Where Did Customs Come From?

by Don Pennington

Customizing cars, changing them to fit your personal interests, has been going on since the new fangled automobile had it's first accessory bolted to the factory produced vehicle.  This customizing exercise has existed long before the automobile was invented, going as far back as the first wheeled vehicle.  Adding custom items to a car soon evolved into the practice of modifying major parts of the car to look different, and reached it's first threshold of professionalism when in the 1920's new bare chassis were being sold by manufacturers such as Dusenberg with the intent to have custom bodies built on them.  The result were one-of-a-kind luxurious and powerful creations to the owners specifications built by the highly skilled coach builders of the Los Angeles area.  

By the late 1940's the hot rod movement was sweeping the nation.  Being focused on the streets and dry lake beds of Los Angeles, modifying cars to go faster and look better began early in the automotive experience.  Evolving through the years this hobby made a dramatic move towards faster cars when the Ford flathead V8 was adapted to power these cars, usually open roadsters.  Even though the roadster style racers were the primary interest of the car owners, some of the closed cars were also being modified. These changes  were primarily to bodies and interiors which tended to be cosmetic and comfort oriented.  Even though many also included performance enhancements, these coupes and sedans were  distinctly different from the roadsters and came to be known as "customs".

In 1933, nearly all the dominant auto makers made  significant styling changes.  The cars had begun to leave the boxy look behind and had become much more streamlined.  While some of the 1933 and later cars were customized while they were near new, the vast majority of these more streamlined cars did not reach the hands of the customizers until years after they were first introduced.  These styles combined with the coach builders' influence and the afford ability of the cars, combined to create a new wave of an American original, the custom car.  

When the United States entered World War II, the young men that went to war were the heart and soul of this new car culture.  Upon their return in 1945, the pent up interest in the hobby they had left behind, exploded with a fresh enthusiasm for  their cars.  New ideas and the desire to get back into life and enjoy it, pushed the racers and the customizers quickly down the same road. By this time the production cars of the 30's had aged enough that they had become affordable to this financially group and many were being used for racing and customizing alike.  

These car owners had a basic interest in tinkering and trying to make things better.  Some enjoyed an interest in how fast cars would go, while others liked to make them look better, although being manifested in different ways, the basic drive of racers and customizers was the same.     

By 1950 the custom cars were in significant numbers across the country and had generated such an interest that a culture separate from the racers had developed.  They had been evolving along with the racy roadsters for nearly twenty years, and now enjoyed their own identity.  Although the racers and the customizers seemed different on the surface, in fact most all the enthusiasts appreciated and participated in the other genre.  The cars built by the custom coach shops that had been produced in the 1920's and early 1930's were still on the streets of Southern California.  Their appearance and power were looked upon as benchmarks of industry craftsmanship .  By nature, the hot rodders and the customizers adopted the mechanical and cosmetic influences of these ultimate automobiles.  The interest in customs continued in force into the mid 1950s.  By then the performance oriented cars of the Detroit manufacturers had advanced to a point where the interest in cosmetically customized cars was losing ground.  This shift drew many of the custom enthusiasts back to racing, although through the mid 1960s it was common place to see performance and custom influences mixed on the same car, blurring any distinction between the two.        

The art of creating custom cars was exhibited in many ways through the years.  The efforts of the customizers were viewed with many inflections of those who view their creations.  Some of these cars are considered classic representatives of the craft, while others although appreciated for their participation in the culture, are not considered noteworthy.  Typically the creating of a custom car is a form of art, where a person envisions a design and creates it.  The end result may not be to everyone's liking, but the act of creating and participating contributed to the art as a whole.

Understanding the process and the history of the custom car, it is apparent that the origin of the custom car has nothing to do with cars.  The revelation that tied a pre-historic rock to a stick, and designed the water systems of the Incas, was the same that inspired bolting on the first auto accessory.   It originated from one of the most basic of human traits, the irresistible urge to tinker.