Folks Of Interest Building Cars in a two car garage

Last year I moved the most important stuff out of my shop into a regular two car garage. It works for now but I thought how in the hell can I finish my projects in such a small shop. Then I get the latest FAST magazine and see that Bud Winfield built two Novi Indy cars in his two car garage in La Canada. I was just a kid at the time but Indy was a big deal and I have gone my whole life assuming those cars were built in something like the current NASCAR shops. I'm inspired, humbled and will quit my bitching about the small shop.

 

you should quite bitching, a vast majority of real hot rods and racecars were all built in one and two car garages and some in drivways by everyday guys. some of these cars were very successful racing, some popular at shows, others just plainly enjoyed by the fellas that built them.

Lots of well built and what would be considered 'high end' come from humble places and not 10sqft shops with every piece of equipment and tool imaginable.

My grandfather, most of my friends and countless others all built quality hotrods in a small, crampt, single or two car garage.

be thankful you had at one point more than a two car garage because for most of us that's all we have.

 

Small???? I've been building cars in my one-car garage for 39 years. I'd pass out if I had a real live 2 car garage!

 

Works for me...

 

Here’s a quote from Cotton Werksman- Garages don’t build cars, people do!

 

lots of building has been done in mine and my freinds.

Sent from my SM-G900V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Wish I had a garage...

 

@Rocky has that teeny garage building down pat! @Austin kays garage is so small that even with a little fenderless model A in it you can’t walk around the whole car.

A roof is still better than a parking lot, even if it’s a narrow roof. Lots and lots of cool stuff comes out of tiny sheds

 

I started out under a tree, then move to a horse stall, then to a 12x24 bay in our barn, then into a 2 car, then into my current 30x40. The new shop is super awesome, but in reality I still work in about the same space. The rest I just fill up with more good stuff!

 

Somehow this thread has taken off in an entirely wrong direction. The original point I was trying to share was the fact that Bud Winfield built not one but two Indy cars at the same time in a backyard garage. That surprised me but apparently everyone else already knew that. I didn't post it to brag, complain or disparage anyone building cars in any conditions. Indeed, to the contrary, it should verify that great things can be built in small spaces.

I'm well aware of the fact that many hot rods and race cars were built in driveways and in the dirt, including the one in my avatar. That one was built mostly on plywood covered dirt and the shop was in an 8 x 12' enclosed trailer. I got my first shop building three years ago. It was a steel arch building/carport, open on both ends. The current garage is my first closed door garage and I got it after I turned 76.

 

My grandmother's neighbour built rail style dragsters in his unassuming backyard garage. Rebuilt the motor in my 85 Dodge Shelby Charger in my basement and backyard patio. I'll never forget the look on my neighbours face when I was working on that motor on my patio. That car used to run with the 5.0s in the day after I added the Mopar intercooler and computer. Lol.

 

In the 60’s I lived a block away from the 2 car garage where Austin Coil and Pat Minick built one of the most popular vehicles in Funny Car history The Chi-Town Hustler. I wish I had Pictures .If I only knew the impact these guys would have on NHRA racing. I saw an interview with Austin, where he tells of working in a 2 car garage in a dirt ally, in a small suburb of Chicago. I still live there, the garage is still there, The lot where they kept the carhaller has a house on it. Not too many left in town that know the history.

 

It’s tight
Space is always at a premium.
But it’s the only way I know how since I was 15 !!
Biggest pain is sharing the garage with the yard tools and kids toys as you can see from peaty peacock on the roof of my Buick !!

 

I'll give it a try.
I'm just happy to have insulation & heat.

 

Build the 32 in the basement garage of a bilevel house 1 car . The support beam had a trolley on it that was in the correct place to lift body , motor and tranny

 

I'd think you might discover that the "big race shops" square ft wise or big hot rod shops square ft wise are a newer thing rather than something that has always been there.
I'm working at building a 28x30 pole building right now that will be my shop that I should already have done and my cat and I should be building a hot rod in it right now. I think he already has a no dogs allowed sign made for it.
I was around circle track racers, drag racers and rod/custom builders from the time I was a kid and don't remember any of them having a shop that might hold more than three cars except the racers who used one stall in their mechanics shop for their race car. Work 8 hours a day in the other stalls on customer cars and then at 5 move over to the race car stall and work until you got done with what you were going to do. I had to make sure I locked up my tool box when I worked in one of those shops as the tools ended up getting used if I didn't.

 

In the 1950s I had the backyard,the part with the nice soft weeds,an by the early 60s Dad let me park in the carport sometimes for a day..Built two cars in those weeds.

 

many big name operations stated out with very little room to do what they did - not what ya got but, what you do with it

 

They had fewer tools and didnt have large rolling boxes. No HOA's so if you had to put some stuff outside, it was OK.

Keep your parts stash to the current car, use the walls and ceiling space wisely, stash some stuff outside, it can be done.

 

Henry's first.

 

I have a 36x60 shop and still have to work outside most of the time due to all the cars and crap I have piled inside. Plan to make it bigger by adding a 24x60 lean-to but I will probably pile that full too.

Dave

 

wright brothers

 

Two car garage works for me

 

Lost my 24' x 50' shop and had to move back into a two car garage at my house. One side is my workshop. The other is where my car is so as I can work on it. All my other shit is in a 10' x 20' rental storage unit. My future project is sitting at a buddy's house. It's cozy!

 

I've had lots of garage space over the years, but most of that space was filled with stuff. The work space in my current 2 car garage amounts to about 2' on each side and maybe a foot either in front of or behind, depending on how I parked the car I was working on. This garage has an 8' ceiling, anything that needs lifting with the cherry picker or is longer then a standard sized pickup gets done outside. The garage has heat, and the driveway has nice flat cement.

One time, for about 4 years, I rented a 40' x 60' building. The work space kept shrinking until it reached about the same size as my current area. When I got out of that place, I scrapped a bunch of junk. Gene

 

I have the good fortune to have a very large shop but it seems that I built more cars in my garage now people just come by and leave cars for me to work on and I never get to work on mine PS Mr. Jam that old r oadster rear half I bought from you is soon to be a car

 

I have a pic in Gordon White's "Offenhauser" that shows the inside of Bud's garage with the Winfield V8 (Novi) being assembled by the man (can't recall his name, but he hailed from Novi, MI, and was a supplier to and friend of Henry Ford) who provided the cash for them. Marvin Jenkins and Bud Winfield are also in it. It sure was different, compared to today, to see where they worked. In this pic, there look to be some baking pans on the walls, which leads me to believe it was at one time a summer kitchen.

 

I'm sure, back in the day, if a guy really wanted to build a car he'd do it anywhere he could. My first car was built in a two car garage, seemed spacious at the time.

 

One guy I hung out with, his dad built some incredible old Fords out of the most cluttered 1 car garage I have ever seen. I suspect that he painted at work or outside. I ran a stock car for 2 seasons out of the front 1/2 of a 1.5 car garage, all welding was done outside and the outlet for the welder was in the basement. Fortunately close by the driveway.