Becoming Somebody – Nobody Customs and Restorations Builds Success Serving the Specialty Vintage Car Community
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 the story. When he and his wife, Suzonne, first moved to Louisiana he was building the business on a one-step-at-a-time plan.
“We were starting the business and people would bring cars in and say, ‘I’m glad I found you because nobody will work on these cars anymore.’” Joel says. “My wife kept hearing it and one day she says, ‘You’re nobody because everyone says ‘nobody’ will work on them.’”
With that decision made and almost 15 years in the books, Nobody Customs now has 15 employees spread across three sizeable buildings. And they’re all busy working on a variety of projects: muscle cars, hot rods, trucks, restorations of all sorts, a ’50s Rambler station wagon (more about that later), and a vintage Rolls Royce project (their third British icon).
Bitten Early
Joel says he’s always been a car guy, from his years growing up on a dairy farm through his time as a mechanic in the Army, a stint in a truck conversion business, and a brief period in his brother’s hot rod shop.
“We were not just a dairy farm, but worked on everybody’s equipment,” Joel says. “I always messed with cars. I’m the youngest but everybody had cars and hot rods.”
The time spent operating a mechanical shop in the Army formed Joel’s outlook on running Nobody Customs, from keeping the shop clean to making sure the shop organization is tight.
“We’re not basic training,” he says. In addition to the on-the-job training, Joel also earned a business management degree that helps with overseeing the project schedule, the financials and keeping his team productive.
The Cadillac Spark
After moving to Louisiana, Joel was working in a small shop when a neighbor stopped by regularly asking him to restore his 1960 Cadillac Eldorado. Finally, Joel said he’d tackle the restoration, and the finished car turned Nobody into Somebody in the hobby. The Caddy appeared in a couple of magazines, earned a Best of Show at a national Cadillac event, and helped spread the word about the shop’s potential.
The owner of that Cadillac became a close friend, Joel says, and is still a customer. That exposure helped Joel grow the shop to today’s operation that uses one building for mechanical work, another for paint and body, and a third for upholstery.
Building the Team
As the business grew, Joel added staff to meet the expanding list of customers. His first hire is still there and as the need for additional help arose, he was able to find the right people, often based on recommendations from existing employees.
“We’ve been fortunate to find talented people,” he says. For Joel, though, more than skills are needed for a new team member to succeed, which means that attitude and work ethic are equally as important.
“I can’t teach attitude,” Joel says. “If you have a basic set of skills, we can teach skill sets. I cannot teach attitude. I cannot teach responsibility. They need to be a good fit with our guys.”
The tight-knit, experienced team allows the shop to complete full builds, as well as smaller projects, in house, with the exception of specialized tasks such as chrome work and engine rebuilding.
Upholstery Comes Inside
While many builders outsource interior work to specialized upholstery shops, that can often mean delays because so many high-end upholstery shops are booked solid.
“That was a bottleneck for us,” Joel says. “We had a guy locally doing our work, but we were keeping him so busy with cars that he was too busy to work on other customers’ jobs. He said he needed to work on other customers’ work.”
That was the impetus to add a local, experienced trimmer who was looking for a new challenge. That means working with a customer on interior design, color and fabric choices, and other inside considerations is more streamlined.
Customer Relations
During a 12- to 18-month build, a customer can often want to change or add to the original concept of a project, so for Joel that means regular communication, which includes discussing possible cost increases. Before any full build project begins, Joel says he has a detailed conversation with a potential customer about expected costs, billing schedules, and design concepts.
Joel says he is beginning to work with outside designers to create renderings so customers have a clearer vision of what the finished product should be.
“We have a cool picture in our heads, but sometimes the customer can’t see that picture,” he says. “I can picture it; we can do it, but I can’t draw it. It’s so much easier to discuss it up front than it is to explain it at the end.”
A Diversity of Projects
While some successful shops specialize in a certain brand or style of build, Nobody Customs will tackle almost anything. Current projects include a ’59 Impala lowrider, a Rolls Royce, and a ’59 Rambler station wagon. The Rolls build is the shop’s third to undergo a major restoration and upgrade.
“That first Rolls has been the best for us,” Joel says. “It’s been done about six years, and it’s been a great promotion for us. It’s such an attention getter.”
And the Rambler? Joel bought the car several years ago from a family that had the same last name. It was the grandfather’s car, and he had the same initials as Joel’s father. After buying the wagon, Joel added metalflake paint to the roof, an Air Ride suspension, and five-spoke wheels. It was driven regularly, but after sitting for a couple of years it’s undergoing a rebirth.
“I always wanted to build a Gasser; that car will be a Gasser,” he says. The metal flaked roof will remain, along with the decades of patina, but it will have a blown small-block Chevy engine, a solid front axle, and the vintage gasser stance.
Future Outlook
When we asked Joel about future plans, his response was pretty straightforward. He intends to stay busy and keep up with emerging technologies, while remaining thankful that he launched Nobody Customs.
“I wish I’d started earlier,” Joel says. “If it wasn’t for my wife I don’t know if I’d be doing it yet. She’s the one who kept pushing me for years and said I needed to bite the bullet.”
Photos: John Jackson
