I Could Be Your Neighbor

[Rod P]

I have a new contributing article with my stories on a online car/race enthusiasts website called Bangshift, follow me this year! with some back story, and current tales of good and bad, here's the start

I Could Be Your Neighbor

But once you learn more about me, I’m sure you’ll be glad I’m not. My name is Rodney Prouty and what I am trying to say is: I’m a regular guy. I picked up some skills building stuff as a kid growing up in a generation (and household) where if you wanted something you either bought it with money from your paper route or you built it from crap you found in your Dad’s (or your friend’s Dad’s) garage. I didn’t have a paper route.

I have owned and driven some great cars through the years but, like you, I always wanted a true muscle car and I had become infatuated with the Pro-touring movement. Mine is not a story of a guy who’s Uncle left him a stock ’65 Mustang as a parting gift after years of teasing about skinny adolescent legs. My story is of a guy who took a chance on a shell of a car, scoured junkyards, asked everyone he could for their project cast-offs, had Craigslist as a screen saver and wasn’t afraid to learn how to do a little paint and body. A big part of my learning curve was saturating my evenings staring at (and reading) every thread on every car build forum I could in hopes that it would help me learn how to do things and what choices to make in my build.

By day, I work at Gotelli Speed Shop – a great speed shop that has contributed to racing history for 50 years; but let’s be real, it has not made me a millionaire. I spend all day telling guys who throw money at their cars, how to make them faster, louder and ‘hotter’.I find a lot of our customers want a faster car but don’t race; A louder car, that is too loud to drive to work; And, a ‘hotter’ car to show off to their buddies and wear out diapers waxing.

One of the most difficult questions, it seems, for my customers to answer is “why?” Why do you want your car to go faster, be louder and hotter? So many hot rod owners don’t have a goal in mind for what they hope their car will do and therefore, they are either in a state of a perpetual build or constant lust for the latest and greatest they just read about in some car magazine. My car was a rusty piece of crap that I paid $100 for.......read the rest here