Custom car


A custom car is a passenger vehicle that has been altered to improve its performance, change its aesthetics, or combine both. Some automotive enthusiasts in the United States want to push "styling and performance a step beyond the showroom floor - to truly craft an automobile of one's own." A custom car in British usage, according to Collins English Dictionary, is built to the buyer's own specifications.
Custom cars are not to be confused with coachbuilt automobiles, historically rolling chassis fitted with luxury bodywork by specialty auto body builders.

History

Some of the earliest examples of modified cars were cars modified for racing or off-roading. The coachbuilding industry is considered part of custom car history, as companies and individuals built custom bodies to be fitted to early cars and inspired later customizers.
Hot rods were an early type of custom car first popularized in the United States, considered to be one of the earliest defined car customization movements. The origins of the first hot rods are typically considered to be early race cars built to race on dirt tracks and dry lake beds, often stripped down Ford Model Ts, Model As, and other pre-World War II cars made into speedsters and "gow jobs". The "gow job" morphed into the hot rod in the 1940s to 1950s. The modified cars used in the Prohibition era by bootleggers to evade revenue agents and other law enforcement are also considered a predecessor to the hot rod. Hot rods gained popularity after World War II, particularly in California, because many returning soldiers had received technical training. Many cars were "hopped up" with engine modifications such as adding additional carburetors, high compression heads, and dual exhausts. The suspension was often altered, and engine swaps were to install the most powerful engine in the lightest possible frame and body combination.
Another example of early automobile customization were the first off-road vehicles. Some of the earliest dedicated offroad vehicles were made using the Kégresse track system, starting in the late 1910s, which affixed tracks to an ordinary car in place of the rear wheels for improved off-road traction. After World War II, the surplus of army Jeeps led to a growth in the popularity of off-roading as a hobby.
Starting in the early 1940s, some US car customizers began to modify cars with a stronger emphasis on looks and self-expression. This led to styles of modification such as lowriders, kustoms and lead sleds emerging and growing. 1950s kustom car builders would often swap trim and panels from other cars, cut through the sheet metal and remove bits to make the car lower, weld it back together, and add lead to make the resulting form smooth. They would also chop the roof to make it lower, section the body to make it thinner from top to bottom, and channel the body by cutting notches in the floorpan where the body touches the frame to lower the whole body.
The first drag strip in the United States opened in 1950 on an airfield in Southern California, and a year later, in 1951 the National Hot Rod Association was formed. In the following years, more drag strips were built across the country, leading to a rise in the popularity of drag racing among both amateurs and professionals.
In the post-World War II era, Japan's automotive industry grew, eventually leading to the country becoming the world's largest vehicle producer. This led to a unique car customization culture within the nation. Some of the early custom cars in Japan, starting in the late 1970s through the 1980s, included Kaido Racers, Japanese cars modified with homemade parts to look like racecars of the time; imported and modified American and European cars; cars modified for top-speed and highway racing; and Dekotora decorated trucks. The 1990s saw the rise of cars modified for drifting, VIP style luxury sedans, and the continued popularity of highway racing. Japan also embraced American customization styles, importing and building their muscle cars, lowriders, minitrucks, and more.

