Originally Posted by RuprectGern

This weekend I was working on stripping a 74 BMW 2.8L of its motor and tranny and various other stuff to support my 73 BMW Bavaria habit. My partner in crime got to hear a story about this guy that I worked for as a kid with this Pro Stock corvette.This morning something told me to search for Gino Baroni and Red Corvette and up comes your thread. How surprised I was to see that car… I figured that I might have something to offer here to fill in some blanks about Gino. I’m not his best friend or anything, but I knew the guy and hung out with him for a few years and I liked him immensely and disliked him immensely. What I have written here may be a bit disjointed, but it’s what I remember.

During the late 80's I had a 67 Camaro RS and a 402 big block (out of a 70 1/2 Camaro) and I wanted to get them married. However, the motor was in bad shape so I took it over to THE performance Machine shop in the Miramar\Hollywood area that you took anything to, Russ machine shop (heads by rick was the other). After another trip to Russ’ to pay off the work on my big block, I stumbled across Gino's Paint and Body on Funston street just off 441 in Hollywood Fl. (33023). This place was a two bay shop packed solid inside with parts and pieces, and just like a bad joke in a movie, he knew where every item was. Like some sort of “body by fisher” radar. With the garage doors open, you could see that the place was wall to wall parts (junk, whatever), and to a 17 year old kid looking to build a car, this place was heaven. Gino had so little room at his shop and just enough cars that he had them strewn around the shop. His good cars were all out back or buried inside the bays and the CAM2 car was either on the flatbed out front, or parked alongside his house in the backyard. I got up the nerve to pull up and stopped to speak to him..

BTW.. everything i ever saw with his name on it, said Gino Baroni -- he may have changed it for some reason, but thats all Iever knew him as.

Back then (85 – 87) Gino was around 5”8, black hair with a few lines of gray, and a stocky guy, not fat.. probably in his mid to late 40’s. He wore glasses and had an ex-wife and a daughter named Cammy. he was very proud that he named her after a camshaft. He might have a son, but I’m not clear on that so he may not… His current (@ the time ) girlfriend (thin, tall, long straight red hair) who was at probably a decade his junior lived with him over in Miramar and they had a miniature Doberman pinscher. He drove around in an El Camino just in case he picked up some parts somewhere. He had so many parts in his shop that he used to brag about being able to rebuild a corvette from the ground up. He had frames and bodies packed In the shop side and in the other side, he had a 59 Cadillac that we spent a week digging out and making run for his girlfriend. He had a 69 Camaro pace car supposedly one of THE 3 cars at the track that year, but I’m sure that everyone says that.. looked like the real deal, it was classic white with hugger orange interior with all the decals on it, but absolutely buried in the back of the shop under a tarp with tires on it. He had a green 68 Camaro SS, RS, Z28 with no motor or tranny or interior in his back yard that I wanted to buy but had no money for whatsoever. He had radio delete dashboards for corvettes stacked up against a wall.

He used to tell me that the vette, was kept as clean and reversible as possible (my words not his) he meant that he didn’t cut up the car any more than it had to be and that if he wanted to, he could put it back to an original state. My memory is hazy on the structure of the car, but I know he had enough parts that he probably could have put it back together, but ….. I would believe the former not the latter.

I just started hanging out there and would help him out just wrench on cars and learn stuff from him. I didn’t know ****, so to get me out of his hair, he had me pull a motor out of a B210 that was laying round in the front of the shop. Everyone seemed to know Gino and people would show up to show off their cars to him. If it was muscle car and Chevy it would find its way to his shop, they shoot the **** for a while he would look over their cars. After they left, he would tell me how the paint was off or the motor was wrong or (just by looking at it for a sec) that the VIN didn’t indicate that this Camaro wasn’t really an SS. He had an encyclopedic mind about that stuff. Could rattle off part numbers over what cyl heads were the best and the chamber sizes. Almost savant-like. The problem was, he wasn’t tactful in the slightest when It came to what was wrong with your car. He would tell people that their car was just an “air car” (nothing special) and that the extra badges and stories about the car were just slapped on there by the Previous owner (or seller). He could take the wind out of your sails fairly quickly just standing there munching on his beard. He used to do that when he was thinking about something. He’d play with the part of his beard (goatee) just below his bottom lip and munch on it. you knew he was either getting ready to barter or haggle with you, or he was summoning all his strength not to tell you what a turd you just bought.

