In an all-too-familiar scenario, Chad took the Ford to a body shop, put some money down, and left the car there in good faith. A year went by with hardly any progress being made. When the shop started asking for more money, Chad began stopping by every few weeks, only to learn that no more work was getting done. Eventually he cut his losses and pulled the car from the shop. "A lot of time and money was gone," Chad says, "and my car was no closer to being done. I took it home, put it together, and pushed it into the corner. I was mad and burned out."

It took a year to cool off, but Chad started working on the car again with prompting from his friend Ed Belkengren. Jon Kosmoski, of House of Kolor fame, also offered motivation. "Jon knew of the car and story with the body shop," Chad says. "Jon said if Ed and I got it ready, he would squirt it." So Chad and Ed began pounding and sanding, shaving emblems and door handles along the way, and smoothing the firewall and inner fenders under the hood. Chad added '53 F-100 headlight rings and '57 Ranchero side trim, which served as a perfect break point for the House of Kolor Ultra Orange Pearl and Murano Pearl finish Kosmoski laid down. The pinstriping and Cobra character came from Cliff Anderson's brush.

Inside, the smoothed dash was painted body color before being filled with an Alpine stereo, Vintage Air controls, and Billet Specialties ducts. Opie's helped Chad build a one-off indicator for the shifter on the '69 Pontiac tilt column, which in turn was topped with a Billet Specialties wheel. Chad called on Boss Custom Interiors in Evansdale, Iowa, to take care of the soft parts. There, Joel Mattix stitched smooth white leather over modified stock seats, and designed custom door and side panels to match.

Finally, "I brought it home and put it all together," Chad says, "thinking the whole time, 'Why did I hire that other body guy?'" Why, indeed. The bodywork and paint were nice enough to help earn the Ford a nomination for the 2006 Minnesota Street Rod Association Custom of the Year. The payoff was a long time coming, but, Chad says, "the more I drive the car, the more I enjoy it." Perhaps Lee is still enjoying it, too, from a vantage point above the clouds.