RIP Lil' John Buttera
 

Everyone in the world knows by now that Boyd died last week but to top that off, his original partner and the true inventor of the billet wheel, Lil' John Buttera died on Sunday! He was not as well known outside the industry as Boyd but was every bit as much of an innovator and left a huge mark on this industry as well as drag racing and Indy Car racing.

If you don't know his endeavors, it's worth your time to google him or dig up some issues of Hot Rod from the 80s. Just for an example, he built Top Fuel cars, Indy Cars, and AMBR winners just to list a few of his bigger achievements. A true pioneer.

Sad week for hole industry. I remember clearly at late 80s how impressed i was hes machined aluminum parts. Really head of hes time then.

There will a a void in the industry for years to come for what both of these guys have done for the business.

Lil John was a cool guy. I remember talking with him in 1986 (or 7?) it was shortly after he had finished that white 33 willys for the guy who (then) owned Mr.Gasket (forget his name)....The wheels he made for that thing were, at the time just freaking amazing...a true pioneer, RIP Lil John

John started out in Kenosha where he was partners with Dennis Rollain and they founded R&B Automotive....they started the business in the mid-sixties and built Mr.Norms first Fiberglass Car as well as Don Schumacher's early Stardust cars.....John moved to California in the late sixties and the as I remember ....the first job he had when he got out there was working for and building the Mickey Thompson Funny Cars...then he went out on his own and built all of Barry Setzers cars and the rest is History..........

Ken

A true Pioneer in everything he did. As Jason said, from Top Fuel to AMBR he set the bar. One of those guys that I'm sure forgot more than many will ever know! Once again - another hard hit to the indusrty. RIP Lil' John!

Brent

RIP Lil' John. The industry will miss you.

There were several of Lil's cars (and a bike) that really stuck out to me over the years. One was the 1st gen Nova with the (then) brand new C4 vette suspension - man I thought that was an unbelievable piece of work - and displayed with his son Chris's Camaro with the fuel injected motor really struck a cord with me. (I still have that Hot Rod magazine) He brought them to the Indy Goodguys that year - in a billeted out custom Goodyear semi that he did for the Goodyear Tire corp. My friends and I looked over those cars for hours ! Then there was the white Willie's with the westlake v8 in the front - and a Porsche transaxle in the back and all the custom billet stuff again (wow, I’m thinking that's where my sickness started...) I got to meet him a couple times at the Indy 500 in the 70's and 80's as a track rat. He was always there helping support the normally aspirated v8 or v6 teams qualify for the race. I always thought it was neat that the real car builder/racers knew the guy and congregated around him - while all the PR Machine type people never seemed to notice someone like Lil' or his efforts - their huge loss huh ! The guy was a legend of our time and we certainly owe him our thanks for guiding our hobby to new levels. RIP