?Checkered Past? 1940 Ford coupe wins Ridler Award | Hemmings ...

It?s said, with considerable justification, that having a hand in building a custom car that wins the Detroit Autorama?s Ridler Award can make a career for a designer, fabricator or painter. In this case of this year?s winner, a 1940 Ford coupe named Checkered Past, the car literally was the foundation of what is now surely to be a successful street rod shop. Owner Ron Cizek of Bennington, Nebraska originally started building the car himself three-and-a-half years ago as tribute to the vehicle?s drag racing history.

After the build started, Cizek met Andy Leach, an Omaha area fabricator. Cizek was impressed enough with Leach?s design talent and fabrication skills that the two of them decided to open up a shop, Cal Automotive Creations, in Omaha. Checkered Past is their first completed concept-to-finished-show-car project. The roof has been chopped, the hood and fenders re-contoured and a custom grille and hand-shaped running boards are only some of the body modifications. Once the body was finished, former Boyd Coddington painter Charlie Hutton sprayed the car at his Color Studio in a three-stage finish with red, gold and brown layers. The result is sort of a deep cranberry color. The pinstriping is also gold, as is the anodized finish on the custom wheels and the engine intake components. That?s an appropriate color for a car that has won the 50th Ridler Award.

Under the hood is a flathead Ford V-8 assembled by Erik Hansen, whom Cizek brought into Cal Automotive Creations as their in-house engine builder. It features a GMC 4-71 supercharger, fuel injection and a custom intake manifold. Custom pans for the engine oil and transmission fluid adorn the underside of the car, which is as clean as the more visible parts and features its own two-toned and pinstriped paintwork. A custom bellhousing machined from billet connects the flathead with a six-speed Tremec supplied by Bowler. The car is suspended by Ride Tech up front and modified Heidt components in the back.

As mentioned, this was the Ridler?s golden anniversary and to commemorate it, many of the previous winning cars were on display. Many, perhaps most, of the early winners were owned, when they won, by their builders. In recent years, most of the winners have been so-called checkbook hot rods, with wealthy enthusiasts hiring top shelf shops to build them a Ridler contender. The phenomenon has resulted in the rat rod backlash. Somewhere in the middle there?s a happy medium and perhaps Checkered Past will start a trend back to owner-built entrants into major custom car competitions.

Because so many of the 80 cars in competition for the Ridler are indeed built by esteemed shops with very talented fabricators and craftsmen, the competition for the award was fierce. To my eyes they all presented outstanding fabrication and painting skills and more than a little aesthetic talent. I didn?t see very many just-because-they-could-doesn?t-mean-they-had-to cars.

Winning a Ridler can set up a shop for life, so to speak, but even making it to the finals is a resume builder. Building or painting a Ridler Great 8 finalist can be a feather in any customizer?s cap. As mentioned, all of the cars were built to a level that to my eyes surpasses the attention to detail associated with production cars like Rolls-Royce or Ferrari. Any one of the finalists would have been a worthy winner.

Here are the remaining Pirelli Great 8 Ridler Award finalists:

Mark and Ellen Willman?s ?Nailed? ? 1956 Buick Two Door Post

Troy Trepanier and his crew from Rad Rides by Troy had three cars on display. Their Ridler Award hopeful, ?Nailed,? is a 1956 Buick built for Mark and Wllen Willman of Blue Grass, Iowa. The name is a reference to the 401-cu.in. Buick ?nailhead? engine installed in this pristine clean build. It?s full of trick details, but everything is done so neatly that it?s easy to miss them. The Willmans are planning on using it as a pro tourer, so for the go there are the twin turbochargers that are so neatly installed that the engine compartment almost looks stock? almost. The engine also features a dry sump and a fuel injection system that was designed in house. That?s for the go. For the show is a monochromatic graphic scheme with dark grey paint, embellished with both polished and brushed black nickel plating along with conventional nickel plating as well.

Alan and Loretta Woodall?s ?C2/SS? ? 1965 Corvette Coupe

Considering that the only unchanged part on the original car is the roof panel, the fact that Autorama organizers mistakenly put this black Corvette in the ?Mild Sports? category is a tribute to just how seamlessly all of the many modifications were done. The car was designed by Eric Bockmeyer; owner Alan Woodall of Cary, North Carolina, calls it an ?understated and elegant car,? and I agree. It?s called the C2/SS and it?s supposed to incorporate some European flair into the second generation ?Vette. In addition to the extensive body mods, there are custom wheels by Greening Auto Company, which built the car, and a full custom interior by Paul Atkins. As is de rigueur with modern custom Corvettes, there?s an engine of the LS family under the hood, in this case the 505hp LS7 as fitted in the production Corvette Z06.

John Mayer?s ?Fearless? ? 1935 Ford Phaeton

Fearless, what I thought was the ?cleanest? design of the Great 8, is sort of owner built, since John Mayer is a customizer himself, operating Ogden Top & Trim Shop in Berwyn, Illinois. He was responsible for the overall design concept and he fabricated the interior. The body was fabricated by Willet Coachworks and it was finished and painted by Pete Sanchez of Custom Cars Unlimited. The engine was built by Rick Ceyer and the chassis was fabricated by former Ridler builder Tim O?Connell. Deeper colors seemed to be in this year, with a number of cranberry and root beer colored cars on the show floor. Fearless has great, simple lines. The steep rake of the windshield is cleverly duplicated in the angle of the instrument pod and the steering column, and since Mayer does convertible tops for a living, the car features both a retractable, hideaway ragtop and a very sleek removable hardtop. I also like the Woodliteish headlights.

