Racecars are in his blood, according to Mayer, because he grew up with a father in California who worked on fast machines and was involved in racing. Indeed, photos of the hotrods his dad worked on cover the walls of the office in the Magnolia garage. And Mayer started helping out in his father's garage when he was only 12, he said.
Last week Mayer had a 1961 Chevy Biscayne and a 1955 Chevy Nomad in the garage. "This was bought by a collector," he said of the Biscayne, a drag racer that can hit 110 miles per hour and can cover a quarter mile on the drag strip in 13 to 13.5 seconds.
That wasn't good enough for the owner, so Mayer is replacing the original engine with a larger, 409-cubic-inch, 465 horsepower engine. "When we get done with it," he said, "it should turn around 130 miles per hour and reach the high 11s (seconds in the quarter mile)."
The Nomad, a classic car in its own right, is a different story. It's being heavily modified and powered up so that it can tow a 1957 Airstream trailer, Mayer said. The different approaches are typical. "Some are show cars, some are race cars and some are for everyday drivers," he said of the mean machines he works on in his garage.
Often, the work on the hotrods is connected to never-ending efforts to get extra speed, and the work isn't cheap. "The faster you want to go, the more it will cost you," Mayer explained.
In fact, the average cost for a hotrod is $40,000, although he's worked on some that price out at around $15,000, he said. Some are even more expensive. "I've built street rods that go for $65,000," Mayer added.
It takes anywhere from 30 days to six months to complete work on race cars in his garage, but there are some exceptions, he said. "We had a Jaguar we did for a guy a long time ago; it took 13 months." Part of the delay was caused by having to get custom-made parts from England, Mayer said.
Some of the jobs are a little unusual. At one point, Mayer and his team took a six-cylinder engine from a Dodge Dart and installed it in a Mercedes, he said. "It was fun. We called it a Merdodge."
Mayer has been in the business for 35 years, the last 20 of which have been in Magnolia. He also had shops in Mukelteo and Edmonds at one point, both of which he sold in 1998.
Mayer also taught automotive classes for three years at Albany Community College in Oregon in the 1980s. He even bought a ranch in the area and still owns it. He was let go, though, when Proposition 5 in the state eliminated money for retraining forest workers who lost their jobs when the spotted owl became an endangered species.
Mayer said he doesn't advertise his work on hotrods, depending on word of mouth, instead. Still, he has lots of repeat customers, and they come from all over the Puget Sound region. "We get new customers every week," Mayer added.
There are also customers from Magnolia, including Mike Ruddell, who has a 1971 Chevelle that Mayer worked on. "I was really impressed with Gene's knowledge," he said. "The other thing I like about Gene is he takes the time to explain things to you."
After Mayer worked on the Chevelle, Ruddell was able to cover a quarter mile drag strip track at Pacific Raceways in the mid-12s, he said of the time in seconds. "I hope to get it down to the low 12s, maybe event the 11s." At the same time, Ruddell wanted to keep the Chevelle as a streetcar. "It's now a pleasure to drive on the freeway."
Mayer said he likes to race, too. He also gets a kick out of road-testing the cars he's worked on. "I've been known, after I get these cars built, to go out on the street (34th) and light the road up clear up the street," he grinned.[[In-content Ad]]