1962 Chevy Bel Air "Sanity" - Jay Leno's Garage

wellnot episode of jail on his garage the car were featuring today 1962 Chevrolet Bel Air this is the bubble top I like these early sixties Chevy's you know we people focus so much on the 55 56 57 and then they kind of jumped to the you know later Camaros and whatnot III always thought these are a nice clean interesting design especially the ones that were the 409 this was has been extensively modified but beautifully done Ralph Holguin is the owner this car he owns our md garage you guys are on velocity thank you thanks for having a big TV star I love that this is your personal car right this is my baby yeah yeah so it's gonna have a little extra lovin care it's got an emotional tie to it you know I like to build my cars around my girls and this is Nadia's okay and it took kind of a little bit longer she she grew up and she's like what's happening dad aren't you building my car so it was it was worth the wait now you've been a car guy since day one right you you started what is a kid in high school yeah I started washing cars I dropped out of high school and I started washing cars but I grew up in the lowrider scene so when I set out to build some stuff I wanted to kind of break through that and build some stuff that was really gonna be different and and and set us apart okay so let's see what we have here this of course was what they call the bubble top which i think is a really clean design and you've actually cleaned it up quite a bit all the Chrome's gone right you've done it in sort of I would say it looks like pewter but that's not the right word the bubble top is such a beautiful iconic car remember there was only five thousand ever made there was and there was because the 61 had a bunch of tops left over so they used that and then on in like you said they put the 409 and only a few of them so I've been a fan of bubble top since the 61 and 62 so the 10th the chance to get my hands on one of these was something that I really wanted to do Pontiac build a bubble top version too I think there was yeah there was definitely a lot of attempts to build kind of the car that was going to look a little different because you know as you as you remember 63 and 64 they changed the entire body and in the rule you could really see them on the street and you can know you could tell them apart very quickly but you know the real difference is the execution I mean done wrong it just looks horrible yes but done right and this is really clean I mean I can still see the 62 Chevy just sort of cleaned up you know shower shave hair yeah yeah yeah it looks it really looks great looks terrific the interior is really impressive I have to admit those are the most inviting seats I've ever seen no usually I get they put the racing bucket but you know buttocks squeezing you know yeah okay guys this is really fun this looks like something I want to drive I like that I think you're a little taller than me but what will make it work but yeah the design for the interior I mean we know that this car has beautiful body lines so I wanted to tie it in and almost have it like it was moving so when I started to work on my upholstery guys all in-house will say sanchez and juan it was really kind of and they were like come on Ralph you're crazy we're not yeah because everything had to be contour everything had to be handmade and then you had to make sure that it looked good and fitted the fit and finish so it kind of streamlined the car so everything from the glass all the way through you can really see it come to life tell me what we started with here a wrecked car really nice original car six cylinder what was it a row I have that internet story I bought the car in Chicago sight unseen I sent a couple friends to go look at it they said it looked great we got back to the shop I was excited it was red it was beautiful took it to Sam blessed and it was all covered in fiberglass yeah yeah so it kind of depressed me a little bit to be honest that's why I shelved it yeah I started to work on it a little bit hit bits in here but I wanna go time period what do you talk a couple of years a few months yeah I think it was I mean if you if you look at when we first kind of scratch it you know kind of took it down I say what's a few years but once we start to get going I mean it was about a six-month build yeah so it was pretty wild but that's pretty quick we had a really good direction let me ask you about the bell see because my brother was a model maker he could he had such patience to me I would get the thing and then paint it and then I want to put together and then it'd be a thumbprint you know from the paint is a wet woman trying to glue it together it just looked awful do you sketch all this out on paper and you you know that kind of thing you know check it twice cut once you know that guy or do you just sort of get going and then the idea flows as you was this your vision from the very beginning are these seats that - you know so we took it down to bare metal J and then then what the good thing is we waited because had we built it then I think it would have been a whole different car and that the trend was different and I wanted to do something that was so unique and bottom line so when I started to push the envelope on the design of course things come to you and then you kind of start going once you and you you've probably done it before you kind