Phantom Street Rods

A local man who designed the first phantom street rod kit with a retractable hardtop hopes to create dozens of new jobs in Miramichi when he begins manufacturing on the river.

While some high-end manufactured cars do have retractable hardtops, it’s been generally accepted that it was impossible for street rods.

"It’s the first kit car available anywhere with a retractable hardtop roof," Gerry says.

Over the years he asked many industry contacts what they thought of his idea for the kit, if it would sell or not.

"They said how do you plan on doing it? Well, never mind how, but what do you think?" he laughs. "They said given the dimensions and shape of the car, it’s impossible, you can’t make one. But if you could figure out a way . . . as far as they were concerned I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demand."

The mechanical engineering design technician, licensed body man, machine programmer and self-proclaimed jack-of-all-trades figured out a way.

Gerry designed a prototype using the mechanical components from a Jaguar in a 1934 Ford body. His business will produce kits for other hot rod enthusiasts to assemble and build in their own garages. The design is so simple any backyard mechanic can work on it.

"So what I’ve got in effect is a Jaguar with a ’34 Ford body," he says. "Someone can buy either the basic body shell with the retractable hardtop, or they could buy the body and frame package at any stage of completion."

Gerry changed the shape of the ’34 Ford streamlining it so it’s impossible to tell it has a retractable top whether it’s up or down. This had been a problem in the past.

"In 1957, Ford actually came out with retractable hardtop Fairlane. But in making a retractable out of it they made the back end of the car enormous," Gerry laughs. "But that was the only way they could do it so they could get the roof into the trunk. And when the roof was retracted they didn’t have any accessible luggage space. The only way you could get at your luggage was to put the roof back up."

In his prototype when the roof is either up or down you still have an accessible luggage compartment.

"When the roof is down it just looks like a regular roadster," he says. "You can’t tell that the body shape has been changed."

The ’34 Ford prototype is just the beginning for Gerry and Phantom Street Rods.

"As soon as I’ve got the car successfully marketed and I’ve got a regular flow going," he says. "And I’ve got people hired and a shop manager to take care of business, once everything is stable, then I’ll start on a new prototype and develop another car and we’ll put that into production. And once that is successful I’ll develop another car and so on."

"Given the nature of the product, I really don’t think it’s going to take very long for things to start moving along. And as soon as things do start moving then I’ll be looking for a bigger facility, start hiring people and carry on from there," he adds. "As popular as street rodding has become over the years I’d be surprised if it didn’t really take off."

With a true entrepreneur’s vision, Gerry says production might not stick just to cars either. He already has ideas for other products he sees a natural demand for in the industry.

"I’m having a great time with this," he says. "It’s actually taken up to about this point for the reality to actually hit home that I’m living the dream. This is fun. To be able to go out in the garage in the morning and just create — this is as good as it gets. It doesn’t get any better than this for someone like me."

Gerry’s long-time passion for automobiles began in 1971 when he started doing restoration work with his Dad. For many years he worked with kits on the consumer side, familiarizing himself with what worked well and what didn’t work so well.

"I thought I’d try to raise the bar and make something a little better," he says.

Gerry hopes his business will help to employ many Miramichiers.

"I’m hoping to be able to employ welders, laminators, machine programmers — pretty much any trade that would be associated with manufacturing cars," he beams. "The great thing about a business like this is there aren’t really any limits as to how big you can make it. As soon as you get one product up and running you can start working on another and once you’ve successfully marketed that then you can start something else. By having a number of different product lines, if one is going a little slower well maybe another line will pick up the slack, so you’re not really restricted to one particular design."

His passion for the business and the region is contagious.

"I know there are a lot of really qualified people around here. We have a lot of talented people around the Miramichi," he says. "We’ve got a great workforce and unfortunately we don’t have the jobs for them. So, if I can create a business that can hire some people and maybe make a dollar at the same time, it works well for everybody."

He wouldn’t dream of relocating his manufacturing plant to any other area.

"As far as setting up, getting the finances for it and all the rest of it, I know I would have had a lot easier time elsewhere," he says. "But this is home, I’d much rather be here. This is a great place."

"I don’t know if you could find a better place to manufacture than the Miramichi. If you were in Toronto or Winnipeg or wherever, you would have to ship, your customers are not all going to be based in whatever area you’re manufacturing in. So, it doesn’t matter where you’re located you still have to ship your product."

Gerry doesn’t think transporting his product out of here will be a problem.

"We’ve got all kinds of shipping options like transport or what have you," he says. "And for overseas we’re not too far away from Halifax to put the cars on container ships and send them out. So, we’re in a pretty good spot right here."

Right now Gerry’s concentrating on getting his brochures printed and out to established distributors as well as getting his website up and running. A lot of his success will depend upon his Internet marketing.

"That’s a big one. That’s huge," he says. "We’ve got something like six billion people on the planet and if my odds of selling a car are one in a million that’s not too bad."

"If you can find a job that you can’t wait to get to in the morning and when the end of the day comes you have a hard time to break yourself away from it, you’ve got the perfect job," Gerry says. "When you just love what you do, that’s as good as it gets. And I think that’s what we’re really meant for. I don’t think people were meant to stay in jobs they don’t like when with a little bit of effort and a little creativity . . . I’m a firm believer that if you have an idea of something you really like to do there’s got to be a way to make a living at it."

For more information contact Gerry at Phantom Street Rods. Telephone (506)836-2926 or toll free 1-877-836-2926. Email info@phantomstreetrods.com

Kellie Underhill is the editor of Bread 'n Molasses. Her writing credits include The Moncton Times-Transcript, The Brunswick Business Journal, The Atlantic Chamber Journal and The Reader magazine. Send comments about this article to editor@breadnmolasses.com.