Rick Cousineau
Restoration
Way back in the 1400's Rick started his career by turning wrenches in Chicago, from
there he moved on to working in odds and ends auto repair facilities. In 1974 he
managed and supervised truck, tractor trailer and heavy equipment repairs with his
partner and friend Gerald Marolda. In 1980 Gerry Marolda bought
a Ferrari road car. He and Rick joined the Ferrari club of Chicago and the Ferrari,
Italian exotic car saga began.
Since that time, he has worked continuously on Italian sports cars. He has restored
and repaired some of the most important Vintage sports cars known, His accolades
include renown for creating, arguably the finest Ferrari Lusso restoration as noted
in the Ferrari market letter. His cars have been featured in magazines, books, and
numerous concourse events. Although his focus and enjoyment have been in the Ferrari,
Lamborghini and Maserati vintage arena, Rick has serviced and restored many other
great vintage marques including Jaguar, Aston Martin, BMW, Porsche, Lancia, Abarth,
Alfa- Romeo, Bentley and Rolls Royce. He has serviced and restored Zagato bodied
cars including the one-off Lancia Milla Miglia racecar and Abarth cars. He restored
the Silver Dawn from President Somoza. This car remains incomplete in restoration
due to the untimely death of his friend and partner of 27 years Gerry Marolda.
After Gerry's death, Rick teamed up with Perry Mansfield, MD in a small garage primarily
restoring and preserving his collection of vintage automobiles. This was the beginning
of Precious Metals Fine Motor Cars of San Diego. With the team in place Precious
Metals has grown to a, state of the art full service and restoration facility dedicated
to the preservation, service and restoration of fine vintage automobiles.
Rick's knowledge and experience are unparalleled in the field of Vintage car restoration.
He is continually sought after for automobile restoration from renowned collectors
and owners of vintage automobiles. He has earned his reputation well as "Master
Mechanic".
Sean Ketchem
Sean Ketchem first joined our team as a part time employee in the spring of 2008.
After three months he was invited to step up to full time. Ketchem’s background
is unusual for a mechanic. He attended UCSD where he earned a bachelor’s degree
in Visual Arts and minored in Art History, and apprenticed with local sculptor Carl
Glowienke. Sean has shown his work in venues ranging from UCSD to 20th street gallery
in Sacramento, and even participated with the CAL Transit performance art group.
Cal Transit was a local performance art group which utilized a 1977 caprice as a
taxi cab to bring cultural awareness along the border, and Sean was the mechanic
and painter for the group.
Before he became involved in art, the mechanical was a strong influence in Sean’s
life. Sean grew up in his Grandfather’s auto parts store. At the store Sean would
watch Ed Ketchem (his grandfather) work in the small machine shop located at the
back of the store. This resulted in the fascination with cars that Sean has today.
While attending college Sean worked full time in various areas of the automotive
field and restored his own cars in his off time. Changing tires led to a job doing
tune ups, which led to a job in the auto parts industry which led to a position
in management. These connections allowed Sean to restore a 1967 Mustang, and build
his driver, a hot rodded 1965 ranchero.
After college Sean left his job as a parts sales manager and took a position at
Taylor Guitars as a precision machine mechanic. Ketchem worked on 200 watt lasers
and CNC milling machines and even worked on robots once in while. Some of these
machines required adjustments in increments of a ten thousandth of an inch, that’s
0.0001"! When the company was going through a hard time Sean was transferred to
Taylor’s tooling department as part of a company restructuring plan. In this role
Sean ran the same CNC machines he once worked on, and performed many tasks ranging
from fabrication, CNC lathe work, wiring, to assembly of in house machinery.
In his off time Sean started his current project a 1963 mercury comet 2 door wagon.
The little wagon is one of 621 ever built and is intended to be a mild Kustom. Aside
from the high lift camshaft the engine is basically stock, but the body incorporates
shaved door handles, shaved emblems, a shaved antenna, and a frenched fuel filler.
Sean’s current workload at Precious Metals varies greatly. One moment he can be
busy with an administrative task, and an hour later he can be welding patch panels
in a 330 Ferrari.