I'd seen this danger-girl before. She was outside 66 Bowl on a rock 'n bowl Saturday night in '99. That's when I first laid eyes on her big fat Buick fenders.

"Lowlita" was pin-striped in flowing script on the lower deck lid, like a tattoo on her curvy Detroit bottom. Here she was again, parked at the Rock n Roll garage sale. Lowlita's owner was easy to find. Greg Burnett, rockabilly guitarist of defunct Poison Okies, now with the R.I.P.tides, had a Buick patch on his denim jacket.

"Lowlita is a 1952 Buick Super Riviera hard-top," he told me. It's a rare model immediately identifiable by lack of widow pillar, leaving a clear line of vision when the glass is down.

"This is one of my favorite cars because they have the scary grill and great sheet metal sculpting," he said. Burnett is into scary. He's the owner/operator of Voodoo Machine Shop (2219 S. Robinson, OKC). Burnett and his employees specialize in transmogrifying old cars and scooters into magical street beasts. The shop itself is a combination of the Munster Mansion, West Coast Customs garage and Dr. Frankenstein's lab.

"I was really lucky to find Lowlita around eight years ago. A friend spotted her sitting in the mud out by Tinker Field. I bought her for a song," Burnett said. "She'd actually start and run. I drove her with the original drive train for about a year," Burnett said with a chuckle.

"It smoked and got maybe 5 miles to the gallon. The suspension was worn out, but it was fun. I decided to take her apart and make it a reliable, safe and dependable car," he said.

Burnett removed the original straight-8 engine and Dynaflow transmission. He replaced it with a Chevy small block married to a 700R4 tranny with overdrive.

"I cannibalized an '84 Pontiac Parisiene, including the tall-gear rear axle. It can do 85 mph, not even turning 2500 rpm," he said. Lowlita now sips gas at 20 mpg. Based on the gal's girth, this is miraculous. Burnett totally dismembered Lowlita, cut out the front suspension and grafted in a Rally model '79 Pontiac Firebird sub-frame. He used the quick ratio power steering box with power disc brakes and booster.

"Now it will stop on a dime," Burnett said. "I don't like using after-market gauges or modern interiors, so the dashboard is all original. It retains the flavor of what it was in 1952."

Indeed, she even has a one-hand knob on the steering wheel.

Totally cool now, Lowlita is Burnett's daily ride. Not a show car, the old lady cruises the streets seven days a week. Lowlita has perversely hot appeal like Hatchet Face in John Waters' movie "Cry Baby."

Her name is a reference to riding just inches off the pavement. "It's traditional from back in the '60s, and in Midwest City, the tough little thug town where I grew up, for fat fender cars to be lettered with a name," he said. "Lowlita transcends being a car. She's part of a lifestyle and culture. It's from the days of black leather jackets, sideburns and guys putting a modern engine in an old heap to make it run fast. I can pull up next to a new Mercedes and nobody pays any attention to that whatsoever.

"People smile and wave at you. The police even tend to turn a blind eye to you more than a new car. I have no idea why," Burnett said. "I drive her all the time, so power steering has been added, too. We travel all over the country to car shows, visiting friends and keeping in touch with hot rod colleagues."

Body parts for 1952 Buicks are not readily available. Even though the GM Service and Parts division's unofficial motto is that there's no such thing as an obsolete part, certain items just don't have enough demand to maintain stock.

"I like using original parts and had to look forever to find a hood latch. I finally found one that a guy up in Ponca City had. There was a bent frame that didn't even look like something from a car. It looked less than a skeleton, more like a couple of bones, but somehow hanging from a cable was the hood latch I needed," Burnett said.

"We're lucky to live in Oklahoma. There's still rural areas where you take back roads and see cars parked. Grandpa put it there when it wouldn't start and it's been sitting for 20 years. It's not like that in California and the East Coast where they've been picked clean. I'm always looking for parts," he said.

Burnett has several old vehicles from the era that he keeps around for parts. "But I don't sell parts for a living. We create things here at Voodoo," he said. Burnett and his staff do custom work on cars, trucks and motorcycles. Using expert fabrication skills when necessary, they don't sub-contract, performing all mechanical, body, paint and upholstery work in-house.

"Our clients range from high-profile professionals to the low-buck guy. We build a lot of motors and do lots of chassis modifications," he said.

Burnett's currently working on what he describes as his dream car.

"It's this 1941 International pickup over here," he said, indicating a stripped down truck body in the rear of the shop. "We need an actual service truck and I wanted a pre-war model. I had relatives who grew wheat out in western Kansas and International was the true farm truck to them.

"This one didn't have an engine or transmission but I didn't want those anyway. I'm putting a Chevy S-10 front end on it, so it will have disc brakes and power steering," he said.

Burnett pointed out the snazzy faux bamboo trim he's put around the cab and bed. The old pickup may be cool someday but it will never have Lowlita's danger-girl curves.

Have you seen a cool vehicle around town? Writer Doug Hill's always on the lookout for future Dig My Ride columns. E-mail him at Hillreviews@hotmail.com.??????