Customs 1954 Bel Air patina'd kustom

If you like to drive it a lot, just cruising, driving out of town, going out to dinner ect. then don't put a expensive show paint job on it. If you put a show paint job on it you will not won't to drive it a lot in fear of damaging the paint!

 

I honestly believe it's worth more, An More enjoyable just as it sits! Anyone can have a painted one, An Will not have the"draw" it does Now..

 

That patina stuff is cool if you wanna look like every other dude in texas with a bagged old car, put a nice single stage color on it to not break the bank.

 

Can’t believe I just came across this Build - I Love it!
What’s with all the Patina Haters? Paint it and it blends in with everything else!

 

Leave as is and enjoy it. A lot of guys are worried about looks and spend lots of dollars and time and miss the fun. Remember nothing neater than riding in a beater.

 

Well I am the world's worse about driving one rough so take this with a grain of salt.
As much time and money as you have in that car I can't imagine why you would not consider painting. Hell if its about cash you can get a Maaco job for less that 500.

 

The custom paint was what I was thinking before I had seem what moose did on photo shop. I also like the idea of a factory paint two tone. Can we please see it @themoose factory two tone same colors blue and white.

 

OK...Lets have a look........

 

Yep that looks really cool... I love the blend of custom and factory. Thanks moose.

 

Moose, you did it again! I honestly didn't think you could out do the first one. I'll have to admit, I think I like the factory two tone paint mixed with the custom touches better too. Your work on the car has me thinking about buying some side pipes!

I just received the rest of my stainless trim this afternoon. Hopefully by the end of this weekend I'll have the passenger side wing window and trim installed.

 

As my name says, I’m all about driver quality cruising cars vs lawn chair haulers. Yours is certainly a work of art in my eyes as is, but @themoose hit it on the head with his second “paint job”. My vote is to drive it as is for a year or 2 then tear it down for the booth when you are ready for a change.


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Here is the small modification I made to the grille a couple weeks ago. I took another '54 upper mustache: flipped, shortened and coped the ends to fit into the parking light housings. Nothing extreme but still a subtle change.

20180128_150802 by autoworx1 posted Jan 28, 2018 at 3:50 PM

20180128_150544 by autoworx1 posted Jan 28, 2018 at 3:45 PM

 

Side pipes!!!! Brilliant that will look outstanding... I think you should put that on your list of stuff to buy. Cool car for sure.

 

Finally got the other tires, hubcaps and stainless trim on. Now I just need interior.

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Went for a cruise last night. The small, small town of Lane, Ks.

 

I was in the patina camp....until this PS job!

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I say it looks so COOL the way it is. You do not want to do this!

 

I voted patina without reading the thread because I didn't want you to leverage your house to paint it.

Knowing now that you are not doing that, and seeing the PS renders, I really like the OG paint colors version also. The good news is it is killer just like you have it, and will be killer if you paint it and bring the chrome up to new. You really can't lose here!

I have had one apart for a while so I also vote for drive and enjoy it before you take it back apart. I miss driving mine.

 

Fantastic job by the way. You should be proud of the car.

 

It is not just the price of the paint job. If you make it shiny you are going to need to address the chrome. Pitted and worn chrome looks cool on a patina car but out of place on a painted lady. Those bumpers are going to cost more to chrome than the paint job. Then there's interior and so on, and so on...

Leave it, drive it, enjoy it. It looks great!

 

I know this post is a little old but I have a question I’m hoping to get and answer to.

From the look of it, you did not have to sink any of the rear window into the body. If that is the case, where did you make your cuts at the back window when you did the chop? I can see the one above the window but what did you do below it? Thanks

 

No such thing as a "patina'd custom." Customs were always painted back in the day. Unless they were a work in progress, which meant they had primer where the body changes were being done.

 

So a "custom" painted 50 years ago wouldn't show any patina on the paint. Interesting.... I'll buy as much of that paint as you can sell me.

 

You're correct. The back glass is full height everywhere except on the very lower corners. There is probably 1" of glass hid behind the trim and quarter panel in lowest corner of the back glass. It's the only way I could get a line I was happy with that flowed off the roof line. I did remove 4" of the roof so that the back glass could be slid forward. This obviously caused a 4" gap in front of the trunk. The package tray also needed to be trimmed to allow the window frame to sit at the correct height. There were several relief cuts made in the rear section of the roof to allow the metal to relax to the new curve that the back glass forced the roof to take. I'll see if I have pictures of this.

 

I made small changes along the way but these pictures give you the big picture.

 

Thanks.
I have wondered about that.
I missed this some how when originally posted. Great car, great look and vibe.

 

Cool car !

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I am not knocking what you are doing, just the terminology. Old customs were painted or about to be painted. If they are patinaed they have been sitting for years and need to be repainted. Not shown in the delapiaded state.

 

Do you have to play in the MLB to be a "baseball player"?

 

It’s crazy how the one website that a lot of us come to get very useful information ends up being a forum for others to tell you how you’re doing it WRONG. You stated this wrong, you painted this wrong, my car is better, it wasn’t done like that in the 50’s. etc.. It sure would be refreshing to post a picture of your project, ask for a dimension on a frame, find out how to convert a 6v generator to 12v or maybe post a picture of your garage paint job without having everyone tell you how much better they could have done it or how the “terminology” of your thread isn’t right. Good lord. It gets real old hearing from all the guys that do it “right” all the time.