10 Car Jobs You Never Knew Existed | Big Business | Insider Business

from the engineers who build million

dollar crash test dummies

to technicians who wreck cars for the

big screen

to the designers behind fancy cars that

never see the road here's how 10 people

have turned their passion for cars into

unique jobs

some people destroy cars just for

entertainment

at gemfx special effects technicians

like Cody Canal destroy cars for the big

screen they weaken cars pillars and

Frames to guarantee their destruction in

movie stunts

in real life cars don't always get

destroyed in the most cinematic ways

[Applause]

even when hit repeatedly a car roof

won't always cave in on itself like

we're used to seeing in movies that's

where scoring comes in stripping away

the protective sheet metal in a car and

gutting it of its support we're going to

start by cutting this pillar from here

to here so basically weaken the

structure

so now that we've finished our cut we're

going to take a pry bar and simply

remove this small chunk

of the front a-pillar

each cut determines where and how the

car will fold we're going to go through

and do some weakening cuts to help this

fold a little bit easier under a little

less weight they target the a b and c

pillars of the car now when you're doing

this you have to ensure not to cut the

outside of the vehicle because then it'd

be visible and you could tell

something's up with it so we like to try

and hide all of our stuff then they put

the whole thing back together so we're

going to start out by reconnecting our

wire harness

then we'll take our interior cover put

it back on replace our weather stripping

and now we're back to the stock interior

it looks like a normal car from the

inside but it will crush it took four

hours to score the car also it could be

destroyed in seconds by a 3 000 pound

weight and the areas they scored were

the ones that folded cleanly

the team at gem doesn't go all the way

with the scoring process for every job

take this bus crash in shangji this shot

was filmed on location in San Francisco

and the parked cars getting run over are

real gem prepped them for Destruction

the cars were supposed to get crushed in

the bus's path but they also needed to

be strong enough to slow down the bus so

gem only scored the upper portion of the

vehicles to collapse on impact keeping

the lower portions strong when the bus

would carry over the tops of the

vehicles if it went down too far scene

wouldn't look right so all we wanted is

just so much compression and actually

provide a flat platform for the camera

to track down the hill with they can

also just focus on a few major points of

weakening like these hinges on car doors

swapping up the steel hinges for

Breakaway ones makes the doors

incredibly easy to rip off they're made

out of a weaker compound which makes

them sheer easier so that way it'll snap

the door off nice and easy then they cut

these wires to make sure the door has

nothing to hang on to after the bolts

blow out these weaker materials allow

for big results

the U.S Auto industry spends about 18

billion dollars per year on research and

development a good portion of that goes

toward improving card design designers

spend countless hours making cars safer

more fuel efficient and aesthetically

pleasing and much of their time is spent

on vehicles that will never see the road

concept cars a glimpse into the future

you may find them synonymous with

outrageous designs exaggerated interiors

and features that have never been seen

in a production car like this floating

key

they're typically revealed at Auto shows

where enthusiasts and the media ooh and

ah at the future of Mobility it's no

secret that these one-off designs can be

expensive to build sometimes with a

seven figure price tag with so much

invested in these cars why does it seem

like we rarely see these Concepts make

it to production and why does it seem

like the coolest elements are Stripped

Away when they do we spoke with the

design Department of some of the top

automakers to find out why automakers

spend Millions on concept cars they

don't plan on making

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first of all people don't realize that

