Richie bought the Chevy back in 2005 from renowned cockney geezer and rolling Chevy spares emporium Danny Stevens, who happened to be living just up the road at the time. Once in Richie’s hands the non running, ‘donor’ car was found to be in much better shape than it appeared! Plans were laid for a full Guzzler rebuild.

Richie and Doug went off to where the car was being stored with a can of petrol, a battery and a fist full of wire. The car had been stood for about 7 years in a field but they got it running anyway! Then it was off home with his new project.

Richie reached the typical hot rodder’s decision when faced with a newly running old car, rip all the running gear out in favour of something with more power!

In this case replacing the 235 straight six and manual box with a huge 360 cube mopar V8 and accompanying auto trans, which Richie had to shoe horn into the Chevy’s engine bay. It required some serious bulkhead ‘massaging’ to get it in but nothing he couldn’t handle, while the rest of us only had to fall over/ bash our shins on the engine and box a few hundred times while it sat on the floor at the lock-up!

Whilst the mechanical side of things was being taken care of, Richie also had to contend with large amounts of rust the car came with, namely the almost non-existent floor and sills, rear quarters, front wings, all four doors and plenty of other places too. An indication of how bad the rot was and how long the car had been stood in one place was that all four steel wheel rims had rotted through on the lower lip! Thankfully Rich managed to obtain some 15” turbo Vec’s, which fitted fine.

With the car’s structure all solid again, it was time to sort out the bodywork, which once the relevant patch panels and repairs had been sorted, a few kustom touches like the shaved rear door handles, could be added. Doug then spent hours and hours getting the big Chevy’s body smoothed out ready for paint, while the fitting up of the car was taken care of by Rich.

When the body was ready, Doug laid on the paint. Rich had chosen a Bel-Air two-tone colour scheme of blue and ivory.

Once the body was sprayed up in it’s new paint, the final build could begin. One of Richie’s most frustrating jobs was the side trim, which had been pieced together with parts from all over the country to replace the originals which had been put on with

self-tappers! Whilst all the work had been going on in the garage, the interior had been over at Gaz Shaw’s in Stoke On Trent for a nice tuck and roll job in black and cream. The car is almost finished and will be on the road for Spring ‘08.

Although the Chevy was unfinished, Richie managed to get it to our annual show where it added a great splash of colour to the Guzzlers line-up.

Can’t wait to see it cruising’ and on the strip!

Daz has a long term 55 Chevy project on the go but was getting fed up with riding shotgun in other people’s cars. Through the grapevine he’d heard there was a good car for sale at a very good price and decided it would be just the thing to get him back behind the wheel until his Chevy was finished.

As you can see from the picture it needed a little work!

He collected the car and took it to a fellow Guzzlers place to get it out of the winter weather and make a start. After only one week of hard work they had got the Consul back together and given it a nice new coat of satin black finished off with some cool stripes!

Now that’s much better!

Daz’s buddy, Doug put some stripes down.

Back end looking smooth.

With some tinkering the old ford lump was up and running.

Next the front springs had some cosmetic surgery and the ride looked on the money.

Now Daz can be seen cruising with the rest of the guys and wearing a big grin from ear to ear!

Ready for cruising!

It was with a generous amount of good luck that Doug came across this ’47 Ford Fatty for sale. It was while chatting to the guy next to him at a car show he heard the truck was for sale and so went to have a look with his partner Sue. On arrival at the guy’s house, he discovered Chris had been hard at work digging out the bits from the undergrowth behind his shed! Chris had explained that the ’truck’ was actually just a chassis, a cab and front panels and absolutely nothing else except the all important V5 document! DOUG HAD TO HAVE IT! Doug and Sue arranged to collect the ’47 Ford and it was subsequently placed in their garden because Doug was already halfway through another project at the time, and there it stayed for 3 years.

  We didn’t mention to get it out of Doug’s garden, it took several Guzzlers, a ladder and some rope.

