Building a Cheap, Fun Project Car in 48 Hours transcript

- The internet is full of some insane car builds. Now these projects are genuinely sick and the guys building them are extremely talented. But I can see how they might feel so unobtainable, so out of reach, so impressive that it might discourage the average person from getting into the hobby at all. I mean, where do you start? Cars are meant to be enjoyed and I think that it's my job to help as many people love cars as possible, myself included.

So today we are taking it back to the basics. Meet Norman. You can call him Normy. He is a Mark three golf that I just bought for $3,000. He's got 300,000 miles on a two liter eight valve, pushing out 120 horsepower. The paint is a little rough, but he's got a good strong base. My boy's got good bones. I'm gonna spend the next 48 hours modifying normy in totally normal ways. The mods are reasonable, affordable, dare I say, beginner friendly.

Now to pull off this weekend long project, I've enlisted the help of five friends all across LA to help install five essential upgrades. At the end of this weekend, we are gonna have one very sick, very normal, very attainable project car. Okay, upgrade number one. Starting right here in my driveway. A stereo. Now hear me out. Let's say that you've saved up 500 bucks. You can't afford wheels hit. You can't afford coilovers.

That won't fall apart after six months, but sometimes just getting started can help keep you motivated and looking forward to the next upgrade. Plus music and cars go really well together and you're gonna enjoy your car way more if you can play music from your phone. In order to truly enjoy our upgraded stereo, we need to know where we came from. - All right, I'm giving those speakers a seven outta 10. Absolutely no base cell buffer has to go in. - The speakers sound okay but lots of speakers sound okay.

These look terrible and it's impossible to put the stock speaker grills back on because these come out too far. So with these new speakers, theoretically we should be able to put the grills back on. I've bought a new head unit, some speakers, and a subwoofer at all costs around 500 bucks. Redpath is gonna help me install it and should be relatively straightforward because I also got help from another friend Carl from Studio Incar across the pond in England built us this awesome harness.

So we're getting help from friends around the world. Let's get it feel like it's like 2005 I in the Best Buy parking lot Louisville Kentucky's. Before installing anything electrical on a car, you should always be sure to disconnect the battery so you don't blow a fuse. Our speakers connect using standard spade connectors. Normy already had aftermarket speakers, so the previous owner had splicing connectors already. But you may have to do some cutting and crimping yourself depending on what connection you find at the back of your speakers.

I mean, car stereo stuff definitely isn't as popular as it used to be 'cause cars come with really good stereos, but some old cars do not. One thing I love about these old cars is how easy swapping out the head unit is. It's as simple as popping off a plastic frame, removing the stereo, and unplugging some connectors for a head unit. We went with a relatively modest Blau punked Madrid head unit mimics the design language of an older car.

Dude that looks factory, I think a more period, correct aftermarket option would be like an old Alpine unit or one of those silver ones that has dolphins swimming digitally on it. It's a good place for the shove hurts, don't it? To get power to the subwoofer, we have to run a wire all the way to the battery at the front. In 1998, Volkswagen wanted you to add the tub so they pre-drilled the firewall and plugged it with this cute little plug.

All right, so when we connect this, it's gonna make a big pop. - Hopefully. Yeah. Oh nice. I didn't - Hear a pop. Yeah, I didn't hear a pop. It's probably a bad thing. - Yeah, - Battery's dead. - All right, jump back six up. We got power. Let's see if music is better. The end Make you, oh yeah dude. Oh the bass. Way better. I don't know if you can hear that or not. Look. Still knock. Yeah dude, we got show bro. Alright, we have a working stereo and it sounds great.

This Marks upgrade number one, new speakers and a head unit at location number one, my house with friend number one, Zach and Jesse. They're both number one to me. There's something perfect about starting here at home on concrete with just a few tools, a couple of friends, a box of parts, and no real plan other than let's put it together with the new speakers and subwoofers sounding great. It's time to head down to Long Beach to meet up with our friend Jason Whipple and get Normie a new set of wheels and tires.

Nothing transforms your car, quite like suspension and a proper set of wheels and tires. This combo completely changes the look and feel of your car and it can be done in an afternoon. Jason is one of the founders of Rotor and recently started a new company called Al Alterman. He's a good friend, a fellow Mark three owner and knows more about offsets tire sizes and finishes than most people on earth. - Everything I sell is something I have wanted to put on my own car.

We're not just selling trinkets to make money. - So a couple weeks ago I dropped off a set of 16 by nine inch Schmidt Modern lines. I bought this set from Blackly Industries a couple years ago and they've been sitting in the background of most of our videos ever since. I think this set was pieced together from display models or something because they're all the same specs, but they were in different colors. So Jason helped me make 'em the same color.