Styles of modification

Modified cars can be significantly different from their stock counterparts. A common factor among owners/modifiers is to emulate the visual and/or performance characteristics of established styles and design principles. These similarities may be unintentional. Some of the many different styles and visual influences to car modification are:
  • Art car: Cars painted or decorated to be art pieces.
  • Cal look: A modified classic Volkswagen intended to evoke California through bright colours, trim, and accessories.
  • Drag car: Cars modified for drag racing
  • Drift car: Cars modified for drifting.
  • Dub or donk or Hi-Riser: Characterized by huge wheels with low-profile tires, often with upgraded speaker setups, and sometimes custom paint, interiors, and engine upgrades.
  • Euro style: Stanced with one-off paint and small wheels, with shaved features to define car body lines.
  • German look: A Volkswagen Type 1, Type 3, or Karmann Ghia lowered and fitted with late model Porsche mag wheels and touring car-influenced styling. Heavily modified suspension and drivetrain with emphasis on handling and cornering.
  • Hot rod: Style primarily consisting of period-specific vehicles, components, and finishes to reproduce characteristics of early drag cars from the 1930s and 1940s.
  • Import or JDM: tuned Japanese vehicles.
  • Itasha: cars decorated with images of characters from anime, manga, or video games
  • Kaido Racer: Japanese style of cars typically with lowered suspension, bright paint jobs, extreme body kits, and extended exhausts, sometimes inspired by Japanese Group 5 "Super Silhouette" racecars. Commonly associated with the Bōsōzoku.
  • Kustom: Style primarily consisting of American cars built from the 1930s to 1960s customized in the styles of that period.
  • Lowrider: Hydraulic or airbag suspension setups, custom paint, pinstriping, custom interior, and, typically, small diameter wire wheels. Others may look like straight restorations, aside from a low stance.
  • Military/service style: Cars designed to look like certain service vehicles.
  • Off-roader':' Cars, SUVs, and trucks modified for off-roading, such as overlanding, rock crawling, or desert racing.
  • * Chopped : typically body-on-frame SUV with the rear cargo area, body and/or row of seats chopped off, leaving only the frame. A full alloy tray and canopy are then put into this space. Wheelbase maybe extended to allow more space for cargo and passengers.
  • * Carolina squat: front of a truck is lifted significantly higher than the rear, creating a "squatting" appearance. The California lean or Cali lean is the less pronounced version.
  • Outlaw: Typically Porsches 356, 911 and Karmann Ghias modified with more powerful engines, brakes, and a more aggressive appearance. This movement took place in Southern California in the 1960s.
  • Race car: Cars built to compete in auto racing.
  • Rally car: Cars built to compete in rallies.
  • Rat rod: A style of hot rod and custom cars, imitating the "unfinished" appearance of some hot rods in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. "Rat style" also defines a car kept on the road despite visible heavy wear.
  • Restomod: Classic cars that combine original exterior styling with modern applied technologies or modern interior features for comfortable everyday use.
  • Siren kings: A New Zealand Pasifika subculture where cars or bicycles are modified with loudspeakers or public address systems for use in competitive battles.
  • South London look: Subtly modified 1950s-1970s British Fords that are lowered, with pastel paint and 13-inch Lotus Cortina steel wheels or RS, Minilite, or Revolution mag wheels. These cars often use a tuned Ford Kent or Pinto engine.
  • Slab: Originated in the Houston area in the mid-1980s—usually, a full-size American luxury car fitted with custom "elbows", a type of extended wire wheels which protrude out from the fenders, loudspeaker setups, and neon signage inside the trunk panel. Other "slab" modifications include hydraulic-actuated trunk panels, candy paint, vertical stainless steel trim on the trunk panel, aftermarket grille, and the use of a Cadillac front-end sheet metal conversion. The interiors of slabs are usually clad in beige or tan. Usually associated with Houston hip hop music.
  • Sleeper: High performance car that appears to be unmodified low performance car.
  • Stanced: This style is mainly associated with sports and passenger cars with lowered suspension setups. Custom wheels with low-profile tires play a prominent role in this style and often feature aggressive sizes, offsets, and camber.
  • VIP style: A Japanese style of customizing luxury cars.

    Types of customizations

Customization can include paint jobs, and lighting under the car and around the tires, among others. At one time, Goodyear, a multinational tire company, considered manufacturing and marketing illuminated tires.
File:Reactor by Gene Winfield.jpg|thumb|right|The Reactor by Gene Winfield with paint fade style blending from one color to another

Paint

Custom paint jobs play an essential role in the culture around customized cars. Builders will often use special painting techniques to produce unique finishes, including the use of candy paint, metalflake, and color shifting paint. Additionally, builders will often create paint jobs with intricate designs or patterns by pinstriping, painting by hand, airbrushing, taping out patterns on the car and painting inside them, painting over lace, overlaying gold leaf, and more. Some customizers will also opt for vinyl wraps, vinyl decals, or plastidip in place of a traditional paint job. In addition to paint, individual parts of a car may also be chromed, gold plated, or engraved.
Transparent but wildly colored candy-apple paint, applied atop a metallic undercoat, and metalflake paint, with aluminum glitter within candy-apple paint, appeared in the 1960s. These took many coats to produce a brilliant effect – which tended to flake off in hot climates. This process and style of paint job were invented by Joe Bailon, a customizer from Northern California.
Painting has become such a part of the custom car scene that in many custom car competitions, awards for custom paint are as highly sought after as awards for the cars themselves.