Cars are his canvas; buckets of paint his palette.
Florida Atlantic University graduate Peter J. Loerop, 22, of Delray Beach, knew that one day he would apply a major in fine arts toward customizing cars.
That was the plan from the beginning; ever since he bought a $3,300, 1983 Chevy S-10 truck as a high school sophomore. The revamped truck was so beguiling that it has been featured in several magazines, including Truckin’, and has received numerous trophies in competitions in Tennessee, Georgia, the Florida Keys and Daytona Beach.
“It was just a normal truck,” he says, recalling the initial encounter. Loerop planned only minor touches at the start (“some nice wheels”). Then he got into an accident, and the front end was demolished. That was when he decided on a redesign.
Today the truck has been appraised at $25,000; and he is repainting the body and adding graphics that he says will boost its worth to $30.000.
The college degree has helped develop his originality.
“I’ve had several years of photography, several years of sculpture,” he recalls. “I’ve had classes in design and graphics. And I’ve never made below a `B’ in anything.” He also expects kindness in the job market.
“All my friends (art majors) are having little luck finding a job,” said Loerop, recipient of a $500 college scholarship given to the best all-around art student last year at Florida Atlantic. “But I always knew what I wanted to do.”
There is also a market for his craft. Customers will pay up to $40,000 or more for the look that individualizes a vehicle and makes it theirs alone.
“A car is a piece of moving art work,” said Loerop, to which he adds graphics, color, stripes and other details to give the exterior its sleekness.
“The idea,” he says, “is to give it a new look, a nice style.”
Before the end of the year, he and John Currier, a former buddy in high school and Florida Atlantic and now a religion major at Palm Beach Atlantic College in West Palm Beach, Fla., plan to open a custom design business.
“I’ve always had a fascination with cars,” said Currier.
Loerop said that his dream is to design a car of the future.
“I want to have someone walk into my place of business and give me enough money to build a custom car. I could design the whole car myself, the interior and the body proportions,” he says.
