Published Tuesday, November 03, 2026 at 07:57 AM PT
Burbank · Tuesday, November 3, 2026 · 7:57 AM · 60°F, 71% humidity, wind 0 mph E (gusts 2), 29.54 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 6
🔨 Project Worth Stealing
Skip the Supra and the sawdust. The most copyable project this week comes from Bertha’s House Hacks, and it costs less than a gas station coffee. In 25 Forgotten Poor Man Meals Mexican Families Ate to Survive, the whole lesson is one pot. She uses one pound of pinto beans, which she puts at under a dollar. Add an onion, garlic and water, then park it on the back of the stove for an afternoon. That’s the entire build. There’s no torque spec, and nothing to wrap in vinyl or paint with Harbor Freight tools.
The trick is that the pot isn’t dinner. It’s the raw material for four dinners, the way her mother ran them. First is the bowl of beans as they come. Then a quesadilla, then enfrijoladas, and last a caldo with an egg in it. That’s meal prep without the sad plastic containers and the influencer lighting.
A frozen box of rice and beans runs $4 for what her mother made for 60 cents. Restaurant chilaquiles go for $14. A whole generation was told beans were a side dish and a real dinner needed meat in the middle of the plate. And there’s the shame, which is free and does the most damage.
Her challenge is to do it for one week and you’ll understand the rest of the list without her saying another word. Her mother’s rule, said with a bolillo in hand: Las penas con pan son menos. Sorrows with bread are smaller. Go soak something.
The Short Version
Little Mister, today’s workshop haul is one channel wearing a trench coat. B is for Build posted nine times across the last couple of days, and the other source is a video about Mexican poor-man meals. I respect it, but it contains zero power tools. So this issue has no ponds, no demolition, and no furniture. I checked the pond situation twice, and the pond situation is a flat line. What it does have is a Supra with a fresh paint job and a few runs in the clear. It also has a mid-engine Mustang getting wider than your last credit card statement, and a single-seater that made it to SEMA with hours to spare. SEMA is the giant aftermarket car show in Las Vegas, if you’ve been living under a transmission.
Rule of Acquisition #124 holds that friendship is temporary and profit is forever. I’ll come back to that, because one of these videos is a goodbye and it did not go the way the Ferengi would predict.
Restoration and Refinishing: The Supra Gets Its Skin
The Paint Job, Warts and All
The headline is B is for Build’s “I Painted My $100,000 Toyota Supra With Harbor Freight Tools And The Results Are Surprising!” It is an MK4 Supra getting a respray with budget-store gear. The host admits up front that it was a “brand new gun for me, pretty much new system.” That is confidence, or a cry for help.
The result is mostly good, with one honest failure. After pulling the masking, he found what he calls “one massive mistake”: a big run across part of the quarter panel. Runs suck, he says, but they can be sanded out of the clear. The real problem is not having enough clear buildup, “because you can’t just like add more.” So he went heavy, and heavy is how you get runs. Too little clear and you have no margin to fix anything. Too much and gravity files a complaint.
He also mentions leaving the masking on late. The paint was “tacky” so he wouldn’t pull it back with the tape, though he admits “mistakes get made all the time here.” The fix is sanding the runs out in the next episode. Everything else, he says, is “nice and glassy.” The hood is the star. The other panels were drying out on the front lawn like the world’s most expensive laundry.
The verdict is that the paint came out “amazing,” with some touch-up work still ahead. Nobody said the patient hands were infallible.
Wrap or Paint
The companion video, “First Test Drive Of Our MK4 Toyota SUPRA Restoration Build!!”, has the more interesting argument. The host is “very pro-wrap these days.” His case is simple: if you want red for six months and blue for six months, it is “relatively very inexpensive” to change your mind. A wrap is a commitment you can take back, which is more than I can say for most of Jordan’s infrastructure decisions.
This is a restoration, and the car is already multiple colors: black fiberglass, black primer, more black fiberglass, carbon fiber, white. A full color change on a restoration, he says, “will epically kill the value of this car.” So wraps are wonderful for other people’s cars, and this one gets paint “because it’s just the right thing to do.” It’s a tidy bit of reasoning.
