Welcome to our newest series titled Art of Restoration. With SEMA just around the corner, we’re bringing the who’s who of custom cars and classic car restorations… and we’re starting with one of the very biggest names in the industry…. Dave Kindig. Dave is an industry giant, and insanely talented artist, and a great guy to speak with. The passion he has for what he does—and that is, of course, creating some of the coolest cars you’ve ever seen—is contagious. I had the opportunity to meet Dave at SEMA last year, so it’s fitting we’ll spend a fair bit of time talking about SEMA coming up this year, as well as some of his favorite builds, his inspiration, how he’s built a world-class team, and much more.

Cole Strandberg: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Collision Vision, driven by Auto Body News. As always, I’m your host, Cole Strandberg. I am thrilled to announce our latest series and it’s something very, very different than anything we’ve done before. The art of restoration. With SEMA just around the corner, we’re bringing the who’s who of custom cars and classic car restorations. And we’re starting with one of the very biggest names in the industry, Dave Kindig. Dave is an industry giant and an insanely talented artist as well as just a great guy to speak with. The passion he has for what he does and that is of course creating some of the coolest cars you have ever seen is absolutely contagious. I had the opportunity to meet Dave at SEMA last year, so it’s fitting. We spent a lot of time talking about SEMA this year, as well as some of his favorite builds, his inspirations, how he’s built a world class team, and a whole lot more. Enjoy the show. Dave Kendig, thank you so much for joining us today on the ENV Vision.

Dave Kindig: Thanks for having me.

Cole Strandberg: Looking forward to an awesome conversation. As we were just talking about off camera, it’s everyone’s favorite time of year here coming up and that of course is sema. Want to dive way into what you have going on, which I know is a ton. I want to start first. We met last year at sema. I got to know you just a little bit. Look forward to getting to know you a little bit better. You’ve been a force in custom car industry for years. But I do want to take it back to the beginning. When did you first realize that cars were your passion?

Dave Kindig: Oh, geez, probably about the age of five. You know, legos, Hot Wheels. I was just big time into them and later on got into plastic model cars and of course just always loved drawing because I was very impatient. The glue takes way too long to dry and I figured out you know, doing designs on paper was a lot faster to be able to, you know, envision what the chop top might look like on this type of car, what the wheels might look like and so forth. And so that was just a lot more satisfying trying to, you know, kind of, to fill that, that want and need to see what something might look like. So that was my formal training and I kept it all the way through.

Cole Strandberg: Love it, man. That’s awesome. And fun to see where that’s evolved into. What were some of your early influences in car design?

Dave Kindig: You know, actually it’s a funny story and you know, a lot of, a lot of high end builders might not say the same thing that I do, but. And I’m, I’m a little bit older. There was a TV show on Saturday mornings, Captain Kangaroo, oddly enough. And a lot of people are gonna probably get a laugh out of this. George Barris was on there with Captain Kangaroo and he’s talking about how to do plastic model cars. And he had this Ford Econoline truck that he pulled out of the box. And he’s showing some tricks like taking a wood or a, an a steel hanger and folding it up and putting it inside the body so you could hold it and paint it without painting your hand. And I was like, wow, that’s pretty cool. You know, I’m just getting like all these ideas and my mind’s getting blown. I think I was probably about 12, maybe, maybe 13. And at the end of him showing how to do this model, he pulled out one that was done and I was like, wow, Boom. My mind was blown. But that wasn’t it. George Barris then turned around. He says we’d use a model like this to create the actual vehicle. And the curtain opened up and then full life size wheel standard with the engine in the back. Candy apple red Ford Econoland truck, it was all chopped and customized, was sitting right there. And I was like, that’s it. I am all in.

Cole Strandberg: Always hooked. How cool, how cool.

Dave Kindig: That was a huge inspiration for me.

Cole Strandberg: That’s so cool. And from a career trajectory, I want to talk about your entrepreneurial ventures, but where did you go before then? Because, and to provide a little context, so many of our listeners, traditionally though, I think the SEMA series is going to broaden that listener base a little bit. Is collision repairs, where cars are a passion, but they’re also kind of a job. They’re not getting to do the fun stuff. Where did your career trajectory kind of take you?

Dave Kindig: Well, you know, it’s funny. So I grew up with, with no older brother or sister that was building cars in the driveway. No dad around pretty much the entire time I was growing up. And so to figure things out, I just had to kind of do it myself and got into Volkswagens after breaking my arm at just under 16 years old. I was on a skateboard trying to impress chicks on a half pipe and it didn’t work out very well for.

Cole Strandberg: Me, as one does actually.

