The story
Mariss Mežgals — twenty years of work, one stubborn 964, and the workshop that came out of it.
My father was an engineer. He gave me the foundation in mechanics; the attitude I taught myself.
My first real fix was a Suzuki Samurai. The first Fast & Furious had just hit cinemas, and people gathered for our town's first drag race. I lined up against a row of Honda Accords. The Suzuki jumped ahead — and that was it. Broken clutch. I told my grandfather we'd tried to drive up a steep hill, then I rebuilt it myself.
Cars and bikes have been part of my life ever since. Audi S4 and RS4 projects. VW builds. KTM bikes. Welding, repairing, my first engine rebuilds — until I could finally afford the Porsche I'd been working toward: a 964 C4. I still own it.
Twenty years of work has taught me three things: quality is non-negotiable, finishing a difficult project requires holding the line, and the most rewarding part of this craft is helping someone take a step into the unknown. Those are the values OdaFab is built on.
The workshop
OdaFab sits on the edge of Riga in a working industrial quarter — not a showroom. The light is good, the floor is concrete, and the smell is the smell every workshop has: oil, primer, the air-coolant of a 911 that has been running for an hour. Cars come here to be fixed, not photographed.
Riga, and a wider road
Latvia is a small country with a long memory for craft. The Porsche community here is small, close, and serious. Most of our work travels — owners arrive from Germany, the Nordics, and across Europe because the work is the work and the cars travel well. We are happy in either direction.
The 964 that won't leave
I bought my 964 C4 the year I could finally afford it. I have not been able to sell it since. It is the car that taught me what a Porsche owes its owner — which is to say, almost nothing — and what an owner owes the car: time, attention, the willingness to fix what is broken before it becomes the only thing you can think about.