Santa Ana, California — October 24, 2001 — The Cycle World International Motorcycle Shows® Presented by Toyota Trucks announces the debut of a comprehensive new Web site – www.motorcycleshows.com. A former recipient of a “Times Pick” from the Los Angeles Times in honor of “What’s new, timely, useful and interesting on the Web,” the successor of that site delivers twice the punch to its savvy audience of motorcycle enthusiasts.

Conceived as the premier online resource of information for the upcoming Cycle World International Motorcycle Shows® Presented by Toyota Trucks, the enhanced site offers an advanced package of features and information uncommon to the average motorcycle show. It has never been easier to browse through information on show features, directions, tickets, travel and hotels and much more. Searchable exhibitor listings are available with direct links to virtual booths, floorplans, and a secure, advanced ticket sales page. Visitors can also send complimentary e-postcards to friends or family, locate participating dealerships distributing $1-off coupons, sign-up for on-site product giveaways or even purchase a copy of Bruce Brown’s Academy Award nominated documentary “On Any Sunday.”

The fun is not limited to consumers. Current and potential exhibitors will appreciate the useful references and guidelines available through the site. Working media will find pre and post-show-related information in the “Media Center” – a user-friendly resource for advance press pass requests, as well as downloadable Show Facts, Press Releases, high-resolution photos, well-written content prepared by the best essay writing service uk and a list of pre-scheduled press conferences and product releases.

“The International Motorcycle Shows® team makes continuous strives to be the benchmark of the competitive consumer-oriented powersports industry. I believe the new Web site meets the needs of its users by providing a rich mix of pre-show information in a user-friendly platform” stated Jeff D’Entremont, Show Manager. 

For over two decades, the Cycle World International Motorcycle Shows® Presented by Toyota Trucks have been the premiere winter refuge for powersports enthusiasts throughout the nation. All the latest models and accessories available for motorcycles, scooters, ATVs and personal watercraft will be on display from manufacturers such as Aprilia, BMW, Buell, Ducati, Harley-Davidson, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Triumph, Victory and Yamaha. Show-goers are also invited to preview this seasons hottest product offerings at “The Factory”, a series of showcase displays boasting parts and accessories from companies such as Arai Helmets, Autocom Communication Specialists, Bridgestone Tire Company, Castrol, ChatterBox, Dowco, Inc., Dunlop Motorcycle Tires, Dynojet Research, GIVI USA, HJC Helmets, K & N Engineering, Kendon Industries, Metzeler Motorcycle Tires, Muzzys Performance Products, Prexport, Progressive Suspension, Samson Exhaust, Shoei Helmets, Suomy Helmets, Thunder Manufacturing, Travelcade/Saddlemen, Winex Helmets and Yuasa Battery, Inc.

TEAM Powersports and the International Motorcycle Shows® team extends its sincere appreciation to long-time sponsors Cycle World Magazine and Toyota Trucks for their continued support and contributions to the International Motorcycle Shows® series.

TEAM Powersports is one of the largest producers of trade shows and conventions for the powersports industry worldwide. It is part of the Advanstar Powersports Group, which includes the Cycle World International Motorcycle Shows® Presented by Toyota Trucks, the Dealernews International Powersports Dealer Expo, Dealernews magazine, Aftermarket Business, Automotive Body Repair News, Automotive Marketing, and Motor Age. Advanstar Communications Inc. is a worldwide business information company serving specialized markets with high quality information resources and integrated marketing solutions. Advanstar has 92 business magazines and directories, 79 exhibitions and conferences, numerous Web sites, and a wide range of direct marketing, database and reference products and services. Advanstar serves targeted market sectors in such industries as art, automotive, beauty, collaboration/e-learning, CRM/call center, digital media, entertainment/marketing, fashion & apparel, healthcare, internet/e-business, manufacturing and processing, pharmaceutical, powersports, science, telecommunications and travel/hospitality. The Company has over 1,300 employees and currently operates from multiple offices in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia.

Tri-Five Chevys are, without question, the most popular ’50s cars around. Far more than just cult favorites, these machines have become automotive pop culture icons. Few will argue that they look sharp in stock form, yet somewhere along the line their designs have been deemed so sacred that most enthusiasts are intimidated to customize them anymore. That’s too bad, because it means we don’t get to see enough built like Harvey Bagshaw’s tasty tangerine ’55.