you know concept cars yes we show them

at Auto shows typically and they're

there for the media to enjoy but long

after the media is gone there the auto

shows around for a couple weeks and and

the public comes around and they may not

know much about the brand sometimes they

go whoa and they come across this

concept car that makes an unmistakable

statement about where the brand wants to

go with technology that's Ralph giel

he's worked on the design of the 2005

Chrysler 300 2014 SRT Viper and many

more so Vehicles like the prowler the

Jeep rescue and the Challenger and even

the Viper all of those were concept cars

at one time and what happened there is

is again the public reacted to them in a

visceral way in a way that says you have

to build that car sometimes when people

will mail us checks deposits you know to

see this car through and very passionate

letters none of that would have happened

the concept not been there so when we

see that we we think we might have

struck something here concept cars can

also be used to Hype up a model that is

actually plan and for production if we

have a new launch of a new vertliner in

in our portfolio we would tease that

with a specific type of concept that

would be a slight exaggeration of the

production car so it would be slightly

more idealized and of course that's to

generate interest but also awareness

that this product is coming to Market

you know a year or two later like the

Lincoln Navigator concept it boasted

Gold Wing doors and steps that deployed

when the door lifted open almost

inviting the passengers in these

exaggerated features didn't make it to

the 2018 production car which had

standard doors and a single retracting

step but the concept did capture

attention and brought excitement for the

production version of the car those

really extreme ones are the hardest but

they would still have an influence on

the market ahead you know so you might

not have seen them in the in the first

couple of years after you first

experienced them but maybe the longer

run you know 10 years down the low line

maybe they had a big influence on the

trend of automotive design like BMWs

Vision efficient Dynamics concept car in

2009 it was designed to be a high

Performance Hybrid balancing speed and

fuel efficiency five years later it

became the BMW i8 the design stayed

intact but some of the flashy features

like the see-through doors and moving

Grille didn't make it to production the

I8 was a success for BMW and now we're

seeing performance hybrids from almost

every brand

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the government's national highway

traffic safety administration spends as

much as 10 million dollars a year on

cars for crash testing the real money

though is in the crash test dummies

humanetics the world's largest

manufacturer of Crash Test Dummies

Engineers models that sell for as much

as one million dollars each

in the past decade the company has

tripled in size to over 800 employees

worldwide

one of their Engineers Blake emod

explains what makes their dummies so

valuable it may look like a simple

mannequin but inside the dummy is a lot

of engineering and a lot of time and a

lot of work a complex combination of

metals rubber foam vinyl and Plastics

make up each dummy and then inside comes

an intricate network of sensors and

electronics which beat thousands of bits

of data back to car builders about the

kinds of force experienced in a crash

here a worker pours the vinyl mixture

into a face mold before putting it into

an oven

and the finished product has got to be

perfect each dummy needs to survive

countless impacts while continuing to

relay reliable data

since the 1960s car safety improvements

designed in part from data provided by

Crash Test Dummies have saved an

estimated 600 000 lives in the U.S

so it has to be reliable not only for

one or two crashes but for tens of

thousands of crashes over a lifespan

that could be 30 plus years

after molding each one is trimmed and

finished by hand

underneath the skin a skeleton provides

strength and durability

but unlike human bones these ones don't

break so easily most of the bone

structures are made out of steel and it

has to be machined we used numerically

controlled Machining to make sure

they're precisely manufactured

95th pelvis we have a print where we

have to meet all the tight tolerances

he's Machining out the hip sockets where

the femurs are going to go

skulls ribs and pelvises are all modeled

after their human counterparts older

models are crude compared to the latest

high-tech generation this Thor dummy

even has a pelvis with movable parts

hours scrubbing and power washing dry

ice cleaners can remove dirt and debris

from cars in minutes at dry's Nation

owner Scott Ailes explains how the

technology works and how it cuts through

oil soot and grime so easily

when we're starting the project we're

always looking for the dirtiest area

first we like to get the hard stuff out

of the way so that we get to those

surfaces or those Coatings that we're

trying to remove that are easy then it

makes everything go smoother because

you're not double cleaning so you'll

notice as I'm cleaning that the gun is

never static it's always moving it's

always constantly moving and the reason

for that is we have the risk of a

concentrated 109 negative degrees on a

particular substrate or part of the car

that you could damage in one spot

so I'd like to take a minute and explain

how this actually worked there's really

three things that are occurring you've

got kinetic energy which is driven by

the PSI of the air system you've got

cold temperature 109 degree negative

that causes things to shrink so they

lose adhesion and then you've got the

actual thermal expansion of a solid

chemical going to a gas so that's 800

times its original solid size those

three things work very well together to

remove this dirt in a way that you've

probably never seen before

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there's a lot of a technique opportunity

