​Best known as a co-founder, songwriter, singer, and guitarist for the heavy metal band Metallica, James Hetfield has also gained recognition in the automotive world for his unique collection of entirely bespoke vehicles. While the vast majority of collectors acquire vehicles by purchasing pre-existing examples, Hetfield elected instead to build his from scratch, channeling creativity often reserved for his music into the production of rolling sculptures.

​For fans of Hot Wheels, Speed Racer, and ’60s Chevy’s, David Novelo’s, Bob Huffman-built, 1965 Impala is the equivalent of throwing all your favorite automotive elements in a blender and flipping the switch.

It was holding court indoors at the Grand National Roadster Show and caused quite the commotion.  When I first saw it, I thought it was a 1966 Riviera, but after closer inspection, it was indeed a trusty full-size Chevy. Heavily chopped and re-styled front and rear, it is the realization of a Harry Bradley (of Hot Wheels fame) sketch that Huffman brought to life back in the day. It also has a heavy dose of Mach 5 influence in the front fender peaks as well.

​According to Novelo, “Originally owned by Bob Huffman, the car was re-styled by Tom Chafin, who worked for George Barris at Barris Kustoms in 1967. It was featured in kustom mags beginning in 1969. The car has been lengthened two feet, chopped four inches, and doors “suicided.” Check out the fender flared at the wheelwell to accentuate the body lines. The front grille features a handmade-bar treatment, the rockers have been shaved,  T-tops were added along with rear fender scoops and a frenched-in antenna. The car is still sporting its white Mother of Pearl paintjob from 1979.”

​Like many kustoms, the metamorphosis was ongoing with the car taking many forms and hues. Photo – Kustomrama

The original sketch by Bradley shows how faithful the Huffman and Chafin build was. Photo – Kustomrama

What a treat to see this survivor ’60s kustom and know it’s found a trusted, faithful shepherd in David Novela.  Thanks for showing and sharing this artifact of a long-gone SoCal kustom kulture with the world.

Article courtesy of Rod Authority, written by Dave Cruikshank.

​Let’s face it – you the readers see a lot of our favorite vehicle picks from various shows. And while we’d like to think we have quite an extensive repertoire of favorite rides among us that hit even the furthest stretches of the hot rod community (here’s to you Concours lovers and rat rod enthusiasts), sometimes it’s good to change things up a bit. So, in addition to our already immense coverage of the 2017 SEMA Show, we decided to employ the help of a couple celebrities to pick some of their favorite vehicles on the show floor.

​Our first pick comes from the incredibly talented painter and pinstriper Jeff Styles of California-based Styles Custom Paint & Pinstriping. An automotive enthusiast through and through, you could say Styles has an eye for old-school cool, as well as impeccably done customs. His choice – a custom 1948 Tucker (yes, you read that correctly) – speaks to his eye for the impressive.
Built by Rob Ida of IDA Automotive in Morganville, New Jersey, this incredible car was found in the Axalta booth on the SEMA Show floor this year, bringing back memories of a manufacturer long since passed, but not forgotten. Though the car may look very much like a modified yet original Tucker 48, it is actually a recreation of the famed model. Don’t worry – Ida did not cut up one of the original 50 Tucker 48s to build this amazing piece of automotive art. But the story behind this particular Tucker makes it, in some ways, even more special than an original.

​Why Tucker?
As the story goes, Ida’s grandfather was a Tucker dealer back in the day. While he took orders for the then newly released automobile, he never delivered any of the cars due to unforeseen governmental meddling in creator Preston Tucker’s affairs. After Tucker was shut down, all of the cars were auctioned off and destined to either be forgotten or holed up in distinguished collections all over the world.
Having had a love for Tuckers for decades, Ida’s grandfather wished for the chance to own one of the obsolete 48s, even long into his retirement. But getting the funds to buy an original Tucker just wasn’t feasible, as prices on the cars quickly skyrocketed, that was, if you could even find an owner to talk numbers with. So, Ida decided that he would build his grandfather his own Tucker, fabricating everything by hand and coming close to the original Tucker 48 platform.

Jack Aiely’s Tucker
Originally started as Ida’s personal car, the Tucker shown at SEMA took about six years to complete. Along the line, long-time customer of Ida’s, Jack Aiely, took interest in the car and Ida offered to finish out the build for him in time to show the car at the 2017 SEMA Show. The car was finished in August of this year and made it’s debut at the show.

