New to the Site

April 18, 2008
In the June 2008 issue of Scale Auto Magazine, the twelfth annual Custom Clinic scale photo contest is presented starting on page 44. We're grateful for the great coverage afforded by Editor Jim Haught.

At the end of the main article on page 44, there is a link to this website where, it says there, additional coverage of the entry in that contest can be found. Truth be told, things have been so hectic here at the Custom Clinic that we've not had a chance to complete the photo scanning and the article. We're very sorry for the delay. 

Please check back in a couple of weeks, and then enjoy the enhanced coverage of the 12th Custom Clinic Photo Contest.

For the history of this great contest to date, go here:

Finally, the Thirteenth contest will be conducted on this site exclusively – more on this in the future. We're grateful to Kalmbach for supporting the Custom Clinic Photo Contest for so many years. 

Thanks for checking in here!

August 2007
Sorry that things have been quiet around here since late last year. We've been acquiring lots of pictures and other custom items, and then we needed to present GSL-XXI and other things. With those projects completed, there is a lot to show here. And we'll keep things updated more frequently in the future!

There are a lot of things going on in the custom car world. Check out these details:

  • Darryl Starbird told me that he is rebuilding the Lil' Coffin. As you might now, Darryl inherited the car many years ago and subsequently restyled it into the Monkee Ward, a four-place phaeton, and a more recent two door sedan. At one time, the car even burned when it was caught in a field fire. Darryl says that his restoration will be faithful – down to the last detail. The Custom Clinic wants to enthusiastically express its appreciation to Dick "Fuzzy" Fuerholzer for his very generous sharing of photographs with the Clinic (Fuzzy is a leading chronicler of the hobby, and has amassed an amazing collections of photographs). Thanks Fuzzy!

    • Starbird has also just completed a full tear-down and restoration of his epochal, famed Predicta. Darryl literally tore the car down to its last nut and bolt, built a new floor pan, rechromed the suspension bits and pieces, and then displayed it at the 50th anniversary of his great Tulsa custom car show. Darryl has shared with Custom Clinic headquarters hundreds of photos, a few of which are included here in our presentation of the car. I am finally underway doing a book on this great car that has had such an influence on the custom car hobby! This book is due by the end of this year;

  • We here at the Custom Clinic headquarters encourage you all to check out the incredible custom car photo website maintained by fellow custom car historian, Rik Hoving, who lives in the Netherlands. Go here to check out his incredible photo-colorizer process that produces incredible results. The Custom Clinic has purchased several of these photos and they are almost unbelievably beautiful. Rik's work has been mentioned prominently in several issues of Rodders' Journal. 

    • Rik also "colorizes" vintage black and white custom car photos. Highly skilled in the arcane art of photo digitalization and related magic, Rik offers photos for sale.  We have several head at Custom Clinic and his work is incredible.

