SILHOUETTE - Bill Cushenbery

Silhouette
Futuristic Custom



Bill Cushenbery's needle-nosed, bubble-topped masterpiece in metal began as a '56 Buick chassis, shortened to a 98-inch wheelbase, with 28 inches cut from the tread. Then came the radical body, with its sculptured lines, wheel cut-outs, and end curvatures--all completely hand-formed by Cushenbery from 20 gauge metal. Inside the nearly all-electronic cockpit, champagne, pearl and black naugahyde upholstery give the same futuristic look to the interior, with its homemade instrument panel and remote-control steering column. Winner of the 1963 Oakland Roadster Show Tournament of Fame.

The Silhouette

The Silhouette was a futuristic show car designed and built by Bill Cushenbery of Cushenbery Custom Shop. The Silhouette was the first scratch built custom car to roll out of Bill's shop. The build was based on a shortened Buick chassis, and was originally powered by a Buick engine. By 1966, the Buick engine had been replaced by a Ford 427. The wheels on the car were fully exposed, but the angular body was strictly space age in shape, and crowned by an bubble top. The Silhouette was fully operable, as Bill meant that a car should be a car, and not a piece of abstract sculpture mounted on wheels. The Silhouette was equipped by electric switches and buttons on the dash and concealed in the exterior trim to raise and lower the bubble top, open the hood and trunk, start the engine, turn on the lights, and operate the blower fans.[2]


Bill entered the Silhouette in the "Tournament of Fame" contest at the 1963 Grand National Roadster Show. The "Tournament of Frame" is a strictly professional contest only open to the top custimzers. Bill won first place in the class with the Silhouette, and he and his wife won a free trip to Europe.[2]



The Silhouette was stolen in Bakersfield, California in 1983, and has not been recovered.






Movie Appearance

The Silhouette appeared in the movie Beach Ball from 1965.



Magazine Features

Hot Rod Magazine May 1963
Popular Customs January 1966
Hot Rod Deluxe May 2009

lien web de référence: http://www.kustomrama.com/index.php?title=The_Silhouette

There weren’t many Bill Cushenbery customs in the first place, and fewer exist now. Silhouette, probably his second most famous car, is simply gone. Built at the height of the bubble-top era in 1962, it made its debut as seen here in pastel-pink pearl fades on a completely hand-formed steel body, at the 1963 Oakland Roadster Show, where it copped the Tournament of Fame award. It was also featured in this form, with Buick wire wheels and an injected nailhead Buick engine, on the cover of the first (and only?) Petersen Custom Car Yearbook that year.

Actually I’m a bit confused, because I have another color photo of the car in a rich candy red faded over gold, with white pearl in the coves, with the big AMBR trophy visible behind it with Twister T (the 1962 AMBR winner) parked next to it. So Bill possibly repainted the car right before the 1963 Oakland show. At any rate, it won him and his wife a trip to Europe and an invitation to join the Ford Custom Car Caravan, as seen in the other photo. To do so, he had to swap the Buick engine for a Ford, which apparently has two 4-barrels topped with large “baloney slice” chrome stacks. The paint is the darker candy red, with steel dish Astro wheels in place of the chrome wires.

Jay Fitzhugh states that the car was used in a feature film (without stating which one), and it was also turned into a 1/25-scale plastic model at this time by AMT. Then, by 1968, it was cast as one of the original 16 Mattel Hot Wheels, and remains in that line to this day.

Sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s, after Cushenbery had moved his shop from Monterey to Burbank, California, the Silhouette was reportedly stolen from the back of his lot, and has never been seen again. In fact, someone I know who had a shop in the area at that time, says the rumor was that the car was stolen because of some sort of feud or vendetta, and that it was buried, intact, in a graveyard for stolen and stripped vehicles somewhere in the Valley, and it’s probably still there. More “Noir.”
by Pat Ganahl
Lost Hot Rods: Remarkable Stories of How They Were Found

The Silhouettes - Hot Wheels - 1967 /1968 Redlines