Two students who own classic cars seek to bring together students who appreciate automotive ingenuity and save people money in the process. Max Manzare (senior) said that one of the reasons he and Malachi Curtis (senior) founded the Occidental Car Club was to assist fellow students with car maintenance.
“We noticed a trend of our friends getting ripped off by mechanics, and we wanted to give people practical advice for their cars,” Manzare said.
According to Curtis, he had planned to teach a car maintenance class in Fall 2023 through STOXY, a club where students can teach personal topics of interest, but liability issues prevented the class from taking place. Curtis said he hopes the club will not only help foster a community of car enthusiasts at Occidental, but also assist people who don’t have the resources for repairs.
According to Curtis, his interest in car maintenance arose out of a general attention toward his personal finances.
“When I got my first car, I got my first oil change. It was 70 [dollars],” Curtis said. “I’d been able to fix a lot of things besides cars, and slowly started watching YouTube videos and fixing minor things. In the long run, it’s definitely saved me a lot of money.”
According to Curtis, the club offers him an avenue to share his knowledge of car maintenance in a more personal manner, helping students with battery replacements and other repairs. Manzare said that he and Curtis recently repaired the headlights on a car owned by Jay Charness (sophomore).
“We thought the repair was going to be as simple as replacing [their] bulbs,” Manzare said. “It turns out that [Charness] wanted our help to replace the entire light system on both sides.”
Charness said that they intended to replace the car’s headlight system at home over winter break, and they had already bought the replacement system, but that a mechanic could not schedule the replacement.
“I was going to look around LA for mechanics, but they’re all so expensive,” Charness said.
On a friend’s reccommendation, Charness said they messagedCurtis and Manzare on Instagram. According to Curtis, he had experience replacing the headlight system on a different car that he owns.
“They had to take off the bumpers and the side panels of the car to get into a bolt at the bottom,” Charness said. “It wasn’t too bad, but it was nice to have someone with actual tools and experience do it for me.”
Manzare said he became interested in cars when he was young, following his initial interest in trains.
“I used to go to the local car show by my grandma’s house,” Manzare said. “Once I got my first car, it became a matter of necessity to learn more about cars.”
According to Curtis, he had little interest in cars for a long time, having grown up outside the United States.
“They never really served a purpose for me — sure, people drove me around and got me places, but that was the end of it,” Curtis said. “When I had my own car, I needed to take care of it and make sure I didn’t ruin it or break it.”
According to Curtis, he often listed his cars on Facebook Marketplace while owning them, and he said he sold his first car shortly after receiving it.
“I shuffled through cars, and I’m always on Facebook Marketplace looking for cars for sale,” Curtis said. “I bought cars that were really beat up in order to fix them.”
Curtis said he also found his current car, a 2001 Mazda Miata, on Facebook Marketplace.
“It’s the car I’ve had the longest, closing in on two and a half years, which isn’t that long, but for me, it was more like three to six months per car before that,” Curtis said.
According to Manzare, he got his current car, a 1965 Ford Mustang, after finding it on the website Bring a Trailer.
“I went to the used car lot, found it and it wasn’t running,” Manzare said. “I had to put it on a flatbed, unload it at my grandma’s house and get it running again.”
According to Curtis, he and Manzare went to a car meet that held a wide variety of cars from different makes and models,accompanied by other student car enthusiasts.
“It’s a pretty friendly, safe environment where you can hang out and see cool cars and learn a little bit more,” Curtis said.
According to Curtis, while cars are all different, many of the same theories about their maintenance apply and he said his past experience with car maintenance carried over to recent repairs.
“It’s just like bigger Legos, really,” Manzare said. “You just have to go piece by piece.”
Contact Avinash Iyer at iyera@oxy.edu
