Our Santa Barbara based non-profit organization called The Community Hot Rod Project is an organization that not only offers a free program to teach the youth and young at heart how to build, restore, fabricate classic cars and off-road race vehicles here in Santa Barbara. Our program promotes a positive environment that improves both personal and community etiquette that is seriously missing in our community and world today. We offer community outreach events to help those in need at no charge throughout the year on top of our day-to-day operations. Our members and benefactors of our organization are an eclectic group of individuals that are comprised of business owners, aerospace engineers / technicians, mechanics, local law enforcement, members of the media, church members and students that all have a similar passion for automobiles and helping others in our local community.
Since our inception in Feb 2021, we started as a group of 5 volunteers and have grown to 60 members. During this time, we have held 2 successful Community Outreach events that we offered Oil Changes, Service Light Diagnostics and Car Detailing all for no cost to those in need and helped 95 people in our local community. We also held a Car Show and Tool Drive in April where we asked everyone to donate new or gently used tools or gift cards towards tools for the program and had 175 cars from all over California and 2000 people show up. We have also started 3 in house builds, one is for a client which is a 66’ Lincoln Continental Convertible that is getting a LSA and 6spd auto swap, full custom restomod interior and we are building an actuator conversion kit for the top and trunk system that we hope to use as a flagship to offer to the retail aftermarket as a revenue stream for the non-profit. Our second build is a 95’ Chevy Tahoe that was donated to our program that we are freshing up and PPG Paint and Martin Auto Supply have stepped up to sponsor the paint material for this project. We will be using this as our event transportation and parts runner vehicle for the organization. The third project is our build for the non-profit that will be showcased at SEMA 2023, it is a 1948 Willys Jeepster that will receive a full custom 2wd trophy truck chassis and powered by a modified hellcat motor putting out approx. 1000hp. We have plans to eventually build a Class 5 buggy and take our program participants and mentors racing in both the SNORE and Best in The Desert off-road racing series and other events like this.
The Community Hot Rod Project is seeking our local community to come together to develop and build an educational workshop space complete with an outdoor event center that our entire community can enjoy. This facility is needed desperately here in Santa Barbara as there is no longer Automotive Vocational Training offered in our local high schools and hasn’t even been a forethought for elementary or middle schools, but The Community Hot Rod Project plans to change that and make this happen and fill the void in our local community.
We envision this state-of-the-art facility to be the epicenter for car culture and learning in Southern California, as well as a living monument to Santa Barbara and Goleta’s unique and automotive aviation history. As you may already know, southern California is a mecca for the classic car culture. We see the facility set up as our non-profits workshop space, classrooms, offices, and conference center all in the vintage speed shop design. We would like to setup another section for the property as a Museum & Collector Car Storage Facility that would showcase a rotating collection of all the vintage Santa Barbara based automotive racing and aircraft memorabilia and would feature a period correct atmosphere as well. We see the exterior grounds designed and manicured as a high-end event center where people can come gather for car shows, cruise nights, community outreach events and more. Imagine the glow of 50’s neon signs with a classic diner / pop shop and soda jerks serving up your favorite flavors and amazing burgers as you take in the sites. In the evenings on the weekends, hanging out and relaxing with the family at a cruise night and a pop-up drive-in movie screen playing classics like American Graffiti, Grease or Ford vs. Ferrari. Having this opportunity to develop this property will increase tourism to the area exponentially and local businesses will thrive from the amount of patronage it will attract. This will put Santa Barbara on the map in a great way, with your help we will educate, build, and mentor the next generations of creative automotive minds and more.
We already have multiple requests to expand our program to other cities and hope within the next 5 years that we can bring our program to cities across the country. But for now, we are focusing on our flagship program here in Santa Barbara. We are networking with multiple fabrication, aftermarket shops and industry leaders working on partnering up as mentors and sponsors for the organization. Our vision is to empower the next generation with the experience, knowledge, and ability to put down the phones, get outside, and work with their hands being creative and building the baddest hot rods on the road and helping those in need too.