| | | Best In Show
Award-Winning '70 Chevelle Starting with a clear palette, bought a brand-new Corvette Grand Sport LT4 from Street & Performance in Mena, Arkansas, and teamed it up with a 700R-4 that was prepped by The Toy Shop in Pomona, California. Hotchkis handled the Chevelle’s suspension needs with their vast catalog. An up-and-coming Houston-area painter, Randy Borcherding, wrapped all of this up in a smooth coat of black, accented by candy apple red racing stripes. After the Chevelle was finished and ready to hit the road, we took it to three large shows in Texas. We won their class at all three shows! Right out of the gate the Chevelle was a winner. Next, we took it to New Orleans where we took Second Place to a ’77 Olds. Wait, a ’77 Olds? Yeah, it sounds like it was rigged to me too! Next it was off to Dallas, where we took their class and Best Paint honors, filling us with hope again. On the eve of the last day of the Dallas show, while parked overnight in the “secure” parking for the show, someone wanted the truck, trailer, and Chevelle—and stole the whole lot! The Dallas police weren’t very encouraging, and needless to say, there weren’t many dry eyes in the rental car on the way back to Houston. A month later, thanks to an anonymous tip, the truck, trailer, and Chevelle were recovered. Everything was there, albeit a little worse for the wear, but all there nonetheless! At this point, we had no doubt in our mind that we were going to rebuild the Chevelle and this time we won’t be beat by the likes of any ’77 Oldsmobiles! Having seen how the show circuit works, we were going to focus on more details this time to set the car apart. Meanwhile, it was back to the drawing board. Randy Borcherding, now of The Painthouse in Houston, was brought in again to handle design, construction, paint, and to team up with master fabricator and assembler Dick Sherwood. The car was to go back to black again, from top to bottom and the revision of the graphics would be in candy tangerine. All of this would be sprayed using the PPG Concept base/clear system and rubbed out to perfection. Randy conjured up the new hood graphics and incorporated them under the car from the crossmember to the gas tank. Randy also sprayed the graphics on the side of the car, designed by Rice University Art and Mathematics major, Josef Sifuentes. Adding to the talent already in the mix is another Houston-area artist, Ivan Lozano, who airbrushed the license plate and underhood monsters. After much deliberation, it was decided to bring the car out to California to have Ron Mangus of Custom Auto Interiors tackle the stitching—after all, you can’t beat the best. Before Ron got started, he brought in “Stereo Bob” Staudinger of Motoring Entertainment to do all the stereo work, including a separate system for the trunk. Stereo Bob built a fiberglass enclosure in the trunk that not only looks good, but also covers all the Air Ride plumbing and miscellaneous stereo equipment that can be accessed through two small doors. Now it was time for Ron to work his magic. Up front, he reshaped the Flow Fit seats to his liking and then proceeded to split and match the rear beach to the front buckets, dividing them with a unique fabricated console/package tray. The door panels were hand-sculpted by Ron out of hard foam. Almost everything inside the creative cockpit was covered in exquisite black or tangelo Italian leather, including the dash that houses the four Haneline gauges. The leather interior is highlighted by the painted billet inserts and speaker grilles. The Mangus interior is a work of art, right down to the charcoal, German square-weave carpet. |