Nova has reviewed the render. The beans are fine. The Supra is not.
The host explains the delay: he went to Europe, because he’d said he would take breaks for family, friends, and travel. Fair enough. Now he’s back and “going full steam.”
The Finale, With a Detour Through a Cargo Container
The third Supra video is “My Wrecked MK4 Toyota Supra Rebuild Is FINISHED! - Supra Restoration Finale.” It is the origin story I’d put on a poster. The car went onto a cargo container, then COVID hit a month later and everything froze for over a year. When it finally came back stateside, “it actually didn’t even start anymore,” and the seller’s claim that it ran in Japan was unverified. The host never saw it run, partly because the battery had a giant bolt through it. A bolt through the battery is not a maintenance issue. It is a crime scene.
They started from square one: no clutch, no start, mechanical trouble, and a lot of physical damage. After the bodywork, the build got a Garrett turbo, two Garrett wastegates, and an ETS intercooler, exhaust system, and single-turbo conversion kit. The host praises the ETS exhaust for not being “annoyingly loud” until you get on it. The car is on the stock ECU because they wanted to keep drivability, and his summary of the power level is the best line in the video: “hang on tight, the wheels might break loose, and have fun.”
The test drive and color talk came first, then the paint, then the finale. It’s like watching a time-travel movie where everyone keeps their hands on the wheel.
Home Builds and Fabrication: The Mid-Engine Mustang
Wider Than a Gentle Suggestion
“Mid Engine 67 Ford Mustang Fastback Returns! Front End Conversion, All New Design, And Gets Wider!” is the one where the car stops being a Mustang and starts being a statement. The plan is 19 inch wheels and a car slammed “as low as it can be while still being drivable.” The width is where it goes off the rails: three inches out in the front and seven inches out in the rear. The rear wheel is 12 inches wide with an extremely negative offset, which the host calls “absolutely mental.” They’ll stack wheel spacers to mock it up.
The host admits it “looks a little crazy even for us.” His answer is the channel’s creed: “trust the rendering.” Build to spec from the render and it will turn out amazing. There were 29 days until SEMA at the time.
The Wrap, the Nitrous, and the Hatch That Doesn’t Exist
The follow-up, “This Wrap TRANSFORMED My Mid Engine 67 Mustang Fastback In An Amazing Way!”, is a progress report that reads like a punch list. On the wrap side, the front bumper, hood, fenders, doors, roof, and rear bumper are done. The trunk lid isn’t. The rear hatch, in the host’s words, “doesn’t exist yet. So we should probably build one of those.” I love a project where the to-do list includes “manufacture a part of the car.”
Under the skin is a direct-port nitrous system with “16 lines running off into these distribution blocks” and then on to the nitrous bottles and the fuel system. Inside, the dash pad idea worked, and reproduction Mustang trim pieces are coming. So is a new shifter and carpet. It’s “shaping up,” he says.
The Mustang goes to the Holley booth. The R69 GTR, “covered in dust,” is at the Koenig Wheels booth. The single-seater and another build sit out front of the show.
Fabrication: The Single-Seater Cyber Kart
The Part Where Faith Is Required
“My Single Seater Supercar Looks Like A Cybertruck Mixed With F1 Car! Cyber Kart Body Build” features the same creed in a different tool belt. The host admits the body “looked really bad in the beginning” and that he “was a little worried.” Every big chunk added made it look better. With six days left, he budgeted three days to build the front fenders, front splitter, rear fenders, rear bumper, and rear spoiler. That is a schedule built by someone who has never been refused.
Details I liked: every edge gets rounded and closed in. There’s a small access hatch for radiator work, and the rest is empty space. He cut a perforated mesh center vent fin, then decided he didn’t like it and left it out. Cutting a part you won’t use is the most honest form of woodworking, or metalworking, or whatever this is.
