Customs What car first got you excited about customs or rods as a kid?

I can almost nail it down to a specific time and place, as well as vehicle!

Late 1963, I'm 15 years old, still at school and waiting at the dentist for a checkup. There's a pile of crappy looking magazines on the coffee table (isn't there always?) but poking out from under the pile is one I've never seen anything like before.

I pulles it out, and was instantly hooked!

The magazine is this one... October 63 Car Craft.
The car is the little blue T bucket in the yellow square on the front cover.

Cheers, Glen.

 

The town I grew up in used to cover the new models and undrape them at midnight. My brother and I heard Ford was bringing out a new model so we rode out bikes down there to wait for the unvailing. That was 1949 and I was six years old. If my mother ever knew that she would have kicked both our asses. About 1957 this kid from California comes rolling into town in a dropped , nosed and decked 1950 Ford. I avout wet myself.
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Like I told the kid, "Your music's not too loud, its just like OKC, it sucks!"

 

will sound strange but it was when I was a kid and my dad dragged home a rust bucket MGB GT, worked his ass off to bring that car back from the dead, my uncle even got third degree burns from the torch helping. Made me really appreciate what people put into these old cars to get them back on the road. Of course my other uncles T bucket helped too!!

 

I remember my Dad driving out to Vegas from L.A. in his 54 Dodge more door and telling me about this car. He said it has a Hemi in it son and two fours this baby rolls boy look at the speedo now son. I looked over and it was on 120 just bouncing the needle and smooth as glass. My Mom woke up and said what did you say, and my Dad said oh nothing dear just go back to sleep, we are talking guy stuff and he winked. Rags

 

Always loved my Dads 41 chevy coupe growing up. But it is a toss up between that and his 64 Corvette. I actually got to drive the vette in HS and that really got me hooked. Finally convinced dad to give me the 41 though.

 

For me it was my uncle's 40 Chevy coupe. I got to ride in the back jump seats when I was a kid. Wow what fun. After that all things with wheels on them.

 

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This is a photo of me (TJ ) in my dads 67 Chevelle. I have great memories of hanging around the garage when I was very young. My grandpas garage is where my dad and Uncle Tony worked on cars. I remember they were loud. I also remember seeing my uncle wash parts in gasoline. I loved that smell. Ahhh The birth of a Gas Rat!

 

We saw a brand new 1956 Chrysler 300 with 7 miles on it sitting on the showroom floor of a closed down dealership in Madrid New Mexico 1972. That car had an effect on me my brother and my dad. The guy offered to sell it to him for $1700. We had ten kids in the family and he could not afford it. I, to this day, feel bad for him not being able to get that car. I will build one in his honor. I may have to clone one but I will do it. White with cream leather and spoke wheels. Just like the one we dreamed about the rest of that summer......and occasionally still.

 

Hotwheels

 

I was into hot wheels then I went to a used comic book store with a friend and found a stack of little pages when I was 13. I hated comics but I spent all my $$$. After all these years I did a count of my little pages now over 500 and counting.

 

my family has been into rods and customs all my life. The one car that really lit the fire under my ass was my uncles flattie powered '34 ford 5 window. so many memories in that car.

 

millners yellow coupe from a/g

 

The Bozio Buick out of East Hartford, Ct in 1957

 

when i was a kid there was some older guy,s that hung at the candy store hank had the 53 su and built the 58 plym when it was new the 55 chevy i got when i was 15 and built it into a custom

 

Everything Roth built warped my mind.

 

The one car I always think about was a neighbor down the street in Detroit with a 55 Ford Crown Vic. Nothing really special about it, had the stock orange/white paint job but also had the Merc tailights,glasspacks & was lowered in the back. I can still picture it going down the street.

 

i will prob get clowned for saying it but im young, and jesse james black 54 chevy did it for me when i was in highschool. then i learned about others and i became really inspired by the iskenderian model T roadster.

 

Barris' Ala Kart was probably the first that really caught my eye, as I got the AMT Kit for Christmas one year, early sixties. Shortly thereafter I came to appreciate the older stuff such as the Niekamp roadster.