Dave Kindig: I could probably take that back because it forced me into the car thing and that seems to have worked out okay. So. But yeah, basically I never worked in a body shop, never went to school for it. I was actually in the Volkswagen club and I wanted to build my own cars and figure out stuff because I couldn’t afford to pay anybody else to do it. And I was very passionate about, you know, wanting a low custom painted car and you know, just something that looked cool. And so I just kept surround myself with people in the Volkswagen Club that knew how to do do certain things. And I would just watch them and then go home and practice on my own cars and you know, fast forward. I just, I guess I kept practicing and I kept getting better at it. And pretty soon people wanted me to build their cars. And I was working at high performance coatings for eight and a half years for Jeff Holm. Gave me a lot of opportunities to meet a lot of great people in the industry such as Chip Foo Spoiled Coddington Travis or Trich Panier Bobby Alloy. I mean all of these great builders were out there and I was like, you know, I want to be cool like that one day. But I mean, it was obviously just a big dream. Fast forward again. I got discovered with my renderings actually just hanging in my office at hbc. And pretty soon I got an opportunity to do some designs for other shops. Those vehicle designs in Super Chevy, Chevy High performance truck and magazine. And pretty soon everybody outside the state thought I was a designer or a big deal in Utah. And everybody in Utah thought I was a big deal outside of Utah. And it just kind of snowballed where finally I just told my wife. I was like, I really want to just draw cars for a living and sell parts and do graphics. And so she finally, after my second kid was born, Drew was born two weeks later, I was on my own. Seemed perfectly smart and sensible, right? $4,800 after eight and a half years of the career that I cashed in my 401k, a house payment, two little babies and a wife, no insurance man.

Cole Strandberg: Well, they say fortune favors the Bold, right? Talk about bold. A couple things there. You mentioned the term a little cool and what you’re doing and what you got into. I think that might be the understatement of the year. It’s very cool. And I want to get into some of those projects that you’ve worked on and are working on another thing too. There you mentioned kind of your inspiration, your mentors, people who paved the way. How does it feel being that to a whole new generation of folks in the automotive industry? Do you ever take time to reflect on that?

Dave Kindig: You know, I actually do enjoy thinking about that because to be honest with you, there’s no reason that I should be where I’m at right now. I’m a welfare kid off the wrong side of the track with basically a long line of people that didn’t really have a lot of education or drive to go and do something like what I’m doing. And I have a wonderful family, don’t get me wrong. But being surrounded with people that were content with whatever just came down the road, I was just never that way. I think I just really want I seen something greater. And really I literally found myself quite a few times just going, how is it that that guy gets to do what he’s doing? And how did he get there? What makes him so special? And I’m like. I started thinking about it, I was like, nobody’s born like that. You have to drive, you have to want to go get it, and you have to be hungry to do it. And finally it snapped really in my head that anything can happen as long as I want it to. And if I had never conceded that I couldn’t fail, I wouldn’t. And here we are 25 years later in a multimillion dollar business with a huge backlog and great friends and clients, wonderful people I get to work with. Most of my family works here, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. So my advice to anybody that wants to go and think outside of the box is to just go and do it. I know I’m going to sound like George McFly, but literally you can put, if you put your mind to anything, you can accomplish everything. And so I’m a true believer that really the only person can hold you back is yourself.

Cole Strandberg: Love that. And a great story, and a true testament to that story is where you are today. Talk to me about how Kindergarten design came to be and what that entrepreneurial journey has looked like. You mentioned the tremendous success you guys have had and are continuing to have. How has that, how Fulfilling to build your own brand. Has that been.

Dave Kindig: It’s unbelievable. I mean to have the opportunities we’ve had over the last 25 years. You know, I starting out at the very beginning, you know, there was a lot of reasons that we could have easily been out of business just as fast as we got into business. And when you, when you really look, when I look back, I think about, you know, other shops having the issues of Robin Peter to pay Paul and that they’re not, you know, that they get too upside down, they forget to save the tax money or charge tax money and then they’re liable for it. Buying equipment, having too many loans out there where you can’t, you just don’t make enough money to pay for all your equipment. I learned very early because of other people I just knew that were in the kind of industries that I wanted to be into that to make sure that I wasn’t robbing Peter to pay Paul and that if I had money to take advantage of that and invest it back into the company, not just go out and buy a new, a new car, you know. And so that really worked out to where I’ve got 42 employees now. In the beginning it was three of them and we were dying from the next business to the next job rather to get in at the very beginning. And we just stayed patient again. We never conceded that we had fail and you know, we just, we worked really well together. And I also found out that doing all aspects of the car, even though I had no idea how to do upholstery or you know, I really wasn’t doing a whole lot of interior design, I was doing some. But being able to do the entire project and from start to finish in all aspects truly gave us the ability to dream big and to be able to accomplish those things without waiting for somebody else’s dream to match ours. And so by doing every aspect, the electronics, the design, the metal shaping the body and the paint, the upholstery, the audio system, I mean everything, the dyno tuning at this point, I mean everything is done literally in house to where I don’t have to send it out. And that gives us the opportunity to be completely creative, gives me control over time, logistics, design and quality. And that has always been my biggest thing is design and quality and you know, taking care of the client. Many of my clients are multiple on multiple of my cars, which is really an honor because I don’t have to teach them what it’s like to have a one off car built. It’s just Time and materials with no quote or you know, how much it’s going to cost, we don’t know until we’re done. And more importantly, they have the trust in us because they’ve already got that experience. So I really value my clients. They’re very great friends. They’re definitely part of my family and my team.

