In this modern era of being able to change the thermostat in your home, from a computer in your pocket, while you’re at work, it’s nice to be able to take a step back once in a while. I have a fascination and admiration for things of the past. I love mechanical watches. I’ll take a Seiko 5 with an NH35 movement, over the wrist computers everyone is wearing these days. Smart watches have no soul. If you have to charge it, it’s not a watch. I wet shave with a safety razor, the way my grandfather did back in the 40s. I yearn for the days where kids are playing flashlight tag in their neighborhoods, instead of doing sock puppet dances on that social media site that shall not be named. Seriously, putting sock puppets on your hands would at least be more entertaining than watching you have a seizure with your arms and calling it “dancing”. But I digress. I also believe fashion from the 30s-60s should make a serious comeback. Wool and twill suits are awesome. I’d love to see a return of men and women dressing up to go out. We are far too casual today, and I’m just as guilty of it as anyone.

Another blast from the past, which I love, are old school cars, prior to the early 70s. Whether it’s the dream cars of the 50s, or the muscle cars of the 60s and early 70s, I’m drooling over all of it. I was never a “car guy”. I didn’t grow up working on cars. I don’t know the difference between a fuel pump and a cam. I don’t know what a drag link or intake manifold does. These are terms I’ve heard thrown around, but I have no idea what they do or what they even look like. And it’s not for a lack of wanting to learn. I was just never exposed to it. So when guys are standing around talking shop, it’s all over my head. But I still dream of cruising around in one of these mechanical monsters, while listening to doo wop or rockabilly on an old retro tuner shaft radio. My dream car is a 1968 Barracuda Super Stock with a 426 Hemi. A close 2nd, is a 1967 GTO.

My love for these cars, and lack of knowledge of them, is what got me turned on to Tony DeFeo’s YouTube channel: Uncle Tony’s Garage. I followed this channel for several years, before realizing he lives right down the street in Murfreesboro. I couldn’t believe it. If and when I ever get the point where I can buy one of these cars, at least I know who I can pay and trust, to work on it. At the very least, I can hire the guy to tell me if the car I find, is a diamond in the rough, or a dog with fleas.

Tony DeFeo grew up in Long Island, NY, where he was apparently kicked out of school at the age of 16 for stealing a school bus. He later went on to become a mechanic and an automotive journalist. He wrote for Cars Illustrated and founded High Performance Mopar, as well as Mopar Action. The man is a legend in the automotive community. From what I’ve gathered, he and his buddies became famous in the late 80s when they learned how to really get the most performance out their fox body mustangs. The technology was new, the shifting was different, but they eventually taught themselves how to get some really great times out of these things. So much so, that the engineers at Ford’s racing division, SVO (Special Vehicle Operations) accused them of lying about their track times. The SVO engineers said “we know you’re lying, because we can’t even get our cars to go this fast”. So Tony and his pals were going faster than the Ford guys, with their own equipment. They even had an ongoing joke: “It takes a MOPAR guy to make a Ford go fast”.

Fast forward about 20 years later, and Uncle Tony and his wife Kathy moved to Murfreesboro, TN somewhere around 2009 and never looked back. Long story short, Tony was working out of a shop, which was sold out from under him. So he moved his business into his home garage, where he got into the parts business. His primary focus was Chrysler products between 1960 and 1980. Tony is a firm believer in teaching people how to work on their cars without access to things like car lifts, paint booths, and rotisseries that cost thousands of dollars. If you can’t do it with a floor jack, a flux-core welder, and a paint gun from Harbor Freight, Tony isn’t going to make a video about it. He wants to teach every day people how to restore their cars at little to no cost. After a while, as fate would have it, Tony came across a warehouse available for lease, which brings me to the purpose of this article. I was fortunate enough to be able to document the grand opening of Uncle Tony’s Garage Global Headquarters, by photographing the event.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt, that Uncle Tony is the real deal. The man has a brilliant mind and a pleasure to be around. I was so happy to have the opportunity to do this. People like him aren’t going to be around forever and we need to learn as much from them as possible, while they are still with us.