DIY Is a Reward Unto Itself

This story first appeared in the July/August 2024 issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Join the club to receive our award-winning magazine and enjoy insider access to automotive events, discounts, roadside assistance, and more.

Reading through the recent round of do-it-yourself stories is satisfying for me because I grew up in a family where you did things with your hands. Maybe you did, too. Car people often share this trait.

My great-grandfather could do just about anything-build a stone fireplace, perform plumbing and electrical work, wrench on cars. My father was the same way. An inveterate tinkerer, fixer, and first-rate shade-tree car mechanic, he always had a restoration project in progress. When my sisters and I were looking for him, we always knew where to find him-in the garage, among his tools, elbow-deep in a project. He and I once pieced together a rusty, torn-apart 1967 Porsche 911 S that became my first car. It's one of my favorite memories.

When I grew up, I was surrounded by people who engaged things in the world head-on. When something broke, you didn't chuck it-you tried to fix it. Sometimes you could, sometimes you couldn't. Either way, we learned by doing, and as a result, I grew up unafraid to tear into kitchen appliances or, say, my grandma's record player. (Sorry, grandma.) I developed a curiosity about the world and how things work via the experiences I had with tools in my hands. To this day, when I look at a building, a car, or just
about any mechanical device, I think about how it was built and the decisions the builders made, and why.

That's a valuable mindset to have, but one that's dwindled over the past few generations. Why, I don't know. Maybe it was the demise of shop class in public schools. Maybe devices, cars included, simply became too complex to work on yourself. Maybe appliances became so inexpensive it wasn't worth the trouble of repairing them. Or maybe life just moves faster now than it used to and there's no time left, really, to fix and tinker.

Whatever the case, David M. Kelley, an eminent engineer and designer who co-founded the design firm IDEO and the incredible Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (known as the d.school) at Stanford University, once told me that there is a potential downside to being a step removed from hands-on work. We end up knowing less about our physical world. We lack agency-which I define as a sense of presence, control, and curiosity in our own lives. We outsource tasks to others, but we miss out on learning how to do things ourselves, meaning our library of skills doesn't grow as fast as it does for others. How many people do you know, for instance, who don't know how to change a tire, fix a lawn mower, or change a furnace filter?

The good news: If you or someone you love didn't grow up in a hands-on world, as I did, and want to learn, it's easy. Just find yourself a broken toaster and jump on in! Then keep on going. Learning is always about doing, even when it comes to cars. Want to be a shade-tree car mechanic someday? Get yourself a project car that you can make a bunch of glorious mistakes on. And consult YouTube University frequently. It's a great resource. Above all, remember to have fun. There is joy in doing.

Which reminds me of a story. I was at an eminent car show once talking to a collector who mentioned that her grandchildren were smart, wonderful youngsters who didn't have much experience with tools yet. She said to me, "So, do you know what I did? I went over to one of the vendors here at the show and I bought two broken-down motorized scooters. And their summer project is going to be to get these two things fixed and running!"

I'll bet those kids loved it. That is my kind of grandma.