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A HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOR
Wacko, a crafty man, this Kent guy, and he and his merry men do wonders to metal bodies
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Dave Kent, otherwise known as Wacko, the madcap owner of Creative Car Craft, is everything you've ever heard about a wild-eyed genius - and then some. There among the hammers and dollies he quivers - a chaing-smoking, coffee-drinking, blunt-talking, tailings-covered troll, nimbly moving from reskinning a rare Ferrari to fabricating a T-top for a more common subcompact. He's a one-man band - ordering parts, mixing paint, spreading lead, beating fenders, giving advice and needling his crew in a high-pressure situation without ever showing the slightest sign of the bosom-clutching histrionics usually associated with people blessed with similar talents. Instead, Kent lights up another - you guessed it - Kent, empties his cup, gives those around him a lopsided smirk, and announces to one and all, "Don't sweat it; we'll slobber that s---box together in plenty of time." And it happens. Dave, Don Borth, Charlie Eddy, Bob Farrel and "Ricardo Vaselino," plus the rest of the cirus fold in and around the shop, do just that - which makes Creative Car Craft one of the finest advanced styling and prototype shops in the country.
Colorful Creative Car Craft didn't simply happen. It's the logical culmination of Dave's 25-year love affair with restyling, repairing and repainting cars. Back in the middle '50s, when the 15-year-old self-taught bodyman and tin bender couldn't find anyone to paint the way he wanted, he learned that skill too. Finally, though, he decided that beatin' out a living back in Pennsylvania wasn't for him, and when the chance came, Dave followed the advice of Horace Greeley and went West. What Dave really did was to journey to Culver City, California, and pray at the shrine of Troutman and Barnes, fabricators extraordinaire. Through the efforts of Pete Brock, Troutman and Barnes saw samples of Dave's work. Liking what they saw, they began to send him small jobs to test his skills, skills sufficeint enough to allow him to paint one of Lance Reventlow's Scarabs, built by T&B.
From there Dave began fabricating digger bodies for Dick Stahl, helped Roger Wilford with his bricklike Secret Weapon "funny" Jeep, and even managed to scare up enough time to build a '63 Oakland Roadster Show winner out of a '56 Ford convertible. However, during this dabbling period, Dave discovered one very important fact that was to shape the destiny of Creative Car Craft. He didn't want to specialize himself or his company into a corner. That's why you see Dave beating out our Mustang or putting together the first Malibu Grand Prix racer.
But there is also a practical side to Dave Kent. For instanced, instead of easing our little Monroe prototype out the front door and bidding it a fond farewell, Dave plans to take molds off the body panels and offer the fiberglass replicas as a $1000 combination bolt-on, glue-on kit. The way Dave envisions the kit, the front end, front fenders, spoilers and dams will bolt onto the original sheetmetal, with provisions made so the stock front bumpers will fit without alteration. As in the front, the aft portion of the kit will feature "epoxyed-on" rear quarter panels and enough space left in the air extractors to allow the owner to use his stock rear bumpers and braces.
While the original Mustang II project remains a collection of our winning sketch with additions from Harry Bradley, Tod Gerstenburger and Harry Weeks, it took the creative talents of Kent, Borth and Eddy to transform these sketches into the three-dimensional reality that graces our June cover. And as we lowered the little Monroe Handler off the jackstands for the last time, you could hear the unmistakable Kent rasp over the slap hammer in the background: "I told you we'd get your s---box finished in time. Next case!"
See the Get Down article for the continuing story of the Monroe Handler.
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