Don Lynch grew up in Dunedin, Florida and attended Dunedin High School. After graduating, his family moved to New
Orleans where Don started his college career at nearby L.S.U. There, he became a lifelong LSU Tiger and for many years he
went back and forth from Louisiana to Dunedin where his Grandparents and a lot of his friends still lived. He traveled often
to Florida to visit his Grandparents and during that time he and his wife, Lisa moved to Alpharetta, Georgia.
About ten years ago, while in Dunedin at his Grandparents 70th wedding anniversary, he started talking to a few of his
uncles about the muscle cars they used to drive and reminiscing about those days. It was then Don decided it was his time to
have a beach cruiser muscle car of his own. So, the search began. Driving to North Carolina several times to look at various
Because the car would be a daily driver car, he wanted it to have four doors to make it easier to get in and out of, it had
to be a “non-typical” hot rod, and it had to have a metal dashboard. A friend of Don’s had a brother in Oldsmar that had a
shop that could do the build, but halfway through the build the friend’s brother was injured and everything stopped. Someone
later recommended Realistic Auto Restorations in St. Pete to Don and the rest, as they say, is history. Sage and the crew at
colors. No detail was overlooked, including the Fleur-de-lis stitched into the leather seats.
So far, the rolling “Fat Tuesday” car has been in three shows and won best of show each time. Don will be shipping the
car to Louisiana to spend some time there, and after that it will be shipped up to Don’s and Lisa’s home in Georgia. “One of
these days soon” Don says, we’ll take the car back to its home in Dunedin where it can cruise the Gulf beach boulevards and
causeways…. like it’s supposed to.