E. Passyunk Ave car show: Hopeless wrecks into chromed-out wonders
Gregg Deininger from Folsom, N.J., smiled proudly at "Pinky," his gleaming pink-and-cream '55 Chevy 210, and pulled out a photo of the gutted, rusted wreck it used to be.
Gregg Deininger from Folsom, N.J., smiled proudly at "Pinky," his gleaming pink-and-cream '55 Chevy 210, and pulled out a photo of the gutted, rusted wreck it used to be.
"Found it in a junkyard in Williamstown 20 years ago," he said. "It had a tree growing out of it where the motor used to be."
His wife, Suzanne, confirmed that first encounter. "I said to him, "What do you want that wreck for? It's got a tree growing out of it."
Deininger said, "Had to cut the tree down to get at the car."
The couple laughed together, as they have for 50 years, since he was 18 and she was 14, traveling the road of life in their vintage Chevys.
"I blew up four '55 Chevys before Pinky," Deininger said. "I was known as a bad boy back then. I've mellowed out a lot."
Deininger, an engineer by trade, designed Pinky's interior, which features fuzzy pink dice hanging from the rear-view mirror, a pink steering wheel, a plush Pink Panther sitting on the dashboard and pink bikini panties in the back seat.
"I like pink," Deininger admitted as he jawed with the Sunday crowds that were photographing the 140 customized automobiles lining East Passyunk Avenue between Broad and Dickinson Streets for the neighborhood's 11th Annual Car Show and Street Festival.
Raised hoods inspired raised eyebrows as spectators were bedazzled by Steve Pasella's "So-Rare" '66 Ford Woodie station wagon with a black-and-orange flames motif; Woody White's '99 Plymouth "Black Tie Edition" Prowler, so suave it looked like James Bond's date-night ride; and Mel Salas' 2011 "General Lee" Dukes of Hazard Dodge Challenger, featuring a photo of Daisy Duke in her cut-off short shorts.
A big hit was Tony Luke's "Bat-Vette," a Batmobile-black 1976 Corvette Stingray with light-up Dark Knight logos in strategic spots and a red leather interior.
Luke - South Philly's celebrity purveyor of cheesesteaks, roast pork and chicken cutlets - couldn't contain his excitement, pointing to the fat black exhaust pipes on the Bat-Vette's doors and the three big tailpipes sticking straight up from the trunk lid.
None of the pipes are functional. "They all light up red at night," Luke said, as do the small bat logos on the hood and fenders. The real exhaust pipes are hidden under the 'Vette.
Luke put his arm around his cousin, Marc Guardiani, an electrical engineer who spent 22 months turning an old Corvette "with wires hanging all over the place like spaghetti" into the sleek, chic Bat-Vette envisioned in Luke's fantasies.
"Next, I'm going to have fake smoke coming out of these pipes," Guardiani said. He and Luke exchanged boyish grins. "We're like kids in a candy shop," Luke said.
Zac Golson of Dover, Del., an electrician at the Navy Yard, was proud of his gleaming burnt orange 1960 Ford Thunderbird that's been in his family since it was brand new. But it was a dented-up mechanical mess when he acquired it five years ago, after the owners, his sister and brother-in-law, passed away.
"I sanded the whole thing by hand down to bare metal, did all the body work, rebuilt the engine," Golson said. "It's been a labor of love."
Golson drove his T-Bird to South Philly from Delaware, as he drives it to all the car shows.
"I didn't do all that work to have it sit in a garage," he said.
Unlike many of the custom car buffs, who turned hopeless wrecks into chromed-out wonders, March McKnight of New Castle, Del., bought a brand new Corvette in 2005 and tore it apart.
"I'm a tailor," McKnight said. "I got the eye for pattern. I see patterns differently from most people. My new Corvette was too plain, so I sketched a pattern in my mind. My friends call me 'Mr. Gadget' because I'm always taking things apart and putting them together in a different pattern."
His tailor's eye told McKnight that he wanted to wrap the Corvette's fenders in black carbon, add a spoiler wing to the rear and paint red racing stripes down the sides with such devotion to detail that they continue into the door jambs.
He took the coolest car in the world and made it cooler.
Unlike most of the owners at the show, who were relaxing in chairs along the sidewalk, watching the crowd admiring their cars in the street, McKnight stood by his 'Vette, clean rag in hand, ready to keep his baby spotless.
McKnight drove I-95 to the show with several other custom 'Vette aficionados from his Living The Dream Corvette Club, which he described as "a bunch of guys over 50, enjoying life."
The problem with the open road, he said, is that motorists take one look at his 'Vette and want to start up a conversation at 60 m.p.h. "When I'm driving," McKnight said solemnly, "I get tunnel vision. I'm focused. If I turn to talk, I won't be on the road anymore."
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@DanGeringer