Jimmy Shine article

Shining Personality

March 9, 2011 admin Archive

Share​

January, 2008
Jimmy Shine may lack a bit of polish, but he’s very bright.
Anyone who doesn’t believe in the theory that your car is a reflection of your personality obviously hasn’t met SO-CAL Speed Shop’s Jimmy Shine.
Shine doesn’t just enjoy designing, building, and driving hot rods, he sees them as a “projection of myself.”
“There’s something about a hot rod – the chopped windshield or chopped top, the right rake, the right motor and the right proportions – that’s so cool and evil, “ he explained during a recent tour of the Pomona facilities of the legendary hot rod shop, “something I can identify with. If I could put myself in a car form that is what I would look like.”
In a sense he already has done that since the image many people get when you mention his name (which is really Jimmy Falschlehner, explanation enough he claims for going by Shine) is that of his infamous chopped and channeled bare metal 1934 Ford pickup that some say instigated the trend for building what have become known as ‘rat rods.’ Shine cringes at that thought.

“Rat rod,” he spits out, “that’s derived from a ratty looking hot rod as in ratty POS. That’s a stab in the heart. My car was called a rat rod because it didn’t have any paint but the bodywork and the ch***is is perfect. I spent years engineering different parts and pieces. I liked it the way it was with no paint and no (chrome) plating, but it’s a hot rod through and through.”
While Shine’s ‘heart wound’ is metaphoric, he says that the builders of rat rods can be flirting with real disaster.
“People more or less naïve to what is a hot rod are building ratty cars thrown together with whatever parts they’ve got. I don’t really have a problem with that as long as they are safe. A lot of guys are going to get hurt. It’s like driving a bullet down the road at 80 mph if that thing falls apart.”
He knows what he is talking about. Shine, who grew up in Tustin and lives with his wife and one of his daughters in old town Orange, has been building hot rods for 23 years.
“I was 14 when I started my first car,” he says. “It took me two years and two days from the day I bought it to the day I drove it. It was a 1940 Willys pickup that I did ‘g***er’ style. I built my own tubular ch***is out of 1/8-inch wall rectangular steel in my parent’s garage. All I had was a hacksaw to make the cuts. I designed my own 4-link suspension and built my own motor. I did all my own sheet metal work. I built the bed, tailgate, dash and transmission tunnel.”
Although his dad was a hot rodder, Shine says that he got valuable help in building that first car from the “old timers who took a shine” to him where he worked after school.
“I worked at McCoy Sheet Metal in Tustin sweeping floors for four bucks an hour,” he reminisces. “I showed them pictures of the hot rod I was building and they taught me how to TIG weld. I was always riding my bike carrying chunks of steel and trying to jam them in my locker because I was going to the shop after school.”
As for the path he followed that led him to work for Pete Chapouris at SO-CAL Speed Shop in 1997, Shine says, “ my dad taught me an awful lot. Then I started working at a couple of shops and going to events. I started networking. You gotta keep your eyes open and your mouth shut to try to pick up as much as you can.”
Chapouris, best known for building a chopped ’34 coupe in the early seventies that became known as The California Kid after the made for TV movie that starred a young Martin Sheen in the ***le role, was hiring because he had just joined with Alex Xydias, the man who started the original SO-CAL Speed Shop in 1946, to revive the name and the tradition of that legendary enterprise. By coincidence, growing up Shine’s family lived the next street over from Chapouris and he remembers seeing the ’34 before it achieved its iconic standing as just another hot rod cruising the neighborhood.
Of course, these days, as evidenced by what we saw on our shop tour, being surrounded by legendary hot rods is still an everyday occurrence for Jimmy. For example, we saw what many consider to be the seminal hot rod, the ’32 roadster built by Doane Spencer, SO-CAL’s first employee in 1946, which after being restored by Chapouris for its owner Bruce Meyer, won the first award ever given to a hot rod at the 1997 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.
But while shops like Boyd Coddington and Chip Foose concentrate on building award winning show cars, Shine says that while SO-CAL could do so as well, “we’re frankly hot rod race car guys.”
He cringes at the thought of building a car that won’t be started because the chrome headers will turn blue from the heat or using the brakes will scuff the rotors. He likens that to “having pockets on your underwear – it’s useless.”
“Building (Ridler award winning cars) is a pain in the *** and I want to build my stuff to haul ***.”
Shine for example drove a 1929 Model A Ford he built on a ’32 ch***is to set a cl*** record of over 206 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats. It was a car that he had in the past driven to Bonneville and then stripped down for racing.
“The fastest we ever did that way was 192 mph,” he admits. “Unfortunately that was going backwards through the (timing) lights after I spun it out.”
Shine’s next project is restoring and rebuilding a 1968 slingshot style dragster.
“I like going fast,” he said.
Besides building, restoring and repairing hot rods, racecars, and motorcycles, SO-CAL also manufactures a line of parts including a complete ’32 Ford ch***is. All of them are made to look as authentic and original as possible, even in the case of modern disc brakes that are hidden by covers that resemble the brake drums of a 1960 Buick.
Thanks to the internet, magazines and television shows (Jimmy plays himself in the TLC reality series Hard Shine), the SO-CAL name is known around the world. Shine says that many foreign tourists stay in Anaheim so they can visit Disneyland and SO-CAL when they come to the U.S.
“We get orders from the weirdest places,” declares Shine, like Iran. Who’s over in Iran building a hot rod?”
Television has also given Shine some celebrity status, although he has mixed feelings about that.
“I expect it at events and shows, but not when I’m in the supermarket deciding which mayonnaise to buy and someone taps on the shoulder and says ‘hey you’re that guy.’ Yeah, I’m Boyd Foose, how are ya.”
Of course that can work two ways as he learned when a lady in a restaurant spied his tattoos and requested an autograph. “I’m so thrilled to meet you Jesse,” she gushed.
But celebrity status is not what Jimmy Shine is all about.
“It’s the ideas. I like having ideas and figuring out how to engineer something to make it work. Hot rods are my ideas expressed. It is the ideas going from my mind through my hands to a tangible piece.”
A visit with Jimmy Shine will give you a whole new way to look at hot rods and the people who build them because as he says, “It’s like holding up a mechanical self portrait.”



