Andy's Instant T

How many hot rods do you suppose are truly notable cars? We're not talking about well-known cars that make the Wednesday night taco cruises; we're talking famous cars, cars that enthusiasts across the country--if not the globe--know. The truth is you could distill the thousands of hot rods and street rods into a few hundred notable ones. Now, how many of those cars are notable in more than one version? The numbers really start shrinking.

The car pictured here may not be overwhelmingly famous today, but it's notable to the mindful for several reasons, nonetheless. It's one of the first industry-available kit cars. It's one of the first T-buckets with a Corvette IRS. It made the rounds with several notable owners, one of which drove it across country to the second Rod & Custom Street Rod Nationals. Among its other accolades: It won the 1977 America's Most Beautiful Roadster award and is credited as one of the transition cars that brought the street-rod movement out of the T-bucket/resto-rod era and into the contemporary era. This is the Candyman. This is its story.

The Candyman started as Miles Foster's car. It began as one of Andy Brizio's Andy's Instant T cars--the third according to photographer Jim Handy. The car is exceptional for several reasons that marked the car before it even left Andy's shop. First, according to Roy, Andy's son, "Miles wanted to set his car apart from the rest; he saw the torsion bar frontend we did on the Volks Rods and wanted it for his car. We hadn't done it yet on a front-engine car, so his was the first." Second, Miles wanted yet another whiz-bang feature for the time: a Corvette independent rear suspension--again a first for a Brizio car. Finally, it was one of the only--if not the only--to leave Brizio's shop without a bed or turtle deck.

According to photographer Rudy Perez, Miles built the car with an exceptional amount of chrome from C&M plating. It originally featured a Moon fuel tank in lieu of the pickup bed, a fiberglass scoop, and 12- and 5-spoke American Racing wheels. Legendary engine builder Cub Barnett built a healthy 327ci Chevrolet for the bucket. It featured a 4-71 supercharger, but with a 2-inch Gilmer drive in lieu of the standard Cragar-style V-belt arrangement common to Brizio's cars, according to Roy. Like most of Andy's cars, Miles' car wore baffled Sanderson headers.

Miles commissioned famed painter Art Himsl to give the T one of his Haight-Ashbury psychedelic sprays over a pearl-white base. According to photographer Andy Southard, "Art had all of these leftover candy colors from previous jobs and he'd shoot this car with just about every one of 'em!" Of interesting note: the Himsl ribbon graphic predated the graphics on Andy's C-cab and 1970 AMBR-winning Instant T.

Miles took the car to Kenny Foster for trimming. According to Kenny Foster, Miles Foster's car was the first commission he had on his own at his AAction Auto Interiors, until late-'69, Kenny Foster trimmed for Interiors by Mack. He tufted pearl-white vinyl over heavy button-studded pleats for the seat and side panels. Miles Foster dubbed the car Expression and showed the car numerous times around the Bay Area.

Enter Bill Roach. Bill Roach's association in the car world is noteworthy for several reasons: First, Roach started a Concord Budget Rent-A-Car franchise in 1960--the first in California. Secondly, he, Sacramento Autorama founder, Harold "Baggy" Bagdasarian, and Starbird Rod & Custom founder and show promoter, Darryl Starbird, bought the Grand National Roadster Show from Al Sloanaker in 1973. Third, "I saw the car (Miles Foster's) at Harry Costas' show in San Mateo," Roach said. He bought the car sometime after the '70 GNRS and "at the time, it was painted all psychedelic and I didn't care for that look," he said. So he tore the car apart.

Roach sent the body back over to Kenny Foster for a rakish top. The top stood out for two reasons: it was a fully padded and had a lined top with a patterned rear window (three elongated diamonds). Then, according to Art Himsl, "Bill came to me and wanted the car gold with some orange flames on it," he said. "The car came without any fenders," Roach said, "so my father (Dale) made all the brackets and mounted the fenders to the car--the ones on there today. He also made the grille for the hood scoop."

Roach used the T for more than just a show car. "When my boy (Bill Roach III) was about 12 or so, we drove the T from the Bay Area to Memphis for the Street Rod Nationals (the 1971 event). I remember the car had a 10-gallon tank in it. It would go 100 miles--period! It would get anywhere within 100 miles but would die at 101. We had more fun on that trip than any other time that I can remember!"

The car under Bill Roach's stewardship appeared in the September 1972 Rod Action. The car's cowl-to-radiator section later appeared in Rod & Custom (Jan. '74) in a story titled "Buckets Full o' Miracles." The notable features on the car included the car's title on its cowl: Budget Mobile--a reference to Bill's Concord-based Budget Rent-A-Car enterprise.

Bill then sold the car to Northern California Harley-Davidson dealer, Bob Dron. Dron, a hardcore enthusiast and self-proclaimed finder of weak links, proceeded to, as he put it, "tear the hell out of the car." "I'm not scared of my vehicles; people who want to find the flaw in something will give it to me," he said. Dron found the Budget Mobile's weak link in the Sacramento delta soon after he purchased it. "It was a combination of that blown small-block and big tires and me doing burnouts; a Heim joint on the rear radius rod broke. I found a cable at a local parts store, wrapped it around the axle and crossmember, and proceeded to drive the car home about 40 miles. It was fine under power but it got real weird feeling when you got off the gas."

Dron, who admitted he wasn't a real T-bucket fan, remembers horse-trading the car for "a real cherry" '51 Mercury and some cash, thereby ending his brief but adrenaline-fueled affair with the Budget Mobile.

