Joshua's creation

Shaw's hand-built, 'outlaw' hot rod is complete with WWII bomber seats and a Pabst Blue Ribbon radiator catch

GINA DAUGHERTY | CIN WEEKLY

If it’s true that the car you drive is a moving reflection of who you are, then Joshua Shaw’s car – a hand-built, windowless, loud and seemingly unsafe hot rod – makes him a great mechanic with a rebel spirit. The car, a ’32 Ford Tudor, is outfitted with World War II bomber seats, a Pabst Blue Ribbon radiator overflow catch-can and a rusty tow-bar, reminiscent of the ’50s drag-strip days.

It looks and sounds like it just rose from the cesspools of hell.

When Shaw rumbles into the parking lot wearing short sleeves on a cold night in his windowless car (it has only a windshield), I move out of the way. He won’t hit me, but I won’t take my chances.

“That style car says I understand the history of hot rodding and where it came from,” he says. “It’s an outlaw car. It fits my personality.”

Indeed. Car purists cried foul last winter when Shaw and his dad, Dan, detailed for Street Rodder magazine how they made a finished truck look old again. They painted fades on the window armrest, “rust” around the rivets and scuffed the paint – like an old barn find.

Letters to the editor complained in the next issue, saying it wasn’t right to fade a car with paint.

“Good or bad, if you can create a stir, you’ve done something right,” Shaw says. “Since then we found a ’33 truck that is barn fresh. My dad put a sign on it at a show and it said, ‘Real barn find – not like the one in Street Rodder magazine.’ ”

Shaw hopes he’s created enough of a stir to catch the attention of his inspiration, Thom Taylor, a hot-rod artist and designer.

In college, Shaw was assigned to write to someone in the field he was planning to enter. He wrote Taylor and sent some drawings, asking for his opinion. Taylor wrote back saying the field was low-paying, it’s hard to find work and suggested he consider a more secure field.

“And he said the artwork looks fantastic, keep it up,” says Shaw. “I guess a lot of people would have been discouraged, but I was like, ‘All right, cool.’ If anything, it was the best thing he could have done because it lit a fire in me.”

So far, the pay is better than what many 27-year-olds make, and he barely catches his breath between jobs.

When Shaw isn’t working on concept drawings, laying out flames or pinstriping, he rides dirt bikes, snowboards and tries to keep his body intact.

“I drive (builder) Wade Hughes nuts with this kind of stuff,” he says, explaining a vicious looking two-by-two-inch burn on the top of his hand. “Whenever we have a big trip coming up, he tells me not to be going out and riding dirt bikes. It scares him to death. I’ve shown up too many times at his place with busted-up shoulders and everything else.”

With Shaw, you get nasty scars with wicked cars. To him, it’s one and the same.