When you grow up in a racing family and spend your early years hanging around the pits at tracks from Salinas to Sonoma in Northern California, it’s easy to understand the growth of Aaron Cushman’s Total Performance Motorsports from restoring vintage race cars to producing
Talk with Joel Williams of Nobody Customs and Restorations in Keithville, Louisiana, and one of the first questions that comes to mind is: How did you choose the name? Inquiring minds want to know, right? There is an answer, and it makes sense when Joel tells
There’s a line at the end of an episode of the animated series “Futurama” that goes something like this: “When you do something right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.” It may seem like strange analogy for a hot rod shop, but it
Garret Kitchen caught the car bug as a teenager and has been afflicted by it ever since. As he got older, Garret’s artistic traits and training as a diesel mechanic helped him design and build a series of hot rods for himself. By the mid-'90s
Lou Calasibetta owns a little slice of hot rod heaven in the rolling hills of northwest New Jersey. As the proprietor of the Old Stillwater Garage in the township of Stillwater, Lou (or Louie to many of his friends and peers) has built a nationwide
Hot rods and rock ’n roll go together like peanut butter and jelly or lightning and thunder. They’re culturally intwined, both having strong roots in the 1950s and both influencing not only their founding generations, but all those that have followed. Few other companies in the
In a few short years, Jesse Barratt and Jeff Manzella, co-owners of Blue Sky Performance and Restoration (BSPR) in Andover, New Jersey, have seen their business grow from very humble beginnings to one of the fastest-rising high performance restoration shops on the Eastern seaboard. What
For Gary George, owner of Gary’s Rods and Restorations in Watsonville, California, his high school automotive dreams were easily defined. He knew what he wanted to do with his work life. “I always wanted to be a custom painter – candies and stuff like that,” he
Learning on the job teaches more than just basic skills. Those experiences – good and bad – are often the inspiration to make the leap from employee to business owner. For Kevin Penhaker and Nick Ryan at Killer Hot Rods & Customs in Alvarado, Texas,
A parent’s work experience often influences a child’s career choice. That can mean deciding that you don’t ever want to go into the same line of work as a parent, or finding that you have the same passion as your parent for a particular line
