HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) – Have a seat on David Vaughn’s new sofa, and you might have to curb the urge to cry “Vroom, vroom!”
To say the former paint and body man for Rod’s Custom Body Shop has a lot of creative energy to dispel would be an understatement. Most of his finest work is screaming down dragstrips around the country or taking top prizes in auto shows. But his latest automotive creation will never see blacktop nor pass a checkered flag.
It’s a Ford Fairlane sofa.
“I was working on a race car for a friend of mine whose wife drives a ’62 Fairlane as a race car, and they bought this car for replacement parts,” Vaughn said. “They were going to scrap it, and I told them I’d like to have about two feet off the back of it.”
He was inspired by a display he saw at a Knoxville World of Wheels auto show more than a decade ago, but worked out the details himself.
Vaughn spent about 100 hours cutting, piecing, welding and modifying the Fairlane’s trunk to make a comfortable seating area. He had to reinforce the trunk floor with little joists so that the seat wouldn’t sag, and built a pedestal for the rig to sit on. Exhaust pipes jutting out from underneath were added for effect.
“I think I could build one a lot quicker now,” Vaughn said.
Vaughn painted automobiles for 20 years at Rod’s and learned his perfectionism from his wife Teresa’s father, Roger Walker. Photos hanging in his spit-shined garage attest that he is exceedingly proud of a 1933 Plymouth two-door sedan that he built and painted in a frame off restoration from the ground up. The car took first prizes in every category in the 1995 World of Wheels Huntsville show.
“Gary Dobbs did the weather on TV in front of it,” Vaughn said.
Vaughn retired from body work (“I felt like I might lose the ability to match paint, so I quit while I was on top,” he said), and he now works for the city of Huntsville.
Hanging on his garage wall is a letter of appreciation from Mayor Loretta Spencer for his restoration of the Hermes missile on South Parkway.
The sofa, or at least its first incarnation as an auto, has a connection to the space age as well. But the Fairlane’s gently glowing red tail lights belie the conundrum they presented Vaughn.
His eureka moment came to him from his two sons, Ethan, 13, and Colton, 9. He passed their rooms one afternoon, having already spent several hours puzzling over his project.
“My boys are always supposed to turn their night lights off, and when I walked by their rooms, one of them was on, and I thought, ‘They must think electricity’s free,”‘ Vaughn said.
When he reached down to turn it off, a light bulb went off in his head.
A night light powers a pair of working tail lights that resemble aluminum lemon juicers and recall buxom early 1960s movie starlets.
“When they came out with the Ford Fairlane, it was during the Rocket Age,” Vaughn said. “If you look at the taillights, they kind of look like rocket engines.”
Although paint purists and detail sticklers might poo-poo the Fairlane’s ’57 Chevy-turquoise paint job, Vaughn doesn’t mind. He’s happy with the way the project turned out. The neat upholstery stitched with the car’s emblem was the finishing touch and a gift from his sons for Father’s Day.
He’s already forming ideas for his next “furniture” project.
“I’ve got my eye on a ’58 Cadillac,” he said. “I’m going to paint it pink.”
