How did it start…a long time ago, the year was 1945, a boy named J Ted Williams lived on Stebbins Street in South Toledo, Ohio.  His Grandma Schuetz owned a store on the corner of Stebbins and Colburn, across from the store was a business named Krazneys Body Shop. This shop not only fixed cars but they built stock cars that they sponsored and raced at Toledo Race Way.

Mr. Krazney was a nice old man and would let us kids bang on old panels to see if we could straighten them out, some of us got good at it, when we got older. He also would take us to the races, with our parent’s permission, I don’t think we really understood what racing was all about but it was fun riding in the back of the pickup truck and the hot dogs and sodas were great!

Around 1953 a friend, Brad Albain, and I purchased a 1939 Ford coupe for $250 this was a lot of money back then and we weren’t even old enough to drive! We rebuilt the car in Brad’s garage, I did the body work and paint, Brad did the engine and drive train, we both had help from others in the neighborhood, some older with more experience.

Another friend, Ray Muggler, worked at a seat cover business and got his boss to let us redo the seats and put in new carpet. We had to pay for the material but there was no charge for the use of shop or tools, he even overlooked the work and some times helped (most of the time).

We finished the car by painting it primer gray and were waiting for shop time to paint it Candy Apple Red….but before that happened we got our drivers learning permits and the car never sat still long enough over the next two years to get painted. We drove this car to all kinds of events; school, auto shows, drag races, stock car Races and then one day in 1957 we went to a sports car road race at Waterford Glenn Raceway, outside of Detroit, Michigan and that was the end or