This is my dad's '56 4dr. hardtop that he bought new and customized. The first shot shows the Desoto hubcaps, shaved rear door handles, and the top chrome that was reversed to flare towards the back of the car.

You can see in the next shots show how it progressed in the matter of just a few years. First, with the addition of gold flames. Then with the entire car being painted black. Although it is hard to see in this picture, he also added hood louvers, exhaust dumps, and a continental kit.

Here is my dad again with a couple of his bikes. Notice they are not Harley's. "Buy American...unless it's a motorcycle."

This is what hot rodding is all about. Buying a body, building a chassis, and then seeing how many people's doors you can blow off. The car was a '35 chevy 3 window that was channeled on top of a square tube chassis. In the third shot you can see the suicide front end and torsion front suspension made from Model A Ford drive shafts. He put an Olds engine with bigger cam, ported and poslished heads and topped it off with a tri-power. Growing up, I remember hearing many stories about this car, but unfortunatly it too was sold long before I came into this world.

I decided that I would throw in a couple old photos of my grandpa since it seems that this is where my gearhead gene originated. The first photo is of my grandfather (on the right) with his semi that he hauled steel with. It's hard to tell from the angle, but there are two full-length trailers behind the truck.

The second photo is my grandpa, again on the right, with the micro-midget race car my dad drove. The other guy in the photo is Jeffie Zook, who helped out with car. If you look close enough, you may be able to tell that the truck used to haul the micro is a '57 International Golden Jubilee. This truck was the shop truck for my grandpa's garage he opperated in my hometown of Downs, Il.