Builds - page 2

In 2012, Austin Smith was invited to a car show at his friend Caesar's paint shop. The two went way back, both having been involved in the local car scene for years. Caesar had a thriving paint shop in town — Green Cove, Florida, just outside Jacksonville — and Austin had recently founded a shop of his specializing in vinyl wraps.

On a dusty Friday evening, Lucia was driving a girlfriend home in an old beater Mustang. Her friend wanted to know more about cars, and Lucia was mid-lecture when another Mustang — a nicer, newer model — rolled to a stop beside them. The classic stoplight once over gave her pause. Something was off with this dude’s car. She rolled down her window, leaned over, and asked: 

“What year is your car?” “‘79.”

“Those are ‘84 tail lights, you know.” “I know.”

Last year on December 31st, we asked our social media audience, “in 2021, what are you building for?” And dozens of people responded with their hopes and plans for the coming year. In December, we caught up with a few of them to ask “how’d it go?” And, “in 2022, what are you building for?” 

Here’s what they had to say.

The Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) in South Carolina has a tall order: Develop the next generation of automotive engineers. Alongside more than 20 industry partners, CU-ICAR provides equipment, technology and expertise to Clemson graduate students working on Deep Orange projects.

For many of us, working on cars is much more than a hobby. It’s a pastime. We toil in the garage working towards future goals, but the work is also a deep connection to our pasts. Understanding how to disassemble, repair, and reassemble a combustion engine is a sacred skill set, one that is passed down from generation to generation. Growing up handing wrenches to our mentors, we learned countless valuable lessons, but we also had fun.

Every classic car owner has been there: cruising down a two-lane on a beautiful summer day, windows down, radio up, the sky a perfect blue — when suddenly, your heat gauge starts to sing:

“Lord Almighty, I feel my temperature rising. Higher and higher, it's burning through to my soul…”

America runs on the full-sized van. They deliver our packages, they transport our tools, they tour our punk bands, and they even house some of our adventurous explorers. They go by many names: the Transit® van, the cargo van, the Sprinter van, and the commercial truck. They’re the beige wallpaper of the street — hanging around on every corner, but not really noticed or seen. You probably passed a dozen of them on your way to work today without so much as batting an eye.

Meet Dave Budge — the co-founder of Jaunt Motors, an off-road vehicle EV conversion shop and supply manufacturer in Melbourne, Australia. Jaunt just merged with a like-minded firm in the UK to form Fellten, a bigger, more capable shop within the growing EV conversion space. At Fellten, Dave serves as Chief Product Officer. 

Car Culture is far from monolithic. BFGoodrich Tires’ "Battle of the Builds" — held on our social channels at the end of 2023 — was proof that there are endless perspectives from which to channel creativity into unique car builds. Building a custom car is a science and an art — and no two projects are alike. This year, three great cars #BuiltOnBFG rose to the top.