History An Axe to Grind

See Post 59. Read Post 59 (small words, you should be okay). Think about post 59. Then, instead of insulting people, please shut up. You have contributed nothing of merit to the discussion. Please don't be offended. Have a nice day.

 

Joey, great topic that always seems to stoke controversy. What's next, East vs. West?! Seems as though you poked a hornet's nest with a couple of our members! Til next time, Carp.

 

Growing up in the 60s it was all about performance. Anyone with a custom dare not show up at the local hangout. Im glad things have changed. I like both rods and customs. Lets keep an open mind.

 

Positive wins over negative every single time! " YMMV "

 

“It doesn’t take much to customize a ’58 Chevy. In Ron’s case, the process involved shaving some trim, installing a tube grille, and lowering the car two inches all around. The interior was stitched with black leather and the engine compartment was detailed with paint and chrome. For the final touch, the Chevy was treated to yellow lacquer with bright red seaweed flames.”

Hello,

Nice story on the 58 Impala and the idea of custom cars. There are plenty of opinions as to what makes a custom car. Magazines are very political in how they are portrayed to the public. But, to have an anonymous person start a controversy letter to the editor? Possible, but back then, there were different opinions, too. It is one way to look at the whole hot rod/custom car scene.

In 1962, I was the sole owner of the 1958 black Impala. It was a very fast Chevy and did well as a stock car in the A/Stock class. As we saw the faster factory cars come on the scene in 59-60, we did some modifications (motor, transmission, wheels, chrome engine highlights, etc), but we obviously could not run in the A/S stock car class. It was a modified car with some custom tendencies.
As much as I did on the black 58 Impala, it was not a full custom, but fell into a mild custom category, if there was such a category back then. Back then, anything not stock was considered a custom, whether or not it looked like a show car. My 58 Impala was a daily driver to school and cruising routes all over So Cal. If there were gobs of cash, it would have looked like this very cool Impala.

Mox Miller’s 1958 Impala was the full on, 1958 Impala show car that we all wanted our cars to look like, except that we did not have the cash to make it so. But teenagers can dream…

Jnaki

By 1963-64, there was enough cash to get some custom modifications done on my 58 Impala. One big modification was the addition of 4 Buick Skylark wire wheels and necessary axle modifications needed to run the Buick bolt pattern. Eventually, I had hoped it would look like this modern version.
It did, but, without the candy purple top…
So, for a several months, I had a very fast 58 Impala that looked like it should have been in some local car shows.

A custom is in the eye of the beholder. It does not matter if it is a full custom with no daily driving in its history, it is just a different category of custom car. The majority of hot rod guys/girls have modified their own cars to make it a custom car. It takes a little bit of time to make the modifications, but there are some standards as we have seen in pinstriping, flames (copy, too much, lack of, or decal fakies) and grilles. But, even adding wheels and tires makes it a modified custom car and then it starts with the small things that could get heavy handed in making hot rodding fun.

I had no inclination to make my 58 black Impala into a show car. But with some of the things that I did, it was a mildly custom car that was ready for the next step, similar to Mox Miller’s Impala. To us, that blue/silver Impala was what all show cars were judged by a bunch of avid teenagers. But, of course, the age old "time and money" is always a factor that holds things back.

Did my black 1958 Impala make it out alive from 1965 and later, to today? It would be nice to see what happened to the mild custom into what another person decided as its fate. It did have “lead body work,” custom modifications to the axles, non-stock custom wire wheels and a modified motor, so that qualifies it for a custom car, not stock.

 

That yellow car brings back memories of my own 58 Bel Air 2 dr hardtop, 348 with a 4 speed, white exterior, nosed, decked with a tube grille and lowered slightly with a grey interior. I loved that car, it was fast, good looking with lots of room. I owed that car in the mid 60's. It was totaled by the next owner, I have looked for another like it but all I find are rust buckets, I guess it's not to be?

 

Well Joey you picked a scab! Ok, not really but the sauce got a fresh stir at a minimum. That letter was '62 according your retrospective here and those history buffs in this whole world we play in know what was going on. I was like 6 or 7 and a guy's son brought in pictures of his dad's car that was in the Det Autorama for show n tell. Ok, fuck it, I'll date myself here saying it was the 63 or 64 show. My dad was a Flatrock/Motor City ARCA racer and always had kool stuff to drive and generally they were bitchin trucks. I had a preconceived notion of kool, this thing was NOT kool even to a kid of 6 or 7. Started as a 54 Ford but ended up looking like a manta ray mated with a sperm whale and spit out this mutant land lubber. His name was Joey BTW, I went to his house on the way home and he opened the garage to show it off. Even at that age I was nice but recall being really confused about the car. Staying nice I'll say it had a singular decent idea for 1 car, but there were dozens! Those in the know realize things got really bad for the kustom world in those days, then what followed was making cars with toilets for seats about a decade later. I "get it" but could not bring myself to do it. Kustom folks who get it for reals know less is more and if there's any rules to this game it's restraint. There was almost none in that time and I don't think it disrespects history to recognize that. We have Dave and the Galpin guys preserving it and that's a good thing but when you see a gennie Roth next to something like the bathtub/toilet car or Pink Panther it says with no words what I'm having trouble expressing here without being a dick about it.

