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Hop Up 2002 June Cover PASO Turn Around With A Hip-Check Drip Pan Antique Nats |
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MAGAZINE
There's are Guilds, ya know? 'Associations formed for mutual aid and protection' of craftsmen. Artisans. The ones that know something the rest of us don't. They quietly exist in all areas, and they cross-pollinate. It's a kind of unspoken agreement among the talent that they have to do this craft for the rest of us because of the cursed buck - but that they, after all, are the only truly worthy recipients of the craft. If they could build cars for one another - and no one else - they'd be happy. No one appreciates their artisan's dilemma like the others in the group.
The Guild is peopled by cats who still have the fever. Some of their colleagues fell off somewhere back in time and for the above and other reasons, they lost it. It is the disease, addiction, obsession/compulsion that makes the subjects of these notes.....unique. They are car craftsman who still want to have a car. Or cars. They got it as bad as the rest of us, even after doing it for, say, 30 years or so. Or longer.
And they're still tipped? Cool.
Some of them may have sacrificed prosperity to some degree, by cleaving to their artistic bents, sticking with cars, and not taking a less fulfilling position for more money or more promise. But that's what starving artists are supposed to do, no? They count on modest commercial success and benefactors who commission them to do what they would rather do for themselves, with the compensatory part of the agreement a peripheral benefit..
Enter the Benefactor. We heard some fairly outrageous numbers about the cost of some cars recently built for big show debuts. That's OK, too. The guy must have wanted to do the deed (he's the guy smart enough to accumulate all those Geeters, right? Else he wouldn't-a spent 'em.) We wonder how much of those notable projects are artistic collaborations or pure commissions where the art department got the carte-blanche nod. This is all good as long as the Benefactor pays like he's supposed to (and pays once, with no mischief in the billing department), and he gets an as-agreed work of art in the end. That should be all he gets in the end.
One of the perquisites he enjoyed is the time and attention of the artisan he has commissioned. Being dignified as the customer (not always right) and in some measure as a collaborator must feel pretty good to the buyer. He may in fact have some valid input, but we imagine that comes in all degrees from inspired concepts to............... no clue.
Think about the Contractor who built the high-buck car. That job probably kept his overhead paid for 3 years. Made it possible for him to depend on cash flow so he could do something for his long-suffering wife and kids. Maybe he was able to make progress on that project of his own. Maybe it made him notorious so that he signed some smaller, profitable jobs later on? Or maybe he was able to afford to make that lasting artistic expression-in-metal that he might never otherwise have developed. Or not.
Some of them are still not Guild members. It is all a job and the thrill is gone (BB). They can be calloused and arrogant, dismissive and miserable. They have lost it, and they don't deserve the passionate, trusting, "aw, it's just a hobby" resignation you sometimes get from an overcharged, overwrought hobbyist.
When they take the fun out of it for you, they should be out of it. Misery at the hands of a contractor or sub contractor should be rewarded by 1) voting with your feet.2) telling a friend.
We took a radiator to a notable radiator shop for a re-do. Needed a new core, in/outlets, the works. Guy suggested a setup. we agreed, and we said, "We'll bring you the car so there's nothing missed".
"OK. I'll call you when the core is done (he did, Ed.) and then you bring the car, we'll take final measurements and it'll be done in 5 more days".
Easy. And it was done on time.
Picked up the radiator, installed it, and the engine fan hit the outlet fitting. Same fan as before. Only thing different was the radiator. That's why we brought the whole fucking car to him in the first place: no missed measurements. Nothing lost in the translation by the customer.
The rad guy wouldn't fix it.
Now we should tell you who it was, but it wouldn't be right to badmouth one of the most successful radiator shops in the Continental United States; so we'll do the classy thing and not say anything....................
Some businesses in our hobby get away with murder because we are complacent, and, having fought the usual battles all day in the workplace (you got a job, right, Jason?), we're outa steam when it comes to recreational business. It should not be so.
But we'll ease up. We don't want this to become the 'consumer reports' of the car hobby 'cuz if it was, all those people we need in the future might refuse to do bidness with us.
As it is, they all recognize me anyway: I'm the guy with his hat in one hand......and his checkbook in the other.
caveat emptor
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