GARY EMORY 1939 FORD

Gary Emory, son of the legendary Custom Car builder and co-founder of the Valley Custom Shop, Neil Emory, is working on his tribute to the Valley Custom Shop Custom 1939 Ford convertible.

 
 
Having been always very impressed by the cars that have come out of the Valley Custom Shop in the 1940’s and 1950’s it was now time to Gary emory to have his own real Valley Custom Shop inspired Custom. The car is being built by Gary’s brother Don Emory and is coming along really nice.
 
Eric Black created this wonderful Artist impression of how Gary’s 1939 Ford Convertible Valley Custom Tribute will look like finished.

 
 
Automotive designer and Illustrator Eric Black just finished the artist impression for Gary. Gary has his own ideas about the custom, invluenced by the creations created by his father, but also his brother Don had a few things to say about the design. So the 1941 Buick skirts Gary had planned to use have been tossed advised by Don, and Don also “hates” white wall tires, so despite the Eric Black illustration with white wall Gary will also prepare a set of black wall fitted wheels to keep everybody happy.
Speaking of wheels. Gary is still looking for a full set of Single Bar flipper hubcaps. So if you know about a set, similar to the once in the photo below, let us know and we will pass it on to Gary.

 
 
How it all started back in 1957
The front half of the car was done in 1957 by Gary’s father Neil Emory and his uncle Clayton Jensen. It was part of a Rod and Custom how to channel series in the December 1957 Issue of Rod & Custom magazine.
The body has been channeled over the frame, with the fenders left in stock position. The cowl and hood are sectioned and the rear quarter panels cut to allow the body to be dropped.
 
The four page R&C article from 1957 shows the steps needed to channel a 1940 Ford. This was one of the specialties of the Valley Custom Shop.

 
 

 
A the 5-inch strip has been removed from the firewall and cowl, and the body has been repositioned. The gap is in the process of being seam-welded. Lotsa bodywork lies ahead.

 
 
Since the ’40 was to be dropped 5 inches, a 5-inch panel of metal was welded to the stock flooring, following the outline of the frame. The floor was then cut out along the inside edge of this panel and rewelded to the top. In the ’50s it was not uncommon to see the body welded to the frame after channeling, but devising rubber or leather body isolators is preferred.

 
 
In order to retain the stock height of the rear fenders, an arc was cut in the body from the bottom of the wheel opening to the deck opening.

 
 
Once the body was dropped inside of the lower arch, the overlapping metal was cut away, and the pieces were seam-welded. A load of metalwork? Yup, but leaving the fenders at stock height looks better and emphasizes the lowered look.

 
 
Once the reinstalled body was welded to the fabricated 5-inch step, the floor was welded atop the step. Here, Valley Custom’s Neil Emory does some final body welding.

 
 
 
The work done on the car as of the end of May 2015
Gary and Don have joined the ’40 standard coupe customized in 1957 with parts of an ’39 DeLuxe Convertible, to create a phantom 1939 Ford DeLuxe Convertible. The car will have no running boards, similar to the Glen Hooker 1939 Mercury the Valley Custom Shop built. Further inspiration for the car comes from the Ralph Jilek sectioned 1940 Ford and also from the 1937 Dodge convertible, Gary’s father built in the 1940’s, before Gary was born. We will keep you posted on the progress on Gary’s 1939 Ford here on the Custom Car Chronicle. Stay tuned….
 
The back of Gary’s ’39 will have 2 set in plates, just like his fathers 1937 Dodge. One for the license plate, and one for Throttle Stompers Burbank club plaque.

 
 
Chopped windshield and top of the cowl from the 39 Ford convertible has been added to the 1940 lower cowl section.

 
 
Gary is still looking for a full set of these single bar ripple disk hubcaps for his Valley Custom Shop tribute project.

 
 
Updated on June 25, 2015. The car is now in primer, and nearly ready for the black paint.

 
 
One of the cars Gary was inspired by to create his 1939 Ford was the perfectly proportioned sectiond 1940 Ford convertible the Valley Custom Shop created for Ralf Jilek.

 
 
Gary’s father’s 1937 Dodge Convertible which Neil built in the early 1940’s was the inspiration for the the double set in license plate set-up.

Amazing style and details in Eric Black’s illustration.

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1950 CHEVY EVIL WAYS

Memo Ortega customized many cars since he first started in the 1950’s. He created this chopped 1950 Chevy Fleetline, a nice mix in styles, for his long time friend Richard Mendez.

By Memo Ortega

Lets start with a little flashback.

I know you will like this. This goes with the story, a kid born on the wrong side of the tracks ha ha…
One of my grand daughters sent me this, she found it online somewhere…. This barn was our play ground back when we were kids, we would go in there, ans play in the hay bails in the early 1940’s. On the right of the barn, between the tall trees in the back ground was our house where I grew up. The barn belonged to Mr. Williams, he was a great man, he allways let us play inside. This photo was taken in the early 1950’s. The cement curb you can see in the picture was done by a contractor that gave me a part time job. Thats how I can tell its a early 1950’s photo. I showed to photo to my wife Terry, she remembers the barn, brought back great memories from back then. Those train tracks in the front is where I got stuck with my 37 when I lowerd it too much…
 
This barn, built by the Williams Bros. in about 1915, was located on the west side of “A” Street, between the santa Fe tracks and First Street in La Verne, CA.

Richard Mendez 1950 Chevy Fleetline

After having enjoyed his kustom truck in the 80’s, (Part 16 of the Memo Ortega Stories) Richard Mendez got himself a 1950 Chevy Fleetline. He decided to go all the way on this one and wanted to completely kustomized it.
I know Richard is a diehard kustom guy, and a cruzer that is allways out there on the blvd.s. He is just like me, believe me. I can ask him to go cruising anytime, and he is always ready to go.

Anyway… when he started working on the car, he called me up to see what we could do to the car. What we could do to make it looks at his best with the ideas and styles he wanted to see on it. The car needed some work when he got it, so I went over to him, and we got to talking ideas for it. He had a 1953 Chevy grill and we decided to use that. So I helped him installing the 1953 grill, welding the shell to the fenders. Next we frenched the headlites with 1952 Merc bezels. As with many of the projects, we were doing this a little at a time. Next we rounded the hood corners it sure was starting looking good by now. We were doing all this work so far at his pad.
 
This is how Richards Chevy looked like in one of the versions before the chop. 1953 Chevy grille, 51 rear quarters, 52 Merc headlights, rounded hood corners and suede black with candy green scallops.

Richard removing all the trim pieces at my home.. the day we would cut to the top.

 
 
After I had marked where to cut the top and pillars, Richard went in to to the hard work LOL.

 
 
The back of the car he wanted to make it a little deferent, so we decided to change the quarter panels, and went with 1951 Chevy quarters, which are much larger than the 1950 rear fenders. So we cut the 1950 quarters off, from the doors all the way to the back, we stood back and looked at the car. “Richard… that looks cool already” I told him, we both were lol. His friend had a 1951 he was junking so Richard got the whole car, it was a convertible. I told Mendez “why don’t we fix the convrt?”…    “No I wanna do my Fleetline, I really dig fleetlines”.  He asked me if these rear qurters would fit his car… “Richard I’ll make them fit balieve me,  I’ve cut up so manny cars, doing body work in my time, I can do anything.”  Lets do it! he told me… Right on Richard.

We cut up the convertible quarters and I trimmed the heck out of them to make them fit the Fleetline. The reason we cut the whole quarters off Richard’s car was because they had quite a bit of cancer on the bottom. Well after cutting and fitting, they came together looking good. Richard decided to french and tunnel the taillights. It looked cool with the taillights frenched. Richard primed it yellow and cruzed the car like that for awhile. He then asked me to help him scallop the car,  so we did the scallops in black (sadly I could not find any photos of this version of the car).
 
After cutting true the back of the top, just above the rear window and all the pillars we carefully dropped top to figure out what would look best for Richards car. Working slowly, taking the time to make sure it looked good from every angle and to all of us. There is no need to rush this very important step.

 
 
With the top dropped, the A-pillars tacked in place and the rear portion of the roof removed, I try to figure out the best way to reshape the back of the roof.

 
 
B-pillars removed and the back portion of the top test fitted.

 
 
Here you can see how we cut the rear window and surrounding metal and place ti back at a lower angle matching the new roof shape. Not easy to do, but when you take your time, and check and double check everything, it can be done right.

A look from the front after we dropped the top.

 
 
A bit latter he primed the car in black suede and then he asked me if I would scallop it again. “Sure lets do that!” It turned out real cool, this time I did the scallops in candy green. Around this time we started our Knight Prowlers club which can read all about his part 22 of my stories here on the CCC… Richard and me had been talking before about the top on his Chevy, and how neat if would look if we would chop it. One day Richard came over to my place… seems he decided to go ahead and have me lower the Fleetline’s top. I told him that it will make your car look real cool. I told told him he had to remove the headliner and other interior things so they dont get massed up, and then bring it to my place.

When both Richard and me where happy of the new roof profile I started to well the seams and put it all back together. Notice how the best flow and lining up the trunk line ended up in a small about one inch gap above the rear window which I had to fill in.

 
 
During this process I had left the glass in the rear window. This gave me a better feel of the flow of the top. We made sure the glass was protected from getting scratched.

 
 
The roof had now been filled in and welded… Everybody who visited during the built gave the thumps up. Here I showed how much the top was chopped using the stock height rear window garnish moulding.

 
 
Fleetlines are a lttle harded to chop as you know, so while Richard was back home, removing the headligher etc, I was already planning the chop in my head. Richard came back, and we started on his car right way. I had him remove all his garnish mouldings, and I marked everything where I was gonna cut. We cut the top of, dropped it the amount we liked, worked slow, and stood back all the time to make sure we both liked what we saw. The car got its lid lowerd, it took awhile to do everything but the Chevy sure looked great with its new profile, Rich is like me, allways changing the paints on his car. After everything got done he took the car over to his friend Greg Perez, to have his interior done. Greg sure liked the way Rich’s car looked now, Greg did the interior in green mohair, he sure out-did himself on this job. This is what Rich wanted instead of tuck an roll like everybody had. Well Rich has been rolling the blvd’s, or cruzing like we used to say back in time, in his kustom cruzer, and enjoying ever minute of it.

 
I could not find any photos of the work I had to do to make the trunk fit the new lower roof profile. But it was quite a bit of work to make it all work together, a lot of pie-cutting, sectioning and reshaping. Here is one photo I found with the trunk just finished with the first dusted primer on it. This is back at Richards house.

 
 

Richard going for a “test drive” in the no finished Chevy… looking good.

 
 
Richard wanted to be able to get his car really low, so I took out the front and completely changed it to make sure he could lower it as much as he wanted.

 
 
One of the paint jobs, suede black and recreating the scallops Richard had on the car before we chopped it. He really loved those scallops.. and so do I.

 
 
Making sure all tape is pressed well to the paint so we will have no bleeding.

 
 
Sanding the black paint in the scalloped sections, getting the car ready for the candy green paint.

 
 
In the paint booth… freshly added candy green over a gold base.

 
 
On one of the many paint versions Richards also had a nice mural on the trunk of the Chevy… I really like the chopped roof line from this angle and with this semi suede black paint.

 
 
At another time the car was in light gray primer… and no matter what, Richards cruised it, and went to the car shows.

 
 
Another new scallop paint job. This time different shape scallops on a suede black base. Doing the work in my back yard. Thats richard on the floor adding paper after I had taped the scallops.

 
 
Adding the masking paper.

 
 
More green scallops… different green this time.

 
 
This is pretty much how Richards Chevy looks like today, 2015. Candy green scallops, over black suede with a wild green metalflake painted roof. ere parked next to my 53 Chevy.

 
 
The rear shows how the Metalflake panel ends in a center scallop on the trunk. Notice how dee the taillights are tunneled. Thats how Richard wanted them. Many customizing styles are mixed into this car.

Part Twenty Four with more of Memo Ortega build Customs is coming soon, stay tuned.
Go back to Part 22.
 
 

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AYALA COVERS

Gil Ayala’s Auto Body Works never had as much magazine exposure as the Barris shop had. Gil was always hard at work, not spending the time George Barris spend on promoting the business using the car magazines.

 

 
The Ayala’s however did have a couple of very nice magazine covers in the early 1950’s. Actually some of the very best Custom Car magazine covers done in the Custom Car golden era. And perhaps the best one was the October 1951 issue of Motor Trend. On this cover an fantastic color photo was taken by Felix Zelenka at the Ayala shop with a gathering of Ayala Custom Cars.
 
Lets take a look at the Ayala Custom Cars that made it on the cover of the magazines.
 
 

Motor Trend November 1950

The first magazine cover exposure the Ayala’s had was on the Motor Trend of November 1950. Even thought the Mercury was on the cover, the inside only showed two photos and a few lines of text on about a quarter of a page. The text mentioned builders Gil and Al Ayala, but not Gil’s Auto Body Works as the body shop. The cover photo was taken by Thomas J. Medley, the model is Anita Houck and it was Al Ayala inside the car. According to Motor Trend magazine the photo had this “back-to-school” motive. It’s still kind of odd that the finished version of this Mercury in black paint is on the cover of the November 1950 issue, while the in -progress photo was used on the Oktober 1951 cover.

Motor Trend November 1950, edition C

This November 1950 Motor Trend cover with the Gil Ayala 1940 Mercury on the cover is a rather rare magazine. As can be seen on the cover, on the top right it reads “Edition C”. As far as I have found out, the Mercury was used on the cover of the magazine distributed to California only. The Rest of the US/World had a cover with a Henry J on it, as can be seen in the inset. The cover and the description about the cover photo on page 5 is the only thing different on the inside of these magazines. So if you ever come across one with Gil’s Mercury on it you better get it.

As for the Mercury… Gil and All chopped the top on the car, they had special metal shaped panels made to fit the back of the top, as well as the full fade away fenders by the California Metal Shaping company. The rear fenders and rear bumper where replaced with 1949 Cadillac units. At first the car used a stock front end. Regular headlights and a 1946 Ford bumper. This is how Gil drove and raced it for a while. The body was in primer, but later they modified the front section of the front fenders, molded in a set of newer headlights and used a 1950 Studebaker bumper on the front. Gil painted the car in a very deep glossy black.

Motor Trend October 1951

One of the best and perhaps most beautiful Ayala covers was taken by Felix Zelenka for the October 1951 issue of Motor Trend. The original photo must have been taken quite some time before it ended up being used for the cover. Odd is that Al Ayala can be seen working on the unfinished 1940 Mercury on this cover photo from October 1951, while the finished car was already on the cover of the November 1950 issue of Motor Trend!
 

Motor Trend 1951.

 
 
In Pat Ganahl’s Ayala articles in TRJ he showed that Felix originally shot a color transparency of this Ayala shop scene. But it was decided that the cars needed a bit more color and light for the magazine cover, so a colorized version was made by Don Fell. In this colorized version some of the cars received different colors than original so that they would look better, more attractive on the cover of the magazine. In this photo we can identify most of the cars as Ayala Customs.

On the top right we can see Wally Welch with his girlfriend – Jeannie Christman,- in front of Wally’s 1941 Ford Convertible. Below that the 1940 Ford of John Geraghty. On the bottom right the 1942 Ford with Cadillac rear fenders of Hank Griffith. On the bottom left side we can see Gil’s personal 1942 Ford Coupe. The car on the top left side is probably D. Hollands 1941 Ford convertible, but thats the only one I’m not 100% sure of. Gil Ayala is leaning on the cars front fender. And in the center of the photo is Gil’s 1940 Mercury with Al Ayala sitting on the fender/hood. The fade away fenders where all done, but the chop was unfinished. The c-pillar filler pieces still needed to be done. What a great photo… I hope that one day more photos from this Felix Zelenka photo session will show up.

Custom Cars 1951

(the first of the Custom Car Annuals)
 
In 1951 the Ayala had one of the car they worked on, on the cover of the Trend Book No. 101 Custom Cars. The first book that would later become an Annual until 1962. There where two cars on the cover of this book. One was the 1940 Ford based Coachcraft built roadster (shown in green on the cover while the car was actually dark blue) and the other car was the 1942 Ford Coupe Ayala did work on for Hank Griffith, colorized in red. The scans of the Cover where made from the first edition of this book. The first edition was printed in July 1951, and the cover was printed on uncoated coarse paper giving it a dull look. While the second edition, printed in October 1951 was printed on a coated glossy paper. Other than the cover, as far as I know, nothing changed between the first and second print. I guess the first edition in July was printed in a relatively low amount. This was a new type of book and Trend Publishing had no idea what to expect from it. Apparently it did better than they thought, hence the second print.
 

First Custom Car Annual Custom Cars 1951.

 
 
About the Ayala car on the cover. Hank’s 1942 Ford coupe had a full page insided the book, on page 77 (see inset). Three photos where shown of the primered Custom. And as far as I can tell the cover photo must have been taken at the same photo shoot as that was used on the Cover of the October 1951 issue which I showed earlier. High point of view (most likely from the Ayala shop building roof. This photo was also taken by Felix Zelenka and colorized (Flexichrome) by Don Fell. The Ayala’s grafted a set of 1951 Cadillac rear fenders to the extended front fenders for a completely unique look. The grille was replaced with a 1949 Cadillac unit. More about the Hank Griffith 1942 Ford can be read in the CCC-Article on the car.

Although the car was colorized red on the cover, I have never seen a photo of this car with finished paint. In the gathering real color photo shot by Felix that TRJ used in their Ayala article we can see the car in dark gray or black primer. And in the October 1951 issue of Hop Up magazine there is a photo showing Hank’s Ford in white primer with black wall tires.

Hop Up April 1952 (inset original color slide).

 
The article inside – two full spreads – showed a nice selection of photos of this early chopped Mercury. And it did mention Gil And Al at Gil’s Auto Body shop as the builders. I really like the look of this Mercury in this first lime gold color. But it did not stay long in this color. Wally Welch brought the car to the Barris shop for a redo which they did in deep purple, and they added two more DeSoto grille teeth in the process as well. This Hop Up cover shows the beauty of the Ayala restyled Custom. Everything is just right on this car. The chop, not to much, just right, the stance, and above all the color in combination with the rest of the restyling. Gil Ayala had a very good eye for picking the right color for the right car. You can read more on the Wally Welch 1950 Mercury in the full CCC-Article on this car.
 
