Matt Jones is one of the neatest car guys I’ve ever met. His love and enthusiasm for Italian automobiles is palpably contagious, and he’s fluent in the language. So, it was natural that Jones launched Re-Originals in 1991, a company that provides both new-old-stock and remanufactured parts from original suppliers for everything Italian—from Abarth to Zagato and the rest of the dictionary in between.
However, Jones is much more than an Italianista. He’s had British cars and German cars and French cars, and yes, even some very American jobs. Visit Jones’ shop in picturesque Livingston, Texas, and you’ll find hundreds of brand-new, never-mounted Pirelli Cinturato 185/70VR15 Porsche 911 tires piled high at one end of the building, a complete new Alfa TZ-1 chassis at the other end, and a clapped out TVR Grantura Mark III ’63 Sebring racer out back. But there, in the middle of the madness, is one of the most alluring American one-offs I’ve ever seen. The car is known as the Weinberg Roadster, and this nifty jewel box meshes the best elements of 1940s sports cars and hot rods. The result is an optical stunner.
