Living in southern California has its advantages. You can surf Trestles in the morning and be snow boarding two hours later. There's a few ugly girls but lots of pretty ones and mostly the sun shines which means you can drive a bare metal hot rod and never worry about those nasty brown stains. The other thing that's cool about California is the good chance that you'll get born into a hot rodding family-something almost impossible when I was a kid in England unless your dad was, heaven forbid, Geoff Jago. Such a child was Jimmy "Shine" Falschlehner. Taught to weld by his father Denny at the age of nine, Shine has an impressive portfolio of projects under his belt. The list includes motorcycles for Billy Idol, Mickey Rourke and Bruce Springsteen-built before he joined SO-CAL. Since joining the SO-CAL crew, Shine has completed two versions of his own SO-CAL Harley as well as a trend-busting retro bike for Dan Kruse. Featuring numerous hand-Shined parts, the bike was featured on the cover of HOT BIKE in June 2000.

His list of four-wheeled projects is equally impressive. Along with other members of the SO-CAL crew, Shine did a lot of the final fabrication on Chuck de Heras' injected '40 Ford coupe-a Street Rodder cover car. He also did a great deal of the detail work on Gene Olson's '51 Merc convertible winner of the Grand National Roadster Show's Most Outstanding Custom Award in January 2001. Since then he's helped complete the rebuild of Ed Ducazau's blown, black and bad-ass '29 Roadster on original Deuce rails and oversaw the completion of Hal Bankhead's stack-injected, Hemi-powered chopped n' channeled Deuce 5-window.

Despite all his credentials, Shine is quick to point out that he's only part of the team at SO-CAL and that it takes many talents all working in concert to bring together a top-quality vehicle. Shine's bare metal '34 pickup, has been generating a nationwide buzz from the dry lake beds to the floor of the Grand National Roadster Show (GNRS). What's so amazing about this truck is its crossover appeal to both old timers like Shine's boss Pete Chapouris, president of SO-CAL, and Shine's under-30 contemporaries who are into the "flyer" style-often called rat rods here in the US. It proves you can be both funky and "funktional". The attention to detail is amazing. For example, the steering arms were hand-fettled from steel-a task that took 40 hours. Equally impressive are the motor mounts, the peaked commercial shell, the front-end assembly, the '40 Ford dash installation and numerous interior details. The inspiration for Shine's "Full Metal Jacket" was XX Wiley's truck which, in turn, was inspired by Roy Desbrow's Mercury cream, chopped n' channeled, full-fendered truck-HOT ROD Magazine's Hot Rod of The Month in January 1952. Ironically, the firewall from Wiley's truck now resides in Shine's truck.

Shine began with a '34 frame and pickup cab body found in Toby Brown's backyard. I saw it. It was rough and then some-it had lain in a sand wash (river bed) for 30 years. Nevertheless, Shine hammered out the dents, welded up the holes and massaged it all back to shape-albeit a little different from the way Ford put it together. The frame was kicked up 18 degrees in the rear and a "suicide" front end was installed to give it that really low stance. The cab, meanwhile, was chopped five inches and channeled six-luckily, Shine is not six two. The bed itself is a work of art made up of handmade and reworked repop pieces including a heavily louvered Brookville tailgate. The bed also contains the gas tank fashioned from a B-52 hydraulic tank and a nifty little battery box cover pirated from a '50 Ford F100 pickup. Just visible under the bed, behind the '40 Ford-spring and '40 Ford rear end with 3.25:1 Richmond gears, are a pair of '37 Ford taillights. The axle is located by narrowed '37 Ford wishbones and Shine-fabricated covered shocks. Discounting those weird "French" engines, flathead Ford V8s are as scarce as rocking horse shit, even here in the US-good job most of the guys who like them are dying-and Shine went through a dozen before he and builder "Flathead Mike" Gilbert found a useable one from Bob McKray. It's actually a '49 8BA block fitted with a Bill Jenks-ground Potvin 20 cam, 7.5:1 pistons, Edelbrock heads and intake, twin 97s built by Jere Jobe and zoomies hand crafted by Shine.

Some trick pieces linked to the motor include the carb stacks, water tubes, custom generator mount, pulley systems and that cool fan shroud-all hand fabbed by Shine. He's a crafty guy but one thing he always does is give credit to those that inspired and helped him: His dad, "Flinger" Falschlehner, Pete Chapouris, master metal basher Bill "Birdman" Stewart and many others. Mike Gilbert also built the '39 Ford trans fitted with a '37 Ford tower-unfortunately, Shine recently blew the trans apart fooling around and making a rather too-rapid shift. A quick rebuild soon put him back on the street though. And that's where this truck spends most of its time. The odometer clicked over 1,000 miles going to Pleasanton and back. Then it was out to El Mirage for a casual photo shoot where Colby Martin took these evocative black and whites. The trip was also an artifact gathering expedition for their upcoming GNRS display. Rather than the usual billet bullshit, their concept was a diorama direct from the dry lakes complete with 100 pounds of lakes' dust, tumble weeds and an unwashed truck-it was the first ever GNRS "dirty car" display and it took first place totally discombobulating the establishment. In fact, one entrant with what was probably a 100 grand display kept coming over and shaking his head in disbelief at Shine's award-winning 100 pounds of dirt. Beneath the layers of alkali dust one could just make out the Iron Crosses applied to the doors by Shine and Custom Rodder editor Rob Fortier. A '50 Merc chrome reversed rim provided the pattern while a vast number of bottles of beer provided the necessary late-night impetus. 80-grit gave them the correct patina.

Ever busy, Shine's involved with two new projects: He has a half share with Ernie Ladner in a traditional-style '31 hiboy street Roadster mounted on Deuce rails. The second project involves yours truly and a lakes racing '28-'29 on Deuce rails. The car was built by "Kiwi Steve" Davies of Steve Dennish's Limeworks to drive to Bonneville, run, and drive home which he did to the tune of around 170. Shine and I plan to run the car at El Mirage for fun-going fast will be a bonus.

As for the truck, Shine is in the process of making a few modifications. The red-painted early-Ford wires-18s in front, and 16s in the rear-will be swapped out for a set of unusual wheels currently being hand-crafted by Shine in his one-car garage. With or without the new wheels, this truck will go down as one of hot rodding's milestone cars alongside The California Kid, the American Graffitti Coupe and ZZ Top's Eliminator.