At Random: Morris McGee

By Johnna Pinholster

VALDOSTA — Morris McGee has an eye for art.

McGee has been working in auto body shops since he was a teenager at Cook High School.

Self-employed since 1988, McGee has turned a passion for automobiles and a love for art into a bustling business.

Morris McGee Body Shop at 233 E. Hill Ave. is hard to miss. Parked outside are two wreckers, one an iridescent purple, the other bright green.

McGee’s wreckers are part of his advertisement for business, all of the artwork on the vehicles was done by McGee.

It took McGee almost two years to airbrush the hordes of monsters and skulls on wife Melissa’s green wrecker.

The art on both sides of the truck mirror each other except for a few subtle differences in the skull faces.

On one side a skull has hands over its face. On the other side, in the exact same spot, the skull has dollar signs in its eyes.

This is the mark of a man who knows how to make a statement.

McGee said he started working in body shops when he was in the eighth grade. After school he would go to the shop and work.

“I’ve been doing this about 38 years,” he said. “I like taking cars into the body shop and restoring them, making them look brand new.”

Through the years, the majority of McGee’s business has centered around fixing cars damaged in accidents.

When the economy started to flounder, McGee said the auto repair work decreased, so he started doing restoration and customized work.

Business is booming, he said.

“I got tired of dealing with the insurance companies and decided to do other stuff,” McGee said.

McGee has five vehicles he is working on right now, totally restoring most of them. Most are Corvettes, but McGee is also working on a 1957 Chevy, a 1967 Chevy Impala and a 1934 Ford Coupe.

McGee said he has enough customized and restoration work on tap to keep him in business until spring of next year.

The work McGee does on these cars is high detail, professional work, he said.

Some come in and want a car stripped and restored to its factory finish. Others want customized flames, skulls or demons splashed down the side.

McGee said he has no limits when it comes to what a person wants to put on or in their vehicle. Factory paint or custom airbrush, chrome to leather interior, it all can be done, he said.

“I will go as far as they want to go,” he said.

McGee gets many of his ideas for vehicle art from tattoo books.

“As long as I have a reference to look at, I can go draw it,” McGee said.

Stripes, flames or skulls — if its fantasy or fantastic McGee likes to put it on a vehicle, he said.

“I like to do something different than what the average person has,” he said. “I’ve always been the odd one.”

Skulls are McGee’s favorite, though monsters in any shape or form are also fun to create, he said.

McGee has taken a few art courses, he said, but most of the skills he has acquired over the years have been through working with the airbrush on his own.

“I’ve learned most of my stuff on my own through trial and error,” McGee said.

Its a perfectionist’s trade, he said. Messing up a design on a vehicle could mean a complete paint job is needed.

“Learning how to make the airbrush do what you want is the trick,” McGee said.

When McGee describes working with the airbrush it sounds like an artist discussing work on canvas. A base must be built, shadowing is needed to gain dimension and then the detail of the particular pieces on top must be attended to carefully.

Street rods, dragsters, Corvettes, McGee’s intention is to make the vehicle look exactly how the owner envisions it.

If McGee is restoring a vehicle, he estimates it takes about six months to complete a job.

Many of the Corvettes McGee works on have to be perfect. Corvettes shown in automobile shows have to look showroom ready, perfectly shaped and constructed to resemble the way it looked the year it came out, he said.

Many of the owners with cars currently in the shop have brought in friends who also want McGee to work on their vehicle. A restored Corvette can run between $150,000 and $160,000, he said.

Currently, McGee said, he has a backlog of people waiting to get their cars into his shop.

He is currently working on a 1934 Ford Coupe. He purchased the body from a company in Miami and will build, paint and install all the electrical parts in the coming months.

The coupe is designed to be a dragster, and even though the car won’t be completed by November, McGee plans to take the partially finished product to the car show in Moultrie.

McGee said he expects to have the body painted and the engine and transmission in place by the car show. Once the vehicle is completed, McGee said he will be able to sell it for more than $50,000.

He plans to paint the coupe a color called Limetime Green Pearl and have a tan interior.

“It’s a very nice looking color. When the sun hits it, it has a gold cast to it,” McGee said.

He doesn’t build the engines he puts in vehicles, but buys them ready made and puts them in.

In addition to coupes and Corvettes, McGee said he can also turn Chevy S10s into 1939 Studebakers. The frame of the vehicles is similar and purchasing and fitting it with a body kit completes the transformation, he said.

When McGee goes to car shows he takes his green wrecker. It’s pretty much the only calling card he needs, he said.

Many people have offered to buy McGee’s green wrecker, and even if he eventually gets out of the wreck repair business, he won’t sell it, he said.

McGee gets customers by attending car shows and through that tried and true business model — word of mouth.

McGee, his wife, Melissa, and another employee are the entire workforce of Morris McGee Body Shop.

Melissa helps come up with ideas for artwork, but McGee said he paints all the vehicles that come into his shop.

“I’ve always been artistic,” McGee said.

With the stress of getting someone’s vehicle perfect, when McGee gets the airbrush in his hand, it allows him to relax, he said.

The stress of finishing a project is placed on the back burner as concentration on shaping and layering a proposed design takes shape in his mind’s eye.

“I can escape all this other stuff when I’m using the airbrush,” McGee said.

Working on several vehicles at a time keeps McGee from being burned out, he said.

The cost of the vehicles, combined with the precision needed to complete the work, can make McGee’s job stressful, he said.

“Mistakes do happen. It’s tedious work. Everything has to be perfect,” McGee said. “But I haven’t had the first vehicle come back to the shop.”

The stress is another reason McGee is relieved when another finished car rolls out his door.

“I like to see them leave, but I also like to see the customer happy,” McGee said.