Gerald "Jerry" Fassett

Gerald “Jerry” Francis Fassett (December 22, 1927 – June 26, 2024) was an American hot rod and custom car enthusiast, best known as one of the founding members of the Thunderbolts Capitol Auto Club in Sacramento, California. Formed in 1945 by Harry Westergard, Dick Bertolucci, and Norm Milne, the Thunderbolts is a historic Northern California car club that remains active to this day. Fassett's involvement in the custom car scene and his relationships with key figures like Westergard and Bertolucci positioned him as a notable figure in the early days of the movement. Photo by Sondre Kvipt - Kustomrama.

A photo of Jerry from 1945. He was 18 years old and still living at home with his parents when he bought his first car, a restyled 1934 Ford 5-Window Coupe. Photo from The Jerry Fassett Collection.

In 1948, after returning from the service, Jerry sold the ‘34 to buy a nearly new 1947 Chevrolet convertible. This photo shows the Chevy as it appeared when he first got it. "It came down from Oregon. It was just a straight convertible." The car was grey, and it didn’t have any mileage on it. "It was basically brand new. He was a serviceman, and he was going overseas, so I picked it up. I had just gotten home, out of the service, so I used the money I had from the service to buy the car." The back of this photo was dated April 20, 1948, and Jerry told Kustomrama that it was taken in front of his parent's house at 42nd and T Street. Photo from The Jerry Fassett Collection.

Jerry got the idea for the fadeaway fender extensions after seeing Butler Rugard's 1947 Chevrolet custom. Butler was also a member of the Thunderbolts. "He was killed," Jerry told Kustomrama. "They used to race down the river road. Two cars together. One night, he didn’t make it." Jerry wasn't there when it happened. He just knew about it. "My wife was a friend with some of the girls that lived down that way, and we used to go down there. I met him. I didn’t know him personally, but I met him when I saw his car down there. After that, I went back up to Harry." Harry had also restyled Butler's Chevrolet, so he ordered a set of fadeaway fender extensions from Jimmy Summers that he installed on Jerry's Chevrolet. Jerry's car, grey, with a chopped and padded top can be seen behind Rugard’s Chevrolet in the photo. Photo from The Jerry Fassett Collection.

A photo of Jerry’s Chevrolet taken in Harry Westergard's backyard. This photo was taken after Harry had installed the Jimmy Summers fender extension, and the back of the photo reads: "Here is a picture of the latest addition to the "Hot Rod" 47.Chev." Photo from The Jerry Fassett Collection.

A color photo of Jerry's Chevrolet. Jerry believes his car was the first car that Dick Bertolucci ever painted. "Best of my knowledge, my car was the first one Dick painted. 21 coats of custom mixed lacquer with gold flake running through it." Running 1955 Buick Roadmaster hubcaps, this photo was taken after Jerry had sold it to Jim Baradoni. Photo from The Jerry Fassett Collection.

Sondre and Olav Kvipt of Kustomrama with Jerry in March 2019. Jerry's family first reached out to Sondre in 2013. In 2019, he was finally able to sit down with Jerry in Sacramento to record his incredible story and scan his photos. Photo courtesy of Kustomrama.

Gerald “Jerry” Francis Fassett (December 22, 1927 – June 26, 2024) was an American hot rod and custom car enthusiast, best known as one of the founding members of the Thunderbolts Capitol Auto Club in Sacramento, California. Formed in 1945 by Harry Westergard, Dick Bertolucci, and Norm Milne, the Thunderbolts is a historic Northern California car club that remains active to this day. Fassett's involvement in the custom car scene and his relationships with key figures like Westergard and Bertolucci positioned him as a notable figure in the early days of the movement.

Early Days with the Thunderbolts Capitol Auto Club

"I was the 17th member," Jerry told Sondre Kvipt of Kustomrama in 2019. He joined the Thunderbolts when the club first started. "I went to Grant High School. Dick Bertolucci went to Sacramento High, and my wife went to Sacramento High. His wife went to Grant, and I knew her. She was a year behind me." Harry Westergard, Norm Milne, and Dick Bertolucci formed the Thunderbolts car club in 1945. Norm had been to the dry lakes of Southern California, and he was familiar with the clubs there and the Southern California Timing Association, so the trio decided that a club was the best way to find a place to race off of the city streets. The club was first called The Capitol Auto Club, and the first meeting supposedly took place in September of 1945 in Harry Westergard's chicken coup shop. When Sondre asked Jerry about the meeting, he could not recall it, but he might have been there. "Most of the meetings I remember were done down at Stan’s Drive-In." According to Jerry, the members were all friends, but they didn’t hang out that much together.

