Emil Kincey and his '61 Impala are no strangers to the hustle. Emil has been doing it his whole life and knows how to make a deal a win-win situation. For that reason he's known by his friends as someone who's constantly making deals and getting things done. In other words, he's a bona fide hustler. His quiet demeanor hides his tough yet fair negotiating skills. The car you see here is the second incarnation of it. On the first, the motor was in, the hydraulics were done-hard lines and all-but at the last minute they did the unthinkable. They totally tore the car down to the frame for a color change.
In the meantime, the serpentine setup caught someone's eye and V-Max suggested that he sell it. With that sale he could get a new-and-improved kit that would just hit the market and would be even nicer. So he removed the kit and added a couple of dollars to the money received from the proceeds to purchase the latest and the greatest. It's these types of deals that Emil is known for, not only in lowriding but also in the VW scene. The fact that Emil is a hardcore VW fanatic weighs heavily on this story. Under his belt are a number of high-profile, magazine worthy VWs, and from these builds Emil has emerged with a team of people with whom he's worked to put these fine vehicles together. When it was time to start the rebuild, Emil approached a couple of them to find out if they would be able to handle a job crafting a lowrider.
The paint was handed off to Ramon Mata, of San Bernardino, California, who made sure the Oriental Blue paint with blue pearl was handled properly, and in a timely manner, resulting in a beautiful execution. The silver leafing, murals, and pinstriping all came together under the same roof that resulted in a stunning exterior. The rest of the car came off without a hitch. The audio/visual system is one of the things that probably draws the most attention on the Hustlin' 1. It's certainly not every day (or ever that we can think of) that you see TVs on the upper A-arms. Add two more to the rear axle and you have four unusually placed screens, all for your viewing pleasure. And yes, they do work.
This Chevy's first outing resulted in the car taking a First Place finish at the San Bernardino show. With all the hoopla surrounding his classic, Emil was nowhere to be found. Instead he was at the Staples Center watching the Los Angeles Lakers play. The next day, however, he was at the photo shoot. Photo shoots in the studio are normally fairly low-key events but Emil's took an interesting turn.
Just before we were about to start shooting, the smell of smoke was in the air. On close inspection, Emil realized that there was a small fire brewing in the trunk. A moment of panic struck everyone while fiberglass panels were ripped out and a dry extinguisher had to be sprayed before the situation was under control. Well, if you want to call having much of the trunk and back seat area covered in dry extinguished powder "under control." The powdery white substance called sodium bicabonate was everywhere. The source of the problem had started the day before at the San Bernardino show when a friend asked Emil to borrow his batteries for the hop. So Emil, being the kind of guy he is, agreed. They pulled out his brand-new batteries and replaced them with the used batteries from his friend's hopper. In the transfer they shuffled around a few things underneath the molded covers, and tucked the ground underneath the cover. Most of you can probably see where this is going already. In all the shuffling, one of the candlestick solenoid wires wound up rubbing the package tray in transit and shorted out, causing a you know what. Add to that the fact that the ground disconnect is now under the painted, pinstriped, and otherwise pristine fiberglass covers and disaster was looming right around the corner.
The good news is that Emil's friend won his hop and $1,000. The bad news, Emil had a car full of sodium bicarbonate and about $1,200 in damage. Somehow through it all, he remained calm. An hour or so of cleanup and the car was again ready to be photographed, so we continued on. Being the hustling person he is, he had everything fixed in a matter of a few weeks for a song. The Hustlin' 1 is the product of some hard knocks, a little luck, and a lot of hustle. But then again we would expect nothing less with a name like that.