SPANISH FORK — The business of building hand-crafted cars is alive and well in Utah County, according to a south county man busy putting together such beauties.
Joe Horvath grew up in Southern California where a custom ride is considered the in thing.
He moved to Utah 25 years ago where he worked for years as an autobody man.
But in recent years his love of building hot rods and custom cars has resurfaced and blossomed at his family owned shop, South County Collision. (The name has become somewhat of a misnomer because he does custom work almost exclusively these days.)
Among his projects is a 1940 Ford four-passenger roadster that is scheduled for completion this summer.
No, Ford didn't build a roadster that year, but little about this car is original. Horvath has widened the fenders seven inches to accommodate wider tires and redesigned the doors to take on a swept-back appearance. He figures the body work alone will consume 5,000 hours.
"This is how Henry (Ford) would have designed it," he said.
Although built as a show car, it's no slouch in the "go" department.
"This could be the fastest street rod in America," he said, pointing to a chassis specially designed to handle 1,500 horsepower.
The engine destined for this car is a custom-built, 509-cubic inch high-performance mill from General Motors. The street version is 1,000 horsepower. But with a simple modification, it can be transformed into a more powerful race engine.
He's building the car to sell and recently agreed on a $300,000 price from a local buyer.
"There's a lot more interest in custom cars (in Utah) in recent years," he said.
Some of that business comes from out-of-staters who attend the car shows he enters.
Recently, his shop custom painted a truck from Texas, and he's scheduled a restoration project of a 1956 Cadillac from California. Locally, he recently rebuilt a totaled 1989 Mustang 5.0 GT, complete with custom paint for the son of an Orem businessman as a Christmas present.
Custom painting Harley-Davis motorcycles occupies much of his winter. Horvath's shop is one of only two in Utah that uses media blasting to safely remove paint from metal or fiberglass, he said. Unlike sand-blasting, media blasting uses tiny plastic pieces to remove the paint.
E-mail: rodger@desnews.com