  • Older custom car fans may remember the skillfully sectioned '56 Chevy Nomad full custom that Russ Meeks built in the late Sixties. This was one of the most beautiful custom cars ever created. As is too often the case, the car fell into an awful state of disrepair from which it has only recently emerged. Well, the car has been rescued and is undergoing a very substantial and high-quality restoration. Through Rik Hoving's generous sharing of images, we can present a photo essay on this great car (how do they ever deteriorate as much as this one did?).
  • Valley Customs was one of the great custom shops of all time. Known for their thoughtful and beautiful customs, they built a sectioned '49 Ford for Ron Dunn that still sets a standard for restrained and intelligent restyling. The car was found in 2006 at the home, we believe, of Dunn's nephew. The car is now undergoing a full restoration at Steve's Restoration. Go here for a photo spread on the car when it was discovered and reassembled to determine what was missing, and thence placed on display before the restoration started. It is a real miracle that this car survives and will benefit from the world-class reconstruction that Steve's Restorations will provide.
  • You may know that the Ford Division was deeply involved with custom cars in the early to mid-Sixties. Through its Custom Car Caravan (that was presented from 1963-66), the Ford Division campaigned its Caravan in all of the major custom car shows across the United States. One of the cars that was campaigned in the third season (1965-66) was the Mustang Pegasus. The Custom Clinic has supplied much-needed historic information to the new owner, and we'll present photos of the car "in process" in the next update. The owner has been in touch with the designer and builder, Jack Florence, who reportedly has been supplying a lot of restoration information to the new owners. But, for now, check out an article from Rod & Custom and a few photos of the car when it was first displayed. Thanks to German Mustang enthusiast Wolfgang Kohrn for giving the Custom Clinic the lead on this great story! Go here for the first set of photos of this car!
  • Knowledgeable custom fans – and historians of Darryl Starbird's work – remember the Ultra Truck that Monogram Models commissioned and renamed the Orange Hauler when they issued their kit of the model. After being given away by Monogram during its purge in the late Sixties, the car disappeared until early this year when Louis Lionetti approached Darryl at the Tulsa show and said that he had the Truck and had the pictures to prove it. When, Darryl told me he almost fell down – neither Darryl nor anyone else had any idea when the Truck had gone. I've been in touch with Louis and, when the heat breaks, I'll grab Jim "Hollywood" Fernandez (who now lives in St. George) and go to Las Vegas to take pictures of the Truck;
  • One of the best cars to use for restyling is the famed 1949-1950 Ford coupe. Perhaps because of its relative simplicity and basic good design, the car has been the subject of innumerable efforts to customize it to a more elegant appearance. In our "Ideas" section, we present here for the first time a series of carefully selected images of mostly contemporary custom Ford shoeboxes. Check them out here! Thanks to Rik Hoving and Fuzzy for contributing many of these photos.
  • We are starting two new sections with this update. The first is a Styling Analysis section where we will offer our critiques and suggestions on custom car styling. We'll start this time by analyzing how a fastback roofline can be successfully integrated on a '61-'63 Thunderbird. We'll feature the famed Italien, a California car with a full '61 Starliner roof, and a Salt Lake '62 'Bird with a highly-modified/shortened Starliner roof. Go here to check this out.
  • Another new section is one where we will present images of custom car shows. Most of the attention to custom car culture has been on the personalities, on the lifestyles and so forth. Almost nothing has been done about how custom cars are presented in the chosen venue to display those cars – the car shows. These events had their own culture, from the show displays, to the paraphenalia, to the signs and stuffed animals and angel hair, and to beauty contests where compliant and beautiful women vied for "show queen." With little text, we'll present these images without comment. Think about how the inchoate images seen at shows influenced how visitors and readers of magazines understood custom cars and how they were presented to the public, and enjoyed. Check out this new section!
  • The Custom Clinic has made an arrangement with Google Ads for the placement of (mostly) auto-related ads on this site. This relationship will produce some much-needed revenue so that we can expand this web site to be the most authoritative and best place for you to read about, and visually enjoy, both historic and contemporary information and photographs for custom cars in all scales!

October 2006
Following on an article on my Mustang Pegasus carried in the 2006 edition of Contest Cars 2006, we are pleased to present additional coverage (including a host of additional photos and text) of my Mustang Pegasus. Scale auto stylists were invited to critique my Mustang Pegasus, and a number of very insightful discussions and suggested revisions were received.

You may remember that the Small Scale Section of this site has featured a few photos of the 1962 Pontiac that I restyled almost a decade ago by adding a '61 Chevy bubbletop roof as well as reshaping the lower front fenders/doors and rear quarter panels. Well, it turns out that someone, some time ago, apparently had many of the same ideas. Mike Carroll forwarded an eBay link to me with photos of a bubble top 1962 Catalina accompanied by text that this car was one of two built. No claim of factory origination was made, but it seems to be well done. I'll bet it was built from a Chevy, with Pontiac doors, rear clip and the front clip. Read more...

Custom car enthusiasts absolutely MUST check out Rik Hoving's utterly remarkable custom car photo site. Drawing on multiple sources, Rik presents the most vintage custom car photos available at any one place. Rik also colorizes vintage black and white custom car photos, and his work has been recently featured in the prestigious Rodders' Journal. Rik is a commercial artist of the highest caliber and it shows in his work! Rik is also a GSL Championship participant, and masters many of the custom car scale model parts found in the catalog of Replicas and Miniatures Company of Maryland! Great job, Rik!

My New Age Merc is back in the Custom Clinic body shop for a new paint job. While striking, the original pearl red/orange first paint job will be replaced with a darker candy red with deeper pearl highlights. The new paint job will be shown here in the December 2006 update to this site

Also, Custom Clinic has learned of a major/new scale automotive contest that is different than any other contest ever offered. With a four-year build-time, this invitational contest will attract the world's best auto modelers. Only one model per contestant is permitted, there are no Classes, each contestant must make a 20 minute verbal presentation on their entry, and all contestants act as the judges! Go to the Masters Challenge Invitational website and check out the contest! The International Model Car Builders' Museum is an early sponsor of the Challenge.

