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Scanned some photos of my shop way back when, ahh good times.

7K views 60 replies 14 participants last post by  Juleshulings 
#1 · (Edited)








I didn't have the money to buy an four post lift (remember, there're weren't the cheap buggers you can buy today, they were very expensive then) So I bought the pieces the car is sitting on from a gas station that closed, they are off of an in ground single post lift. I then made the rest. The long ramps were so you could get a very low car up for alignment.


The metal Flake deuce was on the front cover of Street Rodder Mag April 73 when it was in Hawaii with the Waikiki skyline behind it, long before I knew it existed. Sad thing is he pulled it apart and never got it back together. He is in a rest home now and it's still in a garage. :(








Before.


After


Before.



After in Rodders Journal #32. This is my fathers truck that I drove in highschool, I was so happy to see my brother able to "restore" it and keep it. I didn't do much of the work as seen in the mag, I had closed my shop and was working for someone and gave up any side work projects like that, just don't have the time anymore. I did some of the work where I was working but we were too booked to take in the whole project. My brother just couldn't wait :rolleyes: he brought it to a "friend's" shop and the guy not only raked him over the coals on cost he did a horrible job and my brother actually gets ticked off every time he looks at it.


I did a lot of custom work at the onset of the mini truck craze. It was a lot of fun.





Before the mini truck craze was the VW craze, did TONS of work on those cars. Chopped tops, suicide doors, filled about a million side moulding holes. :D filled so many exhaust cutouts and front horn grilles and park lamp holes I had metal templates hanging on the wall.











My son (now 30) working hard. :D
Before.


After



What would become my sister-in-laws summer daily driver still to this day.


I did a number of bikes, restoring vintage ones and even making some "hot rods" out of vintage 26" bikes with modern braking and gears and such.


Before.


After


I had a lot of fun.





When I think back now of course all the hard times working until 1 am to get something done so I could pay the rent and stuff like that is largely forgotten. It was some real good times I am awefully glad I was a part of. The building the shop was in a older industrial building. This shot was taken from a little Cessna 150 owned and flown by a guy that worked in the muffler shop next to me. This guy by the way is a MASTER at detail and quality. He is an airline pilot now and does a car once in a while at his house, STUNNING detail, and he rebuilt his home with the same detail. We all know how a house is pretty far off the kind of perfection you see in a show car, this guys house is damn close to what you see in that show car, it is wild with perfection.


The building was managed by a woman who retired when they knocked the building down, she was 93 and had worked for this family as her only job since she was 17! They didn't let anyone come in the building that would be competition to any tenants. So there was no BS, a muffler shop, a body shop, a European auto specialist, my brothers mechanical shop, a machine shop, a camper repair, a transmission shop, and a printer. It was a darn cool place, it is all gone, the entire property including the lot behind and in front of the shop is now covered in apartments. :(

I sure have some great memories that is for sure. :welcome: And yes I was an "Import specialist" doing a lot of Japanese collision repair, didn't think those photos would be of interest so I didn't post them. Wish I had some of a few of them though. Did a 71 510 Datsun with a SSS motor and added box flares, it was a very cool little hot rod.

Brian
 
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#3 ·
I have the guitars and my 15 year old started playing them about two weeks ago and he is blowing me away! He is TRUELY talented not like me who just beats on them. :D Notice the hangers for the guitars on the walls, I made them and they were painted to match the guitar that hung on them, that is of course until you get different guitars and don't repaint them. :D They are not out in my garage and make perfect gravity feed paint gun hangers! LOL Notice no computer, and the check imprinter on the left of the desk. :D Also the signed photos of Garth Brooks and Marty Stuart, I went to a LOT of country concerts back then seeing Garth a couple of times in very small venues before he hit it big.

I thank you very much for the kind words, I know one thing, I had some great times in that whole experience of the shop.

Brian
 
#5 ·
Yeah, just a chapter you know what I mean? I am very thankful for everything I have in my life and that time was just one of them. The best part was I met my wife in that office, well not the one pictured as that was my second office. I had a 1600 square foot shop when I opened, the smallest shop in the building. Then when a larger 2400 square foot one opened up I moved down to that one. I met my wife in the old office. We went and had my son take a photo of us standing in front of the office door back a few years ago before they knocked down the building.

