About Us
We’re a pair of brothers that have bonded over cars since our earliest days together. Originally turning wrenches because we had to, and over the years because we wanted to.
I think we both cringe every time we decide to let a pro work on our cars, the entire time thinking in the back of our head, “parts are around $250, I could do this in 3 hours, but I’ll need to buy some tools, all in I think I could do it for $400 on a Saturday. Why am I paying $800 to a mechanic??”
Why Mastershift?
The inspiration comes from my earliest memory of being in awe of a car, and it was this really cool looking shifter. When it comes to a car, there’s no connection tighter than the shifter. It’s like you have the reigns to a horse, with that you control all of this horsepower. It’s most felt in a stick shift, but my brothers Buick GS 455 had this really cool horseshoe shifter that I still remember to this day. Up until then, all I’ve ever seen was a column shifter on my mom’s car.
Our Team
Mark Ow
Master TinkererI’ve been working on cars since he was 16 years old. The first job I had was working at a gas station that did auto repairs. I first started with brake jobs, tune ups, and eventually moved into more complex repair work. My first car was a 1970, Buick Gran Sport with a 455 Stage 1 engine. It needed lots of work and so began the journey of fixing and upgrading cars. I’ve done engine rebuilds, engine performance upgrades, and high end stereo installations.
Rick Ow
Owner OperatorBefore I got my first set of wheels (which in my case meant a BMX bike), I was Mark’s slave, I mean “assistant”, helping him modify his muscle cars. You know, I was the pesky little brother making his older brothers work way slower than it needed to be as I probably asked a million questions. It’s all a blur, but the most memorable car he had (to me anyways) was his 1970 383 4-Barrel Challenger. That was the first time I saw the guts of an engine where he was swapping to a bigger cam. That was an eye opening day for me!
Ever since then, I’ve been hooked. My first car was a 1969 Pontiac Firebird that I scraped and saved and bought for $500. Don’t get all excited, that thing had more rust than it had sheetmetal. The engine was seized, the interior was trashed, and it was half blue, half primer painted. I learned to rebuild an engine, rebuild a transmission (and I’ll never do that ever again), replace U-Joints, swap interiors (from a pick-n-pull junkyard), replace a headliner, repair window regulators, bodywork, and pretty much anything else that goes in a car.
Since those muscle car days, I’ve mostly been a BMW 3-Series fanatic starting with a 1983 320i, and have owned at least one model over the past 20 years. Focusing mainly on tune-up type stuff, brakes, audio system upgrades, and car care to keep that paint shiny and the leather supple. That is until recently, I’m exploring some new territory with four wheeling in a 2000 Lexus LX470 (Toyota Land Cruiser equivalent). I have aspirations to turn it into a light overlanding rig. It was a great buy but it needs way more work than I originally expected (cooling system complete overhaul, ball joints, a bazillion bushings, hydraulic suspension overhaul and electronic tuning, etc, etc, etc)! Follow along, I have plans to add a section to this site for the build of this Cruiser.