The Coolest Workshops I've Visited

I love workshops--places where people use tools to apply creativity and express themselves.  Here are the four most interesting shops I've had the privilege to spend time in (so far):

1.)  Melges Boat Works, Zenda, Wisconsin (circa 1970).  This place still exists, but it's nothing at all like it was when I first saw it as a kid.  Back then, Melges employed skilled woodworkers who crafted beautiful racing sailboats out of spruce, mahogany, and cedar.  One of the things I liked most was the smell of freshly applied varnish that perfumed the atmosphere.  Even today, prying open a can of varnish can still rekindle the memory I had as a kid of being stunned by the gleaming beauty of the boats Melges built. Today, Melges is still a top boat builder, but it only sells fiberglass boats.

2.)  Petty Enterprises.  Level Cross, North Carolina.  I got to spend some time in the famous stock car driver's garage while doing a story about the King for The Wall Street Journal. Petty was a one-of-a-kind human being and he had a great shop that built his race cars from the tubular frame up.  (I had to tape record him to make sure I caught every word of his Level Cross drawl.) They only thing Petty's Grand National stock cars had in common with a production auto was the superficial exterior shape of the vehicle, and even that required something of a stretch to detect. When Petty fired one up, the ground would shake and the air would vibrate. And, yes, I got to touch the blue and red #43.

3.) Jay Leno's garage. Burbank, Calif. Part museum, part fully-equipped manufacturing facility. With the exception of a few electronic components, the former talk show host and his team have the ability to custom fabricate virtually any auto part ever made.

A pretty terrible picture of
Jay and a machine he calls "the greatest thing
since sliced bread."  It uses four separate, synchronized
arms to lift a car off the ground by its tires.

He needs to be able to do that to keep his prized collection of motorcycles and cars in top, driveable shape.  The shop houses a complete array of machining equipment, along with a 3D printer, CNC router, and $1 million water jet cutter for trimming steel. Need an engine block? Jay can cast one for you himself right in his Burbank shop (but he probably won't).

4.) Tony Bettenhausen Jr.'s shop. Indianapolis, Ind. This was a very friendly, low-key garage staffed mostly by volunteers who helped Tony build and maintain his Indy cars on a very modest budget. The oddest thing in the place was a small pile of black coal.  Reason: the only "major" sponsor the team had was a coal mining company called Amax. Tony was so hard up for benefactors that he put a Ping sticker on his car in return for a set of golf clubs and his wife once appeared in a grocery store advertisement in return for some free steaks. A member of the racing family that has entered the most Indy 500s (without ever winning the race), he died in a plane crash in 2000 along with his wife and two friends. Driving a car with a modified Chevy engine at a time when the top teams were all using Cosworths, he qualified in the fifth row at Indy with a speed of 218 miles per hour in 1990--the year I spent a few weeks at his place. His father was killed on the Speedway in 1961 testing a car whose steering mechanism broke.