“Where did you leave the lacquer rag when you stopped for lunch?” he asked sternly. It took just one glance at my dad to see that something was very wrong. After quickly scarfing down the grub, I returned to the shop. (My mom’s cooking was the only thing I loved more than cars.)ĭad continued working in the shop, saying he would catch lunch later. When I was almost finished, my mom told me it was time for lunch. I took great care to keep any of the lacquer thinner away from the paint. After the paint was dry, my job was to take lacquer thinner on a clean rag and wipe down any overspray that was on the rubber weather-stripping and seals. I’ll never forget when my dad just finished customizing and painting a candy root-beer Lamborghini Miura. I would like to say I was helping in the shop, but I was probably causing more harm than good. My shop duties started with sweeping floors and cleaning up, but quickly accelerated to basic design, fabrication and assembly.
Early LessonsĪs a kid, I loved the shop environment-the fast pace of the projects and the endless stream of wild characters that came through the door. So, it’s only natural that I would develop an early fascination with model kits and Hot Wheels, because they represented the full-scale cars Dad and his friends worked on. My dad built full-scale cars for the model company, which were used as a reference for building these kits. Paint came in little glass jars or small cans of candy lacquer. All the cool customs and race cars of the day were replicated in 1:24 scale-with chrome, customs accessories, and detailed engines. That was the era when a boy’s introduction to car building was working on model kits. At the time, my dad was working for AMT/Monogram, the plastic model car company. When I was 7, my daily ritual was following my dad to the shop.
I drew and redrew his drawings over and over.
He could draw, fabricate, weld, and do amazing body and paint. Walking, Talking and Drawingīy the time I was three years old, I started copying my father’s drawing-anything I could get my ‘hands on.’ Sam was an accomplished and talented artist. That’s where my take-no-prisoners work ethic started.
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In his day, if you didn’t have the money to get help fixing your car, you learned how to do it yourself. He started working on cars when he was 14 and on his own, working and living out of a friend’s garage where he stayed in Santa Barbara after his family moved back to Arizona. My dad Sam ran an auto body shop by day and built hot rods on nights and weekends. Here’s the truth: I wasn’t introduced to car culture-I was born into it. Sometimes people ask me how I got my start building cars.
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