And it’s this pointy-ended feature that lured in Dan and Monika Appleby while they were on the hunt for a tidy weekend cruiser. Monika was keen on a muscle car, while Dan preferred a custom, and the locally sourced, big block powered 1972 Buick Riviera coupe they found neatly ticked both boxes.
As the Rivi arrived in project form, it toured the local shops for paint, panel, airbags, diff and donk before returning home for assembly. “That’s when I discovered the limitations of my tools and abilities,” Dan shrugs.
After spying an article on Ben Erdahl and Lucky’s Speed Shop within this very magazine, Dan was amped to get the Lucky’s team on the project. A deal was struck, and with it came a complete rethink of the Buick’s direction.
“Ben had me focus on the vision, on what I wanted to achieve,” Dan says. “I started to build a tidy and mildly customized cruiser, yet deep down I wanted something more complete – a full custom with handcrafted workmanship. My vision was for a European styled American grand tourer, which meant that almost everything had to be redone.”
It might seem like an extreme measure, but you can’t obtain perfection by making compromises. “I have learnt the difference between a good enough job and a great job,” Dan says. “Virtually nothing is off-the-shelf – Lucky’s made the car, and it shows, as the attention to those details is phenomenal. Everything down to the fasteners and brackets has been hand-made or modified.”
This story is from the March 2020 edition of Street Machine Magazine.
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This story is from the March 2020 edition of Street Machine Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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