here right because in a sense this is

this is a bit of a an artist's effort at

an industrial job if you will I've found

it to be helpful for me to function in a

circular pattern so that I never have

any hard lines the circular pattern

gives me the control that I feel

comfortable with

there's really nothing that's more fun

in this process than doing bare aluminum

you really can't hurt

bare aluminum and so in that case you

can crank it up it's more efficient you

feel better about it and and it's it's

very satisfying to the eye

but dry ice cleaning can't get inside

filthy engines that's where extrude

honing comes in at extrude home AFL Gary

Kubo and his team use silicon putty to

remove build up inside Performance

Engine Parts they claim this improves

airflow to the engine by up to 25

percent and improves horsepower the

putty is made out of a proprietary

silicone

polymer and it contains

a specialized silicon carbide particles

and as the process of flowing goes

through a part it it's a cloning effect

so a silicone polymer the putty

carries an abrasive material the

silicone carbide particles let's make

this simple and see how the process

works on an intake manifold the intake

manifold is responsible for evenly

Distributing the air into each cylinder

of an engine as the particles are pushed

through the intake manifold via

hydraulic pressure they begin sanding or

grinding away at buildup and smoothing

imperfections this is what increases

airflow and turns your car into a

certified Speed Demon

but not every time what will the results

will vary depending on the part uh if

you're starting from scratch say like a

rough

unshaped ported head I mean the the

results improvements could be drastic so

when we talk about airflow we have to

talk about balance

um the exhaust has to be considered as

well

um it's the engine in in its basic form

is an air pump so if we have a increased

volume of air coming in we have to be

able to reject the spent gases out so if

we have a very large intake but a

smaller exhaust the diameter for

instance it can actually choke the

engine so if you noticed your car losing

power over time you may not need that

new fancy turbo to reclaim your precious

speed

some classic cars require more than a

simple deep clean

that's a job for restoration Specialists

like Trevor Malloy he uses chemical

dipping to strip away years of rust and

old paint

the customer starts off by completely

disassembling the vehicle

then we will take it and we will dip it

in our Auckland paint stripper and

they'll remain in the tank for about a

day who take it out every other day and

then we'll pressure wash it until all

the paint is removed because there can

be different layers of paint you got

your paint then you got your primer you

got your putty undercoating once all

that's removed then it'll move to the

Acid Bath and the Acid Bath actually

takes a little less time our Acid Bath

is for removing rust specifically that's

all it does and we'll pull it out every

other day also and it will be

neutralized after it's pulled out into

our alkaline bath that way there's no

further rusting from the acid because

the acid does attack the metal slightly

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then it'll be pressure washed until all

of the rust is removed

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once all the rust is removed our third

step in our third chemical is our

water-based rust inhibitor and we dip it

in a water-based rust inhibitor to stop

further rusting until you're ready to

paint

I think chemical dipping is the most

thorough way to remove all paint and

rust from a car body it gets to places

that physical Medias can't like

sandblasting or Media Blasting and one

other plus is it doesn't damage or warp

the metal at all are chemical dipping

gets in everything since it's submerged

everything is taken out so you're left

with completely bare metal you don't

have to worry about later down the road

that it's going to start rusting from

the inside out

since our chemicals are environmentally

friendly

uh it takes four to five weeks uh

minimum depending on certain variables

uh depending on the age of the paint uh

older paints tend to be taken off easier

since paint technology has improved over

the years

um Bondo the amount of Bondo it has or

putty the amount of undercoating and the

amount of rust it has so there's

variables sometimes it can take two

weeks but usually we say four to five

the only problem that we come in contact

with is our alkaline paint stripper

actually eats soft Metals so if there's

aluminum magnesium or a pot metal on the

car uh it'll react and it'll dissolve it

so we'll dip the car and we'll look for

any reaction if there's a reaction we'll

pull it out we'll go over the car with

magnets to find specific Parts you'll

usually be able to see the part that's

reacting and it's a slow reaction so

it's not like you put it in there and

it's ruined it would take a few days but

we find that we remove it and solve the

problem that way

[Music]

