At Home Mechanic

A Show Car is not just a nicely cleaned up street car with maybe a bit of extra chrome. To be a contender on the Car Show circuit you need to completely rebuild, repaint and reengineer a car so that is only faintly resembles the original car. Everything you can see and many parts you cannot see are chromed and polished to a burnished gleam. Custom upholstery, mind numbing and ear splitting entertainment systems, hydraulic suspension systems, thousands of man-hours and untold piles of money are all incorporated into a Show Car. Even the slightest blemish can seriously degrade a car's chances to win a show trophy so a Show Car is towed in an enclosed trailer to prevent the chance of a stone chip.

A Race Car is stripped down for speed and has no creature comforts. Loud, stiff, cramped and unpleasant to ride in, a Racecar is meant to go fast at all expense. It has no creature comforts, like a heater or air conditioning, certainly no radio and tight seats that grip you in a tight embrace that discourages any kind of movement.

A Daily Driver can be clean and shiny, it can be pretty quick, but it surrenders all claims to the domain of Show Car and Race Car in a compromise of comfort and convenience. A Daily Driver does not need to have its engine, brakes and tires rigorously warmed up before performing to their best ability like a Racecar. A Daily Driver might get a wash every week and a wax once a year, but you do not need to be compulsive about it.

But a Hobby car is nearly always going to be a compromise of fulfilling more than one function, the trick is to find the right amount of balance. Imagine a triangle with Show Car at one corner, Racecar in another corner and Daily Driver in the third corner. Some where within that triangle is where your hobby car is going to fall. If you plan on racing this car and not use it for show or street very often, then your car would be closest to the Racecar corner. But if you plan on being able to drive this car on the street occasionally, then its mark would nudge a bit closer to Daily Driver within that triangle.

For me, I have a perfectly decent daily driver that is not my hobby car, so that part of the triangle is not important. And as much as I like my hobby car to look sharp, I am not overly concerned with a few flaws in the paint so the Show Car end of the triangle is not a consideration. But I do use my hobby car for amateur sporting events so my hobby car definitely leans toward Racecar territory.

But in all things in life there are compromises that we must make. I need to be able to drive this car on the street so it retains all of the street legal equipment and a full interior. I even have a CD player with four speakers.

The decision is up to you, the At Home Mechanic. Fast? Shiny? Comfortable? A combination of all three, but with an emphasis on any one in particular? That is the great thing about a hobby car, the choice is yours alone to make.

PS- A special shout out to Dave who is also a faithful reader. Thanks for the nice wishes about my back, it is much better today.
Scott