Humanity’s greatest strength as a species is our willingness to challenge the impossible. To see a towering mountain as merely something that has yet to be scaled. To look to the stars and dream of going there. To convince ourselves that a $500 Alfa Romeo Spider on Craigslist is not only a fantastic idea, but a necessary one.
To gaze upon that Alfa project car — in need of an engine rebuild, missing a transmission entirely, bodywork rusted through and through — and say as many brave souls have before, “How hard can it be?”
Wrenching on a car is the ultimate expression of automotive passion. If you’ve ever been there — whether it was a headlight bulb replacement or a full restoration — this is the site for you.
Welcome to The Garage. It’s time to get your hands dirty.
As I said in my updated Awesomeness Manifesto, for too long we’ve neglected the technical side of things. The how-to guides. The in-depth mechanical explainers. Starting today, we’re doing things differently. CarBuying is now The Garage, home to all those things and more.
Project cars, repair how-tos, Lifehacker-style build guides and other subjects will live here from now. So will our really in-depth technical pieces. Want to know how the latest Formula One gearbox works, or what crawl ratios mean for offroading? You’re in the right place. This is for anyone who likes to get their hands and their brains dirty. I see this as a place where all of our terrible, I mean AMAZING repair ideas will live.
(As for the fantastic new car buying advice from Tom McParland, you’ll still see him on the Jalopnik front page, and ace lawyer Steve Lehto’s columns will appear on both depending on the subject matter. All the old CarBuying posts will live on here as well.)
It’s a lot of stuff we’re already doing, just more and in one place. For starters you’ll see Tavarish, who has a small army of Luxury Cars You Can Get For The Price Of A Nissan Versa™, all of which he maintains himself. You’ll see stuff from ex-Fiat Chrysler engineer, technical expert and Detroit-area junkyard fixture David Tracy. You’ll get plenty from professional crazy person Andrew Collins. And we’re looking to add some new voices to the mix as well!
Like when we relaunched Lanesplitter, it may be a while before we really hit our stride. But we think this is what you want, and we want to deliver it to you. What I’ll ask for, as always, is your help — your suggestions, your ideas, even your criticism. Like that busted old Alfa, we’ll figure out how to make this work, together.
Get excited! And get ready to get your hands dirty. We’ll all try hard not to kill ourselves, or our wallets.
Top graphic credit Jason Torchinsky
Contact the author at patrick@jalopnik.com.