Burned down Hot Rod Shop

BURNED DOWN HOT ROD SHOP

On Saturday October 25th Speedon CarWorks in the Netherlands burned down, destroying many cars as well as many dreams.

Speedon CarWorks in Emmeloord, the Netherlands was a small, but very productive work shop, were some very interesting cars were created. A team of enthusiast people, mechanics Ruben and Peter, accountant Teuntje and shop owner Mischa Bauman, were living their dream creating wonderful cars. Ranging from Cobra Seven sports cars, to Hot Rods and Custom Cars. A real unique work shop, especially in the Netherlands. On Saturday morning it went all very bad when a huge fire destroying most of the building. A lot of the cars inside where destroyed or got damaged. The Dutch firemen were able to stop the fire before it destroyed the complete inventory of cars. Mechanic Ruben was at the shop during the fire and inhaled some of the toxic smoke. He was put under surveillance at a local hospital were he was released again the next day.

Saturday morning during the fire.
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Now a few days after the fire, it has become clear that the building is lost, but that some of the cars damaged by the fire can be saved. The team is very motivated to get the workshop back going as soon as possible. They are currently looking at a few locations to restart the company. The plan is to build a new shop, try to save/repair some of the tools and equipment, and find replacements for everything that was lost during the fire. Then start repairing the damage on the clients cars that could be saved from the fire, as soon as possible. And of course try to get new projects to get back up to speed again, and forget this very bad dream. Mischa Bouwman / Speedon can be reached thru their website www.speedon.nl.

We at the Custom Car Chronicle wish the Speedon team all the best in getting back on their feet again. And we hope to see some great project coming from the Speedon CarWorks again very soon.

The shop earlier in 2014.
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One of Mischa’s own personal project was this neat chopped Ford Model A Sedan seen in the shop.
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I recently worked on a project with Mischa Bauman owner of Speedon CarWorks. We had been friends on Facebook for some time and I had followed some of his Hot Rod and Custom Car related projects. And Mischa was following my Custom Car posts on the site. When Speedon was asked to customized a 1941 Cadillac Coupe for a clients I was approached to do a Digital restyling, to show the clients the plans Mischa had in mind for the car. We talked on the phone a few times and Mischa told me about his shop, and the many plans for some great cars he had in mind. How the Hot Rod and Custom Car work had been growing for them in recent years and how he hoped that he could find more and more clients for this.

We talked about the 1941 Cadillac and what the client wanted and what Mischa would like to do to the car. The client had made clear he did not want the car to be chopped. But after I had Digitally Visualized his car with all the changed he did want, plus a mild shopped version as an extra, he asked Speedon to go for the chopped version… everybody happy! For several weeks I followed the in-progress photos of the team at Speedon chopping the top and performing some of the other planned work.

The digital Restyling project I did for Speedon CarWorks. A nice subtile 1941 Cadillac Coupe.
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The Cadillac project car in progress after the car was stripped and the roof chopped waiting more more of the subtile body work. The car looked like this when the shop burned down, so you can imagine what the water  and falling debris has done to the body. But it will be repaired.
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The 1941 Cadillac Coupe project was damaged during the fire, but fortunately was in the part of the building where the fire was halted by the Dutch firemen. The car suffered mostly water damage, but is still fixable. Hopefully we will be able to show you the end result of this 1941 Custom project in the future, after the Speedon CarWorks shop has been rebuild.

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