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KUSTOMRAMA NEWSLETTER NO. 218

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Sixteen Years in the Deep Woods of Norway

The last weekend of June, my car club, the Coupe Devils, hosts our 16th annual Rod & Kustom Bonanza here in Norway. June 26, 27, and 28. Three days of traditional hot rods, kustoms, music, food, and friends in the deep woods of Norway.

I have been thinking about how to write this editorial all month. The truth is that the show has been on my mind ever since the 2025 edition ended, the way it always is. You spend the year quietly working on what the next one will look like. Then, suddenly, it is three weeks away, and you are checking the to-do list, making sure the field is mowed, and counting the kegs.

Sixteen years is a long time to keep something running. I have been writing about cars on Kustomrama for over two decades, but a car show is different. A car show only exists for one weekend. The rest of the year, it is an idea you and your friends hold in your heads. The cars come. The people come. The music plays. Then it is over, the field is empty, and the cleanup begins. The year resets, and you start again.

In May, I wrote a lot on Facebook and Instagram about the scene beyond California. About Bill Cushenbery moving his shop out of Wichita because Wichita was already Starbird country. About the Sillarna group around Hasse Broberg, who built hot rods south of Stockholm in the early 1960s and sailed a converted fishing boat across the Atlantic. About Junior Conway, who stopped at Barris Kustoms on the way home from school in 1955 and ended up the house painter. About the cars we are still looking for. About what your dad built.

The Coupe Devils show is part of the same story. Norway is not anybody's idea of a hot rod heartland. But once a year, in the deep woods, we put on a weekend that any traditional show in the United States would recognize. The cars are real. The builders are real. The friendships are real. The fact that we are doing it in Norway is, I think, exactly the point.

This month's featured story is built from your replies to the Saturday, May 16 post. Fifty-five of you wrote back about what your dad built. With Father's Day landing on June 21, it felt like the right month to give those dads a proper home in the archive.

If you can make it to the Bonanza, come. We would love to have you. June 26 to 28. Click here to check out out Facebook event, and feel free to help us spread the word!​

Thanks for being here. Keep the stories coming.

Best regards
Sondre
Kustomrama Editor

What Did Your Dad Build? The Stories You Sent Us

On May 16, we posted a Saturday question on Facebook. What did your dad build?

Fifty-five of you wrote back.

There were Mercurys and Mopars. Channeled deuces and chopped Chevys. Sedan deliveries that ended up in Sweden and Bangers built in high school. There were photos that most of you have not shown anybody in years. Black and white snapshots from salvage yards and front lawns. Color slides from base housing. Magazine spreads that have been sitting in a drawer for decades.

There were dads who built one car and held onto it forever. Dads who built one car and traded it for the next one. Dads who built a car in college and sold it for a Thunderbird. Dads who built cars on Air Force bases six months out of basic training. Dads who built cars in salvage yards. Dads who built cars without ever having done it before, and got it on a magazine cover anyway.

There were too many for us to fit them all in one issue. What follows is a small selection of the stories that stayed with us. The rest are still in the comment thread, and we hope to feature more in a future issue.

​Click here to check them all out on Kustomrama's Facebook Page.​

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The '34 Plymouth That Survived Vietnam

C.M. Longley's dad built a 1934 Plymouth coupe in 1964. Then he went to Vietnam. Two tours later, in 1968, he came home and rebuilt the car. It has been in roughly the same configuration ever since.

He has built many others over the years. But he still has his first one.

That kind of ownership is rare. Most builders flip their first car within a few years of finishing it. They want something new, they need the money, and somebody offers more than they can refuse. Holding onto your first build for sixty years takes a different kind of stubbornness.

The photo C.M. shared is from the period, palm trees behind the car, in roughly the same configuration the car still wears today.

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The Fantasian: A Buffalo, New York Custom That Went Missing

In 1962, Dennis Kotlowski of Buffalo, New York, was driving a 1953 Ford four-door that was mildly customized. He called it the Cream Puff. Then somebody hit him head-on and demolished the front end.

Dennis had no real customizing experience. He had a stack of how-to magazines and an idea. He went to work.

