| In the backyard of a glass shop on Lamar in bakin’ hot Austin we find a shop just ripe for building custom sleds and traditional rods. |
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Austin Speed Shop headed up by John Joyo and master builder Bob “Bleed” Merkt and working with a crew of equally strong craftsmen build dream vehicles for the Austin hot rod crowd. Rocko showed us around as we toured their showroom – equipped with a Jesse James custom sled, and then out to the shop to see some of Bob’s handiwork. “You can say Bob’ signature is shown on this frame here” Rocko points out. The frame is a boxed set of rails with curvilinear cross-braces with lightening holes and removable plates to hide electrical and other undercar devices. Sitting between the rails like a fat-lady in a Snuggly is a monster hemi topped with 8 – count them 8 – deuces. This is the bones of some serious machine. Next to it is another frame ready to work with his signature removable box plating.
There’s no slowing down at this shop. The work is as fast-paced as the machines they produce. We saw a guy finish welding a bitchen dash for a car that is out getting some bodywork done, and Sean “Fat Lucky” Johnstun was re-stitching the soft-stuff of a Riv whom the owner wanted the girly magazine covers taken out of the seat inserts and updated to his standards. Fat Lucky shares the shop with Austin Speed Shop and as the Go-To-Upholstery guy in Texas he was plenty busy with nearly a half-a-dozen projects in the works. Not only was the shop full of current projects the yard outside was littered with future projects as well. From Model T’s to 1st gen Camaros, there was plenty of iron getting a tan in the hot Hill-Country air. A key future project is a Zephyr just waiting to clear the cobwebs in some serious ground pounding. We escaped the heat and retreated back to the showroom to find a cool display of vintage and era specific memorabilia. All things vintage. From Hot Rod Magazines to a Gotha pulley. Valve covers, stickers, Roth stuff and intakes. Some pretty cool stuff. Well, I think we bugged them enough. I picked up a t-shirt and a couple of posters and we headed back into the 104 degree Texas road to get some BBQ at the Salt Lick outside of town in the Hill Country. |
| Check out their shop on line at www.AustinSpeedShop.com and if you’ve been there and want to share your stories. Give me a ring. T-Bone |