Schmidt motor lines are one of the most classic choices for a mark three Volkswagen. I have always wanted a set of these. The wheels are 16 inches in diameter and nine inches wide. So in order to fit them properly on Norman, we're gonna have to go pretty aggressive with tire stretch, we'll be fitting 1 95, 45 Nan Kings. Now I've been told that these stretch very well shouts to Nan King UK and players J for hooking us up.

Not only is Jason able to help with getting the wheels refinished, but he also conveniently has friends who do mobile tire mount. I've wanted these wheels since I was like 16 years old. Damn dude, that looks unsafe. Stretch tires are funny on the drive home. This thing is gonna look so good. We're so close to this car. Looking sick for the rest of its life. One down three to go. Yeah, there's cobwebs everywhere. And how many sets of wheels do you think you put on a car?

A lot. Hundreds. Like tens of thousands. - Yeah. - Yeah. Amazing. - This is what I was doing before I had a job in the automotive industry. - Yeah, - I was playing with Mark twos and Mark threes. So yeah, this has kind of always, always been a dream. Wheels and suspension is definitely big impact for low dollar in the big scheme of things. And you know, it sets the stage for the rest of your project. - Yeah, that's not low enough.

And with these tires, we committed to dumping this thing. 'cause right now, wheels look great. Stance is an abomination. Dude, I can see the vision bro. I can see the vision. Yeah. Mod two wheels and tires done. Dude it. It's starting to look like a cool car. - You're well on your way - Son. We're about to do my favorite mod with my favorite YouTuber suspension within Anat truck. We're about to slam this normal little car, an ungodly amount.

It's gonna be dangerous to drive and I'm so excited. Vin is the perfect guy to help us out to do it. Hey, it's me from later in the video. Things get a little crazy. You'll see we spent a lot of money on gas and other little tidbits like this sub, so we might as well be getting something back for all that spending, which is why we partnered with Gemini to showcase their Bitcoin credit card. The only instant Bitcoin rewards credit card, the best thing about this card is it gives you a 4% Bitcoin back on gas and transportation up to $300 a month in Bitcoin. 4% adds up fast when you're doing, let's just say some long parts runs and the rewards don't stop there.

You also get 3% back on dining, 2% on groceries, and 1% on everything else. And here's the thing, if you're not ready to ride the crypto rollercoaster, you can choose get your rewards in USDC, which is basically just dollars, but you still get that same 4%. Honestly, I'd rather have Bitcoin the dollars anyway. So, and a large chunk of my rewards have come from filling up this car with gas. But overall Bitcoin rewards earned and held for one year on the Gemini credit card have appreciated 176% on average.

So you are investing while you spend to sign up for the Gemini credit card. Head to gemini.com/speed and get $200 in Bitcoin. When you spend $3,000 in your first 90 days, you can see if you pre-qualify with no impact to your credit score, click the link or go to gemini.com/speed to apply and start earning instantly. Alright, back to the past. See ya. I didn't think I was gonna start. Vin is one of the rare people who truly gets both cars and YouTube.

Two things that take up a ridiculous amount of space in my brain. Is - This just a really fancy way of guilting your friends into working on your car because you had no explanation of what you were doing, but you're like, I'll give you subscribers on YouTube if you do my suspension. I was like, all right, - I'm down. Suspension is always the first real mod I wanna do on any car. It always feels like it ties everything together. - I love working on mark threes.

This was so simple. This is the easiest suspension job ever. Yeah. Literally like back in the day, this is how you got into cars. Yeah. Just doing simple crap with your friends. Yeah. And now YouTube makes it seem so. - Yeah. Now you have to fabricate the entire mono cock or whatever. Oh, easy. I mean like you have your own channel and you come from a channel that's built like in a lot of ways you guys are responsible for the absurdity of YouTube - Cars because like as you know, like it's all about like title and thumb.

So we always had to go above and beyond to like get people to be interested in the build. But the one common thing that all of those cars had was they all sucked at the end. Yeah. Not a single one of those was a good car that was usable for the road. The car has to serve. The purpose of like just driving on the road. That's, that's a lesson for life from Uncle Vin. I'm trying to pay it back. 'cause James taught us how to dress as adults.

So where's the other shut top? - No, it might look be - How'd we make out? It's fine. I'm so happy. That wasn't me so good. Volkswagen really just does dumb stuff. Yeah, because like why would you put this in such a difficult to reach place? - I think that Germans have long, - Slender hands. Alright, hit it. You know my theory is, is that guys need things like this because like we couldn't just like hang out on a couch.

