Cars that influenced history....Hotrods and Kustoms

Somewhere I read that the Merc from American Graffiti was owned by Brian Setzer for a while, and that he had Ed Roth to rebuild it for him. There was a pic of it as well. I do not know where it went after Brian sold it.

 

Just found this at briansetzer.com:

Telephone Interview with Brian from May 7, 2001

Q: Is it true that Brian owns the old Mercury that was used in the film "American Graffiti"? (Anthony Harrington/Concorde, CA USA)

A: I did buy the old Merc that was in "American Graffiti". I didn't know that it was in the movie. All I can tell you is, that it was a big pile of junk. I bought it unknowingly, sight unseen from Big Daddy Roth and it was just a big nightmare. "Graffiti" or no "Graffiti"! (laughing) I had to get rid of it at a really embarrassing price, it was just a big pile of junk.

 

dennis,

jim lytle, who built and drove big al, does indeed live in hawaii now, but you can find him every year at bonneville during speed week. if you can get him started talking (not really very hard to do) you will get quite a history lesson.

as for big al being the first "flopper", i've seen that in print, fwiw.

 

I love this thing. Does it still exist? Can anyone fill in more history for me?

 

here's another photo.

 

What a great thread! This knowledgeable group has identified most if the important cars, but here are a few that haven't been mentioned:

Jack Calori '36 3W - I don't know that if influenced a lot of other cars in its day, but it's certainly one of the most revered early customs now, and has inspired many of us to copy parts of it.

Buster Litton shoebox Ford - in an earlier thread on the best Barris customs, this ranked among the top cars (although much of the innovative bodywork was by Cerny). Along with the Metranga and Hirohata Mercs, Litton's has inspired swarms of hardtopped coupes. Anybody know if it still exists?

Watson's Grapevine and Brougham have already been mentioned, but my favorite among his cars was the Squarebird. His paintwork set the standard for the '60s style of candy/lace/scallops customizing.

Ron Dunn's Valley Custom shoebox coupe was among the first, and arguably the best of the sectioned customs. Its sporty, clean style is so refreshingly different from the sleds of the day.

The Jimmy Shine pickup is among the most influential of current cars. He combined expert craftsmanship with the in-your-face style beloved by HAMBers.

Among influential racecars: besides the Chrisman brothers' #25 car, their Bonneville coupe and uncle Jack's Model A Tudor (in addition to flawless proportions) raised the hot rod standard for beautiful finish on comp cars.

Jazzy Nelson's fuel flathead Topolino, while delivering giant-killer times, put Fiat bodies on the hot rod map.

And the bizarre original Ramcharger coupe, a chopped Plymout 3W, inspired a zillion nosebleed hotties during the '60s, both on dragstrips and on the street.

More to follow.

 

A lot of people around here sweat the PPE...but it has had a HUUUUGE influence on the Hot Rod scene of late.

 

I should probably apologize for my long-windedness, but I'm really enjoying this. I'd like to elaborate on a few cars that have already been mentioned:

Doane Spencer's Deuce: I really don't know if this blew everybody away when it was new, but the number of innovative features and the sheer perfection of its overall design put it at the top of the highboy heap. Certainly anybody who builds a traditional Deuce highboy today owes some of its detail to Spencer's.

The Grabowski and Ivo T's were contemporary -- I remember seeing both of them on the same stand at an indoor show in the mid-'50s (Norm's in the earlier black, blown Cad version). Certainly the Kookie TV exposure and the showier details of Norm's later iteration got more attention and probably influenced more copies, but I preferred the clean, long and low appearance of Ivo's. Way fast, too!

McCoy's wasn't the first flamed '40, but was surely the most famous. Together with McMullen's Deuce and the California Kid, it sparked hundreds of other fires.

...and a detail about Jim Lytle's Big Al: I'm pretty sure it was first constructed with a steel body and a less radical chop. The extreme chop and fiberglass body comprised its later and final version.

 

I re-read DrJ's earlier post about these cars appearing in print, and his astute observation really has me going.

I've been reading car magazines and attending car events for more than 50 years. I'm a confessed wannabe, and have spent waaay more time looking at other people's stuff than building my own.

After reading DrJ's observation, I realized that among the cars I agreed belonged on the list, I have seen less than half in the flesh. The only cars that I first saw live were Ivo's, Jazzy's, Jack Chrisman's, Doane's and Shine's.

It's hardly news, but the point that this makes forcefully to me is how influential the magazines are in our collective tastes and styles. The style and details of my own cars are based largely on what we thought was cool in high school, but there are undeniably features I've borrowed from magazine cars that impressed me.

If we had never had the automotive press, how different our hobby might have been. Or maybe it wouldn't have survived at all!!

 

Got to say this turned into a way more interesting thread than I first expected.

