We worked our way around the car, so next up on the build was to shave the tailgate. The corners in the bottom were also rounded in the same operation.
The right side bird-like bead in the making Brazed, and ready for lead Leaded and finally primered...a milestone in the build
Jerry DeVito was thrilled to hear that the build had finally started. We kept him posted as we went along, both on mail and on Facebook. After a while he stopped answering our mails. Most of the times Jerry communicated trough very short mail, so we didn't think too much about it then. Olav was busy working on the Ranchero day and night. In addition to spending as much time as possible in the garage, I had a pregnant girlfriend at home, a daytime job, an online email marketing start up and Kustomrama to take care of so we didn't reflect too much about things those two months.
Seing the rear end come alive I lost all my doubts about building the second version of the Maze. I loved what I saw and I couldn't wait to start on the front end! As you can see here, the door handles were shaved as well! That was in fact the first thing we did to the car
The rear end, doors and bed, outside and out, took about a month! February 7th we could finally turn the car around an start on the front end!
Jerry DeVito seems to have been a restless soul. While working on the Rabchero, we spent a lot of time studying details in old photos. What we call the second version of the Maze, seems to have been altered on a monthly basis. Let me take you trough some of the changes! This is an early version of the second version, featuring the stock front bumper: This was then replaced with a split bumper: The first version did also run the stock rear bumper. If you look at the color photo above, the rear bumper is also gone. The rear bumper was scrapped in favor of the rolled pan that Jerry ran on the third version of the Maze. The car can also be seen with and without dummy spots, and with several different types of wheels and hubcaps. We have decided to go for the first look, that featured the stock bumpers.
Familiar with all three version of the Maze, I had to look twice when I came across this photo in Car Craft January 1960 The third version of the Maze with the radical paint job from the second version. According to the captions, this version had just received a facelift by Gene Carvalho, and it was shown with the wild Maze paint job, a restyled front end, and six headlights!
Sondre @SuperFleye Kvipt - I've really enjoyed following this thread ... Thanks for sharing with the H.A.M.B. community! ... Please keep us updated on your progress. PS ... Happy belated 33rd birthday!
The tail lights look great. I really like the fin opened up above them! I have always assumed that the fenders were opened up at the sides, to allow the deeply tunneled light to be seen. It appears that this feature will be omitted?
'Mo, the fenders were opened up to make "illumination from the sides" ? So maybe that was what the intention was? We took a master decision and decided to skip these. It was a though decision but with time as a factor these were sacrificed. Back to the front! Installing 1956 Ford F-100 headlight rims on 1957 Fords was a very common trick back in the days! Trend Book 181 - Custom Show Cars ran a how-to-do it article on this modification that we tried to follow on the Ranchero. In fact we even reproduced the photos so we could do a modern version of it....hehe....geek alert. Anyhow, when Jerry installed 1956 Ford F-100 headlight rims on the Maze, he could buy knock off rims from Cal Custom. This was not an option for us, so after searching eBay for a while I found out that KustomCarParts sells them: http://kustomcarparts.com/ A pair was ordered, and they arrived in time!
Headlight rings installed, and one beak mocked up Creating a beak similar to how it looked in the photo took a lot of work. We finally agreed, and here Olav is seen brazing the left side You have to see it to believe it, but the headlights kicked ass in real life After the front had been sanded down, I knew we had made the right decision, going for the second version of Jerry's inredible Maze
I really liked this version of the Ranchero, and the thought about cutting the hood up adding buick portholes, louvers and a scoop frightened me a little! A little fright wasn't going to stop us now! We had seen how good the rear end and headlights looked on the car in real life, so there was no reason to stop now
That is quite the build, I am subscribed for sure. It is amazing the visions and ideas that they had for these customs back in the day.
Definitely, more of a functional element than stylistic. (Takes the light from under the bushel.) That's quite a compromise. It sounds as if the script is already written, but for night driving, I'd feel safer with these. (But, then again, I come from a forgotten time when Caddy lenses could still be cool!) .
The louvers in the hood was a real challenge for us. Finding shops in Norway that can punch louvers is not an easy task! We contacted Øivind Henriksen at Hot Rod Service in Åsgårstrand. He could do the job for us using a tool he made many years ago. Øivind's louvers looks great, but they aren't that wide, and have more of a hot rod look and feel, so we decided to keep looking for other options. Not able to locate anyone that could take on the task, we decided to go for our backup plan, buying louvers from RodLouvers.com... Time to place the louvers Cutting the hood did not feel good! When I left the garage that night, the hood looked like this. When I returned to the garage the day after, Olav had brazed the louvers, fabricated and molded on the scoop, and he was busy with the bodywork on the hood! Wow, what met me that day gave me goosebumps. It really felt like the real Maze was in my garage! It felt crazy, cutting up the hood adding the portholes and louvers, but I'm glad we didn't chicken out!
Two months of hard work is coming to an end. It was now late February, and Olav had to return to California in order to complete school! The Ranchero as it sat February 26, 2014!
In addition to the restyling, there were also some rust repair that had to be done. The old cracked paint did also hide a lot of old and bad body repairs that we had to redo. This was the last photo we took of the Ranchero in February. Olav spent his last days in Norway doing bodywork on the car. The company that owns the garage we rent in Oslo did not like all the dust, fumes and noise we were making, so they told us no more bodywork...before Olav left Norway in March, the body was partly covered in white primer! It was then put on hold until he returned in June!
10th of June 2014 Olav returned to Norway. He was spending the Summer with my parents up in Fyresdal, and as he had a summer job at Momrak Verksted, a paint shop in town, he brought the Ranchero up there to work on the bodywork after work and in the weekends. Our plan was to debut the build in white primer June 27, at the 6th annual Coupe Devils Rod & Kustom Bonanza.
Dynamite build ! Thank you SO much for sharing. The attention to old world craftsmanship, is simply amazing. By accident, I ran across the Bo-Huff '58 Ranchero, at a muffler shop, here in Orlando. Have attempted to keep in touch with the new owner and tried to get it to make an appearance at our Groundhog Gala. Unsure if he truly appreciates what he has his hands on. JT
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