There are a lot of great car and hot rod builders out there. Not many of them can compare to Dave Kindig and his team at Kindig-It Designs. Maybe you’ve seen him at SEMA or on Hot Rod TV. You most certainly have seen him on Bitchin’ Rides. We were very fortunate to grab an hour of his time to talk about all things Dave Kindig, Kindig-It Designs and custom cars.
Let’s start with the obvious question; Have you always been fascinated by cars?
Oh man, born and raised just loving them. Not a lot of opportunity to work on them. No dad growing up at the house so my love of cars, love for cars, came from Legos, Hot Wheels, Matchbox cars and later on plastic model cars, which no car was safe on my windowsill for more than maybe 2 or 3 weeks. Always needed to borrow the wheels or the motor. I just was really fascinated but more importantly, my impatience as a young guy, I figured out that drawing was very therapeutic for me and learning how to do dimensional drawings because of my experience with the Lego instructions, model car instructions. I kind of started meshing those two together, understanding vanishing points and that kind of stuff, at a very early age. It was very easy for me to be creative drawing cars because it was much faster than gluing something or waiting for the paint to dry to put the car together. My fascination was always very much about the “what if” which is pretty much how I’ve lived my life.
I understand you were a big fan of the Hot Wheels toys. Do you still have any Hot Wheels today?
We moved after 21 years in the same home; we raised our kids in the other home. As I was moving some stuff around the storage room, I noticed I have a big box of model cars I had never finished, including some of my favorite old archives. Of course, everything was broken apart with the intention of building something different out of them. I have a bunch of my Hot Wheels but I always modified or painted them so they probably wouldn’t be worth anything in the sense that they’re vintage Hot Wheels. Who knows, maybe they’re worth something because I put my fingerprints on them.
Do you remember the car you learned to drive in?
Ya, so it’s funny, it’s not a really awesome car, a Dodge Horizon 4-door shit-box. It was my mom’s car. I remember driving it in reverse doing donuts in a gravel parking lot and I think I broke her transmission. I shouldn’t have done that [laughing]. In my mind, the first car I drove was a ’77 Toyota Celica GT. It was orange with black interior, fastback. I remember having a frisbee and like a spoon or ladle and I would pretend to shift clutch while my mom was driving. I’m going to say, and it’s embarrassing, that I probably did that until I was 13 years old.
What was the very first car you owned?
Actually, I had a ’77 Toyota Celica GT coupe, that was my first car that actually went down the road. I loved the car, it was a $600 purchase, second owner and I loved that car. I had that for about 2 years.
Any other favorite cars you’ve owned over the years?
You know, you always miss the cars you had. I mean the shaggin’ wagon, that was a 91 Olds Custom Cruiser I bought. I got in trouble with my wife for a short minute because I shouldn’t have bought it because we had a house and 2 kids. I hot-rodded that car. Bagged it, put on some Colorado custom wheels. It was really cool. I did a four or five color airbrushed custom paint job in my garage which really got me the start of people wanting me to work on their cars. I kind of miss that car but I’m glad I don’t have it, I’m not sure my garage would fit it. Those were big cars. The 2010 CL 63 AMG 2-door big body Mercedes, I really miss that car. That’s the one that kind of got away, I wish I would’ve kept that car. I’m really good at buying cars and really bad at selling them [laughing].
Do you remember the first car you restored or built?
That would have to be my little hot rodded Carson top VW bug. That was before the shaggin’ wagon, it was really a cool car. It was a ’68 Beetle with a ’60 front end. It was just a cool car.
When did you know Kindig-It was going to be something?
You know, I came from nothing, so I knew it was going to happen before I even started because I wasn’t going to accept anything other than that. I remember a white plastic set of chairs and a table in my garage with the snow flying outside. I had a 110,000 btu burner and project race car Volkswagen from my friend, and I just started drawing up what the logo would look like, what I would name my company and at that point, I don’t ever remember going “well, if this doesn’t work out, I’ll go do this, or this.”
Roughly how many custom cars does Kindig-IT Design produce each year?
You know, they overlap so much. We typically work on 16 to 22 cars at a time. I’ve got 43 employees right now in a 27,000 square foot production facility. I’ve got another 10,000 square foot building about 3 blocks from here where we store vehicles waiting to get in and my 18-wheeler, my dually and my smaller trailer just to keep them out of the way for open space. I’ve built probably 4,000 square feet of mezzanine just to keep things up off the ground. For a hot rod shop this is like a surgical room in comparison to most hot rod shops. I like it very open and clean. I don’t waste time wishing I had equipment. If I need something, I typically buy it. The facility has brand new equipment all over the place that we use almost every single week, sometimes every single day. It gives us the opportunity to build some kick-ass stuff.
Tell me a little bit about how the TV series came to be.