How about the non-kustom cars that actually influenced the way kustoms developed. Reading George Barris' various books one gets the impression that kustoms were allways way out front and Detroit followed, but I dont think this is true at all.
The first kustoms ( like Westergard Fords), seems heavily influenced by the really expensive thirties cars. Cord 812 is a good example, so is several american and europen coachbuilt cars.
I seems to me that postwar kustoms kept being built with with the same esthetichs in mind well into the fifties (Harry Ogdens 41 Buick further up this thread is actually built in the early fifties). The classic Mercs (Sam Barris, Hirohata, Bettancourt etc) was perfect for this thinking and turned into really beautiful cars, but at the time when the Hirohata-Merc was built, it was totally out of tune with the way cardesign in general was developing. Chopped tops and mailslot windows was an thirties-fourties Art Deco-thing. Among the last famous kustoms of this type to be built, was cars like the Moonglow Chevy. When all this faded out in the mid fifties, Pat Ganahl more or less claims that the kustoms died.
But it really just did update itself into a fifties-spaceage-thing, and following Detroit more closely.
The way I see it 1958 is an interesting year due to two cars; Larry Watsons T-bird and the stock 58 Impala. Like Sam Barris did with his 49 Merc, Watson was improving a brand new cardesign, but unlike Barris, he did nothing retrospective, and made a completely contempory kustom. But at the same time he did very little actual redesigning and accepted the 58 T-birds lines the way they wore.
The same year Chevrolet massproduced a car that had a lot of features in common with the showkustoms in the magazines; the 58 Impala.
In the early sixties kustoms gradually stopped being a contemporary thing. Most kustoms in the mags from the sixties falls into two cathegories: one was kustoms based on older cars, which are fifties in every way and had no ambition about being modern. The other was restyled modern cars. Some of these were neat designs that could easily have originated from some designdept.(Alexander Bros made some), and some where just changes for changes own sake, but few if any were breaking new ground. This trend faded out during the sixties, and kustoms as old cars restyled inside an old designvocabulary (or restored with a more interesting parts-catalog ) lives on.Restyling of new cars is not regarded as kustomizing at all these days.

I love kustoms from all over the kustom history; a few years later, being retrospective or forwardthinking doesnt matter half as much as proportions and good lines..

 

Well put, sailor.

See my new thread (last 10 years) for some further thoughts on this subject.

 

I agree with mytlo56...

Like it or not, the PPE will be the symbol of "rat rodders". I am talking about 20-40 years down the line when we are looked back on as generalizations. Just we look back at the cars of the 40's- 60's and think all cars looked like magazine cars.

 

Big A - according to what Mr. Lytle told me in August, one of the Big Al's (there were Big Al & Big Al II) is at Don Garlit's museum, but I don't remember which version it is.

50 - you're absolutely correct about the 2nd version. The one in the two pix above are Big Al II. About Big Al being steel, I don't know for sure, but Big Al II was 'glass. I really thought that they both were/are 'glass, but can't verify that.

 

The car at Garlits' is Big Al II.

 

Well,
The couple that come to mind for me are from movies i saw when i was a weee lad.. pre teen in the early 80's..

The first was Milner's coupe. The second was Project X.

Milners coupe has been a popular choice for many, and lots of people who don't even know cars know that one.
When they used "Project X" in "Hollywood Night's" i fell in love with 57's!
The one scene when Tony Danza drops the hammer leaving the light after Clark tells him to "pull this yellow peice of shit around the corner" has been tatoo'd in my mind forever.
I even went so far as to locate the first two Popular Hotrodding mags when they bought it and the mods they were doing to it in '65.

These two were so intrumental for me, that my first car was a '57 2drht which i still have, and the first rod i built was a deuce coupe..

In reality, there are a lot of rides that influenced many of us in different ways, and i don't mean what we bought or built..i mean what may have opened peoples eye's to modified vehicles in general.

here's another, the Hirohita merc was a custom that again, left it's mark..no merc yet for me though

Rat......

 

Hers a picture of the Norm Wallace car as it looks today
JimV

 

You're probably looking for more cars that where milestones, which is hard to pick from because it's not alwasy the cars they where built first but the cars that got the most publicty.

I still consider myself a newbie in the Rod & Custom scene especially customs, but cars that influenced me personally where cars from TV/Movies. I was prolly around 9 or 10 years old, and they where my first introduction to them.

40 Willys from a movie called "Hot Rod"
Munsters Tub
Dragula
Bubble tops (from Bewitched and I dream of Jeannie)
55 Chevy from "Two Lane Black top"
58 Corvette from "Hot Rods to Hell"
Cars from American Graffitti
Cars from Hollywood Nights

As far as historically effecting the whole scene I think any car that stands out even a recently built or restored one effects it, because they bring new people/ideas into the scene, and bring old ideas back to remind you how cool they where to begin with. Cars like the:

Khougaz/Buskirk 32 Roadster
Mark Morton's Coupe (from Hop-up)
Anthony's Bubble Top and The PPE from the Shifters
Futurian
Mori's Outlaw Copy
Rudy's Old Truck
Doc Frankestien's Truck
even Plowboys (in process) Space Truck

I'm sure there's a ton more, but off the top of my head, I think these recently done cars effect trends, that have happend and will happen.

 

I enjoy posts like these. It stirs up all kinds of old memories.

I personally think the Gene Monneyham 554 car had the most impact on my gasser upbringing. It ruined me.

 

That car reaks in Awsome!!........anybody have more pics of that car??

 

You hit the nail on the head with the Mooneyham 34
chuck

 

I do...I'll have to search for em.