I've known Ronnie Dick for at least 20 years. He was a member of the Fundamentals car club in Wichita, KS with my uncles when I was a kid. Although I don't remember him from those days he remembers me running around club meetings and club hosted events. I moved from Wichita to Wellington 20 years ago when I first started working for Halibrand. Halibrand had an open house/rod run that first year and that's when I first spotted this 40 in the parking lot. I was busy running the show but I did manage to snap a quick instamatic picture of it sitting there with the hood up in grey primer. it wasn't until I got the film developed that I realized what a cool car this was so i drew the car using that shitty picture as reference. I took some liberties with the reference and flamed the shit out of the car in my drawing. A couple of people really liked the drawing and wanted a copy, so I gave them copies. more and more people started bugging me for copies so I had some prints made by the local newspaper printer here in Wellington. this is the car that started my 'career' as an artist. this was in 93-94. over the years I got to know Ronnie quite well and I cannot fathom the amount of knowledge he has passed on to me over the years as he has helped me out time and time again with my own projects. It was somewhere around 97 or 98 that I finally convinced Ronnie to let me flame the real car. I spent two weeks in his garage masking and spraying trying to match the 2d flames from the drawing onto the actual 3d car. Ronnie let me practice painting on the glovebox and I'm pretty sure the pinup girl on it is the second or third time I ever painted an image with brush on a vehicle. the devil shiftknob thats still atop the shifter is one from my first home made batches of knobs. Ronnie, Me, and this car have a lot of our histories tied together. He's always said that he considers this 40 'his and dennis's car'. after all these years, and the car sitting in his garage for alot of those years, he's decided to pass it onto me. I have no plans on changing anything cosmetic with the exception of maybe adding some chrome on the lights, maybe some bumpers and ridding the enginebay of the godawful pink Ronnie painted it with for some reason. Ronnie built this car out of a forsaken coupe body that had the roof caved in by a tree. sometimes he tells me it took six, and sometimes he tells me it took only four other cars to donate body parts to piece this one together. This car was built from thrown away parts and pieces and if not for Ronnie's creativeness and abilities to make something out of nothing would never have existed. I do plan to have the mechanicals gone through to reassure safety and add some updates while keeping within traditional sensibilities. I plan on driving the shit out of this car and I am proud to have it sitting next to my 41 Buick. Thank you Ronnie Dick and Thank you to all of the 'old timers' who take time to share their knowledge and resources to a younger generation.
Great to see something "interesting" in the engine bay and that pink is definitely different. BTW how small is the Buick? Good looking car!
I couldn't decide on starting a new thread, or reviving this one.. so I decided to tag on to this one to keep the history in one place. As you may or may not know, Dennis sold this car in 2018. I wanted it from the very first time I saw it in person, which was at LSRU 2017 maybe? I saw it again at the Starbird show in 2018. When it came up for sale in 2018 I tried every way possible to find the cash but it just wasn't in the cards. It has changed hands a few times since Dennis let it go, and it even ended up in a pawn shop in some small town in Kentucky for a brief time. It came available again Thursday Feb 4th of 2021 and I tracked it down late in the evening on Friday the 5th. I was told that there was a lot of interest in the car. It ended up only being an hour from my home in Nashville so I went up Saturday the 6th and we were able to work our a deal. Sadly the legendary pink firewall is now black, the flames have been touched up, and the original devil head shift knob is gone, but I may be able to get that back *I now know where it has ended up. I spoke to Dennis later that Saturday night about the car and its history and what he remembers about it, but if you have stories or photos please share! Any photos of it before he gave it the legendary flame job would be appreciated by everyone I'm sure.
Very cool! Congrats! I have always liked that 40 and seen it around for several years now back when Dennis had it. One of my best friends was talking to Dennis about a possible trade for a 32 coupe back when he put it up for sale.
Here is some of the Art that this car inspired, and, according to Dennis, the one that says FLAMES, WHITEWALLS, LOUVERS, AND LOWRIDES!! was drawn by him, from a photo he took when the car was in grey primer. He drew this in 1995 and Ronnie let him paint the actual car to match in 1997.
I have always loved that car, it has been hanging on my wall since '96. I'm glad you got the chance to take care of it. -Abone.
I saw that advertised. You might want to contact EJ Kowalski at Kowalski customs in Pa as he did a bunch of mechanical work on it for Dennis
Is it weird I hope the pink returns? I kinda dig the pink firewall. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
I've seen this car in person, not sure where but more than once. I was sure it was an older build but always liked seeing it. Now with your story and the previous stories (that I had missed somehow....), makes it even neater! Thanks for the story with your plans! Cool Car!
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