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View Full Version : Boyd Coddington - RIP



Goggles
28-02-2008, 05:54 AM
might not like his work ethic, but stlll sad:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyd_Coddington

TUFGN3
28-02-2008, 07:05 AM
damn! he was only 63, kind of a shock to the car community on a global scale....

maggsy
28-02-2008, 07:22 AM
Damn, I love that show.....poor bugger, he built some amazing rods

theVman
28-02-2008, 07:35 AM
Just read this on another forum. RIP Boyd Coddington. His legacy will leave on thats for sure.

matthewfnorbert
28-02-2008, 07:41 AM
very sad for all

S2VYSS
28-02-2008, 07:43 AM
Wow thats sad, a true legend lost

HSVQUE
28-02-2008, 07:46 AM
RIP..

He was quite an odd bloke actually.. skilled nevertheless..

I never knew he worked so closley with foose.

Rob

team illucid
28-02-2008, 08:05 AM
Damn, I love that show.....poor bugger, he built some amazing rods

Same here ...

HSV Listy
28-02-2008, 08:34 AM
That is really said. RIP man. The missis and I really liked American Hot rod.

Better than overhauling where every car was done same way and nearly all done in Chip Foose Blue.

vxssgurl
28-02-2008, 09:09 AM
R.I.P Boyd.

He did amazing things for the rodding industry, and set the bar to a very high standard in terms of what can be done with customs...

C4B
28-02-2008, 09:35 AM
Coddington was a funny one. If you solely focus on the cars he produced, he was a genius. If they never made the series "American Hot-Rod" he would have be remembered as a god of the rodding world.

Sadly "American Hot-Rod" really hung out the dirtly laundry for all to see, and because of that I suspect history will remember him in a less favourable manner.

RIP Boyd Coddington.

Belzey
28-02-2008, 02:23 PM
I was shocked when I read this, my hubby and I love watching the show he was a bit of an arrognat ar*e but great at what he did none the less.

Very sad RIP.

Have they said how he died yet?? Wonder why they are not releasing details :confused:

Space Pope
28-02-2008, 02:27 PM
Sad to here that. He was a legend in his 'craft' industry and contributed in no small way to the evolution of the Hot Rod and the Hot Rod industry in the United States.

I quite enjoyed American Hot Rod as well. Very entertaining stuff.

WH_IKID
28-02-2008, 02:31 PM
Sure he was an angry old man and used to treat his workers in ways which would be looked down upon, but the man knew how to customise and restore a car. He certainly did some top work.

He will be missed.

ATOMICSS
28-02-2008, 03:17 PM
Shareholders in Bondo making companies should sell now I reckon. Worldwide demand for Bondo is going to halve overnight.

!!COOKY!!
28-02-2008, 04:24 PM
Show did him no justice as a person ,but his wheels and car designs were amazing. RIP Boyd....

Mad4Monaros
28-02-2008, 04:30 PM
Wow, I can't believe it!

Loved the show, but honestly couldn't stand him as a person. But like everyone has said, he built some awesome cars!

Goggles
28-02-2008, 04:43 PM
Have they said how he died yet?? Wonder why they are not releasing details :confused:

the wikipedia article has now been updated to state that he died from liver failure

SLE355
28-02-2008, 04:47 PM
That is sad to hear, love American Hotrod and watching the cars come together as well as all the drama.

gmh308
28-02-2008, 04:59 PM
Sad. RIP Boyd Coddington. There is someone who made a positive mark on our world. He made a difference! A true artist and rodder at heart.

03 SV8
28-02-2008, 05:32 PM
wow what a shock. he built some really nice cars

jd biddle
28-02-2008, 05:37 PM
Man what a shock alright i loved that show rip boyd forever missed

lablube
28-02-2008, 05:56 PM
Wow, was following a discussion on another forum about the relationship between Boyd and Foose just last week. He may have had people skill problems but was one heck of a talent. RIP.

GTSAdam
28-02-2008, 07:38 PM
RIP an absolute Legend

WIKED
28-02-2008, 07:43 PM
Thats sad news for sure.

I haven't watched the show for awhile but they built some nice cars and when he had the wheel business he had many customers that were extremely happy.

