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Kent Long was riding Humvees in Iraq when he won an online auction for the car of his dreams.

The Combined Locks, Wis., man said he paid about $3,600 for the 1954 Chevrolet Delray, and his brother drove to Green Bay to pick it up for him.

Before he made it back, Long was nearly killed by an improvised explosive device that destroyed the Humvee he was driving and killed some of the other 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment soldiers riding with him.

He was reassigned as an onboard mechanic for a Chinook helicopter and continued his deployment, but ultimately, he was discharged on disability because of internal injuries suffered in the blast.

When Long came home, he finally got his first look at the car.

"I had been searching for one of these cars since I was 13," Long said Saturday at the Kustom Kemps of America's 30th anniversary Leadsled Spectacular in Oakdale Park. Today is the show's final day. Admission is $10 for adults and is free for children 12 and younger.

New life to old car

Long dreamed of giving his new old car new life, like many of the other "leadsleds" on display in the park this weekend. Leadsled refers to a modified post-war full-sized American car of the 1950s, usually featuring a lowered suspension. Body work used to be done with lead.

"It was in pretty rough condition," he said. "It had a lot of body filler and bad sheet metal work, but the floors and the major stuff were all intact."

Instead of restoring it to look like something his grandmother might have driven, Long said he wanted to reinvent it into a cool ride that he would want to be seen in.

He was inspired by the Voodoo Kreeper, a car customized by Larry Grobe, owner of Voodoo Larry Kustoms in Schaumburg, Ill. He began corresponding about his project with Grobe, who offered advice via the Internet.

But Long said the trouble was he didn't exactly have the expertise or the bankroll to fund his ambitions.

He went online again and posted a note on the Jalopy Journal's message board that he was looking for a couple of guys to help him chop the top off his car.

"I didn't have much money, but I could pay them in beer and they could stay at my house," Long said.

Chopping the top off and lowering the roofline would give the car a new, more sleek look. The practice goes back to the early days of hot rodding, when it was done to reduce a car's profile and increase its speed potential.

Help from a legend

David Lopez, who lives in Wichita and Winfield and regularly attends the Leadsled in Salina, happened to be on the message board and responded to Long's post.

"I told him to contact the KKOA," Lopez said. "I told him they were always looking for cars to chop at their show in Salina."

So, Long made his pitch to KKOA, and soon he received a response that sounded too good to be true.

He was told to bring his car to the Salina show, where legendary custom car builder Gene Winfield and a crew of professionals would chop its top. Long had an entire episode of the television show Monster Garage saved on his mobile phone in which Winfield customized and painted show host Jesse James' Delray.

"Gene's a living legend," Long said. "Never in a million years would I have imagined this."

Once Long was actually convinced the opportunity was real, he loaded his car on a trailer for the 13-hour drive to Salina. He was accompanied on the trip by his friend Jeremy Rastall, a car customizer from Appleton, Wis.

On the way to Salina, a spare tire on the trailer caught on fire, but they were able to douse the flames, Long said.

"I was yelling, 'Save the car! Save the car!' " he said.

Winfield, who has been working on cars for more than 60 years, is one of the world's premier customizers, whose ideas and painting techniques have influenced the way custom car work is done.

He built 25 cars for the sci-fi movie Blade Runner, made the flying DeLorean that appeared in Back to the Future II, and built vehicles that appeared in the TV show Bewitched, the Star Trek TV series, and movies Robo Cop, Man from Uncle and Sleeper.

This weekend, he's in Salina, chopping the top off Long's car. He even offered to paint the car sometime when he's in Wisconsin.

"We'll work it out," he told Long, who was thinking green metal flake would look nice.

All-star crew

The other members of the crew working on Long's car are no slouches, either.

There's Grobe, Alex Gambino, owner of Gambino Kustoms in San Jose, Calif.; Scott Mugford, owner of Blue Collar Customs in Sacramento, Calif.; David Hitchinson of Auburn, Calif.; and members of the Beatniks Car Club.

"These cars are for cruising the streets," Winfield said. "You'd have the girls look at you, and you'd look at them."

Winfield found a discarded bed frame in a Dumpster and used the tempered steel parts to construct a framework to shore up the inside of Long's car during its cosmetic surgery.

"They're pretty stock too, but to me there's nothing more beautiful than a custom," Winfield said Saturday. "It's like a pretty woman, you know?"

Long was dreaming up plans for his car, which will most likely take several years to finish. Ultimately, he said, he wants the inside to feature a period TV screen, a rotary phone and a bar in the back.

"The outside will be done before the inside," he said. "I can always tint the windows and sit on some buckets."

Long said by Saturday afternoon, two men had approached him and offered to buy his car.

"I told them I'm never selling this car," he said. "It'll go to somebody in the family if something happens to me."

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