Custom Car - History

History

A development of hot rodding, the change in name corresponded to the change in the design of the cars being modified. The first hot rods were pre-World War II cars, with running boards and simple fenders over the wheels. Early model cars (1929 to 1934) were modified by removing the running boards and either removing the fenders entirely or replacing them with very light "cycle fenders". Later models usually had "fender skirts" installed on the rear fenders. Many cars were "hopped up" with engine modifications such as adding additional carburetors, high compression heads and dual exhausts. "Engine swaps" were done, the object of which was to put the most powerful engine in the lightest possible frame and body combination. The suspension was usually altered. Initially this involved lowering the rear end as much as possible with the use of "lowering blocks" on the rear springs. Later cars were given a "rake job" either adding a "dropped" front axle or heating front coil springs to make the front end of the car much lower than the rear. Much later some hot rods and custom cars swapped the old solid rear axle for an independent rear axle, often from Jaguar. Only rarely was the grille of one make of car replaced by another; one exception was the 1937 Buick grille, often used on a Ford. (In the 1950s and 1960s, the grille swap of choice was the 1953 De Soto.) The original hot rods were plainly painted like the Model A Fords from which they had been built up, and only slowly begun to take on colors, and eventually fancy orange-yellow flamed hoods or "candy-like" deep acrylic finishes in the various colors.

With the change in automobile design to encase the wheels in fenders and to extend the hood to the full width of the car, the former practices were no longer possible. In addition, there was tremendous automotive advertising and subsequent public interest in the new models in the 1950s. Hence custom cars came into existence, swapping headlamp rings, grilles, bumpers, chrome side strips, and tail lights, as well as "frenching" and "tunnelling" head- and taillights. The bodies of the cars were changed by cutting through the sheet metal, removing bits to make the car lower, welding it back together, and adding a lot of lead to make the resulting form smooth (hence the term "lead sled"; lead has been replaced by Bondo). By this means, "chopping" made the roof lower; "sectioning" made the body thinner from top to bottom. "Channeling" was cutting notches in the floorpan where the body touches the frame to lower the whole body. Fins were often added from other cars, or made up from sheet steel. In the custom car culture, someone who merely changed the appearance without also substantially improving the performance was looked down upon.

More recently, Juxtapoz Magazine, founded by the artist Robert Williams, has covered Kustom Kulture art.