Boyd Coddington dead at 63

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Boyd Coddington dead at 63
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flag manikrider27
Posted: Feb 28, 2008 at 17:24 Quote
http://www.ocala.com/article/20080228/APE/802280674
flag ezekiel
Posted: Feb 28, 2008 at 18:21 Quote
That definitely was something shocking when I heard about it. The man defined the modern day street rod and made the billet wheel available to the public. I can't say I like every car he ever built or designed but his contributions to the car world were huge and he will be missed.
flag thechris
Posted: Feb 28, 2008 at 18:29 Quote
link wasn't working for me, but that shocking what he die from? hes made nice cars that i could kill for. i mean nice cars.
flag ezekiel
Posted: Feb 28, 2008 at 18:37 Quote
http://www.good-guys.com/news/newsStory.aspx?newsid=925

There's another link, I don't think anyone's come out with a cause of death yet.
flag thechris
Posted: Feb 28, 2008 at 18:39 Quote
great thanks, but if he was hospitalized i guess it was some what natural.
flag manikrider27
Posted: Feb 28, 2008 at 23:10 Quote
i heard he drunk himself to death actually...alcohol poisoning
flag kingedd
Posted: Feb 28, 2008 at 23:54 Quote
feck knows what actually happend but its a sad time for other hot rod enthusiasts round the world. he'll be greatly missed.
flag aaron-bmx
Posted: Feb 29, 2008 at 10:52 Quote
thechris wrote:
link wasn't working for me, but that shocking what he die from? hes made nice cars that i could kill for. i mean nice cars.

He made nice cars? In all his shows I never saw him touch a car.

But still, RIP
flag dirtjump-derek
Posted: Feb 29, 2008 at 17:13 Quote
Yea, this is sad news, some really great cars rolled out of his shop. R.I.P


Boyd Coddington, a renowned Southern California hot rod and custom car designer and builder who starred in the cable reality-TV series "American Hot Rod," has died. He was 63.

Coddington, a longtime diabetic, died Wednesday at Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in Whittier of complications stemming from a recent surgery, said publicist Brad Fanshaw.


Once described by Hot Rod magazine senior editor Gray Baskerville as "the Stradivarius of car building," Coddington was a onetime maintenance repairman and machinist at Disneyland who customized cars and built hot rods at home in his off-hours before opening Hot Rods by Boyd in Stanton in 1978.

"His cars set the standards for custom automotive design because rather than just take a selection of parts from other vehicles, he would design and manufacture virtually every part for the cars that he built," said Fanshaw, former president of Hot Rods by Boyd and Boyds Wheels.

Coddington launched Boyds Wheels in 1988.

"He was the first person to utilize billet aluminum in the manufacture of automotive wheels," said Fanshaw. "Prior to that, all custom wheels were made in a cast manufacturing process where the aluminum is melted and poured into a mold. Boyd developed the use of solid aluminum and machining it and sculpting it for the final wheel.

"It gave you a much stronger wheel, a much more beautiful wheel, and you had much more design latitude when you did it that way."

Two cars built and designed by Coddington are in the permanent collection of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, which had an exhibit of his cars in the mid-1990s.

"Boyd Coddington is one of those guys who'll go down in history as one of the great names in the customizing and hot rod world," said Dick Messer, the museum's executive director.

Because of Coddington's background as a machinist and his ability to make precision parts for his cars, Messer said, "his stuff was very finely put together. A lot of the stuff he did looked like jewelry rather than automotive parts."

Coddington, Messer added, "had a great design eye. And some of the big names in the automotive world today, particularly in customizing and design, worked for Boyd at one time or another," including celebrity designers Jesse James and Chip Foose.

Among the iconic cars to come out of the Boyd shop are CheZoom, which Fanshaw described as "an extreme reinterpretation" of the classic 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air; and the Aluma-Coupe, Boyd's reinterpretation of a 1933 Ford coupe that was hand-fabricated from aluminum.

Then there's the sleek CadZZilla, a radically re-powered and re-stylized 1948 Cadillac coupe designed by ZZ Top band member Billy Gibbons and automotive designer Larry Erickson.

"It was Boyd Coddington's masterful execution, along with his team members, that created perhaps one of the most memorable customized cars in recent history," Gibbons told The Times on Thursday.

Reflecting on Coddington's career, Gibbons said: "Boyd's contributions were on a par with George Barris and all the other American car customizers combined. He will be missed."

Coddington won the America's Most Beautiful Roadster Award seven times, including an unprecedented six times in a row. He also won the Slonaker Award, another prestigious automotive award in the hot rod industry.

Honored as Hot Rod magazine's "Man of the Year" in 1988, Coddington twice received the Daimler-Chrysler Design Excellence Award.

He also was inducted into the Grand National Roadster Show Hall of Fame and the National Rod & Custom Museum Hall of Fame, among others.