Ken and Lynn Serusun?s ?Dad?s ?34? ? 1934 Ford Tudor Sedan

Most cars that end up as Ridler contenders start out as an idea and then the owner tracks down the car that fits that idea. Not many contenders for the Ridler, particularly those based on 80-year-old Fords, can say that they are one-family cars. This 1934 Ford Tudor Sedan was bought by Ken Serusun?s father brand new and it?s been in the family ever since. In 2009, Serusun, of Sedona, Arizona, hired Bobby Anderson to start restoring the car and in the four years since Serusun pushed him to turn it into what has become a quite magnificent show car. Anderson literally did everything on the car, including the chopped and rolled roof, upholstery, paint and mechanical things like building the engine. As you can see with the other Great 8 Ridler finalists, most of the competing cars have had their work jobbed out to individual specialists. It?s rare when a Ridler level car is completed by a single fabricator.

Christian Harker?s ?Archetype? ? 1934 Ford Altered Street Coupe

The current criteria for judging the Ridler Award are creativity, engineering and workmanship. On those basis I?d say that Christian Harker?s 1934 Ford Altered Street Coupe deserved consideration for the Ridler, even if I think the front end looks a little funny with it?s extended underbite grille, trick strut suspension and insectoid headlight pods. If you note, the judging criteria don?t include aesthetics and to be fair, those headlight pods, holding three different lamps and machined out of single pieces of billet, do show considerable creativity and workmanship. The independent front suspension with a single A-arm and a strut demonstrates some capable engineering. To qualify for the Ridler, a car has to be able to show rudimentary mechanical operation. In other words it has to run, steer, and stop well enough to get it on and off the show floor. Brian Mosbek, of Blaine, Minnesota, fabricated the car and to make sure the car handled competently on actual roads, he put 150 miles on it before final paint and assembly. The interior was done by Jim Griffin and Wheeler Racing Engines built the supercharged 427 Ford that powers this cleanly executed if aesthetically challenged coupe. On the other hand, it?s got a set of velocity stacks sticking up through the hood. Every car looks better with velocity stacks. Also, you have to give props to a hot rodder who gives his car the literate name of ?Archetype.?

Buddy and Kim Schulz?s ?The Reaper? ? 1972 Chevy Short Bed Pickup

When the Great 8 were announced, with two pickup trucks making the finals some observers thought this might be the the year a truck won the Ridler. It?s been a while. Chuck Miller?s Ford C-Cab Fire Truck won in 1968 and the Alexander Brothers? Top Banana, a roadster based on a 1923 Model T pickup, won the following year. Both of those trucks, by the way, were also on display at this year?s Autorama, along with 23 other former winners to commemorate the Ridler?s 50th anniversary. This 1972 Chevrolet pickup is owned by Buddy and Kim Schultz of Washington, Texas. Buddy is a speed freak: He?s raced drag boats and Pro Modified cars, so it?s not surprising that the truck has a 468-cu.in. big-block Chevy motor with a custom 8-71 blower by G&G Performance. Also custom is the full tube frame by Hot Rod Joe?s, which also did the body and paint. Joe Brown?s shop cut up and reassembled the entire front end, fenders, cowl, core support, grille and bumper into a single seamless piece. The front bumper alone was cut into 20 separate pieces before it was molded to the front clip. Brown?s confidence in his work can be seen in the fact that the truck was painted gloss black, which can normally every flaw. Of course, like all the other Ridler finalists, the surfaces were flawless. The brown and black leather interior was done by Steve Holcomb with a Western feel, a nice touch, but I thought the red LED lighting used for illumination was a bit tacky.

Alan Beers?s ?Quicksilver? ? 1957 Chevy Pickup

A fully fabricated bed to accommodate the custom 22-inch wheels is probably the least of the metalwork done on this fabulous 1957 Chevrolet pickup in a neat two-tone gray over silver, owned by Alan Beers of Owasso, Oklahoma. Built by Jason Smith of Hot Rod Garage, there?s not a stock panel left on the truck. Among others, body modifications include a smoothed and reshaped firewall, custom inner fenders, pancaked and reshaped hood, a three-inch chopped top, the cowl was filled and moved forward, the front bumper was narrowed and reshaped, custom tail light bar, hand-formed tailgate and roll pan along with a full belly pan. Special attention was paid to the glass, with reshaped windshield and back glass openings. Those reshaped openings were flush mounted with a custom windshield and backlite. There are abundant mechanical mods as well. The 540-cu.in. big-block Chevrolet engine is fed with a Crower fuel injection unit topped by footlong velocity stacks that has been converted to electronic fuel injection.

Every single one of the Great 8 finalists for the Ridler Award demonstrated outstanding fabrication skills. Each one in its own way met the award?s three criteria: creativity, engineering and workmanship, particularly workmanship. Rob Cizek?s Checkered Past earned a well deserved victory but I don?t envy the task that the judges had in picking it out from the other seven great finalists.

Ronnie Schreiber, a native Detroiter, spent two decades working for DuPont Automotive. He edits?Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars and car culture and the original 3D car site. If the 3D thing freaks you out or if you think it?s a conspiracy to get you to buy yet another new TV set, don?t worry, all the photo and video players used at the site have mono options.

Source: http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2013/03/15/checkered-past-1940-ford-coupe-wins-ridler-award/

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