Doug LaRue - Founder of HRI/Body Fab Instructor
Doug was born and raised in a small town in the Black Hills of South Dakota (Belle Fourche). Doug took an interest in cars at the age of 14 when he was able to start driving. He helped his father build his first car at age 15, a 1965 Impala SS. At age 16, Doug was working in a service station, filling gas tanks, changing oil, changing tires and washing cars. Later that year, he traded his 65 Impala off for a “1966 Chevelle”. Doug started drag racing because of his fathers influence which spanned the next 10 years.
After graduating high school (1975) Doug went to college in the south east side of South Dakota (University of South Dakota at Springfield) studying Auto body Repair; it was a two year Associates degree program. Doug graduated the program in 1977 as one of the top students of his class.
Doug went to work in a Ford dealership right out of school. In the fall of 1977 he had the opportunity to go to work for a GM dealership in Spearfish South Dakota as a working body shop foreman.
Doug owned and ran a body shop from 1983-1988. The shop did collision repair and specialized in muscle car restoration, and Hot Rods. In 1988 he sold the body shop in Spearfish and decided to try teaching at an Automotive Collision program, WyoTech in Laramie, Wyoming.
In 1993 Doug was one of the main contributors in creating the nations first street rod program at WyoTech. He spent a total of 15 years teaching & coordinating at WyoTech.
In July 2003, Doug started working for VC Tech in Birmingham, Alabama where he had the opportunity to recreate the curriculum he had developed at WyoTech, only this time he had much more experience on his side. Doug learned a lot at WyoTech, so the curriculum was updated and revised to make it a better experience for the students and make them even more employable in the specialty car industry.
And then Hot Rod Institute (HRI) was born!
Now, Doug has decided to step out from under that big corporate umbrella and start a training facility dedicated specifically to the specialty car industry. Teaching students for the past 20 years has been very rewarding for Doug, and his goal with Hot Rod Institute (HRI) is to give the true car guy the ultimate education in hot rod or custom motorcycle fabrication.
Over the years Doug has built many award winning vehicles. He has been driving and building Hot Rods and Muscle cars ever since he was 15 years old. Most of the time Doug plans all his vacation time around some kind of car event. Doug’s most recognized hot rod is the 1948 Ford F-1 pickup that he built while at WyoTech. It has been in about 20 different magazines, including the cover of the May 2002 Classic and Trucks magazine. It was featured in Southern Rodder in 2005 and Truckin’ magazine in 2006. He has won a Rep pick award at the Rocky Mt. Street Rod nationals and North West region rep top pick at the Street Rod Nationals in Louisville KY. At the Good-guys nationals in Columbus OH he won top 10 Classic Truck pick. In 2003, House of Kolor Paint Company awarded Doug with the “Prestigious Painter Award”.
Now that Hot Rod Institute has been formed all the rules that state how the class will be run has been thrown out the window. Doug says “We have a great opportunity to create the model that works best for the specialties car industry. Instead of what works best for a corporate or public run schools, we are going to have a model that conforms to the task it takes to build and fabricate a custom vehicle from frame up and everything in between”.
“We are all about Hot Rods!”.
doug@hotrodinstitute.com