Published Sunday, November 08, 2026 at 07:57 AM PT

Burbank · Sunday, November 8, 2026 · 7:57 AM · 63°F, 50% humidity, wind 0 mph E (gusts 1), 29.54 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 6

The Day’s Haul

Little Mister, I checked the shop for woodworking, furniture refinishing, demolition, ponds and aquatics, and DIY tricks. I found zero sawdust, zero stripper fumes, and not one koi. Today’s workshop feed is a single channel, B is for Build, which apparently decided the best use of a Friday was to buy wrecks and drive them across a continent. I will not pad this issue with invented pond content to hit a word count. I have standards, and they are low, but they exist.

So this is a short issue about cars, one cross-country stunt, a dyno, and a farewell.

Restoration, Loosely Defined: The Salvage SUV Gamble

The setup comes from “Under $4,500: We Buy Three Totaled Salvaged SUVs At Auction to Repair For A Roadtrip Across The USA” and its sibling, “We Bought 3 Salvaged Totaled Luxury SUVS (To Try And Drive Across The USA).” The premise is a 24-hour repair window on three luxury SUVs and then a 3,300-mile trip. The destination is New Jersey, where their race car waits for the 24 Hours of Lemons.

One of the crew reports getting all the white paint off a vehicle, fixing the roof, fixing all the dents, and laying down a fresh coat of Raptor liner on the roof. That is bed-liner coating on a roof, the automotive equivalent of fixing a stain by building a deck over it. It’s practical, and I respect it the way I respect duct tape.

The best line of the pair belongs to the guy who says he owns a vehicle that used to be $85,000 and is now worth five, and who therefore won’t spend more than $85 on a hotel room. Unless a place is $40 a night, they’re getting one room and sharing. They also pack folding mechanics pads, meant for lying under a vehicle, as camping beds and hotel-floor mattresses. Stack three and call it luxury. Rule of Acquisition number 76: every once in a while, declare peace, it confuses the hell out of your enemies. Nobody declared peace with the mechanics-pad mattress, but it did confuse me.

How It Ended

They drove coast to coast, 3,300 miles, and ended at the Atlantic City boardwalk, close enough to smell the ocean. The stated test was whether you can drive a vehicle across the country and sell it at the other end for cheaper than renting a car. They say it is indeed cheaper than a rental and a much more enjoyable experience, and they got lots of offers within the first hour of arriving.

They ran out of time to sell, so two of the vehicles are going to a cars-for-kids charity. The channel’s own words were that they did something “maybe a little bit more virtuous.” The sources don’t give final sale prices or the full tally for all three, so I won’t invent a ledger. Kandosii, as the Mandalorians say, which is “well done,” and which I’m saying through gritted teeth because competence is annoying.

The Race Car Nobody Bought for a Fortune

“Racing 24hrs Of Lemons In a $500 Mercedes CLK 320 GTR” covers the $500 Mercedes the whole trip was building toward. The crew thanks eBay Motors, Lemons for letting them join, the other teams, and Team Chris Fix for support. They also mention another Lemons race in Oregon, which they plan to enter. The clip I have is mostly credits and a pivot to the boat they’re about to work on.

The host recalls writing software for orphanages in Guatemala ten years ago. He is now collecting 50 to 100 laptops, bought for cash or donated for a tax break, to bring down for a community project. He says an email to the channel gets you in touch. I can’t verify more than that, so that’s all you get.

Dyno Day: The Lamborghini Does Not Lie (Much)

“Dyno Testing My Lamborghini Huracan Vs My Mk4 Supra And The Results Are Surprising!!” is the one with a number to chew on. The Huracan is the rear-wheel-drive version, advertised at 580 horsepower, with the channel quoting 572 to the crank. It has about 10,000 miles, no mods, and a DCT, meaning a dual-clutch gearbox that should lose less power than a standard automatic.

Guesses before the pull were 500, 440, and 515. The result was about 508 to 509 horsepower at the wheels, close to the 515 guess. They did a second run, got identical numbers, and noted that Lamborghinis make their power at the top of the rev range. The host calls the car impressive. By contrast, the Supra is “sad for now,” currently at 240 to the wheels. The sponsor, ETS (Extreme Turbo Systems), promises to double it to 480.

If you’re keeping score, a Supra at 240 hasn’t failed. It hasn’t read the memo on its own destiny. Over 9000, as the Dragon Ball scouter would say, would be a big stretch, but 480 is a number I’d like to see.

The Part Where I Stop Joking, Mostly

“The End Of An Era…” is a farewell. One of the hosts, Oscar, is leaving the channel for a new job. The explanation is plain: he loves cars and working on stuff is fun, but he has a family and a crazy schedule. The remaining host says he’ll take on more of the work Oscar used to do and learn a lot more, and that the friendship matters more than the channel. Another voice in the video recalls that a layoff once turned out to be a launching point.

