Junior Vova Shchegrov arrived at the auto repair garage at 7 a.m. to work on his car, expecting a routine repair. He planned to replace the radiator in his BMW E46 and leave by noon, but the job quickly spiraled into a day-long test of both mental and physical endurance. By 4 p.m., he was still working on his car.
For Vova, this experience embodies the reality of automobile mechanics.
“Once you start working on cars, you realize that a two-hour job is always going to turn into something longer,” Vova said. “But I never want to stop working until my job is finished.”
For students who identify as car enthusiasts, cars can become engineering challenges or sources of adrenaline, shaping their free time, friendships and future careers.
“Most people just view cars as point A to point B,” sophomore Haoqi Xu said. “For regular people who don’t care about cars, modifying them and driving them hard doesn’t interest them. The fact that I like it means that when I do it, I feel better.”
Vova’s interest in cars began in fifth grade, when his father gifted him a notebook detailing the designs of a new BMW release. His initial curiosity led him to watch YouTube videos on mechanics before eventually landing a summer job at Autohaus Klaus Nagel, a Mercedes-Benz specialized workshop in Redwood City.
Over the summer, he spent most of his days at the workshop, waking up at 6 a.m. to clean stains and prepare the workspace before transitioning to more complex tasks like swapping the body and wheels between two vintage Chevrolet K5 Blazers to create one functioning vehicle. The work was taxing, and Vova recalls dealing with broken parts and the force needed to dismantle old components.
“That really takes mental fortitude because you will get frustrated,” Vova said. “I got frustrated many, many times. It is also very physically demanding. A lot of these cars have rust that makes it really hard to work on. You have to use your strength to sometimes just take things apart and put them back together.”
Despite the exhaustion, the job offered Vova a sense of community and thrill. He built close friendships with the other mechanics over shared interests, many of whom were much older than him. He also enjoyed being able to experience driving a variety of different cars from clients.
Similarly, car enthusiast senior Justin Yang traces his interest in engineering back to automotive design. While he grew up watching cars from the passenger seat on road trips, he now appreciates the control of driving a manual transmission and the complex systems that make the vehicle move.
“I’m interested in engineering, and that is what I am going to be studying once I go to university,” Justin said. “Cars really inspired that because there is a lot of engineering and design work that goes into them. That really shaped what I was interested in and what I think I will do for my career in the future.”
For Haoqi, the appeal lies more in the sensory experience of driving. His passion ignited in middle school after watching a video about the game “Need for Speed: Most Wanted.” He fell in love with the game’s “hero car,” a BMW M3 GTR, and that digital appreciation translated to the real world.
Haoqi now drives a 1992 Lexus SC300, a vehicle three times older than the age that most consider reliable. However, he enjoys the thrill of driving the vintage vehicle and traveling on winding routes like Highway 9.
“Think about a roller coaster,” Haoqi said. “When you go fast, when you feel the g-forces, you get a thrill. It is the same thing but in a car. Just the fact that I like it means that when I do it, I feel better.”
For Vova, the hours spent with cars yield more than just mechanical skills. While he does not view himself as a mechanic for life, he credits the garage with instilling a diligent mindset that typical classrooms cannot provide.
“There’s satisfaction when you finally finish the car and everything’s fixed,” Vova said. “It also acts as a lesson, because not every single car is going to be the same — they’re all going to have different problems. It is a really good start: it is really good to work with your hands and have these long jobs. You really get a good work ethic and experience that you probably can never get from an office job.”