The last couple of years I have been privileged and lucky enough to be able to share a bunch of great photo collections over on Kustomrama. As I was practically born and raised here on the HAMB when it comes to traditional hot rods and kustoms, I thought it was about time to start and give a little more back to the forum..so I figured I would start to share these collections on the HAMB as well! I'll start with the Per Arne Knudsen Photo Collection, a collection that is very special for me as a Norwegian. Per Arne Knudsen is one of the founding fathers of the Norwegian hot rod and custom movement in the 1960s. Per Arne's never ending interest for hot rods was sparked when he stumbled across a hot rod magazine at a newsstand at Koppang station in Østerdalen of Norway in the early 1960s. At the time, two hot rod and custom clubs had already been founded in Oslo. The first one was named Wildcat Motorclub, and the second one went under the name Oslo Hot Rod Club. The guys in these two clubs were a little older than Per Arne, and the clubs didn't exists very long... Per Arne grew up in the old part of Oslo, known as Gamlebyen. Around 1964, Per Arne formed the club Viking Custom with his friend Roar Arnegård. Before Per Arne set off to build his well known 1934 Ford Cabriolet he worked on a 1924 Ford Model-T tudor that he wanted to build into a hot rod. That dream ended after Neslein from the vehicle licensing department had inspected it. One day, Roar who was hot rodding a 1933 Ford Roadster with some other friends, found a garage for rent at Alnabru in Oslo. The garage was advertised in a local newspaper, and it was located at the property were the city of Oslo parked their retired city-buses. Roar asked Per Arne if he wanted to rent the garage with him, he agreed and they both moved into the garage. Per Arne did most of the work on his 1934 Ford in the garage. Once completed, the vehicle licensing department in Oslo refused to approve Per Arne's 1934 Ford. After several attempts, Per Arne found out that it was impossible to fight the guys at vehicle licensing department, so he traded the '34 to Ludvig Bjørnstad for a 1956 Chevrolet two-door hardtop in 1970. That was basically the end of the short lived hot rod movement of the 1960s in Norway. As the cars were hard and almost impossible to get approved for usage on the streets, the car that were under construction in the club ended up as drag racers or they were scrapped or restored back to stock. Per Arne continued to build hot rods, and fight the DMV..in fact he is still busy doing this as we speak! First out from Per Arne's valuable collection is this early photo of Per Arne's 1934 Ford Convertible taken after he had begun to tear it down around 1964 - 1965. An under-progress photo of Per Arne's Convertible taken at the Viking Custom club garage at Alnabru in Oslo. The garage was located at a property were the city of Oslo parked their retired city-buses. A retired city bus can be seen in the background together with Roar Arnegaard's 1953 Studebaker, a 1946 Ford coupe, one of Per Arne's parts cars, and a VW-bus. Per Arne installing a fender from an air-compressor-trailer on his Ford. Notice the cut line on the fender. This photo is taken outside the garage Per Arne and Roar Arnegaard rented at Alnabru in Oslo sometime between 1966 and 1969. This photo from Per Arne's collection shows a 1960 Ford station wagon driving on to a ferry somewhere in Norway. The car has the Nor-Way Custom logo painted on to the side of the car. Unfortunately, Per Arne can't remember who the car belonged to, or where and when the photo was taken. Visit the Per Arne Knudsen Photo Collection for more information...
Thanks Sondre for posting those great photos from out of the past. I love seeing how hot rodding grew from what was, essentially, an American hobby to what we see today in every nook and cranny of the world. PS - More scans will be on the way to you soon.
SuperFleye, whats the car in the background of photo3? sure looks like a european version of a HK Holden Monaro as we know them over here.
I have just added another photo from Per Arne's collection to Kustomrama! This rare color-construction photo taken in the late 1960s shows Per Arne sitting behind the steering wheel of his car....probably dreaming about cruising his hot rod around the streets of Oslo!
The Jalopy Journal
