1955 Ford - Blue, White & Out Of Sight

Car styling experts who read this magazine, among others, have favorite years that showcase their ideas of great automotive design. Rarely do these experts agree on which cars or production years look the best. It is almost universally accepted, however, that all American cars looked good in 1955. Ford, GM, and Mopar all had trim designs that lacked excessive adornment (only three years later, GM would launch the Olds and Buick lines that had more chrome than paint) and provided the consumer with a lot of choices, perhaps for the first time in modern car manufacturing.

The sharp-edged shape of the '55 Ford caught the attention of Mack Simmons, a lifelong car enthusiast, when it first came out, and in 1958, he signed up to make payments on a car for the first time in his life-that car was a '55 Ford. Mack went after his car compulsions as a young man until a career and a family caused the proverbial priority shift. In 1989, Mack acquired a '37 Chevy and began the process of turning it into the flamed and slammed powerhouse that it is today.

You know how it is; finishing a car is never the end. While the '37 was a great success (Mack still owns it), he still had that familiar craving for another car done just the way he wanted it, and that car was full of the elegant style of his first love, the Victoria hardtop convertible. Mack's tireless discovery efforts were rewarded, but there was a problem that seemed unfeasible. Every Vic he found, and there were several, was either too good (expensive), or a total rust bucket and still too much money.

As is often the case, when we get out of our own way, things just seem to happen on their own. While indifferently perusing the local free PennySaver magazine on a salmon fishing trip in Washington State, lo and behold, there was a '55 Fairlane Vic listed. Both the price and the car were right, and Mack brought home a much bigger catch than he had intended. OK, you can't eat the Ford, but you can't cruise in the salmon either.

Once home in Santa Rosa, California, Mack began to disassemble the hardtop. In fact, the car came all the way down to the frame. Hey, owning the car of your dreams always seems like a good idea at first. The once-perfect little virgin had undergone some tough living in her time. All quarters and rockers had to be replaced, but even this did not diminish Mack's dream of finishing the car within the year. That year was 1991. Optimism is indeed an endearing trait, and Mr. Simmons has it in abundance. This will undoubtedly come as a shock to the readership, but it took Mack just a little longer than anticipated to complete the project. Fourteen years to be exact. Fourteen years of having various pieces and parts of the project torn apart and under construction in his garage, bedrooms, and kitchen. When he says he spent many long nights in the kitchen, he doesn't mean baking peach pies!

Enlisting entirely local talent, he burned out all his buddies with a decade-and-a-half-long project. Jim Sozzoni, a Santa Rosa hot rodder and drag racer of considerable renown, was a mainstay of the build. Jim, who spent a lot of time working with Ron Fry-one of Northern California's most illustrious fabricators and engine builders, and father of Mendy Fry, the first woman to take a front-motor Top Fuel car under 6 seconds and over 250 mph-has impeccable credentials as an engine builder, metalman, and all-around knowledgeable freakin' car freak.

As time rolled on, Mack hoped for a break and some time to finish the Ford, and that's when his newly retired friend, Marvin Taylor, stepped in and offered to haul the partly reanimated corpse to his home shop and put it together. In 1994, Zane Cullen, one of the proprietors of the then-fledgling Creative Concepts, painted Mack's two-tone baby. In the typical chain of events, that would herald completion. In this case, however, completion would not be obtained until 2005.

A lot of people helped on the project, reinforcing the fact that Mack is the true essence of the hot rod hobby. "During the building and at the shows, it is the great people you meet that make the whole car thing so enjoyable," Mack said.

Mack is an unassuming guy, and he said the greatest moment for him in the whole (long) process was not showing off his car, but being invited to the famed invitation-only Fresno Autorama hosted by hot rod legend Blackie Gejeian. The most-heard compliment the car receives is one simple word: clean. For a hot rod guy, that is the ultimate word of praise. Does Mack have any regrets about the project? Only one: "If I had it to do over, I'd put a Ford motor in it." Give it a rest, Mac; it's so close to perfect that nobody in his or her right mind would ever say anything about the car except, "clean dude, clean."