Thread: What is a Kustom to you?

Tweet

I grew up in the fifties & sixties...started buying magazines in '58, but collected them back into the '40s.

To me, kustom with a "K" implies a George Barris connection. The term custom meant "restyled" or "Personalized appearance", and when you add the terms "mild", "full", or "radical", it described to-what-degree.

Today I find that newcomers are rewriting the definitions of terms that were developed over decades, but I am just glad the hobby will continue to go on, and the active participants have the right to change things. We surely did!

Today I would bet that, to the majority, it is a vague term meaning "personalized appearance", and if you try to get more specific...the debate will start. In terms of you business, most will assume a general restyling of any kind is possible. The only limit being, of course, your abilities.

I'm like hotrod. I grew up in the 50's and 60's and hot rods to us back then meant bigger motors than stock or keeping the stock motor but building it up for more HP and torque. Also we did some nosing,decking and channeling and we used mostly spray cans of paint to paint our rods. Nice reversed chrome wheels with white walls were in style and I see there coming back. we also did alot of scavaging through junk yards for newer rears and front ends. Raking was big back then and if you didn't have a good rake, you just didn't have it. Hot rodding has changed over the years and so have I since now I like the lower looks and brighter paint jobs, but everything the came around will go around again.

Customs come in a variety of flavors as mentioned above: mild, full, radical. My 57 Olds is a mild custom. Custom interior, nosed, decked, shaved, smoothed, frenched, lakes, smithys and many more little changes. The 57 Olds had a factory low roof line, so any kind of chop would have made the car a radical custom. Paint jobs, other than the original colors can also be mild or radical and can define a car as a custom.

Some radicals are simply that, a one-off vehicle. These are usually more show cars than street cars. Although custom building is still with us today, my preference runs to the customs of the 40's to the 60's.