Customs A question & an opinion.

I can't describe it. But I'll know it when I see one. Sorta like porn!
I really don't think paint only is enough, even outstanding paint, if it still has the same profile, height, ornamentation etc that it had from the factory. How much change, or how many, make a custom is in the eye of the beholder. JMNSHO

 

Not a car.
I’m not posting non hamb friendly mods.
It is in the antiquated forum but no pics of suspension mods are there.
But I have never seen a laid out ride that didn’t involve extensive chassis and or floor mods.
The definition of custom is basically a ride changed from stock form to suit the owners/builders tastes.
So my step van is definitely custom.

 

It’s all relative to ones point of view.
I don’t use rule books, you do.
Nothing to argue over about opinions.
That’s why threads like this are fun.

 

The best example for perspective with hotrods/“customs” would be the topic of 4 doors.
A friend of mine bought a 49 mercury 4 door and pulled the front clip and dash. He gave me the rest cause it was a 4 door. He’s an old school guy that like many, consider 4 doors as parts cars. However, my students can’t understand this. Old is old to them and old 4 doors are cool.
Just like this thread, does custom paint make a car a custom?
By definition, yes. By our personal opinions, it’s subjective.
So I guess there are no wrong answers.

 

JUST a paint job? Nope.
They call that kind of car...
... a paint job. [emoji5]

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Hello,

So, is/was my 1958 Chevy Impala a custom? I had the rear antennas removed and a custom one installed in the right front fender. The body shop guy in L.A. took them out and fill in a plate with "REAL LEAD". I never thought of my Impala as a custom, but it did have that one body alteration, respectfully done in lead. Also, the right rear curved fender above the taillights had a dent as big as a karate chop. It was done by a military truck parked on the street in foggy weather. (rough neighborhood) The same body guy in L.A. did the repair, using lead as the final surface coat.

Jnaki
Even after spending some money buying the 5 Buick Skylark wire wheels and doing a slight lowered California rake, getting the drums/axles altered to fit the Buick bolt pattern, did I consider my Impala a custom. It was just a fast, fun car that took us everywhere and in no way was it a show car, pristine, but not a show car.

Custom? Only in the eye of the beholder and local car show judges. So, if you have my old Impala out there somewhere, check the antenna area and right rear curved fender area for "real lead" repair.

 

This is an interesting discussion as I expected it to be. Thanks for that, I do hope there is more input.
On the words Custom, and Kustom I have never been aware of them having different meanings for our hobby cars, I just thought people were just being "cute" with that spelling for a modified car.
I do understand that some here and in society at large, consider any object, be it an automobile or any object made in to something different than when it came from the original maker, to be custom, and I could/can buy into that, except our hobby objects, (cars).

Perhaps sometime in the past it would have been best if a universal use of the word, and spelling "Kustom" would have described and been accepted world & hobby wide when describing a car that was, hammered, sectioned, chopped and so on. Then the word and spelling of "Custom" could have described
paint and trick paint jobs like those of Larry Watsons masterpieces. (After all, any thing done by a
"Larry", needs special attention. …..)

 

I see once again we are all is agreement.
I don't have an answer, my definition of Kustom or Custom is still evolving and being shaped by the HAMB and friends. Maybe everything doesn't need a definition, life would work better in many regards if that were true.

I was shopping for a tuxedo a few years back and reading on line about styles. One article I remember said that the finest looking tuxedo in the world is on Daniel Craig of James Bond fame. The article said if you want that look, first you have to have Craig's body.

You can panel paint, lace, air brush and stripe to your hearts content but it isn't any more a Custom than me putting on a tux and thinking I'm James Bond. Flat black paint, a rake and flames don't make it a hot rod. What is under the paint defines what the car is and what it is not.

To illustrate further, you can walk by a chiseled bare steel car at the body shop or buddies garage and immediately know it is a hot rod or a custom or a kustom or a combination of those terms.

 

There's 'custom paint' and there's 'custom cars'.
What's the dilemma?

 

I think it takes a while to understand and get a feeling for what a traditional Custom, Hot Rod, Bomb,Lowrider whatever is. I ´ve learned that some people who are new to this traditional car world are having a hard time with certain definitions. A well done custom 54 anything may have lots of body mods that are so destintive that somebody who does not know what a factory 54 looks like thinks it is just a nice old car. About 25 years ago I had to learn that 49 Mercs didn´t come from the factory with DeSoto grills and I noticed some that had a much taller roof than the others...
Today I think I pretty much know a custom when I see one. But just a paintjob and lowering won´t cut it. Customs were meant to look sleek and sexy. A lowered schoolbus is none of this. .

 

And when was the last time you saw a Merc with door handles???

