Jersey Torch...anyone have pictures???

Just reading the thread on the Fonz's Mercs and seeing pics of them, reminded me of some similar styled cars, done by a friend of his (and supposedly some work by The Fonz as well)...Jim Mclaughlin (Jimbo) He had a series of cars called "the Jersey Torch" Great flamethrowing cars. The one I would love to find some pics on is the 56 Ford 2 dr sedan. Last I saw the car was in Linden in the back of a driveway, it was later sold for $1000 to a guy in Maryland (now the home of Jimbo himself supposedly) to a guy who I hear owns all the previous torches and was looking for this one to complete his collection. I wanted the car, but it was really really rough, and would have taken a ton of work just to get it driveable, not even safe. I think other cars included a 49 Chev and a 53 Ford if Im not mistaken.

Thanx guys!

 

i was thinkin the same thing when that fonz thread came up,,i have a bunch of pics of both him and the fonz..going back almost 20 years ago.i will have to find them than figure out a way to post em.I just met jims son a few weeks ago workin at a napa in freehold nj.I think he said he was livin in englishtown...And i think it was a 54 ford if your talkin about the white one..but i could be wrong it was a long time ago..

 

Hey..
Try going on the New England Summer Nationals web site. There are a zillion pics . I have seen a car by that name there over the years, as I recall its a 54-55-56 ish Ford big time flamethrower..
Pontiac Slim

 

Jim's Ford, the one with the flames, was in Springsteen's "Born in the USA" video, real fast shot of it.
Jim was another "backyard butcher", and had several cars. The Ford (54?) was the more well known of them. He also bought a Chevy fastback from out west, a real nice car built in Utah, I believe, and featured in Classic and Custom magazine. It has a cool rear suspension, a chain driven motor would raise and lower the car. A bellcrank mounted coilovers, and the chain would pull the bellcrank up or down, and lower the car. The car had a NICE paint job, green metallic. Jim took this real nice car, and "ratted" it all up. Painted it white with flames all over it, a real low quality job. THAT'S a shame!..,While Fonz built stuff from cars, and parts no one wanted, and made something from them, Jimmy sometimes ruined good shit. Sorry, that's a fact. I knew Jimmy, not as well as Joe, and have seen his 'car-nage'! Haha.
Recently, he had been doing dirt track racing at Wall Stadium. His car lost the driveshaft, but not before it spun around the interior of the car beating up Jimbo, causing him to lose a finger. He worked as a mechanic at Freehold Ford for a long time. I've probably got shots of his cars in the dusty archives, I'll take a look.

 

Yeah I cant dispute that his cars were wrecks, but still one of the first "evil bondo" kustom cars I had ever seen, and I thought it was awesome. Ant Bastio said that when one of thier friends owned the 56, they all went to Big Top I think, and once the torch pulled in, nobody paid attention to Ants ford or anything else, they just swarmed around the torch. He always joked that the car followed him around, through friends circles and such. He said he wanted to buy the car just to send it to the crusher haha....Cool car, horrible work.

I had actually come across the car back before I bought my 50 Merc, and told everyone I knew that I was looking for a 49-51 Merc 2 dr...a guy had seen me out one night, and told me his boss was selling a "chopped 49 Mercury for $3500) UNREAL!!! Well, needless to say, next morning I was there...opened the garage door....and found a poor old dilapidated Torch. Kind of a dissapointment...It changed hands a bunch of times, 1 owner died...itwas eventually won in a card game, then sold to someone drunk, when they sobered up they tried to sell it...thats where I crossed paths with it again in a backyard in Linden for $1000. I got in it...everything was falling apart (not that it wasnt back then) all the Lexan was SO fogged you couldnt see 10 ft infront of the car, the lexan was all sheetmetal screwed in, as was the top, which was chopped with the addition of only 1 piece of metal in the middle, and mudded to death. There were radio mounting straps screwed in to the A pillars both above and below the chop line for "structural support" It even had a faux 49 Merc backlite, made out of rectangular lexan, mudded into an oval shape, with strips of bondo to seperate it into a 3 piece look. Quite creative...Every ounce of the car was cracked out, and it just would have taken too much to get it back to life...I kind of thought that for every one bodypanel I tried to improve 3 more would crack to bits.

Also, the owner of the house at which the Torch laid dormant, came out and informed me the car ran either a 454 or 455 Caddy motor...rather insisted. Hmm, looked like the same shitty smallblock that had been slapping away at the centerlink and crossmember for 5 or so years I remembered....haha...the d00d was definately a jerk. I think I told him that the 454 Caddy was the best motor ever built, had a brass block...

 

Jimmy had 2 53 Ford hradtops and 1 even eventually got chopped. One was in the Springsteen video .He had a chopped shoebox that was candy purple when he bought it and he shot it black with flames. He had the choped 56 2 door sedan. He had a perfect 57 Ford that Art Riporti built.I have pics of everything exept for the 1 53 after it was chopped. Jim was also responsible for doing a shithouse outdoor flamejob on a famous candy green chopped fastback 50 Chevy that was in Mike Keys Leadsleds book from 83.. Jimmy and Joe also chopped a 57 Chevy 4 door that they turned into a 2 door and painted another outdoor flame job on.

 

YES, the 57 Chevy! Isn't that the one they "Bondo'ed" the back window into the shape of the Chevrolet bowtie!
Classic butchery!
Gotta hand it to you Chris, you really know a lot about the history of customs in NJ. Another young guy carrying the torch (no pun intended!)
Anthony.....Lead East?

 

someone should do a book on these guys
and tim albrecht should have a page or two aswell...

why havent we heard the term ratcustom before? or have we?