​Just as we mentioned before, this car is completely hand crafted. Every custom-made body panel, every one-off trim piece, all the interior, everything was done in-house by Ida and his crew of five employees. Just the sheer number of hours that went into perfecting each piece of custom-formed sheetmetal and chrome piece on the car is astonishing to think about.

​Another example: the shifter, which in the original Tucker 48s was a pre-selector for the gear you wanted to go into, which was then actuated by stepping on the clutch pedal, works similarly in Ida’s Tucker, just using a modern transmission and electronics. Another: the center headlight, which does in fact turn with the steering wheel, runs not by Tucker’s original design but by technology found in some modern vehicles today.

Finished in a custom Axalta mix with modern metallic, mixed by Ida to be very close to the original Tucker paint color Waltz Blue (an ode to Preston Tucker’s wife who loved to waltz and would wear a similarly colored blue dress doing so), this amazing piece of rolling art is beyond anything even Tucker fans could hope to see in a commemorative Tucker 48 build.
Fittingly, one of Tucker’s great, great grandsons was on the SEMA Show floor and stopped by to show his support of Ida’s Tucker during the week. According to Ida, both Sean and Mike Tucker are very supportive of his Tucker builds and they even come and lend a hand on the cars when they can.

Back to Styles – we told you he had good taste, so what drew him to pick this particular car?
“I love the story and how rare the Tucker was, and then hearing the story of the guy there –Preston being his great, great grandfather – and how this car was completely hand built,” he told us.
We couldn’t agree more.

Article courtesy of Street Muscle Magazine, written by Lindsey Fisher.

​Bill Carr traveled to see the Aztec in Ft. Pierce in 1999. "Bill and his wife began to cry when they saw the Aztek for the first time in many years," said owner Barry Mazza. Carr died from ALS shortly after this photo was taken.

​Much of the car's sheet metal and the roof was custom formed by George Barris' metal-shaping guru, Bill DeCarr in 1956-57. The car is extremely heavy due to lead sheeting that was used to form many body parts.

​Is this the tail end of a 1955 Bel Air? The fins were swiped from a Studebaker Hawk, while the taillights were created by Bob Hirohata. The bumpers were created using 1957 DeSoto and ’57 Oldsmobile bumpers.

​"One-eye" Bobby Wilcoxson is brought into a court hearing on November 15, 1962. He shot and killed a bank guard in Dec. 1961 and was later sentenced to death. He died while in prison before the sentence was carried out.

​There’s no denying that a ’49 Mercury was, and still is, the epitome of “cool.” Didn’t that Hollywood icon, James Dean, make that fact known to all in the movie “Rebel Without A Cause”? Didn’t those two Barris brothers from Lynwood, California, start a craze that continues today – chopping the top of a ’49 Mercury coupe? Didn’t Dick Dean,the Sultan of Chop, build several and make them famous? Isn’t the Hirohata Merc one of the most famous Mercury’s in the world?
Ok, don’t send us hate mail, we know the Hirohata Mercury is a ’51 model, but there’s no denying that the ’49 through ‘51 Mercury is one of the most recognizable cars in the world. It ranks right up there, along with a 1932 Ford and a 1957 Chevy.

History
For our history lesson on this icon, in 1949 there were four basic body styles produced: a four-door sedan, a two-door sedan (and often referred to as a sport coupe), the convertible and a wood and metal bodied station wagon. To make all of us yearn for the good old days, prices began at $1,979 for the two-door sedan, and rose to $2,716 for the wagon. Don’t you wish you could find one for that price today? If you did, what you’d likely get would be what was left after it had been at the bottom of a lake for 50 or so years. Which would probably be not much.
​A total of 301,302 Mercury’s were produced for the 1949 model year. Of that, only 8,044 (according to the Classic Car Database) were station wagons. That fact alone makes them quite rare. However, the wagon featured here was not one of those 8,044 produced by Mercury, believe it or not, this one actually rolled of the assembly line as a sport coupe, and we’ll have more on that in a minute.