By the time he was done, The Fantasian wore 1958 Lincoln canted quads with Lucas headlights, a pancaked hood with a functional scoop, split Pontiac bumpers, a Studebaker front pan, 1956 Chrysler taillights molded into homemade housings, jet-pod exhaust, lakes pipe pods, a roof scoop, custom-made nerf bars, and a Colonial White lacquer finish with candy turquoise scallops. The interior had a cut-down aeroplane-style steering wheel, chromed windshield frame moldings, and swivel bucket seats in white and turquoise naugahyde rolls and pleats.

The car was featured in Speed Mechanics in June 1962 and later in Kustoms Illustrated #21. Dennis sold it to a buddy in the late 1960s. The last time he saw it was around 1970.

His grandson Kory Higgs is now trying to find it. If anybody has seen this car, get in touch.

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A '56 Mercury, Chopped on an Air Force Base

Dain Kauffman's dad was a mechanic in the Air Force when he bought a brand new 1956 Mercury. Six months later, he and his buddies chopped and lowered it on the base.

The car is still in the family. The photo Dain shared shows the Merc in deep turquoise teal, sitting low, three-quarter from the side, with a tree in autumn color behind it.

The base mechanic with the chopped Merc is one of the great archetypes of mid-century car culture. The shop, the tools, the buddies who would help, and a brand new car that nobody had told them they were not allowed to touch.

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A '32 Cabriolet in Light Coral, Built in College

Scott Gracie's uncle built a 1932 Ford Cabriolet in the early 1950s while he was in college in Pittsburgh. He finished it in 1953 in a light coral color, running a new Cadillac V8. He drove it for about two years.

Then he sold it to buy a new 1955 Thunderbird.

That was over seventy years ago. Scott told us another fellow has been trying to track the car down. Without a VIN number or paperwork from the era, that is a long shot. But as Scott put it, being that it is a '32 Cabriolet, there is a fair chance it is still out there in some incarnation!

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A '32 5-Window on a Hudson Frame, Sold by Grandma

Shawn Cearns shared a photograph from his grandfather's salvage yard in western Nebraska, taken in the mid 1950s. His grandfather is standing in a Navy uniform next to a 1932 Ford 5-window coupe. The car was on a Hudson frame and ran a twin-pot 100-horsepower Mercury engine.

Grandma sold it while he was off in the Navy.

That sentence carries a lot of weight. The men go off to serve. The families keep the homes together. Sometimes the cars get traded for grocery money, sometimes for tuition, sometimes for whatever needs paying. The cars come back as memories. Sometimes only as photos.

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A 1941 Ford Sedan Delivery From Norco That Ended Up in Sweden

Dan Belcher's dad built a 1941 Ford Sedan Delivery in Norco, California. The car was featured in magazines over the years. Dave Whittle of California Designs painted the stripes and lettering.

Dan sold the car to a guy in Sweden. From there, it took a brief detour to Finland, then came back to Sweden. Pekka Mannermaa, another Kustomrama reader, recognized the car immediately from the photo Dan posted in the comments. The two of them worked out the route in the thread. By the end of the conversation, the Sedan Delivery had a documented chain of ownership from Norco to Scandinavia.

That kind of cross-Atlantic continuity used to be invisible. Now it happens in a comment thread.

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A High School Banger in Lancaster, California

Dan Spisak's dad built his first car in high school. A Banger with a Joe Gemsa head, late 1960s, Lancaster, California.

Banger is shorthand for the four-cylinder Model A or Model B Ford engine, the standard starter motor for an entire generation of teenage hot rod builders. A Joe Gemsa head was a high-performance aftermarket cylinder head that turned a basic Banger into something that would actually pull. For somebody building his first car in high school, that combination was the affordable way in.

The photo Dan shared shows his dad with the car. A typical young man obsessed with cars, exactly the way Dennis Kotlowski was described in the Fantasian magazine feature. Different decades. Same starting point.

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Closing

These are seven stories out of fifty-five. There are dozens more in the Facebook thread, and dozens beyond that sitting in family albums and basement boxes that have not been scanned yet. Each one is a piece of car history that exists nowhere else.

We are going to do this again.

If your dad, grandfather, or uncle built a car and you would like to share the story, send us the photos and the details. The year, the place, the engine, the paint, the friends who helped. The names you still remember. Whatever you have. We will treat every submission with care.

You can reply to this email or share your story in the comments next time we ask. There will be a second round, and probably a third, because the responses are not slowing down.

