Dave Kindig: Custom Car Designer, Kindig-It Design Founder and Bio

Dave Kindig, aged 55, is an American custom car designer, fabricator, entrepreneur, and television personality best known as the founder of Kindig-It Design and the star of the MotorTrend TV series Bitchin’ Rides. Born on February 6, 1971, in Salt Lake City, Utah, Kindig built his reputation entirely through self-taught skill, founding his Salt Lake City shop in 1999 with $4,800 in 401(k) savings and growing it into a 27,000-square-foot world-class fabrication facility. His shop’s TwelveAir build won the 2024 Don Ridler Memorial Award at the Detroit Autorama, widely regarded as the most prestigious prize in custom car culture. His estimated net worth ranges from $3 million to $6 million as of 2026.

Quick Bio

Attribute	Details
Full Name	Dave Rick Kindig
Known As	Dave Kindig
Date of Birth	February 6, 1971
Age	55 years old (as of 2026)
Birthplace	Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Nationality	American
Ethnicity	Caucasian
Religion	Christian
Education	West High School, Salt Lake City; self-taught designer and fabricator
Profession	Custom Car Designer, Fabricator, Entrepreneur, TV Personality
Company	Kindig-It Design (founder, 1999)
Active Since	1999
TV Show	Bitchin’ Rides (MotorTrend TV, 11 seasons, concluded 2025)
Height	5 ft 6 in (168 cm, per multiple sources)
Weight	Approx. 160 lbs (73 kg, per multiple sources)
Spouse	Charity Kindig (married July 11, 1992)
Net Worth	$3 million to $6 million (estimated, 2026)

Who is Dave Kindig?

Dave Kindig is an American self-taught custom car designer and fabricator, founder of Kindig-It Design in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the star of the MotorTrend TV series Bitchin’ Rides, which ran for 11 seasons and documented the shop’s process of transforming client vehicles into one-of-a-kind custom builds.

Kindig grew up in Salt Lake City’s Rose Park neighbourhood in modest circumstances, developing a passion for car design through Hot Wheels, Lego, and sketchbooks from an early age. He attended West High School and taught himself fabrication and design through years of hands-on work, never attending art school or pursuing any formal design qualification. By his teens he was customising Volkswagen Beetles with original graphics, and by his late twenties he had founded the shop that would define his career.

Kindig-It Design launched in June 1999 in a 4,500-square-foot rented space and grew into a 27,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility employing over 30 skilled craftsmen. The shop attracted the attention of Velocity Channel executives after Kindig began work on restoring a vintage 1939 GM Futurliner, leading to the creation of Bitchin’ Rides, which debuted in 2014 and ran for 11 seasons before concluding in 2025. In February 2024, Kindig’s shop won the Don Ridler Memorial Award at the 71st Detroit Autorama for the TwelveAir build, the most prestigious prize in custom car culture and the culmination of a five-year secret build project.

Early Life and Background

Childhood and Family

Dave Rick Kindig was born on February 6, 1971, and grew up in the Rose Park neighbourhood of Salt Lake City, Utah, in a working-class family where modest means fuelled rather than limited his creative ambitions.

He has said in interviews that growing up with very little made it easy to imagine having more: “Growing up very poor, it was easy for me to imagine having more than I had because I had nothing.” His grandfather Marvin Tippetts was a sheet metal worker who kept a garage full of projects and homemade inventions, giving Kindig an early practical education in working with metal. His mother was involved in painting and arts and crafts, nurturing his visual instincts. From age five he was sketching Hot Wheels designs and building Lego cars with custom wheels and axles taken from other toys. His parents’ names have not been publicly confirmed in named sources.

Education

Dave Kindig attended West High School in Salt Lake City and received no formal art, design, or engineering education beyond secondary school, making him entirely self-taught as a designer and fabricator.

He credits Lego, Hot Wheels, and plastic model kits as his earliest design teachers. By age 17 he was customising Volkswagen Beetles with unique graphics, teaching himself through trial and error on real vehicles. He went on to work at High-Performance Coatings in Salt Lake City for approximately eight years, travelling across the United States and learning about automotive restoration techniques, coatings, body work, and fabrication from industry professionals. That period provided the technical foundation upon which Kindig-It Design was built.

Career Journey

Before Fame

Before founding Kindig-It Design, Kindig spent roughly eight years working at High-Performance Coatings in Salt Lake City, developing expertise in automotive restoration, coatings, body work, and fabrication while travelling across America to observe different shops and design styles.

During this period he worked on cars for family and friends out of his personal garage, building a reputation locally for clean lines and precise execution. He sought out expertise from skilled craftsmen in metalworking, bodywork, electrical, and mechanical disciplines, assembling the knowledge base that would later define his shop’s all-in-house capability. His first car was a Volkswagen Beetle, on which he performed his own bodywork after failing to find factory-matching parts. His love for the VW platform remained a constant through his career, with several VW builds later featured on Bitchin’ Rides.