of start that creative process and you know I always say chaos creates results right so because you're so chaotic there's so much going on but at the end of the day you're kind of really going through some motions and that creates what you're doing so until you evoke that emotion that's what really what happened and it started to come to life so but the interior that the grille really really focal point for us to do and then what lines you know do we keep the chrome do we do the trim did we not do that in the scheme this paint scheme we needed to make it timeless now you said you grew out of the lowrider culture was there any temptation to do a lowrider version of this did your friends go with you never to the 60 - but I'm the 61 yes yes yeah I think it's it's it's still part of my culture some of my friends have some of the baddest lowriders you'll ever know we had someone call yeah yeah and to me the the detail work in the paint is there it's mind-boggling how these doing I mean I'm looking at it I'm studying a door for half an hour or so Monaco they're so thought-out the time invested in them you know you got it these are artists I mean the guys are putting it and the best part about it some of these guys are doing it in their in their home they're not even doing it in garage which is which is mind-blowing when you think about it but that's their love and I love that affinity that they have let's take a look at the grille that we were just talking about with this J we had to change it up so the whole thing with the grille there was a lot of trial and error to go to this and I kept on walking back to the fabricators and that's not gonna work that's not gonna work so there is actually a bunch of grilles that we threw away the vision had to stay and to me was in motion everything is in motion I think that's when I look around here there's so many cars that have that movement and that's what I love the most about is the road that it just really flow from front to back so it was creating all this and in Christian really did a great job at executing this David did a great job at executing this and I think it's a combination of my guys really understanding that creative process to get it to kind of flow and that's what I love about building cars that my guys they're really the they get all the credit to build them because our design you know our design it's crazy ideas and they got to bring them to life and then they actually execute it and they fall in love and that's what's beautiful now it's this original bumper just yep this is the original bumper notched in all cut back out of this diffuser added this little lip right here that you see here so you're still have a lot of the original we still have the original light housing but it's not gonna work you have to modify all of it add aluminum to this add a bunch of aluminum to make sure that all the gaps and the fit and finish look good let's open the hood that's getting on under here so we did these hinges which is really different and again wanted to just kind of make it different so and it's called sanity said I thought you were to call it lipstick yeah right so red you know what it was it was insane and it was an insane build and then at the end we noticed how it brought us all together so we named it sanity so what motor do we have here we have an ls3 pushing 555 horsepower you got all the regular stuff and then we want it just to make it stealth just a little bit but it's not crazy it's a street car you can drive it's a street car it's a touring car it's ready to go and that's what we wanted to do is make a a show car that's ready to go and hit the road and what does each one do this is this radiator yeah so you got all your radiator there's all your filters everything ready to go just you know unscrew them and and drop your fluids in so is it heavier than it was originally I think yeah oh yeah you got an you got an art Morrison chassis in here okay so you've modified you've taken a lot of stuff out but you've added a lot of things to just make it even stronger so that's more chassis really gives you what you need to be responsive but you've added some weight very good very good yeah yep there you go buddy a little different you know is that the stock windshield no no no so this obviously is fully custom front and back and the guys had a emhean draw glass I mean Carmen just has to go and do an amazing job every molding the actual front window to make it very seamless but not only that you get to order it smoked scratch-resistant and what it does is eliminates your entire trim and it really gives you that 21st century look of a car so I've always wanted you know that it's funny that's one area where most guys just kind of zone out you know I've got my little Mazda Cosmo over there yeah there weren't very many in the United States I went I can't remember the windshield company and they just made me new glass and it was perfect but nobody ever thinks of making glass right you always wind up with the same old scratch you know San Blas yeah you see the new you see the car the paint looks good and then you see a couple of the glass that's got the old scratches from going down or up so I mean I I think for me was again a really cool modern piece that gave you so when you're standing way back you get that smoke finish just really enhances this car and who is red is this this is BASF thread they're our sponsor as