Historic Customs USA Road Trip P3
HISTORIC CUSTOMS USA Road Trip Part 3
By Ronnie Lindblom & Micke Hedberg.
With most of the problems on the cars now sorted Ronnie and Micke are ready to get the grand tour at Gene Winfields Shop, and prepare for the rest of their amazing trip.
In early July 2016 Ronnie Lindblom and Micke Hedberg left Sweden for their dream road trip in the USA. Both guys had bought an historic custom in the month prior to this trip, and along the way the idea had grown to fix up their cars and make a road trip of a life-time. After 11 long days and nights working on their cars, they finally had them ready to hit the road. You can read about the first 11 days of their journey in Part One and the first time on the road for the cars in Part Two of this series. The guys worked till late into the night to get Ronnie’s Mercury fixed. They left Ronnie’s ’39 Mercury at Gene’s shop and took Micke’s ’36 Ford to drive up to the nearest Motel to get a few hours of sleep. Early the next morning they head back to spend some more quality time with Gene Winshield at his Mojave Desert shop.
After sleeping a few hours at the nearest motel the guys drove back to the Winfield shop with Ronnie’ s ’36 Ford early in the morning.
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New day, new challenges. The Merc was fixed late last night and now Ronnie is almost ready for a test drive.
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Ronnie only has to refill the water and check oil…
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The test drive went fine, and it´s time to re torque the heads. There was nothing they could do about the crack in the head. So, they did all other things they could do and hope the engine will last the rest of the trip.
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The both cars are now ready for the rest of the journey. Micke, Ronnie and Mr. Winfield give the thumb up for the rest of the trip!
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Gene is 89 years old and still works on custom cars everyday. It´s really impressive to see a legend work and still enjoy it all like it was his firs day at the job. That´s amazing! When the Swedes were at Winfield’s, Gene was worked on a channeled ’40 Ford convertible.
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Then it was time to take a tour around the shop and inside Gene own little museum. Here Gene shows the unique bed he made from a model-A Ford pickup.
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Gene sharing memories and stories from dry lake races in the early days while showing the guys old pictures on the walls.
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Close up of the early dry lake collage.
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One of Gene’s old wood shop signs with his famous logo. Gene hold on to it all these years, and now it’s hanging proudly in his nice little private museum.
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The “Thing”, a ’27 model T racer Gene built in the late 1940’s. Well the original is long gone, and this one is an updated copy of the real ”Thing”. Gene told Micke and Ronnie lots of great stories from back in the day´s, It was a blast!
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Micke had parked his ´36 Ford in the shadow inside the shop to cool down.
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Micke started his 36 Ford, and everything was still working fine, so they are all ready to go.
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But before its time to go, they took Gene for a ride in the ´36 Ford.
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Can you imagine how many memories this brought back for Gene… and created for Micke.
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And of course Gene now also had to get a ride in Ronnie’s Merc as well!
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Cruising like it was the early 1940’s…
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And more memories brought back, and created.
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Then it was almost time to say goodbye to Gene, a few last photos with the cars and the shop in the background….
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Before the guys left Gene drew a map showing how to best get to El Mirage dry lake and to a couple of friends which Gene thought visiting would be very well worth it.
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And on the way to Palmdale, the first stop
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Not long after they had left Winfield’s Ronnie’s Mercury started to get problems again. The engine started to run really crappy and they had to stop. After they had stopped and let the engine cool a bit the engine refused to start again. The guys checked all possible reasons for the engine failure. Condenser, pionts, distributor cap and several more things, but nothing helped to get the engine to start. Finally Ronnie found out that the distributor was flash-over to ground and he was able to fix the problem. Pfff, it was a hot day out in the middle of the desert!… but they were on their way again.
Finally the guys arrived at the first stop Gene suggested. Dave McCain, one of the worlds fastest Flathead Ford drag-racers.
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Dave showed the guys around in his shop and they talked about Flathead tune up all night long.
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This was the first night without working on the cars since they had arrived in the US. It felt like vacation, just having a good time and making plans for the trip to El Mirage tomorrow.
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The cars early the next morning… all ready and excited for the drive up to the Dry lake.
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Go back to Part 1, Part 2. Or go to Part 4

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(this article is sponsored by)
Contact Rob Radcliffe at King Kustoms for more info on these T-Shirts Email Rob
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Words can’t describe how much fun this is, and how much awe: this pair and their determination are inspiring.
^^^^ X’s 2 ^^^^^^^
Torchie
cool stuff…it reminds me of the research trip we did Rik. i we only live once, go for it.
so much fun they are having going all over,
I really like the story and the pictures are wonderful too!
Great road trip series. You always remember the trips where a mechanical issue pops up and you have to improvise on the road. Look forward to part #4.
Man this is cool! I need to get out to Winfield’s shop again soon…very cool pics and article 🙂