Christopher Vargas Ibarra is a paid pre-apprentice with San Diego Automotive Museum, through a partnership with Cajon Valley Union School District’s World of Work program.
A grant from Prebys supports World of Work to provide paid apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships to expand early career opportunities for youth in San Diego County.
Chris’ Story
“I grew up in Connecticut, learning about trains and cars, because mechanics have always fascinated me. One day, my mom took me to the automotive museum as a kid, and something clicked when I saw all the cars.
I knew it was something I wanted to do — I wanted to do this as my life mission.
And ever since then, I’ve been working hard, striving to learn more about vehicles. Since I was eight years old, my uncle who works at the city of San Diego, has been teaching me a lot about vehicles, and I’ve been gaining more experience, more traction, and I’ve met other mechanics who have shown me their tricks.
I even started building my portfolio by fixing other cars like my parents’, my family’s, and my friends’.
One day, Julia, my World of Work coordinator, brought up the idea of doing a mentorship. So, we found one with the City of El Cajon, we worked with the City Manager, and I got a mentorship at the City of El Cajon Fleet Services. I got to work on police cars and fire trucks there.
Then, Julia asked me if I was interested in a pre-apprenticeship with the Automotive Museum, and I told her that I was because this would expand my opportunity to grow and learn more about the industry.
Being in a paid pre-apprenticeship makes me better suited for the real world because you have to learn your finances. We even took a basic finance literacy class recently to learn how to manage our money. It makes me very happy to know that I have a purpose working for the museum — showcasing older cars and preserving automotive history.
It feels exhilarating to know that I have done all this hard work, and it pays off. To get to see that engine running, hearing it roar to life for the first time in God knows how many years, it just feels really, really amazing and rewarding for me.
The plans for this car are to keep it as stock as possible and to restore it with a reasonable amount of money because the client doesn’t want to spend too much money on it since it could probably go up to $70,000. That’s what we are working on with the owner.
At this pre-apprenticeship, I have worked on that car, I’ve worked on those three, this white 370 Z over there. I’ve also pushed many, many other cars. I pushed a Bugatti recently. I saw a McLaren P1 move in. I’ve also pushed different Ferraris because we’re having a trifecta soon.
Mainly, I’ve been working on the Mustang. I’ve rebuilt the carburetor on it, we switched out the solenoids for it, we’ve rebuilt the entire distributor, put new spark plugs and spark plug wires on it. There was a wire that kept coming off the connector. So, we had to put it on a washer and then tighten that up. And also, the new solenoid decided to burn up. So, we had to put in the old one and we finally got it to start.
I look forward to learning more about the automotive industry and making connections. I also want to open a gateway for other people to get paid apprenticeships, because if all students could do this, they would know what to do with their money, how to handle it and everything. Having that financial literacy early on would greatly impact their adulthood and make them financially smarter.
I think this is a big, big career for me. I want to be an automotive technician or work on vehicles in general. I really like restoring cars. Technology in the future is going to be very advanced. We’re going to probably have more electric cars on the road. So, I’m going to have to learn how to fix electric cars and diagnose them because I only know how to do gasoline cars and maybe hybrids.
I also think hybrids are going to be bigger than electric cars. Because there aren’t a lot of great options for electric cars right now. Hybrids bring together the best qualities of gasoline and electric. I think that hybrids are going to be the new future.
Paid apprenticeships have the incentive for young people to make some money, but also the trade is dying. Working on cars is not as common anymore and not a lot of people know how to do their oil change or change out their filters or even know if their car is running well. So, teaching the younger generation how to do an oil change, how to rotate tires, basic necessities, will impact the future of automobiles and will keep them running on the road for longer.
If I had all the money in the world, I would have a 2014 Dodge Viper ACR, supercharged, with an 8.4‑liter V10 in it. I would probably run NAS, a wide body kit, a big wing and everything. I would just make it track specific. And I would have a little roadie car, probably a 73 Mustang Mach 1, having it super reliable, really nice to drive around in it and comfortable to live with.”
This profile is a feature for People de San Diego, a storytelling project by the Prebys Foundation highlighting valuable community members of San Diego County.