 Doug’s pal Richie sourced a 1980s Mustang as a donor car which gave up it’s engine, gearbox and rear axle. With these all sorted, Doug set to fabricating a new back for the cab, as the old one was quite a poor job. He fabricated the back using pieces of old panels he had lying around. These included a 1954 Chrysler bonnet and some ‘54 F100 rear fenders.

Doug wanted to build his truck in “the traditional hot rod way” which means if it fits, works and is cheap it’s the right piece. Working to this ethic has created a real Frankenstein monster! The truck has parts from a whole range of cars which include Sherpa petrol tank, front clip and steering box, Mustang engine, gearbox and rear axle, Morris Minor steering column and wheel, Vauxhall Victor column gear change, Nissan dash mounted handbrake and servo, Suzuki rear springs and even a Proton gear change cable to name but a few! All this with lashings of fabrication and determination meant the whole project was finished in only 6 months!

Here you can see the finished cab, chassis and running gear, just before breaking it down for the final build.

A Sherpa axle was used upfront with a 32 transverse spring made to fit and

with the Sherpa 10” discs and 4 pot calipers, you can be sure it stops on a pin.

The truck already had a 4” roof chop but Doug and Rich thought a 4” channel job would be cooler still!

A very traditional interior was stitched by a good friend, Gaz Shaw,

of the Stoke on Trentcontingent of The Originals Hot Rod Club.

All done! Just in time for the Guzzlers Custom Show 06!

Doug would like to say a really big thank you to Richie Durant without whom this build would not be possible.

Although Stevo had had American cars before, he’d always wanted a Dodge Charger and in April 2006 his dream came true. Stevo bought the car home with a beaming smile on his face and a small list of jobs to get the car sorted. He called on a couple of fellow club members to help out and before long the Charger hit the streets with a loud roar! Once the car was street legal Stevo set about changing its appearance, when he acquired the car it was in grey primer and needed a few minor repairs, although the body panels were in great shape.

Purely as a temporary measure, Stevo did the prep and painted the car satin black using 130,000 rattle cans!

The Charger’s big block 383 with a board out + 40 has pushed it into the low 13’s on the strip. Other tech details are forged pistons, parted big valve heads, direct connection purple cans with polished rods, it also has torqueflite with reverse pattern manual valve body and SCS shifter. With a 3.6-1 Dif and 8-3/4” axle, all this makes for an awesome drive!

Stevo has big plans for his baby and will be hoping to hit the streets in Summer 07 with a beautiful candy red and ghost decal paint finish. He also plans some body mods which include Range Rover chrome vents on trailing edge of wings, flick up spoiler to the boot, square exhaust pipes cut back, red and black interior, all sitting on 20” chrome wheels with low profile tyres! All this will make for a really original looking Charger.

“Dave Polish“, as he’s known to the guys at the club, first owned this cool kustom Vauxhall a couple of years ago and sold it to a fellow club member as an unfinished project after he came across a Kustom van he really liked. The van came and went and when the Victor came up for sale again, Dave had to have it, the deal was done and the Victor had a new home.

David’s 1963 Vauxhall Victor FB runs a very quick 2litre Ford Pinto and has a five speed manual box. The power is sent down the kustom built prop to a MK2 Ford Escort axle. Although the rear brakes are the standard Escort drums, the front brakes are

upgraded using the large discs of a VX490 and, together with the MGB calipers, she goes AND stops! The now floor mounted handbrake was also given up by the Ford Escort, sorted!

The Vic’ also runs on a nice set of chrome smoothies and has a nice mean stance too, so low at the front it’s not unusual to have to stop and retrieve the number plate once in a while!! The badges and rear door handles have been shaved and the bumpers have been moulded to the body giving a very smooth look. The front didn’t escape either, with a kustom grill hiding the indicators and using two bonnet trims from a 54 Chrysler to create that floating bar look!

As well as the nice stance, this cool ride also has a killer paint scheme, two tone paint with ghost flames on the hood and a hot set of flames down the swage! And on top of that the tuck n’ roll interior was stitched by fellow rodder ‘Rick Shaw’ of the Originals Hot Rod Club (Stoke-on-Trent branch) with whom we run from time to time.