The Polynesian: A four-inch horizontal section was cut out of the Oldsmobile's body, and the top and bottom halves were welded back together, lending the car a distinctive, sleek style. This rare automobile will be on display at St. Ignace this weekend. (Photograph courtesy of Nostalgia Productions) Countless body shops in southern California were building custom cars in the heyday of hot rods after World War II, but there was one twoman enterprise in the small town of Burbank that stood above them all. So when, in 1953, Jack Stewart of Canton Ohio, an Air Force officer stationed in California, heard about the work at Valley Custom, he drove his Oldsmobile to the shop with blueprints for his dream car in hand.

In a nutshell, that's the story of how the 1950 Polynesian Jack Stewart Oldsmobile, one of the most famous American custom cars ever built, was conceived.

The purple custom, now owned by Gene Blackford of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, will be featured this weekend for its first appearance at the 35th Annual St. Ignace Car Show Thursday, June 24, to Saturday, June 26.

The tale of how Mr. Blackford, the sixth owner of the vehicle when he bought the car in 1971, first fell in love with the car is surprising. He was only 12 years old when he first spotted the purple car on a summer day in the midst of a crowd at a roadside custard stand in Portage Lakes, Ohio.

“There was a purple car, and someone in the crowd said it was a custom from California. That was when I first fell in love with it,” he said.

Mr. Blackford later read about the car in magazines and discovered why it had been stirring up so much commotion on that summer day: It was one of the first cars to have its body sectioned off from the middle, a difficult procedure that was unheard of among custom builders at the time.

A four-inch horizontal section was cut out of the Oldsmobile's body, and the top and bottom halves were welded back together, lending the car a distinctive, sleek style. Named the Polynesian after a Polynesian-themed tiki bar at a nearby hotel, it was only the third car that mechanics Neil Emory and Clay Jenson had sectioned.

“Valley Custom was the only one doing sectioning at the time,” Mr. Blackford said. “When Jack Stewart pulled up to the shop and saw a [truck] that was a little lower, he decided that he wanted it done to his car.”

The car appeared in scores of magazines, and as word about the shop spread, Valley Custom was soon considered the ultimate custom shop in the world at the time, said Mr. Blackford, who has seen the two builders' expertise firsthand while working on the car himself.

“These guys metal-finished the doors,” he said, “and when I stripped the car, there was no lead in it. It was welded and hammered together. They were true craftsmen.”

The idea of buying the car first entered Mr. Blackford's mind while he was attending Kent State University in 1970, he said. Chatting about custom cars at a New Year's Eve party with a friend who was studying architecture, he mentioned that his favorite custom was the Polynesian, which had been on the cover off Hotrod Magazine in 1953. Surprisingly, his friend said he saw the purple car in the parking lot one day on his way to class.

That's when Mr. Blackford's hunt for the Polynesian began. For openers, he called Mr. Stewart, who had sold the vehicle about a decade earlier to a man named Zagary, a student who commuted to Kent State. After tracing the car to five different owners, he eventually found it four months later stored in a barn on a farm east of Canton. It was in dilapidated condition, and that was just what he could see on the outside.

“If I'd have known it was in that bad shape, I probably wouldn't have bought it,” he reflected.

For the next three decades, Mr. Blackford stowed the car for safekeeping. All was stagnant until the summer of 2004, when he was challenged to restore the car at the Glenmoor Gathering of Fine Automobiles in Canton, for the next summer's show.

“I was put on the spot because I was on the committee at Glenmoor,” he said. “The guy who runs the show said classics and customs would be featured in 2005. This car was still in my mother's garage after 38 years. I told him it would be nice if it would happen, and he said, 'It's going to happen.'”

Winter soon arrived, and Mr. Blackford was dubious the car would be ready for the show -- he still hadn't laid a finger on it. That's when he talked to one of his friends, a mechanic who'd seen a flier for the Glenmoor show advertising the Polynesian, who convinced him to start the project.

“He asked me to bring it to his shop, and we didn't start working on it until April. After about 40 years of procrastination, the car had to be done in six months” for the show, he said.

A crew had to work around the clock for the rest of the summer to meet the show's deadline, and it came down to the wire.

“We painted this car the day before the show,” he said. “We walked out of the paint booth Saturday morning at eight o'clock. It had no windows or upholstery, and so all of these friends came in and at two in the afternoon we're sanding and buffing this car.”

With the aroma from the wet paint still wafting in the air, they managed to make it to the show just in time. Mr. Blackford said a reporter from a local newspaper wrote, “Attending the Glenmoor gathering of signature automobiles was akin to standing and watching paint dry, and the paint was actually still drying on the Polynesian.”

The Polynesian won the Glenmoor custom car award.

It has been restored exactly as it was built by Valley Custom in 1953, Mr. Blackford said, with the paint matching the original “Orchid Flame” purple hue and the Tipton interior finished in lemon yellow and eggshell white.

The car has since been honored with the preservation award at the Detroit Autorama in 2006 and was exhibited last year at the Peterson Car Museum in Los Angeles.