 
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Hop Up May 1953

The Ayala’s had another Custom Car on the cover in 1953. Al Glickman’s 1951 Mercury customized at Gil’s Auto Body shop was used in color on the cover of the Motor Trend of May 1953. For the Ayala’s this was a really great magazine because not only Al’s Mercury they had built was featured in it. There was also a two page feature on the Gil’s Auto Body Works 1951 GMC shop truck in it.
 
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Hop Up May 1953.

If you are not familiar with this particular Motor Trend issue… you might want to check it out next time you see it. It has a ton of really great Custom Car features, including a very nice 4 1/2 page article on the Barris Customs history. If there was ever any competition between Barris and Ayala in building the best Custom Cars, then this battle continued in this issue as well.
Back to the car on the cover…. Al’s 1951 Mercury. The car is rarely seen elsewhere. Only a very few photos of this typically Ayala different designed Custom Car have been published in magazines other than the feature in this Hop Up article. The one things that pops out on this Custom are the 1951 Oldsmobile 98 rear fenders grafted onto the body, and the upward body crease flowing from the front fender where it usually had the dip. The other thing that stands out from the rest is the use of the 1952 Ford Meteor grille (Canadian Ford) which flows nicely in the molded grill surround.

The Ayalas also rounded the hood corners with a large radius, just like they did on the Bettancourt Mercury. Also the rear corners are rounded, and now flow nicely into the A-pillars, a very nice touch you rarely see. Of course the windshield was chopped and Chavez was hired to do the padded top as well as the interior. Gil Ayala painted the car in Devil Red Maroon, which is most likely a bit darker than it shows in the colorized cover photos. According the Motor Trend article Al was called overseas soon after the car was finished, and he sold it to Tommy Kamifuji… and I have no info what happened with the car after that… anybody knows?

Rod & Custom June 1956, Car Craft March 1958

The July issue of Rod & Custom Magazine featured another Ayla Custom on the cover. A very nice full page color photo of the Johnny Rosier 1953 Mercury. The car was a collaboration between Johnny and the Ayala brothers. But most of the work was done at Gil’s Auto Body Works shop. Johnny’s 1953 Mercury with its unusually dark blue (with a greenish hue) and gold paint scheme made it look very good on the cover of the magazine. Another color photo of the Johnny’s Mercury was again used for the cover of the March 1958 issue of Car Craft magazine (right inset photo) as part of a expanded metal grille feature, showing the copper plated material. The Ayala’s did not chop Johnny’s car, but that does not mean everything else was mild on this custom as well.

Rod & Custom June 1956, Car Craft March 1958.

 
At the back they narrowed a 1954 Cadillac bumper to fit below the 1955 Lincoln taillights which were mounted in extended rear fenders. The scoops in the rear quarters where opened up and chrome 1955 T-Bird front fender louvers trim was mounted inside the opening. The front end was modified heavily as well with a new grille opening filled with gold/coper plated expanded metal and the use of three 1955 Buick bumper bullets. The front fenders where extended and a set of 1956 Packard headlights trimmed to fit the Buick bullet and stock Mercury bumper ends. The unusual upwards shaped side trim was created from 1955 DeSoto items, flipped and turned upside down. The upward movement of the side trim makes the car looks kind of strange. But I think back then, was it first built, it was something really new and exciting.. Details like this might have helped getting the car into the magazines. Johnny was a Auto Butchers member, so the brass Auto Butchers cleaver plaque was mounted on the front bumper. Pinstriping on the car was done by Von Dutch. Acording Memo Ortega who hung out a lot at the Ayala shop, Johnny and his Mercury where always over at Gil’s shop, and his car looks so good going down the road when he would leave the shop.

Motor Life May 1957

Another Ayala Custom car was used on the cover of the May 1957 issue of MOTOR LIFE magazine. This time it was Gil’s personal customized 1955 T-Bird.

The Ayala’s reshaped the front using a set of 1955 Pontiac bumpers, Studebaker pans and a small oval grille opening in the center. The front fenders where extended, and 1955 Packard headlights installed. In the photo is clearly visible that the passenger side chrome headlight insert is missing. A new much larger working hood scoop was fabricated. Both wheel openings front and rear where reshaped. The rear fenders where also completely reshaped and the crease running from the front fenders all the way to the back now stops shortly after the door. It looks like the whole back portion of the fender comes from a 1956 Lincoln, including the taillights.

Below it sits a modified 1954 Cadillac bumper end piece, which now also houses the exhaust pipes. Gil fabricated a new roll pan for the back starting just below the trunk and he recessed the license plate into it. In 1957 it was the latest trend to use expanded metal, so Gill used it to create brass plated fender fins at the back, and screens for the hood scoop. Then Gill added one of his signature Candy red paint jobs.
 

Motor Life May 1957.

 
 
The wild pinstriping on Gil’s 1955 T-Bird was done by Walt Leeman who later used to pinstripe out of the House of Chrome which was housed on the corner of the lot where the Ayala Brothers where at. Walt striped Gil’s T-Bird at a hollywood car show. Walt was striping the car just when Von Dutch was brought over by Earl Bruce and the two where introduced. It must have been a touch job striping while the pinstripe master Von Dutch is watching you over your shoulder. Later Gil redid the car and removed the over the top expanded metal, reshaped the front fenders and added different headlights. Fortunately this car survived, and is currently (summer 2015) being restored for a Norwegian caretaker by a shop in Florida

Speed and Custom Spetember 1961

Another Ayala Custom Cover Car is this 1953 Chevy Gil’s Auto Body Works created for Bob Lomax from Harbor City, California. Inside this September 1961 issue of SPEED and CUSTOM the car is listed as a Bob Lomax owned candies ’53 Chevy. The two page feature does not mention anything about the cars Ayala origins at all. However the May 1960 issue of Rod & Custom magazine also has a two page feature on this car. It looked a bit different then, with an mid 1950’s look and in this article the car is mentioned to be a Gil Ayala built Custom Car. In this article it is mention that the car has been collecting custom trends over that past few years.
 

Speed and Custom September 1961

 
 
The Ayala’s build this car from Bob in the mid 1950’s, and it was updated every few years. The two inset photos on the bottom show how the car looked in the 1960 R&C feature. The front wheel openings where flared and radiused, a new grille opening was created in which a Barris tube grille was mounted. Although I can imagine this car had a different floating type of grille earlier. The headlights frenchend, and taillights are now 1954 Packard units in extended fenders. The side trim comes from a 1956 Plymouth. 

In 1961 The stance of the car had changed completely, now with a forward rake and with the fender skirts and Spotlights removed looked much more sporty than before Bob also added a set of chrome reverse rims to replace the wheels with hubcaps on the aelier version. In the Speed and Custom article it is mentioned that the car had 20 coats of Candy Apple lacquer, but no mentioning of who applied it. We all know Gil Loved to paint cars, and Candies where his favorite type of paint, so perhaps the paint job was his. Louie Chavez is credited for the interior and padded top.
 
 
 

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WALLY WELCH TAKES BEST CUSTOM WITH HIS AYALA 1950 MERCURY

The second Petersens Motorama show was held in November 1951. The show was open to the public from November 7 till the 11nd. Just like the previous year the show was held in the Architectural Icon: the Pan Pacific Auditorium.

 
(Original article from July-09-2013, updated June-08-2915)
Wally Welch entered his freshly finished 1950 Mercury in the second Petersen’s Motorama show. After enjoying his Ayala built 1941 Ford for several years, he brought a near new 1950 Mercury to the Ayala brothers to built a radical, yet subtile, custom for him. The car was chopped relatively mild, had its front fenders extended with frenshed headlights. Reshaped grille opening with 5 partly covered 1951 DeSoto grille teeth added. Gil Ayala painted Wally’s merc an brilliant lime green with gold powder added for extra sparkle.
 

 
The car looked stunning in this color and it sets Wally’s Mercury apart from most other customs, which were painted with dark organic paints. It might very well be possible that the judges were very impressed with Gil’s brilliant color and his bold choice of painting a large, almost brand new car, with such a “In Your Face” kind of color. In any event Wally did win the Best Custom award at the 1951 Pan Pacific Petersen’s Autorama show. It is also told that the Ayala’s were trying to debut two Mercury’s at the show, and both were painted a shade of lime gold. The Wally Welch Merc was finished in time for the show, but the other one, the 1949 Mercury the shop was creating for Louis Bettancourt, had a lot more body work going on, and could not be finished in time for the show. It must have been a stunning experience to see two of these amazing smooth Custom Cars both painted and brilliant lime gold sitting side by side. Sadly that never happened. Louis 1949 Mercury was done for the 1952 Petersen Motorama Show.
 
Cropped section of the photo above shows the show card that was created for the show. Sadly it is not completely showing in the photo. One of the awards is being displayed on the coffee table that was used for display and where people could pic up an Gil’s Auto Body Workshop business card.

 
 
Wally’s daughter still has the original plaque which was part of the awards. Sorry for the poor photo which we took at the 2011 GNRS Customs Then & Now exhibit under very poor lighting conditions.

 
 
Gil Ayala posing with the Wally Welch 1950 Mercury for the photographers at the show.

 
 
This rather fuzzy photo is a movie still from an 1951 movie made by Petersen Publishing/Trend Publishing about the 1951 Motorama. It shows the Wally Welch Mercury at the Pan Pacific Auditorium show, surrounded by the audience.

 
 
Another still shows that there are two people standing next to the drivers side of the car on the inside of the roped section, talking to some people in the audience, could these be perhaps Gil and Al Ayala promoting Gil’s Auto Body works.

 
This still from the movie was most likely taken before or after opening hours of the show.

The complete Promo movie can be seen here, shared from Youtube.

Above we can see the locations were the Wally Welch Mercury was shown in the Pan Pacific building (the 1950 Mercury placed on the floor plan is not to scale). The House of Chrome, the accessory shop located in the small building on Gil Ayala’s Auto Body works had a booth at the show, No. 102.

 
 
 
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LARRY WATSON CADILLACS Part two

Part two in the series of photos of Cadillacs custom painted by Larry Watson. Very colorful and amazing photos from Larry’s Personal Photo Collection.

This is the second part in a series of two on the Cadillacs custom painted by Larry Watson. In the late 1950’s and early/mid 1960’s the Cadillac were very popular amongst the car guys. This period, when the line between the Custom Car scene and the low-rider scene began to fade, and new styles were born. Larry painted a huge amount of cadillac’s in the most wild, mild and experimental colors.

In the past we already had done a special article on Larry’s personal 1959 Cadillac and will do another one on his 1958 Brougham in the future. In this article we will again share some really great samples of Cadillac custom painted by Larry… in no particular order. The majority of the photos in Larry’s Collection were made shortly after the cars were finished, parked in front of Larry’s shops, before the customer would pick them up.
Sadly a lot of Larry’s photos did not came with any information. Form some of the cars in the photos we know the owners name, others not. If somebody recognizes any of these cars, please let us know. We would love to add the names to these amazing cars in the photos.

We hope you will enjoy the Larry Watson Cadillacs Part Two.

 
Calvin Weicamp’s Candy red wit silver top 1959 Cadillac with wire wheels and double thin line white wall tires on the front and single units on the back.

 
 
Larry had his employee Ed Gray do the customizing on his 1961 Cadillac. The work included shortening the top fins with ten inches, double headlights, custom fine tubular grille and belflower tips. Then Larry painted the Cadillac in black pearl with a fine silver top.

 
 
This is the same Cadillac as above, which Larry redid in bright Candy Red with a champagne flaked roof. By then he had given the car to his wife Amedee.

 
 
Another 1961 Cadillac was painted a deep plum purple pearl with a silver top. The car had a tubular grille, a nice rake with thin line white wall tires with chrome reversed wheels.

 
 
Really great looking Fuchsia pearl with silver top painted 1962 Cadillac photographed at Larry’s Lakewood Blvd. shop in Paramount, Ca. This one also has a set of thin line white wall tires mounted on chrome reserve wheels to give the car a more aggressive look.

 
 
1961 Convertible in a wonderful deep teal-green photographed at Larry’s Lakewood Blvd. shop.

 
 
Bill Ortega shaved the body of the emblems and handles on Larry Watson’s personal 1962 Cadillac before Larry painted the car in a striking black platinum pearl. 

 
 
Another photo of Larry’s Personal 1962 Cadillac photographed when it was sitting in Tom Shaw’s Cadillac dealer showroom. By now Larry had repainted the car in nitro black and a salt and pepper silver flake roof, although this last cannot really be seen in this photo.

1960 Cadillac is brilliant silver with a super glossy black roof.

Candy dark orange-red 1960 convertible.

 
 
1963 Cadillac in a dark candy red with silver top with the top portion of the top done in either flakes or cobwebbing. Mildly customized with handles and emblems removed and a set of dummy spotlights installed.

Larry painted this mostly stock 1963 Cadillac in pearl white.

1965-66 Cadillac in a wonderful dark warm green at Larry’s Firestone Blvd. shop in Downey.

Dark green was used by Larry for Greg Morris’s 1969 Cadillac with black vinyl top.

 
 
More Larry Watson painted Cadillac’s from the Larry Watson Personal Photo Collection can be seen in part One.
 
 

 
 
 
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© by Michelle M. Yiatras Timechanic ™
(Nick Matranga – That Illustrious Sanguine ’40 Merc! – original written February, 2014)

Part two

Due to the length of this article from Michelle, we have split it up in three parts. Be sure to click “NEXT PART” at the end of this article to see the full article.
 

David Zivot on Nick and his Merc

So…Why another Matranga Merc? “It isn’t just another one. We don’t need just another one. That automobile was an amalgamation of the thought processes of Nick Matranga, Sam Barris, and George Barris. Nick related to me, while inspired by the J. Zaro and A. Andril Mercury’s, he wanted something more advanced and stylish that would set his ’40 Mercury coupe apart from more common customs he saw around L.A. There were other ’40 Merc coupes running around then and none met Nick’s sense of style. As a high school kid in 1948 L.A. he was influenced by pillarless hardtops like the ’49 Buick Roadmaster Riviera, the ’49 Cad Coupe de Ville, and the ’49 Olds Holiday. I saw enough Matranga-style attempts in mags and at shows, and I was a bit disappointed in the lack of commitment in trying to achieve an accurate rendition. Not that accuracy was necessarily the goal of some of these builders. But Nick was clearly chagrined that no one quite ‘got it right’.

Nick and I discussed the inexhaustible popularity and emulation that his senior year project provided custom car guys through the years. He actually had plans to replicate his most memorable car himself. Nick was very polite to other builders, and often autographed their visors and dashboards, but was let down by the missing verisimilitude of most that he viewed. Then I presented him that with his help and advisement I’d take a shot at it. I took extraordinary efforts and pains to assure it would be as accurate and true to nature as humanly possible. He took an immediate interest because he observed my authenticity for historical and technical concerns.

He’d say, ‘How the hell did you know that? I haven’t thought about that in 50 years!’ Nick was a consummate gentleman, well-mannered and well-informed. If I asked a question and he didn’t know the answer on the spot, a week later I’d get handwritten letters in his perfect penmanship, ‘Now I remember how I did that…’ We talked about more than his iconic car; we talked about J.C. Fremont High School, his neighborhood, the drive-ins, hanging out at George’s and Sam’s place. How it was the best being a teenager in L.A. in the 1940’s. And all the really neat cars you’d see driving around every day, very well done customs and hot rods, and not as well done but sincere efforts. It was fun and the weather permitted. He told me they’d go downtown and see Gary Cooper or Clark Gable coming out of Eastern Auto or Musso & Frank Grill or a men’s clothing store. Also he mentioned some of his relatives in charge of L.A.-based back-east interests, like restaurants and bars. They’d pick up the check for him and his friends so he could act like a big shot.
 

Nick at the High School Senior Autoshop L Fremont ’48.

 
 
Nick High School Senior Football Letterman Fremont ’48 Back Row 2nd fr L from Nick’s 1948 Fremont High School senior yearbook, gifted to David & Michelle.

 
 
I’m a proponent of a high degree of exactitude in representing an automotive artifact. The original car existed a brief couple of years. It’s important to have a representation that would exemplify Nick, as well as Sam and George, and the time period. Nick said if you were a good-looking guy and had a keen car you had no trouble for Fri and Sat night dates, and you could just be driving down the street and girls would jump in your car. As a teen you have a lot less cares and concentrate on the important things like cars, hamburgers, and skirts. Nick said if he hadn’t gone to Korea, he woulda really had a good time in his car, but the time he did have was too short.”
 

“George’s Greek aesthetics of color and form were amazing and unfailing,
especially early on.”

 
Technical regards… “He’d seen other Barris lacquer jobs, including George’s own car, that had the deep majestic maroon that George would conjure up by using toners and custom blends that he would supervise at the paint store. George’s Greek aesthetics of color and form were amazing and unfailing, especially early on. Nick thought that patrician maroon stood out and glowed on the street, particularly at night under the street lights. Nick knew what he wanted in his mind, Sam knew what he wanted in his mind, and when they started cutting the roof they arrived at, ‘That’s it!’ Both Sam and Nick agreed that the flow of the roof, at the sail panels, a product of CA metal shaping, the raised windshield header area, and other refinements, and the most important omission of cumbersome B pillars, were much more advanced and pleasing developments than what was done on the Zaro or Andril cars. Nick was adamant about these things. Phil Weiand built and modified Nick’s ’46 Mercury block, with full Weiand racing equipment, and Winfield cam, and took special care in its assembly and cosmetic appearance. Nick wanted it sound with plenty of pep for street reliability.”
 

 
 
Examining the ‘Kustom’s L.A.’ club plaque. “Hmmm…Color photographs of a ‘Kustom’s L.A.’ plaque, that’s neat. And also serves to confirm that they were most likely royal purple, as the contrast between the California black plate and the deteriorating Ektachrome or Kodachrome photographic print would tend to distort the true color. The photo of the aluminum plaque on Jim Skonzakes’ ’49 Buick is clearly purple. Refer to the back of the photo, July 22, 1952, #12, dated.
 
