The car that started Mel’s love affair, Jonathan Hebeler’s chopped Pop
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hen we last visited Mel Garrard, it was to take a look at the Plum Crazy Fordson van he had recently finished restoring at the time. That feature was penned by Jon Hill and appeared in the October ’17 issue. Jon kicked off by commenting that Mel grew up loving Pops and Fordsons, the de rigueur hot rods of that era. It will come as no surprise, then, that prior to Plum Crazy, Mel had built a string of cars and vans based on British tin. Or that at the time of that feature, his son Elliott had a 100E of his very own (which he still does). Similarly, it will come as no surprise when it came to deciding on the base vehicle for Mel’s next project. ‘I’ve fancied a chopped Pop on steels since I attended the Hot Rod Drags back in ,’ el confided. onathan ebeler as there in his purple sit up and beg rolling on yellow steels and that was all it took to get me hooked. ‘Fast forward several years and a fair number of projects and cars and I was put on to an unfinished op pro ect in omford. Bizarrely, the tip-off came from Shawn Shirley in Arizona. (The power of social media, eh? DB.) Adrian Fish was the then owner and he had invested a good number of years into the car. ‘The body was excellent, all steel with a Mini roof panel nicely grafted in. A Cosworth turbo engine was installed, as was a 5-speed T5 manual gearbox. The rolling stock featured an IRS, based around a Cosworth diff, with fabricated upper and lower arms in a custom cradle and quad shocks and outboard vented discs. The front suspension was centred around Mk3-5 Cortina spindles, with custom upper and lower A arms, adjustable coilovers and an Escort Mk2 steering rack.’ Despite the time already spent on the build, Adrian was no longer feeling it for the Pop and had lost interest. His focus was
8 CUSTOM CAR JANUARY 2023
8pp Mel Garrard Pop.indd 8
12/12/2022 12:27
