It's A Hobby People

I love cars, no secret there. All of the neat modifications to my car, I have either done myself or the lion's share of the work. Hell, I even change my own oil and do my own brakes.

To me, the act of doing the mods makes you a car-guy. If you paid me to do them for you, you are not a car-guy. You are certainly interested in cars, a car-fan perhaps, but you are not a car-guy.

Too many people in this sphere of interest are simply paying someone else to do it for them. And there are varying degrees of paying for it. But the pride of pointing to something and saying, "I did that!" is well worth it. Especially when the car next to yours isn't any better and the owner paid someone else to do it for them.

And, yes, I am guilty of hiring a friend to paint my car. I learned a lot from that though (and I WAS helping) and would like to learn more about it so that I can paint my next car myself. But for the Rogers and Charlies of the world, congratulations, you have a job. You may even have a vision of what you want in a car, but YOU did nothing but write checks. People remember the person who did it, not who funded it. Most people remember Frank Lloyd Wright for his designs, who paid for them? Boyd Coddington and Chip Foose are not famous for buying cars, they are famous for building cars. To get famous for buying them, you have to be famous for something else first, like Jay Leno, Chris Titus or Tim Allen.

So, stop paying the Kennys and invest the money in some tools and some books. Stop paying the Kennys and ask someone in the club to teach you how to do some of this stuff. You will rapidly find that once you are participating in this hobby as a full member you will get more out of it.