Color photo from Jul 22, 1952 of Jim Skonzakes his 1949 Buick shows what looks like an aluminum Kustom’s plaque with a purple painted base.

 
 
Color photo from Oct 4, 1951 shows a brass Kustom’s Plaqueon on the Jack Stewart 1941 Ford with what appears to be a black painted base.

 
 
The original plaque that I am in possession of, which was gifted to me from Nick Matranga a few years ago, has a numeral ‘3’ stamped into the back. It measures X” W x X” H x X” thick. The recast that Kurt McCormick makes measures X” x X” and varies in thickness between X” and X”. All early originals, let’s say the first twelve to fifteen, were cast art bronze, and had the telltale large ‘S’ at the end of ‘LoS’. Jesse Lopez was the first President of ‘Kustom’s L.A.’, and was instrumental in its formation in 1948. The plaque that Nick gave me is his original off the ’40. He got an additional plaque when he came back stateside in 1953, when the Korean War ended. He purchased a brand new ’53 Mercury Monterey two-door hard top, on which he attached the plaque. He could not remember who gave it to him, but I have an idea that all the original members were given a number as to when they joined up or when the club was formed. Just a theory.
 
Nick’s Original Kustom’s L.A. Plaque; this was Nick’s original that was emblazoned on the ’40 Merc, also ran on the ’53 Mercury Monterey, gifted to David.

 
 
As to the aluminum one at the NHRA museum, I wouldn’t discount it out of hand. I know a fellow in Los Angeles who’s had an aluminum version of this plaque since 1952. George Barris had an affinity for Greek nobility and the trappings of royalty, that’s why he favored purple and the royal coat of arms that he fabricated for the affected Barris crest. It’s a Greek thing. In the realm of small details, notice the pair of ‘Kustom’s L.A.’ club plaques that have been removed from Nick’s car and probably Johnny Zaro’s that are stacked together in Nick’s booth at the 1951 Oakland Show. They are leaned up against the wood divider in front of Nick’s car right by the hacksaw that’s lying on the ground. One of these days one of us will spot an ethereal image of Mother Mary in the ripples of a lacquer paint job.”
 
Two Kustom’s plaques are up against the divider wall with Nick’s Mercury on the left. (the full photo can be seen in part one)

Tony Pisano of the Pisano Brothers, on Nick

Joe and Carmen Pisano, Tony and Frank’s oldest brothers, were family tight with Nick, like Nick was another brother. Tony Pisano, of the Pisano Brothers, who built the Pisano/Ogden ’41 Buick chopped custom with an original Gaylord Carson top, was a drag racer. He owns ‘Worco Powder Coatings’ on Cherry Industrial Circle, in Long Beach, CA. “I was in the scroungy war, when we were all into putting together the cars in different combinations. I was drafted into the Army. Nick was pals with my brother, Carmen. They met at the drive-ins and shops. Carmen hopped up some of his engines. Nick’s dad had a night club, ‘The Mint Tulip’, on Florence near Normandy. The memories are sad because it hurts to remember. Nick had a hot-headed sense of humor. He could be critical. Nick was a good-looking guy, he had all sorts of broads. Nick was a fun guy, he could walk by a woman and say, ‘Wow, what a great ass!’, and they would say, ‘Thanks for the compliment.’ He was likeable and could get away with it.”
 
 
 

Frank Pisano of the Pisano Brothers, on Nick

Born in 1939, and native to L.A., owns ‘Venolia Pistons and Rods’ on Cherry Industrial Circle, in L.B., CA. “Nick came over to Tony’s ‘Worco Powder Coatings’ every Saturday to have his ’37 Chevy powder coated. We all hung out and ate at ‘Curley’s Cafe’ for hamburgers. When I first started driving my funny car ’67 Camaro at Lion’s Drags in 1968, Nick made sure I was seat belted tight in before I got to the starting line. He’d close the door and pat me on my head. He had the side windows made right specially for me out of plastic. He hung out with my older brothers, Joe, Carmen, Tony, Sammy, and me the brat. He’d always go to the races with us to make sure everything was OK. Nick was that type of guy, loving. More than a friend. We were there for each other and helped in each other’s businesses. Carmen supervised setting up the car racks at Nick’s transmission shop. Tony painted and powder coated for Nick. If we needed a transmission done he took care of it. When you’re Italian you trade. We didn’t exchange money.
 

Nick in his days was a good-looking guy, always well dressed. And he didn’t like to get dirty

 
I first met Nick about 10 years old. My brothers brought him over to the shop, on 52nd and Western in L.A., ‘Bigelo & Pisano’. Carmen was the smart one, our leader. Joe was the car salesman. Tony was the painter. Sammy was a general contractor. I was the mechanic helper. I helped with the race cars. Nick in his days was a good-looking guy, always well dressed. And he didn’t like to get dirty. You look at him and he would talk to you, and he was very nice looking and very nice person, and you wondered if he was a gigolo. When I got to know more of him I learned he was a very true and honest man. If he didn’t like you he’d let you know about it. If he did like you he’d give his heart to you.
 
Nick in the middle and good friend James Mahaffey on the right in 1947.

 
 
James Mahaffey at Catalina Island 1947 & Fremont High Senior Grad ‘48”; Jim Mahaffey got killed making a pass and upset in his ’32 coupe at Russetta sanctioned El Mirage dry lakes in 1947 at 17 years old, erased but not to be forgotten on the speed record chalkboards; from Nick’s personal collection, including an insert from Nick’s 1948 Fremont High School senior yearbook, gifted to David & Michelle.

 
 
They all allowed me to hang out with them. They’d say, See you at the drive-in, ‘Scrivener’s’ in Inglewood. We’d have coffee and hook up to race. We’d park in the back and talk about our cars, motors, and chops. I started driving at 13, not supposed to without a license. ’53 Studebaker trucks with Cad motors. After Korea in the ‘Screwdrivers’ club of Culver City, with my brother, Joe, and Don Rackemann and Nick. I rode with my brothers while street racing between Culver City and Inglewood. On 190th in Inglewood was a root beer drive-in that we met at to race. As fast as you could go, and whoever was way ahead would shut off because the other guys couldn’t catch him. There was no measured stretch. We had so many cars that we moved around and changed around, ’32 roadsters, Model A coupes, and Chevy coupes, 32’s-33’s-34’s, and later ’55 and ’57 Chevy’s. Before Korea we mostly worked at our race shop. It was a gathering and BS place. We always had black cars. Nick said it was important to keep it clean and polished.

He always hugged me and said I was doing the right thing by keeping ‘Venolia Pistons’ going when Joe died. Joe died in my arms at the races from a heart blockage. I took care of my mother and father when they were sick, like Nick took care of his wife and son. We always stuck together. We all had our shops on the same street on the Cherry Industrial Circle in L.B., and that was our later hang out.”
 
Russell Lenarz High School Senior Fremont ’48”; the elusive hot rod racing photog in composite from Nick’s 1948 Fremont High School senior yearbook, gifted to David & Michelle. Russell Lenarz took the ‘Jesse & ’41 Ford 1949 Turf Club’ photo, and so many others.

Herschel ‘Junior’ Conway, ‘Junior’s House of Color’, of Florence Av, Bell Gardens, CA, on Nick

“I was the youngest kid working at Barris’. I met Jesse in 1955. Jesse came around a lot more than Nick did. Nick already got rid of his Merc and was back from Korea by the time I met him. Even the 1960’s had passed by the time I really got to know him, even though in the early 60’s he talked to me about painting a ’57 Chevy Nomad black. I was wary, I had plenty of business, and knew he was very particular. I knew Jesse and Hirohata well. Nick and I didn’t hook up until the 1970’s. He took the Nomad to Barris’ to have Tubs paint it. And he wasn’t happy that the job wasn’t detailed enough for him. He called to tell me about it. I passed. Then he sold the Nomad, and later in the 1970’s went to build a ’32 Ford coupe.
 

Nick’s Barris shop painted 1957 Chevy Nomad.

 
 
He had Barris’ doing body work, his guy Dick Dean. One day he called me up to inspect some parts and redo some body work. Next I was doing all the rest of the bodywork on it. I was doing high end sports car work (Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Rolls), and he liked how I finished, fit, and detailed cars. We’re in the process of bringing it to paint. It cost a lot, so he had Boyd Coddington paint his ’32 in the early 1980’s.
 
Nick’s black 1932 Ford coupe, painted by Hot Rods by Boyds made it onto the cover of the April 1984 issue of Street Rodder magazine.

 
 
I’d go visit him and have him do transmission work and he’d visit me. He’d say, ‘You are the best painter, at everything you do, your detail finish work, you’re just too expensive.’ I had too much work to do, and Nick always wanted a deal. To do the custom work today to my level is very expensive. I can’t give a guy that kind of work and keep it affordable. A lot of guys are running into that. In the early days, I didn’t plan it. I made the car and we all traded out. That is the only way those cars got done. Jesse and Nick both worked two, three jobs to afford their cars, materials alone.

Today’s kids read a magazine or see a TV show and think it’s easy. I was a young boy that came from Kentucky in 1952, and I too read the mags and wondered how they afforded to do this. I questioned how Jesse and Nick had the money to spend. When I got here I realized it was a lot of bargaining and horse trading to get it done. I had Sam black out my bumpers so the bolts didn’t show through, and he leaded the hood so it didn’t have chrome molding anymore. It took him two full nights. It took me two weeks of painting his house trim to work off that trade. George wanted to include my car in a car show with others. He needed it finished so he took money out of my paycheck to pay for the labor a whole year after George and I finished my car, my senior year of high school, 1956-57. Had it not been for people like George and Sam Barris, at any shop, if not for being able to work on your car in the facilities that they had, and shared with you, the expense would not have been possible. I was very young, younger than the rest. Seventeen when that car was finished and in shows, thanks to them. I worked for Barris until 1961. By 1960 Jesse and I did ‘House of Color’, until I took it entirely over in 1961, ‘Junior’s House of Color’.” Junior’s ’50 Ford business coupe custom, painted ‘Sam Bronze’, went away by 1970, and was accurately rebuilt by Jerry Daman of Dallas, TX, who is also rebuilding the Jesse Lopez ’41 Ford club coupe custom.
 
 
 

Don Rackemann of San Pedro, CA, on Nick

Lifelong best friend of Nick’s. Ran Saugus Dragstrip. Lou Baney and Lou Senter owned Saugus, Don ran as manager and starter 1951-55. Owned ‘Don’s Speed Shop’ 1950-52, with partner Lou Baney, running at lakes and building hot engines. Changed to ‘Lou Baney Automotive’ when he sold him his share. From 1952-55 went on as ‘Ansen Automotive’ representing after-market hot rod parts to speed shops. Now owns ‘Fuel Savers Group’ MPG3 fuel enhancer. “I knew Nick since junior high. We went to different junior highs, and then later went to John C. Fremont High School. We were both small guys in the 10th grade, 15 years old, maybe 100 lbs, 5’2”. But we thought we were cool. We got in an argument and a fist fight in the quad. We were hitting each other and not doing any damage because of our small size. The other kids looking on were stunned. We weren’t even aware until the coach pulled us apart and told us we were making a spectacle of ourselves. We stayed friends. At 16 on California nights all year round us hot rodders went to the drive-ins: ‘The Wich Stand’ on Slauson by W. LA and Inglewood; ‘Scrivener’s’ on Manchester Blvd in Inglewood; ‘DeMay’s’ on Slauson in Culver City. We’d cross paths. Then for a year we didn’t.
 

 
In the meantime I built a ’32 three-window coupe in stock brown-black, sitting on the corner of Hoover, and the car next to me is the primered Merc, and it’s Nick smiling at me. ‘Nick! What are doing on that lead barge?’ At that time Jesse was building his car at Barris’, I was a hot rodder, not a customizer, and I had to show him how the cookie crumbles. I revved the engine to let him know I had the horsepower. He scrunched his head and declined because he had a stock engine in it still. So I hit the throttle and went on down the road, 60-80-100 mph, in 1949. Nick’s car took a lot longer to complete than my coupe. I put my car in the hot rod show at the L.A. Armory 2nd show 1951. I took first place in the competition coupe class they put me in. A man came into the show on Saturday with his son. They went gaga and wanted to buy it. I hesitated because I just finished the paint and upholstery. Next day on Sunday he came back and offered me $100, so I took it and sold it at the show. A Merc bore, stock stroke, Offenhauser heads and manifold, three Strom 97 carbs, stock ignition, Iskenderian ground cams. Stock good street machine. Only engine I ran in it. It taught me a big lesson.
 
Don Rackemann’s 1932 Ford Coupe at an early 1950’s Motorama show. The photo was taken by Walter Wyss and is part of the Jimmy Barter Collection (Thank you for sharing it with us Jimmy).

Nick (rear L) & Pals in ’25 T Track Roadster 1947.

 
 
Some guys had exotic stroker engines. My car ran so strong. It had Lincoln gears in the transmission, a longer 25 tooth cluster gear, 4:11’s rear end, 6.00 x 16 on the front. Without planning it, that combination with the compression, and the cam, and the carburetion, ran really fast with the gear ratios. I sold that car and opened up a first shop with that money, ‘Don’s Automotive’, located kitty corner from ‘Scrivener’s’ on Slauson and Western in S.W. L.A., 1951. I built engines for my friends who wanted to go fast. The first drag race at Santa Ana, 1950, before the Armory show, I raced that ’32 coupe, rolling start quarter mile, and won first place coupe and sedan class. Beat Joe Reath in the semifinals, and Dean Moon in the finals.
 

Clark Gable & his 1949 Jaguar XK120 Roadster ‘Gable Grey.

 
 
I still had the ’32 coupe and my wife was still pregnant. We were driving out to Malibu. I just finished the engine and it was all clean and chromed, putting some miles on it. Winding along the 101, on our way back through Encino, I glanced to the left and going opposite I noticed the new green Jaguar go by, and realized it was Clark Gable. I whipped a U-turn and caught up with him at a signal. He glanced over at my engine and raised his eyebrows. I revved my engine a couple times. So he smiled. He reached over to put his in low gear and then the signal changed. He jumped on it. My car with those gears I could run 70 mph in low gear. I just stayed right beside. He bangs his shift into second and I still stayed right beside him. He smacked it into third gear, I jumped on the throttle, put mine into second, and smoked his ass. I had to shut it off for the next signal. Then he pulled up next to me at the signal, and smiled and said, ‘Pretty fast, son, pretty fast.’ I was twenty years old. Sue, my first wife, just giggled. Nick and I were the same age, born the same year.

After the ’32 three-window was sold and I opened my shop, 1951, Nick went into the Army. When he came home, the first thing he did was call me and said, ‘I hear you have a really, really hot coupe!’ I said, ‘I’ll pick you up at 7 o’clock!’ He looks it over and says, ‘Aw, this is bitchin’.’ We went to ‘DeMay’s’ drive-in. There were a couple guys and cars we didn’t know. He says, ‘Is there anything here you can’t beat?’ I said, ‘No.’ So he says ‘How about that guy that just pulled in?’ A ’32 roadster. Nick walks over to him and says, ‘You wanna try it?’ ‘Yeah sure,’ thought his roadster could beat my coupe. We went to Lincoln Blvd, behind L.A. International Airport. The runways were so long and Lincoln stretched diagonally across that back of the airport. Nick said, ‘Where do you want me to get out?’ to drop him off while I ran the race. I said I can’t because the floorboards that were angled had screw down bolts. Mine fit real tight so I didn’t put the screw in, and I put carpet over them. So I would have someone sit next to me and put their feet down on them and hold them when the car went over 100-110 mph. So he had to ride the race with me a lot to hold the floor boards down, at least three times a week going street racing. He already sold the Merc.

From the late 1940’s-50’s, to the early 1960’s, Nick’s dad, Nick Sr, had a family Italian restaurant named ‘Nick’s’, on Florence Av in L.A. I ate dinner, mostaccioli and spaghetti, many times. We’d end up there before racing. Later in 1958, after I got Nick to quit laying bricks and come be the vice-president of my company, ‘National Bonded Cars’, the first company to ever put out a mechanical failure warranty on used cars. Jack Hershey also worked for me in sales. Nick’s first wife, Gayleen, and my wife of 60+ years, Jo, were friends. Nick’s brother-in-law Larry, and my wife’s brother Jon, were also real good friends. They figured out a system to make money in Las Vegas. They showed it to us, and we acted like it was nothing. Jack Hershey, who was our pal, got me and Nick to practice this dice rolling system on the living room floor, and it worked! We said, ‘Let’s go to Vegas,’ and the three of us went. Jack writing the pad, I’m working the money, and Nick’s watching the action. The first weekend we went we each put up $150 in the pot for the bankroll. At the end of the weekend we came home with $3600 each. We stayed at the Sahara Hotel because Louis Prima and Keely Smith were headlining. We really thought we were hot stuff, big time gamblers. We drove a white 1957 Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Next week we flew and did the same. It started out ahead, and then it turned and we lost everything. We called our wives to wire another $450. We lost again. They’re mad, we’re mad. On the plane home we’re not even talking to each other. I had just purchased, as the owner, the company ‘National Bonded Cars’. So we got home Sunday night. On Thursday I got my first commission check $2000+. We took that check and got back on the plane to Vegas. Hershey had the paperwork from the other runs, I put up the money. This time we won $36,000 ($12,000 apiece). This time we had a bankroll that kept us going to win. Our system worked.

 
The ’29 roadster on a ’32 frame was painted Iris Blue, and striped and flamed by Von Dutch.

 
 
At 1955 Bonneville, the ‘Iris’ light blue color, it was very subtle and really stood out with the Von Dutch red, yellow, and orange flames. Lou Baney was service manager over all three Yeakel Brothers; Cadillac, Olds, and Chrysler-Plymouth. We were sponsored by Yeakel Cad. That year of 1955 the ‘Iris Blue’ Cadillac was their prime chip color. I had all the embroidered shirts and painted vehicles in that color. Nick put up the money for the second engine that we built and won the records, that was Nick’s engine. Us hot dogs (Nick Arias Jr, Lou Baney, Teddy Evosavich, Bill Likes, Nick Matranga, Danny O’Brien, Don & Rich Rackemann, Don’s wife Jo) had Nick Arias’ Jimmy in the car the first couple days. Nick M.’s stroker in the car for the last three days that we went the fast 189 mph in 1955. We came in second. Art Chrisman’s roadster with a Chrysler, beat us that weekend by 3 mph, he got first place.”
 