Thanks to C.M. Longley, Kory Higgs, Dain Kauffman, Scott Gracie, Shawn Cearns, Dan Belcher, and Dan Spisak for the stories in this issue. Thanks to everyone else who shared in the thread. The cars your dads built deserve a place in the archive, and Kustomrama is honored to be that place.

What gets preserved is what gets shared!

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Featured Video

Hot Rod Show Stockholm 1973

The 1973 edition of the Hot Rod Show at Marmorhallarna was the latest in Picko Troberg's run of Stockholm shows. He arranged it in cooperation with Bo "Gamen" Sandberg. It took place only a week after the big Custom Car show in London, and the cars on the floor reflected the moment. There were trikes and bikes alongside the hot rods. Most of the rods were still running flatheads.

For Mats Wallander, the 1973 show was his first event. He was twelve years old, and it set off a lifelong passion for the scene. It is the reason he spends his weekends now going through old photos and program books to document shows like this one.

Mats and Björn Ramsten have once again gone through their archives to put together a film for Kustomrama documenting the 1973 show.

​Click here to watch the 1973 Hot Rod Show video.​

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From the Feed

This month, we asked a lot of questions, and the community showed up.

Why we keep looking!

On Monday, May 18, we reflected on the cars Kustomrama is still searching for. Joe Tully's 1931 Ford Model A Coupe. Jim Seaton's Barris-restyled 1959 El Camino. Rich Vachata's Beach Comber. The post asked you what car you have been looking for. The comments filled up with stories of Mercurys, Chevys, and Model A's last seen in driveways in 1972 and never seen again. Click here to check it out.​

The one you wish you'd never sold

Saturday, May 23, picked up the Catallo Little Deuce Coupe thread from the day before. Chili Catallo spent decades trying to buy his '32 back. The post asked you what car you let go of and still think about. Some of the answers became leads.​

How the craft gets passed down

Monday, May 25, reflected on how kustom knowledge actually moves. Family garages, magazines, shop floors, YouTube. The conversation that followed gave us names of mentors, magazine issues, and shops most of us had never heard about. 104 Comments. Wow. Click here to check it out.​

That is the kind of feed we want to see!

SALE: 20% OFF EVERYTHING

If you've had your eye on a new Kustomrama shirt, cap, hoodie, or sticker, now might be the perfect time to pull the trigger.

For the next 8 days, we're offering 20% OFF everything in the Kustomrama Online Store. Whether you're looking to represent your favorite Division, add a new piece to your collection, or pick up a gift for a fellow hot rod and custom enthusiast, this is a great opportunity to save.

Just remember to click the "Redeem" button in the store to activate the offer before checking out.

⏳ Offer ends June 9, 2026 at 11:59 PM (EST)

👉 Visit your local Kustomrama Store and start shopping today: ( Worldwide - US - Europe - Sweden - Norway - Australia - Japan )

Thanks for helping us keep history alive!

The Kustomrama Team

Blue Hour at the Coupe Devils 2025

This is from the 15th annual Coupe Devils Rod & Kustom Bonanza, June 2025. A group of customs and boulevard cruisers parked under string lights as the sun goes down, surrounded by people who have driven a long way to get there.

In the foreground, Hans Ola Christensen's clean 1960 Chevrolet Impala with whitewalls and a red glowing light through the rear window. Behind it, Atle Eriksen's 1957 Ford wagon in white with red flames laid down the length of the body. A row of other customs lines the field behind them, half in the shadow of the trees.

This is what the Bonanza feels like for me. Three days of cars, music, and friends in a quiet patch of Norwegian woods. The cars come from across Scandinavia and a few from further afield. The atmosphere is laid back. Nobody is in a hurry to leave.

The 16th edition is June 26 to 28. We hope you find your way!​

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June is here, and the garage doors are finally staying open a little longer. The Kustomrama June 2026 playlist is packed with the kind of sounds that belong on warm evenings, back roads, and long detours that weren't part of the plan. Los Yetis kick things off with the wild energy of ‘Me Siento Loco,’ while Dick Dale reminds us why surf music still feels like summer with ‘Let’s Go Trippin’.’

