A Remodeled $400 Rusty Car Won Award For America’s Best Custom Car

Hope Drives Man To Envision Things And Work To Achieve Them

If a man spends 22,000 hours and $300,000 pimping an old rusty car, trust me he knows more than you he can ever care to learn or listen from anyone. 39-year-old JF Launier did exactly that, and along the way took some grievous-looking risks such as remortgaging his parents’ house as well as his own to finance the project.

When all was said done, Launie, who had bought a rusty car from a waste yard for $400, had an award-winning machine that put him on the right path of history. Launier acknowledges that the whole project “was a lot of blood, sweat and tears.”

The car, which has recorded speeds of up to 155 mph and was built over the course of six years. This goes to tell you that a lot of modifications, could be thousands of modifications were made to the original 1964 Buick Riviera body.

Among the changes the car witnessed was a roof modification which got an iconic shape and sloped rear window to the 1964 chassis. The car was shortened by removing sheet metal behind the doors and rear-wheel openings.

Some room was needed for the 6.2 liter twin turbo-charged Chevrolet V8 engine,and this saw the front-wheel openings moved forward to make space for it. But what was Launier’s motivation for such a risky undertaking?

“When I was 21,” he says, “I had a 64 Riviera and sold it to start my first business but I always thought I was going to have another one one day – I just didn’t know I was going to take it this far.”

Little did he know that the car he renamed Rivision could go as far as winning the Ridler award for America’s most creative and innovative custom car at the 2014 Detroit Autorama.