Dave Dolman of Verdon, Nebraska, owns, drives and built the wagon featured here. In 1996, Dave started on the Mercury after accumulating enough parts. Suffice to say, what was left of the Mercury was in very sad shape. The car had been hit in the side and a tree had caved in the roof. Dave had taken it in on trade for some other work he’d performed. It was in such bad shape that friends told Dave that he’d never finish the wagon. Several times over the years it seemed that they were correct. Dave eventually made them eat their words.
Fortunately, Dave had owned several other Mercury’s before he tackled this one, so he knew the inner workings of the model. This Mercury is not a kit car, it was built the old fashioned way –scouring the junk yards for parts and putting them together by hand in a pleasing way.

Dave makes his livelihood rebuilding cars for other people so the years pass quickly in his shop. After starting on the ‘49, Dave was interrupted several times by building and finishing a customer’s ’49 Merc coupe and a ’50 Merc coupe, redoing a ’59 Mercury station wagon and  modifying a ’55 Pontiac two door wagon. Ten years later, in 2006, Dave finally found time to work on his own wagon again. In the meantime, he’d scrounged a ’57 Ford station wagon roof and some ’56 Ford station wagon parts including side windows as well as the windowed liftgate and tailgate from the same car.
​Adding The Sheetmetal
First he needed a newer chassis for all the metal he was going to add. The built chassis consists of a ’79 Monte Carlo clip with 2.5-inch dropped spindles, air bags, a 1.25-inch sway bar, and Wilwood disc brakes. Around back, a nine-inch Ford with wagon drum brakes was used. A GM crate engine of 355 cubic-inches and a 700 R-4 automatic transmission was set on the mounts after an Olds faux valve covers and a ’53 Cadillac air cleaner were added.

​The liftgate may look stock, but it is certainly not. It was modified by adding metal to the top of it and narrowing the bottom of it. That accomplished, the liftgate fit the tailgate and worked perfectly. Just below that, a new pan was rolled and a pair of ’55 Pontiac split bumpers were fitted, a license plate box was added and the exhaust pipes were relocated to the quarter’s sides behind the rear of the wheelwells.

​Inside, a tilt column was pirated from a ’74 Chevy van and topped with an Impala steering wheel. The front seat is from a ’65 Buick Electra, the rear seat is out of a ’56 Ford station wagon and both are covered in Kalfskin Beige leather.
Dave hand built the rear interior quarter panels out of aluminum and had them covered in a tuck n’ roll pattern using the same Kalfskin leather. Larry Cummings of Countryside Upholstery in Humboldt, Nebraska did the headliner, carpeting and the interior. The stainless “rub strips” on the interior floor are courtesy of the ’56 Ford wagon and add a finished look to the rear of the Mercury.

Even though it took Dave better than 12 years (actual build time was 2.5 years) to put his vision on the streets, the car looks as fresh today as it did eight years ago. The good news is that Dave and his wife Shirley are no strangers to road trips. Every time Dave drives his wagon to a show (the latest being to the James Dean Festival in Fairmount, Indiana, in late September, 2016), he’s always asked the same question: “How many steel bodied two-door station wagons did they make?” Dave’s answer: “They didn’t make any, I built the only one!”
One thing is certain. The 1949, 1950 and 1951 Mercurys were hot when they were new, and remain a must have for any serious collection, no matter which model is desired.

Article courtesy of Rod Authority, written by Roger Jetter.

The style and caliber of a build are just as important in the automotive world as what records a car breaks on the track, or how many show trophies it has won. The essence of the build, to some, is even considered superior to anything else in the custom world.
For our latest “Hot Rods You Should Know” feature vehicle, this is especially true, as its unique design, quality finish, and big names behind the build made it an instant icon of the industry — one that has sparked interest in the hot rod and custom worlds spanning a number of generations since its debut in 1989.

The car is CadZZilla — the fully-custom 1948 Cadillac Sedanette owned by Billy Gibbons, lead vocalist and guitar player for the band ZZ Top, and built by the late, great Boyd Coddington. While the cars’ famous rock legend owner and premier hot rod builder, to boot, certainly thrust the car into the spotlight like few other vehicles, it is the pure allure of the uniquely modified lead sled body and superior build quality that caused it to remain in the minds of hot rodders and rock fans alike for so many years.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the car has appeared alongside Gibbons at a number of affairs, as well as starred in a couple of television show appearances dedicated to his great enthusiasm for the hot rod industry.
Rendered by one of the head designers for Cadillac back in the 1980s, Larry Erickson, CadZZilla is a car like no other. Based on the 1948 Series 62 Cadillac — a car of relative rarity and one that boasts the claim to the first appearance of Cadillac’s iconic tailfins — CadZZilla is a mix of early post-WWII Cadillac design and artistic customization at the hands of both Erickson and Coddington’s metal artisan at the time of the build, Craig Naff.

