The title of this particular entry might seem hyperbolic to you, but if you’ve ever wanted to see exactly how the cookie crumbles in a high-quality automotive build, you need to see every gritty detail. StanceWorks is the YouTube channel for real ball knowers, because it doesn’t have any of the drama or fake deadlines of television projects of the past. Some builders will gloss over the engineering they do in order to get a car ready in one 30-minute sitting. Mike’s builds aren’t afraid to marinate in the minutiae, spending time discussing the intricacies of designing a pushrod suspension setup. Maybe that’s not your cup of tea, and that’s okay, but for the real sickos this is pure joy.
It took all of the restraint I could muster to refrain from mentioning Stanceworks until the fourteenth installment of this absurd online experiment to document the best build shows on YouTube. I’ve met Mike a few times and he’s a genuine enthusiast and based on his show a better engineer than pretty much every YouTube builder out there (though one could make an argument in favor of Superfast Matt). TV shows like “The Pitt” and movies like “Project Hail Mary” are often described as competency porn, basically media where all of the characters are incredibly good at what they do, and I think that’s what Mike brings to the equation.
That’s why we’re taking it upon ourselves to highlight some of our favorite underrated builders in a series we’re calling Wrenchers You Should Know. While this series typically eschews big-power high-dollar corporate-backed builds in favor of home-built DIYers, Mike is using his sponsor dollars in such creative and competent ways that I think he gets a pass. There’s no world in which any of this could be construed as slop.
The Camaro
Enthusiasts of a certain age will know the name Mike Burroughs from the old Petersen Publishing days, but if you’ve kept up with the world of YouTube car builds, you might also know his son Mike, Jr. as the face of StanceWorks. While Mike the younger’s automotive taste tends to skew more European in his builds, dear old dad had a notably American monster in his car ownership history. For Father’s Day this year Mike tracked down his namesake’s bonkers 220 mile-per-hour big block Camaro from back in the day. As excited as I am to see progress on the Ferraris, BMWs, and Audis in the StanceWorks shop, I am now most locked in to this incredible Camaro story.
I’ll admit, I’m not exactly well versed in engineering. I can’t CAD, and my brain doesn’t really think in three-dimensional space. My brand of working on cars is spinning wrenches and occasionally wiring in a new stereo or something. Some people just have that science brain, and I love that for them. But this Camaro project speaks my language, and that is the language of hot, nasty speed. No shade on the V12 Ferrari F40 GT1-ish thing Mike, Jr. is building, but this Camaro it now shares shop space with is instantly the coolest thing he’s ever done. I can’t wait for the next installment.
Mike found his dad’s old car, the world’s fastest street car in 1987, got it running again, and presented it to his father for the first time in decades. He even managed to get his father to come sit down in front of the camera to talk about the car through rose-colored glasses before pulling back the cover. I love it when a plan comes together.
The V12 F40
Mike’s main project car for the last year or so has been this incredible Ferrari F40 body. Mike won’t call it a real Ferrari, despite wearing real Ferrari race car bodywork, power from a real Ferrari V12, and even Ferrari suspension. It will have a custom one-off chassis, however, bringing all of those parts together, so technically this is a StanceWorks original. There’s just nobody else on YouTube doing it like this. One of the most iconic cars of all time built from scratch, and even improved upon, by a guy in his shop. It’s the kind of Southern California hot-rodding story that just doesn’t get told these days.
Every new installment of the F40 project gets my rapt attention, and I’m excited to see how it all comes together over the next three years or so. The car is little more than a mocked up chassis right now, but it’s maybe the most exciting chassis mock up I’ve ever seen. I’ll gladly while away half an hour watching Mike burn in some tubes, because I know I’m watching a smart guy at his pinnacle. I may never take any of his teachings out into the real world to build my own chassis, but I can at least convince myself I’m learning something new.
In the most recent installment, Mike unveiled the car’s new front and rear bodywork. While he was originally planning to use stock F40 road car clamshells, he got an opportunity to put real deal F40 GT1 race car aero on the car, and that’s just plain cooler than the original stuff. Allegedly this bodywork was only used for one race, making this truly unique build a real deal one-of-one.
The Honda-powered Ferrari
The current iteration of the StanceWorks brand began back in 2021 with the “I bought a Ferrari” video, and over the last five years that gorgeous yellow 1981 Ferrari 308 GTBi has been slowly and methodically turned into one of the most bonkers time attack race cars of all time. Working with an extremely high-strung Honda K-series engine with a big turbocharger stuck on it, and all the aero downforce and mechanical grip you could ever beg for, the car has completely transformed into a speed demon.
Mike calls this one the 244 GTK, and it’s been incredible to watch this car come into being. This is hardly the first StanceWorks project car, but it’s probably the one the channel has become best known for. When the project began Mike called the stock 308 “slow and fat” and he’s not wrong, but after half a decade of building it out, the car is much faster. Unfortunately it is also much more fragile, and the team keeps breaking stuff at the track. The last five percent of a race car’s development takes twice as long as the first 95, I fear, but I’m so happy to continue watching Mike and his cohorts work to make it stay in one piece.
My only complaint when it comes to this project, however, is that Mike didn’t keep the car in its original yellow. The livery has changed a couple of times, first white, now a matte black, and for a car as bold as this one is in concept, it should look a little more eye-catching than anything greyscale could ever accomplish. If that’s my lone complaint, however, it’s obviously a smashing build.
All of the rest of it
I’ve been following Mike’s builds since before his garage fire consumed the iteration of internet-famous Rusty Slammington was at the time. What started out as a pretty staid E28 5-series lowered on a dozen different sets of wheels. When a friend of Mike’s totaled the car he decided to have some fun with it, stripping all of the paint off the car and re-painting it in surface rust. If you weren’t on car forums almost two decades ago, you just won’t understand the hype that surrounded Mike’s efforts with Rusty. And that was before it got chopped, body dropped, 2JZ-swapped, and flared on gold-plated Ronal Turbo wheels. My god, that was a hot looking car.
These are just a few of my favorites, but Mike has also managed to build a handful of gorgeous BMWs, a couple totally wild hot rod pickup trucks, a few solid daily drivers, and he’s currently smack in the middle of a wild Audi Quattro rally build. If you haven’t already watched every video StanceWorks has put out, I highly recommend taking some time off of work and spending the next week or so catching up. You won’t regret it. Mike doesn’t half-ass anything, and that’s what makes him, and his builds, great.
If you have suggestions for some lesser known builders on social media, please feel free to drop them in the comments section as well. I’m always on the lookout for folks out there doing cool stuff. It doesn’t have to be just cars, either. While I’m well apprised of the car and motorcycles building scenes, I’d love to get deep into the nitty gritty of some more niche topics. Do you follow some cool folks building snowmobiles, jet skis, or DIY fighter jets or something? I want to know about it.
And yes, you’re welcome to do some self promotion in the comments as well. Let everyone know where they can follow your build and what you’re up to. If it’s unique or good, we’ll feature it on the blogs.
