The metal work which has been done and is yet to be done is all in the capable hands of Mike Adams. Those of you who may have had a “high-end” car built and those of you who have seen Mike’s work on the covers of all the Rod magazines over the past twenty five years, know that his name alone speaks for the finest quality, craftsmanship and artistic insight that can possibly be applied to reconstructing automobiles. The work done on my car is, without a doubt, “Ridler” quality.
What I have come to learn from the past two years of observation, both of the “soft-goods” work of the interior and of the finishing metal work, is that you must have the ability to look at something that may already be beautiful to the casual observer, and “see” what can be done to take it from merely beautiful to truly outstanding.
If this is what you’re looking for, D.J. Bucell (DJ’s Interiors) and Mike Adams are just the maniacs for you. All you will ever hear there is, “wow, that’s “trick,” let’s do it!”
As you can see from the accompanying photos of the dash and the engine air-box, we have achieved and even surpassed the “outstanding” adjective, and these are only two of the dozens of small details that make the car visually striking.
The color-coordinated metal piece that horizontally bisects the two-toned dash leathers and continues back along the doors, all the way to the rear seat, is a thin stainless strip that was painted to compliment the interior leather colors. What you can’t see in the photos is that the top 1/8 inch and the bottom 1/8 inch of the metal strip is not painted, but was instead polished so that this piece, intended to bring out the richness of the leathers, has itself been done in such a way as to allow it to make its’ own statement and not “just” accent the interior. If you’re a car-guy, you won’t be able to take your eyes off the dash. I hope in the photo you can also see that the gauge cluster was also trimmed to both accent and compliment the bisecting metal strip.
The air box shown in the engine-bay is right out of Mike’s head and should be on the USS Enterprise so that Captain James Tiberius Kirk can order Scotty to “engage.”
Click here to read Part 2 of the Metal Work installment.