Auto enthusiast John Findra doesn’t work on real cars. He’s a model builder, and much of his business comes from customers who’d like custom model replicas of their favorite old cars. But for fun, he builds classic car models and then “un-restores” them! “Underhauling”, as opposed to overhauling.
John says we live in a world where perfection is so tantamount to success that “perfection almost becomes boring. A car in its original state is a man-made idea of perfection, but when you take that car and put it out in nature, nature now takes over and creates its own perfection. Nature has its own way of reacting to metal and rubber.”
John’s research takes him into overgrown fields and old barns, two of the best places to find old, abandoned, rusted-out cars. He brings his camera with him, so he can document the pattern of shattered glass, the shape of the rust holes, the way paint peels, how rust drip lines form. Then John goes back to his workshop and creates model cars that reflect the reality of “nature’s perfection” (see an example in photo above).
Watch the video, courtesy of Etsy, by clicking here. You’ll also find several of his “un-restored” classic models available for sale on that page.