PHOTOS & STORY BY
JORDAN MORNINGSTAR

It's not that Brent Hoitink hates paint.  In fact, he actually planned on putting Bondo and primer on his newest creation, this 1950 Chevy 2-door sedan dubbed “Bare It All”--that is, until he started driving the car. After that, he didn't want to bring the car in for anything but fixing it. 

As Brent put it, “Can't say I have anything against paint, but I don't have the patience to smudge it around.”
Ironically, the car first appeared at the Hoitink farm with a faded
layer of yellow enamel on it.  “When he first brought it home, it was a pile of junk,” said Esther Enns, Brent's girlfriend and fellow car lover.  “I did not see the potential, I thought he had lost his mind. I saw something that should have gone for scrap metal.”

Scrap would have been a fitting description at the time.  The car was a gift from a friend, Russ Simpson, who was sending it to the scrapyard as an empty shell.  The dashboard and interior was stripped, and the original 6-cylinder engine was seized tight.  It was exactly what Brent wanted for his next project.  “I had never sectioned a car
before.  If I screwed up, it was just going to go to the scrapyard
where it was destined to go.”

After some careful measuring, Brent decided to go with a 3” section around the entire car, followed by a 4” chop to the roof.  This not only kept the car's lines somewhat intact, it also allowed him to keep the windshield at the minimum 10” height allowed by Manitoba law.

Since both bumpers were already gone, the lower half of a '55
Oldsmobile bumper was attached to the front.  A pair of aluminum
baseball bats welded together completed the front grille, while the rest of the Oldsmobile bumper was reorganized to make the Chevrolet's rear bumper.

It was about this point that Brent decided to leave his Chevy in bare
metal to show off the handiwork invested into it.  “After I mutilated
the car so much, did I really want to smear it?  I just wanted to get
in the car and go.  Some people think it's a work of art, (but) it's
just wheels.”

A Chevy 350 small-block and a TH350 3-speed automatic replaced the seized original straight-6 engine.  The motor came out of a '78 Chevy
“shaggin' wagon” van and straight into the car, while the transmission
was donated by Trevor Krause, a neighbor and friend.  The power gets to the ground courtesy of a Camaro differential and stock 15” GM wheels shod in plain radial tires.  The whitewalls are courtesy of Krylon-- “Or aluminum siding paint, it works the best.”

As beautiful as the bare metal looks, the car did need some kind of decoration.  The original plan was to adorn the trunk lid with an
airbrushed pin-up girl.  However, Ian “Von Knobb” Kroeker came in with a more minimalist plan that worked with the overall theme of the vehicle.  Simple green and black pinstriping was laid down around the headlights and tail lamps, and hundreds of hand-painted rivets were
placed along the exposed metal seams.  The crowning touch was a banner across the back reading “Bare It All.”   In total, the local
pinstriper put in roughly 20 hours of work.  Not bad for a vehicle
that technically isn't painted.

In total, over 400 hours and twenty pounds of mig wire were invested into the car, over a span of four months.  “I was a car widow,” claimed Esther.

So how does the paintless wonder stand up in a hot rodding scene that measures a car by it's colours?  According to Brent, “people are more blown away by the rivets, just the way Ian striped (them) on there.
Someone said 'What kind of an idiot rivets his car together?' He felt like the idiot after saying it.”

Everywhere it goes, “Bare It All” has turned heads and put smiles on people's faces-including the face of its first critic, Esther.  “I
love driving it, I love riding in it, I love going to car shows in it,
I love the attention we get in it, and I'm so proud of him for what
he's done... It's different, and Brent doesn't do things like
everybody else does.  And that's a good thing.”


Spec sheet:
Engine:  Stock 350 c.i. Chevy small-block engine, salvaged from a late
'70s full-size van
Trans:  Turbo 350 3-speed automatic
Rearend:  Stock Camaro (gear ratio unknown)
Suspension:  Stock 1950 Chevrolet, w/self-built air lift system front and rear
Interior:  Recovered seat with material from Mitchell's Fabrics
Pinstriping & trunklid mural by:  Ian “Von Knobb” Kroeker