The sweet baritone rumble of a healthy hot rod or pumped-up ’60s muscle car still echoes daily through the Sachse Rod Shop — music to Frank Millsap’s ears.
On a recent weekday, 11 unusual cars filled the shop’s garage, all of them there for some serious $40-an-hour wrenching. They included some major jobs: A ’57 Thunderbird, for example, is being transformed into a big-time street machine powered by a supercharged 2003 Mustang Cobra engine.
Despite a weak economy, specialty cars — the most discretionary of automobile purchases — are rolling right along, industry officials say.
"It’s like any big hobby," said Millsap, founder of the shop. "When the money is tight, you won’t go to the dentist as often, you won’t get your eyes checked as often, you won’t buy that new pair of shoes. But you’ll find the money for your hobby."
Because of the uncertain economy, some street-rodders are postponing their plans to start work on a car, said David Freiburger, editor-in-chief of Hot Rod magazine.
"But if they’ve already got something going on, they’re proceeding with it," Freiburger said. "It’s a hobby that people always find a way to pay for."
The vehicles are part of a $27 billion aftermarket industry that grew 3.7 percent last year and is up nearly 29 percent since 1998, according to the Specialty Equipment Market Association. Though the industry isn’t speculating on what might happen this year, its sales have dropped only once in the last decade.
"The last time the industry slowed down was after the first Gulf War, when we had a lot of young people in the Middle East serving their country," said Rosemarie Kitchin, public relations director at SEMA. "I can’t tell about this year, when we also have young people in the Middle East serving their country, but we are seeing the price of muscle cars and street rods just skyrocket."
Street rods, which are also called hot rods, are generally pre-1948 cars that have been fitted with modern V8 engines, transmissions and suspensions. Most also get new interiors, aftermarket tires and wheels and striking paint jobs. When the cost of parts is added up — plus the labor to build the car — a new street rod can easily exceed $50,000.
Muscle cars are high-performance domestic vehicles built mostly between 1964 and 1970 — legends that still shape the auto industry today such as the Pontiac GTO, Plymouth Hemi Road Runner, a variety of Chevrolet Camaros and the still-resilient V8 Mustang. Some rare muscle cars have recently sold at auction for more than $100,000.
These cars are not grocery-getters. They tend to lead pampered lives, venturing out of their garages mostly on warm, sunny days when traffic is light.
Consequently, some industry observers see the strength of the specialty segment as an economic indicator of sorts. If that segment is growing, they reason, the economy must be getting better. And many in the specialty business say they have seen signs of increasing vitality over the last year or so.
But most say the business — even in Dallas — never really weakened.
"We’ve seen things slow down a little and a few people have put some projects on hold," said Millsap of the Sachse Rod Shop, which opened in 1982. "But our sales this year are going to be about the same as they were last year."
He declined to be specific but said they will exceed $1 million. The Sachse shop also sells parts, which generate most of the business’ revenue, Millsap said. The shop has seven full-time employees — all of whom get paid vacations and benefits, he said — and has "13 or 14" cars on a waiting list for major work.
For most of the time that the shop has been open, Millsap also worked a "day job" as coordinator of horticulture programs at Richland Community College. He retired from Richland two years ago but is now teaching auto-body repair and welding at Eastfield Community College. Millsap’s 39-year-old, college-educated son, Mike, manages the shop.
Millsap, 63, says he has no idea how many cars Sachse Rod Shop has assembled. Some are scratch-built from the ground up and take more than a year and 1,000 hours of labor to complete.
"You can’t determine anything by how many you build in a year because some can take longer than that to finish," he said. "What’s important is we usually have a shop full of cars."
So, generally, does Monte Ditmer, owner of Montiac Motorsports in Dallas. Ditmer’s business is a one-man street-rod, dragster and muscle-car shop. He recently had 10 cars in his garage.
"The people who are into this are going to spend money, period," said Ditmer, 48, who has been building cars since 1975 and charges $60 an hour. "Basically, the 55- to 65-year-old guys are still spending money on their cars. Maybe they’re spending their kids’ inheritance."
Recently, he was completing a chassis he had built for a ’32 Ford. He plans to take it to the Goodguys’ event this weekend to sell because demand for hot-rod ’32 chassis is so high that some aftermarket companies have a 90-day waiting list. The wait for an aftermarket steel body for a ’32 Ford — street-rodding’s most popular car — can be as long as a year, Ditmer said.
"I’m not worried about the future," he said. "I’m just a little tired. I don’t get to race anymore because I’m always fixing someone else’s car."
Though the terrorist attacks on 9-11 stunned street-rodders as it did everyone else, the tragedy may ultimately have spurred the hobby, said Gary Meadors, founder and president of the Goodguys Rod and Custom Association, which is staging the Texas Motor Speedway event.
"After 9-11, guys were saying, ‘I’d better step up and buy that ’57 Chevy I always wanted because I may not be around forever,’" said Meadors, whose organization has 60,000 members.
Attendance at Goodguys events nationwide has been growing 6 percent to 7 percent annually. Moreover, the prices on cars sold at those events have remained firm, he said — particularly for highly desirable vehicles such as ’32-’34 Fords and ’55-’57 Chevys.
"It’s like, ‘I want it, I gotta have it,’ " Meadors said. "That’s kind of the way the hot-rod deal is. It’s, ‘I’m buying that ’32. We’ll fix up the kitchen next year.’ "