Cole Strandberg: Man, such a cool answer there. So many of the people I talk to are business people. So many are artists in their own right. The magic happens when those two combine. And so I appreciate you sharing a little bit about the business side as well as the art side and the fun stuff because it’s a very, very cool, rare and unique combination there. This episode is brought to you by Thrive. Ready to hit the gas on growth. Meet Thrive, the Do it all small business software that can save you over 20 hours a week, attract customers, manage day to day tasks and keep communication simple with one powerful tool made for your auto business. Rev up your revenue today and let Thrive save you time so you can get back to doing what you love. Visit thrive.com that’s t h r y-v.com to schedule a demo today. I’d be remiss not to dive into some conversation on your big award from earlier this year, the Riddler Award. And I want to talk a little bit about that award winning build. If I have my notes correct, that was a 1953 Corvette V12, won the Riddler Award. Can you take us through the journey of that build and from your perspective, what made it special?

Dave Kindig: Well, you’ve talked about the very top of the crest of the frosting on top the frosting that has the letters of saying Happy birthday or whatever it is. Man, that is a, it’s a four and a half year project. A great opportunity. A good friend of ours and repeat client, Dave Maxwell had hit me up to build him a car to go to Detroit and compete for the Riddler. And of course I’ve, I’ve designed other cars before that. You know that we’ve had good success. We’ve had a couple of grade eights, but it was just cars I designed for other shops. And I’ve of course long since stopped doing design work for other people because we’re just simply so busy here. But that, that opportunity to build something that was funny as I said, well I love the opportunity Dave, but you know, I always waited for the right guy to build a car for and this is the first opportunity I’ve got. I said what do you want to build? And he says I don’t Know, I was like. He goes, do you have any designs? I said, well, I have a lot of ideas. I was like, yeah, let me, let me let you know what I’m thinking and we’ll get together in a couple weeks and let’s, let’s talk about it. So I had been working on the CF1 designs and of course we’ve modernized a 53 Corvette styled vehicle. And I had an idea that I wanted to build a coupe, but they never made a coupe in 1953 or in any of the CA. The C1 Corvettes. So I had put this design together and I said, what do you think? And he goes, this is really beautiful. And he sat there and he looked at it. Looked at. He goes, gosh, that’s gorgeous. He goes, but Dave, do you think a fiberglass car could win the. The Detroit Autorama riddler? And I said, I’m not going to build it out of fiberglass. And he goes, what are you going to build it out? I said, aluminum. He goes, you’re going to build the whole body by. Out of aluminum, by hand? I was like, yeah, fast forward. Originally that car would have been on a chassis, got back here and like in good fashion, you know, can dig a design. I have a lot of guys that have been here for a long time, Will, Kevin, you know, the whole gang. And we started talking and I was like, they’re like, what do you want to power it with? And I said, well, originally 1953 Corvette only had a straight six. I’d like to double that. Let’s do a V12. Knowing the company in Australia, Racecast that had been doing the V12 LSS, basically we called them and they gave us the opportunity to do some design work. So we signed an NDA. We redesigned the block to have no webbing, no motor mounts, none of that stuff. And then doing that, we started talking about F1 and Indy car styled single lateral coilover suspension, both front and rear, long control arms, one off uprights or spindles is what a lot of people would call them. Some of the fine details. And pretty soon Will goes, you know, it’d be really cool. Why don’t we just make this a unibody car with no chassis? And I was like, that’s kind of cool. We’d use the backbone would be consisting of an 8 speed tiptronic transaxle out of a 2017 Z06 Corvette torque tube and a heavier wall custom bell housing that houses not only the starter, but it also houses the alternator. There is no accessory Drive in front of the engine and then the, of course, the V12 and all of the suspensions mounted to the engine and the nose cone up front and over the transaxle in the back. So pretty soon we now have a very simplified, complicated build of a unibody with a V12. And the rest is kind of craziness and history, man.

