CRAIG LOPRESTI: A SELF-TAUGHT AUTOMOTIVE MASTER

“I'll just get my hands dirty immediately. And whether it’s the engines coming apart or a transmission coming out, it's never easy.”– Craig LoPresti, Automotive Engineer, Founder of YouTube Channel Thecraig909 and NineONine Speed Company

Sitting in the seat of his custom truck, surrounded by ripped-out gauges and nests of wiring, Craig LoPresti realized he might actually miss his senior prom. He had completely lost track of time attempting to finish up a truck job.

“The gauges were sitting on the seat. Wiring's everywhere. I was slamming it all back together. I was like, I got four hours ‘til prom, I can do this, this, and this. Unrealistic goals. But that's how I learned. I learned what I was capable of very fast. I learned what I wasn't. I learned and I filled in those gaps.”

For a living, LoPresti breaks machines down and builds them back better. His custom automotive work pushes the limits of what a vehicle can be, with a distinct style that's unmistakably his. Back in his early days as a teenager, LoPresti was a self-taught, one-man, do-it-all automotive shop. What started as scrappy DIY projects in his spare time in high school have since grown into a full-blown brand, auto shop, and media platform that reaches automotive enthusiasts all across the world.

YOU HAVE TO FIX THINGS

An unstoppable drive to fix what’s not working has been in LoPresti since day one. It all started when he came home after taking his SAT test and found an ancient, rusting truck sitting outside of his house. Turns out, it was time for him to choose his first car.

“My folks gave me a choice—it was this rusty piece of garbage that was rotting for 20 years or a nice '95 F-150 that was turnkey, ready to go. It had everything. Four-wheel drive. I didn't want it. I wanted this. I was hell-bent on it,” LoPresti recalls.

Faced with this choice, a relic that hadn’t moved in two decades, or a clean, ready-to-drive pickup truck, most teens would’ve taken the easy way. Not LoPresti. He saw nothing but potential in the rust bucket. He wanted to see what he could do with it, so he got to work.

With help from his dad and a self-taught crash-course, LoPresti got the truck up and running, but just barely. From there, he worked all hours to turn it into something that could make it down the street, and eventually, a functional everyday vehicle. “I drove it all through high school,” LoPresti remembers. “Learned how to drive in it. Learned how to do every sort of basic maintenance on an old car with it because it's 50, 55 years old. That truck taught me everything. It was the steppingstone.”

LoPresti was hooked. Not only did he love working on cars and fixing them up, but he was damn good at it. He had a knack for problem-solving and the determination to work through rounds of trial-and-error. After high school, he attended San Diego State and got his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. Once college was done and it was time to get a job, LoPresti wasn’t keen on an office-based engineering role. Instead, LoPresti wanted to see what he could do on his own, despite the uncertainty of that path.

“It all sounds bright and shiny until I'm sitting behind a computer and all I'm thinking about is this,” LoPresti says. “So, I figured, why would I not try to excel and use my creativity and my passion and my work ethic to build my own company and brand doing what I love? And hopefully, one day, to be able to get paid to work on my own cars?”

BRINGING THE CREATIVITY

While the work may seem purely mechanical, custom automotive work is also deeply creative for LoPresti. “This is home for me,” LoPresti explains. “This is where my artistic and creative abilities come out. I have the creative freedom to do what I'm good at.”

Each build LoPresti works on is a complete transformation. LoPresti sees himself as the artist, and each finished project brings his vision to life. “When something comes in here, it's usually broken or has no character, or there’s a lot of missing parts to it. It comes out a totally different piece. It has way more modifications done to it, it has our own little signature on it. It’s its own art form.”

THE TRUTH OF THE TRADE

With his years of experience, LoPresti makes it look easy, but the builds he attempts and executes in his shop are no joke. From welding, to lifting sheet metal, to long hours crawling under frames, shop life is rough. Not many people get to see the hours of backbreaking work that go into every project.

“People think it's easy. That it's a clock in, clock out kind of deal,” LoPresti says. “You never know what you're going to work on until you show up. You could have the perfect vision of how an ordinary day will go, and then you show up and people walk through the door and parts break and things fall on you. You're never going to have a normal workday.”

Keeping your hands and body safe in LoPresti’s shop is no walk in the park either. Day in and day out, the job is hard, demanding, and dangerous.

“You really never know what to expect. Things get super serious, super fast because you're working in an industry where you can kill yourself on tap,” LoPresti warns. “There are so many things in this shop that'll kill you, and you're working with things that will kill you every single hour, every day. Having the right protective equipment is extremely important for that.”

MAKING IT TO SEMA

A longtime, bucket list goal of LoPresti’s was to take a car to SEMA, the Specialty Equipment Market Association Show held every year in Las Vegas. This past year, LoPresti finally achieved his goal, a testament to years of hard work and effort.

When LoPresti presented his car at SEMA, he felt like he’d won the jackpot. It came right after LoPresti’s truck took a battering at the iconic Willow Springs Raceway, so he put in two weeks of all-nighters to get his truck ready for prime time. It paid off.

“I started going to SEMA in 2019 with a company pass. I've gone every year since and all I've ever wanted was to bring a car. This was my first year with my pride and joy that I had built my brand and business with. And it's the nicest it's ever looked. And it ran. It didn't get pushed in. It drove in, it drove out perfectly. That to me was like, ‘I did it.’ Nothing tops this.”

PASSING THE KNOWLEDGE ON

LoPresti’s love for old metal was passed down from his uncle and grandfather, both key figures in Southern California’s car culture scene. “They had a car club, and they started doing Friday night cruise-ins, and then it turned into Cruisin' Grand because it was on Grand Avenue. I'd been going there since before I could walk,” LoPresti says.

Their influence shaped LoPresti’s interest in old cars even before he got his hands on them. Now he’s passing that passion on to a younger generation, through his shop and through his YouTube channel, where he shows others how he approaches and executes every build.

“I was mostly self-taught. I learned by doing it, making mistakes, and asking questions. So, when I have somebody come up and ask questions, I try to give them a basic playbook of what to do.”

LoPresti is often touched by how many fans of his channel come to seek his advice, and he always steers them in the right direction. In every person who wants to learn, LoPresti sees a version of himself, and a slice of the legacy he’s leaving behind.

“I've already been blown away by people building things inspired by what I've created. To be able to inspire someone…If it’s one person, it’s one thing. One version of success. But I've seen 300 comments on a post about my truck and they're all talking about that wheel and tire set. That's success. Success is when you've made a dent in the industry you're focused on, whatever it is. I want to make a dent in the automotive industry.”

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