Lucas

The quiet, rain-soaked roads of 1990s Poland do not offer easy fortunes. In the world of Cheap Car Repair, a simulator that operates on the fine line between enterprising repairman and neighborhood con artist, every Polish złoty feels like it has been dragged through a muddy ditch. The goal of this journey was simple: raise one thousand dollars to purchase a bootleg moonshine setup from an eccentric local named Matt. But in a village where nobody pays cash for honest work, a mechanic must become a treasure hunter, a tractor surgeon, and an agricultural livestock transporter just to keep the lights on. Our journey starts at the local Mug Mug General Store, a place that smells of stale beer and damp cardboard. The quest for "potato soup"—a thin euphemism for high-proof potato alcohol—leads to a conversation about the "Forest Spirit," a legendary moonshine recipe left behind by a local distiller whose own creation eventually finished him off. Matt possesses the gear, but his asking price of one thousand dollars is an impossible sum for a mechanic accustomed to earning double-digit payouts for brake replacements. With a rusty mini Fiat as our only asset and a glovebox containing road beer, the search for quick cash begins. The hunt for buried złotys under the beehives Hope arrives in the form of Betty, an elderly local woman who is wandering near the church. She tells a rambling story about her late husband, Zabachu, who buried their life savings in a jar to keep it away from thieves, only to forget the exact location before he died. Equipped with a faded treasure map recovered from a collapsing shed, the trek leads past the town's local scrapyard and deep into the woods. The instructions are written with the cadence of an old folklore riddle: pass the scrapyard, follow the whispering leaves, and watch for the crooked, ancient beehives. Deep in the forest, the buzzing of hostile insects confirms the location. Beside a decaying wooden beehive lies a fresh mound of earth. Shovel in hand, we dig until the metal strikes glass. Inside the jar sits a thick stack of banknotes—hundreds of thousands of złotys. For a brief, intoxicating moment, visions of high-end tools and a fully restored Fiat dance in the mind. That illusion shatters the moment we return the jar to Betty. The old woman takes the glass container, explains that she only wanted the jar itself as a keepsake, and reveals that the mountain of cash is worthless pre-denomination currency. The massive fortune translates to exactly thirty modern dollars, plus a ten-dollar tip for a hard day's labor. Fixing a seized tractor for a four-legged bribe With the treasure hunt ending in financial disaster, survival dictates turning back to manual labor. A local farmer named Lucas offers a trade: repair his non-functional tractor, and he will hand over a goat to settle a debt with Renie, who needs the animal to mow her overgrown lawn. The tractor, a block of rusted iron that looks like it hasn't run since the Cold War, requires a complete overhaul of its ignition system. Working on farm equipment in the mud presents a unique set of challenges compared to passenger cars, starting with bolts so seized they require liberal coats of rust penetrant. Using a ratchet wrench and a can of WD-40, we dismantle the engine block. The old ignition distributor is entirely shot, requiring a fifty-dollar replacement part from the local auto store. We strip out the worn V-belt, a dead starter motor, and a heavily corroded battery, replacing them with a mix of salvaged junkyard parts and cheap replacements. After bolting down the new distributor and installing a fresh oil filter, the tractor's engine finally coughs to life, spewing black smoke into the Polish sky. The repair is far from elegant, but in this town, if the engine turns, the job is complete. Delivering a screaming passenger on a Fiat roof Receiving the goat from Lucas is one thing; transporting it across town in a subcompact car is another. The game mechanics of Cheap Car Repair offer no livestock trailers or animal crates. Instead, the solution is much more direct: hoist the crying goat onto the thin metal roof of the mini Fiat and drive as gently as possible. The animal slides frantically across the painted surface, bleating in terror as the car maneuvers through dirt turns and avoids deep potholes. Every bump threatens to send the goat tumbling into the weeds. By balancing the vehicle's speed and taking the corners wide, the bizarre cargo stays mounted just long enough to reach Renie's yard. Dragging the dazed animal into the designated pen completes the bizarre transaction. Renie is pleased to have her living lawn mower, but her gratitude does not match the effort involved. She hands over a meager forty dollars for the delivery, leaving us miles away from the target needed for the moonshine still. Grinding rust and dodging picky customers Real money in this village only comes from the classic hustle of cheap bodywork. Thaddius arrives with a sedan that has spent years rotting under the open sky. The wheel arches are covered in bubbled orange iron oxide, and the brake discs have rusted so thoroughly they screech like a braking freight train. This is where the grinder and body filler come into play. We grind away the worst of the metal rot, pack the cavities with cheap body goop, and spray paint over the patches using mismatched cans of navy blue paint found in garbage piles. To replace the ruined brakes without buying expensive new discs from the store, we make a quick trip to the local scrapyard. The yard is a disorganized heap of discarded alternators and brake drums, but careful digging reveals two usable brake discs and a set of calipers. Back at the garage, we mount the salvaged parts and apply a quick coat of polish to the bodywork to hide the uneven paint. The result is a classic "sloppy job"—just good enough to pass the customer's inspection without wasting money on quality parts. Thaddius pays two hundred dollars, proving that cosmetic deception pays far better than honest farm work. The hard reality of rural economics This chaotic series of odd jobs reveals a stark truth about the economy of Cheap Car Repair: the path to progress is rarely straight. Trying to strike it rich through quick schemes like hunting for buried treasure yields nothing but useless paper and old glass jars. Instead, survival relies on absolute pragmatism. It requires scavenging through junk piles for free components, using cheap body filler to mask deep structural rot, and taking on bizarre community favors like hauling livestock on a car roof. Every złoty saved on a repair is a złoty that can be put toward the ultimate goal of independence. The one thousand dollars needed for Matt's moonshine kit is finally within reach, not through luck, but through grit, rust grinding, and absolute cheapness. In the next shift, the garage doors will open again, and another customer will bring in a vehicle held together by prayers and duct tape, ready for us to do it all over again.