At the Willow's Car Show in East Lansing Michigan, we stumbled upon Tom Detzler's cool custom Walking Dead themed vehicle. This vehicle grabbed our attention at the show and we talked to Tom about his unique custom.
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So this is a Low rider, it almost looks Rat Rodish but it's sort of a step above a regular Rat Rod.
It's kind of a higher end Rat Rod. It's still got paint and chrome but a lot of custom parts, air ride to it.
Yeah, sits real low when you let the air out.
I can still drive forward so I do a lot of limbo contests and stuff like that with it. So it still drops down but I can drive straight.
So you've got a theme going on, tell me about that?
Doing the Walking Dead theme. An old 50's cars got to do something for the kids like Walking Dead.
So how did you do that. You got stuff going on inside? Outside?
Got Lucille on it for the hood prop and we have door panels and barb wire inside.
So that's pretty rough, it's kind of grungy.
Yeah a little bit, but it's all fake stuff.
So how did you come up with the idea, where was the inspiration?
Just out of the blue, went to the hobby lobby to find interior and bought Walking Dead. Everybody said it matched the car perfect.
So how much of the work did you do in this yourself?
A lot of it except for the body work. It came out of Arizona. But then all of the drive train and interior, paint, stuff like that's mine.
What did you start with, what is this car?
It's a 1949 Fleetline with a 6 inch chop on it.
For the paint job you went with sort of traditional flames?
Yeah traditional Hot Rod, white walls with hub caps and then the flames.
Where do you take this car, what do you do with it?
Daily driver and car shows.
You drive this thing around everyday?
I drive it to work, let kids jump in there for pictures. It's a Hot Rod but you got to have fun with it. Can't let it sit in the garage.
So I guess you're not to afraid to drive it around cause it's not like pristine paint and everything. It's kind of got that Rat Rod feel to it so you can drive it and enjoy it.
Yeah if you can't enjoy it, you might as well not have it so I drive it everywhere.
What's under the hood? Tell me about the drivetrain?
350 Chevy with a 350 turbo and then it's a 10 bolt rear end out of it I got out of a S10 Truck.
Are you a big Walking Dead fan?
I watch it every year.
Well it's pretty popular.
Yeah everybody likes it.
And the cars pretty popular too. Thank you so much for sharing it on the show.
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