I understand what you mean Tracy. It's not a big deal when an individual is building something that has been done before, but the whole purpose behind a shop car is to bring in business. If you show everyone that as a shop you can't even follow the trends right, what does that say? OTOH, if you show everyone that you are one of the first, and an innovator, then you are actually doing something GOOD for the reputation of the shop and not just wasting money to impress a couple buddies. It's like when the Evo X came out, since it had the 4B11 EVERY big shop was scrambling to be one of the very first to make big numbers out of one so they could show they are ahead of the curve.

It's a good point that unfortunately some people will take offense to just because they think as an individual on a budget and can't see the reasoning behind shop cars.