Featured History Jack Walker's photo Album

We were all sadden when we heard the passing of Kustom Legend Jack Walker. It’s a reminder our life is short and to cherish every day I've know Jack for many years but never had the chance to sit down and visit with him until the last five years. I will miss the kustom discussions and all the stories. Jack was a great guy, and he will be greatly missed. Please be praying for the family and his many friends.

To be able to pay tribute to Jack I thought it would be kool to share his photo album with the Kustom family.

One of my highlights of 2024, I was Blessed to spend the day with Jack Walker. He was wanting me to scan his photo albums so the history would not be forgotten. We spent over seven hours going thru nine photo albums that was full of kool history. Needless to say, it took me some time to get them edited and scanned on a thumb drive. Over the next few months, I will be posting pictures, letters and some stories from the album. I'm not sure how long it will take me to post everything but I'm not going to just photo dump all of them at once. I thought it would be good to spend some time on each post with discussion, stories etc., Please add comments, or photos you may have to each thread.

First photos I'm going to share are the build pictures from the Hirohata clone. I asked Jack why did you choose the Hirohata to clone. Jack said he was on his way home from work and saw a chopped Merc drive thru Kansas City. He thought it was so kool he called Doug Thompson to see about building him a chopped Merc. He wanted something kool to drive around town.

They started planning what they were wanting to do to this Merc. One night Doug asked Jack, why don't you clone the koolest Merc of them all? Jack thought it was a great idea, so the research began finding pictures of the Hirohata. The project started the early eighties, they didn't have Google / computer to research pictures. The clone was built from studying the little page magazines and experts like Kirk McCormick and Pat Ganahl were a big help. Thinking how Doug cloned the Merc to perfection using little page magazines to build the complex front end, the fadeaways etc. is proof Doug Thompson was one of the best.

Jack said it took them around a couple of years to build and it was built it in a one car garage. They rented the space from a friend and Doug worked on it when he was available. Working in the one stall garage wasn't ideal but that was what they had. He would work on it and have to push it outside to see how it looked. Jack told me they got tired of pushing it in and out of the garage but you had to step back away from it. They had to do the first fender fades three times before they got it right. The other side was a lot easier. Lol!

When they were almost thru with the Merc, Jack heard that someone else had started cloning the Merc and was trying to figure out the hard top. Murphy & the Striper had just started the process and they had called Pat Ganahl for some help. Pat told them they might as well quit because Jack's Hirohata was almost finished. I wonder what ever happened to Murphy's Merc.......

Below are the only build pics of the Hirohata clone. I hope you enjoy them, and I will be posting more pics soon.

 

Talent extraordinaire.

 

Now THAT is some kustom history right there! Thanks for sharing Mick! E

 

Some of these pictures are at Bill Schulz house in Lee's Summit, Missouri.

 

Very Cool

 

Following. Thanks Mick. Snowman ⛄️

 

Going to be a great thread. Thanks Mick

 

Here is an original Barris picture of the real Hirohata.

 

Pictures where taken by Pat Ganahl

 

This was a common sight. Jack said he felt like a famous rockstar. Lol!



Ganahl got tired of waiting to take pics so they went to a cemetery so they could shoot it without the crowd.

 

Mick, have you considered making a video roll of separate projects and posting it on Youtube?

 

Thank you for sharing.

 

Thanks for sharing. Deepest sympathy for Jack's family. Just a great person. Any link to his obituary?

 

Thanks for the suggestion, I was thinking eventually doing a video. Just hadn't had the time to go through the scanned stuff to decide what needs to be in the video. Not everything I scanned are pictures. I have letters from George Barris and documents that wouldn't work on a video.

 

I hadn't heard of any arrangements. I will post it when its available.

 

Rare picture of Jack showing a kustom with the hood up.. Lol! Thank you for sharing your pics...

 

Kool detail pics from Ganahl's camera.

 

Is Jack’s clone still around? Snowman ⛄️

 

was the dash striped the same ?

 

Last I heard, John D'Augustino is the current caretaker. E

 

Mark and Jack at CCR bunch of years ago. I have the best friends.
Bless Jacks memory. Thanks, Mick for doing this.

 

Dave Crook and Donn Lowe behind the right quarter panel. I remember them discussing how amazing and accurate the clone was. It took hours to get pics of it in Springfield!