1944 — 2008 · Cypress, California
Boyd Coddington
A man of firsts.
Hot rod builder, billet wheel pioneer and host of American Hot Rod. Six-time America’s Most Beautiful Roadster winner whose “Boyd Look” is still the baseline the industry builds from.
His legacy
A man of firsts
6
AMBR wins
America's Most Beautiful Roadster
These accomplishments, and many others, are his legacy.
First
To manufacture and market billet aluminum wheels
First
To restyle an entire generation of hot rods
First
Hot rod featured at the New York International Auto Show
First
To take an automotive aftermarket company public on NASDAQ
Only
Builder with a hot rod on the cover of Smithsonian Magazine
Record
Six-time winner of America's Most Beautiful Roadster
He removed the hiccups
The Boyd Look
Before Boyd Coddington burst on the scene with his historic “Vern Luce Coupe,” hot rods were old bodies dropped on late-model chassis, or simply jalopies. The Boyd Look was smooth, sleek and fluid.
His cars were thought out and engineered. No more parts borrowed from commuter cars. Boyd fabricated his own parts from billet aluminum, and more than thirty years later his look is still copied and used as the industry baseline.
His story
From a backyard shop to a household name
Rural Idaho
Built from necessity
Boyd grew up in rural Idaho, where innovation and implementation were more necessity than luxury. He was drawn to cars at a young age, at a time when the hot rod was part of the post-war American boom.
Late 1960s
California, machine tools in hand
Always one to set his standards high, he moved to California with dreams in his eyes and machine tools in his hands. His natural craftsmanship took him from a machine shop job to a machinist position at Disneyland.
Cypress, CA
Nights at Disneyland, days on hot rods
The night job gave him stability and, more important, his days to build hot rods. In the backyard shop of his Cypress home, the “Boyd Look” was born.
Working nights and building by day could only last so long. His decision to leave a steady Disneyland paycheck for the dream of designing and building hot rods became automotive lore.
Billet
Making the parts he couldn't buy
With his longtime friend and machining wizard Lil’ John Buttera, Boyd began machining the parts they couldn’t buy. It may have started with a simple mirror cut from a block of aluminum, a “billet.”
When he couldn’t find wheels he liked, they made what may have been the first one-off billet wheels. The billet craze swept across America, the CNC machines turned out wheels, and the shop kept building award winners.
American Hot Rod
Millions watching worldwide
He had a designer’s eye, though he couldn’t sketch or draw. His talent was turning ideas into reality through his team of fabricators. He built hot rods, a legacy and one of the first hot rod TV shows, watched by millions around the world.
Gallery
The cars
Collectors around the world cherish his hot rods for their individuality. Many parts were created for that one car.
80+ photos of Boyd’s cars, shop visits and SEMA.
Giving back
His greatest accomplishment
He designed and built cars for celebrities, musicians, sports stars and captains of industry. But he’d tell you his greatest accomplishment wasn’t taking his company public, the awards or the fame. It was what he gave back.
Known on screen for a gruff image, Boyd was a giving guy. He and his wife Jo held fundraising events to raise money and awareness for the cities they lived and worked in. They hired special-needs adults as an integral part of Coddington Companies, people who also helped run the fundraisers and present hundreds of thousands of dollars to charities.
A hot rod builder who reached for his dreams, and was always the first to help others reach for theirs.
