Rik Hoving's Custom Car History Blog

For some time now I have thought about starting a Custom Car blog where I could publish some of the many Custom Car stories I have planned.
So far I have been featuring thousands of photos on my site and writing on the HAMB, several magazines as Kustoms Illustrated, KR8 magazine, Gasoline magazine and The Rodder's Journal and lately also on Facebook.
I love to create all of these different ways of communicating about Custom Cars and its history and for most of them I will continue to contribute to them. But I just wanted to try something new, a medium where I can write, can add photos to and still be able to communicate with the readers. I love creating threads on the HAMB, but only a very small portion of its viewers is interested in Custom Cars. Which can be aggravating from time to time, when a good Custom Car thread gets buried deep way to soon. My own site is wonderful for its huge amount of photos I can share there, but it does not lend itself very well to writing articles. And writing for the magazines is perhaps the best, but there I really miss the contact and interaction with the readers.
So I figured it was time to start a Custom Car History Blog and share interesting stories about Custom Cars, show wonderful black and white and colorful photos showing the best custom cars in fantastic colors.

Focus
My main focus will be the 1940's and the 1950's Custom Cars, but there will also be articles on the 1960's Custom Cars, and perhaps even an occasional recent day built Custom Car. I have planned to do some articles about just a single photo and try to point out as many things in that one photo as I can find - the Photo Reviews. Some of these old photos are just so interesting to look at, and not only the subject car in that photo.


Lets start this first blog with the first Photo Review.
This photo - from my own collection - was taken at the 1952 Oakland Roadster show.
The car photographed by an unknown photographer is owned by Reno and Roy Peretto from Alameda.
And according to the 1951 Oakland Roadster show program in which the car was also entered (as #408) the car was built up from a 1937 Ford frame. Which was stepped down, had a dropped front axle, 1946 Chevy grille, 1949 front Buick bumper,  1947 Buick rear bumper. The complete body was hand pounded and rolled of sheet metal. 39 Inches to top of the hood, 53 inches to top of windshield, maroon and white padded & rolled upholstery, and a 1941 Lincoln revamped dash.

Completely hand built body of the Reno & Roy Peretto Custom
at the 1952 Oakland Roadster show

It appears to me that the main body was very much inspired by the Ford Shoebox, perhaps the windshield even came from one of those, or perhaps 1946-48 Ford convertible windshield.  The side trim has been taken form a shoebox Ford. And it appears that the bench sits rather far forward in the body on this single seat custom.

I know that I have seen this car somewhere before. Most likely in one of my many magazines I have, but I have not been able to find it again...

In the background we can see some great Custom Cars as well. On the far left is a unidentified stock top Shoebox Victoria. Next to that is a nice Padded topped 46-48 Ford/mercury, but I cannot see enough of this car to make a positive identification And behind the windshield we can see a – what appears to be a wonderful chopped Shoebox victoria, that I also cannot place. And toward the right we can see a chopped 39-40 Ford Convertible with open hood. All amazing custom cars that have not seen much publication... Its amazing how few photos of these early Oakland Roadster Shows have been found and shared on the net, or in magazines and book.