well as the grey and we wanted to make sure I mean their product is amazing and the guys have done a great job of cutting it and making sure that it absolutely looks brilliant but they're clearly second in California is so difficult though yeah you know the environment they're having to shoot the water yeah yeah exactly the idea of all paint any car for 2995 that's imeem paint is what four hundred bucks a gallon at least yeah yeah easily about $6.99 if you're getting you know that yeah okay so it depends again what you're buying but yeah I remember the day I think I was one of those guys I won't name them that we you know I was detailing and they brought their car old beautiful 49 yeah and I said hey you know how long did you paint it all we just painted about two weeks ago it's dried already secured start cutting it buffing it the they had painted it two days before so that thing expanded I call the guy go you lied you paid it two to two days ago in the car it cannot polish you got to reshoot it again Oh so they had to cut it and reshoot it again but again that's that's what she paints that's to you so so tell me about these wheels so obviously the fitment this is race line wheel nice yeah it's a great wheels and a great they're they're also a great partner and they've been able to really work with us on the design so I'll start working with them early off and tell them what I'm building and really start to kind of look at all their wheels in order they have something shelved or if they have something in concept that they haven't come up with and then pretty much I fell in love with this wheel I knew that it was gonna look really good and then we start to work on the tone ya know did you was this originally a chrome wheel or aluminum wheel and you can support it's a fourth wheel so you would have seen it draw lumina more smooth aluminum and then actually they powder-coated it for us once we shared the paint scheme and in the red and all that so it actually does a really great job and then make sure the stance fits perfect now the roof is the original height that hasn't been cut that hasn't been cut you got the original roof you got all your glass all your glass is smoked as well your sight so you got power windows power door locks quilting on this cars we installed the Viper system which was allows you to turn it on from wherever you are which is really cool because I took the keys that got by accident from SEMA and I was on the plane and I turned it on for Joe cuz he'd said dude I think you have the key so I look at my backpack and I'm like so stand by Joe and I go to my app and I turn on the car for him so everybody's playing yeah from a plane everybody's standing by at SEMA waiting for this car to get out and all of a sudden Joe goes hold on guys he's doing something in the car fires up so it was really cool and I'm glad we had at it so it was one of those things yes nice to know somebody can steal your car like a hundred miles away I can move the car without without them being I mean there's so many subtle touches on this car tell me about okay the steering wheel is something else there well yeah but it came off a Corvette oh it's yeah yeah yeah he's still guy we left the paddle shifters if anybody ever wants to Adam we eliminated a lot of the switches and then we added obviously the sanity name and then wrapped it in the leather see normally I like to see the original dash because it kind of reminds me that I'm a sixty that's 1962 whatever you are I'm doing but I like what you've done here it's nice clean yeah we wanted to do again we wanted all the design to carry throughout J and and trust me when we shot this for the show I had done a different - and I hated it yeah I just I gotta be honest sometimes you don't you know as a creative guy sometimes you think that's gonna look good and you got to be honest with yourself it looks like crap I had them pull that and then the guys that classic instruments had this made for us and it just fit perfectly that gray that dials when it turns on you know it's not organ amelie perfect that meeting not the dash itself but I'm saying the way it's laid out maybe a little bit angle would get better when you're driving but you're building a custom car you know you're at the end of the day it's fully custom was there any temptation to put a manual box in it yeah we ended up yeah we we always play with that so our truck our 1958 that we built manual box and it is a beast it is actually a beast and but this one we said oh you know what let's let somebody enjoy it we imagined a couple driving and it was having a great time that shifter I believe is lekar okay yeah I'm pretty sure it's the car so but it's not it's not factory GM or any no no no no I know I mean I've seen it somewhere but I yeah and then you can see I color-matched everything so you would have normally seen that Chrome and you would have seen the dial in a billet style when I changed that up same thing with the cupholders everything Eddie Motorsports changed them up and then painted them to match the car all right let's move to the back I love the fact you've kept the original fuel everybody gave me crap about that J about keeping it ya know I love it I love it I mean I like something too harkens back I like to see what it was exactly like I looked at this right I went 61 or 62 chef I knew right away I loved the fact that the roots and chops I'm not driving