About Us
The history of Musclecar Restoration and Design started a long time
ago. It started out as just a hobby that Rick loved and that soon turned
into a passion. His father and brother were also very influential in
his desire to tear things apart and make them new again. He simply loved
all things cars and turned into an extra income hobby all the way back
in 1976 when he restored his friend’s car, a 1967 RS/SS Camaro. From
that car came many requests from people to do minor restorations to
their cars and the hobby blossomed. He also drag raced several different
cars from 1977 through the mid 80’s getting even more mechanical experience.
Rick graduated High School in 1979 and proceeded onto Dunwoody Industrial
Institute (DII) where he graduated from Auto Mechanics. From there he
took a short term job with a race engine builder and then moved on to
Corvette Specialties in 1982 doing Bloomington Gold restorations at
the very early age of 21. “I owe my attention to detail from my years
at Corvette Specialties as Corvette restorations were way ahead of their
time in those days”. Those restorations brought him lots of attention
and the requests started coming in more rapidly. Unfortunately, the
owner was looking towards retirement and Rick was faced with either
buying the business or looking elsewhere for a job. He eventually moved
onto bigger and better things.
During his schooling at DII Rick met a fellow classmate whose father
raced a 1982 Camaro in Pro Stock Drag Racing under the name Purfeerst
and Prince. Rick was asked to join the team and wrenched on the car
for several years traveling around the Midwest racing at several tracks
but again reality set in and he had to make a living so the racing career
was over.
Throughout the 80’s and 90’s Rick restored a few cars a year for friends
and acquaintances. When a magazine feature was done on one of his cars
in 1983 the requests took off in earnest. Always wanting to go into
business full time, finances just did not allow for it and he would
have to settle for doing restorations on a part time basis while still
holding down a full time ‘paying’ job but he never put his wrenches
away permanently. Throughout those years his cars did quite well at
local and national shows. In 1983, Rick with a close friend also took
over the reins at North American Super Sports, an international car
club dedicated to the Chevrolet Super Sport cars. From this venture
Rick befriended quite a few hobbyists, many of whom requested his talents.
After several more magazine features and national awards, Rick was becoming
well known in the collector world.
After a layoff from his 20 year corporate job in 2007, it was time for
Rick to make a serious decision in his life. It would be now or never
and the decision was made to take the hobby full time. Since there were
no jobs available and requests for restorations continued to come in,
Rick opened up a full time shop and made a go of it. Shortly thereafter
he moved the shop to Pleasant Plains, Illinois and has not looked back
since. Today the company is booming and he continues to restore some
of the finest cars in the hobby such as Yenkos, LS6 Chevelles, Z28 and
many others. Rick’s girlfriend, Ann, is now the office manager and also
works in the shop at times.
Because of his attention to detail and research, Rick was hired on by
Exact Detail to help research and develop the 1970 LS6 Chevelle diecast
model project several years ago. Over 600 photographs and measurements
were supplied to Eric Trapp of Exact Detail. Several prototypes were
then supplied to Rick for his scrutiny. Only after signing off on the
project after some 300 issues were fixed was the model released to the
general public with rave reviews. Rick now has a showcase in his showroom
dedicated to this project, most of which are the prototypes. For more
on the models, see
http://www.diecastfast.com/diecast/DCF/CTGY/RVLS6.