YOUNGER GENERATION CONTINUES HOT-ROD LEGACY
Twenty yeAr old is teAChing his supportive dAd how to Customize ‘old skool’ vehiCles
Twenty-year-old Tobin Fitzl knew from the age of 14 how he would spend his working life. He wanted to build custom cars and hot rods. And so at that young age, he bought a rusty 1952 Lincoln Capri hardtop with $1,500 earned on his parent’s poultry farm in South Langley, with plans to restore it.
Willy and Monica Fitzl didn’t know anybody doing restoration, so they and their only son joined the Early Ford V8 Club for advice and support.
“They were very welcoming and helpful,” Willy says today of the experience.
But Tobin decided to go in a different direction with his hobby car. He whacked the top. That’s custom car parlance for lowering the top for a much sleeker look. Tobin’s passion for cars was ignited by Duane Mitchell, auto shop teacher at Langley Christian School. Tobin started his auto-body-technician apprenticeship in Grade 11 and followed it through Grade 12 and graduation.
He continued his apprenticeship at Vancouver Community College and received practical experience working at Rumble Seat Restorations in Mission. During this time, he artfully changed the look of his old Lincoln by lowering the roof and extending the rear fenders — adding curvaceous 1956 Packard tail lights — just the way the famous California customizers built magazine cars in the Fifties.
Tobin’s love affair with custom cars of the past led him to build a Ford Model A coupe hot rod that looks like it’s from the early 1950s — built by a teenager with ingenuity but little money.
The fenderless and hoodless coupe, featuring a chopped roof and louvered trunk, is powered by a Ford flathead engine with open exhaust and floor-shift transmission. The paint is black primer, the seat cover is a blanket, and there are no creature comforts.
At the age of 17, Tobin teamed up with veteran hot-rod builder Frank Bevacqua to turn out hot rods and custom cars for other people. His parents decided to downsize their egg production from 6,800 birds to 3,800, and Willy repurposed an unneeded poultry barn into a new home for TopTen Hot Rods.
Through all this, Willy got the bug to build his own hot rod with help from his son. He recalled his souped-up 1957 Chevy Tudor from his own teenage years.
Willy’s 1935 Ford three-window coupe is now taking shape in the shop’s paint booth under the careful guidance of Tobin. Also looking as if it was built in the early 1950s, the coupe is powered by the venerable Ford flathead V-8 but with some very unusual speed equipment: a McCullough supercharger from 1939.
Tobin is a natural when it comes to building custom cars. He has taken courses in California from legendary customizer Gene Winfield and Lazze Metal Shapers in Pleasanton. He has learned to design, fabricate and paint custom cars as well as doing all the intricate wiring and mechanical work.
“We needed to fuel Tobin’s passion for cars,” Willy says. “We are self-employed people so we encouraged Tobin to follow his love of old cars.”
Family holidays are spent chasing parts in the U.S. Many of the rare parts are purchased online.
Tobin’s hot-rod shop has now added a third metal meister who is also a ticketed auto body technician with a passion for customizing cars.
Among the eight projects in production are a 1938 Ford cabriolet, 1934 Ford roadster, 1937 Ford pickup truck, 1950 Chevrolet pickup truck, 1966 Corvette, 1930 Dodge sedan and Willy’s 1935 Ford three-window coupe.
A special project is a radically customized 1940 Mercury convertible built in California as a 100-point show car. Says Tobin: “The owner wants it to be 110 points.”
The 20-year-old auto crafter drives his Ford Model A coupe hot rod regularly while living and breathing the custom-car culture. The future looks bright for the hobby with Tobin as a shining example of a young person getting involved. Now Tobin Fitzl is teaching his father how to build “old skool” hot rods and custom cars as an art form.