A Boy's-Eye View, Circa 1960 Copyright 1999 |
Jim Wilson: O N K U S T O M K U L T U R E The tendency nowadays is to treat Kustom Kulture as some sort of campy fashion statement, associated with poodle skirts and rockabilly music. This Broadway-musical view has very little to do with the original movement. Kustom Kulture is actually a whole arts and crafts category in itself. It was a do-it-yourself engineering and styling movement started by returned WW2 veterans. Even before the war, taking a junk vehicle and transforming it into something superior was a modern American tradition. After the war, hot rodders took advantage of a glut of sophisticated aircraft construction support facilities on the American west coast, made redundent by peacetime. Having access to sophisticated machine-shop, foundry, and sheet-metal technology made it possible for working-class amateur engineers to truly create their own dream vehicles. Very soon, a trend developed to make these vehicles as advanced in styling as they were in the mechanical area. Barris, Starbird, Jeffries, Roth, and their ilk became pop stars. Since then, Kustom building has grown a wider baseline, encompassing boats, housing, even aircraft. From almost the beginning, bicycles have been a part of this sort of thinking. Every time you see a reference to "housepaint" in a description of an old bike, you are hearing about some kid who decided to get creative with his bicycle. If Gordon Bradbury were to describe my old Western Flyer middleweight it would be: "Housepaint, (a term which includes spray-can) non-original saddle and handlebars, traces remaining of pinstripe decals". As I've mentioned before in these pages, those Schwinn Stingrays everyone is so enamored of were factory knockoffs of bikes created by Kalifornia Kustom Kids for themselves. The west coast kids had an advantage, in that Kustom Kulture was a large part of the environment out there. Kustom painting and metalworking were so much more accessible as resources. And standards were higher there, also; so there was a cultural incentive to do really high-level work. The HotRod and Kustom resources and attitude have spread out since then, to all parts of the continent. Today, whether we realize it or not, Kustom Kulture has taken over our world. It reveals itself in the Mad Max SUV theme, the Playboy Road Trip aesthetic of the Van People, Harleys taking the baroque to ever-higher extremes, Owner-built aircraft sporting 16-colors-of-metalflake paint schemes, ski boats sporting powertrains and finishes as extreme as any hot rod's of the '60s. And this is only in addition to the primal HotRod and KustomKar manias; which are still doing quite well, thank you. Welcome To Kustom Nation! It is no accident that Daimler-Chrysler came out with the Plymouth Prowler turnkey hot rod, the V-10 Viper Roadster, and a host of forthcoming retromobiles, which will look like Boyd Coddington was in charge of corporate styling. The Prowler has not been a big sales success, in spite of its popularity. This is mostly because it is much too expensive for its prime market: teenagers. Who else would want to drive a car with zero cargo capacity? $40,000 represents a whole lot more lawns mowed than the average teen has time for. As usual, if young people want a really snazzy ride, they are going to have to D.I.Y. it. This is even more true today. In 1961, a kid I knew saved up his lawn-mowing money and bought himself a new Chevrolet. ($2,000, at the time.) The rest of us spent $35.00 on an old Ford or Chevy, dechromed it, gave it an fairly even primer paint job, slapped on a set of Moon Discs, and started saving for a paint job, an engine rework, upholstery, and speed parts. This stage took longer, as once the first stage was achieved, it led to dating; a whole new expense. The general cost inflation which has affected car pricing holds true for bicycles, as well. There are some amazing bicycles out there, but they are horrifically expensive, for the most part. This is an excellent time to be encouraging the D.I.Y. spirit in our youth. The beautiful thing about Kustom Kulture is that the positive aspects of D.I.Y. are reinforced and rewarded by public gratification. This may take the form of reactions from casual street passers-by, or by crowds of spectators at a KustomShow. It is a very good thing when our youth can achieve acclaim and admiration for hard work and creativity. And the hobby work develops skills and attitudes which are vitally important to the future of our world. The attributes of the American character which have culminated in the US being a world colossus: creativity, combined with hands-on skills, and willingness to sweat to achieve a dream, will be lost unless we actively encourage the development of these attributes in the youth of today. Let us all learn from the actions of Ken, Chris, and Tim Russell, with their ReeCycles' activities encouraging kids to adopt the Kustom idea. The sociological term "at-risk" once referred to ghetto children. Now it applies to everyone's kids. They are all "at-risk" of choosing harmful, parasitic lifestyles. Let us all make an effort to promote one of the most positive lifestyles there is: Kustom Kulture. It was good in the past, it is good for right now, and it is vitally important for the future. There is another aspect of HR&K Kulture I failed to mention earlier. Youth who are hot-rodding computers. I was reading a report recently, from a young guy who is running a refrigerated-mineral-oil-cooled microprocessor, in a quest to achieve maximum speed. Sound familiar? Unfortunately, this kind of Kustom activity isn't conducive to exercise, fresh air, and sunshine; as he was doing it so he could play games really fast. And let us not forget the lack of acclaim from passers-by. Pretty tough to beat bikes as a creative medium, eh? |
A Boy's-Eye View, Circa 1960 Copyright 1999 |
