Before social media.
Before online car builds existed.
Before building a car online was even a thing.
Project33 was documenting it all.
2026 Update:
When Project 33 began in 1999, the World Wide Web was only six years old. There was no YouTube, no streaming video, no social media - and your refrigerator couldn't send you a shopping list. I was building websites professionally when the Web was taking its first steps, and Project33 became an experiment in documenting a car being built entirely online, piece by piece, for anyone who wanted to follow along. It was widely received and came to be recognized for its place in automotive history.
Twenty-seven years later, I've kept the original Project 33 content and brought it forward for today's technology. The original photos were only 220 pixels wide - huge by 640x480 standards, but tiny by today's standards - and a hard-drive crash during the build took the original high-resolution files with it. Now, with the help of AI upscaling and modern web technology, those little images can finally be brought back to life and displayed the way I always wished they could be.
So this isn't just a new version of Project 33. It's the original story, preserved and rebuilt for a very different
Internet. And yes... I finally updated my website. I like to do that every 27 years.
Scooter 0927/2026
- 1999 Project33 launches on the Internet
- 22,000 Visitors in a single day at its peak
- 35+ Sponsors involved in the build
- 6 YEARS The car was documented being built, piece by piece
- 950+ Build articles documenting the project
- 4,500+ Construction photos
- 2004 Project33 debuts at SEMA (unfinished)
- 2005 Finished just hours before the Hot Rod & Restoration Show in Indianapolis!
- WORLDWIDE Featured in automotive magazines and on national television
- 1ST Street Rod (car) built entirely online, from the ground up. Visitors followed the build as it happened, voted on design decisions, and became part of the process. Groundbreaking.
The original Project33 website has been preserved just as it appeared in the early days of the Internet. 600-pixel screens, slow-loading photographs, and a website that felt like an adventure simply because nobody had done it before. It's small. It's retro. It's gloriously 1999.
BUILT ONLINE. BUILT TO LAST.
Project33 was six years of building, followed by two more summers of tweaking, learning and obsessing over the details. It was an incredible education in cars, craftsmanship, technology - and the people who make hot rodding what it is. To everyone who helped make Project33 possible: thank you. It was challenging, sometimes frustrating, occasionally head-scratching, but most of all... It was fun.
One more thing...
I retired in May of 2025, so I can work on fun (and some not so fun) projects full time - and I'm loving it! The car was sold in 2011 and currently resides in Florida, where it can be enjoyed year-around. I still play with cars but no ground up builds - I'm getting too old, or at least my body is :) If you were a regular visitor back in the day, drop me an email. Thanks for stopping back!