Nick & Yeakel Crew Autographed Aug 2001 Rod & Custom. As personally autographed from Nick & the guys to Dennis Loehr, gifted to David & Michelle.

 
 
Inspecting a blurry ghost I titled ‘Drag Races 1956’ from Nick’s personal photo collection, Don comments, “Fran Hernandez was a drag race icon. At the beginning was three or four people that made the dual and three and four carb manifolds for the Ford flathead. The most popular was Edelbrock (my first was a two carb), and the first I ever saw was Eddie Meyer. Just after the War, Fran H. and Fred Offenhauser (nephew of Offy Indy engines) made a deal for Fran’s designs of a set of heads and manifolds. Fran was the machinist, and was promised 25%. Fran got the idea that the Offenhauser name carried weight. He was young and without paperwork, it wasn’t called a ‘Fran’, it was called an ‘Offenhauser’. Fran’s designs were very popular and sales were great. A few years later Fred told Fran he wasn’t getting his 25%. When Vic Edelbrock heard Fran was leaving Offy, he offered and hired him on the spot. When Fran came over to Edelbrock in 1949, the cemented guys, Bobby Meeks and Don Towle, got a little bent out of shape. Because when Fran came in he was a made dude, because he was so smart, and the lead guy in lakes and drag racing. Fran became the main man at Edelbrock. It worked out well.
 
LF. –Bill Likes getting it fired up, LB. –Fran Hernandez legendary hot rod racer and mechanic bending over engine compartment, C. –Don Rackemann driver putting on helmet, RF. –Lou Baney, RB. -Ted Evosavich; from Nick’s personal collection, gifted to David & Michelle.

 
 
That’s Danny O’Brien’s ’29 roadster on a ’32 frame with a ’55 Olds Hydra. Fran built the Hydra-Matic we put in that car at the drag strip. Fran did the hydramatic modifications before B & M did, Fran was one of the first, way before. I quit driving the car because it ran very well on gas or alcohol, but when we ran nitro I couldn’t control the transmission, it didn’t have enough stall speed. Even though we had the record at seven drag strips, we never lost. Fran was working on solving that. Fran was liked by everyone. Very abrupt and so bright, everyone wanted him to tell them what to do. He knew everything. An extra good guy that everyone loved.”
 
L.-R. –Rich Rackemann, Don Rackemann, Nick Matranga; as taken by Dennis Loehr in Nick’s office at Advanced Transmission.

Rich Rackemann of San Pedro, CA, on Nick

Don’s younger brother, a partner and executive of automotive marketing, advertising, and promotions, for ‘Beaumont Design Group’. “I was a tag along. My brother and Nick were eight years older and brought me with them. I started hanging out when I was 12-13. Started going to drag racing, Bonneville, the lakes, all that. Nick grew up a little more affluent than the rest. His folks owned the Italian restaurant. Some of the guys went in the kitchen to eat. Nick always had nice equipment, all his stuff was very detailed. The way he dressed, carried himself, his hair, his cars, that was very important. He goes and buys a ’40 Merc, the club coupe. His Mother said it was the ugliest car she had ever seen! He told her, ‘Ma, I have a vision. Then it will be the most beautiful car you ever seen!’ And he worked on the Merc and when it was done she agreed with him, ‘Nick, it IS the most beautiful car I have ever seen!’ He’d say, ‘Richie, it’s all in the top, the way the top chop was cut and fitted. The other guys always get that wrong, and the bumper guards in the back placed wrong. Heck, they even get the color wrong.’ He said he was enjoying himself working on the last car because the guy’s (David) head is in the right direction. Junior Conway and I went to Lynwood High School together, same grade Class of 1957. In 1955-56, Nick was building a ’41 Ford pickup at Bob Grossie’s garage on 48th St, L.A., a very nice truck with a very hot Cadillac motor. Just finished it. I told him I had a date and needed a nice set of wheels to go out in. I had the date, and also had a street drag race set up. He said, ‘Sure, come and get it.’ When I got the truck his parting words to me, ‘Richie, don’t break it!’ I told him I’d bring it back sometime Saturday at Grossie’s. Which I did, on the back of a tow truck. His only comment was, ‘Did you win?’ And I said ‘Yes, three times.’

In 1981-82, before he started the black ’32 Ford coupe, he had a line on getting the car. I had built a chopped ’32 Tudor sedan, and I finished the car and was really proud of it, and wanted to take it over to show him. He had been very busy building his business, ‘Crown Transmission’ (before ‘Advanced Transmission’) on Redondo Beach Blvd in Gardena, CA. When I took the car to him, he was very impressed, and very jazzed about getting and building another car. And just after that, the gentleman who had the ’32 coupe passed away, and the wife called Nick and asked if he still wanted the car. He immediately went and got it and started to build it. My ’32 gave him the press to get his, and make it so nice.

In 1955 we went to Bonneville. He had built a Cad motor. We put it in a ’29 hi-boy roadster on ’32 rails. Lou Baney, Don Rackemann, Danny O’Brien, owned and rebuilt the car in 1954. We were gonna run it in three different classes. We had two Cad motors, one owned by Nick, one by Lou Baney. The other built and owned by Nick Arias Jr was a GMC 302 ci 6-cylinder motor. That car won ‘Best Appearing Car and Crew’ at Bonneville, Aug 1955. Hot Rod Magazine published a great pic of the car and crew. The paint, the dress, all the support vehicles (Don Rackemann’s F-100 pickup, Lou Baney’s Cadillac, + the Baney-Rackemann-O’Brien roadster, was considered a rock-around-the-clock lakes, salt, strip, and street quadruple threat!) matched. Theme color ‘Iris’ (light blue iris) with Von Dutch flames and custom pinstriping and painting was Don Rackemann’s idea. Our uniform was white narrow legged pegger pants, special short-sleeved bowling shirts made ‘Iris’ color with the sponsors names (Yeakel Bros Cadillac). Nick always treated me with respect and as an older brother. I was part of their group event though I was younger. Frank Pisano and I were younger, we were the tag alongs.”


 

Lined-up at a California Hot Rod show.

 
 
Continue reading about Nick Matranga in the NEXT PART
 

Go back to part ONE
 
 
 
 
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1954 SAN JOSE SHOW PHOTOS

Color photos of the early 1950’s car shows are pretty rare, so it was really great when Joe Hickenbottom shared some never before seen color snapshots on his Facebook, taken by a good friend who recently passed away, of this 1954 San Jose Autorama Show.

 
 
Joe Hickenbottom’s good friend took many snapshots at Hot Rod and Custom Car events in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Joe is in the process of having the slides, like the once in this article process to photos so that he is able to scan them and share them. Joe has started to share these on the Vintage Car Show Photo’s Facebook group. The first photo he posted that I saw was of the Tom Hocker Barris-built 1940 Ford done in Fuchsia Orchid. I had never seen a color photo of the car in that early color. I was very thrilled, and searched for more photos, which I fortunately found. I asked Joe if I could share these wonderful photos on the CCC so that everybody who is not on Facebook could still enjoy these. 

Right now I do not have to much info about the show, but hopefully I can add some more input on that in the near future. I just wanted to share these amazing color snapshot. Joe mentioned the photos are taken at the 1954 Son Jose, California Autorama show. At least one of the cars in the photos show a ’53 tag on the license plate, so could this perhaps be the 1953 Show? I hope to find out more about that in the future.
Thank you for sharing these amazing snapshots Joe Hickenbottom.
 

Chuck deWitt 1950 Ford convertible by the Barris Kustom Shop. 

 
 
Tom Hocker 1940 Ford Coupe restyled by the Barris Kustom Shop painted in its first Fuchsia Orchid color. This is the first time I see a color photo of Tom’s Ford in this color, I also never had seen the car with these hubcaps before.

 
 
The Hirohata Mercury was displayed at the show with its hood and trunk open. Bob’s mercury has a set of 1953 Cadillac hubcaps installed by then.

 
 
Unknown Cadillac with front skirts, and a lot of over the top add-on customzing. This must have been a near brand new car when it was modified.

Great looking hand built Sports Roadster.

This looks to be the Rico Squaglia’s 1927 Ford with small motorcycle fenders added.

Blackie Gejeian’s famous Roadster.

 
 
Unknown 1932 channeled flathead powered Ford Roadster in bright red with white acents.

Hopefully we will be able to share more of the Joe Hickenbottom Collection, and especially more on the 1954 San Jose Show in the near future.
 

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CUSTOM CAR CHRONICLE the first two years

Early July 2013 we, my wife, our technical guy Libsky and myself hit the PUBLISH button for the very first time, the Custom Car Chronicle was ON-LINE.

In June 2013 I announced the Custom Car Chronicle on my Facebook with several images. The first one, with the Louis Bettancourt Mercury was used just to put the subline “the beauty of customizing” out there. The second one, with the Dan Landon Chevy had the “Comming Soon” text which caused a bit of turbulence, and many questions where asked… Some people even thought I was going to do a new book about these two cars…

 
 
I cannot believe it has been only two years ago when we started the Custom Car Chronicle. It feels like a lot longer, like the CCC has been around for a much longer time. But it’s not, in early July 2013 the night our son’s summer-vacation started we launched the Custom Car Chronicle on which we had worked over the past few weeks/month. The idea for an online magazine was born about two and a half year ago. When my wife was starting to look into the WordPress website program we realized that the idea for an online Custom Car Magazine would be something we could create completely by ourselves. A long lasting dream became reality. Finding the right name was not to hard, and the Custom Car Chronicle was amongst the first few names we put down on paper, and was favored by the public we asked to judge. The logo I created was first based on a more News Paper looks and feel, but several days before the CCC was launched I did not feel happy about it anymore and decided it needed more body. The image below shows the three logo’s the CCC has had in the first two years. The top one was lasted only a few weeks, and was replaced even before it went on-line. The second one was used for over a year, and now for several month already I have replaced it with a more bold version, one that looks strong and makes a statement. Tomorrow, our son’s summer-vacation will start again, and due to the CCC summer-vacation is even better than it was.
 

 
The three versions of the Custom Car Chronicle logo we have used so far. The top one was never seen by the viewers since it was replaced days before the site went online by the second logo. The bottom logo is what is being used for the last half year or so. CCC the first two years.

 
 
In the first half year my wife and our technical guy Libsky have been very much involved in the CCC, after the site was up and running it was time for the fun stuff… create content. In the first year we have had our share of technical difficulties, while we were still learning the system and finding out that all the software and hardware needs to be in perfect harmony to make it all work like we wanted. In the last year the CCC is running like a dream, with a few smaller bugs here and there, and once in a while. But overall I’m very happy with it, and I can now fully concentrate on what I like to do best, create Custom Car articles, do the historical research and share the beauty of customizing.

We have made a lot of new friends from all over the world, and CCC-Members make new friends on the CCC all the time. Several new authors have come on board since we started. I want to name Larry Pointer, Tom Nielsen, Memo Ortega, Jamie Barter, Michelle Yiatras, David Zivot and  several more for their fantastic support, and wonderful Custom Car and Hot Related stories we were able to share. We have many more of these personal stories planned for the CCC in the next year. In the past two years we have added over 460 articles on the main site, and numerous topics on the CCC-Forum. We have seen our visitors number grow every day, and our viewers and members are extremely supportive. Which makes us really happy.

 
 
Opening photos of most of the articles we have created on the Custom Car Chronicle main site. 460, and plenty of more are in the works, planned and coming soon.

 
 
We also would like to thank all those CCC-members and viewers who have donated so generous to the Custom Car Chronicle. Without you we would never have been able to get the site to where we are today. We hope we will get more support, in both donations as well as subject material, from our viewers in the future. This will allow us to do more research, create more articles and share the Beauty of Customizing. In the past two years we have been able to discover some long lost customs, identify a few cars, and help car owners with the design on their personal Custom.

We have absolutely enjoyed every moment we spend here on the CCC in the past two years. And we hope you have enjoyed it as well. From the responses we get and the growth in visitor numbers it sure looks you have. And I hope you are as ready for the next two years as we are… The second part of the month of July might see a little less new material than you have become used to in the past half year. Due to some much needed family time, we will take it a little easy on the CCC. But after that we will be full speed ahead again.

Thank you for watching the Custom Car Chronicle. And many thanks for all the sponsors.

Rik Hoving
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
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CONFESSION OF A CONQUISTADOR part two

Color always has held a big fascination for me. The metallics in lacquer especially were attractive. I loved to sit down and just page through the paint chip binders.

By Larry Pointer

Those early 50’s Oldsmobile Rocket 88’s and 98’s were awesome. A few came from the factory with standard transmissions, but most were automatics. Coming up to a stoplight, those Hydramatics would downshift with ominous sounds. They were intimidating. You could sit at a street light, one foot on the brake, and when you eased onto the gas, those behemoths just rose up in the air. Something about having coil springs at all four corners. At the change of the light to green, you just slipped your foot off the brake pedal. Instant drag race to the next light.
Hey, we were teen-age kids. Living large.

But I couldn’t leave my 98 Olds alone. Ronnie Oneyear had a big four-door 1951 Olds 98 like mine, that he’d dropped way down, nosed and decked, and painted a beautifully subtle mint green. I’m thinking it was 1957 Oldsmobile Allegheny Green Metallic. With ’56 Olds 3-bar flipper wheel discs… backgrounds tastefully painted in the same green…he turned heads for sure when he would slowly glide by, dragging Main Street. Or maybe it was his drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend Carmen Madrigal.

It WAS all about the girls. But back to cars, Ronnie’s mild custom 98 drove home the old adage of “less is more”.
 
An impression of how Ronnie Oneyear’s 1951 Oldsmobile 98 looked like back then.

 
 
Color always has held a big fascination for me. The metallics in lacquer especially were attractive. I loved to sit down at the counter and just page through the Ditzler and Dupont paint chip binders. “Organic” was a term George Barris often used in describing his gorgeous custom paint mixes of the day. A particular 1951 Pontiac in town had caught my eye. It was a deep mossy green, and in direct sunlight, the metallic sparkled in gold flecks. Now that was “organic”. I went to the paint books. 1951 Pontiac, Berkshire Green Poly Metallic.
 
1951 Pontiac, Berkshire Green Poly Metallic, or “Metalli-Chrome” as it is named on this chart.

 
 
Next, I talked our long-suffering grouch Bill Brown into shaving some trim, making a few panel repairs, and painting my 98 in Berkshire Green. This, in exchange for some long green, and my painting all the woodwork trim on his body shop building. It was to become a good lesson in economics: one hour of skilled labor is worth beaucoup hours of the unskilled at the handle of a paintbrush. Finally, Bill would paint the Olds.
Taking a break, I went with my folks to the Midland Empire Fair in Billings, Montana. There we took in the carnival rides, the rodeo, horse races, and performances by country musicians Jean Shepherd and Hawkshaw Hawkins, along with String Bean the hillbilly comedian. Sadly, that was one of Hawkins’ last performances. He was killed March 5, 1963, along with Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, and Randy Hughes in an airplane crash in Tennessee. The Fair was swell, as they used to say back in the day, but I was anxious to get back to Sheridan and see how my Olds 98 had turned out.
 

Hawkshaw Hawkins with his tour-bus and at the races.

 
 

Then, there it was, my organic metallic Berkshire Green 98 Olds. In the fading evening light it looked like an olive drab WWII surplus Sherman from Patton’s Tank Corps! Ouch!! And Ronnie Oneyear’s had been so striking in the medium mint green iridescent tones.
 
What to do?
 
By this time Larry Watson was turning the custom car world upside down with his creative custom paint jobs. Flames, Panel Painting, Scallops. That was it! I’d lay out some scallops. Remembering less is more, I designed accents to the Olds body lines and trim. One, I did in tribute to Conquistador Frenchy Holbert. He had borrowed the “flying colors” trim strip of the ’55 Olds, locating it upside down and backwards on his ’50 Mercury Monterey. I taped off a thin curved strip down from the 98’s stock side spear. For my scallop color, I used the ’57 Chevrolet India Ivory that was on my dad’s one and only new car in his life. Frankly, my dad’s India Ivory and Inca Silver combo was far superior to my 98.
 
Right then the magazine where writing about being creative with paint using Larry Watson’s work as a showcase.

 
 

 
To paraphrase a famous line from an American Presidential debate, “I met Larry Watson, and Larry Pointer was no Larry Watson.” But then, to put it all in perspective, a quote from Will Rogers seems appropriate here: “For every parade, someone has to sit on the curb and cheer.” Cheers, Larry Watson.
 
Inca Silver and India Ivory combination on a 1957 Chevy just as my dad had would have been a better option for my ’50 Oldsmobile.

 
 
One day I actually would have the pleasure of meeting Larry Watson. It was at a Pleasanton, California car show in 1991. It was a real honor and a treasured memory. He was a true icon of our custom car culture.

As to the General Patton reference, little did I know that later I would share an office teaching with “blood and guts” Patton’s communications officer, Ray Winter. Ray was with Patton from the north Africa campaign against the “Desert Fox” Rommel, through Sicily, Italy, and finally across France. And that “six degrees of separation” through the recollections of my colleague Ray Winter is as close to living that “Forrest Gump” sort of episode as I would wish.

For the interior of the Olds I gathered up a few yards of a lime green frieze fabric with threads of orange and metallic gold running through it. (These were the Day’O days of the Harry Belafonte Caribbean craze.) I’d seen a photo of Louie Bettancourt’s ’49 Mercury interior with a metallic threaded wine fabric, and loved the touch of the frieze texture. My girlfriend and I re-upholstered the door panels and door posts in the frieze. Wisely, I abandoned the experimentation with rubber latex paint on upholstery.
 
The Carson Top Shop created interior in the Louis bettancourt Ayala/Barris built 1949 Mercury inspired me to do my Olds with similar frieze fabric material, but then in lime green.

 
 
The Olds 98 got me through junior college. As Spring rolled around, I gave it to my dad. He traded it for a utilitarian ’53 Plymouth two-door station wagon. And I put the wagon to good use in my summer job as an irrigator for the historic PK ranch. Last I heard of the Olds, a pair of brothers from across the Bighorn mountains bought it off the used car lot.
 