Harvey is no stranger to ’55-57 Chevys. The Mattituck, New York, resident started customizing them as a young lad back in 1962, and has owned a string of them through the years. But it wasn’t pure nostalgia fueling the build of this custom; fate and practicality also played their parts. “Parts are readily available; this is one reason this ’55 was chosen,” Harvey says. “The other reason is that it was for sale locally for the sum of $1,000. The car had the usual rust, but had been severely damaged on the left side and right rear. Previous repairs were marginal at best.”

In other words, the Chevy was a prime candidate for the custom treatment because it needed so much metalwork anyway. Harvey says he drew inspiration from early ’60s California customs when he began modifying the sheetmetal by welding the fenders to the body and raising the wheel openings. Then he gave the car a facelift by sectioning the grille opening 1 1/2 inches, removing the hood peak and sectioning the hood 2 inches, extending the fender eyebrows over frenched headlights, removing the parking lights, and filling the cowl. A bullet grille and shaved one-piece bumper added the right amount of shine.

Heading aft, Harvey removed the signature dip in the Chevy’s beltline, added shortened ’58 Chevy side trim, frenched ’54 Merc taillights into slightly extended quarter-panels, and formed a stylized license mount in the decklid. He eventually laid down a finish of House of Kolor Candy Tangerine on all the sheetmetal, accenting it with a lace-painted insert on the roof. All of this work was done in the two-car shop behind Harvey’s house.

While he may be handy with a welder and spray gun, Harvey prefers to let others turn wrenches. So before the bodywork was completed, he shipped the Chevy down to his son Scott’s shop, Planet Customs, in Kannapolis, North Carolina. There, with some help from his brother Jason, Scott got the chassis in shape by C-ing the rear framerails and building a custom four-link with air springs to hang the 10-bolt Malibu rearend. The front suspension also got ‘bags, along with a 605 steering box and sway bar. A set of deep-dish 15-inch Astro Supremes and skinny whitewalls (205/70 in front, 215/70 in rear) were chosen to provide the proper ’60s flavor.

To give the ’78 Chevy 350 mill an equally vintage vibe, Scott installed a solid-lifter COMP camshaft, roller rockers, and a dual-quad intake with Edelbrock carbs. Then he dressed the engine up with finned aluminum accessories from Mooneyes, backed it up with a Hurst-shifted Muncie four-speed, and gave it a classic rumble with 2-inch pipes and Smithy’s mufflers. Harvey altered another signature ’55 Chevy design element when he took the passenger-side hump and all the trim off the dash, leaving only the original speedometer peeking from behind its modified opening. This sparse approach made the flashy ’58 Impala wheel stand out even more. Finally, R&R; Auto Upholstery got the call to stitch the parchment-colored vinyl in a traditional manner before laying down orange carpet.

While Harvey’s custom Chevy may seem unorthodox by today’s standards, the results speak for themselves. Perhaps the neatest part is that it retains its ’55 Chevy identity through all the modifications. It also demands attention, or at least it did when it debuted at the 2005 Goodguys Southeastern Nationals in Charlotte. In fact, it got more notice than many high-tech ’55-57s that likely cost two or three times as much to build. That’s the good thing about the dearth of traditional-style Tri-Fives; cars like Harvey’s just get more attention.

…..So he had Steve Gibson Auto Body remove the emblems and door handles, but leave the signature portholes and side spears (which, along with the bumpers, were replated by Paul’s Chrome). The shop also frenched in a quartet of ’59 Cadillac taillights in the original locations before Steve Kallam loaded up his paint gun with Sikkens Ferrari Red urethane. When complemented with Boyd Coddington 17- and 18-inch wheels and meaty Michelin 225/50R17 and 255/55R18 rubber, the bright red hue helped create the tough, hot rod look Frank was after.

Frank changed things up a bit more in the Buick’s cabin. “The rear seat frame and metal dash (with modifications) are all that remain from the original interior,” Frank says. In between, he installed ’99 Acura bucket seats straddling a 2003 Buick Park Avenue console, and had Ray Hester wrap the seats and side panels in beige leather. Meanwhile, Mike Warwick wired the dashboard before it was fitted with custom aluminum panels, Classic Instruments gauges, an Aiwa stereo, and controls for the Vintage Air system. Finishing touches came in the form of an ididit tilt column, Billet Specialties wheel, and Juliano’s seatbelts.