Hell no, dude. You're high risk of making out if you're not doing something. Yeah. You know, like, what else are we gonna do? You be having that. That's, that's how Rome fell. Dude. Do we want to count the threads on the back? Oh yeah. All right. So there's like 53 in the back. Holy shit. I, I mean let's just put 'em on at like, we'll probably have to do it a couple times to see What do you think James? It gonna be right? - No.

No way. But it's gotta look way - Better. That is so high. I told you it actually could look worse. It's embarrassing. It looks worse. Yeah. I now we look real official doing it at the same time. So funny that I'm like crouching down to do this. It's not a lift. Why am I doing this? Remember kids coil overs only go down so you can't go back up. Perfect. Maybe perfect. Maybe perfect. I think the rear will settle. Ooh, the front money.

Yeah. I like it. Yeah dude. Dude, sit. Hell yeah. I like it. Let's put lugs in and then go look at it outside. Yeah dude. - With the ride height just right. We rolled Norman out into the sun. Yeah. He instantly looks more planted, more intentional, not slammed. For the sake of Instagram. Just confident like he's standing straight for the first time in years. - Oh my god. Hell yeah, dude. So we killed - It. Dude, there's something magical about finally putting your dream wells on a project car and getting the ride height just right.

It doesn't just make Norman better, it makes him feel more himself now he's different. Intentionally different. All right. You wanna put a sticker on, - Slap her on? Yeah. - All right. Normy is low. Dude. Dude, thank you so much. This is - Awesome. Oh, - Some straw. See we made this video because we love old cars and I know a lot of you guys do too. So in celebration of that, we made this special old car shirt. It has a cool logo on it.

A navy one that's old shirt comes in two colorways, get1@speed.co. Wow. What a cool little car. We're back on the road and this time we've got a decent sized drive up. The 4 0 5, the perfect place to torture test some new suspension. Gotta say. I think that my taste in cars is changing a little bit. I'm not having as much fun as I thought I would in this thing. Overall, definitely a more visceral and engaging driving experience.

I am paying attention way more than I was before we lowered it. Now that the car is lowered and handling more festively, I do find myself wanting a little bit more noise. So we are on our way to Castro Motorsport right now where my brother Chris is gonna give Norman a little bit more bark. Unfortunately just one mile from Chris's shop. All of our momentum came to a screeching halt. Oh, just shut off. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

We think maybe we think maybe an O2 sensor hit the ground and pulled out. Would that keep it from like starting? Okay, let it said, let it cool off and see what it does. And he's gonna finish what he's doing. Like we mentioned, doing some maintenance beforehand. I would say go through your car better than we did because admittedly we did rush a little bit to start shooting a video for YouTube. We try to get the car started, but no luck and without a clear picture of what's causing the problem, we end up calling a truck and towing it to Chris's shop.

Doing this video reminded me how much I hate old cars and I know a lot of you guys do too. So as a tribute to that pain, we made this special old car shirt. It's got a Navy logo, an old one comes in two colorways, get it@speed.co. The most unfortunate part about this is we're undoing one of the main points on our list of goals This car is supposed to run. And in my ignorance, I thought that if we didn't touch anything under the hood, we wouldn't run into a single issue.

But the YouTube gods are not gonna let me off that easy. Okay, I got an idea. What if we did a video and we say that it's a perfect beginner's guide to working on a car, but we end up doing a bunch of modifications that require you to do further modifications. On top of that, we buy a car that breaks down proving that no matter what you do to a car, if you are working on it for YouTube, it will get out of hand and become dramatic.

Just like every other car video on YouTube, it's hard to not feel like we're drifting into exactly the kind of over-involved chaos we swore we'd avoid. But still we are here and we're not turning around. So we keep going later and later into the night together because of you give up every time the car fights back, you'll never get anywhere worth going. I've got faith, we'll get Norman back in working order. In the meantime, we've got a borer, muffler, a resonator and some two and a half inch piping ready to go roll.

Chris can build an exhaust in his sleep during some late nights. He probably has. Honestly. Meanwhile, I've never built one. I've barely even welded. I've only tried a couple of times. I don't really know where to stand, how to hold a torch, how to not blind myself, but I want to know. So Chris does what good friends do. He hands me the tools, gives me the quick and dirty crash course and lets me make a complete fool of myself.

