Hot rod enthusiast true to Mich. roots

By Bryan McKenzie

Published: November 29, 2008

Bruce Wayne has his Batmobile, Herman Munster has “Drag-u-la,” the Monkees gig in their Pontiac GTO-based Monkeemobile and Ken Elzinga cruises in his chopped-top 1949 Mercury Coupe.

Maybe you haven’t heard of Mr. Elzinga. You should have. He’s the Robert C. Taylor professor of economics at the University of Virginia and a well-known economist who has consulted with Microsoft, studied the brewing industry and investigated the economics of distribution and marketing.

He may seem like an unlikely candidate for the hot-rod Kustom Kulture, but he’s just keeping true to his Michigan roots.

‘Always loved cars’

“I grew up near Kalamazoo and I always loved cars,” he says, standing by the sleek Merc prior to a slow cruise with the Piedmont Antique Auto Club in the Barracks Road Shopping Center Holiday Parade. “I’d get Hot Rod Magazine, and Rod and Custom and Road and Track and I’d read them all. I was always attracted to the custom cars.”

At 67, Mr. Elzinga grew up in the heart of car country in the heat of the car culture. Back then Pontiacs were made in Pontiac and Cadillacs near Cadillac and Ford owned Detroit. Top 40 radio was filled with loving paeans to speed, V-8 engines, GTOs, 409-cubic-inch engines and Corvette Sting-Rays.

He attended Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, where Checker Cabs were once made along with Gibson guitars. He received his doctorate at Michigan State University, in Lansing, Mich, home to the now-defunct Oldsmobile and Diamond-REO trucks. His other toy is a bright red, souped up deuce coupe.

Hey, you can take the boy out of the Motor City, but you can’t take the Motor City out of the man.

Classic street rod

Consider the ’49 Merc; it’s the coupe version of the car that James Dean drove over a cliff in the movie “Rebel Without a Cause.” It’s a classic street rod. Its roofline has been chopped to drop the top, the doors are smoothed out with trick, hidden latch releases, the toothy chrome grill comes from an old DeSoto and the engine is out of a 1976 Cadillac.

“It’s a big engine and it’s definitely not stock. The car was built up in Maryland and I got it from a guy who was moving on to a ’55 Chevy,” he says with pride. “A lot of us with street rods have big engines so they’ll go fast but then we drive them slow. We’re a little strange.”

A tad strange

Mr. Elzinga admits his car is a little strange by the antique car club standards as well.

“Most of the guys in the club are into restoring vehicles and they’d probably prefer to see a ’49 Merc restored to the way it looked in 1949,” he laughed. “Street rodders tend to find ways to make them unique.”

Although he doesn’t race for titles, Mr. Elzinga still cruises into car shows and hangs out with car lovers.

“With car people, the fact that you’re a professor or a construction worker doesn’t matter because it’s about the cars. I meet a lot of people in the car culture that I wouldn’t otherwise,” he confesses. “I love being a professor, but it’s great to meet people outside of the world of books and classes. Cars are something that just become a part of you.”