A birthday that I will never forget! Im sure most of you have heard or read about my adventures with my custom ’50 Ford Shoebox. Here is a car that I started building with the intentions of simply making it a roller back in July 2010, not even a driver. The car was sitting on pallets in pieces with all the parts ****tered and some missing. Once the car was in the shop the goals got bigger and bigger never really expecting to build much out of the car. My good friend Leo kept coming by the shop late night and giving a hand when he could. The Cuban coffee was well received! About 4 months into the build the car was a “driver” in primer. Just in time because my shop space came to a close due to land lord issues. <O The car had only 2 miles logged on so I decided to trailer it up to the Daytona Turkey Rod Run. Im glad I did because it was still in need of lots of tuning. Driving it around Daytona we were able to tweak and adjust the car. We logged in another 30 miles or so. <O Upon arrival I took the car straight to Leo’s house. We have a space there in the yard with a scissor lift where we wrapped up the body work on the car. The car was taken up to base coat at his house. From there the car was taken up to a European high end shop where the shop manager Manny allowed us to use their booth for two days while Leo added more base color and double cleared the car. <O The mad dash was on to wrap up as much as possible on the car. The entire interior minus the front seat needed to be done. Even the chrome was not finished because I was not happy with the first p***, needless to say I am not happy with the second p*** either but time was not on my side. Between me and my pal Robert we finished ***embling the car in my backyard. Leo and Ron and Big Tony came through to buff and wax the car just in time. Then I drove the car off to the upholstery shop that my cousin owns, Gabie. That was when the **** hit the fan! We unroll the very expensive padded top material only to find that it is not bright white but a bit tan. After a very informative conversation with Tom Sewell the correct color material was being overnight shipped for Friday arrival. Woooops! The credit card didn’t go through! So lets try and overnight the material for Saturday arrival. At that point we were 50 / 50 if it was going to make it or not. UPS pulls up and we jump off the coach getting to work! Gabie had a family compromise so the top was finished on Monday. About 4 hours after finishing the top I load up the Shoebox with my bags and head to pick up Leo who is waiting with a few of our friends to see the car complete for the first time. By that time I had logged on a total of 40 miles on the car! gotta make time for lunch! Gabie thank you for all your efforts!!! It was now or never, it either makes it or we get left stranded someplace. So 100 miles into the trip my pal Chris texted me asking how the trip was going just as I p***ed by his place in Jupiter, Fl; I text back its going smooth at some 75 mph. About 5 minutes later I call him and ask if he wants to check out the car, cause I ran out of gas. So he jets out with dog Rudder and away we go.
Tallah***ee came up quick after that only to find it was cold and raining. Having no wipers or rain-x we decide to pull off the road for a while in hopes it will clear up. So the first thing I find is a bank teller drive through so a quick power nap until the bank opens some 30 minutes later and off we go. The rain was still coming down but at that point it didn’t bother me anymore. Sure I could barely see and the pias ply tires were not choice but I had to make time. Not having finished up everything there were drips all over the place as I drove into Mississippi. Somewhere around there I think it was that the speedo needle just dropped to 0. Eventually it cleared up and the rest of the trip was smooth sailing. A quick stop in Orange, TX to visit Scott who let me put my car up on his lift for a quick inspect. All was good except a tie rod that seemed to have bad threading but the mig welder took care of that real quick. There was only so much time before I was scheduled to drop the car off at the show so driving all through the night was in order. Leo and I took turns driving 200 mile intervals while the other napped so that we can make due time. Arriving in Ontario, CA at about 10 am Thursday gave us just enough time to wash up the car grab a bite to eat (thanks to Minks, Art’s wife) and shower up before we kept going to the show. Once there I was blown away by the venue. Checked out cars all night and all day just taking as many pics as I could especially in the “then and now” building (big thanks to Axle and Rik for putting up that part of the show). Now Saturday night came around and it was Suede Palace awards time. What can I say, I was simply blown away by the amount of support I received from all the clubs out here. I guess word was getting around about my long distance driving and short time building and people really just liked the car. There were a lot of great cars out there, cars that I had wanted to check out in person for a while, like Ian’s Chevy. So I’d like to say a big thank you! to all the clubs that participated in this show, its really nice to see that many clubs come together and support each other the way you all did. And now a special thank you to all the clubs and individuals that picked my car for their awards: The Cavaliers The Ilegales The Lords The Short Timers Alex Gambino Doc Von Weber Long Distance (Axle made this one up, thanks!) And thank you to everyone else who gave me a pat on the back, I was really at a loss for words after the second award. I built and drove this car with no intentions other than to enjoy the ride, both building and driving it. Getting to the GNRS was half the fun for me but what all you guys gave me I will never forget! I will be telling everyone about the CALI LOVE I received for a long long time. From the bottom of my heart I thank you for the warm welcome and hospitality. Thank you! These awards to me mean more than any gold trophy (no offense Axle, haha). I will proudly display them. So its Monday night and most of my Florida pals have flown back south. Plans for the week are in the air. Tomorrow I need to change my oil and just check the car but afterwards I would like to check out some stuff in the LA / Pomona area. If anyone is available or would like to meet up before I head back please let me know. Thanks again! Ill post pics up on this thread when I get back home, but that might take a while…
Cool story bud! and well deserved trophies. It was GREAT seeing you again. Hopefully I'll see ya rolling into another event with your beautiful car this summer.