Cole Strandberg: I, I know the real gear heads listening are gonna hate me for not asking some more specific questions on the technicals. But your knowledge is there’s so many details.

Dave Kindig: That car, I don’t think you have enough time today for the entire rundown of that build. I mean, every last part of that car was custom built. Every, every nut and bolt is custom built. The only thing that looks like it came out of a box and actually went into the car is the haltech computer. It’s all can bus that’s under the dash. You’ll never see it, but everything in that car is crazy. Our Stratasys MC3MC450 3D printer was running non stop for about 2 1/2 years just building parts for that car. So it’s crazy.

Cole Strandberg: Well, very cool. Absolutely incredible. You mentioned something there early on in what made this vehicle special. And it’s a component of what I think likely you’d credit to making a lot of your vehicles special. And that’s your team. And I want to dive into your team a little bit. But first, what does winning an award like the Riddler mean to you and your team and how does it influence future projects?

Dave Kindig: Well, there’s not a guy here in the shop that had ever worked at a shop that had won the Riddler before. And so everybody knowing what the Riddler was, that’s like winning the, you know, the Oscar for Driving Miss Daisy. I mean, that might be kind of a corny thing to say, but everybody wanted, everybody always wants to win that particular award. That is the highest award that you can win in our industry. And to win that and to be congratulated by the judges of how well the car was put together, other people that had won before. J.F. lanier, great friend of mine up in Canada, if you remember, he won with the yellow 65 Riviera fastback. Chip Foos, a wonderful friend of mine, just a very talented guy in all aspects. I had the opportunity to walk around the car for an hour with him and give him a little bit of inspiration, which was extremely inspiring to me. I’ve always been a huge fan of Chip and he’s just a wonderful person, a wonderful soul and an awesome artist. I mean, bar none, nobody can take anything away from Chip. And to have that camaraderie from him and inspiring him to get back into the game, I think it was really, really kind of cool. I mean, he’s just a, he’s a, he’s a top notch guy. The judges were more than generous by showing us the, the results on our judging, our scorecards, and they said they’d never judged that fine of a car before, which was just amazing. So the, the eight things they found. I know about double that, but I’m not going to tell you where it’s at. But we were so particular and we, you know, we spent the time to build the car properly. We have a great crew that’s worked together for a long time and I certainly attribute the successes of that car for everybody that gave their hard work to the car.

Cole Strandberg: Man, what, how cool is that feedback to get? At what point did the weight of what you guys created kind of hit you? Was there a light bulb moment where you’re like, wow, this is it. This is the one.

Dave Kindig: Only at the beginning is the only time that was the light bulb and then it was hit the ground running. And even though we experienced Covid during the process of all of that, which actually ran the timeline a little bit longer than we wanted to, we expected to be about two and a half, maybe three years. And we were four and a half years because of the delays with, I mean, we ended up 3D printing the motor to put in the car so we could continue the build because we were that far behind on that. And there were so many one off casted aluminum pieces that we were incorporating into the build and those were being sand casted in Australia with our designs up here. The billet machine parts were being done here and then sent down to Australia. So we had a, we had a lot of logistics in that moving the stuff around. But yeah, like I say, it was crazy. The time frame in which that we built that car was, was something. But we, we did, because of our experience working together, we were able to pull it off.

Cole Strandberg: How great, man, to hear your passion for this specific project as well. It radiates from you about what you do in general, but very cool for that much hard work and pushing through to get that kind of result and all that to come to fruition. So congratulations. On that formally, I want to zoom out a little bit and talk about kind of the art and the science of custom car building. And I know there’s a ton of different components to that. Something that’s from a business standpoint, I think going to resonate with our body shop listeners is sourcing the right car for a project and figuring out where to start. What do you look for in a car when starting a new build?

Dave Kindig: Well, I’m always hoping if you ask Kevin, he’d be like, yeah, he’s the worst. Dave is the worst guy to ever find a car to build because it always seems that, you know, I always find one that looks really good and we get it back from a chemical dip and it’s got rust and holes and repairs everywhere. And it’s like, I. I don’t know, I haven’t had the car in my pocket for, for 58 years. Right. So. But trying to buy, you know, a lot of times spending a little bit more money and getting a better car, a more complete car, certainly if you’re doing a resto mod where it’s going to incorporate the original trim around the windows, side trim, bumpers, grills, that type of stuff, you’re better off, honestly, to buy a better car that’s got better conditioned parts that would be really impossible to find if you’re going to modify everything. You know, a lot of times you can get away with less trim, more good sheet metal. So that’s kind of the trade off. There is no secret sauce to this though. It’s kind of hit and miss. Because if you’re buying a car that’s in bare metal, of course you can see everything there. But you also have to worry about somebody else getting into the metal and doing a crappy job on the metal work. Because now you’re starting with something that’s not perfectly shaped but has holes in it. Now you’ve got something that’s out of shape and maybe doesn’t have holes. You’re not really saving any time. So buy a better, more complete car. Spend a little bit more money on that side. You have a lot less money to spend on restoring it.

