History True 50s California Customs

So I am interested in finding out what things truly make a 50s california custom. I have a 51 fleetline and would like to do it in the late 50s style. so far I have a edmuds intake fenton headers, I want to smooth the firewall, extend the skirts and put a 55 chevy rear bumper on the back.
What else can I do?

 

To start with go here: http://public.fotki.com/rikster/
and spend about three days going through Rik's albums. There is not a more complete archive of Custom cars available. Then do a search on the HAMB for Kustoms/Customs. That should give you a start and an idea of some specific questions you may want to ask. Good luck with your project.

Oh yeah go here: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=18

and introduce yourself it will make your life much more enjoyable around here.

 

I would also suggest getting the book Kustomland Very good read and it will show you the type of customs you are looking for mid to late 50s.....

 

Hey,

At all costs, I suggest you avoid ALL of the following: Crate motors, frame clips, bags, radial tyres, Urethane paint finishes where the painter forgot he wasn't, in fact, painting a street rod, and way-over-the- top paint graphics, the likes of which were never seen prior to, oh 'bout 1980!

Good luck with your 50s California Kustom build.

S****ey Devils C.C.
"Spending A Nation Into Generational Debt Is Not An Act Of Comp***ion!"

 

Kustomland is good and you can pick it up at Chapters.

You are probably going to find that you are a little bit in no mans land with a 51 Fleetline and the want to do a late '50's build style. By this time most (not all but most) kustoms were beginning to be built out of fairly new cars with not much more that trim and handles removed and then pretty wild (period correct) paint jobs by guys like Larry Watson. You probably won't find too many examples of early '50's cars done up this way although there are some.

 

I got an idea. Nose and deck the thing,use a 56 Chevy station wagon rear bumper,56 Chrysler taillights in 5" extended 1/4 panels, 58 Lincoln headlights with peaks, chopped top and sectioned trunk, pancaked hood, 50 merc grill shell with a 53 De Soto grille, 57 Caddy hubcaps, 4 buick portholes in the hood,cheap dummy spots, upholstered wheel wells, frenched antennas with some finger sculpted flairs, tahitian red with gold scallops, 54 Buick sidetrim, red ivory and gold tuck n roll, rounded corners everywhere, 371 Olds motor with trips, 41 Lincoln door ****ons, pinstriping everywhere, a chrome plated phone on the dash, 53 Ford front wheelwells, every seam moulded, shrouded lakes pipes, a slanted continental kit w/ a nice 57 Caddy smack dab in the middle of it and dont forget to pound out set of cruiser/bubble skirts that run the full length of the 1/4 panels.

 

Ahhhh....now that really warms my heart...

 

I think with a fleetline you should go for more of an early 60's look. Maybe some chrome reverse wheels with spider caps, or astros, no skirts, lake pipes or bell flowers, peak the hood, nose and deck it, 4" drop all the way around maybe some fade paint, or watson style scallops. However it if it was my car I would go for early 50's with it. Flush mount skirts, 2 inch drop in the front and 4 or 5 inches in the rear, appelton spots, lincoln push ****ons, shave everything except the chrome down the side. some caddy or packard hub caps. But thats just my opionion.

 

whats an opionion?!

 

I'm thinking something along these lines, but then again, you already asked me what I thought before.

 

Its two opinions at once.

 

There you have it ladies and gentlemen! Truly he is a master of his language!

 

kustomland x3 like the others said.. a must have, great examples of late 50's california styled customs

 

Haha...excellent come-back!

 

Yeah that would be great... or you could do your thing and reflect your taste & personality.. just remember most of the real '50s car builders were trying to create works of art, with style & cl***, real paint, full wheel covers, finished interiors, check out the web sites that k13 recommended.
and look at some of the real vintage videos on you tube, take a little from everything you see and make it your own and you'll be fine.

Everything that 00 Mack suggested would be great and would make a killer custom, just make sure you make it "your" car and not a twin of anybody elses.

I love the pic that fencepost86 put up, pick your own color combo and that would work big time.. good luck and don't forget to post some pictures of you car...

 

Something like this should get you in the "preferred parking" area,
without getting in over your head.

 

Any Southards book "Custom Cars of the 1950s" (see amazon) is also a good book to read. Rikster's site is a wealth of knowledge.

I studied Car Craft, Rod & Custom and the Trend Custom Car Annuals from 1954-57 to get an idea of what I wanted for a look and techniques. You really need to narrow down '50s kustoms, since there is a big difference between what was done in the early versus late '50s. If find too many kustoms today are not true to the tradition if that matters to you. For example a 1949-51 Ford or Chevy with: air bags with frame resting on the pavement, 350/350 with a 4' Lokar floor shifter complete with a softball sized skill shifter knob, an S10 clip, a 6" angle post chop, tunneled taillights, an '80's Monte Carlo tilt steering column, bucket seats, wood console with cup holders, and repop '57 Cadillac wheel disks in flat black with no side trim is not a '50s kustom. It's a 20** kustom using a '50s car for the canvas.

Also remember they were drivers at that time. They were low, but driveable and the ch***is was greasy and painted black. i.e. Bob Dofflow didn't do a rotisserie restoration before he built his award winning '49 Ford coupe.

Here is my car. It's about 1/3 of the way there after 3 years....

 

Thanks for all the great comments and information! I am going to pick up Kustomland today. I had no idea that there was such a big difference from early to late 50s. I do want to keep it totally period but I want to find the right "era" and stick with it. I do want to put my own taste into it.
What

 

sorry what kinds of interiors are considered traditional, there is the tuck and roll but there must be more........

 

Cruiser skirts and a continental kit on a California custom? Only if there's a town called California somewhere in New Jersey.

 

In the 50's tuck and roll was the big one for sure and seemed to be used in some way in most custom interiors.

 

There's an even bigger difference between late '50's kustoms and the '60's stuff...'freize" type material was en vogue by then, combined with vinyl and **** type carpet...undercarriages were upholstered for shows and the milder late 50's cars were chopped, molded, modified and completely disguised to the point you didn't know what they started with originally...candy paint, flake and ugly graphics came about and almost all 'show cars' were changed simply for the sake of change --the wilder the better...and few of them were street drivable. Matter of fact, some of the show cars of that era simply had no internals in the engines...they wouldn't run...it was all for show points.

If you can find the ISCA "Showtime" book, pick one up, it covers the whole era of show cars from 1960 to 1980...

R-

 

Another important bit of wisdom ^^^ that should not go ignored!

As Dago Red points out, there were great geographic differences in custom styling during the '50s as well as those of the year the restyling was done.

East Coast, West Coast, Mid-West etc. are biggies, but there were also areas of regional styles that cannot be ignored. New Jersey, as Dago Red points out, had a style all it's own, as did Northern California, Southern California and others.

Even some cities, like the Bay Area (San Francisco and Oakland) and Los Angeles had their own unique "look"...and even areas in a city such as East Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley were little pockets of style seen nowhere else.

Even individual builders had their own unique styling trademarks: Bailon, Alexanders, Dean, Barris, Valley, Winfield, etc., etc. Each could be identified by their work.

Old timers can pick out "pure" customs whose owners took the time to carefully research and replicate both the era and the area in which their styling cues have their roots.

Most of today's restyles, however, are a random mixture of time, place and origin. That's not a bad thing...but it does grate a bit on our old time sensitivities...as Dago Red again pointed out.

It's almost as much fun to do the research on the various treatments of a specific car, a '52 Victoria in my case, as it is to gather the parts and actually build it.

I am finding the old "little books" car mags to be the best source of regional information, especially the "reader's rides" section in the back. These are the real "gr*** roots" cars of the era...warts and all.

It's great to see how the pro's were doing it back then, but it's just as interesting to see how the little guys in rural America were doing it as well.

Good luck on your project!

 

..it's what Opi Taylor put on the cheeseburger Aunt Bea made for him

 

no doubt Rik's site is great place to start but if you tire of the computer screen, I know I do then as far as books go grab yourself the 4 volume set Barris Kustom Techniques of the 50s., Andy Southard's Customs of the 1950's, Hot Rods & Customs of the 1960's and the American Custom Car by Pat Ganahl

Theres a ton more great books I'm sure folks will add to this but those are some I would recommend as good starting points

You may find them at a local brick and mortar bookstore if any remain in your area but if not Amazon or some other online vendor probably carries them.

B4 I forget, in case you're made of money and still have plenty of scratch left head over to eBay and buy up every old issue or someones collection of Rodders Journals

Hope that helps as far as a starting point
.

 

I'm thinking oomack was just kidding.

Californa customs were smoothed and moulded. hanging a load of **** on them was not the style.

find a picture of Frank Livingstons fastback. both his newish one and the one he built back in the day. I bet the old one would pop up if you googled "satans angels"... pretty sure that was his club back then

 

....I had a fastback I was going to build a couple years back. I like the looks of the 51 Pontiac bumper out back. putting in a 53 grille is a good looking modification, either moulded or not. 49-50 merc grille opening with some sort of floating bar grille is another good look.

I like the headlights frenched with the stock rings, but 56 (?)Olds headlights is another good one.

another cool look is to use 56 chevy rear wheelwells, or maybe a wheelwell in that shape but no lip and use the 56 skirts

 

I agree on the Barris Techniques books and the Andy Southard book too...Altough a couple of the volumes of the Barris techniques books are getting hard to find at a decent price or at all for that matter.

Another really great source of information which was said before was the Car Craft Rod & Custom Custom Cars littleb books too.

And like stated before there is a big difference even between the years 55,56,57,58,59 and east coast west coast diffeent builders and etc.etc..

Send me a P.M. with your address and name and I will send you some of my double copies of the little books that i have so you can get started.

 

Send them to me an dI...uh...promise I'll give them to Dave...

Seriously, thats very cool of you man!

 

anyone have a picture of the green fleetline out of socal? has a mild chop, green candy paint, with "kustoms" plaque on it. should fit the bill...