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Street Rods Were His Life

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By DAVE NICHOLSON

dnicholson@tampatrib.com

Published: March 25, 2009

PLANT CITY - Tony Lala fell in love with street rods when he started helping out at a body shop when he was about 9.

He ended up opening his own street rod restoration business. It was his life's work for about 40 years.

So it was fitting that after he died recently at age 65, a small caravan of street rods followed the hearse to the burial site.

"That's all he ever knew. That was his life," daughter Toni Lala said.

Lala, owner of Rods of the Past, died March 10. He grew up in the 1950s and as a child became fascinated with street rods, defined by the National Street Rod Association as a car built before 1949 that has been modified by the owner, such as with an engine or interior refinement.

He loved anything nostalgic, and would spend a year or more restoring each car at his Plant City shop.

"He could make anything fit or work," said Jack Whitson, who struck up a friendship with Lala after stopping in to inquire about street rods he had for sale.

Lala helped Whitson, a Plant City resident, restore a 1936 Plymouth.

"Without his knowledge or expertise, I'd never have been able to do it," said Whitson, who followed the hearse in his yellow street rod after Lala's March 13 funeral.

"He was the kind of a guy who all you had to do was call and he'd help. He's do anything for you," he said.

Lala's personal street rod was a 1938 Chevy coupe that he redesigned three times, his daughter said. He added a flame thrower, and liked delighting crowds at the monthly Strawberry Classic Car Shows by shooting flames from exhaust pipes, she said. He nicknamed the car a couple of times; the last nickname was "Precious Memories."

Lala said her father could transform any old car, regardless of its shape. Customers would sometimes drag in vehicles from a junkyard.

When he wasn't building the real thing, he loved creating model street cars he would finish with meticulous detail, she said.

"He was a very talented man, and he had a lot of hopes and dreams," she said.

ANTHONY "TONY" GUY LALA JR.

BORN: Nov. 17, 1943, Mineral Wells, Texas

DIED: March 10, Plant City

PROFESSION: Owner of Rods of the Past, a street rod restoration business, and member of the National Street Rod Association
SURVIVORS: Sons Anthony Ray Lala of Alabama and Allen Guy Lala of Ruskin; daughter Toni Lala of Plant City; sisters Connie Urso and Mary Frances Lala, both of Tampa; and a grandson

SERVICES: Wells Memorial Funeral Home, Plant City

Reporter Dave Nicholson can be reached at (813) 865-4432.

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