Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine is a magazine created in 1994 by a group of artists and art collectors including Robert Williams, Fausto Vitello, C.R. Stecyk III, Greg Escalante, and Eric Swenson to both help define and celebrate urban alternative and underground contemporary art. Juxtapoz is published by High Speed Productions, the same company that publishes Thrasher skateboard magazine in San Francisco, California.
Ed "Big Daddy" Roth was an American artist, cartoonist, illustrator, pinstriper and custom car designer and builder who created the hot rod icon Rat Fink and other characters. Roth was a key figure in Southern California's Kustom Kulture and hot rod movement of the late 1950s and 1960s.
Kenneth Robert Howard, also known as Dutch, Von Dutch, or J. L. Bachs, was an American motorcycle mechanic, artist, pin striper, metal fabricator, knifemaker and gunsmith.
Kustom Kulture is the artworks, vehicles, hairstyles, and fashions of those who have driven and built custom cars and motorcycles in the United States of America from the 1950s through today. It was born out of the hot rod culture of Southern California of the 1960s.
Revell GmbH is an American-origin manufacturer of plastic scale models, currently based in Bünde, Germany. The original Revell company merged with Monogram in 1986, becoming "Revell-Monogram". The business operated until 2007, when American Revell was purchased by Hobbico, while the German subsidiary "Revell Plastics GmbH" had separated from the American firm in 2006 until Hobbico purchased it in 2012, bringing the two back together again under the same company umbrella. After the Hobbico demise in 2018, Quantum Capital Partners (QCP) acquired Revell.
Pin striping (pinstriping) is the application of a very thin line of paint or other material called a pin stripe, and is generally used for decoration. Freehand pin stripers use a specialty brush known as a pinstriping brush. Fine lines in textiles are also called pinstripes.
A rat rod, as usually known today, is a custom car with a deliberately worn-down, unfinished appearance, typically lacking paint, showing rust, and made from cheap or cast-off parts. These parts can include non-automotive items that have been repurposed, such as a rifle used as a gear shifter, wrenches as door handles, or hand saws as sun visors. Whether or not so appointed, the rat rod uniquely conveys its builder’s imagination.
A custom car is a passenger vehicle that has been altered to either improve its performance, change its aesthetics, or a combination of both. A desire among some automotive enthusiasts in the United States is to push "styling and performance a step beyond the showroom floor - to truly craft an automobile of one's own." A custom car in British according to Collins English Dictionary is built to the buyer's own specifications.
Black Kat Kustoms is an American clothing line and custom parts shop based in Santa Ana, California. The company specializes in custom car, hot rod, and chopper clothing. The clothing line consists of mostly T-shirts, hooded sweatshirts, and beanie caps.
Stanley George Miller, better known as Mouse or Stanley Mouse, is an American artist who is notable for his 1960s psychedelic rock concert poster designs and album covers for the Grateful Dead, Journey, and other bands.
Electra Bicycle Company, a subsidiary of Trek Bicycle Company since 2014, was founded in Leucadia, California, in 1993, by Benno Bänziger and Jeano Erforth. Electra offers a wide range of modern cruiser bicycles. Additionally Electra designed and sells comfort bicycles, and hybrid bicycles. Electra also sells a line of accessories, apparel, and bicycle parts.
Nutty Mads are monochromatic, injection-molded polymer plastic toy figures originally manufactured in 1963–1964 by the Marx Toy Company. Comically grotesque and minutely detailed, the series was a contemporary of the stylized Kustom Kulture graphics of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, as well as of the comic art of popular magazine cartoonists Basil Wolverton and Don Martin.
Hot Curl is a cartoon character created in 1963 by Michael Dormer and Lee Teacher.
Rumpsville (rŭmps'vĭl') slang n. also Rumpville (rŭmp'vĭl') is the name of a fictional place described as "Hot Rod heaven." The term was originally used in the CARtoons Magazine comic strip “Saga of Rumpville” by Pete Millar a.k.a. Arin Cee, published in 1959. The term Rumpsville was later redefined in the Sports Illustrated cover article “The Car Cult From Rumpsville,” when Le Roi Smith refers to Rumpsville as "hot rod heaven."
The Hirohata Merc is a 1950s lead sled custom car, often called "the most famous custom of the classic era". Setting a style and an attitude, it had a "momentous effect" on custom car builders, appeared in several magazines at the time and has reappeared numerous times since, earning an honorable mention on Rod & Custom's "Twenty Best of All Time" list in 1991. The impact may be measured by the fact that, after more than fifty years and numerous owners, it is still known as "the Hirohata Merc".
The Beatnik Bandit is a custom car created in 1961 by Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. The car features a clear bubble canopy. Speed and direction are controlled by a central joystick in the cabin.
Von Franco is a self-taught American artist associated with the Lowbrow art movement and Kustom Kulture. He became involved at an early age in the burgeoning hot rod and Kustom Kulture scene of Southern California. His skill at drawing hot rod and monster art, popular in Kustom Kulture, caught the attention of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, for whom Von Franco later worked. Von Franco became a builder of custom automobiles, gaining notoriety for building clones of Norm Grabowski's Kookie, Kookie II and Lightning Bug t-buckets, as well as a clone/expansion of the Golden Rod. Von Franco is also known for his distinctive pinstriping and hand-lettering techniques. He was also the guitarist in the surf band The Bomboras and played the vibraphone in The Hyperions.
Bill Cushenbery was an American car customizer, show car builder, and model kit designer. Cushenbery was a major influence on the look of custom cars and the customizing industry in general. In addition to building his own designs, he is noted for having helped George Barris create the Batmobile car featured in the 1966–1968 Batman television series.
Silhouette was an award-winning show car built by Bill Cushenbery in 1962. It debuted at the 1963 Oakland Roadster Show.
