Frank and Joan Rittiman
Cars have always been high on Frank’s interest list. He was living in Petaluma at the time the film American Graffiti was made. He had a ’36 Ford coupe with an Olds V8 at the time. The rich dairy kids all had deuces with Corvette engines, so he experienced many losses doing the stoplight drags.
His stepfather had an interest in cars, he had a ’46 Lincoln Continental Convertible that he had installed a different engine; and Frank picked up the interest from him. He was in his 14, 15, 16 age at the time and the die was set.
In 1957-8 Frank attended JC for a couple of years taking Engineering Prep classes. He then joined up with the Navy Reserve Unit in Petaluma and attended the Electronics school on Treasure Island and served on an Aircraft Carrier for a couple of years. He was able to get an early out to return to college and bounced around from San Francisco State, to De Anza, to Foothill, gathering tons of credits but no degree.
It is a little hard to piece together the details, but it was during the college years that Joan became more of a factor in Frank’s life. They eventually married in 1962. In 1964 a daughter was born followed by a son 5 years later. Their daughter has 2 children and their son has 1 child.
Since the days of the ’36 Ford a long series of cars have passed through Rittiman ownership. It has been a pretty steady diet of ’57 Chevy’s with a ’32 Ford Coupe thrown in somewhere. They had a white ’57 Chevy Bel Air when they got married in Reno, Nevada, and over the years have had as many as 5 Chevy’s of ’57 vintage, including a Corvette. At one point Frank decided that he needed a convertible and a neighbor had 2 ‘57’s. He had to buy both of them and did a complete body off restoration on both. He sold one and still has the other. His cars have won nearly all of the Concourse shows he entered. This was the result of his detailed research and over the top devotion to originality and correctness of the restoration.
The last restoration project was the 1960 Series 62 Cadillac Convertible, which he still has, but says it is for sale. He thinks that he has pretty much finished the car restoration phase of his life having reached the burn out stage. Although, he has his eye on the ’67 RS Camaro in his daughter’s garage. It has been restored years ago and needs some TLC now. His 13-year-old grandson has dreams of driving this one, and that could bring him out of restoration retirement.
Frank has performed his restoration work in his 3-car garage doing all body off work right there, doing the painting in the driveway.
In 1960 he started working for Fairchild Semiconductor in San Rafael, California, and over the years has worked for Intel, Signetics, and almost every company in the Semiconductor field in Silicon Valley. He has performed in the Engineering, Marketing and Sales ends of the business. Now he and his daughter have their own business as Manufacturing Representatives for Power Supply companies, representing as many as 50 different suppliers.
Often the kids don’t have the same interest in cars as the parents, but not this time. Their daughter has had a series of cars like ’67 El Caminos, performing her own restoration projects in Dad’s garage. Frank and his son did a restoration job on a ’68 GTO Convertible that he drove during High School. Even though he had worked on it he still drove it hard and tried to beat it to death before moving on through a series of cars. He has now graduated to the off road Rubicon Trail rock crawler type vehicles a very serious competitive activity.
Joan spent her early working years with the Telephone Company in San Francisco. After her son reached 13 she went back to work at a small company down in Silicon Valley. When asked about her hobbies she hesitantly says she is a shopper, but she has a snicker when she says it that indicates she is withholding telling her favorite thing.
When you see Joan at a CHVA event you will also see Judy Lucchesi nearby. The reason is that they have been the closes of friends since the eighth grade; they go back 55 years and that is a lifetime. The Frank Rittiman’s and Frank Lucchesi’ are a fun loving foursome who have done a lot and continue to have a lot of fun. They are very typical CHVA’ers.
Frank says that he and Pete Coronato, Jim Sinclair, and several others who were refugees from the San Jose Classic Chevy Club, all joined CHVA what seems like about 40 years ago, probably more like 20 years. This is after Frank, who was a founder of the Chevy Club, and the others got tired of the politics and too many meetings which plague most car clubs. He has found that CHVA very nicely meets his car club needs.
Published in AAN January-February, 2008
