History What were the original kustom owners like? Anyone know?

This question pops into my head every time I flip through one of my kustom car books and see photos of really young guys standing next to their Barris- and Bailon-built kustoms. What were these guys like? Were they sons of well-off parents who gave them as much money as they wanted? Or did they work part time jobs and save every penny for their dream ride? Were they the "cool" guys at their schools? Or hoods? (Not the builders, the owners who hired the pro builders.)

I know some of them have Wikipedia pages and such, but I am looking for info beyond residence, occupation, and age. If anyone has any insight on this, I would love to hear it. (Not just random guesses.)

The only two I know much about are Larry Ernst (rich family, priest) and a guy my dad worked with in the late 1950s who saved his full-time wages for a year, drove a Ford from Ohio to California to have it customized by one of the name builders, and then took it back to his hometown in West Virginia to find a wife. (By Dad's account the car and the wife were stunning, although the wife was very young.)
I am mainly curious about the early and mid-'50s kustom owners who had their cars professionally built. They weren't hillbillies looking to snare some jailbait. So...who were they?

 

Original thinkers. Not willing to accept the mundane. Ego driven? Perhaps, but thinkers outside of the proverbial "box".

 

Post war, you are talking Jerry Quesnel to Larry Ernst and everyone in between. Curious to hear some stories from folks who knew them.

 

I was lucky to grow up around the original owner/builder of Taboo due to him becoming good friends my grandfather when he sold him the car back in the early 90s. Ron Luchs wasn't from a rich family. They had a farm in Beaverton, Oregon and he spend most of his time working on the farm. He was able to buy Taboo as a used car, (The car from 56-57 was a cop car) with the help of his dad co-signing for the car. Ron's name doesn't even appear on the sale receipt from the dealer. Ron worked and saved his money from the farm work to pay Verns Body Shop to start customizing the car. Ron would also help at the shop to help save a little money. Ron was also just a hard working guy doing various odd jobs all his life to pay for things on top of his main job. The reason for building the car was mainly that's just what you did at a 17-21 year old in Beaverton, you either built a hot rod or you customized you car. Although Ron did get into a "mod" war with Ron Hing who had a 56 Chev drop top that was also heavily customized. They started going back and forth one upping each other.

 

That is a cool story, and very relatable.
Anybody else?

Sent from my SM-G950U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

They were NOT original thinkers! The builders were, but the owners were often totally out of the process. Hirohata and Ernst both handed over new or nearly-new cars to Barris and basically said "do whatever you want." Ernst just said keep the conti kit and Hirohata looked at a seriously rough drawing on a napkin and said "sure, go for it."
Exactly like someone today buying a new or almost new Camaro or Chrysler 300 and taking it to Chip Foose and saying "make my car bitchen like you did for my buddy!"

Sent from my SM-G950U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Here is another thing I am curious about: ethnicity. A lot of the California owners are Japanese-American or Latino. Any idea why?

Is it possible that kustom cars were a way for working class or lower-middle class guys to "out do" richer kids who could just buy a new Olds or Caddy convertible?
I know that's what I did in high school in 1983 ('54 Pontiac plus elbow grease plus some horse trading = car that outshone the newish Trans Am/Camaro kids for about $600 total investment) but that was Ohio in 1983, not California in 1953.
I don't know if that dynamic was at play then and there?

Sent from my SM-G950U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Being born and raised in Ohio, Im glad to hear you found a usable '54 Pontiac thirty years after it was made. Here is a bump, hoping for some stories.

 

I totally agree with many of the comments in regards to many of the guys taking almost new cars in to be customized in the fifties. We now look at them as old cars now but in theory they were new back then. Not to say that is was always the case. I'm finding going to car shows now there seems to be a lot of guys there which I refer to as just "buying a key". I recently took my everyday car in for my free oil change and saw someone had brought in a model A coupe street rod to have the oil changed at the dealer ship. It seems to be a high dollar game being played out at many of the shows I go to in recent years. I believe this is what seemed to have led to the building of rat rods. It almost is a backlash to these big buck cars that are everywhere now. Although funny thing the money to build one of these so called lo buck rat rods is catching up or surpassing the coin to build any other car. Just my observation.

 

It was mint! Sat in storage from 1970 until I bought it at an auction for $600 in 1983. People I went to high school with STILL talk about it. (Disclaimer: it was a 4 door. But no one cared because no one else had anything remotely lije it.)

Back to the topic...

