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“PLEASE! Build it before I build it!”
Spinnin’ & Grinnin’ with Christopher Titus
My 1956 Chevy two ten
coupe is FINISHED! Do you hear me! Quit making cool new stuff for
a car that is done, complete, finito! I can’t take it apart again.
Besides I have a ’56 step side to build and I am afraid to start it
because there is a one hundred percent certainty that you guys in
the aftermarket specialty area of rodding will come up with
something immensely cooler than is already on the truck! AHHHHH!
My 210 was finished with
VDO gauges, but only the tach and the speedo would fit in the
original gauge cluster, so the rest of the gauges went in the Alfa
Romeo gauge pod on the dash and into the center console. It was a
little messy but it worked and still looked pretty damn cool. The
car drove fine and everyone was happy. Then someone had to build
something new and cooler. Don’t get me wrong; I love progress until
it causes me work.
Cruising through one of
the exhibit halls at Pleasanton I see a display that is not about
“Billet door lock covers” or “The amazingly new wax that will
protect your car in case some idiot pours kerosene on it and lights
it.” Which is a great product if all your friends are members of
pyros anonymous. No, this display had a set of gauges (SIX!) all
neatly installed in a ’55-’56 gauge panel. It looked great, clean
and probably something GM would have done if they were currently
building a shoebox Chevy. (ARE YOU LISTENING GM? GREAT NOSTALGIA
IDEA HUH? MAYBE. TAKE SOME OF THE PERFORMANCE PRESS AWAY FROM
CHRYSLER. THINK ABOUT IT.) But, I don’t need gauges. I already
have gauges and my car is FINISHED! My body turned away from the
display but my head wouldn’t. The excuses to my wife to justify
this purchase started filtering through my head. Then the voice of
reason spoke up, “YOU DON’T NEED NEW GAUGES” but the voices of cool
and unreasonable jumped in and beat the crap out of the voice of
reason. The voice of reason crawled to the back of my skull
whimpering and I went to find a way to get those gauges!
Here’s why I almost sent
the whole thing back. It wasn’t because of the company or the
product. In fact installing the panel literally took me one hour.
But to get the car looking right and as nice as my new gauges I had
to:
A.
Take the old gauges off the dash and weld up the holes, which
almost set my headliner on fire in the process. While welding up
the holes in the dash I had put a towel up on the windshield so as
not to have small bits of molten metal burn little pits in the
40-year-old glass. The towel was stuffed up behind the visors at
the top of the windshield and taped at the bottom. Fire seems to
like me or is attracted to my particular mental deficiency because
once the welding stopped, THE SMOKE DIDN’T! The towels I was using
to block the spark weren’t wet. Using newspaper or hay as a fire
barrier would have been about as smart.
B.
Take the center console (that I painstakingly built from
scratch) out of the car and throw it away. Building another was
gonna be as easy I heard myself say. This took me four solid days!
I was in the garage so long that I memorized the way in which the
radio station had programmed its songs and commercials. You have
been in the garage too long when you can sing the jungle for Mr.
Steak…So after finishing the fiberglass work I’m now scratching like
a junkie during his fourth day of rehab. But the console is
finished except for upholstery.
C.
Get console upholstered. Four years ago I found the best
upholsterer. This guy was inexpensive and cared about his work. He
had come from Mexico, worked his butt off and made his business
successful by focusing on one thing, doing it right. The first
console he did for me was amazing. At every event people would ask,
“Who did your console?” I jealously guarded the secret. Then my
guy gets an offer from a private jet company to upholster their
planes. AND HE TAKES IT! How selfish is that? What about MEEEE!
So I take it to the guy that bought the shop and he did a horrific
job! My God, I could have done better with duct tape and
thumbtacks. So now I have killer looking gauges and an amateur
looking console. I have to leave for the event in 20 hours! In the
middle of installation I’m torn between a console that is a step
back and my admiring my new gauges that are a step forward. I can
only think “The car was fine the way it was! What the hell was I
thinking?” I’m really amazed at all the work it took to stay in the
same place. My father lives 400 miles away so because he wasn’t
around to do it, I had to slap myself in the back of the head.
The projects were started two weeks before the Autumn-Get-Together
and was finished at 9 am the Friday of the event after a 22-hour all
nighter. Days of work for no actual rod improvement. I feel like
committing suicide. I’m going insane because I can’t get the jingle
out of my head. “Mr. Steak, Mr. Steak…Please God make it
stop!”
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