about the process of constructing it on his or her own is worthy of high praise indeed. Most enthusiasts look up to such individuals and rightly so. But does this mean that those of us who cannot weld, paint, or wrench do not deserve admiration?

There is so much more to putting together a quality, trend-setting vehicle than merely the actual work involved in the construction. More than anything, the original vision from the owner and his or her commitment to seeing it through mean more than who ultimately performs the work. In my opinion, even someone who never gets their hands dirty is worthy of respect if they are able to construct a truly inspired vehicle.

How do you know this is true? Simple. Take any two people with similar cars and the financial ability to modify them to the extreme. Even if each person pays the exact same people to perform the modifications, chances are good that only one of them will end up with something unique and/or attention grabbing. This happens because for the most part, body shops and tuners make their money by selling us the parts we want and performing the work we request. Some shops do try to offer good advice but at the end of the day, it’s your car and they’re there to do things your way.

I used to own my own shop and we were known for cranking out a few nice cars from time to time. One of them was even featured here on VWvortex a few years back: The Golf Next Door That A2 Golf stood out from the crowd due to its wider stance via a set of all-metal fender flares.



The truth is, my shop didn’t even perform that mod – our freelance body man, Jason Ried, did. But it was our idea and I remember talking about it with Jason after the car was built. He told me he’d have never thought of cutting off flares from a junker and adding them to another car. He was impressed with the idea and happy he could help make it all work. Jason never took credit for that car – just some of the work involved in getting it built. Hell, even Chip Foose doesn’t build an entire car himself these days…

So obviously, having the right ideas and enlisting the right people to help you realize them are ultimately the most important aspects of constructing a car worthy of respect and admiration (if such things are important to you – lord knows, that’s a whole different topic in itself). Should you also be able to perform all or even some of the work yourself, you’ll find yourself on another level of respect entirely. But the extra respect the DIY-er is entitled to should not diminish the respect due to those of us who need to whip out the checkbook every once in a while.

Last time I checked, car show judges don’t look under the owner’s fingernails…

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