The car that bonds

Young Chang

The bonds are obvious. Especially after you take a peek inside the

lair.

The little sister’s pink bike from when she was even littler. Ryan

Stockwell’s first bird -- stuffed and mounted and still as colorful as it

was five years ago when it was flying through the Antelope Valley (before

it got shot).

Dad’s pencil marks celebrating everybody’s height -- on May 21 of

1998, now 17-year-old Ryan was 5 foot 7 1/2. Old plaques, worn shoes,

even a dusty television probably as old as Ryan himself.

But most telling in this cluttered Costa Mesa garage is its main

tenant: a 1965 Mustang GT 350 Shelby “R” model replica bought, fixed-up,

painted, shined and babied by father-son duo Bob and Ryan Stockwell.

Ryan drives it to school everyday. On weekends, they both jump in for

quick errands. Stockwell doesn’t like leaving it in just any old public

parking lot too long. Corona del Mar High School is an exception because

people there are trustworthy, Ryan says.

So nothing’s ever happened to it.

And if something did?

“I’d cry,” said Ryan, a graduating senior headed for University of

Southern California in the fall. “I think we’d both cry.”

They’ll show it off today at the 20th annual Concours de Nice at the

park mall near the Westin South Coast Plaza. But more showy than their

sleek showpiece -- which is ivory, blue-striped down the middle and

reminiscent of the Greaser days -- is the relationship it took to make

it.

Ryan has blue eyes, a Matt-Damon smile with even pearly whitesand hair

as blond as the sun can kiss it. Stockwell, despite the grayer head at 57

and crow-footed eyes, has the same smile. The same teeth, the same boyish

charm.

They like being boyish together. At any given free hour, they’ll

change into old jeans and old undershirts and roll under the car to fix

up their prized piece just right. They’ll paint the outside, smooth the

angles, shine the silver and refill what’s empty.

When dad’s not listening to country rock on 93.9, Ryan will slip in

his Weezer or Alkaline Trio CDs. But they’ll never listen to the CD made

by Ryan’s own band -- Kaster Troy, named after Nicholas Cage’s character

in the movie “Face/Off.” It’s just too scary, Ryan said.

And they talk. About the old days when Stockwell use to race at the

Riverside Raceway and about the more than 30 high-performance cars he’s

owned.

Ryan will talk about school, his projects, his friends and which movie

he and girlfriend Melissa will see next.

“We’ve always been very close,” Stockwell said. “And as he got older

and certainly became interested in driving cars, we thought this would be

a great vehicle, no pun intended I guess, to work together and have some

fun.”

The hobby started with go carts. Ryan’s was red and black with little

fiber glass side pods. His number was 15 -- also the number on the

current Mustang Shelby and the number on his hockey jersey. It’s his

favorite number for no special reason and always has been.

Stockwell’s go cart was yellow, black and red and numbered 10.

“I always wanted to race go carts when I was a younger boy but my

folks couldn’t afford it,” he said.

But the family stopped racing after dad crashed into a faulty go-cart

at a Riverside track seven years ago and broke six ribs, his collar bone,

a shoulder blade and punctured his lung.

“As a result of that crash, we discussed it as a family and my wife

said it’s either you or the go cart. We sold the go carts, but I said I’d

really love to have something we can play with,” Stockwell said.

He bought an original 1965 Shelby GT 350 -- one of merely 512 made

that year -- sold it about four years later because it was more for

looking than for driving, bought a 1965 Mustang fastback two years ago

and fixed it up to mimic the GT 350.

“It’s nice to have someone who actually knows what they’re talking

about,” Ryan said, of working on the car with his dad. “He always

explains. I always come out with something new.”

For Stockwell, it’s the shared passion that makes fixing up the car so

meaningful.

“I think the time we spent was very beneficial,” he said. “And the end

result was [Ryan’s] ended up with an automobile he’s proud of. That both

of us are proud of.”