For all of you that are working on a car at home or have completed a car, I now have a MUCH deeper appreciation for the work you're doing or the work you've done.  It's the main reason I created this website, to give back to all of you and hopefully help a few people and make some friends along the way. 

Thanks To...

1.  My wife Kandie for all of her wonderful support and constant efforts with the camera to help document this build .
2.  Cliff and Andy at Syndicate Automotive Concepts.
3.  Every member of Team Camaro and Lateral-g.net who has ever submitted an answer to someone's question.  The database of information on these sites is astounding and it's all because of the members' efforts to help people out. 
4.  The very friendly guys at Classic Industries in Huntington Beach.
5.  Tim at the local Kragen auto parts shop in Encinitas for always being so friendly and helpful.
6.  Jerry at the local Ace Hardware store in Carmel Valley for always being so friendly and helpful.
7.  The guys and gals over at the Discount Tire Co in Solana Beach.

Looking Back...

Now that my car is finished, I can look back and say that the following items stood out for me the most:

1.  It took a lot more time than I thought it would.  I can't see how a person with a family could possibly tackle such a project and not place a strain on their relationships with their wife and children.  Anybody who doesn't have a lot of spare time should either not take on such a project or plan on paying other people to do a lot of the work. 

2.  The costs are more than you'll think they'll be.  The miscellaneous stuff really adds up, and parts and labor will cost more than you think they will.  Thank God classic cars are decent investments because you'll cling to that word 'investment' every time you spend another dollar, and another, and another.

3.  Buy the best possible starting car you can afford.  Having a great source car saved me a ton of time and money.  It's especially important to find a car with a great body because bodywork easily takes the most time and can run up the cost very quickly.  Don't think that sticking on reproduction metal will be cheap either because it can take a lot of time/money to get that reproduction part to line-up properly.

4.  Research, Research, Research.  I spent a ton of time reading the Chevy and Camaro forums.  They helped me so much.  Before you buy a part(especially a reproduction part), be sure to research it as much as possible because you could save yourself a bunch of time, aggravation, and money.

5.  Pay people to do the cleaning, media blasting, stripping, etc.  The amount of time and money I spent on cleaning parts, the underside, engine bay, and basically all pieces of metal on the car was very intensive.  If I was to do it again, I would just take the car to a media blaster to have the engine bay, undercarriage, frame, and more of the parts stripped instead of doing it all myself.  The amount of money you spend on sand paper, wire brushes, and stripping chemicals(and industrial soap and extra water in the shower!) is nearly identical to the amount you would pay somebody to strip it, so just pay them.  I did pay for some media blasting though and I'm happy I did.  I wish I had done that a little more.

6.  I'm glad I didn't overbuild the engine(adding more horsepower than what came in the crate) or pay an absolute fortune for a flawless/major-show-winning paint and body job.  I don't have to worry so much about small paint chips from road debris or how much I'm spending at the pump, so it makes driving the car more often enjoyable.  Of course, my paint job wasn't cheap either, and the reason I didn't have huge body work costs was because I started off with a car that was amazingly straight with mostly original sheetmetal and did the minor body work myself.  Finding a solid 'middle-ground' on the paint and engine was a good choice for me.

7.  It was all worth it!   Dude, I love my car.  I'm proud of the uniqueness, the thumbs up that I receive at intersections, and the feeling I get knowing I built the whole damn thing myself.  Trust me, when you spend 2.5 years working on a car, it will mean a lot more to you than if you went out and cut a check for an already built vehicle or paid someone to do it for you.

8.  Would I do it again?  At this point, no, probably not, but I just finished recently so given a few years of rest I'll probably change my mind.  Maybe I'll help my future kids build one, but not to the degree in which I built this car.  I would definitely just pay some people to do the stripping/cleaning/prep work.  The building/fabrication/design part is really a lot of fun(that's the part you usually see on TV!), so that's what I would enjoy doing again.