Custom car

A custom car is a passenger vehicle that has been modified to improve its performance by altering or replacing the engine and transmission and to make it look like no other car on the road.

Related Topics:
Vehicle - Improve its performance - Engine - Transmission

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A development of hot rodding, the change in name corresponded to the change in the design of the cars that were being modified. The first hot rods were made from pre-WWII cars that had running boards and simple fenders that bent over the wheels. These were modified by removing the running boards and either removing the fenders entirely or replacing them with very light "cycle fenders". The purpose was to put the most powerful engine in the lightest possible frame and body combination. Only rarely was the grille of one make of car replaced by another; one exception was that the 1937 Buick grille was often put on a Ford.

Related Topics:
Hot rod - Design - Running board - 1937 - Buick - Ford

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With the change in automobile design to encase the wheels in fenders and to extend the hood to the full width of the car, the former practices were no longer possible. In addition, there was tremendous automotive advertising and subsequent public interest in the new models in the 1950s. Hence custom cars came into existence, swapping headlight rings, grilles, bumpers, chrome side strips, and tail lights. But in the custom car culture, if you were someone who merely changed the appearance without improving the performance substantially, you were looked down on.

Related Topics:
1950s - Headlight - Chrome

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Once customizing post-war cars caught on, some of the practices were extended to pre-war cars, which would have been called hot rods that kept their fenders but had more body work done on them. An alternate rule for disambiguation developed that hot rods had the engine behind the front suspension, while custom cars had the engine over the front suspension. The clearest example of this is that Fords prior to 1949 had Henry Ford's old transverse front suspension, while the 1949 model had a more modern suspension with the engine moved forward.

Related Topics:
Ford - Henry Ford

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With the coming of the muscle car, and beyond that to the high-performance luxury car, customization declined. One place where it persisted was the US Southwest, where "low-riders" were built similar in concept to the earlier customs.

Related Topics:
Muscle car - Low-rider

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