DECODE
FOUR VECTORS. QUESTIONABLE MATHEMATICS.
Being hopeless Alien fanatics, we borrowed Ron Cobb's Semiotic Standard, changed a few colors, made the symbols do a few donuts and called it a system. Each project gets four ratings: complexity, drivability, madness and cost. Scored from 1 to 4, based on workshop experience, questionable decisions and a mathematical formula we wouldn't recommend checking.
COMPLEXITY - A simple bolt-on job brings the victim into the workshop, a few brackets turn into cutting and rebuilding half the car, until they're fabricating parts for parts they haven't even made yet.
MADNESS - What begins as a perfectly reasonable idea has the victim adding things nobody asked for, taking things further just to see if they work, until they're standing in the workshop staring at the result and wondering who thought this was a good idea.
DRIVABILITY - The victim finishes the build and drives it everywhere, changes a few things and starts choosing roads, changes a few more and starts choosing days, until one modification too many has them shopping for a trailer.
COST - Armed with a budget and a sensible parts list, the victim adds a few upgrades and discovers that parts need other parts, stops keeping receipts somewhere along the way, and eventually starts checking what the house might be worth.