[DeTomaso] Ron Wade passed away…..
Dennis Valdez
sjcarguy60 at yahoo.com
Thu Jul 7 19:41:21 EDT 2022
Sorry to hear of Ron's passing,
I only met him once at the Reno Fun Rally when he and his wife drove their Ford GT. The luggage compartment was so small he had to have their luggage shipped to the hotel in Reno!
The short conversation I had with him was very entertaining, with him describing his background, and how the whole community turned up to see his new Ford GT delivered.
I hope his family will find peace and solace.
Dennis
On Wednesday, July 6, 2022 at 10:11:16 PM PDT, Mike Drew via DeTomaso <detomaso at server.detomasolist.com> wrote:
All,
Longtime POCA member and car fanatic Ron Wade suddenly passed away of a
heart attack today. He was a regular attendee at the Fun Rally, even
driving his Saleen S7 some years. He was proud to be the original owner
of the very last US-spec Pantera GTS, and had spent decades trying to
create a Kustom Kar hot rod GT5-S using a real Amerisport GT5-S as its
base. I just spoke with him a couple of weeks ago and he was very
excited about it, telling me he now had five people working on it full
time, with the ambition of finishing it this year and trying to compete
for the Ridler award at the Detroit Autorama.
He spent his life around cars. He only had an elementary school
education but was amazingly smart. He went to work in a junkyard while
still a child, then started concentrating his efforts and many years
ago he formed a company called Chevs of the 40s, specializing in parts
and restoration for all manner of 1940s and early 1950s cars and pickup
trucks. He was pretty much the Gary Hall for those cars.
[1]https://www.chevsofthe40s.com/
He also purchased a defunct car dealership building and opened his own
museum:
[2]http://www.waaamwest.com/
Just last Friday he was talking to me about it, and apparently he
created an endowment to keep it going in perpetuity. I assume his GTS
will be in there, but have no idea what will become of his extremely
unfinished GT5-S.
He was just a super guy, well into his 80s but still way into speed,
using his early and late Ford GTs, McLaren and C5, C6, C7 and Corvette
ZR1s as his daily drivers, along with a supercharged Roush Raptor
pickup truck. He had a tremendous sense of humor and sent me jokes,
political emails and funny memes literally every day.
I will really miss him.....
Mike
Sent from my iPad
References
1. https://www.chevsofthe40s.com/
2. http://www.waaamwest.com/
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Sorry to hear of Ron's passing,
I only met him once at the Reno Fun Rally when he and his wife drove
their Ford GT. The luggage compartment was so small he had to have
their luggage shipped to the hotel in Reno!
The short conversation I had with him was very entertaining, with him
describing his background, and how the whole community turned up to see
his new Ford GT delivered.
I hope his family will find peace and solace.
Dennis
On Wednesday, July 6, 2022 at 10:11:16 PM PDT, Mike Drew via DeTomaso
<detomaso at server.detomasolist.com> wrote:
All,
Longtime POCA member and car fanatic Ron Wade suddenly passed away of
a
heart attack today. He was a regular attendee at the Fun Rally, even
driving his Saleen S7 some years. He was proud to be the original
owner
of the very last US-spec Pantera GTS, and had spent decades trying to
create a Kustom Kar hot rod GT5-S using a real Amerisport GT5-S as
its
base. I just spoke with him a couple of weeks ago and he was very
excited about it, telling me he now had five people working on it
full
time, with the ambition of finishing it this year and trying to
compete
for the Ridler award at the Detroit Autorama.
He spent his life around cars. He only had an elementary school
education but was amazingly smart. He went to work in a junkyard
while
still a child, then started concentrating his efforts and many years
ago he formed a company called Chevs of the 40s, specializing in
parts
and restoration for all manner of 1940s and early 1950s cars and
pickup
trucks. He was pretty much the Gary Hall for those cars.
[1][1]https://www.chevsofthe40s.com/
He also purchased a defunct car dealership building and opened his
own
museum:
[2][2]http://www.waaamwest.com/
Just last Friday he was talking to me about it, and apparently he
created an endowment to keep it going in perpetuity. I assume his GTS
will be in there, but have no idea what will become of his extremely
unfinished GT5-S.
He was just a super guy, well into his 80s but still way into speed,
using his early and late Ford GTs, McLaren and C5, C6, C7 and
Corvette
ZR1s as his daily drivers, along with a supercharged Roush Raptor
pickup truck. He had a tremendous sense of humor and sent me jokes,
political emails and funny memes literally every day.
I will really miss him.....
Mike
Sent from my iPad
References
1. [3]https://www.chevsofthe40s.com/
2. [4]http://www.waaamwest.com/
_______________________________________________
Detomaso Email List is not managed by POCA
Posted emails must not exceed 1.5 Megabytes
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[6]http://server.detomasolist.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso
To manage your subscription (change email address, unsubscribe, etc.)
use the links above.
Members who post to this list grant license to the list to forward any
message posted here to all past, current, or future members of the
list. They also grant the list owner permission to maintain an archive
or approve the archiving of list messages.
References
1. https://www.chevsofthe40s.com/
2. http://www.waaamwest.com/
3. https://www.chevsofthe40s.com/
4. http://www.waaamwest.com/
5. mailto:DeTomaso at server.detomasolist.com
6. http://server.detomasolist.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso
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