Whatever happened to Richard Straman, the famous car cutter?

Lets hope he found a new career path.

 

Hey, there’s nuthin wrong with a little wiggle.


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A bit of update on activities of Richard and Lani Straman up to recent years.

http://www.astor.org/index.html

https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-dpt-me-wooden-boats-gallery-photogallery.html

https://newportbeachwoodenboatfestival.com/category/press/

 

Puts a new spin on sail away.


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Actually he made some awesome cars. Here is one of my all time favorites. Last I heard it was down it Texas. Is it yours?

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i continue to see Straman's legacy in spider conversions and wonder if he sold the shop or continued thru another generation? Alternatively, besides Sheehan who also no longer does this, is there anyone else with expertise?

 

I have worked on those. Last thing I'd call it is awesome. I call it butchered and Rube Goldberg.

 

Expertise is certainly not a word I'd use in his case. In the Ferrari industry he was a bad joke.

 

I can understand that perspective too. However obviously there exists and entire culture of mechanics employing clever improvements (or not) on dated, unrestored or poor designs to all models of cars fine or otherwise. I have also seen this done to Maserati, Lambo, Merc, etc. And in the case where a spider/convertible was never offered from the factory, sometimes experimentation happens in response to market demands.

 

Modifications are one thing but there is no excuse for work of his quality. It was garbage.

And depending on the car just because you can does not mean you should. Unless your professional integrity means nothing to you which in his case must have been true.

People looked at them and thought "Isn't that pretty". The people who worked on them thought "Isnt this ****ing garbage".

 

interesting. so i had never seen one personally and up close, only in pictures and totally abide by ....just b/c you can...

 

the rumor I heard was they received a large settlement from a major OEM that tried to restrain them from modifying the cars. It was enough to retire.

the OEM was not Ferrari.