Thor, yes that’s his real name, is typical of many guys and girls within the ‘Tuner’ world (and for that matter, the automotive world) in that he owned an amazing car with aspirations of making it into a one-of-a-kind performance car, the one problem, the car was up on blocks in his drive way and he was simply out of money…a universal theme within the restoration community. Thor’s 1995 MX-7 was mean and lean, but had been sitting on blocks for just over 2 years; his parents would grate at his nerves asking him repeatedly, “when are you going to get that out of our driveway?” For years Thor had no answer for them since the job he had was just enough to pay his own bills. Like many within this age group, Thor had only one place to turn, FINE TUNED. He wrote to us letting us know that he didn’t even have enough money for a video submission so all he could do was email pictures begging us to help him before his Dad sold his car to a junkyard. The day we surprised Thor, we had arrived at his house but learned that he had left for work early; not to be defeated we decided to simply kidnap him from work (with his Boss’s approval of course). After stealing him from work we got a chance to look at the RX-7 up close and personal and realized that it wasn’t running, this was a first for Fine Tuned. Again, not to be discouraged we flat-bedded the RX-7 and brought it back to Fine Tuned headquarters and tuned it into what to date has been our favorite car. The RX-7 is truly a one of kind car with probably one of the most creative and possibly expensive paint jobs one will ever see.
When people refer to New York City, they say it has a million stories…in being around car people my whole life I would say that we had a million stories as well. When I received a submission TAPE, yes, on VHS tape, I knew I would either see a poorly made submission or it would gold, I am happy to say it was the later. Richard’s story is unlike any other that I have ever heard… Richard had to grow up faster than most kids since his Father had left him, his younger Brother and Mother when he was just 8 years old. Like many other people in this difficult situation Richard somehow found the strength to become the man of the family at this young age taking on a lot more responsibilities that a man twice his age. Through focus and resilience, the 8 year old grew up to be a honest and hard-working young man. Just a few weeks before sending off his submission to Fine Tuned, Richard had encountered probably the strangest chance meeting of his life. Richard had been driving a 1994 Honda Civic that was on its last legs, the car was a mess but it got him from Point A to Point B, and that’s all that mattered to him. At home Richard had a girlfriend with a 3 year-old Daughter from a previous relationship; the girlfriend was going through custody battle and needed to pay legal fees to retain custody. Not thinking of himself, Richard decided to sell his Civic to get what little money he could to help with the legal fees. Putting the happiness of his girlfriend and her Daughter first, Richard went to the 99 cent store to buy a sign to sell his car, as he waited in line something told Richard him that the man standing behind him was his long lost Father. I know this sounds like some “movie of the week” but I swear that this story is true. Richard awkwardly turned around and struck up a conversation with this man, and within a few moments both men realized that they were indeed, Father and Son. At that point Richard knew that that had to be an men on many different levels. Although he didn’t want to sell the car, Richard put it up for sale at the same time he made a last ditch effort and submitted his tape to Fine Tuned. Just days before he got offers to sell the car for practically nothing, I received his VHS tape and knew he had to be on the show. The 8-day emotional build was extremely taxing on Richard as well as for our entire build team that knew in their hearts that we were building something more than just a fast and cool car. This hit especially home for our co-Host Lucky Jay who had never met his real Father, who had been killed just weeks before their scheduled reunion. The unveiling of Richard’s car was an emotional one for everyone involved culmiting with Richard introducing his little Brother to his Father for this first time on camera.
When I received Jeff’s submission I almost didn’t believe that a 21 year-old kid could produce a submission video this professionally made. It turned out that one of his friend’s was a film major and that they had spent 2 days working on filming and editing it together for FINE TUNED. Throughout the entire submission, Jeff repeated over again that all he wanted was to turn his aging 1997 BMW M3 into a performance car so that he could beat his best-friend Tom (who has a similar car) just once in a race. I think most car people all have a friend who continually beats them ever time they race, so much so that most of us have become obsessed with shutting that friend up once and for all, no matter what it took. For that reason alone, along with the fact that anyone who has gone through this much trouble to make such an extraordinary submission should get the opportunity to get their car Fine Tuned. As our first European Fine Tuned car, I knew we had to go above and beyond in making Jeff’s M3 into not only a high-performance car while also taking the aesthetics to a different level in terms of paint, suspension, interior and audio. Jeff’s couldn’t stop screaming his head off, and Tom, well Tom was heart-broken.
