Bite Me Rather, was the food good, you can see cars all night long but in the end it is the food Roy Brizio is one of the Industry Giants I have yet to meet. Good for you!
I've been invited to worse places. Stunning group of cars there! Love to see it and meet him one day. Thanks
I stopped by there last fall and didn't want to bother him, but I got up the courage to tell him that my dad (who passed away in 06 of cancer) had driven the Blue roadster on a leg of the B&M road tour back in the 90's. He was great, talked to me for several minutes about that, then asked, "Do you want to see the roadster?" HECK YES! He took me next door to his personal stash and I got to see the roadster my dad drove, and all his other personal rides. Wow, he really didn't have to do that, I'm just a nobody. I walked away really impressed with him and his business.
I have a buddy that went to High School with Roy he sends me pictures of the shop and goings on a couple time a year. I tell him the same thing LUCKY son of a gun! Joe
Roy's website has been a long time source of inspiration for me. Tons of excellent photos of in process and completed rods that give a direction of his build process. http://www.roybriziostreetrods.com/home.htm Not all period correct, but the place is addicting.
I had the privilege of working there for a few months when they were behind on getting parts painted, I was just a part sander/preper but it was great. Roy encouraged me not to give up on my pick up when I was frustrated, and they ran a few of my parts on their lathe when I needed help with machining a few things. Shame it never blossomed into a full time gig, I would have never left.
My partner Tania and I visited Roy's shop the day before they all departed for Northwest Deuce Days. As usual Roy and the crew are great and the shop is excellent. I'm proud to say I've known the Brizio family for a long time and I love them to bits.
Here is a 2009 article that's pretty interesting. Here is just a part of it, note the paragraph highlighted in red. Although Brizio makes a good living—projects cost about $250,000 on average—money is not his principal motivation. "For me, it’s the customers," he says. "Half my business is repeat, so many of these guys become my friends." Brizio is somewhat reticent when discussing these friends, but it is no secret that many of his clients are sports and music stars. His longtime association with baseball slugger and big-league car collector Reggie Jackson led to Mr. October taking Brizio to his first baseball game. And on his 2000 album You Had It Coming, Jeff Beck included—amid crunching guitar solos—a tune called "Roy’s Toy," which literally sang the praises of Brizio and his hot rods. "Jeff’s an old, old friend," Brizio says. Other friends include guitarslingers Jimmie Vaughan and Neil Young. "I did a ’53 Buick Skylark for Neil, and when I told Jimmie about it he became really interested," Brizio says. "But the thing that’s funny to me is that most of these guys don’t know each other. They share the same passion for cars and, obviously, music, but they often just admire each other from a distance." Vaughan did steer another six-string musician to Brizio. "Now, Eric Clapton really is a guy who knows what he wants," says Brizio, who is building two hot rods to add to the British superstar’s growing collection of American metal. He walks over to a ’49 Ford coupe; the car’s roof has been dropped, the emblems have been stripped off, the steering wheel has been switched to the right-hand side, and the taillights have been "frenched," or melded seamlessly into the car’s bodywork. "Underneath the body, Clapton couldn’t care less, and this will have all modern-running gear, engine, you name it," Brizio says. "But he is totally into the styling of his cars, and we go back and forth all the time on the details." Here is the full article. http://robbreport.com/Automobiles/Wheels-Wonder-Wheels
The Jalopy Journal
