Dream Wheels

Written by Anika Henrikson

When it comes to cars, there are two things I know how to do: fill the gas tank and check the oil. And, to be honest, the only reason I know how to check my 5W-30 level is because I have been cursed by the car gods to own a vehicle that burns oil faster than a wok in a Chinese restaurant.

My true knowledge of cars doesn’t extend past the aesthetic. I have no doubt that what’s under the hood counts, but I really do judge cars by their bodies. And while I really do yearn to one day own a new Volvo S60, the only reason is because my first two cars were Volvos.

As I found out, though, that’s not an uncommon notion for most car guys. There’s really no logic behind a man’s dream car—it usually comes down to what he drove (or wanted to drive) in high school.

These are guys that know the ins and outs of their cars; they know every part under the hood. And since I had absolutely no knowledge of what a “Flathead Merc” meant prior to working on this article (save a guess that it was some sort of screwdriver), the magazine figured I’d be the best honorary man to write it. That way, I could start to understand just what it is about certain cars that’s so appealing to men.

For these five guys, something about “that car” never left their minds. They would dream of owning “their” car for years—planning and re-planning every minute detail, pouring over auto mags, and attending car shows.

Someday, it would be theirs. Oh, yes, it would be theirs...

Steve Lantz

“It’s a connection to a particular time in my life,” Steve Lantz said of his ‘29 Roadster.

“My dad would drive jalopies at the speedway. I’ve always been a car guy; it’s a part of my life.”

While in high school, Lantz’s dream car was a ‘65 Ford Ranchero but he always had an affinity for hot rods.

When he graduated in 1971, Lantz said he was looking to buy a 1929 Ford. “I found the exact car I wanted, but the guy selling it wanted $800 and I only had $600.” The seller was holding firm, so Lantz realized he wasn’t going to be driving away in his dream car anytime soon, especially since he had signed up for the service. But little did Lantz know that in 1972, his stepfather would trade a Ranchero and a motor bike for the same ‘29.

So while the car has been in his family for a long time, it wasn’t until 2000 that his stepfather gifted the car to Lantz.

“I had it repainted in 2002 and, with a friend’s help, I stripped the car in 2009 and rebuilt it on ‘32 rails with a 1953 Flathead Merc,” he added. “I have to keep tinkering. I guess I just have that kind of mentality.” But that desire to tinker is strong...and apparently genetic. Lantz’s 22-year-old son has a ‘31 five-window coupe and is currently building a ‘30 Ford pickup.

When I asked him what the most crucial aspect of any hot rod is, Lantz didn’t hesitate: “It’s the sound. The motor. The speed. That’s the drive. It has to sound like a hot rod.”

It was a belief shared by his stepfather.

“When I had the car mostly rebuilt, I took it over to show my stepdad, who was dying. He had to put his hot rod shirt on and take a picture with the car. He passed a month after that.” But the love of hot rods and the feeling of getting behind the wheel of a souped up Ford is alive and well in the Lantz family.

“When I finally finished the car in March of 2010, I thought to myself, ‘What next?’ ”

Keith Reynolds

“When I was in high school, my friend had a ‘67 Camaro and we would cruise around,” Keith Reynolds explained to me. “I don’t know if it was a midlife crisis, or what, but a few years ago, I decided I wanted a hot rod.” What he wanted was a Camaro.

Reynolds found a listing on Craigslist for a rusted out ‘68 Camaro and went to work, using his days off from his job as a correctional officer to rebuild his dream car (he has since retired).

“It was my first endeavor—I’d never done anything like this before. I’m not a mechanic, but I did most of the work out of my garage, bit by bit. I had a good friend who would bring over his tools and we’d listen to music, drink a few beers.”

This was a “frame-off restoration.” And, yes, I had to be told what that was. The body came entirely off the frame during the rebuild and everything was disassembled so that Reynolds could assess just what needed to be replaced.

“I would say eighty percent of the metal on the body had to be replaced,” he said. “It was completely rusted out.” But Reynolds was steadfast. He bought the car in 2007 and worked on it for 23 months, during which time he decided to forego putting in a typical small block Chevy 350 engine and, instead, chose a big block General Motors 520. “It’s really what sets this car apart from most muscle cars,” Reynolds added.

But take one look at the Camaro and you’ll notice that other things set this dream car apart from other late ‘60s and early ‘70s models.

Reynolds built a true piece of eye candy. Under the hood, he customized everything so every part is polished aluminum.

“The Camaro takes me back to my high school days,” Reynolds said, his voice dripping with nostalgia. “It harkens back to that time in my life when we’d drive around listening to great ‘70s rock music. I poured so much of my own blood and sweat into this car. Having my own Camaro had always been a dream. It was a dream, now this car is my passion.”

Les Corum

“It’s like American Graffiti,” I said to our publisher, Les Corum, upon seeing his ‘32 Ford Highboy.

Of course, I had no idea what a highboy was.

“This type of hot rod is called that because it’s fenderless—you can see the frame and rails underneath the body,” Corum explained to me.

The car is definitely a carryover from his days in high school.

“I had an old ‘34 Ford that I never got running. Then I had a ‘41, a ‘49, and a ‘48. None of them had paint jobs,” Corum said, laughing. “They were painted with primer. I had a ‘46 that I had to re-paint every few weeks because the red flames I’d put on with spray paint would peel off.”

Corum was the ultimate greaser in high school—cruising through drive-ins and doing a bit of drag racing when the coast was clear.

When he joined the Navy after high school and got married, he thought his hot rod days were over—but they were just on hiatus.

“Once Donna and I got settled back in Bakersfield [after living on the East Coast for some time] I had a little extra money and time to tinker,” he added.

