Does anone have current pics of the the car now??The car was a chopped shoebox built by the Clarkaiser shop.It had the best 1/4 windows ever on a coupe under the worst roofline I have ever seen.AWESOME CAR!!!Any current pics???On Rikster site it looks like some Floridian "restored it and "fixed the roof with another back half and the car lost its fucking identity!
Most famous cars from T-town were the Father Larry Ernst chevy and his later 53 or so ford shown under the name Grant Macklin.A guy from Brooklyn Mich had a Clark Kaiser car,he did a show on public T.V. where he filmed local shows ,had a bear named "Iggy" can't remember his name,always gave out silver "bullit" awards to cars he deemed worthy.I'd like to see this "Torpedo" car,any links?
Well I must say,I checked Riksters and the new roof looks very good but the original look is still lost.
Is this the one you're talking about? It does have a pretty funky roofline above the rear window. Whenever I hear 'Clarkaiser' and 'Shoebox' in the same sentence I always think of the "Utopia"...One of my all time favorite customs. Someone should find it and restore it to its former glory...when it looked like this:
if that top picture (the one with the exhaust on the side) is the car,,,it was just on ebay a few weeks ago
it doesn't look any worse than about 90% of the chops you see lately! as we all know, compromises often have to be made when working around a fixed dimension like tempered glass. current availability of laminated rear glass should make such compromises unnecessary, but few guys seem to want to drop several hundred dollars on new rear glass. to me, the right chop proportions are priceless. it looks like he brought the beltline forward as the top came down, similar to the way Sam F recently chopped his 51 chevy, i did the same thing on my chevy, but chopped the rear window as well. most guys just lay the rear window down until it all more or less flows, but i don't care for the odd shaped c pillars and the way the bottom of the rear window and beltline are not parallel when this is done.
I've alway thought the long and low 51 merc was the ultimate custom. and I want to build one now that I can trim a little off the bottom corners of the back glass. they really lose the look with a smaller 49-50 backglass...Jim
That shoebox with the crazy exhaust is restored and about a mile from my house.It looks great.Originally the John Cassaubon car,it was Olds powered.Check the August 1958 Hot Rod for the article.The guy who has it now bought it at an auction at one of those storage garage places you rent by the month.A friend of mine reworked some of the body,around the top rear if I remember correctly.The other car is the Tom Lietchy car,a garish pink color now.I saw it at a Terry Cook thing in Dearborn about a million years ago.His wifes Pontiac is cool though.
Your friend who reworked the body has a damn good taste in how a chopped shoebox roof should look but I would have kept the bad roof like for history reasons.
I beleive that Utopia was at the Leadsled Spectacular in Holland Mich a number of years ago.I think it was in '90.It had jewled tires.In fact,it was parked next to the Earnst Chevy.
Was it a historically significant car, or was it just a car that someone built back in the day and didn't get it right? Not every car was well-done back then. Just because someone hot rodded or customized a car 50 years ago doesn't mean it's un-touchable. Yeah, we'd all like to preserve the history, but why preserve something that was poorly done? Keeping everything else the same but removing the pimple on its ass is hardly "destroying its history." -Brad
Clarkaiser Shop? Yeah, Its signifigant. Back halfing the whole roof aint removing a pimple on its ass.
You even said it was the worst roof line you've ever seen. Perhaps "carbuncle on it's ass" would have been a more appropriate description then? -Brad
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