The First Custom: 1934 Ford 5-Window Coupe

Jerry bought his first car in 1945. At the time, he was 18 years old, still living at home with his parents in the Haggingwood neighborhood in Sacramento. He recalled that there weren't too many custom cars in town back then, and he bought the car, a 1934 Ford 5-Window Coupe from a fellow that had a shop on the outskirts of town. The car had already been customized when Jerry got it, and modifications included fenderskirts, removed running boards, 1939 Ford taillights, and an inset license plate. It rolled on Blackwall tires, and it was dressed up with flipper hubcaps up front.

Military Service and a Memorable Encounter

The same year, after graduating high school, Jerry went into the service, bringing the coupe along. "I got stationed for a while at Hunters Point in San Francisco, and I was driving back and forth on the weekends." One night, he was late getting back to the base. He didn't want to be late, so he took a chance and parked the 34 in the Officers' parking lot. "The next morning, I got a call from the provost marshall, and I had to report to a lieutenant junior grade," Jerry said with a big smile. "I went to his office. He was a young kid. We talked about cars, and he said, "God! I really like that car." So he says, "I tell you what I'm gonna do." He sits down. Writes down a note. He says, "Here. Keep this. You have permission to park in the officer's parking lot as long as you're on this base." He was young," Jerry laughed. "Probably in his twenties. Maybe 25. But he loved cars!"

The 1947 Chevrolet Convertible

In 1948, after returning from the service, Jerry sold the '34 to buy a nearly new 1947 Chevrolet Convertible. "That was a mistake," he told Kustomrama. "I should have kept it." He bought the Chevrolet from a used car lot on K Street in Sacramento; "It came down from Oregon. It was just a straight convertible." The car was grey, and it didn't have any mileage on it. "It was basically brand new. He was a serviceman, and he was going overseas, so I picked it up. I had just gotten home, out of the service, so I used the money I had from the service to buy the car!"

Customizing the Chevy

After Jerry got his hand on the Chevy, it didn’t stay stock for long. He was going to school at the same time, and fellow Thunderbolts member Harry Westergard did quite a bit of the work on the car for him in the beginning. "Westergard cut the top and put the fadeaway fenders on." After Harry had chopped the top, Jerry drove south to have Louie Chavez of American Auto Tops make a padded top for it. "I spent the whole week with Chavez," Jerry told Kustomrama. "I drove down to Santa Monica. Stayed in a motel. Spent the days in the shop watching him!"

Influence of Butler Rugard's Chevrolet

After seeing Butler Rugard's 1947 Chevrolet Convertible with a pair of sleek Jimmy Summers fadeaway fenders, Jerry told Harry that he wanted the same fenders on his car. Harry also set the license plate in for Jerry. "He did all of that for me. I spent hours over at his house. He was out on Watt Avenue, out in the country. There was nothing out there at the time—just open fields. Chickens were running all over the place," Jerry remembered. Even though they belonged to the same club, Jerry and Harry were not friends. "It was strictly business. I spent some time at his place while he was working on the car, but other than that, it was just strictly business, and Harry was good. He didn't talk a lot, but he was a drinker!"

Collaboration with Dick Bertolucci

Dick Bertolucci did also work on Jerry's car. "Dick lived on 44th street, and when I came back home from the service, I was living on 43rd. My wife was the next street over, and she had gone to high school with Dick." Jerry spent time with Dick while he was working on the car. "He worked at his dad’s garage. His dad was a big Chevy man at Capitol Chevrolet, where he worked as a mechanic. Then Dick moved from the house. He got kicked out. Working in the garage the neighbors complained, so he moved to Broadway Street, somewhere over at 21st and Broadway, in the back alleys. He had a shop in there, and that's where he painted my car. That’s also where he did the work on it. He channeled it to lower the rear end, and he cut the coils to lower the front end." Jerry believed his Chevrolet was the first car that Dick ever painted. "Best of my knowledge, my car was the first one Dick painted. 21 coats of custom mixed lacquer with gold flake running through it. He painted my car first. Then he painted Buddy Ohanesian's Mercury with the same paint." Bertolucci did also lead in the hood before the car was painted. Jerry can't remember exactly when he painted it, but he knows that it was painted before he got married, so it had to be done sometime around 1950 or 1951.

