The garage
Customization 101: Part 1
STEVE SILVA VOLUNTEER STAFF
The new year is upon us, and as always, it’s a time for change. Aside from vowing to work out, diet more, and drink and party in moderation, it’s also a time when enthusiasts set their car-customization resolutions. Indeed, the new year is a time for car guys and girls all around Winnipeg to reassess their rides, count up all their hard-earned Christmas money, and take advantage of the long, cold hard winter to dream, fabricate and create. Our winters are so long and, as of late, have been relatively mild, forging an ideal situation in which to work on your car and have it primed and ready for the hot street scene come summer.
Customization, however, can be a complicated and overwhelming process. If not thought out systematically and meticulously planned, you stand to waste thousands of precious dollars, and more importantly, your valuable time.
The No. 1 rule of customization is to keep it realistic: you’re not going to end up on the cover of Super Street unless you plan on spending six figures and can smooth-talk your ride into sponsored status. However, you can hardbuild something that will turn heads and suit your own needs for a lot less than you would think.
The first step to car customization is carefully considering what you want. This sounds simple, but can be the most challenging step of all. At this point you shouldn’t worry about a specific make or model but just generating and playing with different themes and platforms. Make a list and write down all the things you would like your ride to possess, and try to build a theme around a concept. Of course things will change, but having a goal in mind helps you keep focused on what’s important so you won’t end up with spinners on your Civic (unless that’s your thing, in which case the first step to customization is getting your head removed from your ass).
Once you have a goal in mind, it’s time to start doing your homework. Assess your budget, and decide if you will be doing most of the work yourself. This is also an ideal point at which to put a parts list together. Don’t worry about what companies you will be buying from yet, just focus on the parts themselves. Once you have your list, you can figure out what you can do yourself, how much you can afford, and what is reasonable.
Having established the skeleton parts list, it’s just a matter of looking for dealers that sell the parts you’re looking for. It’s always useful to look at what the aftermarket has to offer, and then look at which car will suit the parts you want to bolt on. This is the difference between great projects and ones that go horribly wrong. If you fall in love with a certain car and platform, and then go out and slap on random parts, it’s not all going to fit together. Assess what you need the car to be, make a parts list, work out your costs, and then set out to find the car that will fit those criteria. You’ll quickly learn that the specific goals for your project combined with parts availability will narrow your choices for a vehicle. This way you will find a ride that doesn’t just look good, but also suits your own goals.
So that was phase one of starting a project of your own. Join me next time when I deal with part two, which consists of finding and purchasing the right vehicle.