I don’t have any photos of the 1951 Olds 98. All I do have is my colored pencil sketch, showing the layout of the scallops I painted in India Ivory over the “organic” Berkshire Green.

 
 
That summer Conquistador Larry “Mo” Frazier, our Elvis look-alike, was killed in Kansas driving home from Army Reserve summer camp. My ranch boss refused me leave to attend the funeral. Harsh! It was time to lay aside my passions, and focus on tasks at hand.
 

 

Part three coming soon…
 
 

 
 
 
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PEBBLE BEACH MERCURYS

Ken Gross has officially announced the 7 1949-1951 Mercurys that will be part of the Mercury display at the 2015 Pebble Beach Concours.

 
August 16 is getting closer, and the team at the Pebble Beach Concours in charge of the 1949-1951 Classic Custom Mercury Gathering has announced the 7 Mercury’s that will be part of this special event. These 7 Historical Customs will look at their very best on the Pebble Beach lawn. Some have been completely restored some time ago, others are being freshened up, an one is currently being finished by a team who is working 7 days a week to get the car finished it time. The restoration team assured they will make the deadline of the show.

1. Wally Welch 1950 Mercury

Considered to be one of the first original chopped 1949-51 Mercury coupes restyled by Gil and Al Ayala. Conservative in styling with perfect proportions on the relatively mild chop. The angled forward front fenders with the DeSoto grille teeth give the car instant motion. First finished in lime gold by the Ayala brothers, later in 1953 redone by the Barris Kustom Shop for the original owner Wally Welch. Found and restored/modified by Joe Edie in the 1980, the car is now owned by Justin Mozart who had the car completely restored to the highest standard following the second version created by the Barris Kustom Shop. The Wally Welch Mercury was on the cover of the April 1952 issue of Hop Up magazine. More on the Wally Welch Mercury can be read HERE.
 
Justin Mozart will bring the Wally Welch Ayala/Barris built 1950 Mercury.

2. Sam Barris personal 1949 Mercury

Customized in late 1950, early 1951 by Car Customizer Sam Barris, on of the two Barris brothers of the famous Barris Kustoms Shop. Sam built this Mercury in his spare time after work hours, as his own personal driver. The Sam Barris Mercury is listed as one of the very first 1949-1951 Mercury coupe bodies to be chopped. (You can read more about the original chopped Mercury’s in this CCC-Article.) Sam chopped the top with straight pillars, original length rear quarter windows and shaved drip-rails. He removed the door dogleg on the doors creating a wonderful full fadeaway. He smoothed the whole body until the desired overall appearance was achieved.  The car was featured on the cover of December 1951 issue of Motor Trend magazine and has played an very important role in how custom Mercs looks from then on. Sam did not enjoy the car for a very long period. Not to long after completion he sold the car, the car changed hands a few times, was updated with rounded hood corners, and door handle scoops amongst other things, and finally ended up at east coast of the US. Tommy Lee owned the car for a long time, before letting it go to the current caretaker John Mumford.  John Mumford had the Brizio Shop perform the flawless restoration.
 
The Sam Barris 1949 Mercury will be shown by current caretaker John Mumford.

3. Bob Hirohata 1951 Mercury

Bob Hirohata worked part time at the Barris Kustoms Shop when he took his near new 1951 Mercury to the shop. He the Barris team to turn his Mercury into a wild award winning Custom Mercury. And that is what he got. The car was built in a record time of just two month to make a show deadline. George and Sam Barris went all out on the design of the Hirohata Mercury, the side window frames to make a semi hard-top where “borrowed” from the Nick Matranga 1940 Mercury. Theshape of the chopped top, and the new shape of the fender line all match the 1952 Buick boomerang side spear. The scoop on the rear quarters flows with these lines as well. At the front two 1951 Ford grilles were used,and at the back a set of 1952 Lincoln taillights was installed. Once the car was done it was painted sea-foam-green and dark organic green below the trim. The interior was handled by the Carson Top Shop and Bill Gaylords top, to make the show deadline. Bob used the car as daily transportation for quite some time, he even drove it from Los Angeles to the Indianapolis in 1953. After the car had appeared in the movie Running Wild the car shanged hands an started to have a bit of a rough life.

Current caretaker JimMcNiel found the car in the early 1960’s and has kept it ever since. He made it drivable to take him to high school and in the early 1990’s he was encouraged by his friend to finally start the full restoration of the Mercury. The car has been restored as much as possible as it came from the Barris shop. Junior Conway did the paint-job matched form original 1952 paint found on the car. The Hirohata Mercury is without doubt the most famous Custom and influential Custom Mercury of all time. If you want to read more about the Bob Hirohata Mercury, click HERE.

The Bob Hirohata Mercury owned by Jim and Sue McNiel. Here both are posing with the Mercury shortly before the car was entered for the Customs Then & Now exhibit at the 2011 GNRS in Pomona, Ca.

4. Ralph Testa 1950 Mercury

Originally customized in the early 1950’s at the Barris Custom Shop for owner Ralph Testa. The Mercury’s windshield was chopped 3 inches and the Carson Top Shop created the perfectly shaped Padded. An 1951 Henry J grille, modified grille opening, 1949 Buick taillights, Buick side trim and deep purple paint make this a very classic custom. Ralph did not own the car very long and about a year after its completion the car could be seen cruising in Washington State. In the early 1990’s the car was completely restored by Bill Worden and his team of craftsman. Bill will install a set of authentic wide white wall tires especially for the Pebble BEach event. The tires will replace the white wall radials Bill initial installed so that he could enjoy the car on the road as much as he wants, but he feels like the car needs to look just like is used to do back in 1952, and the wide white wall bias-ply tires are part of that. If you want to read more about the Barris-built Ralph Testa Mercury click HERE.

Bill Worden will bring his Barris Kustoms built Ralph Testa 1950 Mercury convertible.

5. Rebel Without a Cause 1949 Mercury

The 1949 Mercury was mildly customized for its star turn in the movie Rebel Without a Cause, which premiered at New York’s Aster Theatre in October 1955, just a month after James Dean’s death. Both Dean’s influential performance and his hopped-up Mercury became legendary symbols of the disaffected youth culture of the era, and the car has become one of the most famous movie cars in history.
 

The James Dean Rebel Without a Cause 1949 Mercury will be on load from the National Automotive Collection.

07 Leo Lyons 1950 Mercury 

The Leo Lyons 1950 Mercury was build over a period of several years. Leo found a way to get some support from the Ford Motor Company who enabled Leo to use a Mercury frame, and body panels. Leo also had the help of Custom Builders George and Sam Barris and had panels shaped for his “Ultra Modern Merc” by the famous California Metal Shaping company. The Mercury appeared on the cover of the February 1960 issue of Custom Cars magazine and its unique styling features was used in numerous other magazine in the 1960’s. Geoffrey Hacker bought the car in rather sad condition in 2013. Together with friend Rick D’Louhy, Geoff decided o restore the Mercury to its former 1960 cover appearance. A team of fine crafts man is now working around the clock to have the restoration finished in time for the 2015 Pebble Beach Concours.
 

Geoff Hacker and Rick D’Louhy will bring the Leo Lyons 1950 Mercury. The restoration team is currently hard at work to get the car ready in time for the Pebble Beach event.

These are the 7 1949-51 Mercury’s that will make up the Mercury gathering at the Pebble Beach Concours. However Ken is still on the lookout for other historic Mercurys. If you have any suggestions, or know more about the current whereabouts of an historic custom Mercury that would fit this event, then please contact us.
 
More info on the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance can be found on the Pebble Beach Concours site.

 
 
 
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1956 KAR KAPADES SHOW

Marcus Edell has been sharing some really great photos on the Vintage Car Show Photos Facebook Group. Recently he shared these photos taken at the 1956 Kar Kapades show in Monterey California.

 
Two unidentified mild customized 1951 Mercury’s, and in the back we can see Warren Gonzales 1950 Ford Convertible.

 
 
Overview of one corner of the show, give a good impression how packed everything was. Blackie’s Roadster seams to have the center stage at the show.

Heavily customized 1951 Kaiser. Notice the, Lyon hubcaps.

 
 
I think this is Johnny Johnsson’s Kaiser convertible created from a four door model.
 

Joe Bailon restyled this 1950 Ford convertible for Elton Kanter. Joe added a Victoria roof to it to make it a Hard-Top. Most of the photos we know of this car it is painted in dark blue. But the car also was painted bright red, it appears the car was red at this show.

 
 
Joe Botti’s F100 magazine cover car in the background. The headlight on the far left side of the photo belongs to Brian Bernon’s 1953 Chevy from Oakland. 

 
According the sign this is Mark Lusier 1952 Ford Wagon with see-thru plexi glass hood insert.

 
 
Warren Gonzales 1950 Ford Convertible July 1956 Car Craft cover car had an unique paint combination of lime gold with ultra violet purple. The car was created by Gordon Van’s body shop in Berkley Ca. Notice the removed C.A. Hall padded top against the wall.

Two great looking white Hot Rods parked close together.

Very interesting Rod with the chopped down Ford truck grille. Parked next to it is Rudy Heredia’s 1927 T-Ford with a DeSoto grille. 

Gene Winfield was at the show with his personal 1950 Mercury and parked next to it an early version of the Nick Cozzitorto’s 1952 Ford Pick-Up.

Blackie Gegeian Roadster.

 
 
I looks like the Rods and Customs where separated from each other. This clearly is the Hot Rod section of the show.

 
 
Leroy French ‘s great looking Joe Bailon chopped four door 1949 Plymouth.

 
 
The nose of Nick Cozzitorto’s 1952 Ford restyled by Gene Winfield, and parked next to is Gene’s personal 1950 Mercury. 

 
 
Rod Powell shared this photo he took at the show. Although he is not sure about the year, it could be ’56 or ’57, he went to both shows. Rod remembers that the gold paint on Frank Livingston Chevy was incredibly brilliant.

 
 
This photo comes from my own collection, which I bought in 2010. It appears to be a copied photo from an Andy Southard photo taken from the Barris-built Wildcat Dream Truck taken at the 1956 Kar Kapades show.

(this article is sponsored by)

FEATURE STAR THE GOLDEN SAHARA I

In the mid 1950’s Jim Skonsakes’ Golden Sahara I, was hired by the Sieberling Rubber company to promote their new tire range . The futuristic Golden Sahara was used in an advertising campaign for the company.

Jim Skonzakes (Street) has always been a very good business man. When Jim and the Barris shop had created the Golden Sahara I, he realized that the cars futuristic appearance drew a lot of attention. Jim used this knowledge to promote the Golden Sahara the best way he could. And not only that, he also offered the Golden Sahara to companies and Television Networks to help promote their business. In the mid 1950’s, Jim made a business deal with the Ohio based Seiberling Rubber Company. Seiberling would hire the car to help promote their new line of tires, the Sealed-Aire tires, at shows and at dealers throughout the country. The company marketed their tire with the pay-off line the tire of tomorrow – is here today,  and the futuristic appearance of the Golden Sahara I, was an absolutely perfect visual for this. This deal was very welcome to Jim, since the built of the car had cost him a small fortune. Seiberling also used the car for a series of magazine ad’s, both full color ads as well as black and white used on single pages, and full width spreads. As far as we know, the ads were used in magazines like Life magazines, and not in the specific car magazine.

For one of the Seiberling ads, the Golden Sahara I was transported to Daytona Beach. The car was driven on the beach for this photo session.

I found this photo on an recent (july, 2015) ebay auction. Very interesting snap shot by somebody who was there when the movie and photo shoot for the Seiberling ad campaign was made.  (photo taken from the ebay ad)

Back side of the photo reports the event as taken place in August 1955. (photo taken from the ebay ad)

This image is part of a two page (spread) ad that was used in 1955. It shows a photo of the Golden Sahara I in combination with an illustrated Seiberling Sealed-Aire tire.

 
 
 
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88 YEARS AND STILL AT IT

Frank De Rosa has been building Custom Cars since the 1940’s and today, August, 2015, at age 88 Frank is still at it. Lets check out his latest creation. A wonderful 1941 Cadillac Series 61 which he chopped together with his son Frank Jr.

Frank De Rosa has been restyling cars in the Pittsburg, CA area since the mid-1940s. Together with his son Frank Jr they run a restoration and Custom Shop in Pittsburg, CA. The father-son team has over 100 years of building between them. Frank is mostly known for his very creative and outside the box thinking creations from the 1970’s and 1980’s. In the 1970s, they were part of the Northern California car builders that brought back customs. Although the De Rosa’s had never really left it!

At age 88, Frank is still doing what he loves best, creating custom cars, and the 1941 Cadillac in this article shows that he is still more than capable to do a super job on it. Perfectly balanced chop which of course could be done with the many years of experience of both Frank and Frank Jr. The 1941 Cadillac Series 61 in this article was done for a customer. But the car is for Sale as it is. Lets take a closer look at the De Rosa Chopped 41 Caddy.

Call Frank at 925-439-5115 or visit their Pittsburg shop at 1090 Harbor Street, for more info.
Frank De Rosa Custom Cars

 
Where is all begins. The body has been stripped from all the trim, glass, rubber and the interior completely removed. Frank is starting to take measurements to figure out where to make the cuts.

 
 
A lot of thinking goes into chopping one of these Fleetline bodies, and Frank makes sure all the cut marks are exactly where he wants them to be.

 
 
Marking the pie-cutsthat will be removed to make sure the top can be moved forwards and the B-Pillar be angled into its new position.

Pie-cuts are also marked on the inside of the C-Pillar.

 
 
And then… its time to make the first cuts. Together with Frank Jr (on the left) they are cutting the top at the marks Frank had previously made on the body.

 
 
With a section already removed from the C-Pillar Frank is making more measurements to make sure it will all line up after the top has been dropped.

 
 
The top is now dropped into its new position and the fine tuning of the pillars can start. Frank Jr is holding the door post, while Frank Sr is figuring out the best way to cut the B-Pillar for the most perfect flow.

Great photo of Frank cutting a piece of shaped metal for the chopped top.

 
 
All the main body work on the top has now been done, and its time to start on the details, like filling the trip holes and creating a new molded in drip rail.

 
 
All body work on the top has now been done, and the main body has been put in primer. Notice also that the rear door corners have been rounded.

 
 
A nice detail is the rounded top corner of the door. Frank chose to round the corner less than the window shape, making the B-Pillar a very interesting shape.

 
 
The trunk had to be pie-cut sectioned to make the new shape of the chopped top flow with the rest of the body.

 
 
First time out of the shop shows the wonderfully shaped body on the non dropped frame.

Great flow of the trunk towards the top.

 
 
Can you imagine how this car will look with a nice drop of the suspension and a wonderful dark organic paint job?

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2015 THE LINE-UP part one

Late July, early August is the time of the year that the A-Bombers Hot Rod Club in Sweden organizes the Old Style Weekend. During this weekend Ulf Christiansson puts together his annual Custom Car Line-Up event. The 2015 edition of the Line-Up was  held at a new, really fantastic location.

Several weeks before the Old Style Weekend takes place Ulf “Wolf” Christiansson is starting to look around at the “local” Custom Cars that are planning to visit the Annual A-Bombers show. In his mind Wolf is already starting to build this years Line-Up, but of course some of the cars might not make it to the show, or others will show up. The idea behind the line up is to collect a series of Custom Cars that have the look of a late 1940’s early 1950’s Custom Car. Mandatory features are chopped top, Spotlights, lowered all around, or with speed-boat stance, and an overall period look. Some exceptions to this “rule” can be made by the organizer of the event as long as the overall look of the car will fit in with the other selected cars.
 
 

Why the Custom Car Line-Up?

Wolf has been fascinated by the famous 1951 Custom Car line-up photo taken by Marcia Campbell from the first time he laid eyes on it. This 1951 series of photo by custom car photographer Marcia Campbell was taken of  a selection of 5 Barris custom cars. The owners was asked to drive to a photo location in South Gate, California. At this location Marcia took individual photos of all these 5 Barris Customs, but also took a few photos of all 5 cars parked next to each other. One of them with the owners standing proud next to their cars. Decades later every Custom Car enthusiasts reveres to this photo as: “the Line-Up Photo”. In 1951 Marcia could not have foreseen the impact this photo-shoot would have more than 60 years later. Nor could she have thought this photo would see an Annual remake on the other side of the ocean.

You can read more about Marcia’s original 1951 Line-Up photo-shoot in this CCC article.

The Line-Up is always held on Saturday morning before the Hill Climb that is organized by the A-Bombers. And it is organized in such way that the cars and people involved in the Line-Up will be able to attend the Hill Climb. This years Line-Up was forced to find a new location compared to the first two years. The original location could not be prepared enough due to the bead weather that summer. But fortunately one of the people who would be invited to the Line-Up, Andreas Åberg, found a new location close to the water and with a nice grass field to park on. The only problem with this location was, that we needed a key to get in, and due to a broken cell phone the whole deal of making an appointment to get the key seamed to fall apart leaving us with no location to park at all.
 
Lars Kjær and Tomas shortly after they were given the Line-Up handout knowing their car was invited for the Line-Up.

 
 
But fortunately Wolf and Andreas managed to make it work after all. Friday, the first official day of the Old Style Weekend event Wolf made his round around the event place and hand picked a number of cars. Some needed a bit of discussion, but most of them were easy to pick. We were fortunate to have several great looking new cars that fitted the “theme” for this years Line up. In the end eleven cars were selected and all owners were given an handout to let them know they were invited to the Line Up event. It was great to hear that some of the owners with the new customs had already hoped they would be picked for this years line up. So it looks like Wolf has created a real prestigious event with the Line-Up.

Saturday morning ten-o-clock sharp all the invited car owners gathered at the A-Bombers event gate, and soon were were off to the new location in an industrial section of the nearby town of Uddevalla. We drove off in a convoy of the 11 selected Customs, plus two more with some friends. We always try to keep the number of people visiting the Line-Up as low as possible so that is is easier for the photographers to make the photos without having to wait for the visitors to leave the scene.

