WorldKustoms is throwing away all filters and giving you the unrated version of our meet with Dough Oefinger. Speeding, gunslinging, and cigarette smoking…One hell of a ride! By Lars-Åke Krantz . Free translation by Stefan Blautzik
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My 19 year old son Gottfrid behind the wheel driving my Pontiac ragtop, letting his heavy right foot go freely. His Coke Zero and butterfingers rolling in the shade across the bench seat as the Florida sun hits all the right places in my convertible. With no idea whats ahead, my son and I are on the road again!
The good old south! Well by redneck standards Florida doesn’t really qualify as the “south” I’ve been told. Since the great state of Florida wasn’t added until after the Civil war, so everything under the Orlando line is “just Florida”. Just a piece of land that’s sandwiched between the Golf and the Atlantic..
Every time I head over here I learn something new from a “Florida Cracker”. I apparently fall into the class called “snowbirds”(Whites getting away from the snow).
Well anyways back to the story. Gottfrid and I role into a meet, never expecting what we might get ourselves into. Out the corner of our eyes we run across a Dodge Coronet 500 powered by a 572 Hemi.
“WOW”. Drawn in by the smell of a Hemi we circle the car countless times waiting for the owner.
Next thing we know, I have an Old proud man named Dough by my side accompanied by his Charlie sporting a hard worked farmers tan.
Standing in the standard car meet formation, Worldkustoms had no idea what we were in for but we had ourselves a potential story in the making.
I know what your thinking, this was going to be about hotrods.
Well yes, but I write about anything with horsepower, and I had a whole lot of that in front of me! And I write about people, life, reality.
WorldKustoms no filter.
Depending on the day my handsome Swedish charm doesn’t work on getting the owners to do a story. Regardless of the obstacles of an automotive journalist like myself I’m always searching for the best and only the best is good enough for my readers! Now being a old school hotrod, classic, ledslead, gas guzzling, journalist brings me the joy in meeting some of America’s finest! That being sad, World Kustoms is throwing away the filter and giving you a front seat ticket to this crazy story.
“I want to talk to you about that 572”-Gottfrid asked at the meet
“Yeah well everyone wants too” Say Dough, giving Gottfrid a stern Muscle car guy stare down. If you’re old like me you’re going to have to think back to the old wrenching days, when asking a more experienced car guy anything always starts off “With the look”.
After passing the test Gottfrid and I talked to Dough and Charlie for a while until Dough got a phone call.
Dough comes back shortly, “Hey you and your dad try and keep up. You´re invited to my farm and I’ll take you for a ride in something that’ll make you shit yourself”
“This will be interesting”, I say looking over at Gottfrid as we jump in our car a couple of days later.
The road narrows down as my son navigates west on a desolated plain. He takes a right at a cross road. A fence pops up to the right of us and we slow down with the sun now low in the sky.
We follow a long paved road till we find ourselves on a huge newly brick driveway surrounded by buildings.
There were a couple of guys looking our way till we recognized a familiar face.
“Welcome”, says Dough. Not listening to a word he’s saying as I go into autopilot looking Three 62 Vettes, Hemi car after Hemi car, Customs, hotrods, and a couple 50’s.
“Hey what’s up?” Looking at me like I’m a headcase. “Come here boy, now lets see if you shit your pants”, says Dough to my Gottfrid.
Still in “Lala land”. I nearly shit my own pants as I snap back to reality thinking a B-52 bomber just took off 50 feet away from me.
Out comes an earthshaking, Hemi powdered, Blown 32 Ford.
Gottfrid jumping in with a uncontrolable smile bursting across his face. Dough rolls by me and screams “1,300 HORSEPOWER!”.
I walk up to the same narrow paved road we drove in on. Down the long road I see the 32. As I reach for my camera I look back, the 32 shoots pass me at a 130mph. Instantly thinking about my wife’s reaction if she were here. “70 year old redneck+83 year old piece of metal+1,300 hp+my son=…..I’m about to be in trouble”. I spot the car again and thank God.
With no signs of shit in Gottfrid’s pants….so he say’s. Dough turns the beast off and Gottfrid jumps up like a kid and the candy store.
“Can we get a burnout?!”, Asks Gottfrid
Without saying a word Dough jumps in his other Hemi power monster. Rolling into position he lights up the Florida sky, covering everything in smoke he disappears.
Thinking the fun for the day was finally over. Dough emerges from the smoke and has another go at it!
“Asking a Man to do a burnout’s no question, that’s a damn challenge!” Says Dough, with a grin on his face.
“Hey why did Sweden become so liberal under the war?
You drove Nazi goods on your railroads and allowed the Russians to slaughter your Finnish neighbors. That was pretty liberal. Then we, the Americans fixed the victory. The Swedes signed a peace treaty, and now you guys play nice guy in every world conflict.”
“-Hey Dough, well I have a question for you. Why do you have 3 62 Vettes?”
“Because there’s 4 in the package”- Says Dough, as we continue.
“I mean honestly why do you have so many cars?”-Krantz
“I’m at work, I ask the questions, I’m the journalist, and I’m no Swedish historic Herman Lindqvist”
“I’ve sold Arms my entire life, in war zones to foreign generals that’s been my life.
I’ve seen all the big Capitals of Europe but my big break was through Miami Vice.
Miami Vice asked me to make real guns to dummies that shot blanks.
They were just the gateway into the film industry and I’ve been doing that ever since.”
“I started it all out here. I liked the solitary state , bought the whole caboodle , cleaned up and bit you see. I started to pave the yard. It woke up the checking account I can say.
The driveway set my back 40,000 but it sure does look good”
I kepted the house and garage under my close protection and leased the land out to farmers.
Dough goes on jokingly “I have a sawn-in-half Italian wife that takes care of me.” Smiling over a picture of a beautiful short Italian Women.
I’m a self made man and I’ve fought for every penny I’ve earned. Payed my taxes, and my health insurance. And I made sure they left me out of that fucking Obama-Care.
Now I buy toys with whatevers leftover. Come on, he says, and takes us on a tour. Through a hidden locking in the dark of his office opens one wall. Like a James Bond movie we walk through a dark hallway and he stops and lights up the room.
From floor to ceiling hangs machine guns, pistols, revolvers, grenade launchers, sniper rifles and collect weapons. There are piles of ammunition on the floor, odd homemade creations hanging from the ceiling and the most modern high-speed weapons from different countries lined up in the rack after rack along the walls.
“Have you used at AK47?” Dough looking at Krantz junior
“NO!….”
Dough grabs some of his toys of a shelf as if he was the supermarket picking out out food. Grabs some ammunition and we follow him out to his porch.
Charlie pulls up carrying a chromed 357 Magnum. When that gun went off it shook the entire farm. It slams something terrible about his ammunition.
“Do You have it always with you?”, I ask
-Of Course, he says, smiling softly again and plus it makes me at ease knowing a have this bad boy handy just in case shit hits the fan.
-More Coffee, says Dough. But with my ears still ringing and a couple skid marks in the wrong locations I decline.
-We gotta head back to reality!” I say to Dough as I think to myself “ It’s been fun but this 78 year old is living everyday life like every old person should.”
Guns, Horsepower, and the good old Florida Sun. Gottfrid puts the car in drive and we leave alive, with a new friend, crazy story, and two pairs of underwear covered in skidmarks.
17 minutes generous interview with Mr Oefinger. Pour up some coffee and enjoy the american back bone.
härligt reportage
detta gjorde min dag.tackar för det