Ever feel like calling it quits from the hobby?

I walk away a lot. Sometimes it feels like I'm throwing time and money down a black hole. Vacation days from work have been spent swearing, tossing wrenches across the garage, choking on dust, and suffering a varying degree of cuts, bruises, and burns.
But...when I'm not there in the garage, all my thoughts are consumed with my project, or imaginary projects, and then I return.

 

I now envy you guys who have a place to work on your projects. Since I closed my shop, I have nowhere but temporarily borrowed space to work on mine.

I am hoping that in the next few years the housing market will crash or level off, so I can buy a house, with a garage. For now, short of moving to where my day-job does not exist, there is not much to get for less than lunatic pricing.

 

You need to bite the bullet and come live with us Gimp, We'll be selling our place in two years for about 10% of what a house with a garage will cost you in the City. We refinanced the wife's '05 Silverado to buy our retirement house complete with a 10 year old 30x40 metal shed.

Tell you when I feel the most like quitting is when I am trying to finish something up because in a couple of days I need it to go somewhere ( not a show) and I have almost enough money to buy the parts to get the job done.

 

A 30' x 40' metal shed would be $375,000 here.

 

Everybody needs a break from time to time. When I do I go build rifles or fool with jeeps or something, then come back.

But I am always scroungeing parts and buying little bits when I find them.

Quitting is for quitters.

 

I know, I have a moderate handle on pricing in the bay area. I would like to go home to retire but it isn't going to happen. Not even if I quit playing with cars.

In June the median home price in the City hit $1,000,000 the median home price in KC is $103,900 right @ 10%.

 

That's less than I make in one year's pre-tax salary.

 

I have been playing with hot rods, my first car was a '32 three window, when I was 15 years old since 1962. What makes me want to walk away has nothing to do with building cars, I think I would rather build cars than drive them. What frazzles me is where I live, Long Island. Every show I want to attend I have to get onto the mainland by way of the Cross Bronx Expressway, the Belt Parkway or some other pothole riddled bumper to bumper road. Stay at the show all day Saturday and be prepared to hit NY City traffic on Sunday, it really sucks and it's really getting old!

 

When I was still healthy and at the top of my game I made about 2/3 that in a year. There is a site that will tell you what the average wage is for what you do and they break it down by region. Most of the tings I do only paid about 20% more out west then here so for me it never really panned out, at least not for me. Had I stayed in the '60s I would probably be fine a friend bought a place in the red wood hills for 12k in '68 still owns it, he pays more in property tax today than he paid for the place back then. LOL

 

My job does not exist there. I am a rapid prototyping engineer for the world's largest manufacturer of computer network hardware. Out there, no job. I cannot surf or snowboard in MO, either.

 

Well you can snow board here.

Of course nothing like you could do in Teluride and that's about 10 hours from here. And I got something you don't Google Fiber. Of course you are not doubt connected to the backbone and it doesn't get much sweeter than that.

 

Wow...back at it..it's been a couple of years off and on in the garage....a new knee along with 2 new old hips and I'm back in the garage...lol. Been working on the cowl steering and a visor and a front section of the roof line...

 

I would never even consider "quitting" the hobby since I am a charter member of the "Great Unwashed" ....

 

i'm 67. actually never been serious enough to followthru a car project to completion. and gotten most runnin and driving. but i've been fooling myself for decades. don't get me wrong... i absolutely love old cars... stock and modified. i driven numerous old cars to the point of absolutely the last mile. butt time to move on. i've allready sold off over half my cars... projects... dreams.
fact is.... all the rest are for sale. time to liquidate. i wanna move to mexico. margaritaville. if not that... then tijuana. i am so pussy whipped. i really enjoy looking at other people owning cool cars... and OWNING MY CARS. and finishing them to their desires. butt evidently it isn't my desire. time for somebody that has the old car bug to continue on.
i admit i'm a quitter. i am aware of most of my shortcomings. time to simply be the one i am. and to let somebody else take on the projects that i had dreams of.

