SHEETROCK SURVIVORS; DRYWALL MAKES A RICH CANVAS FOR VANISHED CARS AND MEMORABILIA.(News)

Byline: PHIL BERG

Peter Wollons still mourns his beloved red 1933 Ford coupe hot rod. "It was spectacular, he says of the painstakingly restored, modified rod he drove for two years until it was stolen in 1984 in Los Angeles. Busy cops never even looked for the one-of-a-kind ride, he recalls.

Fourteen years after the theft, Wollons and his wife, Karen, moved into an immaculate new home with lush gardens and large rooms, but it had a minimal three-car garage to hold his "58 Eldorado and "06 Corvette Z06, and he continued to feel an emptiness inside the all-white space, the loss of the "33 coupe still eating away at his heart.

To soothe his grief, he had an idea: "I wanted to have a full-size picture of it, as if it was parked in front of me whenever I pulled into the garage. The idea grew. "Then I thought I'd also include my "58 Impala in the picture, which was my favorite car. Wollons had long ago sold the Impala to an acquaintance, who had totaled it. Luckily, Karen, an accomplished watercolor artist, has a colleague, Gary Soszynski, who paints civic murals. Soszynski offered his services.

Soszynski's idea was to paint images of Wollons's two cars in a style known as trompe l'oeil, French for "tricking the eye. He also researched and produced a nostalgic garage scene of a 1950s-era Mobil station and painted it directly on the back wall of the Wollons garage, covering the plain white drywall and melamine cabinets.

After lengthy ponderings, Wollons asked the artist to continue the painting on the other walls and the ceiling.

"He did his own research and had his own ideas for signs, lights and tools, recalls Wollons. The total time to paint the ...