Chevy 1953 - 1954 custom & mild custom galerie

This Full Kustom Chevy started as a Belair, Its had every Kustom body mod done. I have owned the car for just over a year and I am looking to trade for a 49-51 Kustom Merc or equivalent. I don't want another convertible it rains too much here in Nashvegas to enjoy it and that's the Only reason Ive decide to sell/trade.


The car was originally built in Bowling Green KY by Butch Whitaker and took 2 years to do all the body work. Its has been in Grease Monkey Magazine, Grease Mag and has interest from a couple more well known mags whom I will pass along the info to the next buyer. this car is immaculate and im not in the mood for tire kickers or looky loos. if your a serious car guy you'll know whats what. It runs perfect, never gets hot, starts and stops on a dime. It has a brand new windshield still in the box. All the chrome is perfect and there is NO RUST on this car! I dont recall the miles but since Ive been thru it I have maybe put 500 on it in a year. it is garage kept and is never out in the rain.

Body
the car obviously got convertiblized It has a brand new removable Carson top
Windshield Chopped about 5 "
Channeled 4"
56' Packard Rear Quarters/taillights Extended 2" and Chopped
Shaved door trunk
Decked
Scooped hood (which actually works as an air flow to the carb)
Hood was also Pancaked 2" in the front and tapered to the back
Front fender wells are 52 Buick
52 Buick side-trim molded into the kustom built fender skirts
Grill Molded with a Shaved 53 Chevy grill
Molded in lake pipes
Dash is a 54 Olds W power steering
52 Chevy Steering wheel

Brakes
power front disk
drum rear

Wheels
oem steelies w/Coker 215/75 Moon disks w/4"dagmars
Frame
Sits on a late model Buick Skylark frame extended 4 inches (Whole Car)

Paint
PPG Frankenstein Green with a Gold Base, metal flake dark green with ghosted flames with a silver base
Pinstriping by Hot Rod Walt (from the Psycho-Devilles) Gator (poorboys CC TN president)
Engine
late 60's 305 w/ Auto Transmission
HEI Ignition
Manifold Exhaust
Edlebrock street performer carb.
Interior
Black Leather Tuck n Roll

I have owned this car for 18 years, and it was my daily driver for more than 10 years. It's been to car shows all over California and to Las Vegas many times. It's been in many books and magazines including American Rodder, the 2001 Hemmings Custom Car calendar, Cruisin' magazine Japan, a Mooneyes catalog, Retro Rods, and many more.


This car started out as a 1953 4 door Chevrolet 210. It has been chopped 4 inches all around. It has real glass all around. I replaced the front bumper with a 1954 Bel-Air front bumper with added teeth. The headlights, tail lights and antenna have been Frenched. I replaced the rear tail lights with custom 1954 Lee lenses. The car therefore looks like a 1954 (though most people think it's a Mercury!) The door handles have been removed, and you can open the car through the key fob. The trunk is opened the same way. All the front and rear emblems have been removed and filled also. The paint was done by Candy's Autobody in San Diego, and cost $15,000. It is a midnight blue with pearl and metallic that looks black at night. The interior was done last year and it's black and white tuck and roll done by Joe Santana, who has been doing interiors for decades. The car has barely been driven since the upholstery was done. It has a black carpet and white headliner. I had a custom stainless steel 20 gallon gas tank installed below the truck to allow more trunk space. The front windows are electric and powered by a hidden switch under the gauge panel. It has an electric fuel pump and a cut off switch which is a great theft deterrent.


The motor was rebuilt about 5 years ago, and I've put less than 200 miles on it. It has an RV cam in it, so the engine lopes a bit. It has desirable camel hump heads, and ram horn exhaust and duel straight exhaust pipes that exit to pencil tips, so it has a nice rapping sound . It has a TH350 automatic transmission. It leaks a little bit. It has an Edelbrock Performer carburetor, a flex fan and HEI from a Corvette.


It has a Mustang II front end with disk brakes from a Ford Pinto. It has dropped spindles. Firestone airbags in the rear. The airbags were installed by Dave Chappell at The Lowering Block, who's the best in the business. I recently had the tank, plumbing and switch updated by So Cal Suspensions. It has Firestone wide whitewalls in the front with barely any miles on them, and Coker wide whitewalls in the rear.


As with most 60 year old cars, there are idiosyncrasies. There are lots of rattles and noises compared to a modern car, like the front bumper bracket rattles especially before the motor has warmed up. You could easily add rubber to stop the rattling. As I said, the exhaust isn't quite, because there are no mufflers. The key fob that opens the front doors sometimes has to be pressed a couple of times to open the appropriate door. There are a few chips in the paint above the driver's side door and it's bubbling slightly on the dash. Occasionally the hood is a bit hard to open, but is easy when you get the hang of it. When the windshield was getting cut, the passenger side cracked in the corner, but with a bit of pinstriping or a sticker, it wouldn't be noticeable. It's been converted to 12 volts, and the stock gauges are not hooked up, but there are accessory gauges.

