EST. 1984 FatMan Fabrications is a Hot Rod and Classic Car suspension and chassis manufacture. Building parts for your ride right here in the USA!
Fatman Fabrications Inc. was founded 1984 by Brent VanDervort. Brent and an older brother restored a 1930 Model A pick up as a high school car and even took their Driver's Test in that car. Having built over 20 cars for himself and friends as a side job over the previous 17 years, building hot rod parts seemed a natural progression. A second trip to college after moving to Charlotte netted a Mechanical Engineering education that was added to an earlier Business Management degree. The combination of real world fabrication experience and formal education equipped Fatman's with the knowledge needed to design practical parts for real rodders. As the business grew to over 40 employees, a 6 acre plot was purchased to give Fatman Fabrications a home that would accept that expansion. We currently occupy 4 buildings totaling 22,000 square feet. The area is split up into Sales, warehouse, shipping, MII kit, frame stub, tubular product, complete chassis, and prototype/customer installation shops. Other associated business supply services necessary to the building of hot rods, creating a "Hot Rod Mall" where an owner can go door to door to complete his project. The employees at the company see very little turnover and that pool of experience is a real asset to the company and our valued customers. The different production and installation areas are set up with a very experienced Team Leader at the head to ensure quality and continuity of training future leaders. In fact, an agreement was entered into by Brent and key employees so that the company will employee owned at Brent's eventual departure. This future planning assures the security of all parties, with quality assured by a motivated staff, and that Fatman products will receive Tech support far into the future.
They kind of promised some updates on 61 GMC work this week but there's another project going on at the same time and figured I'd probably show it since it's in that area where it could look Fat man fabrications they've went out of business and they had their auction sometime in February so they're not coming back so that's to my dismay. Being that I've been building one of their chassis for a Tri-5 Chevy. Clearly you can tell it's for a 57. These are just rollers these are not gonna be the permanent wheels but they sure do good rollers and they represent about the sizes that'll be on t Kind of unique. As good as their chassis's were there was some improvements I've been making These came with a. . . let'see what was it. . . Fox body Mustang racks and all the Fox body I knew guys I know talk to they say that rack leaves a little bit desired so there's the Wilwood spindles. Hit that bear cattle on pretty hard there but QA1 ball joints that are inch taller so it changes the roll center a little bit. Fat man used half inch taller I just decided to go with extra half inch to make a full inch and see where we could go with that. Now a couple months ago. . . wait a minute. . . a couple months ago it was back around September and I contacted Fat Man and there was no indication when I talked to them that they were gonna go out of business or anything Yet here we are some time around Christmas I heard about it first and then February we got all the notifications they have in auction so they're gone they're not coming back. I don't know what happened over there's no story on t Of course I haven't dug in the look but yeah t So that'll be some progress showing up later for the car but how do you get the chassis all bolted together here and back on the GMC again and I t I don't want to do vacu But there it is in all its glory. The Fat Man TRI-5 chassis. And me doing a whole lot of yapping over top of it. And Here's my 56 Oliver tractor. Everybody needs a tractor. If you part out cars and do heavy work do t Of course Wield it up to the three-point And then got your regular hydraulics and then my three-point Yeah One of the best investments I have ever made. And that is what I used to bring that out into the area where it looks good at to take a picture of and it's not too busy back around or anyt Otherwise backyard was ridiculously sunny. I don't