PMC in Kelowna British Columbia has been a builder of custom muscle cars and trucks since 2008. SATA Canada had the opportunity to speak with Patrick Garuk, president & owner at Pacific Muscle Cars and ask him about how he got his start, current projects, television and of course his preference in refinish equipment.  

PMC has a primer room set up for prepping bodywork and coating smaller components, featuring a SATA 284 filtration and SATA air vision 5000 breathing protection.

“it’s as clean and white as any paint booth. I like to keep the shop looking good, we charge a fair amount to our customers and when they come in to see progress on their project, the shop should present as well as their car is going to look at the end of the day.”For completes, PMC uses the downdraft booth of the family owned CSN bodyshop next door, it too has a SATA filtration system.  

Patrick has one additional SATA gun that doesn’t see any time in the booth, “I was one of the first to buy the SATAjet X 5500 Bored & Stroked special edition. Funny story, my SATA Business Development Specialist (BDS), Mike Murphy had one reserved for Mike Hall of Rust Valley Restorations. Mike let me review it on Instagram, after that I had to get one of my own.I am afraid to unpack it, I don’t want to wreck it. I can see that a lot of work went into the design, it is probably going to sit on the shelf as a conversation piece.”

PMC‘s latest masterpiece is the restomod Hell Charger, a 68 Dodge Charger, like in Bullitt, but this one has late model Hellcat motivation and a stunning House of Kolor candy burgundy paintjob.“The paint is a custom mix, I like to call BC wild cherry as the owner is from the Okanagan area.”

“The Charger is a massive car and was super difficult to do but turned out awesome. As the Charger has a candy finish, we ended up painting it as a complete, a big car is exhausting in the booth, you get a good work out.”

The Charger has recently been the subject of a photoshoot for some national magazines and is scheduled to make its debut with another vehicle PMC is working on at next year’s Canadian Motor Show in Vancouver.

When asked about their most challenging paint jobs Patrick had the answer at his fingertips, the custom 1956 Ford COE for Avery at Rust Valley Restorations. “The COE is one that sticks out in my mind. We have done two seasons with Rust Valley, working on projects with Avery and with Mike. The premise within the show is to help them out doing work that they are not equipped to do. It has been very interesting.” “The cabover CEO was Avery’s project and he had been struggling with finishing it. The restomod truck was large build in a short period of time. I think we did two years’ worth of work in two and a half months; we had 10 people going 12 hours a day, seven days a week to finish on time.

Apart from all the metal work, the paint job was fairly complicated itself. Very difficult to align three different colors over multiple body panels with a stripe that flows from the sleeper cab, through the doors onto the hood and around. Parts had to come off and on, quite an ordeal.” SATA asked Patrick his advice to other painters who want to do custom work, “Like anything in life that is worth going after, you have to work hard. You must be committed to it and persevere, because you will stumble a lot, but hopefully learn a lot too.

I keep in touch with other custom shops across Canada, it is a struggle but once you break through and have that following and have a great team working with you, it is very rewarding. I had a small collection of restored muscle cars but sold them all to expand the business, but now I am at the point where I am building one for myself. A cool 1969 Mustang wide body with a supercharged Coyote engine. I will never go so long again without a muscle car in the garage.

Now what am I going to do for paint?”