The car community is funny. It’s only a fraction about the cars; the rest is about the people. Brad goes all-out on a clandestine operation to make over Brian’s Challenger in grand fashion with a one-day thrash featuring hot rod heroes, good friends, and a step toward a young car guy’s future, too. But no brunch.

Being a bit of an engineering-minded car geek, I like to tinker. However, with respect to having a warranty, I needed to restrict my tinkering to either factory-approved mods and pieces, or just throw all of that payment-offsetting goodness when it comes to repairs. Playing the grown-up, I opted for the former over the latter, and developed a cold air intake solution using budget-friendly, mostly factory parts. Follow along with long-term Project Life Partner, my ’16 Challenger R/T.

To this day, the image of one car remains burnt into my brain, and quite possibly my psyche. To say that this one car’s impact had depth would be grossly understating the profound effect it had on me. As the vision of that car passed from my eyes, it left ripples along my optic nerve and slammed into my brain, forming the surface of that surrounding gray matter into some cars-only territory.