exactly you know exactly I mean I like the fact it's it's extreme practical yeah a lot exactly the luck well the way I wanted to see this car 20 years from now and have somebody say Dan that thing looks beautiful yeah and what is it right they're gonna wonder what it is once they recognize they're gonna recognize the bubble and all that and then obviously the affinity don't change some of the iconic things that I've made this car the fact you kept the bel-air oh yeah and there was a lot of back-and-forth we do it and I go no those have to be on there yeah it just goes back to the roots of the car let's come around to the back I don't look at that what do you think of that nice and clean I like the fact that you've kept for those that are familiar with these cars the bel-air was the lower price that was below the impala impala was so to the top of the line yeah and the Impala had three taillights in the belly I heard too and I like the fact that it's it's it's stayed a bel-air you know especially the super sports I mean those those got up way high I like what have you integrated the exhaust system in here yes so here we actually tucked the bumper all the way in we flush mounted it and then we shade we'd probably took about an inch and a half off and then added that trim right there to give it that really cool railing we also added all these little pieces that you you would it unless you really have two of them standing next to each other yeah so as you can see even the lights we changed out I love that you referenced the two lights on each side but these we wanted to sink them in bring in the LED modernize them a little bit so these are off actually a Chrysler product and they look really good how we pocket there man and when you light them up they just absolutely look amazing again gee did you old do this all on paper first or do you just start working no I think we started working on some of this I think that we kind of had a vision of where what direction you know and and my guys would probably would say what do you mean we started working you know that yeah they're absolutely right they started working on it and back and forth that's looking good that's not I can go hey what's happening here this is not right I don't really like that line and then making those adjustments from the creative process and then but from the very beginning I drew out the exhaust the tail exactly how I wanted right and then you trial the narrow the lights I originally wanted a big modern light coming in like that and then going back no I tell you what I'm glad I didn't do it it was really expensive to make a mold and I at the end the results just look great but look at the inside the inside so everything is about detail so for me everything is about making sure that we have the attention to detail not just on the upper but oh wow nothing looks like a back seat it looks like two kids it's if they're looking backwards exactly right the old movie Gators I want to go to the drive-in and sit over here and look at the drive and I think those were the best days you had a couple of kids in the driver's seat I still try to sneak him kids well yeah I think no matter how much money we make we still have to be a little tight yeah that's that's what gives us a little bit more money yeah but yeah we hit all the components added them all here you got your battery got your kicker audio system everything hidden and then obviously just making it nice and clean and that it flows same thing on top I'm a big stickler of detail focus on those other things that people aren't gonna see or recognize but they're gonna make you happy when you see them all done ya know that's what's fun when you you know you just sort of get a chair and a beer or a glass of wine whatever you want and just sit and look at it you see all these sort of little details which are nicely done the hinges are finished it's beautiful we can close the trunk awesome now one of those 22 inch wheels yeah we got wheels abettor well we wanted to be really beefy so we added that Toyo tire which gave that gave us that meat that we wanted obviously with such a big wheel I hate it when it stretches them and then it makes it look really weird I like the big face ya know because no way I don't like the big giant dubs on the old cars the wheel is like in your face and it's distracting but the fact that you've muted it with the gray yeah you know it doesn't draw your eye in as much yeah a little bit understated and it's got the meat that it needs and and that's kind of like I saved if you were to say well what's what is it that's got this car splashy and also stout let's bring it next door well put it up on our sterols coney lifts and you'll see you see what the underside wow that's that I love that you're gonna love it I think underneath there's a lot of attention to detail and it should be shown so thank you yeah let's do it you can bring it to the car yeah you know you have to bring the car that a lot of times your lips this block you got something in front of it that is so crazy so each one of them talks to each other balances out and sends a signal to start picking up all the sound at how small oil filter that's gonna filter out a lot of you know it's just so tiny well everything's obviously powder coated this is all ceramic coating I love these accordion joints yeah Lex yeah the flex obviously they allow that movement so you can see a