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2005 California Hot Rod Trip by
Mac Reid
Five
Ty-Rods’ members, Paul Burke, Frank Cutting, Jim English, Bob Parker,
and Mac Reid decided to make a trip to California in January 2005. The
primary attraction was the 50th anniversary of the Grand National
Roadster Show in Pomona.
Jim and I arranged to leave on
Friday the weekend before the GNRS in order to take in the famous
Pomona Swap Meet. Saturday morning, Mac waited until Jim was showered
and dressed before asking the time. Jim answered, “6:45.” I got up and
dressed only to find that Jim had not reset his watch (which he did not
all week), and it was now 4:00 AM. We were all ready with no place to
go.
Jim and I drove to Fontana International Speedway. We
watched some Junior Drags near the entrance, before heading into the
Speedway. We enjoyed an International Go-kart Association day of
racing. These karts were traveling 150+ mph with the drivers’ seats of
their pants a couple of inches from the asphalt. Jim and I got to
wander around the track and throughout the pits, talking with some very
interesting racers.
Before that day was over, we decided to
find the Pomona Fairplex, which is the site of the drag strip and of
the swap meet, which would take place on Sunday. The gates were closed
to all except exhibiters, so Jim and I found a parking place on the
street and sneaked in to walk around for about two hours. Upon arriving
back at our rental car, we found it being loaded onto a ramp truck,
because someone did not like where it was parked. We pleaded with the
truck driver, who finally relented to unload the vehicle for a “drop
charge” of $52.50 cash.
On Sunday morning, “Early Bird”
English had us parked in a line of cars, waiting to get into the swap
meet at 4:50 AM in the dark. The Pomona Swap Meet is one of the biggest
on the West Coast. There were huge “For Sale” sections for VWs and
Porches, another for Corvettes, and another for everything else. Of
course, there was a huge parts flea market. Jim ogled over several ’33
Ford Cabriolets. I enjoyed the twelve ’55-’57 Chevy Nomads, twenty
’55-’57 Chevy pickups, and a number of Chevelle convertibles.
On
Monday, Jim and I took a six-and-a-half hour bus tour around LA. We
stopped at the Hollywood Bowl, Beverly Hills, the Farmers’ Market, the
Indian/Mexican Market, the LA Tar Pits, and Grumman’s Chinese Theater,
among other landmarks. We spent the late afternoon at the Petersen
Museum, looking at ten former AMBR winners, an amazing Hot Wheels
display (an example of every Hot Wheels vehicle ever made, and, some of
the full-sized vehicles that inspired them), and many other terrific
vehicles and dioramas.
On Tuesday, I began the day by
documenting fifty-one hot rod shops listed in California in Street
Rodder magazine. With a map, I planned out four days of routes to visit
some of these shops. That day we started out at Total Cost Involved in
Ontario. Evan Dalley, Sales Supervisor, who knows fellow Ty-Rods’
member, Dave Simard, took us on a tour of their facility. Next, we
headed to Walton Fabrication in Upland. Owner, Todd Walton, spent
forty-five minutes showing us several hot rods and muscle cars he was
working on. He also knows Dave Simard. He told us his wife is from
Peabody, MA, and they are hoping to move to the East Coast.
The
next stop was at Fred’s Custom Wiring & Auto Works, also in
Ontario. Fred was just leaving for lunch, when we introduced ourselves.
He told us to tell Zach Phillips to show us around. Zack spent over an
hour and a half showing us a variety of projects. I remember thinking
that it is pretty neat that they have an outside lift, which someone
was using in January! They were working on a ’55 Chevy pickup, a ’57
Chevy Hardtop with a beautiful chrome over aluminum engine ($28,000), a
red ’39 Ford Sedan that was going to the Grand National Roadster Show
at the end of the week on that outside lift, and a ’57 Chevy, which had
a secret trunk entry in the left taillight by the gas filler, and then,
a secret car entry in the trunk, between the spare tire and the fender.