As far as we're all concerned a friendly divide has been in place since the beginning. Just because there's limits to what you can do with a black Deuce hiboy there's never been any sense knocking those who's dream is just that. Some dream of vintage 'Vettes and invariably the mention of the Corvette windbreaker jackets and other such nonsense creeps in like a fart in church. So be it. Hot rod/kustom types are a sort of rugged individualists to begin with. A lot of us don't give a fat rat's ass what the next guy thinks save for few nods from our peers and some occasional help with the heavy lifting once in a while. We can take it. Don't like my car? I was gonna say let's go for a ride but forget it. And maybe I'm glad I didn't get offered a ride in that old Ford from the other side of that fence, right? As long as the ball busting doesn't get too personal I've always thought it was part of the "juice", or maybe the pulp. Not everyone likes that either. Good stuff Joey, again...

 

Well, I have to respectfully disagree about the term 'restraint' usage. To me, it's more about having a clear, unified vision where all the design elements work together. As you pointed out, too many 'ideas' mixed helter-skelter didn't admit you to 'kool' status automatically. Two of my favorites from this era (the Jade Idol and the Matador) don't have a single unmassaged exterior panel left on them, that's hardly a 'restrained' effort. I'd say 90% of any custom modified beyond 'mild' in the late '50s/'60s had this issue with too many design elements thrown into the mix to some degree. The few that got it really 'right' are now Icons while many of the rest are forgotten.

As to the 'clown' cars that proliferated in the '60s, I hate to say it but I'd lay that at Roth's feet. While Barris opened the door with cars like the Ala Cart and the Golden Sahara, Roth blew it off it's hinges with the Beatnik Bandit. Much more sculpture than car, this was (IMO) a truly artistic vision as well as having 'shock value'. As imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, bubble tops sprouted on everything, not always to good effect, and they were basically undrivable unless equipped with industrial-strength AC so you wouldn't get steamed like chinese vegetables. They ran their course, and show promoters needed something 'fresh'. With the arrival of musclecars, the customizers lost most of their customer base and few of the new Detroit offerings were that suitable as blank canvasses in any case. Roth was alone as the only 'major' customizer who really only built cars to promote his other businesses, but he had burned out (I remember seeing a rumor that the Orbitron was only built to satisfy his Revell contract, it did look like he phoned that one in) and the guys that stepped up didn't have his imagination. Carl Casper seemed to be the worst offender, but he wasn't the only one. The model car companies were also major contributors to this, selling kits of these to kids. 'Customs' became a marketing commodity rather than a expression of design.

What's really sad is there's some extremely talented metalworkers out there these days, but all you seem to see in terms of full-on custom builds now is either coach-built emulations of swoopy art-deco designs (which to me only reminds me of Pebble beach or Amelia Island cars, which just don't fit the 'American' vision) or cartoonish restylings of American cars. It's not like guys aren't spending the money on these types of builds, it's just that the direction is wrong...

 

Growing up in my neighborhood in the ‘60s there were several cars that walked that line between custom and hot rod. We had a light blue ‘55 Chevy hardtop nosed and decked, custom interior, chrome wheels with thin WWs and two blade knock offs, three deuces. Not only did it cruise our streets but it was seen at Lions regularly and in local car shows. El Greengo and the Pink Panther were highly customized Ford trucks and if I remember correctly, the FE powered El Greengo ran at Lions more than a few times. Nice as they were I don’t think any of them really fit in PHR at the time. R&C would have been a better fit.
As a kid, they all got me excited, customs, hot rods, drag cars and sports rods. I knew Buick grilles and Packard tail lights just as well as I knew Drag Star intakes and Halibrand wheels and Devin and Kellison sports cars. But I also liked the separation of the various magazines. I bought more PHR and HRM than custom car mags.


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Here's my .02c worth, coming from a new custom builder. I was raised around hot rods and drag cars. What I have found by building a custom, is that "customs are hard". I have a huge, new found respect for nice customs. I used to glance at them and think "that's nice". Now, I spend a lot more time looking at details. There's room for both.

