When Detroit builds a car, it takes a matter of hours to traverse the assembly line. When most of us build customs, it takes much longer--sometimes months, more often years. When the television show Overhaulin' builds a custom car, it borrows a page from the Bible--seven days of creation.
By now, most of you are familiar with the show's premise: "borrowing" a car, tricking the owner, and returning a custom ride one week later. It makes for pretty entertaining viewing, even if deceiving the owner takes airtime priority over the build (this is television, after all). One thing I like is that, unlike other shows, Overhaulin' cars aren't too outrageous or tacky; they're generally pretty clean rides. Credit car designer and builder Chip Foose for avoiding the slide into pimp territory.
One episode last fall caught my attention in part because the '63 Falcon being overhauled really seemed to capture what I felt was a tasteful blend of traditional and modern customizing. Two-tone blue suede paint, a gloss white top, subtle body mods, and white pleated upholstery with blue piping gave it a vintage vibe, while the stroker small-block and full-boogie stereo brought it up to date. Even the 16-inch Intro Smoothie wheels struck a balance of old and new, looking like billet versions of chrome reverse wheels.
Now that I'm with K&N Engineering, I was able to be on the Falcon build team. Luckily, I could give CUSTOM RODDER readers a first-hand report of what the experience was like, and answer some of the
questions I'm sure you've all asked yourselves. The following is my account:
The Falcon arrived at the K&N Engineering race shop with faded white paint, a sad interior, the original inline-six, and a few holes not placed by the factory--rust. All of us on the build team took a long look to see what we were up against. On K&N's chassis dyno, the sick bird mustered a meager 48 hp.
On each Overhaulin' build, designer Chip Foose sees photos of the car beforehand, and you could tell he already had ideas on the project's direction. Chip and project manager Craig Chaffers assigned tasks at the kickoff meeting. Not knowing everyone's background, they asked for volunteers for each general area (bodywork, suspension, electrical, etc.). I picked interior hard parts and wiring because I'm pretty good with electrical and enjoy detail work.
Day one saw the car stripped to its basic form, while Foose sketched out concept illustrations so we could visualize our goal. Things went pretty quickly; then again, taking a car apart is always easier than putting it back together!
On day two, even more was stripped from the car, including the engine, glass, trim, and much of the faded paint. All the emblem holes were filled and the door handles were shaved. Foose is known for subtle details, and the Falcon got many. Shaving the bumpers meant welding the brackets on and welding up the bolt holes and marker-light openings. Using custom tooling fabricated by K&N's machine shop, new holes were stamped in the front bumper to fit modern PIAA driving lamps. Similar tools were made to stamp rear bumper exhaust cutouts. All this happened on just the
second day.
By now the project's scale was clear. Fortunately, we had a good build team assembled. Representing K&N were John Hudson and Brad Beltinck from the Race Shop, Chris Bennett and myself from marketing, plus Jim Lunger and Kirk Swanson from R&D. Dave Shushereba, Tim Fleenor, Jere Wall, Rusty Ries, David Miles, and many other K&N employees helped out when needed. Additional team members included Summit Racing's Kirk Heinbuch and
fabricator Shane Boulay.