Vulture
28-02-2008, 07:46 PM
He never really looked well, was he an alcoholic?

briesey
28-02-2008, 07:49 PM
Bugger, watch this show with my son, some good stuff
RIP Boyd

Nidz
28-02-2008, 10:06 PM
I reckon he would have had high blood pressure being so stressed all the time.. He was a real stubborn old bugger.. I think his tv show showed this as well as off camera.. In one of the builds he sourced a fiberglass tub for an old Ford that was shipped to him from Ferntree Gully.. Says it on the crate.. Some trippy stuff there.. I don't put his cars down to his hard work cause he kinda sat back and watched the others build them. He was more like the slave driver who established the company. Kind of like Paul Snr in American Chopper. I still tgive him credit for having some good design ideas.. Watching his TV show he showed little respect to some of his workers and also others in his same profession, especially when he had a woman who was realy good with cars sacked cause his wife didnt' aproove of her.. He was a long time rival of Chip Foose who also makes nice rods and will be probably relieved that his main competition is now no longer..

chevy1
29-02-2008, 12:39 AM
The Foose and Boyd story was a marraige made in heaven that ended in hell. I dont think they ever made up after the split. My opinion is that Boyd had the inspiration and Foose had the concept of taking the rod & custom world to a new level. Foose is still progressing and challanging himself everyday . It's a pity Boyd is mainly remembered for being a grumpy old man .I'm sure his close friends and workshop and rivals are all saddened by the loss.
R.I.P. Boyd

XLR8 V8
29-02-2008, 02:18 AM
He was a long time rival of Chip Foose who also makes nice rods and will be probably relieved that his main competition is now no longer..


Foose is a pretty emotional guy who will no doubt be as saddened as everyone else, if not moreso, as he and Boyd have long term history. For him I doubt there will be anything remotely resembling "relief" at Boyd's death

Supa
29-02-2008, 09:31 AM
R.I.P Boyd. Great man and a great show. He is one of the God fathers of Rodding he will be missed by all.

iamhappy46
29-02-2008, 11:09 PM
Thats sad news for sure.

I haven't watched the show for awhile but they built some nice cars and when he had the wheel business he had many customers that were extremely happy.

He actually took back control of his wheel manufacturing side of things late last year. The quality was not up to scratch from the company that had been manufacturing them, which was a Kansas City based company.

RIP Boyd

gasguz
01-03-2008, 09:34 AM
Well you learn something new everyday.

RIP Boyd a true car crafter has been lost

Taken from the LA Times
Boyd Coddington, a renowned Southern California hot rod and custom car designer and builder who starred in the cable reality-TV series "American Hot Rod," has died. He was 63.

Coddington, a longtime diabetic, died Wednesday at Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in Whittier of complications stemming from a recent surgery, said publicist Brad Fanshaw.

http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/photo/2008-02/36221739.jpg (http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-coddington_fxppxbke20080229065820,1,2043964.photo) Classic (http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-coddington_fxppxbke20080229065820,1,2043964.photo)
http://www.latimes.com/images/standard/clicktoenlarge.gif click to enlarge (http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-coddington_fxppxbke20080229065820,1,2043964.photo)




Once described by Hot Rod magazine senior editor Gray Baskerville as "the Stradivarius of car building," Coddington was a onetime maintenance repairman and machinist at Disneyland who customized cars and built hot rods at home in his off-hours before opening Hot Rods by Boyd in Stanton in 1978.

"His cars set the standards for custom automotive design because rather than just take a selection of parts from other vehicles, he would design and manufacture virtually every part for the cars that he built," said Fanshaw, former president of Hot Rods by Boyd and Boyds Wheels.

Coddington launched Boyds Wheels in 1988.

"He was the first person to utilize billet aluminum in the manufacture of automotive wheels," said Fanshaw. "Prior to that, all custom wheels were made in a cast manufacturing process where the aluminum is melted and poured into a mold. Boyd developed the use of solid aluminum and machining it and sculpting it for the final wheel.

"It gave you a much stronger wheel, a much more beautiful wheel, and you had much more design latitude when you did it that way."

Two cars built and designed by Coddington are in the permanent collection of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, which had an exhibit of his cars in the mid-1990s.

"Boyd Coddington is one of those guys who'll go down in history as one of the great names in the customizing and hot rod world," said Dick Messer, the museum's executive director.