little bit of the ceramic kind of changing color but we ran them throughout and and with this art Morrison chassis so one of the things we had to do is create a little tunnel which kind of they speck it out for you so with the 62 they it doesn't just fit right in you got to kind of make sure that you do some adjustments so some assembly required assembly required yeah sure just the fact you have to polish and detail the underside of the car bad enough you spent a long time on the top of the luckily I'm a detailer right yeah and one of these just just air vents are just essentially aesthetic looking I wanted to the belly pound when you look underneath these cars I remember seeing is 61 years ago at the Grand National Roadster show up on the side and I fell in love with the detail that it did in the metalwork so we know what it is I liked them because with so many the older cars I don't run the belly pans because you get oil and gas in there yeah and it's it's it stays it forms a puddle and then if you have a fire right you're driving a Molotov cocktail this this will allow any fluids anything to escape actually stir anything yet so we wanted to add the mesh in in there and then kind of just carry it throughout you see you see again you got your form link suspension everybody all done you guys remember I talked about the gas tank we swap oh you didn't tell us about the gas think you and I talked about tell us what we have to count the original chevy yeah all right we took out the original spare tank I'm sorry the original spare housing had this beautiful tank um which is gonna give us what we need you got a huge engine you're pulling obviously a bunch of fuel gonna make sure your 20 gallon tank all aluminum helps you with that so okay and you're obviously exhaust system nice and clears yeah we have a great partnership with Borla Borla took care of us and we ran the exhaust all the way through the chassis and then we were able to kind of put the mufflers right at the back end and then run them right through that that back bumper like we talked about yeah and your suspension all adjustable here as well yeah yeah we got the coil over suspension all adjustable so again that sits low right now but it could sit at a at a regular right height to however you want it depending on what now what are you running back here 350 for something like they're running 373 gear ratio awesome little extra power so you got a four-speed transmission with overdrive right well 373 give you a nice balance of performance and and mileage as well yeah I mean it's you could eat off it looks like he didn't offer you know you can't take the boy out of this is the cleanest hood I've ever seen thank you man that means a lot trust me yeah you know it's amazing how many people don't want the car up on the lift you know because it's just know know each other whereas this it's it's pretty much I want them to see that it's a true build I want them to do that there's a lot of thought and it's your own car yeah yeah I mean and it needed to be right I mean that's the bottom line you know I always tell people we're building cars on TV not for TV that's right yeah and this is yours you know go over some stupid ex talk show host you know are you are you telling me that we're gonna be building the car I don't know what you're not like it working so 800 guys yeah I don't think I think they'll boot me out you know it's really good and I I just love these flex John's yeah I use these in my steam cars you know because in the old days they didn't have it and they would crack and this it it accordions and yeah and then you could see we added obviously all the clamps in between just in case something cracked that along the way or we we get damaged one or not we don't have to change out the entire exhausts and everything here is nicely protected as well well this is clean underneath there's anything I've ever seen which is good and bad yeah good is it's incredibly clean under thing under here the bad thing is you know I know if you've watched the news lately we've had these horrible mudslides all around here and the roads are just covered with rocks and dirt and this is going to barrett-jackson right that's right yeah gonna barrett-jackson to the auction and I don't want to spend all day cleaning up so this is the one car we won't take for a ride but next time you're down we'll take it for a ride let's do it okay okay love it it's just we can't get on the roads anyway you know two months ago we couldn't drive because of the fire now we can't drive because of the floods this is it's biblical living here okay but you'll come back we'll do the appreciate thank you we would've beat this up oh yeah thanks the whole team thank you thank you thank you guys guys next week see ya [Music]

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 401,832

Keywords: Ralph Holguin, RMD Garage, Barret Jackson, Chevy, Bel Air, custom, Art Morrison, Sanity, lowrider, kustom, restomod, LS3, jay leno, garage, Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, compares cars, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, car gear, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Camaro Z28, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, car collection, cnbc, episode, motorcycle, ford, corvette, tour, dodge, lexus

Id: YR-FCe_8Vdw

Length: 25min 4sec (1504 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 23 2018