If you're a regular follower of this column, then you already know quite a bit about Darryl Starbird's National Rod & Custom Car Hall of Fame Museum, even though there's nothing that can compare to actually visiting it in person. Any museum though, no matter how wondrous its contents may be, is by its very nature a collection of artfully arranged, mostly static displays meant to be walked past, around, and through, having its contents marveled at, studied, contemplated, and admired-nothing wrong with this, right? Actually no, but with this being said, Darryl's museum is all of that and much, much more, for on the museum's grounds are also located restoration shops. It is within these shops where the "process" of man interacting with machine may be observed firsthand. For if mass-produced automobiles are indeed "environmental sculpture" meant by their designers to be enjoyed by the population at large on a daily basis just as architecture, then these are workshops where true artisans in reinterpreting, fine-tuning, and refining such transportation appliances ply their trade to the maximum. And the best thing is that you can see such transformations to sheetmetal take place right before you. Now is this cool or what? Note that those who responded with "what" need not read further.
In the past we've shown you such vehicles as Dave Puhl's "Phase II," but were you aware that it was restored on site? Another famous car to go through the museum's shops was Dave Stuckey's "Li'l Coffin," which was completely rebodied after being all but totally destroyed in a disastrous fire caused by a fuel leak while Darryl was unloading it from a trailer. As more and more historic rods and customs resurface, many which have survived in good shape, they will obviously be loaned to the museum to be enjoyed by visitors on an ever-changing exhibit schedule. Other historic pieces will be donated to the museum for its permanent collection in a variety of conditions for restoration and preservation, as the time and money necessary to bring them back are beyond many an owner's skill and financial resources. These less fortunate examples of surviving rods and customs are what the museum shops have geared-up to save. And although restoring these glimpses into our hobby's past will be one of the museum's prime objectives, it will by no means be the only one. Unfortunately, as we all know, some historic cars are gone for good (or at least have been misplaced really well), with every indignity conceivable befalling others. Attrition has taken its course too, from unwanted customs being out-and-out scrapped (the "Moonglow" and Joe Bailon's "Miss Elegance" come to mind), to being rebuilt over and over until the original version is gone forever. The aforementioned "Li'l Coffin" and even a couple of Darryl's personal creations fit this category, and I've even heard a report that one famous show car was actually buried! Hot rods seem, by their very nature, to have a better survival rate, being either completely revamped or broken up, with their scattered components used to build street rods, or hung on the wall over a garage workbench-where is that Von Dutch-painted radiator insert for the Jack Chrisman sedan anyway? For that matter, whose all-steel Deuce body once belonged to the "Big Deuce", and where's the "Orange Hauler?" Note, If you know the whereabouts of any of this good stuff, please give the museum a call.