 

That is sort of my point. These guys weren't preserving a tradition or keeping the past alive, they were making ordinary everyday cars into something sleek an mysterious and very modern. So I take it for granted they weren't like most HAMBsters today.
I know we can't read their minds. I just would like to have some idea where the whole kustoms thing fit in back then.

 

You make an excellent point in the question as to what was actually considered customizing and what defined it. I thought the whole idea of hot rods back then was to strip off as much as you could, put a bigger faster motor in it but where the custom paints and chroming everything made many of these cars rolling pieces of art. And with that being said, that's about all that many of these old famous customs did was roll. In and off a trailer. There was something else I always wondered about. Back in the fifties I'm sure many from the generation that came before them fresh out of a war considered putting that kind of money into a custom car would have been huge waste of money. I remember my grandfather giving it to my uncle in the sixties for putting too much into his motorcycles.

 

I don't think we can make a one-description-fits-all for the "back then" owners. I remember being a high school kid, sitting in study hall, daydreaming, doodling, sketching custom car ideas I couldn't yet afford. There wasn't an overabundance of custom action in my town but we had these magazines to keep the fires stoked to a high heat. Well, maybe there's one phrase that describes those custom owners..... the desire to personalize and make a car uniquely their own. They wanted something that stood above or apart from the herd. There were way more examples of shaved door handles and shaved emblems finished over a weekend than there were major show cars, though, so it's worth making note of them. But there was plenty of personal pride to go around. It was probably mostly younger guys, with first or second cars, who hadn't yet succumbed to the daily grind of keeping a roof over the family. Of course, there were always exceptions and even a few people who could make a living at what others only played at.

 

I think if you go back to the pre-war customizing and very early post war, I think the main common thread was taking the basic entry level Ford, Chevy, etc... and make them more like a high end coach built car. To make it look like a much more expensive car. The popularity of running Caddy sombrero's and adding the caddy grille to a 46-48 ford lead to that thinking.

 

That is what I always assumed. The early kustoms mostly have a really high-end coachbuilt look to them and the Barris brothers basically made knockoffs of them, at least until around 1950 or so.
I teach sociology, which means wondering about stuff like this is sort of my job, but it also means I know better than to just guess.
Having said that, can we agree that there is probably a difference between the guys who wanted a car like the Matranga Mercury or Sam Barris's first Mercury coupe vs. the Bailon cars, Watson cars, and Barris stuff from around 1952 on up? I am guessing (!) the earlier guys were upgrading and the later guys were aiming for flashy?

Sent from my SM-G950U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

I would agree, since the big shift in styling was the mid 50's. From there you can see the customs getting more elaborate. I think a reason for this was winning car shows became just as competitive as winning a drag race. So you had to continually push the custom work to stay competitive. That's why a lot of the old customs kind of had a flash in the pan for their popularity originally. Just like a drag car, it was the winner today but obsolete the next day. That's how a lot of cars got junked or cast off. I would go to say that you could compare the craziness of the custom work of the early to mid 60's before the muscle cars and lowriders somewhat killed the hot rodding and custom movements, to the modern age with the guys my age building the "stanced" tuners, or going back to the early 2000's when the tuner cars were full of wild mods and paintwork.

 

Indeed. It's something a lot of people miss. The "traditional" thing is all about an iconography which developed out of a context in which the iconography was conspicuously absent. The early customizers didn't have a whole elaborated cultural construction of what "kustom" was: they were busy setting it up, and I don't think they were consciously trying to establish a cultural phenomenon. They were trying to build cool cars in terms of what inspired them, and I keep insisting that that was things outside – sometimes far outside – the boundaries of what we understand as "kustom" now. What the OEMs were doing was part of it, but I think more than we'd think comes from the established coachbuilders of the pre-WWII era, both in North America and Europe. If you want to understand (early) Barris you have to understand Binder, Barker, and Bohman & Schwartz.

I think I read somewhere that the current association of custom-car owners with early rock and roll is at least partly unhistorical. Apparently classical jazz was bigger in that culture. I'm not sure how true that is.

 

Good concept Ned. I spotted that a long time ago. So how to back that up?

Lincoln Continental; Chopped, channeled, sectioned, stretched (on the existing wheelbase).
Packard Darrin; Sectioned, cut down doors, custom-fabbed cowl (cast aluminum).

Postwar we end up with Westergaard (sp?), Barris bros, Neal Emory and the like drawing inspiration from those above and more. The idea of a hot rod thrown in the mix helped it morph into different layers. One could conclude that they wanted "coachbuilt" too, but the source was different and motivated with a little different seasoning of ego and maybe a wee bit of avarice. I'm working with a guy who's 81, had a custom 49 Ford conv in his hayday. I'm going to talk to him about it some, but I'll add in advance that it was also fast. Had a dual quad Caddy in place of it's original 6.

