All you book-haters go suck a cock
I think this is where my big issue with show cars lies... who are you competing with, the owner's artistic talents or the owner's money?
I can throw tens of thousands of dollars the shittiest car, and the right shops can turn it into a trophy champ in some of the biggest shows.
Is that really something to brag about? I'm not so sure. About the only bragging rights the owner has is that they did whatever they did career-wise to make enough money to throw it at the car.
Now, that being said, I remember something about Lexeon's history, he posted it a couple years ago or so... He himself said that he took some money and instead of doing what most of us would (which is dump it right into our cars), he took it and *invested* it, stayed away from playing with it. Instead of squandering it, he used it to make more money, and then more, and now he's financially independent enough to do this.
So I have always respected him on that level, because he's a self-made man.
BUT...
While I think there's nothing wrong with him throwing money at a car to end up with something unusual to show off to friends and even to the public via car shows, I don't really find it all that glorious. I'm not someone who brags about shit, especially if I wasn't directly responsible for *most* of it. I don't look down on Lexeon for this, not at all, but I'm not necessarilly impressed with his car; the work was done by shops who do this kind of shit for a living, and they have probably done similar or even better projects, or at the very least, it's not surprizing that they can produce these results.
What really wins my respect is when someone does it all or mostly on their own. My father owns a '64 Corvette convertible, and while he'd done some basic fender painting and such, he'd never worked with fiberglass before, much less large paint projects. He not only rebuilt the fiberglass chassis, but after some back and forth thinking, decided to drop plastic in his own garage and shoot it himself. Sure, he fucked it up the first two times, but the third try came out perfect, and he's won major trophies.... something that surprised him at first, almost as much as people who were surprised to find out he painted it himself... especially since he's not the owner of an auto body shop, and has never really done any body work beyond fixing a little ding or two.
His car was chosen to represent 1964 in the "50 years of Corvettes" celebration at Disneyland. He was voted in by the entire western division of the Corvette Club of America or whateverthefuck they call themselves. Anyways I'd say that qualifies him as a top show car...
Anyways, my point is, while he didn't dip the chrome himself, or annodize the sideskirt panels himself, he did fix and paint the entire body, prepped and painted the entire engine bay, repaired and repainted the entire dash, recarpeted the interior, hand-polished all the salvagable chrome parts, did all the mechanical work himself, aside from the engine rebuild... he was extremely hands-on. And he was in his late 40's when he began with it. Sure, he couldn't do it all himself, but he did a lot of it.
So I respect Lexeon's life achienvement of independence, and I think it's cool that he can afford to have someone do this kind of thing. And I think it's cool that he owns a car that people will look at and ask questions about. But my respect for the work will go to the people who did the work, not to the guy who simply holds the keys.
Oh and no offense lil' sparkplug, but I don't think your car is all that showy. It's definitely cool looking, and certainly not your every-day SRT-4. But it's nowhere near being custom enough, nor is it old enough to win on clean merits like my dad's '64. It's just a really really nice looking SRT-4 with IMO very good choices for accents and minor visual mods. A very flashy, yet tasteful car, but not a show car (despite whatever wins you've picked up). Krackstar's car is more showcar IMO. He's completely modified the body, for starters. Again, like anything, this is all IMO.
my opinion i think my car looks better, but its 2 different style of builds. Just my 2 cents. Im not calling him out on him doing his own work because i don't care. He works hard for his money so if he pays a shop to work hard on his stuff that is his business & its no ones concern really. Hell people pay me to work on their cars
