Customization: Style Part 1/4

Over the years, customizers have been determined to design or redesign (in many cases) their rides to resemble cars in stock or factory condition. In fact, many customizers have gone so far as to take both the visual components and the performance characteristics of various modification styles and combining them as they saw fit.

By now, there are five different custom themes, including the following. First there is the rat rods, which imitates (or exaggerates) the “unfinished” or amateurish built appearance of the hot rods from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Next come the street rods, which are American cars with large-displaced, modified engines; for example, the 1962 Chevy Impala with an up-to-date Corvette or Cadillac engine under the hood. These often consist of largely period and/or spec vehicles and their components that imitate and surpass the visual characteristics of hot rods from the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s.

There are some great overlaps between the street and hot rods on the road today. The third style is the modern styles of contemporary cars are also out there. Most often, they are built (or rebuilt) using contemporary parts and by using custom colors and paint finishes on these cars. The fourth and fifth styles come out Southern California and they are the lowrider and lowrod. The lowrider sits inches off the ground. It’s designed for crusin' the streets—top down, slow n low that’s how they roll in southern California. The latest thing in the chopped and dropped world is the lowrod. The lowrod has a bigger, more powerful engine designed for speed, and a stock suspension both are installed without any modifications. The lowrod is a combination of the “low of the lowrider and the engine of a hot rod” all riding on 20 or 22 inch wheels.

So, if you had unlimited resources and money and could buy any car you could possibly want, what would be? What would it look like and why?

Mine, … I'd want a Bugatti... so when I drive it on the Autobahn I could feel my face flatten and feel the gravity pull my body back into the seat. But, my dream car, is a 64 Impala lowrider that has been royal blue with a custom paint job with grey details.