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Gold Strike in Dallas!

Originally Published at Texas Automotive News Network on Mar 04 2011 • view original

To see her is not to know her, as Tammy Ray is not your typical Southern Belle.  Actually, she is a self-proclaimed Gold Digger, and welcomes people to call her so.  Tammy and her husband Tony, are the current owners of the Crisson Gold Mine, Dahlonega, GA., which was originally established in 1847 as part of the Georgia Gold Rush.  The facility is now open to the public as a place visitors can pan for gold and take tours of the old mine.

Tammy grew up in a big family where there was only one boy and four girls, “My dad made us help him no matter where he needed it or what he needed done,” Tammy said. From cleaning chicken houses to gardening, “I was always his right-hand man and a typical daddy’s girl too.” She also inherited her love of mechanics from her father.

This love of things mechanical also led to Tammy showing a 1923 T Bucket at her local car shows and cruise-ins for ‘fun’.  It took a friend to step in and advise her as to what she would have to do to be able to compete with the ‘big boys’.  “So I decided to up the ante,” Tammy smiled.  She not only upped it with time and money, she threw in some gold nuggets just to ensure she would have quite an original ride.

The Ray’s decided to use their gold for more than just jewelry when they bought a 1933 Ford Phaeton that Tammy had built during a project that took almost three years to complete.  The body is a ‘Rat’s Glass’ fiberglass piece that started with just an engine and a chassis. From the undercarriage to the outside roof, Gold Digger is a completely customized car that even has seats that were tailored and shaped specifically for the golden-tressed owner.  Tammy also used a few of their golden treasures as accents and trim on different areas of their automotive masterpiece.  With all of this golden attention to detail, it only seemed natural that Tammy decided to name the gold color and nugget accented car “Gold Digger”.  Even the paint on exterior of the custom ride is now a copyrighted golden pearl color which Tammy and her painter will soon publicly sell as ‘Gold Digger Gold.’

Her hard work paid off, as Tammy was awarded the coveted ‘Ridler Award’ at the Detroit show.  This made Tammy the first woman to ever win this highly esteemed International Show Car Association Award.  “To win the Ridler is top of the line in the show car world.  Best of the Best. I actually started crying when I first made it into the top eight contenders right before winning the Ridler,” she said.

Tammy later went on to win the Legend Cup at the Chicago World of Wheels show. To date; Tammy has won Best of Show in nine out of nine shows total. The Gold Digger has been deemed, “The number one hot rod in America.”  To earn this title means the owner has to truly go ‘over the top’ by converting normal everyday auto parts into their own work of hot rod art.

Here are just a few of the mechanical conversions Tammy made in order to achieve this feat. “I had Chip Foose design the wheels, and I custom designed the Extrudabody fuel injection while adding an LS 350 turbo transmission and a 427 engine,” Tammy exclaimed.  The car also boasts a single lift-off Hartz Cloth roof and an all leather interior. Inside the Phaeton, Tammy also added a PPG Dakota Digital dash gauge, and many long golden nuggets as accents both inside and out. “There are two 1-ounce gold nuggets on the valve covers and two half ounce nuggets on the brake calipers.”

These accessory nuggets are more-so displayed like art than simple ‘extras”.  Each piece of gold is centered inside a redbackground that is highlighted and surrounded by engraved silver framing, like a picture would be.  From every angle and degree, it is easy to see how the Gold Digger keeps winning everything she enters, especially in the ISCA shows which feature some of the most stringent judging to the extent that all vehicles are mandated to be white-glove ready without a fingerprint or speck of dust.

Tammy and Gold Digger’s most recent show was the Dallas AutoRama where Tammy professed   “I won the best Rod award.”  Local car enthusiast Mac Bernd confirmed Tammy left Texas with the ‘Dallas Diamond Award’, which is the highest award given at this prestigious show.

Tammy says she has the auto toys to compete with the ‘big boys’.  “But now the big boys have to be able to play in the sandbox with the girls and their hot rod toys,” she laughed.

Life led Tammy to a Gold Mine, which in turn has led to the creation of the award winning Gold Digger, so it is easy to see why Tammy Ray does not mind being called a ‘Gold Digger’…

This entry was posted on Friday, March 4th, 2011 at 5:33 am and is filed under Motor People. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Gold Strike in Dallas!”

1. Shelley Bernd says:

   January 9, 2012 at 2:24 am

   Wonderful article about a wonderful gal. Tammy Ray is a true beauty, both inside and out, and she and her husband are most deserving of the awards they have won with their awesome car. Kudos to all!
2. Diana Claussen says:

   January 28, 2012 at 3:16 am

   Tammy blew me out of the water by her grace and totally awesome Phaeton!