Prepping the 1949 Custom WOW Cadillac for Restoration
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- Опубліковано 23 сер 2024
- This story goes back to 2010 when Geoff was well into his research into Sport Custom Cars in America. As he dug into this subject, he was surprised and impressed to see a wider variety of designs being built in the late 1940s and early 1950s than he had ever seen before.
What he was witnessing during his readings was a consolidation of designs - agreements in styling methods and other types of convergence on “what” would be a “custom car” and “what” would be a “sports car.” Rudy Makella’s WOW Cadillac jumped out from the pages of magazines when he first saw it.
Rudy and his family owned a power hammer company, what we know call a metal shaping company. They were located in Indianapolis, Indiana and built custom ordered/modified ambulances, hearses, limousines and more. Rudy was a young man at the time working for his father’s company when he decided he wanted to create a custom car of his own design.
Starting with an early 1940s Cadillac convertible, Rudy created an entirely new body for it, one in which the entire front clip rolled forward to reveal the engine when needed. A unique design and a unique car. Worthy of attention the first time I saw it in the magazines. Then I found the real deal.
In 2010, Stephen Lisak had posted photos of the car he had found nearly two decades before and saved from a junkyard. With a bit of research, I confirmed what the car was and shared it Stephen and his wife Mary - the nicest folks you’d ever hope to meet. Over the years we became fast friends and late in 2018 I bought the car.
Now that a complete donor chassis has been secured, it's time to get the WOW Cadillac into rotation for restoration! Stay tuned for updates coming next year
Looking forward to this one.
Hoping to have an update in a few months. The body is going to be reinforced and pulled off the present chassis in preparation to swap onto the donor chassis
'WOW', that's a fuct up looking design in the 2nd version for sure. 😁 Makes you wonder what they were thinking with that nose & the coffee can taillights. 1st version reminds me of an Auburn Rubber toy car version of a '49-'51 Lincoln. 🙂
The first version is definitely more cohesive and fits the streamlined intention. The more I study the second iteration, it is somewhat growing on me. If you go back and look at the two photos of that version, the coffee can taillights aren't there. They must have been a later change, but unsure when
@@UndiscoveredClassicsUSA Hey I was thinking - it would be VERY cool if you went around the cars in your videos and pointed out what exact cars (& years) all the different parts are from.
Glad it was saved and that your tetanus shots weren't tested it what looked like a long hot day. Hope you go for the original iteration as it looks more unique to my eyes and seems more in keeping with the designers aerodynamic origins.
I think that's the plan, the first iteration is definitely more streamlined
Need to buy the lock an flate air chuck so much better
I’ll have to look into that, thanks
Quite the day's work! Do you still have the hood section or does that need to be recreated?
Long gone, well before we got the car. But it’s just metal 😄
Just metal, and you have a great library of pictures! Also, didn’t see any pictures, but the dash is there (?) and a good feature 🤗 Hope to see more videos about the restoration!@@UndiscoveredClassicsUSA
My God, how do these things wind up going from those pictures to being buried in the dirt in some field somewhere in destroyed condition?? I'm a big car guy for over 40-years now, but maybe not so big because when I look at these things all I see is a pile of garbage, I can't imagine any of these "restorations" being in any way cost effective, I wouldn't even know where to begin other than taking out a check-book and kissing every penny I have goodbye. I'm sorry for seeming like a pessimist, but im a realist and theres absolutely no way you're restoring that car to exactly the way it was unless you have like 200K to spend and i dont have the feeling that any of you do, this is something that needs to be dropped off at dave Kindig's shop with a blank check and a 5-year wait time, this is never getting done the right way unless thats the plan and I'll bet my life on it😢
It’s all about being efficient when it comes to these cars. We’ve restored or helped to restore about 30 of the unique cars over the last 16 years and then take them to either or both the Pebble Beach and Amelia Island Concours. The trick to getting them done affordability is to work with good crafts people and not big restoration shops