We
still had two more stops on our day’s itinerary. First was the SoCal
Speed Shop in Pomona. After a little coaxing, we had a tour by Gil
Alvarez. [SoCal and TCI were the only two of twenty shops we visited
that gave us a guided tour. The rest all allowed us to roam freely in
their shops.] Jim and I met the famous Jimmy Shine, working on a Ford
PU project. We had seen him race at Bonneville the previous August and
would see him the next weekend with a group of SoCal vehicles at the
GNRS. He even came to the Ty-Rods’ Old Timers’ Reunion in September
2007. We saw jigs for ’32 Ford frames they were building, a showroom of
parts, and one for clothing, in our forty-five minute tour. The last
stop for the day was at Inland Empire Driveshafts. The boss was not
around, but an employee gave us a half-hour tour, showing us how they
made and balanced driveshafts. There were split shafts, huge truck
shafts, brushed and polished aluminum shafts and steel shafts.
One day and five hot rod shops—what a day!
On
Wednesday, day two of our hot rod shop tours, started at Bill’s Hot Rod
Company in Covina. We just missed meeting Bill, in his relatively small
shop. We were allowed to wander around the shop, seeing the many
varieties of brackets made there. Bill was building a Model A pickup
with a huge rear end (?), a hand-modified front end, and a big block
engine.
Next on our list was GEM Auto Repair, also in
Covina. This stop wasn’t as expected when we found that a neat ad in a
magazine does not necessarily tell the story of what is at the
location. At GEM, we met George Mompier, an old-time hot rodder who now
is primarily a middleman for hot rod parts. His shop does mainly smog
checks. He said he goes to forty weekend shows a year, hawking parts.
He is building a neat old-timey ’40 Ford Phantom hardtop with a big
block Chevy engine. He told us he will only sell and use brackets made
by Bill’s Hot Rod Company and Gennie Shifters. We told George that we
planned to visit Gennie Shifters. He said the fellow who started it
first filled his garage and then began filling bedrooms, until his
family moved out. He now has parts in every part of the house, except
the kitchen and the bedroom, where he sleeps. We decided not to go
there. [I believe that this business has expanded greatly and is now
probably in a more industrial facility.] We spent an entertaining hour
with George Mompier.
The next stop was at Flaming Engraving
Street Rod Accessories in Covina. There we met Dave, “Mr. Valve Cover,”
Stotler. This too was not a typical hot rod operation, as half of the
shop was for engraving on aluminum parts (mostly valve covers) and the
other half was for military aircraft work.
The final stop
on that day’s list was at Tony’s Auto Body and Restoration in Corona.
Tony Magusin showed us around his nice, new, large open shop (beautiful
new paint booth) with about ten employees working on about six to eight
projects. It appeared to be a “crank-it-out” shop with an emphasis on
buying and selling hot rods and muscle cars. Tony’s office walls
displayed pictures of cars that they built, with several cars and
trucks in national magazines. He promised to keep his eye out for a
’70-2 Chevelle for me and a ’33 Cabriolet for Jim.
Before
leaving, we asked Tony, if he knew about any other hot rod shops
around. He at first said, “No,” but then suggested that he had seen a
number of trucks stopping at a building “up around the corner” that
seemed to pick up hot rods. Wow, what a lead! This turned out to be the
nationally famous Marcel’s Custom Metal (also in Corona). The building
where Tony sent us was a non-descript building with no sign out front.
We walked in through a mostly empty, small office and out into a large
cement-floored open room that put us in awe. There were Marcel and his
two sons, Mark and Luke [I wonder where Mathew and John were hiding?]
building a ’32 custom Ford from scratch, for a dentist in RI, who
visits every two weeks to see the progress. Marcel had a very heavy
accent, but not the sons (who did not look anything like each other;
tall, medium, etc.). Marcel told us it takes the three of them
approximately 500 hours at $75 per hour ($37,500) to build a ’32 Ford
with custom features. They did, however, spend 1,000 hours on a
Delahaye/LaSalle. They have hand-built seven AMBR winners. They build
cars for Boyd Coddington. They are building twenty roadsters and twenty
coupes for Jerry Kugel. They were also working on a swoopy ’32 Ford
with a 906 ci engine with 1,200 HP. The engine alone was worth $98,000.
