[Monkey Wrench]

for me it was, if you want a car, insurance and gas money go get a job and buy one, so I cut grass worked on a farm job, got together $200 and bought the worst piece of crap VW beatle imaginable. every part was worn out, I rebuilt everything then bought other junk cars and did the same.
I tried to buy a fairly nice looking giant american car, same price, it was a plymouth fury II it ws a huge boat.

dad looked at it and said no you don't want that.. Its a huge gas hog. back then it would require a parents permission to insure a car at 16 He said flat out, Im not signing it. game over.

I dont think it was so much about gas he just didn't want me driving something that big and powerful. The VW was a death trap. the sterring shook so hard you couln't hold the steering wheel going up over 30 MPH. The brake drums were turned so far they became bands so whan the brakes were applied the drums stopped, but they werent connected to the axles. lol. the sterring box fell apart on a curved bridge bearings fell apart. dangerous !

what it taught me was how to be thrifty , how to fix up a junk car and do engine rebuilding transmission work, brakes and everything else. oh I'd take it off roading VW's go great in the bush and climb well. and Id run over rocks up river beds, and break stuff and be back fixing it, what I learned was how and not to be afraid to stake stuff on.

I eventuially became a millwright ( industrial mechanic) and now I do that all the time but with machinery. To my employer Im valuable because I can work inedependently through difficult problems, a lot of the younger guys just can't their main boundary is that they give in and become afraidto tackel stuff. you know what happens Im faced with repairing some 50 year old and very unusual specific purpose machine that is completely obsolete..

good luck finding parts, this is where I can shine because I leaned the basic skills Ill take the broken parts and fix the parts, Il weld it up I'll machine it for a new surface, or make a part or whatever I think will get me by. Ill get it going, there is no factory support this is a very common situation for me. Today there is a real demand for people who can think and work through issues. a lot of younger people dont grow up with dads and briken cars and garages, they grow up in appartments and human birdhouses where they don't use tools. I see 20 year olds that can't use a hammer properly, they never used one ! they go int o be auto mechanics. they arent mechanics they ware parts changers. strip a bolt they are stuck.. they just learn all that later in life if they go into trades, a lot do, Farmers are often taught shop skills, I respect farmers. a lot of them think the same way I do.


even if It is a machine that is foreign to me, il figure things out. At 16 I had no idea what a millwright even was much less that I might ever become one. i twasnt; until I was much older that I learned I actulaly had a gift of thinking outside the box and had a can-do attitude. the reason I aquired this gift wasn't becaue I was gifted it , it was because dad spent the time to teach me. I dint learn that stuff in school, I did learn more later thtrough various technical courses on machinery and such.

I think at 16 "getting that" and becoming confident and trained enough to take things on is key.. its stuff you take all the way through life. We all know people who can't even change their own oil because they won't try. they arent; conditioned to think Gee I can do this.. and just try.

I tend to drive fairly carefully, I learned to doubleclutch early on. I've never paid over 2K for a car, never took a mechanic except a couple times for my wife's car. maybe once or twice when I felt stuck but I fixed pretty much everything I encounter. Its all just nuts and bolts and everything goes around and around or back and forth. To troubleshoot electrical stuff you just need the basics then you go get stuck then you learn as you go. a mentor is really helpful.

I never made a car payment. I never bought a new car, Ive never been on a car lot. ive never paid over 2K for a car in my life. I've worked for what I own and no one gave me stuff for free.

not saying what the OP should do just that I understand now a lot more now than when I was 16 and I learned some valuable life lessons. Had I owned a decent car that parent's just ran out and bought me, I would have missed a lot of those valuable opportunities to learn and grow. It taught me not to be afraid to get into a project that I was unfamiliar with and how to find the resources to tackle problems. the cars came and went.

I learned to be resourcedful If I needed factory tool we'd figure out something, make a tool , I learned basic welding and machining skills. gee we even compressed the springs to change mcphereson struts with pipe clamps and tie wire, dangerous as hell yes, but it worked. Dad would spend all day helping me fix a part worth 5 bucks, it seemed senesless back then.. waste of a day? but he'd say no its ok we tackled that, thing is now you know how not to spend the 5 bucks. what's next? the day was actually him teaching me, the 5 bucks was nothing important. it was about the challenge not to spend money.

to me that was very valuable, maybe less valuable If I had became a doctor with a PHD in brain surgery. and the paycheck to suit.
my brother helped a lot, he had taken a diesel mechanics course he was 4 years older, and had more experinece so he helped me rebuild a couple of engines transmissions and such. Dear old dad helped me a lot too. we'd have crazy arguments on how to tackle things but no one got called stupid or anything personally insulting. It was how we discussed things passionate about the process , not hurtfully

we'd often spend evenings brainstorming how to fix things, usually just with what's around. without spending any money, that was always key. depression era philosophy. I'll fix it with what i have around with the tools at hand, Ill buy a tool or a part, but only if I need it , do I need to or can I just be inventive and find a way? we'd laugh when we got to the part of the manual that says "refer to a mechanic", sure like we'd ever do that.. lol

that would be like defeating our purpose. there HAD to be a way around it.

in the end put our minds together It made me think a lot. he let me struggle for a day then he'd come to help and together we'd tackle any issue that I was stuck on. Dad enjoyed teaching me, passing his skills and knowledge down to me. He'd learned by way of need as well. Informal training by working with others. asking the right questions.getting stuck and working things through.

If I'd had a car that didn't need to be fixed I would have missed those opportunities. I'm thankful for them. I wasnt a spoiled kid who's parents bought him a car. not so much.

I had to stand on my own 2 feet, that's how I see it. he did help me in my 30s let me live in his house and bank some money I returend the favors by helping him out lots as he got older and had some serious accidents and surgeries etc. when he went, we all do eventually, I said Ill always love him and he lives on through me, thats how I see it. I truly appreciate that time we spent. we were very close frineds as well as father and son.

All that said I can toatally see how you may make a father and son project of restoring a 30 or 35 year old 944. Personally I would not fund it, That's just one guys opinion. we tend to appreciate things we work for, what we are given at 16, ,less so.

the chicks still dug my groovy VW beetle .. I decked it out with brass and black walnut and painted it , custom dash, made may own brass and black walnut steering wheel, brass window winders, brass everything that I could replace.. and so on..brother helped me rebuild the engine. it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed imagining things and then creating what I had imagined, I still enjoy all that. Its the creative process, its an art. when I see guys building race cars, its the same , they have the money and shop to do more than I can but its still a creative process, this is an art form in my opinion. lots of guys who have bags of cash still enjoy that creative process and restoration , its not always about money but sometimes it is just about pleasing yourself through accomplishments.

I need projects that allow me to spend time accomplishing things, with out that I'd be unhappy. I also like having fun and social activities, I took up snooker as a social activity. Its a life balance. If I won 10 million I'd still enjoy tinkering with old cars. hiring people do do all that I'd find less satifying because I would not consider that an accomplishment to be proud of.