 

Hey SW,
Back in the early 50s, there were very few custom cars used as daily drivers. The ones we saw seemed like they only came out at night for parking in the local drive in restaurants. In the daytime, they were no where to be found, except for this Tahitian Red, chopped, 56 Ford pick up truck owned by a businessman. That chopped truck was seen by everyone as he parked it in front of his business on the main drag of our Westside Long Beach neighborhood.

Later on in high school 1959-62, all of our friends drew customs and hot rods on their Pee Chee notebooks and drawing pads in English, History and Gov't. as well as study hall. There were more cars drawn since the topics were perfect for daydreaming. As far as our own cars? They were mostly hot rods, with some very mild customizing done to each. The radically, modified cars we only saw at the local car shows. We were all from working class families and customizing was not practical for daily use to high school and jobs.

Every time someone decided to get tuck and roll upholstery, put in a new grille or do some other jobs, the car stayed in the garage until it was done. That made the daily drives to high school, football games, dances, parties virtually non existent. The "show customizing" took too long and the car was stationary for that time until completed.

Jnaki
When we saw Mox Miller's custom 58 Impala at the shows, then in person, we always wondered why we did not see it around the local hot spots...Well, it was a fabulous custom car with tons of hours of work and modifications. Ours were daily drivers and not show quality cars, although we always thought our cars were very neat/clean and worthy of car show displays. But, not like that cool, scalloped, custom 58 Impala.

Overall, when talking to those custom car fanatics at drive ins and local car shows, they were always nice in explaining how they did their customizing. They were probably building future "customizers" or future custom car jobs.

 

You've referenced California more than once, so I'll reluctantly chime in....
Since you're a sociologist, you understand that context is vitally important.
As a direct result of WWII, millions of Americans "discovered" California for the first time. San Francisco, Long Beach (LA), and San Diego were seaports where most GI's returning from the Pacific Theater, were dumped. Many stayed on after the war and others returned to settle in the state. The war effort was now over, so everything that people went without for several years was now in great demand, and jobs were plentiful here to get those products back into the hands of consumers. When an area suddenly has a disproportionate amount of young, skilled, employed, single men, a smart guy is gonna figure out pretty quickly on how to "out do" others in order to attract the opposite sex. With most cars of that era resembling each other, customizing your car to set yourself apart from the competition, emerged as a pretty simple solution .... Want it done quickly? Take it to Barris, Ayala, Bailon, etc.
I believe the context of that time in history is important to start the discussion, and answer your questions. I'll leave it that.

 

I imagine they were much the same as most of us. Some nice guys and some assholes. The people who built custom cars then are much the same as the guys who build them now. Many build them for someone who supplies the money. To get customers willing to throw money at them, they had to win some awards. Many of those vehicles were built to look good but not to last a long time or even be driven other than in and out of trailers or the occasional parade. Many had very thick coats of body putty which started to crack with age so the vehicles were no longer show worthy.

 

Keep this motto in mind "I'll buy one of your dowdy apple crates but I'll make a real automobile out of it"

From the 30s depression on car excitement was at a low ebb. Reliable, economical transportation is what the public wanted and what the car companies gave them. The Stutz Bearcat , the custom built car were long gone.

Then WW2 came along and stopped new car sales for almost 5 years. The car shortage did not ease until early 1949.

In the post war period a lot of young men had money in their pocket because they had recently left the armed forces and got good jobs or because they worked in industry during the war with good wages and plenty of overtime.

When they got the chance they bought the best car they could, usually a prewar used car because that was what was available. Then started hopping it up or customizing the body. Sometimes both.

Not everyone did this, just a few guys. They mostly seem to be second or third generation Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese etc. with good jobs but unmarried and often living at home. This is why they had money to spend on their cars. A few came from well off families but mostly they were regular guys who had few responsibilities and poured most of their income into their cars. Some took a 2nd or 3d job, or worked part time at a body shop or garage to afford a better car.

In California the economy was booming and the cost of living and taxes were low. If you wanted a custom car or hot rod there were plenty of speed shops and body shops ready to accommodate you.

When you read about the customs of the late forties and early fifties they were often the owner's main transportation. Usually the only car they owned. Bob Hirohata drove his iconic Mercury every day for years, replacing the engine with a Cadillac V8 when it got tired and finally trading the car to a used car lot after 5 or 6 years.