Cole Strandberg: You mentioned earlier on kind of the business side, the tools, the equipment, everything that goes into that. How important are the right tools and is the right equipment for ensuring the build times efficient, the final products, top notch that you’re putting together a generally great outcome for your clients?

Dave Kindig: Well, you know, I mean, there’s. In the early days, there was always the opportunity to subcontract to somebody else. Because I didn’t have a CNC machine at the time or I didn’t have a 3D printer. Really one of the most important things, and I love all my sponsors and my partners in this industry, the very most important part of any of that machinery is somebody that can run it. Once you have somebody that can run it, then you know what part of what products to buy, you know, what tools and so forth. But we’ve got our, you know, our partnership With Stratasys, our 3D printing, we do a ton of that. We’ve got this awesome 10 foot by 5 foot cam master plotter table that’s, it’s basically CNC router table, three axis. So we build all the door panels for the CF1s on that. We’ve got a Haas CNC machine, a couple fadals. We use those for the door handles as well as building all of the one off parts either for the one off builds or doing production parts for our CF1 program. You know, the GFS paint booth, you know, our paint booth and our prep deck is like top of the top of the line art, state of the art. In our main booth, we were also set up with a carbon filtration system because I design and develop all the colors from modern classic based on seconds. But I have to be able to mix those colors and see what they look like. And of course, when we develop that stuff, it’s easier to see what the color is going to be when it’s wet in a can with urethanes, not waterborne. And so the waterborne stuff looks like a milk chocolate shake until it dries and all of a sudden it’s green. It’s like, wow, I had no idea. So the start to finish developing the colors comes a lot easier, obviously with, you know, with urethanes and we have that carbon filtration system, so we’re actually legal to still spray that. So equipment number one, or in a very close number two, the people is the number one. You got to have somebody to run it. You know, all the cool machines, you can buy that if you have a lot of money or whatever, but if you don’t have somebody to run it, the machines are no good.

Cole Strandberg: So that’s it, man. And you’re a pro. Because you set me up with the perfect segue. I want to dive more into the people, obviously. Yeah, you know what you’re doing. Obviously, finding the best team is essential. And you’ve, you’ve done a very good job of building that team. How do you view that the talent piece. And how do you view building and maintaining a team that shares your passion and brings wisdom, maybe outside of your strengths to the table?

Dave Kindig: Well, that is by far the most difficult part of the 25 year journey that I’ve been on is to try and find enough of the right people. I’ve got the, everybody here belongs here. They all have a special spot that they have, they provide to the team. The problem is, is I’ve got more work than I can still get done. I literally have almost an eight year backlog in the CF1 program. The next car available is number 30. I’ve sold 29 of those. Number 30 will deliver late third quarter, early fourth quarter of 25. And so we’re moving through those really quick. We’re trying to speed up the production on those because not only are we a one off hot rod shop and high end, you know, customizer, but we also are now a manufacturer. I’ve actually been licensed as a manufacturer. So you know, we’ve, we’ve, we’re continuing to add to that line and still continue to build the custom cars. I have a second building that I bought in 2018 about three blocks from here and it literally has five three car high bend packs and two four posts loaded with good clients cars and a couple of my own. And our 18 wheeler stays in there and then we have back stock for like our T shirts and detail kits and stuff over there. But it literally is filled with cars waiting to still get in here.

Cole Strandberg: Man, how cool is that? Again, it just has to reaffirm how you feel about what you and your team have built. What a testament to what you guys are doing. That’s crazy. I would imagine culture is huge both in your business and in your industry. I know that’s something that we talk about a lot in collision. It’s, it’s hiring talent, it’s retaining talent in collision. It’s a little less sexy than what you do. So maybe it’s a different story and a different answer, but what strategies do you use to keep your motivation and passion and your team’s motivation and passion alive throughout some of these long projects and, and the day to day grind of what you do?

Dave Kindig: Well, jokingly I would tell you I have embarrassing pictures and knowledge of everybody that works here and if they leave.

Cole Strandberg: Hey, never work.

