In this episode of Just Gonna Send It, Jim Belosic sits down with Kyle Kuhnhausen, award-winning builder and founder of KMC, to talk about his path from a small Oregon garage to the SEMA stage. Kyle shares how a simple Datsun project became a career-defining build, the lessons learned from five-year projects, and why craftsmanship, patience, and showing your process matter more than perfection.
This episode of Just Gonna Send It brings host Jim Belosic together with master fabricator and KMC founder Kyle Kuhnhausen. From a childhood spent in his dad’s shop to SEMA wins and seven figure custom builds, Kyle unpacks a career fueled by curiosity, craft, and a willingness to pick the hard path when it makes the car better.
Raised in Oregon around an automotive repair business, Kyle learned by doing. BMX parts turned into Honda Prelude tinkering during the Fast and Furious era, and nights in the garage grew into a habit of making rather than buying. A business degree followed, but the real education came from bodywork days at the family shop and fabrication nights in his own bay.
A client’s Datsun 240Z began as a paint job and snowballed into a full transformation with modern power and bold design. That build became Kyle’s calling card and won SEMA Young Guns in 2018, giving KMC instant credibility and opening doors to higher stakes projects.
Kyle kept overhead low and focused on doing more than he was paid for, trusting that excellence would bring repeat clients. The approach worked. A rapid turn Corvette for a family friend proved he could deliver show level quality on a tight timeline, while reinforcing his preference for deep, original engineering over cookie cutter formulas.
The latest flagship Corvette, nicknamed Serious66, is a five year exercise in problem solving. Kyle pursued integrated reservoirs, custom mechanisms, refined packaging, and a modern paddle shift powertrain. A painful real world lesson with a dual clutch controller forced a pivot to an eight speed automatic that delivers the response he wanted without the parking lot quirks. Because he designs for serviceability, the change slotted in without tearing the car apart.
Kyle documents everything. His build albums show stamping dies, 3D prints, brackets, hardware, bodywork, coatings, and final fit. Sharing the process educates younger builders, helps clients grasp where the hours go, and sets a higher bar for transparency in the custom world.
Discovery calls focus on taste, goals, and trust long before budgets. Green flags are collaborative temperament and respect for the craft. Red flags include bounced deposits and a focus only on price. The best relationships become multi build partnerships where the work speaks for itself.
In this episode of Just Gonna Send It, host Jim Belosic talks with master fabricator and KMC founder Kyle Kuhnhausen about his journey from growing up in his dad’s Oregon auto shop to building award-winning custom cars showcased at SEMA. Kyle shares how his first big project, a Datsun 240Z that started as a simple paint job, became a five-year build that launched his career and won the SEMA Battle of the Builders Young Guns competition. He reflects on what it takes to turn a passion into a business, the value of doing more than you’re paid for, and how attention to detail and transparency earned him lasting clients. Kyle also dives into the challenges of his latest five-year Corvette build, the lessons learned from ambitious design decisions, and why documenting the creative process is as important as the final product. His story is about learning by doing, staying humble, and choosing the hard path that leads to growth and craftsmanship.
Post SEMA Update: Congratulations Kyle on Serious66 and winning Best Engineered Vehicle, Top 3 Hotrod Finish in the Battle of the Builders, and top 10 finish in the SEMA HRIA Design & Innovation awards.
