Voodoo Magic: Jerry Gardner's Voodoo Special

73 Article Continued on Next Page “ I wasn ’ t finding anything. I was looking for history, not for cars, but wasn ’ t finding much. Then I changed my approach, to assume that the cars and people were all still out there somewhere, waiting to be found. Then I started finding them. ” Hacker has a Ph.D. in Industrial Organizational Psychology and teaches college courses online. With that background, he was prepared to wage a systematic search, so he made lists of cars he was interested in finding out more about, based on his interest in rare specialty sports cars, futuristic “ teardrop ” cars, and sports customs of the 1940s and 1950s. Next, he looked for any clues he could find from old magazine articles and cars that came up for sale on eBay. Using simple online search software he tracked down surviving figures from limited - edition car history, who in turn provided leads to find their friends and co - workers. Within a year, Hacker had contacted the family of LaDawri founder Les Dawes, Victress principal Merrill Powell, Glasspar founder Bill Tritt, Sabre salesman Ed Almquist, Allied racer Bill Burke and many more. Hacker ran down Bangert builder Noel Bangert, even though he had changed his name to Noel Marshall after becoming a Hollywood producer. Meteor kit car maven Dick Jones is now a friend and still has the final Meteor body hanging in his garage. And the Grantham family was not only thrilled to hear about Hacker ’ s Stardust, they turned him onto the only surviving example of a short run of Grantham ’ s built in the 1970s. In the course of meeting the founding fathers of the American specialty car industry, he also came across a large number of cars that were looking for the right home. That is, finding an owner that would understand the rarity of the car and its history as well as understand the effort and perseverance it took to bring the dream to reality. And since he was interested in classes of cars that were generally underappreciated, he turned out to be the right person. The ones he didn ’ t buy, he tried to hook up with owners he knew would give them a proper home. Hacker was so impressed with the pioneer car builders he met that he wanted to get them the recognition they deserved. As he began crisscrossing the country on car - finding trips, he ’ d spend months on the road visiting and interviewing friends he had met on the phone or online, ranging from famed customizer Gene Winfield to race car fabricator Don Edmunds, flathead expert Vern Tardell and dozens of others. As he collected each new car, he also searched out the men and women who built it. Soon his activities came to the attention of the movers and the shakers in the car show community. For the last four years he has been involved in the Amelia Island Concours d ’ Elegance, both as an entrant and an organizer. In 2007 he rounded up enough vehicles for a special Fiberglass Sports Car Class. He has also helped locate classic specialty cars for the Barrington and Palo Alto Concours, while his own cars have been displayed at the Petersen Automotive and NHRA museums.