Man and machine

By TOSHUA E. PHILLIPS

June 15, 2006 05:44 pm

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PENDLETON — Cars run at competitive speed against dogs for being a man’s best friend.
Lou Lupton’s 1929 Mercedes Benz SSK replica is parked in his garage, while his day-to-day transportation bakes in the sun. It’s understandable. He built the Mercedes.
It’s a pleasure car driven that’s been to Cincinnati twice, Chicago once and Evansville five or six times for high school reunions.
It was a big hit, particularly in Southern Indiana.
“When you’re driving that car, you got to not mind being the center of attention,” said the Pendleton resident who operates Lou’s Computer Repair. “The car attracts attention wherever it goes.
“When you tell someone you put a car together, people want to see it.”
Lupton, 54, has been a car watcher for sometime.
When he lived in Clarksville during the 1970s, he knew of a custom-made Bradley GT kit complete with gullwing doors on a Volkswagon Beetle chassis that he’d seen on the streets of Louisville.
In 1986 while living in Indianapolis, he responded to a postcard labeled Rekindle A Love Affair.
That same year his Mercedes came in a 12-feet long, 3 1/2-feet high, 4-feet-wide box from the car kit company Fiberfab, a subsidiary of Classic Motor Carriages.
Putting together a burgundy antique car with black fenders, cherry wooden dash and steering wheel dipped in urethane proved to be difficult.
“This was by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” said Lupton, who learned from Kelly Jones, owner of the now-defunct Custom Classic Engineering, that only 30 percent of all kits sold are ever assembled with 10 percent by the original owner.
Going through his pink packing list to verify that all the parts mailed was a job in itself that went on like a bad dream, he said.
He didn’t go it alone.
Jones found and delivered a rolling chassis acquired from a wrecked Chevette, Lloyd Jennings finalized the assembly and wife Linda Lupton upholstered the back seat and padded dash.
Linda said they had parts stored in every room of the house — including underneath the bed — but it was a lot of fun seeing her husband accomplish that.
When bearing a stressful day working at St. John’s Health Center, his wife needs “a dose of kit car.”
“There’s nothing like riding around with the wind in your hair to put you in a good mood,” Linda said.
Lupton’s hobby took 200 man hours and six years to finish the task since he worked a demanding job at the Indianapolis-based Steak ‘N Shake as an industrial engineer.
The basic kit cost $8,000. The rolling chassis cost $2,000 and a special frame for $1,000 was needed to mount it.
“The biggest kicker was the car didn’t come with the hardware to put it together,” said Lupton, who spent $15,000 total.
When Lupton agreed to become a Fiberfab field representative, the company threw in accessories such as the coupe option including the luggage rack and running boards.
He was offered fog lights but wanted to keep the car as authentic as possible.
Cars didn’t have radios in the Roaring ’20s, but he installed one anyway.
He donated a 1971 Oldsmobile 98 sporting Nordic blue paint with a black vinyl top to charity. Now he drives a 1993 white Oldsmobile 98 and 2002 Chevrolet Impala.
“I like them all,” he said.

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