There's No Missing Jake Moomey's '54 Chevy Custom
By Tim Bernsau, Photography by Josh Mishler
Street Rodder, December 21, 2009
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Let's go right to that green paint. It's a basecoat of Planet Green from House of Kolor topped by Lime Gold Candy, and it makes Jake Moomey's custom '54 Bel Air hardtop visible from space. Magazine readers can see for themselves by opening the December '09 issue of STREET RODDER to page 132. There, in that wide-angle long-shot of the winners' circle at the Goodguys Nationals in Columbus, Ohio, is the Chevy. Only the back half of the car can be seen, but even three rows in the distance that screamin' green finish makes it the center of attention.

This isn't the first Jake Moomey car to get some attention. You might remember a chopped and channeled, open-wheeled '34 Ford pickup with red oxide paint and white scallops, and wire rims that made the April '08 cover of our sister mag Rod & Custom. Same guy. That flat red, early Ford pickup seems like the exact opposite of this glowing green, postwar Chevy coupe, except for the humongous level of coolness in both vehicles that makes them the most unidentical twins we've ever seen.

"I guess I've been evolving," Jake told us, reflecting on his last few projects-a slammed '94 Suburban with some wild flames and 20-inch rims, that hot rod pickup, and now this traditional custom. "It keeps 'em guessing," he says.

Jake started working on the Chevy before it even belonged to him. He and his friend, Jody Smith, found it in pieces in a barn. The smaller pieces were stored in boxes all over the place. The bigger pieces were hanging from the ceiling by the straps of a come-along winch.

"It didn't take long to decide that this was no place for a car like this," Jake said. Smith bought it, they hauled it off, and the two of them built it in Jake's shop. When they were done, it had been chopped, painted in black primer, and treated to a 350 crate motor and airbag suspension.

It wasn't a beauty queen, but it was mechanically sound and lots of fun to drive. Unfortunately, a collision with an SUV took out the front clip and ended the fun. With the dollars he intended to spend on further modifications now going for repairs, Smith lost interest in the car. After some trading, Smith ended up with Jake's flamed Suburban and Jake got the Bel Air hardtop he had helped build.

There was a lot Jake liked about the car, but a few things he decided to change-and Smith was eager to help. The 3 1/2-inch chop hadn't been as successful as Jake wanted and was redone, using the inner support pieces from another hardtop. The new rear window is uncut, and recessed into the body. The body gaps were redone, and 176 hood louvers were punched, and a '55 DeSoto grille were added.

Other exterior modifications include the '55 Chevy headlights, shaved door handles and trim, Chevy 210 side trim, dual spots, just-for-looks side pipes, a sectioned decklid, '56 Packard taillights, a '55 DeSoto rear bumper with '52 Chevy bumper guards, and '54 Pontiac beltline molding just below the C-pillar. Much of the body prep work, and the famous paintjob was performed by Ted Aguilar, who also worked on Jake's '34. Jerry Czerwinski added the pinstriping on the nose, decklid, air cleaner, dash, and front and rear armrests.

In the true tradition of custom cars, there isn't a lot of eye candy in the engine compartment with the notable exception of the rearward-facing Caddy air cleaner cover, painted in the body color and set off with some more elaborate pinstriping.

In the true tradition of custom cars, there isn't a lot of eye candy in the engine compartThe body was channeled 3 inches over the stock 'rails, which were C-notched an additional 3 inches and beefed up a bit with a custom K-member. Jake installs airbags and body drops on mini-trucks as a sideline and used some of the same techniques on the Chevy. In the rear, Dominator Series bags from Air Lift were mounted on a custom two-link with a Panhard bar. The 10-bolt rearend from a '79 Camaro has 3.42:1 gears. A Mustang II tubular IFS from Speedway was mounted in front, along with another pair of Air Lift bags, and rack-and-pinion steering from an S-10. Jake used Monroe shocks all around. Brakes are stock drums in back with 11-inch GM metric brakes from an S-10 (including the master cylinder, booster, and pedal assembly). Wheels and tires are 15-inch GM steelies and P195/75R15 Coker whitewalls.

The Chevy small-block is the same engine dropped into the car when it was still owned by Smith. The 350 is out-of-the-box stock, lit by a Mallory ignition and aspirated by a single Edelbrock 600-cfm four-barrel on an Edelbrock manifold. Since the car is a driver and sees a lot of highway time, the Chevy 700-R4 transmission was a good choice.

It's hard to take in all the interior modifications at first glance, but just like on the outside, the inside has been well customized. The HOK Green and Silver and pinstriping has been carried over onto the stock dash and custom 'glass armrests. The bench seat from an early '70s Impala and the modified stock rear bench have been upholstered in cream-colored vinyl, just like the door panels, with enough material left over for the shifter boot on the Lokar shifter.