 

To me there was a time when America’s Most Beautiful Roadster was the biggest POS in the land covered with gold plating and looked more custom than hot rod. Even today there are hints to the same.
Certain cars can lend themselves to both genres but others just make you cringe.

 

Haven't seen it lately but there was a member Paso John that posted many, many nice mild customs in the customs thread over the last month or two. Not points chasing audacious things, just tastefully done drivers.

 

Yep, the devil really is in the details. Something that looks great on one car can look terrible on another that has a different basic design. Even simple location can make a difference; miss by an inch, and it looks awkward instead of integrated.

 

@Crazy Steve , the 2 you mentioned, Jade Idol and Matador, the pinnacle of the restraint I mention. They stayed true to their vision, nothing more, nothing less. Roth may have opened a door (or pandora's box?) but he too stayed in lock step on lots of his designs and builds. It's all there, it all works, it's artful and at a minimum disciplined. Having met the man he was indeed that, disciplined. What looks better on a Merc? A 7 1/2" chop or 3 1/2-4 inches? As radical as Cole Foster's work is on the 36 for the Metallica dude it too is restrained and true to form. I might have skipped the bags and used an old Caddy engine but fuckin eh that car's right. Radical, lots of work everywhere, so to me restraint might be better described as discipline, as not falling in to "...because I can..." and in the worst of cases maybe "Hold my beer..."

 

That's a much better description, I agree. To me 'restraint' means 'holding back'. If you have a clear vision of what you want then pouring your all into it is the way to fully execute it, but discipline to stay true to that vision nearly always results in the purest designs.

Another thing is artists need is patrons to flourish. This has always been true, whether is was rich people who commissioned works, public fascination with a design school such as art deco, or guys who wanted their car 'different'. But sometimes the patron would muddy the design with requests, or in the case of cars, bring in a car that may not have been the best choice for a starting point or ask for certain features that wouldn't integrate well. Most of the very best customs were either built by the customizer by/for themselves or for customers that gave them carte blanche. I don't see too much of that happening these days, although there are exceptions.

 

We're on the same page. Although situations prevented this year for me I get to see the Detroit Autorama Ridler hopefuls every year. Excess is sometimes the order of the day and I wonder how often the purity of the design is considered over the pre-packaged "number of modifications" that can taint a sincere peer review. Quality everywhere should also be the order of the day and in most cases it's there, but nowhere will you see "because I can" as often. I don't wish to be a hater here, I've spent a lifetime in show competitions all over the country. It's a real love/hate realtionship now and then but even after more than 40 years I still feel like I'm watching my kid do their 1st piano recital or something similar. The worst ones are the subjective concours events where what the judges simply like vs perfection in detail and execution. I've been skipped over and seen awards go to cars with poor body work and inappropriate fasteners just because of it's coachwork or color. The kustom world went there for a while too. I have a very restrained custom hot rod in my head I never speak of. Maybe some day one of those patrons you mention will commission it and I promise it will belong here once done and will certainly be worthy of major award contention at the same time. Don't ask...

 

I think you hit the nail on the head. To understand this guy's rant is to understand what a magazine worthy custom car looked like in 1962. They had really strayed from the clean lines of the Matranga Merc at this point.

 

I think when you build a car that satisfies your own ideas that is your reward in and of itself. When you build a car to please other people its impossible to quantify it..........because there is no perfect judging system. Is a simple (few mods) but perfectly executed custom a worthy competitor for an expensive heavily modified custom that is also perfectly done? Do you overlook a flaw or two on a vehicle with 100 perfectly done modifications ? There isn't anyway to decide that something is THE ultimate custom when all of the cars are ultimate customs. Its subjective at best. At any show someone has to win and get the trophy so the name of the show can be prestigious and carry from year to year...........in reality its an honor that many are equally deserving of, but only one lucky one gets it. Myself, I could care less about getting a trophy or even competing. I'll drive my car simply because its built the way I want it built.
Here are some beautiful cars (that I don't own). I enjoy the way each of them looks, and each has its own style.






Then on the other hand, here are two customs that have modifications which I think are totally wrong for the cars they were done on. Someone else may like them, but for me they were poorly designed even though the quality of the work is probably fine. How do I quantify that fairly if there are no flaws in the actual work?


I know others opinions may differ from mine on these two cars. Thats just the way it is with judging things......

 

These type of threads always seem to get ugly. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the entire essence of this thing to modify a motor vehicle, either in performance or aesthetic, to the owners taste and or needs? Heavy emphasis on owners taste. By extension, if the owner likes it the goal was met.

