East meets West. The Alexander Brothers meet Barris. The '50s meet the '60s.
You can spin the story on this '51 Oldsmobile 88 and '60 Pontiac Ventura any number of ways, but noting contrasts is perhaps easiest. One personifies '50s style; one is pure '60s. One is chopped; the other is not. One was built on the West Coast; the other was built in Motor City.
Scratch the candy-coated surfaces a little, though, and you'll find similarities as well. Both cars represent distinctive, thoughtful restyling-not just slash-and-hack customizing-from their respective eras and builders, making them as appealing today as they were decades ago. Both were also built for street duty, with healthy mills backing up the bodywork.
Like many lead-laden creations from the era, these classic customs also saw years of neglect when the form fell out of vogue. Fortunately, they now share another common bond: enthusiastic owners who were inclined to save what others discarded and are eager to share their treasures with the public. The cars survive as ambassadors of customizing's golden era, and we just couldn't resist teaming them up for photos. Let's take a look.
The Golden Indian PontiacThe Golden Indian '60 Pontiac is the more famous of this pair, having graced Rod & Custom's November '63 cover and many other magazines. It represents some of Mike and Larry Alexander's best work from what is probably their most prolific era. Built for a young Mike Budnick from Detroit, the Poncho evolved from mild cruiser to full custom in stages over two years' time. Customs were a dying breed when the candy nugget hit the streets in 1963, but it still managed to imbed itself in many car-crazy minds.
Lou Calasibetta is one custom fan who fancied the "Jetsons-like" styling. He also has a penchant for Pontiacs-he grew up with the marque and now owns the Pontiac-friendly Old Stillwater Garage (OSG) in Stillwater, New Jersey. He knew he had to have the '60s survivor when it appeared for sale in a KKOA newsletter in 1987. Pearl white, rusty, but mostly complete, Lou stored his bounty another decade before the Detroit AutoRama's approaching 50th anniversary (in 2002) spurred him and the Old Stillwater gang-Jim Harris, David Symonds, Steve Decker, and Bob Scabet-into action.
Frame-off restorations are routine at OSG, but this was a unique challenge. The crew not only had to replace rusty sheetmetal using stock donor car panels, it also had to replicate nearly all the original custom work, no small task when the roof is the only unaltered body part.
Still, the team persevered and the result is a tribute to early-'60s customs, where the "future" was less about fins and flipper caps and more about long, linear style and industrial influence. The delicate, thin-pillar roofline remains unchopped, leaving custom front and rear pans and wide grille cavities as dominating visual elements. Deeply tunneled headlights and custom taillights bisected by white trim bars add requisite NASA flavor. Extensive chrome tubing (front grille, by Glory Grills), expanded metal (headlight buckets, quarter-panel scoops), and aluminum bars (rear grille, by Shrader's Machine) are also hallmarks of the era.
It's the color that tugs at your eyeballs, though, that glorious Candy Lime Gold finish that changes in different light but never fails to glow. The OSG crew was fortunate to find original paint preserved under rear window moldings and faithfully reproduced it using House of Kolor products.
If the candy metallic paint and far-out styling fail to evoke Rat Pack dreams, the chrome-reverse wheels, skinny whitewalls, and Jerry Ambrosi-stitched pearl white threads (four custom buckets-swiveling fronts) should. The Tri-power 389 and four-speed are lasting clues to Mr. Budnick's original Woodward Avenue intentions.
The Golden Indian returned to Detroit four decades after leaving the Alexander Brothers' shop and was greeted with awe and applause at the 50th AutoRama. Lou says he's amazed how many people remember its R&C cover. "This Pontiac could be the most famous and photographed car from its tribe," he says. We'd be inclined to agree.
The Kopper Dust OldsThe Olds is more of an unknown, proving that not all George Barris customs were famous. There were brushes with stardom as the subject of headlight "how-to" stories in Custom Cars magazine and Petersen's Custom Headlights & Fenders, but the Ohio-based custom was otherwise anonymous. Still, the chopped ragtop showcases clean, classic styling from an era (late 1958) when King George was known for more flamboyant creations like the Aztec and Ala Kart.
Pat Orsillo's journey with the car began in the '80s with a call from previous owner Bob Wescott. Barris Kustom collector Kurt McCormick had given Pat's name to Bob. That the Olds was too rough for Kurt should tell you something about its condition. Pat welcomed the call nonetheless.
"Within moments I gathered the family together and said, 'How about a trip to Graceland!'" Pat says. "Two days later we were all in an alley where the car was being stored. Eyeballing the car, I knew exactly why it had found me-it was completely gone! The only items that were still in nice shape were the original Barris crests. How they survived, I'll never know."
Pat has been able to trace some of the custom's history. It reportedly ran moonshine in earlier years, which accounts for the '57 J-2 engine, six two-barrel carbs (now just three), four-speed, 4.11:1 gears, and traction bars. Owner Don Hurley took the car to Barris in late 1958; he later sold it to Fred Glidden, who drag raced it. The Olds vanished after that. Bob's friend discovered it in the '80s, long abandoned, in the South Carolina woods.
Restoring the ragtop was a "love/hate" affair, Pat says. He loved handing off the extensive sheetmetal work to Russo's Auto Body in Middletown, New York; paying for it was a "hate" thing! Like the Pontiac, many of the Olds' body panels were replaced, then re-customized, before the PPG Copper Pearl paint was sprayed.
The Olds' fluid, simple styling has the aura of an early-'50s custom, with two exceptions giving it away as a later creation: quad headlights and '56 Packard taillights. Kudos to Barris for making both elements look right on this bulbous beauty. Naturally, the 4-inch-chopped convertible top remains a focal point, although we think the handmade grille bar with flush parking lights is a strong asset, too. Other highlights include handmade cruiser skirts, '57 Cadillac trim, recessed license plate, and shaved bumpers. Inside there's a '58 Pontiac dash and '58 Olds wheel complementing the two-tone leather by Classic Auto Upholstery.
Pat has made a few deviations from the custom's original form, namely the Kelsey Hayes wires and air springs from Air Ride Technologies. Otherwise, the car remains faithful to its beginnings. "My favorite thing about the car is that it is a Barris custom," Pat says, "and I brought it back to its original glory." Amen to that, our custom brother!