Those high standards Boyd set for himself and the cars he produced led to lots of magazine coverage, which led to enough fame that wealthy customers from other states made the pilgrimage to Boyd's for a car that often made a statement akin to a one-off fine watch or Tiffany jewelry. Some of those cars, like Vern Luce's so-red '33 coupe and Jamie Musselman's roadster became touring hits in the show circuit, further spreading the appreciation of "the Coddington touch" among an ever-widening audience. The popularity of that sought-after special red so identified with Boyd's cars prompted Dupont to offer "Boyd Red" as a production paint.

In an area of the automotive world where stance is considered critical, the Boyd hot rods sat exactly right and were thankfully free of the loud paint "graphics" that were popular down the sides of otherwise tasteful street rods in the Eighties. At almost any previous decade in street rodding since the Forties, an early Ford car with perfect metalwork, the right wheels and a fine paint job was anyone's dream and probably a show-winner. Boyd and others who followed his new aesthetic carried this much further, personalizing each car to be different without being odd. The flawless metalwork and paint would be a given, but when Boyd saw a line in the body that didn't suit his overall vision, that line was changed, not like adding an appendage such a fin as customizers might have done in the Fifties, but by adding, removing or reshaping the metal. Changing the contours subtly does not cause a viewer to even notice the change, only that the overall vehicle has something special about it. Many, many hours, weeks and months of expert work go into these kinds of redesigns.

In today's hot rod and custom-car world, there are designers and builders, but Boyd Coddington has always been one of those men who smoothly merged both these specialties plus other talents. Lots of people know how to use machine-shop tools, but rarely does someone whittling hot rod parts out on a Bridgeport have enough "eye" while the machine is running to say "Just another 90-thou from here and this edge will taper just right."

Besides his own prodigious talents, Boyd has worked on special projects with some of the top designers in the automotive aftermarket. Chip Foose and Jessie James both worked in the Boyd Coddington hot rod shop for several years and now each have their own cable TV shows. Other well-known designers such as Thom Taylor, Larry Wood (Hot Wheels designer), Todd Emmons, Chris Ito (International) and Eric Brockmeyer happily collaborated with Boyd as well. Larry Erickson, currently with Ford Motor Company (Chief Designer, Mustang), worked with Boyd in the late Eighties to develop the enormously popular Cadzzilla, a radical custom based on a Fifties Cadillac for Rocker Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. Some would say that this is one of the finest custom-cars of all time in design and execution. Boyd's cars have won the prestigious "America's Most Beautiful Roadster" an unprecedented seven times, the Daimler-Chrysler Design Excellence Award twice, and he's been inducted into the SEMA Hall of Fame, the Grand National Roadster Show Hall of Fame, the National Rod & Custom Museum Hall of Fame, the Route 66 Wall of Fame, the Street Rod Marketing Alliance Hall of Fame, and was voted "Man of the Year" in 1988 by Hot Rod Magazine.

An unusual honor for Boyd was to have the only hot rod displayed at the Smithsonian Institution, when his '33 coupe was part of a 1993 exhibit titled "Sculpture on Wheels." Cars from the Coddington shop have also won the Ridler Award and the Al Slonaker Award.