 

Uggh...I think I remember that car from being at an indoor show in Atlantic City a few years back. I went all the way down there with the girlfriend just to get my back Merc bumper from the Bumper Boyz and save a few bucks on shipping...well $40 in gas and food and $35 or so for us to get into the show that was out the window....we ended swapping out my rusty Titanic survivor bumper for the new one, and headed over to the "for auction" area. From what I remember the 57 Chevy had a pretty steep if not uneven chop, and was either in a purple or brown of somekind...cracked out quite a bit at stressed points on the roof and such...was really a mess. Perhaps some kind of artistic flare on the decklid ...I forget what the magic number for the car was, but it was high. I shook the guys hand and said you really dont see many tri 5s, let alone 57s done like that. I seem to remember something different about the hood too...perhaps where the hood bullets sat. I could be wrong.

Cool car, quasi butchery...but better to see the car there than parted and junked like people seem to do to for doors all the time.

 

ttt

 

You guys have had over a year to find these pictures, come on! I ran into some cat in deep south jersey at school, maybe in his early 20's, he claimed he owned and helped build the "Jersey Torch" once upon a time. Couldn't tell me what the car was so I don't know if he was tellin the truth or not, but definitely sparked my interest.

Says he saw my car in the parking lot and just had to come in and see me. The kid wouldn't leave my side and all he kept doin was talking. I was at work god dammit!

 

i wish i could find pics,i found a few fonz pics and put them up a while ago...i think i found one of the jersey torches in my neighborhood,,couple blocks from my house..ibeen talkin with his nephew recently i will see what i can dig up..

 

that 57 chevy was owend dy a guy name chris who built it with jimmy and joe,s help it was a 4 door made into a 2 door then chopped with a white paint job with flames all over it and a shag interior and about 2 55gal drums of bondo a guy name amendao in irvington got it on a trade for a broken sportster that was good for parts only he traded it for 49 chevy parts then a few years ago it showed up at ac with new paint also the 49 chevy that jimmy had a guy named larry and his wife bea had the car when it was green they had it sand blasted thats what ruin it he primed it then wild bill [with the 56 ford flamethrower] had it he rebuit the front-end and put a newer 6 in it thats when jimmy got it then then painted white with flames larry&bea got it back then they traded it for a 55 chevy from a driffrent guy also named chris he smoothed the body out some and painted it green again it has be sold 2 more times since at e-town swap meet i seem to always be selling 49-50 chevy parts to who ever seems to have it and jimmy also had a 51 merc 4 dr that was made into a 2 door convt. the guy that died traded the merc for the 56 2 door you saw in linden i have to fined my old fine pictures i have

 

Try these


http://youtube.com/watch?v=xsztHSUBM5g

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mdlNy_OfgPc&mode=related&search=

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UEUDg9oqHNk&mode=related&search=

http://www.fairwayproductions.net/flame.htm

 

joey hellbent??

 

Can't remember the name he gave, sounded a little bogus to me.

 

I feel like a throbbing hard on right now.Im sitting here looking at what arepossibly the best pics ever taken of that 55 Ford with a abusted fuckin scannrer.

 

So mail em up here, us Jersey guys are the only ones really interested anyway.

So do you feel you have a throbbing hard on due to the looking at of the pictures?

Or do you feel as if you are blue balling the rest of us?

 

He used to hang with my girl's dad when she was a kid. She says she remembers him waking her up every morning with one of his rides. Ill post a pic she has when i can find it in her house.

 

Ant Id love to see those. Maybe a little mail up, scan, mail back?

 

i remember those butcherd cars quite well, as a kid i spent a lot of time at car shows and cruise nites in monmouth county. i remember the fonze as if he was sitting here right next to me right now. in my memory as a kid the cars were freaking awsome, but in reality what they really looked like, they were piles of junk. the family o fthe fonze had his last merc at the lead east a few years ago, i forget maybe they bring it every year, but man that car is sloppy. still cool though. if i remember right the torch had suction feed spray guns mounted upside down on the big old flame thrower tips with fuel lines going int othe gun instead of a paint cup.

 

No Rick, wasnt me!!

 

here are 2 pictures of the 49 chevy one when larry had it before he sand basted it one when jimbo had it after he redid body work and painted it white and the ford coupe is the purple one after jimbo painted it black

 

I Love that ShoeBox.. does anyone have any information on it??

 

A nice shot of his car on the "FLAMETHROWERS OF AMERICA poster

 

We have that original picture they used on the cover. It was also used on his bussniess cards.

 

Wow,,, those guys,,,,,alway's cooked with lots of fire......shot fire with em at lead east on RT 3 by Giants Stadium

 

Any of you guy's ever hear of the Lodi Torch? I remember the first time I seen the Jersey torch it was at the Keystone Nationals here in PA. I heard a young kid from Maryland bought the jersey torch. He brings it up to the bloomsburg show sometimes. later shawn

 

Lodi Torch.....kevin Danny from Lodi, NJ....heavily influenced by Joe "fonze" Carloni...young guy, about 26-27...He's never owned a car built by Jimmy Mclaughlin, but he did have the mild 51 Merc 4 door Ex-fonze car that i bought from him in 1995

 

The Lodi Torch is Kevin Danny who started off with a near clone of the Fonz Mercs.As he got older,He developed his own style as the years progressed.One of his cars was bought and ended up on the cover of Kustoms Illustrated magazine!It ws an orange chopped Merc with a Canadian grille!He comes from a hard core merc family.Theyve had dozens of em.Kevin keeps to himself!