 

Years ago I had a picture-book from the '80/90s with a lot of custom cars in it. I wasn't into any style yet at the time.
Not many of them sparked my interest until I flipped the page and saw that low and sleek purple/white custom car pictured across a road. That car made a good impact and made me realise what a cool car looks like.
It was John d'Agostino's '56 "Royal Empress" Lincoln...

 

When i was 8 years old i saw the 37 Ford in my avatar . It was chopped with a Packard grille , maroon paint and a tail dragger. I finally bought that 37 in 1959 when i was 19 and had it ever since.

 

I remember when my older cousin was in high school and dated this guy who drove a tail dragger shoebox ford coupe. It was nosed and decked, had Buick side trim, full length lakes pipes, skirts, flipper wheel covers and dual exhaust. I thought that was the neatest car ever. My cousin graduated high school in the spring of '57... That fall I spied my first issue of Hot Rod magazine on the shelf at the local grocery. I've been a motorhead ever since...

 

Stories of my fathers 37 ford roadster from high school its been over 50 years since that car was on the street and my father is gone now too but all the local old school hot rod guys still talk about the car. my uncle also had a 40 coupe 312 powered supercharger blowing down three carbs on the street. He still drives the car regulerly since 1954.

 

Deora and Red Baron Hot Wheels, World of Wheels show in Tulsa around 1973?

 

on t.v. it was the Munster mobile,the MACH V and the James Dean merc.all kinds of hot wheels and my next door neighbors 70 charger.

I remember thinking ,what a great country.cool cars everywhere! hey,I was six years old when I came to the states.

 

Just about any ShoeBox Ford that was featured in the little books in the early 60's. I use to go to the local drug store and buy any new ones I didn't have and then go thru them over and over. Bought my first '50 Ford ($100.00) about that same time but did not have enough money to do much to it except drop it all the way to the ground, add white walls & olds spinners and have Earl Schibe (any car any color for $29.95) paint it icebox white and then I rattle can sprayed red and yellow flames. Looked pretty good for a high school flunky.
Later Ed Roth had some kool rods, but I still prefered kustoms, they got more girls than hot rods at least back then anyway.

 

A little yellow 34 Pickup called the "Huslin' Hobo"....I was probably 10. Turns out my father knew the guy who owned it in the late 60's. Sat outside for years after that then when I saw it was freshly redone... Always loved it.

 

The older neighbor down the street. He was a troublemaker & I guess- would fit the bill of a hoodlum here. I think I was around 10- back in the 50's, he was out of high school & living w/ his parents (dad built motors for race boats). All the neighbors saw him as trouble. A few times- he gave me a quick ride in his 32 3 window- cig hanging from his lip- Oly in hand. I never told my parents- I would have been in trouble. He had the typical look- cuffed jeans, boots, T shirt w/ a pack of Camels rolled up in the sleeve & that hair. All greased up & long for the day. I think I kinda idolized him & his car. It was loud, fast & painted shiny black. One day at school- I heard he was killed while driving his car. It had rolled & he was thrown out. I think it happened out of state like maybe Arizona. The tow company brought his totaled 3 windlw home to his parents house & dropped it in the driveway. It sat there for more than a year. It was very creepy seeing his car sitting in the driveway all that time.

 

+1 for Hot Wheels. Plus the Mad Max series of Movies.

As for actual cars, it'd have to be 50Fraud's long-gone, super chopped, super-low '67 Chevy shortbox with a 400SBC in it and 3"(?) straight pipes. I still want that truck!

 

My Dad's '39 Ford Coupe with a GMC 6-71 blown flathead in 1948. They in 1950, he had a roadster p/u with a flathead. After overheads came out, he quit working on cars.

 

One of my dad's best friends Blain Pfeffer had a 1937 Ford coupe that he built when he was 16. All gloss black, perfect stance. I have always remembered loving this car more than any other. His son was my age and we were good friends growing up...I remember riding in that 37 with my buddy and his dad, squeezed three in the bench seat, 6 hours down to Indy for the Goodguys show when I was probably around 10...loving every minute of it. Blain still has that car, has since built many others, and is still building. He has always been my hero...in 3rd grade we had to write a paper about our personal heros and mine was about him. He also built one of the most badass deuce coupes I've ever seen...cream with purple scallops, with a lime green pinstripe separating them. Sounds weird but it really works. I wish I had some photos to share. Anyone know Blain or his cars? He lives in Racine, WI.