Building cars behind bars

This month, we sent a man to the slammer. His name is Pat and, mercifully, he wasn't there to pass the soap. Instead, he met a bunch of friendly felons who spend their, er, free time tinkering with some rusty old Yank tanks...

Words: Pat Devereux
Photography: Fly

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...I'd be lying if I said it didn't put me on edge. And I'd be lying if I didn't admit I'd spent much of the drive here, through the snow-swept desert scrub half an hour north of Las Vegas, trying to suppress images from Hollywood prison dramas, an edited medley featuring the worst bits set in slammers such as Folsom, Alcatraz, Shawshank.

As it happens, the Southern Desert Correctional Center looks forgivingly underwhelming as it materialises on the horizon, nothing more than a collection of beige boxes buried into the hillside. You could be forgiven for thinking it's a military compound, or maybe a silver mine, those being the two principal industries in this part of the 'Silver State', other than Las Vegas's gambling. But we're not here to look at armour plating or watch precious metals being extracted. As unlikely as it seems we are here here at the prison to witness the production of an entirely different treasure: restored and brand new American cars.

That's why all these men are carrying tools that, at other points of their life, would be classified as weapons. The restoration business is currently working on 20 cars, ranging from a gorgeous early Sixities black Corvette to a 1973 Lincoln Continental with a boot bigger than Italy, to the GMC truck from cult Seventies TV show The Rockford Files. And then, as if that isn't surreal enough, right next door to the workshop I'm standing in, there are anything up to 60 inmates turning raw tubing, glassfibre and dull aluminium bodyshells into pukka Shelby Cobras. Not copies of the 1960s classic muscle car, the real things.

We'll get to the specifics of the operation in a minute, but the first question that needs answering is how this bizarre situation of convicts building and restoring cars - not smashing rocks and sewing mail sacks - came to pass. The simple answer is down to the prison's location being a short, arrow straight drive away from Sin City.

Prisons in most US states have commercial divisions that are designed to ‘reduce government operating costs, provide inmates the skills necessary to successfully re-enter society, and enhance the safe operation of correctional facilities'. These divisions make clothing, stationery and all manner of other stuff that is then sold on the open market. 

But they also, in some instances, act as a low-cost and reliable labour source for local businesses. It's not like the ‘staff' are going anywhere anytime soon and they're not exactly likely to go on strike - the State makes the point that it tries not to take jobs away from the open market, but when it only charges minimum wage or less, this seems inevitable.

Whatever. In this part of Nevada the local companies that have or currently need help are the government agencies, the Imperial Palace classic car collection - plus a certain famous car racer and builder called Caroll Shelby, whose centre of operations is based just off Vegas's main drag next to the Speedway. So, far from being unusual, when you look at it like that, it's only natural that Silver State Industries, the collective name for the businesses run by Nevada's prisons, should reach out and offer to help. 

Even so, is it not tempting fate somewhat to tool-up men whose behaviour might be considered somewhat anti-social? Craig Korsgaard, Silver State Industries' sales and marketing co-ordinator, and gaffer of the classic car restoration shop that grew out of the Imperial Palace work, is quick to explain that there has never been a problem with any kind of violence on his watch.

"They only get to work here if they haven't been written up [broken prison rules] for a minimum of six months," he says. "None of them want anything to happen, so there is never any trouble here." To make sure, and to ensure the aggro doesn't happen elsewhere, all tools are signed out individually and replaced each night. The place gets shut down if even the smallest spanner goes missing, so there's a strong incentive and collective responsibility not to ‘borrow' anything.

The next surprise, which fades away as you realize some of these inmates have been doing this for more than a decade, is the quality of the work. It's outstanding. Looking at the fit and finish on the black Corvette, the shut lines are narrow and straight, the paint lustrous and blemish free and the interior looks better than the day it was made. All of the work was done by the SDCC inmates and took thousands of hours. Watching them toil, you can't help wondering what crime they committed to be put away for so long (I was told when I arrived not to ask... actually I was asked not to talk to them at all). Korsgaard, who has worked with the inmates since 1989, says for some of them even a 30-year sentence isn't enough. 

No, not like that. He means that they have been inside so long that they've become institutionalised - they are more scared about getting out than staying inside. "Some people here just don't want to get out," he says. "I've seen people with just two days of their sentences to go try and jump the fence."

The final shocker in the resto shop is how inexpensive the work charges out at. A ground-up restoration of, say, a 1965 Mustang costs around $25k. That's about a third of the cost of doing the same job in a supposedly non-criminally run workshop. I know, I've got the bills to prove it. Which explains why people from all over the US and beyond ship their cars here to have their work done. Even with the cost of transport included, it's a bargain.

That's clearly what Carroll Shelby thought, too. 

Walking into the 15,000sq ft Shelby workshop next door, the relatively clean and calm atmosphere of the classic business is replaced by a lung-burning stench of solvents. Teams of inmates are busy plastering great dollops of goop onto raw glassfibre as they expertly lay up various body kits for Mustang GTs, Cobras, Super Snakes and other cars in the Shelby stable.

Despite the stink, the inmates seem happy to be there. For a moment you wonder if it's because of the mood-altering quality of the atmosphere, but then you walk through into the bodyshop area and everyone there seems OK with paying for their crime building Shelbys as well.

One guy lying underneath the wheel well of an aluminium Cobra bodyshell demonstrates why it makes so much sense for the work he is doing to be done here. It takes 260 hours in six stages to polish the raw shell into a mirrored finish, so who better to do that than an inmate with tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of hours to spare?

The convicts in the Shelby shop get paid slightly more than the inmates in the restoration business, so inevitably there is a trickle of escapees from one to the other. You can see how the 'glass shop would need a steady flow of extra hands to deal with the surges in demand. But you get the sense that the guy with the long white beard and thousand-yard stare, known simply as Gus, would probably have a word or two with anyone wanting to get in on his act.

Gus builds all the frames for the Cobras, and has done for some time. If you've seen or driven one less than five years old, it's one of his. Listening to him talk, you almost forget you're in a prison, as he expertly explains the difference between the gauge of the frame rails for each model and how he works meticulously to make each one fit perfectly.

Then, just as you are about to say something about driving the cars, you realise he hasn't and probably never will. It's not hard to spot the irony here - men who can't go anywhere, working on these great American icons of the open road.

Gus, and all the other inmates here are doing great work, and it seems like a fitting penance, a job that incentivises them to keep on the straight and narrow, and creates something beautiful in the process. So if you're in the market for a sports car or your classic needs a makeover, you can do your bit for US society too by buying a Shelby or having your car rejuvenated here.

At these prices, it would be a crime not to.