JF’s 65 Riviera was a sight to behold. As the first Canadian Customizer he worked with, the writer was in for a surprise when he saw the car coming out of the trailer. The car was a Riddler, the highest reward a builder can get in America. But what did it feel like to be a part of such a monumental achievement?

To answer that question, the writer takes us back a year to the journey it took to be the first Canadian in decades to bring home the Don Ridler Memorial Award. With eight months to Autorama 2014, JF and his team were ahead of their past two Detroit builds. But their cockiness led them into trouble as they constantly added build elements to the project, with an overwhelming amount of detail added to each part.

With only 55 days left until the car had to be loaded to start heading to Detroit, they still hadn’t sprayed any paint. There were no grille, no taillights, no windshield, no rear window, no wheels, no leather glued on yet, and no cash. The writer learned what money could buy on this build – it can buy time. But with no cash left, it was impossible to add hours to the clock.

The writer’s partner would show up with dinner at the shop so he could keep working on the car. A film crew was also documenting the events, making things worse by taking up time to redo things to get a shot and trying to script some drama when the real drama was already present.

The wheels were finally starting to arrive, one by one every couple of days, and required 6-10 hours of paintwork each. Splitting up the wheel finishing was a terrible way to do it, but there was no choice. The writer slept in the corner of the paint booth for the last four days between coats of paint.

When the officials parked them at the back of the hall, they were relieved. They walked 100 yards to the judges’ booth, met with three of the seven judges, and they agreed to meet at the display to prove driveability. The writer wiped the car down in the trailer with the doors closed, jumped in the driver’s seat of the old wreck, fired it up, and got the boys to drop the tailgate.

With camera flashes going and a mob following them the 500 yards to their parking spot, the statement was made: “These Canadians are here to play hard.” That was the best feeling the writer had through the whole build. They were here to win, but the fact that they had made it by overcoming so many obstacles was very satisfying. The writer felt like there was nothing left they could change or fix, and it was as if they shrugged an elephant off their shoulders.

Rivision was done, and JF’s art now belonged to the world. By the middle of the next day, they would know if Rivision was a Great 8 car and a Ridler Award contender. Being a competitive guy by nature, that sense of release was soon replaced by more anxiety as they talked to the judges, watched them write on secret papers, then come back and stare at things and make more notes. Having seven highly qualified judges pour over their creation for hours with a critical eye was humbling. A Ridler win can change a builder’s life and boost their career exponentially, and the judges obviously take their job very seriously.

The writer could do nothing about it at this point except stress about items they may have missed. They fidgeted a lot. But in the end, JF’s 65 Riviera was awarded the Don Ridler Memorial Award, making him the first Canadian in decades to bring it home.