American Graffiti superfan’s ’32 Ford replica preserves the movie’s magic

The first time that Joseph Reyer saw American Graffiti, it turned into an all-day affair—and ignited a lifelong obsession with the movie.

“I was about 13 when it came out,” Reyer says of the 1973 film created and directed by George Lucas. “My mom dropped me off at the movie theater, and it was so good that I called her afterward and said, ‘Don’t pick me up. I’m going to watch it again.’ Then I called her again and said, ‘Don’t pick me up yet. I’m going to watch it again.’ She said, ‘This is the last time!’”

It wouldn’t be.

“I’m such a huge American Graffiti fan,” the Detroit-area native says. “I’ve seen it probably 30 times, and I have it in all forms—VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray. I also have all sorts of memorabilia, including an original poster. I’m just nuts about this movie.

“It had such a profound effect on me, especially (John) Milner’s coupe. I couldn’t tell you the (name of the) first girl I kissed, but I can tell you the first car I fell in love with. That one.”

Reyer’s appreciation for the American Graffiti, which turns 50 later this summer, has never waned. Twenty-five years ago he bought a black 1955 Chevy 150 similar to the one that a young Harrison Ford (playing Bob Falfa) drove in the film. He still owns the car. “It isn’t a replica,” Reyer says, “but it’s black, turn-key, and gorgeous, so I went for it.” The seller also had a ’32 Ford, but as much as Reyer would have loved to buy it and recreate the yellow hot rod that Paul Le Mat (Milner) drove in the film, he decided against it. The financial math just didn’t make sense.

A detailed ’32 Ford replica became his holy grail.

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Reyer’s passion for cars came from both his parents, but his father, Joe, was his biggest influence. “My dad was very supportive of my love for cars. I can remember sitting on the fender of his ’64 Impala. He said he never had to look for me because he always knew he could find me in the garage.”

The son not only followed his father into the garage but also in his professional footsteps, becoming an electrician for Ford Motor Company. “Dad worked at the Michigan Truck Plant for 35 years, and I worked there for 15. He always encouraged me. He really made all of this possible.”

For its part, American Graffiti opened doors for nascent talents to break into the movie business, many of whom became Hollywood heavyweights. Even Lucas, whose resume to that point included just one film—a sci-fi flick called THX 1138—can look to Graffiti as his launch pad to stardom. Reflecting on his own experiences with cars, cruising, and rock ’n’ roll music as a teenager in Modesto, California, Lucas needed only three weeks to write the movie’s coming-of-age script about one end-of-summer night in 1962. That was after his friends, screenwriters Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, had to back out to work on another film.

“Like most kids who grew up in the Valley, I had a strong interest in cruising,” Lucas said in a documentary included on the Blu-Ray edition of American Graffiti. “When I got to college (at the University of Southern California), I studied anthropology and began to realize that [cruising] was a uniquely American dating ritual involving automobiles.

“When I came up with the idea of doing the movie … I really felt compelled to document the whole experience of cruising and what my generation used as a way of meeting girls and what we did in our spare time. I wanted to document the end of an era, how things change—life passages—how you go from being a student into the real world.”

Lucas shopped the script around Hollywood, but he says “nobody wanted to do it.” After a rewrite, Universal agreed to make the movie, a decision that came no doubt with help from Lucas’ friend Francis Ford Coppola, who signed on as executive producer. Just before production began, Huyck and Katz—freed from their previous commitment—assisted in beefing up the script, particularly the love story of Steve Bolander (Ron Howard) and Laurie Henderson (Cindy Williams).

Lucas spent six months casting the film and says he “saw thousands of kids.” Those he ultimately chose to include in the film did not disappoint. The best known actor of the group was Howard, who starred as Opie on the Andy Griffith Show when he was a kid; the rest were basically unknowns—at the time, anyway. In addition to Howard, Williams, Ford, and Le Mat, the lead parts went to Richard Dreyfuss, Mackenzie Phillips, Charlie Martin Smith, and Candy Clark. Lucas also brought in legendary disc jockey Robert Weston Smith, better known as “Wolfman Jack,” to string together the 41 hit songs that serve as the soundtrack.

Henry Travers, the film’s transportation manager, was responsible for locating and maintaining the cars that Lucas wanted in the film, including the ’32 Ford (originally purchased for $1300), the ’55 Chevy (which was also used in Two-Lane Blacktop), the 1958 Chevrolet Impala driven by Howard, the 1958 Edsel Corsair driven by Williams, the 1967 Citroën 2CV (yes, a ’67 for a movie that was set in ’62) driven by Dreyfuss, the 1951 Mercury coupe driven by the Pharaohs, and the 1956 Ford Thunderbird driven by another newcomer, Suzanne Somers.

The entire movie was filmed in 28 days, mostly at night and on a budget of $750,000 (about $5.1 million today). There was no money for original music or incidentals. The budget was so tight, in fact, that between takes the cast members sat on the curb or rested in cars. Fancy trailers were nowhere to be seen.

As Howard recalled in the documentary, “I finally went to Francis and I said, ‘You know, Francis, I know it’s a low-budget movie; it’s great—the spirit of the movie is wonderful … Do you think we could have a chair? Could we just have chairs?’ And he said, ‘Well, no, there’s nothing in the budget for chairs.’”

American Graffiti went on to make $140 million.

“I met Paul Le Mat once about 20 years ago,” Reyer says, “and I said, ‘It looked like you had a great time making that movie.’ He said, ‘It was the greatest 30 days of my life.’”

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Reyer, 61, saw plenty of replicas of John Milner’s ’32 Ford through the years, “but there was always just too much to do to make them right.” Then, in 2022, opportunity knocked: an astonishingly accurate replica came up for sale, built by Jack Bell and perfected in Arkansas by second owner Nick Coe, with help from Rob Pruitt, Dan Griffin, Tim Bowman, and Dr. Rachel’s Upholstery Clinic, which cloned the interior of the original.

“The more I looked at it, the more I thought, ‘Holy cow, this guy nailed this,’” Reyer says. “I mean it’s 99.9 percent correct. I’ve seen a lot of replicas over the years, and nothing comes close to this one. I thought, ‘This guy is as crazy as I am.’ I asked Nick, ‘Do we have a sickness?’ And he said, ‘Yes, we do. And it’s a good one.’”

Reyer just had to have the car.

Coe, a fellow American Graffiti fanatic, decided to let the yellow Deuce go only because his son was ill and he could use the money. Reyer assured him that it would be in good hands. “You still have visitation,” he promised.

Among the Ford’s movie-matching features are small-block 327 Chevy V-8 engine, Ansen swing pedals, interior trim off a ’56 Ford, steering wheel, piston gear shift knob, front axle, front chrome shocks, rear suspension, headlights and headlight bars, and tinted windows.

Reyer loves taking the Ford to car shows and advancing the American Graffiti gospel. “I want everybody to catch the bug,” he says. “I’m a super spreader.”

No one is immune, especially not his family, which includes son Jeremiah and daughter Christin, five grandchildren, and a sixth grandchild on the way. “I’m just the caretaker; this will be Jeremiah’s someday,” Reyer says. “And I’m going to get a gearhead out of one of those grandkids, you can be sure of that.”

It’s a lineage that began with his parents, particularly his dad.

“He would be as excited about this car as I am,” Reyer says of his father, who passed away in 2020. “I wish he was still here to see it come to fruition. I restored a ’66 F-100 pickup for him, and it was his pride and joy. I remember he’d look at it in the garage every night before he went to bed. I do that now with this car. I feel like I won the lottery.”

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