C4 Hot Rods & Complete Restoration.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: Tech Startup of the Month

ENGLEWOOD

WWW.C4WEB.NET

FOUNDED: JANUARY 2004

QUOTE OF NOTE:

Forty-some years I've raced. I started when I was 10 or 11 years old racing go-karts and never stopped. --C4 Hot Rods Shop Manager John Metcalf INITIAL LIGHTBULB

Dave Liniger, co-founder of Denver-based real estate network RE/MAX International, has a thing for cool cars, especially racers and street rods. ("I grew up in Marion, Ind., in the early 1960s," he explained. "Everyone in my area at my age was fascinated with cars.") After nine years of sponsoring a team that raced in NASCAR and ARCA events, RE/MAX ended its sponsorship last year, but Liniger and the team's crew "wanted to stay together," said Liniger. "We've developed a close friendship."

"(Liniger) was concerned about the guys who had been with him a long time," added John Metcalf, a longtime driver and RE/MAX Racing's former crew chief. "He didn't want to just put them out to pasture. So we talked about it for a number of months, and finally came up with this idea."

The idea: a new company, C4 Hot Rods & Complete Restoration, that employs the team's talented crew: Metcalf, who is the manager, and mechanics Greg Cook, Marshall Franklin and Mike Hudson. The quartet has nearly a century of combined racing and shop experience among them.

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IN A NUTSHELL

C4 builds custom cars of all kinds, restores classic cars, and also soups up vehicles of all makes and eras. "We can do anything from a small project to a turnkey car," said Metcalf. For a turnkey project (a car built from scratch) or an extensive restoration, prices start around $40,000 and go up to $150,000 or more.

C4's turnkey service typically begins with a fiberglass or steel reproduction of a classic chassis (many are exaggerations of classic rods), because so few salvageable bodies from the 1920s to 1960s exist today. "The days of finding an old steel body are over," noted Metcalf. "The good ones are all used up." C4 then adds a solid helping of 21 st century technology, ranging from reprogramming the engine's computers for optimum horsepower to installing nitrous systems and superchargers.

Another option is more...