“I bought a Model A Ford with a late model Chevy engine that I’d tinker with. And, somehow, I ended up with a ‘32 Ford Coupe. The only thing I did to that car was replace the engine. It had a 4-banger but I put in a V-8.”

Then came another dry period where Corum was hot rod-less, but a year and a half ago, he decided the time to find his dream car had come.

“I spent a lot of time searching for the perfect car. I finally found one in San Diego. It was the exact color I was looking for [hugger orange], has a late model Chevy small block engine with 425 horse power, and lots of chrome under the hood, plus complete paint and chrome underneath the full length of the body.”

As gorgeous as it is, “I won’t drive it if there is any chance of it getting wet,” he joked, “it’s to difficult to get under the car to detail it.

“This is the kind of car I saw being driven when I was in junior high and high school. I couldn’t have one then, but I have one now. I’m proud of it—I’ll go out and dust it, turn the engine on and listen to it, drive it around for a bit. It makes me feel like I’m 17 again.”

John Van Alstyne

Van Alstyne likes hot rods, though it’s not obvious on appearance. But behind those slacks and button-up shirt is a man who has spent most of his adult life building and driving classic cars and hot rods.

“My first car was a 1950 Chevy with a GMC motor,” he told me in the conference room at Sierra Printers, the company he owns. “And my second was a ‘50 Mercury with a hopped up flathead.” By the time I was talking with Van Alstyne, I thankfully knew what that was.

Cars are a hobby for him. And this hobby took a backseat to starting a family.

“It was really a lack of funding that kept me from doing a lot with cars while Patty [Van Alstyne’s wife and fellow car lover] and I raised the kids,” he said. “But I got back into it.”

And he got back into it in a big way, building two hot rods: a ‘32 Ford Highboy Roadster and a ‘41 Willys. Both took roughly two years to complete. Van Alstyne also recently built a 1940 Willys.

“It’s just what we do,” he said, modestly. “People like me were doing it in high school and we do it today because it’s what we love.”

Of course, it can be an expensive hobby. But it’s a hobby that just about anyone, whether fulfilling a lifelong dream or having a midlife crisis, can get into.

“There are no rules to this,” he added. It was an expression I would come to associate with hot rods.

“It’s not a question of whether anything is right or wrong...it’s all up to the individual building and the one who’s driving it.”

The Van Alstynes even spent a vacation with the ‘40 Willys. They visited 26 states and drove 7,000 miles in an RV, pulling the Willys off the hitch in each city to cruise around.

“It really is a culture,” he said of hot rodding. “I’ve made some amazing friends from out of town who we go to car shows with—that is definitely my favorite part about all this.”

Frank Riccomini

“I think it’s everything—it’s the feeling of building or working on your car; it’s the sound the engine makes; it’s the connection to a certain time in your life.”

That’s the answer I got from Frank Riccomini, a local cotton grower, when I asked what it is about cars that men love so much.

Riccomini is the proud owner of a 1957 T-Bird. But how he came to own the car is the best part of the story.

“I was visiting my wife’s parents in Oxnard and I saw a photo of a car hanging on the wall. I asked whose it was and my wife said, ‘It’s my father’s.’ So I asked her where he kept the car and she told me, ‘In the garage.’ Well, I walked out into the garage, took one look at that car and asked how much he wanted for it.”

Riccomini’s wife, Becky, assured him that her father would not sell the car.

“I told her to go out to my car, grab my checkbook, and write a check. When I showed the check to my father-in-law, he just laughed. He didn’t think I was serious. Well, I drove home in the T-Bird that night.” This was six or seven years ago, Riccomini estimated.

He spent a pretty penny having it completely restored at Custom Works here in Bakersfield. It was at this point in my interview with Riccomini that I had to learn that there is a big, big difference between restoring a classic car and building a hot rod. Seems self-explanatory now, but the actual act of customizing and modifying an old car turns it into a hot rod. Someone performing a full restoration would want the car to look just as it did when it was originally manufactured.

Still, Riccomini said the cost was worth it. There’s just something about this car.

And though he doesn’t drive it around, Riccomini does enter the ‘57 in numerous car shows. He’s even planning on taking it to Pismo for the show over Father’s Day weekend.

“It’s a car that’s a part of history, and I like that,” he said. “And it’s so beautiful and unique.”

Recently, Riccomini picked up a classic Ford pickup and he’s in the process of restoring that, too.

“Ask me who I bought that one from,” he prompted me. “My father-in-law.”

Clearly, this is a guy who loves to have classic cars (and trucks) in his life.

These five guys are hardly alone in their obsessions. And, no, obsession is not too strong a word in this case. Bakersfield is known all over the United States as a kind of car mecca. We’ve got raceways and drag strips (and, boy, you better know the difference); not to mention, our city plays host to numerous national car events. The National Street Rod Association just recently held the 35th Western Street Rod Nationals at the Kern County Fairgrounds—the 25th consecutive year they’ve hosted here in Bakersfield. And while events of that caliber do pull in a lot of out-of-town visitors, there’s also a fair amount of local folks (read: men) who are there to check out the goods; they’re there from sun up to sun down so they can talk shop with other guys who’ve built or restored their own dream car. Much the way a song can take you to a place in your past, the rumble of a small block or the sound of squealing tires has the power to transport these men back to high school.

So, while I don’t have quite the same appreciation for a Ford on a radical rake or a Chevy with a blower sticking out of the hood (and I’m still not able fix a single thing on my own car), after talking with these local car guys, I am one step closer to understanding just what it is that causes most dudes to get that romantic, glazed-over look on their face when someone mentions a little deuce coupe.

Article appeared in our 28-2 Issue - June 2011