Boyd passed away this morning

The Hotrod business will never be the same know that Boyd has left us.

 

Very unfortunate. Whenever I hear of someone passing it reminds you how precious life is. I hate to hear these type of things. Its just so sad.

Prayers and best wishes for his family and friends..

 

wow. r.i.p. dude. I saw him At bonneville this year. i just stood at a far and watched him sign stuff thinking about how he had a positive influince in my life, i was going to walk up , shake his hand to tell him, but i chickend out... next time i said to myself... Just one more regret i'll have.

 

Living in this messed up state of California with tree hugger type officials, Hot rodding would have been legislated into extinction a long time ago if it wasn’t for organizations like the NHRA, SEMA and individuals like Boyd Codington. Don’t think for a minute that the state of California didn’t try and shut him down, cause they did. Boyd’s fight with the state along with SEMA has helped save hot rodding and the average automotive enthusiast from being legislated into oblivion. Like him or not the things he has done has helped the little guy.

 

Boyd is his middle name.

 

RIP Boyd.

It was photo's of Boyd's cars that got me interested in Hot Rods back in the 70's. Boyd was cutting edge then and now. As I discovered more and more about Hot Rods, my preferences were for the more mechanical look rather than Boyd's "smooth" look. Didn't stop me from buying shares of his wheel company when it went public. Lost my butt on that deal. As I look back, I think Boyd was ahead of his time. Look at how popular billet wheels are now.

Never had a bad word to say about Boyd. He opened my eyes to the world of what cars could be. We didn't have to drive what everyone else was driving. We could build something cool and be proud of it.

There are many others who have given as much or more to this hobby as Boyd did. Lets give them the respect that they deserve too.

 

Rest in Peace Boyd

I have met the man many times but to see my 4 year old meet him was a treat, at back to the fifties last year. He signed the custom paperboy wagon that my father built for him right next to the rat fink that was custom painted with "Thanks for the Memories Ed". Well it is fitting cause I have to say "Thanks for the Memories Boyd".

I grew up reading my old man's magazines in his mom in pop gas station on snow days and summer afternoons and there was no one that had a greater influence on the industry than he did for the past 30 or so years.

I have grown up and now I am into the traditional stuff. The Doane Spencer Deuce is the style for me but my dad is into the high tech stuff. He disagrees with some of the chopped up rat rod stuff, as he calls it. But he loves to help me with my 29 sedan and we have a bond.

So when my son wants to copy the "Boydster" or the "Vern Luce Coupe" twenty five years from now. I am not going to have a problem with it at all. This guy is one that will keep hot rods interesting and alive for the next generation and the next.

Rod in Peace Boyd!

 

You are exactly right! Godspeed to all of out late hot rodders who have left us to go to a better place!

 

R.I.P. Boyd.

 

One of the few men who could visualize a completed rolling piece of art when the rest of us saw nothing more than a project in progress.

Prayers to his family.

 

I am at a loss for words.....................I know that I have been more than inspired by some of his creations. We wish all his family and friends the best at this most difficult of times.

 

Like many of you have said, he had a great impact on the Hot Rod industry. Thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends.

 

RIP boyd.
Reminds me of a good quote by James Dean
"dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today"

 

Thanx for everything that Boyd has contributed to our hobby. RIP.

 

Rest well boyd.

 

Damn, R.I.P.

Late eighties, early nineties - All those hot rod cover cars really got me into this hobby. He will be missed.

 

The man had foresite and had a go , and gave us some beautiful cars...R.I.P Boyd

 

A great man will be loss to his familly & hotrodding ,R.I.P. Boyd.

 

Thanks for sharing your talent with us all these years. Rest in peace. I wish we could have met. Maybe someday.

 

another great name in the continuing history of the automotive world gone. With what he has givin us he will not be forgotten. R.I.P Mister Boyd

 

Los Angeles Times


Boyd Coddington, 63; custom car designer starred on 'American Hot Rod'





Coddington, a longtime diabetic, died Wednesday at Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in Whittier of complications stemming from a recent surgery, said publicist Brad Fanshaw.



Once described by Hot Rod magazine senior editor Gray Baskerville as "the Stradivarius of car building," Coddington was a onetime maintenance repairman and machinist at Disneyland who customized cars and built hot rods at home in his off-hours before opening Hot Rods by Boyd in Stanton in 1978.

"His cars set the standards for custom automotive design because rather than just take a selection of parts from other vehicles, he would design and manufacture virtually every part for the cars that he built," said Fanshaw, former president of Hot Rods by Boyd and Boyds Wheels.

Coddington launched Boyds Wheels in 1988.

"He was the first person to utilize billet aluminum in the manufacture of automotive wheels," said Fanshaw. "Prior to that, all custom wheels were made in a cast manufacturing process where the aluminum is melted and poured into a mold. Boyd developed the use of solid aluminum and machining it and sculpting it for the final wheel.

"It gave you a much stronger wheel, a much more beautiful wheel, and you had much more design latitude when you did it that way."

Two cars built and designed by Coddington are in the permanent collection of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, which had an exhibit of his cars in the mid-1990s.

"Boyd Coddington is one of those guys who'll go down in history as one of the great names in the customizing and hot rod world," said Dick Messer, the museum's executive director.

Because of Coddington's background as a machinist and his ability to make precision parts for his cars, Messer said, "his stuff was very finely put together. A lot of the stuff he did looked like jewelry rather than automotive parts."