Now, at this point, the car's history gets really shaky. A 1973 San Mateo Auto Show photo shows the car with Tom Baggaley, Jr.'s name associated with it. Everything looks identical about the car, but the new owner painted over the Budget Mobile script with a desert landscape scene. The show plaque identifies the car as Ecstasy. Two photos from the 1974 and 1975 Grand National Roadster Show display the car with a blue plaque with what appears to be T Pieri from Alameda.

Somewhere between the 1975 and 1976 GNRS events, Pleasant Hill, California's Jim Molino bought the car for, according to Molino, $1,500. Molino, whose family ran a foodservice company, said, "I wanted to get into the show circuit, so we blew the car entirely apart." Among other things, Molino and his crew removed the spun aluminum tank and bonded a pickup bed to the body. He commissioned Art Himsl and Mike Hass to paint the car a candy red. But that wasn't all. According to Jim, Art's wife Ellen designed and painted a swarthy looking and handlebar mustachioed candyman on the bucket's doors, hence the Candyman moniker. Molino once again commissioned Kenny Foster to freshen up the car's interior and top.

The new top design used a three-porthole rear window design and a triangular Plexiglas panel in the top. Molino also replaced the rear wheels with wide Zenith wires and the fronts with skinny spindle-mount wires and simple disc brakes. At this point, Molino showed the car with the skinny front fenders. Molino then campaigned Candyman in the 1976 show circuit. While it did well by some standards, it didn't get the recognition he thought it deserved. So, at the end of the season, Molino decided to take the car to another level and to compete in the IASCA circuit. "We blew the car completely apart again," Jim says. This time, however, he went even deeper. Molino commissioned Sprint Car chassis builder, Chuck Delu, to "start with a fresh chassis," Molino said. This is a notable note since the new chassis mimicked the original chassis right down to the torsion-bar springs Denny Craig set up the original Brizio chassis with. Furthermore, Molino ground the engine and molded it completely smooth.

What came after the grinding session wowed the masses. Molino commissioned engraver, Rudy Pena, to tool just about anything that didn't wear paint on the car. His scrollwork and flourishes adorned everything from the blower pulleys to the valve covers to the battery tray and missed little in between. The freshly engraved pieces, the ground cylinder heads, and all the rest of the brightwork went to Walker's Custom Chrome in Vacaville for a silvery bath.

Jim contacted Art Himsl once again, but apparently Art's schedule wouldn't accommodate the job. So Jim commissioned Mike Farley and Bobby Martinez to shoot the car a pearl yellow with an elaborate graphic design overlay. For the third time, Kenny Foster once again refreshed the interior.

As for the engine, Walnut Creek, California's Morgan Machine and Marine freshened up the internals, the chromed heads went on, and the Sanderson headers made way for something more Sprint Car-inspired. Yet, more pearl-yellow paint and contrasting pinstriping dressed the block.

Furthermore, a wider set of Zenith wire wheels and 5.00-15 Goodyear hides replaced the spindle-mounted wire wheels up front. As you'd suspect, even Eddie Miller's Edco magnesium calipers bore the mark of the polisher. More double throw-down trick goodies included all AN fittings, stainless, braided Teflon lines, and not one onboard fire systems, but two.

The show world loves double throw-down tricks, and the car proved to be a smash hit on the road. Not that it mattered, really; the car proved its merit by winning America's Most Beautiful Roadster 1977 at the Grand National Roadster Show. That year, Molino campaigned the car under the Candyman banner in the ISCA circuit and won the International Show Car Association (ISCA) national points championship for 1977 as well--a first for a West Coast car.

Magazines, such as 1001 Custom & Rod Ideas (Jun. '77) described Candyman in superlatives and touted it as "overwhelming to even the saltiest, most seasoned rodding veterans," and "once seen, never forgotten." These are not terribly surprising accolades for a car with a claimed 30,000 1977 dollars in it. Then the inevitable eventually happened--Molino got an offer to sell the car in Kansas City.

Missouri Car dealer and Bill Roach friend, Lee Gunther, offered big cash to Molino for the Candyman. But when Molino showed up, "he (Gunther) wanted the truck and trailer, too!" Molino said. So, he parted with Candyman and the rig for some cold, hard cash and a new Lincoln Continental Mark V.

Gunther didn't sit on the car long; he turned the car onto another buyer. Then, as car dealings went in the late-'70s, things got shaky. As it turned out, Candyman's new owner had something going with Corvettes, and when his bank audited him and couldn't account for one of the cars, they sunk their figurative teeth in. Through some chain of events, the bank contacted Bill Roach to peddle the car for them.

The car eventually sold to Northern California's Arnold Link. According to builder and detailer Joe Bullock, Link rolled the car into climate-controlled storage in 1979. There it sat until late-'03, when Link decided to divest himself of the car and had Bullock freshen it up. The car went for sale online at Hot Rod Classifieds and the word went out. It wasn't out too long when Blackie Gejeian, Fresno Autorama promoter and owner of no less than four of America's Most Beautiful Roadsters (including his own 1955 winner), caught wind of the deal at the Oakland Rod & Custom show in 2004. He pursued the seller and secured the car quickly enough to display it with his AMBR entourage at the Detroit Autorama in February 2004. The car now rests with its famed brethren in Blackie's Fresno collection.

Remember the exercise on noteworthiness we began our journey on? Well, let's revisit it. Here's a car that's a first in many ways, lived three notable versions--one famous--with no less than four notable owners, and helped transform an automotive movement. When viewed in a narrow scope of time, it seems the Candyman didn't live up to its unforgettable status. On the other hand, Candyman is back, albeit in a historical perspective. With the attention and promotion it's bound to get in its new life, we're sure we won't get the opportunity to forget about the Candyman again.