ADVOCATE ORNAMENT

Call 214.560.4203 pecially enamored with a challenging, large-scale 1957 Bel Air Sport Coupe. Building together, she acquired her father’s penchant toward patience and attention to detail. As the tiny parts bonded, so did father and child.

They built other models, but this ’57 Chevy, which she painted black, was her favorite. In fact she kept it, even storing it atop the refrigerator for preservation, after her father was gone. It immortalized her dad, in a way.

In 2009, Cammarata was surfing the internet, looking at retro items for sale on eBay, she says. She went to ’57 Chevys, she says, which had recently been on her mind.

She came across a ’57 Black Bel Air for sale. She could hardly believe it, she says, “It was nearly identical to the model.”

The guy who owned it the preceding 25 years wanted to swap it for a convertible version, she explains.

“All of the numbers matched,” she says, “People who know cars will know what that means. And it had just over 89,000 miles.”

Every piece of the car, except the wheels, is original. She even has the initial 1957 Inspection sticker and, in the glovebox, the owner’s manual: The 1957 Guide to your New Chevrolet. Even the booklet —mid-century orange gingham graphics gracing its cover — is in strikingly good shape, complete with pages explaining cigarette lighters, ash trays and the electric clock, plus instructions for the breaking-in period, during which “the car should not exceed 60 miles per hour over the first 500 miles.”

“It’s not a fast car,” she says, “but a cruiser.”

Windows down on a spring evening, the Chevy glides along a road near White Rock Lake, and every passerby pauses to check her out. Any who happen to lean in to greet Cammarata would take note of what’s in the backseat — the miniature edition she built with her dad all those years ago.

Speeding Down Memory Lane

To be clear, Alan Short is a smart man. He comes from intelligent, business-savvy stock. In fact, his father developed real estate throughout the White Rock and Lake Highlands area, including the 7.5-acre center at Plano Road north of I-635. That’s where Short parks — in a captivating queue at which passersby unabashedly gawk — his three most-prized possessions. When he begins to speak in southern drawl about his cars and how much he likes to speed, however, it is impossible to not, for a moment, envision Will Ferrell’s loveable yet idiotic character from the NASCAR comedy “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.”

The comparison elicits a laugh from Short who charitably returns one of the film’s famous lines: “I wanna go fast!”

Speed is the purpose of his recent purchase, a 2010 ZR1 Corvette with a 638 horsepower engine. To quote Car and Driver magazine, “It is loud and fierce and terrifying when you want it to be, and a compliant transport unit when you’re just trying to get your tired body home.”

“I hit 160 in the HOV lane the other night,” Short says of the silver ‘Vette, a 55th birthday gift to himself. “I love to go fast. I’ve managed to keep her off the guardrail so far.”

From here, Short’s character runs fathoms deeper than the fictional speed racer. His fondness for the Corvette has roots in his friendship with his oldest brother, who introduced him by way of a 1996 LT4. The thrill of hitting 155 miles per hour was unforgettable. Years later, when his brother died, he commemorated that ride with a “155” tattoo.

He rolls up one sleeve of his black T-shirt, which he wears atop denim, frayed-at-the-knees shorts, to reveal the ink. He dips his head fleetingly — eyes hidden behind dark specs and under the tip of a taupe cowboy hat — then lifts his chin, wearing a big grin.

“She is Lynnette, the sexy sexy Corvette,” he says. “She’ll get you in trouble but you keep going back.”

Short’s trio on display offers a trip through time.

The 1970 Monte Carlo SS 454 is innovating in its attention to both beauty and power. As Hemmings Magazine notes, “muscle car aficionados rank the Monte Carlo SS high on the short list of personal luxury cars that tout performance at the very core.”

Like most of his cars, the Monte Carlo sort of “found me,” Short says. A friend of a friend was selling, and Short fell fast for the deep-red beauty, which he calls Christine. The Monte Carlo’s injuries, bumps and bruises always seem to “heal” easily, he says, like the regenerating ’65 Mustang in Stephen King’s novel of the same name.

The most meaningful and striking car in Short’s collection, however, is also the slowest, maxing out at about 60 miles per hour. It is Buttercup, a 1928 Ford Model A, also the oldest and rarest of his collection.

Short’s dad had a fascination with old Fords. When he heard about a family liquidating its recently deceased patriarch’s collection, Short went to check it out. When the adult son (obviously no car guy) tried to start up the ancient coup, the engine would not cooperate. Short confesses he had an idea what the problem was but kept quiet with a lowball offer, which the seller reluctantly accepted. It took Short about 30 minutes to have the prohibition-era gem running.

In the leather backseat today is a photo of Short’s dad behind the wheel — hair gray, eyes twinkling and wearing an ear-to-ear smile.

“We spent a lot of time working on this car together before he died,” Short says.

Of his 11 cars and trucks, Buttercup is the foremost showstopper. For instance, “I had a lady, like 80-something years old, stop me in the parking lot to tell me how when she was a little girl, she and her brother rode across country in a car like this, riding the rumble seat, or as some call it, the ‘mother-in-lawseat.’ ” He yanks at the rear and exposes a miniscule, uncovered chair that could fit two children, albeit uncomfortably.

Another time he exited a restaurant to find a family posing for photos around his car. “They had the little girl standing here,” he says, slapping the fender. “When I came out, they started apologizing and offering to pay me.”

A fussier owner might have suffered a coronary, but Short just laughed. “I like that people get enjoyment from it.” (Though, in general, he doesn’t recommend randomly placing children atop vintage vehicles). The Model A is sturdy and practical, constructed from wood and steel; Ford offered a floorboard hand crank in case of engine trouble and sold a kit that allowed the owner to convert the car into a tractor in a time of need.

“One day I watched this little boy, just 4-5 years old, and he just could not take his eyes off of it. He just stared and stared. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew he was looking at something special,” Short says. “That kid’s a car guy, I thought. It’s in your DNA, you don’t become a car guy, you are a car guy.” —CHRISTINA

The 1970 Monte Carlo SS 454 is innovating in its attention to both beauty and power. She’s remarkably resilient; her name is Christine.