High-profile names from Nashville, Hollywood, NASCAR, the NFL and MLB establish long-term relationships with body shops they trust to build kit cars and restomods.

It’s sort of a secret, but sometimes not so much. They gotta get to games and concerts somehow. Not to mention awards shows, and activities like NASCAR, which involves a bit of driving itself.

Operators nationwide complete work for high-end clientele whose names and faces are generally more easily recognizable than the average driver — and these aren’t always even their highest-end folk, just their famous ones.

Tennessee’s Elite Customs, Factory Five Racing in Massachusetts, and Ken’s Custom Auto Body in California are some of the shops with such customers who are often just people who really dig performance or classics or both. Some work direct, some subcontract; all focus on dedicated work — as for any other project. Like customers with conventional careers, many stars become family friends.

“Most of my work is not for celebrities,” said Elite Customs owner , who’s built some three dozen cars for one of his less-visible customers: a nine-figure net worth businessman who’s also “one of my closest friends.” They’ve vacationed and attended graduations together. “I was in his wedding.”

Car collectors like and tend to get a lot of exposure. Partly from a TV presence spanning decades, partly for larger collections that become embedded in their fame itself. But many notables known for their day jobs — sports, music — also appreciate, and perhaps are afflicted with, the restomod habit.

The biggest recent job McClellan can recall is a 1964 Lincoln Continental convertible he did for , a singer-songwriter more widely known as , though his real surname’s not so bad for a car guy.

Detail of the '64 Continental after the restomod.

“Stripped it to the bare bones, took a Coyote engine out of a Mustang,” McClellan said. “Modernized steering, A/C, heat, but kept a lot of elements. Looks old school.” The ride has “new exhaust, new stereo, new paint — drives good, runs good, sounds good.”

DeFord was already a customer, McClellan having built a ’76 Cadillac El Dorado for the musician three years ago, to drive to the Country Music Awards ceremony. “Chopped the top off, wrapped it in red chrome.” Later, he did a G-Wagon for Jelly Roll’s wife, , known as .

Luxe SUVs offer a visual lesson in how McClellan approaches restomods, including the Linc.

“I build a ton of Denalis and Escalades. If someone four houses down has the same G-Wagon…” McClellan’s voice trails a bit here. “We don’t want to build the same one over and over again.”

The rapper and country music crossover musician “is different. He doesn’t look like everyone else, he doesn’t sing like everyone else. He needs to stand out, we wanted him to stand out.”

McLellan said DeFord initially asked after a fairly common black-with-chrome look but ended up trusting the shop. Elite Customs came up with everything, including door handles and a steering wheel button, custom-engraved with the singer’s “Goodnight Nashville” logo, a skull wearing a crown that’s also connected with his Nashville bar. “He didn’t see it until it was done.”

McClellan figured he’s built 10 cars for the DeFord family, including the couple’s daughter and niece.

Factory Five in Massachusetts is well-known by now for its kit-built projects with three-time NASCAR Cup Series champ . “He has two of our vehicles built for and with him,” said Marketing Director , one being the ’35 Drift Truck built with Snap-on Tools, the other an XTF.

The drift truck got an engine from one of Logano’s Team Penske cars, Johnson said. Factory Five’s work has also been shown on Tim Allen’s TV show “Shifting Gears.”

“He was looking for a project to have in the background,” Johnson said, and an assistant contacted them. “We own the truck and it comes back to us when he’s done.” With a relationship begun, there could be future work.

But as with McClellan, Johnson said, “Most of the stuff we’re doing is not for celebrities.” He figured the shop has produced “16,000 chassis over the last 30 years and maybe 10 of them to people famous or semi-famous.”

Ken Pike.

Three-fourths of its product sold have been Shelby Cobras, “a timeless design,” Johnson said. Factory Five’s 4,000 parts are made in Massachusetts. “We are the world’s largest component kit car manufacturer.”

Johnson’s been with the company 28 of its 30 years, and was previously operations director. Factory Five has 70,000 square feet in two buildings and 50 employees.

Customers are often “at-home project guys, with or without a shop,” but Factory Five also works with classic and custom shops nationally, referring customers to them.

One is Ken’s Custom Auto Body, ’s classics shop in Northern California. Pike installed his new paint system, when his facility more than tripled in size in December 2023. He now does about 50 custom paint jobs a year, including one recently for a Factory Five celebrity client, along with others.

“He paints a lot of my customers’ cars,” Johnson said. “He’s our paint shop for the West Coast, one of four or five around the country for painting Factory Five cars.”

Factory Five vets new shops it works with, he said.

McClellan met DeFord about six years ago, after the latter was unhappy with his experience at another shop. They connected through a place where both bought nutritional products. Before the name Jelly Roll was heard on the country scene, Elite Customs wrapped his Dodge Ram, repeating the process a few years later.

“We redid the whole interior, headliner: black suede, full audio; we’ve done maintenance on it here and there,” McClellan said.

A relationship was born.

Rich McClellan.

“We absolutely pursue them from time to time,” McClellan said of celebrity clients, though many find them on their own or by referral. “They say, ‘You need to call our guy’ and if they trust you, and [we] didn’t make a big deal about them being a celebrity,” the new customer checks them out.

Staff doesn’t seek autographs or selfies. “Nobody stops working; guys say hi and keep moving. You’re a guy like we are, you want stuff done like we do.” As interaction grows through time, customers become clients. A celebrity in his shop “stayed for an hour and a half” talking with staff. “He wanted to see the process, ordered pizza and wings.”

Whether McClellan discusses the work is, as would be true with any other client, up to them. Some higher-profile people do not want their cars to be known, for instance. He’s taken photos off social media at requests.

He’s worked on cars for NFL players including , and ; musicians and Lee Brice; and retired NHL player Mike Fisher, who’s married to country singer Carrie Underwood; among others in MLB and MLS. Many over time bring multiple family vehicles to the shop.

“Always loved cars,” said McClellan, who moved to Nashville in 1996, and largely learned on his own, and by attaching himself to experienced electronics installers, painters and shop techs. “I broke a lot of stuff,” he said, a fact that helps him bring new employees up through their early days.

Elite Customs is 12,000 square feet, nine staffers, averaging 25 to 30 cars a month — no collision, all custom and restomod, with full builds. The only thing it doesn’t do in-house is paint. “I don’t have the space,” McClellan said.

Unifying owner, team and client is well-built vehicles, unique to those involved. Getting to know people as friends: starting with small projects, growing from there and getting comfortable with each other makes custom work not just better, but possible.

“We want to create something stand-out for them,” McLellan said. “Their attitude, their personality, how they feel, and that’s fun for us to do. The work is paramount.”