Classy chassis

Mike Sciacca

You might hear the words chop, cut and rebuild in the daily

vocabulary of a carpenter. Perhaps even a plastic surgeon.

In this instance, they are the premise for a Huntington

Beach-based cable television show about the building of an

automobile. It’s called “Chop Cut Rebuild -- The Series,” which airs

on the Speed Channel.

Now in its second season, the show is on hiatus and gearing up for

the start of season No. 3.

Unlike network and cable reality series that deal with the

building of a new home or the transformation of a human being who has

gone under the knife, this program isn’t neatly tied up in a one-hour

segment.

Instead, this series features hot rod building -- from start to

finish, from the first chop to the final polish -- over the course of

an entire season.

Shot locally with bodywork taking place at several

custom-car-builder shops in Surf City -- among them, Huntington Beach

Bodyworks, D & P Classic Chevy and California Street Rods -- each

episode of “Chop Cut Rebuild” features four automobiles on a

step-by-step journey to total restoration.

There are no shortcuts with the show, and each automobile is

resurrected and turned into a work of art.

Each shop is asked to cut, chop and rebuild an automobile in a six

months.

The final episode of the season reveals which automobiles make it

to one of the industry’s biggest events, the Specialty Equipment

Manufacturers Assn. Show, held each November in Las Vegas.

Cars reincarnated during the 2005 season are a 1956 Chevy, a

Bonneville race car, a 1937 Ford replica hot rod kit car, a 1965

two-door Chevelle wagon and a 1991 Porsche 911 Carrera. The

Bonneville went on display last November at the SEMA show in Las

Vegas.

“I call it a soap opera for gear heads,” said Dan Woods, executive

producer of the show.

Woods also does voice-overs for each show and is a hands-on type

of host.

“We document the process of restoring and customizing an

automobile,” he said. “Think of it as ‘Bob Villa Meets Cars.’

“We don’t rebuild a car in an hour. This show is all about being

real. Nothing is fabricated, and there’s no fake drama. We use real

cars, real technicians, work under real deadlines. This show is first

and foremost, done in documentary style, rather than as a reality

show.”

The half-hour programs that air weekly on Sunday night have a

music-video edge to them.

Chuck Lombardo Jr. and a cast of nine in-house technicians from

California Street Rods recently put a mechanical spin on the story of

Dr. Frankenstein by bringing to life a monster of a car for the

program. Taking a few “tubes off the wall” at the custom shop, which

was started by his fatherin Surf City in 1978, Lombardo and the

shop’s technicians went to work on creating the Bonneville race car.

The car’s body is a fiberglass reproduction of a 1934 Chevrolet.

It has been chopped, stretched and painted cobalt blue by House of

Kolor and now sits on display in the front showroom of California

Street Rods.

The Bonneville project took five months to complete.

“The project was a blast to do,” Lombardo said. “Not that it

didn’t have its moments, though. We work on classic cars around here

all the time, and under deadline too, but the added twist with the

Bonneville was having to work under the deadline of a cable program.”

Lombardo rolled the car out last October to the Bonneville Salt

Flats in Utah, where -- after the car had passed its tech inspection

-- he went behind the wheel and reached 183 mph.

“That ruled,” he said. “To see this car come to life and have it

filmed was an awesome experience.”

Woods came to Huntington Beach from Canada, where he worked as an

actor and on another program about the restoration of automobiles. He

said that Surf City proved to be fertile for this type of show.

“This was ground zero,” he said of creating the cable program out

of his Surf City office. “There are a number of terrific custom shops

here in Huntington Beach or within close proximity. It was the

perfect fit to do the show here.”

* MIKE SCIACCA covers sports and features. He can be reached at

(714) 966-4611 or by e-mail at michael. sciacca@latimes.com.