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 few years ago...
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 Fire Dept. Little...
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 reading and bought...
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 of standard colors...
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 on a hopped-up...
By John Gunnell A car you don’t see a lot is a 1946-1948 Oldsmobile woodie station wagon. The Standard Catalog of Oldsmobile 1897-1997 says they made 140 of them in 1946, 1,460 in 1947 and 2,707 in 1948. That means that 4,307 of these wagons were built, but you can’t swear it by...
By John Gunnell As soon as we got to the Cheaterama—a traditional hot rod show in Milwaukee—a burgundy car parked near the entrance caught our eyes. It had the lines of a Ford, but it had put on a pretty face to get a little extra attention from enthusiasts who know a cool...
By John Gunnell Chevy’s new-for-1957 models were in tune with their times. They had a hipper, more youthful, tail-finned look that was “radical” for America’s bread-and-butter “family” car. “’57 Chevrolet! Sweet, smooth and sassy,” said one ad. “Chevy goes ‘em all one better for ’57 with a daring new departure in design (looks...
By John Gunnell You cannot take a nice photo of a car that has its hood up. It’s impossible. Today most cars are probably designed by a computer and they look it. Years ago, cars were designed by teams of artists and engineers who poured their hearts into every curve and feature line....
By John Gunnell The car was way different than the ’57 Olds of my past, but the color was remarkably the same and just as pretty as I remembered it. When I was a kid growing up in South Beach, on Staten Island, N.Y., there was a hot rod club called The Drifters. Some...
