| Supra_RZ |
12-10-2006 02:20 PM |
The Fooserati and Creamsickle - A Different Street Rod ***Pic's & Info***
Nobody will ever call Terry Cook conventional, that's for sure. The owner of Deco Rides, founder of the Lead East custom car show, and a former HOT ROD guy, Cook marches to the beat of a drummer not heard by many hot rodders. But through this eccentricity often comes true creativity, as displayed by the cars you see here.
A Chip Foose illustration of "an Auburnesque" Boattail Speedster in an older issue of Rodders Journal got Cook all frothy at the mouth, and he coaxed the plans out of Foose in order to build the real thing. Cook had just finished Scrape, a custom Lincoln Zephyr, and had made molds of the body, so he was ready to take on the Boattail. With the help of Rob Ida in New Jersey and Mike Ball in Indiana, Cook built the buck and molds then produced the first car. That's Creamsickle, the orange and white car you see here. The final paint and construction was done by Speedster Motorcars in Clearwater, Florida, with finishing touches by Richard Graves in Long Beach, California. The chassis was built by Fat Man Fabrications in Charlotte, North Carolina. Cook didn't get to enjoy it for long, as it sold at the RM Auction in Monterey, California, during the Pebble Beach week for $137,000.
Foose Boattail number two is the Champagne Gold over Black one, also shown here. A Fat Man frame is used again, but differences include fully enclosed rear "pontoon" fenders and a dare-to-be-different Maserati Quattroporte 4.9L V-8 and a TorqueFlite automatic. The engine gained the car the name "Fooserati." This one also went bye-bye on the auction block at Pebble Beach for just a little less than the first one.
A third Foose Boattail Speedster is being finished by Superior Custom Classics in Hudson, Florida, and Terry says this one is his. It'll be a highboy with real wood laminated to the top surface with white calking lines. Think of an old Chris Craft wooden speedboat and you get the picture. It'll have the running gear from a wrecked '98 Corvette and is scheduled to compete in this year's Detroit Autorama.
Since Cook's company, Deco Rides, sells the Foose Boattail bodies and Fat Man makes frames for them, several more Foose/Deco Speedsters are coming down the pipe. One is a Foosenberg, which mates a Duesenberg grille shell and front fenders to the car, and one is called Swoop Coupe, a Bonnevillesque street rod with fully enclosed pontoons front and rear. If you want to see more, go to www.decorides.com.
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