No two cars they build are exactly alike. This was an incredible hour
well spent. The last fifteen minutes, Jim and I were wandering around
in this shop while Marcel, Mark and Luke were eating their lunch in the
office.
Jim and I picked up fellow Ty-Rodders, Paul Burke
and Bob Parker, at the airport and headed to one more stop for the day.
We went looking for Cragar Wheels and found ourselves at Carlisle Tire
and Wheel Company in Ontario. It seems that Carlisle T & W
bought
Cragar to go along with their other house brands of specialty wheels.
We inadvertently parked in the back of the factory and walked through
unimaginable piles of wheels outside in various stages of completion.
We were invited into the office of Mike McGarry, National Sales
Manager, Aftermarket Products who spent a fascinating hour with us. It
is difficult to believe that this company ships 15,000 Cragar and
Unique wheels EVERY day. Mike McGarry is a best friend of Mickey
Thompson’s son. He talked about the strange death (a hit) of Mickey in
his own driveway by two guys on bicycles.
The day ended by picking up Frank Cutting, the last to arrive
Ty-Rodder, at the airport that evening.
Now
there were five Ty-Rodders (Paul Burke, Frank Cutting, Jim English, Bob
Parker, and me) on the loose in Southern California. Our Thursday
morning was spent with Dale Armstrong in Temecula. Dale is an old
friend of Bob Parker’s, who spent sixteen years as crew chief for Kenny
Bernstein (first dragracer to go 300 mph) and two years with Don
Prudhomme. Dale had a huge L-shaped garage containing a shop and eight
classic cars including a ’58 Caddy Brougham with a Northstar engine,
three ’61 409 ci Chevys, a T-Bird, a 426 Plymouth, a ’57 Chevy, and
Wayne Gretsky’s SUV.
Dale showed us another ’58 Caddy
Brougham in stripped condition for which someone paid $400,000 only to
find that it was in poor condition. That person sold it for $180,000.
Now several more hundreds of thousands are being put into it, including
a rare Falconer engine. We were entertained with great stories for
three-and-a-half hours, including, Dale treating us to lunch in
downtown “Old Temecula.”
After lunch, we traveled to John
Force’s shop in LaHabra. There was a huge gift shop, but,
unfortunately, we could not go into the regular shop, as it was being
renovated. This resulted in disappointment and a short stop. We quickly
recovered at Boyd Coddington's shop, also in LaHabra. There were nine
cars for sale in a large showroom. One ’32 Ford was selling for
$35,000, and all the rest were over $100,000. After watching for a half
hour, while a TV crew was filming his TV show, we were allowed to walk
out into the shop to view a variety of projects and watch Boyd’s crew
at work. One of the hot rods was getting ready for the GNRS. We
wandered around out back of the shop and saw piles of wheels, although
nothing of the scale at Carlisle/Cragar. It was an eventful hour and a
quarter.
Next we moved on to Kugel Komponents, also in
LaHabra. Owner/founder, Jerry was not there, but Jeff Kugel, one of two
sons showed us around. We looked at the 307 mph Bonneville Firebird,
which at that time, at least, was the fastest production car ever. In
our hour’s visit, we saw a ’57 Chevy with a beautiful engine, a GT 40,
a ‘50’s era Jag, and a ’32 Ford. Kugel Komponents specializes in trick
independent rear end center sections, and we saw some beauties in
various stages of construction.
On Friday, the road trip
began at Mooneyes in Santa Fe Springs. There we saw a great retail
collection of parts, clothing, memorabilia, etc., including an
assortment of Ed Roth stuff. They had an attached garage bay with old
Mooneyes cars, engines, bicycles with moon hubcaps, parts and
memorabilia not for sale. As we wandered to some buildings out back, we
watched an old-timer shaping something out of aluminum which we could
not figure out. Since he did not speak English, we will never know.
During this forty-five minute stop, Bob bought a five-gallon Moon tank
for his ’32.
