Hi, I’m Philip Perrine

My best friend in middle school was the son of a car guy, and we followed in his footsteps.  His dad was a house painter, and while he never had much money, he was always finding old cars!

I went to art school and majored in Sculpture. Never shook the car bug. 

After flailing around trying to be an artist, I got a job that refined my fabrication skills and gave me enough money to start building hot rods.

My first car was a red, white, and blue T-bucket, which I showed at the Asphalt Angels R&C Car Show and other smaller gigs for many years.

Then I bought a Model A body, but I had spent so much on the T-bucket that I wanted to do something quick and cheap before starting on it.  The next one was a T Touring Car. All scratch-built. It went together pretty quickly and did not cost much.  It was also shown at the Asphalt Angels R&C Car Show.

This pic with the camper is at Hershey.

 It was an interesting life for sure, but it was always about the next car or the next show.

I met a lot of great people, and enjoyed life for a while, but the politics of magazine coverage (at that time, I can not speak to that now) really got me down on the scene.

And ironically, the major mag at the time was trying to get young people involved, so the sport did not die out. But I had aged out of the “under 30” category, and the magazines seemed to be chasing the cars that featured products advertised on their pages.  And scratch-built stuff did not seem to fit, except for thumbnails in the “tech tips” section.

And since the prize seemed to be a feature in a mag, and that did not seem likely, it did not take too long before my attention went elsewhere.

Yep, sold the cars. 

Oddly enough, the next big thing was playing Roller Derby.  lol
Yeah, I know. 

Here I am at an All-Star Game in Woodland, NJ.

But that did not satisfy either.

Then, Jesus finally got through my defenses.  And it is the best thing that ever happened to me! Don’t miss this next part. It is about cars.

I had been working on a 55 Buick, but it just wasn’t doing it for me. Whether or not it was before I sold it, or after (I do not remember), but I got to a place in my now very satisfying life, where I came to a realization: I am spending a lot of time, talent, and treasure to draw attention to myself, and I don’t think I need to do that anymore.

And I was super comfortable with that. 

But about a week later, something else came to mind. The fact that my early Christian witness was not very good, that I had pushed instead of shared, and that I had closed a lot of doors with my friends and family.  But… I still had friends in the car world.  So I decided to build a car to draw attention to my creator and to start spiritual conversations at car shows.

Not long after that, the doors started opening. My Friend Roddy called me up and told me that I needed to buy a Hemi project.

I was still a little skiddish and did not jump on it. He offered to build it for me if I bought it, and that started the ball rolling.

But I still had a lot of growing to do as a Christian before the door to show the car (even) in the process opened.

I spent 5 years getting to the point of showing it in process, but the door still did not open.  Apparently, I was not yet ready.

This website is definitely a sign that it is time, or close to it. 

Remember, this car exists to simply start the conversation about how worthy Jesus is in my life!  You can come to your own conclusions.

The website exists because I can not talk to everyone at the shows, but hopefully, this answers some of the questions.

Blessings,

Philip.