auto editors of Consumer Guide praised it as "the first really new type of custom since the heyday of the 1950s". Artistic legacy Many of the next generation of customizers started their career with Coddington. Larry Erickson, later the chief designer of the Mustang and Thunderbird for Ford Motor Co., worked with Coddington early on, and specifically credits the CadZZilla collaboration for jump-starting his career. Designer Chip Foose (Overhaulin') and fabricator Jesse James (Motorcycle Mania) both started their careers in his shop. Coddington hosted the Discovery Channel show American Hot Rod''. Coddington's creations have won the Grand National Roadster Show's "America's Most Beautiful Roadster (AMBR)" award seven times (the only back-to-back winner of America's Most Beautiful Roadster) and the Daimler-Chrysler Design Excellence award twice, and earned him entry into the Grand National Roadster Show Hall of Fame, the SEMA Hall of Fame, the Route 66 Hall of Fame, and the National Rod & Custom Museum Hall of Fame. In 1997, Coddington was inducted into the Hot Rod Hall of Fame. Later financial trouble In 1998, financial trouble due to a $465,000 loss from a bankrupt customer led Coddington to re-organize Boyd's Wheels and partner with his eldest son (Boyd Coddington, Jr.). In his later days, he began registering cars that were essentially completely custom fabrications as antique automobiles, avoiding major emissions restrictions and tax liabilities. California officials considered this a "ship of Theseus" fraud, claiming that so many central elements were replaced, the cars ceased to be the same entity. Coddington was charged with a misdemeanor and pleaded guilty on April 7, 2005. Death Coddington was hospitalized on December 31, 2007. He was discharged shortly after New Year's Eve, but was readmitted a few days later to Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in Whittier, California. Doctors performed surgery; despite the prognosis of a complete recovery, Coddington died on February 27, 2008. His publicist stated that Coddington was a long-time diabetic who died from complications that were brought on from a recent surgery for a perforated colon along with sepsis and kidney complications. Coddington was buried at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California. References External links American Hot Rod TV series Boyd Coddington Helps Exhume Buried 1957 Plymouth Belvedere in Tulsa, Oklahoma The Boyd Coddington Virtual Museum 1944 births 2008 deaths American automotive engineers People from Rupert, Idaho Burials at Rose Hills Memorial Park 20th-century American engineers People from Stanton, California American