 

Old thread coming back to the top. No progress on my stuff that you would notice. Added two more projects that I'll never finish to the garage & basement.


Bob

 

I build my 32 as I fighting stage 4 cancer . I really believe that your head can control events in your life . My building my car was the best therapy available . I just could not give up the fight , I wanted to drive my car . That was 25 years ago next March . I have many of the teenaged neighbor kids hang out in my garage , I used that as mentoring time to teach them the right from wrong in life . They have all turned out well and now stop to see me with their kids . It's a great hobby , just a lifestyle for me . My last project was a later model (79) Power Wagon . I built it for farm use and winter travel . I combined Power Train parts that were not available at the time of its birth . It has a 4 BT Cummins for power , Dana 60 LDS axles both ends and a gear driven NP 205 transfer case . Don't give up , this is super life style we enjoy tinkering , way better than what some in this strange thing we call life when gotten involved in . It is most gratifying to me to see not only what I have completed but what evyone else has done also . God gives everyone of us a gift or two , don't throw the gift away , take a break and return later , you will miss it terribly when it's gone .

 

Thought about it. Once, for a few minutes. Not quitting won out. The garage is my soothing, forget my troubles place.

Ben

 

Quit? Nah... I've taken long breaks when I stopped racing stock cars, the kids were small, when I was working 3 jobs, when I was going to school at night. But the tools and sleeping engines and other parts were always waiting for me when I came back.

 

I started with Hot Rods then to Motorcycles back to Hot Rods then driving and building Vintage stock cars now back to Hot Rods where I'm going to stay. I can't ride the cycle anymore but I sit on it and recall all the memories of places I been and people I met . When the time comes I can't drive anymore , I'll sit in the 37 Ford and remember I got loads of memories !

 

Just got back from B G GGuys.Good time. smaller G G event Only one "prick" to deal with. But It hurts now to work on em. The old body aint what it used to be. Had a car fall on me couple weeks ago, scared me, hurt a little.But got me to thinking..........

 

Yeah, everyday for the past 6 months, only thing that is stopping me from quitting is my car... I want to prove to myself I can finish a project.

 

no cant quit love it to much.im 70 my cousin 78 hes still crazy about it my wifes uncle who taught me alot passed away working on one at 91 i hope im that lucky

 

Or about $1.375M in a sketchy hood down here. The market is ice cold but the RE mafia controls the prices.

 

Quit!!!!! No way. I have been working on my hot rod for 20yrs and enjoyed it even when things didn't go right. Best thing I did was build a nice garage . I have gotten a lot of info from this web sight and other people in this addiction. Yep it gets in your blood alright!!..........

 

I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve felt just this way!!!!! 30 yrs ago I sold cars today that eclipse the price of some of the cars that I have now, just to get a Hot Rod.
All of a sudden I was was bitten extremely hard by The Hot Rod Bug!!!!!! Now this must really be part of my OCD . But I went at this hard!!!!!! Spent way more than what I made on sheet metal repair, parts and got screwed many times in buying what I thought would be a part that I saw represented only to get a subpar product-(A very expensive complete wood kit).

I more than once thought that I really was out of my league, but I continued by regrouping and changing my direction while I made a better plan to get to the original project that I had planned.

After driving my 1st completed Hot Rod, I had a change in my life that affected a direction of where I was originally headed. That was my 34 3W. That’s where I was headed. I decided that my cousin should have my completed Hot Rod which I had made into a 50’s Chopped. Closed cab from a RPU, (He has it to this day).

Back on the 34, I continued to do the build... although it now had a replacement body, it ended up painted with an interior and would go from high boy to a full fendered coupe and
It eventually got me my house.

