I obviously have a vested interest in this project, since a 62 is my daily. I was not terribly happy with the artist mock-ups- looks like the same Chip Foose crap. There was an address to write in with opinions and I wanted to send them my vote for them to Bellflower the sucker out. I'd love to see someone with an unlimited budget redo a 62 in panels,bellflower tips,Skylark wires, bullets all around, etc., etc. Please help me with this and send in a similiar vote. Do your part to save an Impala from sheer muscle/'DUB'rim/neo 80's nastiness.
Won't matter what gets sent in they've already made up thier mind. Gone are the days of the dream truck myfriend. That's my negativity for the month. Carry on.
Won't happen, because they need to kiss some advertizer ass... Haven't you noticed the skinny mag with the stapled binding? That's because ads are way down. Seems only Lowrider Magazine can get away with featuring 99% of the cars with the same straight lace spoke wheels while the "Dub" makers keep paying for ads?
Actually, the car will be made the way it is voted. Feel free to give 'em your input. http://rodandcustommagazine.com/projectbuild/135_0509_cpp62/ Nick
Thanks Nick. I'd like to think that the majority of Rod and Custom readers have seen enough of the Overhaulin' crap. As far as sponsors, you got Wheel Vintiques, Mooneyes, HOK, Air Ride, etc., etc. As much as Wheel Vintiques charges, you'd think they could afford some advertising Fellow HAMB kustom enthusiast, write in to kevin.lee@primedia.com or check out that link to see the 4 illustrations they've already come up with-they'd make Chip and Boyd proud
are you really THAT upset about it ?..... build YOUR car rather than worry about some magazine build ....
It's not that I'm upset-I just would like to see what someone with a magazine's budget could do with that car. My ability to invest in my project is very limited (low paying job, wife,2 kids, one on the way.) People get their panties in a wad on this board over less, like the whole SBC/ratrod/red rim/etc. threads ...
The Impala I see pictured in the magazine's "before" shot is already way beyond the means of the person described above. The person described above should sell the "cool car" and buy a 30+ mpg econobox and spend the rest of the misdirected "play money" on food and clothing for the children he decided to bring into this world whether he could aford them or not. R & C is not going to "build" a dream car with or for someone with a negative dollar "funcar" budget. They never have, they can't. This has never been a low income hobby. I know, I've been there, except I knew at the start I couldn't afford the kids so I never had any, that I know of anyway. I bought a '55 Olds Super 88 in the middle '70's intending to build a cool custom... Yea, right. In the Disco Dark Ages I was going to build a custom! I ended up just driving it for 12 years, since all I had was barely enough money to keep it running to work and back. Even the used Harley XLCH back then only had rattle can black paint on the fenders and "rattle can chrome" on the rusty rims. BUT; The attached Belair quatroporte was built over the course of a decade or so by a friend of mine who did it on a Highschool janitor's pay, with a family of four, with two incomes though... His Wife's a teacher. $55 each chrome wheels, PepBoys cheapest tires, All garage done shaving, (check out the molded roof C pillar to 1/4 panel) One day type inexpensive paint job, and in a few months he's giving it to his youngest daughter who was 2 when he started it and has "helped" build it the whole time and is now getting her driver's license!
i can understand where you are coming from financially and yeah a couple of those drawing are just the same old crap that we have been seeing for the past couple of years (part of the trend.) to be completely honest with you though that first rendering is badass. the car completely fits the 60s kustom era the supremes, skinny whitewalls, scallops, metal flake roof. if they built that car i would be impressed. i really don't think your idea of what the car should be is much different from what they are trying to recreate with the first drawing anyhow. they both fit about the same styling.
a 62 impala 2dr ht needs to be completely restored to OG ,,then "lifted"(hydros) and 13X7 daytons & 5.20's added... hhehehe of course,,you need to remeber a 62 impala was a NEW if not fairly new car in the "BELLFLOWER ERA",,so only big dogs would have been rolling a bellflowered 62 back then,,,
I voted for design number 2... 'cause I like it. But if it were my car... it would get a red interior... 15 x 10 and 15 x 8 Polished American straight spokes... 60's or 50's series rubber... and a 409 and a 4 speed. I'd leave it white... I like white. Baaaaa... Sam.
Where'd you grow up DrJ? When? This car thingie hobby started out as a serious low buck hobby...back quite a few years...perhaps sixty or so...back yard builders that didn't have an extra dime...but built "hot rods," the scourge of the well-to-do and police officers! Maybe it's never been a "low buck hobby" for magazines...but it's always been for me! R-
I think you're asking about the brown Imp I posted? I pulled that off a Japanese rod & kustom site; they had it listed for sale (actually sold). I think I can dig up a few more pix but they're just interior and one of the kustom gille (cobweb).That one influenced me alot with mine-the before and after ( or after and before)...
