MOUNT VERNON — Walking into Jack Cunningham’s garage on Sharp Road south of Mount Vernon is like a time warp. Here it is 2008 outside, but inside his immaculate 8,000-square-foot shop are cars dating from the 1930s through the ’60s. Hot rods of all descriptions fill out the scene. All of the cars are in various states of being rebuilt into show quality level restoration vehicles.
Cunningham grew up in Knox County and has always been what he calls a “gearhead.” That means he was and is crazy about anything involving automobiles.
He started restoring cars on evenings and weekends, and when he was ready to retire from his regular job and his children were grown, he made the car business his second career. He opened the garage in 1998. Demand for his work increased, and, needing more room, he bought the big garage building three years ago.
Restoring cars to show-level quality is an involved, painstaking process, starting with the vehicle first being completely disassembled. Even with the generous size of the garage, Cunningham said he keeps only five cars at a time in the rebuilding process. He explained that when a car is taken apart the pieces are spread around; the pieces being restored, as well as new parts coming in, take up much of the available space.
Even so, Cunningham and his four, sometimes five, experienced restoration experts keep the floor space clean and clear for safety, and he carefully coils up an air hose so no one will trip over it snaking across the floor.
Cunningham said taking care of rust in old cars is a major job, and replacing panels with new pieces or repairing those in the cars takes a lot of time.
But even the floor of the garage does not provide enough space; there is shelving loaded with parts and a shed beside the shop with more parts. Locating replacement parts for hot rods and vintage cars is not all that difficult, he said. There are many small specialty manufacturers who make the dozens of pieces that make a complete car. In fact, Cunningham has a huge shelf full of catalogs — he estimates 2,000 — to search through to find the parts. Interestingly enough, he doesn’t use computer searches. He likes to view the pictures and illustrations in the catalog to be sure of the parts needed.
Cunningham’s helpers are pretty versatile; they can also rebuild mechanical parts for the cars under restoration. Cunningham’s wife, Angela, used to help with finishing cars. She said she really enjoyed the work, but today she only takes care of the books and the office.
Cunningham started out building only hot rods, but the business has gradually changed to restoring vintage cars and muscle cars from the ’60s and ’70s. Undergoing restoration now is a 1960 Chevrolet Impala owned by Brent Dudgeon of Mount Vernon. A 1971 Dodge Challenger that will be featured on the cover of Mopar Illustrated magazine sometime down the road is well under way for a Newark owner.
Kevin Moor’s 1948 Buick is up on a lift for restoration work, and Bob Moreland is trusting his 1935 Pontiac, a limited edition sedan, to Jack’s Garage.
Both the Impala and Challenger are what are called matching numbers cars. In the high-end car business, it is important that a restoration project keep all of the parts originally on the car, just as it came from the factory. A matching numbers car is significantly more valuable than one where the engine, transmission, rear end or even many small parts, have been replaced.
For upholstery work, Cunningham takes the cars to a shop in Ravenna that does custom-level work and adds new and different designs.
The newest craze in hot rodding is called Rat Rodding, which means building a hot rod to look as ratty as possible. So for his personal ride, Cunningham built a rat rod. Adding to the effect, he painted it to look rusty. Great fun, he said. He and his helpers drive it to chase parts and go to lunch.
Jack’s Garage is a popular place for car clubs to assemble. One assembly last year drew 300 hot rods and vintage cars. This year, the first week in April, he will host a cruise-in for Let’s Go Cruis’in magazine.
On a sad note, scheduled for restoration work this year was the 1932 Plymouth Coupe owned by Gary Gray. The coupe was destroyed in a Tuesday morning fire at Rivers Edge Hunting and Fishing store.