How Dave Kindig Got Started

In June 1999, Kindig quit his job at High-Performance Coatings, cashed out his 401(k) for $4,800, and co-founded Kindig-It Design with his wife Charity in the family garage before moving to a 4,500-square-foot rented bay near 40th South and State Street in Salt Lake City.

The decision came after the birth of their youngest child, and Charity’s encouragement was decisive: she supported the leap and joined as co-founder, initially serving as company secretary before transitioning to Vice President as the business expanded. Kindig built the shop’s reputation on high-end builds ranging from classic hot rod restorations to fully bespoke one-off designs, with every discipline handled in-house: fabrication, bodywork, paint, mechanical, and electrical. Within years the shop had outgrown its original space and expanded into its current 27,000-square-foot facility.

Breakthrough Moment

Kindig-It Design’s national breakthrough came when Velocity Channel executives David Lee and Bob Scanlon approached Dave after becoming aware of the shop’s work on restoring a vintage 1939 GM Futurliner, leading to the creation of Bitchin’ Rides, which premiered on Velocity in 2014.

The show followed Kindig and his team through the full arc of each project: meeting the client, reviewing the car, sketching the design, and executing the build from teardown to reveal. It became Velocity’s most popular series and ran for 11 seasons across Velocity and MotorTrend TV, airing in 191 countries and generating a global fanbase. Over its run the show documented over 320 custom vehicle builds. Kindig’s comfort in front of the camera, combined with the shop’s genuine craftsmanship, set Bitchin’ Rides apart from more conflict-driven automotive reality formats. The show concluded in 2025 after 11 seasons and 167 episodes.

Career Today

As of 2026, Dave Kindig continues to operate Kindig-It Design in Salt Lake City, accepting commissions for high-end custom builds, attending major automotive events worldwide, and expanding his brand through merchandise, the CF1 Corvette production model, and direct-to-fan content via YouTube and social media.

His daughter Baylee leads the apparel and marketing division of the company, and his son Drew works on the fabrication side. Several longtime employees including William Lockwood and Kevin Schiele have surpassed 15 years with the shop. Kindig’s signature CF1 Corvette, inspired by the lines of the 1953 Corvette, has sold at auction for up to $770,000 at the 2024 Mecum Kissimmee sale. He continues to sketch all designs by hand rather than using computer-aided design software, a distinguishing characteristic of his approach. Kindig hosted the inaugural Kindig Custom Car Show at the Adelaide 500 in Australia in November 2024 alongside shop foreman Kevin Schiele.

2024 Ridler Award Winner

Dave Kindig won the 2024 Don Ridler Memorial Award at the 71st Detroit Autorama, described by Hagerty as “the Nobel Prize of hot-rodding,” for the TwelveAir build: a bespoke 1953 Corvette-inspired custom featuring a hand-formed aluminium unibody and a naturally aspirated 9.2-litre V12 engine built by Race Cast Engineering in Australia.

The TwelveAir was constructed over four and a half years entirely in secret to preserve Ridler eligibility, as the award disqualifies any vehicle featured on television. Its design drew inspiration from the 1954 GM Motorama show car known as the Corvair, itself an early Corvette concept that influenced the 1963 split-window coupe. The TwelveAir won both the Ridler trophy and a $10,000 prize at the 2024 Autorama, and was subsequently displayed at SEMA 2024 at the AkzoNobel booth in the Las Vegas Convention Center. The build was commissioned by clients Dave and Tracey Maxwell of Saltsburg, Pennsylvania, who intend to drive it. Kindig described it as “the culmination of all these dreams and visions” built by his team of engineers, fabricators, mechanics, and body technicians over five years.

Business Ventures and Companies

Kindig-It Design operates as a vertically integrated custom car shop, handling every stage of a build in-house, from initial sketch and fabrication through paint, mechanical assembly, and electrical work, producing one-of-a-kind vehicles for clients worldwide with builds typically starting at $250,000.

The company has held partnerships with major brands including AkzoNobel (paint supplier and SEMA partner), Maverick, Cornwall Tools, Harley-Davidson, Lamborghini, and Lotus. Its merchandise line, managed by Baylee Kindig, sells apparel, accessories, prints, and Dave Kindig-signed items through the Kindig-It online store. The shop also produces the CF1, a limited-production custom Corvette model sold to individual buyers. Additional income streams include TV appearance fees from Bitchin’ Rides, Bitchin’ Boot Camp, and Beyond Bitchin’ Rides, with reported per-episode earnings of approximately $50,000. Kindig has supported charitable causes including the Ronald McDonald House Charities and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Social Media Presence

Platform	Followers / Subscribers	Content Type
Facebook	Not publicly confirmed at time of writing	Build updates, fan engagement, live content
Instagram	Not publicly confirmed	Car builds, shop life, events
YouTube	Not publicly confirmed	Build documentation, TwelveAir series, shop tours
X (Twitter)	Not publicly confirmed	Industry updates, family posts

Net Worth and Income Streams

Dave Kindig’s estimated net worth ranges from $3 million to $6 million as of 2026, built across custom car fabrication, television appearances, merchandise, and limited-production vehicle sales.