The final accessory for the finished car was a trailer-but not the kind you're thinking of. When the Moomey family-Jake, his wife Tami, and their little girls Kylie and Emma-hit the road in the '54, it's towing a vintage Scotty camper. That's how they made the trip from Grand Rapids to Columbus this summer, following the back roads and staying off the Interstate. After the Goodguys show (where the Chevy won the Chopped & Dropped award and where Josh Mishler shot these photos) the Moomeys were back on the road, taking the long route home, siteseeing and hitting one more car show along the way.

Jake's attention-getting Chevy is in hibernation at the moment, waiting for the snow to melt. Jake is planning to take advantage of this downtime to install a Vintage Air A/C, which will make those rides even nicer when '10 road trip season begins.
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Read more: http://www.streetrodderweb.com/features/1002sr_1954_chevy_custom_bel_air

Gary "Chopit" Fioto is a self-taught metal artist who has been perfecting his technique since the tender age of 12. Now in his 50s, he has spent more than three quarters of his life creating automotive and motorcycle masterpieces. Gary is a designer who does not use a drawing board, but instead creates show-winning automotive art from images in his mind. His work has been the subject of dozens of magazine feature articles and he has regularly shared the winner's platform with some of the scene's top players. His personal ride, the wild bubbletop dubbed Beatnik, won the big-ticket Go For The Gold award at Darryl Starbird's Tulsa show in February 2006.



A couple years ago, Gary relocated his full-service custom shop, Chopit Kustom (www.chopitkustom.com), from Long Island, New York, to a 9-acre spread in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, where he enjoys life in the country with his wife and three children. Gary has no intention of retiring, though. His reputation puts him in demand with customers around the country, which is how things began with Brian Lovely's '53 Chevy. Brian, a New York resident, drove his stock 1953 business coupe from California to New York (shortly before Gary's move) to have Gary chop the top. Once the lid was lowered, Brian asked if Gary had any ideas for the rest of the car and, well, you can see the results. Soon, Brian's plain-Jane Chevy had been completely transformed.



The makeover began with Gary's signature move-slicing 6 1/2 inches from the top. He leaned the B-pillars forward and retained the rain gutters and vent windows. The original windshield was cut to fit the new opening, and the factory moldings around it were trimmed accordingly.



The radically altered profile demanded some commensurate moves in front and back. First, the rear quarters were cut and new sheetmetal formed to house '56 Packard taillights in a manner that makes them look like factory additions. Gary cut and narrowed a 1952 Cadillac rear bumper, adding bumper guards and a molded custom pan. Following '50s tradition, Gary also added a subtle, raised metal frame around the trunk-mounted license plate. Then, showing his versatility with an English wheel, he turned his attention to crafting those 5-foot-long, form-fitting fender skirts. "I try not to take away from the beauty of the original lines," he says. "I think these skirts work very well with the car." For a ground-hugging accent, the Chevy received partially frenched three-plug lakes pipes.



Once he was happy with the rear restyling, Gary moved forward, eliminating the hood seam and creating a center peak at the front. Tri-bar headlights were frenched using '52 Mercury rings, and additional teeth were added to the grille, which also sports 4-inch bullets on each end. Gary installed reflected bulbs inside each bullet to act as parking and signal lights. Finally, the bumper was smoothed and the pan welded smooth to ensure a clean, finished edge wherever you look. To finish everything off, Gary whipped up a rich, custom-mixed gold paint with which to lavish the sheetmetal.



With the body mods complete, the chassis needed its share of rejuvenation. The framerails were Z'd 18 inches in the rear in order to give the 12-bolt Chevy rearend plenty of clearance when the air springs were deflated. The trunk floor was reworked to accommodate the changes. The new Mustang II frontend updated the steering and brakes, while two more air springs put altitude control at the driver's fingertips. Gary offset the front wheels slightly so the Coker wide whitewalls and Sombrero hubcaps would clear when the car was on the deck. The final powertrain element was a rebuilt 350ci Chevy V-8, which was fitted with a 600-cfm Demon carb, electronic ignition, block-hugger headers, and Turbo 350 automatic transmission.



Gary redesigned the interior and did the upholstery work in house. The seats, door panels, and headliner were stitched in white Naugahyde with pleated gold inserts, and the trunk was upholstered to match. The original speedometer was augmented with underdash SunPro gauges, the late-model tilt steering column was equipped with a Mooneyes wheel, and the floor-mounted shifter was topped with a piston-shaped knob for some nostalgic fun. The aftermarket stereo in the glovebox plays through speakers in the kick panels and the rear of the custom center console.

Gary spent a total of about six months working on the Chevy, over a period of about a year and a half. It has now been finished for more than a year and, needless to say, never fails to draw a crowd wherever it goes. Of course, what else would you expect from a guy named Chopit who's been hammerin' on cars for four decades?

Read more: http://www.customrodder.com/features/0701cr_1953_chevy/