"The last one," has been an echoed phrase, reverberated among custom truck builders for generations. After personal dedication, commitment, and sacrifice during a segment of one's life journey, creating unique one-off chariots of speed and beauty, there comes a day when it's time to hang up the welding helmet and wrenches for the last time. Mickey Smith, a professional custom car/truck builder working his trade for the past 18 years, has said many times to himself and his wife Vicki, "That's the last one." But, he always gets that customization craving. It's a good thing that building cool custom trucks is a legal addiction. He builds one or two rods a year.
Having a passion for fast cars ever since high school, Mickey campaigned a little '66 box Nova that blazed endless quarter-mile runs, until he blew it up. Running on a shoestring budget, the car sat in the garage for more than a year before it was rebuilt and subsequently sold. Mickey went from asphalt to water, becoming a national record-holder on the liquid quarter-mile, while racing a variety of boats. Mickey was working at Youngblood Boats, which specialized in producing fast hulls, and it didn't take long until a new kind of high-speed addiction developed. Mickey started skippering very fast jet boats (Youngblood) with 19-foot hulls, before graduating to squirrely flat-bottom classes like Super Stock Hydro, where he tripped the lights at speeds of as much as 132 mph. Mickey topped out his speedy boating career piloting Comp Hydro, a flat-bottom (Curtis Craft), which he clocked a 8.60-second 140-mph quarter-mile. During this time period, before safety capsules that encase the driver in a cocoon, many drivers were seriously injured or killed after being ejected from the boat at high speeds. In fact, one time, Mickey was waiting on the rope line to make a quarter-mile pass, when he lifted the rope for Eddie Hill, who made his almost fatal pass, getting his blown flat-bottom airborne before hitting the water at 190-plus mph and disintegrating the boat. That was Eddie's last pass on water. Next, he took up a very successful career in top fuel dragsters, blazing the asphalt quarter-mile in his well-known Pennzoil digger at 220-plus mph, before retiring a couple of years ago. Not wanting to become a young widow, Mickey's wife Vicky convinced him to hang up his life vest and race helmet.
After climbing out of the boats, Mickey began his current business, building numerous high-quality custom street rods and trucks for the past 18 years, specializing in '31-'34 Ford coupes, Corvettes, musclecars, and early model trucks. His association with Downs Manufacturing sparked the flame of his latest flawless creation.