Here is the fridge I had in the waiting room, a little time and some pink paint and it sold a lot of women customers on leaving their car for repairs. :D
To the left is the front of one of my "hot rod" bikes, a 1939 Columbia with 12 speeds and "modern" (for the eighties) roller bearing drum brakes! This particular bike was actually sold thru GoodYear tire stores and has the original "Hiway patrol" badge on the front. :D



And another shot of the chopped bug, I didn't do these suicide doors, did some but not these. I chopped this bug from start to finish, in primer, in one long day, about 10 hours. :D Believe it or not you don't even have to cut the C pillar, you remove the A and B and simply push down on the roof bending the C pillars! I couldn't believe my eyes when I did this. :D



And lunch about three times a week at a local joint that had been open since the thirties that is now gone too, lots of change around here. Not real fond of it, I'll tell you that.

Brian
 
#8 ·
Thanks for the photos i enoyed looking at some of your work as others stated ,some hard to find an Expensive ones if you had to buy one today ,Now the pedal car I think a Pontiac would be high, it would be hard to pick a favorite Baby bird BB vette ,shelby ?,is the HD flathead the one Mike on American Pickers bought on his tv show ,I am building an 53 chevy p/u now hope mine comes out even close to yours Nice Work. You mentioned 1600 sq ft shop thats all i have now.
 
#9 ·
The Harley is a 48ish 45 flathead and was a very nice bike when done. That Shelby, that is a HUGE dollar car now, he paid $15k for it then. It's a big block with a "Drag pack" and four speed. It had all original paint on it when I got it and if we had any idea how valuable those cars would become we have left it alone.

Brian
 
#12 ·
I'm not kidding Jay, those 13 years were a treasure. Often they were hell, but what an education, what a treasure. I opened it with $800, no kidding. I stayed open for and made money all that time, just not enough money. :rolleyes:

But being the only bread winner in the household most of that time it was tough. With paying the going rent on the shop, all the insurance including "completed operations" and stand alone phone and yellow page ad and permits and all that jazz, it was tough, and I still made a decent living most of the time. The Iraq war in 91 really kicked my butt, the economy was in the tank and it hit me hard. But met a lot of wonderful people as customers and venders at dealerships and what not. Just saw one of them out of the blue the other day, I had worked with this guy all the years I was open at a local very small Toyota dealership that was bought out by a giant of course came walking into the office and it was real nice seeing him. Yeah, darn tootin those were some good times.

Brian
 
#15 ·
Yeah, like I said I did do most of my living was repairing late model Japanese cars and the hot rod stuff was kinda like a musician who makes his real living in some mundane job and a few bucks extra on weekends playing music. :D

Brian
 
#17 ·
Brian, It's a Devin body. I restored a few production models... finished a Devin bodied car originally built by Roger McClusky... and bought a few of this particular style... which was the one used for the Corvette powered turn-key "Devin SS". It was kind of a pre-Cobra, and a Chevy lover's dream! This one was quite a project. We built a full chassis with Jag suspension, and an early Vette powertrain. Kind an an "SS tribute car". I sold it to a guy in Michigan.
 
#19 ·
Brian, I don't know what they get for them. It's been 50 years since they came out... probably a very small group of interested buyers around... and a lack of knowledge about them.

You might remember Ak Miller, who raced Devin bodied cars up Pike's Peak... Dean Moon, who drag raced and ran salt flats with his Devin-bodied "Moonbeam" car... and Joe Lunati (the cam manufacturer) who ran the "Trouble Maker" drag car.

Most of the production turn-key Devins were Corvair and VW powered.
 
#20 · (Edited)
If im not mistaken Bill Devlin produced the Original Devlin with a 283 chevy engines frames were produced in Italy or Ireland then shipped to US to be placed on custom chassis ,he had to produce 100 cars same as Carrol Shelby ,but Devlin did not make requirements less than 20 were produced . they were discontinued and aftermarket made kit cars using vw and porsche 912and probably corvair chassis and engines in later years im thinking around 58-60 or close for Originals , not sure about years .if this matters .:confused::confused:
 
#23 ·
A little more Devin history for you.

Bill Devin was a driver for the factory Ferrari team. That's probably why he favored Italian inspired body styling. :)

He was one of the earliest pioneers in the fiberglass kit car business, entering it in the fifties.

The bodies were all hand laid with cloth instead of mat... and very thin.

The three production models were the Devin SS, with it's corvette powertrain... the Devin C with a Corvair power train... and the Devin D with VW power. I think there were only about a dozen SS model sold.

Actually Devin made many different sized bodies, using modular molds which could be stretched or widened. He also offered the fairing-style headrests. Whatever you had... they could probably provide a body that would fit pretty well.

There were three basic styles. The SS had a higher rear deck, and about a 10 inch high grill opening. The C & D models had no grill opening... and the rest had about a 6 inch grill opening.

Here are pictures of a couple of the cars I was involved with. The red one is the Roger McCluskey built car, that I finished. It was the largest kit body available.