 
In convoy to the the Line-Up Location in Uddevalla. The unchopped 1956 Mercury and 1948 Buick were not invited, but joined the party to take photos. 

 
 
The location was actually rather big, and after some discussion the perfect location was pointed and the invited cars drove slowly to the other side. The short grass an young trees reminded me at some park locations George Barris used to take some photos in the early 1950’s.

 
 
Lars with his freshly “finished” 1936 Ford is having a great time. He also visited the event the two previous years, but this was the first time with an invited Custom Car.

 
 
Organizer Wolf (on the right with hat on) is having the time of his life and all the cars are now as good as lined up. Some of the owners take their time to do some final polishing at this time.

 
 
Andreas is just finished polishing his New Panoramic Ford as a period steam-boat passes in the background.

 
 
One of the photographers present at the event is Gasoline Magazine photographer Per Webb who will be using the photos in an feature in an upcoming issue of the Swedish magazine Gasoline.

 
 
The cars are all lined up at the front in a very slight oval shape. The location with the water and the Uddevalla bridge in the background is absolutely perfect.

 
 
Several sea-gull’s came by to take a look what was going on in their backyard.

 
 
Palle Johansen took this photo of some of the car owners enjoying the view and some of the photographers working hard to get every photo they wanted to make.

 
 
The owners of the car took place on a small hill on the side of the location and had a wonderful overview on this wonderful selection of fine Custom Cars.

 
 
Time for the Sam Barris pose of the owners with their Custom Cars. This photo shows that 11 cars for this set-up is perhaps a bit to much. The cars get rather small. So at this point it was agreed that for the next years the max number of cars to attend will be 10.

 
 
Ulf “Wolf” Christiansson with his home build 1951 Mercury, a work in progress.

 
 
Bert Gustafsson with his home build heavily restyled 1951 Dodge. Also a work in progress, but with at least a wonderful paint job and nice chrome for a perfect look. 

 
 
Last year it was Lars Friborg who drove Palle Johansen’s Dick Dean build 1951 Mercury. Anki Carlsson is the new owner of the Mercury together with here husband roger. She was thrilled to be part of this event.

 
 
Andreas Åberg with his 1950 Ford the New Panoramic Ford restyled after the famous Barris/Cerny Panoramic Ford for Buster Litton.

 
 
Petri Lahti’s 1950 Lincoln is based on a four door sedan and converted to a two door hard-top model. Most of the rear portion of the roof is home made by Petri. 

 
 
Palle Johansen made some changes to his 1947 Cadillac this winter, including stainless trim around the windshield, and an all new dash-board with a center positioned 1948 Cadillac gauge cluster.

 
 
Fredde Östman had finished his 1947 Ford just weekend before the show and was very thrilled to be part of the line-Up.

 
 
Dan Lindberg with his 1946 Ford long door coupe in an mid 1940’s style. Dan has plans to re-chop the top and change the grille… perhaps next year?

 
 
Tim Kirkegaard with his Kevan Sledge Customs created 1939 Mercury.

 
 
Tomas was also invited to last years event, but could not make it at the gat at ten in the morning then. Now he made sure he was plenty on time to be part of this event. Tomas recently added a set of bubble skirts… which will need some work to looks right. But it was already really great to see the skirts on the car.

 
 
And the last in the line was Lars Kjær with his 1936 Ford chopped by Kenneth Kristiansson. Lars also finished his car only weeks/days before the vent. Last year his car broke own in Denmark, before he had made it to the ferry to Sweden. This year was a perfect revenge making it with a “finished” Customs on the Line-Up photoshoot.

 
 
The Line-Up with the owners in the Sam Barris position as seen the the camera of Palle Johansen.

 
 
The perfect photo location for this years Line-Up event was so good that we still have plenty of photos we would like to share with you. Click HERE to go to part TWO of the 2015 Custom Car Line-Up photo-shoot.
 
 

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CUSTOM CAR LINE UP part 2

The 2015 Custom Car Line-Up at the Old Style Weekend was so spectacular that we need two CCC-Articles to cover it all. Lets take a look at some more photos taken at the little park in Uddevalla, Sweden

 
In part one we have already told you about how this year Line-Up event had started. The location for the Line-Up was so great that all the photographers most likely took way more photos than they had done in previous years. Photos of the cars in the line up, but also individual shots with perhaps a few of the other cars in the background. The fact that is was possible to walk around the cars and the whole location made this place so much more suitable than the old one. But I guess you have to experience it to find out. Until last year, the old location was as perfect as it could be.

Once everybody had taken enough photos of the actually Line-Up, including the owners posing with the cars in the characteristic Sam Barris pose, it was decided that the location was just to nice not to take the opportunely to shoot each car individual with the opportunely to include the wonderful open water and bridge in the background. One by one each car was called forward to pose on the designated location on the grass.
 
Wolf Christiansson’s 1951 Mercury parked with the bridge in the background.

Bert Gustafsson’s 1951 Dodge.

 
 
Anki Carlsson with here Dick Dean built 1951 Mercury. The former Lee and Sue Lucero Merc.

Andreas Åberg’s 1950 Ford “New Panoramic Ford”.

Petri Lahti’s 1950 Lincoln.

Palle Johansen’s 1947 Cadillac convertible with padded top.

Dan Lindberg’ 1946 Ford Coupe.

Fredde Östman’s 1947 Ford Coupe.

Tim Kirkegaard’s 1939 Mercury.

Tomas’s in-progress 1939 Mercury.

Lars Kjær’s 1936 Ford 3-window coupe. (the new 32 Ford)

 
 
After the cars had been posed individually for the photographers and other enthusiasts the cars where all lined up in a circle form around a center stone in the park. Another great look and perfect photo opportunity. Regular visitors from the park, who where there to catch some fish, exercise or just enjoyed the wonderful weather with nice breeze coming from the water where all enjoying the spectacle very much as well. But when we asked them to clear the era so the photographers had the chance to take clear pictures they all, but two really cooperated. One of the older guys kept coming back to the cars and kept annoying the photographers, but in the end after some strong Swedish words he finally got it and moved out of view.
 
Palle Johansen took this photo of the Circle of Custom Cars shortly after all the cars were parked and the owners and friends are about to move away to enjoy the view and let the photographers take their pictures.

 
 

 

 
 
The other person who was not really planning to leave the scene was an orderly lady who came to the park with her nordic walking sticks. And she came towards the lined up cars very determined. We asked her polite to please leave the scene for not so that we could do our work, and she was more than welcome to look at the cars after that. But no, that would not work for here. One of the other local visitors to the park knew the old lady and offered to talk to here. But even that did not help. She had seen the cars arrive to the park from here home a mile or so from the park. And she decided to take a closer look at those wonderful machines, and nothing could stop her now. She took the time to walk up to each of the cars, walk around them and look inside, studying each and every detail. It was actually kind of nice to see here do this and it was obvious she really liked what she saw. I started to take some more close up photos and individual photos of the cars so she did not really bother me all that much. After she had studied all the cars she was ready to leave the scene, and we could take the overview photos. Later she talked a bit to Palle, letting him know she really liked the cars, and especially the interiors with so much metal inside… quite different than all that plastic in todays cars. She hung out in the park for as long as we stayed there, and when we where ready to go, she was at the gate and waved us good-bye… I think we all really made here day.
 
The old lady arriving at Andreas’ his Shoebox Ford, she made sure that she would not scratch the cars with here Nordic Walking sticks.

 
 
The “volunteer” from the audience walked towards the old Lady to ask here kindly to leave. “No… I came walking all this way, and now I want to look at the cars.”

 
 

 
 

 
 
Anki overlooking the circle of Custom Cars with her Dick Dean ’51 Mercury in the background.

 
 
Bert’s ’51 Dodge is a spectacular sight no matter from which angle you look at it, but I think the rear 3/4 view is my personal favorite view. This location and parked with some other fine Customs made it even more special.

The candy purple on the Dick Dean Mercury looked so great in the sun.

 
 
The organizer of the event Wolf had an absolutely blast seeing his ’51 Mercury looking great surrounded with all the other great looking custom cars in this fantastic location.

 
 
The rain we had had the day before had affected the primer on Petri’s Lincoln making it look like an old Custom Car.

 
 
And after everybody had taken enough photos and we all enjoyed looking at the Custom Cars in this great place it was time to go, and get ready for the Hill Climb races. Here Bert Gustafsson is leaving the park in the background.

 
 
Parked outside the park and waiting for all to get ready to leave for a bite to eat. I think this photo of Fredde Östman and Linda Karlsson shows how much everybody had enjoyed this years Line-Up event.

 
 
And on our way to get a bit to eat… this photo was taken thru the mail-slot rear window of Palle Johansen’s 1947 Cadillac.

 
 
Go back to part ONE of the 2015 Custom Car Line-Up photo-shoot…
 
 

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DAVE CROOK 1958 PONTIAC

Dave Crook is perhaps best known for a few amazing Custom Cars he created together with designer Harry Bradley. But before he teamed up with Harry he created several Custom Cars on his own, including this wildly restyled 1958 Pontiac

By Dave Crook

I will start at the beginning when I bought the car. I was 18 yrs. old and working at a Pontiac-Cadillac dealer in the Buffalo, N.Y. area as a body man’s helper and was driving my Hemi powered unfinished chopped ’47 Ford coupe. A ’58 Pontiac came in wrecked and the owner decided to trade it in on a new car instead of repairing it. I was able to purchase it from the dealer in the wrecked condition and that was where it all started. I repaired the car and made it into a mild custom–nosed, decked, door handles removed, lowered, with a California rake, and painted it 53 Buick Tahitian Red. Sadly I could not find a photo of this first version of the Pontiac.

I drove it that way for a year or so. At that time I went to work for Ron Gerstner, who owned the big hotrod and custom shop in the Buffalo area. We had a deal that I could build the Pontiac there nights and weekends. He was also building a 34 Ford 3 window for himself. I owe Ron a lot because I really did not have all of the equipment needed at home at my parents house to build the car. I also learned a lot while working for Ron.
 
After driving the car for a year s a mild custom I decided it was time for a complete make over and started the project with chopping the top.

At Ron Gerstner’s shop with several project behind my Pontiac.

With the chop finished and the glass installed again.

 
 
I started on the car in November of 1961, 3 months before my 19th birthday. With all the restyling I had planned, complete new front and rear end of the car with my own design for the head and taillights, it took me 9 months to build the car to the primer stage. Most of the photos from the car in progress were taken in 1962. Some of them still show the 1953 Buick Tahitian Red I had painted the car with in its earlier stage. I drove the car that way for 3 months and then decided it was time to paint the car so that I could attend shows with it.
 
Early stages of the new front end on the car. Lots of bend round tubing and large diameter tubing for the angled quad headlights.

 
 
Same thing going on at the rear, round tubing and other left over material I could find to restyle the Pontiac the way I had it in my head. The rear trunk line has been raised and the corners rounded.

 
 
A bit fuzzy, but this close up of the taillight show how I created them using large diameter tubing cut on an angle and welded together to fit inside the cut down original Pontiac rear fenders. Still a ton of shaping and welding to do at this point.

 
 
More progress at the front. Sheet metal has been shaped and formed the new grille opening, and the new headlights are starting to take shape.

 
 
And the rear is also taking shape, with a lot of metal shaping and welding done. The surface rust shows that I was doing a lot of the work outside at the time.

 
 
Now the front end is mostly together the way I wanted it to be. The a-symetrical hood scoop still needs to be done. Notice how the dip between the two headlight buckets flows all the way to the cowl. 

On a rainy day in the summer of 1963.

 
 
I wanted to debut the Pontiac at the big Buffalo Hotrod and Custom Car Autorama in March of 1963, which was also the weekend of my 21st birthday. I painted the car in a lime gold candy paint, however this color was on the car only for a few month. If you talk to any of the guys doing Kandy paint during the early 1960’s they will all tell you the same stories. With a gold under base, we were all having trouble with primer that was not thoroughly dry (over a month) or bondo on the car would cause dark spots to show up where ever those spots were in two or three months. This being my first kandy paint job, I was unaware of this problem. In talking to my friends Mike and Larry Alexander, they were having the same problem. In any event at first the paint job looked stunning. I was lucky enough to win Best Custom at that show.
 

The Pontiac at the Buffalo Hotrod and Custom Car Autorama in March of 1963.

 
 
Something happened at that show that I will never forget and will be forever grateful for. Mike and Larry Alexander were at the show with the Ford Custom Car Caravan and they offered me a job to come to work for them. I wanted desperately to take them up on their offer, but at the time, I was trying to get a job with the Fisher Body Division of General Motors and I did not want to accept their offer and then have to leave them if I got the job with GM, which I eventually did get. Larry, Mike, and I did become life long friends thanks to that chance encounter.
 
It was early March of 1963 in Buffalo, New York, I was 20 years old and very excited when the photographer took these photos on an empty parking lot on a gray day for Car Craft magazine. Besides mostly black and white photos for an feature article a few color slides were also taken in case the car would make the cover… which it did.

 
 
As far as I know only the few color photos taken for the Car Craft magazine article are the only outdoor photos taken of the car in lime gold.

 
 
The Pontiac made it onto two covers in its short time it was painted candy lime gold. The photos used on the cover of the Speed and Custom magazine from August 1963 were taken at the Buffalo, New York show in March 1963. The Car Craft magazine showed two color pics of the car on the cover.

Disaster strikes

A local college friend,  Eric Daulquist, who was on a great career path of his own, photographed the car and was able to get it in the July 1963 issue of Car Craft and on the cover of the August 1963 issue of an East Coast Magazine, Speed and Custom. After that it was on the cover of the February 1964 issue of Car Craft and it was picked as one of the 10 Best Customs of 1963. I drove the heck out of the car that summer and in August of that year I decided to repaint the car and take it to the National Champion Ship Drag Races and Autorama in Indianapolis, Indiana on Labor Day weekend. Since I had some problems with the gold undercoat on the lime gold paint I took no changes and sanded most of the paint of from the car and prepped the body for the new paint. Candy Apple Red.

When the car was done it was time to go on the road to the Autorama in Indianapolis, Indiana. While enroute somewhere in Ohio, in the middle of the night, one of my best friends, who was driving my other car, a Kandy Red 1960 Pontiac, fell asleep and ran into me at about 50 miles an hour. The ’58 was totaled from the doors back and the 60 Pontiac needed a complete front end. Thus the rebuild and re-design started, which I did in my parents garage.
 

This is how the Pontiac looked like after the accident… a very sad sight.

 
 
But…. the front was still looking good, time for a new design on the rear portion of the car. This photo shows how nice the Candy Red paint was on the car.

 
 
Not much left from the rear of the body after I had cut off all the damaged beyond repair body panels.

 
 
I added some late model rear fenders, redid the taillight very similar as on the previous version and hand made the rest from sheet metal and round rod. On the left you can see the repaired Candy Red 1960 Pontiac which my friend used when crashing into the 58.

 
 
I wanted to do something completely new for the rear window. So I made this a-simatrical design matching the hood scoop.

 
 
The side view shows how radical the new rear window shape changes the looks of the car. The front wheel openings were modified and the stock side trim was removed and the holes filled.

 
 
I added a scoop to the trunk and all the body work was nearly finished when I took this photo. On the right is my daily driver the Candy Red 1960 Pontiac.

 
 
Good look at the new rear portion of the car with the wild redesigned rear window… which still needs to be made from green plexiglass at this point.

 
 
Just about the time all the metal work was done, I did get the job with Fisher Body. Thus, I had to move to Detroit and live in an apartment. That meant no place to finish the car. That meant Ron Gerstner came back into the picture. I took the car to Ron’s shop and would come home on weekends to work on the car at his shop. He was a big help and did most of the work on priming and blocking the car to get it ready for paint. I then came home one weekend and painted the car. Then the car sat for a year or so because I was traveling most of the time with my job.

In 1966 I was permanently transferred to Denver, Colorado and I took the car with me. I used the car a little, but as you know, by 1966 the hotrod and custom thing was dead. That’s when I decided to build my chopped 1967 Pontiac Catalina 2+2. I drove the ’67 Pontiac back to Detroit in August of 1968 to our annual new model training and the chief engineer of Fisher Body wanted to show the car to Bill Mitchell (head of GM Styling). Long story short, Bill Mitchell offered me a job at Styling as a Technical Stylist, which is one of the engineers in the design studio. I took the job with Fisher Body’s blessing. That was when I started building my 1970 Firebird based on the Harry Bradley Designs and decided it was time to let go of the 1958 Pontiac.
 
With all the new body work finished it was time for an all new paintjob. Candy green with a gold fade in the center of the car.

 
 
The tubular grille I made for the previous version was replaced with a single bar unit created from shaped and chrome plated heavy sheet metal.

 
 
And the rear grille opening had a similar single bar insert with the license plate a-symatrical placed in line with the scoops. The green plexiglass can be seen really well in this photo.

 
 

 
I sold the ’58 Pontiac to and old friend in Buffalo, N. Y. And to my knowledge the car is still in his family, but by now it is completely redone with an new interior and new paint in white with ice green fades.

 
Mikes Big 429 took these photos of Dave’s old Pontiac in the summer of 2015. The basic body is all still there, but the new paint job changed the look of the car completely.

 
 
Dave crook finished his last car in 2013, another masterpiece this time based on the wonderful designs made by Harry Bradley. A full CCC-Article on this car be seen HERE.
 

 
 

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EXQUISITE 1938 LINCOLN

This exquisite padded topped 38 Lincoln Custom was restyled when the car was very new, perhaps even straight from the dealer. It has this wonderful early Custom Car look, a look fortunately getting back in style these days.

 
Some time ago I was in the progress of gathering material on an article about the removal of the running boards on early Custom Cars. I was researching the subject with some of the the photos I have in my files. I was planning to include a photo of this very nice 1938 Lincoln convertible, but since this car is such an amazing beautiful restyled car I decided to not include it in that article, but do a full CCC-Feature on the car. Not that I do know a whole lot about the car, but just because it is absolutely stunning and hopefully an full article might be noticed by more people, and hopefully one day we will be able to know more about this car. Let me share what I do know about this exquisite 1938 Lincoln.
 
