How many of you are perfectionists when building a car?

Perfection? I believe a woman should give virgin birth.

I have only one car that I strive for perfection on. The others are just safe dependable drivers

 

Perfection does not a perfect car make.

 

My builds are usually for racing. El Mirage and Bonneville. If you build for perfection take your perfect vehicle to Bonneville and find out just how the salt can screw with perfection. I simply do the best I can with what I've got. And then go race. If you don't like it don't look at it. And to be perfectly honest I don't give a rats ass what you think of MY build.

 

I dunno if you would term me a "Perfectionist " . I take pride in both the mechanicals and the basic body prep as I do both. I don't and never will be a decent painter noran upholsterer. I send those jobs out . I still insist on a decent, non half assed job . scrubba

 

I'd like to consider myself a perfectionist. I enjoy the build process and am in no hurry to get it done just to get it on the road. It took me 8 years to do my '33 and have put 70,000 on it since and love it. I've been working on my '37 for about 3 years now and am just about to pull it down for the last time for epoxy and paint now, which I'll do myself as well. Although I strive for 100%, I'm usually happy with 95 or so, or if you compare it to Ridler winners, I'm probably more like 50%

 

Mechanically, I try to get my car to "perfection", that is, everything works optimally and safely. Visually, the fact it is a ten footer is fine with me. I put 8,000 miles on it this year and consider it still in the shakedown phase.

I do not show my car and it is not H.A.M.B. friendly, a 67 Alpine with an EFI fueled Ranger Duratec 4 banger. Occasionally, at an impromptu show, a guy will realize that my car is the best I can do with my talents and equipment and gets very excited as he comes to understand the car and realizes the approach is VERY traditional and the essence of hot rodding. That is good enough for me.

Bill

 

EXACTLY. What is perfection ? Everyone has THEIR definition.

 

I do 110% when building a car for someone else. . . but sometimes on my own car, the excitement of taking it for a ride leaves a "few stones unturned".

 

Perfectionist...anal...I've heard it all over the years, I think a better outlook is this. Are you having FUN?? Do you ENJOY filing a bracket for hours? Getting door gaps uniform?? I do. NOTHING I do is perfect but I've learned to stop when I'm not having fun anymore ! Some people are gifted to do amazing things with their hands,we've all seen their handiwork on this site, others, not so amazing. I do the best I can while still having a riot doing what we all love !!!

 

i like how some people just grab random numbers and make arbitrary percentages as if it was real kind of measurement you can put something up against.

 

I try for 100%, but I've never made it. There's always something that's not the way I want, but I know there's no such thing as perfect and live with it.

But if shooting for 100% is too much trouble, then when does shooting for 90% get to be too much trouble and then............you get the picture.
Larry T

 

I strive for Excellence, not Perfection. Perfection is not achievable and will drive you crazy trying to capture it.

I am guilty of doing it well, however. My '41 started out as a "I'll just get it running and drive it for now" project. After things kept breaking, I got pissed and started changing the running gear and then the snowball kept getting bigger and bigger. I'm now getting ready to pull the cab off the chassis.

Oh well, when I finish it, it will be nice.

 

lol!

 

I use this car as therapy I enjoy working on it and do the best I can here in the drive way- show car? nawwww but I do plan to goning on Route 66 in the summer with it. It's just having fun and being safe is what's important- WTF it's hot rodding right? man I can hardly wait to get this baby back on the road I have gone to shows and heard some asshole tell a guy with a "perfect car" hey you missed this- thats why I got this sticker- IT"S GREAT RIGHT

 

I could stand on this side of the fence .

 

I usually shoot for 80%. Just cause by the time the interor work rolls around, Im off n driving! I dont sit on a milk crate thats 70%!

 

I am....I just don't have the skill to obtain the level I want. But, I don't have the cash either....

 

Thats why my cars take years to finish..............

 

Used to be - now the 90/10 rule applies - drivers have to be mech great and I don't cut corners with mechanicals.

Paint an polish is harder to maintain on true drivers and my aching back tells me that its harder to maintain 'em than used to be the case.

But its still hard to not strive for that perfect car.

Truth is - perfection is often in the eye of the beholder/builder and to that end, its a good thing to strive for.

Rat

 

When you realize perfection in unobtainable then you can form your vision of "finished". Once it's "finished" get it off the jack stands and drive the wheels off it.
I had been without a drivable hot rod for over 10 years when I got the '32 in my avatar drivable. I told my wife that I was going to drive it for awhile and then tear it down for paint and interior. Her comment, "Once you drive it you'll never paint it". I love that woman more than any earthly thing and part of it is that she is so wise. It's been over 12 years ago she made that statement and the car has never seen another piece of masking tape or a drop of paint while racking up almost 70,000 fun filled miles.
I had a near death accident just before starting the build on the '32 and after recovery (which took 5+ years) I had a different way of looking at life. I knew I would never get those 5 years back and determined I was NEVER going to use up time doing anything that wasn't absolutely necessary or take me away from something I really WANTED to do. It's worked out great and the last 20 years have been the happiest of my life. I like the saying "life is short, eat desert first". I'm not advocating that as an outlook until you've satisfied the adult requirement's of life you've obligated yourself to but after the kids are grown and your career is secure............give yourself a break.......relax your standards a bit........count your blessings and enjoy life.