I consider myself more of a Hot Rod guy than a Custom guy. Not because I don't appreciate a well done custom, but because I know I lack the skills and talent to build the Custom of my dreams, and I also know I lack the funds to pay a shop to turn my dreams into reality. But if I could, the Sam Barris Merc in a really dark almost black appearing green . . . .

Walk through any group of cars and you will see things you like, and things you don't. If I like it, I might comment. If it's not my taste I keep my mouth shut. To not do so would just be rude. He didn't build it to suit my taste, he built it to suit his own. Why be a di*k.

Were I to start critiquing other peoples cars, I agree with Crazy Steve (maybe because I too have a design background) that a lot of cars don't seem to have a coherent theme, or design continuity. I have often attributed it to the extended length of time it takes most of us to build a car. New trends and components emerge, new ideas emerge, and it all gets added to the mix. Soon the original intent of the build gets muddled.

The problem is there is no right and wrong, and no one can define why their particular aesthetic taste is what it is. It just is. As I was writing this I began to think of two known 58' Chevy's. The first one built in the very early sixties. I can't remember the name of the owner, but Pat Ganahal did a video about it years ago. Mostly stock body. Wild what I would call Himsl style paint, and every part of the car dipped in chrome. It had never been fired or driven for fear of damaging the chrome, and Pat referred to it as the worlds largest push toy. The workmanship was beautiful, and the level of detail in the paintwork was breathtaking. By all accounts an outstanding car. To my eye . . . Meh.

The other on my mind was the Lee Pratt car Gahahl had in his blog last week. Black car with the purple lace top. Simple car, also beautifully done. Yet that one just totally fires my rocket. I love it. Is it better or worse than the other? Nope. Is one more important than the other? Don't think so. Is one right and one wrong? Absolutely not. It's just to my eye one hits the mark - no reason, no rhyme, just is.

This whole hobby (to me) is about Fun-With-Cars. Don't overthink this stuff!

 

The 58 you are thinking of was the Mox Miller car.

 

Cushenberry's 'Marquis' and the Giminez T-Bird...

The Marquis always struck me by it's resemblance to the Jade Idol. Same origin car, and many of the same design elements and modifications. You could be uncharitable and ask if Cushenberry ripped off Winfield's design, but I think it was more that he followed some of the same trends that influenced Winfield, just much more so. The car IMO is successful from the standpoint that it doesn't really have any awkward lines (a flaw many cars from this era had), it's more of a personal taste thing. Kind of like comparing the '60 Chev or Ford with their understated fins to the more flamboyant '60 Buick or Mopar products. As this car was built for a customer, I suspect his input had more than a little to do with the design.

The Giminez 'Bird is from that segment that rarely had any unqualified successes... radical custom sports cars. Again, this car reflects the current trends at the time. The front end treatment is one of the better ones I've seen on these, unfortunately the rear didn't follow the front's design cues and the added length didn't do anything good for the car's proportions. With the exception of the occasional attempts on European sports car (where the style clash rarely worked even a little), the 'Bird was very tough to do anything radical with. Corvettes usually fared a bit better, but not always.

Are either of these cars 'timeless designs'? Well, no. But they do represent their era...

And in fairness to these cars, I need to point out that you're not making an apples-to-apples comparison. If you disregard the chopped tops, all of the other cars you show are mild customs (OK, not Cadzilla, but I'll get to it in a minute), not radical customs. Radical customs are hard...

Cadzilla? Sorry, but that one always struck me as a high-school doodle brought to life. Well executed? Without a doubt. And I also think the builder reached his design goal. But the styling is exaggerated, more than a bit cartoonish IMO, as well as mixing types. Full-on radical from the cowl back, it's got a stock-appearing nose and to 'show' the 'hot rod' influence they stuck a moon tank in the grill. While there's plenty of shock value here, coherence of design is MIA....

Again, this is my opinion, everyone is free to like what they want. If everybody all liked the same things, we'd all be driving the same cars.

If putting this into artistic parlance, I guess what I'm saying is there's a lot of Thomas Kinkades building cars these days but almost no DaVincis or Michelangelos.

 

Customs that are on the boarder line of being a Hot Rod. Isn`t that what this thread about. Cars with a lot of horsepower.

 

Good well presented points and objectively written. Hopefully mine will also be respectful but somewhat different. I think when a "name" builder exhibits a car, people inside the industry are reluctant to make negative comments, or not give it coverage. Back in the 60s many builders went for "shock" value and and tried to out "outrageous" others to make a name for themselves.