 

 
 
Several years ago, Ron Brooks from Castro Valley, North California, send me a couple of photos of some very early Custom Cars. Ron had received some of them them in the 1990’s from an retired fireman who knew Ron was into Customs, and particular into Custom Cars with an C.A. Hall Top Shop padded top. You see, Ron owns an old Custom, a 1940 Chevy convertible with an original Hall top. The retired fireman came across these photos when he was in the old Hall shop, where he found this stack of old photos, which happend to be all Hall topped Custom Cars from the very early 1940’s. Ron has tried, but never was able to find out anything else about this Lincoln.
 

Some of the photos Ron Brooks shared with me several years ago. Very nice early to late 1940’s Custom Cars in a clean early style I very much admire.

The first photo I saw was this amazing side view. What appears to be a photo taken by a professional photographer. Perhaps hired by the car owner, or possibly by the Hall Top shop to be able to use for promotional matters. The side view is stunning, with the chopped windshield, the removal of the running boards, the perfect stance and the wonderfully shaped rock shield on the rear fenders.

When I mentioned to Ron that I liked the ’38 Lincoln so much, he send me another one he had. This one taken from an higher point of view and with the top removed. Ron mentioned that the eucalyptus trees in the background have a distinctive Oakland/East Bay hills look!

About the Lincoln

As mentioned in the into there is not really all that much we do know about this beautiful car. We have no name of the owner, no builders name other than that the car most likely had a padded top created by the Hall Top Shop in Oakland California. We also do not know what ever happened to it. At first all we had where two amazing photos shared by Ron. But then in 2012, Dave Welles of Seabright Hot Rods shared some amazing 1940’s footage taken at Harper Dry Lake taken by his uncle Tommy Lorbeer with his brand new 8mm camera. The short movie itself is already amazing, but when I watched it I got goose bumps when I saw this wonderful 1938 Lincoln with padded top cruise by over the dry lake. I recognized the car immediately… That is the same one as Ron send me, the one with the Hall top on it. I took a few screen shots to compare the two, and it sure was the same car. So now we knew that the Lincoln was a very early Custom, and that it was built between 1938 and 1940. The car appears only for a second or two in the movie footage… but it is amazing to see it driving. And even better is that we can see it a little from the front as well. Although very blurry we can see that it has a modified grille.

Movie still from the Tommy Lorbeer movie shows a modified grille in the Lincoln. Its hard to tell from this material if the grille was home made (quite common in those days) or if an exciting grille was used.

 
 
The car has been restyled with on main goal in mind, improving its looks over the factory stock look. Not just to modify it to stand out from the rest of the cars. We have seen similar restyling done by shops as Jimmy Summers, Bistange brothers, Olive Hill carage, but also by shops specialized in coach building more exclusive cars. So my guess is that this Lincoln was brought to one of the Nor Cal coach building shops for an exclusive restyling.
 

I added these cropped sections of the photo to be able to take a closer look at the details. Possibly the car was dressed up with a set of Vogue wide white wall tires.

The rear fender rock shield is very nicely shaped, and the shape of the padded top is perhaps a bit more upright than we are used to from the later part of the 1940’s, but it fits this Lincoln absolutely perfect.

This photo shows the horizontal grille bars in the custom grille.

 
 
The modifications we can see in the photos are all extremely well done, and in style with the rest of the cars line. Chopped windshield, very nicely shaped padded top, removal of the running boards, with an molded in panel to cover the exposed frame after the running boards where removed. Removed side tim, removed hood side trim. nicely shaped stainless or chrome plated rock shield on the rear fender, front fender reshaped at the back. Modified grille, one of Ron’s photos shows that the grille has horizontal bars, perhaps a 1940 Willys grille was used, but it could also be possible that a new smaller grille was hand shaped and chrome plated.The car was lowered all around and set on nice shaped wide white wall tires with single bar flipper hubcaps and beauty rings. The bumper at the front looks to be stock, but the shadow on the side view photo indicates that the rear bumper might have been replaced with an 1940 Lincoln unit which has the opened-up center section.

I have been able to find one other photo of a 1938 Lincoln that has similar modifications done to it. I do not think its the same car, but the resemblance of the two is striking. I found the photo online a few years ago, and compared it with the photos Ron shared right then. But this car has the stock grille, and an different shaped padded top and the stock trim still in place, and not stainless rock shield on the rear fenders (perhaps a rubber one, hard to tell). Perhaps the car in this photo could be an early version of the Lincoln taken in 1938-39. But more than likely there where two, and perhaps more of these that had similar styling.
 
Most likely a different 1938 Lincoln Custom with pretty similar changes than the Lincoln in the Ron Brooks photos. The black wall’s indicate that the photo was taken during or shortly after WWII.

 
 
Hopefully this CCC-Article will lead to some more information about the origins of this well designed masterpiece. A beautifull car like this must have been noticed back then, and some people must know more about it. Even the camera man of that 1940 dry lake movie noticed its beauty. If you know more, please email Rik, so that we can add the info to this article. Many thanks go out to Ron Brooks for saving and sharing these amazing images.
 
 

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1951 DODGE CUSTOM

Bert Gustafsson 1951 Dodge is restyled using very creative out of the box styling which turned this ugly duckling into a real beautiful 1950s style Custom.

 
I first saw some photos of Bert Gustafsson’s 1951 Dodge when I met Bert for the first time in 2007. The car was still in progress then, but I was very impressed with the unique styling of it. A couple of years later I saw photos of the finished car, and thought it was absolutely great. In the summer of 2015 I had the pleasure of seeing Bert’s 1951 Dodge in person at the 2015 Old Style Weekend in Sweden, and it looked absolutely stunning in person. What strikes me perhaps the most is how Bert has accomplishes to create a true early/mid 1950’s looking custom from a car that nearly nobody considered prime custom material. Bert’s sense for style and balance made sure that despite a whole range of modifications there is still an overall theme and style, and the car’s shapes work really well no matter from which angle you look at it. With all the modifications it is very hard to identify the original Dodge in the end product, but who needs to know what it started as, if the end result is looking this good.
 
 

 
 
Bert bought the car 1988, not because it was the car of his dreams, it was actually far from that. But he just felt that he needed a custom car real bad, and the 500 euros (around $560.-) the seller wanted for the car was all he could afford at the time. The first Custom Bert built took about 2 years to build and he could never ever have guessed that it would take him 20 years before this car would be out on the street again. But other cars that he had during this period, plus raising four kids, house restorations, moving, 2 garage builds, etc. always had a higher priority than working steady on the Dodge. During this period Bert worked on the car so every now and then, but mostly the car was put on the back-burner.

As the photos show one of the original ideas was to built the car as a padded topped convertible. But this idea was discarded about a year after Bert started the project. Swedish regulations were a lot stricter back then than they are now, and being able to get the car street legal as an ex four door converted to a convertible would be very hard. So a 1951 Ford roof was welded back on top of the car. But since the roof panel was badly dented Bert only used the sides and replace most of the roof with 1955 Chevy top sheet metal. The opening for the windshield was also enlarged a bit  the same way they did it on the Matranga Merc to make sure visibility would still be good in the heavy chopped car.
 
 
Initially the intention was to build a custom with a carson style top so Bert cut the roof off and replaced the windshield frame with one from a -51 Ford. 

 
 
Bert showed some pictures of the car without roof to his dear friend and Swedish living Custom Car Legend Allan Bergman, he got inspired and made a very nice and inspirational ketch.

 
 
The patchwork on the door skin from lengthening and rust repair was later replaced with a new door skin when the “Darrin-dip” was added. In this photo Bert has the 1951 Ford tacked in place. However, the roof skin was pretty damaged so Bert decided to replace it. He tried using the original Dodge roof-skin first, but didn’t like that at all. Then he found a roof from a -55 Chevy in a local junkyard, and liked the shape of that better. In retroperspective Bert wishes that he had spent time repairing the Ford roof instead. He now thinks that would have turned out nicer. This photo was taken around 1994-95.

Bert incorporated some more Coachbuild styles into his Dodge, as the “pancaked” trunk and “Darrin” dip in the doors. After the trunk was shortened he found an extra trunk lid at a local junkyard, that was used to fill the lower part of the trunk opening. The door skins from the rear doors were used as filler for the rear door openings, and the front doors where extended. The “Darrin” dip was created by sectioning the door jambs and creating new top sections on the English wheel that would flow into a dip at the end of the doors. Bert wanted to have nice lip all around the bottom of the body which started at the front wheel opening where he used the lip from the wheel openings from a 1970’s mercedes. The rest of the lip around the bottom was hand made. The new top was welded on the main boy in such a way that a Hard-Top body style was created. The door frames where welded to the A-pillars and roof. And the door tops reshaped styled after the Hirohata Mercury. Original plan was to create some elegant flowing chrome window frames… perhaps one day…
 
The hood was originally in two pieces, but Bert welded the two pieces together and extended the front part of the hood with an lip which forms the grille opening in a same manner as the Hirohata Mercury. The photo on the right shows the hand made wind-split for the narrowed 1951 Ford taillights. It also shows the handmade lip on the bottom of the body which flows into the fender skirt lip.

 
 
There is a lot of new sheet metal in the rear fenders. Bert marked in the photo to show what’s left of the stock fenders, the rest is all hand made from flat sheet. The fender-skirts, not showing in this photo, were also made from flat sheet.

 
 
At this point most of the body work was done and the whole body was in bare metal. The fenders where modified to accept 1954 Buick healights and a complete new grille opening was created. Bert used fender lips for the front wheel openings from 1970’s Mercedes front fenders! The right photo shows how a “concave lip” was fabricated and attached along the roof side edges instead of drip rails. This photo also shows the sail panels made from flat sheet and if you look hard you can spot the weldline from replacing the roof skin from the 1955 Chevy.

 
 
After working on and off on the car Bert finally had the car ready to have it registered in 2008. The Dodge was not legal for street use, still lacking interior and side windows. In 2015 this is still a low priority for Bert and the only update he has done since 2008 is that he added a hitch so he now can tow a trailer with it.

So far Bert has had had a lot of fun with the car, both during the build and out on the roads, it drives and handles pretty well, and Bert kind of like it, as he mentioned. There are a few modifications which he still think is pretty cool. He mentioned the the rear fenders with the scoops and taillights and the “Darrin dip” and then there are others he can barely look at today and of course wishes he had done very differently. An example of that is the front end. Bert was very close to change that before it was painted but thought it hopefully would look better with paint, “hmm, bad decision”.
Maybe, but just maybe, Bert will give it an update and finalize the car some day?
 
 
The pic shows what the car looked like in 1996-97, it also shows that the body had been channeled 3”.

Around 2002, the car in now in primer at its new home and Bert is testing different sets of side trim.

 
 
The car was then prepared for paint but didn’t get painted until 2007. This photo shows the car fresh from the pain-booth, painted tangerine and gold metallic done by a neighbor of Bert. Bert feels his neighbor did a really fantastic job.

 
 
When you see this photo of Bert’s Custom it is hard to imagine it started out as a 1951 Dodge four door.

 
 
Door corners were rounded to flow better with the rest of the cars lines. The Buick side trim, Darrin dip and lip around the bottom of the car work very well together.

 
 
The car was converted to hard-top and the door tops were cut in a similar way to the Hirohata Mercury. A set of Kustom Krafts reproduction Spotlights was mounted to give the car that perfect early/mid 1950’s look.

 
 
The pancaked trunk, wind-splits on the mostly hand made rear fenders and reshaped rear window in the new top give the car a very nostalgic, yet refreshing look.  The Rear bumper is a narrowed 1956 Chevy with a 1952 Kaiser bar ending in 1954 Olds oval grille parts molded to the bumper. The exhaust was routed thru the Olds ovals.

 
 
When it was time to reshape the rear fenders Bert did look a bit at the units on the Frank Livingston Chevy. But most of the details including the narrowed 1951 Ford taillights are from his own design. Very nicely done is the lip coming from the front wheel opening which ends at the front of the rear fender and then continues on the fender skirts all the way back to the rear bumper.

 
 
Detail of the two tone metallic gold and tangerine paint job, the Buick side trim and the 1956 Lincoln hubcaps with bullets added to the centers.

 
 
The front view shows the narrowed 1954 Olds bumper. The grille is made up from truck grille part bullets combined with the 1954 Olds grille bar. The original old grille ovals from this grille have been used on the rear bumper.

(this article is made possible by)

 
 
 
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WHAT GOES AROUND

It was the strangest thing. Sometime after the CCC article on the funky Conquistadors club plaque, Rik Hoving sent me this:
“Hello, Larry. I got this email. Thought you would enjoy it.”

 
A lady in North Carolina contacted Rik Hoving in the Netherlands, to reach me in Montana! What could this be about?

Turns out, a LOT!

“My sister and I are the daughters of Cecil Wentz. She has pictures of the car that our father built that she would like to share…” The very roadster that had been the inspiration for that club plaque!

I sat dumb-struck, marveling at the powers of the WorldWideWeb. Then, I had a flashback. I was a kid, learning the water tricks of irrigation. Orey Talbert was boss farmer, a gnarly old cowboy from the old school of hard knocks. We were standing at the edge of a pond. He threw a rock. It hit the still water with a “plunk”. We silently watched as rows of ripples flowed out to the far shores, and back again.

“What goes around,” Orey rasped, taking a drag on his hand-rolled Bull Durham cigarette, “comes around.”

“If you do good, good comes back to you.”

Ripples on a Pond! From the Netherlands, across the Atlantic Pond, Rik Hoving has done just that! I’d like to share this one ripple with the CCC, but first, one fan’s tribute to Rik Hoving.

It was with the summer issue, No. 33, of The Rodder’s Journal in 2006 that I first became aware of Rik Hoving. “Kolorized Kustoms” appeared on the cover list of articles. I turned to page 26, “Classic Customs AS You’ve Never Seen Them”. I was blown away. Here were the classic images, the b/w prints we’d seen in the “little pages”, but digitally reproduced in full color! “Hot Rod and Custom Show in Los Angeles 1954” revealed not just the cars of the show lot, but the entire street scene beyond, all in period perfect color!
 

Two spreads of the Kolorized Kustoms article in the Rodder’s Journal issue 33.

 
 
And that’s not all, this Rik Hoving from the Netherlands identified each and every car in the show, right down to the far left lower corner, barely showing the front fender of the Louie Bettancourt 50 Mercury!

Who was this guy, Rik Hoving? Once I could tear my eyes away from his digital magic, I read his answer:
“Though I was born in 1967 and am too young to have seen these cars drive on the streets, I fell in love with customs when I was about 15 years old. Growing up and living in the Netherlands made it a bit harder for me to discover the fantastic history of custom cars…but I amassed a great collection of old custom car magazines and books, and the more I found out about these custom cars and their creators the more fascinated I became.”

Hey! Rik Hoving was just like all of us, bitten with the passion bug for which there is no cure. All across the land, how many of us stared in awe at these marvels in black and white, and could only imagine “colors like Bertolucci Maroon, Scintillating Green Gold, and deep lacquer paint jobs with gold powder for extra sparkle.”

”Somehow,” Rik explained, “I could see these colors hiding amongst the gray scales of the black and white photos.”
And has empowered others to see! By dropping that first “rock”, Rik Hoving created ever expanding ripples of friends and followers, over the Atlantic “Pond.” His fascination with the photographic treasures of traditional custom cars led to the online “Rik Hoving Photo Gallery,” creating even more ripples, as enthusiasts began to open their old albums and share their collections. Then, two years ago, Rik launched Custom Car Chronicle to rave reviews. And an astounding swell of followers.

“If you do good, good comes back to you.” Good on you, Rik Hoving.
 
 

Cecil Wentz

Where was I? Oh, how did that lady, Cecil Wentz’s daughter Beverly, far and away in North Carolina, come to find customcarchronicle.com? It was her sister Cecelia who would answer:
“My son Joe in Loveland, Colorado, told me about an article he saw that mentioned dad as a mentor. I hadn’t a chance to look for it, when a few days later, Beverly sent me the article that her son had found.” She failed to locate me. “So I told Beverly and she found you through the Netherlands site.”
Pretty soon emails were flying across the web. Turns out both the sisters’ sons, like grandfather, were car guys. What’s the old saying? The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

But Cecil Wentz’s daughters had no idea their dad had made indelible impressions on our generation of Conquistadors. Wyoming winters took their toll on Cecil’s arthritis and in 1957 the family relocated to sunny San Diego, California. There he found mechanic work in the Pontiac dealership and, for a few years, continued racing sprint cars. Back in Sheridan, lawyer Birchby opened the Wentz shop to Harry Schwartz and the Conquistadors. It was Harry who finally would score the treasured robin’s egg green roadster that Cecil Wentz had built; the roadster that became the model for our car club plaques cast in the high school shop.
 

Cecil Wentz posing with his home made roadster in black primer before he painted it robin’s egg green. 

A couple of badly faded color photos of the roadster with Cecil’s wife and in front of the Wentz shop.

 
 
Then, there they were: scanned images of that all-important sporty roadster. It was like nothing before or since, a one-off creation of the 50s. What had Cecil Wentz drawn from to form this iconic car? Harry Schwartz said the chassis came from a wrecked 32 Ford sedan. The tail-lights he’d identified as 36 Hudson. That figured. Cecil’s sprint car, it said in a local newspaper Beverly sent, ran a 36 Hudson six, and I’d spotted just such a car parked outside their shop in another photo.
 

The body on Cecil’s roadster was partly hand formed and he had used parts of a 1938 Studebaker for the grille,hood and feners.

 
 
Much of the body was hand-formed, with a European sports car dip in the doors. The odd trunk certainly could have been borrowed and cut down from that same Hudson. Fenders definitely were Ford. The fronts were cut away for a sportier look, then skirted; the rears were welded and leaded onto the body. Beverly recalled that their uncle Joe Labay had helped Cecil with the welding.

But that distinctive grille and hood line had to have been borrowed from a different 1930s automobile. Finally, I found it: a 1938 Studebaker President had been the donor of those parts. And the frenched-in headlight pods could have been scrounged from the same salvage yard.
“I remember the car as a light green,” Beverly noted. Early shots also show it in black primer.

What a shame Dick Baldwin scooped up some free range critters and destroyed the feisty face of this iconic innovation. But, now thanks to Rik Hoving and the sisters Wentz, we all can see what an attitude that roadster brought to the Sheridan scene.

