Business

In memoriam
by Claudia Sonea

Why do all good people die? At the Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in suburban Whittier at 6:20 a.m. Wednesday car-building legend Boyd Coddington died without His La Habra office spokeswoman Amanda Curry revealing the cause of the death. His name will be forever attached to hot rod, being the guru of cable TV reality show "American Hot Rod" and the West Coast hot rod. At the age of 13 Coddington started building cars when and while operating a gas station in Utah, set a standard for his creativity, with his popular "Cadzilla", considered a design masterpiece built for rocker Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top based on a 1950s Cadillac, said Dick Messer, executive director of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles expressing his admiration. He made fortune from his hobby. At the beginning he was a machinist by trade, working at Disneyland during the day and tinkering with cars in his home garage at night and on weekends. Success came once his work captured the attention of car-crazy Southern Californians, most often customizing 1932 Ford "little deuce coupes". Messer confessed that he did things to hot rods and customs that weren't being done by anyone else and most important he designed cars that were drivable. Coddington was one of the first guys to get into the custom wheel business and his works worth $2,000 apiece, which was unheard of two decades ago. Trying to share his knowledge with others he had alumni like Jesse James and Chip Foose, who went on to open their own shops and star in reality TV shows. Furthermore, he twice won the Daimler-Chrysler Design Excellence Award and he was inducted into the Grand National Roadster Show Hall of Fame, the National Rod & Custom Museum Hall of Fame and the Route 66 Wall of Fame. Those who watched "American Hot Rod" Discovery Channel show, which featured ground-up construction of $500,000 hot rods, could see how committed he was to it and they will always remember his Hawaiian shirt. May his soul rest in peace and his heart run wild with the wheels!

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080228/ap_en_ce/obit_coddington;_ylt=ArZv3Po4OCekCcS.P23M3Pms0NUE

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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