Anyone who is into cars is familiar, or at least should be, with the 1976 classic “One Piece at a Time” by Johnny Cash. The song tells the tale of two workers at a Cadillac assembly plant who, over the course of a few decades, heist enough parts to build a Cadillac of their own – the result being an aggregation of parts from different years, makes and models used to complete the final product, which meant nothing fit.
While that’s an extreme version of a car build, the story doesn’t drift too far into the fiction category for a lot of enthusiasts hell-bent on turning a pile of parts into a drivable machine.
There is, of course, another way. Start with a workable platform and refine it from there. That is exactly what John LaCome did when he purchased his 1956 Chevy Bel Air drop top more than 20-years ago.
“I found it in Hemmings Motor News and it looked like a solid car, so I went to Concord, California, to look at it,” LaCome said. “It was complete with only a bit of surface rust on the body. The floorboards were great, and all the body panels, and trim were in really good shape, as were the bumpers,” he added.
Knowing the car had good bones, he purchased it but didn’t begin work immediately. “It took a few years for me to really get it going, and once I did it was a slow process as I didn’t want to rush anything. I could have gone with a lot of replacement parts, but I wanted the car to remain as original as I could keep it in terms of appearance,” LaCome said.
The powertrain, however, was a different story. “There is only so much you can do with the stock 265 engine and drivetrain. I’m sure it was great in 1956, but I wanted a lot more. Having owned a lot of cars through the years, and being forced to compromise on several things with them, I knew with this car, the time to settle for good enough was over. I wanted to build my dream car,” said the retired Merchant Marine.
As the clock ticked further into the future, the car visited various shops in the bay area of California, each adding a bit more refinement, while staying as close to LaCome’s plan of stock-appearing.
LaCome says sound advice from longtime friend, Bob Mendez of Qube Auto Body, kept him from making mistakes when he first bought the car. “Bob and his guys insisted that I keep the trim and anything else that made the car keep its originality. I’m really grateful to them for taking the time to polish the trim, and showing me that keeping what came with car and restoring it was much better than getting cheap replacement parts,” LaCome said.
The car has had several power-plants under the hood through the years, including an early iteration of the Fast Burn ZZ4 crate engine from Chevrolet Performance, but as times changed and performance and efficiency increased, LaCome eventually settled on an LS3/4L70 Connect and Cruise Package from GM. “The car was pretty much perfect the way it was before I upgraded to drivetrain, but I wanted to go with the LS stuff and do some final things with it,” LaCome said.
To get the car in the condition it is now and complete the powertrain swap, LaCome turned to Jason Walroth at Gearhead Garage in Sacramento.
“He brought it to us to finalize the mechanicals, get it dialed-in and pay attention to the finer details. We did the engine swap and cam upgrade, tuning, wiring work, some interior touch-ups and brake work,” Walroth said. It was that work – the minor details, which took the car from being one of a million, to one-of-a-kind.
“I wanted the car to look as original as possible. Sure I know it’s not a numbers matching car, but I didn’t want that. I wanted a car that looks clean, but can also move, and take turns at 90-miles-per-hour. You can’t do that with a stock ’56, you just cant.”
He adds that you’ll never see his car on a trailer unless it’s broken down. “You’ll catch me burning rubber and driving this car. Cars are part of my youth and driving them hard is too, I drive my cars, I don’t look at them,” he says.
Driving, however, comes with a new set of worries for the 49 year-old. “I always worry about someone hitting me. If that happens I’m screwed because I’m stuck trying to find replacement parts, which would really ruin it for me. I take pride in knowing every piece of metal on this car is original.”
Yet as he drives his work of art, there are still things he thinks about which could have been different – the same thoughts most every other owner of classic or modern iron think. “I wish I would have done this right the first time around. I think about all the shops this car has been to and how each place has a different approach or an opinion on what should be done and how. Then, when I took it somewhere else, the new guys would want to do it differently,” he said.
The bottom line according to LaCome: Put the time in researching who you want working on your car and make sure they have an really good idea of what you want done, otherwise things may be open to their interpretation of your idea which doesn’t always doesn’t translate into what you’re really envisioning.
“It took me several years to figure that out, but eventually I did, and despite the few missteps I had in the beginning, when I look at the car now, I see exactly what I had hoped to see all those years ago,” LaCome concluded.
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