but it's not just classic cars that need

restoration just ask Rich Benoit or as

he's known on YouTube Rich rebuilds

Tesla claims that only they can fix

their cars but Rich has made a career

out of proving them wrong once you build

and repair a Tesla you kind of fix it

and you go from there there's no real

upgrades for it so many things are

electronically controlled it doesn't

make it as fun for the hot rodders out

there so I said to myself you know what

how do we mix the two things how do we

have you know a really good looking car

and combining it with a tunability of a

of a classic V8 engine so we decided

just to combine the two

a lot of people think that oh you took a

brand new Tesla and Twitter parties like

no no it wasn't a flood and Tesla won't

sell you batteries and motors to repair

it so I said you know what if Tesla

won't then uh General Motors will so

there's a Camaro SS that was completely

destroyed and the engine was available

and uh decided to put it in the Tesla

for me it's one of those things where it

has to do with recycling so they were

both just like wrecked cars sitting in

the field and I said why have them both

just sitting there why not combine the

two and make something that actually

runs and functions so I spent the first

few months actually stripping it down

taking out all the interior components

pressure washing everything and just

getting all of like the stench and like

the sewage out of the car so I took both

Motors out both Motors were toast

water

wow man there's tons of water in there

oh

the battery pack was pretty much toast

because underwater for so long

you know anything sort of aluminum was

shipped out of the car

so I think a lot of measuring and prep

was the hardest part making sure the

engine sits straight and true in the car

because don't forget not only do you

have to have make sure the engine sits

well in the car but there's also a

transmission that adds another few feet

and there's also a really long drive

shaft that spins thousands upon

thousands of RPM that are really sitting

right between your legs that has to be

straight as well like a lot of different

angles and things have to be straight in

order for the car to even roll down the

road believe it or not it almost makes

sense that the V8 fits so well once you

take out the front motor there's so much

room in there and the LS3 is actually so

narrow it actually fit in there pretty

well so what we noticed was that when we

brought the car to SEMA we had the hood

open everyone would just walk by it

because the install was so clean it was

only until they saw the Tesla logo that

everyone just kind of rubber neck

stopped and went towards the car

the exhaust fabrication process was

interesting because battery pack for a

Tesla Model S weighs about I would say

between 11 and 1200 pounds so because

the old battery was you know about four

inches thick and so heavy and it tucked

in so well underneath the car once he

removed it and we made the exhaust

system we decided to go with oval tubing

so when you go with oval tubing kind of

like NASCARs use you actually save a lot

of space going oval versus completely

circular so if you notice we have a side

exit exhaust system most cars have a

rear exit exhaust where it actually

comes right onto the rear bumper we

couldn't do that because the independent

rear suspension was so large the exhaust

actually couldn't go past it so we just

terminated the exhaust system right to

the sides right before the the rear

wheels

foreign

challenges was the fabrication of the

transmission tunnel you know in the

tassel it's one of the few cars that are

made it has a completely flat floor you

know most cars nowadays that are rear

wheel drive there's a tunnel going from

the front all the way to the back this

one didn't have that so we had to make

our own and it was it was definitely

challenging uh so we have a great

fabricator Joshua that actually was able

to cut the car in half down the middle

and actually build a transmission tunnel

one of the other difficult issues that

we want to do with this car was the

wiring so we can completely strip the

car down to the bare frame it was just

literally just a shell and we had to

rewire the entire car all over again and

we actually removed about 50 to 60

percent of the car's entire wiring

harness but the battery pack was not

there that's one set of Winery High

Voltage cables uh there was a wiring to

the rear Motors the front Motors those

are both gone you know we saved a

significant amount of weight going from

the older Olympic empowered battery pack

to the uh to the internal combustion

engine

the car still has the touchscreen uh it

still has the instrument cluster and all

the functions of work the navigation

works the Bluetooth works so when you

sit in the car you could you know push

buttons and play with different

functions of the vehicle and it does

work

I am very satisfied with how it runs

yeah we still need to do some fine

tuning to it but at the end of the day

when you sit and you drive it you I you

almost forget that it's a Tesla like

you're just thinking that you're driving

like a regular you know powerful V8

engine car and it's it's it's really

weird because if you don't think about

it you're like okay this is pretty cool

it has a manual I'm doing my thing but

you really have to take a step back and

say to yourself this car never had any

of this

spinning is a barely legal Motorsport

that involves performing stunts outside

the vehicle the South African sport is

growing fast in 2022 Red Bull hosted its

third official live spinning competition

which drew a record-breaking 4 000

spectators

one of the Sport's biggest stars Stacy

Lee May explains the risks involved

at first glance it might look like

drifting that's Until you realize the

driver's body is hanging out of the

window and their head is inches from the

pavement my dad actually came up with

the idea we were driving home one day

and he decided that it would be cool to

hang upside down after the moving car

and I haven't seen anybody do it before

that 25 year old Stacy Lemay describing

her iconic spinning stunt the suicide

slide the South African law student is a

veteran of the sport coining other moves

like her Superwoman where she hangs

horizontally out of the window of the

car as it spins at full speed its daring

Moves Like These that quickly made her

so popular and gained her the nickname

queen of smoke

these are only a few of the

death-defying stunts you'll see at a

spinning show

[Music]