This is the real deal. The true definition of a custom car and what it's supposed to be! Congratulations on the awards they are well deserved!
thanks for the kind words everyone! in about another week or so ill be posting part two of this trip, the leg home. ill will be departing Cali on Monday morning East bound.
I along with the others will be waiting for that episode. Take ti*e to get so*e photos along the way this ti*e.
well after hanging around Cali for about a week after the show and having cruised around quite a bit, helped a friend move. i decided to begin my trek back on Monday Feb 7th. my painter and pal Leo was going to fly back that night he had to be back in Miami sooner. lucky for me a new friend John who lives in Huntington beach was kind enough to allow me to use his house garage space to do my first oil change on the car. during this he asked about my return trip. things have a way of working out sometimes. he had some free time from work and has mom and dad over in West Palm Beach, Fl. so a return flight was booked and the plan was set. DAY 1, Monday February 7 2011: i left Ontario, Ca at about 5:30am to pick him up. rush hour traffic was already underway! once we got out of the city we stopped for gas and breakfast. the scenic route had us in Phoenix, AZ in no time. once there we looked for "All Ways Hot Rods" and checked out their shop. they took the time to show us around and look at all the neat projects they got going on. thanks guys! from there we went to pick up an exhaust manifold gasket cause it had developed a small leak. before stopping to change it we visited Industrial Ch***is where Steve (elpolacko) gave us the grand tour and introduced us to his friend Ron (hotrodron). these guys were way cool in showing us around and even giving us some tips on places to check out. it was really a pleasure to meet you both! after wards it was time for dinner and another pal Sperry treated us to Sushi with his wife and allowed me to swap out the leaky gasket before heading off that night. (sorry Sperry i totally forgot to snap a pic with you! my bad!) Thanks for meeting up with us and treating us to dinner! hope you and your girl will visit Miami sometime so i can return the favor. the goal for the day was to make Tuscon, AZ because another friend Josh had a couple extra rooms for us. so luckily for us he met us at the local 7-11, he lead us up and down around and all over some dark back streets up to his house. by that time it was about midnight. there was no way i could remember how to get back out of there! we stayed up part of the night talking cars and catching up a bit. Josh had lived in West coast Florida for about a year so thats where we originally met. thanks man for the hospitality! your house is amazing and the views! the weather was perfect all through this drive. just cool enough and clear skies everywhere you look! that was soon going to change...
Oh c'mon man...don't leave me hanging. What happened with the weather?? You are a ruler. Great car, great trip. Looks like a hell of alot of fun. -Abone.
This was my favorite of the suede room. To learn that you drove it there cross country is killer! Well done!
Dude that's awesome nice build and what a road trip what was your total round trip miles ? Man there is so many sites to see in america and you got to do it in a sweet ride hope to see your car at down at billetproof. I will be making the drive from nyc. Put up more pictures please.
This is a great story. A road trip in a custom or any old car for that matter. I would love to do this one day but not right now, snow up to my ***. More pics please.
same here man! see ya at Billet Proof. yes sir! we need to have a sit down to discuss. see ya soon. yes i did, im just backtracking my trip cause i could not post along the way. i put 6,000 miles on my car. 2700 from my house to the GNRS, about another 300 driving around Cali. 3000 on the way back cause i went up to Austin and across to Daytona Beach. im due for my second oil change! thank you everyone for the kind words! ***added pics to post 01 & 02*** Day 2, Tuesday February 8, 2011 so Tuesday morning after coffee at the local general store we hit the road. Josh guided us all the way back to the main road, good thing he did cause i would have never figured my way back! we charged the I-10 with hopes of making Austin, Tx. what we encountered along the way was nothing i ever driven through. there was hundreds of tumble weeds flying across the highway just after we entered New Mexico. this pic is very deceiving. sand storms were tossing loose branches onto the highway all throughout New Mexico. i thought my car was going through a drive-thru sandblaster! everything was covered in sand from the front to the back, the fresh white top looked tan and the dash had a film of dust on it. i wish i had a 3M filter mask on cause i could taste the sand. it was inevitable to get around all the tumble weeds, i counted at least 3 that i hit straight on and a couple that brazed me as i g***ed to p*** them. this lasted quite a while into Texas too! i swore the car was running hotter than normal from all the tumble weeds and sand clogging the radiator core. at the next gas stop i rinsed out quite a bit of junk out of the core. by then it was getting dark and cold. at least the sand was over, but now the bitter cold was catching up to us and we were still hours away from Austin. the goal was set to arrive in Junction and spend the night. we can make Austin in the morning. good thing cause it was starting to sprinkle at 11pm and there was no way of keeping warm in this car, no heater and no wipers! just when i thought the worst was over...
This remond me of the article when the took the Hirhota Merc from Cali to Indy. Very Cool story. I love the carson top not enough well done examples on the road anymore. Congrats on everything you have earned and done with the car.
The Jalopy Journal