Frank

 

Being a Nut Case about my stuff is why I have 5 projects and only one driver.

Crazyness.....!

Sometimes I wish that I could just throw it together like some of the stuff I see. Then, not so much. Rather do it the best I can, or not do it at all.

Am I crazy?

 

Thats me.. I have projects everywhere I look But have not had one to drive in 11 years.. 2011 will be the change.. I hope..

 

I've been a body man/fabricator for 50 ish years. When I build for myself, I build a driver. Not perfect but they look better than most usually. When I build for others (paying). I will get anal with finished product if they want to pay for the extra required to get there.

 

WOW , some of the responses really suprise me. 70 % , 80% , isn't worth the time and effort for the finishing details. Sounds like fucking r*t r*ds to me . Now I know some of you said 110% and so on . But this is very telling on some of you . This is one thing wrong with the USA is half assed work . If this is the best you can do , well ok , but admitting 70 or 80 % and being happy with that is fucked up . Kind of sad to be so impatient to drive a half way finished car that looks like those rodent rods in primer and so on . So all the people saying this should not bitch about china made products because doing your job 80 % is one reason jobs have left this country . I am not saying build a billet encrusted easter egg show rod . Just finish the one you have as best you can period. Sorry for the rant and no offense meant but I hope everyone gets what I am saying

 

I think there is a certian coolness to having things shiney but not on the money (character if you will). Humans can do very few things perfect. In fact, I don't think we can build anything perfect. No matter how well it is built, there are always ideas, trends, and colors that people will say arn't quite correct for them; so to heck wit' 'em! I think about where my car will be 40 year from now when I am dead (or sooner)? What did the perfection matter then. You have to build to your acceptance level; and you have to drive it and have fun with it, cause in the end, it will go to a yard or be redone by someone else or be ripped into thirty different pieces and become one of the many parts and projects we are all working on right now. Think about that for a while. Every fender and door and body in all our garages, right now, was someone elses pride that rolled off the showroom floor. After some years, it became someones beater, that is, until they sold it and it became someone elses first car or someone elses first hotrod, etc. It never ends. Instead of the circle of life; it's the circle of junk. So paint it so it shines, drive it to a show and to pick up milk; sell it, and bulid another one. Man, I would pay money to know where all the cars I have owned since 16 years of age are right now!
The Pork

 

I'll play along.. I use all kinds of messuring gages before and during assembling an engine.. This includes a complete set of bore gages from .750" diameter to 6.00" diameter.. Same with micrometers. 0"-6.00" dia. Depth gages are 0-6.00" also. 3 sets of digital calipers, 0-1." disc micrometers, joe blocks, a couple of test indicators, a couple of 1.00" travel indicators, an 18" digital height stand for checking pin bore heights on pistons, gage pins from .011"-.625" dia., snap-on torque wrenches, etc, etc... I also love to rebuild and fine tune carbs..

 

How do you measure 'perfection'? The truth is that while we work on a project our skills increase, the 'perfection' horizon keeps getting further away, for instance: when you made the first bracket, panel patch, gage cluster..whatever, for your car you made it as good as you could with what you had and your skill set would allow. Now 2 years into the project your skill, tools and confidance have improved..are you the type that would go back and redo that original piece? If that is how you measure or define perfectionism, then i suffer from that malaise and sleep better at night for it.
Thanks for asking, oj

 

Talk to any machinist that build cars, they are so used to working with tight tolerances that when they fabricate and weld parts for their cars they expect to hold the same kind tolerances, which is not easy to do. Also when I fabricate parts for my car they have to look like they have correct proportions. I have made parts for my car tacked them in place, them cut them off because it did not look the way I wanted. For me it is a balancing act that I struggle with.

 

I can relate to that! We had to make good castings out of bad ones.. The welder would do his thing and I was left with the chore of grinding the welds and dressing the area up and make it look like it was never welded.. This was all done on aluminum prototype castings that had to be sold to a customer.. Sometimes that crap was nerve racking..

 

Yep, realized I was a perfectionist right after i had spent 30 minutes grinding smoothing my Rochester carb bases. Only to be told by my friend, who was painting them, that nearly all of the imperfections would have been filled by the paint and primer.

I've also come realize the hard truth: because I am a perfectionist I'll never be able to finish my '32 roadster in a reasonable amount of time unless I make some serious sacrifices. Is it better to have a car on the road? Or is it better to wait until every piece is finished to it's highest standard? Those are the questions I ask myself everyday.