Next stop was the Limeworks Speed Shop in
Whittier. Owner Steve Dennish had taken a car to the Roadster Show, but
an employee showed us around the shop and talked with us for about
forty-five minutes. They sell some parts [This has expanded since we
were there.], but they mainly build hot rods. There were three cars
under construction.
From Limeworks we went to The Deuce
Factory in Santa Ana. Jay and Lisa Fjastad bought the business from
Jay’s father, Roy, who was about seventy then. Roy originally
started Full Bore Race Products, which produced tools used in racing.
Roy was then in the process of developing a hand-built Bonneville
Roadster. The chassis was there which displayed a mountain of
technology. Lisa, who is from Massachusetts, and Jay, said they might
be in Massachusetts that September and would come to the Ty-Rods’ Old
Timers’ Reunion, if they were there at the right time.
Then
off to Art Chrissman’s shop in Santa Ana. Art, and son Mike, were
working with two or three employees on a ’56 Nomad (beautiful black car
with handmade grill and underhood sheet metal), a bare metal ’32
Roadster, and a ’37 Caddy. Art’s daily driver ’57 Ranchero was in the
shop also. We also saw the most gorgeous Ardun flathead engine, totally
smooth and painted red.
Art suggested we walk up to the next
building to Joe’s Garage, part of Joe MacPherson’s collection, which
was run by Squeak White and one other worker. Squeak showed us the
Brookville Roadster he was working on with a 605 ci V-10 Falconer
engine worth $65,000. He also had a 1930’s Indy racer and a nice ’32
Tudor sedan.
Then off to our last hot rod shop tour; Mike
Lourner’s Pro Design Hot Rods, also in Santa Ana. This shop seemed to
specialize in pickups, with a nearly finished ’56 F-100, which was very
trick. They also were finishing a ’53 Corvette with a 2003 Corvette
engine and suspension, and a ’67 Chevy extended cab PU. There were
magazine pictures on the wall of six or seven of their projects. Mike’s
dad, Louis, was building a neat ’32 Bonneville Roadster, with his
homemade double-walled heads and multiple-carbed manifold.
On
Saturday, we got to the NHRA Museum [now Wally Parks NHRA Museum since
his death] in Pomona, when it opened at 10:00 AM. The exhibits
contained many of the dragsters, Bonneville cars and hot rods that we
all read about in magazines over the last fifty years. My favorite was
Mickey Thompson’s four Pontiac-engined streamliner, which was the first
wheel-driven vehicle to go over 400 mph. There was a luncheon there of
“Hot Rod Heroes,” including Linda Vaughan, Gene Winfield, George
Barris, Wally Parks, Bob Petersen, Blackie Gejeian, Chris “Golden
Greek” Karamesines, Tex Smith, Dennis Roth, and Kenny Youngblood.
After
touring the museum, we went into the Grand National Roadster Show at
the adjacent Pomona Fairplex. There was an amazing variety of hot rods,
customs, etc., both in the buildings and outside. There were ten
amazingly detailed and displayed cars vying for the AMBR (America’s
Most Valuable Roadster) trophy. We ran into Nevada Ty-Rodder, Marty
McDonough, and wife Barbara, and East Coast hot rodder, Dennis O’Brien.
On our way back to the motel, we stopped at a traffic light, and an old
Toyota pulled up beside us. The driver called to us saying we looked
like fun-loving guys. Would we like to share his (huge) pipe? We passed.
On
Sunday, after taking Paul Burke and Bob Parker to the airport, Frank,
Jim and I headed into LA. We started at the TV & Radio Museum,
which was a disappointment. We then traveled to Hollywood Boulevard to
see Grumman’s Chinese Theater and to a so-so movie museum. We ended the
week with a drive up into the Hollywood Hills to see homes built on
stilts on narrow, winding streets on very steep hills. We took Frank to
the airport Sunday night and the week ended with Jim and me returning
home together, as we left, on Monday….but having seen twenty hot rod
shops, the Pomona Swap Meet, Dale Armstrong’s home and garage, the
Petersen Museum, the NHRA Museum, and the Grand National Roadster Show.
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