​As the story goes, the car was initially set to be a fairly “simple” custom based on the rare 1940s Cadillac, with a classic body shape atop a modified frame with a big engine under the hood and modern suspension components underneath. However, that wasn’t quite radical enough for ZZ Top’s front man and the design was altered to include even more profound customizations to parallel his unique style, resulting in a car that could fittingly follow Gibbons’ other famous hot rod — the 1933 Ford known as Eliminator. This car included a custom roofline so unique that the windshield for the finished car had to be specially made to fit, and massive suicide doors that open at the push of a button.

Ironically, the first renderings of the car were done on a bar napkin at a place along the Mexican border by Erickson and Gibbons. The ZZ Top front man has been known to make comments about the best cars starting out as drawings on bar napkins ever since!
Working for the one and only Coddington in the ’80s, Naff took Erickson’s revised car design and got to work, shaping new and old sheetmetal alike into the aesthetically pleasing custom lead sled you see here.


Featuring a chopped roofline, fully welded front clip with a sectioned hood and front fender combination that tilts open in one fell swoop, Frenched headlights, and custom tapering along the sides of the car that flows effortlessly into the lowered and fully blended rear quarters. CadZZilla is simply like no other custom build out there. Just one look, and you know you’re looking at an icon.
Add the initial shock value of the build to that sweet custom House of Color’s deep purple paint scheme and a one-of-a-kind interior, and you’ve got yourself a hell of a legend, with or without a rock star owner. And to think, this was a car that debuted not in the 2010s, but in the 1980s!

A real looker, CadZZilla has certainly been a trendsetter in the custom world, but it’s not just a mobile piece of art moved around in a protective bubble only to be seen sedentary at shows. In fact, what puts this car over the top is that it is driven, and not just around the block. CadZZilla has seen its fair share of road trips, including a 2,200-mile trip from Boyd Coddington’s Garage to the Ohio Hot Rod Super Nationals at one point in its life.
A truly remarkable custom, CadZZilla continues to set the precedent for custom builds. And with a look that good and a name so recognizable, you know it will be that way for generations to come!

The catalogs and reference books all say it shouldn’t exist, but according to both its owner and the shop that built it, the 1939 Oldsmobile Series 60 that won the Ridler Award at this past weekend’s Detroit Autorama not only came from the factory as a convertible but is also the last of its kind.
The short-lived Series 60 represented the most basic Oldsmobile one could buy in the late 1930s: a small six-cylinder-powered car fitted with the GM A-body shared with Chevrolet and Pontiac. While Oldsmobile introduced a convertible in the Series 60 lineup in 1940, for 1939 Lansing only offered a business coupe, a club coupe, a two-door sedan, and a four-door sedan. A literature check at the R.E. Olds Transportation Museum in Lansing, Michigan, turned up no evidence of a convertible Model 60 from that year.
But Billy Thomas of Corpus Christi, Texas, claims that the car he started with when he set out to build a show-winning car was a one-owner 1939 Model 60 convertible, a claim reiterated by the shop that built the car for him, Customs and Hot Rods of Andice near Georgetown, Texas.
“It was an original convertible when we started with it,” said Michael Kaiser, the shop manager at Customs and Hot Rods of Andice. “Both the title and frame say that it’s a 1939 Model 60 convertible.”

However it started out, not much of the original car remains today in the custom that Thomas nicknamed “Olds Cool.” Kaiser estimated about 90 percent of the body has been reshaped or modified in some way. “The body evolved as we went, with input from myself, the owner, Levi Green, and Christian Dotson, who worked in GM Design for 12 years.” After using foam carvings to refine their ideas, they then created bucks from which the 18-gauge-steel body panels were formed.
The Art Morrison chassis that the shop started out with when building the car proved “a good basis to mock the car up with,” Kaiser said, but the shop eventually scrapped much of the frame for custom-fabricated sections. Despite the low stance, it uses static coilovers for its independent front suspension and banjo-style rear axle.

