New shop refrigerator

JoeP.

JoeP.

Club Member
I was helping a buddy move about a month ago, and this old fridge was in his basement. He was going to scrap it, so I drug it home and found it still gets COLD! It's from the late 1940's(I think 1948) and is a "Leonard" brand, a division of Nash-Kelvinator out of Detroit which is cool. It was very complete, but dingy and surface rusted.

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I asked my friend Bryan at Gene Butman Ford to give it a quick cleanup paint job, but things always seem to get out of control...

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And the finished product looks badass, this is one fast looking fridge LOL! I really don't have anymore room in my garage for this(and my wife would kill me if I put it in the kitchen), so I've decided it's actually going to be a Christmas present for my dad for his "car barn". He has quite a collection of restored gas pumps and neon signs, but nothing like this. My cell phone camera just doesn't capture the colors, it turned out awesome. Thanks Bryan, and Merry Christmas dad!

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That would look perfect in my basement behind the bar. It's on my project list for next year. Everything looks perfect. Color combo is sick.
 
BTW, Leonard was my Grandfather's name. Even more cool! What does a paint job like that cost if you don't mind me asking?
 
Thanks guys, I'm definitely happy with how it turned out. We were going to airbrush an old Ford "V8" emblem on the front door, but decided to just leave it plain. I'm trying to get Bryan to do a few more of these. He's a talented guy and actually teaches an airbrush class at WCC on the weekends. I see old fridges on C/L now and then for a couple hundred bucks, and I think after a paint job he could retail these at probably $1500-$2000 range depending on the art work. I'm doing a little trading with him, so I just really had to pay for materials right now. But, I'll be building a 360 AMC engine for his J10 Jeep truck project soon. My AMC/Nash roots run deep, and even though I don't own one right now I was still excited to get this old "Kelvinator" all shined up!
 
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