Ryan submitted a new blog post: The Early History Of The Exotica Continue reading the Original Blog Post
Great pics and story. Those tail lights are the bees knees. Coupla questions: Who owned the car, Mike, Jimmie? It looks like it might be slightly chopped? Or am I crazy?
Man, I remember staring at that car at the 2000 KKOA show in Wichita.... great car built by a true visionary ....
Damn that's so cool seeing the in progress shots of Exotica and spying Mercury Charlie in the background (among others). And even though it's off topic for this site I have always loved Jimmie's dually. I hope it still going strong.
This is a killer thread and post. I love the vision, and I love seeing the guys just hanging around, smiling, enjoying the cars and the build. It wasn't trendy then. Just a bunch of friends getting together and building one of the best modern customs to ever hit. It looked like a lot of fun. It sort of reminds me of me and my friends when I first started into this. Except we had no skill and our cars were pieces of junk, just a load of enthusiasm and a big dream for the finished product.
Yeah... Mike owned it. He drove it around stock for a while, grew tired of it, and then tried to sell it. No one was buying, so Jimmie talked him into sending it over to Gary's for some custom work. One thing lead to another and it turned into a full custom with the trio of Jimmie, Mike, and Gary making styling decisions. Jimmie usually gets credit for the design work, but if you knew Gary you know he always took input and then outputted something that fit his own vision just as well... A good example of that is the chop... It's very mild and keeps the stock proportions - just smooths out the line a bit to look like a concept drawing.
Quite a photo documentation ...but I couldn't keep from staring at the sun.....tailpipes as they morphed unintentionally with the car to their final form too...
Love seeing the stuff in the background. Was @El Jefe's Cadillac done at the same time as the Exotica? I just wondered if this was it in the background. Also wondered if this was Jimmie's '54 (though I believe Gary always had mid-'50s Fords laying around).
I got to see Exotica at the 20th Kustom Kemps of America's Spectacular show in Wichita. It was by far the koolest kustom at the show. It was an over cast day so all day long the Chevy changed shades of colors. Thank you for posting the story and the back ground pics. Exotica is one my top three Kustoms of all time and it is kool to add pics to my kustom library. Exotica sure shows the passion Gary Howard had for building kustoms. Today I'm going to get my Dan Greenberg pic of Exotica framed....
One of things about the car that really blew me away was the paint. I had rarely seen white wit metal flake. It inspired me to paint the white on the Futurian the same way. I used silver powdered pearl, violet paste pearl and silver and gold mini flake in that order. Hard to capture in a picture but man oh man in person
Your paint on the Futurian does have the similar wow affect. I believe it could one of the few perfect kustoms built. Love this pic that Dave Greenberg took. Hard to capture the flake....
Mmmmmmmmm that’s sexy. I’ve cringed at the sight of pearl white before, seen it look so bad on some cars. This pearl is perfect. The flake is exactly what I’ve been thinking for a project at school.
That is my stock Caddy out there about to get its turn. Jimmie's 54 was not out there yet. But I recognize every other car in those pics. Tonky's '57 original fuelie Vette, Jack Chisenhall's Elky, Bobby Pastorelli's Caddy convertible, Jimmie's Riv, the Continental Kid pre-Von Franco flames and my finished Caddy. Man, those were the days. I spy Von Franco and Danny Collins in one of those pics too. Mike brought alot of people together. Man, I'm gonna miss that guy.
Thank You Ryan. The quality of the development of the styling process has been excelently represented in Your written presentation, as well as the photo history. A literal big score for You
These photos are so stellar. Doesn’t bring back memories that I don’t have, but I was in middle school when I first saw that car and it was instant love. Really enjoy seeing all of the behind the scenes stuff. Cory Moore bought that dually a while back. I always called it Air Force 2…I had no idea it had a matching trailer at one point, pretty awesome.
Love to see these pictures getting shared - thanks @Ryan - I was really lucky to come up and be friends with these guys in this Austin scene. It's all really special. Gonna miss Mike so much, he was a smart and hilarious guy with impeccable taste - he drove the hell outta that car. We would be on a road trip to CA and I'd see his arm hanging out, the bright sun hitting the flake on that car going down the highway and turning pink and green and purple with iridescence in the desert - of all the environments to see it in - that was by far the best and most memorable. The Exotica is such a rare combination of influences and personalities coming together to create a true piece of art. It is at the same time the least Gary Howard car in its extravagance (the flames, the abalone flake, etc) and the most Gary Howard car where he found so many moments of restraint and thoughtful design. Unlike taking an already great car and refining it into an even more beautiful custom (like Steve's & Jimmie's Caddys) - the transformation from what it started as and what it became are so far apart, its hard to see how you got there from here. I love these early, build up and sketching images for that. Both ends of the showy/subtle spectrum are somehow held together in balance. That peculiar tension is what I keep feeling when I look at it - like a painting or a song that just gets stuck in your head and you keep going back to figure out. I remember talking to Gary about it and he didn't understand it either - "it shouldn't work, but it does" and then he'd shake his head, smile and say "fascinating" which if you knew Gary was a word he'd use a lot.
I saw it at the first LSRU I went to (2005) and my jaw just dropped. I never do this, but I had my buddy take my picture with that car. It was incredible. The car is a work of art, one of my all-time favorites. RIP Mike, and my condolences to all your friends and family.
I first saw it in person at the 2000 KKOA Spectacular like @Moriarity and @straykatkustoms. I had already fallen in love from the magazine coverage, but that paint in real life.....unreal amazing!! I just stared and stared trying to take it in and kept going back to it all weekend. Several years ago, I ended up with a section of the original paint job like @Anderson posted above. Sometimes I just take it out at the sun and still wonder at it. Prayers for Mike and his family and friends. Sounds like a great guy I would have enjoyed meeting.
Yes, I understand the paint was cracking and lifting so it was stripped and repainted several years ago. When they went to strip it, they were able to lift the paint off in large chunks. I'm told there was a pile of it at Gary's shop and a friend of mine asked if he could have a few pieces.
I think it was about 10 years ago that it was repainted. Here's a photo of it at the TRJ Revival show before the flames were re-done. This was taken when we were tearing down after the show and I was stoked because whoever snapped this got Mike's car and my Buick in the background.
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