Along the way, you'll find dusty highways, old barns, pedal steel, soul, surf, and a little bit of trouble. From Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash on ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’ to The Hives counting things down with ‘Countdown To Shutdown,’ this month's mix is all about motion. So roll the windows down, point the nose toward the horizon, and let June take the scenic route. Click here to give it a spin while you enjoy the rest of the newsletter.​

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Tracing Holy Kustom Ground in Sacramento

Good friend and Kustomrama contributor Henrik Forss recently traced some holy kustom ground in Sacramento. Brown's Body Shop is one of the earliest names in West Coast custom car history, but the exact location has been a source of confusion. Some accounts placed it in Roseville. Others called it "Brown Brothers in Sacramento." On a recent visit, a local automotive historian told Henrik that the original Brown's stood at 19th and G streets. This is where Harry Westergard worked in the early 1940s, and where a young George Barris first welded metal, set in the license plate on a 1936 Ford, and asked the questions that started his career. The building is still standing. Henrik sent us a photo of his Volvo P1800 parked outside. Thanks to Henrik for tracking down the address. Click here to see more photos and read the full story on Kustomrama.​

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Saving California Customs, One eBay Lot at a Time

Robert Rojas recently dropped us a note. He has been picking up vintage custom car photographs from eBay lots and wanted to share them with us. The first batch includes a lowered 1951 Chevrolet Fleetline, a dark Chevy sedan, and a chopped 1933 Ford sedan. The seller was based in California, so Robert believes most of the photos were taken there. Beyond that, the cars, the builders, and the locations are unknown. This kind of preservation matters. A photograph that gets bought, scanned, and shared has a better chance of ending up in a Kustomrama article than one that sits in a binder unopened. Thanks to Robert for saving these photos and sharing them with us. If anyone recognizes the cars, the people, or the locations, we would love to hear from you. Click here to check them all out.​

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1974 Marmorhallarna Slides Surfaces in Sweden

Fredrik Norin in Sweden recently came across five slides his father-in-law, Johnny Norin, took at the 1974 Hot Rod Show at Marmorhallarna in Stockholm. The images are a little soft, but the psychedelic look on the show cars is exactly what 1974 was about. While sharing them with us, Fredrik mentioned that he himself had Staffan Runhag as his art teacher in school. Staffan is documented on Kustomrama as a Swedish builder and illustrator. Small world.

Mats and Björn are putting together a YouTube film on the 1974 show that drops any day now. The rest of Johnny's slides, along with many more period photos, will be in it.

Thanks to Fredrik for sharing these. Click here to head over to the Kustomrama YouTube page to see if the 1974 Hot Rod Show film is live yet.​

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A Second Coming for the Peroff Buick

Robert Guthrie sent us an update on Ivan Peroff's 1956 Buick. The Hawaiian custom, built in 1957 and 1958 by Ivan and his father in Kaneohe, was restored once by Robert and debuted at the 2023 Grand National Roadster Show. It is now back at Mackeys Hot Rods for a second coming. Brian built a new custom sheet metal by the radiator that looks great and lets the car be serviced cleanly if it ever needs to be. The plan is to debut the refined version at next year's Grand National Roadster Show. Ivan is as excited as he can be to watch it unfold. Mackeys Hot Rods is starting a YouTube series this week documenting the build from primer to the show. Worth following. Thanks to Robert. Click here to read the full Peroff Buick story on Kustomrama.​

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How much is our automotive heritage worth to you Reader?

At Kustomrama, we're driven by passion, not paywalls. As a volunteer-run Encyclopedia, we're dedicated to keeping the history and legacy of traditional hot rods and custom cars free and accessible to everyone, everywhere. From server costs to content collection, every aspect of our mission needs fuel. Whether it's $5, $20, $50, or any amount you choose, your donation keeps the engine of history running.

​Click here to tip today and be a part of preserving this unique legacy for future generations.​

I appreciate your support!

Best regards
Sondre / Kustomrama Founder / Keeping History Alive

What is Kustomrama?

Kustomrama is a comprehensive online encyclopedia passionately dedicated to the preservation and sharing of traditional hot rod and custom car history. With a mission to keep this vibrant history alive for generations to come, Kustomrama offers an extensive repository of knowledge, featuring over 11,716 pages filled with information and more than 30,000 photos showcasing hot rods and custom cars from around the globe. Our goal is not only to document but also to celebrate the rich cultural heritage of the hot rod and custom car community, ensuring that the stories and innovations of yesteryear enthusiasts are accessible to everyone.

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