Stan Betz's 2032

Have you ever attempted to mix a bit of paint to perfectly match an existing color? Did you give up after accumulating 5 gallons worth of colors all just a shade different from each other? The average human eye can distinguish approximately 11 million different colors, so it’s no surprise that only a few people possess both the talent and skill to mix paint. What does this have to do with the custom raspberry roadster pickup on these pages? The owner, Stan Betz, makes his living mixing and selling paint—he’s actually quite good at it—and lists his occupation as Color Matcher.

Stan Betz is also a certified custom car and truck lover. Those who attended the 1998 Grand National Roadster Show in San Francisco will recognize his Candy Raspberry red highboy pickup as one of the primary contenders for the 7-foot-tall Most Beautiful Roadster Trophy. The completely custom-crafted, metal-bodied roadster, with Lincoln Mark VIII running gear, didn’t win the prestigious award, but in my humble opinion, it should have (my apologies to the show judges and Dave Emery’s ’glass-bodied, five Best of Show and Ridler awards-winning Deuce highboy called Revolver).

Neither the aipper-bodied Revolver nor Stan’s highboy was a Ford–produced automobile. Stan’s highboy, however, was freshly formed steel.

The talented metal fabricator Art Barker created the unique hand-formed steel body that follows the curved framerails of 2032—the name Stan dubbed his self-styled creation. Perhaps there are styling details you might change, but calculate the time (four years and thousands of hours), energy (immeasurable), and effort (considerable) that went into creating this piece of automotive sculpture, and you’ll understand why it impressed Fresno’s Blackie Gejeian and the experienced judges at the Fresno Custom Car Show, where it won Best of Show.

Stan is a most unique individual. He grew up in Anaheim, California, where he confesses to having spent most of high school in the machine shop working on hot rods. He owned a Model A roadster with a V-8 engine that was shoe-horned in during welding shop. Three years later he built a track T that he campaigned on local outlaw tracks when he wasn’t working the night shift at a gas station. One day he saw a louver press sitting idle at Frank Kurtis’ shop, and he soon put it to work stamping louvers in anything and everything.

One of his most popular items was the spun-aluminum Moon disc. Stan louvered 400 sets a week for over five years, and he later added paint products to his enterprise, which became Betz Speed and Color in 1957 when the louver business slowed. Betz Speed and Color became known as a paint store that could supply exactly what you wanted—especially if you wanted to match an existing stock or custom paint color. Stan has several OEM clients and a long list of custom painters who rely on his expertise at matching anything that has paint on it.

Speaking of paint, we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out the fact that Glenn Lorcon of Orange, California, prepared the panels for a fine primer/paint sandwich and sprayed the topcoat, called Raspberry Pearl, over the body and frame.

The primary contenders for the 50th annual America’s Most Beautiful Roadster were all stunning, but my vote wasn’t requested to help choose the winner. Hot Rod Senior Editor Gray Baskerville described the Oakland Roadster Show as “Hot rodding’s third great institution,” and wrote in his historical article “Golden Oldie” on the anniversary of the 50th, “Winning the AMBR is all about attention to detail.” In this case, it was too much focus on attention to detail—greatly overlooking the big picture of how this pickup was completely handcrafted. However the points were tallied, Stan’s highboy roadster pickup was certainly a visual highlight of the event—and very much in the spirit of past AMBR award winners.

Stan doesn’t dwell on his disappointment at not taking home the America’s Most Beautiful Roadster trophy. He has shown 2032 often enough to satisfy his thirst for car shows. His roadster will soon be seen delivering himself and wife Cathy to local rod runs, where it will certainly gather an admiring crowd. Someone will remark, “Hey, isn’t that the roadster pickup that almost won the ’98 America’s Most Beautiful Roadster Award?” Yes, it is.