Power comes from an Oldsmobile 455-cu.in. V-8 that both Thomas and Kaiser said was massaged by Joe Mondello before he died. It now displaces 470 cubic inches and puts out about 650 horsepower, thanks in part to a one-off Wilson electronic fuel injection intake manifold with twin throttle bodies. A 4L60E automatic transmission backs the big V-8.
According to Kaiser, the staff at Customs and Hot Rods of Andice handled every aspect of the build except for the paint, which Charley Hutton sprayed in a custom-mixed color he called Kona Brown. The four-year build is the shop’s first Ridler Award.

In addition to the Oldsmobile, a 1938 Graham 97, a 1952 Mercedes 170S, a 1941 Ford roadster pickup, a 1961 Chevrolet Impala two-door hardtop station wagon, a 1937 Ford coupe, a 1940 Willys coupe, and a 1976 Australian Ford Falcon coupe qualified for the Great 8, from which the winner of the Autorama’s annual Don Ridler Memorial Award is selected. The winner takes home $10,000 in prize money.
For the full list of winners from this past weekend’s Detroit Autorama, visit theISCA.com.


Article courtesy of Hemmings Daily, written by Daniel Strohl.

It would be hard to build a custom vehicle for someone who has specific requests about what the car should look like, especially when they don't know the car is actually being built.

That's the case of Carrie Flanders' husband, Steve, who not only took extraordinary measures to purchase and oversee the construction of his wife's dream car, but to also successfully hide the fact it was being built for her over the last three years!

Steve, who owns and operates Brothers Truck Parts (an aftermarket supplier of '47-87 Chevy truck parts) in Corona, California, has spent many of his 48 years collecting and building all sorts of vehicles, and it's been a hobby ever since he graduated high school. As Steve's high school sweetheart, Carrie, has endured his love of cars for just as many years, and she used to joke about Steve's collection of up to 20 cars at a time with the fact she drove the family Suburban.

Over the years Steve has offered to buy some sort of fun car for Carrie to drive, but she never took him up on the offer, that is until one day when she says she found her "dream car." Carrie had captured a cell phone picture of a ratty old primered station wagon that had been driving around town and showed it to Steve, reminding him of his offer. Steve researched the car in the photo and found it was a 1957 Oldsmobile Fiesta wagon.

Out of the wagon business through most of the early '50s, Oldsmobile reintroduced the body style in 1957 with pillar and pillerless versions and, in limited production, a top-of-the-line Super 88 Fiesta hardtop wagon. Not exactly a run-of-the-mill vehicle or particularly easy to find.

Without telling his wife, Steve began the search for her car by checking out the Internet and, after losing out on a few because they sold before he could get to them, Steve eventually tracked down a likely candidate completely across the country in Connecticut.

It was a 74,000-mile, rust-free, original-paint car with all its trim intact and in good shape, so the deal was made and the wagon stealthily shipped to the truck parts store's warehouse. The original idea was to add a decent drivetrain and update the chassis so the wagon could compete with a contemporary vehicle, but the first shop Steve took the car to couldn't provide the quality of workmanship he was looking for, so he pulled the project.

Dave Welch, of A.R.T. Customs in Jurupa Valley, was already doing work for Steve on another vehicle in his shop and, after some conversation about how it should be done, Steve turned the wagon project over to Welch to get it finished. Welch, helped at his shop by Jason Dunaj, went through the car from top to bottom.

The chassis features airbags front and rear (with ShockWaves and an AccuAir system added up front) as well as a four-way disc brake setup. A custom four-link was also fab'd, and Welch designed the custom aluminum 28-gallon gas tank, which was made by No Limit Engineering. Circle Racing Wheels' billet smoothie 18x9.5 rears and 18x8 fronts are wrapped in Falken 285/45R18 and 245/50R18 tires (ground for a 1.75-inch whitewall) and topped with original '57 Olds poverty/dog dish hubcaps.

