Dan Hughes 1957 Chevrolet Convertible

Dan provided Art Morrison with the following information about his Tri5 project.

I purchased the car from Ed Lahuta Jr. of Cherry Hill, New Jersey on November 28, 2006. Ed had inherited the car from his dad Ed Lahuta Sr. ( I am not sure who Ed sr. bought the car from or what # owner he was) Ed Sr. was a machinist and had been working on the car for 30 Years. I don't know this for a fact, but my feeling is that he enjoyed working on the car and finishing in a timely fashion was never an issue.

Ed Jr. had taken it to a friend who owned a body shop and was storing it there as his friend worked on the car from time to time. Eds friend ended up closing the body shop and moving, so Ed Jr. decided to sell.

The car was in a thousand pieces when I bought it. I could not get a transport company to pick up the car and the boxes. Therefore my business partner Chris Levenhagen and I flew to Philadelphia on the red eye. Ed picked us up at the airport at 6am and we stopped by Budget and rented a truck and car hauler.

Nothing was ready for us. We spent the next 5 hours loading the truck finding parts in the garage, the shed out back, Eds moms garage and basement. Everything was covered in a thick layer of bondo dust, was wet and moldy smelling. Ed even mailed parts to me later.

We hit the road at 11am and drove for approximately 10 hours, stayed in a motel that night, then took turns driving straight through to Scottsdale, AZ. 2350 miles total.

I didn't do much to the car till April 2007. A good friend recommended Bernie Wright of Kingman, Arizona for the paint and body work. I drove to Kingman (my home town) met with Bernie, liked what I saw and we struck a deal. I delivered it to Bernie April 27, 2007. Bernie started on the body and I got with Scott Randle at AMC and ordered the frame, suspension, rear end, headers etc. I was like a proud father picking up the large crate at UPS and transporting across town. I painted and prepped the rolling AMC chassis in my driveway and delivered it to Bernie on June 18, 2007