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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend February 19, 2006 Car enthusiasts admire Dave Rasmussen�s 1936 Auburn Bobtail Speedster, lower right, and dozens of other cars Saturday at the Southern Oregon Rod and Custom Show in Central Point. The show continues today. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Long road to perfection Restoring a classic automobile, like those on display at the Expo, can drive you crazy By BILL VARBLE Mail Tribune As a boy of 10, Dave Rasmussen was smitten by a 1936 Auburn Bobtail Speedster he saw sitting in a field. "I said, ‘I’m gonna have one,’ " says Rasmussen, of Jacksonville. That was more than 55 years ago. The champagne-colored Auburn drawing oohs Saturday at the Jackson County Expo is more proof that you should be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. The car is just one of the examples of automotive art on display at the 29th Annual Southern Oregon Rod and Custom Show with more than 100 rods, customs and motorcycles. Behind a long, arrogant hood sporting menacing chrome pipes, the Auburn has a two-piece, boat-like windshield, seating for two and the signature tail tapering to a point. The engine is a high-performance, 429 cubic-inch Ford capable of pushing the 3,800-pound roadster above 180 mph. Advertisement A neat touch that signifies the car’s market niche in those Depression days is the "golf trunk" accessed via a hatch behind the passenger side door, just the thing for stashing the old mashie niblicks for a quick run to the club. The car was made by a revitalized (and later defunct again) Auburn company for the 1978 Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif., one of 450 built. Rasmussen got it in 1985, swapping a "perfect" Mercedes 230-SL he’d shown in the Concours D’Elegance at Pebble Beach, Calif. More than 2,000 hours of work have gone into it since then, most of it body and paint work by Tommy Carr of Gold Hill. Rasmussen almost lost it when he got the car back with the latest custom touch, a checkerboard paint pattern on the left side of the hood. "That was a miscommunication," he says. What he had in mind was a large brown swoosh, not brown checkerboard. "I’m starting to get over the shock," he says. "It’s starting to grow on me." Several passersby say the checkerboard adds a sporty touch. It’s not hard to picture Cary Grant driving. He’d be wearing a tweed cap. Rasmussen is threatening to bring magnetic chessmen and stick them on. "To me, Tommy is the top painter in the world," he says. The car’s hood ornament — an angelic female figure expressing speed and grace — was brass coated with nickel coated with chrome. Rasmussen began carving on it to get rid of a defect, a blow hole, and wound up spending 50 hours and removing a lot of material. He sort of redesigned it in the process. "I gave her a bigger bosom," he says. "I was going to give her cleavage, but my wife said ‘no.’ " Rasmussen’s car is just one star. The show features the LE-1 Groundfighter, a futuristic supercar built by Larson Engineering of Medford; Majestic Serenity, Cody Hoffman’s custom 1947 Buick convertible (named one of America's top 100 customs); and Twisted, a custom motorcycle by Thunder Struck Custom Bikes of Medford. There are gleaming Deuce coups, chopped and channeled Model A Fords, radical roadsters and sedans from the ’30s and ’40s. There are cruisers from the ’50s — lowered Mercuries and classic mid-’50s Chevies. There is the muscle car contingent from the ’60s and ’70s — GTOs, Roadrunners, 396 Novas and vintage Mustangs. There are oddities as well, like a 1967 VW mini-van that looks like it just rolled off the assembly line, surfboard and all. And there’s Grants Pass resident Mike Wingett’s fearsome-looking 1928 Sprint Car Indy racer, a 1901 curved dash Oldsmobile belonging to Bill Longiotti, of Talent. The amount of work it takes to produce a high-end restoration or custom is legendary, and Rasmussen has documented it. He’ll show you photos of a bare chassis, a firewall with 27 holes in it, buckets and buckets of bolts. "It’s gotta look bad before it can look good," Carr told him. Unable to find original wind wings for the windshield, he was having them made. He wanted the letters A-U-B-U-R-N and a floral design etched in the glass. Nothing suited. Then, on a trip with his grandchildren, seeing great etched glass at Disneyland, he asked where the work had been done. "In a tiny town up in Oregon," was the answer. That’s how he found Deb Fisher’s Cascade Glass Carving in Eagle Point, which did the wings. Beautiful as it is, the car has been modified. Carr lowered the headlamps, smoothed the line of the fenders, replaced original bumpers with "nerf bars" (tubular metal bars). As a result, Rasmussen expected the ADC man (an expert in classic Auburn, Duesenberg and Cord automobiles) who once spent a very long time going over the car to be critical of it. Finally, the fellow looked him in the eye. "Mr. Buehrig," he said, "would be proud." That would be Gordon Buehrig, the legendary automotive designer of Duesenberg, Cord and Auburn fame. If you go The show continues today from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It has raised nearly $300,000 over the years for children with cerebral palsy and developmental delays. Admission is $6 ($2 for kids). For information, call 857-9394. Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail Long road to perfection ">[email protected] . Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2006 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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