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Family Style: Eddie’s Rod and Custom

How would you like to go to work every day beside your dad, mom, wife, and younger brother? Could you do that for 15 years and still be on speaking terms? Eddie Pettus of Eddie’s Rod and Custom in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has survived and thrived in that environment. He admits it was tough at the start, building a business from scratch and learning how to work with family members. But it worked. Quite well.

“It really took a year or two before we started trusting each other,” Eddie said. “Now I wouldn’t change it for any other way. I think it’s the greatest thing in the world that I work with family now.”

eddies rod and custom, Eddie’s Rod and Custom, iowa hot rod shop

Eddie has been around the hobby and business his whole life – he’s the car kid of a car guy. “When I was around five my dad started taking me to car shows,” he said. “All I cared about was cars. Growing up he would always try to keep me involved in cars.”

Eddie’s dad owned and operated an import car garage when Eddie was young. That and the love of cars kept Eddie focused (for the most part) in high school. “My dad said, ‘If cars are what you want to do, then we need to figure the direction that you want to go,’” Eddie said.

eddies rod and custom, Eddie’s Rod and Custom, iowa hot rod shop

Eddie knew about the WyoTech trade school and he said he wanted to go there after high school. “My dad told me that if I went to WyoTech, got good grades, he would sell the business that he’d owned for 18 years,” Eddie said.

That’s what happened and Eddie’s Rod and Custom was born. “We sacrificed everything in the family to give it a shot,” Eddie said.

WORKING ON ANYTHING

Like most shops in the early years, building a team and a reputation meant working on just about everything that came through the front door. Given the shop’s geographic location, much of the work involved rust repair. That meant making cars look like cars again, which kept the cash flowing and honed the metal-working skills, but it didn’t show off the shop’s creative skills. “It didn’t matter how good we were doing, no one really knew what we did,” Eddie said. “We were mastering our metal fabrication skills but it was to replicate a stock panel.”

eddies rod and custom, Eddie’s Rod and Custom, iowa hot rod shop

The team at Eddie’s tackles just about any type of vintage project, as evidenced by this ’67 Mustang convertible in for some work, or the early sedan that’s undergoing a full build.

During the early years, though, a ’49 Chevy came through the door that presented the Eddie’s Rod and Custom team the opportunity to do their version of an Overhaulin’ build. “It was his [the customer’s] father-in-law’s car and he was in Australia for three weeks,” Eddie said. “While he was gone, we stole the car. We started the work. We brought him in on Father’s Day and showed him what we’d done. It was fun. That was our first major car.”

eddies rod and custom, Eddie’s Rod and Custom, iowa hot rod shop

The shop has been on a bit of a roll with Corvettes lately, with the finished Split Second ’63 going to recent events and two more mid-year Vette’s in the works. Between the time we visited the shop and press time, the LT4-powered Vette (shown below pre-paint) had its turn in the paint booth.

The ’49 was a good learning experience and it also was a smart marketing move. “It got us recognized in the beginning and we got a lot of work from that,” Eddie said.

That same customer also provided the impetus to expand the shop’s offerings. He said he wasn’t going to take the car somewhere else for paint, so Eddie did the right thing: he hired a paint specialist from a local dealership.

HIRING THE RIGHT PEOPLE

As the business grew Eddie took a road less traveled when adding staff. In addition to family members, his first hire was his best friend from high school. As he’s needed additional team members, he’s hired inexperienced people and trained them. “I’ve been blessed by being able to take green employees, teaching them, and sticking with them,” he said.

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This all-steel Willys rides on a custom Art Morrison frame and is in the bodywork process, getting closer to some color.

The big break, in terms of significant exposure, happened in 2017 with the debut of a slick ’63 split-window Corvette resto mod. The Corvette’s success was timely; the team was burned out on routine work because they wanted to show off their creative juices. As Eddie said, “I stumbled across a really awesome customer who gave us free reign and a good budget to build a pretty neat car. People found out who we are and it gave me a new lease on life.”

eddies rod and custom, Eddie’s Rod and Custom, iowa hot rod shop

The Split Second ’63 Corvette has garnered a lot of exposure the past few years, earning Builder’s Choice Top 10s, magazine features, and other accolades. It blends old and new with a fuel-injected 327c.i. small block, Billet Specialties wheels, beautiful BASF paint, and an updated leather interior.

