Projects The story of my kustom project

@Moriarity, this is for you.

Many of you know I am a die-hard kustom fan and have been most of my life. Growing up in Wichita was an influence with Starbird shows and the KKOA. Bear with me, this will be a long-winded story of how this project came to be.

My dad and step-mom are always telling me about old cars they see for sale as they know I have an interest. That's how this one begins too.
We were at their house and they were telling us of an old Ford that was coming up for auction in town. My dad and I went up to look at it, a black 1959 300 4 door. The first thing I thought of was the "Crime Story" car. I watched that show back when and we had recently bought the dvd's and my wife and I were watching them. I thought it would be cool, it was pretty straight and complete but rusted about 3" up all the way around the car. The auction would be the same weekend as the Lead Sled Spectacular in Salina which we usually go to, so I wasn't real concerned with the auction.
Went to the Spectacular and had a good time as always. Driving home and my wife gets a text and is elated. "You got the car" she says. I had no idea but she had gone and put in a bid. She bought this car for me without me knowing! She puts up with a lot and seems to be understanding of my car infatuation. Here is how it looked when we got it home.


I had also gone to Pomona with Jeff Myers @finkd and @Voodoo Jim. Jeff was showing the 1957 Ford in the Custom Hall at GNRS. It was after that I began thinking about the '59 as a kustom. I started to flip through my little pages looking for any 59's that might provide inspiration/ideas. Saw a couple cars that I liked parts of, but nothing that REALLY excited me.
Until I found this, a redesign of the 1959 Ford (done in 1959!) by Darryl Starbird himself!


This was it. Darryl started with a homely car and came up with a beauty. I showed this to Jeff, he was on board and equally excited. As you can see, we took the magazine over to the Starbird Museum to show Darryl. He was also excited and told us that to his knowledge, no one ever built the car. I then started gathering parts.
I am no builder, I don't have the time nor the skill. I do have a vision of what I want, and know Jeff can pull it off. I also have Voodoo Jim to handle the mechanical work and wiring.

I will add more to this on-going story as I get time, but this gives you the basic background.....

 

I always think of "The Killers", with Ronald Reagan and friends, from 1964 when I see one of these. Cool car.

 

I'll be watching this also, get the momentum going and keep posting updates.

 

I have quite a bit to post to catch up with where we are now, finally getting around to starting a thread.

 

Can’t wait to see all that I’ve missed so far. When I was there last I don’t know if I got the chance to tell you that it’s awesome and I’m excited for you to make it happen. See you next week up here!

 

oh boy, it doesn"t look like that anymore !!it's blown in a million pieces, but progress is being made,.....

 

I'll be watching. My parents had a new one when I was young. What are you going to do with the dash? I like 57-58 dashes but the 59 lost me completely.

 

I'm listening....

 

Titian red?



I hope you will max it out inside... 4 buckets (rear facing passenger?), console, LOTs of pleats, and....?
You have the vision. now take it inside! I'm a nut for the gut!





Biscuit tuft burgundy.... and white?



Or how about Frieze?
Git you a HD sewing mochine, and git stitchin'!

 

Anxious to see the work you're going to do. Good luck.

 

Make sure you tell you wife you know how lucky you are to have her. Not many wives are really interested in your car let alone go the extra mile to buy you the car you want without your knowledge. Enjoy them both. Waiting for pictures (of the car of course).

 

Copy that!
I've bought cars from cats with wives with bats for windows!
And re-skinned drums for guys with wives with knives for hides!

 

Cool

 

Thanks for starting this thread. And a few years ago, there wasn`t much love for customs on the HAMB. Good to see something of a different kind of build style being built.

 

Sorry even though the thread was for Moriarity, I read it any way......

I wasn't aware of how you got the car. That is just to kool, glad you shared the story with us. It's kool how it all worked out and a kool tribute to Starbird. Needless to say it's going to be one sweet ride. The project will put a lot of smiles on some faces. I can't wait to see ya driving it around.

 

@'Mo I'll get to the interior but you are reading my mind.

First thing, the guys at the shop completely disassembled the car and we had it stripped.


