Joe Carloni ~ The Fonze pics...

Are you using 52 merc rings on the 47 ford? Most of the early Barris cars just frenched in the stock stainless rings and leaded them in, and that ring is extremely shllow, maybe protrudes about 1/4" from the fender.

 

i have wondered about the early Barris mercs using stock frenched headlight rings,,,they are pot metal,,,so how did they weld them to the car??

 

God no, stock 47 rings no rib. The top of the ring to top of fender ended up pretty much flush but we used to small half moon shaped patches on either side to mold it in to the fender more. That way it doesn't look like it is protruding too much, even though techincally it is in relation to the factory fender line.

 

I think there was a pretty good picture in hotrod magazine from 1987. I will look for it and scan it.

I think i remember it was a shot of the back of the car ad him shooting the flame throwers at the lead east.

 

That look great! I might have to borrow that idea!

 

Breezing through this tread as I gotta get out in the garage....damn Hamb.

Many will disagree with his cars, but man this guy was really a special man. He loved this stuff, and was so kind to people who dug it as well. You really had to have met him.

I gotta copy some pics, my scanner is down...but I have them here. Maybe a few of a Nova he chopped coming soon too, it was'nt a bug. My old work buddy is looking now.

 

I was refering to the stainless rings on 41-48 fords. But I guess they brazed them on. Today, you can MIG weld stainless to mild steel, but I dont think you can gas weld stainless to mild steel (perhaps Im wrong, but I think stainless uses a cauberising flame, not a neutural flame).

No idea how they attached pot metal.

 

Nova? Wild Bill's car with huge flamethrowers? Last I saw that car was about 3-4 years ago locally. I didn't even realize it was Bill until I out 2 and 2 together. Joe built that?

 

Man that is a sweet car !!!!

 

Ryan's metalwork is top notch, and this is yet another fine example! Ive done both ways, first time with just full welding of the ring and bodyfiller, but thats a mess and certain spots get DEEP. Not that Im against bodyfill, but this is a really professional approach and will require very little filler. He was saying he was doing the 47s metal this way and brought progress pics over when he came by, its going to look kickass when its all ground and DA'd! Nothing finer than standing back and looking at that kinda work gleaming in a worklight!

Now, lets get back to some more Fonze!

 

Hey guys, finally got these scanned. They came straight from May Ann, Fonz's widow.


Enjoy! Real rodders ain't scared of no weather.... Hahahaaa.

 

Here is a little extra something for you... Got these from my buddy Corey Stubblefield. I worked with Cory at a hot rod and restoration shop about 8 years ago. We had a blast....love what we did for work, and loved our own good times we had while working there, pure blast for us every day. Most guys that would come into the shop were all weenies....rich, or jerky, or too tough guy, hahahaa, and none of them were to scary. The only guy that ever came into that shop that we knew was the real deal....was the Fonz!

Here is a Nova of all things that Fonze chopped for Cory while he was still in High School back in 88. Cory told me that Fonze was just the coolest to a kid back then, and someday he was gonna have a chopped car like the Fonz. Well he got it, Fonze was his man... Fonze chopped it in a flash for him. Thing looks pretty evil, kinda Mad Maxish.

If by chance Fonzie daughter Donna pops on here....Cory sez hello!

 

Mel awesome! Thanx so much, I have a bunch of his Mercs pics, but those have to be some of the coolest Ive ever seen! Got any more?

 

I wanna get a scanner soon btw, if you find a bunch of his Mercs Id come down and scan em to my laptop. Just an idea.

 

I keep hearing about his 56 Foed .Dosen't anyone have pics of it?

 

I'm a Clevelander, but I was stationed in McGuire AFB back in 89-91. One of those years, I drove by myself in my 57 Custom 300 to Englishtown. By some luck, I ended up parked near him. As a 19 year old kid from the mid west, I was kinda the wierd one with a strange love of doo wop and flame throwers, both of which were NOT very common near me at the time. I was drawn to his car after watching the flamethrowing cars driving down strip, literally catching the pavement on fire. I was blown away. I went back to my car later that day, there was the Fonz, messing with the fire creating contents in his trunk. Having been brought up in a family of hot rodding, I usually was used to being snubbed by the older crowd, or being dismissed as being too young, when trying to talk shop with a "seasoned veteran". The Fonz, at a glance, WAS a seasoned veteran. But, being there all day by myself and kinda bored, I got up the courage to walk up and talk to him. He was on of the coolest and most interesting characters I have ever experienced. He seemed to be pleased just to see that someone much younger shared his views, talked with me for quite a while, and left a lasting impression. When my car club got ahold of that tape of the Fonz chopping that car in the snow years ago, I couldn't say enough about him. He was the real deal. Every positive thing in this thread, as surreal as it seems, was true. The cats from NJ take their heritage very seriously, and the Fonz was definately an icon they should be proud of.

 

The Lead East video that came out right after he past has a whole part as a tribute to him. I forget what year that was.

I heard a story of him chopping a roof but didn't have time to weld it and drove around with vise grips holding the roof on.

