Continued from the Hall of Fame front page featuring the ''Lil'' Deuce Coupe.

..........Beside an old house on Monroe St. in Dearborn, Mich. The house was the home of the mother of "Ziggy" and he had a little shed out back where he did customizing for the locals. A couple of us went with Clarence when we went to buy the coupe. It was already channeled but was basically just a hulk. We towed it to the gas station where our car club hung out and started the worked of getting it running., A local guy that was a welder at the Ford factory welded in the motor mounts and we hooked up an Olds engine with an adapter to the stock transmission. I rebuilt several of the old tranies before he decided to pull the car apart and install a Lasalle tranny, and later a hydramatic, My buddy Jack Roe's Uncle, Tam, was a Ford Mechanic at the local Ford dealership and showed me how to rebuild the transmission.
I did a lot of the work on the car as Clarence was in school and didn't even have a license at that time. I drove the car to school using a coat hanger as a throttle through the firewall.
We also took the body to Pete's Custom shop on Fenkel road and this was to repair some rust and painted the car in white primer.
I started my striping career by striping the car with red striping. I had hung around Paul Hatton at Pete's shop and watched him stripe and starting learning watching him.One night at the gas staion Don Vargo brought his 34 Cabriolet and it was also in white primer . Little did any of the gang realize that these two cars would become show cars. What is amazing is that over a period of about 4 years, "Chili" would finish the car to show condition 4 different times!
The next phase had the Alexander Bros. continuing the work on the coupe and placing that famous nose piece on it. The years had taken their toll on the lower body, so the famous fins were fitted and this was long before Ferrari came up with the styling trick. During this period the car was called the "Silver Sapphire".
The scallops and striping was done by Paul Hatton of Detroit and the best striper I have ever seen, and the guy that got me into striping in my young days.
I left Michigan about this time and moved to Florida and I lost touch with the car and "Chili".
The famous phase was when the car was chopped and remodeled by George Barris in California, and sprayed a beautiful transluscent blue with white pearl scallops by Jr. Herschel.
( I hope that spelling is correct)
This then became the famous Lil Deuce coupe that was on the cover of the Beach Boys Album and also on the cover of the July 1961 Hot Rod Magazine. "Chili" and Ed Roth himself took the car to the photo shoot and that became the cover shot for both Hot Rod and the Beach Boys cover.
Shortly after the car was sold to a car club. They toured it on the east coast car show for a time, then sold it to Ray Woloszak.

Ray Woloszak, then owned it for 30 years and kept the car in show condition, but not exactly as it was in the sixties. He had a Chrysler engine and ran black walls. I ragged him for years that he needed to get those whitewalls back on.
Ray had been going to The Turkey Rod Run in Daytona and always parked the car in front of the Old Farts Car Club tent, where I was always on staff, and I knew exactly where the car was.

I got a call from "Chili" asking if I knew where the car was and I put him in contact with Ray.
Clarence " Chili" Catallo repurchased the "Lil Deuce coupe" from Ray Woloszak in July of 1997. Ray deserves a lot of credit for keeping the car safe.
The selling price remains a closely guarded secret. Ray Wolozak had always told me that he wouldn't take less than fifty grand for it, but my guess would be that the price was around forty grand.

Unfortunately Clarence passed away shortly after he repurchased the coupe.

His son Curt and his family, as a tribute to their father, restored the coupe to the exact specifications of the car in it's glory days. This is one of the rare examples of a Hotrod that has graced to the grounds at Pebble Beach, and at Meadowbrook Concours. It was featured at the Petersen Museum as part of the Music and Rods display. that celebrated the 1932 Ford Deuce coupes that were icons of the hotrodding scene. It also was in the 50th anniversary Autorama as one of the feature cars. it was in the Henry Ford Museum as part of the 75th anniversary of the deuce. It is now featured at the time of this writing in the Gilmore Museum in Michgan as part of the hot rod display there.
Probably the most recognized Hot Rod ever built and a great tribute to a nice guy. My hats off to his son for the fitting tribute to his father.
Clarence was one of my buddies in my teen years and I shall never forget the good times that we had.

Addendum: The car is featured in a hot rod display at the Gilmore Museum in Hickory Corners, Mi. featuring cars from the Detroit era. Check it out here

Bob Nugent
Copyright Hotrodsonline.com