Kindig-It Design builds typically start at $250,000 and frequently approach or exceed $1 million for flagship projects. The Ridler-winning TwelveAir is estimated to represent a seven-figure investment in build cost alone. Per-episode earnings from Bitchin’ Rides are reported at approximately $50,000. The CF1 Corvette has sold for up to $770,000 at auction. Some aggregator sources place his net worth as high as $12 million, but those figures are not corroborated by multiple credible sources; the $3 million to $6 million range is the most consistently cited across named automotive industry publications.

Income Stream	Estimated Contribution	Notes
Kindig-It Design (custom builds)	Primary	Builds from $250,000; flagship builds approach or exceed $1 million
TV appearances (Bitchin’ Rides)	Significant; approx. $50,000/episode reported	11 seasons, 167 episodes on Velocity/MotorTrend TV; concluded 2025
CF1 Corvette production model	Significant	Sold at auction for up to $770,000 (2024 Mecum Kissimmee)
Merchandise	Supplementary	Apparel, accessories, signed prints via kindigit.com
Brand partnerships	Supplementary	AkzoNobel, Harley-Davidson, Lamborghini, Cornwall Tools, Maverick

Physical Appearance

Height and Body Stats

Dave Kindig stands approximately 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs around 160 pounds, maintaining a practical, hands-on build well suited to shop work.

Stat	Value
Height	5 ft 6 in (approx. 168 cm)
Weight	Approx. 160 lbs (73 kg)
Eye Colour	Not publicly disclosed
Hair Colour	Not publicly disclosed

Personal Life

Relationships

Dave Kindig married Charity Kindig on July 11, 1992, after meeting her at a dance club while she was still in high school, and the two have been partners in life and business for over three decades.

Charity, born March 2, 1972, co-founded Kindig-It Design with Dave in 1999 and serves as the company’s Vice President, overseeing financial discipline and business operations. Dave has publicly described her as “the most special person” he has ever met and credits the partnership as one of the best things to have happened to him. Their 33-year marriage, as of 2025, is widely regarded as one of the anchoring forces behind the shop’s stability and longevity in a competitive industry.

Family

Dave and Charity Kindig have two children: daughter Baylee Kindig and son Drew Kindig, both of whom work at Kindig-It Design.

Baylee joined the company approximately seven years before 2019, leading the apparel line and marketing division. She married Kaden in August 2018, an event Dave publicly celebrated on social media. Drew works on the fabrication side of the business. In February 2024, Drew and his wife Kara welcomed their first child, making Dave and Charity first-time grandparents. Longtime employees William Lockwood, Valerie Gillies, and Kevin “Kev-Dogg” Schiele have each surpassed 15 years at the shop, reflecting the family atmosphere Dave has cultivated.

Achievements and Milestones

• Founded Kindig-It Design in June 1999 with $4,800 in startup capital; grew the shop to a 27,000-square-foot facility employing over 30 staff.
• Won the 2007 GM Design Award at SEMA.
• Inducted into the Utah Hot Rod Hall of Fame in 2008.
• Won the 2012 Master Builder Award at Boise Roadster and the Trendsetter Award from the Good Guys.
• Won the 2013 Ford Design Award.
• Launched Bitchin’ Rides on Velocity Channel in 2014; the show became Velocity’s most popular series and ran for 11 seasons across 167 episodes.
• Produced over 320 custom vehicles documented on television alone across the show’s run.
• Won the 2024 Don Ridler Memorial Award at the 71st Detroit Autorama for the TwelveAir build, the most prestigious prize in custom car culture, after five years of secret construction.
• CF1 Corvette production model sold at 2024 Mecum Kissimmee auction for up to $770,000.
• Hosted the inaugural Kindig Custom Car Show at the Adelaide 500, Australia, November 2024.

Interesting Facts About Dave Kindig

• He is entirely self-taught: no art school, no design degree, no formal fabrication training. Hot Wheels and Lego are his stated teachers.
• The TwelveAir Ridler build was kept secret for four and a half years because any television exposure would have disqualified it from Ridler competition.
• He founded Kindig-It Design by cashing out his entire 401(k) retirement savings, all $4,800 of it, on the same day he quit his job.
• His favourite type of cars to design are low, aggressive exotic cars; he owns a Ferrari and has spoken of wanting to create a one-of-a-kind numbered supercar series.
• The TwelveAir’s 9.2-litre V12 engine was built by Australian brothers Shane and Matt Corish of Race Cast Engineering, who constructed it by custom-joining two LS V8 blocks before later developing their own bespoke V12 architecture.
• He sketches all his designs by hand; the shop does not use computer-aided design software as the primary design tool, giving every Kindig build a personal and analogue quality that sets the work apart.

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