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Winfield told Foxley only one person, another custom car icon, ever told him how to paint a car. “John D’Agostino asked me to paint a car the way he wanted it,” Winfield told Foxley. “When it was done he said ‘You know what? You need to redo it but this time you do it the way you want to.’” Foxley became the second man to ever give direction to Winfield. Seems he started to paint Foxley’s car and it was looking very pink mixed with “a hideous” eggplant colour. Winfield thought it was looking good. Foxley didn’t. “He was very nice about it,” says Foxley. “That’s when he told me about D’Agostino but we talked a bit and started mixing some colour together and it ended up looking great. After it was done he even signed a poster saying that I was only the second person to ever tell him how to paint a car.”

After 850 hours of build time, Foxley says the response he gets from people is overwhelmingly positive. “So many people tell me it looks like a show car from the early 1960s,” says Foxley. Turns out that’s exactly what he was trying to evoke.

“I really thought about scenarios that would make a car like this make sense,” Foxley explains. “I kind of thought, maybe back in the late ’40s and early ’50s someone had this lakes coupe but it became outdated and not competitive so it was parked for a number of years. Then in the early ’60s someone found it and turned it into a show car.”

Under the hood of this show car is a SBC which some might say is uninspired but actually is totally consistent with custom cars. “Really (in the custom car world) the focus is on the car, not the motor,” says Foxley, who says the choice of powerplant was determined by a couple of factors. “I set myself a pretty tight deadline for the build and the chassis was already setup for a SBC,” says Foxley. “I like traditional motors but as far as bang for the buck goes you can’t beat a SBC and I know the engine. Plus I already had a stout 383ci in my shop and SBCs were available in the early ’60s.” The bottom line says Foxley is Lil’ Grape doesn’t need a statement engine.

We wouldn’t argue the point.

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