Taking Time To Play

This 72-year-old retiree is enjoying life in the fast lane. Selling A&B Welding in May 2015, Arlin Kiel has been taking time to play.

“After 46 years in the welding business, providing general contracting services in the liquid fertilizer and chemical construction industry, we thought it was time for a change,” he said. “When I left, we had 55 employees and had completed work in 14 states. I was blessed with really great employees and a lot was accomplished, but it was time for a change. I’m going to play hard as long as I can.”

Arlin and his wife Betty moved from Thompson, IA to Spirit Lake 12 years ago. They built a house along the lake and Arlin began crafting a home for his toys. From the front, the shed is deceiving at what hides within.

The first car Arlin collected was a 1982 light blue Corvette. “I always really liked the look of the car,” he shared.

Then he had to get a 1957 Chevy because that’s what he drove back in the day.

In the past 20 years, Arlin has collected close to 32 vehicles, ranging from a 1925 Chevrolet Superior Landau Coupe to a 2022 C8R Corvette. His favorite cars are his Vipers.

The cars are showcased in a shop he built over the course of three years. With his welding background, he welded steel gates and crafted electric hydraulic lifts that easily move a vehicle along the two-level storage space.

“I’ve been welding as long as I can remember. My dad taught me on the farm, and after high school, I gained mechanical drafting experience in Sheldon. I was then the shop foreman at Honey Bee in Everly, and Betty and I started A&B Welding in 1979 in Hartley,” he shared.

Arlin really enjoys collecting cars, but he equally enjoys working on them – and then racing them. He has a list of races he visits throughout the year, with his favorite being the track in Hastings. However, he really enjoys Brainard, MN but has raced at NASCAR tracks in Las Vegas, Charlotte, and Detroit. Before a race, Arlin spends considerable time tuning up the vehicle, whether it is mounting tires, checking wheel alignment, adding radios or completing any repairs.

“It usually takes me a whole day to get a car ready, which right now I’m working on the Ford Mustang,” he said. “We will be racing that in Hastings, Sept. 9-17.”

Arlin does all his own repair work on his vehicles. His son Chad and him have also rebuilt cars and fixed engines and vehicles after a race.

“Each car is special, whether it’s Chad’s 1967 Mustang he rebuilt or my wife Betty’s 2009 Dodge Viper, we finished right before she passed away seven years ago.” he shared. “I finished it five days before and she got to see it. When we drive that, we are reminded of ‘My Angel Riding with me.’”

Special Cars
Arlin fell in love with Vipers twenty years ago. His wife and him were staying in Las Vegas and enjoying their hotel. Suddenly, Arlin heard a loud noise and more following it, as cars came racing down the nearby parking ramp.

“I told her, ‘Hurry! We need to go down there and look at those cars!’” he remembered. “I had never seen a Viper before.”

They raced down to the road and one of the cars had broken down on the side of the road. He was able to get a good look at the car and that’s when he fell in love with how the Viper was put together.

“I told Betty that my dream was to have one of those cars someday,” he said. “We didn’t know there was a Viper Convention going on, so that’s why all the cars were in town. But in 2001, three years later, we purchased our first Viper.”

Arlin owns one of the first Vipers created, a 1992 red car with 8,000 miles on it. Nearby is one of the last Vipers built, a 2017 Dodge Viper.

“It’s really neat to look at them side by side, as you can see how much changed over the course of time.” he added. “I was really impressed when I was able to meet the Viper Engineers and hear the back story of how the cars were built.”

Besides loving how the Dodge Viper races, Arlin enjoys taking Viper parts and welding or building tables, chairs, and lamps. He uses items like engines, cranks, pistons, hub caps, and tires to create furniture for family and friends.

“One of the $10,000 cranks we had just put in, the pump went out and blew the crank. It turned the normally silver crank to black, as oil backed into the crank,” Arlin shared. “So that crank became a part of a table!”

Arlin also enjoys his 2006 lime green Lamborghini. “It’s crazy wild to drive,” he said. “We had some pictures taken of it in Minneapolis that are really neat.”

Another favorite car is the Ariel Atom 3, which is one of 40 cars built. In 2014, he went to the factory in Kentucky and ordered one special for his collection.

He also has fun with a formula Mazda Car, which is similar to one he learned how to race with at Racing School in Phoenix, AZ. Arlin was one of 40 racers, who learned racing techniques with Vipers, skid plates, and stop and go experiences on road courses.

“It was a really neat experience and I really liked how the racing car drove, so I found one like we trained with,” he shared.