Features Custom car revival 2021 event coverage

I've always loved your ride. That Imperial grille looks awesome.

 

Thanks for all the coverage! Some really killer kustoms!

 

Thank you, poor thing almost looks stock when parked in a sea of chopped Mercs and hammered Shoeboxes.

 

I too, like this Chevy. The Pontiac tail lights really do it for me.

 

Thank you Bill for taking the picture. This is my KKOA Salina hat I was thankful to have it at the show. Its not Kool but its cool......

 

Thanks for posting the pic! My wife asked if I was reeeeaaaaalllly going to wear that hat. Yup, yup I am. LOL

 

Those hats are great. Especially around here. I was wearing mine one day and it rained.....imagine how bad it sagged after that. It had to go away.

 

One of my favorite things about kustoms ... all the different wheelcovers. Here's a sample from CCR.

 

You have my attention. Lot of kool wheel covers this year. Thanks for sharing your pics..

 

I love Lincoln Premiere caps. I collect them one at a time….takes a while that way, but it is cheaper.

 

That's just perfect! Looks like you were having a great time!

 

You`ve got room for one more.

 

But, you will have to trim it to match the staircase.

 

"Listen, man. You got any more of those secret agent spy scopes? That pull in the moon, the sky and the planets ... and the satellites and the little bitty space men?"

You're not going to see martians or uranusonians but I suppose your can at least pull in your local rock and roll station with these kool kustom antennae.

 

I was really thrilled to see this car. When I saw the grill and the Caddy kick-ups on the quarters, I'm like, that looks like the car that Kurt McCormick had at the 1st KKOA event in Wichita. Mind you, I wasn't there in 1980, but I remember the coverage in all the magazines at the time, which is really what brought this 80's teenager into 50's kustoms.

Great story to this car/owner. @stanlow69 and myself visited with Larry and Maggie Jenkins. They only just got this car in their possession a month ago. Larry has been after it for more than 15 years.

Larry's dad built this car around 1953. It had Dodge side trim (similar to 56 Olds) that split the yellow and white paint. This was the car that Larry drove to high school back in the late 50's. Maggie had put together a Shutterfly style book with the history of the car, showing Larry's mom at age 23 standing near the car. The book covered the owners over the years and the changes made to the car by each, including Kurt McCormick, who I think he said, added the louvered skirts. There was a pic of the car in gray primer at the Wichita KKOA event, in the background is the Sam Barris Buick being unloaded. Larry said this Ford was the first custom the Kurt had ever purchased, which as we know, lead him down the road of owning/bringing back so many iconic kustoms, most with a Barris pedigree, including the Sam Barris Buick. At the end of the book, there was a pic of Larry's now 90 year old mother, sitting in the passenger seat of the car that her husband had built so many years ago, smiling from ear to ear.

Wish I would have had more time to visit with the Jenkins' at the show Sat, but I was like a fat kid in a candy store, like a moth in a room full of 150 watt light bulbs, like a, well you get it. Maybe someone can fill in the blanks on the other owners. The previous owner did not want to sell, but told his family that if anything happened to him, he wanted the Jenkins to have the opportunity to purchase it. Sadly, that man recently passed which is how this little Ford coupe came full circle.

 

I was looking that car over pretty good. I was wondering about the Caddy tail light treatment.

 

Hood was down most of the time, as any good kustom should be, but here is a rare underhood shot of Voodoo Larry's recent build. Quilted aluminum num num.

 

The sheet metal work is nice, the box with the frog mouth scoops is super lame. Looks like he ran out of time or ideas.

 

I asked Larry if it had an electric motor in it. He didn`t know what to say.

 

He's a nice guy, but the box is below his abilities.

 

I don't get the under hood work at all. Looks more like something one would see under the hood of a current C-10 build with huge wheels and rubber band tires than a custom.

 

The custom world is all about "Stretching the envelope" and "Thinking outside the box" - Sometimes you end up back-tracking...

A custom built to display at a national show, and a custom built to drive through a few states to attend Lead Ain't Dead, are two very different animals...

Russ

 

I've seen pics before of this unassuming '56 Ford Sedan. Easy to miss some of the details until you get a closer look. Rounded hood corner, hardly ever seen on 55/56 Fords. Not just the bottom of the front lip, but also on the back. Cowl and fenders (and probably the rocker panels, I forgot to look) are now one-piece. I like it!! Even with the aweful waffle wheel covers, gotta admit, they look OK when detail paint is added before slapping them on.

 

I can't say I've seen this grille used on a shoebox Ford. I didn't research it, but I think it is from a Willys Aero, or Willy's Knight. I could be totally wrong

 

A good story about this car showed up in my newsfeed this evening. Can someone post a link (I ain't good at that) to the story on "Autoweek" written by Wesley Wren, titled "How one old car can completely change your life"

 

The shoebox with the Stude fins is Vic Collins' car, who owns the Kopper Kart clone.