Two months ago I stopped blogging because I felt nobody out there was reading it (due to complete lack of responses). Then at Lead East somebody mentioned that they were reading it. So I'll bring you up top speed on the past two months.7/20/2005 Drove to Albany area to visit a customer who I will be supervising the construction of his Deco Rides fastback Zephyr, the first of it's kind. The car is being delivered to Ram's Rod Shop in Dover. DE from FL this month (hopefully) and Ram will do the work. It should be very slick.7/28/2005. Flew to FL and visited my mom in West Palm who is 96 and a half and doing fine. Drove across FL to Speedster Motorcars in Clearwater, They had 15 Zephyrs in progress. Visited Mike Akins shop in Largo to check on progress of Foose Maserati Boattail. Shortly thereafter I shipped the almost finished car to Richard Graves' shop in Long Beach, CA to have some final refinements done to the car before having it shipped to Monterey, CA for RM auction. Then drove to Hudson, FL to check on construction of highboy Foose Boattail at Superior Classic Customs. Progress was great.8/4/2005. Pulled trailer with blue Zephyr convert to Detroit. Made a few quick stops enroute at Koala Motorsports in Cleveland area (they are building a BMW V-12 engine for a customer of mine) and Amitelli Products in Norwalk, OH. Spent 8/5 at Capture 3D in Novi, MI scanning a number of models and car parts, capturing the shapes digitally in three dimensions. Very slick. Spent 8/6 at the RM auction at Meadowbrook Concours with blue Zephyr convertible on display at RM Auction. The auction was first class. Spent 8/7 at the Meadowbrook Concours, very impressive array of cars but a little too much hot sun for me. That night I met with the key guys on the new "Dream Team", Steve Pierce from NH and Mark Kennison from OH. It was a brain storming session on the new metal-bodied Bugatti/Delahaye "Project Passion". Spent 8/8 starting at 5:30 AM with Mark, Steve Dream Team's 4th Muskatteer, Sean Halpin of Halpindesign.com.Manipulated the data from Capture 3D. Amazing science fiction come true. Blew out of Detroit 4 PM Monday, beat the mid-twon rush hour traffic clot and was home Mon night.8/16/2005. Flew to San Jose, drove rental car to Carmel for start of Pebble Beach week. Hooked up with good friends Riley and Val Hopkins from Gig Harbor, WA. Saw my Eldorado Brougham and Foose Maserati Boattail at RM auction display at Portola Plaza in Monterey. Went to Wed, night party at Monterey Jetport. Nice gig. Had dinner with Riley and Val and Ken Gross. As fate would have it, we were kibbitzing about Riley's dad's hot rod/sports car he built in 1943, and Ken said he though he knew where the car was. Riley could not sleep for 3 nights. Guess who is now trying to track it down and buy it? On Thursday I had lunch with a real Maharaja from New Zeland named "Chuck" and his two, very polite children. A neat, down to earth guy. A genuine car guy. I'd never had lunch with a Maharaja before. On Friday night 8/19 Rick Dore sold one of his bikes for 40K and his blue '52 Caddy custom for $220K at the RM auction. My '60 Pininfarina Eldorado Brougham was bid to 65K but I wouldn't sell it for that price. Announcer failed to mention it was a Pininfarina bodied car built in Italy..On Saturday 8/20 my Foose Maserati Boattail was sold for $100K, Rick's lime green '34 Ford sold for $147K and another of his bikes fro $30K (a steal). Rick Dore boght dinner both nights after selling about $430K worth of cars and bikes. Rubbed elbows with Larry Erikson, one of my heros. Sunday 8/21 the Concours on the 18th green of Pebble Beach. Two cars captured my fancy, and that of everyone else. A Rolls Royce fastback with Belgian bodywork, owned by Petersen Museum. It had a thyroid problem. A giant car, bigger than my Dodge dually pickup. Best of Show rightfully went to Sam Mann of NJ with his George Paulin Designed, Porteau bodied Delage silver fastback built by Stone Barn which is about 10 miles from my office in NJ. Congrats to Sam and Stone Barn. You deserved it. Incredible car. Caught the red eye home Sunday night from San Jose.8/26 Drove to Newport, RI for Wooden Boat Nationals, in search of wealthy people to buy my blue Zephyr convertible. No such luck, although I thought I was going to win Best Car In Show at the otherwise all boat event.8/31 Departed for 23rd annual LEAD EAST at Parsippany, NJ Hilton, the event I put on along with invaluable help of the amazing Linda Naprstek, Event Director Jim Craig and 130 other volunteers. The event ran smooth, fabulous weather, record 1,500 cars, great concerts, and we made a lot of people happy in the process. Rich Brandl of Superior Custom Classics in Hudson, FL unveiled Tom Dupont's Deco Rides Zephyr Sedan Delivery. I'm obviously biased, but I think it was the car that stole the show.9/2. Drove my "Yellow Peril" chopped '92 Buick Roadmaster Sedan Delivery into Manhattan to experience the Rand Workman high end Lifestyle event and collector car auction at the Pier. Nicely laid out and presented. Presentable selection of cars for a first time event. Waiting to find out if any bidders with money to sped showed up. It's going on right now. Then drove to Bay Parkway cruise in Brooklyn. Since I had a good weekend at LEAD EAST, I bought several L & B Sicilian Pizzas and put 'em on the rear hatch of the Buick for all to nosh. Got home in one piece. The roads in New York City (Manhattan..Brooklyn and Staten Island) REALLY REALLU suck..Possibly the worst in the USA. Apparently too much traffic demand to ever close 'em and fix 'em. Off to OH, IN and Michigan next week for another work session with Dream Team; Life is good. Thank you Jesus for being so good to me.
Just returned form the Ohio Concours at Ault Park in Cincinnati. A very classy event, well organized on a proper venue.After loading up and beginning my trek back to NJ, I stopped by D & D Classic (automobile restoration) in Covington, OH, just north of Dayton. Mark Kennison is one of the three principals of the 25,000 sq. ft, five building complex with 20 employees. Like many other high end restoration shops it was packed with dozens of customer's classics cars, which is not unusual. What is unique is the planning, extreme cleanliness and thought that went into organizing their shop. I'd met Mark at Louis Vuitton in NYC and Detroit Autorama and I never realized how talented he really is. He's an old school metal shaper and after a 10 minute demonstration where he turns a flat hunk of aluminum in one half of a pumpkin seed, I felt my life change, as If I'd passed through an invisible curtain.I'm a big science ficton fan and recall seeing plot developments where one passenger in a space ship is exposed to some weird ray from outer space and slowly begins a transformation into some other strange mutant being. My evolution in life has lead a strange and fun path, always littered with cars. In recent years I've often felt like I was in outer space, all alone, with the odd cars I create that are not classics and not street rods. I think when I passed through that warp at D&D, I felt my mutant evolution change from fiberglass to metal. Before I never really cared about the difference between fiberglass vs. metal bodies cars. It was a moot question anyway because I could not afford to build metal cars, so fiberglass was the natural path. The Bugatti/Delahaye quest I'm on will be metal bodied cars. But now, with the aid of Mark and D&D, I feel several alloy bodied Foose Boattail are looming on the near horizon. I'm excited.Stay tuned for PTerrydactyl at the Lincoln Zephyr Owners Club Nationals later this week in Stratton Mountain, VT, followed by the Concours of the Eastern US in Bethlehem, PA on Father's day.
