Latest news with #customcars
Associated Press
27-05-2025
- Automotive
- Associated Press
Award-Winning Custom Car Builder Finds Solutions and Growth With U.S. Bank
Originally published on U.S. Bank company blog Dave Loparco has been interested in building and taking things apart since he was a kid. 'I've been building cars since I was probably 13 years old,' said Loparco, who co-founded Later Dayz Customz in 2018 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. 'I used to work on bicycles, tear them apart. I never was happy with a bike I had… and it kind of escalated from there.' That escalation took Loparco from working on hot rods and motorcycles in his driveway to a garage space that takes up half a city block, giving him space to work on everything from the guts of cars to custom paint work. Each car and truck is a passion project for Loparco's customers, he said, but it can be expensive. 'Everybody's like, 'Can I throw it on my credit card?'' said Loparco, who has banked with U.S. Bank for decades. 'At first, I was like, there's no way I possibly could but then BJ hooked me up.' BJ Pirie is a small business specialist with U.S. Bank. He helped Loparco set up a credit card processing machine at his shop through Elavon, a U.S. Bank payments subsidiary, to make it easier for Loparco to accept payments as well as cover the cost of parts needed for vehicles quicker. 'Being able to have money on hand from his customers accepting cards instead of waiting for a check to clear or potentially bounce, Dave has more security and peace of mind,' Pirie said. 'Having just one payments terminal was impactful to him and allowed him the flexibility he needed to grow his business.' Loparco, who became 100% owner of Later Dayz Customz last year and whose team has hundreds of car show awards to their name, is also thinking about the future. That might be an expansion into nearby Omaha in a few years, he said, but he's also thinking about what could be next for his industry. 'I'd like to bring in about another five employees to train them and teach them what we know [in the next couple of years],' said Loparco, not long before a local high schooler he and his team are teaching arrived at his shop. 'Nobody knows our talent unless we pass it on, so – by passing it on to the younger generation – hopefully it keeps these cars around.' Check out the video above to learn more about Later Dayz Customz. Visit 3BL Media to see more multimedia and stories from US Bank
The Drive
13-05-2025
- Automotive
- The Drive
What the Heck Happened to Rezvani?
The latest car news, reviews, and features. Turn back the clock with me to a decade ago. It's 2015. Obama is still president, nobody has heard of COVID-19, and Corvettes still have their engines in the front. A nobody outfit called Rezvani is about to release the Beast, a custom car itself based on a kit with a Honda engine and a manual transmission. Was anybody asking for such a thing? Nope. But Rezvani managed to get the attention of enough buyers to sink its teeth into the automotive landscape, and it hasn't let go since. The original Beast was little more than a Double-Stuf Ariel Atom with a no-name custom body and an astronomically high price tag. The new, Lamborghini Urus-based Knight is no less ridiculous, but it's built on a far more ambitious platform and with a very, very different mission. What a difference a decade makes, eh? It was remarkable enough at the time for Jay Leno to set aside an example for his personal collection, and even invited Ferris Rezvani to promote it for Jay Leno's Garage, where he talked up the custom carbon fiber exterior and even received kudos from Jay for keeping the price of the Beast in check—a challenge for a 'boutique' builder. But now, it's 2025, and those early teething years are behind the custom builder. The Beast nominally survives, but it has transformed from a svelte, kit-car-based performance toy to a comparably massive, Corvette-based symbol of excess after a few years of Lotus-Elise-based shenanigans. But these days, Rezvani is far better known for its ridiculous trucks and SUVs. Enter the Knight. This monstrosity packs 800 horsepower and a zero-to-60 time to rival supercars, and you can ruin augment that with an armored package that includes a bug-out kit complete with a first aid kit, a hypothermia kit, gas masks, and a pepper spray dispenser—for the zombies, of course. Rezvani It's very on-brand for Rezvani in 2025, and far from the company's first apocalypse cruiser; that role has been filled by multiple offerings over the past few years. The company started with the Tank, which was Wrangler-based, before unleashing the Gladiator-derived Hercules 6×6 with a Dodge Demon's V8. Still, it's a little weird to think that this company came out of nowhere a decade ago with nothing but a kit car and a dream. Who will be the next Rezvani? And maybe more importantly, what will they pitch us first? Got a tip? Send it in: tips@ Byron is one of those weird car people who has never owned an automatic transmission. Born in the DMV but Midwestern at heart, he lives outside of Detroit with his wife, two cats, a Miata, a Wrangler, and a Blackwing.
