Dave Kindig: Age, Net Worth, Career and Bio

Dave Kindig is an American custom car designer, aged 55, and the founder of Kindig-It Design, a Salt Lake City-based fabrication shop that has produced over 320 world-class custom builds and earned a reputation as one of the premier custom car fabrication shops in custom car fabrication. A self-taught designer who grew up dismantling Hot Wheels and filling sketchbooks with car drawings, Kindig turned a $4,800 investment in 1999 into a 27,000-square-foot operation and an 11-season MotorTrend television career. Multiple sources estimate his net worth between $3 million and $6 million as of 2026.

Quick Bio

Who is Dave Kindig?

Dave Kindig is an American custom car designer, fabricator, and television personality, best known for founding Kindig-It Design in Salt Lake City and starring in Bitchin’ Rides on MotorTrend for 11 seasons.

In the world of custom car fabrication, Kindig occupies a distinct position: a self-taught designer who draws every build by hand before a single piece of metal is cut, and who built a national television audience without ever compromising the integrity of his shop’s output. His clients pay anywhere from $250,000 to well over $1 million for one-of-a-kind vehicles, and the wait list for a Kindig build has historically stretched years. The shop, now operating from a 27,000-square-foot facility in Salt Lake City with an additional 10,000-square-foot warehouse, employs over 40 skilled craftsmen, fabricators, painters, and designers.

Kindig’s public identity is shaped by a refusal to separate design from fabrication. He draws for approximately 20 hours per week even now, using Prismacolor markers, pencil, and 11-by-17 laser printer paper as his primary tools alongside the shop’s rapid prototyping machines and 3D scanners. His design philosophy favours clean, timeless lines over trend-chasing, and that approach has earned him the respect of the broader automotive show world, culminating in the 2024 Don Ridler Memorial Award, the most prestigious prize in custom car building.

His audience spans lifelong hot rod enthusiasts, MotorTrend subscribers, and followers of the custom car show circuit, including SEMA, where Kindig-It Design has been a regular presence for decades. The CF1, his limited-production signature Corvette, sold for $605,000 at the 2024 Scottsdale Barrett-Jackson auction and has become its own cult object within the collector car community.

Early Life and Background

Childhood and Family

Dave Rick Kindig was born on February 6, 1971, in Salt Lake City, Utah, and grew up in the Rose Park neighbourhood, raised without a father in the home in a working-class household where money was consistently tight.

He has described his upbringing in stark terms: “Growing up very poor, it was easy for me to imagine having more than I had because I had nothing.” The absence of his father and the financial constraints of his childhood created a creative outlet in miniature: Hot Wheels, Lego sets, and plastic model cars became the medium through which a young Kindig taught himself dimensional thinking. No model car on his windowsill survived more than two or three weeks before he stripped it for parts and rebuilt it in a new configuration. He has credited Lego instruction manuals as his first real education in reading and applying spatial design.

By age 17, Kindig was already applying graphics and bodywork modifications to Volkswagen Beetles, drawing attention from friends and local car enthusiasts. His grandfather was a metalworker, and that family background in working with materials by hand likely reinforced the craft instinct Kindig would spend the next four decades developing into a professional discipline. His parents have not been named publicly, and he has not confirmed siblings.

Education

Dave Kindig received no formal training in automotive design, art, or fabrication, and built his entire technical knowledge through hands-on work, observation, and self-directed study across several years in the coatings industry.

He attended school in Salt Lake City and is reported to have briefly enrolled at college before leaving without completing a degree. His own account emphasises that everything he knows came from practical experience rather than academic instruction. Working at High-Performance Coatings in Salt Lake City for approximately eight years gave him access to cars, professional environments, and travel across the United States that exposed him to the full range of American automotive design culture. He has described that period as the real foundation of his professional knowledge.

Career Journey

Before Fame

Before launching Kindig-It Design, Dave Kindig spent roughly eight years working at High-Performance Coatings in Salt Lake City, a role that took him across the United States and gave him direct exposure to automotive restoration, custom builds, and the professional shop environment.

The coatings job was the bridge between childhood passion and professional enterprise. He learned paint application, surface preparation, and the science of automotive finishes while simultaneously absorbing the business dynamics of shops he visited on the road. The travel component was formative: seeing how different regional builders approached design, fabrication, and customer interaction gave him a comparative view of the industry that he could not have acquired by staying in one place. When he eventually quit to start his own shop, he cashed out his 401(k) for $4,800 and used that as his entire startup capital.

How Dave Kindig Got Started

Dave and Charity Kindig co-founded Kindig-It Design in June 1999, starting in a 4,500-square-foot rented bay near 40th South and State Street in Salt Lake City, with Charity handling the books and Dave handling every build.

The launch came after the birth of their second child, Drew. Charity, who grew up around her father’s Corvette and had worked as a parts runner at a local automotive shop, encouraged Dave to make the leap when he was still uncertain. She became the company’s first secretary, later transitioning to Vice President as the operation grew. The shop moved to a larger building within two months of opening and continued expanding over the following two decades. Dave’s early builds attracted attention in the Salt Lake City car community, and word spread through the show circuit as the quality of his work became apparent at regional and national events.

