The founder of Vintage Air wins big at the Grand National Roadster Show with a car he’s been working on over 25 years.
“Twenty years I’ve been working on the damn thing. Well, you know, all together longer than that. But really well, I started collecting the parts…”
“I had it in my head. Many years ago, I had Thom Taylor do a rendering of it in about 2000. Okay, so that’s 23 years ago, but I was already gathering parts before then…”“I was more on the race-car, performance-oriented side of things. I wasn’t a big custom car guy. I mean, I like ‘em now a lot more but I really liked the hot rods.”
When they had all the AMBR contenders up on stage and they were handing out awards for Best Paint, Best Undercarriage, Best Whatever Else, Chisenhall’s car didn’t get anything, which either meant he was going to go home empty handed or he was going to win it all.“I can’t even believe it,” he said walking from the stage to his car. “It’s like, ‘No way!’”The 1960 Buick Invicta custom won the Slonaker Award for the best non-roadster entry.
Invicta features a centrifugally supercharged Buick 401 nailhead V8 with smoothed and polished block and heads. The two-door hardtop’s interior has custom hardback bucket seats with custom pearlized leather and woven aircraft carpeting. The Eliacostas say the car pays homage to the design wonders of the B-52 Stratofortress. It has a one-piece machined rear bumper, for instance, to “deliver a refined and polished flow for an overall elegant and aerospace-inspired final product.