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Woodies
By Ken Handman
Woodies
are the hottest segment of the Old Car Hobby and their popularity is growing
rapidly. This was apparent last weekend at the Wavecrest Woody Show in Encinitas.
Wavecrest, I was told, is the oldest and largest (most important) all-Woody
show in the Country.
In attendance was every type of wood-bodied car you could imagine and some that were hard to imagine. Entries ran the gamut from many 40's and 50's Fords to Chrysler Town and Country convertibles, to a pro stock car with the requisite tubed rear section sporting tires as wide as wheel barrows.
Until recently, I haven't had much interest in Woodies, but in writing this column, I keep meeting interesting builders and owners who are passionate about these old termite havens.
Two weeks ago, the column described a very rare '39 Chevy station wagon at Copra Automotive, in San Pedro. The car had just undergone the installation of a 350/350 engine/trans and a Mustang II front end. Then I said we would next visit the wood shop that was building the body. The shop is owned by Chris Messano, a longtime custom yacht carpenter who has all-but totally converted his business into Woody body building and repair.
Chris has a very efficient small shop, with a large storage yard at 2111 S. Mesa St., San Pedro. He and his partner Richard Machut, a master carpenter with an irreverent sense of humor, can work on six vehicles indoors and smaller repair jobs outside. A total rebuild of a woody body takes about three months and costs about $22,000. The works' very high standards were evident at Wavecrest. Compared to perfectly preserved original wagons, Messano's cars are clearly superior, due to the meticulous hand-built construction. This attention to detail makes them as good as the cars done by the country's oldest restoration shops.
One car at the Messano shop was another 1939 Chevrolet. Unlike the '39 at Coppa's, this one has been carefully returned to original condition. Chris said the beautiful body on this car was originally built for General Motors by the Iona Furniture Co. The register of vintage cars indicates that Iona built only nine bodies in '39 and this car appears to have the only remaining Iona body. The wood was totally rebuilt to exact original specifications by Chris and Richard. The other items for the restoration came from T A Woodies in San Pedro, the car's owner.
To rebuild a woody body each original piece has to be carefully removed and "patterned." This is the process used to make a pattern so that each new part can have the identical shape as the old one. Things get really interesting when a "basket case" arrives with a few pieces missing, or pieces are so bad that copies can't be made and Chris doesn't have them from a previous job.
Another interesting construction detail is the molding of the thick fender arches that follow the shape of the rear wheel opening and bear much of the weight of the station wagon body. The arches are built up over a mold by bending dozens of pieces of wood shaved down to the thickness of thin cardboard. Before being bent around the form, the wood is saturated with epoxy.
After all the pieces are aligned and before the epoxy starts to cure, a plastic "bag" is put over the form and sealed air tight. Next a vacuum pump is attached to the bag that covers the part and the air is extracted by vacuum. This has the effect of clamping the wood in perfect alignment while the epoxy cures.
The result is a "vacuum bagged" piece that is over two inches thick and bent into a shape that would be nearly impossible unless an old-style steam bending system were used.
It's fascinating to watch these old cars take shape. Chris is an articulate guide and welcomes visitors who own or are contemplating ownership of one of these cool old cars. Richard on the other hand, well-let's just say he's a hell of a carpenter.
You can call Chris at (310) 547-0298, but better yet, you can see him and his work at our Project Touch/Easy Reader Car Show Oct. 22 at Clark Field in HB.
Another interesting car at Wavecrest was Dave Rusher's '40 Ford Woody. Unlike most other cars at the event, Dave's newly purchased Woody is in original condition. Actually, there were others at the show in original condition, but they looked more like kindling wood than like a shiny station wagon.
Anyway, everyone has heard the story about the guy who was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and comes away with a prize car at a fraction of its worth. Rusher is the guy in that story. It seems that while on vacation in Medford, Oregon, he was told of an 82-year-old car collector in town who was disposing of his collection, the prized piece being a '40 Ford Woody for 40K.
Dave has been shopping for such a toy for several years and hurried over (notice how I avoided saying Rusher rushed over) to see what he figured was too good to be true. What he found was a meticulously maintained, all original one-owner car with all the service records and the original invoice from the local Ford dealer. Money quickly changed hands and the car was on its way to its new home in MB.
Dave and Donna Rusher set up a display board in front of the car showing the Woody's hometown newspaper story, the invoice and other memorabilia. They were proud new parents whose wisdom/luck was reaffirmed at the show when another collector recognized the car and said that he had been trying to buy it for years from the old man and had recently offered $60K. He was not ready to sell at the time.
No one knows why he priced it at $40K when he put the entire collection up for sale. At least he made a nice profit: he bought it new for about $1,100. You can see Dave and his new baby at the Project Touch/Easy Reader Car Show.ER