 

Ha,I didn't know any rich kids!,in the mid 1950s,I only know other kids like me,running a paperrout an turning in empty bottles,odd jobs. Later did pin striping an airbrushed Wild-Ts. To buy Rod n Custom,Car Craft,Hot Rod mag.s Never gave any thought to richguys. I just draged home as many free junked parts from junked cars that looked like I could use! By 1959,I had put together a running hot rod 28A,an by end of the next year I was woking on my Henry J,an that was in Car Craft mag Jan 63 as a winning full custom ! Worked part time in a body shop too get it painted,that was the pay. Sorry,just don't know richguys. You could say,rich is maybe what you know, how to do !! your self!

 

I think the one thing that so many people miss out on is TIME.

In the '40s and '50s, people didn't have TV, computers, internet forums, smart phones, etc, etc, etc...

What they did have were hobbies. Think of all the stuff your grandpa built from plans that he found in Mechanix Illustrated, or the stuff grandma made from Macall's patterns. Young guys armed with some craftsman tools, some skills from high school shop class, and some ideas from little the little pages could build some cool stuff without the encumbrance of modern distractions.

 

Larry Watson got his first car by working in construction for his uncle one summer when he was in high school. He worked 60 hours a week and earned a man's pay. He lived at home rent free and his mom fed him. By the end of the summer he had enough money to buy a 5 year old Chevrolet 2 door sedan, and a leather jacket. With enough over for a set of whitewalls and a purple paint job. Then he ran out of money so he couldn't afford to have it pinstriped. So he bought some brushes and one shot and striped it himself. This led to pinstriping and painting cars in his driveway, and eventually the Watson painting and striping business.

 

Most customs were built a little at a time. A guy might buy a Ford coupe and have the muffler shop lower it and install duals right away. From his next pay check the guy might have a body shop nose and deck the car, and now it would be driving around with primer spots on the hood and trunk lid. A few more weeks and more chrome would be removed, the holes welded up, and more primer streaks. Later, different tail lights, headlights, grille and finally after six months it goes in for a full paint job.

In the mean time the car would be driven to work, on dates, to go shopping etc as it was the owner's only car.

Joe Bailon talked of building his first custom, Miss Elegance, while working in someone else's body shop. He got a good deal on a late model Chev coupe that rear ended a truck, and fixed it up himself. He would bring it in and work on it after closing time then drive home and get some sleep. One night he chopped the top and drove it around with no windshield for a few days until the glass shop could fit new glass.

The first show he entered the right side was done but the left side was only half finished. So he sprayed a fresh coat of primer and parked the left side tight to the wall. He got a trophy.

 

atomickustom have you read Tom Wolfe's Kandy Kolor Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby? He wasn't exactly a sociologist but an art major from Yale. But he is the first academic or outsider to look at the custom car scene and take it seriously.

https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/cars/a39541/kandy-kolored-tangerine-flake-streamline-baby/

 

The early customs were built to swing music. That is what was on the radio and what everyone listened to up to 1955 or so.

 

The old car books that I had (still have but most are ruined by gettng wet) showed guys cars around the custom shops with the tell tale primer spots from the work that had been done that week or a few pay checks earlier. Most went down and had one thing done at a time until the custom work was done and the car was ready for paint. Guys here did that with Mason's body shop in the 50's and 60's. Between regular boy repair that was his bread and butter John would do small custom jobs like nosing or decking a car or frenching the lights or filling holes were trim had been remove. In the mid 60's he would shoot a guy's ride in black primer for 10 bucks if it was already sanded down an ready. He even put Victoria trim on the very first 55 T bird in the area because the owner who had seen one that was two tone red and white in a magazine went down and ordered one before the Ford dealer even knew they existed. Car came in with no Victoria style trim, he threw a fit and the dealer ordered the trim and John fit it to the car, painted the car two tone red and white and installed the chrome. He rebuilt that car from wrecks a couple of times over the years. The car was a main stay in our high schools home comings for a lot of years. Customized to match what the factory adds had depicted.

 

Thank you all! I am typing with one hand on my phone while my 6-year-old is asleep on my arm so I can't scroll through to pick out individuals to thank, but I believe some of you have really filled in the gaps for me!
The idea of full-time employed single young men still living at home hadn't really occurred to me but should have. My cousin always had bitchen cars because that was all he had to spend money on. Same with two brothers who lived (with their parents) on my family's street when I was a kid.
I appreciate the thoughtful responses. Really good thread.