It is with a heavy heart that I post this message about the passing of our hobby’s foremost and most beloved historian, Beverly Rae Kimes. She died May 12.

Beverly was a very prolific researcher and writer known for such books as “The Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1805-1942,” “The Star and the Laurel” and “Packard: A History of the Motor Car and the Company.” Most recently, Beverly was the executive editor of the Classic Car Club of America, and had been a longtime editor of Automobile Quarterly.

Such accomplishments would humble anyone, including myself. I felt like I was meeting a star when I first met Beverly at the Society of Automotive Historians’ 2002 banquet held in Hershey, Pa., during the AACA national fall meet. I was immediately struck by her class and grace, which came through in every article she wrote and every issue of the CCCA’s “Bulletin” publication she edited. Such elegance permeated every other conversation I was fortunate to share with Beverly, whether it was in an e-mail, in person or on one of her little yellow Post-It notes with a personal note stuck to the cover of the latest CCCA “Bulletin.”

In memory of Beverly and in lieu of flowers, her husband wishes donations be made to The National Kidney Foundation at www.kidney.org where there is a “make a gift” form, or via FAX to 212-889-2310 (National Kidney Foundation, 30 East 33rd Street NY , NY 10016).

We’ll have more details on the life of Beverly in the next issue of OCW. If you’d like to share your thoughts, I welcome you to do it here.

This Sunday, Online Editor Matt Gergeni and I hit the highway and drove down to Chicago to visit the world-famous Fran Roxas in his natural habitat – his Chicago-area restoration shop. Our mission? To photograph George Albright’s Duesenberg sedan, which has appeared in more movies than any other Duesenbergs. Any Duesenberg fan will tell that Duesenbergs have appeared in a lot of movies, so this is quite a statement. Albright’s sedan has quite a story behind its resurrection in Fran Roxas’ hands not once, but twice, and I am very excited to write the story for a future issue of Old Cars Weekly.

Roxas is probably a familiar name to most car hobbyists, especially those who like prewar cars. Many Pebble Beach-winning cars have been restored under Roxas’ care. What’s more impressive is this collector is, literally, a coachbuilder, and has built many bodies for Classic car chassis from scratch in the old-world way. Think Duesenberg torpedo phaeton bodies and coachwork originally drawn by the Fleetwood studio but never ordered by a customer for a Cadillac chassis. Google his name and you’ll see some of his work. I also pictured two of the 1934 V-16 Cadillacs sporting the Fleetwood coachwork he created in my Cadillac book, "Cadillac: 100 Years of Innovation."

Roxas doesn’t just restore Classics – he also works on postwar metal. Or, in the case of Roxas customer Joe Bortz, postwar fiberglass. The trip to photograph Albright’s Duesenberg was especially good since we were able to meet up with Joe Bortz, a famous car collector in the Chicago area who collects concept cars. Bortz met up with me and Matt while we were at Roxas’s shop to show us the progress on his 1955 Biscayne concept car. Bortz pulled this and several other GM concept cars out of Warhoops salvage yard in the 1980s and 1990s, but the Biscayne was probably in the worst shape of them all. The car was, literally, stacked in pieces, and he had to excavate many of its pieces out of the dirt. Bortz never thought the car would be put back together, but it’s in Roxas shop and it’s a three-dimensional car once again, thanks to Roxas.

Bortz’ Biscayne has been featured in Old Cars Weekly several times, but watch for more progress updates on this gem in the future, as well as a full feature on the Duesey in an upcoming issue. In the meantime, enjoy these pics from our visit and be sure to check out Matt’s video from the day of our visit.

Duesey pics courtesy of Joe Bortz.