Bridgetown Bomb

When the '37 Chevrolet Master DeLuxe first rolled off of the assembly line it sold for approximately $680. Today, however, these beautiful boulevard bombs are practically priceless. That's certainly the case with "Bridgetown Bomb," a classic bombita owned by Louie Sanchez of Ontario, California. A self-proclaimed auto buff, not only does Louie love to work on cars, he also happens to be a member of one of the coolest car clubs in Southern California--Bridgetown Oldies. Fueled by the goal to have one of the best bombitas on the streets of SoCal, Louie has spent some serious feria fixing up the fine ride. He says that he originally bought the bomb for $6,000 and has spent another $6,000 restoring it. Add to that about 12 months of his time and you can see that that's a lot of investing!

Many classic car enthusiasts will probably drool at all of the good stuff that Louie has incorporated into his '37. Because he wanted to keep the car as OG as possible (that's why we placed it into our Originales section) only modest modifications were made throughout the vehicle. To begin with, Louie had Fred Corona at Exclusive Body Shop in La Puente, California (as the name implies, the home of Bridgetown Oldies--puente means bridge in Spanish) give the car a one of a kind paint job. First, Fred stripped the car naked of its original color and prepped it for a new color scheme, which Louie chose himself. As you can see, the car is now covered in layers of original-looking brown metallic paint so that you can see it coming from miles away. To add a few modern touches, however, Louie had Mike Tippetts throw on some classy pinstriping.

Just as visually pleasing is the inside of the car. Most of the interior, says Louie, is in its original state, save the new stereo setup that he needed in order to cruise around blaring the hottest old school jams. The sound system--which includes a Pioneer head unit/CD player, 400-watt amps, tweeters and 6x7 subwoofers--was installed by Louie himself. The woodgrain trim effect in the interior was the work of Hector Mesa of Baldwin Park, California.

But that wasn't all. You'll also notice some dynamic custom work under the hood as well. Again, Louie himself rebuilt the 216-c.i.d. 6-cylinder Chevy engine complete with 12-inch glasspacks. To really get the ride rolling right, though, he had some real OG BFGoodrich whitewall tires mounted onto color-matched classic 16-inch wheels with mirror-like Chevrolet hubcaps.

Louie says that he could not have put such a beautiful Bridgetown Bomb on the boulevard without the support of his fellow Bridgetown Oldies, especially Danny and Ralph, so he wants to thank them for helping him blow up so big in the Cali bajito scene.