When car builder Scott Mock was first introduced to Albert Melchoir’s ’70 Firebird project, “Project Cochise,” he was introduced with the understanding that the second generation Pontiac would have to be done in a relatively short time for SEMA.

The time constraints on “Project Cochise” were tight, but Mock is a true performance enthusiast who can more than handle the challenge, “I first started my business in ’84 in Lawrence as a regular welding and machine shop…I always did the hot rod stuff as a hobby, but I never made any money from it…but I always loved building my own stuff…” With his attitude of craftsmanship and a genuine love of cars, Al Melchoir just knew that Mock was just the man to get “Project Cochise” off of the ground.

Photo: Flickr

Al Melchoir himself is the owner of Carbon Kustoms, a second generation Firebird specialty shop out of Ontario, Canada with a U. S. location in Keller, Texas. The Carbon Kustoms business was born from Melchoir’s own automotive inspiration, which came to him while attending the 2009 Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational at the Spring Mountains Motorsports Ranch in Pahrump, Nevada. At the ’09 Optima Invitational, driver Bruce Cambern dominated all three of the venue’s categories in a ’66 Shelby Cobra; this class domination inspired Melchoir to build a business around the concepts of strength and weight reduction.

It’s the innovative approach to strength and weight reduction that lead to the very technique with which Melchoir and Carbon Kustoms build Second Generation Firebirds like “Project Cochise.” But builder Scott Mock is equally impressed with Jet-Hot High Performance Coating’s work on Melchoir’s Firebird, “We sent the exhaust out to Jet-Hot, and they did a fabulous job coating the pipes inside and out. I had had some ceramic coatings done locally, but they had just sugar-coated the outside, and as soon as I scratched it with a wrench, the coatings came right off…”

Mock further explains about the innovation behind Jet-Hot’s coat work on the Firebird’s exhaust, “It’s baked on; it’s on there. You hit it with a hammer, it doesn’t come off, it doesn’t burn off…It really keeps the heat inside the tubes and out back…” Melchoir himself is pleased with the result, “I always wanted that car that I could thrash-on for SEMA…” Functionality is the name of the game when it comes to building a beautiful, pro-tour car like Al Melchoir’s Pontiac Firebird.