The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

NORTH KINGSTOWN -- Sam Matoes fell in love with his custom 1955 Studebaker President Club Coupe back in the 1950s when it was owned by his cousin Dolly Silvia Brown.

Silvia later sold the car to his friend Arthur Washburn and it was while he was riding around in the back seat with Washburn at the wheel that Matoes fell for a girl who later became his wife.

“The girl I saw from the backseat of the car, who was 13 at the time, years later became my girlfriend and then my wife, Elaine,” he said in a recent interview at his home.

Washburn later sold the car to someone who ended up on the wrong side of the law.

“I got a call from a friend who said the guy who now owns the Studebaker was in the Adult Correctional Institutions and needs money,” Matoes said.

He said he went to the ACI and negotiated across a visiting table to buy the car for $100.

That was in 1963 and after years of keeping the car in storage, Matoes finally got around to finishing it following a bout of ill health a few years ago. It recently won awards representing Rhode Island at major car shows in East Parsippany, N.J., Lake George, N.Y., and Rhinebeck, N.Y., and he said he has received a citation from the state House of Representatives for his car’s “Success in the Rod and Custom Class.”

Matoes said he was raised in Jamestown where his father was a lobsterman and his family, which originally hailed from Portugal, owned two small grocery stores. He said he was born in the building on Southwest Avenue that now houses the flower and plant store Secret Garden.

Washburn, who now owns Art’s Auto Body Shop just a few doors down on the same street, started working on the car and Matoes credits him with the design.

“Art Washburn designed the car,” he said. “He started to customize it.”

Meanwhile, Matoes said he kept the car in storage but bought rod and custom car magazines and dreamed of the day when he would have the time to work on it.

But although he dreamed of working on it, Matoes said for many years he was too busy. He married Elaine in 1965 and raised two daughters — they have four grandchildren – and pursued his vocation as a barber, including a four-year stint at the former Navy base in Quonset.

And he moved around South County over the years, from Jamestown to Coventry to West Warwick before finally settling in North Kingstown.

Meanwhile, the car remained in storage — including 13 years sitting outside — and deteriorated further and further.

“I started working on it in 1988,” he said. “It was a rotten mess. There was rust and more rust.”

He said he brought the car to North Kingstown two years later to work on it at home. And while some friends said it was “too far gone with mice, rot, frozen motor, almost a complete basket case,” one friend said he knew someone who might be able to salvage it.

And slowly a plan was developed. For starters, he said the frame had to be fixed, the engine replaced and the entire front and back ends partially replaced due to severe rust.

All in all, although the car retains the lines of the original Studebaker, elements from a wide variety of cars were incorporated to make it a Full Custom.

They include a new 350 Chevy engine and transmission, Mustang rack and pinion steering and brakes and a one-piece drive shaft.

Matoes said he bought a welding kit and starting cutting the rot out of the car. Friends stopped by with advice and assistance.

“Little by little the car took shape,” he said, adding that he bought another Studebaker as a donor car.

While he had to replace or refurbish much of the car’s basic structure, many of the design elements are lifted from other cars.

The grille, for example, is from a 1954 Corvette and the Frenched headlights from a BMW. The hood has been pancaked with rounded corners and inset with 1948 Buick fender spears with nonfunctioning antennas, he said.

The doors have been scooped and shaved while the interior is a mixture of a Cadillac steering column, Ford Thunderbird front seats and console and Studebaker seats in the rear.

The top rear brake light is fabricated from a 1958 Chevy vent while the main brake lights are based on a 1957 Chevy Bel Aire.

And the car, which was originally two-tone blue, is now 1958 Corvette red with gold piping,

“It’s not a Radical,” Matoes said, noting that the top had not been chopped. “It’s a Full Custom.”

He said that while he worked on the car through the 1990s, being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2007 really inspired him, especially as he had been diagnosed with kidney cancer in 1975 and had recovered.

“Sometimes it takes a health issue to make you realize it’s now or never,” he said. “Most people don’t get a second chance and I learned a new way of life: One day at a time.”

Matoes said he started work on the car in earnest. “For two years, nights, days, Sundays, anytime, I worked on it,” he said, adding that his friends pitched in.

He cited John Bruskie of Johnny Auto Fabrication, Steve Santopietro of Ranks Auto Top, Jim Moon and David Jones of Moon’s Auto Body Express for their help.

Matoes has a number of additional cars, most notably an enormous salmon/tomato red and white 1957 Ford Fairlane Convertible E-Series with a Continental Kit rear.

But the Studebaker is clearly special. He said he seldom takes it to local shows (“Man, I stay there all day and I never shut up”), but added that Elaine, who is in a wheelchair, does come with him when he trailers the car.

“She’s a super good sport, she puts up with me,” he said, adding that he would never sell the Studebaker. “It was the beginning of my life with her.”

Auto Biography tells an interesting story about a car and its driver. If you think you have a newsworthy story to tell about your car, write to Auto Biography, Features Department, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St. Providence RI 02902 or e-mail projocars@projo.com. Be sure to put “Auto Biography” in the subject field.

The car doesn’t have to be a classic or expensive, but it should be somehow unique. The driver must be willing to be interviewed by a reporter about what makes this car special and to be photographed with the car.