You'll also note that the handles are all shaved at this point.
The window frames bolt-on on these and I thought it would be cool to have them plated. Give it the appearance of a 4 door hardtop. So off they went to be plated along with damn near every piece of metal from the interior except the dash.
I wanted the underside to be white. As Jim got the front end taken apart, Jeff sprayed some paint on it.


Next Jim did a front end rebuild. It was around this time that I decided I wanted to have the lower A-arms plated as well. I love it on the old customs when you can see plated arms from the front. We talked it over and thought they would be visible with the front bumper gone and the Buick pan installed the way it is in the illustration. Even if they don't show, I'll know they are chrome!
3" dropped spindles, new brakes/master cylinder, new front end. Jeff also cut a little off the coils while it was apart.
Here's a shot just to show the chrome arms:

 

Not just for Moriarity, it's for all. Mark and I have talked about aspects of this car via PM's and I finally got to meet him at the Custom Car Revival. He asked me then why I hadn't done a thread on it, here we are....

 

Happy to see this build. My first car was one of these. I'll be cheering ya on.

 

That's thinking outside the box, and will really set it apart.
I can't wait to see this!

 

Next it was on to the rust repair. I found quarters, patches for the lower front fenders, rockers, and doglegs.
The old metal was cut out and the panels were installed by Jeff and Clayton at Jeff's Premier Body & Paint in Ark City, Ks.






That about catches us up to its current state. Jeff has been busy with some other cars in the shop and we went to the CCR and some other shows. The Spectacular is next weekend and Jeff will participating in the weekend chop again. He's been showing the '41 Ford that he debuted at GNRS in January.

I will post some more of the ideas for my car and such until we have more updates....

 

Here's a motivational/inspirational piece my good friend @straykatkustoms did for me.

Paint color will be a fuchsia, something similar to the first version of the Forcasta.


I have the Starbird book and have spent some time studying it and the magazine coverage of Darryl's cars. I noticed that on the early cars the interiors were almost always white. I asked Darryl about that and he said the reason was so that the details would show up better in the black and white magazine photos. So, I want the interior white, maybe with some color inserts like above. I do have seats that I want to use, actually vintage chairs. They are Chromcraft "Sculpta" chairs just like these:

I picture them with white backs and edges and colored inserts. By the way @stanlow69 will be doing the interior.

Since I want this to be kind of a "tribute" to Darryl, I was considering what to name the car. I know naming cars tends to get people wound up around here but a lot of the kustoms of the time did have a name, especially Darryl's cars. Most of his earlier cars had names that ended in "a", think Forcasta, Predicta, Fantabula, Fabula, Exota, etc. I planned to do something along those lines but was having a hard time coming up with something to use. Then it occurred to me that Jeff's shop is Premier so I have named it the Premiera. Darryl seemed to like that too and said "sounds like it fits right in".

 

Oh Hell, now you've done it. Those chairs are so cool. Never heard of them, been looking at net pics since I read your post.
Just a side note to those that have no understanding of customs. Those seats kick ass.

 

Thanks, @williebill

I should also mention that when I sent stanlow69 a photo of the seats he came up with the brilliant idea of using the aluminum bases as corner stanchions (we intend to show this car in the Custom Hall at the GNRS).

 

This is gonna be so awesome!! Glad to see a build thread and read your thoughts. IG is cool and quick, but you can't get much said.

 

Going to be a real looker!

 

Yeah, Chromcraft made several styles too. The Sculpta chairs are quite pricey.
The first time I found a set of Chromcraft chairs, they weren't the Sculpta's and were considerably smaller.
@stanlow69 was worried that they'd be tiny inside the car. He was right.
The first set I bought had already been used in a car and had no bases but they were this style:

After I found out the first set was too small, I found the Sculpta's online. I was a little worried about the price.... Once again it was my wife who said "Get them. That's what you wanted to begin with and you tried to use cheaper ones and that didn't work."
God bless her. I am a lucky man!

 

This is going to be sweet.

 

Some really cool ideas here! Love the colour choice and the interior ideas. Looking forward to further updates.