Jay. My brother. We are on the same page. Modern Grecian should have never hit the show circuit. People always forget that there where two brothers with the last name Barris. Bill Hines. We all love that little hunched over cigar smoking gent. But admit it, he has built some FUGLY cars. My gist, don't build a ugly custom. Learn from the mistakes. Take from the good. Build your beauty.
Since people started customizing cars, there have been ugly customs! Heck I'm surprised with all the knowledge we have today, and all the inspiration that can be found online and in magazines that people still build ugly cars I guess it all comes down to bad skills and bad taste. I agree, some of the customs back in the late 1950s and 1960s were butt ugly, but the guys were experimenting, competing with the "wild" cars coming out of Detroit, and competing for attention and prices at the shows....what I have learned is that you sometime have to see the cars with your own eyes before you can judge them...since I first saw the Trendero in Piero's Mad Fabricators DVD I have always thought that that car looked like a freak...seing it in person made me change my mind.... I can't say that it is a beauty, but I liked it after I saw it and "experienced" it at the Kustoms Then and Now show: The same goes with the Joe Wilhelm built Mark I Mist...I must admit that it's not a beauty...but I wouldn't judge it until I have seen it in real person...
I can't speak for the fifties. I was not there. But my fifteen year old mind remembers seeing a few full- on customs (of the time) and thinking- 'that sucks- no way around it'.
I don't know if it strictly fits the category as a Kustom since, in the mind of the builder it was a prototype, but Father Alfred Juliano's 1957 Aurora "safety car" does display some rather questionable styling. Can't post a pic because I'm on my iPod, but Google it if you are unfamiliar with it and you will see what I mean. I'm sure it was considered wild stuff for the time, but looking at it now..... Funny thing is that it is another '50s era Connecticut project, like the Marratta Merc. Maybe it was something in the air or water up here back then!
Admittedly I tend to like weird. Most of the cars pictured on this thread can be saved, albeit some of them with major surgery, but they won't be non-weird. They'd be weird and cool rather than weird because someone was trying something that didn't work and then defied all with menaces to say a word ... For some guys on here "weird and cool" is a contradiction in terms, though ...
Since beauty (and therefore ugly) are in the eyes of the beholder, it's kind of pointless to have this discussion. People are going to build what they are going to build. Even though 90% of HAMBers may agree that something is ugly, the person who built it, and some like-mided deviants, may not share that opinion. Instead of insulting someone else's hard work, I would prefer to simply not continue to look at it. It's just like TV: if you don't like what's on, there's alway something on another channel. When I'm at a car show and I see something that is (in my opinion) hideous, I don't take a picture of it.
This car looks like a 40 Ford had sex with a Facel Vega and this is their kid I totally understand why Rik posted what he did. I'm hoping many others did as well.
No, don't close the thread. It's a perfect "How not to". As someone mentioned in the thread, these cars were entertaining back in the day and are entertaining now. I can understand someone missing the mark with their idea of what a "Custom" should be but good Lord, some of this stuff looks like it drove out of a DR. SEUSS book! The picture of this 55 Chevy convertible should have a caption of "I fully realize i'm fugly, but can we be friends"?
Is that in fact a Facel Vega nose? That has been the first reaction I got from the first time I saw a photo of the car. If anyone thinks a Facel Vega is guly and wants to get rid of it send me a PM. Bob
Don't you just love that he added Olds flippers to make it cool? Sort of looks like someone tried to update this Stude custom they bought from a used car lot .....
I wonder what every other guy in Connecticut thought when they saw this cover of R & C. And just how many of us have had our car on the cover of a magazine?
Great thread and proves to me what Custom is all about and what You believe it is, ugly to you may be beautiful to me. I respect the work and creativatiey of one or the other I may not agree with it but I respect it. When I was a kid 13/14 I saw a 58 Pontiac at a show that just blew me away and I stood stareing at it for hours trying to understand how the hell he did what he did with body work and paint. Some people hated the car actully most everyone I was with. I have never ever seen it posted anywhere when the custom thing comes up. A couple years ago I was in the car line waiting to get into the Syr Natonals at 6 in the morning and there it sat just like it was over 40 years ago I was just amazed at how beautiful it still was, unchanged through the years and being driven. Here are a couple shots of that day anybody know the car and what do ya think? Ugly or a work of timeless art? The Chief.