Wentz Carburetor Special sprint car with the special “W” in the grille.

Sadly these color photos are also badly faded, however we can see a little bit of the orange color on this Number 3 racer in these photos.

 
 
Several Sheridan scenes had been saved by Cecelia and Beverly. Their dad had passed away in 2000, but the ladies kept images of their childhood. And now, are passing them along: There were photos of Cecil and his orange Number 3 Wentz Carburetor Special sprint car in the drive to his shop in 1954. In the background could be seen his second dirt track passion, a stock car from the day we called them jalopy racers. Then came the most moving of the images, a crystal clear shot of the interior of that shop! Here, he had built that roadster. Here, also the sprint car and its country cousin jalopy. Here also, the carburetor for that Hudson engine sitting front and center on the floor in the garage scene.
 
 

The Wentz Carburator

This photo must have been taken by a professional photographer. It shows the Cecil’s wonderful shop.

The engine in the shop photo is an 1936 Hudson Terraplane block that Cecil worked on.

The other side of the engine shows the Graham supercharger and the Wentz carburetor on top of it.

 
 
The Sheridan papers closely followed developments in the Wentz garage. “For power, Wentz started with a 1936 Terraplane block, but you hardly recognize it as such, he has made so many additions and refinements. And inside it, some significant changes have been made. For one thing, it is polished internally and works as smoothly as about any high-priced, high-powered engine you’ll ever see. It has to work smoothly, since it will turn up to as high as 6200 revolutions per minute…. It develops more than twice the horsepower it did as a stock model—“in excess of 200 horsepower at 5100 revolutions per minute,” according to its owner.”

“A (Graham) supercharger mounted on the engine increases its total power considerably, giving, as Wentz puts it, “greater push to the pistons.” The girls told me a story of the carburetor Wentz had designed, machined, and performance tested to perfection. Beverly thought it a fuel injection design. As details emerged, he had worked out a means of achieving both fuel feed for low end acceleration, and variously, for flat-out high-end performance.
 

Close up of the carburetor Cecil developed.

 
 
“It is the carburetor mounted atop the supercharger that is the pride and joy of Wentz,” the Sheridan Press reported. “It alone gives the engine between eight and 10 per cent more power, he reports.”
“Carburetion is extremely difficult on ‘hopped-up’ cars,” Wentz explains, “But it is even more difficult to work out for low as well as high speeds.”
“This carburetor, all hand-built in Wentz’ shop, was designed by its owner for maximum performance—not just at high, racing car speeds, but for lower speeds as well. He has attempted to develop a carburetor that will work under traffic conditions and give the driver more snap when he wants or needs it.”
“His, developed and patented as a multi-purpose carburetor, gives greater flexibility since it has proven to work well at high and low speeds, he declares.”
“As he explains it: “It will work efficiently at speeds ranging from five miles per hour to 120 miles per hour in high gear—in high gear, mind you.” He added: “I defy anyone to match that performance.”
“It works on an old theory, but it’s on a new structure—an improvement on an old conventional carburetor,” he said.
“The principle is that of a variable venture—that is, the carburetor varies the amount of air and fuel demanded by the engine. As worked out by Wentz, the gadget gives close to perfect vaporization.”
 

Pattent drawings of Cecil’s Carburetor.

 
 
When Beverly sent me the patent papers and drawings, she wrote that he had become discouraged and eventually let the patent lapse. “Mom and us kept telling him to renew it when it was going to expire. I guess he figured no one would want it.” To his chagrin, Ford Motor Company immediately took up the patent. “Boy did he ever get angry.”

“I know exactly what you are talking about,” Conquistador Dick Holcombe smiled as I babbled all this to him. “They called it a variable venturi carburetor. Ford had it for awhile, til they came up with something better. They were a bear to work on. Took special tools. And I still have ‘em,” he grinned.

From that point in his life, there never would be a Ford in Cecil Wentz’s future. “He hated Fords after that,” Beverly recalled. “Now I will throw some of the sick Wentz humor on you. First of all he died January 4, 2000. My sister said Dad just wasn’t Y2K compatible. Wasn’t long after she called me and said, ‘Well, Dad just turned over in his casket. I just bought a Ford truck!’ Anyway to be a Wentz you have to have humor good or bad.”
 

 
Among the memorabilia in the care package Beverly Wentz sent was the 1946 booklet, “Automobile Racing, sixth edition by Ray F. Kuns, chock-full of “how-to” articles for die-hard gearheads. But another Clymer Publication really caught my eye. It was dog-eared from use, and, like the first, had one corner burnt from sitting too close to fabrication work in the Wentz shop. “How to build a Racing Car”, by K. J. Domark. Inside, with drawings to illustrate, was a section on how to build a sprint car nose from the back halves of a square-topped early 30s sedan body:
The Radiator Shell
 

How to build a racing car showed how you could create a track-nose from sections of the sedan body from the early 1930’s. 

 
 
“A neat well-made professional-looking radiator shell adds much to the appearance of a racing car. It is quite a job to hammer out a shell from a piece of sheet metal even for an experienced man. However, there is a way that a satisfactory shell can be fabricated if you have a little sheet metal experience and can weld. An attractive shell for either a midget racer or a dirt track job can be assembled from the two top rear corners of an old model automobile body. (Fig. No, 16). These corner sections must have the proper contour. If the two corners are cut out completely, and then butted together and welded longitudinally (at dotted lines A and B), the basic shell will be formed. It will then be necessary to cut out the opening for the grill. This can be circular, oval, heart-shaped or almost any selected design.”

Wow! George Barris, eat your heart out! Here in a 1949 Floyd Clymer racing publication, available at news-stands for $2, were “how-to” customizing articles. Early racing and traditional custom car roots were inextricably intertwined. The “something borrowed” maxim was widespread in the Post-War years. Fabrication skills…making something out of seemingly nothing…trace to those lean times in myriad ways. It made me ponder. Did the nose for the ” Wentz Carburetor Special, No. 3” come from the rear of that same wrecked 1932 Ford sedan that had donated its chassis and running gear to our Conquistador roadster? Sifting through these materials was giving me deeper appreciation for the ingenuity of our mentor, Cecil Wentz.
 

 
 

Miniature true to scale tools, engines and cannons.

“You probably remember the miniature true to scale tools my Dad made,” Bevery added. “He had them framed in the shop. Our daughter still has the building sign, Wentz Auto and Machine Shop. Dad started building miniature full race engines (RC compatible) after he retired in about 1975. He made quite a few and they are divided among the kids and grandkids. He made us promise never to run them!!! DUH, like we would have known what to do!!! He was featured in a magazine for those.”
 

The shop wall showing the framed miniature tools and a few of the miniature engine he made.

Memorabilia wall in the shop.

One of the miniature engines taken apart.

The miniature engine Cecil created all worked.

Article on the engines Cecil created in the October 1980 issue of Model Airplane News magazine.

 
 
Sure enough, there was “Model Airplane News” for October, 1960, and on page 60 was that very article, with two photos of “a gorgeous little 4-cycle, dual overhead cam, twin-cylinder racing engine designed and built by Cecil Wentz of San Diego. We believe it to be a .27 cu in. engine and it’s a super accomplishment. It has no less than 9 ball bearings and Mr. Wentz states that it runs quite well at rpm up to 13,000!”
The miniature working crescent wrenches, screwdrivers and ball peen hammers were featured in a local Sheridan newspaper not long before Wentz relocated to California. Also in the photos are miniature brass cannons he machined.
“He made miniature breech cannons,” Beverly added. “He liked to shoot them across the street at a not so favorite neighbor’s house. The San Diego Police let him fire them at their range.”
 

The miniature tool set Cecil created with the pack of cigarettes and the dime added to show the actual size.

Sheridan News Paper articles on Cecil’s Lilliputian Tools.

Some of Cecil’s miniature breech cannons he created.

  
The Sheridan papers she sent also included articles on the successes of Wentz and his friends in the sprint car circuit across Wyoming and Nebraska. His first racer was a black speedster with the unmistakable nose of the 1936 Terraplane he had used for power. The orange No. 3, with the same hopped up engine, but a distinctive sprint car body, would not arrive until later. I told her my most precious custom car memory involved a sprint car race her dad had put on at the Sheridan fairgrounds. As I commented on an earlier CCC article, it was there in the infield that I spotted a 39-40 Ford or Mercury four-door convertible, chopped, speedboat stance, full fenderskirts, and painted a wonderful metallic lime green.
 

Some of the Sheridan News Paper articles on and family album photos of Cecil and his first racer racing at the Sheridan fairgrounds.

 
 
Cecil racing his first racer, which was a black home built speedster with a 1936 Hudson Terraplane hood and grille.

 
 

 
“Oh! I have the poster and newspaper reports for that race,” she exclaimed. “And pictures of us kids cleaning the stands, picking up trash and fixing fences after the race. Clarence Newton (Jersey Creamery) brought a dairy truck up with treats and helped to haul off our hard work!”
I had thought I was about 8 or 10 at the time, but instead it turns out I was 12. My dad had taken me there September 14, 1952 after my older sister had gotten married. When I shared this with Conquistador, Gary “Slim” Richards, he said, “I was at that very same race, too! The Wentz Carburetor Special. I’ll never forget the sound of that Graham supercharged motor. Like nothing I’d ever heard before. Like a Ferrari.”
And I never forgot that lime green “California” custom phaeton!
 
 

Wentz family history.

So, who was this man Cecil Wentz, gifted gearhead and mentor to the Conquistadors and…through them… to generations of car guys far and away? Like many, he was a product of a rich melting pot heritage. His father joined migrating Missourians to northern Wyoming with the opening of the railroad. “Dad’s Dad Cecil Sr. was born in Soleville, Missouri, close to St. Louis and Wentzville, Missouri,” Cecelia explained. “He came to Sheridan to be on the railroad. Our Grandma Wentz’s Dad brought them to Sheridan in 1894. Their household goods was the first to be shipped by rail in Wyoming. I have the bill of lading. Also an article in the Omaha (Nebraska) paper outlining the wonderful county of Sheridan. It is dated just before they moved so feel that it is what made the decision. He was a master carpenter. Lots of stories there. He came to America from Berlin and our great grandmother from Sussex, England, via Ontario, Canada.”
 

Early train, Wyoming and the original Sheridan railroad depot.

 
Cecil’s mother’s side is steeped in Polish culture. “Our Grandfather was Franza Labaj. He Americanized by going to Frank Labay. Grandma’s maiden name was Wawrzacz.” Both families came from Austrian Silesia, what later was to be the southwestern corner of Poland. They sought a new life, through opportunities afforded by the coal mines of Sheridan County. It was the needs of the same railroad for coal, the “black diamond” that had opened these opportunities to migrant families.

It wasn’t all it had been promoted to be. One immigrant noted, “I came to American because I heard the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, I found out three things: First, the streets weren’t paved with gold; second, they weren’t paved at all; and third, I was expected to pave them.”
 

Color post card of Sheridan in 1912 and another street view from 1909, no gold paved streets here.

 
 
For Rosalie Labay Wentz’s parents and scores more of kindred spirit, it was a chance worth the risk, and the lofty Bighorn Mountains reminded them of their homeland. Polish immigration to Sheridan County recently has been chronicled in “We Are One Family”, a labor of love by the cousins Karen Ballek and Leon Washut, themselves immigrant descendents like the sisters Wentz.

The “American Dream”. Cecil Wentz could have been the poster child for the Industrial Revolution as it made its way onto the Western frontier of America. He and his brothers Nathaniel and Archie were into anything a motor could propel forward, backward, or even sideways. He and Nathaniel opened the first Harley Davidson dealership in town, and soon were racing motorcycles with Jack and Dick Yentzer (later WWII flying aces). The frequent flier miles between the Wentz and Yentzer properties were to become well-traveled by the local police. Warning tickets and winks, the daughters recalled, over the years.
 

Joe Labay

 
“You mentioned his runs on Goose Creek,” Cecilia Wentz wrote, “and that reminded me of a story. Not all of the neighbors appreciated his driving. Someone called the cops on him, and one showed up at the house and told him they were going to give him a ticket for no license plate, no headlights, no fenders, no side mirrors and probably more that I can’t remember. The cop said, but I’ll let you off with a warning, just don’t do it again. All the cops brought their cars to him to fix, so they liked him.”

Where Wentz took his cars out on trial runs up Big Goose creek road later would be the scene of Jack Bushmaker’s infamous collision with a cottonwood tree in his chopped custom ’47 Chevy coupe, Purple Burp (See “Requiem for Purple Burp” article on CCC).

The Harley Davidson venture came to an abrupt and tragic end, with Nathaniel’s death in a motorcycle crash in 1940, very near where this Conquistador’s first custom car dreams were dashed on Massacre Hill (see Confessions of a Conquistador, Part One).

In the Post-WWII years, Cecil shifted his need for speed to the growing sport of jalopy racing, and for greater adrenalin rush, on to sprint cars. From a job as a mechanic at the local Ford dealership, he followed his own American dream, hanging the ”Wentz Auto and Machine Shop” sign above his home garage. Arthritis forced the family move to California in 1957. From all the inventiveness he exhibited, its fun to speculate just how far his creative genius might have taken him with the right connections.
 

Colorized photo of  the Wentz roadster how it looked painted 1Shot robins egg blue.

 
 
What Cecil Wentz did leave was beyond measure. Most probably he didn’t even know much of the ripples from that rock he tossed into Life’s pond. It was the gift of Inspiration. Inspiration to a small group of teen-agers who gathered in his garage, created things in their own ways, and decided to form a car club. When I look at one of those funky Conquistador plaques, I don’t just see a piece of pot metal roughly cast in a high school shop class. I see the living legacy of Cecil Wentz. It is the true Spirit of “What Goes Around, Comes Around”, courtesy of Rik Hoving, customcarchronicle.com.
 

 
 
 

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MYSTERY 37 FORD SEDAN

In 2008 the AHRF site shared a snapshot of an oddly shaped 1937 Ford Custom from the Tom Davis Collection. In 2015 three more photos surface…

 
In 2008 I was browsing the American Hot Rod Foundations (AHRF) site. I have always loved their amazing collection of Hot Rod photos and love their philosophy and way they share these collections, and make sure they will be saved for the future generations. As the name says, most of their material is Hot Rod based, but from time to some a few Custom Car photos appear. And there is something else I like to do wathing those Hot Rod photos… spot the Custom Cars in the background. Anyway, in the Tom Davis Collections I came across a snapshot taken at one of the dry lakes in an unknown year of an kind of oddly shaped 1937 Ford. Everything about this snapshot made me believe it was taken in either the late 1930’s or early 1940’s. A lot of the Tom Davis Collection dates to these early years as well.
 

 
The Photo Description on the AHRF site did not really say much about the car, not the location the photo was taken. Just the Dry lakes and that is was a cool Custom 1937 Ford, but that was about it. From the photo I could not even see the body style of the car that the builder had started with. I assumed it was a coupe with a chopped top, radically reshaped door side window openings, and the complete roof removed and replaced with a padded insert. A few other early styling element was the removal of the running boards, the ribbed hubcaps with possibly (hard to tell from the bit fuzzy snapshot) small diameter single bar flipper hubcaps, possibly originating from a mid 1930’s Cadillac, and the single A-Pillar mounted Spotlight. The hood sides are filled in, it looks like the hood has been shaved, and the front fenders have been reshaped at the bottom giving them a nice teardrop shape. At the time I shared the photo on the Hamb asking for more info. Somebody mentioned there might have been a photo showing the complete car in one of the Albert Drake books. Jamie Barter scanned the image from the Flat Out book for us.
 

 
This photo of the 37 appeared in the Albert Drake book Flat Out. The photo is not dated, but it is mentioned that the NEW 1937 was quickly customized, indicating that the photo was taken in the late 1930’s. (thank you for the scan Jamie Barter)

 
 
Then in August of 2015 three more photos (negatives) show up, they are offered on ebay. The car has changed quite a bit since the photo at the dry lakes was taken. The whole front end is replaced with a 1939 Ford front end. But it looks like the main body and top remain the same, although the roof insert, or cover was redone in a light color where it was originally done in dark material. But the side window opening and the oval shaped rear window is undoubtedly identical. Sadly there was again no info with the photos on the ebay auction. (The images seen here are the original scans taken from the ebay auction.)
 
Most likely the proud owner posing with the car parked in a city on a rainy day. Hard to see where the photo was taken, or what state the license plate is from. But the cold weather cloth of the owner and the woman behind the car does not suggest these photos were taken in California. Notice the odd very tall bumper guards.

 
 
These three new photos show that the body the original builder started with was most likely a 1937 Ford Flatback Sedan with the top cut off and the rear of the body canted forward for a more streamlined look. Perhaps the trunk had to be extended a few inches in the process. The beltline was reshaped towards the trunk of the car, and it appears that the rear fenders are molded into the body. The new photos show the shape of the side window much better than the AHRF photo. Perhaps the rear side window opening was used to reshape the door window opening and that is how the teardrop shape was created. It appears that the door frame fits inside a small frame left from the body, which makes the car most likely easier to make weather proof. The top has a nice flowing line to it, but its hard to see if the whole top can come off, like a padded top, or if a reshaped metal roof has been covered with canvas, and is fixed on the car.
 
The rear 3/4 view shows the angled forward trunk, the reshaped belt-line, the removed running boards, new 1939 Ford reshaped front fenders and the flowing top with oval rear window.

 
 

 
I tried to enlarge the ebay scan as much as I could… but there is not much detail. It looks like the newest car in the background is from 1940.

 
 

 
It would be really interesting to find out more about this uniquely styled 1937 Ford early Custom Car. Where it came from, who customized it, an what ever happened to it. This car is a great sample of the heavily restyled early Custom Cars, from a time when hourly rates were very low and the amount of work that was needed to create these cars seamed to not matter all that much. It is also an great sample of the wildly restyled Customs from the early days where the restylers perhaps were searching for new styles, or at least styles to set their creations apart from all the others.
 
On the front of this 1937 Ford we can see the use of an odd, very tall set of bumper guards. These happen to be an aftermarket part developed by Van Auken. I found an patent paper that was dated 1942 and that the patent was filed in 1940. 

 
 
 
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