Coddington, Messer added, "had a great design eye. And some of the big names in the automotive world today, particularly in customizing and design, worked for Boyd at one time or another," including celebrity designers Jesse James and Chip Foose.

Among the iconic cars to come out of the Boyd shop are CheZoom, which Fanshaw described as "an extreme reinterpretation" of the classic 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air; and the Aluma-Coupe, Boyd's reinterpretation of a 1933 Ford coupe that was hand-fabricated from aluminum.

Then there's the sleek CadZZilla, a radically re-powered and re-stylized 1948 Cadillac coupe designed by ZZ Top band member Billy Gibbons and automotive designer Larry Erickson.

"It was Boyd Coddington's masterful execution, along with his team members, that created perhaps one of the most memorable customized cars in recent history," Gibbons told The Times on Thursday.

Reflecting on Coddington's career, Gibbons said: "Boyd's contributions were on a par with George Barris and all the other American car customizers combined. He will be missed."

Coddington won the America's Most Beautiful Roadster Award seven times, including an unprecedented six times in a row. He also won the Slonaker Award, another prestigious automotive award in the hot rod industry.

Honored as Hot Rod magazine's "Man of the Year" in 1988, Coddington twice received the Daimler-Chrysler Design Excellence Award.

He also was inducted into the Grand National Roadster Show Hall of Fame and the National Rod & Custom Museum Hall of Fame, among others.

His cars have been reproduced in Testors model car kits, made into a series of Mattel Hot Wheels toys and issued by the Franklin Mint as die-cast metal models. And one of the cars he designed and built -- a 1933 Ford coupe stylized with the trademark "Boyd Look" -- was featured on the cover of Smithsonian magazine, which profiled him in 1993.

In 1997, Ernst & Young named Coddington "Entrepreneur of the Year."

But a year later, Boyds Wheels, his successful company that went public in 1995 and merged with Hot Rods by Boyd, was in bankruptcy.

Although devastated, according to a 2000 account in The Times, Coddington formed a new company in 1998, selling his Ferrari for $150,000 and some real estate holdings for $1.5 million to fund operations.

"I was crushed like an ant, but I want to come back and prove to myself and customers that I can still do it," he told The Times.

With the debut of "American Hot Rod" in 2004, the bearded car builder whose trademark attire was a Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap became a TV star.

The show, a behind-the-scenes look at building custom cars at Boyd Coddington's Hot Rods and Collectibles in La Habra, aired through last fall on the Learning Channel.

Coddington was born Aug. 28, 1944, in Rupert, Idaho, and grew up on his father's dairy farm, where he devoured custom-car magazines.

At 13, he acquired his first vehicle by trading his shotgun for a 1931 Chevrolet pickup truck. His father promptly made him trade it back, but Coddington's course was set.

"That truck kind of started everything," he told The Times in 1996. "From there, I built all kinds of different hot rods: I had a '40 Ford coupe, a '55 Chevy, Model A's and all kinds of vehicles."

In 1967, after attending a trade school and apprenticing for three years at a Salt Lake City machine shop, he moved to Southern California.

Coddington is survived by his wife, Jo; five sons, Boyd Coddington Jr., Christopher Coddington, Thomas McGee, Gregory Coddington and Robert McGee; his sister, Klis Ruesch; six grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

Instead of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Coddington Foundation to benefit a variety of charities.

Donations may be addressed to Coddington Foundation, 811 E. Lambert Road, La Habra, CA 90631.

Services will be held at 9 a.m. Wednesday at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 900 W. La Habra Blvd., La Habra.

 

No car enthusiast, anywhere, was untouched by his influence, whether rod, custom, muscle or classic. In my earliest days of learning to build cars, I aspired to match the quality I saw in his work. I have never managed to do so, but I won't stop trying. Thank you.

 

beat53Chevy,

Thanks for posting the obit from the LA Times.

 

<HR style="COLOR: #999999" SIZE=1> <!-- / icon and title --><!-- message -->
Quote:
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">Originally Posted by skajaquada
you know, i really don't think any more comments about whether or not you like his style are needed. most all of us share similar sentiments to that regard and in respect for the man, we need to keep them unsaid. i know i've said my share of unkind words directed towards him but none of that matters now. he was a man who worked hard for everything he had, who helped bring this hobby international attention and support and who really did care about his work and about helping others
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I fit the above attached quote....
R.I P.
Skot

 

Services will be held at 9 a.m. Wednesday at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 900 W. La Habra Blvd., La Habra

 

yeah.but is this open to the public?? or just "close" friends and family??? it would be rude to intrude if they dont want a lotta people there if everyone showed,even outa respect...........am I right on this??

 

what was posted previously was the service is private but there is a reception after at the shop and anyone can come.

 

I shouldn't admit this but here it goes...I watched American Chopper last night.

At the end they had a black screen that said something like
"In memory of Boyd Coddington"

That really hit me. Maybe because I met him just a few months ago, maybe because my father's the same age and not all that well, or maybe because a meteor could hit me tomorrow. Either way, Seeing that in writing seemed too real. I had trouble sleeping thinking about how fleeting life is and how too much of it gets pissed away.

Tomorrow I'm going to put on a hawaiian shirt and doing a big smoky in my hot rod.

 

Wow... that really is a bad deal.
What was the cause???
I know he had lost a lot of weight thru the last few years.I just thought he was on a weight loss program.
RIP in your hotrod Boyd.

 

My prayers to the family for their lost. He will be missed