On September 25, 2005, Eric and I decided to meet out at Seward to work on getting the cars cleaned and getting things ready to cut the roof off of his car. If I remember correctly, this was a big step that required full commitment. Once you cut the roof off of a car the entire car looses all structure and the potential to create a large heap of scrap is great. This had caused us to research every method of cutting and replacing a roof section back together (as we were complete noobs at this and had no clue what we were doing). I cleaned all of the mouse remains from my car (note to self: never try to fit through a hole that is too small for the rest of my body) and Eric prepped the shell of his car by bracing the interior with steel pipe to hold everything together once the roof was off. He also pulled the extra oval window section into the shop and started laying out lines for cutting on both roof sections. He wanted to use the semaphore sections of the B pillar as semaphores are the early flag like signals that pop out to single a left or right hand turn and they are highly desirable on an early VW. Eric offered to give me the rear oval window section out of which ever roof section that was left over once we had his chop and the grafting completed. There was also an early oval window dash section that I was planning to use. Oval window cars are much like the semaphores in that they are sought after by collectors and here we were chopping things into little pieces... sacrilege! In hindsight, I can tell you that I felt very little trepidation in cutting the roof off of my car as we had used Eric's car as practice and frankly my car looked so bad that I figured it might be an improvement. This pattern of working on Eric's car together and then hacking mine based on what his looked like continued throughout the project.
Seeing the two cars emerge from the same garage at the same time through the mind and hands of two very different people was deeply interesting to me. I was so interested in taking this iconic mass produced object and then giving it individuality through customization as well has giving it a new lease on life by constructing a new portion of it's history. It was no different in my mind then the early hot rods that were created from the masses of Ford Model T's and A's. There is something about mass production that makes people want to individualize and customize in order to stand out from the crowd. I remember being a kid and wanting to put one engine from one motorcycle into the frame of another or wanting to build a car engine with a different intake and carburetor so that it would be different from "stock"; I'm still not entirely sure why this urge subsists, but I have have noticed that it is something inherent to many human beings. Why can we, as human beings, not leave anything alone? Why is it that old mass produced objects are different from new mass produced objects? Is it their history; the stories that the objects have to tell? Is it the ability of the old mass produced objects to have outlived it's counterparts that now makes it unique? Why do we feel the need to individualize the objects we use and consume? What happens in our minds when we use and experience these customized or unique objects; is there more pleasure in using a one of a kind object? How does function relate to the pleasure that these objects provide us? How does making and the individuality of the maker relate to the design of the final object? So many questions, but I think the cars will help us answer some of them as we continue down this path. Stay tuned...
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