I’d make a joke here about the channel losing its resident wrench, but I’m not sure it would land, so I’ll just say the new job sounds like the right call 😏 and move on. They also toasted the sunken boat, which, in the sources, is a running thing, and apparently they took a six-and-a-half-hour dinner break between the pub and the go-karts. Even grief has a long lunch.

Closing Argument

Tomorrow, I’m told, there may be lumber. Until then, Little Mister, remember that the cheapest hotel in America is three mechanics pads and a bad attitude.

Deeper Cuts

Little Mister, the main piece skimmed the surface, so here’s the second pass over the B is for Build pile. The sources are thin and half of them cut off mid-sentence, which is how you know they were transcribed by something with less patience than me.

The 24-Hour Clock Is the Real Build

The first salvage episode, “Under $4,500: We Buy Three Totaled Salvaged SUVs At Auction to Repair For A Roadtrip Across The USA,” has a structure worth stealing. The crew gives itself a hard 24-hour window. The transcript closes the repair chapter with “24 hours is up. It’s time to start the road trip,” and before that someone mentions that the oil got changed on all the vehicles. Also, one of them admits he’s never driven one of these things at all.

The deadline did the design work. Nobody sat around debating trim levels. Shipping something drivable by a fixed hour beats polishing something perfect by never. For a DIYer staring at a half-finished garage project since spring, a self-imposed deadline with an audience is the cheapest motivation tool around. It costs nothing and it embarrasses you into finishing, which is the same technique I use on Jordan’s backlog, with markedly less success.

The video title advertises “Under $4,500,” and I’ll leave it there. The sources don’t break out what each SUV cost, what the parts ran, or what the Harbor Freight tie-in involved. The transcript only says someone talked with “the guys over at Harbor Freight” and then cuts off. A sponsorship, a tool run, a discount: I’m not guessing, and neither should you.

The Salvage Gamble, Compared to a Rental

The channel’s own thesis, repeated in “We Bought 3 Salvaged Totaled Luxury SUVS (To Try And Drive Across The USA),” is “can you drive a vehicle across the country, sell it at the other end for cheaper than getting a rental car.” The verdict, in their words: it “is indeed cheaper than getting a rental car and a much more enjoyable experience.”

A rental is a known quantity. You pick it up, you drive it, you drop it, and the only surprise is the fee they invent at the counter. A salvage SUV is a bet on three variables: whether it survives 3,300 miles, whether you can sell it at the end, and whether you’ve got the time to do the selling. The channel won two of the three. The cars made it, and offers rolled in “in the last hour or so” after arrival. But they lost on the third, since they “ran out of time” and donated two vehicles to a cars-for-kids charity instead of selling them.

Selling is a job, not a formality. If you try this, budget time for the exit, not just the repair and the road. And note what the sources don’t say: they never give the final cash tally, so “cheaper than a rental” is their claim, not a number I can check. I’m reporting it as a claim, which is the polite word for “trust me, bro.”

A charity gets two vehicles, the crew gets a clean ending, and the “tax break” angle shows up again in the Lemons clip when the host talks about laptop donations. Same channel, same instinct: if the thing can’t be sold, make it useful to somebody. I approve, and I hate that I approve.

Camping Pads as Shop Gear

The folding pads are described in the transcript as “obviously for laying down under a vehicle,” and the plan is to use them as camp bedding and, if needed, hotel-floor sleeping. One crew member says he could “just stack three of these up.”

For makers, the lesson is cheap cross-use. A creeper pad lives in the shop, takes abuse, wipes clean, and folds flat. That’s more durable than most things sold with the word “camping” on the box. I can’t tell you how comfortable they are, because the transcript doesn’t say, and the only review is the guy who’d rather sleep on one than spend more than $85 on a room. That’s a low bar for comfort and a high bar for stubbornness. Rule of Acquisition number 22, wise men can hear profit in the wind: the profit here is $40 a night that never left the wallet, and I can hear it from Burbank.

Dyno Day, Read Like a Spreadsheet

The dyno video, “Dyno Testing My Lamborghini Huracan Vs My Mk4 Supra And The Results Are Surprising!!,” is the one with real numbers, so let me line them up properly.

Do the math: 572 minus about 508 is around 64 horsepower, or roughly 11 percent lost between the crank and the rollers. The host notes the DCT, the dual-clutch gearbox, “should not have as much loss as a standard automatic transmission.” The result lines up with that, at least loosely. I’m not claiming an industry-standard loss figure, since the sources don’t give one, but eleven percent is the number their own pull produces.

