Features Kustoms blues? I need to see some kustoms....

Such great cars.

 

I love the front end treatment on this.. looks factory with those Econoline grills and formed hood.

 

Not Econoline.... That's grill halves off a '59 Pontiac Catalina. Not sure where they got the headlight doors.

 

Took me a minute to figure this one out. I was like, "why does that Merc look funny?" Then I realized, it's not a Merc. Plymouth? It's definitely MOPAR.

 

The Cool 50. Customs never went away, they just disappeared. Every once and awhile you would see one. You would hear of one stashed away in a garage. You might get lucky and notice a garage door open, and sitting under cover, hopefully it was covered, or peaking out from all the boxes that had been stacked on it, was a custom. Sometime one would show up for sale in the Autotrader paper, for a cheap price. A lot of times it would go unsold, then the Cool 50 showed up. What was this, someone actually built a custom? Who the hell would do that? The first time I saw it was at Andy's picnic in Castro Valley. It was to new to get in, so it was parked at the gate. It had a crowd around it. It was first painted Maroon, but was soon Candy red. The interior is silver. I was fresh out of high school when it showed up, 76, 77, or maybe 78. I don't remember if it was Maroon that day, or red oxide primer. That was a long time ago. This car put customs back on the map. Old ones started coming back out, cars in the Autotrader started selling. People were looking for them, and new ones were being built. What a great time to be in the middle of it all. https://www.motortrend.com/features/richard-zocchi-1950-mercury-cool-50-40-years-later/

 

Still have my issue of Custom Rodder with it on the cover. I still remember the day I got it and sitting at the beach reading it.