anyone have any pictures of it, i met the owner of it the other day, and he showed me the pictures of it in its under construction stage as of now, he said it had gone through two stages already. so i guess what im looking for is pictures of it in its first two stages. anyone have any?
That car was built by my old friend Ray Wilson (RIP). I gave all my photos to the new builder thru a friend. I think the new car is a clone........OLDBEET
Yep! The new car is a clone and I saw it at Marshal's shop a year ago and talked with a very chatty owner. John Bucan was the original owner and the car was built by a Top Ten Customizer, as picked by Car Craft Magazine in 1961 I believe, Ray Wilson, a true friend of mine that passed on several years ago. John called me about 15 years ago as Dave Bell, the cartoonist had drawn a cartoon for Street Rodder or one of those mags that depicted Madam FiFi and had my name associated with it as I was, Customs Northwest. Anyhow, John swore that I knew where the car was and the last time he had seen it it was on a trailer headed east on Mercer Island just out of Seattle. John never recieved full payment on the car and still has the title today. Ray Wilson told me that the car was in Norm's I think, wrecking yard for a while and finally went to the crusher
it is in seattle, if it is indeed the real car, the guy told me it was the real car. i may be headed up there this weekend, so ill find out
Hey anyone know what mag this was in?? i know a guy who worked on it originally and i'm trying to find it for him
It was a pretty special car in it's day and today. Don Burlingame parked it into a pole near Redmond one night and totalled the car. It went to a local wrecking yard, then disappeared. I seem to remember it had a 392 in it.
Destroyed on the Woodinville-Redmond road...I wonder what wrecking yard it unded up in? Is it Dan? He told me years ago he got the original title and was going to build the car around the little piece of paper.
The guy i know that i'm checking on it for is a coworker of mine Russ Divers, he either worked on it and/or owned it at one point, I didn't hear the story direct but a couple of other guys i work with are trying to find him a copy of the magizine it was in.
The car was parked at a Shell station on Aurora Ave just before you cross the Aurora bridge with a 4 sale sign on it around the summer of 1962. It was painted a metal flake purple and without an engine. The paint was cracking out bad. A friend bought it and stored it for years in the Ballard / Greenwood area. He later moved to Woodinville, WA. I lost track of Gary Jackson around 1972 when I moved to Alaska. I would like to see more pic of the car and hear from Gary. The car had a 8 or ten page arcticle in one of the Rod year books in the early 60's. It would be nice to find that arcticle also.
I just talked to Russ and gave him the pictures. He said he did all the custom body work and the guy building the clone wanted Russ to do the work on the new car but..... as Russ is busy working at his Nephews "Divers Steetrods" and the car is pretty far away , it wouldnt pay him enough to do the drive etc. Russ just got done working on the Riddler winner and Im sure the rewards are far bigger with these cars. Russ was very thankfull for the pictures I gave him off of this site and would love to have more . I believe he said that he was working fo a company called Specialty customs(?) back in the day. Man you have to respect Russ, He's still building customs 50 years later!!!!
I was going to build the clone car so i did my home work on the real one.i think i still have some photos of the car,I also have some real footage of the car backing out of a driveway then heading down the street,----0z
The car was in my shop. It is a clone. I put the hemi and the cad trans in it for the guy . injected deuce , I'v know gary jackson since the day i was born send me a PM and I,ll get you the info on how to get a hold of him. I'll see if I can find some pics of the car Marshall
I was a personal friend (70's-80's) of the owner of the clone. Dan Holm of Renton/Bryn Mawr Wa.. Quirky guy. I would like to know whats become of him and his cars. That put me in the same area as Ray Wilson. Local legend. We spoke several times. His last shop was in Auburn Wa.. Mine was in Kent (the next town). Madame Fe Fe was built in Kent in the old Chev. dealership body shop that Ray had leased. He came down to my shop to see what was going on. He was old ,I was young. Madame Fe Fe was the top car on a pile at Ballard Autowrecking (Seattle suburb) for a while.You could see it as you went over the Ballard bridge. I'd heard (80's) that Rays family was gathering parts for a recreation attempt on the car.
I think I have an old show program from the early 60's with the car in it. The photos that Rikster posted look to be from the old Tacoma Armory where they held car shows then.
I was at S.I.R. (actually Pacific Raceways then) in the pit area and noticed this huge crowd. It had to be at least ten people deep. After trying to move around it too see what was going on I finally saw Buchan and Madame Fe Fe. The car was so low you had to be on top of it to see it. It was the red color and the hood was open to reveal the Hemi. Very cool to a teenager at that time. Early 60's.
And people on here say that the cars back in the day didn't sit low or have bags or have wide whites. Maybe in their small world they didn't but the rest of us did!!