Well Jive Bomber I gotta give you respect for doing a thread like this. Too many cars are given a pass on "cool" because it was "made back in the day" or by a famous builder. Ugly is ugly no matter how you present it...no matter who built it. I give respect to these guys for building something unique and trying to push the limits, but they are still ugly. I love how some guys will defend something so positively ugly because a famous builder built it. Every artist has produced work they arent proud of or something they think is ugly, nobody is perfect and nobody is incapable of producing something ugly. If half of these cars got posted on the hamb today by a nobody building it in their garage they would be torn apart and sent packing by the hamb faithful.
In addition, you must remember that the "famous builders" may have been taking directions from the guys paying the bill for the changes THEY wanted.
This Olds is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. I don't like it. (I mostly can't stand the color/paint. I might have a different opinion with a different paint job.) But do my feelings invalidate the manhours that the builder invested decades ago? No. He thought it was cool when he built it and obviously cosmic12 still does think it's cool. I can appreciate the effort but I would simply prefer to look elsewhere. Those who enjoy should be free to keep looking and not be ridiculed for their tastes.
Dave Crook 1958 Pontiac. Dave is a fantastic builder... and great guy. This is how the car originally looked.
The only man that never made a mistake, never made nothing. When you go out on a wing and a prayer, trying to create something no one else ever created, it's a gamble. That is the glory of customizing. If there ever was such a thing as artists in this world, those guys were artists. They had enough old cars, tools, talent and materials that they could take a chance. They could visualize something and they could create it, with no committee, no permission from a Government Board of Artistic Correctness, no nothing. Just get out there and light the torch. When you do something nobody else ever did in this world, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. If it turns out great, wow what a hero. If it doesn't go get another car and try again. It's easy to see why someone would stick with it when they win. But what about when they fail? What if you poured all your money talent and time into a car and it sucked? Then what do you do? I guess that's when you find out if you are a real car guy or just a wannabee. If you go that sucks, the hell with cars that tells you one thing. If you go I think I see why that didn't work, the next one will be a real knockout that tells you something else. You can also chicken out, never take a chance, and just copy something somebody else did 50 years ago. You may be a craftsman, you may even build a reputation, but you won't be an artist. So here's to great art, great inspiration, great triumphs and great failures.
See, that's exactly what I was talking about! That Olds looks so much better in the solid gold paint Rik posted. Still not a ravishing beauty in my eyes, but I would spend more time looking at it.
I got to see it years back in Syracuse , I still like it but I would definately rework it back to its original state if it was my car. These ugly cars still hold there place in kustom history, especially if they managed to survive to this day, ugly or not I just cant hate them
I like the 50-60s aero spaced-out cars. Granted some of them can be a little funky. But they were influential. 1955_Ford_LaTosca concept car.
I KNEW I recognized that look! Well said. I think it's OK to say that these guys missed the mark sometimes. Anyone in a creative field can miss from time to time. That's what pushing the envelope is about. I think that's why the masters are remembered (fairly) for their best works. It's the "ugly" ones that let us know they were working hard, because even for the best "beautiful" wasn't automatic.
Ok, here's an example of a car that's not too bad but still didn't quite hit the mark. The ideas were great. The double-tunneled tail and headlights, nice touch and too much at the same time. Clearly this version looks better w/out the Vette-esque rear glass. If the light tunnels had been pulled back just a bit, well, maybe 1/2 of what they are, there'd be a lot more balance to the look. She's a victim of "If some's good, more's better", but I think not. Molded bumpers, tube grilles, chopped, overall way better than some of the other examples shown. 37kid, no I don't think that's a real Facel front end, nor do I think they're ugly. 39-40 Fords are lovely too. Mix the 2? I think not, but then again it wasn't built for me. I also agree that even the best of the best built some dogs, and especially the thought that they learned from them as well. Many of these cars were built during the dark days of kustoms. We got through it, we also got through the "easter egg" paints of the late 80s thru early 90s.
The Jalopy Journal
