tried searching. if you have a link please post. interested in info on fat fendered customs in the post-40s style. some still had some westergard remnants, but paint became metallic, interiors and tires started turning white...digging these seemingly transitional cars. seems like a tricky style to nail down, need some info ....when did the pearl white interior appear?
Browse around on Rik Hoving's site. He has by far the best collection of customs of all eras, including the period you're looking for: http://public.fotki.com/Rikster/ Here's one in particular that comes to mind:
yes yes yes... shouldve started a thread like this myself... fave era of kustoms and rarely done on a fat fender.... the mrs is just starting a super rare 41 studebaker champion custom deluxe coupe in this style and we can use as much help as we can get. weve got alot of ideas but itd be nice to show her what it will realy look like.
Is he not asking about 1955-60 cars ??? Were not fat fendered by then, that era finished when shoe boxes came on the scene. That's the way I understand it (and I was there) Rod
35-48 models within the 55-60 period. i'm building a 36 ford 5 window. im planning to do it like this one , but with a milder grill and headlight treatment. white interior, white running board covers and a white roof insert. if i used a dark metallic paint would it be appropriate? also could i use a pearl white vinyl and not go all 60's crazy? also really love this one, i think i would shoot for no skirts and the aforementioned upholstery
I like your thinking Nate! I'm not sure just when the white interior came in, but I'd be willing to bet that the '55 to '60 time period is right on as black became more popular soon after that. In the late '50s the factories were putting out some nice metallics and the custom guys were starting with pearls, candies and metalflakes, so your whitewalls, pearl white interior and rich metallic paint should be right on! How about a nice deep cranberry with white 'boards and insert? -Dave
great! i was thinking the exact color palette you mentioned, but with a lighter tone of red in the interior as a contrast to the white. digging that pic!
I love the El Matador! A lot of people hate it because it's about as radical as they could get while (im my opinion) still being tasteful. This has always been one of my favorite cars.
My '36 was done in the '90s, but the style was certainly more late '40s-early '50s: I had it in several different stances over the 10 years I had it, but this was its taildragger phase.
I always thought of Ann DeValle's '42 as a transitional piece. The Dean Jeffries striping, flipper caps, and side exhaust tips were a big departure from the car's previous smooth styling, and a harbinger of things to come. Though not a fat-fendered car, a similar progression can be seen on the Battencort/Zupan Merc, from 1952 through 1956.
I think where a lot of guys miss the mark these days is going for the wrong whitewall width for the build period that they are trying to emulate. The Battencort/Zupan Mercury illustrates it perfectly when it had the really wide whites in 52 and the narrower but still wide whites in the later photo. Custom car guys usually went with the latest style whitewall out there at the time between the late 40's and mid 60's.
Based on any images I've ever seen I think the key to the 1955-60 era is that more is more. Striping? Yes! Louvers? You bet! [including on the fender skirts sometimes] Bright colors? Heck yeah! Spinners? Absolutely! Chrome accessories? How many can we put on! And as that great photo of the '36 Ford with then-new Corvette taillights show, they often managed to work in some parts from then-new or nearly new cars, especially taillights, wheel covers, and/or grille components. There were a lot of earlier kustoms "updated" with '55-'56 Ford grilles, late-model wheelcovers, and/or "new" taillights. Think in terms of the Ogden Buick with '56 Buick hubcaps, no skirts, and candy red paint.
Here is the car I'm talking about. The black version is actually from modern times but I believe it is the original build style of the car. The photo with no skirts is from around 1956 or so: skirts off, candy paint, "modern" wheel covers.
I don't think the Ogden Buick had skirts in its earlier days. "In the 1980's Barry Mazza found the car in Washington D.C. When Barry found it, the headlights and taillights had been tunneled, and the Cadillac engine had been replaced by a big block Chevrolet mill. The Gaylord top had been recovered, but the original headliner was still there. The front seat was missing, but Barry was able to relocate it. Barry restored the car back to its original appearance and added a few time period changes of his own. Such as fenderskirts and Cadillac Sombrero's. When Barry restored the car he added Lincoln Continental bumpers with 1949 Chevrolet bumper guards instead of Buick bumpers. He also molded the gravel pan to the body." http://www.kustomrama.com/index.php?title=Herb_Ogden%27s_1941_Buick
Great info! This is where I wanted to see this thread go. Sent from my SM-T310 using H.A.M.B. mobile app
If you take a look through thuis thread you will find some of the more tasteful cars built in that time period. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50037
I think you are exactly right. A perfect example for this thread would be Dean Jeffries' '48 Merc convertible, circa 1957. It had louvers, flames, spotlights, striping, the whole nine. Unfortunately I don't think there are many pictures of it around. I guess nobody is exactly certain how the car looked in its first iteration, but I think it was a knockout in the form of the B/W picture.
Well, yeah. Valley Custom was the Miles Davis of customizers; their stuff didn't look ANYTHING like what other shops were doing, and most of it still looks great today.
Well I might be wrong about the skirts, but the period photo on the right still makes my point: plenty of earlier-era kustoms were "updated" in the mid 1950s to match the trends of that time, usually by adding more and more bling. The sleek minimalist look that so many of us love was a late '40s/early '50s style and by 1955 things were much more flashy even if they were using the same model car (or even updating the same exact car). Louvers, extensive striping, more chrome, brighter colors of paint often more than one color on the same car, and add-on accessories like spinners and chrome pipes were much more common, and they often incorporated small parts from new or nearly-new cars.
Atomickustom, I hope my earlier post didn't come off too negative. I understand what you are saying and agree 100%. All I was saying is that at least on that car, I think the skirts came much later. I hope this post generates several more pics. I am interested in this topic, and would like to see more shots of "early" cars done in this era/style.
Thank you both for this quick response. In Sancho's second picture you can see that it also has paint-detailed Buick spinners with bullets in the middle; you can just see a "header plug" or cutout peeking through the bottom of the front fender behind the front wheel well. Rik's picture confirms what I recalled:before the fully flamed front end, it had a louvered hood, and Dean painted purple flames with crossed tips coming out of the louvers. I was so impressed with that that I almost chose white for my new '57 Olds so I could copy the louvers/flames thing.
I do not think you are wrong about the skirts at all! The fact that Barry Mazza added them later does not proof the car never had skirts when it was first built in the 1940's. In one of the Don Montgomery books there is a photo of another similar styled Buick convertible (With Caddy grille) created by the Paisano brothers. The photo is taken at the dry lakes and shows that car with no skirts.... but clearly shows (dirt, and clean sections on the rear fender) that outside the dry lakes the car was running skirts. The style and building era also would make sense that the original version of the Ogden Buick did use skirts. However I have never seen any photos of the early version of the Ogden Buick, so there is no proof for running skirts either.
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