Notable Customs
Some customs gained attention for winning the AMBR trophy, or for their outlandish styling. Notable among these is Silhouette and Ed Roth's Mysterion. Some of these more unusual projects turned into Hot Wheels cars, among them The Red Baron.
Other custom cars became notable for appearances in film (such as Ala Kart {1958}, The California Kid three-window {1973}, or the yellow deuce from "American Graffiti" {1973}) or television (such as The Monkeemobile, the "Munsters" hearse, or, more recently, Boyd's full-custom Tool Time '34, or Pete and Jake's '33 three-window, Eliminator, built for the ZZ Top video). Specialist vehicles, such as the T/A, KITT, from Knight Rider, are not usually considered customs, but movie or TV cars, because they retain a mostly stock exterior.
Still others exemplified a trend. One of these is the '51 Merc built by the Barris brothers for Bob Hirohata in 1953, known forever after as the Hirohata Merc. Even without an appearance in film ("Runnin' Wild"), it is iconic of '50s customs, and of how to do a Merc right. The same year, Neil Emory and Clayton Jensen built Polynesian for Jack Stewart, starting with a '50 Olds sedan. Polynesian made the cover of Hot Rod in August, and saw 54 pages of construction details in Motor Trend Custom Car Annual in 1954.
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Famous quotes containing the words notable and/or customs:
“Every notable advance in technique or organization has to be paid for, and in most cases the debit is more or less equivalent to the credit. Except of course when it’s more than equivalent, as it has been with universal education, for example, or wireless, or these damned aeroplanes. In which case, of course, your progress is a step backwards and downwards.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“The customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be profitably imitated by us, for they at least go through the semblance of casting their slough annually; they have the idea of the thing, whether they have the reality or not.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)