Customs Semi custom, mild custom.....what about the Bolt on custom

Ok...your a kid in 1959 and pops just gave you the 5 year old car for " being a good kid"...now ya wanna have setting different, but your short on cash, talent, dont wanna be off the road for long, and the paint on the car is pretty nice...what to do?

1- Change the hubcaps, do some painting to the stock steel wheels, chrome reverse if ya mowed some lawns

2 - s****e up some cash buy some lee lenses, find something that will go on with minimal h***le i.e. 56 olds into a 54 Ford , or add something like a bullet to what ya got now

3 - skirts are nice

4 - stripe the dash

5 - if possible do something to the grill....add teeth to that Chevy, pull the bullet off that Ford, maybe a tube grill, maybe another make that will go on easily and need no follow up paint work

6 - stance.....cut those coils and add those blocks

7 - mufflers, duals, and tips...gotta sound good too!

8 - maybe paint the roof if it's a hard top....if ya got skill and money

Well this is exactly what we are gonna be doing to a 54 Ford Victoria a buddy just grabbed. The paint on the car is very nice.....and it's all stock! He doesn't want to start sanding, filling, and try to blend everything. So we thought about the High School Custom....I've been told by the old timers this was how they did it. I'm actually excited for this one

 

Sounds about right....I'm on board. Good luck,have fun. Pics appreciated.

 

I like where this is headed. Back in the 60's, my H/S days, most of the guys would pour through the J.C. Whitney catalog, order what we could afford, and try our best to set our car apart on our meager budgets.

 

Dear God, let this misguided so-called "old school" restyling trend die!

Bolt-on customs were called "gook wagons" back in my day and were considered mega-ugly even back then. The concept isn't all bad but the execution was usually mindless, ruining many an otherwise fine automobile.

Since then most of us have matured and discovered that the best way to enhance a nice old stocker is to ****** well leave it alone.

Mild lowering and a set of nice mellow pipes out the back is always in good taste, but leave the J.C. Whitney catalog where it belongs: in the trash can.

 

I don't think the OP was talking about adding every bolt on accesory in the book, but back in the day J.C Whitney was the only source some of us small town boys had to find the "cool" stuff. And if you look at the catalogs from that era they had a lot of speed equipment as well as custom stuff like skirts and Lee lenses, etc.. It is where I ordered my four barrel intake for my '51 flathead. High tech in 1966.

 

Your kidding right? Did you really read my post? Maybe not a bolt on custom, but a high school street custom. Not really doing anything to the main body of the vehicle.

Olds tailights in a ford have been done since the day somebody figured out they looked good and bolted on. Lee lenses and sattleights were bolt and and looked different that what the left with from the factory

Skirts been ran since those cars were new and most customs ran them

Hubcaps...changed up all the time. Chrome reverse rims look great on damn near anything

Striping the dash...Larry Watson and Dean Jeffries did it back then

Cal Custom....made tube grills...54 Chevy grill had teeth from the factory..didn't Larry add a bunch more teeth to his then high school car that eventually became g****vine....

I'm not talking about adding stick on port holes, mud flaps, tribal decals. Betty boop stickers, clay smith stickers to the fenders, curb feelers, fuzzy dice, Etc....

 

"I like where this is headed. Back in the 60's, my H/S days, most of the guys would pour through the J.C. Whitney catalog, order what we could afford, and try our best to set our car apart on our meager budgets." GV Gordon

Yep GV, that's the way most of us guys in the Midwest "built" a kustom (custom)...I had a '51 Stude Starlight coop, (Dad bought it for me, said I couldn't kill myself in it-little did he know...!!!) not much of the JC Whitney stuff "helped" my Stude, but a set of port-o-walls, on painted blak rims, a couple of "****ers" for the front springs and a couple of lowering blocks on the rear and the car "got down." A pair of stock skirts and I HAD a kustom. Never could find a split manifold for the six but I put a pair of "duals" on it by cuttinginot the lone exhaust. I learned to pin-stripe with a JC Whitney "sword" and striped the dash and hood and trunk (I used Pactra model paints for stripes and names). My Kustom lasted a year...then got traded in on a three-year old '57 Chevy 150 two door...!!!

You can read all about that Stude and my '57 in my first book "Bangin' Gears & Bustin' Heads", available electronically in Kindle form on Amazon.
R-

 

I always thought the first 20 pages of the Whitney catalog (new and hot items, too new to list) were reserved for the gook crowd. The majority of everyday guys, did what the OP is suggesting.

 

I guess y'all missed this part of my original post: "The concept isn't all bad but the execution was usually mindless, ruining many an otherwise fine automobile."

A lot of people did the mindless "gook" thing back then, but that doesn't make it a trend worth duplicating today. The "East Coast" little books are filled with examples of really nice cars that fell victim to owners with a Whitney catalog and no design sense whatsoever.

What I am suggesting is that bad taste back then is still bad taste today...regardless of how historically correct it may be.

 

you didn't buy from "Bears" speed shop there in Enid? Gene had a big store there during the 70s & 80s

 

Don`t forget to nose and deck it. Louvers on the hood would be a plus. This will make it look more like a custom than an original car. When I go to shows, Old people tell me all customs had primer spots. Back then, money was hard to come by. Only the rich kids had fully painted cars. I hear this all the time.

