Undisputed King of the Roadster : Boyd Coddington Has Built a Reputation From His Love of Custom-Built Vehicles

Boyd Coddington still remembers his first car. It was a truck, actually, and he traded a shotgun for it.

“I was 13 years old. In Idaho, you could drive when you were 14. I had traded without asking my father, so my dad made me take the truck back and get the shotgun back. Later on, I was able to come up with some money and get the truck back.”

Growing up on his father’s dairy farm in Rupert, Idaho, Coddington, now 52, devoured custom car magazines and tinkered with an assortment of broken-down vehicles. He had no idea that the 1937 Chevy pickup he experimented with would lead to a $30-million company and a reputation as one of the foremost designers of custom-built hot rods in the world.

“That truck kind of started everything. 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.”

Over the years, Coddington’s designs have preserved and expanded the look of America’s classic cars while spawning a multimillion-dollar custom wheel business. His Boydster was named America’s Most Beautiful Roadster at the Oakland Roadster Show in January 1996 and was featured on the cover of Hot Rod magazine last summer. His cars have been reproduced in model car kits, made into a series of Mattel Hot Wheels toys and issued by the Franklin Mint as die-cast metal models.

He’s even inspired the creation of Boyd Red, a color manufactured by DuPont Co.’s automotive paint division.

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But before any of that could happen, he had to get out of Idaho.

“Whenever I picked up a hot rod magazine, any kind of automobile magazine, they always talked about Southern California. This was where the hot rods were, and of course you had the Beach Boys and all that stuff. I just always dreamed about coming down here.”

He got his chance after graduating from technical school as a machinist. He was hired by Disneyland to make replacement parts for the rides. But in his off-hours, he built custom cars in his Anaheim garage.

“I thought I was always going to work as a machinist. But as I started building cars out of my garage, people would see my work, and it just kept growing. We started to get a lot of publicity, and that’s where the wheel business came from. People would see the special wheels on my cars and they wanted to know how they could buy some.

“At that time I brought home about $180 a week at Disneyland, and my wife said, ‘You know you can’t give that up.’ But I said, ‘No, I’ve got to try it.’ ”

He founded Hot Rods by Boyd in 1978 and now commands fees up to $500,000 for his one-of-a-kind, custom-built cars, which proved to be the perfect marketing vehicle for his custom wheel business. Boyds Wheels Inc. went public in September 1995 and now ships 20,000 wheels a month.

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But his first love is design, creating the cars based on the classic look long since abandoned by major auto manufacturers. He has a two-year backlog of customers for his handmade cars, which usually take more than a year to design and build. His newest commissioned car, the Sportstar, took two years to build. The Testor company plans to add the Sportstar to its line of Boyd model cars.

“I was looking at all the cars at the auto show in Anaheim, and they had a few classic cars in the center. They really stood out,” Coddington said. “All the new cars today look the same. Just look back at the furniture, all this stuff was just so much more unique, the designs were so much more distinct. It’s just a shame we’ve lost so much of the individuality we had.

“I understand why that is. Everybody’s in too big of a hurry now to make major design changes. And because of the competition, they’re afraid to do anything that’s really different from the next competitor.”

But Coddington also believes the growing interest in the cars he creates with his chief designer, Chip Foose, is beginning to influence auto manufacturers. He points to the 1997 Plymouth Prowler, a convertible roadster being advertised as “a throwback to the days when a car was a direct reflection of the person who created it.” The car will be on the market next spring.

“The Prowler shows a lot of influence from our designs. You’ve got ‘30s styling with ‘90s technology. How can you go wrong? You’ve got a nice ride, you’ve got air conditioning, you’ve got a stereo and you’ve got something that looks like a 1930s vintage car.

“I still get as excited about a new car design as I did 20 years ago. It’s a good feeling, because you have the really bad stuff that happens to you in any business that you have to work through. This wasn’t even a dream, because I thought this probably would never happen. Just the enjoyment of being able to still do this and make a living is really great.”

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Profile: Boyd Coddington

Age: 52

Hometown: Rupert, Idaho

Residence: La Habra Heights

Family: Wife Diane, three grown sons

Education: Graduated from Idaho State University Trade Tech as a machinist

Background: Machinist at May Foundry & Machine in Salt Lake City, Utah; machinist at Disneyland for 10 years; founded Hot Rods by Boyd in 1978 and Boyds Wheels Inc. in 1988, both in Stanton; Boyds Wheels became a public company in September 1995

On his business’ evolution: “I thought I was always going to work as a machinist. But as I started building cars out of my garage, people would see my work, and it just kept growing. We started to get a lot of publicity, and that’s where the wheel business came from. People would see the special wheels on my cars and they wanted to know how they could buy some.”

Source: Boyd Coddington; Researched by RUSS LOAR / For The Times