The Hopped-Up Chevy Engine

Jerry ran a hopped-up engine in the Chevy. "The engine out of the car belonged to a friend of mine. For some reason, he was selling his car. He had this engine. It was a Chevy high torque engine with a ¾ cam, so he said, "I’ll swap you the engine. We'll put mine in your car, and I'll take the one in yours. I'm just selling it," so it didn't cost me anything," Jerry laughed. "We spent a couple of days moving the engines. It was a Chevy high torque with oil pressure, and it had a ¾ Winfield cam, dual carburetors, and Edelbrock manifold." The carburetors were Strombergs. The big deal," according to Jerry. "My dad had a friend who was a mechanic. He was a mechanic, but he worked as a tune-up specialist during World War II. I knew him, and I would take the car to him, and he would adjust it." Jerry remembered that the guy was so excited about the car, especially the engine, so it was always running in good shape because of him.

Custom Details and Chrome Plating

Inside, the Chevy featured a Ford steering wheel that Jerry installed because of the F being the first letter in his last name. The engine compartment featured plenty of chrome. "I took some stuff to Capitol Plating. When I went to pick it up, I didn’t have enough money to get it out, so the owner said: "Do you want to work it off?" And I said, "Yes, what do you got?" He said, "Come to work for me on Saturdays. You work here in the shop, and you take care of the counter. You don’t have to do anything else. Take care of the counter, and you can work off your debt." So I went ahead and chrome-plated everything I could get off the car after that," Jerry told Sondre with a big grin.

Documenting the Customization

Jerry used to have a book where he kept track of every dime he spent on the car and what he had done to it. Unfortunately, that book got lost during a move. "The top and the paint job was probably the most expensive," Jerry recalled. "By the time of the paint job, Dick had also done a lot of bodywork to it so that all counted in. Those fenders were all molded in, and the hood was molded in. He did all of that. The trunk had a hydraulic lift. We took the lifters from the convertible top, and we moved them into the trunk. That raised the trunk up with hydraulics."

Parting with the Chevy

Unfortunately, Jerry’s wife didn’t like the car. Mostly because she had to hit the button underneath it to get in. "She hated that. Also, the car drew a lot of attention, and she didn't like that. She just put up with it." Jerry went into real estate and decided to sell off the car. "My brother-in-law said, "You can’t haul people around in that car" so I sold it." Jerry sold the car to Jim Baradoni in 1952. Jim entered the Chevy at the Sacramento Autorama, where he ended up taking home the first place in the custom convertible class.

The Search for the Chevy

In 2019, the whereabouts of Jerry’s old customs were still unknown, but he swore that he saw the Chevy parked on the curb in his neighborhood in the 1980s. He was running late when he saw it, driving his daughter to an errand. After he had let her off he turned around and drove back to check it out, but it was too late, the car was gone, never to be seen again. Jerry has also heard rumors about people cloning the car. The Chevy became Jerry’s second and last custom. After that, he went on to more exotic cars like a Datsun 260Zs, Mustangs and Volkswagens. Thankfully, he kept on to all the good stories and his old Leica photos.

Jerry Fassett's Legacy

On June 26, 2024, Jerry passed away in Sacramento, leaving behind a rich legacy as one of the last founding members of the Thunderbolts Capitol Auto Club. Jerry's son, Jim, shared that he had a good life and maintained a sharp memory to the end. Jerry’s vivid recollections of the early days of the Thunderbolts and his passion for custom cars remain treasured memories. His stories and experiences continue to inspire the custom car community.

Jerry Fassett's Cars

Jerry Fassett's 1934 Ford 5-Window Coupe
Jerry Fassett's 1947 Chevrolet