May 2006
Custom Clinic gets a mention in Kustoms Illustrated magazine!!

April 2006
The Custom Clinic has learned that Darryl Starbird will be doing a rotisserie restoration on his signature Predicta show car to coincide with his 50th anniversary Kansas City custom car show. For the first time since he redid the car in 1964 for the Monogram Models kit, the car will come apart entirely and be painted in its original metallic blue Chrysler paint from 1956 (no candy paint). The exterior and interior styling will not be changed. The Custom Clinic hopes to travel to Starbird's shop and take pictures to chronicle this historic event. What a terrific thing in the history of custom car construction!

We've also just acquired some additional photos of Starbird's Forcasta. Go here for some new text and photos of this great car that was utterly ruined by restyling efforts.

We have also just come across some additional photos of the Lil Coffin, including a Monogram Models corporate advertisement for the car in connection with the 1964-65 New York World's Fair. Check out the new items!

The Custom Clinic has created a new section under the Large Scale section of this site for the famed customizers at Valley Custom and updated the Joe Wilhelm section. Check out the images of the Ron Dunn Ford that has just been sold to Steve's Auto Restorations where it is undergoing a full-on restoration!

January 2006:
We've updated the Custom Clinic section of this site by adding historic text and full coverage of the Eleventh Annual Custom Clinic Photo Contest. As time permits, we'll add images for the early contests. We express our thanks to Kalmbach Publishing and Scale Auto.

Editor Jim Haught for their continuing support of this important contest.

Eleventh Photo Contest is here...

Also, the Dream Truck scale model project has been revamped so check out the info here.

In the near future, we'll be adding lacquer painting articles for scale model automobiles – check back soon!

October 2005
We are happy to show some additional photos to supplement my article on Dave Cummins' phantom Bugatti model that is featured in the December 2005 issue of Scale Auto. Dave's phenomenal vintage design study was awarded the prestigious Best of Show award at the Nineteenth GSL International Scale Vehicle Championship and Convention. The Custom Clinic expresses it appreciation to Jim Haught, Scale Auto editor, for printing the URL to invite visitors to learn more about Dave's great scale vehicle. Please go here for photos and more on this great project!

It's also time for some upgrades to the coverage of the construction of my restyled 1960 Thunderbird. Look for further engine compartment upgrades. Please go here for more.

Finally, please check out three photos of Frank Shifflar's mild custom 1959 Thunderbird. Frank has owned this Squarebird for many years. You can also find those photos by also going to the narrative on my customized 1960 Thunderbird Sunroof:

May 2004
History of the NNL here...

Photos and critiques of Mark's New Age Mercury which has appeared in recent issues of Scale Auto Magazine

A few new links for the AlaKart.

January 2004
We are very pleased to say that we have updated the famed Custom Clinic site with the following items:

Mark S. Gustavson has updated his photo essay on his Dream Truck2. This time, there are many new photos and captions that show how this great project is developing. Go here to learn more about this project:

Additionally, we are also pleased to show an array of photos of Juha Airio's completed full-custom 1960 Ford Starliner. Juha is one of the greatest scale stylists and builders in the world today. Go here to see more about one of Juha's latest custom projects:

We've corrected a bad error: we had previously attributed the work on the Lil Coffin to Dave Puhl when, in fact, the work was done by Dave Stuckey (and Darryl Starbird). So, Dave Puhl lost his own arena, and Dave Stuckey picked on up. If you know of any photos of Puhl's cars, we'd be delighted to create a section for Dave.

We have also added a few more pictures of the finished Limelighter from old friend Mike Good who took a bunch of pictures at a recent show. While we digitalize those photos and get them uploaded, go here for a photo essay on the Limelighter, originally built by the great Bill Cushenbery

We have also located some rare photos of Carl Casper's Galloping Ghost. There's a great story behind how we were able to get access to a set of remarkable photos of the car and a model that was almost made by Aurora Models in the mid-Sixties. Go here for a photo essay and some text.

We also have just received more photos of the Voodoo Spider and we'll be uploading them soon. In the meantime, go here for early views of this remarkable custom built in the tradition of the early Sixties' "show customs."

We will be uploading the eleventh through twentieth place winners from the tenth annual Custom Clinic Photo Contest here in the next few months. The June 2004 issue of Scale Auto, that will be mailed in mid-April of 2004, will carry major coverage on this now-famous contest in its tenth year.

October 2003
Full article and photos of Bruce Owen's GSL Best of Show-winning, totally scratchbuilt Virtue RSX!