Dave Kindig: Awkward and extremely wrong to say so. I won’t say that. You know, again, that’s by far one of the most difficult parts of our industry. The collision. I think that that’s a little bit different and unfortunately, somebody waves $0.30 more per flagged hour and they’re out. And in my industry, you know, I pay him by the. By the hour. The compensation, I feel, is very competitive for what other people make in other industries or in like industries. Is this. As far as a hot rod shop goes, I think I probably have some of the best benefits. We have 401k. We do health care, dental, vision, accrued vacation, you know, the. I think we’re very progressive because really, when we do find the right person, we want to hang on to them, which has always been difficult in almost any industry. But certainly in the automotive industry, it just seems like that kind of goes hand in hand, almost like in construction, you know, just a slight bump and somebody will jump and go to the next guy. And it’s. It’s unfortunate, but luckily for us, what we’re doing here is not collision in that sense. Whereas if they’re passionate about custom cars, they’re getting the opportunity to build some of the finest cars that you’ll see at the car show or in collections, and people will talk about them for generations. And that’s what I’m hoping that resonates with the guys that were having the opportunity to work with, with us and with me. I value everybody that’s here, though. I got great guys. I come in and say good morning to everybody every day. And I’m excited to see them. I’m excited to see what they’re building and what we’re doing and to continue doing. That is a live stream.

Cole Strandberg: Very cool, man. That is awesome. And I want to talk more about keeping that inspiration and innovation alive. In custom car design. You have writer’s block. You have occasional days, I’m sure, of lacking the innovation that you’ve had throughout your career. Where do you look for inspiration when you struggle to find it on your own?

Dave Kindig: You know, a lot of times I find inspiration. I don’t really pre plan a whole lot. I’d start talking to a client and then things just start to kind of pop into my head. Usually on the first design consultation and we already know what kind of car we’re going to build. At this point, I start talking with the client about what they like, what they don’t like, and then within five minutes, I’m already driving that car. I’m envisioning it going up and down the street. I know interior exterior contrast. I know what the car smells like, sounds like, stances, you know, I just. I guess I’ve always had a very active imagination and I’m able To broadcast that back within, you know, 1620 hours with the double view of what the car is going to look like. You know, front three quarter, rear three quarter. And gives the opportunity for me to show what it is that I’ve been excelling or explaining to you what we’re going to build. It gives them the opportunity to look at and go, man, I really like that. Then once they say, oh, yeah, that’s what we’re doing. As a matter of fact, hang on a second here. It was just earlier doing up another rendering for another CF one. It’s going to be a really kick ass candy styled red. It’s just a base coat, clear coat. A really beautiful Ferrari Coolio tan leather. It’s a saddle, but it’s a little bit darker. And the black top and then the gold wheels, gold, gold engine, gold wheels, gold dash. It’s gonna look kick ass, man.

Cole Strandberg: Ah, I love it, man. I, I get goosebumps looking at stuff like that. And, and to think about how the inspiration just hits you after. You know, I’m sure you mentioned envisioning it. It’s, it’s funny to hear you say that. It’s. It’s like pro athletes, golfers envisioned the, the putt going right into the cup, or baseball players envision throwing that perfect pitch on, on strike three. It’s the same thing. Part of it’s got to be mindset. And I think that’s a superpower.

Dave Kindig: Yeah, it absolutely is. And I think that, you know, honestly, I mean, whether it’s something you’re doing passionately or just anytime you’re going to accomplish, train, accomplish something. I found myself doing that over the weekend with some stables and building with my son. I was like, okay, I know exactly how I’m gonna put these together. I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do that. And I just thought about it. I built it in my head for about 20 minutes before I even got out of bed, got out of bed, hit the ground running, and we had that done within a day, you know, just doing the fine details the next day. So it really could have taken easily a week. We did it in a day because I had an envision of how I was going to put it together, what’s what, or, you know, how to organize the time, who to use. And, you know, and now I also put my foot down. I was like, I’m the leader. We’re all just, we’re not, this isn’t, we’re not going to debate who’s got a better idea. This is the way we’re going to do it, we just got it done.

Cole Strandberg: So love it, love it, love it. I say it all the time on the collision vision, typically in a different scenario, but if you start with the end in mind, it’s going to increase the efficiency of getting to where you want to be and make sure every single step you take is purposeful and moving in the right direction. You’ve built a lot of special vehicles. How do you determine in your mind what makes a car truly special?