Sorry, but i *like* #2 and #3. I'm building my '63 Comet that way, and the sketch I did of it was done back in the early '90s. So it's not like I was influenced by the NEW versions of that look coming out. hell, teh sketch I drew up for what I wanted done to my '62 Impala SS back in the early '80s looked similar to #2 except the color was pearlescent butternut yellow... I realize you don't want it done that way, but calling the style crap just because it isn't your favorite? That'd be like walking up to you and calling your wife an ugly *&% because she isn't what *I*'d want to marry. (and anyone saying something like that to someone should rightfully get their ass kicked). I like the traditional stuff (which is why I'm here) but I also like the new stuff. I don't see why it's so hard for it to co-exist.
I spent the first five years in the San Pedro Projects. Federal Housing, the Ghetto. "We" tore it down in the early fifties. Us preschool and elemetary school kids would actually demolish the duplexes with rocks and pipe "battering rams" as people moved out. We heard they were going to tear them down anyway so it was OK fun, right? Sorta like the gangsters are doing in New Orleans now that I think about it. They arent there any more. What we didn't destroy the city finished off and they built fancy town houses for "rich(?)" retired folk and "yuppies" to live in (50 Fraud currently lives on the same street I lived on 50 years ago. He's just retired, I don't know if he's rich or not, but he's not a Yuppie. I know a playwrite and sculptor who lives a few blocks over too) Then we moved to Long Beach in '53 I was a teenager in '61 and hung out anywhere from the Long Beach Pike to ride the Cyclone Racer rollercoaster to bodysurfing at "The Wedge" to Bellflower Blvd Bellflower (lotsa party girls there) all through the '60's. Rode a bicycle or hitchhiked most places. MOST "kids" didn't have a car at all. Even if you had a part time job, the typical $1.25 an hour job didn't pay enough to buy a "new" car and then build it into a show quality "Bellflower Custom" (term didn't exist then. just the pipes were called Bellflowers) unless Mommy and Daddy were still paying for everything else he needed, or set him up in a better than $1.25 an hour job in the family business or "Uncle Fred's" business, or if he was one of the one in a million "You can make it too" people you read about in Parade magazine... I remember the Tridents and Renegades shows in the '60s, compared to the few dozen cars on the floor of the Arena and the fewer "in progress" cars with primer spots or the windows taped up because there was no interior parked around the perimiter walkway in between the corn dog vendors, the "average guys" were still taking the bus down town or riding a bicycle to see the show and keep dreaming that the day would come. I don't care if YOU had a car and ALL your friends had cars too. If you did you weren't part of the "average guy" group. I seriously doubt every kid in your high school had the where-with-all to buy and put gas in a car much less spring for the "Cal Custom" bling-of-the-yesterday. The only kid I knew personally in High School with a "Bellflower Custom" had a '55 Olds. Lowered, Bellflowers, every piece of stamped steel under the hood was chromed, Tuck & Roll done by one of his uncles in San Diego, and Appliance Chrome chrome wheels. Daddy, the Gynocologist, paid for every friggin bit of it and the gas and insurance too. The guy "played" his seperated Mom & Dad for everything. In Fact, in '65 The Olds went down the road and was replaced with a new Sunbeam Tiger. And the rest of us were pissed because he just traded the Olds in without giving any of us a shot at buying it. Ya see, around here there never has been any "field cars" for kids to get for almost nothing and drive around when they're still 13 here in "the city" if you did, and some tried it, the way-to-many traffic cops (relative to the way-too-few cops busting actual criminals) would bust you and then you'd be looking at no license till you was 18 instead of 16. Sure, there were and still are cars in garages stashed away by "Widow Jones" but they know what they have and getting one required her to also be "Aunt Jones" or a whole lot of right place at right time, standing between the two trees struck simultaneously by lightning and walking away kind of luck. Everyone knows someone who fell into a great car deal. Or even someone who seems to have a "knack" for great car deals. But EVERYONE hasn't and won't see that "deal" fall their way. I wonder about some people's great car deals some times. I remember one night at the Hollywood Park Harness races there was a "Ditsy Blonde" woman in the box behind us who every race woud be jumping up and down screaming "I won, I won!" and go collect her winnings I couldn't understand it because I could pick horses pretty well but not every damn race! Then I found out her game. I was at the Para-mutual window next to her and over heard her ask for $2 on EVERY friggin HORSE to SHOW! She was just an exhibitionist who got off having everyone look at her yelling about winning all the time. I just hope she didn't get robbed for her empty purse going home... I think some people just might be like that about how much or how little they paid to buy or build a car, and about how "dirt poor" they are, (not!). Supposedly Howard Hughes was a self made Billionaire who started at the "bottom"... Except for that incidental little company hiis Dad left him that was worth about $800,000 at the time.... "Poor" is relative.
The Jalopy Journal
