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Metalworking has deep roots in Norwood Wooding’s family. His grandfather worked as a blacksmith, and his father was a body-and-fender man both in a Ford dealership and in his own shop. Born in 1951 in Covington, Wooding began helping his father at the age of six by sanding car bodies. At ten years old he was painting bicycles. As a teenager Wooding went to work full-time alongside his father at the auto dealership, and he took on additional projects at night. In 1975 Wooding moved his family to Roanoke, and ten years later he opened Wooding Body Shop.

Norwood Wooding inherited not only his family’s affinity for metalwork but also a family interest in hot rods. William “Slick” Wooding, Norwood’s father, built several hot rods and street rods for himself and other customers, and Norwood continues in that tradition. Today, Southwest Virginia’s custom car builders know Wooding’s shop for its first-class painting.

Norwood Wooding has probably built more “high dollar” cars than any other hot rod builder in the region. He gets satisfaction in completing a vehicle, selling it, and moving on to a new building project. Wooding buys most of his parts rather than search for them in junkyards. His 1932 Ford hot rod roadster was “Street Rod of the Year” in Hot Rod Magazine in 1993, and his 1937 Ford truck was selected as one of the top ten street rods of 2002 for Street Rodder Magazine’s television program.