There was a time in Kansas City when a strange and spectacular vehicle rolling down the street often meant Joe Pace was behind the wheel.
Maybe it was a stainless-steel DeLorean rigged with cables, tubes and blinking lights, belching fog like the time machine from “Back to the Future.” Or a long white 1959 Cadillac ambulance with a roof rack full of ghost-hunting gear, like the Ecto-1 from “Ghostbusters.” Or a 1935 Oldsmobile hearse with Freddy Krueger climbing out the back.
Pace, who died March 1 at 77, was a true Kansas City original — a self-described “poor kid from the Northeast” who turned a lifelong obsession with cars into a side hustle building movie car replicas. Stocky, with long white hair, Pace would drive his custom creations around town and across the country for movie studio promotions, car shows, parties and weddings…