Words: John Gunnell
Beauty, they say, is in the eyes of the beholder. Never is this truer than when it comes to art, sculpture or car body design. Some beholders prefer traditional beauty and some argue that the thinking of the artist should be abstract or out-of-the-box. But when every beholder says your car is a beauty, you know you have a winner.
So it is with the Strada Americana roadster, a new hand-crafted car being offered by Paruch Automotive Craftsmanship, LLC, of Appleton, Wis. Reminiscent of the “sport roadsters” that often appeared on the green-tinted pages of Hot Rod Magazine in the ‘50s and ‘60s, the Strada Americana roadster is, at the same time, much more refined than those home-built jobs over which readers often drooled.
Austin Paruch (pa-roosh) is a young automotive craftsman whose company is growing. Austin has brought together others who are as passionate about autos as he is with the original goal of offering restoration services to enthusiasts. Paruch Automotive works with individual customers and other shops to create or recreate automotive artworks like the Strada. Its easily accessible workshop is located in east central Wisconsin.
“There was a hunger within me to build an original hand-build car for years,” Paruch told Hot Rod Hotline. The car shows obvious 1950s Italian influences like many of the older sports roadsters did. “I fell in love with the Italian design language while working for a prominent restorer of Italian cars,” said Paruch. “If you have the chance to work on those cars, you know… It gets in your blood.”
Like famed hot rodders including Carroll Shelby and Larry Shinoda, Paruch says that the design for his roadster came about very organically. “While (I was) chatting on Facebook with a designer whom I admire, I came to the conclusion that I needed to take steps to develop my own design and build it,” he explained. “I needed a project to showcase the skills and abilities of myself and my staff. Using two images as a starting point, we created a 3D rendering, scaled it to our desired chassis size and began to tweak and manipulate shapes until we had a beautiful design.”
To make things easier and more affordable, Paruch decided to use readily available suspension components that are reliable and proven on the race track. His chassis construction methods were identical to that used for many classics, such as Shelby’s Cobra as well as many exotic Ferraris and Maseratis. The all-steel TIG-welded tube chassis was then wrapped up in a curvaceous aluminum skin.
“I needed to take my talents and my business to the next level,” Paruch said. “The Strada Americana project is about growth, personally and professionally. And it’s not just about me; it’s about the great and talented people I am fortunate to work with every day. We needed something exciting to take us to the next level and keep the fires of passion burning brightly.”
