restoman

Very nice work, Grzegorz!

For me, Dave Dudley owns the song. The Charlie Pride version is a little bit of alright too!

A great build of The Man's car!

What a gorgeous car! I'd be pretty pleased if it was in my driveway, too! An old friend of mine here used to own a Hurst SSJ. It was decent enough shape, a few dings, some rust, worn paint. He bought it to restore and never got to it. I heard it went to New York State.

That is some very nice work!!!

Very nice!

Testors Chrysler engine blue.

I thought about that, have a spare body here. It looked too "Chevy-ish" to me... Nomads are so easily identifiable.

Down the C pillars. They took a direct hit when doing some file work, and the roof troughs didn't match that well with the windshield rails, so I'll make new ones.

Coming together... After the holidays, the Molotow-sprayed grill should be ready for handling, and then it can all go together. Comments always welcome.

There was no way I was going to get a proper looking roof profile using the kit's glass roof insert. So... I now have a moonroof Lincoln surf wagon! Gone are the Mopar-ish rear pillars, instead it has a more-Ford looking roofline. Mucho betterer. Comments always welcome.

Cool! Are you scraping them down thinner, or some other bit of wizardry? I tried it once, but... yep... broke them.

'67 LeMans... Love this car! A 326 rust free, cream coloured California car. It still had the Edwards Air Force Base parking sticker on the windshield. The fella who owned must have lived next to a gold course. I've never seen a car with so many small dents! Spent a lot of time massaging them out, I don't think there's more than a quart of filler on the entire car. The guy who brought it to me had a Detroit legend by the name of Milt Schornak (sp. ?) build him a rather healthy 400, to better-than RA IV specs. With the 3:73 12 bolt, it's a monster that loves to smoke 'em! Single layer Sikkens Autocryl urethane, with some cut and polish work. He's since sold it, and says he still regrets that. Of the many gorgeous cars I've been lucky enough to work on, this is one of my favourites.

A picture of a picture: This is my former mechanic's former ride. '77 Z-28, a bare bones stripper. Originally a 350 car, it had a 302 in it when he bought it, it had been used as a race car and was pretty much abandoned beside the guy's Mom's garage. Something like 12,000 miles on it when these were taken, around 2003. A mild 355, original T-10, 3:73 posi rear. PS and PB are pretty much its only options. Originally black, the lacquer had worn away in a lot of places and the surface rust was everywhere. The only rust through, however, was the panel between the taillights. The floors are as solid as the day it was built. I spent a LOT of time getting this thing straight, and sprayed it in a fine silver base, with a blue pearl tinted clear and two straight clear coats on top of that. The pics don't show its brilliance in the sun. After the shop closed, he had someone put an aftermarket cowl induction hood on it. The hood fit like trash so in an effort to close up some gaps, they fiddled with the fender and door alignment. Scratched it up bad. The poor bugger that tried to blend out the custom colour system tried hard, but it's not what it was. My price to do the work was too high, I guess. Too bad, it's a nice car.

Love the Shelby!!!! Thanks for posting!

Nice! A former co-worker has an '80 Z, 383, T-10, 3:73 posi. Medium blue with a matching interior. It's quite a looker. Thanks for posting!

Very nice!

Many, many, many days my booth looked like this... I got pretty good at walking on tip toes and sucking in my gut,while dragging an air hose in full paint garb and an air hood. Restoration painting... what are ya gonna do?

Delorean... yeah, we did some mechanical work to this ... umm. .. car.

Another '56 Lincoln Premiere, owned by the same fella that owns the Wisteria Premiere and the '56 Mercs. This one looked very nice, until you got up close. There are actually four different shades of pink on the car. Matching it was a nightmare... and when I peeled the tape off in the booth, a lot of clear came with it. I ended up spraying both rear quarters with two different tints and blending them on the backlight panel. I ended up clearing most of the car., with spot repairs and blends everywhere. The owner was quite irate when it took longer than estimated, and no amount of explaining helped. Giving him a bill that was only slightly more than quoted did help... along with the many pics of the beast when it was in the booth and the three cans of base that I mixed to match. He brought it by after reassembly, and it's stunner to the casual look. Making a drop top out of a coupe was a first for me.

Citroen DS. We did a bunch of these, we seemed to be the only shop on this end of the province willing to take on older imports needing more than just a simple re-spray. Odd looking, for sure, but these cars ride and handle very well.

Found a few more, if anyone is interested... 1958 Bonneville. A really solid car, brought from the Los Angeles area if I recall. The owner picked the colours, they're not original. The darker green is a pearl coat that looks better than I would have thought. It was NOT that straight when I first got it!!!! I got a lot of business out of this job. This guy went everywhere!

The cab is stuck like a band-aid to the chassis. Getting it to sit in the right place was fun... The rear chassis has a bit of a sag in the plastic - might need some tlc to get the box level.

Nice stuff!

The only peeve I have with builds - and I've been guilty of all the ones listed and then some - is rims not fitting "properly" inside the tire beads. I can easily live with outsized paint metallics, odd colours, rad and oil pan seams... even body seams and less than stellar paint work. I've been guilty of all of those sins, and on more than one occasion. But, to me, nothing draws my eye faster than a rim sitting far outside the edge of a tire. It ruins whatever look the builder is trying to convey, and I generally don't look past it.