By Doris Wedge
His hand skims along the surface of the fender. Newly painted a gleaming red, it's not perfect, he tells a helper. There is a blemish that can't be seen, but can be felt. Jason Voth's customers expect perfection, and they will get it.
Voth shares the love of vehicles with the owners of cars that come into his aptly named shop south of Noble, Resurrection Paint and Body Works. True to the name, he is resurrecting the beauty of vehicles, old and modern day and adding flash and style to newer ones are his goals in life.
His customers come to his shop for several reasons. Some want a vehicle which will renew memories of a happy time in their own past. Others have affection for the vehicles of times long before they lived. Still others want a custom paint job that will set their transportation, whether two-wheeled or four, apart from those on the highway or on the track.
One recent project at his shop is bringing back memories of the TV show from the 1950s and early '60s, "77 Sunset Strip." It just might be the project that will put Voth's business on the map of hot rod fans around the country.
In that TV show, the Model T hot rod, with flames painted down the side, was driven by one of the show characters, "Kookie." The car came to be called the "Kookie T" and it fired an interest in hot rods and street rods that lives today.
When the creator of that iconic vehicle, Norm Grabowski, wanted a replica of his brainchild, he turned to Reno Rod and Custom of Oklahoma City to build the basic car starting with a 22 Model T Ford. Voth got the job of finishing the metal work and the painting and pin stripping.
"It took research on the original," Voth says, in order to produce an exact replica. The tribute car debuted at the Detroit Autorama a few months ago and is now making the circuit of car shows across the U.S. and Canada. Voth is hoping that attention at auto shows and in photos and stories in hot rod magazines will bring business to his shop.
Voth says he was a "car guy" in his teen years, but it was while attending a tech school in Salina, Kan., that he found his focus. The turning point was when he visited a body shop that specialized in hot rods and custom cycles. It lit a spark in him that remains today. "I just knew that was for me. That was what I wanted to do."
He worked a few years in auto body shops and was painting trucks for UPS when he decided to act on his wish to open his own shop. His father, Paul Voth, had just lost his home in Greensburg, Kan., when a tornado swept it away, so he joined his son in opening the business.
"He runs the business end, and I run the shop," the younger Voth says.
They could have chosen the word "restoration" for their shop name, but chose to use the word resurrection "not so much in the Biblical sense," Voth says, but it seemed to fit not only the work, but their personal situations at the time.
"Of course, there was the bringing these old vehicles back to life, but there was more than that. My dad had lost his home and was starting over, and I was going through a difficult time," he said. The term just seemed a perfect fit then, and now.
The shop is experiencing the ups and downs of the business world, and takes "insurance jobs," newer vehicles needing body work. But the heart and soul of his work is in the restoration of vehicles and designing and executing custom graphics, air brush paint jobs and pin-striping by hand, work like he accomplished on the Kookie T.
Voth is a self-taught artist, and he has found expression in the power tools, and the hand-held brushes he uses for pin-striping. He sketches it out, first, and then begins work.
"It is tedious, and I have to stay focused. I'm just trying to make it. Being in this business is a roller coaster," he says, with a limited number of people who can invest the thousands of dollars that it takes to restore a vehicle or a couple thousand dollars for a custom paint job on a cycle.
Current restoration projects include a 1957 Chevy pickup that will feature ghost flames on the sides, and a 1972 Chevy Chevelle SS restored with "number matched" parts meaning the vehicle will be restored with its original parts. "With the resources like the internet, it is not as difficult as it sounds" to find the original parts, he says. The owners of both vehicles are committed to the restorations which may take as many as 800 hours to complete.
The shop also has a boat and several other projects in progress. It is enough to keep the five of them busy, he says, but definitely the downhill side of the roller coaster from the time when he had 13 projects underway and employed several others.
Voth is thankful for the success that his business has enjoyed thus far, for the love and support of his father, who he calls his "best friend," and for the love of his daughter, Katherine. Finding his niche in the world of vehicle restoration will be icing on the cake.