The gray car was a kit body that was the same as the SS models. We built it to a "roller" with Jag suspension, early Corvette 283 engine, Dunlop wheels, and we duplicated the convertible top bows, door, hood, and trunk hinges and latches from one of the C models we restored.

One of those C models was the very last car ever built, and was handed over to my customer, who had been in a working relationship with Bill Devin. He was a go-between to acquire new Chevy and Corvair engines for Devin's production cars. In the late '80s, the two of us went to California to see Devin, and try to start producing replica bodies. He wanted too much money to make any profit at all, so we abandoned the effort.
 

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#26 ·
Honestly, all of them. They all offered a challenge and was generally proud of them. But anyone who has done that kind of work can probably agree with me that you have mixed emotions when a car leaves. If the guy were to pay you a million dollars for the work and take it, it just doesn't seem like it would be enough. Yet if he just took it and gave you nothing but it was out of your life, that would be fine too. :D At least that is how I often felt after working on something so long. Obviously cars that won awards is always a high and the having cars in the Grand Nationals was a kick and a half, a show that I had went to for years the first one I touched that got in there was of course the most exciting. I did no construction what so ever with only all the paint and body, but I was 20 years old and that was WILD!

It was in the main arena just 50-100 feet from the winner of America's Most Beautiful Roadster, so that was something I was VERY proud of. I think I have spoke about this before here. It was so packed that I went thru the whole show and didn't see the car! I had to go up into the stands in the main arena (where the Warriors basketball is played) to find the car with my girlfriend and then go back down into the crowd to see it up close. :D

It's in the bottom left hand corner of this page.




I opened up my shop not three years later. :sweat: I was working a collision shop and was laid off, right after Christmas in early Jan 82. My girlfriend had became my wife and she was about 8.5 months pregnant. I drove off in my dads F-100 (that blue one that was in Rodders Journal) with my pregnant wife with the tool box in the bed of the truck and told my self I was never going to let that happen again. I started planning and opened the shop a few months later. That tool box by the way, I have a photo somewhere, I had painted the NSRA logo on the whole back of it! LOL, the whole back of the bottom box looked like the NSRA logo in the window of my truck. :D



I was thinking about that when I hand glazed my Gran Sport this past Saturday. When I was working down at that shop I use to Mirror Glaze my trucks lacquer paint every single weekend. :) That all came to a halt when I opened the shop that's for sure.

But to get back to your question, one of the things I enjoyed a lot was doing the VWs and Mini trucks for the kids in town. I knew so many of those kids, that was fun, shaving lights and mouldings off just having fun.
It was just a gas restoring gas pumps, I don't care, it was fun for the most part. I did a lot of camper repair too, for the camper shop next door, all their fiberglass repair and paint, all the guys I worked with, the building was full of some pretty cool people. The one with the transmission shop I still see often and we talk about old times.

I haven't done anything show worthy now in fifteen years and I hope to do a little bit of that with my truck. But if not, it will be fun to get back into a real street rod again.

Brian
 
#28 ·
"I haven't done anything show worthy now in fifteen years and I hope to do a little bit of that with my truck. But if not, it will be fun to get back into a real street rod again." QUOTE



I know what you mean. The last few years, due to our glorious leaders terrifying my customers, I have had to do whatever came along, just to keep working... so some of those jobs were a lot less than exciting!

What is the "real street rod" you mention?
 
#31 ·
Yep, but it doesn't look that good now. :( Between just being different as now it's sectioned too.




But it is in pretty bad shape as it's been sitting outside for 15 years. I'll have a lot of clean up before I can even get to working on it.



I have my teenage dream engine for it.



I can't wait to drive it! Back in December I saw and chatted with the guy I bought it from in 1973. :D

Brian
 
#35 ·
I replaced the cab when I started the rebuild in 95'. The cab I chopped in 1974 had a big hole in the floor where the 401 nailhead sat, it had a flat firewall (no recess needed if there is on engine there right?) the roof skin had two gallons of bondo on it from when at 16 I didn't know how to hammer weld across the skin. It had no seat riser, it had a bunch of problems and I wanted to start fresh. I had a super nice cab available to me for only $150 so I sold the old cab and started fresh.

I actually now regret that a little but this will be a lot easier.

Brian
 
#36 ·
It's a mild section at only 2.5 inches so it doesn't looks stomped by a giant. :D I wanted a look kinda like GM should have done. :D

Brian
 
#37 ·
Maybe not radical by 1960s standards... but I am thrilled to see something being built that is "CUSTOM"!

Too many so-called custom cars today are very uninteresting. Boring colors like silver and gray... no restyling... not graphics to individualize them... just no imagination!

For me, most car shows look like a used car lot... not rods and customs at all. {:-(
 
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