**EXOTA's** New Look - 1955 Chevy

i didnt know that car still exists i have a horrible picture of it back in the day always liked the canted quads. but man i cant believe what happened it to it what a shame. And how can someone possibly take off my favorite side trim (58 ford). god damn this thing turned real ugly. Painted side trim? really? might as well got a decal at least it comes off.

 

I don't really see a problem with all of the smoothing "to stay competitive"...

But... Pearl white on the entire chassis. Real stainless bolts instead of cheap metal stick on covers. Right size, right style tires and wheels. Vintage style stainless side trim on the car. One beautiful coat of candy red on the exterior. Leaving the interior out of the equation, car would be beautiful in my opinion.

One thing I do like that does not appear to have changed is the one piece front end with pancake hood.

 

that seams to be the case with alot of older guys they tend to lose it. i guess they got tired of the way old kustoms looked and when the 80s came around they fell in love with the new look.

 

Fits right in at any GG's event,back east somewhere...(sorry Kirk)

 

competitive ?? if thats the case then thats just dictating how every car willl look

no competition there

 

I guess I'm not into the car show circuit. What is the point they are trying to achieve? Something that Mork from Ork rode around in?

 

Yuck.

 

whoa there big boy. don't be baggin' on us east coast guys for mistakes like that! we don't want it either!

 

I think you would have gotten some nicer replies if he would have painted it a HAMB vehicle freindly color... and put Coker radial white walls on it.

Sam

 

Should have left it a Chevrolet and saved all that money, looked best right out of the factory. Spike

 

Well , I know the owner, same one has always had it, altho it was lost a few years but ron dubberstien got it back.ron talked with me a year or so ago about redoing this car, but I wasn't real excited about this one, so i past. I don't agree with the style of the car but that is what makes the world go round. I guess i live by a different set of standards, It would be awfully boring to have the same car for 30-40 years trying new things on the same ol thing, I would love to see this car put back like the 60's version. but it will never happen. And that is rons choice, take it or leave it, I sometimes think some people talk kustoms but build streetrods , and that is where things get really out of shape. for me , my style kustom is traditional, but i understand not everyone thinks the same. I am a bias tire all the way, except for early 61 and up kustoms. just my 2 cents.............. jeff

 

Littlewing,

My comments were in response to Johns comments above about "smoothing everything to remain competitive in indoor shows", though that is not exactly the way he put it.

I could care less about this car or any car being competitive in a car show. That was not my point...

My comment was referring to the fact that I don't really think the "smoothing" is what most people are upset about. It is the lost history of a unique custom that most would like to see returned.

And yes, I would do something different with that car. I don't think it would take that much to at least evoke the history, and turn people back on that are into that history.

If the current owner digs it now though, then that is all that counts at this point, eh?

 

?
I'm not gonna say what I'm thinking, you all know what I'm thinking.
Fritz

 

Then maybe you could have customized the trim to fit?

You're showing off a Faberge on a billard ball forum. Nothing wrong with a fancy Easter egg, but it doesn't belong on a pool table...

 

I just read all the post's which i hadn't done before I posted, I am glad that I didn't have a hand in this car, after talking with the owner and figuring out what he was talking about, i soon relized this isn't the dirrection i want my name going, sometimes money can't solve everything.I also agree with some of the others that this car doesn't belong on here, and that is where the streetrod and custom thing gets mixed together. I now why the car was taken to this level, don't care for that level. I build cars that have soul, style ,but can be,driven and i drive the shit out of them ! I know the carlsons and feel bad for them because they have taken a beatin over all their posts. they are good people, I like that their whole family helps at the shop, i do think they are more streetrod then kustom tho, all their builds lean towards the streetrod side of town, graffics, gold trimm gauges, billet, it would be better if they understood kustoms more, and it would help them on this board, i don't think they understand what this is all about , yet. and the car isn't their styling ideas its the owners they just did what they got paid to do. which is why sometimes it is better to pass on a few projects. carmen, chriss, lay back check it out forawhile and see if this is your place, you will learn lots.don't take it personal, just you are posting the wrong stuff on a traditional board. jeff

 

yeppers.

 

All right, I understand the difference between street rod and kustom. We opened our shop up for a garage krawl for the Stray Kats a while back. The people who came by saw Exota in progress. There have been several other posts that mentioned Exota. I just thought it would be of some interest to some people. My personal car and my personal choice is more of the old style customs. We don't do any collision work at our shop but rely soley on custom work - street rod or traditional. (The customer is always right, our personal taste aside) We have taken a beating over some of our posts and that's all right. This car would not have been posted on here if there hadn't been interest in Exota in the past. Exota has a really neat history and regardless of negative comments, we do feel honored to be a part of that.

I talked to Ron a lot about getting it back to the original coloring and his feelings are "been there done that" and wanted to move forward and not back. I would look for this car in the future to be sold and restored to it's original look. That would be cool. I would like to build a clone of the original when it was driveable.

 

That is a great reply!
Please show us more of your traditional work and not this.

Norton

 

Yeah that's not fair......lol..........you guys have enough guys out west you can blame stuff on....lol

 

I thought it was Florida that everyone bagged on for building cars like that???

Please share those differences with your wife.

 

You certainly aren't talking to me regarding Big Olds are you?

 

I have to agree on this as well. Even if you have a part in the transformation you should have tried to sway the owner to a more traditional look reather than a street roddish look to an iconic car. I would have explained to the owner that he should have sold this car to someone who would restore it to it's former glory and take the money to build another car with another stylr rather than trying to mess around with this one and it's style.The thing is your having a style issue with this car. The themes are clashing resulting in styling conflict within itself. The style that is trying to be performed to this car is not working with what has already been done. Sorry I am not knocking your craftsmanship but I think you need to be more persuasive to the owners when working on these types of cars. We need to help them to understand that what they have is rare and it should be restored to what it once was. I hope you understand I am not coming down on you but I am hoping that you can show the post that are being posted here on the HAMB if you get another project l;ike this in to help the owners to understand the significance of such cars.

 

Oh shit here we go...........this is gonna get good...........lol............be easy on em Denise

 

Relax....this should calm you down!!!!!!

 

I'm LMAO right now! You're a funny, funny guy John.

Oh yeah, and if you REALLY have 4 jars of that stuff right now you really need to send me one.

 

I do predict this thread will be closed before I wake up in the morning and read a response from him. I can't imagine he was referring to Big Olds since I don't have chrome reverse wheels on him NOR has this dude been around the HAMB long enough to know all the TASTEFUL and DESCRETE body mods that have been done to Big Olds over the last 8 years.

 

7:00am back east and everyone is still being halfway civil. So far so good. Yeah, the dude bustin' on Denise should look the Big Olds over. She "gets it".

 

Bob,you're being generous giving it 2 points.We here on the East don't want that title either.Maybe we can give it to our neighbors to the North.If it was restored to the original look,it would be a decent looking car.

 

Something about a 55, its stock or gasser look, custom don't work!

 

That the owner opted ,fo rthe change,,wow

Did /does he do customizing ??

I think thats sad when people who created some really cool stuff get to feelin g they need to change just to keep up with teh times..

Seen it happen in music and if the band survives ,,everyone always talks about the "1 album",,lol

also seems kinda sad that i guess the crowd for lack of a better word would have that much sway..would seem than that a custom show would end up with cookie cutter ,,all the same format kinda cars..really takes the diversity out of it