I love the look of these cars in white primer as well but you know the owners were doing everything in their power to get these cars into shiney paint as quickly as they could. No one wanted to drive a primered car.
Wow...this tread is pretty cool! I'm thinking my 47 is gonna get an axe taken to it. Keep the pics a coming!
By the looks of this picture Jerry wasn't in too big of a rush now was he.They reworked the grill mounted the spots had the stainless in the shop getting polished etc. He knew it would be driven like this for a while and by the looks of those trophies the judges didnt mind it too much.
I agree that the ultimate goal on all these guys in the 40's and 50's was to paint their rides in one gorgeous super straight mile deep paint job. But those cost money. So they would drive their car in primer for some time, so they could save up the money to have it painted. Another thing they said about driving the cars in primer for some time was to be able to fix the bugs in the built and not having to worry about screwing up the paint to so so. But never did I read that the primered car was the end product. Only that they drove it for some time in primer before they finally settled on a color and had the car finished with some beautiful paint People like Gil Ayala loved to mix paint and paint cars in exclusive colors. George Barris and others at his shop where the same way.
Well I agree with you on a lot of that Rik,paint was what they wanted at the end.But.... you take a car like Jerry's and look at the results he was getting in that white primer also dont forget he was featured in a nationwide magazine in this white primer.Im not talkin about a car magazine,im talkin about a mag that all the people see,even people who dont care about cars and that is Popular Science.So this car was known and it was a hit.Now im not saying he was never planning on doing final paint,im just saying there was some work done to this car because they knew it was going to be shown and drivin around like this. So to call a car not finished because the paint dont shine is wrong to me.I know a lot of people who prefer this car in the white primer rather then the purple paint.Another thing to think about is there are no photos of Jerrys car at a show while it was in purple paint,I wonder why? Like I said earlier,I doubt Jerrys awards were under construction awards.
While looking for photos of the 46-48 Ford it got me thinking of Jim Walker's cars. Some of them were published in American Rodder in the early 80's. That article brought me a lot of inspiration. The 36 may be a little bit earlier in style, looking like a pre-war kustom. Both the 36 and the 40 Looks perfect to me...
I just noticed this thread; guess I've been napping. I have never built my cars to be absolutely "period correct", 'cause if I like a later component better and it doesn't seem to compromise the car's aesthetics, I'll use it. However, my '36 came pretty close to fitting the thread's criteria when it was in its taildragger phase. Some nits can be picked: if it had really been done in '51, it might have been higher in front, more radically chopped, and would have had wider WWs. And, there are lots of anachronistic mechanical details. Just call me irresponsible, I guess.
This is the car I was referring to in my post several pages back! I have always loved this car. And while I also like the more severely chopped (Calori/Pierson/Fisher) 36's, I think the chop on this one is perfect. Thanks for posting pictures...you did a great job with this one. You don't still own this car, do you? The two Jim Walker cars are right on, too. Didn't he also own a nice carson-topped shoebox? I thought so, but it's been years since I've seen photos of it (if I'm thinking of the same guy).
Come on Jeff now your stretching it. You know as well as anyone that not one of these cars were left in primer back then which meant they were not done until they were painted. Yes it took some time due to funds or needing to drive the car because it was a daily but the end goal for everyone of these kids was to have a shiney car period.
In my research for the History of the Custom display i have had the pleasure to speak with Johnny Zaro, Jesse Lopez, Bill De Carr, Jack Stewart, Jerry Quesnel, and yes, George Barris - most of them did tell me that there was an era when white primer was a fad. Seemed like the next best thing to shiny paint. This fad seems to of been from around 46' - to 54' .
I have no doubt that when in primer white was the "in" thing to do. But you cannot tell me that even when in primer that the end goal for all these guys was not shiney paint and they did not consider their cars done until they were painted.
Well the judges must of thought they were done enough by the looks in that picture.Nobody is saying that there final goal wasnt paint but if they were showing their cars in white then it was a certain stage of being finished.Im not saying that they considered there cars to be 100% finished but there was a point in time when the car was finished enough to show it.Look at it any way you want to but just for the record mercedes is now selling 100 thousand dollar unfinished cars.
Lets see if we can come up with 5 chopped cars built before 1952 that were "finished" in suede and never painted. If you cant, J.B. is gonna give a dead line then throw ya off the thread ! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Again for most of these guys it was their only car so they had no choice but to drive them unfinished until they had the funds to finish them. My original point was that shiney paint was more important to a car being condidered done than stuff like engine mods, interiors etc. hence pictures like Jackie Stewarts car at a show painted with cardboard in the windows so judges couldn't see that it had no interior. The look of a custom is what it is all about and to that end shiney paint was an essential part of that look regardless if guys ran and showed cars before they got painted. And to bring up 2011 model Mercedes in a converstaion about '48-'52 styles customs is nothing short of ridiculous all it shows is that running suede paint as a finished paint job is a current fad.
A "fad" in '46-'54 on a custom could have been three or four cars. Total. Doing something completely different than everyone else at the time is nothing new. Trial and error. That is precisely how hotrods and customs have always evolved. Trends are either accepted, become popular, and grow, or they die out as quickly as they pop up. Shiny has always been popular....
Well, fellers.... I have just one question today before I hit the gin and tonic at the bar. We have heard that white primer (not just any primer color) was popular by a few for a short while by some guys before finished paint. Not any big deal, but... where are the white primer modern built pre-53 period style kustoms? Cheers!
LOL sorry to have derailed your thread so much. Although it doesn't completely fall into the guidelines of this thread the last time I saw Rusk's Chevy it was in white primer. Now off to the Bar
I wouldn't post it here in this stage, but since it's already been mentioned and since you asked,,, The grille I'm working on is from a '51 and I have a set of Sombreros hanging on my wall... And from my experience over the past year, white primer SUCKS!! Some say it hides flaws...maybe in pictures, but in person, it's like a HIGHLIGHTER. But that's a good thing, it's keeping me motivated to fix all that little stuff. Another one I think comes very close to meeting the criteria...this beautiful Buick from Australia... Bring the nose up a few inches and it's a knockout! Cheers.
50Fraud - your 36 rules. I love everything about that car, right down to the Hudson tail lights. Beautiful. BUT, I noticed you mentioned "when it was in it's taildragger phase"...I take it the car looks different now?
Thanks, guys. By the time I started driving as a teenager in SoCal (1956) the taildragger style was ancient history, so I had never driven a car like this. I drove my '36 as a hot rod for several years, but got the urge to try a Calori-style stance on it around '03. I drove it as a taildragger for a year, but I always felt like an imposter driving somebody else's car. The car registered its opinion by throwing off the left skirt and running over it, so I took them off, raised the rear a few inches, and put big tires back on. It looked like this when I sold it in '06: It changed hands twice, and the current owner "fixed it up" to look like this: Selling a car that you care about is a crapshoot.
That is precisely my perspective. I don't think there is anyone building a custom who wanted their car in suede as the final look. Myself included. I want mine shiny and smooth, the lines cleaned up. Elegant comes to mind in the style, simple and subtle, but elegant.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH....!!!!!!!! I had no idea that was your once so gorgeous Donn Lowe Chopped car.... What a SHAME!!!!! Some people have no respect or taste!!!
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