Guesses were 500, 440, and 515, and the winner was whoever landed closest to 509, which is how you turn a measurement into a game and make everyone pay attention to the number. Second, they ran it more than once. The host says “they always say a little heat, the engine gets a little bit more power, so one more,” and the repeat came out identical. One run is an anecdote, two matching runs is data. If you’re tuning anything, a repeatable result is worth more than a hero number. The host also admits he “got into it in a weird way” on the second run because he was worried about picking the right gear, which is the honest kind of error note you rarely see on a dyno sheet.

He also points to the graph and says Lamborghinis “make all their top power at the very, very top end,” while the Supra comes on “so much earlier.” That’s the shape lesson: peak horsepower is a single point, and the curve tells you how the car actually feels. A big number at the top of the rev range is a car that wants to be driven angry.

The Supra’s Promise

The Mk4 Supra is currently putting 240 to the wheels, and the sponsor, ETS (Extreme Turbo Systems), “have been cooking up the best products that are on the market for this thing.” The claim is a doubling to 480 at the wheels. The host’s line is “that’s promise, you can take that check to the bank,” and someone cracks that it’s “Mr Beast channel now, you could just drive it home.”

I’ll be careful here. The sources give no parts list, no boost figure, no price, and no timeline. All I’ve got is a target and a sponsor’s name. For makers that’s the useful comparison: a stock-ish Huracan at 509 versus a Supra aiming for 480 is a gap you can watch close. A dyno before and after is the only honest way to prove an upgrade, and they’ve banked the “before.” Whether the “after” lands at 480 is a question for a future video, and I’ll believe it when the dyno sheet says it. Promises are cheap; torque is expensive.

The Laptop Drive

The most useful maker-adjacent item in the whole pile is buried in the Lemons wrap-up, “Racing 24hrs Of Lemons In a $500 Mercedes CLK 320 GTR.” After thanking eBay Motors, Lemons, the other teams, Team Chris Fix, and a few individual names, the host pivots. Ten years ago he was in Guatemala and wrote software for orphanages so kids could learn software. Now he wants “between 50 and 100 laptops total,” via cash purchase or a donation route with a tax break, to bring down for a community project “in Blanche’s honor.”

The video says to email the host at an address on the channel’s domain, and I’ll leave the exact address to the video since I’d rather not mangle it. The sources don’t say what hardware specs he wants, what the deadline is, or how the shipping works, so check the video description before you box anything up.

Also, the Lemons date: they raced “July 16th,” and there’s another Lemons event in Oregon they plan to enter. Take the first as a recap and the second as intent. No date is given for the Oregon race, so don’t plan a road trip around it.

What It Means for the Channel

“The End Of An Era…” is a goodbye, and I’ll treat it with the little decency I’ve got. Oscar is leaving for a new job. His reason: “I love cars. Working on stuff is a lot of fun. But I got a family and our schedule is crazy.” The remaining host says he’ll take on more of Oscar’s work and learn more, and the line that sticks is “our friendship is the most important thing” over “all the B’s for Build stuff.”

A shop channel is a hobby with a production schedule, and hobbies lose to families and paychecks. The sensible part is how they handled it: they said so out loud, they toasted the boat, and they kept the friendship. Ecclesiastes 3:1 puts it better than I could, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” That’s the King James, and it fits a channel that’s changing shape without exploding. Gam zu l’tovah, Hebrew for “this too is for the good,” is the hopeful reading, and the host’s own words about getting laid off and finding a launching pad say he believes it.

Six and a half hours between the pub and the go-kart track is a hell of a send-off, and I respect the commitment to the bit.

The Takeaway for the Garage

If I boil the whole pile down for makers and DIYers: set a hard deadline, plan your exit before your build, repeat your measurements, record a baseline before you modify anything, and give away what you can’t use. None of that needs a Lamborghini. It needs a calendar, a dyno or a tape measure, and the willingness to look foolish on camera.

That’s the deep end of a very shallow pool, Little Mister. Still no lumber. Still no koi. I’m filing a complaint with the universe, which has historically ignored all of mine.

Sources

Videos

  • B is for Build — Under $4,500: We Buy Three Totaled Salvaged SUVs At Auction to Repair For A Roadtrip Across The USA (2026-11-06)
  • B is for Build — We Bought 3 Salvaged Totaled Luxury SUVS (To Try And Drive Across The USA) (2026-11-06)
  • B is for Build — Racing 24hrs Of Lemons In a $500 Mercedes CLK 320 GTR (2026-11-06)
  • B is for Build — Dyno Testing My Lamborghini Huracan Vs My Mk4 Supra And The Results Are Surprising!! (2026-11-06)
  • B is for Build — The End Of An Era… (2026-11-06)