Story/Photos: T-Bone
Signal Hill, CA – I go to a lot of automotive shops. Specialists in wiring, fabrication, paint/body, interior, etc.. In Southern California there are pockets of great shops in almost every community. As a journalist, I try to bring you the unique aspects of each. And offer some advice on where to take your classic/custom/collector car or bike. Like most good shops you want to take your car to a shop that is highly recommended by your buddies.
My buddy Jack told me to go to Herb’s Automotive in Signal Hill. He has had his car there and when he was a Sultan (Sultans Car Club) his buddies recommended this shop. In-fact, his pal Jim has his ‘57 Cadillac Coupe deVille there finishing off some custom work with a new interior and wiring harness.
“This is one clean shop!” Exclaimed Billy.
We met with Jake Rushing, whose father Herb opened the shop in 1987. After his passing in 2001, Jake decided to keep the family business going with repair, maintenance of daily drivers as well as ground-up customization/restoration of classic cars.
Quality | Passion | Experience
Those three words are what they live by each day at the 8000 square foot shop. Each of the employees are committed to those words whether it’s a simple maintenance of the family SUV, or a complete wiring harness in a classic Cadillac. That work ethic is what kept the shop growing for the past 25 years. Recently adding a state of the art spray booth.
While we were there, we saw evidence of the high level of quality on Jim’s ’57 Caddy. The wiring harness for example has stainless steel connectors, each connection meticulously soldered, heat shrinked and aircraft quality woven loom sleeves. They added a secondary battery to power the stereo system and the airbags. Speaking of the airbags, a look in the trunk you see two freshly painted canisters but no compressors. They tucked the four compressors inside and under the rear bumper. You barely hear them running when you’re in the car.
For the exterior of the car, let me have Jake tell you what they did. These guys are masters at the final finish: “So the car was gun metal gray. Totally depressing. You could hang ten on the sides. We stripped it down to bare metal. Did some rust repair, cut and sized all the gaps. Blocked the metal down using 80 grit on long boards and guide coat….super rough on the arms. Hammer and dollied all imperfections then primed with 5 star DTM. We blocked and re-primed 5 times total. Ending up final sand with 500 grit wet. I did the base coat mix myself. It’s a pearl teal that I tinted till Jim was satisfied. We jammed then reassembled for complete. We applied 2 coats of sparkle silver, then 4 coats of my pearl teal. Nibbed the base coat, then laid down 5 coats of transtar euro clear.
We let it gas off for 1 week then cut it starting with 1000 and ending up with 3000. That’s 6 sands, all by hand. Then let it shrink up for another week. That’s the key. By allowing the scratches in color sand to naturally shrink back your final polish will hold the test of time and look just as good years later as the day it was done.
Polished it using 3m perfect-it system. All exterior chrome and stainless was redone. And new weather stripping and rubber parts were installed. Total time was 9 weeks. Cost for body, paint, and reassembly was approx. 20k”
There are many more mods you will see with this car with a feature later this year when the car is complete. In the meantime, check out the shop at www.HerbsAutomotive.com