Larry Edsall / Special to The Detroit News

This much-customized and modified car is a clone of an earlier vehicle and was built as a tribute to his father by Joe Sulpy IV, who moved his shop from New Jersey to Arizona 13 months ago.

Goodguys Rod & Custom ends its 2009 car show season

By Larry Edsall / Special to The Detroit News

November 24, 2009

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Joe Sulpy IV was 8 years old when his father taught him how to do bodywork on old cars. At 11, Joe the fourth was welding. At 13, he chopped his first top, lowering the roofline of a 1941 Willys sedan by several inches.

Not much later, Joe IV was running his own business, Joe Sulpy's Custom Paint & Metal Fabrication shop in Whippany, N.J., where, like his father and his father's father, he was doing custom car modifications.

Thirteen months ago, Joe Sulpy IV moved his business from New Jersey to Buckeye, Ariz., just west of Phoenix. His move was motivated in part by the economic downturn, in part by the Arizona weather. Back East, he said, custom cars and hot rods can be driven only six months of the year, and then often remain in garages because of rainy weekends.

That's not the case in the Arizona desert, where it was warm and sunny for the Goodguys Rod & Custom Association's 12th annual Southwest Nationals, where Sulpy's 1957 Chrysler Saratoga was among the most radically modified of all the vehicles on display at the WestWorld equestrian and show complex.

The Southwest Nationals mark the end of the Goodguys' season, which annually includes 20 or more hot rod and custom car shows. The association was founded in 1983. With more than 70,000 members, it is the largest of its kind in the world. Some 3,000 hot rods and custom cars and truck were on display here the weekend of Nov. 20-22. Many of them -- and others -- are expected back when the Goodguys' 2010 season begins with the inaugural Spring Nationals March 12-14.

The Goodguys' street rod of the year honors went to this 1932 Ford B 400 owned by Doug Cooper of Oyster Bay Cove, N.Y.

The 2010 Goodguys schedule includes events June 11-13 at Indianapolis; July 9-11 at Columbus, Ohio; Aug. 20-22 at Norwalk, Ohio; and Sept. 17-19 at Joliet, Ill.

Sulpy's car was a project started by his father, but when Joe III became seriously ill, Joe IV took over and finished (his father has since recuperated).

The car is basically a clone of a car created back in New Jersey in 1961 by Richard Korkes and his Korky Kustoms shop. Korkes later moved west, to California, where he worked on projects such as the Batmobile for the legendary car customizer George Barris.

Joe Sulpy III was in high school when Korkes' was turning a 1954 Ford into what he called the "Parisienne." Joe III would sneak peeks through the shop window -- and repeatedly would be chased away by Korky and his crew.

To create their version of the car, Joe III and Joe IV started with a 1957 Chrysler Saratoga, though all that remains from that vehicle are its frame, windshield and tail lamps.

Not only does the original Parisienne still exist, but Joe IV has learned that it was recently purchased by someone who lives in Tucson.

Seen over the hood of a 1956 Chevrolet owned by Cole and Lois Brown of Phoenix, the McDowell Mountains provide a backdrop for one of several parking lots filled with hot rods and custom cars at the 12th annual Goodguys Southwest Nationals at the WestWorld equestrian and show field in Scottsdale, Arizona.