It's humbling and the welds are very bad, but I'm not embarrassed. I'd only be embarrassed if I didn't try. All right, so at the beginning of this video I said that all of these modifications can be done in your driveway with basic hand tools and they can, this obviously isn't my driveway and those aren't basic hand tools, but you can get basically the same result by buying a cat back system like the one from Tectonics, which uses the same borla muffler that we're using.

But here's the thing, Chris gets lonely and he was just saying the other day, you know what guys? I love going to my shop at midnight. And if it weren't for us, I just don't think Chris would ever hang out at the shop past midnight. We could have done this easier. We could have had the foresight to order parts from the internet, but then where would Chris be at home with his wife and his kids who love him? No, he's gotta be here on Saturday night with all of us cutting stuff up and welding it.

Really just doing our friend a favor so you can order a cap back and that's a totally acceptable solution. But we decided that we would rather hang out with Chris 'cause he's the best. It's the end of the night. The exhaust is on and Normy still doesn't run. Finish. However, we think we have a diagnosis. While the car was up on the lift, Chris noticed this, a wire that seemed to have made contact with the road. We think that after we lowered the car, this wire the road, which grounded the electrical system and cooked RECU.

What's crazy is Jason noticed this earlier today when we were at his shop. - What's that oxygen sensor wire just hanging down there. That's gonna be awful close as the ground after your suspension install. - And in our haste we decided to ignore his warning. With this being the most likely diagnosis, we have no choice but to pause the clock until we can find a new ECUI put out the word to see if we can get a mark three ECU today.

And Miguel and Carlos at Wabbit 76 said, if we can make it out to Palm Springs, the ECU is ours. So Jesse drives all the way out and all the way back and we hold our breath until we see which means we are back in business. All right, exhaust for the first time. Hopefully - We have wheels, we have everything. Nah, we don't need a battery. No, I was gonna say we have the booster back. So Oh - Yeah, we are back in business.

The car runs great and now it sounds awesome. Chris did an amazing job at the exhaust as always, Joe. It's a much more special experience when you start the car now and when it's idling it sounds like it's got more under the hood than it actually does. Having a little noise when you hit the gas button is always nice. Sort of like gives you that in the moment. Motivation and pride in the fact that you are driving a modified car.

So even though we're not gaining any power at all, we may have even lost a little bit of torque. I'm super happy with the exhaust and it definitely livens up the car a little bit and makes it feel like a project. Up next, we venture to era picture cars to link up with sev and Nico for norm's, final modification, European lights and bumpers. Their company sources and handles specialty cars for movies, commercials and music videos.

And when the right car doesn't exist, they make it. Today they're helping us dial in final details. European bumpers, smoked European headlights and super rare hella magic color taillights. Nothing crazy, just the right amount of subtle touches to make him feel truly finished off. Dude, the goal here isn't flash, it's subtle presence. Something that feels just different enough that you notice, - Oh, this bumper's so neat with the little diffuser piece at the bottom.

Usually like especially since all the cars we get are nineties, like fixing the headlights or putting like fresh bulbs and like clear lenses is a big thing. 'cause I feel like that makes a car look pretty old and worn. - Dude, this thing is gonna look so good. Do you have bowls - For this one? I think in recent years the word normal has become derogatory. Like that meant that you had no edge, no story, nothing to offer over into me, bang.

But I think in a world where everyone is going crazy, normal is exceptional. This car is exactly that. It's normal. No wild build, no turbo the size of your head. Just a clean old golf brought back to life by a few friends who cared enough to give up their weekends and turn some bolts - In this video. I'm gonna look like all I do is just fingerboard all day. Yeah, this is, would you, - You pretending like you actually work here at era?

Picture Cars, working on cars with friends can be normal too. It doesn't have to be some insane build. Just a couple of guys in a driveway or in a shop late at night will always be fun. It will be frustrating. There will be moments that you're feeling down. It will be more expensive than you anticipated, but it's the kind of thing that builds friendships and friendships are hard to come by these days. So get out there, start a build.

Heck, just change your headlights. Get a friend to help even if you don't need it. Dude, the front end is sick. Yeah, with the amber lights and the little spoiler and the smoke stuff. Hell yeah dude. Thanks boys. - Yes sir. - It's what cars are all about. It's normal. The car is totally transformed. We did five simple mods. We hung out with five complex friends. Even when the car broke down or when we were welding up exhaust at 4:00 AM I was having a great time hanging out with my boys, which is really what it's all about.

I am motivated to keep working on him. I want better breaks. I want a little bit more power. And here's the thing guys. I love this little guy now. I love Norman so I'm motivated to do more stuff to him. The slippery slope has begun. Yeah, right. Dude, I'm not going down there. I can't take that street 'cause the car's too low.