Favorite fabricator of all time

Bob Bleed, Bill Hines, Jimmy Shine...no particular order. I'm sure there's more but i'm drawing a blank.

 

Sellers
Cole Foster
Bass
Jesse James

 

Bill Hines
Sam Barris
Ed Roth
Vally Customs
Doug Thompson
Gene Winfield

 

Sellers-
jesse-
bass-

 

Who is oz?

 

Growing up in Southern Ca. Oz Welch of "Oz Kustoms" grew up with a
passion for old custom cars. In the early 70's, Oz started customizing his
first custom, A 55 Ford truck. Little did Oz know, he would run into a
custom that would take his breath away. Richard Zocchi showed a 50
merc "COOL 50" that stole Oz's heart. Zocchi was an inspiration to OZ,
and Oz was determined to have one of these fine cars.
Moving to Northern Ca. in the mid 80's, Oz continued to build
outstanding customs, and in the summer of 1985 Oz proudly purchased
his first of 13 mercs. Building and designing custom cars has always
been in Oz's blood, and he makes this difficult talent look easy. With only
the help of his son "Kyle Coyote", The man behind the man, The two of
them have knocked out some knock out customs.
Oz Kustoms has made a huge impact on car lover's worldwide. Over the
past 15 years, Oz has built cars for numerous "Hall Of Famer's" and
winning top awards such as the Joe Bailon award, Gene Winfield award,
Larry Watson award, John D' Agostino award, Rick Dore award, and
numerous first place and best of show awards.
Oz Kustoms is known for their precision metal work, custom paint, and a
master of breathtaking designs. Not to mention we are a one stop
custom car shop, Drop it off in any condition, pick up a beautiful work of
art! For your next custom, have it done all in one place, Call or E-mail Oz
Kustoms for Quality work that you'll find no place else!
www.ozkustom.com






And he's my favorite fabricator...him, Steve Sellers, Jesse James, Roth, and Von Dutch (yes he was a fabricator too...) oh and Winfield, Barris, Cole Foster, and many many others.

Oh and Aaron Grote "plowboy"...he builds some bad ass shit.

 

Aaron Grote, Clark Bates, and most of the others mentioned..

Spike

 

The late Patty Foster .. Cole dad! The best darn race car fab out there

 

Actually....

George was more of a promoter and painter. Sam Barris was the metal man.

And to compare most of the 50's guys to some of the current guys is pretty tough. While there were some outstanding metal finishers back then, the level of standards was not quite what it is today. If you saw the frame work on the early customs, I dont think you'd be so impressed!

My vote is definitely for Steve Sellers work.

 

A pretty good thread but I seem to notice that Ron Fournier kind of gets tossed around in the mix with several pretty darn good sheetmetal fabricators. Faye Butler and Ron Covell are very talented but to say that Ron Fournier is simply a sheet metal fabricator shows that you obviously do not know the background of Ron Fournier. I was priveleged to work with Ron Fournier on a project back in the eighties for five months. It was a treat to go to work every day and see firsthand how extremely talented this fabricator is. I tried to get him to tell me stories of his days with Foyt and Penske and his building of Mark Donohue's Trans Am Camaro. Ron built more than just the bodywork, but built cages, suspensions and suspension pieces and his welding is second to none. He also built many of the components for the actual pace cars at Indy (not the sticker cars the actual pace cars). I remember an intake he built for one of the cars from scratch and the welding was so beautiful I remember seeing a GM photo of the finished piece as if it was something you could frame (if my memory serves me it was used as an ad in auto magazines). I watched him build his chrome moly chassis for his track nose hot rod and he recently reminded me that I painted it, which left me with a sense of pride.

How many fabricators can put not only numerous USAC victories, but also competitive Indy cars (including Mark Donohues cars he did for Penske, Janet Guthrie and others) and Mark Donohues winning 69 Camaro Trans Am on their resumes? I asked Ron if Argetsinger in his upcoming book on Donohue contacted him and Ron told me he spoke at length to Argetsinger on Mark Donohue. I remember Ron telling me that Donohue tried to get Ron to figure out how to lighten the car up but Ron would have to argue with him that he would work with him but had to keep the car safe.

To say that Ron Fournier is just a sheet metal fabricator is selling him short. I have worked with some pretty talented guys and he is right up there let me tell you.

As far as sheetmetal fabricators goes Ron and I recently discussed who we both probably think is right up there with the best with steel-Cass Nawrocki. I watched Cass build 540K bodies for Ton Creed back in the eighties and his work made my jaw drop. I called Ron and told him about Cass and Ron flew out to California (where Cass was at the time) and Ron interviewed him for an article on sheet metal fabricators. Ron and I still are amazed at this guy but he never gets mentioned. There are more Cass Nawrockis out there, guys that are really up there in talent but get no ink.-Jim

 

I always assumed that Gary Howard was some sort of magician rather than a fabricator.

 

Its nice to put guys like Bill Hines on the list for the fact that he has been around for so long, but top fabricator? I dont think thats exactly the right label. In my mind, a top fabricator can do excellent sheet metal work, top of the line chassis work, suspension design, TIG weld REALLY well, etc. Bill Hines doesnt fit any of those. While Bill is a treasure to this hobby, his work is blown away by metal finishers/shapers like Covell, Fornier, Marcel Delay, and those, like Hines, are sheet metal guys.

 

Bill Hines is one of the most over looked fab/builders/kustom guys there are.
He did chasis work. He uses a torch to fucking weld everything back together. He was there before the TIG was thought of.
The torch is a TIG in its simpilest form!
He is known in the Lowrider world as the Father of Hyrdolics. He did suspension work plus fab in the past. He cant do it now because its just to much.
He was dont alot of suspension work on some of the most famous cars out there. But you probley never knew it.

 

Very well said!

 

Jim " Jitney " Jacobs----------that's all,folks!

 

Leon and everyone else that had a hand in building HAMBANDY's car.

 

I have a feeling if you put Hines work in the 50's against Sellers, Jesse James, Bass, or any of the current top end fabricators, it wont compare. GAS welds just dont look as pretty as TIG welds. Not that Gas welds cant look nice, but.... TIG is just much nicer. And al of the fine detail work the top current guys do, well, Id love to be proven wrong with some pics of Bill Hines top fabrication work.

 

Just one....???

I dont think I can pick just one -

 

Bob Grant, Dan Webb

 

Okay now lets think about this. Its 2009. 1950s was 50-59 years ago.

Technology has vastly changed the abilty for people to do make and build better things yes. With out the toos Jesse James has or Bass has. Do you think they could do what they do?

Not saying nothing against thouse guys they are GREAT builders/fab/Kustom guys. But there tools make it easier for them.

In the 1950s how man cars where chopped with torches? and welded back together with the same torch? 100% of them.
Thats why Bill Hines and Gene Winfield and Sam Barris plus all countless other builders we can all ramble their names off are #1 because they did it with out the technology that we have today!

 

chuckle's garage...

 

Steve davis, not only very talented fabricator.... but a super nice guy.

 

I just noticed a well-deserving man has not been mentioned, or if he has, not enough....

Jimmy White.

 

Henry Ford

 

Lil John did it all! From Indy to Billet wheels. A true fabricator is more than a good body man. But just for the record,

Frank DeRosa Sr.
Frank DeRosa Jr.
Leonard Lopez
John Aiello
Steve Moal

Just to name a few

 

If you think about what Santa and the elves produce with limited natural resources on the north pole, pretty amazing stuff.

 

Lil John Buttera.