Breakthrough Moment

Dave Kindig’s national breakthrough came when Bitchin’ Rides premiered on the Velocity network on September 2, 2014, bringing the Kindig-It Design shop and its builds to a television audience of millions for the first time.

The show’s format was negotiated carefully: Kindig insisted that the production crew function as a fly on the wall rather than disrupting the actual work. Unlike earlier television appearances where builds were staged for camera angles, Bitchin’ Rides captured real shop workflow, real client deliveries, and real problem-solving under deadline pressure. That authenticity distinguished the show from other automotive reality programmes and contributed to its longevity. Velocity’s network later rebranded as MotorTrend, and the show ran for 11 seasons and 167 episodes before concluding in 2025, making it one of the longest-running custom car series in cable television history.

Before television, Kindig had already built the 1960 Copper Caddy, a candy brandywine 1960 Cadillac Coupe DeVille created in collaboration with Gene Winfield that won show awards and established his reputation on the car show circuit. That build, along with the 1958 Lincoln Continental nicknamed Maybellene, powered by an all-aluminium 600-cubic-inch V12 supercharged engine, demonstrated the technical ambition that would later define his television persona.

Career Today

As of 2026, Dave Kindig continues to operate Kindig-It Design from its Salt Lake City facility, producing high-end custom builds, expanding his CF1 Corvette limited series, and maintaining an active presence at SEMA and major automotive shows worldwide.

With Bitchin’ Rides concluded after its 11th season, Kindig has shifted more of his public output to the Kindig-It Design YouTube channel, which publishes new build content on Wednesdays and Fridays. The shop currently works on 16 to 22 custom cars simultaneously, employing over 40 people. Brand partnerships with AkzoNobel, whose Modern Classikk paint line featured prominently on the Ridler-winning TwelveAir, remain a significant commercial relationship. In 2024, Kindig spent 30 weekends travelling for shows and events, marking the 25th anniversary of the business with its busiest year on the road. Drew became a father in February 2024, making Dave and Charity Kindig grandparents for the first time.

The 2024 Don Ridler Memorial Award: Custom Car Fabrication’s Highest Honour

When the TwelveAir, a hand-built aluminium-bodied 1953 Corvette-inspired custom powered by a bespoke 9.2-litre naturally aspirated V12 engine, won the 2024 Don Ridler Memorial Award at the 71st Annual Detroit Autorama, it marked the first time a Kindig-It Design build had taken the prize widely described as the Nobel Prize of hot-rodding. The car had been in secret development for five years, built inside a sealed room within the shop to prevent any information leaking before its debut, as any pre-reveal disclosure disqualifies a car from Ridler competition. Even the Bitchin’ Rides camera crew were kept out of that room throughout the build.

TwelveAir was commissioned by clients Dave and Tracey Maxwell of Saltsburg, Pennsylvania, and drew its design from the 1954 GM Motorama concept known as the Corvair. Every panel on the car was hand-formed from 3003 and 6061 aluminium. The V12 engine was developed by Race Cast Engineering in Australia, pairing two LS-architecture blocks. The transaxle came from a C7 Corvette. The car won the Ridler trophy and a $10,000 prize, and was subsequently displayed at SEMA 2024 in the AkzoNobel booth. Kindig had entered previous Ridler finalists (the Great Eight) before TwelveAir, but this was his first outright win. The build represents the apex of the shop’s 25-year body of work.

Content Style and Niche

Dave Kindig operates in the custom car fabrication niche, producing both bespoke one-off client builds and a limited-production signature model line, with content reaching audiences through MotorTrend television, YouTube, SEMA appearances, and social media.

His signature approach blends hand-drawn design with state-of-the-art fabrication technology. Every build starts with Kindig’s own pencil sketches and marker renderings, which he produces at a rate of roughly 20 drawing hours per week. Those designs then pass through the shop’s rapid prototyping and 3D scanning equipment before fabricators begin metal work. The result is a build pipeline that Kindig describes as unusually integrated: the designer and the shop owner are the same person, which eliminates the translation errors that frequently occur when a design spec moves between separate creative and production teams.

His most accessible product, the CF1 Corvette, is a limited-production custom roadster inspired by the 1953 Chevrolet Corvette body style, built on a carbon-fibre body weighing 291 pounds. Each CF1 is unique in colour, interior, and engine specification. One CF1 sold for $605,000 at the 2024 Scottsdale Barrett-Jackson auction, and another reached $770,000 at a separate 2024 Mecum Kissimmee event. The series has produced approximately ten cars and continues to generate commissions. His YouTube channel, @kindigitdesignofficial, publishes build-progress content that extends the audience relationship between television seasons and lets fans follow in-progress shop work in real time.

Social Media Presence

Dave Kindig reaches approximately 900,000 combined followers across Instagram and Facebook, with his largest concentration on Instagram at 503,000 followers as of April 2026.

Follower counts sourced from publicly visible profile pages as of April 2026. Kindig’s Instagram content skews toward finished build photography and SEMA event coverage, while his YouTube channel carries the most detailed behind-the-scenes fabrication content since Bitchin’ Rides concluded.