 

hey guys, this is my first post, and i wanted to share with you all this, i had no idea who the fonze was up until about 2 years ago or so, but a friend of mine met him when he was a little kid, and fell in love with his mercs, but my friend always wanted one and eventually found a 4 door 51 lincoln that he started to chop and mold fins onto to make a "fonze tribute car", but for some reason he stopped working on it and the car sat for 2 years, up until about a month ago we decided to finish the car, and it was in ROUGH shape there was not motor/trans/driveshaft at all, the floor was rotted through, there was no trunk floor left, the stock seat was nothing but broken springs, all the wiring was completely shot and the gas tank was missing.. well, we wanted to get the car done for lead east so we got to work, and a week before lead east, the car rolled out of the garage under its own power! chopped 8 inches in the front and 10 inches in the back, 9" lexan windshield and black tinted lexan on the back windows, 60 desoto taillights, 2ft fins on the back, 6ft long hand made skirts, shaved and molded back doors, elcamino folding bench up front with a t-bird wrap around rear seat, all new wiring done one wire at a time, sheet metal floor, and trunk floor with a fuel cell in the trunk.. all that done in 2 weeks and now its a running driving car, we wanted to debut it at lead east but the night before myself, our friend and 2 of our friends girlfriends were in a bad car accident and totaled one of our friend's 62 merc.. needless to say, we never made it to lead east being as we spent all night in the hospital up until about 7:30 AM (which is when we were supposed to leave for the show) so, instead of debuting the car there, we debuted it at the hotrod hoedown this weekend! everyone loved its and over the course of 2 days, about 100 people came up and either asked if it was the fonze's old car, or said "hey i remember seeing this at lead east years ago!" it was pretty funny! Mrs.Carloni was at the hoedown as well and loved the tribute car, we had a framed picture of him with one of his merc's on the hood all weekend!! well, thats enough back story, here's the pictures of the "Joe 'The Fonze' Carloni" tribute car!!

enjoy!!


please keep in mind, that the car DOES have a hood on it now, a few of the pictures are from the night/next day the car came out of the garage, and we wanted to make sure everything was ok with the motor before putting the hood back on...


also, the last 4 pictures are what the car currently looks like, they were taken today at the hotrod hoedown!

 

The Fonze would be proud. Spot on.

 

Joes 56 Ford fuckin ruled. Nice candy red bad ass mild Jersey custom.

 

Saw your car yesterday and we all said it look like something joe would do thanks for keeping him in peoples minds

 

Isn't that Andy's Lincoln?

Is everyone OK that was involved in the accident?

 

yea, that's andy's lincoln. It was Mark's Merc that got wrecked the week before. He's got some stitches on his arm but everyone is going to be ok.

 

Good. Reading the story I kind of figured out who was involved. Glad everyone's OK.

 

yeah we're all ok, i was in the passenger seat and broke the windshield with my face and bent the dash with my chest, yes thats andy's lincoln.. i figured a bunch of you knew who he was and all, but i left the story vauge so people not in the loop could understand it too..

 

i had a vhs video years ago called doo wopp and it was all about joe and his merc with the flame throwers i think i was like 11 years old when i got it i might still have it some place i bought it from a original atv speed parts shop ..it was about east coast car shows ..at the time i thought his car was the shit ..

 

The first I heard of "The New Jersey Fonze" was in one of the Rod and Custom magazines when they covered Lead East back in the early 90s I think...I don't know the exact year, but the picture of him standing there by his car was one that was branded into my mind. I never met him, but I can still see it...I knew immediately he LOVED what he did, and did it because it was something more than just to keep busy.

There have been a lot of posts that I have chimed in on about this or that being the right or wrong way to do something, and I think, just possibly, even though all of us has some concept of how we think something should be done, there will always be someone else to say it's not right, and some things that are thought not to work...well, by golly, someone will come along and MAKE it work. Someone once said Joe was a connoisseur of plastic fillers, and his favorite was classic plastic? Call it what you will, in my opinion the man was an artist who used his medium well.

I don't know how many of you are into/have knowledge of life-casting...but it's a subject of sometimes heated debate among sculptors. Some people are just gifted with the ability to sculpt with frighteningly detailed anatomical correctness, others use a cast of a live person to achieve the same effect. You'll not find life-casters producing giant works of art carved from virgin blocks of granite, but a lot of the bronzes that are produced were created by them. Both are art, and nice to look at, and people pay mucho bucks for them...in the end, the artist is just that, an artist.

I'd rather have one of Joe's cars than a lot of the "all metal" ones I've seen.

I'm such a hypocrite...I might build something similar just to say I tried sculpting a rolling work of...."art."

I seriously respect what Joe did...I wish I could've met the man.

 

awesome thread chris... been a great read. im no metelsmith, and can really relate to joe, and just wanting to have fun in a merc and not give a fuck!!! good stuff here. ide rather be remembered as good guy that had fun with cars,and helped people, than a prick that did great work..

 

You're definitely a prick. And I've seen your work, its pretty nice. You definitely have fun with cars, but are you a good guy? Thats yet to be determined. You still haven't taken me out to dinner...

 

strauby...what's this I hear the Fonz's wife is giving your buddy one of his old cars that's been in storage for years? Heard she saw the tribute car and flipped she was so happy ....word travels fast..haha