There’s little mystery to Bob Joy’s long and noteworthy career. His current passion, Joyride Motor Fab in Olympia, Wash., is a dream business ignited within an 8-year-old boy’s imagination.

 

“I’m from Youngstown, Ohio, originally,” says Joy. “One day when I was 8- or 9-years-old, I caught a stock car race on television. All I could say was, ‘Wow!’ I remember that I went outside and got some wood and took the wheels off the wagon and made a car. I took it over to the hills and got a bit of a ride out of it. I guess I’ve never looked back.”

 

Fast-forward more than half a century and Joy can be found doing pretty much the same thing at Joyride.

 

“Today we build street performance engines and racing engines and service them,” says Joy. “We also do some fabrication, mainly light fabrication, and we assemble complete cars—mostly small, light roadsters and coupes.”

 

Unlike many in the business, Joy is unusual in that he’s always worked in the automotive, mostly race car-building world. Even in college, Joy kept his hands in auto racing and performance work.

 

“As a teenager I became interested in auto racing and performance engines in a big way,” he says. “Through high school and college I stayed active and participated in drag racing. Then I worked for Carroll Shelby in Los Angeles assembling Cobras and road racing Mustangs. While doing that I was racing top fuel dragsters. 

 

“Eventually, I finished getting a business degree,” he adds. “As time went on, I went to work for Caterpillar, which kept me staying within my interest of mechanics and engines. Later I worked with Arias Industries. They started manufacturing racing engines so I worked with them building racing engines, mainly for drag racing of cars and boats.”

 

How to Semi-Retire

 

If all of this sounds like a dream career path, in Joy’s mind it was. Each new job not only proved immediately satisfying, the experiences laid good groundwork for his Joyride Motor Fab vision.

 

“I really enjoyed those Arias engines,” he says. “I thought they were a nice, quality product. 

 

“In fact,” he adds, “I stayed in touch with them after I started my own business in diesel fuel. I put together a Funny Car and put an Arias engine in. Eventually I semi-retired and I wanted to develop and participate in the street rod and performance area. So I started Joyride Motor Fab and again stayed involved with Arias because they came out with a modern remake of a Hemi Chevrolet head. It’s a nice product for street rods and so I decided to build a Hemi Chevy.”

 

Joyride Motor Fab is simply an organic transition from all those decades of dedication to racing and to the extraordinary cars in the races.

 

“I wanted my retirement to be around engines and street rods and auto engines,” says Joy. “I enjoy it very much and would like to continue doing it and getting some of these engines out and running the long stretch.”

 

Turning a passion into a hobby and devoted pastime is one thing. Building a business around all that passion is quite another. Yet, Joy’s found a way and an audience willing to make the investment, though current economic times can, of course, pose challenges.

 

“Most of our business is concentrating on the Pacific Northwest, so I’ve been going to a lot of car events,” says Joy. “We have a number of them in our area, so between Fresno, Calif., Olympia, Wash., and Salem, Ore., for example. In this area, you can go to a car event almost every day of the week in the summer.

 

“I’ve also been showing the products and talking to a lot of people,” he adds of Joyride’s offerings. “Also, though I attend a lot of shows, I know that as our business develops and we acquire more capital, we can do some print advertising and develop a good website.”

 

So as he gets his latest venture going, he knows there’s still work ahead.

 

“We’re lucky,” he says. “A lot of people that see the products bring friends over and show them. People have heard of the Arias Hemi Chevy in published articles, for example, so when we meet or cross paths they look closely at what we’re doing.” 

 

50 Years of Changes

 

What Joyride is doing today to grow and expand as a business doesn’t always look like what Joy’s seen in years past. The industry has changed substantially in 50 years, but more importantly, the way cars get—and are currently being—built and envisioned has dramatically altered as well.

 

“In the beginning and for a long period, a lot of car enthusiasts did their own work,” says Joy. “Then, as the industry grew, people were interested in it, but they were working hard at their careers, so they hired people who could build cars and engines. Eventually, building cars and engines developed as a career, which brought more money to the industry, which lead to developing more technologies in welding and materials, and engine and transmission parts—all of which helped enthusiasts build a nice automobile.”

 

And finally, the canvases for all those performance modifications are again inspiring drivers.

 

“Now it’s grown to where the suppliers in Detroit who make body parts are starting to produce cars again,” he says. “Mustangs, Camaros—it’s been very interesting. Today there’s a lot of technology and many engineers. A lot of companies now employ full-time engineers. It used to be that regular employees tried to figure out how to do parts. Now it’s the engineers and that’s great because there’s a lot more product available now.”

 

Furthermore, an interesting twist in the way cars are being produced today involves some old-school thinking.

 

“There was a time where the industry was going very technical and very electronic,” says Joy. “But now there’s a resurgence of nostalgia—Model A four-bangers, flatheads—today they’re choosing to do the early version of the cars, rather than high-tech. The high-tech gets away from the hot rod street end of things. There’s usually a decision made and we’re now seeing a turning back to the way cars used to be built.”

 

Performance Investment

 

But if an old-school vibe is, indeed, permeating the hot rod and car racing worlds, one piece of the performance pie looks nothing like it did decades ago—and that’s the cost to participate.

 

“It’s harder for the younger person interested in doing this to get in,” says Joy. “The costs make it difficult. When I was a kid you could put together a really nice car for $1,000 or $2,000. Now, spending $80,000 is common. By the time you do all the parts, the chroming, the polishing, it adds up.

 

“Labor’s also gone way up,” he adds. “It’s not easy for the younger crowd to enter. So a lot of younger guys have gone to four cylinders and the Hondas.”

 

And it’s no better for the business-minded than it is for the car-enthused hobbyist. Entry into the auto racing and engine-building world takes some dough.

 

“Anyone who’s thinking of working this sport as a business can’t ignore the costs,” says Joy. “It’s a fact—in the current environment, the cost is an issue. It’s hard for people to spend money right now. 

 

“Before the economy turned, we’d sell eight or more engines a year,” he says. “But what’s happening today is that people get excited and they like what they see, but they can’t spend. People want to feel secure, so they’re hanging on to their jobs first before considering putting any money into their hobby. Today, it’s more about getting people back to work so they can participate in the sport again.”

 

For shops eyeing entry into the performance market, it’s a serious investment.

 

“Working in this world means that there’s an initial investment in machinery,” he says, “and all of the things you need to do this kind of work takes a bit of money.”

 

Yet Joy is still having a ball building his dream cars, attending and participating in races and developing engine ideas and builds that don’t deviate all that much from the 8-year-old who first attached some wagon wheels to a piece of wood.

 

“I’m lucky in that I’ve got an 1,800-square-foot shop right on my property, so it’s worked out well to be able to do this at my home.

 

“I thoroughly enjoy doing research and accumulating information on every piece of the business that I can,” he says. “I look forward to building more engines and I plan to build a Bonneville car for myself.”

 

Sure, it will be good for business. But, true to Joy’s nature, that’s not the reason to do it.

 

“Bonneville and El Mirage are a real challenge,” he adds. “You run them for a longer period of time than for drag racing—and it’s just so nice to hear it go.”