The parts are laid out and rearranged as senior Justin Cooper hauls an engine into a beat up vehicle. Rear and front bumpers are carefully positioned together, and as pieces are meticulously assembled into a car, he picks out a shiny new color to splatter onto his creation. When the car is finally finished, Cooper steps back to admire his work as the engine roars to life for the first time in several years.

When Cooper was younger, his father would bring home old cars. Cooper was fascinated by his father’s strange hobby and began to work alongside him. Since then, he has taken up car restoration as a hobby of his own.

“[Car renovation] really links my father and I together,” said Cooper.

Cooper has renovated one car from scratch and has partly rebuilt many other cars. His first car, a 1968 Pontiac Firebird, is what Cooper describes as his “baby”. He enjoys hearing the sound of the engine as it revs with every stomp on the pedal.

“No words could describe how I felt,” said Cooper. “It was just a pure bliss seeing everything I worked for come together.”

Before Cooper entered the field, he expanded his knowledge about cars by taking auto shop classes at CHS. When he was old enough to drive, he immediately searched for a car and began renovating it. Despite the satisfaction Cooper receives from reconstructing cars, he also faces many setbacks throughout the auto shop process, the most difficult of which is finding the right parts. Sometimes Cooper spends several hours on Craigslist searching for the most exotic parts and scavenging for the smallest pieces at junkyards.

“It takes a lot of time to locate the parts for a reasonable price,” said Cooper.

Cooper plans on pursuing a career in photography, although he loves both car restoration and photography equally. However, Cooper combines both of his passions by taking pictures of his cars, and he will treasure those photographs in the future.