rodncustomdreams

The neighbourhood I grew up in had many rods and customs and I was drawn to the noise first, then the beauty of the machines. The fellows who drove them obviously cherished them and took very good care of them. When I got my first car - a 1954 Canadian Pontiac - I set about immediately customizing it. When I started my career at a stable work-place I began a search for one of my dream cars. I have had that car, a 1963 Vette since 1976. My Fleetline is a fairly recent addition to the garage, replacing a '51 business coupe I was caretaker of for twelve years. The coupe was one of the customs I had watched as a youngster (I even passed wrenches to the builder when I was around ten or eleven years old), and located again when I started my first job. The '32 3-window is Lloyd Bakan's fault! When I was eight I noticed a magazine on the news stand which featured a hot rod on the cover. The deep red rod was parked poolside and had a couple of bathing beauties admiring it. That Hot Rod cover, along with some local rods and Norm Grabowski's T-bucket on T.V., compelled me to "Have a hot rod some day". After thirteen years of gathering parts and construction, I got my version of Mr. Bakan's '32 on the road the last day of summer 2007!! Now, what hot rodder doesn't wish he had a cool custom to cruise in as well? I got very lucky recently when a gentleman decided to part with a very nice custom Mercury and sold it to me. There were a couple of chopped Mercs in my town back in the day (several now) and I dreamed of some day having a radical custom of my own. It's hard to be a fellow who likes all kinds of vehicles... I guess that's why fate made sure my funds were limited!!!