Tag: Fuel Curve

Customs Take Center Stage as the Highlight of the 72nd Sacramento Autorama – Steven Bunker @FuelCurve

Customs Take Center Stage as the Highlight of the 72nd Sacramento Autorama – Steven Bunker @FuelCurve

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For 72 years now the Sacramento Autorama has highlighted some of the best automobiles the West Coast has to offer. Nestled in the capitol of California, and what many consider the Custom Car Capitol of the World, the Sacramento Autorama gathered the West’s bests with others from throughout the country and shined the spotlight on traditional Custom cars this past weekend.

The lineup of awards dedicated to these custom creations are in memory of some of the best customizers in the world. Guys like Bagdasarian, Barris, Balion, and Bertolucci. Rod Shows calls them the “Big B” Awards, for obvious reasons. All four of the Big B Awards are selected by family members of those who have passed. Here are the 2023 recipients:

Bagdasarian Memorial Worlds Most Beautiful Custom Award – Ray Poletti – 1940 Lincoln Zephyr

Sam Barris Memorial Award – Jesse Orozco – 1956 Chevy 210 Sedan

Joe “Candy Apple” Bailon Memorial Award – Mitch Kelly – 1957 Chevy Bel Air

Dick Bertolucci Memorial Award of Excelence – Cesar Ruiz – 1936 Ford Roadster

But the annual top honor award that customs vie for in Sacramento is the Custom D’Elegance title. This year the trophy went back to the east coast after being awarded to Cody Walls and his gold ’49 Buick that debuted at the Grand National Roadster Show earlier this year in the Slonaker competition. Cody’s Buick edged out a strong field of six beautiful, traditional customs.

New for 2023 was the ARP West Coast Challenge competition which awarded $12,500 and a trophy to the Grand Champion, $6,500 to the runner up, and $3,500 to the third-place finisher. To qualify for the West Coast Challenge, vehicle owners needed to attend three of the four following events: Grand National Roadster Show, Portland Roadster Show, Spokane Speed and Custom Show, and the Sacramento Autorama. In Sacramento the judges did their final deliberating and awarded Jeff Hess’ “OldsSled” ’56 Oldsmobile as the inaugural West Coast Challenge winner – yet another major award for OldsSled after debuting at the 2020 Detroit Autorama, and later that year being crowned Goodguys Custom of the Year.

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CREW CAB CRUISER – DAVID TUMINO DOUBLED HIS FUN WITH THIS FOUR DOOR ’60 FORD F250 – Todd Ryden @FuelCurve

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Crew cab trucks are common these days. In fact, there are more four-door trucks being built today than standard cabs. That was certainly not the case in the early ’60s, when more-door trucks were only built to be worked hard in government, farming, and hauling, and were largely available only to fleet applications. To meet these demands, the rigs were spartan and built with stiff, heavy-duty suspensions with little regard for comfort or amenities.

This ’60 Ford F250, which received the Goodguys Feature Pick at the 1st Meguair’s So-Cal Nationals presented by BASF, started its life at Camp Pendleton, the Marine Corps base just north of San Diego. After serving with the Marines, the truck was bought at auction by a fellow who dabbled with the truck, sprayed it in primer, and stuck it in a barn where it sat dormant for years until David Tumino and his son Rajan brought it home about a decade ago.

David is a lifetime hot rodder and a recently retired body-and-paint pro who can pretty much do it all. With Rajan getting older, David felt that the big ol’ Ford would be a great way to start teaching his son the craft and the DIY ethos of building a unique custom truck.

David scrapped the original Ford chassis in order to get the truck to sit low and ride comfortably. He fabricated a frame with a custom four-link suspension out back incorporating an 8.8-inch axle gifted from a GT500 Mustang. Up front he designed a Mustang II-style front suspension with tubular control arms. Coil-overs on all four corners allowed David to get the stance he envisioned while a set of NASCAR sway bars keep it level around the corners. Speaking of corners, Wilwood disc brakes are tucked behind the beefy Detroit Steel wheels wrapped with Mickey Thompson tread and capped with vintage Ford truck hubcaps

With a custom chassis built to ride and perform, there was no reason not to put some serious power between the rails. The father and son duo decided on a 5.4-liter Modular engine sourced from a 2010 Mustang GT500, then topped it with a supercharger for a little more kick in the pants. Power estimates put the SOHC engine at about 700 horsepower! Combined with a 6R80E six speed transmission, the truck can seriously haul.

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THREE PENNY – POTEET’S ’36 FORD CROWNED GOODGUYS 2019 BASF AMERICA’S MOST BEAUTIFUL STREET ROD – Damon Lee @FuelCurve

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AMERICA’S MOST BEAUTIFUL STREET ROD 2019

George Poteet is no stranger to the winner’s circle. His vehicles have won just about every honor, award, and accolade imaginable, from Detroit’s Ridler Award, to the Hot Rod Magazine trophy awarded to the fastest car at Bonneville Speed Week. Two titles he has never won before this year, though, are the coveted America’s Most Beautiful Roadster trophy at the Grand National Roadster Show, and the prestigious Goodguys BASF America’s Most Beautiful Street Rod honor. The “Three Penny” 36 Ford roadster built by the team at Pinkee’s Rod Shop earned him the former title in Pomona in January, and this weekend in Pleasanton at the West Coast Nationals the refined roadster beat out four other finalists to take home the Goodguys AMBR crown!