One of the things that confused me about Gino was what to call his business, as it turns out that this was likely because of his endless trouble with money, taxes, and his landlord.
Now on the car and probably on the tax assessor’s ledger, his business was named “Gino’s paint and body” however, he had these cards that he would give out occasionally that said “53 -84” or “53 – 82”. (These were the years that corvettes didn’t have computers in them). He refused to work on cars with computers. Didn’t understand them and like the dinosaurs, evolution or a meteor strike would likely be the end of him. That’s why the story of Gino working at a shop now fixing cars amuses me, considering his rants.

Make no mistake, this guy wasn’t a saint, he was stingy and he was tactless, neither being his fault . Not to speak ill of him, I loved the guy. he took me with him a few times to help crew for him at Hollywood and Moroso when he would drive the car. He showed me how to prep and paint a car for black lacquer. It was too bad, but the guy could never get a break and never had any money. He was also very sentimental about and everything that he owned was made of gold and he was proud to tell me that corvette guys were always going to come back and buy that old distributor that was just right part numbers for their car for astronomical money. They always came back but not often enough and he was endlessly trying to make ends meet.

After a while his demeanor (and likely my ADD) put some distance between the two of us and I would stop by from time to time. But he was still plugging away. I got a job @ super shops (a performance speed shop) in Ft. Lauderdale primarily because of the knowledge of motors and suspension that he taught me. And he would come buy every once in a while for some parts at a discount, but not often. A few years later I went by his shop and he was gone. I stopped by the repair place next door and he told me the story that Gino’s landlord finally couldn’t take it anymore (or maybe he was going to sell the place and needed Gino out). not sure, but I wish he was able to post to clarify. He came by and locked up Gino’s place and started selling the cars, parts, etc. I went by his house and he still had the Corvette on the Trailer

I’m not sure of this part but I seem to remember that he had moved much of his stuff to a warehouse in west palm (hiding it from the landlord) and he might have been living in the warehouse?? Although that part might not be true but it will spice up your movie. He may have come to an agreement to give the landlord some stuff in trade for letting him take the rest of his stuff… who knows? I saw him 2 or 3 times after that when he came into super shops and I hoped that he could get on his feet. But he was always behind the 8 ball when it came to money, so he would disappear.

I would say the last time I saw him was in 1990 or 1991

Now make no mistake. No matter what I wrote here, I have nothing but fondness for Gino and I owe him a lot. I believe that the whole story is important, warts and all. It gives you a look into what kind of guy he was and make no mistake, I owe him a lot… Much of my philosophy of working on cars comes from him. The attention to detail, he taught me to STOP and think before just jumping in there. he showed me that you have to use the right parts and don’t make a half-assed attempt at things.

Tjhats why you have such a good car, he would spend all of his money that he didn’t have to keep that car running right. he would spend whatever he needed to, to get the right stuff, while coming inches from having his house foreclosed on.

Currently, I work on old BMW’s rebuilding, repairing, etc. it’s my hobby, and I enjoy the E3’s (www.seniorsix.org) but I have a soft spot for the late 60’s Chevy stuff. Hell I still refer to nondescript cars as “air cars”. He was a good teacher and I think about the guy still.

I hope he is ok and if you find him, I would love to talk to him and tell him thanks .

Ruprect Gern.

Originally Posted by plantmakerone

i help gino for 5 years bult him a motor he lost every thing but the vet he moved to west palm beach last i heard from his daughter he was in bad shape