The end result of Frank’s two-year effort is a very special Buick that’s a little bit custom, a little bit hot rod, and very cool all over. It’s a well-rounded cruiser that’s built to use and enjoy. “This car is driven–no trailer queen here,” Frank says. “I believe what I like most about this car [is] it’s just fun to drive. To me, that’s where the payoff is.”

Few cars make more natural mild customs than ‘50s-era Buicks. These big, bold cruisers have always had just a little extra style and panache than common, everyday Chevys and Fords. Beyond that, their relative scarcity today makes them all the more distinctive when plunked down in the midst of such aforementioned marques at cruise nights and car shows.

The attributes of Buick’s brutes are not lost on Frank Kallam, who says he always liked the “swooping side moldings, fender vent holes, and signature grille with vertical bars.” So he was quick to snatch up a nice, original, rust-free ’54 Special hardtop when it came along. Prior to the Buick, Frank’s stable of cars concentrated mostly on performance machines like Camaros, Corvettes, and GTXs. It should come as no surprise, then, that the Buick would undergo a somewhat muscular custom transformation.

Fatman Fabrications is just down the road from Frank’s home in Greensboro, North Carolina, so it was an easy choice to deliver the Buick there to be fitted with a new frame stub employing a Mustang II-style front suspension, Air Ride Technologies air springs, and Wilwood disc brakes. Another pair of air springs was set up with a four-link arrangement to suspend the 3.73:1-geared, disc brake-equipped 9-inch rearend. Fatman built mounts to accept a drivetrain befitting such a heavyweight cruiser–a 502ci, 502hp big-block Chevy crate engine and 700-R4 overdrive automatic. Eventually, Doug Garrett stripped the entire chassis apart to paint and detail everything prior to final assembly. Frank didn’t want to significantly alter the Buick’s visual character, just slick it up a little.

 

Frank kept tinkering on the Cad in his spare time, and one thing eventually led to another. He installed air springs, relocated the front shock mounts, C-notched the frame, and even raised the driveshaft tunnel, all so the massive 20×8.5- and 20×10-inch Intro wheels and Nitto tires would tuck up tight and put the frame on the pavement.

“Now the paint started to bother me,” Frank says, referring to some lacquer checking on the hood and deck. “I painted my Chevelle, so I thought I knew what I was in for. I really didn’t realize how much molding was on this car!” He discovered some minor rust after stripping the car down, so with the welder out for repairs, he proceeded to shave the door handles, hood, and deck, and fill holes in the core support and inner fenders. After countless hours block-sanding the 19ft body, Frank converted his two-car garage into a temporary paint booth and sprayed the custom-mix PPG blue basecoat/clearcoat finish himself.

Moving inside, Frank tore apart the dash, fit new Auto Meter instruments in the stock cluster, and had Red Line Gauge Works reface the gauges to match the car. He also removed the stock radio and ignition switch, made a trim piece to fill the voids, and mounted the new ignition switch and Eclipse head unit/DVD player behind the retractable ashtray door.

Audio Concepts in Simi Valley handled the stereoinstallation, mounting Diamond Audio component speakers in custom kick panels and building trunk enclosures for the Diamond Audio amps, 10-inch subwoofers, and Eclipse eight-disc CD changer. Scosche sound dampening materials and connectors were used throughout. Meanwhile, Doobies Upholstery laid down new carpet and recovered the dash and door tops; the rest of the original upholstery was good enough to keep. “The last big modification was a disc brake conversion,” Frank says. “My friend Dustin Burr at Wilwood helped figure out how to run 13-inch rotors up front. This wasn’t an easy task.” Six-piston calipers were mounted on custom brackets, while Bent Custom & Performance routed new hard lines to the Wilwood aluminum master cylinder.

When finished, Frank’s Cad had become the quintessential SoCal convertible–low, long, and cool, with just a dash of flash. He wasn’t the only one who thought so, as a local NBA player recently stepped up to buy the car, leaving Frank to ponder his next project. Will it be another ’60s mild custom? We sure hope so.

Take Frank Stevens, for instance. The 37-year-old toyed with VWs in the ’80s (he’s still working on a radical notchback), had a ’69 Blazer on the cover of Off Road in the early ’90s, and built a smooth ’70 Chevelle that made the cover of Popular Hot Rodding in 2001. His latest project, this slammed ’65 Cadillac ‘vert, came about almost by chance.