August 2003
What's new for the CustomClinic site:

The Custom Clinic has the goal of being the authoritative custom car and custom model car site on the web. To that end, this August 2003 update is truly significant and marks not only an expansion of our efforts, but a change of direction in the Custom Clinic page, too, to better preserve and chronicle the great customs of history.

We've added hundreds of vintage custom photos of the work of Barris, Starbird, the Alexander Brothers, Bailon, Ed Roth, Gene Winfield, Bill Cushenbery, Valley Custom, Cunningham, Moriarity, Joe Wilhelm and many now unknown builders. . We even have some wonderful photos of a really wild Brazilian custom Chevy! For many of these cars, we've provided bibliographic references and the text from those referenced articles (since so few enthusiasts have those old magazines or could afford to buy good copies these days). Many of the presentations are in the form of photo essays celebrating the work of these, and other, great craftsman.

We've even included photos from two early Fifties car shows: Satan's Angels show from 1952, and the Pan Pacific show from 1953! We've also added some vintage hot rods which were really customs of their day. A few classic customs -some famous, some not - are here for some ideas.

As vintage customs are found and restored, we'll let you take a look at those, too. In this update, you can check out the "in-process" shots of the Limelighter, first built by Cushenbery for Bill Gould, and now owned/restored by famed custom car enthusiast Bud Mallard. We hope soon to feature photos of the finished car, as well as present a photo essay of Cushenbery's Marquis that Bud also restored a few years ago.

The "Dream of Customizing" essay has been rewritten, photo essays on general customizing trends are now presented, we continue to purchase custom car artifacts and photographs from wherever they can be obtained, and we have been publicized in the pages of Rod and Custom and Custom Rodder.

Our Small Scale section has also grown. We've added some work from framed builder Juha Airio (Finland), and enhanced/updated the customs from Mark Gustavson's shop. We'll also soon feature the work of GSL-XIX Best of Show winner Bruce Owen. Soon, also, we'll complete the photo presentation of the Custom Clinic Photo Contest series, too, and feature the large-scale customs of Calvin Mauldin.

In this update, we've also introduced a "News" section: we'll try to provide timely stories on the custom car hobby. With a much more frequent update schedule (no less than once a month!), you'll be able to check in for the latest news. We've also added a section for book reviews

Finally, we acknowledge and appreciate the generous help of custom car historians Gary Minor, Stan Petersen, Calvin Mauldin and other photogs now unknown who have graciously let us use their great photos. Also, we express our gratitude to Chad Benton for his tireless efforts in scanning the hundreds of photos that appear on this page.

Finally, and most importantly, the staff at the Custom Clinic site expresses its greatest appreciation to web master Mark J. Benton for his great design work and hard work in maintaining this page. Without his help and hard work, none of this would be possible.

Check back by late September of 2003 for another update!

- Mark S. Gustavson

August 2002
We have just added the following updates to the Custom Clinic site:

  • A brief photo essay on Starbird's UltraTruck (renamed the Orange Hauler when Monogram issued a kit of the custom truck in 1965.
  • A brief photo essay on Starbird's incredible Forcasta
  • A very short photo presentation on the Alexander Brothers' Adonis

July 2002
The Dream Truck Project page has been updated.

June 2002
We have added the following items:

January 2002
I have just finished the how-to soldering article for Car Modeler 2002! I am excited about the basic and intermediate techniques that are discussed there, as well as the presentation of many aspects of the scratchbuilt brass frame for Dream Truck2. For Car Modeler 2003, I'll present an article on resistance soldering which is the ultimate method of soldering delicate parts together.

Following a feature article on the finished model, the redesign, reconstruction and details of the Dream Truck2 project will be presented in Car Modeler 2003. Go here for an updated look at some the details of the redesign and reconstruction of the Truck. Note also that Championship Publishing , LLC a company I jointly own with my business partner and web master extraordinaire, Mark J. Benton, will offer a full length, hard-cover book on the original construction and redesign/reconstruction of the Dream Truck2. Go here for some early information on this book:

Additionally, the entries in the Custom Clinic Photo Contests are just first rate. Wait until you see photos of the winners! And the Over the Top winners are more and more thoughtful. The quality of the Junior-Class winners continues to improve. Wow! Check out the upcoming Car Modeler 2003 for more details.

Check back here often for more updates for the Custom Clinic web site! Thanks for checking in!

 

 

 

 

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Copyright 2008, Mark S. Gustavson