Rebuilding an engine is a very rewarding experience, especially when you do all of the work yourself. It isn’t even all that difficult if you know what you’re doing, and take your time doing it right. And therein lies the catch. It takes time to tear an engine down, clean it off, and totally rebuild it right.

We’ve never seen a stop-motion engine build set to some righteous classical tunes like Edvard Greig’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” You may not know it, but you do know this song. With some clever stop-motion photography and 11-months of hard work, we get to see this dirty old Triumph engine become a beautiful rebuilt motor that fits snugly under the hood.

11 months is a long time to rebuild an old Triumph Spitfire four-banger; an experienced professional could probably have it all done in 24 hours. But there is more to owning an old car than that. These old engines are simple yet effective works of art, free from the computers and miles of wiring found in modern cars. It’s a marvel they can do what they can do.

Even more rewarding is documenting an engine rebuild, and sharing it with the world. Stop-motion photography is old and outdated in some ways, a lot like the Triumph Spitfire. So bringing two different types of skills to this one video makes it a real rarity among the YouTube crowd. And that is why less than a month after it went live, this video has garnered over 1.5 million views. Sure, it’s not American muscle, but if you’ve read this far, you might as well watch the video, don’t you think?