Arthur Stuart Cassel

Art was a lot of things, not least of all a Dad. He was the kind of Dad that you could call at any time, for anything and he would, without hesitation, jump to whatever you needed, big or small. Art worked the graveyard shift, made a long commute, and worked in a freezer every day for 31 years to make sure his wife of 59 years, Toni, could be home and raise their three daughters, Teri, Tracy, and Jenny.

In his retirement, he started a very successful hot rod custom car part business that began with an initial $50 investment and allowed him to make an impact in the car world. He put so much care into the quality of the parts he sold that thousands of hot rods have been able to stay on the road and he helped so many other enthusiasts realize their dreams. One of his own lifelong goals was to build a proper hot rod and in 2018 he finally was able to complete his 1928 Dodge pickup thanks to his car part resale and restoration business and the connections he made with local businesses along the way. His knowledge in the hot-rodding community spanned several decades of performance parts. Together with the friends he made while operating his eBay business, he was able to better understand the history and application of each part better than most would be able to. He consulted frequently with people around the world and built setups for their hot rods using parts that he restored. He could recognize that a niche part was incredibly rare and worth restoring while sifting through swap-meets that he traveled up and down the West Coast to find. Art was uniquely passionate about election integrity and politics and ran for both Congress and the Riverside County Board of Supervisors. He spent many elections at the Registrar of Voters office as an observer because he believed that elections were meaningful events and that the people’s vote mattered.

He was a badass in every sense of the word. He had a heart attack and drove himself to the hospital. He had a stroke and made a full recovery aided only by a pastrami sandwich. Things rolled off his back and he lived life in every single way that he wanted to. Art was the master of dad jokes long before “dad jokes” were a thing. Did he get a haircut? No, he got them all cut! He was a gourmand, making his patented pasta a la dad, a pasta shell dish smothered in cottage cheese and oregano that is legendary and still eaten to this day. He loved to sit and talk about the universe and think about big questions, contemplating big answers. He loved classic rock ‘n roll and spent plenty of time playing his guitar and singing along with his favorites, Elvis, The Rolling Stones, and Chuck Berry. He was an artist, he drew skateboarding dinosaurs with the skill of a 5-year-old renaissance master. His soft shoe was unparalleled and his Donald Duck impression would put a professional voice actor to shame. He had the unique distinction of being able to say that he was the voice of Casper the Friendly Ghost and was in many movies and T.V. shows as a child actor.

As a father of three daughters he never once made them feel like he wished he had a son, allowing them to paint his nails or give him questionable hairstyles with no hesitation. He adored his four grandchildren, Jack, Genevieve, Nick, and Ares and recently became a first-time great-grandfather to Llewelyn and loved them all very much. His adventurous nature made an indelible impact on the people he met along the way, family and friends, that will not be forgotten. As his youngest grandson put it “Grandpa has done everything; he’s been bitten by a gopher, stung by a tarantula hawk, and attacked by black widows.” Art had done it all. He was significant, he was sincere and he will be missed immensely.