Chris Andrews of Darlington has been working on what he calls a “fun project” since about the middle of November 2012. “But it’s had its challenges,” he added.
    Andrews has been working on reconstructing the wood frame of a 1926 Hupmobile Rumble Seat Coupe with a six cylinder engine, 50 horsepower and a three speed transmission.
    There are only four of these vehicles that are currently known to be in existence: the one Andrews has been working on and three others in Connecticut, Idaho and Australia. The Hupmobile was made in Detroit, Mich. from 1909-1941.
    Andrews became involved with this project through Dave Boatman who works for Ken’s Klassics, Inc., a company that does car restorations and street rod construction in Muscoda.         Ken’s Klassics is working on restoring the rare car for a customer from Washington State and was looking for someone to do the woodwork portion of the vehicle. Boatman, who is formerly of Darlington, thought of Andrews.
    When Andrews began his portion of the project, the original woodwork of the car including the entire framework as well as the seat cover, came to him in pieces, many of which were rotten, broken or unrecognizable as to where they would fit.
    Andrews then had to figure out how all the pieces had originally fit together, often by guessing and trial and error. He would also have to wait to solidly put things together until he was sure that the pieces that made up one section of the frame would all work and fit together properly. Andrews made the new pieces out of red oak.