Because of Coddington's background as a machinist and his ability to make precision parts for his cars, Messer said, "his stuff was very finely put together. A lot of the stuff he did looked like jewelry rather than automotive parts."

Coddington, Messer added, "had a great design eye. And some of the big names in the automotive world today, particularly in customizing and design, worked for Boyd at one time or another," including celebrity designers Jesse James and Chip Foose.

Among the iconic cars to come out of the Boyd shop are CheZoom, which Fanshaw described as "an extreme reinterpretation" of the classic 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air; and the Aluma-Coupe, Boyd's reinterpretation of a 1933 Ford coupe that was hand-fabricated from aluminum.

Then there's the sleek CadZZilla, a radically re-powered and re-stylized 1948 Cadillac coupe designed by ZZ Top band member Billy Gibbons and automotive designer Larry Erickson.

"It was Boyd Coddington's masterful execution, along with his team members, that created perhaps one of the most memorable customized cars in recent history," Gibbons told The Times on Thursday.

Reflecting on Coddington's career, Gibbons said: "Boyd's contributions were on a par with George Barris and all the other American car customizers combined. He will be missed."

Coddington won the America's Most Beautiful Roadster Award seven times, including an unprecedented six times in a row. He also won the Slonaker Award, another prestigious automotive award in the hot rod industry.

Honored as Hot Rod magazine's "Man of the Year" in 1988, Coddington twice received the Daimler-Chrysler Design Excellence Award.

He also was inducted into the Grand National Roadster Show Hall of Fame and the National Rod & Custom Museum Hall of Fame, among others.

His cars have been reproduced in Testors model car kits, made into a series of Mattel Hot Wheels toys and issued by the Franklin Mint as die-cast metal models. And one of the cars he designed and built -- a 1933 Ford coupe stylized with the trademark "Boyd Look" -- was featured on the cover of Smithsonian magazine, which profiled him in 1993.

In 1997, Ernst & Young named Coddington "Entrepreneur of the Year."

But a year later, Boyds Wheels, his successful company that went public in 1995 and merged with Hot Rods by Boyd, was in bankruptcy.

Although devastated, according to a 2000 account in The Times, Coddington formed a new company in 1998, selling his Ferrari for $150,000 and some real estate holdings for $1.5 million to fund operations.





"I was crushed like an ant, but I want to come back and prove to myself and customers that I can still do it," he told The Times.

With the debut of "American Hot Rod" in 2004, the bearded car builder whose trademark attire was a Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap became a TV star.

The show, a behind-the-scenes look at building custom cars at Boyd Coddington's Hot Rods and Collectibles in La Habra, aired through last fall on the Learning Channel.

Coddington was born Aug. 28, 1944, in Rupert, Idaho, and grew up on his father's dairy farm, where he devoured custom-car magazines.

At 13, he acquired his first vehicle by trading his shotgun for a 1931 Chevrolet pickup truck. His father promptly made him trade it back, but Coddington's course was set.

"That truck kind of started everything," he told The Times in 1996. "From there, I built all kinds of different hot rods: I had a '40 Ford coupe, a '55 Chevy, Model A's and all kinds of vehicles."

In 1967, after attending a trade school and apprenticing for three years at a Salt Lake City machine shop, he moved to Southern California.

Coddington is survived by his wife, Jo; five sons, Boyd Coddington Jr., Christopher Coddington, Thomas McGee, Gregory Coddington and Robert McGee; his sister, Klis Ruesch; six grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

Instead of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Coddington Foundation to benefit a variety of charities.

Donations may be addressed to Coddington Foundation, 811 E. Lambert Road, La Habra, CA 90631.

Services will be held at 9 a.m. Wednesday at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 900 W. La Habra Blvd., La Habra

FC_Holden
01-03-2008, 08:17 PM
RIP Boyd; may he and Roy enjoy making hotrods forever now

TYREFRIAR
02-03-2008, 08:33 AM
Funny the opinions on being a grumpy old man...

He is apssionate about hwat he does, and if his workers dont be as passionate, or seem not to care, he lets them know, and he didnt tolerate fools, except Dwayne, of course.

Alot of that show is edited to add to the hype though.

Mood swings, sugar levels, and toxins effecting judgements are all part of the health issues he had also.