I have always been interested in the crossover between the Custom Coachbuilders who built bodies for the top end cars such as Lincoln, Packard,Duesenberg etc to customers orders and the Custom builders of the hot rod scene as it always seemed they were trying to achieve the same things. The differance was the former was doing it for the wealthy on expensive cars and the latter doing it for normally young guys on low price cars. Recently I obtained a book Rolling Sculpture by Gordon Buehrig on his life and work as one of the truely great Automotive Stylists. Buehrig as some of you will know started his career in 1924 at the Gotfredson Body Company working on Wills St Claires, Jewettes and Peerlesses. By 1927 he was doing drafting for Packard and then was the 4th designer to join Harley Earle at General Motors. In 1928 at age 24 he became chief body designer at Stutz. A year later he became chief designer for Duesenberg and remained with Cord Corporation for most of the 30's where a****st mainy great cars he was responcible for the 8/10 Cord Roadster and the 866 Auburn Speedster. Immediatley post war he was with Studebaker and then joined Ford. His first job there was the roof for the 1951 Ford Victoria but his greatest design for Ford was the beautiful Lincoln Continental Mk 2. When I started flicking through his book I was amazed to find a whole chapter on a car that he was obviously very proud of.... a 1930 Model A Ford. If you follow this link half way down the page most of this chapter is reproduced so you can view the car and read the story in his own words. http://forums.aaca.org/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/473144/fpart/1 This car was his own car that he took delivery of on Sept 27 1930 after which it went straight to Augie Duesenbergs race car shop and the work detailed in the link began. Missing from the link is the final work done on the car after the 1st year of ownership. He obtained and fitted Goodyear balloon tyres with special wheels and modified the fender wells so the spare wheels would fit. He also obtained a speed conversion kit made by the great Harry Miller which consisted of a OHV conversion kit,polished the engine for better apearance, fitted Ray Day aluminium pistons, mallory ignition etc. He also designed and made a new instrument panel of quarter inch engine turned aluminium fitted with custom made guages from the Pioneer Instrument Company. He then redesigned the radiator to look more like one from a Hispano Suiza. The top was redone in new Hartz cloth and the car repainted in rich red maroon. Buehrig drove this car until 1934 and put 89,000 miles on it during this time. What do you think. Is this the 1st custom?
I've read about the car and it is a neat looking piece. I think there's a couple of people who are trying to replicate the original car.... From the pics I have seen of one, it should look really good.
No one got any views on this or able to come up with any other contenders? I would really like to hear other peoples thoughts on this car as it really seems to me to stand for everything a custom should. Does anyone know if any of the replicas have been finished.
Another contender...? http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=220169&highlight=coachbuilt+german
Then there's Howard "Dutch" Darrin. Not only did he pen some wonderful coachbuilt cars for the likes of Rolls and Packard, he also customized for individual customers to their visions. Most of us know of the Darrin Packards of the late 30s. Perhaps the 1st "Hollywood" customizer. I believe he may be the 1st to inspire the pioneers of the craft followed closely by the craftsmen who modified the Lincolns into Continentals. Just an opinion. The whole coachbuilder subject can fill volumes. His last design (Buehrig) was on a Corvette ch***is of which maybe 3 were built. I was fortunate enough to see one of the originals last week in new condition.
James D..........Cool car and very representative of German coachbuilding style of the time. But it is a coachbuilt car whereas Buehrigs car was designed and built for himself and then driven and and furthur improved for himself. A subtle differance bit it is that made me wonder if that would put his car into the custom catagory. Highlander. I agree that Darrin probably more than anyone else really blurred the line between coachbuilder and customiser and I'm sure he influenced some of the early guys particularly as he was still producing cars during the early days of customising. I also believe some of the early guys were influenced by some of the French coachbuilt cars with their very swoopy flowing lines. So far only 1 comment on the Model A that this is about. It really is a superb looking car with a amazing story.
It certainly is! Not so sure theres really a big difference between a German coachbuilt, and Buehrigs car, in terms of one being "custom" and the other not. Theres not really anything to say that the German car was ever more than a one-off. And its not as if Buehrig personally built his own car (or? Who did build it?). Its just semantics in the end. They are both certainly fine examples of early non Hot-Rods!
I think that this is more of a coach built car, rather than a custom. Custom implies, at least to me, that there is a standard body form which someone sets about modifying (I make no discrimiation towards improvement or ruination). This is a case of starting with a running gear and building a new body from scratch. There is very little modification and alteration to the "original" done here at all.
Attached are photos of my latest project, a replica of Gordon Buehrigs modified 1930 Model A Ford Cabiolet 68B. He named the car Baby, and said in later years it was his favorite car he ever owned, and wrote quite a bit about it over the years, including magazine articles with good photos of the original car. I was inspired to build my car after I restored a 1936 Cord 810 and became a fan of Buehrig, and I started in 6 years ago with a rusty dis***embled 68B Cabriolet body. I put it on a boxed Model A frame (stretched 4 1/2") did all the restoration and fabrication myself on my Baby II, including paint, top and upholstery, except for the engine work that was done by H&H in Los Angeles. There have been several other replicas of his car done, and the previous post is one of the first version of Buehrigs Baby. I wanted to build one inspired by his second version done in 1932, where he re-modified the car by painting it a deep maroon (instead of the orange-red paint), modified the front radiator shell, headlights, and added an aerodynamic piece below the radiator. He wrote he wanted it to appear more like his favorite car of the time, the Hispano Suiza. He also fitted Goodyear Airwheel disk wheels and tires, and added an aluminum engine-turned dash with custom aircraft instruments. I took some liberties with my replica by adding heat and a/c, 12 volt system, radio, and probably more aircraft style instruments than the original had. I tried to keep my modifications in the spirit of the original car, and used era components where possible and tried to keep it from looking like a new hot rod. I could not find the Goodyear Airwheels, so I use 16 Kelsey Hayes wire wheels with aluminum wheel disks (that many cl***ic era cars used over wire wheels). It has a Serr-Miller OHV head, vintage Mallory distributor, and Winfield carburetor. I plan to tour this car a lot and exhibit it at the Forest Grove Concours in Portland, Ore, next month.
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