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Jeffrey Love - Shop Owner & Mechanic
I suppose I've got gasoline for blood; type hi-test. How could I not? My dad grew up touring the country in Cadilliacs in the '40s & '50s (is that great or what?!?). Each year, my mom's dad used to take her to the dealerships the day they would peel the paper off the showroom windows revealing the new model year's cars. Dad's first car was a
Dad's '48 Ford
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'48 Ford. He bought a set of dual carbs for it from Montgomery Ward, but when gasoline started spraying everywhere after starting it up, he freaked and returned them (sorry pop, I had to tell 'em; if I make any money in this business, I'll build you a '48 with 3 deuces). Later, he had a '57 T-Bird and at 21 he bought a brand new 1960 Corvette. Around that time, |
my mom was driving a '54 Corvette, how perfect. Marriage and a kid led to mom getting a 1969 Ford Country Sedan station wagon with a 390ci V8 & a four barrel, naturally. We wouldn't want the little wife to be late for PTA meetings, now would we?
Having been born in Michigan in 1969 is probably the reason why I don't really want to work on cars newer than me (but I do have this sick affinity for early Pintos). I'm convinced I was destined to appreciate the value of Vintage American Iron, however I didn't always think this way...
I got my start in automobiles racing Hot Wheels™ on plastic tracks draped down the stairway of my parent's two-story home. Later, I developed an invaluable talent for identifying cars by the red glow of their taillight patterns at night. I'd usually perform this amazing sideshow on family road trips while leaning over the backrest of the front bench seat in our station wagon. When it came time to replace the old wagon we bought a 1977 Chevrolet Caprice Classic. Both dad and mom sure missed the punch of the 'ol 390. Occasionally, I drove this mid-seventies juggernaut to high school, and I could never get it to do a burn out. We also had (and still do) a 1979 Chevrolet Suburban 4x4. The thing has always run like hell, with the exception of the time we had to burn airplane fuel in it while touring Baja California. Given the fact that both American cars in my life as a young driver were slow and/or ran poorly, I was not impressed.
Being left handed, I discovered at an early age that I was different from everybody else. Some close friends of my mom's had Volkswagens. He drove a bug, a '66 I think, and she drove a 412 wagon. I remember the time that she lifted the hood on her wagon and there was no engine. She took me around to the back and showed me the panel under the cargo section floor where the engine lived. Now, I was familiar with rear engine cars, my dad had replaced his Corvette with a 1970 Porsche 911T, but a wagon?!?! I was hooked. Suddenly the Volkswagen was the car that I could relate to. It was different and it was the underdog; my hero.
Dad bought me my first car at 15. A 1961 VW Beetle. I was so excited about getting one, that I couldn't think objectively and he let me convince him that the first one we drove was the one to buy. It needed a lot of work, but I loved it. Of course I couldn't leave it stock, so I put a 1600cc engine in it, with dual carbs and a header. It was fast, and since I lived in the hills, it handled pretty good. At high school the auto shop kids were all into American cars; Mustangs, Chevelles, Cameros, etc. They gave me a hard time for driving a VW. One morning this one guy, who gave me the hardest time, rolled up next to me at the stop sign at the bottom of the hill that led up to our high school. He drove an early '70s Camero. I looked at him, he looked at me and we both went for it. Drag racing up the four lane road that led to school I whipped him and badly. I'm not sure how they found out, but all his friends gave him hell and finally gave me respect
My shop teacher was different too, he had a 1969 Alfa Romeo Berlina. This thing was immaculate and had an incredible looking engine. Everything was polished to a show luster. He invited me to go for a ride in it after school one day. Now If you're unfamiliar with these cars, the Berlina is a boxy four door sedan. It's good looking (after all, it is Italian), but simple. What's cool about the Italians is they build their sedans (family cars) on the exact same chassis as their sports cars; same engine, transmission, suspension, brakes, etc. It was fast, it snarled when changing gears and impressed me so much that I immediately requested a four period day and began apprenticing in an Italian auto shop.
I learned a tremendous amount about servicing cars there, I also learned how to swear. Italian cars are the hardest to work on, bar none. The designers focused on two things: performance and looks. How it went together and came apart wasn't their problem. As a result, the mechanics had to come up with clever ways to do what should have been the simplest of procedures. It was a good lesson.
I moved onto German cars next. I worked for several years as an Audi, BMW, Porsche & Volkswagen mechanic at Griffin Motorwerke. The shop specializes in performance tuning, but also offers standard service. Here I learned to build engines the right way. I ran the in-house machine shop and balanced crankshafts, rods & pistons. I also set up sport suspensions and learned how to make a Volkswagen bus go 100+ MPH, that sort of thing. I also learned how to fabricate. Often we would need to make special brackets or panels to fit aftermarket oil coolers, turbo chargers, etc.
After awhile I decided to move away from the automotive industry. I had figured that I would need to own my own shop, but I was not ready to make that commitment yet. It was during this time that I really began to fall for old American cars. I mean, I had always loved
| them, I had dreamed about owning a few different models when I was in high school, a shoe box Ford, a '56 Buick, a '59 Pontiac Star Chief. Instead, I bought books and I studied them. I read about the designers, the motoramas, and the dream cars. I began to realize that my roots were here in America, not Europe, and I needed to do something to preserve that heritage. I knew that restoration work was what I really |
My 1955 Oldsmobile 88
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wanted to do. I picked up the phone book and called the first place that I saw listed. I pitched myself, and they hired me.
Epifani Restorations has got to be one of the best restoration shops in the country, if not the world. The shop restores vintage Italian and British racing cars to concours condition. The cars that roll out of that shop are first prize winners at Pebble Beach and other concours shows or leading contenders in the vintage road racing circuit. It was an
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I completed this 1932 Alfa Romeo Monza Shown at Pebble Beach
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honor to have been a part of their team. Unfortunately, all that Italian style just didn't stop my heart from aching for American iron. Fortunately, a '35 Ford pickup, a '50 Chevrolet Deluxe pickup and a '50 Chevrolet Deluxe Hardtop coupe sneaked their way in and I knew I had found my calling.
The lessons I learned at Epifani are too numerous to describe. I have always been detail oriented, but I learned how to take it to the next level. I learned that being a craftsman is a dying art, and that I am one of the few in my generation who knows how to practice this art. I learned that you can't just buy a new part for a 1955 Maserati 300s; you have to repair or make a new one and, as a result, my fabricating skills grew |
stronger. I learned that a restoration project is always more expensive than originally bid, and that anyone hoping to undertake one should understand that going in. I learned that if anything can go wrong, it will. Most of all, I learned that when you take that car for its first ride after several years of being disassembled, it is the closest thing to heaven.
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