Gangster : the detroit custom

(personal editorial disclaimer) Ok With that said..... Every one is always "Califorina" this or "West Coast " that, well.....fuck the west coast, and witchita, and East coast, and while were at it screw that whole mentality that customs started in california. screw Barris too he aint done shit but movie cars since his brother died. No offense to anyone i just get burnt out on people not recognizing Detroit (where all the iron came from in the first place). I'm just proud of my hometown and the "style" of custom thats sprouted from it. So anyone remember the Alexander Bros.? Well there first shop was less than 2 miles from my house. with keroseane heaters to keep the paint booth up to temp in the winter months, just one of the many hardcore detroit things were used to, like only having 6 months tops to drive our cars, one reason that black shoebox has been driven in the snow..yeah SNOW. Sure it's cool to drive a slammed custom bring that nice car from whitter blvd. to southfield freeway where pot holes are as big as Escorts. So now that I've tried to up the ante on tough conditions and spots for car builders and drivers, on to the real reason i'm writing. After staring at this photo all day and realizing that while the majority of that cars imitate a style from a certain local in the history of custom cars, there is a subtle style that came from detroit and seems to be multiplying like gremlins when wet. In fact three top class winners at billetproof this year were of this stlye. I'll break it down then you can go click that pic and stare at it for a minute and you'll see it. For starters Extremely subtle body mods, no chop, no pinstripes, very plain color. the running theme here is "less is more". then the stance while we all like em low this stance fits and i see alot of it here slammed with out laying frame and looking broken down but doing so on huge 28.5 " tires no cheating with little radials. Also lets talk about customs the lines of a custom should never ever be broken, nothing added that doesn't look organic to the car, no crazy attachments or dumb things like square lights on a round car. And in the case of this car in particular the engine bay is flawless and needs to be seen so the hood is removed as to not break the lines by opening it at a show. Now in the "D" this adds to the degree of toughness, we get lots of shitty weather and this car has seen rain, sleet, snow, and sun. So after staring at this car long enough in this picture I think you'll agree with me that there maybe cars similar to this on the west coast but nothing really like this at all. And I know it's true because a major magazine editor from the bay area told me so. so I apologize if i offended anyone with my opening remarks but we are just really proud out what we do here and we wear it like a badge of honor around here. While many of our members have traditional customs, bellflower type cars, raw west coast hot rods, and taildraggers, there are a handful of true detroit style customs around here. This type of car just has a look that conjours up an image of a tough guy in that bar having a rusty nail, while his mean sleek car waits for him in a dark alleyway while the local hoodlums are to intimidated by the look of it to go near it while passing by. now that is pure gangster, cuz we all know real gangsters dont run their mouths, and they don't fight, and they certainly dont run from shit ...because they don't have to.

Junebug