Rather than go with a vintage powertrain, Steve wanted a higher level of reliability for his wife's ride, so an '07 5.3 Chevy LS motor, backed to a 4L60E transmission, went into the engine compartment. Welch fab'd the mandrel-bent 2-1/4-inch exhaust for the wagon and used Flowmaster 70 Series mufflers. An aluminum radiator from Northern Radiator helps keep the engine running cool, and the motor was topped with a modified engine cover that features a gold paintjob (like the engine blocks of the original Olds Rocket engines) and a custom Rocket 88 emblem from South Bay Customs.

Welch and Dunaj also finished the car's bodywork before covering the car with House of Kolor products—from primer to clear. To get the right shade of magenta, 16 different blends were concocted before the final hue was decided upon. Once the car had its color, it was shipped to Frank's Hot Rod Upholstery in Temecula for its threads. Frank, with son Frankie, created the vintage look of the interior while updating certain areas to contemporary standards. A combination of magenta, gray, and white vinyl and cloth was used throughout, including the factory bench seat that is now equipped with six-way power actuators from an '07 Suburban.

Now when she drops the kids off at their school, people point and take pictures.Back at Steve's shop for the final six months of assembly, the team had to be careful when Carrie would come by. Luckily she never saw the project, partially because the guys took extra care to cover it or block it from view with stacked boxes when she would visit the facility!

Welch and Dunaj continued on finishing up the car with a Power Plus Series 20 wiring kit from American Autowire and installing a substantial stereo system. A Custom Autosound CAS-630 unit with Bluetooth interface was coupled to Alpine MRX-V70 five-channel amplifier and Alpine speakers, and the vintage Coleman ice chest resting in the back of the car actually houses a Kicker-based subwoofer system that helps crank out the sound. Also wired up is the Dakota Digital universal gauge kit that was modified to fit the original Olds gauge housing, and Vintage Air Gen IV A/C is delivered through four dash vents fitted to the dash by Welch. Charles Sihilling Metal Polishing in Santa Ana, California, took care of all the car's chrome and polished trim pieces.

When he first got the car, Steve thought a quick go-through would do the job but, as time and reality eventually checked in, the process took a bit longer. During that time Steve was trying to figure out on what occasion would it be right to surprise his wife with the gift.

As it turned out, the car was being finished in the summer of 2014, just in time for the couple's 22nd wedding anniversary. The pair had decided to renew their wedding vows and, after the evening's ceremony and festivities were over, Steve handed over the claim ticket to the valet to retrieve the family car.

Unbeknownst to Carrie, arrangements had already been made to swap the family car for the wagon, and she was genuinely floored when it rolled up to the curb. Surprised to say the least, she first exclaimed "That's a Fiesta!" when she saw the car rolling down the street. But then she noticed their valet driving it, and it started to sink in, but it didn't really hit her until they had started driving back home on how her husband had managed to pull off such an elaborate undertaking.

Now when she drops the kids off at their school, people point and take pictures, something Carrie is slowly getting used to. Plus she has also found a lot of women who see her driving it give her a "thumbs up," something that didn't happen when she drove her Suburban. Now when she gets behind the wheel, she says "Every day is a fun day when I get to drive it."

Of all the cars to represent the once-limitless optimism of 1950s America, the Beatnik Bubbletop is one of the best dignitaries of that era we’ve ever seen…even if it is 50 years late to the party. Born of Gary “Chopit” Fioto’s childhood obsession with all things bubbletop, the Beatnik Bubbletop went on to win numerous awards including the desireable Grand Prize at Darryl Starbird’s National Rod and Custom Car Show, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Fioto had been influenced by Starbird’s magazine features from the 50s, inspiring the Long Island native to chop his first car at the tender age of 11.

Fioto’s love of automobiles would inspire a long and storied hot rodding career that culminated in his Orange County shop, Chopit Kustoms. The Beatnik Bubbletop began life as just another 1955 Ford, though there isn’t much of the original car left. Fioto merged elements from Cadillac, Chrysler, and Lincoln onto the Beatnik Bubbletop, including a ‘59 Cadillac front bumper the finned taillights from a 1960 Chrysler, and the chassis of an ‘88 Lincoln Town Car. Powering all of this is a Chevy 350 V8. Seriously.

The Beatnik Bubbletop is expected to fetch between $150,000 and $250,000 when it rolls onto the auction block this weekend at Auction America’s Santa Monica event.