My dad was a backyard mechanic, working out of our garage at home practically all of my life. He wanted to have his own shop but life just got in the way. I've lived and breathed brake cleaner, gasoline and motor oil since I was old enough to even understand what a wrench was. I grew up working alongside him for years and I know that I want to have my own shop one day and more than anything, beyond just fixing cars, I know that I want to leave them far better than when I can first get my hands on them. I'm applying for this scholarship in particular so I can better afford the education I need to have, the kind that'll make people trust me with these multi-thousand dollar purchases that they make. I understand that in many cases, mechanics have a bad reputation of overcharging and ripping off their customers, even if they actually don't. But my father was always much more well received; honest and fair pricing, direct and patient customer interactions and a fairness that I have seen genuinely surprise some of his customers. Even just working at an oil change station, I myself try to maintain that same behaviour and I too have left people surprised by it. That I don't upsell or tell them the wrong kinds of information to get more out of them. I know if I had the opportunity to eventually do so, I would want to own a good, well known and reputable shop that people all across even the country could trust the work of. And that would be if it were my own or anyone who would work alongside me one of these days. Whether or not I get this scholarship, I myself have been working towards saving to going to a trade school anyway. Whether I have to struggle a bit or even a lot, I will make sure I get it done and that I will accomplish everything I stated here in this essay and more. If I didn't, I'd be all talk and that just wouldn't be fun to see at all, whether for myself or from the outside looking in. What I do know is that this scholarship would at least make things a bit easier on myself in the future and even the smallest help would go a very, very long way.

I personally hope to eventually open my own shop one day. It was a dream of my father's and it is a vision that I myself hold dear. Specifically, I want to specialise in aftermarket performance modifications for enthusiasts of all walks of life. I simply have a passion for cars that sound good, look good and go fast. But not only do I want them to go fast, I want to make them go fast as best as they can and maximise all points of performance for them. Starting with the first Cars movie and eventually Transformers; Dark of the Moon, my passion for cars would have come to be with or without the influence of my father. Thankfully though, I did have his love for cars too. We would attend shows when I was as young as five, the same age I started helping him work on whatever car jobs he had to take care of that weekend. Because of this, working with him for so long, I already have sixteen years of experience working under him. And more than that, I loved installing modifications far more than simply repairing the cars. This love of modifications and performance is still strong. If I can land a place in a big company, I hope to eventually work in their performance divisions, contributing every effort I can manage. Cadillac's V, Mercedes' AMG, Genesis' Magma and so on and so forth. So many companies, cars, and options that so clearly want to keep the passion of performance alive, I want to contribute to it. But if I am even more fortunate, in whatever city I land in, I want to open a shop doing everything from the simplest of mods and tunes to the greatest projects that rival big names like the US's Hennessy or Germany's Brabus. Oddly enough, even if my hopes are to eventually rival them, Hennessy is who I wish to learn from. Hennessy's tuner school has accepted me and is waiting to see me in their class and on their test track come January 2027. Having their name and reputation attached to mine alone will cement me in, if not at least open the door to, the world of automotive performance, modifications and tuning. If I win this scholarship, paying for their school is exactly what I intend to do to continue my work on a greater scale.

It will help me afford the education I need firstly. Cost is always the biggest barrier to just about any specialised technical field, and working on vehicles is a field that I want to enter despite the barrier of entry. More specifically, I wish to build and design performance vehicle vehicles—I like the idea of making things go fast. But not simply going fast, I want to see things perform to their absolute best. The most efficient motors, the most aerodynamic vehicles, the most aesthetically pleasing vehicles, I want to build all of them. There is a school in Texas called the Tuner School, hosted by Hennessy Performance, some of the most famous tuners in the world. I want to go there and take their program and become a tuner myself, and I want to build performance vehicle. With the proliferation of EVs and mass electrification of many parts of the world, performance EVs are a niche waiting to be filled. The sports cars and the supercars of tomorrow are waiting to be built and I want to be one of the people who builds them. The scholarship can help me be one of the people who get the chance to design these vehicles, such as the Audi e-tron GT.  I want to find ways to make these quick vehicles even quicker, these fast vehicles even faster. Ways to maximise battery efficiency or motor performance are also keeping them competitive with their ICE counterparts.  The same philosophy extends to hybrid vehicles, especially the way they are treated in modern sports and supercars. Companies will throw a battery pack in a motor in a car that only gives it an extra 30 miles of range, not realising that they are missing out on so much performance just from the electric drive train alone. Whether it’s in hybrid vehicles or fully electric vehicles, I want to fill this gap and being able to afford to go to a school dedicated to building performance vehicles will help me do just that. And once this niche is more developed, the technology can trickle down to even the most simple of commuter cars, and everyone with an electric vehicle can have more efficient batteries, more powerful motors, and better drivability. Just like with traditional cars and how the technology in the highest performance vehicles trickles down to the lower end vehicles, the same can be said of electric vehicles. That’s a gap I wish to feel and that’s a gap that this scholarship can help fill.