The latest show to hit our screens courtesy of Discovery Turbo is here. Kindig Customs is helmed by the wicked talent of Dave Kindig of King-It Design.
For over 16 years, Dave has run his shop in Salt Lake City, Utah, far away from the glamour and over-the-top streets of California. Anything from a full restoration, modifying exotics, to outright hot rods come in and out of the shop regularly, often with some famous owners handing over the keys for the Kindig touch.
Like many others in the industry, things started early for Kindig.
“It started at a very young age when I was five years old. My Mom was an artist, painting animals and landscapes and that type of stuff. I always had a love for cars so I started drawing cars and just never let it go.
My wife and I spent a lot of time very broke when we first met and uh, that was my hobby. We’d rent a movie and I would draw cars and pretty soon those actually got discovered. And I was asked to do some magazine article whippings. One thing led to another and pretty soon I thought I could make a lot more money and have a lot more fun drawing cars from my home and 8 1/2 years after working at high performance coatings (putting ceramic coatings on exhaust systems) I quit my job and cashed in my 401k and started my business about 16 years ago.”
Being a designer first and foremost the process starts out with Kindig and his clients sitting down and sketching out the owner’s’ ideas for the car.
“They come in with the car or the idea of a car whether they own it yet or not, and they let me know what it is they’re looking for and immediately i start to imagine what this car could look like, and within 5 minutes of the discussion I’m already imagining driving it up and down the road and I’ve got a vision of what it looks like.” Says Kindig.
“Of course the thing that really nails it homes is by then getting on the drawing board and rendering what the car can look like. With all the input from them and my ideas on top of it, we basically can look it and envision exactly what it is that we’re going to build before we even we even start the car.”
The cars built on Kindig Customs aren’t trailer queens either. One owner, Ron Neese, has driven his Kindig-It built 1965 Pontiac GTO over 15,000 miles since taking delivery. A very good thing all of the cars come with a warranty. Which other reality car show offers that?
Kindig Customs screens on Discovery Turbo, Sky channel 75, Wednesdays at 9:30pm.