Have band, will travel ... in restored muscle car

By Mannix Porterfield
REGISTER-HERALD REPORTER

November 29, 2008 11:12 pm

— Without her original makeup, the Fastback Torino is not very pretty.
In fact, Customs Chariots owner Beckie Brogan says, when she and her husband spied the 40-year-old muscle car Ford produced in a brief, two-year stint fully four decades ago, she was downright ugly.
“It was nothing but a bucket of rust,” Brogan recalled.
Spring is a time of hope and renewal, and when the season finally rolls around next year, you can expect to see this Torino boasting the luster it once beamed in showroom finish.
That was back in 1968.
This is now, and once overhauled, from stem to stern, the Torino will become the official traveling car of Taylor Made, a promising country band in Beckley reaching for the brass ring in Nashville, a city known for turning the unknown into stars and household names.
The idea is to tie the restored car in with Taylor Made’s first single release, “Heavy Duty Beauty,” just as ZZ Top became synonymous with a 1933 cherry red Ford coupe.
Greg Duckworth, a State Police trooper and one of three founders-singers among two brothers and a sister for Taylor Made, plans to put the finished product to use to chauffeur the band to and from concerts.
“He just fell in love with the car,” Brogan recalled, when Duckworth stopped by the Ragland Road shop to see some of his friends working there.
“It was just kind of a brain wave, just kind of a groove. Once it’s done, it will be their car to go to the shows.”
Custom Chariots manager Barry McPeake plans to install a powerful, 390-cubic inch, big-block engine, replacing the original 289.
“It will have an aluminum head and stuff,” McPeake said. “We’ll hot rod it up a little bit. It will be geared low.”
Which means the top speed will fall into the 120 mile-per-hour range.
Above everyone else, a man engaged in law enforcement with more than 18 years under his belt is expected to toe the line on speed limits, but the temptation is already building. As Duckworth put it, “I can’t wait to put my foot into that four-barrel. It’s going to be hard to hold back, I tell you.”
An elaborate color scheme is in mind, with McPeake focused on a silver, black and raspberry exterior, and a carryover of the same inside the car.
Much has changed in the auto world since the Torino made its debut, and the revised version will reflect that — disc brakes, new gas lines and a flat-screen television, likely installed on the console.
A strip of chrome in the trunk will bear the title, “Heavy Duty Beauty,” and on the seat is to be an embroidered picture of “Annie Marie,” the name of a fictitious character around whom the song is erected.
“Everybody step back so that Annie can whirl.
“She’s the life of the party in her boots and jeans.
“She’s my ‘Heavy Duty Beauty,’ country dancing machine.’”
“It’s kind of unusual the way it’s made, with all the lines on it,” McPeake said of the Torino.
“That’s actually what we’re playing with when we’re doing color schemes. Because of the body lines, that’s what we design basically everything from. Just how the car is laid out. You want to do stuff that complements the car, not just stick anything on it.”
Customized cars are left to the ultimate owner, and Duckworth is no exception, except in this case the shop has freedom to let creativity take as long a ride as the experts there see fit.
“He has pretty much given us carte blanche on it, whatever we want,” McPeake said.
“He’s tickled with the ideas and stuff we’ve come up with and the little ‘Annie Marie’ we’re going to put in it.”
Duckworth relishes the final look and spoke appreciatively of the work going into the task.
“Is that the coolest thing they’re doing out there?” he asked. “We just can’t believe it. It’s just too cool. It’s definitely going to be gorgeous.”
This car was produced the year of his birth, but that had nothing to do with his decision to see it restored.
“It’s holding up better than I am,” he mused.
Duckworth and brother Brian and a sister, Wendy Williams, take turns handling the duties of lead singer in a group whose first single is getting plenty of air time in such faraway locales as Oregon, Texas and New Mexico. One album can be downloaded and three others are available at Little General Stores.
“Our hook is we have three lead singers and family harmony,” he said.
Taylor Made is booked up with some holiday shows and plans a return trip to Nashville for some more recording sessions. Their agent, Dale Morris, altered the original name of I-79 to Taylor Made. For the record, he once handled a group known as Wild Country. Fans came to know them better as Alabama.
“Basically, we’re doing a full restoration,” metal fabricator Adam Parvin explained as went about his toil.
“It’s a uni-body. It’s completely stripped down to the original shell.”
The only way to remove the rust is to cut it out and weld new metal into it, he pointed out.
“This absolutely has been the most challenging vehicle I’ve worked on in my career,” the six-year veteran said. “I’ve been messing with cars little over 10 years now.”
When it first rolled off the assembling lines at Ford, the Torino fetched between $3,100 and $3,500. Once restored, the one in Brogan’s shop would run about $50,000.
“We started out because we love the old cars,” Brogan said of Custom Chariots, launched in mid-summer in 2007.
“We were just wanting to do some of our own when the news got out that’s what we’re doing. We’ve got clients now that would like us to do that. We also do collision. We haven’t stopped at restoration. We customize. We do bikes.”
Normally, it takes about a year to 18 months to revitalize a neglected car from the past, she said.
Finding parts can be time-consuming since one no longer can go to General Motors or Ford for them.
“There are some companies that make really good after-market parts,” Brogan said. “It’s a huge business.”
— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com

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