The Desert Sun, CA
May 2 2005

You do what? Car sculpture

Chris Bagley

Greg Tutunjian has sculpted a Corvette into the form of a Ferrari
Testarossa. He once made a Ferrari into a limousine. He has wrought a
pickup into a limo, too. This spring, he went the other way, turning
a Toyota Avalon sedan into a pickup.

Such is business at Prestige Auto Design, a one-man body shop in a
North Palm Springs industrial park, where wind from the Banning Pass
whips through the dusty desert shrubbery. Tutunjian says the city is
an oasis for self-expression and for businesses that drink it. He
arrived in 1991.

“People here – they have some kind of attitude,” Tutunjian says.
“They like to be noticeable. They like to be individuals – unique.”

Tutunjian has contracted out parts of various jobs from time to time.
But the work is too valuable to leave in the hands of a protégé, he
said. Would a professional let a Ferrari under someone else’s knife?
he asks.

Tutunjian – or “Koko” in his circle of Armenian friends – came to the
United States in 1968, he said, after his handiwork turned heads in
the American consulate in the Mediterranean city of Aleppo. He worked
in a custom-car division of General Motors from 1969 until 1972, and
later ran a body shop in Albany, N.Y.

That’s where he “stretched” the Ferrari. “Compared to this, the
Avalon is peanut butter,” Tutunjian said.

–Boundary_(ID_GMw3HLUjeb9oP4Lz/jw6iQ)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress