So, Alex Idzardi's been busy over the last few months. Seems that he's not only pulled off the two best "buildings" at the GNRS, but also been able to finish his wife's '54 Ford mild custom in time to debut it in the "fun house". He sent me a PM the other day excitedly telling me about the car, but the best pic I've been able to find so far is this obscured view. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=4856698#post4856698 This car is so cool that some one must have taken some better pic's of it. Here's an excerpt from Axle's PM describing the car:"...You should see this thing man. It looks like someone bought a new Vicky in 54 then took it to the Barris shop for Kustom work. Mint green,refrigerator white roof,nosed,decked,shaved, 54 Pakard tail lights,reworked the entire front end,rounded hood corners,frenched lights, reconstructed the entire grille surround. Jade green,soft white,and black upholstery, 6.70x15 Firestone white walls, Caddy Sombrero's, filled front bumper..."
If you are refering to the car behind Jon's Thats not it. That was a 51.. I have about 400 pics that I am going to load tonight and I have about 10 pics dedicated to Axles 54. It is an amazing car. It is absolutely perfect.
Fantastic custom Axle... Here are a few more photos of it... KustomBuick photos Dave Lindsay Photo Hcar photo Andrew Saavedra photo
Love '54 Hard tops!!!! Howard/Vaughn '54 looks like the inspiration or perhaps just a cool clean custom. Love them both!
Very Nice... Gets my juices flowing to get my '54 done. In primer this weekend and paint by end of the month. It's the puttin' it all back together thats gonna kill me! Hope it turns out half as nice as this one.
BILLY...nice if you like that shade of green, and something about the grill, just isn't shiney enough. but 54 ford's are great cars...POP.
Thank you guys. I did 99% of this car in 30 days -12 hours a day . Don't know how i managed to eat,sleep,organize two GNRS buildings,and build this thing at the same time. Probably why all i've done the past 48 hours is sleep. History. I found this Vicky in 1995 - across the street from Knotts Berry Farm -right up the street from where my wife grew up. The original owner still owned this and he had every registration slip from when the car was new - til 1991 when he parked it. In 1954 and 1955 the registration says "legal owner - Bank of America Western Ave. Los Angeles" . This is when he was financing it. I just had to have this car and the original owner would'nt say "No", but wouldn't say "Yes" either. So, for 13 years i stopped by every 6 months and it was always the same thing - til one day i knocked on the door and he met me outside and said " Can you come up with some money today"? We owned it an hour later. Car had original black paint (what was left of it anyway) and 90,000 original miles. At 60,000 miles (back in the late 80's) the son took the car to shop cl*** at High school and rebuilt the engine. In making my customizing choices i was majorly influenced by the Bugarin Merc, The Hirohata Merc, other Barris Kustoms, and yes, Jimmie Vaughan's Vicky. If you know 54's very well you will see many subtle differences though. Things i did to the car are: Frenched headlights, smoothed front fender sides,rounded hood corners,complete restructured grille surround - including stainless, stock 54 grille restructured - center section completely fabricated and smoothed, round end parking lights were filled, Frenched 54 Packard tail lights, nosed,decked,shaved, front bumper guard indentations and license plate slots were filled, and on the rear bumper i "C notched" two holes at the lower bottoms, welded round stock around the holes, then built up major welds - all grinded for a clean smooth finish. The exhaust protrudes out each hole. It might of taken experts like Fabian Valdez 5 minutes to do what took me days in some area's but i tried to do as much myself - as possible. I shot the car Urethane "refrigerator white" on the roof, and shot the rest of the car Hot Rod Flatz Mint Green. Tires are 6.70x15 Firestones mounted on McVey's Cadillac Sombrero's. The upholstery was done in TJ one week ago in Jade green,soft white - we went with white square s***ching and jade green ****ons. Carpet was ordered from a place in Georgia - medium green loop nylon. Headliner is soft white with jade green piping. Still working on final touches and we burnt the midnight oil just to get it ready for GNRS. Like many others, i made it just in the nick of time. My wife was called on stage from renown pinstriper Alan Johnson who gave her an award for "Best choice of color". Sometimes its the little things that make everything worth while. Thanks to the following for giving me a hand in the recent past - Octavio, Fabian Valdez, Jared Kays, Mark Idzardi.
My wife named her new car "One Mint Julep" after this song......... <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2rNoR8jnPRU&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2rNoR8jnPRU&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
WOW Axle, congrats!!! I didnt know this was you!!! I looked at the car for a while, trippin!!!! *****in work, *****in car!!! Big time congrats man!!!
Looks to me that the Shifters are moving on from Dirty old hot rods, to tasty smooth customs. Keep it up boys.
I was gonna put my car in a similar shade of mint/surf green primer, but I think I'm going with white primer now, I dunno, I'll see what happens. Car looks sharp man.
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