Builds
If you don’t know the name J.F. Launier, you soon will, as this young craftsman has made a big impression on the hot rodding world in recent years, and from the looks of this, his latest project, he’ll be well represented in the decades to come.
It’s no guarantee that both halves of a married couple will love the automotive hobby. More than one marriage has ended following the ultimatum, “It’s the car or me,” though the same statement has also put an end to a large number of perfectly good hot rod projects. So it’s always nice when a car can bring a couple even closer, as is the case with Dennis and Dixie Gray and their ’63 Fairlane.
Drag racing history buffs are more than familiar with the name Dick Harrell, or “Mr. Chevrolet,” one of early drag racing’s pioneer match race/funny car stars. However, there was also Dick Harrell the innovator, and he should be recognized for his incredible streetcars.
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Since we don’t really have to search for vintage parts anymore, gone are the days of scouring the local “Pick-a-Part” in search for that illusive part that will interchange or convert your muscle car to bucket seats, tilt steering, A/C or some suspension upgrade. But there was a day when you and a rodding buddy could venture to your favorite junkyard and come home with a whole truckload of cool vintage goodies that would aid you in your rebuild, all in the span of a day.
Well, those days aren’t completely gone. While at the local wrecking yard looking for any useful hot rod parts, we stumbled across another enthusiast, Sean Rievley, who is in the progress of upgrading his ’71 Chevelle chassis
This has to be one of the nicest looking ’57 Chevrolet Bel Airs I’ve ever seen in the state of Hawaii,” I kept saying to myself as I was photographing Keith Maeda’s black cherry ’57 tri-5 Chevrolet. I mean, this thing has all the bells and whistles.
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After recently purchasing a ’62 Thunderbird, it became obvious very quickly that the car needed a new engine. Our plan was to turn the car into a daily driver, and so, as long as we needed a new engine, we figured we’d add air conditioning to the car while we were at it. And if you really know your Ford history, you also know that the ’62 was the last model T-bird to come with a generator rather than an alternator—one more reason to consider an upgrade.
York, Pennsylvania’s Jesse Houseman is a genuine Ford man. In addition to owning an ’89 convertible 5.0, an ’04 F-150 and, previously, an ’89 LX 5.0, he built the stunning ’88 LX you see here. He did almost all of the work himself, starting with a four-cylinder donor car in poor shape and transforming it into a show car with racecar performance—or is it the other way around?
Picture this: cruising down the highway, feeling every bump and dip in the road, but instead of discomfort, you’re met with smooth, controlled handling. That’s exactly what Ridetech’s suspension systems offer – the perfect blend of performance and comfort.
It was a sketch published in another street rod title, and while it brought many interesting comments, to our knowledge no one acted on the sketch to convert it to a real roadster. Enter Sam Magarino of Sussex, New Jersey. Now, Magarino likes hot rods, and lately he has enjoyed building some pretty outrageous hot rods with the help of Barry Lobeck and his crew at Lobeck’s. This would be a project of great magnitude, and that was the name aptly applied to this car for the show season.
Enter Carl Casper, a man best known for building custom cars and promoting his huge custom car show every year in Louisville, Kentucky. Casper has long been a self-thinker and innovator with plenty of experience under his belt, and he was intrigued with the concept of alternative fuels, hydrogen in particular. During our conversation with Casper, he summed it when he said, “I feel many of the solutions will come out of the car guys. I want the mechanical wizards who have taken street rodding and auto racing to the highest levels imaginable to start putting their creativity into alternative-energy systems. I’m putting my money on them. Everyone seems to be waiting for the big corporations to pull us out of this energy crisis, and they tend to forget that from the very beginning of time it’s often the little guy with a shop behind his house who creates the next great idea or invention of our time.”
