If you’re into hot rods, you should know the name Scott Sullivan. He built the “Cheese Whiz” 1955 Chevy that won a ton of awards when it was first introduced to the public. Not satisfied with that, Scott then set out to prove Pro Street cars were real cars by convincing me to ride shotgun while he drove this radical hot rod across country at a time when that endeavor was considered implausible.
I’ve known Scott for 30-plus years, and when we arrived in Los Angeles after our famous Pro Interstate trip (HRM, Dec. 1988 and Jan. 1989), he had planned to stay at my house for two weeks. He stayed for two months. We have lots of stories together and perhaps one or two perpetuated myths.
Scott has built some of the most notable—yet unpretentious—hot rods, which are most noteworthy for having absolutely timeless styling. That is not an easy thing to pull off. Try setting trends without begin trendy yet simultaneously taking risks that others would not. It’s a very fine line. He’s talented enough that others assume he has a huge shop and cranks out cars with a legion of helpers, like the shops on reality TV. The truth is he builds these cars by himself (with some help from friends), and all have emerged from the little two-car garage behind his house in Dayton, Ohio. It’s not magic, it’s just a ton of hard work.
There was a time when just about every car artist in the world was copying his graphic paint ideas, and he’s told me that nobody was brush-finishing stainless until he did it on the ’55. It’s rumored that once Boyd Coddington’s crew finished “CadZilla,” Boyd announced, “Well, that guy from Ohio drove his car across country, so I guess we gotta drive CadZilla, too!” You could also make the argument that the Cheese Whiz’s cross-country trip blazed the trail that eventually became the HOT ROD Power Tour.
The list of cars Scott has built includes a blue 1967 Pro Street Nova that won nearly everything at the 1980 Car Craft Street Machine Nationals in Indianapolis. That same car then appeared simultaneously in the Oct. 1981 issues of HOT ROD, Car Craft, and Popular Hot Rodding. Even Bruce Springsteen was only in two magazines at the same time in 1975. OK, he was on the cover of Time and Newsweek—big deal!
Scott has recently completed the build of a 427ci, LS-powered 1954 Chevy that could take up a whole issue of HOT ROD just to relate all the setbacks and challenges he faced while building it, so he’s hardly resting on laurels won 40 years ago. It’s also worth mentioning that Scott has built his share of motorcycles and has likely exerted influence over more car builders in the last four decades than anyone cares to admit. He was also a force behind the creation of the original Dare to be Different concept that debuted in HOT ROD’s July 1980 issue. Along with his creations comes a boundless supply of stories that could fill volumes, we’ll try to squeeze it down to just five minutes.
HRM] So as a car builder, we have to ask about your first car.
SS] [Laughs] My mom was terrified I would not survive after getting my license, so she bought me a 1964 VW with a blown-up engine. She thought it would take me a long time to get it running, so she could postpone the inevitable. Eight months later, I won my class at the local Carl Casper car show. I put a used Scat 1,400cc engine and four fiberglass fenders on it and painted it white pearl with candy blue, magenta, and red accents. It had all the custom paint tricks known to man at the time. Even freak dots! It would not have been possible without my mentor, Mike Yahle.
HRM] So you were 16?
SS] I started on it when I was 15 in 1970.
HRM] I’ve heard you say, “Stance is everything.”
SS] A lot of people have said that, and it’s true, but it’s also very subjective. For me, I’m hypercritical about it to within a 1/2 inch. If my car is off by a 1/2 inch, I can see it—and it drives me nuts. It’s the difference between being a bad-ass car and a super-bad-ass car.
HRM] You prefer to set the stance with the chassis rather than with bags…
SS] It requires more work, but it’s the right way to do it. The difference between just putting bags on a car and Z’ing the frame is like the difference between building a rowboat and building the Titanic. The most important thing about having a car low is to take a bunch of small changes instead of taking it all out in one place. I usually Z a frame about 2 inches, but I’ve seen guys take 7 inches. That doesn’t work. The car has to have the real estate to allow everything else to clear. If you have the time and the ambition, you can do all the labor and end up with both ground clearance and ride quality. My secret weapons are RideTech and Dynamat.
HRM] Of all the cars you’ve built, do you have a favorite?
SS] I like an awful lot about all the cars I’ve built. It’s hard to pull one out. I just love to drive ’em. I do really love that little Henry J, and I couldn’t be happier with how the ’54 rides. The black ’57 was a little disappointing. It flexes a little more because it’s a hardtop. I base my favorites on how much fun something is to drive.
HRM] OK, before we go any further, we have to have one Cheese Whiz war story that hasn’t really been told.
SS] How ’bout the tornado in Baker [California]? We were on I-15 heading out of Las Vegas, and I looked to the left and saw the most insane curtain of lightning. It was shooting sideways! I said, “Can you shoot that?” and you said, “Not without a tripod.” So we used the car as a tripod, but then the rain started coming down real heavy and everybody was getting off the freeway in Baker. It was raining sideways, and we pulled into this abandoned gas station with a canopy. I looked over to my left and saw a 55-gallon drum. I started the car and backed up about 20 feet, and that’s when that drum went flying right where we had been. After we woke up in L.A. the next day, that’s when we discovered we had been in a tornado! I remember seeing those transformers just blowing up like in a line.
HRM] The car that started all this madness was your 1967 Pro Street Nova. HOT ROD voted it Street Machine of the Year in 1979. That car is still around, isn’t it?
SS] My buddy, “Rhode Island” Ronnie [Ianotti], bought the car from me in 1984. He still has it. At one point, a motorcycle fell on the fender and damaged it. He unbolted the fender, pulled it off, and had FedEx ship it to me. I fixed it and sent it back to him.
HRM] This is more of a statement than a question. If we lined up all the cars you’ve built—many from the 1980s and 1990s, including the Nova—those cars would not look dated. That’s not easy to do. You can spot most 1980s Pro Street cars from across town, but an average young rodder would not realize that you built that blue 1967 Nova in 1979 or the Cheese Whiz ’55 in 1988.
SS] Yeah, but the ’55 has a tweed interior—that’s dated now.
HRM] One of my favorite cars that received very little attention was your brown 1964 Nova with the six-cylinder engine.
SS] I built that car as a daily driver right after the blue ’67. They were polar opposites. I kept the six because the Nova only had 20,000 miles on it. I wasn’t about to pull a motor that only had 20,000 miles on it. It was a fun, little car.
HRM] We could probably do this for another hour and not even scratch the surface of Scott Sullivan stories.
SS] Well, if this isn’t interesting enough, just let me know. We could make some stuff up!
Source: Read Full Article