The car featured in the ESAB booth (#21328) at SEMA 2009, held November 3-6 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, is not your average automobile. This remodeled 1959 Fiat 500 has been upgraded to become probably the most high-end Fiat gasser every built.

Owner Bob Hershey of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, bought the car from a friend who initially started the project, then lost interest. Hershey thought the car was “hilarious,” so he hired Legacy Innovations of York, Pennsylvania, to do the bulk of the project. Legacy Innovations consists of Troy Spackman, owner and fabricator; Matt Wolfe, mechanical and electrical; and Travis Coeyman, body and paint. The three 25-year-olds have “worked very hard to learn and grow to be the best at what we do,” says Spackman. “We strive for the highest quality, functionality and ingenuity.” This car certainly demonstrates all three.

The car has been updated with a 4130 Chrome Moly tube chassis, tilt body, custom-built billet struts, four-speed Lenco transmission, 830 HP Reher Morrison 427ci small block Chevy engine, Hogan manifold, custom stainless steel headers and exhaust, 15x12 street lites, a custom-built 9-inch rear and a snazzy yellow paint job. The finished car bears very little resemblance to the Fiat it once was, and has all the power it will need to hit the drag track someday.

Much of the work was done with ESAB welding and cutting products. The cutting was done with a PowerCut 650 plasma cutter, the TIG welding, which is the bulk of the work, was done with a CaddyTig 2200i AC/DC and Heliarc 161, and the small amount of MIG welding on sheet metal was done with the Migmaster 203. Spackman is a fan of all ESAB products but he especially likes the new CaddyTig 2200i AC/DC portable welder. “I love it,” he says. “It has a nice pulse, very smooth, good start up, and it is very easy to fine tune, which makes it excellent for work on aluminum. It also worked really well on the stainless tubing we used for the header fabrication. I really like it.”

Legacy Innovations also uses ESAB filler metals exclusively. This project used Spoolarc 83 ER80S-D2, Spoolarc 65 ER70S-2, Arcaloy 312, Arcaloy 308, All State Silicon Bronze TIG, Spoolarc Easy Grind MIG wire, AlcoTec 4043 TIG rod, and AlcoTec 5356 TIG rod and MIG wire.

The car was a huge hit at SEMA and will also appear in an upcoming issue of Hot Rod Magazine. For more information on Legacy Innovations, visit www.legacyinnovations.com or call 717-586-5365.

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