Custom car
A custom car is a series vehicle modified according to the wishes of the owner or even a vehicle composed of various series vehicles.
Customizing for vehicles is sometimes accompanied by an increase in engine performance or "swapping" (the complete replacement of the engine), see vehicle tuning , but is not always the focus of customizing. Also the realization of all other wishes of the owners, from the installation of huge music systems to the implementation of style ideas, such as the visual design of a van in the knight or pirate style using airbrush and accessories, to conversions for hunters, such as the installation of mounts for hunting weapons and This includes a tub for hunted game.
The term is usually only used if not only minor changes have been made, but the vehicle is clearly different from a series vehicle. A whole range of styles and scenes have developed. There are fans who edit certain vehicles such as VW Beetle , VW Golf , VW Bus , Chrysler Vans , Corvette , Ford Mustang , Opel Manta , Opel Kadett , BMW 3 Series . There are also special scenes of off-road vehicle enthusiasts or convertible fans. While US vehicles are generally very little used in Germany, they are extremely popular with fans of custom cars. Special clubs and car and technology museums hold regular meetings, at which there are usually prizes for particularly successful designs. A subspecies of custom cars are the art cars , which are consciously designed as works of art.
Iceland
Custom cars are extremely common in Iceland . Even in summer, a good 10 percent of the country is covered by glaciers . In winter, large parts of the country are covered with snow for months. In rural areas, attempts were made early on with high undercarriages, extremely wide tires (38-44 inches) and low air pressure. Special companies such as Arctic Trucks or Fjallasport convert Japanese, British and American off-road vehicles to meet the special needs of Iceland. Both companies have subsidiaries in Norway , where traffic conditions are similar in parts of the country.
history
The deuce and the music
The oldest larger group with a passion for customizing are the US fans who redesigned the Ford B 1932 , usually referred to as Deuce (English name for the two on dice and playing cards) in the 1940s .
Mike Love , lead singer of the US band The Beach Boys , owned a Deuce and dedicated the song and the LP Little Deuce Coupe to him .
As a prototype of the hot rod , the Deuce appears again and again in the lyrics of American musicians, without being the main theme of Mike Love, for example in the line: "cut loose like a deuce, another runner in the night" in the Bruce Springsteen song "Blinded by the night", which later became a number 1 hit in the USA thanks to Manfred Mann with a changed refrain "revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night". The title, which was also released on the LP The Roaring Silence in 1976 , entered the Austrian charts as a remix in February 2007.
In 2007, the custom car magazine Chrom & Flammen reported in a report on the 75th anniversary of the car that all individual parts of the Deuce were still without exception in the American accessory trade.
The rock group ZZ Top used the revised 1933 version of the Ford Model B for a custom car, which was used under the name Eliminator in several videos, for example in Legs . The Deuce can be found painted on the cover of the LP Eliminator and in the intro of the band's official website (2007).
Movie
Custom cars can be seen again and again in films, for example the Yellow Deuce in American Graffiti or the vehicles in the German comedy Manta Manta . In Harold and Maude , the morbid Harold converts a Jaguar Type E into a hearse.
Magazines
In all countries with a strong custom car scene, such as the USA, England, Sweden and Germany, the latter maintains a number of specialist magazines with their hunger for pictures and technical reports as well as their purchasing power.
Germany
In Germany, the " Kustom Life Magazine " is exclusively dedicated to the subject of Custom Cars & Bikes. The Kustom Life Magazine appears bimonthly by Paranoia Publishing Verlag and emerged from the previous magazine " Kustom Car Magazine ", which was published in 2014. In addition to reports on US vehicles in general, the monthly magazine Chrom & Flammen from Krom Verlag GmbH is always dedicated to custom cars from US vehicles. Two publishers have even published a whole series of magazines that are primarily aimed at the tuning scene, but mostly also introduce stylistically or aesthetically orientated conversions. On the one hand there is Delius Klasing Verlag with the magazines VW-Speed, Tuning, Autotuning, VW Tuning, Audi Tuning, Opel Tuning and on the other hand TV Trend Verlag GmbH in Herten with magazines such as VW Scene International, DRIVE Ford Scene International, Ford Scene Live, BMW Scene Live and Porsche Scene Live .
Other German magazines include Flash Opel Scene and Street Magazine .
England / USA
In England there is the Custom Car magazine , in the USA for example Hot Rod , the magazine of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA).
See also
- Hot Rod , as an example of a traditional group of originally American customizing styles.
- Shooting Brake , originally a British special form of custom cars that wealthy hunters often ordered to convert noble sports vehicles for hunting purposes.
- The most extreme and funniest art cars can be seen at the art, self-expression, party and art car festival Burning Man .
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&search=Deuce
- ↑ Video with two penguins and a good dozen unusual Mutant Vehicles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo_Q0BP8Agw
Web links
Trade journals
- Rolls & Pleats Magazine (all thumbs can be opened by clicking on them)
- CK Deluxe Magazine (one issue fully accessible)
- ol'Scholl Rodz (one issue fully accessible)
- Rod and Custom Magazine
- Rodder's Journal
photos
Bizarre
- Customized Ferraris by Pininfarina for the Sultan of Brunei , u. a. Conversion to the classic shooting brake
- Smart customs: smorsche, smerrari, smorvette, smaudi and smamborghini