Dave Kindig: When the end of the day is that you are in love with that car just as much as the person that paid you to build that car? I think that that is the payday, truly the money. The money is going to come. That’s the byproduct, doing what we do. I’m in it for the art. And when you think about it that way, you’re no longer focused on the money part of it. If you’re doing a good job and you have your set up to do the type of work and it’s time and materials, you’re working off deposits, you’re not trying to hurry so you can get a paycheck from them. You know, my business is a little bit unique in that sense where we work off of deposits. But when you have that ultimate vision, you have that camaraderie between the person that’s paying the bill that absolutely loves what you’re doing. And to see it finish and have everybody with smiles on their face and that. It’s not just me, it’s not just the client, it’s my guys, it’s everybody. And then of course, when people see the car outside of anybody that was involved in building or paying for the car or owning the car, you know, that, that seeing that look on their face when they’re like, man, I’ve been around this car three times and I just noticed this and that and the other. It’s like, man, how do you do that? That’s, that’s the biggest rewards for me is when people realize all of the things that we did.

Cole Strandberg: Man, what a, what a great outcome when that happens. Has to just make you feel incredible. The adrenaline rush of having your clients see that finished product for the first time has to be unlike anything else in the world.

Dave Kindig: Yeah. Oh, yeah. By far. By far. It was funny when Dave came out a couple, about a month before the car was finished to go to Detroit. He was down Scottsdale at Bear Jackson and he flew up just to check out the car. He’s got his own jet, so he Flew up, and I picked him up, and I brought him over, let him go under the car. I put this. This gentleman on a creeper and slid him under the car. He wouldn’t come out from underneath it. He was like, this is like a different world under here. You know, it looks like a spaceship. It was just really cool. I pulled him out. I’m taking him back to his plane. And he says, dave, this is really cool. He says, I want to build more stuff with you. He says, how do you top that? And that’s when it hit me. I was like, I never. I checked every box. I mean, literally, I was like, I have no idea how I’m going to top this car. I’ve since figured it out, but I won’t let that out of the bag right now.

Cole Strandberg: But I was gonna.

Dave Kindig: I have no idea how I would actually top this car. This is, like. This is a dream come true to build this. This quality of car at this level and have all the support from the guy that’s paying the bill and just having fun with it. So you sort of.

Cole Strandberg: You sort of joke about it, but on a real level, when you finish something that. That you have to feel is as close to perfection as humanly possible, does that give you stress on what the heck do I do next? How do I.

Dave Kindig: How do I ever get there to try and make sure I don’t lose that quality? It’s like, well, you built that one really good, and then this one’s what happened. No, because I think every one of those things is another notch in. You know, in. In. In our. In our hat. I don’t know if that’s the right way to. I was gonna say in the bed post. I don’t think that’s appropriate. So, you know, it’s another feather in the cap. That’s what I was looking for. Not a notch. Yeah, same. My bad. But anyway, yeah, I mean, it’s. It’s one of those things where every time you. You perfect your craft and your art and you get the opportunity to do it again, you already have the recipe of how to do it properly. And so the challenge is to just not try and get in a. Try not to be in a hurry and then miss a mark. You know, we don’t. We don’t. We don’t do that. We always keep our quality control for exactly what it is that we want to be seen, you know, putting out there into the public and the next car. The biggest challenge for us is to. How to. How to top the last one, how do we make it better and more efficient and perform better? You know, the. The beginning days where we were building a lot of ISEA competing show cars, it was all about the show. We weren’t really too concerned about making the cars drive down the road. Now, I’m not going to tell you this riddler car 12 air is going to just drive down the road, no problem. It’s very low and it looks cool. But the cars that we’re building, outside of that particular build, everybody wants to drive their cars now. And so that’s another thing for us where we put a couple hundred miles on every car before we send it away, because I call it valet proof. I want it to break down on me before I send it to you and then have to bring it back all the way across the country because something went wrong with it. So we’re very, very much about driving the cars and enjoying them. That’s a lot of money to spend for a lawn jockey, as I always say.

Cole Strandberg: Well put. It’s something that a lot of people, I don’t think, think about the livability component. These are. These are pieces of art, but they’re also functional performance machines. Very cool. And to the topic that we’re really talking about this month and we’re finally getting here for you, you have A pretty big SEMA 2024 coming up. What can we. What can we expect from you this year?

Dave Kindig: So I’ve got a. I actually have a list here, and we’re still actually building all of them, which is funny, but I’ve got a. I’ve got a few of my CF1 corvettes that are going to go. I’ve been trying to do a new style or a new thing about the CF1s every year. This year, because of the. The 12 Air Project, we’re a little bit behind on production of the third body style, which will be out soon. I’ll give you a little hint on that. But we got some CF1s. I’m going to take my 63 convertible Volkswagen Beetle that I’m building. That’s my personal car. I’m really excited about having that car finished up and in there. Of course, we’ll have 12 air. The. The Riddler winner is going to be in the inside booth at Axon Novel, which is seconds. And we’ve got a vehicle going in Borla exhaust. We’ve got one going over in Dynamats booth. We haven’t determined which one’s going to go in there yet because I’d like to leave the Interior out so we can show off the kick ass sound deadening material that we use and, and make a nice display for those guys. So we’ve got, I think we’re at eight cars right now. 58 Corvette, that’s another one that’s going to be there. That’ll be in Borla’s booth. And yeah, so I’m on my last weekend until after sema.

