Whatever happened to customizing newer cars? How did such a popular trend in car building come to a screeching halt? In the 1940s through 1950s, turning a car into a “mystery car”—one that contained body mods, shaved emblems and door handles, and grille changes so that it was not identifiable—was part of our hot rod lexicon. HOT ROD, and especially sister publications Motor Trend and Car Craft, were founded on featuring customized cars and showing you how to sling lead to do it in your own garage. In the late-1950s, newer cars customized with wild Larry Watson and Dean Jeffries paint jobs helped eliminate the need for major body changes, partially due to Detroit’s flamboyant styling matching or exceeding anything customizers could conjure. Panel painting and wild, scalloped designs helped to hide a car’s styling, which was always part of the basis for customizing.
But then in the early 1960s, the art of customizing just stopped. Maybe it was because of Detroit’s newfound cleaner designs? It would be hard to improve on a 1961 T-bird or 1963 Riviera, right? Or maybe the big-block Fords, fuel-injected Chevys and cross-ram Mopars shifted the focus from low-and-slow to quarter-mile madness?
This snapshot of Larry Watson’s 1972 Ranchero in front of his Hollywood paint shop shows his attempt at reviving customizing on new cars in the 1970s. The front end was extensively modified, the taillights were changed to Ford station-wagon units, Candy Red paint was beyond anything that came on stock Fords, and it was severely lowered—all classic 1940s-type customizing tricks. When was the last time you remember seeing a customized late-model car from the 1960s to 1970s?
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