From Totaled to Restored

From+Totaled+to+Restored

From stripping off parts of the 2000 BMW 328i to spending hours in the garage with his father and friends, senior Ashton Clark made his totaled car almost new again after getting in a multi-collision accident in August. Clark took off his front bumper and replaced it, as his old one was damaged along with the headlights. While replacing the bumper and hood, Clark and his dad had to repaint the new ones to fit the color of the car.

“This was a fun, new experience for my dad and I,” Clark said. “We spent a lot of time looking at YouTube videos for car parts and spent a lot of time in the garage getting greased up.”

The front needed a lot of work on the outside, underneath the hood wasn’t any better: the radiator, coolant and control arm were all severely damaged. Clark and four of his friends knew it would be a pain to squeeze between parts to move others, so they put the car on jack stands and went to work.

“Painting was a whole new experience for us,” senior Brandon Bauer said. “We haven’t really painted much. We mostly just do the dirty work[on cars].”

Aside from all the dirt on his clothes and the grease on his hands, Clark wouldn’t mind doing it again on a different car. Clark even made his car louder after all the repairs, sawing off the muffler of his car. This increased the power and the sound of the car slightly, due to reduced back pressure of the exhaust.

“Starting the car up after the repairs and muffler delete, the feeling felt relieving and great,” Clark said. “It was nice to know the work paid off and I even learned new things after all of it.”