 

Jeeebus, he's not talkin about bulldogs with light up eyes. those are a different kinda lame.
Not everyone's daddy could afford to build you a nice two page article car.
I had a 4 door LeMans with shackles and "GREEN GODDESS" in full size, use the whole car side, hand painted letters. THAT was a gook wagon. I was 17.
I'm glad I lived through those days, but I'm equally glad they're gone.

 

Paints to nice to mess up on this one... Otherwise yes and the corners would be rounded and headlights frenched

QUOTE="stanlow69, post: 11198562, member: 106473"]Don`t forget to nose and deck it. Louvers on the hood would be a plus. This will make it look more like a custom than an original car. When I go to shows, Old people tell me all customs had primer spots. Back then, money was hard to come by. Only the rich kids had fully painted cars. I hear this all the time.[/QUOTE]

 

Bought a lot from Gene "Bear" Fields but that was a bit later. Mostly race car parts as I was playing at our local 3/8 mile dirt track in the 70's and 80's.

 

My '58 Roadmaster first thing it got was a pair of scavenger pipes. I didn't have any money to speak of but I did have some old heavy wall down spouts from the gutters on an old house. they were round and close to the same diameter as the stock exhaust. I belled one end with a ball peen hammer and cut my tail pipes and clamed them on. Hokey? you bet but cool hokey.

Next was interior, I was dating the daughter of the local Baptist minister and upholsterer. (she was nasty ) the old heap got rolled and tucked with left over material for free. I did have to sit on a bucket for 2 days.

We did a '50 Ford just like this one:




Junkyard caps for a $1.50 apiece, it already had skirts and the light kit run us 7 dollars at a swap meet.

Lots of cars got reversed uprights or the front bumper removed. The local exhaust shop would do a set of sneaker pipes ( dumps) for 15 dollars. You could find dummy spots at a swap meet for 10 dollars all day long.

 

where the pics of the now "before"?

 

The 54 on the flat bed getting dropped off at the shop....freinds thinking about doing everything I mentioned in the first post...and I'm trying to talk him into gold pearl on the roof..

Oh and it's a go job too......Roush sbf....with 3 pedals..

 

You are right, it's a beauty!
I went through the same thing with my Plymouth when I got it. It is original paint and I didn't want to do anything to change that. Lowered, caps, dummy spots........

 

If that's as nice as it looks, don't screw it up by painting the top. It seems popular these days, and might work on an odd-colored 4 door, but a black Victoria? Give me a break! If a car is desirable (as this one is), the word for the week is "tasteful".

 

Agreed...think Jimmy Vaugn 54 minus the body mods..and I said gold with some pearl...kind of match the rims you can see under the hubcap , not metal flake..think Larry Ernst car, lee pratts shoebox lower section..., and I said maybe ha ha

 

I had a stock 64 Impala SS back in the day. My local auto parts store and JC Whitney were my only
resources. I couldn't afford fancy wheels, custom paint, built motor. I had more fun just doing simple stuff.
Learned a bunch on the way. IMHO nothing wrong with simple mods bolt on or not.

 

This car is pretty tasty....

 

One from Rikster's site: http://public.fotki.com/Rikster/11_...s/52-54_ford_custom_cars/celeste-axle-idzard/

 

Mint Julip.. Axle formerly of the Shifters wife's car

 

Ok....so this has been nosed and decked, still has door handles, and side trim.....but imperial tailights, and 55 Buick hubcaps....doesn't look like a goon car to me and seems pretty tasteful

 

That one is nice.
With the exception of the door handles. I don't mind the handles being left on but what are those things?

 

Not "goon car", Tiki, "gook wagon". Apparently you're not familiar with the term. Perhaps this old Jalopy Journal article will help you understand what I'm talking about...

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/?p=21950

Once again, "The concept isn't all bad but the execution was usually mindless, ruining many an otherwise fine automobile." My comment was - and is - about the over-use of bolt-on accessories.

 

Was gold the color of choice for tops?
I see alot of it lately and it's not my cuppa.
And it's not my car.

 

Read it......doesn't really relate to my post...I mentioned nothing about **** tails, visors, curb feelers, wolf whistles, oggha horns..l.but thanks for the correction and the read

Ok to make you happy....not a bolt on custom....how about the term street cruiser....high school car...cruiser...

So about the car..read below...nothing that can't be undone

1- not touching anything on the body of the car
2- changing hubcaps...they can be changed back
3- lowering it...if you got a problem with that your probably on the wrong site
4- a screw on tailight swap..they can be changed back
5- Grill..removed the center bullet...it can go back on
6- duals, mufflers, and tips..refer to #3
7- skirts...easy on, easy off..and they came stock on the car
8- striping the dash...come on everybody did it


Seems odd to me that you keep bagging on this post when your selling a Merc with a modern 5.0 motor in it, it's lowered, I'm ***uming has dual exhaust, and what looks to be Olds hubcaps...sounds like you've done a couple of these mods to something you own..

 

Yeah it was a thought...always loved the Vaughn 54 so it's white with a nice metallic silver pearl....so this ones black, the rims are painted Gold ( you can see it peaking along the stock hubcaps) and it would be the opposite of the Vaughn car....white and silver .....black and gold...

As for color we would make something based off of something we could make on a standard mix bank, plenty of pearl in it to make it pop in the sun.....again not talking metal flake...not correct for this car and not my thing....something tasteful and reserved.