[Applause]

drivers and their co-pilots either

perform for a panel of Judges or to

entertain a crowd but no matter the type

of show the stunts always require hours

of practice creativity and most of all

faith

I always pray before I go in I always

pray and when I'm about to do a stunt I

never second guess myself I always just

jump out and do it but while most

professional Motorsport athletes get

suited up in flame retardant suits and

helmets Pro Spinners like Stacy prefer

the comfort of just the t-shirt and ball

cap it would be kind of difficult to do

the suicide slide with a helmet on

even their cars lack the safety

professional Drifters get with roll

cages harnesses and modern suspension

systems

the majority of spinners stick to using

a modified BMW E30 325is

released by BMW South Africa in 1990 the

old performance car nicknamed gusheshe

has a rich history in the country and

has grown to be synonymous with spinning

we use it mainly because it's a smaller

car that pedals are closer together so

it's the closest to a race car because

it's easy to move your feet and it's

easy to get into small Corners this is a

standard 2.7 motor original Moto of this

car some of the guys have souped up

engines but I'm staying true to math and

through to the gushes you know foot

really sets spinning apart is that it's

been regulated for barely a decade

started in the 1980s by South African

gangsters as a way to show off their

stolen rides for years it remained an

underground hobby it wasn't until 2014

that it was formally recognized as a

motorsport by Motorsport South Africa

Bates continue about the safety

regulations required for formal events

with Motorsport South Africa settling

for now on ensuring the safety of crowd

members with mandatory barriers

clearly it could be a while before

spinning goes mainstream some

Motorsports Stars don't even drive the

car rally car racing features co-drivers

who sit shotgun and read directions to

their drivers for co-drivers competing

at the highest level like Nicholas

gilsol and Krista skukas one wrong

direction can send them flying off the

track

clocked in and flat right over Quest

slowing for line

lines man talking non-stop is what's

known as a rally team's co-driver he

never touches the wheel never touches a

pedal but he's just as important as the

driver and all those words he's saying

their directions and one slip of the

tongue and disaster could await

[Music]

rallying is hands down one of the most

dangerous Motorsports around drivers

race down narrow public roads covered in

everything from dirt and gravel to snow

and ice at speeds of up to 100 miles per

hour instead of drivers racing all at

once they go one by one around sharp

blind corners and fly hundreds of feet

off of sudden jumps just like airplane

pilots have their co-pilots rally

drivers have a co-driver sitting right

next to them during each race the

co-driver's main job is to read out loud

a series of pre-written directions

called Pace notes that the driver uses

to navigate each stage it's these notes

that allow the driver to continue at

full speed without hesitating at the

course's most dangerous sections in

order to get the best possible time

one of the co-driver's most important

job starts days before the race has even

begun during an activity known as recce

during recce is um when the driver and

co-driver will take a car out and that

is when they go onto the stage roads and

write the notes that they will be using

when they're racing so this is done at

low speeds 35 miles an hour is usually

tops the mental strain that it takes to

100 just focus on the road in front of

you for sometimes 45 minutes to an hour

of just paying attention to every

deviation in the road and not missing

anything but while recce may seem time

consuming and mind-numbing mistakes made

or obstacles missed during it can lead

to some of the biggest disasters

Nicholas gilsul co-driver to one of the

world's best rally drivers tierry

Newville explain just how important reki

is to A team's success and safety we had

last year a big accident with cherry but

it was not due to misunderstanding it

was due to the fact that during the

hickey we did it in the fog and the

visibility was really bad we were

driving quite slow even slower than

usually and we underestimate the angle

of a turn a newly commissioned

Rolls-Royce can easily cost half a

million dollars a big chunk of that

price tag is in its special paint one of

the automaker's trademarks is the Sleek

Pinstripes painted down the side Mark

Court has been doing this for almost 20

years

remarkably the detailed paintwork on

Rolls-Royce cars is done by hand by just

one person my name is Mark Court and I

am the coach liner for roll four smoker

cuffs a coach liner means that I am able

to put this pinstripe onto the side of

the car the uniqueness is the fact that

I do it completely freehand and I'm the

only one within Rolls-Royce that can do

this that's like worldwide within the

Rolls-Royce BMW group so the brushes I

use is made of squirrel hair we found

that most brushes nowadays are man-made

and which tends to leave brush marks

within these lines

this is a natural hair this natural hair

tends to leave no marks at all so we

work to one standard which is the

highest then so we use one that leaves

no brush marks at all

and if customers without a Coach Line

decide to add one to their car Mark is

on hand to travel worldwide with his

paintbrush as normal with Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce never comes back to us we go

to it so if it's in Dubai

so I'd be that's where I have to go

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foreign

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