Whats the most famous Kustom?

My favorite and my greatest inspiration!!! flow and style!! DONE!!! My personal most famous Kustom!!!

 

This is a very wide open question that can go so many different ways.

 

Hirohata, and I think the reasons are obvious... dead sexy

 

Actually the Batmobile was built by Bill Schmitt and the Lincoln-Mercury design team as the Lincoln Futura. Barris gave it a facelift, as he did quite a few cars. Nothing against Barris, he is a great promoter and customizer but he didn't do the nuts and bolts (or body panels) on the Batmobile.
Larry T

 

Agreed!

 

Agree 100%

 

When I think "famous",the first question I have is,who are you asking? If you're asking a car guy,he would probably say "Hirohata Merc". If you're asking someone who doesn't know cars or history,he would probably say "Batmobile".
There's lots of famous Customs though....
Moonglow
Matranga Merc
Lil Coffin
AlaKart
Dream Truck
Beatnik Bandit
You might want to ask...."What era?" There were different famous cars in the 50's,than in the 60's. East Coast guys will have a different answer than West Coast guys.
I agree with some of you guys who figured that you can swap out "famous" for "favorite". It's all based on perception anyways....

 

I agree 100% The H merc is the gold standard , But Tommie the greeks ford was way a head of its time Bar none. I think what makes the H Merc so well known is the fact it was gone from view so many years and come out thanks to Jim in true unmolested shape.

 

Having owned the El Matador, I am biased, but I would have to say that Hirahita Merc is the ultimate custom of all time. As a kid I remember the cross country trip and seeing the car in person, and the history of it disappearing then re-emerging, that is the stuff of legends.

 

Ok what 40s what 50s what 60s and 70s into the current 2000/2010 good read
Kustoms
40 Tommies ford
50 H Merc
60 El matadore
70 any body A.G. Merc
80 Cadzilla
90 Sniper
2000 John Ds Carabine Pakard

 

The question should have been "What Custom is the FIRST one that comes to mind?"

 

Ala Kart

 

I agree wholeheartedly with these guys,Hirohata handsdown, and it's not even my favourite by a long shot.
Play nice now
Paul

 

Hirohata. No doubt the most famous.

Plenty of great cars mentioned here, one of which was my personal favoritre, and aguments can be made on all their behafs, but none as famous as the H.

 

Hirohata Merc.

 

The Pacer from Wayne's World!

 

Party time, excellent.

 

Most famous custom for a non-car person?

Mercury from Cobra.

Most famous hot rod for a non-car person?

Munster's coach


Most famous hot rod for a car guy?

American Graffiti coupe

Mast famous custom for a car guy?

Hirohata Merc.

 

Cobra Merc

 

scrape

 

Oh come on you can't f*ck with the munster coach. I love that damn show! The Munsters rule.

(not exactly what I would think of when it comes to kustoms though)

 

I think some people are confusing the title "most famous" with "My Favorite"!
With as ground breaking as it was when built......the drive across country......the stories of how it was hidden for so long even when GOBS of money were offered for it...The PERFECT clone built of it(which really kicked off the clone craze)....and finally.........The grand announcement of it's discovery and rebuild, along with the sightings of it today.....................IT HAS TO BE THE HIROHATA MERC!

 

F A M O U S. That was the question, right? Kustom calls out to those of us who tend to really follow that ilk. Keeping the semantics out of it fame can be fleeting and at times, late. I seldom see the Hirohata in it's other colors because it's most notable in it's green livery. As an enthusiast of all that "kustom" really means, 2 already mentioned, the Merc and "Moonglow" always pop into my head. They're famous to me. I 1st saw the Merc in a magazine that was doing a retrospective of the old kustoms and that was in the late 60s or early 70s. I was hooked. The other one that got me was the R&C Dream truck. I hated the fins. The rest was an inspiration to me. I was maybe 11 or 12 yrs old. Today I have my own version of a dream truck in process (a long slow process!).

If fame means magazine coverage one could simply tally up pages and covers. If fame means those done so well in the true kustom venue as we know it, the benchmarks of style and execution, I think we got the answer. Are there better? Maybe. But then what's the basis of better? Do we have favorites? Sure we do but that wasn't the question, was it?

 

"most famous" on this thread probably boils down to "my favorite" as everyone gives their opinion here.....for me it was 'Moonglow' and Roths' 'Outlaw' as both cars were low buck owner built and said to me "you can do this"...I remember reading something like Roth spent $500 bucks building that car and of course Duane Steck and buddies did the moonglow in the driveway....something that I could relate too as a kid with my first car in the late 50s

 

The funny thing is....being someone who has a Merc. I hear it ALL THE TIME! "Isn't that the car from Cobra?" The next thing they say usually is "I like lowriders...." WTF!!!! hahaha!

 

Only a guy with a Nova would say that....!!!!!

 

I vote the sam barris merc.

 

Yes it's cool....but it's NOT a Custom.

 

This is interesting... to me "most popular" needs some sort of statistics to back it up... not fanatical guys like us.

So, I googled "Hirohata Merc" and "Hirohata Mecury" and got a little over 10k links, "Ed Roth Outlaw" was about 55k, the "Matranga Mercury" netted about 135K links.

Now on photos, Matranga Merc/Mercury was about 8k, Ed Roth Outlaw had about 28K, and Hirohata Merc/Mercury had about 7k.

I do like the concept one HAMBer posted about a car being featured a certain number of times.

 

Interesting concept, but since car guys are probably the ones posting the pics, it probably only speaks to the popularity of those cars amongst car guys.

Try doing a Google image search for "kustom" or "kustom car" and see what comes up. And I think the "K" is important, as it's what was used in the original post, so it refers to a certain build style that would inherently rule out the Batmobile, the Monkeemobile, the General Lee, etc.

-Dave