The Lee Pratt Thrash

In the mid 1960’s my neighbor and good pal, Lee Pratt, built a 1955 Nomad that toured the midwest show circuit and eventually ended up in Rod & Custom Magazine. A couple of years ago, he bought a fairly rough ’55 Nomad body and decided to clone his old car. After a lot of sweat equity, Lee got the ’55 to the point that it was damn near ready for paint and then through circumstance and luck… Well, everything changed.

While hunting for Nomad parts to complete his project, Lee actually found his old car sitting in storage in Kansas. Now, he faced a real decision – Complete the clone that he had spent so many hours already on or start over with the original car?

Like a lot of us, Lee is a sick bastard. As such, it didn’t surprise me when he decided to scrap his previous work and start again on his old car. It was a cerebral decision and the right one to make so long as he was prepared to deal with the mental anguish of repeating a lot of painstaking manual labor. He was and this week Lee has been thrashing like hell to get the car ready for the Grand National Roadster Show.

In support, I decided to drop by yesterday and be no help at all. Instead, I took pictures as Lee and his buddy Juan worked on the hydraulics. I elected to shoot in black and white knowing full well that this is a car that really deserves the saturation of color film. I did so because I don’t want to ruin the excitement for those going to the show. This one is gonna be eye popping in person.

Anyway, enjoy the shots.