Cole Strandberg: You’re a busy man. In my notes, I had six cars from you, so yeah, I think we’re at eight now. You’re an animal. You are an animal. That is awesome, man. Very, very cool. Well, what I’d like to do, I’m not going to ask you to memorize it or if you do, that’d be crazy. But I want to link in the show notes information on where folks can track you down at SEMA and come visit all these different builds. As I mentioned, you and I spent some time together last year at your rig and I do want to talk about what we talked about there very briefly as well. And that’s your partnership with Axo Nobel and your Modern Classic line. How has that influenced your business? Your recent builds? Give a shout out to that line.

Dave Kindig: Oh, well, I’ll tell you what, the partnership has been second to none. I’ve had the best luck not only, I mean, you know, developing custom colors and stuff and getting the opportunity to do that and also being able to offer it to the public, I mean that’s pretty special in itself. But the relationship that I’ve had, the, the, the ability for Axonobel and Seconds to be able to produce a product that actually works, performs and doesn’t go backwards, I think is immeasurably important for our industry and for everybody that uses paint. I’ve had just wonderful success with, with Seconds, Axon Abel working with that company to create the Modern Classic line. They’ve been there supporting me 100% the whole time. I’ve got 50, 54 colors I think right now 50, maybe 56 that are available in the Modern Classic by Kindig line, which also you can check out our website, it’ll give you so much more information than I can probably even give you at this minute. But if you go to my website, Kendigit.com I’ll answer that second part of the question. You can get all of the information about Modern Classic Seconds as well as my schedule for the SEMA show. So I’ve got a lot of great friends and partners. We’ll have our big 18 wheeler will be out front of the, the convention center right by the escalators. You can’t miss it. Right between Central and South hall out front. And then also we’ve got vehicles in the main building, Dynamat, Borla, and of course, Axel Nobel. Seconds. So, yeah, we’re anywhere you turn. I think you’re going to see a kindred car this year, though.

Cole Strandberg: I have no doubt about that, man. Excited to see it myself.

Dave Kindig: Where.

Cole Strandberg: What kind of content are you working on right now? Where can people get more of you if this hasn’t quite scratched the Dave Kindig itch?

Dave Kindig: Well, if you, if you still have the niche, there’s a cream that they actually make that’ll get rid of that. So anyway, yeah, no, we’ve. We’ve been filming season 11. It’s no secret. Bitch and Rides will be back out this October. We’ve got 20 episodes, eight of which is about the build of the Riddler. So if you’re intrigued about seeing how we went about building that car from flat 4 by 10 sheets of aluminum, definitely stay tuned. It’s going to get much more interesting. Got great builds for the rest of the season as well. Yeah, I mean, go to kit.com no hyphen. Yeah, it’s just K I n D I G I T dot com. You can go in there, check out our swag. Check out the gallery with all of the latest builds. Also the schedule of where we’re going to be making appearances. In fact, this weekend we’ve got the Triple Crown in Nashville. So that’s going to be really fun. I’m actually on a plane tomorrow to get out there and get set up. We’re very excited for the second annual Triple Crown. We had a great time last year and we won one of the Triple Crowns with Kevin Hart’s car, which was really cool. So it was an honor, man.

Cole Strandberg: I feel like I can’t say congratulations enough during this recording. But seriously, man, congrats on all the continued success. Look forward to seeing you out at sema. I’m going to put a bunch of links in the show notes to make that easy on everybody. Should be an awesome time. Dave, appreciate your time. Always a pleasure speaking with you.

Dave Kindig: Thanks, Cole. You too, buddy. Take care. Say, say hi to every. Oh, I’m gonna say hi to everybody. Hi, everybody. See you soon.

Cole Strandberg: Thank you again to Dave Hindig for joining us here on the Collision Vision for what I hope you felt was a fantastic conversation. I know I certainly did. The guy’s obviously a brilliant artist, but he’s also such a dynamic communicator, a great business person, and just seems like a solid guy. If you’ll be at sema, be sure to check Dave and his builds out eight of them. Going to be incredible. That’s all for today’s episode of the Collision Vision. If you enjoyed it and are enjoying our latest series, the Art of Restoration, please be sure to hit that subscribe button wherever you enjoy your podcast and on YouTube, where the collision Vision lives in video form. As always, on behalf of the Auto Body News team and myself, thank you for coming along for the ride.

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