Bonneville, Jimmy Shine, Pete Chapouris, Pomona, SoCal Speed Shop
Add your comment


Trackback

 

I met Jimmy on a visit and tour of the SoCal shop a few years ago. He is a very approachable fellow and will take the time to chat with you. He gave me some ideas for my '29 Roadster build. So, if you visit the shop and he is there, stop and say hello.

 

I know all about the "RAT ROD" tag, both my 28 flatback pu and my 28 coupe are built in the trad style, the pu has over 130,000 on it and still is used as a daily driver, but the paint is faded and rust is popping out in the doors and I am on my 5th set of tires etc, you go to a show and people say " another ratrod" so I educate them politely, coupe is the same way, its in primer caus i am not finished with it yet. Here's to ya Jimmy. I started the coupe w/flathead 4 yrs before the flathead got popular again and it is built in early 50's style

 

He was in my shop once for our open house, at So cal East (I know not the real one just a franchise) Any way he was walking around the shop checking out the projects, stopped at a 1933 Willys I was having trouble with the steering on. The customer had started the job and F'ed it up bigtime. He hung around and watched/helped me lay it out. Great guy who just wants to wrench, could care less about anything else. However he did forget his 200 MPH club jacket at our shop. Was hard to ship that one back to him!!! Keith

 

he signed a t-shirt for me at detroit few years back,he was cool.............

 

Very nice article. I think all of US can relate to this way of life.
I remember a comment about a car I just restored for my wife. An individual gave me a ration of **** for letting her drive it. Simple response was "I don't build trailer queens ...I build them to drive and race...just like they were back in the early days. "

 

The good thing is Shine drives his rods. I could never see the object of having killer car only to be stuffed in a trailer and rolled out. Build them and spend the next few years wearing it out then start over again. Thats the only way.

 

I like him more after reading that.

 

I've met him a few times. A very nice young man with a lot of talent. One time several yrs ago, he took me around the shop

 

His show isn't still on, is it?

 

Here's a car that Jimmy did for a charity auction! I think that it went for $1500. The SoCal car signed by Pete and Alex fetched $2200.

 

Yeah, he's a real approachable guy. Glad to just shoot the **** with you about anything Hot Rod. I've talked with him a few times out on the Salt, Alex too. They're the real deal.