Net Worth and Income Streams

Dave Kindig’s net worth is estimated between $3 million and $6 million as of 2026, with Kindig-It Design as his primary income source, supplemented by television fees, merchandise sales, and brand partnerships.

All net worth and revenue figures represent estimates drawn from publicly available sources. No exact compensation data has been disclosed by Kindig or Kindig-It Design.

Physical Appearance

Height and Body Stats

Dave Kindig stands approximately 5 feet 7 inches tall, based on the most commonly cited estimate across multiple profile sources, though he has not personally confirmed this figure.

Kindig is recognisable in public appearances and on television by his tattooed arms, a detail he has not discussed in depth publicly but which is visible across his social media and television appearances.

Personal Life

Relationships

Dave Kindig has been married to Charity Kindig since July 11, 1992, a partnership of over three decades that is also the founding relationship of their shared business, Kindig-It Design.

Kindig and Charity met at a dance club in Salt Lake City while Charity was still in high school. She was born on March 2, 1972, and grew up around her father’s Corvette, developing a genuine connection to car culture before she and Dave built their business together. Dave has spoken about the partnership in interviews with consistent warmth, describing it as both the best and the hardest thing he has experienced professionally. Charity handles the operational and financial side of the business, allowing Dave to remain entirely focused on design and creative output. She has been the company’s Vice President since its early growth years.

Family

Dave and Charity Kindig have two children, Baylee and Drew, both of whom work at Kindig-It Design and represent the second generation of a family-run business now celebrating its 25th year.

Baylee Kindig, born April 12, 1996, started at the shop as a parts runner at age 16 before moving into the front office as receptionist and eventually taking over the company’s website, marketing, apparel operations, and social media management. She married Kaden in August 2018. Her personal interest in Volkswagens led her to own a 1967 Beetle project car. Drew Kindig, born May 14, 1999, is known in the shop as the Door Handle Ninja for his work crafting Kindig-It’s signature custom door handles. He trained his fabrication skills at Boeing, where he built tail wings for the 787-10 aircraft, before joining the family business. Drew married Kara Cuillard on May 22, 2022. In February 2024, Drew and Kara had their first child, making Dave and Charity grandparents for the first time.

Outside the shop, Dave enjoys golf, baseball, jazz, and blues music. He attended jazz and blues concerts regularly in earlier years, and baseball remains a spectator sport he follows on television. He also enjoys travel, though the birth of his children reduced the volume of personal travel compared to his earlier years at High-Performance Coatings.

Achievements and Milestones

Dave Kindig’s most significant career achievement is winning the 2024 Don Ridler Memorial Award at the 71st Annual Detroit Autorama, the most coveted prize in American custom car building, for the TwelveAir Corvette.

• 2024 Don Ridler Memorial Award, Detroit Autorama, for the TwelveAir 1953 Corvette-inspired aluminium custom.
• 2013 Ford Design Award, recognising excellence in design at the SEMA Show.
• 2012 Master Builder Award, Boise Roadster Show.
• 2012 Trendsetter Award, Goodguys Rod and Custom Association.
• 2008 Utah Hot Rod Hall of Fame inductee.
• 2007 GM Design Award at SEMA, for the best General Motors hot rod.
• Bitchin’ Rides, Velocity/MotorTrend: 11 seasons, 167 episodes, 2014 to 2025, becoming Velocity’s most popular series at its peak.
• Over 320 custom cars featured on television, with builds starting at $250,000 and often exceeding $1 million.
• Kindig-It Design CF1 Corvette auctioned for $605,000 at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale 2024 and $770,000 at Mecum Kissimmee 2024.
• 25th anniversary of Kindig-It Design celebrated in 2024, with 30 show weekends completed that year.

Interesting Facts About Dave Kindig

Dave Kindig built the TwelveAir Corvette in a sealed secret room inside his shop over five years, keeping the build hidden from the Bitchin’ Rides camera crew and even close friends to protect its eligibility for the Ridler Award.

• He started Kindig-It Design with just $4,800, the full balance of his cashed-out 401(k), after quitting his job at High-Performance Coatings.
• His most-used design tools remain basic: 11-by-17 laser printer paper, Prismacolor markers, and a pencil. He still draws for approximately 20 hours per week despite running a 40-person shop.
• He grew up without a father in the home and has credited Lego instruction manuals as his first experience with applied dimensional design.
• By age 17, he was already customising Volkswagen Beetles with original graphics, a passion that his wife Charity and daughter Baylee share, both owning VW project cars.
• The 1939 GM Futurliner restoration, one of the most complex projects in Kindig-It Design history, involved over 50,000 man-hours and 5,000 parts and was featured as a landmark episode of Bitchin’ Rides.
• He has publicly stated that he does not sleep much, attributing his sustained creative output to a restless mind that generates design ideas at all hours.

Among the media personalities and content creators profiled at xxbrits.uk, Kindig stands as one of the few figures whose primary fame derives entirely from a craft rather than a platform. Fellow broadcaster Michelle Smallmon and other personalities in the xxbrits.uk directory share his crossover between on-screen presence and deep professional expertise in their respective fields.