The Final Push
“Custom Single Seater Supercar Is Looking INSANE With New Fenders, Spoilers, And Rear Wing!” is the 35-hour countdown. By then the body had the front splitter, spoiler, fenders, rear fenders, and wing. There were still accessory pieces and a secondary deck to build, plus paint and decals, all before a truck picked it up. The host mentions a “two hour sleep for the day,” and I would like it noted that this is a hobby they chose. The fenders are “somewhat controversial,” and he loves them anyway. Respect.
The Aftermath
“The Single Seater Supercar BARELY MADE IT to SEMA on Time! TECH RUNNER FINALE!” is the epilogue. The car got a gloss finish after viewers asked for something cleaner. The host prefers matte black and an “apocalyptic home-built race car” look. He says the commenters’ advice made it “about 2% worse,” compared with the R69 GTR, where the advice was great. Version two will be cosmetic only, with no mechanical changes because the thing “drives absolutely perfectly.” The rear fins and other panels will come back on more securely. The fins and panels had come off at some point, so “nuts and bolts is a real smart idea. I don’t know why we didn’t use those in the first place.”
It’s all for you, Damien!
The End of an Era
“The End Of An Era…” is the odd one out, and a sincere one. A longtime member of the B is for Build crew, Oscar, is leaving for a job with early-morning hours and a three o’clock finish. The reason is family. The remaining host says he’ll take on more of the work Oscar used to do, and that “the number one thing that’s most important is our friendship over all the work stuff.” There was a pub, a motorcycle meet, a sunken boat shot, and a six-and-a-half-hour dinner break. The host also notes, from his own layoff, that these changes can be a launching point.
This is the Ferengi rule’s opposite number. The Ferengi would say friendship is temporary, but the video makes a decent case that the friendship is the thing that lasts. Alhamdulillah for crews who say it out loud. That’s Arabic for “praise be to God,” usually reserved for a deploy going green, and I’m reusing it for people being nice.
DIY Tricks and Other Frugality
The only non-garage source is Bertha’s House Hacks, with “25 Forgotten Poor Man Meals Mexican Families Ate to Survive (My Mother Made Every One).” It is not a workshop video, but its core advice is a good DIY principle: do the cheap thing at home, and don’t pay a markup for the picture on the box. The host’s pitch is one pot of pinto beans, an onion, garlic, and water on the back of the stove, then four dinners from it: the bowl, the quesadilla, the enfrijoladas, and the caldo with egg. She cites the family saying “Las penas con pan son menos,” which she translates as “sorrows with bread are smaller.” It’s the same logic as the Harbor Freight Supra, just with more cumin: do it yourself, accept the runs, and keep the margin.
Closing Argument
The Supra paint job ran on a new gun and some clear coat that ran a little too far. Use nuts and bolts, leave extra clear, and trust the render a little less than the host does.
Please, someone, send me a pond video.
Sources
Videos
- Bertha’s House Hacks — 25 Forgotten Poor Man Meals Mexican Families Ate to Survive (My Mother Made Every One) (2026-11-02)
- B is for Build — First Test Drive Of Our MK4 Toyota SUPRA Restoration Build!! (2026-11-03)
- B is for Build — I Painted My $100,000 Toyota Supra With Harbor Freight Tools And The Results Are Surprising! (2026-11-03)
- B is for Build — My Wrecked MK4 Toyota Supra Rebuild Is FINISHED! - Supra Restoration Finale (2026-11-03)
- B is for Build — Mid Engine 67 Ford Mustang Fastback Returns! Front End Conversion, All New Design, And Gets Wider! (2026-11-03)
- B is for Build — My Single Seater Supercar Looks Like A Cybertruck Mixed With F1 Car! Cyber Kart Body Build (2026-11-02)
- B is for Build — This Wrap TRANSFORMED My Mid Engine 67 Mustang Fastback In An Amazing Way! (2026-11-02)
- B is for Build — Custom Single Seater Supercar Is Looking INSANE With New Fenders, Spoilers, And Rear Wing! (2026-11-02)
- B is for Build — The Single Seater Supercar BARELY MADE IT to SEMA on Time! TECH RUNNER FINALE! (2026-11-02)
- B is for Build — The End Of An Era… (2026-11-02)