That's a model of a Land Speed Racer I made out of the GeeBee airplane, I was there giving it to Pete.

 

Cool article, thanks for sharing.

 

Great article...

 

Good article about him. He came over to the UK a few years ago to the Supernationals at which i was helping out at. Had a few beers and meal with him and his crew on the last night of the show. Seemed he was really into what he does, very clever bloke, real relaxed in life especially after a good few pints of UK strong beer and a funny guy! He puts some nice stuff together and you know what ever he puts out is normally pretty damn cool in some way. I'm a fan of some of his bike builds i have to say. When i'm rich and not famous, lotto winner i'd be happy for him to build me something with wheels on.

 

Cool. Been in their Pomona shop 3 times in the last 3 years and have yet to meet Pete or him but got to look at his PU up close this last summer. The rest of the guys seem top notch too.

 

following a sh**ty divorce, I treated myself to a Bonneville trip in 2004. I met the SoCal team in the lot when they arrived. Pete, Jimmy, John, Tony and Adam. Pete was on the first Mag I ever owned ('74 California Kid). What a great Bunch, I was taken in by the team and became friends with my heros. I will cherish those ten days for the rest of my life.

 

Good article that tells who the man really is.

 

It's almost strange for me to read about Jimmy Shine in relation to Hot Rods ...
Personally I have been more impressed and infuenced by the motorcycles he has engineered .
In a time when some bikes and rods are built purely to be different , Jimmy's builds are always slick and stay true to the design basics of function , balance , proportion and stance.

 

My son and I stopped and talked with him on a shop tour. We followed the TV show
every time it was on, so we were a bit star struck, I have to admit. He was very cool,
and after the tour, he came up and talked with us again, like 20 minutes later, and
called my son by his name. (He took the time to remember it) I was very impressed with
his laid back style, since on the show, he seemed pretty mean.. I know.. it was probably
just for the show. When we got back to TX, I sat down and wrote him a letter to show
my appreciation of him taking the time to talk sh*t with us, and personally show us some
of his projects that he was working on in the shop. Very cool guy, and he signed some
magazines for us, and joked around a bit with us.

 

Got to meet him in Detroit 4 or so yrs ago pretty nice guy ,I asked him when he was gonna paint the truck and he said he wasnt allowed,said he get lynched lol!

 

My pics, from our shop visit. We showed up that day, and no one else did.. So my son
and I got kind of a private tour. I don't know what kind of face I was making.. I
remember telling the guy how to operate my camera. He must of caught me in the middle
of talking or something. I totally ruined the picture..

And sporting my Journal shirt...

 

Nah man. That's still a cool picture.

 

I met Jimmy in Sacramento, at the So Cal booth great person,... who spent time talking with everyone who stopped by.....And I have to agree,...we call 'em "STREET RODS" for the very simple reason that we drive 'em on the street and enjoy the experience !!

4TRUK

 

6 years ago I was trying to figure out a front suspension design for my 36 pickup and I really liked how he did his 34, so I just randomly called the SO-CAL shop and asked for Jimmy, talked to him for about 20mins on the phone about front suspensions. It's was a really cool experience for me being only 20 at the time. I ended up meeting him at Autorama a couple years later. He had a guy from his TV show with him, but this was before the show had aired. I asked him if he had a project for himself on the go and he said "No, I'm relaxing and taking up golf" oh really I said, Jimmy "What are you? new? of course I'm building something for myself!" it was pretty funny.

 

common thread,
here how is it a everyone who has met the guy guy from SoCal did it in detroit?
we must be the place to be

I talked to him also for a sec at the autorama (cool guy) not all hollywood

 

Met Jimmy in San Antonio at the autorama several yrs ago when the pinstripers had abooth set up. He is pretty cool and I enjoyed listening to him as he discussed his 57 project and that crazy little shiny truck. I enjoyed hangin' on him...literally.

As for the cars reflecting your personality speak, he is correct. I wrote a book on that topic 10 years ago and the auto manufacturers where all over me about it. Seems they had forgotten what owning a car really means to us who use them for more than just a mode of transport.

People like Jimmy, and almost everyone on the HAMB, keep our "automotive personalities" alive and we respect and love them for it.