Building from the chassis up

The 53-year-old basically handmade everything.

"The Ford Roadster has been finished for about four years and it took me about two years to build it," he said.

"I have only just finished the rat rod and it's been on the road for a couple of months.

"I built everything on the car, including the rewiring.

"On the roadster I got a little bit of a hand to finish the wiring off and I helped the bloke paint it.

"Rewiring a car is a pretty big order and was challenging at times - it's very time consuming.

"I took them over to the Devonport Car Show that we had in March . . . if the weather's all right I take them out.

"Both of them are good to drive, they are like driving a new car as they have got a $4000 front end.

"I got some rails from America for the Roadster to built the chassis up, I purchased a brand new fibreglass body and built the whole car from nothing.

"With the rat rod I sourced an old truck cab in Burnie and then fabricated a chassis and everything else went from there.

"Neither of them were cars when I bought them, I more or less started off with nothing.

"They're both Special Interest cars and I take one of them out most or every second weekend and go for a bit of a cruise.

"They sit in the shed and I keep a sheet pulled over them.

"I enjoy building them as much as anything, I like to drive them, but the building is what I like to do.

"I'm having a bit of a spell at the moment as I have always been a tinkerer, I used to build chainsaws out of motorbike engines and all that stuff.

"I don't have a trade, I just taught myself and learnt it all as I went along.

"I have been a car man and just like building stuff and always a bit of a tinkerer-handyman.

"Back in the day I used to have Toranas and an FS Monaro."