 

The word Custom derives from the word Customer. Whatever the customer wants is custom. Custom paint has always been expensive. A lowered car with a Larry Watson or Bill DeCarr paint job would be considered a custom, in So Cal, in the mid sixties. Unless you're talking about car show RULES. Counting modifications, for show points, created some awful and flat out ugly crap. And it wasn't really relevant to what we drove, back then. I'm guessing that you fellas, who are super opinionated about definitions, are young and see this a some sort of history, to be categorized for posterity. In the 1950s-'60s, nobody cared, we liked what we liked and what was cool was decided by regional tastes. We would have never imagined there would be such a thing as Kustom Kulture.

 

My lowered school bus was customized to suit my tastes.
Just like all customs are built to suit the tastes of owners/builders.

 

To me all of this is about which level of slang you are using when it comes to our hobby and everyone has a different opinion. The rest of the world has one and one only definition of custom. That is anything that has been customized or altered from what it originally was. That definition is good enough for me. If you want to get technical you can divide it up with more detailed information like mild custom, radical custom, extensive, you name it. I myself don't really care. I just like to look at them.

 

Are the wheels off yet ?

 

I hate to tell y'all...



...but that's a custom.

 

Earl Scheib was “just a paint job”. Larry Watson was a “Custom paint job”.

 

This level [emoji5]



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Obviously your taste in ‘customs’ is over the top mods or one off ground up builds. Nothing wrong with that. But others among us, myself included, do not find it necessary to go to extreme mods in all cases. My preference tends toward less garish modifications than what were typical of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s show circuit cars. Where then, as now, the number of mods was key to points.....nothing was said about being tasteful design.....the emphasis was on quantity......and workmanship......if it actually was well proportioned and coherent in design features, so much the better. A relatively recent example of the latter is the ‘40 Ford Convertible that @50Fraud built. Lots of mods, but very tasteful improvements by any reasonable standard.

You say “just my opinion”, yet everything you say implies your opinion is more valid or weighty than others who are content with milder modifications. We all tend to think our opinions are in some way better than others or else we would adopt those other opinions.

There is room in this hobby for varying preferences.

Ray

 

Agreed, and a very nice one. But I have seen the other cars in your collection......and read many of your posts. I have no quarrel with what you like....I like some of it too. I have a quarrel with what I perceive to be your tendency to define and diminish the validity of other’s preferences when they don’t dovetail with yours. And that is just my opinion. That and a buck will get you a senior coffee at McDonalds.

Ray

 

Yes you are right and I agree. And I cut off my old pair of work jeans at the knees because they were ripped beyond repair... does this make me a custom tailor? Most of my old cars have some kind of modification or alteration, be it lowering, different engines, supensions, slight body mods.None of them is a custom, by traditional standards I think. But like in " custom tailored" for me it takes just a bit more than a few alterations to make it a "custom car".It takes a well thought out concept to improve the overall appearance of a car. But as I said above, I have no problem at all if you call your lowered bus a custom, I think it´s an extremely cool ride, but I would not call it a custom myself.

 

Exactly.
It’s all perspective and opinion.
All of our opinions are worth the same.
Zero
Now I got to get back building a custom flat bed truck.

 

This “statement” by whomever is so full of crap .......”custom” vehicles have existed as long as ‘vehicles’ have existed. Whether horse drawn or self propelled. There were many Custom Crafted carriages and conveyances among the well heeled worldwide.

But even limiting the term to 20th Century self propelled ‘automobiles’, people in countries all over the world have built one off’s or modified production cars that qualified as Custom in that they reflected the tastes of the designer/builder and were unique and not mass produced clones. Any credible coffee table book about automotive history will have numerous examples.

Even in the United States, Hot Rods (“Speedsters” was the early term) were being crafted from the ubiquitous Model T and Model A chassis cloaked in custom made, though often minimal, bodywork in the 1920’s if not before.

And there were several well known and highly regarded Coach Builders that outfitted the high end chassis builders products with elegant and/or sporting ‘Classic’ automobile bodywork, especially from the late ‘20s thru the late ‘50s/early ‘60s. The fact they were professionally built, rather than amateur builds, doesn’t change their status as Custom.

I am not diminishing the post WWII hot rod movement, or the rise in popularity of custom bodywork or it’s strong California influences. Only saying the author of the piece in your post inaccurately describes the history of the subject.

Ray

 

I built a custom baby stroller
I have custom cabinets in the kitchen.
I have a friend that builds custom black powder rifles.
A cousin makes custom pottery.
Every time I got to Burger King I get a custom burger. It’s made to my orders.

 

They used to make a distinction between mild and radical customs. A car with a trick paint job would have fallen into the mild customs ranks.

It is an interesting thought, by the later '60s and into the '70s trick paint was a must on just about any car. Fades, lace, fish scales, blow dots, spider webs. Its funny one of my favorite cars when I was little was a '57 Ford candy red with gold flake. To me that was custom paint, then along came the '70s when I was a young man and a candy flaked car would not have been considered trick at all.

 

straykatkustoms & hotrodprimer, care to get involved in this conversation. Your opinions are always thoughtful and well received.