Pulling an SVX transmissionIf you're of a certain age, you'll recognize Bucky Lasek as one of those rad shredders from back in the day. He's been professionally skating since 1987 and racing rally as a Subaru Rally Team USA driver from 2012. You might think a super well-known SoCal extreme sports guy, who has won 13 X-games gold medals by the way, would have a garage packed with supercars or whatever, but Lasek has become perhaps the most loyal Subaru cultist on the planet. This guy started by building a pretty wild GC-chassis Impreza, which we first covered back in 2019, but he's dramatically expanded his car builds in the last seven years. They say it's best to not meet your heroes, but I've had the pleasure of shaking hands with Bucky a couple times in recent years. He was a big supporter of Radwood back when I was a co-owner of the show, and just a genuinely cool dude to chat with. He'll talk about cars until the proverbial cows come home, and because he actually gets his hands dirty working on his own vintage Subarus, he knows his stuff. I know I would forgive him if he just wanted to pay someone to build his cars for him, but he's just a real OG with a Harbor Freight jack. He's got money and sponsors, of course, but it seems obvious that he's building what he wants to build. That's why we're taking it upon ourselves to highlight some of our favorite underrated builders in a new series we're calling Wrenchers You Should Know. Not only do some of these people deserve way more views than they're getting, but they're typically the Do It Yourselfer type, rather than the big corporate-sponsored four-figure-horsepower slop that's dominating your feeds. In each installment we'll introduce you to a cool new builder, talk about some of their work, and give you a few reasons why you should be watching their progress. Here we go, BuckYeah! He uses JB Weld and Bondo, he's just like me FR!Bucky fitting his MR2 wingBucky is one of those down-to-earth car enthusiasts who still consults the ancient texts (forum threads) for ideas to improve his builds. The video dropped below is an incredible piece of car modifying that rarely exists anymore. Not only did he manage to incorporate junkyard parts swaps from other manufacturers of the era—in this case installing an AW11 Toyota MR2 wing on the back of his Subaru XT6—but he also made it happen with a bit of home-grown custom work incorporating JB Weld and Bondo. Easily my favorite part of this video is learning Bucky's genius method of application for the JB Weld. Using a two-part epoxy almost always means I forget to clean up until it's too late and I end up with one of my good flathead screwdrivers, which I used to stir the two parts together against my better judgement, permanently welded to a scrap piece of cardboard. Bucky does a smart thing here and pops both parts into a zip lock sandwich bag, then cuts the corner off to pipe the JB Weld into the cracks of the plastic, like cake icing. It's such a simple solution that it makes me feel like an absolute dummy for never having done it myself. And all of that is completely glossing over the fact that Bucky is spending his off hours building a Subaru XT6. This is one of those almost completely forgotten cars of the 1980s. There are so few nice examples of this car left on earth, and it's nice to see a real car enthusiast like Bucky working to preserve and modify his beautiful white example. I would love to see more quasi-celebrity car builders take on niche cars like this and modify them even half as tastefully as Bucky has been. A Bratty daughterCarbon bucket jump seats in the BratBucky and his daughter Paris started this Brat project as a way to not only strengthen their father-daughter relationship, but to get Paris involved in building her own car. Putting in blood, sweat, and tears is a great way to develop an appreciation for your car, especially as a young driver. My first car was wrecked within the first 12 months of my driving license, because I had no connection to the machine itself. When I finally worked on my own stuff, I treated it with the care and patience it deserved. Good for Bucky and even better for Paris, this car kicks so much butt. This project was never destined to become the ripper that it is today. Buck and Paris set out to build a solid little daily driver, but scope creep meant Paris ended up driving perhaps the coolest, okay second coolest, Subaru Brat in history. Everything from the wheel choice to the custom carbon fiber bed-mounted jump seats makes this car pretty darn close to perfect. I'm not sure I would have the vision to pull this one off, but the Laseks sure did. Kudos to them. This car has been "finished" for just over a year, but as with every project car they seem to always find a way to do just a little bit more. The car has been out to car shows, cool video shoots, and toy drives in the last few months. It's getting used like a little car/truck hybrid thing, which is exactly how car builds should be treated. This is incredible, and I love every minute of this mini-series. More families should build weird little cars together. I hope it brought them closer together, and I hope it serves everything Paris needs it for. His first project is still the bestThe original Buckit is still greatWith 49 installments in the Built Not Bought series going back over five years, Bucky's original YouTube project is still the one that keeps me coming back for more. Bucky's channel caught my eye all those years ago when he started working on the car that would come to be known as "The Buckit," a widebody GC8 Impreza coupe with a big-power WRX swap and lots of rally-inspired add-ons. The end result, or the result as it stands, is one of the coolest Subaru builds I've ever seen. Not least of which because Bucky did a lot of the work himself. Even when he brought on professionals to get some of the more intricate work done, he was happy to turn wrenches with them and learn about what they were doing. Seriously, if you have some spare time over the next month or so, sit down and watch a few of Bucky's videos every day. It's worth your time, and you might learn a few things from him. If you have suggestions for some lesser known builders on social media, please feel free to drop them in the comments section as well. I'm always on the lookout for folks out there doing cool stuff. It doesn't have to be just cars, either. While I'm well apprised of the car and motorcycles building scenes, I'd love to get deep into the nitty gritty of some more niche topics. Do you follow some cool folks building snowmobiles, jet skis, or DIY fighter jets or something? I want to know about it.And yes, you're welcome to do some self promotion in the comments as well. Let everyone know where they can follow your build and what you're up to. If it's unique or good, we'll feature it on the blogs. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox, and add us as a preferred search source on Google.
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