Sure Thing

Man versus challenge: There’s more than one way to skin a ’63 big body

- Ro McGonegal

This story just might qualify for a Strangely Believe It! segment, so keep reading. Nothing here makes any real sense until you align it with the records that corroborate. Bob Moor house is a mockup builder employed by Cessna Aircraft in Wichita, Kansas. Although he’s been stuck on hot rods and similar creations for about 50 years, his history includes body shop experience of more than 22 years. He was a metal man and a painter and he had his own business for a dozen years. Maybe that’s why he relied on the rest of the world to do the project car work for him; maybe he was just weary of doing for others.

While winding down that path, he got to know Ridler winner Roger Burman, who hails from the “Golden Buckle of the Corn Belt,” Rockwell City, Iowa, and not coincidentally, runs Lakeside Rods & Rides. A man of no small accomplishment, Burman’s Radster 1935 Ford won several national awards in 18 months: named Good guys Texaco/Havoline America’s Most Beautiful Street Rod for 2007 at the 21st West Coast Nationals in Pleasanton, the coveted Ridler award at the Detroit Autorama in 2006, and America’s Most Beautiful Roadster at the Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona. Such credentials don’t come easily. Roger really knows how to do it right. But that Ridler constitution shines through.