The roadster’s quiet, simple elegance belies the years of labor and magnitude of work involved in bringing it to life – more than 20,000 man hours, according to Pinkee’s owner Eric Peratt. Like so many of today’s top-caliber builds, it’s essentially a coach-built creation, with only a few small areas of original ’36 Ford sheet metal that have been left untouched. It’s still unmistakably a ’36 Ford, though, which was a key objective on the build.

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5 MINUTES WITH WAYNE CARINI – Ashley Majeski Smissen @FuelCurve

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Wayne Carini is not your typical reality TV star. The New England native has been on reality TV almost as long as the Kardashians, but his continued bucking of the fabricated drama frequently seen on reality shows has made Carini and his show “Chasing Classic Cars” extremely popular with hot rodders and car enthusiasts. His love for cars and his authenticity continues to show through, even after over a decade on reality TV.

“Our show is done really raw, and I think that’s why it’s so popular,” Carini says. “There are no second takes or do-overs. When I was given this opportunity to do this show, I said ‘I’m not an actor. I’m a guy who fixes cars. Don’t ask me to memorize lines, or put on makeup. I’ll just be myself and if it works, it works.”

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5 MINUTES WITH BARRY MEGUIAR – Ashley Majeski Smissen @FuelCurve

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The Meguiar family has been in the car business even before there really was a car business. The company – started by Frank Meguiar Jr. back in 1901 by selling furniture polish that was eventually used on horseless carriages and then automobiles – is now nearly synonymous with car culture, and so is the man currently behind the company, Frank’s grandson, Barry Meguiar.

“I have always been so enamored with our [car care] products and had always dreamed the company could be a lot bigger than it was,”Meguiar said. “I think about 10 percent of the world’s population has a ‘car crazy’ gene. That’s their world, and that’s my world. I’ve been part of it all my life.”

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5 MINUTES WITH STEVE STANFORD – Ashley Majeski Smissen @FuelCurve

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Steve Stanford has played a major part in hundreds of hot rod and custom car projects – without ever picking up a hammer or wrench. As one of the most-respected and well-known custom car designers and automotive artists, Stanford has had a hand (literally) in some of the most prolific vehicles of recent times, including the “Eleanor” GT500 featured in the film “Gone in 60 Seconds.”

Despite his success, the St. Louis native still works out of an old trailer behind Pete Santini’s paint and body shop in Westminster, California. “I’m a one-man band,” Stanford says. “I don’t need a lot and I don’t need to put on a dog-and-pony show. I’m not fancy. The most important thing is the artwork and it has always been that way to me.”

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RON MEIS’ ’27 T BY KINDIG-IT DESIGN – Brandon Flannery @FuelCurve

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With several projects from Kindig-it Design in his garage, Goodguys regular Ron Meis decided it was time for an open-wheeled car with a little more agility than his GTO and ’59 Buick. After hashing out a build plan they decided to use the redesigned ’27 T roadster from Dynamic Corvettes and Shadow Rods in Saginaw, Michigan. The XL27 has two more inches of room and sits low over a matching ’32-style frame.

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STU HILBORN – INCREDIBLE INJECTOR MAN – Gary Medley @FuelCurve

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Fuel injection isn’t new. Inventors of the internal combustion engine began toying with the concept in the late 1890s, and by the 1920s fuel injection had become common in diesel truck engines. During WW1 and WWII, aircraft engines employed mechanical fuel injection, as it was less sensitive to g-forces and changes in altitude.

That said, early hot rodders – the pre-WWII lakes runners, circle-track racers, and Indy 500 machines – relied exclusively on carburetor-fed power plants. It’s not that fuel injection was unknown, but there wasn’t a proven injection system that could usurp the traditional float-bowl, venturi-jet devices.

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WAYNE MATTHEWS’ 1942 CHEVY PICKUP BY BIG OAK GARAGE – Steven Bunker @FuelCurve

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Wayne Matthews started building this ’42 Chevy pickup with a simple desire: to have a head-turning truck from the year he was born. He got much more than that when he walked into Big Oak Garage unannounced and sealed a deal with shop owner Will Posey. After Posey and his crew were done with the ’42, it was a show-stopping hauler worthy of a 2018 Truck of the Year Early finalist nod.

The first step was to solidify a smooth ride with modern handling abilities. In came an Art Morrison chassis equipped with RideTech coil-overs to dampen the independent front suspension and four-link-suspended 9-inch rearend. Schott Magnitude wheels were added to each corner – 18×7 up front and 19×12 in the rear – and finished with custom knock-off center caps and Pirelli tires.

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LEAD SLED PHOTO GALLERY – LOW, SLOW AND WAY COOL – @FuelCurve

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Custom cars, aka Lead Sleds, will never go out of style. The legacies of Sam & George Barris, Larry Watson, Bill Hines, Dean Jeffries, Larry Alexander, Joe Bailon, Bill Cushenbery and so many other lead sled legends is carried forward by custom guys and gals around the globe.

Great gallery here at Fuel Curve