Growing up attending local car shows and seeing an array of foreign cars in his dad’s shop, Eddie isn’t picky about what types of cars or trucks come through the front door. One car in the shop that you won’t find in many is a ’61 Austin Healey Bugeyed Sprite. A customer inherited the car from her dad, who raced it for years. She wanted to build a version of the Sprite that had the racy look without the constant breakdowns that she remembered as a child.

Eddie proposed finding a low-mileage, mid-’90s Mazda Miata and adapting the driveline to the Sprite. That meant pulling the Miata engine, narrowing the front and rear suspensions by 12 inches, and shortening the driveshaft. A full perimeter frame now supports a coil-over suspension and a four-cylinder engine producing around 130 horsepower, compared to the stock 43-horsepower engine.

FUTURE FOCUS

At this stage of the shop’s growth, Eddie wants to focus on complete, high-end builds, as well as maintaining previous builds. This new approach is actually the culmination of a long-held dream. “Back in 2001 when Chip Foose won the Ridler with the Grand Master Chevy, that’s when I decided that this is what I want to do,” Eddie said. “We want to keep three to five cars (major builds) in the shop,” plus other work like full chassis swaps and caring for previous customers’ cars.

eddies rod and custom, Eddie’s Rod and Custom, iowa hot rod shop

The showroom at Eddie’s Rod and Custom includes a couple of in-progress projects. The ’61 Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite on the right belongs to a customer who inherited it from her father and is getting a drivetrain from a ’90s-era Mazda Miata.

In support of this new direction, the shop now has a trailer rig that attends major shows to show off the shop’s efforts. It’s part of a marketing push that Eddie said he needs to improve. “I wish I knew (back at the beginning) how important marketing was, getting your name out there,” he said. “I pushed against that. I realized it’s not that way. You actually have to go out, you have to market yourself.”

eddies rod and custom, Eddie’s Rod and Custom, iowa hot rod shop

This ’56 Volvo Sugga is being finished for display at SEMA. Among the many cool elements of its build is a turbocharged Cummins 6BT diesel engine.

Don’t worry about the long-term future for the shop. By the time you read this story, Eddie and his wife will have welcomed a second child to the family, giving them two future shop interns to keep the business growing.

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Check out the October 2019 issue of the Goodguys Gazette to peek a full feature on this ’32 Willys that was turned into a aircraft refueling tanker tow vehicle when it earned a finalist nod for the 2019 Scott’s Hot Rods Truck of the Year Early running.

A Closer Look: Eddie’s Rod and Custom

Eddie’s Rod and Custom Shop
2015 Werner Cr. NE
Cedar Rapids, IA 52402
319.393.1937
www.eddiesrodandcustom.com

Years in Business: 15
Number of Employees: 12
Square Footage: Just under 10,000 square feet
Your First Car: 1981 Toyota pickup
Your Worst Car: Old Pontiac Grand Prix
Your Favorite Meal: Mexican food/tacos
Your Favorite Weekend: Antiquing with family
Best business advice you’ve received (not from a relative): Do what you love and do the best you can and everything else will work out.

Dave Doucette is a long-time Goodguys member with a career in newspaper, magazine and website journalism. He was one of the founding editors of USA TODAY, editor of two daily newspapers and co-owner of a magazine publishing and trade show company. He owns and operates Real Auto Media. His first car was a 1947 Ford; he has owned Camaros, Firebirds, El Caminos and a 1956 Chevy that was entered in shows from California to Florida before being sold last year. He was one of the original Goodguys Rodders Reps and served as president of two classic Chevy clubs. Doucette grew up in South Florida, avidly following the racing exploits of local hero Ollie Olsen and, of course, Don Garlits. He remembers riding his bicycle to Briggs Cunningham’s West Palm Beach factory to peak through the fence at his Sebring and LeMans racers.