His cars have been reproduced in Testors model car kits, made into a series of Mattel Hot Wheels toys and issued by the Franklin Mint as die-cast metal models. And one of the cars he designed and built -- a 1933 Ford coupe stylized with the trademark "Boyd Look" -- was featured on the cover of Smithsonian magazine, which profiled him in 1993.

But a year later, Boyds Wheels, his successful company that went public in 1995 and merged with Hot Rods by Boyd, was in bankruptcy.

Although devastated, according to a 2000 account in The Times, Coddington formed a new company in 1998, selling his Ferrari for $150,000 and some real estate holdings for $1.5 million to fund operations.


"I was crushed like an ant, but I want to come back and prove to myself and customers that I can still do it," he told The Times.

With the debut of "American Hot Rod" in 2004, the bearded car builder whose trademark attire was a Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap became a TV star.

The show, a behind-the-scenes look at building custom cars at Boyd Coddington's Hot Rods and Collectibles in La Habra, aired through last fall on the Learning Channel.

Coddington was born Aug. 28, 1944, in Rupert, Idaho, and grew up on his father's dairy farm, where he devoured custom-car magazines.

At 13, he acquired his first vehicle by trading his shotgun for a 1931 Chevrolet pickup truck. His father promptly made him trade it back, but Coddington's course was set.

"That truck kind of started everything," he told The Times in 1996. "From there, I built all kinds of different hot rods: I had a '40 Ford coupe, a '55 Chevy, Model A's and all kinds of vehicles."

In 1967, after attending a trade school and apprenticing for three years at a Salt Lake City machine shop, he moved to Southern California.

Coddington is survived by his wife, Jo; five sons, Boyd Coddington Jr., Christopher Coddington, Thomas McGee, Gregory Coddington and Robert McGee; his sister, Klis Ruesch; six grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
flag dotca
Posted: Feb 29, 2008 at 19:00 Quote
ezekiel82 wrote:
That definitely was something shocking when I heard about it. The man defined the modern day street rod and pioneered the billet wheel. I can't say I like every car he ever built or designed but his contributions to the car world were huge and he will be missed.

He made like nothing, he got his grease monkeys to do it for him. I met him before at a local car show and I don't like him. The way he acts and treats people is like he is on top of the world.
flag ezekiel
Posted: Feb 29, 2008 at 19:55 Quote
dotca wrote:
He made like nothing, he got his grease monkeys to do it for him.

And that right there is why I think American Hot Rod was probably the worst thing he could've done for himself to end such an amazing legacy. Everyone who sees that show figures that's how he spent his car building career, sitting back giving orders which isn't the case. As he made a bigger and bigger name for himself, I'm sure he stepped back from the cars and let the newer school take over and he managed the business aspect but he still cut his teeth building cars for decade before he reached that point.

Just look at the Silver Bullet and the Luce Coupe, his original works. They were amazing and they were built by him and Jon Buterra, not a crew of 50 people like his new stuff is. To look at either of those vehicles, although they were built 30+ years ago they look identical to what modern street rod builders are still churning out they were that far ahead of their time. Personally, I don't like his new work, I prefer the more traditional hot rods but to try and discredit his skill and overall contribution to hot rodding based on a weekly TV series is depressing to say the least.
flag dotca
Posted: Feb 29, 2008 at 20:15 Quote
ezekiel82 wrote:
dotca wrote:
He made like nothing, he got his grease monkeys to do it for him.

And that right there is why I think American Hot Rod was probably the worst thing he could've done for himself to end such an amazing legacy. Everyone who sees that show figures that's how he spent his car building career, sitting back giving orders which isn't the case. As he made a bigger and bigger name for himself, I'm sure he stepped back from the cars and let the newer school take over and he managed the business aspect but he still cut his teeth building cars for decade before he reached that point.

Just look at the Silver Bullet and the Luce Coupe, his original works. They were amazing and they were built by him and Jon Buterra, not a crew of 50 people like his new stuff is. To look at either of those vehicles, although they were built 30+ years ago they look identical to what modern street rod builders are still churning out they were that far ahead of their time. Personally, I don't like his new work, I prefer the more traditional hot rods but to try and discredit his skill and overall contribution to hot rodding based on a weekly TV series is depressing to say the least.

True enough, but he still acted like he like he own the world in real life, I met him and it wasn't good.
flag aaron-bmx
Posted: Feb 29, 2008 at 20:17 Quote
It's kinda the same for American chopper, The old dude doesn't do much anymore.
flag dirtjump-derek
Posted: Feb 29, 2008 at 21:01 Quote
--aaron-- wrote:
It's kinda the same for American chopper, The old dude doesn't do much anymore.
Yea, very true, Paul Sr. spends his day on the phone, yelling at his employees or buying stuff off ebay, once in a while you see him get his hands dirty, but It's about the money $$
flag dotca
Posted: Feb 29, 2008 at 21:03 Quote
--aaron-- wrote:
It's kinda the same for American chopper, The old dude doesn't do much anymore.

Ya, but he is more on a business man then anything. Paul Jr, is the bike builder.
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