The TV stuff, as we continued on building great cars, we kept getting noticed by producers of different show; My Classic Car, Car Crazy, Hot Rod Television, and a lot of local stuff. I was very comfortable in front of a camera and talking to people about what I was so passionate about and it kind of stood out. The guys at Speed Channel at the time were familiar with my guest appearances on different shows, and when Speed went to Fox Sports they went and started Velocity with Discovery and that’s when they reached out. We basically put out a media blitz that we were going to get the opportunity to build a GM Future Liner, one of the 12 Parade of Progress buses. This happened across the desk of Dave Lee and Bob Scanlon at Velocity, and they were like “we’re familiar with what this kid is doing with these high-end hot rods, what the hell is he doing with a GM Future Liner restoration?” And that’s when they reached out to us and said hey, we’re familiar with you and we’re familiar with what a Future Liner is, would you be willing to do a sizzle reel and talk about a TV series. And I was like, “sure.” And they sent down a company called Fischer Productions out of Park City, which is Chris Fischer. He owns Ocearch, which has nothing to do with cars. He catches great white sharks with this big boat, tags them and studies them and sets them free. They sent a crew down, they loved all the mezzanines, the way we all interacted and, of course, the cars and the vehicles we were building.
We negotiated a little bit, making sure it was good for my business, and we gave it the thumbs up. The beautiful thing about this is, from my earlier experience with Hot Rod Television, we would have a crew come in from California and we would have to tear a whole bunch of the car apart and stop actually making progress. And do it for television, you know, rebuild, put things on and off for different camera angles. That doesn’t work very well for how as aggressive we are in building cars, to get them done properly in a timely fashion. That was part of my deal with Fischer Productions and Velocity, I don’t want to turn into a set and not be able to get my customers their half-million-plus dollar vehicle that they’re paying for. So, they [Fischer Productions] were going to be a fly on the wall and we’re going to have some fun and they’re going to capture it, but we’re not going to disrupt the production of all these vehicles.
Why do you think Bitchin’ Rides is such a popular show?
I think that it’s when people have the opportunity to see our cars in real life, these aren’t made for television cars, these are legit show drivers. These cars are detailed from top to bottom, inside and out. These are truly cars that if anybody had to work on that doesn’t work for me, would probably be scared shitless. After 23 years, I won’t stop a car because of budget. If you have a budget, you’re probably in the wrong place for us because we actually spend the extra time to do it right.
If I were to open your garage door at home, what would I find in there?
You would find a Maverick turbo 4-door, loaded that has only 500 miles and it’s almost 5 years old and that’s because I never get to use it. That’s embarrassing [laughing]. You would find 2 Specialized cruiser e-bikes. My wife and I like to get away, not necessarily have to be in a car. You would find Porsche Panamera Grand Turismo, black with Bordeaux interior and carbon fiber inserts, with 4-wheel steering and all-wheel drive. That’s what I call my snob rod. You would find my wife’s S550 Mercedes, white on white with black 22” wheels on it. And if you jumped up and down you would notice you’re standing on a hollow floor under which each of those vehicles on the top floor, I put in 3 subterranean elevators and 70” windows and my own foundation and I put my 458 Ferrari in the basement where I can walk in and it’s an art gallery. I’ve got my dad’s ’57 Corvette sitting next to it and my wife’s ‘67 Chevelle sitting next to that one. Under the stairs, which is a single spine staircase next to my pool table, is a West Coast Chopper that we built about 15 years ago for a good client and I ended up with the bike. And a lot of art gallery stuff. It’s basically a 2-story garage.
What is your all-time favorite car to drive?
Right now, it’s that Ferrari. I really like going fast. I’ve tracked that car, it’s a very capable car. From what I understand it’s the best that Ferrari has ever built because it was before the turbo stuff. I’m looking at other cars to collect in that sense, but my new favorite is my CF1 Corvette, number 3, which is my carbon fiber Corvette program. Car number 3 is mine and it happens to be the only one that happens to be electric. That’s right, I said electric. This car is 580hp but more importantly it’s 3,650 foot pounds of torque.
What do you like to do away from work, any Hobbies?
Actually, I really love cars. I do love walking my dog. My wife and I love to go on bike rides, packing little baskets for a little picnic. I love golfing with friends and my wife. I love a lot of outdoor type of stuff. But when it comes down to it, really my favorite thing is to get into a fun car and head to the canyons. We have some of the best canyons here.
Any final thoughts?
I’m just excited for the future. We’ve had such a great run, and they kind of let the cat out of the bag, but we’re filming season 10.
Thank you, Dave, for letting us get a behind-the-scenes look at your car passion, Bitchin’ Rides and everything you have going on. Someday we’ll be sure to stop and say hello when we’re at SEMA. However, we do have a question; when do you find time to sleep?
