I've been wondering about the costs of actually having a car custom built. I obviously have neither the know-how nor the place to build my own car, but are there some garages where you can just order the parts and have others assemble it for you? I know it would be expensive as fuck, but having a road-safe, road-legal car with no on-board computer (except maybe a rear view camera... something that doesn't need connectivity) would be worth it. They might need a vehicle Black Box, but many of those only old data for the last few seconds only in the event of a collision or accident and do not keep geolocation or personal driving data.
this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2025
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What you want to look into is body kits. It's taking a car, removing parts, and putting on replacements that have fittings that attach the same, but look completely different on the outside. There are many types of cars that have become the most popular to customize and have the most options, but tons of cars can be changed significantly. There are even some body kits that change everyday cards into looking like completely different cards ("kit cars", I think they're called), and lawsuits around some similarities of body kits. There's also tons of YouTubers that do videos on this, and a whole culture about it. Usually they go for more flashy, and more tech, but you can probably go the other way pretty easily too depending on your taste.
It's completely possible to do as a hobby if you have time and money, and more possible to GET done if you have lots of money. Honestly I have no idea about it. But my cousin is a car guy and I stayed with him for a few months earlier this year. Damned interesting stuff out there.
I actually am looking this stuff up. So far I just asked an LLM about it (worst way to start I know), but I am interested in an extremely basic car. I am an elder Millennial and if I ever had to talk like an old man, this is the moment. When I was a kid I envisioned the car I want. A simple, basic hunk of metal that gets me from point A to point B. This was the car my parents and grandparents drove. As I grew up the only two major innovations that I found useful were A: RF keys that allowed you to wirelessly open your car (and I can forgo that, but they are most useful in that I don't need to remember where I parked my car since I could just press the button and have it light up), B: Rear view cameras, which make backing up and parallel parking much easier (and Parallel parking is my ultimate weakness), and C: Blind spot sensors which I found great (but don't need connectivity), and those can be replaced by additional small round mirrors that I have found, meaning a non-electronic option is available.
Shit like automatic window opening/closing was great, but I CAN live without it (if you haven't been in a pre-2000 car, back before button press window opening/clothing you had to manually turn a crank to open/close a window, and you could only do it if you were next to it. there was no master crank for the driver). I also don't care for a radio. If I want to listen to radio a simple battery operated pocket radio will suffice... and I do listen to shit on my phone, but if I do things old school like using paper maps (and thus keep my phone in a Faraday bag. BTW, I have driven in an old-school non-GPS world before and I was able to do just fine), a non-connected MP3 player will be all the music I ever need. Mildly pricey, but it is a buy-once affair.
I need to mention that a car built to those specifications is 100% legal. There is no law requiring telemetry in any country that I know. There are lots of people who drive hotrods and custom cars and older cars made prior to any of this nonsense all don't have those things. To make a long story short, you don't have to sacrifice privacy for all the modern conveniences. Music and movies can be done on portable non-connected devices... and if you can afford a car, you can afford those.
Me and my 11 year old just changed the rear shocks on my car, 18mm socket and wrench, 45 minutes of time. I'll never buy a vehicle with these types of paywalls.
Doing some major repairs to my 25 year old vehicle today also. New shit is junk.
it's a matter if time until they make Linux for cars.
They lock the parking brake behind a paywall on the scanner, so you have to pay a subscription fee. Chrysler has the parking brake service mode on the vehicle for users. VAG, BMW, Nissan, Toyota, GM etc all do it. It just make servicing more expensive for consumers, because the cost all gets passed down.
It is and it isn't. To use the onboard control to actuate the parking brake, yes, you have to use the paywalled software. But it's a simple motor. Positive and negative. If you disconnect the connector at the parking brake and use fused jumper leads to a 12v battery, you can cause the actuator to go forward or backwards. Make sure the parking brake isn't applied before doing anything, disconnect the cars battery, disconnect the p brake connector, jump the terminals once you figure out which polarity causes the retraction. Manually compress the caliper piston, replace the pads (and hopefully the rotors too). Pump the brake pedal as you would normally once everything is replaced, reconnect everything, and you're good to go. in my experience this doesn't work on ford but there's a service procedure that doesn't use a scanner to force the park brake into service mode. There's always a way around dumb stuff like this
Why is the parking brake involved with the computer at all....
It's an electronic parking brake. Those are common now because a small switch takes up less interior space than a lever for a cable-actuated parking brake, and the computer can disengage the parking brake if it detects that the driver is attempting to drive with it activated. The computer is involved in brake pad replacement to tell the parking brake motor to open to its widest position to accept new pads, and calibrate itself to their thickness.
This requires a special adapter and software subscription rather than a button on the infotainment screen because Hyundai is engaging in rent-seeking and perhaps trying to direct business to its dealers.
Guess I'll add this to the list of reasons I'm keeping my current car until it falls apart.
So if your brakes go out and you try to use the parking brake for a slow stop it won't do anything anymore?
Correct, though the car in question here is electric and will almost certainly use the motors to slow the car to reuse that energy. The motors should be able to stop the car even if the hydraulic brakes fail, and probably more effectively than a mechanical parking brake.
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