Life & death of a Custom

[Sunny Rob]

Hi FB-EK Desperados.
Heres the story of my EK. It was my daily driver for 15 years & together we racked up a lot of miles, made a lot of friends & had loads of fun.
It all started in 1983. She had a 161 red & reversed torana rims when I got it.

We use to go down to Surfers Paradise Raceway for the street meets and ran it a couple of times. I put those whitewalls on with one of those white crayons you use for raised lettering on your tyers. Flappers were unavailable then.

Then i started removing lettering etc. This pic is of my brothers FB, my EK & Brett Tranters FB taken on Meadowlands road Belmont (for all you SE Qlanders)

Sometime after that I had a rebuilt 186 with 10" chromies on the back with T/A's (man that rubber was hard) & skinnies up front. I think I was going for a gasser look & had shortened the sidespear hot rod style. (sorry devilrod) Here we were stripping the crazed paint off the lid in prep for canary yellow.

This is when it started its downward spiral into a custom. I'd gotten this side flash and was going to paint it white on top but a der-brain in a commodore cut a corner & ran into it. Those trims on the fins are EH bonnet trims.
Thats when the bodywork began. I'd gotten a 52 DeSoto grille from a wreckers, (now going into a 51 Merc in Victoria somewhere) and put it in with this hideous rolled pan. This was about 1988.




Then painted it flat black. I think sunny Tim & Ben are in this pic. Wynnum beach(mudflat)front.
After that it was painted 2 tone purple swede and wi went to the first FB EK nats in Wagga Wagga.
.........STAY TUNED...........

[TAYZ 58]

Keep it coming Rob, love this car and its history. Remember when it was in the S/M Hotrod annual.

[Craig]

Hi FB-EK Desperados.
This pic is of my brothers FB, my EK & Brett Tranters FB taken on Meadowlands road Belmont (for all you SE Qlanders)

Great pics and story Rob for those that know it if Meadowlands in dirt dosent set the era the stance of the cars will

[Smooth customs]

Rob

Dont stop now.

Where are all the custom, build shots.
Those alone could go a couple of pages.

[Mephious]

Hahaha great pics !

I love the wide back wheels outside past the body.

My boss constantly gives me shit about how i only have 8.5 rims with 10inch rubber, and thats with mini tubs .... "Back in his day he had 295s under the arse end of his EH Panelvan". Problem is they sat 3 inchs outside the arse end !

Keep em coming Sunny Rob

[mrs ratbox]

more , i want a flash like that, will be good when we get to the part where you learnt to lower the suspension

[Sunny Rob]

Tim, I havent seen Brett in donkies years bui I'm guessing that FB is still not finished but still registered.

[Sunny Rob]

After the 1st nationals I had the chance to take it off the road and get down to some serious customising due to the fact that I had another daily driver, a 52 Pontiac. This I had repainted, put in a 265 hemi & auto, anl lowered. Dig the homemade hubcaps. A great car for terrorising old ladies & people in Minis.

So I took to it with cutting wheel & oxy & the vigour of youth (luckily still have some bottles o vigour stashed).
I'd gotten the 55 DeSoto grill from a friend for $20. & the FE front sections from a car in an old ladies back yard. I think they were the only bits not rusted out. Tim was it you, Ben or Simon that came with me that day?
I wanted to keep that pressing in the FBEK front guard so I added the FE sections forward of that. It was quiet an easy graft & the top peaks lined up well although a 2" strip was added through the parklight area to drop the stone tray down to the right level.
After that the grille was moked up into position & 1" steel tube was used to form the top of the grille opening.
The hood was then sliced and brought forward.

With the rear, I'd always liked the 56 Packard tail light but they were a bit hard to find back then. There are repros now, but thew are too wide for the EK tailfin anyway. So the next best thing was to form my own which I did by heating red perspex & forming it over the inside of the rear bumper corners. These were then frenched in with steel rod.
The hardest part of doing the rear was working out how to finnish off where the buldge is on the body that go's into the original tail light.
Notice that I left the bottom part of the stock tail light bracing for strength.


Then it was filler & primer time and a mix of grey primer and blue colour was used. The side trim was FB turned upside down and flattened out a bit (this takes ages to do using a rubber mallet) to fit that part of the body.
The skirts were made from a HR holden turret wit a scoop in the leading edge, with teeth made from cut down door handles drilled then tapped.
The reflectors are 48 Buick.
Also during this time I fitter a HR front & rear end with reset springs. Even though I would have loved it to be a ground scraper it wouldn't have been practical for a daily driver.


The next pics are of the car at Wintersun in 1992 & another shot that shows the "forward look" the body mods gave. This was the only custom at Wintersun at the time.
I wanted to use the FE bumper on the front but it was too narrow so an FC number plate surround was used to give the flat EK bumper an angle to match the grille.



And some comparison shots with my wifes stock EK that I had swapped my Pontiac for. Hard to believe I know but I coulden't sell that Pontiac back then for $4000. but had it been a tri 5 Chevy, no problem.


.......STILL MORE TO COME.......

[J]

i appreciate the work gone itnto it but wit looks weird.

why exdaty is it deahd?

it lookd alsirtv to m/E
??

[mrs ratbox]

J, have you been drinking or recently become dislexik
rob in it's last form here i think that would do me other than shave the handles and drop it on it's guts good to have some decent reading again

[Harko]

Awesome stuff , I think we might be related

So after all these years have you worked out why you like customs ? just thinking that we are a minority and I have no idea why the hell I have to change things for the sake of change ....

I like how you have been driving a work in progress with primer n all - a true custom that we are lucky to be exposed to I think.

[Sunny Rob]

Harko, I guess because I paint & sculpt in the art world, customising is in the blood. Plus I've always appreciated individuality and strive for it myself & custom cars are its ultimate form, weather mild or wild.

[Sunny Rob]

Then it was time for "shiney paint" so the car was pulled down and rubbed back in preperation for this. The colour was a deep bergundy that I had made up but wasn't completely happy with until some gold powder was added. The car was primed in black to give the colour depth.


That FB ute on the right of last shot I had gotten for a work car (I'm a signwriter by trade) and it went through some changes too. And my faithfull sidekick "X".

[Sunny Rob]

A roof scoop with brake light was added also and a red plastic choclate box was cut down for a lense for this.
People have asked why chromed headlight rims wern't used, thats because I didn't want then to be a feature as they would have detracted from the grille. Besides excess chrome is removed on a custom.

Off to Wintersun again 1993. It sure felt good driving a shiney finished car.

[Sunny Rob]

The read indicators were moved to the bumper using cut down FB front housings made to fit the contour of the bumper. Then amber painted lenses added. A lens dye (from Repco) was used, like candy orange.