Ron Thorn, 51, a Fender guitar principal master builder living in Acton, Calif., on his family’s 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme convertible, as told to A.J. Baime.
When I was a kid, my father, William Thorn, was a car nerd. He was a member and the car pinstriper for the Toronto Modified Car Club in the 1950s and early 1960s. In 1979, we moved from Toronto to Los Angeles. We had to sell pretty much everything, our cars, our furniture. We flew out to L.A., and the next day, my dad walked to a used car lot and bought a 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. He painted the wheels the same color as the car’s body. That was our family car and our only car, all through the 1980s.
In the 1990s, my dad got a company car. The Oldsmobile sat in the garage and started to get neglected. I became a car guy and got a 1969 Mustang when I was 21. I tore it apart, rebuilt the engine. There were a bunch of other cars I worked on, all Ford and Shelby stuff, and I built a number of car-themed guitars, with Shelby colors and configurations. But I always loved the Oldsmobile. I would wash it every now and then, and start it up.
Around 2012, my father threw out the idea of getting rid of the Oldsmobile because he did not like to see it decaying. I said, “No way. Why don’t you let me play around with it?” I drove the car home and dove in.