“I wasn’t looking for another car,” Frank says. “I still owned my Chevelle. My friend Rick McClure and I were driving home from the Pomona Swap Meet when he mentioned that a mutual friend had an old Caddy for sale. The next day we went to look at it, and the next thing I knew, I bought it!”

The clean Cad already had a rebuilt 429ci engine and only minor wear on the paint and upholstery. Still, Frank wasn’t certain why he’d bought it. At the time he was working with well-known street machine builder Steve Strope at Pure Vision in Simi Valley, California, and the car just didn’t seem to fit in. “I actually took it back to the Pomona Swap Meet to try and sell it,” Frank admits. “A few weeks later I came across a set of 20-inch wheels and put them on. Now the car looked pretty cool, but it was stock height. So I cut two coils out of it–now it was really cool!”

 

Greg gets credit for the metalwork, but kudos go to Mickey Galloway from nearby Brentwood, California, for the fantastic final bodywork that makes the AutoEuropa-applied PPG paint look so mirror-straight and deep. The lift-off top now wears black fabric to match the body, and features an updated rear window as well.

Keeping things in the family, the big Cad employs a ’79 Seville front clip expertly grafted to the original frame by Greg. Hand-fabricated ladder bars and Carrera coilovers position the Currie rearend, while Wilwood binders update stopping power front and rear. Further undercarriage inspection reveals a custom stainless fuel tank Greg built to appease the thirsty Chevy Rat motor. A few mild modifications (RV cam, Edelbrock carb and intake, MSD ignition, Flowmaster mufflers) make the 454 more than lusty enough for the big bruiser. A warmed-over GM 700-R4 transmission transmits ponies to the rear rubber.

A new suit calls for new shoes, and Foose wheels with BFGoodrich rubber fit the performance luxury theme perfectly. Sized at 18×7 and 20×9.5, they provide a slight rake while filling the reshaped wheel arches in style. Inside, the lucky driver and his passengers are treated to comforts that hold true to Cadilliac’s image of luxury. Credit Sid Chavers and Bob Devine for the gray cloth cloaking the Honda seats and the German square-weave carpeting underfoot. Bob exercises control through a Budnik steering wheel atop a GM column, and everyone’s ears are comforted by sounds from an extensive Alpine stereo system.

The Westbury Cad Attack was pretty slick in its primary incarnation; the second version is a complete knockout. The low, mean look whispers luxury and performance in a manner that’s just plain bad. It also exhibits one of Greg’s most admirable trademarks: a marriage of old and new that’s the ultimate in cool.

The word is out in Northern California–Greg Westbury builds a pretty mean car. Known for maniacal attention to detail and top-shelf fabrication skills, the “G-Man” has amassed quite a following around his home in Concord, California. Greg recently began building complete cars and motorcycles after earning a rep as a chassis fabrication specialist; he’s equally at home crafting a part for a car or the whole darn thing.

It’s not uncommon for Greg to do something more than once in his pursuit to get it perfect. It is unusual, however, for him or anybody else to build an entire custom car twice. Not twice as in two versions of the same ride, but redoing a finished custom into another completely different version.

Fourteen years ago, Greg built a wild ’49 Cadillac for his dad, Bob Westbury. He even got it on the cover of Custom Rodder’s Summer ’91 issue (remember when we were quarterly?). Back then, the Cad wore a chopped, lift-off steel top, divided windshield, and modified original grille. It had fat Mickey Thompson rubber, wheelie bars, and silver paint with hot-pink scallops on the nose. Yeah, you know the look–pure early ’90s.

Like so many other things in life, the Cad began to lose some appeal as years passed. Bob concluded that cosmetic surgery was in order and, naturally, he tapped Greg for the job. Both men felt big changes were in order; Greg ultimately settled for a Weight Watcher’s approach, instituting a slimming program that was nothing short of life changing.

The end result is that nearly every body part has been extensively remodified. The front fenders now slope to meet E-class Mercedes headlights, and the once-massive hood is more svelte after a severe pie cut and nose job that lays the front back two inches. It forms the top of a reshaped cavity showcasing a new single-blade custom grille that sits above a ’56 Chevy front bumper. Further back, the hood extends over the former cowl area, guiding air up and over a new one-piece windshield. The decklid is sectioned and tipped forward to echo the front sheetmetal, with a license plate fit flush to the extensively reworked ’56 Chevy bumper. Cadillac taillights from a ’91 DeVille cap off the reshaped rear fenders.