Eddie Hawk

About Eddie

My passion for cars started when I was a young kid in the mountains of upstate New York. I grew up in the garage with my father, watching him and his brothers and friends working on cars and trucks, pulling and swapping parts from one car to another. My father bought a 1964 Ford Fairlane in 1969 and still has it today. I have many memories of him getting it started every summer to take it up and down the road since it had sat for years in the driveway. The rumble of that 289 V8 stuck with me. When I was 13 years old, we made a trip to North Carolina so I could get my own Fairlane but ended up driving back a 1951 Ford F1 pick-up, which I still have today. I did the best restoration I could from 13 to 17 years old. I remember the first time I drove it to school, at which time I was excelling in auto body repair at Broome Tioga Boces. While in the Vica program, I won a regional auto body competition, then took first place in a state competition, and another first place at the national competition in Kansas City, Missouri, the grand prize being a free ride to WyoTech in Wyoming. But, as a 17/18-year-old kid, I passed it up because I was afraid of leaving home. My senior year of high school I got a job at a local body shop, and little did I know it would turn out to be a 26-year career in the collision world. During that time, I did multiple paint and body only restorations for friends and family. I also met my wife, who grew up in Texas, and always wanted to move back. After years in a home we build ourselves, on the mountain I grew up on, we vacationed in Texas for five years, where we got married in 2019. In April 2023, we loaded up our things, including a 1966 mustang I had restored for my wife, and headed for Texas. I wanted nothing to do with collision work anymore but as I was looking for employment, I got a call from John requesting an interview. I was interested, mainly because they restored classic cars, and later that day John offered me the job. As I started to work with the team, I realized that I was doing my passion for a living… Bringing new life to classic cars and trucks.