Want to Daily Drive Your Custom Mopar? Take This Influencer's Advice

Let us paint the scene for you. You're cruising down a busy highway in your awesome custom car you no doubt spent thousands on to make unique and all your own. You have obnoxiously loud, pounding dubstep drowning out the noise of the catalytic converter delete you've only recently started to regret. When suddenly, the traffic on the highway starts to bottleneck.

Being the good noodle of a driver you are, you're well prepared and begin braking early. But that doesn't mean the Harley Davidson driver behind you will do the same thing. This dear friends, is the unfortunate situation that befell John and his beloved Luna. After this whole debacle happened to this good friend of ours here at autoevolution, it got our noggins joggin' about some of the things people might not consider when daily driving a custom car they really should be. So, we asked the man himself about all the details.

But first, a little refresher for people not familiar with Luna. It's easy to get caught up modifying the engine when it comes to big, burley muscle cars. But with tasteful mods like an SRT 3.09 rear-diff and BC Racing coilover suspension with Powerstop brake pads and rotors, it's clear that Luna isn't a point-and-shoot drag strip princess. Of course, Luna's got a few engine tweaks like an Injen cold air intake, a Solo Performace SRT Extreme catback with three-inch catless mid-pipes, and a custom tune from Hemifever Tuning in North Carolina to go along with the handling upgrades.

But it's the sheer fact that Luna is tuned "just enough" as opposed to absolutely balls-to-the-wall that's ironically what we appreciate the most about this custom build. It goes to prove you don't need a trust fund account and only a normal full-time job to get into the world of custom tuning. Of course, normal people driving back and forth from normal nine-to-five jobs have to deal with normal, everyday careless drivers in the Civics, Corollas, and, well, the occasional Harley Davidson up its trumpet.

"From the video, it looks like he [the Harley rider] shoulder checks to the right to move into the middle lane right as the traffic in front of me brakes. So by the time he looked back, there was no way he was stopping in time," John said of the accident that fateful day. "The frame was fine, but almost the whole ass end was replaced. The trunk, wing, left taillight, center taillight, bumper, diffuser, and exhaust tips were all replaced. Plus, the 1/4 panel on the driver's side got crunched and shifted forward a millimeter or two as well."

In some cars, this kind of damage would surely total a vehicle. But thankfully, John's insurance relented and allowed Luna to be repaired at Thriftway Auto Collision in Lindenhurst, New York. There, Luna began a months-long restoration process that undid all the damage to the rear-quarter panel, trunk, rear wing, and bumper. While the car sat waiting to be repaired, we took some time to talk with John to see if he had any advice for people striving to daily drive their custom cars.

For one thing, Long Island, and in fact, the entire New York metroplex, is possibly one of the most inhospitable places for custom cars anywhere in the world. At least, according to John, that's something people ought to consider. "I definitely think you gotta consider where you live before you buy a nice car/build a nice car. If you live in an area where there's a lot of car thefts or a lot of accidents, you gotta expect that your daily is gonna get beat up and possibly stolen, especially if your street parking it or parking in an open driveway," John said of custom car ownership in his area.

"A coworker of mine moved from [town redacted] to somewhere in Queens a few months ago, and his insurance went up to like $300 a month just because Queens is a high claim zone for most auto insurance companies. As for thefts, people especially gotta watch their Mopars. These Challengers and Chargers are ridiculously easy to steal, and the Durangos/Trackhawks/TRXs aren't much harder. I personally know close to a dozen people that have had their Mopars stolen in the past two years."

From that perspective, it's almost by the grace of the Lord almighty that Luna hasn't been the victim of a break-in or a theft attempt yet. But of course, Mopar lovers in places like New York, Atlanta, Miami, or Los Angeles so often get the petrolhead equivalent of tunnel vision without considering all the soft factors of everyday driving that still affect custom car drivers as much as the average Prius owner. But if there was one single piece of advice that John could give among all else in regards to daily driving custom cars, it's as follows.

"Don't go catless! Being this loud is fun for a little, but on a daily, it's just obnoxious. I'll be throwing mufflers on this in the next year or two. Oh, and I highly recommend buying a dashcam. If you have footage from an accident that proves you're not at fault, your insurance might even go down a little bit." Soon after this chat, and around $12,000 in insurance-covered repairs later, Luna left the body shop looking even better than before. Complete with a new front splitter, side skirts, touch-ups on the painted wheels, and a replica Hellcat painted wing to make up for the broken Abaza Carbon rear diffuser being broken.

So then, cheers to John and Luna for another 50 to 100 thousand miles of travel and memories still to be had. Besides, it's not like we expect people not to build custom rides just because insurance premiums and thefts in their area are high. But we at least hope you'll consider all the factors involved after reading this. It could save you a heck of a lot of time, money, and fleeting moments of sanity down the line. Check out some more custom car profiles and so much more right here on autoevolution if you want to see more.