I liken it to the Kustom Kar industry going thru puberty. Lots of shock value there and lots of talent to build it. While things like this got my attention when I was a kid, I think the Kustom world has settled more into modifying cars where they can accentuate the natural lines of the cars. Nothing is always true, but in general I think people are less enthralled with novelty and more into moderate customs that they can actually drive.

As I mentioned, I only give my opinion as something appears to me. I don't care if its an icon car or built by a big name builder. I also don't care if it was built by some guy working in his low budget shop behind his house. If he did a great job......he deserves credit for it.
To me the Giminez T-Bird just looks all wrong. I don't find the design of the front end of the car appealing in any sense of the word. Also the pulled in front fenders which exposes the tread of the front tires is something detracts from the cars appearance. Everytime I look at this car, for some reason I think of the hokey monsters that one of my favorite shows used to have......Star Trek. From your words, it appears that we have different opinions on how this car looks. I'm ok with that, and hope you are OK with my honest opinion.


Not trying to be argumentative, this is actually what the car makes me think of.

Then there is the Cushenberry Marquis.

The basic lines of the car from the windshield back look good. The "swoosh" thing looks like a tacked on afterthought to try to add some style to the large front area. To me it just appears to be totally wrong for an otherwise beautiful car. I think maybe some specially designed rectangular port holes between the wheel and the door would have looked better. Again, I am not a fan of the pulled in lower front fenders. Do any major builders ever do this anymore? Again, just my honest opinion of two well known cars, and others are welcome to differ with me.

Coddington was one of my favorite designer/builders.Jack Chisenhall and Larry Erickson actually came up with the original concept. Given the fact that many customs exhibit swoopy and extreme extension of the rear of the vehicle, I think it was extremely well done and visually effective. On the other hand, I agree with you that the aluminum tank in the grille is all wrong for the car. Does Billy Gibbons care what I think........probably not.

I agree with you that we all see things differently and I'm glad we don't all like exactly the same things. Anyway, in general I tend to like customs that have lines which flow and work together. Don't care much whether its a high zoot or a low buck. There is a guy on the Hamb thats building an early Chevy (49-54) with a lot of mods. Hey its a Hot Rod and its a Kustom........I like it. Really like the hood treatment.

So anyway, hope this doesn't offend the died in the wool Kustom guys, cause my opinion is from an uneducated Hot Rod guys perspective.

 

Everybody is entitled to their opinion, particularly when it's style/design.

It was a different era, so judging these cars today with the added years influence isn't always fair to them. But to be honest, while these cars are known, they never reached the fame others did and certainly weren't my favorites. The main reason I gave the Giminez 'Bird credit is compared to most other radical attempts on the early 'birds, that really was IMO a fairly good job on the frontend treatment...

The Marquis, while sharing at a glance more than a few design elements with the Jade Idol, with it's more prominent fins was already a bit dated when completed. And both cars had a problem; large, rather plain side profiles. Winfield broke his up with paint, Cushenberry used a character line. And in Cushenberry's defense, the car had other, asymmetric details on the top surfaces that the side detail was meant to mimic/compliment.

Boyd Coddington... While I have the utmost respect for his workmanship and attention to detail, I've never cared for his designs, not a single one. Different tastes....

 

I think you have made some worthwhile points, on this and previous replies. Re Boyd Coddington, I tend to agree except that I like some of his slightly tweaked, more traditional styling stuff. It is hard to believe he died 12 years ago. It's also hard to believe he didn't leave a will.

 

Doesn't it all go back to everyone is different?My neighbor had a 49 ford convertible he put his heart and soul and a few beers into that car.then his friend wrecked it. it did not do much for me ,but afterwards he worked at a chevy garage and got a nice 1957 chevy 2 door i thought was a lot better.
the price was somewhere around 75.00.

 

Got that right! don't get me wrong, there are some VERY cool customs on the HAMB the late 30's Cadillac and another late 30's Packard that are just the coolest thing out there. But the canted headlight thing, that is something I just can't get into. To each his own, there is plenty of room on this site. That is until someone posts the "Family Truckster" from that Vacation movie.

 

Growing up in the late 60’s early 70’s we were exposed to loads of visual excitement with advertising, music, clothes And colorful cars. Compare that to the example Hot Rod Magazine followed shortly before its demise in the late 2000’s. Then they built every car with massive horsepower, questionable safety equipment and never an attractive body style. They treated a paint job, custom wheels or addition of a chrome part as a major waste of money. Fit and finish was never considered in the pursuit of maximum horsepower and bragging rights.

Compare that to drag racing when I was a boy. Beautiful candy painted funny cars, dragsters and engines exposed and decked out with chrome. Support vehicles and crew were decked out in matching finery . Please give me a well thought out “custom” any day than a “hot rod” for pursuit of speed.