Author Archives: John Gunnell

Fabrication seminars set for Green Bay, Wis.

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Car and bike builders in the Midwest will have an opportunity to sit in on metal shaping seminars conducted by Ron Covell and other fabricators during the North East Wisconsin Motorama (www.newmotorama.com) in Green Bay, Wis., April 1-3. Local metalcrafters Matt Schmeizer of River City Iron Works LLC and Dave Byron of Spence Industries, Inc....

Teen-age Dream Machine

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  The Danchuk giveaway car built for the 2015 Tri-Five Nationals was at SEMA and it was my teen-age dream machine come to life. When I saw the metallic blue “post coupe” on display, I couldn’t believe how closely it resembled the car I wanted to make when I was 18...

TV Tommy

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  There’s a guy in Green Bay, Wis., they call TV Tommy. He is neither an ex-Mouseketeer nor a drag racer (except with his Hemi ’48 Dodge coupe at stoplights), but he puts on an incredible show about once a month. Tommy Kujava is known to car guys for a community-access...

The history of SEMA

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SEMA started when Revell model company needed permission to print miniature decals for its car-model kits. At that time there was no organization to deal with auto aftermarket trade problems. Revell suggested using a model makers association as a model for a trade group. That group became known as the Speed...

Which porthole Buick would you pick?

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  I get it! Like you pull up to the traffic light in a porthole Buick that looks like it escaped from a Mad Max movie, the light changes, you stomp the 750-hp HEMI hidden under the Buick’s hood and you blow the scissor doors off the poor kid’s tuner car....

I wouldn’t be surprised

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  I wouldn’t be surprised if TV star Courtney Hansen does show up at my “new” Gunner’s Great Garage building someday. I say this because all the pieces to this project have just been falling into place perfectly. But let’s do the flashback thing to explain what I’m talking about. A...

Teamwork

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  One thing I learned when I moved from New York City to the Midwest is the importance of teamwork. In New York, everyone wanted to be an individual and a lot of people I knew rarely talked to their neighbors. After I moved ti Iola, Wis., I joined the Volunteer...

Fuzz Bucket!

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  I was really floored by the fuzzy interior in this Y-Bucket I saw at the Cheaterama in Milwaukee back in August. As much as I hate to admit it, interiors like this are what we dreamed of having in our cars back in the 1960s. Back then people actually liked...

Tag! You’re it!

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At Gunner’s Great Garage (www.gunnersgreatgarage.com) we’ve developed a few simple restoration techniques that we use over and over again. One of them is to tag wiring connections with belt buckle style electrical ties to help us put the wires back in the right places. The wiring ties come in a variety...

Dunes day

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By John Gunnell   Lately we’ve have heard several car show promoters mentioning that they thought a 1970s theme would be good for their upcoming 2016 events. That made us think about one of the iconic symbols of the ‘70s—the dune buggy. The classic dune buggy is a “frog-like” fiberglass body...