I did other cars along the way that were also goals, but there were times that I felt throwing in towel at times, something else just would come along. Well I’m here to tell you after 3 34 3W’s later, a 34 Original Woody, 3 32’s a couple of A roadsters, even a 27 T-Ster.I’m still at it.

Luckily I’ve worked in the Hot Rod industry and continue to be a part of a Company that has a pioneering history in this way of life, so it maintains my drive even though there’s times that I still say “man, what am I doing with all of this stuff?”

I think that many Hot Rodders go through this in their lives. Some of these guys walked away from the lifestyle, created a career, family life set up a retirement and spent many a year away from this lifestyle.

Bob McGee who built one of the most iconic 32 Ford Roadsters ever built, So much so that it ended up on a US Postal stamp. His life took him in a different direction he placed his car in his Moms garage, where it stayed till about 1955, when he sold it. The next owner put a small block Chevy and swapped for a Cad to the next owner who continued making it famous in many movies, record covers I’ve even seen with Max (Jethro Bodine) Baer Jr. behind the wheel on a 77 Sunset Strip episode along with several other L.A. Roadster Members cars.

When PC3g ended up getting the resto job for its then new owner, Bruce Meyer in 95, I supplied a picture taken with Scritch/Sharp at Bonneville in 71 where it garnered the Street Roadster record that it held for several years.
On this one night there was a group of pioneer Hot Rodders at PC3g.
“Uncle” Wally Parks, Alex”So-Cal” Xydias and lastly Mr. Bob McGee. He explained why he moved on, but deep in his heart that 32 that he cruised around USC’s campus never left his soul and he had the photo albums to prove it.
It was the 1st time I ever saw his car in color.

He dove into that restoration, but a different iconic Roadster was purchased by Bruce Meter through way of one of it’s previous owners and the then present caretaker. Enter the Doane Spencer , Lynn Wineland & Neil East 32 Roadster-another L.A. Roadster Car.

The Mc Gee was put on hold, The Spencer got ready for Pebbke Beach and in that time, sadly Bob McGee passed away. He never got to see his iconic Roadster restored to what it once was. I can say though that it never left his soul.

So even though you felt like throwing in the towel several years back, I hope that you get a chance to read this and know that once it’s in you, it never leaves even though you may leave it for a while.

 

I NEVER wanted to Quit:
I was fortunate to have learned from the (midwest bible belt during an era of repairing out of necessity Iowa)ones that worked on and built (hot rodded) cars of the 30's,40's and early 50's ... Then i gained my tutelage from some of the best (southern california )drag racers of the mid 60's through the 80's....
And that leaves me here today...I'd like to pass that hands on experience on the the next (younger) generation...
I can not have my youth back, nor i do not need to live vicariously through someone else,
passing on a 60 year collection of tools ain't shit, but helping others has its rewards.

 

You think you get frustrated in the garage ? Take up golf. I have been doing both since I was about 12 years old and am 68 now.
Just shot my best score on 10 years yesterday, a 74 and kicked myself for the 3 or 4 shots that I know could have been better.
I have taken breaks from both hot rodding and golf, but now I am building what will probably be my last race car and playing golf at least once a week. If you give up, you never had it in the first place.

 

Have thought about this thread from time to time. I've been at this for 60 years - since age 14. It's what I wanted to do when I was a kid, it's what I did while my wife and I raised our sons, and it's what grandpa
does now. Sometimes career interrupted it but I retired 13 years ago and I'm still doing it. I've always loved to drive and I learned to love fabrication. I can't quit now, there's too much left to do. I'd be a very sad retirement home kind of guy.

I'll know when to quit but I won't like it much.

 

Not quitting but slowing down considerably as part of the aging process.

 

I have never truly intended to put away my cool old stuff for very long, but every now and then I get sidetracked by ppl I know offering me a super deal on a later model 4 wheel toaster-appliance that I can't pass it up, then I get more and more frustrated with myself for getting sidetracked and neglecting my old stuff.
Then I get back to the cool old cars again.



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