The Custom Car's Raison d'Etre

What it is, Why it is and What Influence it Has on Styles

GEORGE W. SUTTON, Jr.

THERE are several excellent reasons for the existence of the custombuilt car industry. Most important of these, I think, is the fact that it is the made-to-order, hand-tailored motor car which sets the country's styles in motor car bodies.

In this respect there is much in common between cars and clothes. My tailor purveys garments both custombuilt and ready-to-wear. Having a fairly normal figure (if a man has such a thing), I can walk into his store and twenty minutes later walk out owing him a moderate amount of money and wearing a new suit which will not create any great amount of furor as I stroll up the boulevard; which is not particularly unusual in cut or style but which I know will give me honest wear until it comes time to buy another.

On the other hand, if I want to, I can go into the same store, spend several hours and several times the amount of money and two weeks later sail down the avenue in a made-to-order costume which no one, not even the blind man on the corner, will fail to note as I pass by—if I want to.

But if I feel that neither the readyto-wear suit nor the costume of eyeparalyzing gorgeousness is just what I want, the tailor will put his whole soul into making me a set of conservative

vestments of the finest imported cloth, put together with the utmost skill, with up-to-the-minute style and with most conscientious workmanship. The suit will be better in every way than the ready-made garment; its material will be better, and it will look better. And I'll pay three times as much for it.

Thus it is with motor cars.

Be it said here and now that the stock car of to-day is fast approaching the point where some of the models are almost on a par with many of the custom-built cars; and the average motorist can surely find in the great variety offered him, a standard car which will suit his personality to a "T".

There are approximately ninety well known companies in the custom car industry. They cater to the cultivated tastes of the people of wealth who wish their motor cars to be different from the average. These people want their own ideas built into their cars, and they are willing to pay extra for the satisfaction of knowing that no other car in the world is exactly the same in body and fittings.

IT would seem that the mere existence of a custom car industry would indicate the presence on our highways of hundreds of mechanical freaks. This is exactly the reverse of the fact. More than ninetenths of the made-to-order cars in this country are examples of conservative, carefully selected ideas. In any place where a great number are parked, it is easy to pick out those which are custom made.

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You can pay almost anything you wish for a custom body. I know of two now being built,—one for $2000, the other, with solid gold fittings, for $15,000. The average cost of an enclosed body ranges between $3000 and $4000; and the order takes anywhere from three to six months to complete. As a consequence, the output of most of the companies is small. The importance of this industry is not judged by its capacity for production. The custom car factories constitute the great experimental laboratory from which come the country's styles in motor cars. The stock car manufacturer must go very slowly in the matter of changing the appearance of the cars he is turning out. In adjusting his machinery and his plant to produce from 3000 to 60,000 cars of one model, a change in even such a simple thing as a mud guard may be disastrous.

The maker of special cars can afford to experiment. He can embody in one car an original idea of lines in the hood, radiator, mud guard or other external parts of the body. He may install upholstery of barbaric splendour to test out a pet theory concerning colour schemes. If any one of these innovations is glaringly offensive to the eye or impractical, he can change it. If it is only mediocre, he can let that one car go but never build another like it. He is not, like the standard manufacturer, committed to produce thousands of duplicates of this one model. If this new car is built upon a set of lines which are new, attractive and worthy of duplication he will build others, embodying somewhat similar ideas, and gradually evolve a new type of body with just enough difference in each car to please the purchaser who insists upon individuality. Then, as the idea becomes popular, it will be copied with modifications by other custom builders at the request of their customers, and gradually it will find its way into the stock car field.

It must not be thought that the manufacturer of stock cars depends entirely upon the custom body maker for his ideas. Every sizeable standard com-

pany has elaborate draughting rooms, manned by skillful, experienced designers. It is these draftsmen who actually produce the new stock models and who are constantly seeking that which they will never find, the ideal car.

No permanent style in car bodies can ever be evolved, for the public taste is ephemeral, demanding constant change. And it is well that it is so.

Once in a while, one or another of the large and important standard companies announces that its cars have reached the highest plane of perfection and no new models will be brought out the coming year. But after a season or two, things change, and this very company figures in the motor news most prominently as the sponsor of a new and revolutionary series of designs.

It used to be that most of the new ideas in car bodies came from Europe, mainly from France. The French designs have an originality, an artistry and zip which made the annual automobile Salon in Paris the Mecca of all people seeking to follow motor car styles. Then came the war, and the world left the whole question of progress in automobile design in the hands of American builders. The latter made good use of their time, and to-day many claims are made that American designers lead the world and will lead it for all time. This remains to be seen. The Paris Salon again is a going concern. I have seen some pictures of European post-war models, English, French and Italian, which are startling in their originality.

There are, in this country, two classes of custom body manufacturers—those who cling persistently to the practices of the old makers of horse-drawn vehicles, and the more progressive, if less artistic, designers, who constantly are in quest of new and daring ideas. The makers who stick to the old theories of coach building are the producers of most of the dignified, sensible, beautiful custom cars you see lined up in front of Fifth Avenue mansions. The other type of body builder brings out some amazing bits of freak design, but frequently is responsible for some cars of rare grace, utility and attractiveness. I think the latter class may be looked to for much of the future progress in American motor car design.

(NOTE: Readers are invited to consult Vanity Fair's Automotive Editor on any subject connected with automobiles, motorboats, or aviation.)