Bobby-Built

Bob Cullipher Builds Cars the Old Fashioned Way—at Home

We always find it amusing when a bench racing session turns to building street rods. It seems there is a huge contingency of rodders and observers of street rodding who believe that every car in the fairgrounds area was built by a professional shop. We’re not about to argue the point that a lot of people now pay to have work done on their cars, whether it’s chassis work, bodywork or upholstery. However, there is still a large group of people who spend evenings and weekends out in the garage forming brackets, repairing rust, blocking panels and wiring hot rods. In short, they are building cars the old-fashioned way—at home with the help of a few friends.

A signed Steve McQueen poster always draws attention. It’d be way too valuable to hang in the garage if Steve McQueen had actually signed it, but hey, you can’t have everything. The door leads to the other garage where the ’36 roadster is kept, and those photos are all cars that Bobby has owned or built over the years. Finally, you’re probably thinking that “American Graffiti” poster was signed by the star of the movie, Paul LeMat, but that would be way too easy. Rather, this is a poster signed by the guy who sold them, Alan Thorton.

Talk about a lot of stuff to look at, the walls in Bobby Cullipher’s shop were filled with everything from cool photos to a couple of old dashboards. Well-worn cabinets make for good storage.

Not only are we certain that this goes on more than many people suspect, we’re predicting a bit of an upsurge of home builders as our group enters the golden years and spends its retirement in the garage and tinkering with hot rods. It may not be a ground-up build, but we’re betting on more garage time in the future. Should you need an example of just such a person, come into Bobby Cullipher’s garage with us.
Our whirlwind garage tour continued as Big Al masterfully motored through the night down country roads to the next garage. By the time we arrived at Bobby Cullipher’s house, it was approaching nine in the evening, and while it was dark, our day was nowhere near over. Now Bobby Cullipher has been at this street rod building game for a good long time, and with the help of his fellow Tidewater Street Rod Association members, his own formidable skills have assembled a string of great hot rods. As a matter of fact, several of the cars running around town are street rods built by Bobby; there are so many that they have now come to be known as “Bobby-built hot rods,” and they were all built in a garage that seems to just keep expanding from the original 1988 two-car garage to a two-car garage with a large carport, then to an enclosed bay under the carport, and finally a large storage area attached to the back of of the garage. You know, a guy just can’t have too much garage space.
The approach is always the same on the cars that he builds. Simple, safe and reliable are the mainstays of his building technique, and there has never been a hot rod that rolled out of his backyard garage that hasn’t seen thousands and thousands of miles of road use. Yeah, if it’s Bobby-built, it’s designed for the open road.

The Cullipher garage was built long before lifts became affordable for the home shop. However, that didn’t stop Bobby from getting a lift in his garage. First, he built a tray ceiling above the lift to get an extra 2 feet of clearance, and then he made the lift upright, a gauge of sorts. He simply marked the level of maximum lift on the post for each car he owned. This prevents the dreaded roof-hits-the-ceiling problem.

This recess was built in the ceiling to provide needed clearance for the lift. Note the flush-fit lighting, and of course, you can only use the lift with the door closed. Hey, it beats crawling around under your hot rod.

Now Bobby has been a pretty prolific hot rod (and garage) builder over the past 25 years, but with a recent conversion to retired status, we’re expecting to see more street rod work than ever happening in his shop. His own ’36 roadster (which was built from a coupe) is complete and racking up the miles, so you know he’ll be filling the two workshop bays with another project. His craftsmanship is top-shelf, and his productivity is an inspiration to fellow hot rodders who seem to be suffering from an energy crisis of sorts.
Until he gets his own project going, there’s a Ford woody in the shop that belongs to Steve Fink, and Bobby is helping out by installing a Fat Man Fabrications front clip and a new rearend with disc brakes all around. Like we said, there always seems to be something going on in this shop. After the quick tour, we spent some time scouring the photos on the walls and talked about everything from old Fords to starring in a hot rod movie that was never released. Yeah, bench racing at Bobby’s is almost as good as the work done in the shop. Then Big Al rang the bell, “Time’s up boys. Let’s head to the next garage.” And just like that, we were gone.